[Spoilers] Commodore bakes a double entenada.

[Commodore]

Interesting set who opted to reroll. I suspect they had civs that lacked food techs and/or mining, or leaders with Financial; this river aggressively nerfs Fin.

[Commodore]

While we wait, game report:

The dusty village of Sujeira in 1452 Portugal needed these Pathfinders today, as the cruel Gonçalo the Lash assaulted Father Olavo. Constance the French swashbuckler saved the priest while brave halfling rogue of Ireland Stephen O'Keefe nearly died distracting Gonçalo; only the swift aid of Alexander "Misha" Samokutyayev, dwarven gunslinger of Russia, averted the young Irishman's death.

Seriously. Why on earth are you not playing tabletop?

[RefSteel]

Seriously. Why on earth are you not playing tabletop?

I'm running a tabletop game - my own homebrew - every Friday night, and it is the absolute best, in no small part because I'm lucky to have some terrific gaming friends.

Also, I approve of tabletop game reports so, so much you can't even imagine. (I actively avoid combat maps in my own game system, but even so I can appreciate that the maps on your table there are simply gorgeous - and I love your selection of "miniatures!")

[Commodore]

Seriously. Why on earth are you not playing tabletop?

I'm running a tabletop game - my own homebrew - every Friday night, and it is the absolute best, in no small part because I'm lucky to have some terrific gaming friends.

Also, I approve of tabletop game reports so, so much you can't even imagine.  (I actively avoid combat maps in my own game system, but even so I can appreciate that the maps on your table there are simply gorgeous - and I love your selection of "miniatures!")

Cool, what's the resolution mechanic? It's all about the group of friends . I run Pathfinder, but I play in a buddy's 5e West Marches, and another friend's Cypher System games . 

Miniatures for a Rennisance era game are hard to find, but LEGO pirate sets have muskets aplenty...

[Commodore]

By the way, Ref, I appreciate the cycles you've been sinking into this, you and your team. I know you're getting a lot of pressure but I get how much work it is. Don't let my preference for a script make you think I'm not grateful for the substantial efforts you guys are putting forth.

[Commodore]

1) dtay - Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp) of Celtia
2) superdeath - Churchill (Cha/Pro) of the Native Americans
3) Mr. Cairo - Saladin (Pro/Spi) of Russia
4) B4ndit - Zara Yaqob (Cre/Org) of Sumeria
5) Rusten - Cyrus (Cha/Imp) of Arabia
6) Donovan Zoi - Pacal (Exp/Fin) of Maya
7) Gavagai - Mehmed (Exp/Org) of Egypt
8) Shallow Old Human Tourist - Augustus (Imp/Ind) of Persia
9) GermanJoey - Charlemagne (Imp/Pro) of Mongolia
10) Dreylin - Roosevelt (Ind/Org) of the Vikings
11) OT4E and Chumchu - Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro) of Carthage
12) Dark Savant - Joao (Exp/Imp) of Byzantium
13) 2metraninja - Napoleon (Cha/Org) of the Aztecs
14) Mackoti - Suleiman (Imp/Phi) of France
15) The Black Sword - Pericles (Cre/Phi) of Zulu
16) AdrienIer - Mao (Exp/Pro) of Mali
17) Pindicator - Hammurabi (Agg/Org) of China
18) WilliamLP - Tokugawa (Agg/Pro) of Japan
19) Commodore - Kublai Khan (Cha/Cre) of Rome
20) naufrager - Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of Germany
21) plako - Justinian (Imp/Spi) of Inca
22) elkad - Shaka (Agg/Exp) of Korea
23) spacetyrantxenu - Hatshepsut (Cre/Spi) of Greece
24) Boldly Going Nowhere - Boudica (Agg/Cha) of Khmer
25) Aretas - Ragnar (Agg/Fin) of Holy Rome

There you go.

I don't see anything screamingly strong. Gun to my head, best two are Churchill of the Natives and Mao of Mali, because Protective+another early game trait+solid archers (archers are niiiiice now), means the landgrab is going to be ballin.

