Pre-Game Discussion

[oledavy]

Hello all! And welcome to the Pre-Game Thread for Team #3 - consisting of myself, DazedRoyalty, WarriorKnight and Shoot the Moon. Scooter and Ilios are already ded-lurking for our team, and we would happily welcome anyone else who wants to help us on our epic quest to win Pitboss 6.

[scooter]

Dedicated [strike]spammer[/strike] lurker checking in.


Also, if you are currently on the sidelines but would like to help a team pull off the upset and beat the Spullla team, ded-lurk us and join in the discussion . I believe this sub-forum will be quite active given how long our chain-email has already gotten before this forum even got created. I think Oledavy has put in more time to figuring out the map already than Plako.

[oledavy]

We've already had pretty extensive email correspondance on picking leaders and civs, which I'm reposting here for the sake of anyone following the game.

Green = Oledavy
Purple = Dazed Royalty
Red = Shoot the Moon
Orange = WarriorKnight
Magenta = Scooter
Cyan = Ilios

[COLOR="Green"]Hey guys,

WarriorKnight and I had a chat this morning, and we started tossing around ideas for possible civ/trait combinations.

Basically, we approached it in this manner: we need a fighter, a techer, and an expander.

Expander - Builds settlers for the entire team, grows quickly, supports late game tech rate with the large empire
Techer - Limited early expansion, supports the early tech rate, builds wonders for the team.
Fighter - Protects the other two, keeps Spulla from killing us :P

Here are the civ combinations we arrived at:

Techer: (Fin/Ind) Huyana Capac of India
Expander: (Phi/Imp) Suleiman of Inca/England
Fighters (???/Cha) of Mongols

We hadn't decided on a trait to go with charismatic yet, though we were leaning towards agg.

Trait Explanation

Traits We Chose

Financial - Hardly needs an explanation.
Industrious - We discussed wonders and agreed that getting either of the early wonders - The Great Library or The Hanging Gardens would be huge. Quick Forges are great by themselves imho.
Philosophical - We chose this in order to speed getting a GM early on to bulb bureaucracy. Additionally, in an AW game, GAs become a lot more important with their ability to push citys out to level 4 borders and +60% defense instantly.
Imperialistic - Medieval starts increase the cost of settlers, so imperialistic will be important to getting them out. +100% GG generation is nothing to sneeze at in an AW game either.
Charismatic - Chose this mostly with the -25% XP for promotions in mind. The effect we had in mind was instant three promo knights. The extra happiness for someone that will be whipping a lot of soldiers is a nice synergy as well.

Traits We Considered

Aggressive - Fairly straightforward.
Protective - (Shoot forgive me for considering this one still :P) We thought about this one in combination with aggressive: Tokugawa of France/Ottomans for 5 promo Musketeers/Jannisaries right off the bat.
Spiritual - As I told WK, I am a huge fan of abusing this trait to basically run several civics simultaneously. However, we could not find a way to really work with any of the other economic traits we chose. If we can though, I call it :P

Traits We Ruled Out

Creative - We get a religion right off the bat, so while this would be good for popping borders for defense, we probably will not need it.
Organized - Simply better traits out there, free lighthouses also make this trait lose a bit of its luster. Fast Courthouses are always good, as well as quick factories if the game runs to that point - it just struck us as being a low priority one considering the other ones out there.
Expansive - With a free granary in every city, this one of the most powerful traits in the game loses its best quality. While expansive would still be kinda nice for workers, it just pales in comparison to some of the other ones (Shoot will disagree with me on this one).

Civilization Explanation

India - Hardly needs an explanation either. Fast workers are the best UU in the game and having India will allow a lot of flexibility. This civ will probably be supplying workers to all three civilizations by mid game.
Mongolia - Keshiks will allow an early rush option which - but we considered this civ mostly for the Ger, which will combine nicely with charismatic for our three promo knights.

WK and I could not agree on a civilization to go with the Expander, he favored England, I favored Inca.

England - Choosing England will give us a powerful late game UU. I feel like the game will be decided by mass drafted armies or rifles, and the redcoat would give us a decisive edge in that regard. The Stock Exchange is nothing to sneeze at either. Our expander civ will probably be carrying the tech rate by late in the game and the stock exchange would help in this endeavor.
Inca - Free terrace in every city means +3 culture right off the bat, a faux creative if you will. This has a nice synergy with our expander civ. WK argued that with a religion and GA bombs around, this culture is unnecessary. My argument is that this is hammers we don't need to throw into missionaries early on and will allow us to have a decisive edge in any border disputes

Civilizations We Considered

Japan - Samurai hardly need an explanation, though the shale plant is terrible. That's provided the game lasts that long.
France - While the Salon sucks, the Musketeer's ability to fork cities cannot be overated, especially if we use it in conjunction with agg/pro for five promotion muskets.
Ottomans - The Jannisary not quite as amazing as the Musketeer, but the Hamman is arguably the 2nd best UB in the game.
China - CKNs come online early and are good for most of the game. Pavilion is rather Meh.
Zulu - In the couple of test medieval start MP games I played, I used Zulu to great effect - wreaking havoc with Impis early on and razing two of Luddite/GES's cities. The Ikhanda is not bad by itself either. While a major early rush is certainly a dubious idea, pillaging with Impis could help us expand without being harried as much.
Spain - Conquistadors could be rather awesome, as a two move unit that has good odds against it's counter. Citadels and three promo siege could also be fun to play around with.

