"Don't move or the bunny gets it" - German Joey plays Cyrus the Virus of Khmer

[Fintourist]

I just wan't to comment that actually I don't think that the skill disparity in PB16 was thaaaat big

You might be right, but bantams at the very least seems like he just did not belong in that game.

Yeah, that's true. If someone plays really really bad that is far worse than having someone who is a lot better than others (who are still competent).

[GermanJoey]

Welcome to RB.

I'd like to hear a newcomer vet's thoughts on the RB metagame, what's hot and what's not about our current group think.

What surprised me is that, at least compared to single player, Phi and Ind are relatively undervalued traits here compared to what they are in SP, while Fin might be relatively overvaluedbecause of that. I speculate three main reasons for this:

• Failgold is dismissed as an economic tactic. I didn't see even any IND leader even try for it in PB16; this may be explained by 3 things: 1.) there's no stone or marble available (seems very common in RB games I notice), 2.) the RB Mod removes the mechanic almost entirely, so many people here might forget about its power, and 3.) it's harder to get the full value out of it in MP games, as human players won't build wonders like Sankore or Ankor Watt.
  
• Deep Phi bulbs are much less effective in MP compared to SP. The bulb paths for techs like Engineering and Chemistry are very convoluted and may be impractical in a game with no tech trading, and both open strategies that would be a lot less effective on large maps and against human players.
  
• No diplo means that economic development trumps every other consideration for long-term economic strategy, and thus every civ needs to either score the great lighthouse or make cottages. And, if you're gonna make cottages anyways, might as well go with the trait that amplifies their value I guess.
  

I'm also surprised that there weren't any rushes for Construction, even with elephants banned. It especially surprised me that nobody picked Korea as a civ in a game without elephants!!

At any rate, I'm not so arrogant as to assume that people here are stupid for disregarding the strategies that work well in SP civ, and that makes me feel like I should be very cautious about how I choose my leader/civ.

[novice]

Thanks, GermanJojo.

So you haven't played many multiplayer games? Like you say there are obviously many strong SP strategies that don't really work against humans. That said, I'm sure there are many MP strategies here that rely on accepted truths among the RB crowd. It could be interesting to see how they fare against a competent player who doesn't accept these truths. Not that I have anything specific in mind.

Of course in this game you're playing against, Mackoti who basically did just that - he disregarded a lot of conventional ideas and proved himself an excellent player in the process. So yeah, you've jumped in at the deep end here.

/ramble

Fake edit: can you shorten the title of your thread? The reply titles become too long to post when "Re: " is added.

[GermanJoey]

Let me go through the trait changes and what leaders I'm thinking about, as that will be the first relevant decision in this game.

Financial
Direct Changes: +1c on tiles with 3c or more instead of 2c or more. No longer gets double production speed of Banks.
Indirect Changes: A new building, the Wharf, available with Compass, adds +1c on water tiles. The Colossus has been changed to give +2c instead of +1c on water tiles, but only in the city in which it is built. It also requires Machinery.
TLDR version of below: The changes mean that while Financial retains the tech-tree flexibility it had before, it comes at the price of flexibility in expansion and infrastructure. Better f
Thoughts:

IMHO, Financial was hit fairly hard by ToW. The commerce bonus change means that Financial misses out on a bonus 10c for every river cottage and a bonus 20c for every non-river cottage. In addition, they no longer automatically get 3c for coast tiles, and can't get 3c city tiles settling on silks and wines and stuff like that. Cottaging them still gets the full bonus though, so something to think about if they pop up in your capital's BFC.

So how much does this hurt? Well, it depends on the map and especially on the capital BFC. Let's imagine a plain grassland capital with 100% rivered tiles and 20 cottages - it will miss out on about 200 free commerce. So, at best, this is only a loss of 200 beakers over the course of, say, 80 turns, which will end up being only a small fraction of one's total research up to that point. (say, a 5% loss - just a guestimate) It mean that currency is delayed by 3-4 turns or so. (say, another ~50 commerce lost).

By itself, this wouldn't be too bad. If this was all there was to it, Financial is practically as strong as it was before. However, that's overly optimistic. More realistically, a capital is lucky to get even 15-16 cottages, and luckier still if even 10 happen to be adjacent to a river. Some missing bonus beakers might have been affected by a multiplier, such as a library or academy. More likely, one loses about 15%-20% of their total research up to the start of the medieval era. Trying to mitigate the damage means working as many riverside cottages as possible pre-academy and pre-bureau, which may require a heavily-satellited capital, leave you open to choking, and prevent you from whipping as much as you'd otherwise like. Gag me with a spoon!

On the other hand, there are a few new tools open to Financial leaders that weren't available before - the new Colossus and the Wharf. The wharf adds +1c to every water tile, like the Feitoria, and thus effectively gives +4c on every coast tile for financials. In addition, the Colossus gives +2c on every water tile in a single city, but now requires Machinery despite still being obsoleted by Astro. I kinda like Wharves, and it could make a Compass bulb a smart move on watery maps, but am not as impressed with the Colossus. It doesn't make sense to rush for it, as any city that can easily build it probably shouldn't be working that many water tiles to begin with. Seems more like a nice happenstance you just happen to pick up on the way to Guilds or Engineering.

