[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[GermanJoey]

At any rate, of the traits you listed, Cha is most interesting/appealing to me. Agg can be a bit of a strange trait to work with... other than the 25% city maintenance (which doesn't obviate the need for courthouses by itself), the other real advantage of the trait is that it greatly eases the logistics of waging war in the late-classical and early-medieval eras; I wrote about this at length in my PB22 thread at some point, IIRC. Fin... I'm still not super convinced as to how good Fin is in RtR. I've always kinda though of it as the worst RtR trait... or, at the very least, the one most vulnerable to the map setup. I'd be nervous about pairing with Cha, which is the second most-vulnerable of the traits to map setup. (Ind and Exp would be 3rd and 4th). I guess Fin now also has that +35% library boost? Have there been any successful Fin games lately?

I don’t think anyone has really picked FIN. It has been massively shunned since PBEM20 IMO. I think I understand why, but I don’t think I agree with that any more. The saved hammers on the library, and then on a market matter IMO. This is what I wrote in the mod discussion thread:

That brings us to FIN. Between FIN and ORG it used to be relatively balanced, but FIN has fallen by the wayside for a while now. It picked up the cheap lib bonus, but FIN doesn't really pick up until a player gets hamlets on none riverside tiles. Otherwise the bonus only works on coast, which is it's own opportunity cost compared to working other tiles. Is it playable? On a random leader/civ pair, yeah, but is it pickable? Can a player bring themselves to pick FIN against ORG, SPI, AGG or CHM? FIN has to grow pop and work tiles to benefit from the extra commerce, but AGG and ORG just get cheaper stuff for free. CHM has the higher happy cap so is not as limited to grow the pop needed to work tiles anyway, in a straight comparison CHM can pretty much always just "work more cottages" compared to FIN. Of course CHM has to pay for the population, but the real benefit from CHM is the easier promotions when you come to fight, the happy isn't even the majority of the CHM trait power compared to what defines FIN.

FIN has to have that bit more in the Classical era. Giving it slightly cheaper markets gives FIN what it needs: the opportunity to grow to work the tiles it needs to, either from the extra happy (up to +4 happiness in a single city) and the gold to afford more cities. It gives it a bit of a boost, but to be clear: It saves fewer than 37 hammers on a single market. It's objectively not a huge boon, but those saved hammers are what will make the market whippable without stupid amounts of pop (double whip is 67 hammers, triple whip is 94 hammers). This isn't a major change really, but just pushes FIN up a bit and makes it pickable now IMO.

I stand by this, and this is also why I think FIN/CHM actually pairs well if the civ supports what you are trying to achieve. You will always have the happy cap to work a bunch of cottages and still whip in every city, and that means you will always have an out to deal with horizontal expansion issues. I agree with your exact point about the map affecting the value of the trait, but I don’t think it is as bad in this version of the mod as it used to be. Pair FIN with India (cheap granary, +1 happy), or Inca (Cheap granary, no popping borders issue but still have to settle for first ring food), works for all of these IMO. Hannibal just wants to whip libraries to pop borders anyway.

This is why I think you can go either leader or civ first: if you get a shot at India, then you know you can use that to cover a lot of deficiencies in the leaders that might get bogged down in expansion, and managing all of the costs of expansion without leaving a rush opportunity for someone else. Same with Inca and Babylon. Or if you go, say, Ragnar first, you can pick India or Babylon, England, Rome or even Persia.

Wait, does Fin also have cheap markets too? That's not listed in the mod changelog....

[GermanJoey]

Two other points: CHM no longer matters for naval combat: I've rebuilt the system so that CHM only has an effect in cities that don't have Moai/West Point/SoZ/settled GG once dry docks exist. And even then, that effect is just that 4 promo boats are available without XP civics, which gives flexibility rather than straight power.

The other point is that I'm not certain how to value late game traits, traits that give a greater yield per pop (like Financial) or other unreproducible effects (like ORG civic costs savings) because of the change to Emancipation. It used to be that some cottaging occurred and then everything else gets workshopped. But now Emancipation is available on Constitution, and does not cost anarchy to revolt into, there is a new window in the renaissance era to cottage cities. Cities which have already built infrastructure with workshops and other hammer tiles, and allow older, mature cottage cities to explode in pop. This gives players an opportunity, or multiple opportunities, to close a post T150 bpt deficit, but it also gives FIN an opportunity to go with a true cottage spam late game.

Combine this with the test cost scaling implementation which has lower Renaissance era tech costs and I can see this game going all the way to space and culture.

What's the change to Emancipation? That's also not listed in the mod changelog.

Also, I imagine we'd be using Free Speech as a Fin civ, right?

[GermanJoey]

Regarding city placement: as a Fin civ, we'll need to be extra careful about planning for feeder cities. i.e. the bonsaii tree approach to city planning; grow broadly, and then "prune" your minor branches (i.e. allow feeder cities to starve-down) as you funnel village/town tiles into your main spots once they grow big enough.

[GermanJoey]

Lastly, since when was the trait spelled Chmrismatic?

[Krill]

https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...p?tid=9681

We are using 4.1.1.4. the change log is above.

[Krill]

Some scribblings for leaders and civs:







And on Azecs: Just because you can do something, does not mean you should. Yes, Aztecs can whip classical era units, but that isn't something you necessarily want to do.

[Krill]

I'm bored.

So, assuming we're not first pick, who wants to guess what the first pick will be?

[GermanJoey]

Oh! I see what you mean about Emancipation. And I see Fin's market bonus... not super significant, but interesting.

Alright, I'm sold on Fin.

Also, first pick will be Zulu, as usual.

[Krill]

Zulu feel bad now.

The other point to emancipation is that anyone can catch up in cottages if they have land and pop to work them, and also benefit from the extra food if they decide to stick with it.

CHM doesn't need Vassalage for boats now, not once dry docks are around. So CHM is a bit worse there, but is can abuse Emancipation for an economic boost.

I'm honestly not sure what is worth picking. Just waiting to see the start and pick order now.

[GermanJoey]

Looking at the changelog more. See what you mean about the Zulu... good nerf.

Mongolia seems very strong. Cha Mongolia gets C2 Chariots at Archery + Animal Husbandry? 4.8str, that's about as good as a War Chariot. Also, Cha Mongols can get 3-Promo Elephants at Construction? That seems very good... vanilla elephants were what, 9.6str at C2, these Mongoloid ones are 9.1str, although they have the option to be 8.4str and take Shock. That actually gets odds on a C1 spear, except when attacking into a hill/fortify bonus. Hell, they could even take amphib. Most importantly, there doesn't seem to be any counter whatsoever to Mongolian catapults except for getting Construction first and building a huge counter-stack of catapults and, I don't know, swords I guess. Does this herlad the return of the elephult rush? Although elephants are no guarentee, my guess is that the Mongols will be one of the first picks.

Byzantium seems pretty neat too. +2 Happy basically for free in every city, and the Counterweight Treb seems like a medieval cannon? Is it actually any good?

America seems quite pickable too. Great synergy with the UU and UB now; you can draft G2 Minutemen with just an Armory!