Explaining the Choices

Huyana Capac of the Indians (Techer)

The basic opening strategy for this civ would be to pump out a couple fast workers then chop out the GL or HG. As the game progresses, it would leverage financial to support the tech rate for the team in the early game, while pumping out and gifting fast workers.

Suleiman of the English/Incans (Expander)

This player would revolt into caste system and use one of his two cities to quickly churn out a GM for civil service, (allowing us to tech Machinery first and have instant access to crossbowmen and macemen), while churning cheap settlers out of the second city. After producing the GM, the GP farm would switch over to Great Artists for culture bombs. This civ would gift sustain all three civ's expansion rate by gifting settlers.

???/Cha of the Mongols (Attack Dog)

This civ would pump ouf military units more or less nonstop and gift to the other two civilizations. The keshik allows the option of an early rush. I would say more but the approach for this is fairly straightforward.

Explorers

I don't know how many of you have played a medieval start game, but you start with an explorer and they are insanely powerful - basically unkillable sentries. I spoke to Speaker the other night, and we talked about having Plako edit the game so each team starts with a scout. If this goes through, it might be worth our while to save gold for a couple turns and upgrade a scout or two into an explorer.

One thing we need to talk about if we have an industrious civ is what other wonders we want to target during this game...or we could just pull a Lord Parkin and grab everything :D

All credit to Shoot for tempering some of my ideas.

Regards,
Dave[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Hey team,

A few thoughts:

- I'm definitely on board for Inca and India. I'm not sold on Mogolia. Keshik is outdated too fast. I really like the idea of China though for the CKNs or Spain for Conquisadors and Citadels. Not officially casting a vote, but that's my inclination.

-I think EXP needs a second look, especially for whoever is gonna be India.

-I'm not sure "Expander" is a great description for our third team. Obviously, having IMP to expand quicker is great but really everyone needs to expand so I'd prefer not to set as one team's specialty just for the sake of how we think about each team.

-I'm not in favoring of upgrading scouts with gold.

I would write more but I have to go to a work meeting!

Dazed[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Red"]Hey all,

My thoughts, in no particular order:

I'm going to agree with Dazed about not wanting to set each team's specialty too much at this point. In my opinion its going to be more important to have three strong civs than say having one designated as "stay small so you can carry an early tech rate" civ. That doesn't mean there won't be opportunities for utilizing traits or specialization during the game (for example after the initial expansion I am sure we'll want fast workers on all combat fronts for their military uses and Ind is obviously suited for wonders). But at least at the start of the game, I expect our civs will be too far apart to have any great means of cooperation. Keep in mind too that there is no guarantee that our civs will be grouped together -- we should make sure all of the civs are as strong on their own merits as they can be, not expect one civ to cover for another's weakness.

I rather strongly dislike Mongolia as one of our civ choices. For that matter, I would probably be against most civs geared for a quick rush. We're in a four team game, so even if we were to rush another team, all that's likely to accomplish is slowing down both our teams while the other two continue to expand. I'd rule out Zulu for that exact same reason. You might be able to convince me to take a civ with an opening era uu (perhaps China) with the idea of dissuading a rush against us, but again I think early rushes will just set back both teams in all likelihood. Keep in mind too that we have alphabet from the start, so we will be able to know at all times what units other teams are capable of fielding.

As another civ idea, perhaps flip England down to the third civ and instead of cha have it be agg and something else with the second civ being Inca. Gives us a decent attacking option at rifling to aim for.

Another potential idea would be org/imp of HRE. Not sure it is better than our other choices, but something to throw out there.

In terms of traits, I think you guys rated pro much, much too highly -- it is still a trait that only really shines in conflicts where you have a negative-sum outcome, which in a four team game we want to avoid. I'd also rate cha lower than you guys have (I'd put it in the "worth considering" category myself). I like spi, as being able to switch between caste (for easy artist border pops or GPs) and slavery is nice, as is switching between OR and Theo. Spi could also have a nice synergy with philo, allowing for alternating periods of slavery and OR/Theo for getting out infrastructure or units and caste (perhaps even with pacifism) for great people.

Probably not relevant to picking civs, but it is probably a smart idea to have one team be a funding civ and another a researcher (and then depending on costs/gold production the third can research with whatever is left over or their own break even research). That way, we can save hammers by having one civ build markets/grocers/banks/wallstreet and the other libraries/universities/Oxford. Because of the phi bonus on universities that civ might make sense as a researcher and England ha inherent synergy with funding because of the stock exchange, but we can figure that out based on the land (and based on which civ gets the holy city).

My understanding is that we are going to need to put some beakers into Civil Service even with the GM bulbing it, so that should probably be our first tech priority.

Just an idea, but I think it might be a good idea to have all of the civ passwords be the same. Although I agree with Dazed that we should probably have one (or at the most two) people be in charge of playing each civ, that would allow say both myself and Dave to be logged in and looking at the game at the same time. I also agree with Dazed's previous email that we should take responsibility for all three civs.

