PB5 Postgame Thread, or where we bitch at Krill

[Krill]

I don't see how they can be screwed... they can just use slavery. Not having hills or forests does mean it's harder to build wonders, but that's not the end of the world.

It's like scooter said in this game, that he had a severe lack of production, but didn't utilise every tool available to deal with it as the game went on. That said...point taken, slavery is still viable.

Not sure if the mod you were playing with made FM better, but one thing to note is you don't usually have as many foreign trade routes as you did that game, when you're so far ahead. FM is typically just 2c per city plus a couple extra for big cities, which is much less than SP. Also I'm surprised you called Merc bad; it's usually better than FM in my experience.

FM gets +25% trade route yield (new bonus). And FWIW, if I had cut trade routes with other people, it wouldn't have been that bad for me because of having island cities that were growing really large so I would have still had 4 commerce trade routes spare, and it would have hurt both scooter and Pingo because both were relying on my cities for trade routes, so you can call losing OB as even. The problem with Merc is IMO that it is more situational: you need to be able to rely on internal trade routes, Rep and Enviro are if not necessary still important, and the earlier it comes, the less time you will have had to get all of that stuff in place. Perhaps bad is a bit blunt, niche might be a better description.

So you think strategies that compete with cottages do not use slavery (or at least don't use it as much)? I strongly disagree. The competing improvement is the farm, and it uses slavery just as much or more.

I disagree: you can't farm every tile until you get Civil Service, meaning that you either do not improve those tiles (which can be a waste) or you cottage them, or they are workshopped. I think the idea behind farms is even more fundamental than that they use slavery, they speed up growth and then that population can be used for anything, working mines, cottages, specialists, drafted or slaved. Slavery is not the only mechanic that makes use of farms, and isn't the only way to value them. It is the simplest though, but that doesn't make it the most correct.

I agree that the island starts in this game had several terrible drawbacks.

One thing that definitely needs to be done is a rebuild of the map generation and start balancing algorithms. The resource distribution in particular...

[SevenSpirits]

I don't see how they can be screwed... they can just use slavery. Not having hills or forests does mean it's harder to build wonders, but that's not the end of the world.

It's like scooter said in this game, that he had a severe lack of production, but didn't utilise every tool available to deal with it as the game went on. That said...point taken, slavery is still viable.

In this game they had to deal with RBMod slavery. So yeah, they did get screwed.

I disagree: you can't farm every tile until you get Civil Service, meaning that you either do not improve those tiles (which can be a waste) or you cottage them, or they are workshopped. I think the idea behind farms is even more fundamental than that they use slavery, they speed up growth and then that population can be used for anything, working mines, cottages, specialists, drafted or slaved. Slavery is not the only mechanic that makes use of farms, and isn't the only way to value them. It is the simplest though, but that doesn't make it the most correct.

I said, if you are not building cottages, you are building farms. I don't understand your reply.

[Krill]

I think you're trying to solve a phantom problem here. In the last games I've played, people have always maintained standing armies once borders start to touch. That is not unique to a setting where slavery has been nerfed.

I think you are responding to games from far earlier, when we always played with full diplo, and just weren't as skilled at war-heavy games. People made NAPs, and used token defenses, and had slavery as a fallback in case of suspicious activity or outright betrayal. But with recent PBEMs, that is clearly not the metagame anymore.

I should also say that I misspoke here, this is not the reason for nerfing slavery, it is just one of the effects that I don't view as a negative.

I said, if you are not building cottages, you are building farms. I don't understand your reply.

You can't farm every tile. They are not all freshwater. Farms are not the comparison to cottages because they work on different tiles in the early game. Farms need to be considered separate.

In this game they had to deal with RBMod slavery. So yeah, they did get screwed.

The Viking and Aztec starts were as close to identical as possible on a random map: if slavery were the only changed mechanic, then it wouldn't have saved the Vikings. Only thing is the Aztecs would have have been able to research faster because the capital could have run a 7>4 whip cycle and worked 3 cottages much earlier in the game, and made even more production. The slavery nerf isn't the reason the Viking start failed, it was that by T50 it had 4 pop and the Aztec had 10 and had greater output to snowball, which is down to building wonders so early, and not growing cities.

[SevenSpirits]

The Viking and Aztec starts were as close to identical as possible on a random map: if slavery were the only changed mechanic, then it wouldn't have saved the Vikings. Only thing is the Aztecs would have have been able to research faster because the capital could have run a 7>4 whip cycle and worked 3 cottages much earlier in the game, and made even more production. The slavery nerf isn't the reason the Viking start failed, it was that by T50 it had 4 pop and the Aztec had 10 and had greater output to snowball, which is down to building wonders so early, and not growing cities.

