RBP6 Lurker Thread

[Jowy]

Players, please don't read before the game is over.
Lurkers, feel free to discuss the game here


Now here's the results in advance!

*drumroll*
dun dun dun
-------------

Team S wins in a blowout.
Do they really have to play this out?

[Lord Parkin]

I'm quite surprised no one seems to have mentioned Boudica of Ethiopia (yet). Or either Boudica or Ethiopia at all.

These are the civs I think are good for this particular setup (Lakes/Medieval/etc), with Byzantine ruled out. There are surprisingly few good choices actually. Might have missed one or two, but I think this covers most of the decent options.

- China
- England
- Ethiopia
- France
- India
- Korea
- Ottoman
- Spain

There are a couple of extra "maybe" options that either seem less promising or are a bit one-shot:

- Holy Rome (maybe)
- Japan (maybe)
- Rome (maybe)
- Russia (maybe)
- Viking (maybe)

That's really about it for civs, as far as I can see. I don't know, maybe someone can think of something I've missed... but I wonder if we'll see quite a bit of overlap between the civ choices of the different teams.

Personally, for this game my pick for a team of three would probably be something like the following:

1. Boudica of Ethiopia
2. Ramesses of England
3. Elizabeth of Korea

England builds the wonders and infrastructure until Rifling, where it begins drafting. Korea supplies the Hwachas early on, and gets the solid cheap universities to go with its strong economy. Ethiopia builds/drafts the super-promoted Oromo Warriors, which are potent enough in their own right. Then when Rifling comes around, Ethiopia gifts those super-promoted Oromos to England, and bam... super-promoted Redcoats. Could potentially switch Boudica and Ramesses for Monty and De Gaulle, depending on how you want to balance the drafting and promoting.

Other options:

- Pacal, Peter or Bismarck of India (obviously decent)
- Boudica or Tokugawa of France or Ottomans (any combination is solid)
- Churchill of Spain (at least interesting, even if not that great)

Feel free to tell me how wrong I am, but those are my opinions anyway. I certainly think the Ethiopia-England combo is a killer on a medieval start.

[Lord Parkin]

By the way, Creative is significantly less useful when (1) there are religions around from the start, and (2) you can pick Caste at the start and use Artists to border pop. Theatres are also available at the start, for the record. As such, I would be very dubious about picking any Creative leader in this game.

[Lord Parkin]

Charlemagne

Ugh... really? The only leader which could possibly be worse for this game, IMHO, is Gilgamesh. Oh well...

[Cyneheard]

Settlers ARE more expensive; Imp is a very solid choice. But I'd rather have Genghis of Ottos or France than Charlemagne, that's for sure.

Genghis of England seems like an astute choice IMO, b/c the UB works well, too.
Gandhi of, well, many civs, depending on what you want. Engineering isn't an immediate priority, I'd think, so Spain goes down my list a bit. Ottos are hard to pass up on, but many options work there. I don't think the Phi civ should be India, and India is a given.
That leaves Fin + X of India

Let's think about that 6th trait:
Exp is weak b/c it's just workers and health. MAYBE Pacal of India, and you FW-spam yourself and your friends.
Cre is less valuable b/c of religions, agreed.
Ind isn't bad if you think you can afford to wonder-spam a bit, and Forges are solid.
Org is just junk on Noble difficulty.
Cha, well, hm. Extra happy isn't awful, but Monuments are skipped completely, so it's just +1 happy. The lower XP costs aren't all that noticeable at this point. You'll get some stables down for 3-promo knights, but only if you've also grabbed Theology or you're Mongolia (that's why Mongolia has some value as a civ: skipping Theo in the early game for a Cha civ).
Pro is a waste.

So Pacal or Huayna of India. I think I'd go with Huayna, b/c good forges are a LOT of hammers saved in each city, and every city needs a forge. No, I'm not looking for a single specific strategy, but a general lacks-many-weaknesses opening, which I think is more sound at that point. The time for risk-taking and gameplanning is in the game, not before T0.

[Lord Parkin]

Settlers ARE more expensive; Imp is a very solid choice.

How do you mean, they're more expensive? EDIT: Forgot they're 150 hammers in a Medieval start. Still, not sure having one Imp civ really makes that much difference.

Exp is weak b/c it's just workers and health.

True, the lack of need for Granaries with a Medieval start does weaken Exp a bit.

Ind isn't bad if you think you can afford to wonder-spam a bit, and Forges are solid.

Not sure if wonders are being modded to only apply to single civs - last time I checked I don't think they were, in which case it's extremely important to have an Ind civ amongst your picks. Even if wonders are modded to give only civ-wide benefits, I still think it's a bad idea to forgo Ind when you've got 6 traits to choose from.