One last thing. I can't remember if these links were posted in the game thread (I know I sent one of them to Dave regardless), but both of these are must reads (the second probably just so we are aware of the strat if someone tries to pull it on us). However, keep in mind these strategies are in regards to games with only two teams (and thus as long as you hurt the other civ worse than your own, you can come out ahead in conflict. In our game, such an outcome only means both teams fall behind the other two.)
http://fastmoves.wordpress.com/2010/03/0...val-start/
http://fastmoves.wordpress.com/2010/03/1...he-hammer/

Shoot
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Orange"]Might as well chip in:

-I'm still not fond of Inca. True, a free terrace in every city practically gives a free Creative trait. But there are several other options available for expanding borders that I just think it's a waste. Plus UU is worthless. I do see the benefit of immediately expanding borders without needing a missionary or something, but I think there are better options available. (BTW, if we do have border tensions with someone (unlikely given AW), easiest way to solve that is a GA bomb, not with terraces)

-While Mongolia is a decent choice, I still think we should consider some of the alternatives. In particular, I'm mostly leaning towards France, although I'd still be happy with China, Zulu or Mongolia. (Mongolia isn't chosen for the rush (although it is an option) but rather for the Ger, which with Byz banned is the only way to boost Knights)

-India is obviously a must have, while I'm starting to think England will be fairly important as well.

-I don't like HRE either, the UB requires us to build courthouses (which would normally be a low priority building) and are expensive unless we take ORG (a trait we would otherwise want to avoid). UU is ok but not that great since it'll just mean we don't need to build maces, plus melee units will quickly be obsolete.

-I think EXP shouldn't be picked or even considered. With no free granaries the only bonus is +25% worker production speed, which is rather underwhelming given how cheap workers are and the power of chops. Compared to IMP, settlers are +50% more expensive in Medieval and IMP gives +50% boost to building them. Plus which trait would it replace? Fighter should probably only take warring traits while FIN, PHI and IMP have to be taken be someone given their strength. That leaves IND, and since there are only 3 other teams competing for them I think the boost would be worthwhile. I think SPI is also a better choice than EXP.

-Shoot is probably right about CHA and PRO. SPI is really only useful in combination with PHI, but the two together could be quite useful if we have enough room for SPI.

-About the "Expander" sure, every needs to expand, but settler's are 50% more expensive then usual so long term it would be better for someone who builds them quicker to build them for the entire team while the rest of the team build what they specialize in (huayna builds wonders, infra and fast workers, fighters builds units). Of course, in the early game everyone will need to do their own expansion to be useful later on and if we end up isolated we obviously won't be able to specialise our civs as much as possible, but if we are close enough to help each other being able to specialize would be very useful. (If we are isolated, then it might as well be a normal solo medieval start with pooled research)

-Also I don't think the techer should limit early expansion just for early tech rate. Everyone needs to be able to expand by themselves to decent core at the beginning unless we're rushing (which I don't think we should do IMO). Only once we are close enough to be able to co-ordinate with each other can our specialty roles come into effect, but that might never happen if the map maker decides to isolate everyone.

-I'm also against upgrading scouts, while it does make our scout slightly better than the archers everyone starts with, it won't be once everyone starts building units. We could be getting Bureaucracy quicker with the gold instead.

WK[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Hey Team,

Ilios hasn't responded with his ideas yet, but I thought I'd go ahead and summarize our discussion so far.

Scooter is ded-lurking for us. If anyone has his email could you please forward our discussion to him so we can get his two cents?

We've moved away from the idea of civilizations with narrowly defined roles, and seem to be gravitating more towards civs with strengths that play each other (i.e. India build wonders and IMP supply settlers as the game progresses, etc).

The early rush option or harassment rush has pretty much been ruled out. We've all pretty much agreed that this game will be won by whoever expands the best during the medieval era, and major wars won't come about until the era of rifles - elevating the importance of the English and possibly the Russians.

If we choose a civ for a UU - keep in mind the era in which we'll be fighting. For this reason, the UU should be late renaissance/early industrial era (Conquistador, Redcoat, Cossack, Panzer). If we choose an earlier UU, it will probably just be used for the intimidation factor, with the exception of the Cho-Ko-Nu, which is good for quite awhile for cheap collateral damage.

The biggest debate is whether or not the Inca are a worthwhile choice.

Pros
- Instant +3 culture in every city, a faux creative.
- It will allow the civ to not spend hammers in missionaries, or god-forbid, a monument.
- It will give the city its first border pop and a 20% defensive bonus in 4 turns, which in an AW game, will make defending new plants easier.
- If the Inca plant next to an enemy city, the +3 culture can easily overpower the opponents culture - unless they are also Inca.

Cons
- We have other sources of culture, most notably a religion right off the bat, which we're going to want to spread around anyway for the Organized Religion Bonus (which will additionally allow us to spread the religion around pretty quickly without the need for monasteries).
- The UU is already outdated and constitutes a wasted UU spot on our team.
- If we need to fight for borders, it would be more prudent and decisive to use a GA bomb.

The idea of ORG/IMP Holy Roman Empire has been floated for consideration, and is worth at least considering given the Rathaus and a solid, though defensive, UU.

Disregarding picking HRE though, here is the civ combination we seem to be gravitating towards

Huyana Capac (FIN/IND) of India
Gandhi (SPI/PHI) of Inca/Spain/China
Genghis Khan (AGG/IMP) of England

I personally really like this potential combination, but I'm only one of four people :P Thoughts?

