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Charriu · September 27th, 2020, 22:59

What would that revamp look like?

scooter · September 28th, 2020, 14:58

(September 27th, 2020, 21:10)NobleHelium Wrote: It is actually better for simultaneous games to have fewer wars than more so that there aren't as many turn splits.

I think this is a ridiculous opinion lol

. Turn splits are not a big deal unless you make them one. Wars are exciting, and we should have fewer barriers to them. Of course, you're of the opinion that PBEM is a viable game format in the year 2020, so I suspect we just won't agree on this. tongue

(September 27th, 2020, 21:10)NobleHelium Wrote: If players don't have a good reason to continue with the war because neither side can get anywhere, it is good for there to be pressure to make peace.

I think you're missing my point that the player getting conquered has no reason to sign peace because he knows he can inflict WW on his attacker, enforcing an unnecessary turn split just to gain an edge. Lower or no WW actually makes peace more likely.

(September 27th, 2020, 21:50)Gaspar Wrote: War weariness is a shitty mechanic but in MP, to some extent, it forces you to play smartly - basically to fight either surgical battles or full conquests.

I would not be opposed to a total revamp of the mechanic if we were in a situation where we had discussion, etc.

I am utterly opposed to altering a fundamental game system at the 11th hour before the game goes live, after picks have been completed, etc.

FWIW, we discussed this a bit earlier in the CTH thread. Since my "No WW" position is not widely adopted, it should be noted that it is decreased in CtH. I outlined the differences in the following post. BtS has 99% retention every turn, and we were discussing 95% and 90%. I'll spoiler it so as to limit my thread hijack a bit.

I think Charriu actually did implement this judging by the changelog, but I'm unsure if he went with 95% or 90%.

scooter · September 28th, 2020, 15:00

In case it's unclear, I agree it's much too late to use the No WW option. That's nuts and absolutely must be decided pre-picks.

GeneralKilCavalry · September 28th, 2020, 15:03

(September 28th, 2020, 14:58)scooter Wrote:
(September 27th, 2020, 21:10)NobleHelium Wrote: It is actually better for simultaneous games to have fewer wars than more so that there aren't as many turn splits.

I think this is a ridiculous opinion . Turn splits are not a big deal unless you make them one. Wars are exciting, and we should have fewer barriers to them. Of course, you're of the opinion that PBEM is a viable game format in the year 2020, so I suspect we just won't agree on this.

Dogpiles work totally fine, the player on the receiving end just takes one corner of the turn timer and that's it.

Charriu · September 28th, 2020, 15:26

(September 28th, 2020, 14:58)scooter Wrote: I think Charriu actually did implement this judging by the changelog, but I'm unsure if he went with 95% or 90%.

It is at 90 just like in RtR.

NobleHelium

By the way Lew, this is how you hog lurkers. Since you asked.

Lewwyn · September 28th, 2020, 17:05

(September 28th, 2020, 15:57)NobleHelium Wrote: By the way Lew, this is how you hog lurkers. Since you asked.

Yes arguing with people about factors currently of no consequence to this game is that down home farm slop that brings all the hogs to the yard.

NobleHelium · September 28th, 2020, 18:02

Hey man, it gets the job done.

NobleHelium

As promised, this is my highly opinionated and short player preview. The last one proved quite accurate, except Gavagai which I knew nothing about and he turned out to be quite a good player. This one is longer than that one, partially because I am feeling the scathing criticism more strongly this time.

Players are listed in ascending order of probability of victory. So the earlier players probably aren't going to win the game.

8. Amicalola & Mjmd playing Hannibal (Charismatic, Financial) of India (Mining, Mysticism, Fast Worker, Mausoleum)

When we were discussing picking something more serious than CYRUS OF MONGOLIA, India was certainly one of the civs that came up. I have never played India which is unfortunate. I even spent some time simming an open and it didn't feel great, because India has bad starting techs and this is another start that needs oodles of tech. Then I realized it was silly for me to waste time like that because Amicalola is being dedlurked by Mjmd AKA the guy who picks India every game. So naturally they took India. I believe starts are quite similar since that is one of the things GKC specifically mentioned, so I am pretty sure every start is going to have a lot of resources and need a lot of techs. Mjmd also loves picking Victoria but she was taken so I was sure they would pick a different FIN leader. We took Pacal so we were sure they would take either Willem or Hannibal, as the two remaining expansion traits (CHA is only sort of an expansion trait) to go with FIN. Anyway, I am not impressed with the Hannibal pick because I think CHA is going to be pretty bad on this likely resource-heavy map. And these players are not going to be good at warring.

