[PB79] Just one more Game

[xist10]

Startpost

I'd like to welcome my Deadlurker, Fenn

More possibly tomorrow.
Expect only limited updates here, of my 5 running stories 3 have fallen dormant and the other 2 are only moderately active.

Snakepick
Score on
1 city per deal
spies
barbs with ships
warwarriness
Coinflip for city races
NoHuts
NoEvents
NoVassals
NoTechTrading
NoUnitGifting
No Spymissions
True AI Diplo

Modified 30% water Tectonicts map; water action possible

Coldrain: Lincoln (PHI/CHA) of Native America
Giraflorens: Pacal (FIN/EXP) of Dutch (Netherlands)
xist10: Wang Kong (PRO/FIN) of Carthage
Miro: Lieu-Ye (ORG/PRO) of China
ricketyclik: Shaka (EXP/AGG) of Rome

Password:

grün

[greenline]

Your start:




(You do not actually have to pick Mansa Musa of Spain)

Tiles within the fat cross of the tile the settler is on will not change. I do not recommend simming based on tiles outside of the fat cross as those may change during final map revisions.

[xist10]

Rice, cows and fish. Sugar for later
I hope at least one island and a longer river.

No early luxus ressource, but my normale style of settling is many small cities, so not that important.

I have a 3 prod tile and fish, so a work boat start is viable.
I have no use for hunting in the moment, the same applies a bit for mystic and mining.

So agriculture/fishing would be ideal as startechs ?
But I think most start techs are viable, only something like hunting/mystic is not. - I need mining for bronzeworking.

What traits do I want ?
I tried a militaristic variant last game (AGG/CHA). I think about 2 eco traits this time.
So 2 of FIN, ORG, IMP, CRE. Maybe even PRO. Yes, CRE is not a real eco trait and EXP is eco trait, but I miss the worker bonus and the free culture is extremly convienient.

This makes 10 leaders viable - if we have a water map maybe even Qin with PRO/IND and the GLH ?
We have 4 (3) other player, wo can pick one of my leaders. I think, civ first is a good idea.
Because civs are very different.

I really took a liking on the romans praetorian in the PB72.
I'm still not convinced that praetorians are a good offensive unit, but the defensive potenzial ? In combination with catapults they remain viable till the enemy comes with cannons and MGs. (Still, if I remain at tech parity, the praetorians got outdated with macemen, so they are a "lose less" unit.)

Which other civs are interesting ? Cathage (anti melee horse archer, good UB on water maps), Mali (okay UU (horse archers will get a problem) and good UB) and Sumerian Empire (interesting UU and interesting UB).


And I still played a short time of with Mansa of Spain. Spains UB (and UU) seems interesting and FIN/SPI is not bad. Starting techs are still one of the better techs we have.

[xist10]

okay, we have a tiny tectonics map. This seems to be a bit to small for me, but...
Number of coast cities is not uniform. Tectonics - even with 30% water - can have huge coast lines on a large number of smallers lakes. Or we have a ocean and a very short coast.
Islands are not guaranteed too.

[Tarkeel]

Tectonics maps are usually have tilecount for a size larger than what it advertises though.

Carthage has one of my favorite UBs, but note that it is more costly than the base building.

[greenline]

I think Carthage's UB has won more games than any other UB except for the Incan one...

[xist10]

Why did I chooses Cathage ?
I really like the UU on paper.
A weaker horse archer, but a significant bonus against melee units ?
This is a counter against spearmen. Still not ideal 5*1,5 = 7,5; 4 *2 = 8, but a lot better than normal horse archers. Add a retreat chance and they should be trade okay. They are weaker than archers, but still in okay spot, I think.

The UB sound strong on paper too. 1 trade route is (with own island) at least 2c worth. Add the potential boni (from the harbor itself) and the harbor gives 6c ? 4 from the (PRO) trade route and 1 for 2 other traderoutes. This is strong. Even without the point, that this is a UB. I need 24c to get the same value from a market/lib - and this is with 100% gold/research. Another comparable UB (mali) needs 60c to get the similiar value. And here with 100% too.