Regards,
Dave[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Orange"]I agree with most of oledavy's post. Few things though:

-I disagree that major fighting won't occur until Rifling. The tech pace in the early game is really slow, and that means it'll be a while before we leave medieval era units. Given that we're probably going to be taking England, the other teams will surely know we're a threat later and will want to do something before then if possible (Sulla did say that action could take place around t25-30, and you said Kuro wanted to take Toku of France, so their definitely thinking about medieval warfare). I would feel safer if we took 1 civ with a medieval UU so we have a better chance defending. In addition to China, I like France as well (draftable 2 mover available fairly early).

-We won't be able to reach tanks in a reasonable timeframe, so Germany for Panzer's probably aren't worth it. I'm not a fan of Spain either (Conq's are only better than their counterparts killing obsolete units while Citadels require us to build castles everywhere and the bonus to cats is arguably not worth the cost of the UB).

-I've already mentioned how I don't like Inca or HRE so I won't go into that.

Apart from that though, I do like the combination of civs that you've suggested. If we add Shoot idea's of splitting gold/research up, Genghis could expand a ton and become a gold provider while FIN Huayna and cheap Uni's Ghandi keep a decent tech rate and do the majority of teching.

WK[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Adding scooter!

Scooter, these are only the two most recent emails in teh thread. My gmail sucks apparently and didn't keep them all.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hey guys. I'm about to catch up on the emails written so far, but I suggest we all stop and read this first:

http://fastmoves.wordpress.com/2010/03/0...val-start/

I haven't read it yet, but that site has some *very* good guides on different MP starts/settings, and this is the Medieval start article. Speaker himself has commented before that this city has very sound advice, and I've seen a lot of big MP names talk about it, so it's good stuff. [/COLOR]

[COLOR="Magenta"]About to head to lunch where I'll finish reading that article (some critical info about Medieval mechanics is in there), but some quick thoughts about traits. Basically, we get each trait no more than once, so we look at all the traits and pick 6.

Financial - duh yes
Imperialistic - yes yes yes (settlers more expensive on Medieval, plus provide settlers for teammates)
Philosophical - yes
Expansive - probably yes (provide workers for teammates, however granaries come automatically in medieval and are not built so the value here is a touch lower)
Spiritual - probably yes, maybe as a Phi/Spi pairing
Industrious - iffy (I need to revisit which wonders are banned, but it seemed like a lot, so I'm not sure on this)
Aggressive - maybe
Charismatic - maybe
Protective - no thanks[/COLOR]

[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]
DL checking in.

Good discussion going on!

Before I add my 2 cents, could someone clarify a couple of things first.

- I'm going to assume that civs are not going to be decided by snake picks, and duplicate leaders are allowed?
- Are duplicate leaders/civs within the same team allowed?
- You are assuming team members start next to each other, have you anticipated if this is not the case?


2011/8/3 shead to lunch where I'll finish reading that article (some critical info about Medieval mechanics is in there), but some quick thoughts about traits. Basically, we get each trait no more than once, so we look at all the traits and pick 6. [/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Hey Ilios!

Great to have you onboard :D Against the Dream Team of Speaker, Sulla and Sunrise, we're going to need all the help we can get.

Clarifications:

- Civs are NOT going to be decided by snake picks, and duplicate leaders ARE allowed.
- Duplicate leaders and civs within the same team are NOT allowed.
- We have anticipated that possibility. But I highly doubt that is the case. Otherwise what is the point of making it a team game? It'll just be three civs with pooled research.

If you go through the emails, we have a pretty good idea of the traits we want: FIN, PHI, AGG, IMP, SPI, IND. Though we're certainly not done and haven't ruled out any yet. (except probably PRO :P).

What we're still deciding is how to pair everything and what civs we should go for (India for sure, split on picking the Inca or not).

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say about it all.

Regards,
Dave[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Magenta"] To answer Ilios' question:

The rule is every team can use each trait no more than once (so you get 1 Financial civ, 1 Phi, etc), but you can pair them any way you like. No duplicate civs.

I like Mongolia a lot actually, and NOT for the Keshik... But pair the Mongolian Ger with a Chm leader,and you have the best Knights in the game (Byz is banned), which is a big deal as I think Knights will be a pretty key unit for this game. My gut was that we want Inca, but after giving it more thought, I'm not so convinced that we want to bother with Inca OR Expansive. What would you rather have, Terraces or Redcoats? In ancient, I'd say Redcoats, but in Medieval where we start with a religion AND start in Organized Religion, it has to be Redcoats. Expansive is tossed out because no granary bonus makes Expansive a pretty weak trait, especially in Medieval start - workers are NOT more expensive than ancient start, so the bonus for Expansive is really minimal.

I believe we generally agree on Fin/Ind India right? For our other two, I'd like to see this considered:

Phi/Spi England - Yes, Spiritual. Spiritual will let this person frequently swap between Slavery and Caste, so they can pump great people. When Redcoats become a factor, it allows them flexibility for swapping in and out of Nationhood for drafting... And also gives them flexibility to swap into Pacifism + Caste together for uber great people pumping. I think Phi and Spi HAVE to go together - the synergy is more than impressive.

Since that bumps Imperalistic away from England, I'd suggest our final pairing be Chm/Imp Mongolia. And remember, this is NOT for Keshik rushing, though if we scare people away with it then good for us. This is for super-promo'd Knights... And for Imperialistic which is a top-tier trait in Medieval.

