[SPOILERS] Muffin's spoiler thread of delicious baked goodness and half baked ideas

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I realy like your comments, and welcome to RB.

I dont know anithing about the map , but usualy this maps are larger then the one we usualy play in the gspy lobby with far more useful land.So becasue of thta i think you have completly right about AGG rome , you cant have te economy prepared to deal the amount of land you'll get.

I think you are realy understimate ORG, becasue you want a realy large empire so you can win , and there nothing matches to ORG.

About IMP, i find it very useful if you have 2-3 cities very good to expand faster having some special resources(gold, silver, fur), otherwise not that strong.

about bismark, oh yeah is a very solid leader ,evn betr then some of fin leaders(thats a personal opinion and many dont agree).

Good luck and see you at work.


PS: building just 1 librarie,until when i might ask?

Thank you for the reply and that you like my posts. Makes it worthwhile if people enjoy reading them! I'll respond to all your points.

I dont know anithing about the map , but usualy this maps are larger then the one we usualy play in the gspy lobby with far more useful land.So becasue of thta i think you have completly right about AGG rome , you cant have te economy prepared to deal the amount of land you'll get.
Cheers for agreeing. I agree they are perhaps larger than a gamespy one but a lake mapscript is quite small. Even with the deadzones mostly edited out I would struggle to believe that we would have more than 8 cities each, unless they all had serious overlap. I am happy to be proved wrong though. You almost convinced me that SE would be very viable here, and it probably will be but it will require a large amount of hammer investment to set up.

About IMP, i find it very useful if you have 2-3 cities very good to expand faster having some special resources(gold, silver, fur), otherwise not that strong.
Yeah it definitely helps get the cities out faster, although if you read the post above I reckon I can get a settler out pre turn 30, and most of that would be food not hammers which are not multiplyed. I would only get a 2 hammer per turn increase. It does force your tech path slightly to the more hammer heavy options of chopping and slaving to get the most value out of the trait.

I think you are realy understimate ORG, becasue you want a realy large empire so you can win , and there nothing matches to ORG.
I'll try and explain my reasoning here better. This map has high city maintenance costs because of the torotoidal wrap. Thus this will limit us city wise moreso than it usually would at this difficulty. Org contrary to popular opinion does not help with this directly - it only indirectly helps through a faster courthouse.

Thus my reasoning org is weaker than usual on this map despite at first glance seeming like a good move, is that it reduces civic costs. These are purely related to empire size, difficulty and civic choice. So on a normal cylindrical wrap you will be able to have a bigger empire as maintenance costs are lower and thus a bigger proportion of your total expenses is civic upkeep. Here as we are likely to go for fewer bigger cities to help with costs our civic costs are likely to be lower than usual and therefore despite it being a high costs map it actually helps out less with expenses than it usually would. That is my thought process anyway.

I think I will get more out of IND, especially with there not really being any lighthouses to build so you are only saving courthouse hammers. Failgolding wonders is often viewed as a more lucrative and powerful deity play option than fin don't forget, although I dislike single player modes.

Edit: sorry didn't see the library comment. Um hopefully all game if possible. I am planning on religion for borders in the first city I found and then the only reason I am really building a library is to try and spawn a GS, although I have been thinking about whether that is worth going for more and more.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Now I have a little more time on my hands I will explain my civ choice in more detail - Byzantium has one of the best UUs around as everyone knows, completely dominant in the era it comes in and very difficult to counter. Out in the field unpromoted vs eles (which are banned anyway) or pikes they are evens and with a higher base power and access to shock at 2nd promo you dominate the field. Also if there are any single player players reading 2 movers are more valuable vs humans than ai as we have the ability to recognise cities that are not under threat and concentrate our forces on the front, rather than diety ai which sticks 2-3 longbows as MP alone in most cities. Also their 'drawback' of not being immune to first strikes is pretty minor. People seldom promote down the drill path and if you have a decent sized stack you can always gain this promotion by getting a few of them to be flanking 2, which is probably the most cost effective promotion vs longbows (although if they are using longbows as the best defenders vs cataphracts they are really struggling.
The UB is a decent improvement on a building that I seldom build really, the theatre. In terms of usefulness for 50 hammers +1 happy and +1 from horses (so on a balanced modified map almost certainly +2) it is incredibly cheap for what you get. Essentially if you have any happy issues you would struggle to find a better hammer/happiness conversion ratio. Even 2 warriors would cost 30 hammers and that assumes that you are running HR and they do cost gold/turn as MP. Although I do not plan on hitting this part of the tech tree much as happiness on a resource heavy map shouldn't be much of an issue and going for this is counter productive to ASAP guilds.
Their starting techs are a little lacklustre with wheel/myst in terms of land improvement but for sheer base beaker value they are not too bad at 110/120, only agri wheel giving more beakers at the start. But as long as you have a grain start which I do with corn, which I have assumed is dry then you can always tech agri before your first worker and you are away! The only thing the civ doesn't do is lend itself to early chopping and slaving which with enough food and forests is extremely powerful play.

Obviously inca and india were out from the start. I also lent towards more early bonus civs as I am much more familiar with quick online games than anything else. I think I have played about 2-3 games which have actually reached nukes, and about 5% the FFAs have reached the industrial era, so I want to finish the game off whilst I feel comfortable.

