[SPOILERS] enough is ENOUGH! scooter opens some windows and finishes first!

[Krill]

But the wonders! You can quite easily balance a game for the traits and civs, but...that's when the wonders start to break the game. The reason the wonders are just about balanced is that the early game traits can get to them first and keep the momentum up. In games such as this that have additional benefits to the late game traits that speed them up, unbalances the traits with respect to wonders: a SPI leader that can expand fast and get the Mids is a truly scary prospect, for example. That doesn't normally happen in PBEMs otherwise.

[SevenSpirits]

I would just like to say, pbem25 is (mostly) public knowledge. Wonders were really good there and that was even without stone/marble available, and the water wonders also unavailable. Everyone knew this map was similar to that one, and even knew it had jungled stone at the capital which can be hooked at Iron Working or Mathematics. No one picked Industrious. All this and you've let a single civ get Stonehenge, Pyramids, HG, and GLH (did I miss any)?

It's crazy. People just don't put enough priority on building wonders in PBEMs right now. Wonders are good. And in 4-6 player games your share of the wonder pie should be quite noticeable. (And you should be able to do some rudimentary C&D and/or micro so you don't waste a ton of time.) Furthermore with smaller maps than pitbosses, cities cost more in PBEMs which makes wonders even better.

When I got to RB it was common wisdom that you shouldn't waste your time with wonders, just build settlers and workers and cottages. That's crap. There are enough early wonders to go around. Like Mackoti said -

if i want something i say i will pay the price and dont look back.Never someone in my games got all the wonders because i focus on some and gave up on others.

Another thing I learned from playing against Mackoti is that the common wisdom of expand and tank your economy is crap too. It's especially bad in PBEMs - there are just too many rewards for being the first to reach certain techs (all the wonder techs, Music, etc). Don't tank your economy!

Both of these bits of wisdom came from an environment of giant games where you are FIN. In this case going for any given wonder is a big risk, it's unlikely you'll reach any given tech first anyway, tech trading might even be on, and adding lots of cottage-working population does not truly tank your economy.

[pindicator]

Well said Seven. I think we're seeing people take the old, established SP truisms of Civ4, stuff that would be repeated over and over at CivFanatocs years and years ago, and holding onto those even in a MP environment. I know I still do it, even though I've been trying to break myself of these old habits. We're not playing AI that get obscene bonuses to make up for their easy-to-predict / manipulate routines and we need to stop playing like we are.

And scooter back to your question 2 pages ago: you can always do #1 after trying something else but if you do #1 first you can't try the other options.

[scooter]

I'll comment on the theory discussion when I get more time. Good stuff, this is exactly the kind of discussion I was aiming for.

And scooter back to your question 2 pages ago: you can always do #1 after trying something else but if you do #1 first you can't try the other options.

Yeah, no plans to concede right now - if only because this game is still fun despite the fact that the conclusion appears to be foregone. My real decision boils down to the following:

1. Whip Courthouses everywhere, then use my quickly growing happy cap to grow as high as I can everywhere and grow my cottages. Basically, Operation: Economic Recovery

2. Barracks/Ger everywhere (in key cities that do not have them), and then whip myself ot the ground getting as many Keshiks as possible. Probably shut off research indefinitely because with a giant army I'll inevitably bankrupt myself in unit support costs so I'll want something to burn through. Then, send that army at someone and see what I can conquer before Serdoa is drafting.

Honestly not really sure what path is best. Need to decide in the next couple of turns. Comments are of course welcome.

[scooter]

Another thing I learned from playing against Mackoti is that the common wisdom of expand and tank your economy is crap too. It's especially bad in PBEMs - there are just too many rewards for being the first to reach certain techs (all the wonder techs, Music, etc). Don't tank your economy!

Both of these bits of wisdom came from an environment of giant games where you are FIN. In this case going for any given wonder is a big risk, it's unlikely you'll reach any given tech first anyway, tech trading might even be on, and adding lots of cottage-working population does not truly tank your economy.

