[SPOILERS] William discovers a source of horse. FDR of Mongolia

[sunrise089]

How I would describe it:

Krill - focus on claiming contested land and gaining population at the expense of tech
Mackoti - focus on claiming key contested items (mostly wonders/first-to bonuses), making a strong capital, and maintaining a tech advantage
Me - focus on greedily maximizing total net yields, claiming contested items opportunistically

Over what time horizon and with what discount rate? Not intended to be snarky since your take is very interesting, but my interpretation on the above is that taken literally your strategy should be all else equal superior. Does that mean success is just a matter of execution and luck?

[WilliamLP]

By the way, it has come to my attention that some people are posting in this thread who are far past the skill limit that is appropriate to comment on one of my games.

I'm working on a style which is basically grabbing stuff and researching whatever everyone else is, while incorporating some of the more interesting strategic elements from Jowy, Catwalk, and Qgqqqqq, and taking advice on supplements from Hashoosh.

[Commodore]

I'd add another type, Sulllanian vertical unto draft. Which was the bog standard for a long while.

[WilliamLP]

Well, I decided to keep FDR of Mongol, and it looks like the picks are finalized before I could change my mind again. I'll admit I wouldn't have changed my mind without Mackoti's post. I also don't doubt that with him at the wheel, he'd jump out on top of 32 others and masterfully use the IND bonus to be number 1 in the world because he's freaking Mackoti, that's why. With me, it's just a nice bonus to forges and Moai, lol.

So that's what I'm playing here, best choice or not.
+ ORG is top tier for late game, even without Financial nerfed, and especially with it.
+ The UU really is unique, and the HA is already one of the better units in the game anyway. Having a more mobile version presents some very unique (and possibly terrifying) tactical possibilities.
+ You can do a heck of a lot worse in a unique building than +2 exp for all mounted units. Formation and C3 knights are really, really nice if they can be gotten in any quantity. It can be a very large break point over two promotions for some tactics.
+ Wheel / Hunting is a fine pair of starting techs in RBMod. The capital will have multiple riverside grassland animals for sure, so we can go right to bronze, right?
+ Forges are a great building that every city eventually wants. Saving the hammers on them is not that small a thing.
+ In the later mid game, if land is still available for new cities (filler, and maybe on islands?) when the desired build is Granary -> Forge -> Courthouse, this is a really nice savings.
+ Faster national wonders. In particular, having Moai earlier can really make a difference in total empire production.
- Nothing to speed up the early game. (The first small savings comes with lighthouses, if they matter much.)
- Wonders are devalued a lot with 32 other players. Trying to go for anything valuable is very likely to just yield fail gold. Almost nothing good is likely to be available in passing, without an extremely dedicated beeline (meaning sacrifices). Especially, added to the fact that we'll be inherently behind early vs Exp or Pro or Imp or probably Cre and perhaps others.

[Ceiliazul]

By the way, it has come to my attention that some people are posting in this thread who are far past the skill limit that is appropriate to comment on one of my games.

Says the guy who has at least enough to offer for Mackoti to be interested. I know it was a joke, but don't count yourself too short.

[WilliamLP]

Seriously though, I think I need to keep expectations low for this game. The one thing you can only learn by actually playing these games is the long term emotional effect it has on you. I can tell I'm not nearly as prone to getting emotional about it as some people here (especially some of the more competitive ones) but even so there will be many days where I don't want to play and have to anyway. And so I think the self-deprecatory attitude helps me with this.

With this many people, so much is going to be determined simply by chaos and luck, who starts next to who and how they feel and what decisions they make that day, and so on.

I think my chances of winning this game are essentially none. I'd need a lot more specific knowledge and experience to consider that I could contend for that in a game like this. This doesn't mean I'm not going to try hard to make the best out of what I've got, but also I think I need to keep goals realistic.

[SevenSpirits]

Over what time horizon and with what discount rate? Not intended to be snarky since your take is very interesting, but my interpretation on the above is that taken literally your strategy should be all else equal superior. Does that mean success is just a matter of execution and luck?

That's definitely not how I mean it. The point of contrast is is the aspects where you compete with other players. Krill will be much more likely to prioritize a (defensible) city that reaches out and steals someone else's land, and he will have a specific vision of how this will give him a good long-term position. Meanwhile I would settle more based on short and medium term output ("greedily") and be more opportunistic in which things I compete for. So for example if we played against each other, maybe Krill would get the best city site between us, and I would get the second best but would sacrifice less to get it. (Krill can correct me if I'm wrong here. Well, actually, no he can't, because he can't read this. But later.)

I didn't mean that my play would give the best output in the very long-term. I don't think anyone's good enough to actually know how to do that.

[mackoti]

Well, I decided to keep FDR of Mongol, and it looks like the picks are finalized before I could change my mind again. I'll admit I wouldn't have changed my mind without Mackoti's post. I also don't doubt that with him at the wheel, he'd jump out on top of 32 others and masterfully use the IND bonus to be number 1 in the world because he's freaking Mackoti, that's why. With me, it's just a nice bonus to forges and Moai, lol.