Amicalola has played one previous game which can only be described as an abject failure. He planted his second city on copper in the middle of a lot of flood plains but did not have any workers improving it. And he also had no trade route between the cities and came up with a seemingly clever plan where he built a monument in his capital to expand borders faster to cover the river to get the trade route, but while seemingly clever it was really just awful and he built a ton of quechuas which quickly died to chariots from the neighboring El Grillo. Have a good plan for what you're doing with your workers or your game is going to suck, that's the bottom line. Anyway, Mjmd has played quite a few games and has mostly done poorly in them other than PB52 where he is currently leading and may wrap up the victory. But PB52 was a unique situation where his neighbor spent 120 out of the first 150 turns fighting in the other direction, so I am not expecting that to happen again. He posts very detailed micro plans but they don't seem to actually be very good, and he also talks about silly things like building the Hanging Gardens as a pregame goal. So as you can see, I am not expecting much from this corner.

7. superdeath playing Mao Zedong (Expansive, Protective) of Carthage (Fishing, Mining, Numidian Cavalry, Cothon)

SD seems to be quite fond of Mao since he has picked it multiple times now. Not that it's a bad pick - if you knew nothing about your start, Mao is possibly the highest floor pick you can make. As for Carthage, I do not like UUs that are situationally worse than the base unit. EXP cothons are really really cheap so that is nice, and it is understandable why he picked it. After the Carthage pick it was very obvious he would follow up with Mao if it was not taken.

As for SD himself, well, there's a lot and also not much to say at the same time. SD is the most self-centered person I have seen in a very long time, as he literally talks about himself in every other post even though most threads have nothing to do with him. He subconsciously thinks he's awesome and that's why he hasn't really learned much from his games. He talks about things like how he doesn't bother coming up with micro plans but his lurkers do and then he finds errors in those micro plans? Sometimes it's pretty funny stuff to read. He's played in literally every game since joining RB other than the game he created because he wanted to make a map. So he's not paying that much attention to any one specific game, and I also feel like he's more obsessed with the idea of playing the game than actually playing the game. We know he instinctively reacts to the first thing he sees and that reaction is generally to attack. This part shares some similarities to Commodore, actually, but Commodore is and pretty much always has been a much better player. (Commodore's reaction was also often to settle aggressively rather than directly attack.) So anyway, I am still expecting him to be embroiled in some ancient/classical war and generally not doing well because he's not a good player, and also because he is very overconfident of his abilities, consciously or otherwise.

6. Jowy playing Wang Kon (Financial, Protective) of Native America (Agriculture, Hunting, Dog Soldier, Totem Pole)

Wang Kon is the new Darius, the dude you pick if you just want the cash. So it's never really bad I guess? As Lewwyn said, we were speculating that he might pick Inca as a pseudo-expansion trait to go with his economic power, but instead he's picked a civ that I have literally never looked at. So there is that. I guess if he's afraid of getting attacked by Lewwyn or SD then he's got defense for that.

I was going to have Jowy higher but then he pissed off Lewwyn for no good reason, so I can't really put him much higher when Lewwyn is out for blood. He also pissed me off and I am actually contributing to the game as a result, when I was mostly just going to heckle Gaspar like in PB19. Anyway, as you may have seen in my preview from seven years ago I was really unimpressed with Jowy in his earliest games because he knew basically nothing and didn't seem interested in listening to anyone who tried to help him get better. He does seem to be doing better now in recent games so I'm assuming he's finally learned some things. But I still don't think he has much understanding of the game fundamentals.