The loss of the Bank doubler is more of an annoyance but still does deprive them of extra economic leverage in the Medieval era, where some other civs might be starting to catch up.

Leaders under consideration:

• Hannibal (Fin/Cha) - Good synergy here. Hannibal seems pretty good to me simply because he can work lots of cottages very early. +3 happy from Cha means that he can more easily absorb single-pop whips to build infrastructure (meaning he can work more cottages for longer) as well as growing to a much larger size earlier. He also needs less satellites to get the capital fully prepped for bureaucracy, giving him more freedom in expansion.
  
• Wang Kong (Fin/Pro) - In contrast to Hannibal, WK's really good at satellites. A few cities can be settled near just a few good hammer tiles (like a plains iron or copper) to pump workers and work boats for awhile, and then converted to build up cottages for some other, more infrastructurally developed city. Could work very well on a larger map.
  
• Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind) - HC's traits make the bottom half of the tech tree more atrHUAUEHUAHUAHAUHAHUYa no. Upon my honour, I will not play as HC in a game of Civilization 4.
  

Spiritual
Direct Changes: None
Indirect Changes: None, other than new trait pairings.
Leaders under consideration:

• Montezuma (Spi/Agr) - Ignoring nuance and more niche situations, the major tactic of a Spiritual in the classical/medeival eras, where Spiritual is arguably at the height of its power, is to switch between the Slavery+OR and Caste+Pacifism civic pairs roughly every 5 turns. This can roughly be described as bouncing between converting food into production for one and converting food into commerce (beakers/gold/GPP) for the other. Agr simply gives you more food to play with. In ad
  
• Brennus (Spi/Cha) - A critical problem for spiritual civs is balancing production via whip/drafting (reduces population and requires regrowth) and specialists under caste (which generally prevents growth). However, the +3 happiness from Cha makes it much possible to produce quite a bit out of smaller cities with multiple 1-pop whips, which preserves pop points for caste phases, rather than more-expensive double whips.
  

Rejected due to anti-synergy:

• Saladin (Spi/Pro) - Unfortunately, Productive's super plains-hills and fast workers don't seem as appealing when you don't need to work as many tiles per-city.
  

Organized
Direct Changes: None
Indirect Changes: None, other than new trait pairings.
Leaders under consideration:
Not really any, I think. Even though this will be a Toroidal map, the ToW "medium-distance maintenance option will be turned on, and Organized, while a fine trait in its own right, never struck me as a trait that really synergizes with anything, especially not any of the four "new" traits. Maybe Napolean (Org/Cha)? You get CoL and then BAM you whip out a courthouse in every city the following turn? I don't know, I'm not really feelin' it...

I'll finish this after lunch...

[GermanJoey]

Thanks, GermanJojo.

So you haven't played many multiplayer games? Like you say there are obviously many strong SP strategies that don't really work against humans. That said, I'm sure there are many MP strategies here that rely on accepted truths among the RB crowd. It could be interesting to see how they fare against a competent player who doesn't accept these truths. Not that I have anything specific in mind.

Of course in this game you're playing against, Mackoti who basically did just that - he disregarded a lot of conventional ideas and proved himself an excellent player in the process. So yeah, you've jumped in at the deep end here.

/ramble

Fake edit: can you shorten the title of your thread? The reply titles become too long to post when "Re: " is added.

I've played a lot of MP civ in the past but not in the recent years, no. That wasn't necessarily a conscious choice though - I just didn't know an active multiplayer Civ4 community existed! I play other strategy games on Multiplayer though, such as Wesnoth and DotA 2, so don't think I'll make the mistake of to think that the other players as AIs! At least I hope I don't, and hope that other people here will slap me if I start doing that!

I'll change the thread title if you can convince Kuro to change his, as what he sniped what was obviously what I was going to use for mine. But otherwise, can't you just delete the text in the "Post Subject" field and add whatever? It doesn't seem to matter what that field has for replies.

[GermanJoey]

hahahaha what is this little guy

[Commodore]

Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind) - HC's traits make the bottom half of the tech tree more atrHUAUEHUAHUAHAUHAHUYa no. Upon my honour, I will not play as HC in a game of Civilization 4.

Rooting for you so hard.

[GermanJoey]

3 more. this is taking a lot of time...

Creative
Direct Changes: Only gives +1 free culture/turn per city, instead of +2.
Indirect Changes: None that I see.
Thoughts:
Not much is different here, other than it'll be a lot more awkward to settle cities with food second-ring-only. Creatives will be less easily able to culturally-bully neighbors, although still have a dominant position due to half-priced libraries.

Leaders under consideration:

• Pericles (Cre/Phi) - Although this combo doesn't include any of the Agr/Pro/Imp/Cha traits that I said I wanted, I'd still consider him in honour of a friend who died - Pericles was his favourite leader. His cheap libraries and freedom from Monuments make him the best pure specialist economy guy without Caste. Probably not for me but I'll at least give him a mention, if at least to put an X somewhere in Creative's column. It just doesn't seem to synergize with any of the new or newly-improved traits, as far as I can see. If anyone has any ideas here, please share!
  

