[spoilers] Pindicator and Regoarrarr - Bismark of Ethiopia

[regoarrarr]

Yup. Can't spend the time thinking up a catchy thread title while Krill is still ahead of us in post count!!!

[regoarrarr]

For reference, here's the change log

Change log 2.0.1

Traits:

Financial: +1 commerce on all non-river tiles that have 2+ commerce. +100% production of banks. Remember: A Golden Age cannot trigger Financial's bonus yield (as in the base game).
Expansive: No longer gets double-speed granaries, but gets double-speed grocers. +35% Worker Production, +35% work boat production.
Creative: Loses cheap Libs, still has +2 culture per city, half price theatres, Colosseums.
Charismatic: +2 happiness, but no longer gets +1 happy from Monuments.
Protective: Plus double-speed granaries, but loses double speed castles and drill 1 on archery and gunpowder units.
Imperialistic: Double-speed Custom Houses (At least this gives Imp something on water maps. For flavor, Custom Houses are very mercantile, which is what 17th century Imperialism was). +60% Settler Production.
Organized: Gains double speed libraries.


Civs:

Rebalancing:
Inca: Terraces now give +1 culture, Quechua loses combat 1.
Byzantium: Cataphracts are 11 strength.
Khmer: Ballista Elephants are 8 str, +50% vs. Mounted units, +25% vs. Knights, and still target Mounteds outside of a city (this buff was to make them better than regular WE against their nemesis, Knights).
Sumeria: Vultures now get +30% vs. Melee.
India: The Fast Worker is now 2 moves, but starts with Mobility (-1 Terrain Movement Costs), and now starts with Mysticism/Wheel, instead of Mysticism/Mining (slower start).
Celts: Dun now gives G2, not G1.
Portugal: Feitoria now costs 120h, from 180h.
Rome: Preat S7. Forum increased to +35% GPP generation.
Persia: Immortal is now a S5 spear replacement.
Carthage: Cothon decreased to 80 hammers. Numidian cav increased to S6, C1, loses melee bonus and F1 (and innate retreat chance).
France: Salon +1 free spec, -1 artist.
Germany: UU is now the Kanone, a cannon but costs 80h (down from 100h).
US: UU: Minuteman, Rifle replacement, starts with Guerilla 1, Woodsman 1. UB: Mall, Grocer replacement, +1 happy from deer, sugar, Hit (Musical, Movie, Single).
Japan: UB: Pagoda: Observatory replacement, +10% hammers.


Civics:

Police State: Now Medium Cost (down from High).
Vassalage: Now provides free support for military units as well (meaning Pacifism is cheaper), and is Medium Upkeep.
Slavery: 30h for the 1st pop, 20h for the 2nd pop and subsequent pops. So, 30/50/70/90. On Quick speed, that's 20/33/46/60.
Serfdom: +75% Worker Speed, +1h for Watermills and Windmills.
Free Market: No longer provides -25% Corporate Costs. Now provides +25% Trade Route Yield.
Environmentalism: No longer provides +25% Corporate Costs, or +2 commerce to windmills. Provides +1 gold per specialist, +1c to farms and pastures, +2c to forest preserves, and Low upkeep. Swapped with Free Speech. Now available at Liberalism.
Free Speech: Now High Upkeep, swapped with Environmentalism. Now available at Scientific Method.


Wonders:

Rushmore: Now -50% WW (from -25%).
Red Cross: 200h.
West Point: 550h, +5XP. Now requires a lvl 5 unit (17XP/13XP for Charismatic).
Great Lighthouse: Now +1 trade route instead of +2 trade routes, enabled at Masonry, but needs lighthouse and Sailing (no functional change in the tech requirements but makes F6 look less cluttered).
SoZ: no WW effect. Now +3XP, 200 hammers, no building prerequisites.
Cristo: +200% SPI production, -50% Anarchy instead of -100%.
The Internet: now a wonder. 2k cost, +15% beakers in every city. No longer a project
SDI: No longer intercepts nukes (irrelevant as nukes no longer).