[RefSteel]

By the way, Ref, I appreciate the cycles you've been sinking into this, you and your team. I know you're getting a lot of pressure but I get how much work it is. Don't let my preference for a script make you think I'm not grateful for the substantial efforts you guys are putting forth.

Thanks a lot, Commodore; it actually means a lot to me that players appreciate it.  (Totestra maps are super cool, but I hope you like the one we come up with for this one too!)

Cool, what's the resolution mechanic?

Simplest answer is that everything is rolled on 2d10 (added together, not d%).  Obviously the devil is in the details, but one of the central ideas of the system is to get the mechanics out of the way of the game, and I think it accomplishes that pretty well - at least when I'm the GM!

[Commodore]

1) dtay - Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp) of Celtia
2) superdeath - Churchill (Cha/Pro) of the Native Americans
3) Mr. Cairo - Saladin (Pro/Spi) of Russia
4) B4ndit - Zara Yaqob (Cre/Org) of Sumeria
5) Rusten - Cyrus (Cha/Imp) of Arabia
6) Donovan Zoi - Pacal (Exp/Fin) of Maya
7) Gavagai - Mehmed (Exp/Org) of Egypt
8) Shallow Old Human Tourist - Augustus (Imp/Ind) of Persia
9) GermanJoey - Charlemagne (Imp/Pro) of Mongolia
10) Dreylin - Roosevelt (Ind/Org) of the Vikings
11) OT4E and Chumchu - Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro) of Carthage
12) Dark Savant - Joao (Exp/Imp) of Byzantium
13) 2metraninja - Napoleon (Cha/Org) of the Aztecs
14) Mackoti - Suleiman (Imp/Phi) of France
15) The Black Sword - Pericles (Cre/Phi) of Zulu
16) AdrienIer - Mao (Exp/Pro) of Mali
17) Pindicator - Hammurabi (Agg/Org) of China
18) WilliamLP - Tokugawa (Agg/Pro) of Japan
19) Commodore - Kublai Khan (Cha/Cre) of Rome
20) naufrager - Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of Germany
21) plako - Justinian (Imp/Spi) of Inca
22) elkad - Shaka (Agg/Exp) of Korea
23) spacetyrantxenu - Hatshepsut (Cre/Spi) of Greece
24) Boldly Going Nowhere - Boudica (Agg/Cha) of Khmer
25) Aretas - Ragnar (Agg/Fin) of Holy Rome

There you go.

I don't see anything screamingly strong. Gun to my head, best two are Churchill of the Natives and Mao of Mali, because Protective+another early game trait+solid archers (archers are niiiiice now), means the landgrab is going to be ballin.

Okay, let's give some more substantial thoughts. I suspect that all the starts are inland; there is a consistent trend of rejecting fishing civs; as one of the few fishers here I'm not looking at coastline. The only hesitation I have is with Byzantium's inclusion; that's Fishing and Mysticism, so no food tech or mining without Fish. Might be running a gambit or just really in love with Cataphracts, though. Hunting and Agriculture are kind of mixed; if it were me I'd put some starts with pigs/sheep/cows and others with wheat/rice/corn; that might be why my start's food is so painfully far apart, to balance with the faster pasturization versus irrigation. It's a risky thing to do; I'd consider moving if it weren't for the 2h AND 2c plant provided (big map means tech is going to HURT early on). All speculation, though.

[Commodore]

Going line-by-line:

Dtay is Khan of the Celts. I know Deets loves himself some celts, so that was a gimmie there; Agg/Imp is exactly the kind of stat spread that he favors too. He's going to rocket off to a solid start and having 2-move Aggressive swords is exactly what Dtay needs to counter his hesitancy with conquest. Awkward era to be going conquering in though (sez the Roman).