I could go up in the order and choose my leader already.
With the traderoute UB, PRO seems a bit more interesting.
Or maybe EXP, because EXP has the harbor built bonus ?
I think, I will play again with Wang Kong (PRO/FIN).

[xist10]

I wrote a longer text in german. It's late, I translate it with DeepL.

Let's go through the players.

First choice is coldrain with Dreylin as Dedlurker.
1st choice was Lincoln (PHI/CHA), 2nd choice accordingly the Indians (Fishing/Agriculture, Dog Soldier, Totem Pole).

coldrain has completed 1 EitB PBEM so far. According to statement I mean not so much BtS experience ?
But the EitB game seemed relatively solid to me. But BtS<->FFH2 is not directly swappable and at least the EitB story has shown one or two problems in dealing with HI. But you can learn.
Dreylin is a very old hand at RB in terms of activity.
13 PB/PBEM and participation in 6 EitB PBEM - before 2017.
Recently, Dreylin was the only one to be successfully rushed in RB PB 74 and this year he finished 2nd in RB PB75.
Unfortunately, RB doesn't really have a tradition of hosting the images at the forum, so it's a bit harder to track the old PBs.

Honestly, the 1st choice hardly convinces me.
I think PHI is relatively weak in MP, the same goes for CHA - especially with the resource-rich RB cards.
I have had "relatively" successful players with both traits - PB93 and RB PB 72 (as far as you can call them successful), but in both cases PHI/CHA was the weaker trait.

And the Indians are also rather weak in my eyes.
Dog Soldier are probably better in the archer-poor MP environment than in SP, but I still consider -1 to be Brand dangerous. The additional +50% against melee fighters doesn't help much. Congratulations, you can attack the catapults in the attacker stack without any problems.
After all, the Totempole has a synergy with CHA, since UB no longer ages. The +1 is therefore retained.
The Totempole itself has also been reworked. In addition to the +3 EXP for archers, there is also EXP for gunpowder and melee units.
On the other hand, the death stake is now in archery - just as expensive as mysticism, but a dead end. Overall a small buff ?

I think the (forced) early archery means you're not necessarily in danger of being the first one out, but also nothing that screams Contender.

----------------------------------------

Next up, Giraflorens with Magic Science
1st choice the Netherlands (fishing/agriculture, East Indies rider, dyke), 2nd choice Pacal (FIN/EXP)


Giraflorens also has 4 PBs behind him, but that was 3 years ago and was semi-successful.
According to the last page of the stories, the first 3 were probably not particularly successful.
The first player eliminated in each case?
Still a positive trend, first eliminated against BBS, then against SKT, then against Kataphrakte.
In the "youngest" game, Gira survived after all (possibly due to the end of the game before R200 and Schützen ?!).
That's twice the number of games and (slightly) better results.

magic Science as Dedlurker is possibly also a term from RB PB 66. The highlight was building the Colossus while Plemo was standing in front of the city.
Actually also finished "only" 6 PB and a bit more successful than I have so far, I think.

The Dutch on a Tectonics map with 30% water? Well, we were told not to ignore the sea.
Nevertheless, the Dutch are late. Conversely, especially after CF PB93, I will be wary of underestimating the sea supremacy.
Pacal was long considered one of the best leaders at RB. FIN has been weakened somewhat, EXP has been stripped of the BT bonus and, in my view, has been weakened more in relative terms as a result.

All in all, I think the combination is quite dangerous. Probably only the 3rd best researcher - which is a bit unpleasant given the late "victory condition", but a relatively experienced team.

----------------------------------------

I'll be next.
Fenn is registered as Dedlurker, but so far no reaction here in the thread ?
Okay, I already wrote that it will probably be difficult to report in terms of time, but still no hello ?