I think that gives us three GREAT civ combos that are all strong by themselves and not overly-reliant on teammates, but at the same time they can be leveraged into helping teammates if need be. Thoughts?
[/COLOR]

*minor editing fail: it should read "In ancient I'd say Terraces, but in Medieval . . . has to be Redcoats"

[COLOR="Magenta"]Talked to Krill via chat and shared our thoughts to get some feedback. He argued for this combo:

Fin/Exp India
Spi/Phi Inca
Agg/Imp Rome

Just for what it's worth. Said Industrious was a waste of a trait, even with a weak Expansive. Also felt Terrace was definitely worth it, and said Aggressive Rome is still a monster because Iron is visible and no one starts with Feudalism. Said Chm Mongols was redundant as you can still get to 3 promo with Chm + Vass + Theo.

As for why such an emphasis on the early stuff (terraces/expansive/etc) was because:

Krill: it's an FFA
you grab as much land as possible and hold it
and tech to inf[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]I've been an ardent supporter of Inca from the beginning and that hasn't changed. Claiming land is incredibly important in AW games and I think being able to get CRE without having to use the CRE trait is a hands down for me personally.

I like AGG/IMP combo though Rome isn't a huge selling point. I've already commented that I'm not a fan of Mongolia though so Rome would be better. I'd still like England over Rome.

Spi/Phi have to go together.

Fin/Exp makes sense. IND is nice but how many wonders do we actually think we're going to build? Honestly, I'd like a neighbor team to try to build wonders while we build units. Then we can just take em! :D Even with granaries, quick workers speed up the start, which is -- as we all know -- a snowball effect. ESPECIALLY with India. getting those workers into play ASAP and moving onto forests and trading them with other players.... India will be spending lots of time building workers so reducing that by 25% is big.

In short, I like this list with the change from Rome to England (which gets a better unit, imho, and a much better UB).

Also, does anyone have thoughts about which Civ/combo they prefer to be primary player for?

Dazed[/COLOR]

I'm not completely sure I can speak for Shoot, but I would love to take Gandhi of the Inca/English? Abusing spiritual is one of my favorite things to do in civ and between the two of us, I think we could MM it pretty well.

[COLOR="Orange"]Krill's combo is interesting. However, there doesn't seem to be a Chm leader in there for 3 promo Knights (although I guess AGG Rome makes up for it). While Rome is indeed a monster in the beginning, it won't be dominant for long, but it may give us the medieval boost we need to reach Rifling.

I could manage with EXP India and Inca. I still think that if we do change Rome to England then we'll need some sort of Medieval UU to at least threaten the other teams during that era (and make them think twice about attacking thanks to England). Any of CHM (3 promo Knights), France, China, Rome would give us something interesting to use.

As for the civ to play, I was Pacal in PBEM8 so for variety's sake I should probably play Genghis. Although I wouldn't really mind as long as I'm not Inca.

WK[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Magenta"]Here's a more lengthy paste from my chat with Krill, where he does mention the 3-promo Knights thing and why he felt it's irrelevant:

Krill: ha

knights is a fools errand

me: why's that?

Krill: it's an FFA

you grab as much land as possible and hold it
4:42 PM
and tech to inf

me: right, but i mean strong knights is pretty ideal for defense right?

longer lifespan than praetorians for instance. plus it's a 2-mover
4:43 PM
Krill: knights can not flank cannons

knights are used as a stop gap to run over anyone really backward that can't get to LB
4:44 PM
use them to flank cats in defense

on defense, the lack of combat 3 will not matter

you build cats

you hit them with cats

then you clean up
4:45 PM
Charismatic is great for the 1v1, but not in an FFA

me: i guess i figure if 2/3 civs have no military UU, am i crazy for thinking we want our third one to be something better than a praet?

Krill: in the 1v1 you slave out a shitload of knights

you do that in an FFA and you lose though

me: right i get that

Krill: you can see iron from the start of hte game
4:46 PM
you do not start with feud

me: i just can't help but feel that boosted knights or redcoats would serve as a better defensive boost than praets, because if we're getting attacked seriously in the praetorian age we probably can't win anyways

Krill: it's fucking christmas!

me: hahaha

Krill: you don;'t fucking research rifling

that's like another 100 turns into the game

you're normally dead by then[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Orange"]OK I think I see what Krill's getting at. Since no-one starts with Feudalism or a decent tech rate, everyone starts with archers and unless they go for Feudalism straight away, it'll be quite a while before anyone can get something better than that. Preats are available instantly, own archers and still have decent odds against LB's. First real counter is maces, but that requires 2 techs which will take quite a while to get to.

Basically no-one will have the tech rate necessary to research anything for a while, and preats will shine during that period.

Would say more but gotta run.

WK[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Pardon me for disputing Krill, but after consideration I don't think praetorians are worthwhile to go for.

I disagree with his fundamental thesis that the game will see massive wars and be over in the first 100 turns. I think any wars before muskets/rifles will be costly and only put the respective teams behind the game. Imho, this game will all about expansion and developing your civ in the medieval period, with no major wars until drafting muskets and rifles becomes an option.