5. AutomatedTeller playing Charlemagne (Imperialistic, Protective) of France (Agriculture, Wheel, Musketeer, Salon)

After simming our start here some and playing PBEM78 I have come to the conclusion that it is very hard to build settlers on normal speed without IMP. If you don't have IMP, you want to be 3-whipping them. And obviously you can't do that for a while, so IMP helps a lot. So I think the balance between EXP and IMP is significantly affected by the game speed, and we play games on normal speed now. I'm not saying IMP is necessarily better than EXP - but I'm saying a lot of our opinions on traits go back to the earliest modern RB games which were all played on quick speed. And mod design has been strongly affected by these perhaps outdated ideas. Anyway, Charlemagne is your bog standard expansion + economic trait, and pretty much also never bad like Mao. In fact it may even have a higher floor than Mao because EXP kind of sucks if you can't get Pottery relatively early because your start has high demands on tech. If Victoria had been available I might have argued for us to pick her over Pacal, but then we might not have picked Khmer without EXP. France is one of the best Agriculture/Wheel civs, but Agriculture/Wheel is not as good anymore, and AT didn't pick EXP. Still, it's a good enough pick.

AT himself is a bit of a conundrum because he has played in quite a lot of games now but hasn't really done well in any of them as far as I know. But from what I've seen in his posts he doesn't seem like the kind of person that doesn't learn, so I think he mainly just doesn't pay enough attention or put enough effort into his games. So I'm not expecting a high showing from him.

4. Ruff_Hi & civac2 playing Victoria (Financial, Imperialistic) of Rome (Fishing, Mining, Praetorian, Forum)

Victoria is a good pick and something I may have wanted if it was available. Rome is a good pick if you want Fishing, which we did not so it was not on the table for us. But maybe GKC gave some people seafood instead of deer? Certainly a possibility. But they very well may have picked Rome because it's Rome, and also civac has only played SP and SP players love Rome. But praetorians aren't that good in RB MP where people have hours to think and generally attack with 2-movers.

Ruff has also played a lot of games at this point but hasn't really done that well in any of them. His posts are often very hard to understand and things are often phrased in a way where it hurts my brain to try to make sense of them, so I don't really know that much about how he plays. I have been told by some parties that he has really bad micro and that's why he generally does poorly. civac2 has made a lot of comments on the CtH thread but all of them come from his single-player experience and quite frankly a lot of them are ludicrous suggestions partially because of this. He does seem to be quite smart and I like the fact that he gives no quarter to the more experienced players on the forum, so I am expecting him to help out Ruff and improve their chances. I do hope they aren't going to engage in anything absolutely silly like self-pillaging copper though.

3. Commodore & pindicator playing Saladin (Protective, Spiritual) of Celtia (Hunting, Mysticism, Gallic Warrior, Dun)

Saladin was straight up predicted by Gaspar as Commodore's pick after the Celts were taken. They were obviously going to take PRO to go with the duns so the only question was the other trait. Charlemagne and Mao both seemed obvious top choices but they were taken. After that Qin Shi Huang (QSH) was the obvious choice as the only IND, but I also think Commodore almost never picks IND so I was expecting something else. I thought they would pick Churchill (CHA) to go with PRO, since I think Commodore likes CHA as a war trait when IMP is not available. Anyway, I was looking at the duns and thought maybe they would grant G1 to all land units (the tooltip actually says all units), but it's only to the units that can naturally get G1 - namely Archery and Gunpowder units. And frankly that's not very good at all. If I could get duns with CKNs then I would be into it, but otherwise I don't see the appeal. Duns do provide culture so I guess that's why they didn't pick CHA since it's redundant with monuments. The leader pick is fine enough given their civ pick. I realize this is an intentionally indie/jank pick which is what Commodore is all about anyway. We almost made a jank pick too.

Many people know of my vendetta with Commodore and I have written a specific explanation of why I have disdain for his character. You can dig that up towards the end of PBEM38 if you so wish. Since returning I have mostly ignored him in the hopes that time washes away all wounds, but that doesn't mean I want to be playing a game with him. pindicator is a good friend of mine and naturally I am disappointed that he decided to team up with Commodore. Other than that Commodore might do his usual Commodore thing where he settles aggressively at the first neighbor he sees, or perhaps the most notable neighbor (which could be us) he sees. Then his overall expansion might suffer because of the awkward settlement strategy. pindicator is especially good at openings but he also does them in spreadsheets which is more mistake-prone than playing the game. His use of spreadsheets extends to things like planning GPs and tracking other people's techs and builds. I guess I don't really know what to say about pindicator because I know him really well so I don't think about him consciously very much. In general these are two of the best players in the game and one of the few with a realistic chance at winning.

