This is gonna be good: von Adlercreutz and Taotao

[von Adlercreutz]

Other players shouldn't probably read this, at least not while logged in.




















So let the civ/trait analysis begin! You said you liked buffed cha right? I'm not convinced about cha still, it's quite map dependent. With few luxes it shines, but doesn't the typical RBmap give you usually a nice amount of luxuries?

I'd like to ideally get some economic trait combined with expansion trait. Of course that might not be possible. My trait preferences seem to be somewhat different than typical RB, I think I value phi slightly more and Ind more than average. Failgold seems to be thought as a bad thing which I think is true in the early game, when you want your hammers for expansion. But after that I consider failgold to be a nice way to get tech earlier, after all civ is a lot about getting somewhere earlier than others and profiting from that. The problem compared to SP is that it can be harder to predict when wonders are going to fall, while AI will eventually build the unwanted wonder for you like Chichen Itza.

[taotao]

Hurray! Let the games begin!

OK, diving straight into it we can start with the traits analysis.
Basically I do believe that all traits are playable, but of course I have my preferences.

Expansive: Isn't the super-early expansion trait it was in bts, but a lot of the power still lies in getting the first worker(s) out just that little bit quicker. With reduced worker-tech-costs there's no risk either of them having to just idle around.
Later on, reduced markets and harbours (making them whipable in a decent time frame) are, I believe, an undervalued benefit.
Overall a decent trait, possibly even good, but not very sexy.

Imperialistic: Used to be my least favourite trait in bts. However, in terms of actually planting those first cities I don't think anything beats chopping out some imperialistic settlers. In MP I believe this is even more important as good cityspots between civs are going to fall very quickly. Just need to remember to have some proper city garrisons quickly as well.

Protective: What's the first build going to be in your new cities? Well, 8 times out of 10 that is going to be the granary. Having them half priced is huge in terms of getting your city contributing to the empire. As for the promotion part I don't value it highly in general, but actually seeing that we are two green players at RB, that tiny deterrent might just be the reason why a neighbour choose to attack a different target in the mid-game, so not worthless in context.

Aggressive: No more monuments yay! Aggressive really has benefits all over the place. Skipping the religious line is one, reduced maintenance is helpful en-route to currency and then there's of course the promotion aspect; early shock axes, amphibious knights or commando infantry can all be powerful tools. A trait I really enjoy playing.

Creative: No more monuments yay! This one depends a bit on what mod we're using. I loved cultural in base bts, even more than what was really called for. In 2.0.7.6 it's not nearly worth spending a trait on though. With rtr3 it's once again a viable choice (yeah, I consider cheap libraries to be worth that much), but probably not top tier.

Charismatic: The war trait. Or, actually aggressive is better in most circumstances, but with useful colosseums it's not the dead-weight trait it used to be at least. Very map dependent as for how useful it'll be, but I do believe we would get some use from happiness doing one-pop whips and such. Not a top-tier trait by any means, but not the instant rejection it used to be.

Industrious: Here our preferences diverge since I don't like it. Cheap forges are great, but I compare them to eg. cheap courthouses from organized and then the rest of the industrious trait isn't nearly as good. If it was a smaller game I'd rank it higher, but with 23 players I don't see us going for any world wonder for certain. And if/when we do, I don't know how much the trait will help us. Cheaper Moai, NE and Oxford are all good, but still fringe benefits. Fail gold is something I'm bad at utilising. I mean, it's ok as compensation if you miss the wonder, but actually using it for research seems very inaccurate in a sense.

Financial: Great on a watery map. Helps a bit otherwise. Was there a problem with rtr3.e? (we're playing .d in the other game) If there's no regular river commerce bonus (like we're playing) I'd rank it even higher, but I believe that won't be the case in the PB.

Organised: Great passive benefits. Cheap lighthouses very useful on archipelago/food rich iceball locations. Cheap courthouses amazing as cities will be able to whip them fairly quickly. And factories can be quite useful if only we get there... Possibly my favourite trait.

Philosophical: So how big a percentage boost on GPP do we get? Anyway, very good to speed up currency (math/alpha bulb), possible for getting a religion (philo bulb), a real edge in lib race (edu bulbs) and almost essential if going for a cultural victory.

Spiritual: I love it! But I don't think I'm able to use it well enough for it to be really good


In general I guess we should hope for one of the power traits of org/fin/phi and then one expansion to couple it with. Being potentially seen as green I'd rather have two early than two late game traits though. Then again, considering how few rolls we get of civ/leader it might be that we should only focus on not getting combos that clash. For instance, protective Inca is great, but Kublai (agg/cre) Inca would be awful.

[taotao]

Hmm, we need more posts!

Ok, I'm not going to do a breakdown of all civs at this point (probably will do of all players/combos taken once everything's finalised), but just a short point about the civ. I don't care about starting techs! Yes, mysticism/fishing is still worse than the others, but really, with current costs of initial techs we (probably) have time to do the most important research before the worker(s) need them anyway.

