[PB25 Spoiler] General Flauros leads the Creole Calabim

[LogicalTautology]

Interesting. So since the traits are all basically balanced, the inherent (but much smaller than Base BTS traits) imbalance of starting techs becomes the area of top priority. Is one possible (though I'm sure quite difficult) solution to actually try and further imbalance the UU/UBs in play so (for instance) you can either have the German UU/UB with good starting techs or India's FW with something silly like Mysticism/Wheel?

Edit: Crossposted with Joey so my response was directed to Krill, but my post still stands :P

[GermanJoey]

Yup, Krill's been working on that, actually. Some of the new UU and UB seem extremely good and different...

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=208

[GermanJoey]

Krill what do you think of my Trait ratings?

[Krill]

Interesting. So since the traits are all basically balanced, the inherent (but much smaller than Base BTS traits) imbalance of starting techs becomes the area of top priority. Is one possible (though I'm sure quite difficult) solution to actually try and further imbalance the UU/UBs in play so (for instance) you can either have the German UU/UB with good starting techs or India's FW with something silly like Mysticism/Wheel?

Edit: Crossposted with Joey so my response was directed to Krill, but my post still stands :P

Yup, Krill's been working on that, actually. Some of the new UU and UB seem extremely good and different...

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=208

Yeah, that's one way to do it, but I personally prefer what Sevenspirits did which is to create a new method of scaling tech cost through the game. What he did was to make all starting techs cost the same regardless of map size, which is where a tot of the tech value comes from; on a huge map it's much more important to have the "right" starting techs compared to on a standard map. That system is currently in the process of being integrated into RtR (actually just released a mod-mod of RtR with these changes in). All that said, I do believe that the UU/UB pairings need to be passed through again because some of them are just dull even if they are reasonably powered.

Personally, I want to try out the game where civs give a UB/UU and a trait with no start techs and see what sort of fun occurs but I think most people think me insane for wanting to try that out.

[Krill]

Krill what do you think of my Trait ratings?

* Krill goes and looks for it.

Fuck, I'm going to read that now.

[Krill]

Protective: Basically, if you combined BTS' Protective and Expansive into one trait. I love BTS Expansive but hate Protective and I think, overall, that I don't like the combined trait. It gets a lot of power from early granaries, its main lure, but the rest of it is pretty blugh, mainly a psychological deterrent more than anything else that can be summed up as "you lose worse." Fuck that, I want to win, and I want to win by banging pots and pans together! #GamerHellYeah

• ancient era: 5
  
• classical era: 6
  
• medieval era: 2
  
• renaissance era: 2
  
• industrial era: 2
  
• modern era: 2
  

Tell that to dtay.

Creative: very powerful early if you can get some special spots that you could ordinarily not settle and work food/happy tiles far earlier than you otherwise would be able to. Cre was one of the best BTS traits but has been heavily nerfed in RtR mod due to the removal of half-priced libraries. In fact, it is now generally considered the worst RtR mod trait, a reputation it might not actually deserve - note that many of the leaders in PB18, at various stages of the game, have been players playing Cre leaders.

• ancient era: 5
  
• classical era: 4
  
• medieval era: 3
  
• renaissance era: 3
  
• industrial era: 1
  
• modern era: 1
  

Falls off a lot late game. Requires changes to dot map and early game playstyle, plant cities wide, use every available food resource etc. OTOH, wider spacing does mean larger cities with more tiles so late game you have that going for you, which is nice. Most people don't change their play style which is why it gets a bad rep.

Financial: fairly useless early, becomes great at Bureau and then better and better the later the game goes. Still the best late-game trait for sure, although its considerably more awkward to use in RtR mod compared to BTS.

• ancient era: 1
  
• classical era: 2
  
• medieval era: 4
  
• renaissance era: 4
  
• industrial era: 5
  
• modern era: 5
  

Hope you have the time to set up cottages otherwise it's junk.

Imperialistic: Huge early-game boost; late-game has some staying power potentially due to masses of GGs a front-runner could produce. I don't think custom houses will make much of a difference in this game.

• ancient era: 5
  
• classical era: 3
  
• medieval era: 1
  
• renaissance era: 2
  
• industrial era: 3
  
• modern era: 3
  

If you get enough GG to make Commandos then it's almost as good late as AGG but has perhaps the best early game. Lack of cheap buildings means that mid game exploiting land is much more difficult than for other traits, so if you can spread cities wider and grow them larger in teh mid game that's perhaps hte best way to cover that weakness.

Philosophical: Another difficult, advanced trait that's generally under-rated. You can use it to pull off some crazy gambits via bulbing, a tactic that becomes weaker as empires get bigger, but also is a great "win-more" trait to pull off more (and better-timed) GAs than other traits. I'm rating it lower than I should be here because I've always been uncomfortable planning GP-timings. Maybe I should pick it here to break out of my shell, eh?

• ancient era: 1
  
• classical era: 2
  
• medieval era: 3
  
• renaissance era: 4
  
• industrial era: 4
  
• modern era: 3
  

Win-more trait. If you can't get those first-to bonuses then you're gonna have a bad time.

Charismatic: A very awkward, map-dependent trait. I played a stronger version of it in PB20 and PB21 and couldn't get it to work for me, partly due to some of my own screwups and partly due to my lack of early-game power. Definitely can be made to work; S&S are dominating with it in PB63 as Boudica, and IIRC Krill crushed an old pitboss game with Brennus.

• ancient era: 3
  
• classical era: 4
  
• medieval era: 3
  
• renaissance era: 2
  
• industrial era: 2
  
• modern era: 2
  

Need to slave cities harder, or grow them larger and abuse the pop advantage. PB5 I did that by having a size 13 capital around T90 with nothing but a granary working 9 cottages. No need for overlapping cities due to higher pop ceiling meant more settlers to claim land, more land = more (happy) resources and yet higher pop. Plus murdering people with 3 promo HA helps.

Don't really have much to say about the rest.

[GermanJoey]

Protective

Tell that to dtay.

I DID tell that to dtay!! Also, I don't know all the specifics of what's happened to him in PB18 or PB22, but I do know that Pro didn't actually dissuade wars of aggression against him with major powers and I also know that it didn't prevent him from taking major losses.

Imperialistic

If you get enough GG to make Commandos then it's almost as good late as AGG but has perhaps the best early game. Lack of cheap buildings means that mid game exploiting land is much more difficult than for other traits, so if you can spread cities wider and grow them larger in teh mid game that's perhaps hte best way to cover that weakness.

I think that's always been a difficulty of mine with Imp... your settlers come so fast and your cities develop so closely in parallel that I get inclined to overlap them heavily to ease the burden on your workers and not waste so much forestage on monuments, etc, but then that gives up one of the chief advantages of grabbing more land. That's why I was so bullish on Justinian in PB24, I figured I wouldn't have that problem with him.

[GermanJoey]

SPEAKING OF DTAY, he picked Inca again. First of all, how the fuck does Inca get all the way down to the bottom of the snake - AGAIN?? Second, Protective for the fourth game in a row dtay, really??!?? You're killin' me here dude.

[Krill]

Stop picking fucking Shaka then.

[GermanJoey]

I did stop picking Shaka! I said I wasn't going to pick him here and anyways Borsche already did. Besides, I only picked him twice, and the first time I didn't actually pick him, scooter did!