"Don't move or the bunny gets it" - German Joey plays Cyrus the Virus of Khmer

[WilliamLP]

I just want to say, I love your analysis so far! Your views are very fresh and fun to read.

Yeah, I have to say Toku of India in this game would be a blast no matter how effective it is in practice, almost like playing a different modded game vs everyone else playing vanilla.

[The Black Sword]

Do you use the same nick for Wesnoth btw?

Nice analysis so far, I would say about your gimmick options though; just because they have a gimmick available doesn't mean they have to use it. Some of those combos look very strong to me.

[GermanJoey]

Thank you both.

Black sword, what you say is very true. A lot of my speculation here is meaningless because I haven't seen any of the map surrounding my starting screenshot, much less have idea what my opponents' situation could be.

However, I still think its worth trying to think through my opponents "ideal game plan" because it gives me a starting point on which to make my own plans. Besides, this is a big map and I might not even have contact with more than half the players until past 1AD! Thus, making a measured hypothesis that there are two civs that would really really like The Great Library (one, because it's such a huge benefit to Phi, the other as the best way to bring out his combo's ludicrously powerful full potential) and that there are two other civs that are likely trying for early religions, means that the Poly -> Aesthetics -> Literature -> Music line is probably not worthwhile for me even though I might be able to get an early Heroic Epic..... UNLESS I find some marble AND unless I discover that these four civs have a greatly different situation compared to what I expected. However, until I gain that information, I shouldn't try to hedge my bets (such as dangerously over-expanding to secure marble) to keep myself in that race, as there are other races I could be running.

Similarly, knowing that Keshiks or Praets may be coming tells me that I should adjust my early ratio of chariots/axes/spears towards the latter two until my scouts bring in more information, even if I'd prefer the former for barb patrols and second-wave scouts ordinarily in a vacuum, and the possibility of Viking BS means that I might need more early scouts so that I can thoroughly explore around any large lakes (which can sometimes be more like small oceans on this mapscript) that I want to settle.

One of the funnest and most interesting parts of civ, to me, is the tension in executing some sort of strategy through an unforseen future (a different map than you'd otherwise like, an opponent that is either too close or too far, someone beating you to some big project, etc) and I see a big part of the balance between different traits and civs as the agility (flexibility+adaptability) each has to adapt to various circumstances. A big part of my trait choice (and why I didn't pick Qin, who is a more powerful choice especially considering there's no other Industrious leaders) is that I wanted to maximize my potential agility because I'm very nervous playing MP Civ for the first time in forever and against extremely experienced players. For example, Financial may still be the most powerful trait in ToW, but it is also very brittle, both in terms of its river-needs and vulnerability to aggression from a close neighbor. The Fin leader may be forced to funnel all his extra funds towards Compass or Machinery if his situation is uncomfortable. In contrast, Charismatic may not get any beaker multipliers, but lets you, alternatively, work more mines, work more cottages, and whip more often, or even a little bit of all of the above, and on a city-by-city basis. It lets you trade off between mfg and gdp in a very direct way. Its similar for Imperialistic - I might not want to spew out a dozen or more settlers before 1AD if all the only food available in the rings 8 through 15 from my capital are a few scattered plains cows, but I'll still save loads of hammers on settlers early, which I could translate into extra military (I have mostly been speaking of Imp/Cha as if they were economic traits, but I haven't forgotten that they're the only two traits in this mod that give direct benefit to warring! ) or a wonder like the Great Lighthouse or The Pyramids. Having a close neighbor may dampen my expansion but will still give me some nice extra foreign trade routes from currency. What I'm trying to say is that I still retain most of my relative potential even if my situation is a lot different that what I expected. In contrast, those guys who I had labled "Gimmicky" (although maybe "Gambley" is a better description) lose a lot of their potential if their situation is different.

With Wesnoth I mostly played IH games. I probably only played a few dozen pub games, and that was probably under the nick German Joey. (y'all can just call me Joey, btw, the initial account I registered here was called German Joey but my email kept eating my registration confirmation email, and so I registered this account, which is my steam name, under a different email)

[GermanJoey]

if my ridiculous last post in this thread isnt enough of an indication, im basically going nuts waiting for this game to start ahahahha

[agent427]

important question: have you decided your city naming scheme yet, and will you or won't you name units after your favorite rhizzone posters

[GermanJoey]

If I have, I wouldn't tell you, you'd have to guess !!!!!!!!!!

I moved my scout towards the intended path... discovered no resources BUT. WHAT. DO WE HAVE HERE?????????????????????????



I guess ill need to run a sim on this new spot (1N of Cow) before I settle!!!! And boy howdy do I ever wish I had Churchill here, that would be a 1F9H tile when building a worker (when combined with the 1H from my capital). Yes that's a 6 turn worker, with which I would not be able to improve any tiles lol...

I've also discovered a fact about the Torusland map script that makes me feel better about moving and settling on Turn 1: resources hardly ever appear on adjacent tiles, so I won't have to worry about settling on a resource if I settle 1N of the cow.

[GermanJoey]

Ok, so I simmed 4 starts. The first 3 were done in previous days and are fairly optimized for their opening perspective, while this latest one I just did real quick. In all 4 cases, the goal was to see how many workers, improvements, and granaries I could produce within the first 50 turns while still expanding twice. All except the third one had the tech path of AH->BW->Agri->TW->Pottery->Myst->Fishing->Writing. obviously, where I settled in these tests isn't necessarily where I'd settle in the real game, but still gives me some ideas on the relative strength of the opening

First up is SIP, worker, grow to 3, worker -> settler. this was actually the strongest SIP start because it enables you to start chopping earlier while still developing the strong tiles.



Next we have SIP, worker->grow to 3, settler->worker. this guy coulda grabbed a settler instead of that last worker. I think this is weaker than worker->worker because it doesnt leverage the high pop cap of charismatic as much.



This next one grabbed Agriculture before AH to get the prereq bonus, which slows the pig pasture by 2 turns but recovers a bit later because Pottery comes 2 turns earlier.



Finally, we see what happens when we move to the forest mines spot. This is the strongest opening, except note that we're about 2-3 turns behind in tech (1 turn from moving, ~2 turns from working the forest mine on many turns that other attempts had worked river-adjacent tiles (like a grassland mine or the unimproved pig)). This opening also pretty much gives up the option of the GLH, which is pretty strong on 44% water Torusland, but that would probably just isolate me anyways. Also note that this opening is not necessarily as optimized as the other 3, since it was just something I threw together after dinner to see if it was worth doing at all.

[Dp101]

Are those going to be the city names that you will use in the real game?

[GermanJoey]

No!

[GermanJoey]

In addition to stealing my thread title, Kuro now is trying to usurp my username. He needs to die.