Unless we really want to dedicate ourselves to an early war, it would be a waste to get Praets - otherwise useful only for the intimidation value. They can be countered by one tech: machinery right off the bat. The Forum is so negligible as a UB, it's not worth considering. I would much rather go with England and dominate the renaissance battlefield in addition to a solid UB. [/COLOR]

[COLOR="Red"]Wow, a lot to respond to.

First off, I am starting to cool toward Inca. There is a 1 in 3 chance they start with a religion and become a completely worthless civ choice. Further, right now it seems we are planning to pair Inca with a spi leader. Seeing as spi allows for easy border pops by running an artist in caste, it seems that spi at least somewhat takes care of the major advantage of Inca already. Finally, we also have theaters available from the start, which are relatively cheap to begin with. If we are going with Rome (which I think is an idea worth considering) I'd rather go:

Fin/(either Ind or Exp) India
Spi/Phi England
Agg/Imp Rome

By having England be Phi, that has a nice synergy with having them potentially be the funder to while also getting the GM out. Spi also plays well into being able to switch in and out of nationalism/theocracy later on. If we don't go with Rome, I think France could play well instead in that slot.

In regards to Ind vs. Exp, Dave and I were discussing it, so I'll just go ahead and copy and paste that to avoid retyping all of it.

me:
I'm starting to rather cool off to inca
David: lol, I'm starting to cool off on EXP
me: yeah me too
25% worker just isn't all that terribly great
it makes a huge difference on ancient with a 2 hammer start
but on med you'll be chopping (with math) your initial workers anyway
David: I ran some tests in WB on exp
with India
you chop your first worker out 2t faster
presuming India builds ~40 works diring the course of the game
you'll save 480 hammers, plus the snowball effect of getting workers out a bit earlier
Harbor and health bonuses are negligible
me: then again the initial wonders aren't terribly expensive
great library can just go to whoever gets marble
and has a natural synergy if phi can get it anyway
David: But it only takes 1t to lose out on the HG or GL
Krill was against GL or HG saying they were both sucker bets
me: I think they are sucker bets during the initial expansion phase
and then if we build them later, the couple of turns Ind helps won't matter as much
me: they are relatively inexpensive wonders after the expansion phase is over compared to what they give, but in terms of what you give up by building them during the expansion phase they come out rather expensive

Shoot[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Red"]One final note. Speaker just posted about voting as a team for either quick or normal. Considering the turns are going to be slow to begin with, I'm in favor of quick. Quick is also what I am used to microing with after all these PBEMs.

Shoot[/COLOR]

Davy, I think you're overestimating how quickly we'll expand and get to rifles. Teching will be VERY slow for quite a while because we'll be working on techs that cost in teh 1000s instead of the 10s. Obviously, not as slow as starting Industrial, Modern, Future, but it will take a while. While we do need to expand quickly (a point I've made previously), I do not expect the map to have expansive open areas. I imagine we'll start close enough that potential conflict can and will be as early as Sulla suggested (T25). I guarantee that there will be conflict before Rifling unless someones foolish enough to let a neighbor peacefully tech there.

I have no preference on Quick vs. Normal. If we want to take Rome, though, Normal would be much better.

I'm in favor of normal, though obviously if we choose Rome it will be much better. Note that there will be a 'normal' distribution of marble and stone on the map. This nerfs industrious somewhat.

[COLOR="Orange"]If we take Rome (which is seeming more and more likely) then I agree that we should take normal. Otherwise probably quick as with sequential turns the game will take quite a while.

As for IND vs EXP I think I like EXP better, because even though the worker bonus is small if we do get a source of stone/marble then we can share it around between us to whoever needs it, and the +50% bonus is rather negligible compared to those bonuses (and only applies to 1 person in the team, it would be better to be flexible regarding who builds it). Plus there aren't that many wonders out there worth grabbing.

WK[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Hey Team,

Just wanted to take a moment to summarize the current choices and the general train of though again, as well as make some comments based on the map (apologies in advance if I repeat much of what you already know). The occasional summaries seem to help in moving the discussion moving forward.

Civ #1

Pacal(Fin/Exp) of the Indians
Huyana Capac (Fin/Ind) of the Indians

Exp or Ind?

Presuming India builds ~40 workers for itself and the team over the course of the game (which is probably a little high), expansive effectively saves 12 hammers per worker or 480 hammers total. This is in addition to the snowball effect of getting each out a bit earlier, approximately 2t for chopping out the first one. The health and harbor bonuses are pretty negligible. The health bonus will probably not come into play much in this game and isn't amazing to begin with. On a lakes map, harbors lose a lot of their value. Overall, the only reason to really consider Exp is the 25% worker bonus.

In the game details, Speaker said the map would have a normal distribution of marble and stone.' Presumably, this means each team will have marble and/or stone fairly close by. This diminishes the value of industrious somewhat, for building wonders. If we are determined to net either the HG or GL, it might still be worth it, otherwise the effect is not as big. Cheap forges are always amazing of course. However, imho, their value is diminished slightly by having a religion and organized religion from the beginning.

Basically, we can spend 40 hammers on a missionary to get the 25% production bonus (on buildings), 1 happy and 1 culture vs 120 hammers into a forge for the same bonus (on everything though). A forge gives the 3 bonus happy yes, but since gold, silver and gems will not be near our starts (see Speaker's map notes) it won't come into play until after the initial expansion phase. Basically, while we still obviously want forge in every city, it doesn't have quite the urgency it normally does, and we could do without having Industrious Forges.

