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As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
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Cheater Hater, Ruler of the Modbreakers
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Yeah, I'm assuming the Zulu Ikhanda bug was fixed, but it still makes for a clever thread title
 Table of Contents will come soon of course, as soon as I have actual posts to put in it--maybe I'll actually update this one, unlike my PBEM 58 one 
So, in case the thread title didn't make it clear, I'm keeping my roll of Bismarck of Zulu, even though it appears that it was the last roll
 Originally I felt like I wanted to reroll because I really didn't like Bismarck at first; Expansive seems like it was really nerfed in this mod, and the wonder-building aspects of Industrious seem near-worthless with 32 other players (many of which are Industrious; we'll see how many after the rerolls), but I decided to keep it for three reasons:
March 3rd, 2014, 15:06
(This post was last modified: March 4th, 2014, 16:41 by Cheater Hater.)
Player Analysis:
This isn't meant to be anything definitive at this point (especially since I probably won't have contact with half of them for six months), but it's just a bird's eye view of what a long-time lurker knows about each of the players here. This will be filled in as I get the time; don't expect it all in one sitting 1. Krill + Novice This is the obvious power team here, at least to start. Krill knows the most about the mod, which gives him a sizable advantage everything else being equal. Of course, that might be a disadvantage; they might get dogpiled to remove an obvious threat. I don't know if this means I need to start next to them in order to kill them early, or try to stay away and hope he gets dogpiled by other people (or devours them and becomes unstoppable) 2. spacetyrantxenu 3. plako plako is a good player; he stays in the background and then suddenly appears on top of the scoreboard in a lot of games. Watch out. 4. Dhalphir 5. BRickAstley + Mardoc 6. Cyneheard 7. Boldly Going Nowhere 8. Azza 9. Nakor Nakor was around a lot a while ago, but I haven't seen him as much recently--he performed fine in the earlier games, but I don't have a full picture of it. 10. Cheater Hater I wonder what people will think of me when they see me--right now my only stats are the demogame win (where I mainly just asked Old Harry good questions), PB13 with Bacchus where I eventually dropped from the team (when winning wasn't feasible anymore), dedlurking Yossarian/Caledorn in PB14 (which basically was a recreation of the demogame team), and now PBEM 58 (where I just self-destructed at the start of true war and needed lurkers to convince me not to quit). I feel like I'll do fine, but we'll see 11. Qgqqqqq 12. yuris125 13. dtay 14. Ruff_Hi I know of Ruff_Hi from his single player reports, but he doesn't seem to be as proficient (or as prolific) at multiplayer--still, I'd watch out. 15. pindicator Most of pindicator I've seen comes from PB8/PB13 where he teamed up with scooter; I haven't seen much of his solo play. From the two PB's it seems like pindicator was the more military-focused member of the team, so don't get in a fight with him. 16. Molach 17. The Black Sword 18. Old Harry + Fintourist Old Harry is a really good player, he did well taking over the reigns of Gillette after mackoti/Seven/scooter dropped out, and is doing well in PB13 with Fintourist. I haven't been following their PB13 thread enough to tell how much Fintourist is running the team, but they should do well together here. 19. Catwalk *sigh* How do I explain this... I don't know why, but I have more...feelings towards Catwalk than I reasonably should. I don't like playing against people who don't seem to know what they're doing--I don't like unpredictablility I guess :/ For instance, I considered staying unspoiled in PB17 so I could replace anyone who dropped out, but then I realized I just didn't want to play against Catwalk. Hopefully he's as far away as possible. 20. Bacchus Bacchus should be one of the people I know most about (since I teamed with him in PB13 for the early turns), but I really don't. He seems to not have a concept of the big picture, instead focusing on small advantages (*cough*Seahawks*cough*), but I couldn't get a sense of his whole game. 21. darrelljs + Ichabod darrelljis seems to have a reputation as a good player, though I haven't paid enough attention to his games to know for sure--similar situation with Ichabod. 