Actually I think it comes from years of playing with tech trading. No tech trading as standard is a fairly recent thing (many newcomers to RB seem surprised that we basically skip tech trading and then they finally understand it). Before our games here, nearly every pitboss played with tech trading and certainly the vast majority of single player games included tech trading. In that case, the land was more valuable because you could trade enough to keep parity, but you can't easily make up for a land disadvantage. Therefore in a PB1 style game, by all means tank your economy and tank it hard because you can trade your way back into the game technologically but you can't easily get land later in the game. This is even more true in SP where the AI is laughably predictable, so just a few key bulbs and flip that tech for a bunch of others is enough to supply all your tech needs while you tank and rebuild your economy. A 5 player NTT PBEM is an entirely different beast, and I think most of us have been slower to adapt to that than others.

Anyways, I do think RB Mod goes a long ways to fix some of these problems (though it certainly doesn't fix everything), though my only RB Mod complaint is that the slavery nerf makes the early game a bit too dull because it slows everything down so much. I do think though that RB Mod's increased known tech bonuses and late tech trading that both kick in at Paper do make it somewhat more possible for a CE to catch up to a Mids economy.

[scooter]

I would just like to say, pbem25 is (mostly) public knowledge. Wonders were really good there and that was even without stone/marble available, and the water wonders also unavailable. Everyone knew this map was similar to that one, and even knew it had jungled stone at the capital which can be hooked at Iron Working or Mathematics. No one picked Industrious. All this and you've let a single civ get Stonehenge, Pyramids, HG, and GLH (did I miss any)?

Forgot to comment on this. PB7 to some extent and PBEM32 to a greater extent basically brought me out of RB hibernation. I had zero knowledge of PBEM25, and I only had a short time to kind of take a look at what was going on there, and I found a bunch of sparsely updated threads in the veterans game. All I really was able to gather from that game was kind of how the map looked, but even that was fundamentally different as that was basically a cramped no-navy game. Basically, PBEM25 was of no real use to people like me who were not following the game and was a big use to people like Serdoa who were actually playing that game. I think it's pretty safe to say if you were to make another map similar to this and I were to sign up with a bunch of people who hadn't followed 25 or 32, I'd have a pretty significant advantage from a strategic perspective.

[Gaspar]

I would just like to say, pbem25 is (mostly) public knowledge. Wonders were really good there and that was even without stone/marble available, and the water wonders also unavailable. Everyone knew this map was similar to that one, and even knew it had jungled stone at the capital which can be hooked at Iron Working or Mathematics. No one picked Industrious. All this and you've let a single civ get Stonehenge, Pyramids, HG, and GLH (did I miss any)?

It's crazy. People just don't put enough priority on building wonders in PBEMs right now. Wonders are good. And in 4-6 player games your share of the wonder pie should be quite noticeable. (And you should be able to do some rudimentary C&D and/or micro so you don't waste a ton of time.) Furthermore with smaller maps than pitbosses, cities cost more in PBEMs which makes wonders even better.

I agree with most of what you said but there's still something fundamentally off when you've done your diligence, you've done your micro, you've picked a wonder, you've C&D'd to know you won't lose it... and then someone shows up on your borders with a warrior in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are relegated to also-ran status because you can't land the wonder anymore. The wonders are just TOO important in the current set-up.

[SevenSpirits]

I do agree with that. (Although realistically one warrior should not be screwing you up so badly.)

I think all the good early wonders' strengths could stand to be reduced a bit.

[Krill]

I agree with most of what you said but there's still something fundamentally off when you've done your diligence, you've done your micro, you've picked a wonder, you've C&D'd to know you won't lose it... and then someone shows up on your borders with a warrior in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are relegated to also-ran status because you can't land the wonder anymore. The wonders are just TOO important in the current set-up.

To add to this...not all wonders are equal. Pyramids, GLH and Collosus are economic wonders that help you keep on teching, and two of them don't work well on land maps. Henge, Oracle and GW...eh. These don't fundamentally change the game that is being played. The first three do...unless you Oracle Machinery, I suppose

With this in mind, if the game balance forces you to build wonders with spare production rather than invest in expansion, military or city improvements...and with 5 players in the game, you all have to head for an economic wonder, at least 2 of the players are screwed. This game is the perfect example, scooter tried to get two of those wonders, Henge and GLH...and missed both.

An aside, having a vanilla FIN trait doesn't fundamentally change this balance either, that will rely on the map and how the snake pick fell. For example, low happy cap maps force horizontal expansion, making the happiness from Rep even more valuable.

[scooter]

So I kind of misled you all to an extent yesterday. I have a particularly fun surprise for this turn, which I'm playing now. Any guesses?