It is decided then.
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[SPOILERS]PB34: Gawdzak and chumchu
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Posted the pick.
(June 10th, 2016, 18:00)greenline Wrote: mapfacts I have no idea what the map is like, so ignore me if there's a good reason but isn't prince difficulty a little low for a 12 player map? Maybe the lurkers could discuss this a bit with greenline? (June 11th, 2016, 20:41)GermanJoey Wrote: I wish you had brought this up before you picked... I didn't want to complain too much about game settings, considering it's "casual" and all. I'd rather leave it to the mapmakers to whatever they decide. So we are up for the civ pick. As we discussed, we are considering Egypt, Russia or Holy Rome. Thoughts? (June 13th, 2016, 10:55)Gawdzak Wrote:(June 11th, 2016, 20:41)GermanJoey Wrote: I wish you had brought this up before you picked... I am loving imp/org Russia in 27. The cheaper 150 ham RIs are very cool. (June 13th, 2016, 11:58)ReallyEvilMuffin Wrote:(June 13th, 2016, 10:55)Gawdzak Wrote:(June 11th, 2016, 20:41)GermanJoey Wrote: I wish you had brought this up before you picked... Well they are 200 hammers in this version. Decided to go with Russia in the end. Starting with Mining gets us a little faster to BW, haven't got a chance to do a sim but the timing seemed to be relevent in my head. This is of course is REM's exact combo in PB27, which he did well with. Maybe we could emulate some of that success. I will write more about the other picks some time later, but I'm pretty happy with our pick. There's a lot of people with strong early game, but I'm confident we won't fall behind since we have IMP. If the map allows it, I want 15 cities by turn 100 and 20 cities by 1AD considering we have a strong capital.
I'm very excited about Russia. Great starting techs and a definite edge from early Renaissance. The free specialists are huge if we can get there. We should be looking for a max cottaged Oxford city to handle a lot of our research, and it will probably not be our cap with its mediocre commerce.
About our opponents: 1. Borsche - Mehmed II of Carthage. Will have a great mid-game economy with organized and fast cothons, markets and grocers. We should have an edge over them early on. 2. Gawdzak/Chumchu - Julius Caesar of Russia. All about using that hammer rich capital to pump settlers and later wonders/units. Philosophical would have been fun as well even if it is normally a mediocre trait. 3. GSorel/DMOC/Ichabod - Genghis Khan of Zulu. This was looks potentially very dangerous. Fast expansion + lower maintenance from aggressive and ikhandas + culture from ikhandas + high promoted units to defend it with. Let's hope we do not start near them. 4. Nicolea Carpathia - Brennus of Korea. I do not see the combo (except for high xp units later). Spiritual should help a bit with happy and make charismatic less useful. Lacking economy and expansion traits. 5. Elkad - Asoka of Sumeria. Looks like a priesthood beeline after worker techs. Prime candidate for religion and oracle. 6. DTG/picklepikkl - Mao Zedong of Inca. Should be a really strong expander. Can they convert it into economy though? 7. OT4E - Bismark of Ottomans. The only industrious civ. Expansive and Hammam makes for a huge happy/health cap mid game. Let's hope he is too wonder greedy early game and lose terrain as I do not want to face him later on witha lot of huge cities when slavery go out of fashion. 8. wetbandit/ipecac - Winston Churchill of China. Looks like a Chu-ko-nu rush. Should be significantly stronger in the mod with drill and machinery being buffed and elephants nerfed. 9. StarDoor - Shaka of Arabia. All over the place. Aggressive combined with no unique unit to take advantage of aggressive and a special library. Arabia starts with mysticism as well, Bleh. 10. dcodea - Joao II of Khmer. Should be the fastest REXer. Has no bonus for defense and only half a bonus to economy. Should be possible to punish. 11. NylesStandish - Wang Kon of Aztecs. Not much of a combo here but I am guessing they want to use Wang Kons traits and abuse 1-pop whips which are not nerfed in the mod. PB 33 shows them to be competitive into industrial (with kremlin). 12. pindicator - Suryavarman II of India. Expansive fast workers and extra culture means a fast start once again. Suspect a lot of forests in the starting BFC. Maybe he will try a worker, worker start? There is one trait that really stands out in popularity: 7 choose expansive. 0 choose philosophical and 3-1 of the others. I'm surprised we only see one financial. Faster workers is huge and there are a lot of discounted economy buildings. It can be seen as falling into a middle ground of an economy and an expansion trait, which leaves the second slot open. 