Carthage has already been explained, so let's move on to the leader.
When I was able to choose my leader, there were still 9+ "acceptable" leaders.
In the end, I chose a PRO leader. I have had relatively good experiences with PRO (CF PB92) and the bonus on internal trade routes synergizes with the UB. Plus FIN as a general economy trait.

I think, on paper I have the best economy and useful early UU.

----------------------------------------

The 4th and 7th picks were miro with the Dedlurkers Gavagai & Mjmd.
1st pick was Lieu-Ye (ORG/PRO), 2nd pick China (Mining/Agriculture, Cho-Ko-Nu, Pavilion)
miro is a new player, by his own admission a bit of 1v1 experience. - This is potentially dangerous because early disruptive actions are arguably much more useful in 1v1 than in PB. Ideally, this disruptive action sets your opponent back more than you do. In PB, however, you have more than one opponent.
The Dedlurker team is too strong in my eyes. It depends a lot on interaction, but Mjmd was a very good advisor for Aetryn in RB PB 72.
Mjmd is arguably the best (or second best) player here and from experience a relatively dedicated Dedlurker.
I would possibly even see Gavagai as a stronger cIV player than Mjmd, but from the reports I sometimes get the feeling that Gavagai sees the whole thing as an SP game. The nuances have often sounded (to me) like "Why doesn't the opponent act the way I want (predicted)?"

ORG/PRO is a solid choice. I think FIN > ORG, especially if you're playing Emperor, but overall the two traits don't take much from each other.
China is also solid. The Chokos are one of 2, 3 UU that have something other than the 0815 (conditional) bonus. Collateral damage here. The tie to ABS is a bit annoying, but still a solid sounding bonus. The pavilion exists ? Theaters usually fly under the radar, but a good bonus here too.

Nothing flashy, but the overall package with the Dedlurkers ? Candidate for victory

----------------------------------------

And last up we have ricketyclik with the Dedlurker team Superdeath & Mr. Cairo.
ricketyclik with the 2nd game, after a disastrous performance in the RB PB 75. Nominally I was Dedlurker, but if nothing is written ? - And the hints are not followed up...

SD is the Monte from RB ? One of the most experienced players here, but as a dedlurker in PB72 only of limited help.
Mr. Cairo is also rather experienced and was first interested in playing himself ? I know relatively little and haven't gone through the older threads yet.

As the last player in the snakepick, civ and leader were chosen together.

Shaka (EXP/AGG) with Rome (mining/fishing, praetorians, forum).
Rome has solid startechs, one of the most significant UU in the game and the uninteresting forum.
Praetorians are good. Especially defensively, I am not yet 100% convinced of their (good) offensive potential.

AGG prets are even more dangerous. AGG is still not an early economy trait and EXP primarily has the fast granary. I prefer some AGG combinations - at least no AGG/CHA. The pick I made in the RB PB72 was a flop.
I think this pick might ruin someone else's game, but that's all I expect here.

[xist10]

Scout moved 2 tiles on a hill.
Nothing really interesting, I found direct.

ANd forgot to make a screenshot of the city.

After 3 test with the sandbox, I decided to start with an workboat and grow with the sugar tile.
WB->Worker is one turn slower, but I'm at size 2 when I finish the worker. Seems to be a bit better.
Worker first is not very good, because I don't have the correct starting techs - the worker is "idle" for 5 turns tiil I research bronze in this case. This means another grasslandfarm. When I farm the cows this is okay, but still not good.



I thought we have a smaller map ?
I think Greenline set the size after he generatet the map, or ?
And I thought we play on Emperor ? But this seems to be the correct settings.



Planned research.
BT tech, bronze, pottery and then towards the Great Lighthouse.
As PRO with islands, the GLH should be a good idea.

I need to research AH and mystic sometimes and I think after I got the requierements for the GLH its too late.

[greenline]

The map was rolled as tiny Tectonics, and the size was set to standard in the worldbuilder file afterwards to have the tech costs and city maintenance set to standard.