Industrious
Direct Changes: None
Indirect Changes: Metal Casting's base beaker cost has been lowered by 33%, from 450 to 300. The Great Lighthouse now gives only +1 trade route to coastal cities.
TLDR version of below: Metal Casting good. Machinery? Maybe.
Thoughts:
The MC changes open up the Industrious game quite a bit. Not only will Forges be available in core cities much earlier, with the possibility of pumping a Great Engineer as one's first GP to rush a big wonder like The Mids (less practical here, more on this later), but also makes a Machinery bulb much more attractive. Specifically, we just need these techs in addition to MC, while avoiding fishing: Mathematics, Alphabet, and Iron Working. Of these, Mathematics and Iron Working are ones we probably want early anyways, and, while Alphabet might be useless here, half of its cost would be what we would have spent on MC before. Forge-produced XBows (or CKNs!) appearing around turn 80 would be quite possible.

As mentioned earlier, failgold is also in full effect here, although I'm unsure if it will be possible to get a lot of use from it until mid-game. Failgolding national wonders would be very useful for screwing with people's C&D efforts at least, as you'd have GNP coming from outta nowhere and a massive MFG all the time.

Leaders under consideration:

• Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro) - Stop. Hammer Time. *a huge hammer appears from the heavens and smashes QSH's head like a watermelon* But seriously, Productive's passive hammer boost *multiplies* with both forges and Ind's wonder bonus, which is pretty good. Prod also allows extra warriors for chopping. Finally, picking QSH would mean I could post billions of panels from Kingdom in every update... something to think about.
  
• Stalin (Ind/Agr) - The synergy here is all about increasing the efficacy of the whip. Cheap forges + Extra food = time to get whippy. But, there's probably better leaders for this, like Washington or Boudica.
  

Philosophical
Direct Changes: None
Indirect Changes: Metal Casting's base beaker cost has been lowered by 33%, from 450 to 300.
TLDR version of below: Bulb a wonder? Bulb Education? Bulb Engineering? Bulb Chemistry? Bulb Guilds? I don't know.
Thoughts:
I've always kind of felt that Philosophical is an awkward trait to use. It's very very good in SP games because it can get you an advanced tech out of nowhere, and let you catch up across the board by trading it around. However, I'm more dubious of its value here. Sure, it gets you your capital's academy faster than anything else. And of course multiple golden ages are amazing if you can score the Mausoleum. However, you don't *need* Philosophical to do either of those things. What is *unique* about Philosophical is its ability to bulb a *lot* of techs to rush something dozens of turns before other leaders. Leaders with other traits would be unlikely to waste many (if any) great people on bulbs, and this is where your big advantage lies. There's a few well known bulbs: Education to win Lib, Engineering for trebs, pikes, and 3 move roads, and Chemistry for grenadiers and better workshops, Guilds for knights and.... frontier posts?

However, there's a big opportunity cost with Phi, and that is that it's hard to whip and it's hard to work cottages when half of your population is tied up in Specialists. In addition, there's also the big problem of The Mids - Representation is an extremely desirable civic for a specialist economy, but the damn thing costs 500 hammers to build. One possibility then is to rush Metal Casting, chopwhip a forge somewhere, and then work up a specialist engineer as your first great person to rush the wonder. This would delay an academy, although you'd still get it pretty quick. I haven't actually tried this yet, but it's a possibility I've been chewing on a bit. Its an idea, anyways.

Leaders under consideration:

• Suleiman (Phi/Imp) - Sully the HAM Man, the king of SP Engineering rushes, is back and ready go crazy. Not only is Phi improved, but Imp improved as well, now sporting double-speed markets and banks for better economic recovery after your first war. It's such an all-in strategy though, so I'd still be quite nervous to try an Eng Rush here. Suleiman can also try to bulb Guilds with a Great Merchant from a market later, which requires Monarchy, Feudalism, and Civil Service (also bulbable with a GM).
  
• Alexander (Phi/Agr) - Alexander can make the most out of Caste System. Every bonus food becomes an extra half a specialist your city can work, extra infrastructure whipped in, and extra flexibilty in working other strong tiles (like gold mines or copper). In short, I consider him the Specialist's Specialist.
  
• Sitting Bull (Phi/Pro) - The idea here would be to dishonour this great man's IRL ancestors by bringing about the industrial revolution as soon as possible to get 5h, and later 6h workshops. Probably too convoluted to be of real use here, though I might test it in a single player game.
  
• Adolf Hitler (Phi/Ind) - This combo takes advantage of the lowered cost to Meta... Uh... woops... wrong mod....
  

[pindicator]

Hello and welcome to RB! Love the trait analysis, especially the IND and PHI thoughts. Keep 'em coming!

[Dp101]

[*] Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind) - HC's traits make the bottom half of the tech tree more atrHUAUEHUAHUAHAUHAHUYa no. Upon my honour, I will not play as HC in a game of Civilization 4.

What, do you think is is boring to play or something?