Civ #2

Gandhi (Spi/Phi) of the Inca???

Which Civ?

These traits have not been debated at all. I have already said a lot about the Inca as a civ choice so I will not repeat it here. If we do not decide to pick the Inca, I think the civ choices we considered in the event we do not pick Inca were:

England
China
Spain

Someone correct me if I missed one.

Civ #3

Cyrus (Imp/Cha) of Rome/England/Mongolia
Genghis Khan (Imp/Agg) of Rome/England/Mongolia

Agg or Cha?

This trait choice depends much on civ choice. If we go with Rome, Agg is a no-brainer. If we go with Mongolia or England, Charismatic may be better since it effects all units and additionally helps the economy through the extra happy.


Which Civ?

This has already been discussed in great detail, so I won't revisit it in great detail here.

Rome - Amazing UU (if a bit early) worthless UB
England - Solid UU, Solid UB
Mongolia - Solid UU, Amazing UB

Do we want the best cavalry in the world + the ability to rush/harass early? The threat of a praet rush + the intimidation factor of having praets? Or do we want a strong renaissance unit + a solid economic building?

The Traits We Left Behind

Organized - With the map cylindrical and the game on noble difficulty, courthouses won't be nearly as big a priority. To me at least, this is the final nail in the coffin of this trait. The other effects aren't worth considering compared to the combinations we already have imho.

Creative - With all the sources of culture we have + the possibility of picking the Inca - this trait just isn't worth it. The building bonus is negligible just by itself.

Protective - I know I was considering Pro for awhile in conjunction with Agg for extra strong GP units - but I've come to agree with Shoot that it overall is a 'negative sum trait' and not worth replacing one of the stronger traits we have chosen.

Dave[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Dazed just brought this to my attention. Plako has stated the map will be huge, so that probably rules out an early rush and makes two-mover UUs stand out a lot more.

Civs with two-mover UU's we considered:

France
Spain
Mongolia (thought would be more for super-cav than the keshik)

Am partial to musketeers or a CHA Mongolia myself. CKNs would be cool too. Despite my opposition, Krill has some pretty convincing arguments on Praets and might be worth still considering.

I had a discussion with Kyan regarding this. He suggested Imp/Ind for the 3rd civ. The logic being this civ will be focused on unit production and quick forges would help in this endeavor. Drawback being it removes any trait that directly improves our military. Thought it would at least be worth considering.
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Map Thoughts

I queued up a huge cylindrical lakes map with standard settings in World Builder today to get a look at what we'll be playing on.

The map I pulled was 83 tiles across and 52 tiles tall. I believe Plako will arrange us on a 3x4 grid, which each team getting a north to south strip - it seems like that would be the best way to balance it.

So, now for the math:

83x52 gives us 4,316 tiles total
Each team gets 1,079 tiles
Each civ gets 359 tiles

This means once fully expanded, each civ will have room for 15-20 cities - depending on how tightly you pack them in and how much water Plako puts on the map.

On a normal lakes map, approximately 20% of the tiles tend to be water. All the bodies of water are fairly sizable and many have water based resources available. Additionally, the top/bottom ~10 tiles are usually tundra and/or snow with a band of ice at the top and bottom of the map. I feel Plako will probably delete all the jungle in the equatorial band to make the game fair for the civ that starts in the middle, as well as do away with or reduce the tundra areas. As for water, he can go at it two ways, as it can't be completely random and balanced. I picture either large alternating lakes in fingers that give each team one long seaboard, and/or a scattering of very small lakes. In my terrible paint drawing the map is mocked up with large alternating finger lakes.

Spacing

Each civ should be approximately 20.6 tiles east/west from the nearest rival civ, and 17.3 tiles north/south from the nearest friendly civ. Civs that start near the north or south of the map will probably be 8.6 tiles from the bottom/top of the map. If there does turn out to be a significant tundra band, this distance will increase and the distances between friendly civs will decrease.

What Does This All Mean?

Hopefully the civ that falls in the middle will be our dedicated military civ. If I'm right aout the large finger lakes, then hopefully the techer/financial civ will fall next to it. It will obviously be most advantageous and easy to attack the center player on the enemy team and bisect the opposing team. Likewise, the center player on our team will be under the most pressure throughout the game. This potential map setup meshes well with our Great Artist spam plan:

SALIENTS

I felt the need to make that big, because even with my limited civ experience I feel these will be pretty damn important.

Each civ will probably expand west-east first and then north-south (claiming land and then hooking up with the allied civs). This means each civ will expand approximately in a oval - leaving those corners unsettled until the very end. These corners are high value strategic areas because an army based from a city there has the ability to attack two civs and a large number of cities from a central location - a salient in the enemy lines.

Basic strategy for taking advantage of these:

1. Find a decent city spot on a hill.
2. Road to it.
3. Detonate a GA bomb
4. Staff with units
5. Scream "COME AT ME BRAH!"

Each civ will have at most Four salients around it. Imho, it will be critical to seize control of these locations because they make attacking significantly easier, and forces the defender to build more units. If we don't and an opponent seizes control of these locations, they will have the ability to threaten a large number of our core cities with a relatively small force (think about a fast moving mounted stack coming in, splitting our defenders and razing/pillaging.

Of course, I would be completely wrong about the 3x4 grid and you just read a bunch of inapplicable bullshit.