I find it really difficult to get you to reply relevantly to things I say. Let's recap... first, pindicator had a suggestion: make slavery weaker to start, but up to full vanilla strength with a tech, like chops with math, in order to make it more even with workshops for production. I replied to this, and as part of the reply, mentioned that I don't see vanilla workshops as trying to compete with slavery and mines since they come much later (even though they are technically buildable at metal casting).

To this you replied:

The problem with having mines as the only tile improvement competitive with cottages plus slavery is that the player can be screwed if they don't get enough hills, but at least with workshops there is an out further down the tech tree that isn't quite so far away

which is just plain incorrect, as slavery and mines have comparable efficiency, so you can still produce the same amount of stuff even without hills as long as it's not a wonder you are trying to build. I know that you know this, because you nerfed slavery in your mod, because you didn't like how strong it is! Nevertheless I pointed this out, and then you come back with:

It's like scooter said in this game, that he had a severe lack of production, but didn't utilise every tool available to deal with it as the game went on. That said...point taken, slavery is still viable.

So now you're agreeing with me, but somehow you are still wrong! This game, as you know!!, was using RBMod, where slavery is nerfed and is no longer as efficient as mines. So in this case where dazed and scooter lacked hills, they had a production disadvantage. Again, I know that you know this. You reduced the effectiveness of slavery in RBMod in part because you didn't like how it made production improvements unnecessary.

So again I point this out, and this time you come back with something unrelated.

The Viking and Aztec starts were as close to identical as possible on a random map: if slavery were the only changed mechanic, then it wouldn't have saved the Vikings. Only thing is the Aztecs would have have been able to research faster because the capital could have run a 7>4 whip cycle and worked 3 cottages much earlier in the game, and made even more production. The slavery nerf isn't the reason the Viking start failed, it was that by T50 it had 4 pop and the Aztec had 10 and had greater output to snowball, which is down to building wonders so early, and not growing cities.

Yes, we all know the vikings had a bad start. They had no land and no luxuries. It is an obviously screwed start. Yet for some reason, in response to me pointing out that the RBMod slavery nerf hurts their production because they have a lower proportion of hills than other players, you bring up such facts as:
* If slavery weren't nerfed, it would have also helped other players
* The Vikings were screwed in other ways too

None of the things you've mentioned change the incredibly obvious facts that in vanilla civ, lacking hills doesn't hurt your production much except for wonders, but with the RBMod slavery nerf, it does hurt your production. I would like to point out that you argued against both of these things. Seriously. That really makes me think that you're just being contrary for the sake of it, because you are smart and there is no way you could actually believe both those things, right?

[Krill]

The Viking and Aztec starts were as close to identical as possible on a random map: if slavery were the only changed mechanic, then it wouldn't have saved the Vikings. Only thing is the Aztecs would have have been able to research faster because the capital could have run a 7>4 whip cycle and worked 3 cottages much earlier in the game, and made even more production. The slavery nerf isn't the reason the Viking start failed, it was that by T50 it had 4 pop and the Aztec had 10 and had greater output to snowball, which is down to building wonders so early, and not growing cities.

I find it really difficult to get you to reply relevantly to things I say. Let's recap... first, pindicator had a suggestion: make slavery weaker to start, but up to full vanilla strength with a tech, like chops with math, in order to make it more even with workshops for production. I replied to this, and as part of the reply, mentioned that I don't see vanilla workshops as trying to compete with slavery and mines since they come much later (even though they are technically buildable at metal casting).

See, I thought you were saying that workshops should not be balanced against slavery.

To this you replied:

The problem with having mines as the only tile improvement competitive with cottages plus slavery is that the player can be screwed if they don't get enough hills, but at least with workshops there is an out further down the tech tree that isn't quite so far away

which is just plain incorrect, as slavery and mines have comparable efficiency, so you can still produce the same amount of stuff even without hills as long as it's not a wonder you are trying to build. I know that you know this, because you nerfed slavery in your mod, because you didn't like how strong it is! Nevertheless I pointed this out, and then you come back with:

See, that isn't what you've stated in the past, (your rough payoffs thread) and that also ignores the front loading effect of slavery, where you've stated that mines barely break even.

It's like scooter said in this game, that he had a severe lack of production, but didn't utilise every tool available to deal with it as the game went on. That said...point taken, slavery is still viable.

