[SPOILERS] Margarita and the Lurkers

[Maga_R]

By a popular demand - update on the situation at Patriarch's Ponds:

Afterwards, when, frankly speaking, it was already too late, various institutions presented reports describing this man. A comparison of them cannot but cause amazement. Thus, the first of them said the man was short, had gold teeth, and limped on his right leg. The second that the man was enormously tall, had platinum crowns, and limped on his left leg. The third laconically averred that the man had no distinguishing marks. It must be acknowledged that none of these reports is of any value .

First of all, the man described did not limp on any leg, and was neither short or enormous, but simply tall. As for his teeth, he had platinum crowns on the left side and gold on the right. He was wearing an expensive grey suit and imported shoes of a matching color. His grey beret was cocked rakishly over one ear; under his arm he carried a stick with a black knob shaped like a poodle's head. He looked to be a little over forty. Mouth somehow twisted. Clean-shaven. Dark-haired. Right eye black, left - for some reason - green. Dark eyebrows, but one higher than the other. In short, a foreigner .

[Maga_R]

SPI is very much a midgame trait that comes into play once you have a lot of civic-unlocking techs. Well, it does also save one early-game turn when you bronze-working comes in, but overall you need to make up for the early game in other ways, like picking a fast-starting civilization.

Once you hit the midgame, oh boy, it becomes awesome. Just built the 'mids? Instant +15 population potential. Just teched banking? Instant + 3 * number of cities beakers. Someone threatens you? Flip into nationalism or slavery. You've just whipped a big round of infrastructure, and you're regrowing/whip timers are ticking down? Flip into Caste. Want to pop some borders? Caste artists. Want a great person? Flip into Caste/Pacifism, 10 turns later, you have a ~100% choice of scientist or merchant or artst. Want to build up a scary army? Flip into theocracy. In the words of Locke, SPI lets you pretend to pretend to be CRE and PHI and AGG and any number of things.

I recently won a game with Mansa Musa, he's probably my single favourite leader because SPI is fun and FIN is simply broken. I made up for the lack of any early game traits by simply expanding aggressively, with lots of 3-pop settler whips, early OrgRel, and granaries instantly chopped on the first turn a city got settled. Somehow I was beating three other EXP teams in expansion.

Yeah SPI is awesome, especially in multiplayer for the flexibility it allows.

OK, you guys got me warmed up to SPI a bit , thanks . Before, I was thinking about it mostly as cheap temples (duh) and saving 1+ anarchy turns, less as of being (almost) always in optimal civics. Although it seems that early game with Mansa is still challenging (since looks like there will be only 7 teams and nothing is banned, I assume that (almost) everybody will pick FIN). And as NC says, you have to somehow research the techs unlocking this optimal civics - or build the wonders . Never heard that Locke quotation - good one, LOL.

[Maga_R]

BTW, I am wondering what is the usefullness of different traits in terms of early-, mid- or late-game advantage?

My very rough - and likely misguided - idea would be:

Early advantage:

* IMP
* EXP
* CRE
* FIN
* CHA
* AGG

Mid-game advantage:

* IND
* SPI
* PHI

Late game advantage:

* ORG

No advantage (LOL):

* PRO

Is that correct?

[Krill]

You can't categorise traits by pigeon holing them into one of three classes. Or rather you can try but you'd just miss a lot of the nuances and some of the obvious benefits.

FIN for example works at every stage of the game. It's neither early, mid nor late. And IND doesn't necessarily do much at any point of the game depending on what you have to do with your start.

[Maga_R]

You can't categorise traits by pigeon holing them into one of three classes. Or rather you can try but you'd just miss a lot of the nuances and some of the obvious benefits.

Yeah, I agree that the ranking should be more continuous. I was just wondering what traits would give me advantage at the very beginning, which somewhat later and which mostly in the late game. What is your opinion, Krill?

[Maga_R]

FIN for example works at every stage of the game. It's neither early, mid nor late.

My reasoning was that initial FIN benefit - typically 3 commerce instead of 2 - is huge, it is 50% benefit. Later in game it is not such big relative change.

