[SPOILER] PB37 Dark Savant tries not to be a blatant MP n00b

[Dark Savant]

I'm not worried about veterans overreacting, but I do worry about the newer players.

I can see how standard Vikings are way overpowered, since it's clear that ship attacks become very strong by mid-game.  Are the current berserkers actually considered balanced?  It doesn't take many crossbows to stop those cold.  Anyway, if I am gambling that this map has enough coast for berserkers to pay off, I'd rather do something like take Expansive/Financial plus Carthage, and settle islands fast (those are out there, somewhere) for the trade route bonuses.

[Dark Savant]

This start is actually quite interesting and (imo) challenging since there's little production, and you will want all 3 food techs early.

2 workers seem overkill unless you have the Wheel early so that worker turns aren't wasted.

Furs in your borders latest T50.

Anything from Dutch/Aztec/Holy Rome/Ethiopia/Khmer/Mongolia/Ottomans/French/China/Greece/Zulu looks okay. But you should try to do some deeper simming to see which combination of techs give (for example) the fastest second city, and so on.

Does your experience indicate that you actually want all three food techs right away?  My instinct is to head to Bronze Working after getting Fishing and Hunting, without stopping for Agriculture if we don't start with it, since even wet rice isn't quite as strong as the other two food tiles and it also takes longer to get online.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, more simming leads me to these conclusions:

• You're right, building two workers and a work boat results in too many idle worker turns.  There's a little of that even with just one worker plus work boat; we can't quite get the worker techs in time.
  
• Having Financial would actually get us just enough extra commerce (from the clam and oasis) to get the worker techs in time.  
  
• Our planned three first builds should likely be a worker, work boat, and warrior, in some order, before we start a settler.
  
• In a Hunting/Mining start, Fishing then Bronze Working is actually only 1 turn faster (t29, or t28 with Financial) to produce a settler than Fishing then Agriculture (t30), and the cost of that speed is two chops.  I wasn't expecting the difference to be that small.  Either way, we'd have copper visibility before the settler is complete.
  
• From an Agriculture/The Wheel start, we can also produce a t30 settler, and it'll actually be a little quicker to reach its destination since this involves building a couple roads during worker downtime.  In this case, we have no idea where copper would be for our first settler, since Bronze Working research isn't close to complete.
  
• So it looks like grabbing all three food techs ASAP is the best move, as you said.
  
• Starting with Mysticism is a non-trivial slowdown even without religion, and I'd rather avoid it now.
  

What do you feel about founding a second city without knowing where copper is?

[Dark Savant]

Wait, I forgot faster Bronze Working means we can whip a settler.     Starting with Hunting/Mining, we can whip a settler on t28 with just one chop, or t27 if we're Spiritual.

That's a bigger difference.

[Mardoc]

The base maceman got a buff in RtR that the berserker didn't.  Is that a deliberate design choice?

I suspect this is more likely to be an error in the change log than a stealth nerf to berserkers.  I recommend you test it in game (or at least look at the Civilopedia with the mod loaded) to be sure. It might even be worth bringing up to Krill as a possible bug, although that would reveal your interest in Vikings to him.

Anyway, the strategy that led to the nerf wasn't berserkers directly at all. It was to create +2 move galleons with trading posts (and an XP civic) and use berserker upgrades to fill the fast galleons with amphibious rifles. That was incredibly hard to defend against even if you were even on tech.

[ipecac]

I'm not worried about veterans overreacting, but I do worry about the newer players.

I can see how standard Vikings are way overpowered, since it's clear that ship attacks become very strong by mid-game.  Are the current berserkers actually considered balanced?  It doesn't take many crossbows to stop those cold.  Anyway, if I am gambling that this map has enough coast for berserkers to pay off, I'd rather do something like take Expansive/Financial plus Carthage, and settle islands fast (those are out there, somewhere) for the trade route bonuses.

Maces are considered easily countered by X-Bows. The only attractive thing about Berserkers is Amphibious. If you want a naval civ, Carthage or Dutch is better.

Does your experience indicate that you actually want all three food techs right away?  My instinct is to head to Bronze Working after getting Fishing and Hunting, without stopping for Agriculture if we don't start with it, since even wet rice isn't quite as strong as the other two food tiles and it also takes longer to get online.