Superdeath is Churchill of the Natives. Like I said in my hot take, Churchill is ballin', probably the best leader here for all the same reasons Washington used to be fun. I don't like incentives to build lots of monuments, but remember me saying nice things a second ago about Gaels? Well, this guy can launch Guerrilla 3 crossbows at stuff in the right era. That's scary, if superdeath is one of the new class of "newbies" who's been playing Civ4 a long time and wandered into this last bastion of active play.

Mr. Cairo is Saladin of Russia. Also known as cheap granaries of great techs. The Spiritual and Russia parts here won't be relevant to victory. Sorry, too late.

Bandit is Zara of Sumer. I like this combo a lot; creative is nice and focusing while Org Sumer means he'll be feeling the toroid hurt less than the rest of us. Vultures, sure, okay. Whatever. But Sumer is gold.

Rusten is Cyrus of Arabia. This dude is excited, posting up a storm, which means...religion first? I'd go for it, Madrassas are nicely in tune with that. He's going to be hella happy if he hops onto that train. Although camel archers don't wow me, I'm never going to take a dump on a knight UU, because Knights Are What Win Games (Commodore Rule #4, I'm saying it now). See Superdeath for my nervousness about all "newbies" nowadays.

Donovan Zoi is Pacal of Maya. Congratulations, Krill, you did it. Pacal is absolutely the worst leader in this game. That's...definitely a balance mod shift, right there. I hate everything about this combo. It's bad and Donovan should feel bad.

Gavagai is Mehmed of Egypt. I'm okay with this. War chariots are too early a UU for conquest but obelisks allow for some shrine play, never bad in a 25-person game. Exp is not terrible and Org is not bad, so pretty decent stuff here. I expect Gavagai to do well because he always does well, but the player tier list is coming later.

Shallot Elder Mankind Fins are Augustus of Persia. Bastards lucked out. Not so much that they got a great leader, but because everybody else ran way from IND hard so they're actually only one of three with the trait. I expect them to target one good wonder early to boost the 'ball and then snaffle up the marginals later. Persia gets a bad rap but I actually love Immortals' power against archers and ability to get defensive bonii. Not bad techs either. These guys ain't out of the running in the combo phase, at least.

GermanJoey is Charlemange of Mongolia. I don't think Joey should mind any part of this here. RtR Pro/Imp is pretty fricking boss and Hunting/Wheel ought to be a thrill. Keshiks are great as chaff in knight stacks, which will be formidable out of Gers. Remember Rule #4? Yeah, this combo is optimized out the wazoo. Note to self: Invest in Formation Elephants.

Dr. Dre is FDR of the Norse. I...might  be wrong about my coastline prediction. That's a pretty hard bet on there being Seafaring early and often, with Mr. Colossus himself as chief of the Jarls. Outside of a very water-heavy map this leaves me cold, though. On the gripping hand, I don't think Dreylin cares deeply about this game so maybe he just took his first roll and rolled with it.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

OT4E is Qin of Carthage. Yeah, back to saying this dude ain't coastal. He resisted fishing but it found him anyway. As I might have said before I like horse archers, both by themselves and as filler in knight stacks, so "Numidians" are dope. Not the beautifully unique units that true base Numidian Cavalry were, but still. Like I said, IND got tossed a lot so lucky OT4E there...I actually favor this combo a lot. Good stuff.

Dark Savant is Joao of Byzantium. Hell man, I dunno. Cataphracts, even nerfed, are good. Very good. Joao is...interesting. Very fast if you can actually embrace it, but there is more to civ than workers and settlers. DS is a solid enough player to leverage the good parts but call me a skeptic. Along with Rusten, my top pick for religion-first if he's coastal or laked. Geez that's a long haul to bronze working though.

2metraninja is Napoleon of Azteca. I give this combo three out of five beating hearts, or half a disfigured flower-willy. Naps is good, Jags are...okay, and SAs are neat. This will be a whippy combo, nicely set up for happy population cheerfully milling around blood-soaked cities. Nothing exciting, but can work well.

