Speaker's super top secret thread for the purposes of world domination; Neener Neener

[sunrise089]

Formation Knights and Cavalry, yes.

And Cuirassiers

People will actually take Mongolia in Ren MP games, even though Keshiks play basically no role there. It's a pretty good leveraged UB. Not necessarily better than a good economic UB, but it provides something not easily attainable through other buildings.

[Square Leg]

We also considered Elizabeth (Fin/Phi) as a leader, which sounds like a great idea for a pure teching civ. But... Fin and Phi don't actually synergize all that well together, since the former builds cottages and the latter builds farms. We thought that splitting up the Fin role from the Phi -> Great Person role would actually work a bit better. We'll see what happens.

Hey Sulla,

I remember you mentioning that Phi/Fin don't synergise well in your pb2 thread when picking Lizzy. I have always though that there is plently of synergy as, in most games, you only ever dedicate 1 city to pure GP production. Also, the real strength of Philosophical is the ability to get a few GP's earlier than your opponents enabling the acadamy earlier, or the bulb earlier etc... Once the game matures, the real benefit starts to wain slightly.

I think it is sensible to split the PHI and FIN leaders though.

Just some debate! Good luck in the game - I'm looking forward to reading along.

[plako]

Here are your starting positions. Please let me know where you want to position your leaders:

Cyrus (Charismatic/Imperialistic) of Mongolia [Speaker]
Pacal (Expansive/Financial) of India [Sullla]
Gandhi (Philosophical/Spiritual) of England [sunrise]

[Speaker]

They are fine as they are. Sullla #1, me #2, Sunrise #3. Thanks, Plako!

[Sullla]

I'm sorry our thread has been so sparse thus far. There's simply not that much to discuss at this point, since we know what our civ/leader picks will be. We talked a bit about where to settle, and have some ideas on that too... but we can't make any final decisions until we can move the scouts on the actual map. So for the moment, we're just waiting until the other teams are ready.

The discussion in the Organizing Thread was somewhere between laugh-out-loud funny and pull-your-hair-out irritating. Speaker proposed Quick/Noble settings. Then there was a massive argument about those settings, people vehemently insisting "WE WILL NOT PLAY ON NOBLE IT IS AN INSULT" and what did all that achieve? We're playing on Quick/Prince. All that fuss for 10% more expensive techs. Really worth it...

But hopefully the game will start soon and no one will have to think about that stuff! The map looks pretty interesting already.

[Mardoc]

I'm sorry our thread has been so sparse thus far. There's simply not that much to discuss at this point, since we know what our civ/leader picks will be. We talked a bit about where to settle, and have some ideas on that too... but we can't make any final decisions until we can move the scouts on the actual map. So for the moment, we're just waiting until the other teams are ready.

Well, if you're looking for topics, I'd be interested in hearing more about your thoughts on this:

There are tons of viable combinations of leaders and civs to choose for this game, and we're pretty excited to see what others pick. You can go a lot of different ways on this one. Should be fun.

What are some other combinations that would have worked well, and why did you end up leaving them behind?

Also, are there any traps? Things that seem as though they'd work, but in practice always seem to disappoint?

[Sullla]

All right, just some food for thought then.

Traits

- We are really hoping someone will pick Organized trait. It's a total waste on these settings, and overall weak for MP in general. (Organized only becomes a strong trait when playing on water maps and/or very high difficulty. Without corporations or high maintenance costs, there's not much value.) I think our community has enough experience to realize this.

- We expect most other teams to pick an Aggressive leader for one of their picks. And it's not a terrible pick or anything, but there are better options available in our opinion. The key units in Medieval/Renaissance MP are the mounted units: horse archers, then knights, then cuirassiers, then cavalry. Especially knights and cavalry. Because these units don't get the Aggressive promotion, Charismatic is generally seen as the stronger trait, since you can combine it with stables + Vassalage + Theocracy for triple promoted units. Or you can do one better, and take Mongolia for the Ger UB and get triple-promoted units without needing Vassalage. That's why we expect to see more Aggressive leaders than Charismatic ones. But Aggressive isn't terrible either, and makes for some strong drafted units later. (Cheap barracks, on the other hand, is almost irrelevant.)

- We expect to see teams undervalue Imperialistic as well. The increased cost of settlers for late era starts is very significant; settlers cost 150 shields on Medieval (100 for Quick, or something very close to that with rounding error). This is a very real drain on expansion, unless you have the Imperialistic trait. Imp gives you 30 shields per whip or forest chop (Quick speed) so chop + double whip will get you a settler. Compare that to 20 shields each for non-Imperialistic civs... chop still leaves you needing a quadruple whip! When every turn counts, that makes a huge difference. Having the Imp civ build settlers for other players is a staple of team games, just like having an Exp player build workers (Fast Workers? heh) for other players. I'm interested to see how other teams approach this.