Base unit changes:

War Elephants: now 7 str, +50% vs. Mounted units, and +25% vs. Knights.
SAM Infantry: 75% interception chance (up form 40%)
Mobile SAM: 80% interception chance (up from 50%). No longer requires Oil.
Destroyer: now enabled at Artillery (not Combustion) (requires Oil OR Uranium)
Transport: now enabled at Artillery (not Combustion) (requires Oil OR Uranium)
Mobile Artillery: can now load guided Missiles and Tac Nukes (as Submarines and Missile Cruisers do). No longer require oil.
Gunships decreased to 3 moves.


ICBM: No longer unlimited range, but long enough so that they will out distance your army and navy easily, and they can be rebased. Loses the nuke tag. Does not need Manhattern project to be built.

iCost: 900h
iAirCombatLimit: 75
iAirCombat: 160
iCollateralDamageLimit: 75%
iCollateralDamageMaxUnits: 12
iAirRange: 36


Tactical Nukes: no longer nukes according to the code, now S80 1shot units that can bombard units, cause collateral damage to 5 units, cannot be intercepted. Cost 300 hammers. Loses the nuke tag. Does not need Manhattern project to be built. Full list of changes:

iCost: 300h
iAirCombatLimit: 75
iAirCombat: 80
iCollateralDamageLimit: 75%
iCollateralDamageMaxUnits: 5
iAirRange: 4


Guided Missiles: can bombard units, tiles and cultural defence, cause collateral damage to 2 units, cannot be intercepted. Cost 75 hammers. Full list of changes (underline means original stat, for comparison):

iCost: 75h
iBombRate: 16
iAirCombatLimit: 75
iAirCombat: 40
iCollateralDamage: 100
iCollateralDamageLimit: 50%
iCollateralDamageMaxUnits: 1
iAirRange: 4


Flanking:
Horse Archer (and replacements): do 50% flanking damage to Catapults and Trebuchet.
Knight (and replacements): do 50% flanking damage to Catapults and Trebuchet.
Cuirassier (and replacements): do 50% flanking damage to Catapults and Trebuchet and Cannon.
Cavalry (and replacements): do 50% flanking damage to Catapults and Trebuchet and Cannon.
Gunships: do 50% flanking damage to Cannon, Artillery and Trebuchet.

Buildings:

Jails: now -50% War Weariness.
Castles (and replacement UB): no longer decrease bombardment rate of catapults or trebuchets.

Technology:

Hunting: enables pastures, cost increased by 50% from 40 to 60. No longer enables camps.
Animal Husbandry: enables camps, and scouts. No longer enables pastures.
Archery: base tech cost decreased by two thirds, from 60 to 40


Espionage:

Switch Civic and Switch Religion now require Future Tech.
Spies now spawn with "Secretive", and cannot see tiles except the one they're standing on.
The No Espionage game option now works properly:

GSpy points are converted into Great Merchant points.
Espionage no longer gets converted into culture.
Cultural expansion now happens at normal values.
Spies cannot be built.
Graphs are always visible on contact.



Tile Changes:

Watermills: +1 base hammers, no longer receives +1h at Rep Parts.
Workshops: +1 base hammers, no longer receives +1h at Chemistry.
Mines: +1h at Rep Parts.
Whaling Boats: Enabled at Sailing, not Optics. Otherwise unchanged.
Oil Wells: Now requires 3t on Normal speed (instead of 10t).


Game Mechanics:

The Draft: Rifles now cost 2 pop to draft. A city must now end a draft at size 7 instead of size 5 (So size 9 to draft a rifle, size 8 to draft a musket).
Corporations: Completely removed from the game.
Culture Victory: 33K, 50K, 75K, 150K on Quick/Normal/Epic/Marathon.


Miscellaneous:

Coastal Blockade now has a range of 1 square around the blockader, instead of 3 squares
Barracks: increased cost to 60 hammers, +1 culture.
AP Resolutions: Declare War (on a non-member), Force Peace (between two members), and Assign City are no longer eligible resolution actions.
Fail-gold: You never get fail-gold if you also completed the wonder somewhere else (so no National Wonder fail-gold, or doubling up on a wonder to guarantee yourself a paycheck. The game still informs you that you received "0 gold" from your hammers).
Hut techs: Can only gain techs from the first two rows of the tech screen
Spoiler!
Fishing, Sailing, Wheel, Pottery, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Hunting, Archery, Mysticism, Mining, Bronze Working.