[Krill]

It's complicated, because it depends on how many players are in the game, but if a trait gives and economic bonus that isn't replicated by another mechanic, I figure that the trait will be strong in the late game. So AGG and CHM (and not only them) are "late game traits" in that they enable you to get a bunch of commando units with an attainable amount of XP when produced (ie you need to get less GG settled in a city to build them). But that benefit doesn't mean anything if you are an era behind in tech and fighting tanks with cav.

CHM however would also have an early game bonus that isn't necessarily replicable on some starts, with the extra happiness. Some starts you might have 3 none calendar happy res within 5 tiles of the start, and the happiness from CHM doesn't mean as much, but on others there is nothing but incense and dyes within 20 tiles of the start and that happiness can be crucial in expanding and not going bankrupt.

FIN is the odd trait out, because it works from T30 onwards. There is basically no game and no strategy that can't make use of the bonus FIN gives from that point onwards, and that bonus is multiplicative as the %age modifiers get built in cities. It scales great and can be used for anything from research to funding new cities to buying military units. There is basically no reason to not pick FIN in an NTT game provided the second trait isn't totally junk, other than you think you can make another trait combination work by winning earlier (basically by killing people and taking their land).

The other point with saying FIN is best early game, is just how big an advantage it gives relative to other empires and how it's used. Late game it's possible that FIN produces upwards of 500 commerce a turn from the trait effect, which means that it's up to 1000bpt or gpt. That's basically enough to mean that regardless of the %age relative to others, that the FIN leader will still win a tech race, or can turn that extra commerce into enough military to win a have a military edge in a battle, where the breakpoints are much more drastic and the effects much more important.

[Maga_R]

It's complicated, because it depends on how many players are in the game, but if a trait gives and economic bonus that isn't replicated by another mechanic, I figure that the trait will be strong in the late game. So AGG and CHM (and not only them) are "late game traits" in that they enable you to get a bunch of commando units with an attainable amount of XP when produced (ie you need to get less GG settled in a city to build them). But that benefit doesn't mean anything if you are an era behind in tech and fighting tanks with cav.

CHM however would also have an early game bonus that isn't necessarily replicable on some starts, with the extra happiness. Some starts you might have 3 none calendar happy res within 5 tiles of the start, and the happiness from CHM doesn't mean as much, but on others there is nothing but incense and dyes within 20 tiles of the start and that happiness can be crucial in expanding and not going bankrupt.

There is basically no reason to not pick FIN in an NTT game provided the second trait isn't totally junk, other than you think you can make another trait combination work by winning earlier (basically by killing people and taking their land).

The other point with saying FIN is best early game, is just how big an advantage it gives relative to other empires and how it's used. Late game it's possible that FIN produces upwards of 500 commerce a turn from the trait effect, which means that it's up to 1000bpt or gpt. That's basically enough to mean that regardless of the %age relative to others, that the FIN leader will still win a tech race, or can turn that extra commerce into enough military to win a have a military edge in a battle, where the breakpoints are much more drastic and the effects much more important.

I hear you on FIN, Krill . When I asked our dedlurker, Jovan, which leader to pick, his brief answer was "any FIN would do". With only 7 teams so far and 10 non-FIN traits I am guaranteed to get a FIN leader. I can even make sure I would not get any of the 3 least useful traits. Although I am not so sure what they are anymore . Initially I thought PRO, CHA and AGG, now I am not so sure about CHA anymore. Guess only Plako knows how useful CHA's extra happy would be .

[Merovech]

That ranking that you pulled was for a game on a nearly archipelago-style map. A normal map would have fairly different ratings. For example, the Dutch are a very mediocre to weak civ normally.

[Maga_R]

That ranking that you pulled was for a game on a nearly archipelago-style map. A normal map would have fairly different ratings. For example, the Dutch are a very mediocre to weak civ normally.

LOL, I was indeed surprised that water dependent civs such as Viking and Dutch were valued that highly . Thanks for pointing that out!