[von Adlercreutz]

Re fin: The river thing was just a bug, it should be normal in the real game. Also now fin works with rivers.
"Financial: +1 commerce on tiles that produce 3 commerce. +100% production of Bank."
Fin seems to go well with the common strategy of going knights, then banking and maybe econ from there and now even more so as banking has emancipation which seems like a good civic for a fin civ (provided you have enough production).

Re ind: I'm more thinking about being able to try for wonders with less risk. Wonders like GLH, HG or mids which don't go too early, but are likely to fall at some point relatively early. Kind of a win-win deal, where getting the wonder is good and failgold too. At that point where you might not be able to build wealth or research, failgolding can provide a way to put hammers to wealth to speed up the push to currency for example. And with a better rate than wealth builds.

Of course things are not ideal and hammers to wonders are away from expansion and military, so one needs to balance carefully.

Philosophical: +150% Great Person production, +100% production of University
One use I've been considering is getting to CS quicker with farming a GM for the bulb and getting another GP for a GA for civic switches. Could be done without the trait too, but generating GP fast enough is easier with the trait.

Re reli: PB18 showed us some real nice shrines, getting one would be awesome if things go right. This will be a bit smaller game though, but still quite large. To get big one needs to get the shrine quite early though, so I don't think later religions will get as big. If let's say we have a myst civ and can improve food, I'm thinking that making a reli attempt could be a good play. Any later and the risk will be quite big. To get the shrine then there's ToA, which in my view is a wonder that's really worth it only if you absolutely need to GProphet points. Which means imo that it's likely to be there to pick up.

There is also another form of failgold we could use: missionary failgold. It requires religion and it's a bit nerfed since whip is nerfed. Evil secrets from cfc .


Another thing to talk about would be potential neighbours. There is a non-zero chance we get Commodore or Krill . That would be quite an experience.

[taotao]

Re fin: The river thing was just a bug, it should be normal in the real game. Also now fin works with rivers.
"Financial: +1 commerce on tiles that produce 3 commerce. +100% production of Bank."
Fin seems to go well with the common strategy of going knights, then banking and maybe econ from there and now even more so as banking has emancipation which seems like a good civic for a fin civ (provided you have enough production).

Just read through the changelog. That change to fin is actually not that trivial. We're back to wanting lots of rivers for cottages, resources have more of an impact and priority and coast is just as useless as for everyone else in the beginning. In general financial is much more of a mid-late game trait and needs to be paired with something to boost the early game.
Also noticed that the military production bonus from colosseums is gone. Charismatic has received a bonus to the new quay building, which makes it ok on archipelago, but I'd still say that it's a hard blow to the trait without seeing the map.

One use I've been considering is getting to CS quicker with farming a GM for the bulb and getting another GP for a GA for civic switches. Could be done without the trait too, but generating GP fast enough is easier with the trait.

I usually try to do my civic swaps (apart from the first slavery one) inside golden ages. Often trying to time it so that I revolt to religion, OR, caste (and monarchy?) in the beginning of the first golden age and finish CS during it. That could well be doable. If not in a GA, then it'd be quite hard to get the GM though. Markets are expensive builds and I'm not sure if it's worth going caste early on outside GAs?

Re reli: PB18 showed us some real nice shrines, getting one would be awesome if things go right. This will be a bit smaller game though, but still quite large. To get big one needs to get the shrine quite early though, so I don't think later religions will get as big. If let's say we have a myst civ and can improve food, I'm thinking that making a reli attempt could be a good play. Any later and the risk will be quite big. To get the shrine then there's ToA, which in my view is a wonder that's really worth it only if you absolutely need to GProphet points. Which means imo that it's likely to be there to pick up.

Having mysticism (and food), going for a religion might well be the right play. However, it will paint an ENORMOUS target on our backs! We've already got a small target just for being new to RB, but a nice shrine would apart from luring in neighbours to attack also attract title contenders only looking to raze from the competition. As for which religion to go for I don't mind picking early hindu/buddhism, but already jewism is quite a diversion from worker-techs if we don't get a strong benefit from it. Confu would be nice if we manage to land it going through currency, but is dubious play if slogging through the religious techs (unless oracle). Taoism could be ok if doing an early bulb (but we probably have a more pressing need for a GS). Christianity/Islam I regard as coming too late.
The main reason why I'm not too interested in any shrine, apart from our neighbours is the same as for any of the (good) early wonders though. Namely that I'd rather develop our empire in peace in the beginning and only go to war from a position of superior production and/or tech.

There is also another form of failgold we could use: missionary failgold. It requires religion and it's a bit nerfed since whip is nerfed. Evil secrets from cfc .