Addendum: These changes are only present in the Tech Trading version of the mod.

Tech Trading:
Known Tech Bonus changed to 50 (up from 30), enabled by Tech Trading (so there is no Known Tech Bonus until you research Paper)
Alphabet no longer enables tech trading, allows Open Borders
Writing enables Map trading, no longer enables OB
Paper enables Tech trading, no longer enables Map Trading. Requires Metal Casting, Literature and Code of Laws as mandatory prerequisites.
Corporation enables Tech Trading (and increases Known Tech Bonus by 50%)
Scientific Method enables Tech Trading (and increases Known Tech Bonus by 50%)
Cost of Education, Gunpowder, Printing Press and Nationalism increased by 50%
Cost of all subsequent techs increased by 100%
Techs prior to Paper in the tech tree can no longer be traded:
Spoiler!
The untradeable techs are as follows: Fishing, The Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, Mysticism, Mining, Sailing, Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Meditation, Polytheism, Masonry, Horseback Riding, Priesthood, Monotheism, Bronze Working, Writing, Metal Casting, Iron Working, Aesthetics, Mathematics, Alphabet, Monarchy, Compass, Literature, Calendar, Construction, Currency, Machinery, Drama, Engineering, Code of Laws, Feudalism, Optics, Music, Philosophy, Civil Service, Theology, Divine Right, Paper, Guilds, Banking

[regoarrarr]

I've got an opponent analysis post coming up, but I have to run to a meeting. Just a note so that Pindicator doesn't spend the time duplicating it in case he decides to wake up before I get back.

Oh and post count

[regoarrarr]

People in game

Ceiliazul - Louis XIV (Cre / Ind) of Egypt (Ag / Wheel, Obelisk, War Chariot)
Plako - Mao Zedong (Exp / Pro) of Spain (Fish / Myst, Conquistador, Citadel)
Commodore - Tokugawa (Agg / Pro) of Zulu (Ag / Hunting, Ihkanda, Impi)
Cyneheard - Lincoln (Chm / Pro) of Byzantium (Myst / Wheel, Hippodrome, some crappy knight replacement)
Dazed/Scooter - Stalin (Agg / Ind) of Vikings (Fishing / Hunting, Trading Post, Berserker)
Pindicator/Regoarrarr - Bismarck (Exp / Ind) of Ethiopia (Hunting, Mining, Oromo, Stele)
Azza - Shaka (Agg / Exp) of India (Wheel / Myst, Mausoleum, Fast Worker)
Yuri - Kublai Khan (Agg / Cre) of Netherlands (Fishing / Ag, East Indiaman, Dike)
Krill - Brennus (Spi / Chm) of Aztec (Hunting / Myst, Jaguar Warrior, Sacrificial Altar)
BrickAstley - Suleiman (Phi / Imp) of Sumeria (Ag / Wheel, Vulture, Ziggurat)

Bolded things are the things that have changed:

* Citadel - no longer decrease bombardment rate of catapults or trebuchets (who cares)
* Ihkanda - now has 1 culture and is 60 hammers (though they're Agg, which was quite lucky for him)
* Cataphract - now 11 strength
* India - starts with Wheel instead of Mining
* Fast Worker - Now 2 moves, but starts with Mobility (-1 Terrain Movement Costs)
* Mausoleum - now -50% War Weariness
* Vulture - now get +30% vs. Melee (instead of +25%, and compared to a regular axe's +50%)

In addition, all the traits are all wonked

Financial: +1 commerce on all non-river tiles that have 2+ commerce. +100% production of banks. Remember: A Golden Age cannot trigger Financial's bonus yield (as in the base game).
Expansive: No longer gets double-speed granaries, but gets double-speed grocers. +35% Worker Production, +35% work boat production.
Creative: Loses cheap Libs, still has +2 culture per city, half price theatres, Colosseums.
Charismatic: +2 happiness, but no longer gets +1 happy from Monuments.
Protective: Plus double-speed granaries, but loses double speed castles and drill 1 on archery and gunpowder units.
Imperialistic: Double-speed Custom Houses (At least this gives Imp something on water maps. For flavor, Custom Houses are very mercantile, which is what 17th century Imperialism was). +60% Settler Production.
Organized: Gains double speed libraries.