22. Caledorn Despite dedlurking Caledorn's team, I don't know what to expect from him; PB14 has mainly been Yossarian leading the way. 23. Jowy Everything I've seen of Jowy has been extremely negative, from the original mess in PB2 to his aggressiveness "ruining" various recent PBEM's/PB's. Hopefully he just stays on the other side of the world, and if he doesn't, keep up defenses and just hope he doesn't torpedo your game along with his :/ 24. Barry Lyndon Someone completely new! Hooray, I don't even have to try to do an analysis 25. wetbandit 26. AutomatedTeller Hooray, someone else from PBEM 58! I haven't seen enough of AT's play yet (considering I met him last and only now can see his borders), but he seems good enough--we'll see how PBEM 58 evolves and how that impacts my evaluation of him. 27. Hashoosh 28. Dazedroyalty 29. MYKI 30. Whosit 31. WilliamLP 32. Oxyphenbutazone + BaII Oxy was one of the people offering encouragement in my PBEM 58 thread; other than that I know nothing about either of these two :/ 33. scooter scooter is always a contender to win, as well as a contender to have the best reports. Hopefully he stays on the other side of the world, if not for the game but so I can have a fresh thread to read afterward 34. Sullla (lurker civ) Sullla doing the comprehensive lurker coverage is both why I felt I had to play in this game and why I wish I could be lurking. I feel like I could learn so much from that thread, and now I'll have to wait a year to read it. Maybe there's a "best of both worlds" option: Start the game, kill a civ or two (so I felt like I did something), get wiped out by a good player, then read Sullla's coverage of the competitive endgame--if I do something stupid and get myself killed this is retroactively my excuse
March 4th, 2014, 18:01
(This post was last modified: March 8th, 2014, 20:57 by Cheater Hater.)
Oh no, I'm at the bottom of the page--this can't be!
Since I've never played with RBMod before (I only really know it from following PB13), I'm going to go through the changelog and highlight the changes that are most notable (aka change normal BTS the most). Again, don't expect the full analysis in one sitting Quote:Traits:I'll do these one at a time:
Quote:Civs:Not much change here, mainly balancing along with bringing a lot of UU's/UB's forward. I feel like a lot of the stuff moved from lategame to midgame (notably the Pagoda, Research Institute, and both of Germany's bonuses) might be a bit overpowered, but that probably is just my bias towards playing a builder game where you get time to build multiple Observatories and the like. Quote:Civics:I know the Slavery change is the big change here, but that's been discussed to death, and is just a part of making hammers as relevant as food. The other changes are interesting (especially the military civics becoming cheaper), though I don't understand why Environmentalism and Free Speech swapped positions completely in the tree--why not just create new civics at that point? Quote:Wonders, Projects:The main change here is the resource doublers becoming the research 50%-ers, which gives Industrialism a bigger boost while giving more advantage to hammers and less to tech, since wonders are built slower in general. The two "new" wonders (SoZ and Internet) are interesting--I don't know if SoZ is worth building, but maybe that makes it better for me as an Industrious civ, since I'll have Ikhanda's everywhere regardless, meaning the extra XP is good. I don't understand why Internet and Cristo Redentor needed to be nerfed, but again I don't understand late-game play at all. Quote:Base unit changes:Not much here--the early changes are simple balancing and trying to get most units to be used, and I don't understand late game at all. The main big change is the Barracks being a way to get culture, this decreases the need for Mysticism/religion a lot, especially for Aggressive leaders, and means we'll see more powerful military units in general. Quote:Technology:The known tech bonus stuff is very interesting, probably the second-biggest macro-change other than the emphasis of natural hammers. Obviously it's a catch-up mechanism on one hand, but on the other, the increase in all the tech costs allows someone with an advantage to stay ahead starting in the Renaissance, especially when the counter is on a different tech path (if I have rifles, it'll take you longer to get to Military Science, for example). One thing that hasn't been thought about as much is that it makes advancing eras non-automatic, especially going from Renaissance to Industrial (since the actual top-end changes there). Is there a way to tell which era the most-advanced player is in, or do you have to do a bunch of math? As for the other non-tech related things, they seem fine--chariots