Mackoti is Suleiman of France. Only the pros can leverage Phi to the hilt. Mack's a pro, so this is a good combo. France leaves me cool, but it's not a bad civ at all; musketeers are a good era unit and salons are a C+ unique building, slightly nice. I wouldn't hate having this pairing.

The Black Sword is Pericles of Zulu. Yay we're all doomed. See above, TBS is a pro and Pericles is going to get abused. I actually don't mind Cre Ikhandas, popping borders with barracks isn't ideal and you're still going to want to build barracks almost everywhere, so that's nice free maint reduction. I don't even know what impi are anymore, but I suspect they're still slightly better than a kick in the jimmies. Techs are good, this is good. We screwed.

AdrienIer is Mao of Mali. Ho-ho! Rejecting both his choice rolls made for a win on the final draw here for Adrien. Protective granaries and fast workers, boosted skirmishers, another C+ UB. It's a food-agnostic tech set but Wheel/Mining is great for foodless. I like all these elements. Good on yeh, lad.

Pindildo is Hammer of China. Agg/Org is such a weird mix but in the end I think I'm thumbs down on it, largely due less to any anti-synergy but more because both traits are a little late. Pindicator knows China like the back of his hand and will chuckle someone's naughts if he avoids despondency. Here, combo, you get those other two beating hearts.

William is Tokugawa of Japan. Well Krill, congratulations. Pacal of Maya is the worst combo here. And Tokugawa of frickin' Japan is one of the best. Fast start trait with helper late trait, solid combat 1 mace-replacer. The shale plant doesn't stir the disfigured flower-willy, but hey. I'm not giving the techs anything here, I suspect this is another non-coastal fishing guy who liked the other stuff and just pushed "accept".

Commodore is Kuddles Khan of Rome. Hey look, it's a fishing guy who liked the other stuff and just pushed "accept", and this time I'm not speculating at all. This ain't a complex pairing; ignore religion, get iron working, get construction, get swole, wreck someone. Who needs economy, we got legions and scorpions and elephants all double-promoted because gladiators. Flawless.

Naufrager is Caesar of Germany. Dangit. Okay, see Russia comments? Germany is just techs plus a wonderful color. Jules is fast and economical without flash or sizzle, let's see if he'll slash us or just fizzle.

Plako is Justinian of Inca. Such a plako combo, this. Prediction time! Standard start, moves along well, nabs Judaism, builds wide, murders a dude, doesn't make it against the nearby superman. How much of that is due to the combo? Not much, but it's not going to hurt him either.

Moosiplication is Shaka of Korea. Hey Shaka, when did you get economical? It's all gone to pot, the warmonger is now leading a buncha hwacha-chuckers. The individual elements are all good here but in the end it's kind of like rum and Yorkshine Pudding...okay together, but not what the chef recommends.

Lronhubbard is Token Trans Pharaoh of Greece. I don't hate this, but there are awkward bits. Odeons are pretty nice, but expensive and the culture is redudant. Phalanx are solid, but chariots aren't a thing in a game this size. Cre is viable and Spi is fun and I won't say they conflict but nor do they complement each other. Xenu's a machoist who takes what he's given, though, so here we are. It'll do.

Boldly Going Nowhere is Boadicea of Khmer. Okay, let's give this one a I like the prospect of whipping the best melee units anywhere (recall now with cheap Coliseums giving double-promos) and ballin' pants are okay. I think berries give food or something? That's cool. Mostly, techs are good, leader is pretty decent, I'd take this for a drive despite the low number of gears.



Aretas is Ragnar of Holy Rome. This should be a pretty okay for the slightly disinterested sub that hops in to slow down defeat around turn 75 when Aretas leaves the conn. I don't get good vibes with the newbie-who-posts-just-once thing. This is one hell of an economy model when it gets going, best in the entire game actually, but with nothing to boost the start I don't see this being anything other than a highly efficient rump state.

[Commodore]

In-game player tier list is held hostage until I get feedback on my brilliant and incisive commentary about the combinations. Or more talk about tabletop RPGs and other such.