Fin - nobody
Exp - Plako, us, Azza
Cre - Ceiliazul, Yuris125,
Chm - Krill, Cyneheard
Pro - Plako, Commodore, Cyneheard
Imp - BrickAstley
Org - nobody

for completeness, although these traits did not change
Spi - Krill
Phi - BrickAstley
Agg - Yuris125, Dazed / Scooter, Commodore
Ind - Dazed / Scooter, us, Celiazul

Also Hunting (us, Commodore, Dazed / Scooter, Krill) got bumped - it now enables pastures, cost increased by 50% from 40 to 60. No longer enables camps.

[regoarrarr]

I like Bismark. Quite a bit actually. Him and Isabella are probably my favorite leaders. Krill was pointing out to me that I've now played Bismark in 3 different games (PB3 and PBEM17). Of course, that was in the base game. Here, EXP has taken quite a nerf with lack of cheap granaries. That will affect only ourselves and Azza. Plako is also EXP, but he is also PRO, which is where the cheap granaries went

The standard opening I'd go for would be early religion, Oracle MC and proceed with the monk economy. That is what I did in PBEM17, and I think that worked out pretty well. Other wonders to look at might be MoM (hopefully joined with Taj, of course), and of the new wonder changees, Statue of Zeus seems pretty appealing (+3XP everywhere for 2 promo units with a barracks).

Hunting is actually pretty good now - since we can improve pigs / sheep / cows right from the start. EXP workers now only require 3 hammers to get the bonus, so it's 95% guaranteed that we can do a 12t worker (5 f-h/t).

Hmm I guess we also do start with a scout though, which could be good or bad. Huts are on.

I'm bummed that we are not SPI, as with the civic changes, a lot more civics are viable.

[pindicator]

Yeah, my initial reaction was that we got a very vanilla BtS combination for RBMod. So we probably will end up playing like Vanilla Bismark (Oracle -> MC -> Colossus perhaps?) although we are going to have some competition with 3 Ind teams. But none of them get exp-booster workers

Hunting is actually pretty good now - since we can improve pigs / sheep / cows right from the start. EXP workers now only require 3 hammers to get the bonus, so it's 95% guaranteed that we can do a 12t worker (5 f-h/t).

Hmm I guess we also do start with a scout though, which could be good or bad. Huts are on.

Are you sure about the scout? I thought they were pushed back to Animal Husbandry too? If that's not in the change log I thought i saw Krill post it somewhere.

Anyway, I gotta run to work. I'll be able to post more tonight, probably when you're close to getting ready for bed

[regoarrarr]

People in game

Ceiliazul - Louis XIV (Cre / Ind) of Egypt (Ag / Wheel, Obelisk, War Chariot)
Plako - Mao Zedong (Exp / Pro) of Spain (Fish / Myst, Conquistador, Citadel)
Commodore - Tokugawa (Agg / Pro) of Zulu (Ag / Hunting, Ihkanda, Impi)
Cyneheard - Lincoln (Chm / Pro) of Byzantium (Myst / Wheel, Hippodrome, some crappy knight replacement)
Dazed/Scooter - Stalin (Agg / Ind) of Vikings (Fishing / Hunting, Trading Post, Berserker)
Pindicator/Regoarrarr - Bismarck (Exp / Ind) of Ethiopia (Hunting, Mining, Oromo, Stele)
Azza - Shaka (Agg / Exp) of India (Wheel / Myst, Mausoleum, Fast Worker)
Yuri - Kublai Khan (Agg / Cre) of Netherlands (Fishing / Ag, East Indiaman, Dike)
Krill - Brennus (Spi / Chm) of Aztec (Hunting / Myst, Jaguar Warrior, Sacrificial Altar)
BrickAstley - Suleiman (Phi / Imp) of Sumeria (Ag / Wheel, Vulture, Ziggurat)

So, opponent analysis. Gaspar and I chatted once about the "tiers" of players at RB. It's tricky to "rank" players, since there's a small sample size, and who your opponents or what your start is like has a pretty good impact on how you do in any particular game.