Whether all three food techs should be prioritised depends a lot on the specific situation (my intuition is not good enough to decide without extensive simmings).

In general, wet rice beats plains cow (5f outweighs 3f2h as food>hammers). The situation here is a bit complex since WB for clams is strong, and WB needs hammers but you can't rush it by whip/chop till you get BW.

Edit: RtR nerfs whipping, so the advantage of 1 food over 1 h is not as big. It also depends on whether the extra hammers provide a boost from EXP (or IMP).

[ipecac]

What do you feel about founding a second city without knowing where copper is?

It would really depend on how far the closest neighbours are. The main concerns would be axe rush or chariot rush. Chariot rushes are situationally nerfed because you need the extra tech of Hunting for pastures.

[Dark Savant]

The base maceman got a buff in RtR that the berserker didn't.  Is that a deliberate design choice?

I suspect this is more likely to be an error in the change log than a stealth nerf to berserkers.  I recommend you test it in game (or at least look at the Civilopedia with the mod loaded) to be sure.  It might even be worth bringing up to Krill as a possible bug, although that would reveal your interest in Vikings to him.

Anyway, the strategy that led to the nerf wasn't berserkers directly at all.  It was to create +2 move galleons with trading posts (and an XP civic) and use berserker upgrades to fill the fast galleons with amphibious rifles.  That was incredibly hard to defend against even if you were even on tech.

I checked directly with the mod (it's how I'm double-checking everything); the berserker indeed only has the standard BtS +10% city attack and not the new +25% (maceman/samurai) or +35%.

And hmm, amphibious rifles themselves aren't hard to reach, you can directly crank them out of every city with Aggressive and a +2 XP civic without having to spend cash on upgrades.

You or a lurker could inform Krill without alerting him to the fact that we've got a Fishing/Hunting start.

[Dark Savant]

I'm not worried about veterans overreacting, but I do worry about the newer players.

I can see how standard Vikings are way overpowered, since it's clear that ship attacks become very strong by mid-game.  Are the current berserkers actually considered balanced?  It doesn't take many crossbows to stop those cold.  Anyway, if I am gambling that this map has enough coast for berserkers to pay off, I'd rather do something like take Expansive/Financial plus Carthage, and settle islands fast (those are out there, somewhere) for the trade route bonuses.

Maces are considered easily countered by X-Bows. The only attractive thing about Berserkers is Amphibious. If you want a naval civ, Carthage or Dutch is better.

Okay, I was wondering about this, so knights are generally much better in MP even accounting for the fact that the tech path is awkward compared to maces?

In general, wet rice beats plains cow (5f outweighs 3f2h as  food>hammers). The situation here is a bit complex since WB for clams is strong, and WB needs hammers but you can't rush it by whip/chop till you get BW.

Edit: RtR nerfs whipping, so the advantage of 1 food over 1 h is not as big. It also depends on whether the extra hammers provide a boost from EXP (or IMP).

Plains cow is 3f3h, not 3f2h.  That extra hammer is important as it can squeeze out a work boat one turn sooner, or allow producing a warrior in 3 turns from scratch.  The cow also comes online 2 or 3 turns faster; and that wall of two hills and a lake to the right of the cow makes it awkward to build a rice farm immediately after the pasture.

[Mardoc]

And hmm, amphibious rifles themselves aren't hard to reach, you can directly crank them out of every city with Aggressive and a +2 XP civic without having to spend cash on upgrades.

True...but in BtS when this was noticed, taking Aggressive meant you were dooming yourself to irrelevance...also Vikings could have Amphib/Pinch Rifles when everyone else had to choose.

But really the Viking aspect that was hard to match was the super-fast boats.  Mobility kills in civ, much more than any unit's particular Str or promotions.

You or a lurker could inform Krill without alerting him to the fact that we've got a Fishing/Hunting start.

All right, done.

Edit:

It's been pointed out that Viking Berserkers did not receive the same buff to city attack that macemen and samurai got.  Is this intentional?

Yes. Those things are fucking terrifying enough.