Dave

[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Orange"]Your map theory is interesting, however plako may decide to arrange the map a completely different way, and since we still haven't completely decided on what civs we're taking we should probably focus on that for now.

I don't really like IND/IMP. Cheap forges are ok, but haven't we already been comparing IND to EXP in terms of usefulness already? If the IMP civ focuses on unit production, shouldn't they really get AGG or CHA for better units?

Regarding civs, if we're not going for a early rush, then I don't see why 2 mover UU's suddenly become more important. It was my understanding that we try and build for the majority of the game and once we get Rifles/Redcoats we attack with draftees. What I think is actually important is what civ would be best at defending while waiting for Rifles (or potentially able to threaten other civs into defense during that time period).

France and Spain both have decent UU's (France in particular) but my main problem with them is that it'll be a long time before we'll have the tech to get them (I estimate that it will take at least 50 normal turns (more likely 75) to get gunpowder, more than that more military tradition). The Keshik isn't that different from the HA's that everyone will have and while the Ger is nice, on defense the third promotion probably won't make a huge difference. CKN's give collateral damage, but on the defense cats are cheaper and cause collateral also. However they are immune to flanking which means they could be useful when we invade, although I don't know if that's enough to warrant picking them.

What I really like around Rome is that Preats are available immediately, and therefore anyone nearby will be quite paranoid about a preat rush. Sure, there are counters available at machinery, but the tech pace will be extremely slow at the beginning (it'll probably take around 35-40 turns to get your first tech if you don't bulb it) and there are better techs to get first than machinery (mainly CS or music, I assume everyone (except maybe Spulla + sunrise) playing in the game will go for one of those two since that's what the fastmoves article recommends). Once the other civs get machinery preats would still be useful as it's a very cheap unit that can still get odds with terrain or city bonuses.

Anyway, that's just my $0.02. What does everyone else think?

WK[/COLOR]

Pitboss 6 forum up on RB. Now we need a snazy team name :D

[COLOR="Magenta"]I would like to say that it's apparent that I need to relinquish my title as the resident map cracker. I've always enjoyed doing it, but I can't say that I've put that kind of analysis into it *before the map is even made*, hah. I like the thinking here, and I think there's a strong chance you're on the right track. I think it'll be a little easier to start making guesses once we've seen our starts, the surrounding land, number of tiles, demo information, etc.

Also - I think I covered this but just in case - a Chm civ doesn't need a Ger to get 3 promos. Chm + barracks + stable + vassalage + Theo gets you to 3.

But yeah I basically agree with everything WK wrote last night. I AM a bit hesitant on Rome though on a huge map... PB1 and PB4 will probably be most comparable (huge + lakes), and on both of those, rush units were worthless.

Are we Team3? If so, mind moving this discussion to our team forum? I suggest we run our sub-forum in a demo-game style, creating threads based on topic (we can start with a pre-game planning thread and continue this discussion there)... And maybe keep one central thread for brief reports.

Any suggestions on a team name? My creativity level is very low, so I'm not the person to ask there. [/COLOR]

[COLOR="Orange"]Yep we're Team 3. I'm a little hesitant to start topics in there since, unless it's been dealt with already, the other teams can see our topic titles thanks to last posts (although that isn't really an issue until later on) but maybe I'm just being paranoid.

WK[/COLOR]

Shouldn't be a problem as long as we use relatively benign thread titles right?

Just as long as we don't title a thread "Spulla Beatdown Plans" I think we'll be fine

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Let's just name every thread, "DESTROY SPULLA NOW"

:P[/COLOR]

Could also name a thread "TEAM 2 ALLY WITH US?" or something.

We could conduct diplomacy in game by naming our units something like: "Let's all Attack Spulla First" or "NAP until t150?"

If anyone made it through that massive wall of text, I heartily commend you

[dazedroyalty]

If anyone who's not on the team just read all those emails, you deserve a cookie!

[oledavy]

The Cookie Dazed Mentioned:

[oledavy]

Um...since we don't even have a team forum/topic yet, how are we supposed to already be choosing leaders?

I sure hope we weren't meant to be using PMs to decide our strategy, because that would be horribly clunky and the Lurkers wouldn't get to see...

:neenernee

[oledavy]

So...third post in a row but what the heck. This is to start discussion on the all important topic of what to name our team/thread

So, without further ado, here are all the dopey ideas I came up with off the top of my head:


My Little Always War Game: Friendship is Magic - Starring Dazed, Shoot, Dave and WK

"Their Power Levels Are Over 9,000!" - Team #3 with Dazed, Shoot, Dave and WK

Team Space Monkeys - With Dazed, Shoot, Dave and WK

If anyone doesn't know the song I'm referencing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g&ob=av3e

"I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing" - Team #3 with Dazed, Shoot, Dave and WK

"You're tearing me apart Spulla!" - The Room Starring Dazed, Shoot, Dave and WK

If anyone understood all those meme references, congratulations!!!

[Kyan]

Team: We don't need an ego boost? :neenernee

Best of luck guys. Oledavy- you didn't mention my suggestion! I'm so upset

[zakalwe]

For maximum confusion, you could call it "Zed and two Vodka Heads".

It's an anagram of "Dazed, Shoot, Dave, and WK".

[Krill]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Yp2L6c2KM#t=0m07s