In any case, for what it's worth, his breakdown was into 3 tiers - elite, very good and "good enough", meaning good enough to win a game in the right circumstances.

We also have some new folks, which are hard to characterize. I think that it is human nature to just dismiss them as not knowing what they're doing. Of course, stereotypes are often stereotypes for a reason, and many new folks are pretty bad . But... I am old enough (both figuratively and literally) to remember when novice was new (to RB). Heck, I remember when KRILL was new I haven't been around as long as some of the very old-timers, but I definitely lurked through the Civ 3 Epics (I don't think I ever reported any though), and the old Network54 forums were not very intuitive.

But anyways, here is my reckoning. I'm very open to changing / adjusting, especially since I have not played with several of these folks.

Tier 1 (elite): Krill. He's the only one in this game in here (something I think Commodore was alluding to in his spoiler thread title). It didn't help that he got a pretty good draw.

Tier 2 (very good): Us, Plako

Tier 3 (good enough): Yuris125, Ceiliazul, Commodore, Cyneheard, Dazed / Scooter

Tier 4 (Probably not gonna win): Azza, BrickAstley

This is what Gaspar said about me when we were chatting - "you're borderline 2nd tier because you do seem to manage to ruin all your good work most of the time, but you do good work "

I could probably be talked into Cyneheard into Tier 2. Anyways that's just my first guesses, feel free to correct or mock. Especially if you do it in this thread

[regoarrarr]

Are you sure about the scout? I thought they were pushed back to Animal Husbandry too? If that's not in the change log I thought i saw Krill post it somewhere.

It looks like you are right.

Animal Husbandry: enables camps, and scouts. No longer enables pastures.

I also confirmed with Krill that Hunting does not enable scouts (it wasn't specifically mentioned in the change log), and confirmed that everyone starts with a warrior.

[regoarrarr]

So I have been pondering this game for a bit and I think that the key to this game is going to be diplomacy. We have now had a few games with this "AI diplo" and so I think that we as a community are still figuring out how to best "signal" things through that.

Think of it like in a SP game - if you see an AI say "We have too much on our hands", then that's the "signal" that they are about to attack someone. Similarly, we need to come up with some of these signals for these types of MP games.

I have played quite a bit of no-press Diplomacy games. In those games, certain actions have kind of "read between the lines" interpretations. For example, ordering a (bogus) convoy of another power's army to "Switzerland" is interpreted as an olive branch. Or convoying the army of a 2nd power to the home centers of a 3rd power is interpreted as an offer of alliance. You can also make supports for adjacent units.

So like I said, we do not have these "agreed-upon" signals yet. It is one of my hopes that we can start to catalog these, maybe as a part of this thread, so that in future games, we can use that as a base to start with. What I REALLY wanted to do was chat with Cyneheard or Krill or someone else playing in this game about this kind of "meta" talk in the hopes that we could have a leg up once the game started, but that pretty clearly would be cheating. I did tell Cyneheard that "maybe we'll just have a code that everytime i demand a resource, you have to give it to me or update your thread"

So probably the best / funniest examples of trying to send AI diplo messages was from SevenSpirits in PBEM23.

I'm worried they are instead planning to go at Yuri. So I tried to warn him. Prepare for AI Diplo -


We are your friend! (Also, there's maybe a hint that we have some information since we're sending our metaphorical two cents. But that's secondary.)



Let's be war allies I guess?


Our scouts have sharp eyes, bring news! Many men with horses come riding great wooden fish. Use Iron to protect your coastal cities bordering Mackoti, Thessalonica and Iconium!

Now I realize that this offer was made at least a little bit tongue-in-cheek (i.e. I don't think that Seven REALLY thought that yuris or anyone would "get" this message). But I do think that "creative" offers like that are probably going to be useful.

I've got a few ideas on that, but (obviously) I'll save that for a different post

[novice]

Is the SoZ +3XP in every city, or just one city?