- There actually are some Medieval strategies involving Agg/Pro units with Tokugawa, but since this is more of a builder game compared to a 3 vs 3 Inland Sea game, they're not likely to be that useful here. I think Protective is still too weak to see use here, and I don't expect anyone to pick it. (Even if one player takes Protective as a deterrant to attack, that's still only 1 of 3 players.)

Civs

- I expect all 4 teams will have an India. Fast workers are just too good.

- As I said before, there are some strategies for Medieval that involve rushing immediately with Rome or Egypt or Zulus. Since this is a 4 team Free For All, that doesn't seem like a particularly useful approach on this map, and therefore we didn't value these civs too highly. Rome can still be very dangerous if teams start close together and one side has iron, especially if you go for Agg Rome. But again, kind of risky for this sort of game.

- France is one of the best civs we didn't pick. The musketeer is a really, really good UU for this era due to its mobility. You have one player build nothing but musketeers, ideally with Agg/Pro or Agg/Chr traits, and then they can keep up with the knight/cavalry stacks that the other players build. Extremely difficult to attack due to the protection the musketeers provide (especially on rough terrain) and very mobile. Speed is crucial in these games - allows you to reinforce whoever is being attacked quickly. This was a civ we thought about, and hope not to see.

- I think Inca is a bit of a trap civ to pick. Yeah, you get the Terraces in each city, which sounds great. But it's really easy to expand borders in Medieval (there are some little tricks, like building Culture after you have Music or forcing Artists with Caste System or just running 100% culture on the slider for one turn to pop borders). And after you expand borders, what do you get from Inca? A useless UU and a granary that everyone else also has. It's not as good as you would think initially. Creative is undervalued in this era for the same reason, although the double speed libraries are indeed very useful.

- Unfortunately the civs with knight/cuirassier/cavalry UU replacements are all pretty bad. Arabia stinks, and so does the camel archer. Russia and the cossack are even worse. You can make a decent case for Spain, with the citadel providing extra XP for siege units. But the problem there is the very fact that the citadel is a castle replacement, and you don't want to be wasting a lot of time on building walls/castles. The conquistador is pretty sad for a UU, as no one is fielding melee units anymore by the time that cuirassiers hit the battlefield. Should have remained a knight UU replacement...

Byzantium would be perfect, but they are TOO PERFECT which is why they are perma-banned in Medieval starts.

- China and Ottomans are great for their starting techs. However, everyone starts with the same techs in Medieval, so they aren't particularly appealing even though they have era-appropriate UUs. I could see either one being decent, just think there are better choices available.

- Korea wouldn't be bad for a techer civ either, and you could do Fin/Phi with Elizabeth to get cheap seowons. It would be a pretty strong option.

Anyway, just some random thoughts. There are tons of pairings that you could come up with and do OK. Still very interested to see what others choose.

[Profane]

Some questions for you, Sullla: How important is a Rivered start in Medieval, being closer to Levees? Would a Non-plains hill Rivered plant be better than a Non-rivered plains hill plant? Is a rivered plant important enough that you may consider moving your settler off that plains hill to either the plains hill in the North or either 2 in the South (depending on what you see there)?

Or are Levees just too far away at Steam Power to be a concern in the initial city plants?

On a related note, in Speaker's start, is it worth giving up Fresh Water provided by the river to grab a Plains Hill plant to the east, also picking up the Rce in the South?

On a less serious note: On sunrise's start, are the lakes big enough to build ships ? Would they be useful enough to plant 1W on the plains hill (grabbing extra Crabs) and fort the incense for a 3-way canal?
Would be useful for getting WBs to boat everything from just one city...
(I'm also asking this as I once thought I saw a possible way to make a canal through Kathlete's territory in Pitboss 2 that involved razing and rebuilding a lot of cities, that would connect the inner and the outer sea )

Anyway, doesn't look like sunrise has much to chop...

[Sullla]

Levees are not a major factor in a Medieval start. The game will almost certainly be decided by that point.

Our initial impression from the tiles we can see has Speaker settling his capital NE-NE on the grassland hill, and his other city SW on the plains hill. Remember, you start with Calendar tech in Medieval, making those sugar tiles very strong (4/0/2). The other city has irrigated corn, copper, and a lot of forests to chop. The rice (which is also irrigated) can be used for another city. All of this is subject to what the scouts see though.

Water tile rules:

- If there's a seafood resource present, you can always build work boats.
- There must be 20 water tiles present to build other ships. Purely arbitrary, but that's how the game works.

Planting cities for resources is much, much more important than planting them for canals on this map. Lakes is about 80% land, and the water should play a relatively minor role. We need more info to dotmap sunrise's territory, but there's a good chance his capital will go E or SE of the starting spot, for marble + food + forests to chop. Ideal spots would be SE and NW, on the two plains hills and with copper in range of the second city, but those are illegal city placements (only 2 tiles apart).

More forests would always be nice. Still, the land is extremely fertile. I expect the starts will be mirrored or close to it, so it will be up to how all of us play them out.

[Speaker]

I simmed a few starts this afternoon, and I'm starting to get pretty excited for this game.