So now you're agreeing with me, but somehow you are still wrong! This game, as you know!!, was using RBMod, where slavery is nerfed and is no longer as efficient as mines. So in this case where dazed and scooter lacked hills, they had a production disadvantage. Again, I know that you know this. You reduced the effectiveness of slavery in RBMod in part because you didn't like how it made production improvements unnecessary.

I'm simply stating that scooter has said he lacked production. I disagree with that assertion, though, I think that that start had enough production capacity, because they got MC from Oracle, and got CoL early. They could have used Caste system and workshops to get more production but they didn't do this. That start had 4 plains hill, 2 grass hills, a stone, and 2 copper resources in the first 3 city sites, plus 6 food resources and 2 flood plains. The Aztec start had 4 food resources if you class a plains cow as a food resource, 3 flood plains, 3 plains hills and 5 grass hills and a horse. Why is it that the Aztec start worked and the Viking start didn't? It is not down to the slavery change, it is not down to lack of hills.

So again I point this out, and this time you come back with something unrelated.

The Viking and Aztec starts were as close to identical as possible on a random map: if slavery were the only changed mechanic, then it wouldn't have saved the Vikings. Only thing is the Aztecs would have have been able to research faster because the capital could have run a 7>4 whip cycle and worked 3 cottages much earlier in the game, and made even more production. The slavery nerf isn't the reason the Viking start failed, it was that by T50 it had 4 pop and the Aztec had 10 and had greater output to snowball, which is down to building wonders so early, and not growing cities.

Yes, we all know the vikings had a bad start. They had no land and no luxuries. It is an obviously screwed start. Yet for some reason, in response to me pointing out that the RBMod slavery nerf hurts their production because they have a lower proportion of hills than other players, you bring up such facts as:
* If slavery weren't nerfed, it would have also helped other players
* The Vikings were screwed in other ways too

As I said, I disagree with the bad start idea. The problem was that scooter built the Mids too early and put himself behind in the growth curve. I fail to see how nerfed slavery affects that, or how vanilla slavery would have gotten the Vikings back into the game, or any other slavery boost, but I do think that Oracle>MC and caste workshops would have answered that production problem.

None of the things you've mentioned change the incredibly obvious facts that in vanilla civ, lacking hills doesn't hurt your production much except for wonders, but with the RBMod slavery nerf, it does hurt your production. I would like to point out that you argued against both of these things. Seriously. That really makes me think that you're just being contrary for the sake of it, because you are smart and there is no way you could actually believe both those things, right?

I look at the game holistically, and that means being aware of all of the effects each change has. That's not being contrary (no pun intended...) it's...necessary so changes aren't made that have unintended consequences.

End of the day, I don't buy the slavery excuse. I don't think that the nerfed slavery is the reason the Vikings lost.

[Krill]

Also...Seven, would you mind posting the worldbuilder save please?

[dazedroyalty]

I don't think anyone, including scooter, is claiming the slavey need is THE reason we lost. I think we built the Mids too early too but the point is that with the slavery nerf we had one more, major challenge on top of being an island start with zero happiness.

[Krill]

Which is pretty much the point I'm trying to make, with a rebuilt map generator not screwing over starts with no luxury resources, and using map scripts that don't have such varied landmasses most of the problems go out of the window, especially in a game using NTT or NTB... Big and Small maps are up there with Arboreal and...god knows what (Fantasy Realm?) for the prize of being the most unbalanced map script.

[Krill]

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"?

-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"?

-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.

-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.

-Darius is ridiculous now.

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

-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.

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.

[scooter]

Yeah, nobody said slavery nerf is why Vikings lost. However, you are completely crazy if you think Vikings were ever going to have a prayer at keeping up in production. I could have literally put a workshop on every single tile in my land and still had 1/4th of the production you had. It was a problem of not enough land tiles. I remember at one point this game I was something like 3rd in cities and still dead last in land tiles. There just isn't enough. Coast is already a crappy tile, but it's even worse in this mod, and that's the point I'm making.

Also, comparing my capital management with your capital management is silly. You're analyzing them in a vacuum, completely ignoring the surroundings, which had a BIG impact. You had a sz 14-15 capital before T100. Sz10 was not even an option for me luxury-wise, let alone 15. You also had tons of land within reach, even if some of it was iffy. I had the smallest amount of land out of anyone in reach, and it wasn't even close. These are all facts, and you're ignoring them.

But yes, I'm not claiming it's slavery alone. It's slavery nerf... It's tech trading... It's tech brokering to make it even worse... It's 0 luxuries for the entire game... It's corporations off... It's the enormous late-game tech costs to drastically minimize my beaker lead... It's a lot of things that would not have happened in a vanilla game. Literally every facet of this mod worked against my start, and I don't think you're getting that.