[SPOILERS] SevenSpirits becomes self-aware

[SevenSpirits]

One more thing about SPI that I didn't see: popping borders with artists. Did you evaluate that?
Kalin

I didn't, because I'm assuming a SPI player will be running a religion already anyway, and the artist pops wouldn't make a big difference.

[SevenSpirits]

[SIZE="5"]Analysis of Philosophical[/SIZE]

I'm going to try to do PHI and give up on the last three since they are terrible anyway.

University discount is the easy part. That's 6 unis * about 42h each on t90? 11h = 18b.

The hard part is the GPP bonus. I will approximate that it gives you the academy scientist twice as quickly, and gets you an extra GP not long after that. Academy scientist acceleration means 6t sooner academy (we'll call it 42b) and about 22f from being able to work cottages over additional scientists (latter converts to 59b). So about 100b, shifted from t50 or so: 18b.

Then the extra GP around t60: 800b (I realized last night that 1000b is too much value to put in a GP this early; this should reduce value of SPI a little bit too) shifted back by 2^3 is 100b.

Total: 136b.

And a revised value for SPI: -9b, bringing it down to 169b.

[SevenSpirits]

This gives us the following table:

(First column is a general value, rest is for this game's setup in particular.)

Code:

Trait Value Penalty Total
FIN:  220    -42      178
EXP:  213    -42      171
ORG:  195             195
CRE:  173    -21      152
SPI:  169             169
IND:  153             153
PHI:  136             136
IMP:  101             101

[SevenSpirits]

What did we learn from this?

First, the foundation of all this is in my opinion. My own judgments about traits are being injected throughout the process. For example, I assume you want to build a certain number of libraries, and cities, and workers, and forges...

But what's interesting is I can see whether the facts I believe match up with my overall valuations of the traits. And there was one big difference there: I was overvaluing CRE compared to what I believe it to be providing. To a lesser extent, I was undervaluing SPI. The other results are pretty unsurprising given my opinions, though it's quite interesting to see HOW such disparate abilities can converge on the same values.

[SevenSpirits]

Well, I decided I didn't want to pick CRE here given how I evaluated it, but ORG and FIN looked better than ever so I picked Darius. The synergy between is traits is low. True, it's good for water tiles (build cheap lighthouses, and coast is 3c) which should be relevant on this map, but it's two traits that boost your economy in different ways. Org wants lots of heavily-whipped cities I'd say with a couple big ones, while FIN just wants as much pop as possible and cottages everywhere. But I think I'll be OK.

Next question is Civ, and I'm really not sure which one to prefer. If novice doesn't take India right now (which would mean he also gets last leader pick instead of second, so it's pretty painful) it will be an option to me, and I need to figure out how good those fast workers are compared to two turns. If it's not them, then maybe France?

[SevenSpirits]

[SIZE="5"]Analysis of India[/SIZE]

I will use a blank Agri/Wheel civ as the baseline civ. India starts with Mining (-9b) and Mysticism (-9b plus a bit more, since it's less useful) instead. Overall I will call this -25b.

India's Fast Workers are its major draw. I believe with fast workers you'll save about 7 worker turns per city, each worth about 2fh. so 14fh = 28b per city, centered around t50 = 69b.

Mausoleum benefits are negligible, let's say 4b.

Total benefit therefore is 48b.

And in this scenario we are losing two turns to pick it, so -42!

6b of benefit remain, and a civ like France will have slightly more than that from Musketeers I believe. Crazy! My numbers do not help me to decide.

[Commodore]

Clearly, the HRE is your only real option.

[SevenSpirits]

Clearly, the HRE is your only real option.

Worth considering.

I would say it provides about 4 courthouses worth of benefit at around t65, according to my ORG evaluation. That is about 300h to be timeshifted, or 53b at the start.

But the drawbacks. Immediately you are down 27b just from tech costs, and also the two techs you start with are both useless for a while (another -18 IMO - having two useless techs is more than twice as bad as just having one).

So net value is +8b. It's competitive with India and France.

[SevenSpirits]

For the record, Inca looks crazy good here. Giving the creative benefit, but let's say delayed 5t since you have to build the granary first, it's worth 80b. Meanwhile it has better techs than india, losing I'd say 15b from that, so total of 65 (with this setup of -1 turn, 44b).

I'm thinking I'll pick india just because fast workers are quite fun (and with their chopping abilities they complement my commerce-heavy leader well). But first we'll have to see what the others pick.

[scooter]

For the record, Inca looks crazy good here.

This was my immediate conclusion upon seeing this setup and before drowning myself in all your fancy numbers and whatnot.