What's this? do you get fail gold if a missionary fail to spread a religion? I don't think I've ever seen such a thing.

Another thing to talk about would be potential neighbours. There is a non-zero chance we get Commodore or Krill . That would be quite an experience.

I guess the nightmare would be something like a boxed in Commodore on one side, axe-rushing noob right next to us and someone like Krill or dtay as the last guy on our continent. Yeah, and Old Harry with some Fintourist encouragement right across the water.

[von Adlercreutz]

Missionary failgold: you can have 3 missionaries, if you have hammers on more missionaries than that and complete one you get failgold from the extra missionary (you need to take missionary away from the queu to be able to build "too" many). It seems to me as quite situational thing, maybe when you need to push for some tech hard or if you don't have wealth/res build available. Whip nerf is annoying here, well one could do this without whipping too but it's slower.

[taotao]

... if you have hammers on more missionaries than 3 and complete one you get failgold from the extra missionary (you need to take missionary away from the queu to be able to build "too" many).

Never knew that (probably didn't try taking any completely off the queue). I'm not sure how I feel about this, seems slightly "exploitery" with a relatively small benefit (on the same level as building a wonder in several cities for fail gold and I believe that has been banned/modded out).

[taotao]

Rules have btw been posted in the tech thread. Restricted AI diplomacy I kind of like, but no barbs means that most will run ridiculously light on military...
...and I wouldn't be surprised if someone lost their capital to a scouting warrior/pair of archers

Now we only need to wait on the glorious, handsome, all-mighty Brick for our amazing first roll...

[taotao]

Well, while I'm at it I could also give my first impressions on the people we'll be facing.
Dear lurkers, I give thee,

the contenders

1. Commodore
Do not want to be his land neighbor. Good. Aggressive. Nice writer, but isn’t always focused enough on the big picture.

2. Krill
Will attack if he sees it as beneficial. Not very irrational in beginning at least (but very likely in the end if out of contention)

3. Yuri?
Is this yuris? if so, so so, not terrible, but far from the best. Seemingly fairly non-aggressive. Big warning that he seems to have a good relationship with mackoti who’s been one of the very best here at RB and isn’t signed up to this game. If he ded-lurks/takes over, the danger rating goes up by a bazillion per cents.

4. AdreinIer
Still learning. Not bad and he is getting better. Fairly engaged in the game atm.

5. R.E.M.
Quiet for a while. With more time might be ok for the next half year, but not a title contender.

6. Dtay
One of the best early on. Balanced. Will punish you if going all farmers gambit, but not necessarily super-aggressive. Has had a hard time converting an early lead to a win.

7. Donovan Zoi
Learning. Not terrible, but really not particularly frightening.

8. Old Harry?
Worst ever over-seas neighbour. Ruthless, but honorable. Is in it for the long game if he's in it at all.

9. Tasunke
Quite aggressive. I believe he’s got a better handle of FFH2 than RTR. Could do something crazy...

10. Gavagai
I mix him up with Gawdzak, but in general I believe he’s quite stellar. Probably not among the absolutely best, but he’s high up there and with a good start he’ll be dangerous.

11. Ichabod + retep
The south americans. Decent and prickly. Not likely to win, but might be very hard to chew as well.

12. Serdoa
Has had both good and bad performances. Good at micro, bad at people? Will he have the energy for this? (doesn’t like coastal starts, but then again, who does?)

13. Molach
Decent knowledge. Can overreact to plays seen as aggressive. Could do opportunistic razes. Likely to be a pain, but unlikely to hold a grudge forever?

14. Automated Teller
I’ve got a feeling that he wings it a bit too often to perform really well

15. HAK (and Mindy!?)
HAK was bad, but has improved A LOT in his last game. Mindy fills gaps in his knowledge and provide some much needed excitement for war! Far from the best, but still good if teamed up.

16. Grimace
Seems fairly involved, but still lacks some knowledge to perform great. Could be rushed.

17. CheaterHater
OK, but not more. Could be irratic and attack for no good reason?

18. Elkad
Semi-weak player. Decent neighbour.

19. TheWannabe
Newbie. Seems interested, but lacks the experience to get a top finish. Has expressed strong interest in getting a partner/ded-lurker. If he gets someone like e.g. noble helping him out he could still become dangerous.

20. Borsche
Probably quite ok as a player. Probably will end up in the middle unless rushed or extremely lucky.

21. Nyles Standish
Completely new to RB (unless he’s a smurf). Attack now, ask questions later?

22. von Adlercreutz + taotao
Good for newbies.

23. Barteq
So so?

24. Plako
Solid as a rock. Won’t ever be conquered early on. Definite contender

25. Bacchus?
Saw someone describe him as an absolutely terrible neighbour, but don’t know if that’s a fact or biased opinion

[taotao]

We have our first roll!!

I'm trembling in anticipation...

and it is...

Zara Yaqob of the Dutch