aren't nearly as big of a threat as they would (since they require Hunting, AH, and Wheel, and more people have Hunting for spears), Metal Casting got a buff as part of "hammers matter", and Open Borders now require you to go out of your way. Quote:Espionage:This seems like a pretty big nerf to espionage; basically to the level of active espionage banned, minus being able to slightly look at other civs with spys. I understand most of it though; the stupid missions (forcing anarchy) are removed, and counter-espionage is always on (even since you couldn't have it always going in normal games), and spies can no longer efficiently scout. The only strange part is the change of religious effects; it seems unnecessary with all the other changes, and reduces the incentive to found a religion. Quote:Tile Changes:All of this is just making hammers actually produced more competitive with hammers from other sources, just like the slavery nerf. I still don't get why balancing on corporations wasn't even attempted though--obviously corporations are unbalanced, but would it really be broken if corporations were just like religions that gave a constant bonus? Sure, that would be removing a lot of the corporation part of it, but at least they're still in the game! Quote:Events:Does anyone have a full list of events anywhere, presumably with the numbers I can cross-reference? That's needed before I can really comment on this. Quote:Miscellaneous:Not much here--blockades are balanced, fail-gold is removed as a viable economic strategy, toroidal maps don't have to have ridiculous maintenance, bugs are fixed.
Hooray for this finally getting closer to starting--I was able to log into the test game, and decided to give you guys a picture to give me incentive to actually set up my PB18 Dropbox Folder (and set it up with folders from the beginning--I'm still moving pictures out of the base folder into the turn folders in PBEM 58
): Yeah, I chose Zulu (why wouldn't I ) and as such, I was able to confirm that Ikhandas are still 60 hammers--hooray!I probably should play a single player game of the mod sometime soon before the game starts/gets into high gear so I can get familiar with the mod (and maybe end up with some new opinions--and yes, I know I still have to finish both the mod impressions and the player impressions, but I also still need to work on fixing my C&D in PBEM 58)--if I do, expect a mini-report in this thread as more filler until the game actually starts (seriously, how do some threads already have over 20 posts? I know they're for teammates, but still ).
(March 5th, 2014, 18:06)Cheater Hater Wrote: seriously, how do some threads already have over 20 posts?. General strategy discussion doesn't need a starting screenie. Also, some mod changes and re-roll analysis. And at least of a dozen posts from players asking if there's anyone actually lurking (seems at least 10!)
March 8th, 2014, 21:14
(This post was last modified: March 8th, 2014, 21:14 by Cheater Hater.)
Yeah, I guess that stuff can be done in a lot of posts, as opposed to a couple big posts like I did--and I don't need to ask if people are lurking, I can tell from all the posts in the lurker thread
Speaking of strategy, I finished my large post on RBMod--here's a summary for those who don't want to read the whole thing:
(March 8th, 2014, 21:14)Cheater Hater Wrote: And with all the analysis comes a couple questions: There's a event list available in the RBmod thread, probably dated ~2 weeks ago. The contents of each event is still best left to google. Most advanced era is a good question, but you'll probably see a noticeable gnp bump for each one. Unless you're in the lead, and then you know how advanced you are ;-)
I know about the event list--it's part of the changelog I copied over here. Hearing the contents of each event isn't easily accessible sucks though
 Good to know at least someone is watching my thread enough to answer questions--are you following all the threads Celiazul, or just a couple? (since I saw you post in the lurker thread). Of course, now I'm out of content for thread (except for finishing the player analysis, but I'm mainly out of "top of my head" content for that)--maybe I can do my single player game of the mod (with a brief report for the thread), or maybe the game will start tomorrow
(March 8th, 2014, 23:18)Cheater Hater Wrote: Good to know at least someone is watching my thread enough to answer questions--are you following all the threads Celiazul, or just a couple? (since I saw you post in the lurker thread). Global lurking, which means all the interesting ones :-) As the pace picks up, I probably won't read them all. |
