(November 3rd, 2018, 07:36)Boldly Going Nowhere Wrote: thanks. I agree that IND is the likeliest to break the game. And I also like Stalin a lot with the emphasis on naval conflict.
Did you previously have a concern that naval conquest was top easy? Or just wanted changes to provide meaningful counter to galleons which really didn't exist outside of 2:1 numerical superiority combined frigate stacks?
I like IND for forges. Wonders are gravy. Can't discount the value of significantly cheaper hammer boosts.
What is the hammer cost of the armoury?
The Armoury? Standard 60 hammers. Just got the XP bolted on top.
Naval conflict is...more complicated than such a simple system should be. What I want are the meaningful counters to galleons. Astro is a huge switch in base BtS and RtR 2.0.8.3, the game becomes global, safe back lines suddenly require a strong garrison in every city, and everybody needs a navy. There are no counters to CHM galleons outside numerical superiority as you said, and then everything falls apart. So the moment one player goes for Astro everyone has to follow, and because bulbs are the cheapest way to go there it distorts traits (PHI), GP game, civics (Caste), tech game (never tech Meditation). Astro is a drastic change in a mod that has smoothed out those large bumps in the game.
All those problems go away if there are other solutions that don't require Astro. If privateers are brought to Optics plus Paper, then everything snaps back into place.
Don't have to bulb to get naval counter units, but the cost is it's only defensive in nature (can stop incoming galleon stacks, so force other player to build privateers to defend their galleons, which reduces the ability to transport an invasion force in the first place. Yes, you can pillage nets, but can't bombard down city defnese, can't carry units except via slow caravels. But this requires Paper, which then opens up the lines through Paper to Education, PP, rather than the current routes of Nationalism and Astro.
IND has the forge boost, it has the copy of the national wonders, and it has 25% bonus on wonders. That last one can be removed. It's a test game, I'm looking to see if the concept of the copy of the NW is enough to make the trait viable. I'm still taking advice on what makes sense and peoples opinions on how to get the best understanding of the changes.
So long as we don't get another retarded start like in PB37 (triple food requiring three different food techs), I don't think that starting techs are going to matter much unless I want to make a play for religion first, or I have an opportunity to go work boat and BW first, and slave the first worker. Large tech costs are not unmanageable, and there is a link in the second post to the tech costs, but I'll put the relevant ones in this post:
With that in mind, I'm looking at Classical era through Ren era UB, and Medi era UU onwards as being more useful. I know that Big and Small maps, on large, can't return less than 1800 tiles. I know there is the potential for space, but you can find opponents 15 tiles or fewer close by. Even with that in mind, I'm not going to focus on picking, say, Egypt to WC rush someone. It is just as likely you start on your own subcontinent.
So these are the civs I like the idea of playing:
America - pick CHM leader, aim for CR3 swords and maces off boats to take out a player that started isolated.
Arabia - If I decide to go religion first, with one of CHM/CRE/FIN, but probably not CRE.
Carthage - pick EXP and a builder trait and play standard opportunism.
China - pick whatever traits enable an early Machinery and CKN coastal raiding, probably FIN to work coasts to stack up pop to then whip down for the army.
England - I think I like this the most, just pick FIN and an early game trait and see what happens. Maybe, just maybe, pick Huayna and then play the fundamentals to aim for the late game.
HRE - pick ORG/EXP (Mehmed, always wanted to play him, never been able to except the aborted PB24) and just play it straight empire building
Japan - CHM/CRE and see how tall it is possible to grow. Note, this likely needs an early hammer city to throw out the wide spaced settlers otherwise I think it gets crowded out.
Mali - play IND/PRO and the early game is safe wherever you start, late game is built around IND, but I think it will stall out in the mid game.
Portugal - the only civ that can complete ignore Astro, but realistically needs to be played as FIN/CHM if you want synergy. I don't think it needs synergy though.
Rome - AGG and boat people.
Vikings - Zerks don't get the city attack bonus of other maces because they are terrifying enough. Still worth it if you pick AGG/CHM or ORG/CHM or AGG/ORG.
Whilst I've said what I would look to pair with each civ, I don't think that's necessary in all cases. I'm still mulling over what traits I'd like to play, but I know I don't want to play SPI.
This map is going to be awesome. And FIN is going to be viable because these map settings give a lot of plains. It looks much more like a natural map, even if the resources are higher in density. Plains cottages FTW.
You seem giddy, that's nice. I like that you keep trying to improve the game even after all these years. Will be an interesting test, although my initial impression is that IND got waaaaaay too much.
May end up dedlurking this, but I've read some other threads pre snakepick.
Why the spiritual hate? Don't want to deal with the micro?
I've tried to answer this post, but was on the phone to BT for 2 hours...something not wanted on a Sunday.
I think SPI is probably the difference between a vet and an elite: the ability to read the game, to understand you it opponents, to strategize and plan for flexibility. I will always rate it as the trait that can give you the most, if you put the effort and skill in.
But I don't have that time, nor, probably, the skill anymore. I've had SPI in PB5 and I will never player better than I did that game. So I don't hate it.
IND is possibly OP now. I hold my hands up to that. But it is a late game trait and only has an effect from MC, and then from T120 onwards, so I think that if it is OP, we are going to see the trait explode. And we will know it is IND that is broken so it'll be a good test and we will have gotten a game out of it.
For the test, I've just duplicated everything including the requirements, but that means we can alter the tech requirements, cost, output of all of them after we've seen how this version works. So if we feel HE and NE need to be pushed back to balance it, to say, Nationalism, or just Music, we could do that. We get so many more levers to balance IND with this version of the trait. That's why I'm not particularly bothered how it plays out, if IND is the dogs bollocks, it's probably quite the easily fixed.
I'm not sure PHI gets totally needed in comparison, because even after the IND player builds the second NE, they have two cities throwing out 200% modifiers, whereas PHI has one city making 350% and every other city still makes 250%. PHI is still going to play a longer game for some of the low 1000 point GP that IND is going to struggle to make, given how the GP game is built around Pacifism in Golden ages, and PHI can more easily finish off the GP without those benefits. And then there is the tech costs of Lit and how early it will get researched when competing with MC, and that IND is a trait down on everyone. I think IND is going to struggle to push those two national wonders into breaking the game, I think it's more like that the IND player will leave a window of opportunity where someone comes calling with HA, or in this case, AGG Praets off boats.
![[Image: about-husbandry-01.jpg]](http://www.greatplainsbeef.com/PublishingImages/Siteart/about-husbandry-01.jpg)