PB5 Postgame Thread, or where we bitch at Krill

[scooter]

Also, I have no idea how you guys read the threads so fast. This will easily take me all week I'm guessing.

[Commodore]

Commodore, I've got a question about some of your cons...

Con:
-Some of the Civ things: My beautiful Numidians are changed, don't see the point of Old Immortals, I miss Old Cossacks. ;P

I never touched Cossacks and I intend to look at the NC actually, because I think I made a screw up there, but...what do you mean about the "Old Immortals"?

A strength 5 spear isn't great shakes, although a chariot with +10% withdraw and marginal utility in rare anti-archer situations is pretty small deal too. The Cossack comment was just that seeing vanilla immortals makes me miss the vanilla Cossacks. Would a different bonus make them better? Not like people are breaking down the doors to pick Russia.

-Slavery nerf: As discussed, it's not really like avoiding BW is really viable even still. This just makes granaries weaker (sorry Pro), murders high-food sea empires vs. land empires, and hurts the fun whip overflow minigame.

I think Seven calculated that the cheap granaries were like 80% of the old EXP trait, and I don't really disagree with that much, if at all, so PRO isn't something that I worry about. That said..."Fun whip overflow minigame"?

Used to be, some useful wonders where you didn't have a lot of hammers could be whipped in via overflow. In particular, I liked being able to have National Epic and Moai actually buildable in high-food no-hammer cities, slavery kind of hurts those options.

-Drafting nerf: Probably needed, but I think went too far...either make rifles 1-pop OR bring back down the minimum drafting size. This is the other way Scooter got screwed.

Fair point, OTOH, it's also what stopped Nakor from drafting his cities. It would probably be fairer to drop the minimum size.

Agreed, I'd keep it at 2-pop (still amazing citizen/hammer ratio) and drop the minimum size.

-Corporations. I know Krill broke the game in PBEM4 with corps, but let's be frank...if we're going to dismiss Mackoti's SP-economy dominance in 24 because of his overall dominance, we really ought to dismiss Krill's in 4. I like the mechanic, maybe they (Sid's and Mining, really) need nerfing, but this was the third reason Scooter couldn't keep up.

The interesting point about Mackoti's game is that he cottaged the hell out of his starting area, and he only converted his later holdings to workshops after he had the lead and he didn't need more cottages to maintain a tech lead. PBEM4 saw me come from a tech hole against Cyneheard and losing my third city to sunrise. Both games show that once you get a lead it's hard to lose it if you have a good tech pace and land, and it doesn't really matter what you do.

I like the minigame of corps. Honestly, how broken would they be if the two most egregious (Sid's Sushi, Mining Inc) were removed/taken down a notch?

-Darius is ridiculous now.

Still slow as fuck out of the gate though, and there is no synergy in his traits.

Yeah, more of a comment about how Org is now definitely top-tier. I do feel kind of bad for Kublai Khan, actually, he got a raw deal in RBmod.

-Tech Catch-22. In general, teching post-Democracy and Communism is too fast, so I like the cost increase, but I'd tone it down a bit. Maybe make the known-tech boosts 50% at Paper and let that be it?

The known tech bonus has to work for each trading option, and I intend to explain what went wrong and why later on. But it's in part a lacksidasical attitude.

Yeah, TT is weird. Hard to balance, or impossible?

In general, actually, I like the buffs strategy. Slavery unnerfed, but workshops and watermills buffed, would seem like a decent compromise to me. Coming out of 34s, where I won in part because I could literally lose twice the hammers Scooter did each turn for continual pressure, I'm still unconvinced the SE->SP route needs too much help.

By the time Communism has come around there is no difference between workshops and cottages to vanilla, except you can't have the civics that improve both in use at the same time.

And the 34 map is an extreme one to base judgements on - just look at the additional rules needed to balance it.

True, true. Like I said, I actually like the buffs to workshopping, I'm just not sure you need to both buff them and nerf slaving.

[dazedroyalty]

FYI, I'm still getting new turn emails from Civ Stats. Is anyone actually still playing turns?

[scooter]

I am too - I think nobody paused it and sunrise hasn't taken it down yet. Nobody has logged in recently at all.

[Krill]

I emailed sunrise.

[pindicator]

My suggestion to modifying slavery was based off scooter's comment about late-game production. That's why I suggested the hammers per population come from a tech (probably later than Math, maybe RP or Chemistry). Point being that island empires would be able to convert their food into hammers at a more competitive rate at the time when people with lots of land can use 1f4h tiles for production (either RP mines or grassland workshops with caste).

You also keep the 30 - 20 - 20 - .. system for the early game so whipping cottages is not the one best way to start things off.

[Krill]

I like the minigame of corps. Honestly, how broken would they be if the two most egregious (Sid's Sushi, Mining Inc) were removed/taken down a notch?

Still broken. For one, culture thresholds haven't been changed, but tech costs are doubled, add in corp culture and it isn't pretty. Cereal Mills can give more food than SS, and works out better for food/gold. The point isn't just that they exist, it's that only 1 player has access to them. For corps to be reintroduced, they basically need to be completely rebuilt, and the entire late game rebuilt with them. Corps are a mechanic so egregious that they need the entire game built around them - like civ:col.

A strength 5 spear isn't great shakes, although a chariot with +10% withdraw and marginal utility in rare anti-archer situations is pretty small deal too. The Cossack comment was just that seeing vanilla immortals makes me miss the vanilla Cossacks. Would a different bonus make them better? Not like people are breaking down the doors to pick Russia.

I basically took the old Phalanx and gave it to Persia instead. It does mean you murder HA and can go toe to toe with knights though, so I think it has more utility. Russia has new UB...which I now realise isn't in the change log. Christ I hate that thing. (RI = University with free Sci, start with Hunting/Mining. I think that's a reasonable civ, just checked).

Yeah, more of a comment about how Org is now definitely top-tier. I do feel kind of bad for Kublai Khan, actually, he got a raw deal in RBmod.

Yeah, Org is good, and I still feel bad for Kublai, but not enough to actually do anything.

Yeah, TT is weird. Hard to balance, or impossible?

I think the problem with TT stems from the player idea of what is expected form tech. Just because you have an early game lead doesn't mean you should keep it forever, tech should be a temporary advantage that you have to then leverage (into land, or tech, but not both which is a permanent advantage that will win the game, which is the problem in vanilla BtS. TT requires the player understand each opponents possible aims and empire growth and accept the idea that TT isn't a straightforward prisoners dilemma - if there are two "tech leaders" and one of them refuses to sell anything then the players stuck behind in the tech tree will have to pay through the nose to buy tech. The point is showing that you won't trade anything and that can only be done through actions in a CTON game, and that is what I want to write about at the weekend when I have free time.