2. Gavagai playing Suryavarman (Creative, Expansive) of Egypt (Agriculture, Wheel, War Chariot, Obelisk)

Gavagai is quite a good player with some eccentricities which might be due to his different background. He has two solid BTS picks that are worse in CtH, but overall I expect him to do well with them and he may very well win the game. To be honest when I was checking out the traits for 78 I thought that CRE got the "standard" nerf of 1 culture/turn in addition to its library nerf, but it actually didn't - it's still 2 culture/turn. This is a significant difference on normal speed and certainly it is a bit better now. I still wouldn't pick it, but I can see why it might be attractive. Egypt is probably better in these games than the games I am used to, because there is significantly more ancient/classical warring than we have historically engaged in. The Obelisk is certainly a null building except for the fringe case of guaranteeing a shrine for your religion, and religion is harder to get in a big game.

I do not like playing against Gavagai because he expects other players to think like him, and we invariably do not think like him, and it's like unfathomable to him that we might think differently. That is what Gaspar meant by intractable. He is definitely an aggressive player and I am embarrassed to say that we did have our game ruined by him in PB16 which was a very bad showing for us. We did however strike back in return and mostly knock him out of the running, but realistically neither of us had a chance at that game anyway due to the poorly designed map where SevenSpirits shared an island with a newbie and nobody else. We will not be bullied however.

1. Lewwyn & Gaspar playing Pacal (Expansive, Financial) of Khmer (Hunting, Mining, Ballista Elephant, Baray)

And finally we come to us. Lewwyn tried to recruit me for the game and I mostly brushed him off, then he recruited Gaspar and Gaspar tried to recruit me for the game and I mostly brushed him off. I don't like simultaneous games, I don't like games against Commodore and I don't like games against Gavagai. But I told Gaspar the exact same thing I told him before PB19 - there are no other threads worth reading anyway so I won't be reading them. As for the tussle over the settings, I genuinely thought the settings were undecided and thought it was absurd that people were already picking without settings decided. (I was not yelling all day but I assume it was obvious that Lewwyn was exaggerating for dramatic effect.) I had no idea that Jowy had listed a bunch of settings and asked people to take them or object to them, BECAUSE THE THREAD WAS BEING FLOODED WITH BULLSHIT AT SUCH A SPEED THAT IT WAS LIKE A WEREWOLF GAME. So I thought it was positively ridiculous that Jowy reacted in such a manner when we wanted to clarify the settings. Anyway that galvanized me to actually care about the game and I promised to sim some openings and here we are.

As previously discussed, after pondering whether to play more seriously than CYRUS OF MONGOLIA Gaspar suggested the consensus BTS king Pacal. We discussed some civs along the lines of starting techs and I said my piece that I think Mining is the best overall starting tech. We looked at Mining/Hunting civs since we're going to want either Agriculture or Hunting for such a resource-heavy start and everyone knows what the Mining/Agriculture civ is. We came across Khmer and the baray is an aqueduct replacement. We know that EXP might get changed again in future versions and possibly lose its aqueduct bonus, which I normally would not care about (the only aqueduct you build before the Industrial era is the one you need for HG if you're going for that), but it is super intriguing to play Khmer while the bonus is available. 50h barays are cheaper than 60h lighthouses and you frequently build a lighthouse just for 1f on seafood or a lake, so why not? Seems pretty good. Ballista elephants while good on paper are ultimately defensive units, but as far as UUs go you can certainly do a lot worse. So that's the pick. I was originally going to put us third, but now we're pissed off and serious so I moved us up.

===

Also, I am sure Charriu has noted the complete lack of Organized picks. I DO NOT THINK ORGANIZED NEEDS A BUFF. People are just underrating ORG a bit right now and people have also probably forgotten about the lighthouse bonus. And the most recent maps haven't had much water, or at least the expectation of much water.

Gaspar · September 28th, 2020, 19:32

I thoroughly enjoyed this preview. It is not as funny as mine, as there are no memes, but I largely agree with what he says. If I were ranking the teams as an impartial observer in order of most likely to win to least likely, I would go:

Gavagai
Commodore/Pindicator
Us
Ruff/Civac
Jowy
AT
Amicalola/mjmd
superdeath

I think any of the top 3 can win and none of the bottom 5 can win.

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