Org is just junk on Noble difficulty.

Not completely... two good cheap buildings available right at the start isn't to be sniffed at. But still, not that great, I agree.

Cha, well, hm. Extra happy isn't awful, but Monuments are skipped completely, so it's just +1 happy.

You can still build Monuments on a Medieval start if you want. 30 hammers for 1 happiness isn't too bad if you need it.

The lower XP costs aren't all that noticeable at this point.

They're even more potent when you're starting later. With Theocracy and Vassalage both close to within your grasp at the start of the game, lower XP thresholds are pretty powerful. Especially if you have an Agg/Cha or Pro/Cha combo.

So Pacal or Huayna of India. I think I'd go with Huayna, b/c good forges are a LOT of hammers saved in each city, and every city needs a forge.

Huayna is certainly a solid all-around choice. He's possibly my favourite leader in regular play, for what should be obvious reasons.

[Cyneheard]

Well, getting Theo and Feud in a Medieval Start = a significant ways away; for Ren or later, Cha's great as a no-barracks-plan. But for a Medieval start, I wonder if those two techs will be a high enough priority.

Imp saves you 50h a city, and 2x your GG production, which both synergize great with an Agg leader who wants lots of cities and to kill lots of units. And to not take Imp...what trait do you take instead? With Fin/Ind and Spi/Phi, Agg/Cha or Agg/Pro are about the only other options, but Pro needs gunpowder units to be available, not incoming, and Cha needs Theo and Feud already researched, same problem.

[Lord Parkin]

Well, getting Theo and Feud in a Medieval Start = a significant ways away; for Ren or later, Cha's great as a no-barracks-plan. But for a Medieval start, I wonder if those two techs will be a high enough priority.

They'll be in at some point anyway. My personal preference would still be for Cha, but I wouldn't be totally against something else.

Imp saves you 50h a city

Actually, no... it's considerably less than this, depending on the city. Only the hammers building the Settler are multiplied (rounded down), not the food. Saving 50 hammers would imply building a Settler with ONLY hammers (no food), as well as not falling victim to any rounding issues.

Given the extremely high food starts (which admittedly you wouldn't know in advance)... even if you're Imp, your production tiles are going to be outclassed by your food tiles. As such, the Imp bonus really isn't going to give you much extra. Now on a non-custom made map, I'd agree that Imp has the potential to be a bit more useful - but I wouldn't necessarily classify it as better than many of the other alternatives.

and 2x your GG production, which both synergize great with an Agg leader who wants lots of cities and to kill lots of units.

Personally I'd rather have Cha and have every one of my units promoting and healing faster, than GG's being generated slightly faster back home. But maybe that's just me.

[spacemanmf]

Actually, no... it's considerably less than this, depending on the city. Only the hammers building the Settler are multiplied (rounded down), not the food. Saving 50 hammers would imply building a Settler with ONLY hammers (no food), as well as not falling victim to any rounding issues.

Given the extremely high food starts (which admittedly you wouldn't know in advance)... even if you're Imp, your production tiles are going to be outclassed by your food tiles. As such, the Imp bonus really isn't going to give you much extra. Now on a non-custom made map, I'd agree that Imp has the potential to be a bit more useful - but I wouldn't necessarily classify it as better than many of the other alternatives.

There's also the fact that the cities will be planted sooner so in reality whilst it doesn't save you as many as 50 hammers up front, it will net you more hammers due to the cities being founded sooner. The Imperialistic civ can just use a couple of high production cities to pump out settlers for the entire team resulting in vast savings.

[Krill]

I'm quite surprised no one seems to have mentioned Boudica of Ethiopia (yet). Or either Boudica or Ethiopia at all.

These are the civs I think are good for this particular setup (Lakes/Medieval/etc), with Byzantine ruled out. There are surprisingly few good choices actually. Might have missed one or two, but I think this covers most of the decent options.

- China
- England
- Ethiopia
- France
- India
- Korea
- Ottoman
- Spain

There are a couple of extra "maybe" options that either seem less promising or are a bit one-shot:

- Holy Rome (maybe)
- Japan (maybe)
- Rome (maybe)
- Russia (maybe)
- Viking (maybe)

That's really about it for civs, as far as I can see. I don't know, maybe someone can think of something I've missed... but I wonder if we'll see quite a bit of overlap between the civ choices of the different teams.

Personally, for this game my pick for a team of three would probably be something like the following:

1. Boudica of Ethiopia
2. Ramesses of England
3. Elizabeth of Korea

You'd get shredded. You're expecting to tech to Education, and Gunpower, before stacks of knights appear?