So that's what I'm playing here, best choice or not.
+ ORG is top tier for late game, even without Financial nerfed, and especially with it.
+ The UU really is unique, and the HA is already one of the better units in the game anyway. Having a more mobile version presents some very unique (and possibly terrifying) tactical possibilities.
+ You can do a heck of a lot worse in a unique building than +2 exp for all mounted units. Formation and C3 knights are really, really nice if they can be gotten in any quantity. It can be a very large break point over two promotions for some tactics.
+ Wheel / Hunting is a fine pair of starting techs in RBMod. The capital will have multiple riverside grassland animals for sure, so we can go right to bronze, right?
+ Forges are a great building that every city eventually wants. Saving the hammers on them is not that small a thing.
+ In the later mid game, if land is still available for new cities (filler, and maybe on islands?) when the desired build is Granary -> Forge -> Courthouse, this is a really nice savings.
+ Faster national wonders. In particular, having Moai earlier can really make a difference in total empire production.
- Nothing to speed up the early game. (The first small savings comes with lighthouses, if they matter much.)
- Wonders are devalued a lot with 32 other players. Trying to go for anything valuable is very likely to just yield fail gold. Almost nothing good is likely to be available in passing, without an extremely dedicated beeline (meaning sacrifices). Especially, added to the fact that we'll be inherently behind early vs Exp or Pro or Imp or probably Cre and perhaps others.

I see you forgot again National epic and heroic epic, as important wonders(those are realy important, way more then moai believe me),and from experience cheap forges and cheap Ch came in play when hamers are very hard to find so getting those earlier and at lower price is huge.And now i read metal casting is cheaper so geting forges earlier not that expensive and you lucky and get a religion from someone with OR you can have easily 50% on other builds which is huge.

About wonders beeing hard to get thats true ,so value of a wonder is biger in this context as i undrstand the land is less too, can make difernce.For example depending on context you could try for some aestetic wonders.I dont remeber game is with barbarian or not?then you can try to farm experience to get He which is alot as well national epic where runiing 2 scientist , 1 engineer you have odds to get 1 of those and nab an important wonder.I didnt played yet with this status were multiplier are reduces to half but for ind sounds great news.
If you can nab Mids ther is waiting for you Police state and rep both very powerfull civs.But the most important thing is not to be very defensive, you need to grab land use kesicks for that or knigs.Mids can gste you mids 10-20 turns before anyone else and so you can get land.Without land you dead.

About org wha can i say gives nothing in the beggining , but later on is huge so what you need is a good plan to dont loose the start after will get easier and easier for you and harder for others.

[WilliamLP]

I see you forgot again National epic and heroic epic, as important wonders(those are realy important, way more then moai believe me),and from experience cheap forges and cheap Ch came in play when hamers are very hard to find so getting those earlier and at lower price is huge.And now i read metal casting is cheaper so geting forges earlier not that expensive and you lucky and get a religion from someone with OR you can have easily 50% on other builds which is huge.

About wonders beeing hard to get thats true ,so value of a wonder is biger in this context as i undrstand the land is less too, can make difernce.For example depending on context you could try for some aestetic wonders.

I've heard mixed things about the land. But I actually think land per player in this game will be similar to PB13, so a pretty good number of cities.

Aesthetics feels hard to fit in, doesn't it? Especially since IND really wants Metal Casting. (An Oracle run seems very unrealistic with so many people going for it.)

I've never been a big believer in those wonders, though they're nice they aren't worth sacrificing early growth for, are they? GLibrary is fine if it's an easy build but really it's also possible to just settle a new city and have it work 2 scientists all the time. (If you could get GLib in a NE city, sure that's great but good luck.)

I dont remeber game is with barbarian or not?then you can try to farm experience to get He which is alot as well national epic where runiing 2 scientist , 1 engineer you have odds to get 1 of those and nab an important wonder.I didnt played yet with this status were multiplier are reduces to half but for ind sounds great news.

Huts: on
Events: on
Barbs: on

So huts make everything wilder with more luck at the start, too. I'm also bad at farming exp from barbs because usually I build extra spawn-busting units to stop them from appearing in the first place.

If you can nab Mids ther is waiting for you Police state and rep both very powerfull civs.But the most important thing is not to be very defensive, you need to grab land use kesicks for that or knigs.Mids can gste you mids 10-20 turns before anyone else and so you can get land.Without land you dead.

It feels like if stone is convenient I absolutely have to think about what it would take to get 'mids.

And yeah, Keshiks and buffed stables suggest to build them and use them soon or it's just a wasted opportunity.

Here's who else has Industrious:

pindicator/Qin Shi Huang (Pro)/China: Pindicator is a very good player, and with China's techs and cheap granaries he should be faster than us.

Plako/Louis (Cre)/France: At least he won't be building 'henge... Plako we all know is extremely strong and isn't going to let his IND trait go to waste.

MYKI/DuGaulle (Cha)/Korea: This guy is an extreme noob from Alae PB, he's no threat for anything at his skill level.

Cheater Hater/Bismarck (Exp)/Zulu: This could be a really fun combination to play, but I don't think Cheater Hater is a very strong player either.

Dhalphir/Hayuna Cupac (Fin)/England: I think Dhal is quite likely to go for wonders, and he's getting better.

Ruff/Augustus Caeser (Imp)/America: Cheap settlers and IND means he might really think about using the hammer savings to go for wonders.

Hashoosh/Stalin (Agg)/Inca: He's not a strong player yet either.

I'll play the map I guess... It makes a big difference if we're isolated or crammed in somewhere, or whether there is a really strong city site with stone or marble, lots of forests, etc.

[NobleHelium]

The Great Library is better than a city with two scientists. You don't have to feed the scientists and the wonder also gives 2 GPP itself.