I meant to post this up earlier but I'm been pretty busy last couple days so here we go, some of which overlaps with what chumchu already said:
A ranking/analysis of the picks Good Borsche - Mehmed II of Carthage This is a very Strong pick, I'm guessing he's got a fishing start. He's got cheap work boats and workers in the early game. Org gets him the late game power and cheap lighthouses. Numids are great units, and Cothons are incredible on a water map, especially with EXP, if he gets the Great Lighthouse as well, he will laugh all the way to the bank. Honestly, I can hardly see him go wrong with this combo, unless he's got a landlocked start. Borsche have played a couple PB games here, and have had reasonable but not spectacular results in all his games. I expect him to be a threat if luck falls his way. Gawdzak/Chumchu - Julius Caesar of Russia Our uniques doesn't come until the Renaissance, but IMP should gave us strong enough start in the early game to make it there. DTG/picklepikkl - Mao Zedong of Inca The RtR classic PRO/Inca combo, very good combo. It's a good thing that they didn't get Wang Kon, because they'd be a strong threat in the late game as well. They will have a strong early game, but need to snowball the early game to win it. DTG's won a couple PBEM games here against somewhat mediocre oppositions, we will see if he can step up his game in a pitboss setting. NylesStandish - Wang Kon of Aztecs Pretty good pick, Wang Kon is good and Aztecs aren't bad either. The Aztecs actually had a win streak in RtR games up to pitboss 18: Pitboss 5: Krill win Pitboss 8: Plako win Pitboss 18 : Finharry win Nyles have played in PB27 and PB32, and he's notably randomly attacked people for little personal gain. Worth keeping an eye on if he's our neighbour. Decent GSorel/DMOC/Ichabod - Genghis Khan of Zulu Genghis Zulu, a bit of a common pick. Seemed to be strong on paper but never quite worked out particularly well in the games that I've lurked. GSorel is a new player with a few team mates, we will see how they do. dcodea - Joao II of Khmer The REX leader, he really need to know what he's doing in order to make the most out the early game though. Another new player. OT4E - Bismark of Ottomans Only IND, not much to say other than it's solid but not nothing particularly stands out. OT4E's played in a few games here. I get the feel that he really understand the game at a deep level, but he chooses to make ...unorthodox plays. Maybe he will be trying for a builder game this time around and he will be worth watching. pindicator - Suryavarman II of India Slightly awkward combo, because India has such bad starting techs. I'm not sure that he will be able to make the most of the faster EXP worker. pindicator's got this "I'm always screwed by the map" narrative going on and it really shows in his picks here by trying to get the fastest possible start possible. It will work out well for him if he starts next to one of newbies. Meh StarDoor - Shaka of Arabia Mediocre leader and mediocre civ, can't say too much more really. He's another new player. I feel like the RtR AGG is a bit of a "noob trap". On paper, people look at it and think cheap maintenance and cheap border pops are cool. But it's still slow as hell, and later on makes courthouses worse. wetbandit/ipecac - Winston Churchill of China PRO is pretty good, CHM not as much. Neither trait does much in the late game. wetbandit is decent at the builder side of the game, but he lacks the decisiveness needed to win against better players. Poor Nicolae Carpathia - Brennus of Korea In my opinion, SPI and CHM are probably two of the worst traits in the mod. Feels like he really put himself behind before the game even started. I think Nicolae was a old timer who's played in some PBEM before. Don't know how he did in those, and don't care enough to find out. Elkad - Asoka of Sumeria Ok, I don't like this combo at all. He's got 2 late game centric trait, but what is he planning to do in order to get to the late game? Especially considering Mao of Inca and Joao is in this game. I expect him to fall really far behind in the early game and never catch up. Elkad's played in PB25 and PB27 and was eliminated both games. Overall, considering its popularity, I think EXP is a bit overrated. I too was somewhat surprised at the lack of FIN especially since the mapmaker stated that there's a lot of water. Maybe people want EXP for the cheap work boats? But only one person picked a civ with fishing. Well now we are just waiting until the game starts. Anyone have any questions?
June 18th, 2016, 15:33
(This post was last modified: June 18th, 2016, 15:37 by ReallyEvilMuffin.)
OT4E's played in a few games here. I get the feel that he really understand the game at a deep level, but he chooses to make ...unorthodox plays.
Maybe he will be trying for a builder game this time around and he will be worth watching. I completely 100% agree with this. He really knows everything, but just seems to like doing things for the hell of it :P Plus it's been said seeing starts pushes people towards going for exp/imp because people are all oh I can get worker 2 out x quicker etc whereas the other benefits start to get felt a little later. The exp is interesting with the huge amount of free buildings though. Also I would say you're a little harsh on spi. For the newbies to the mod there are huge amounts of civic changes to get their head around, and even for the vets all civics are viable at some point! (June 13th, 2016, 11:58)ReallyEvilMuffin Wrote:(June 13th, 2016, 10:55)Gawdzak Wrote:(June 11th, 2016, 20:41)GermanJoey Wrote: I wish you had brought this up before you picked... yeah, the Russian uniques are both really stellar in RtR, I think. they've got pretty solid starting techs too. in the last few years, my opinion on them has gradually gone from "pretty good" to one of the best civs. |
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