I considered HRE because they have a great UU and UB combo. As I have mentioned many times I expect an expensive game in terms of maintenance and their boosted Rathaus means they are always a popular choice. They are more adept to a longer game and winning in the later stages of the game. The landesckrecht is a very powerful UU and I believe undervalued. It is cheaper than a mace and in flat combat only slightly inferior. I think it is because people try to use them as aggressive units whereas they really shine on the defence. A stack of them is very versitile, being able to defend very cost effectively either vs mounted or melee stacks. This then allows the HRE to do what it does best and tech with minimal expenses. The hunting/myst start is rather poor although here I could have easily adapted to it with the powerful edited in ivory tile. Organised is a good pair here not just because of lower rathaus build costs, but because as a proportion of your expenses civics are higher. Thus you get more noticeable benefit from it being reduced as with both civic and city maintenance lower, building more cities is even more attractive.

I explained Rome earlier where although their UU is super powerful and the forum interesting, being one of the few ways of boosting GPP, they are harder to leverage well. This is because it is too early in the game to support such a large empire - in many ways true to life with the Roman empire overexpanding and collapsing in on itself. Also their starting techs of fishing/mining are beaker poor and awkward to use on this map type which I assume will have minimal water resources. Thus you are left either teching to BW and chopping or to improve food resources only. I actually value wheel/myst more than these because of the higher beaker cost and the higher utility of the wheel in saving worker turns.

I also would have considered egypt, with great starting techs agri/wheel and a glorious UU in the war chariot, although it suffers from the same drawbacks as the praetorians. It is very hard to win the game with them which you can easily do with cataphracts. They work better as a fast beeline and slaved out to eliminate a neighbour or 2 and then to win with a much higher land area, perhaps even snagging a few early wonders with them. The UB is nice if you want a SE of prophets, but I don't like a UB that will expire! They are all about the early game and were gone anyway when I was there to pick.

Mali are a decent all round civ. Mining and the wheel are good versitile starting techs although do make it a little awkward to use animal food only, but solid nonetheless. their UU probably the single greatest boost to a unit, turning the very meh archer into something worth building right up until knights with a cracking hammer/power ratio, especially on defense. If paired with protective they have access to 2nd tier promos off the bat and make for great early offensive units, and excel at aggressive plant holding. Whilst their UB is a modest boost, it is a modest boost to a forge which is a building which pretty much gets built everywhere for better slaving conversion and usually extra happiness from metals. All around they are a solid civ, who excel at running away with tech early whilst you feel that they are too costly to attack.

Zulu are always a good solid choice to play as. Hunt/agri are average beaker value and very good at opening up with any non water based food. Their UU in the impi is solid, and can be worth delaying engineering for. With the mobility upgrade they are more mobile than mounted units and very capable pillagers. They are good on offense or defense but therein lies their weakness - you can often build too many of them, and with their low base strength they are weak vs axes. Also they suffer the same issue where it is hard to take over the world in the age they come in. Their UB does help deal with some of the maitainence costs but is more expensive than a regular barracks so this civ really does need the aggressive trait to be viable.

Sumeria are a good choice on this map. Agri/wheel are cracking starting techs as mentioned prior and their UB is undervalued I feel as it is not as such an improvement. Coming at priesthood it allows one to skip CoL and research different more lucrative tech paths. Also of course their hammer value is cut to 90 from 120. Their UU is ok. It has better use later rather than earlier as even though 6+25% and 5+50% should be the same, due to the way the combat calculates with these values they actually loosing odds vs axes both with combat 1 promos. But they are better at killing everything else with a higher base strength. This civ had gone too by the time I came around to pick, and would have been worth considering but their UU makes me uninterested.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Ok that was a very time consuming way of talking about things, and I would be there all day for every civ. Lets take it from another angle. I have already covered trait choice.

Once I saw the start with a corn, whether it was either wet or dry I was not too concerned with starting techs. My main goal was actually to avoid fishing and to get as much beaker worth out of them as possible. Even with the boosted worker start that we all likely have, agri will still be well within reach before I finish the worker, and then animal husbandry for the sheep fast enough after. As this is a made map I expect it is rather balanced and we all have some form of grain and some animal - I hope I haven't been duped with sheep for pigs or cows though! at least they are flat grass though. I could have gone for an early chopping play as with a 3 food cap and 2food 2hammer tile I could have slow built a warrior and then chopped into a second worker/settler, but I think with the speed of the first worker with the 4 yield tile bronze working will be tight to get in 11 turns (10 for worker + moving) The avoiding fishing is that I expect there to be little fish based resources present on this map.

I then wanted to have a clear window in which I could hopefully win the game (I'm from the online school, the only way to win win is conquest. All else is meh, even domination). I wanted it to be in a window where I could conceivably only raze cities if I really didn't like the plant/too new to be worth keeping. Ancient UUs whilst good for making people think twice about attacking you will not necessarily do that much. Cheap defensive ones like the skirmisher or ones that have utility when they are obsolete like the impi are worth considering, but that is to build a powerful eco from and play for a later win which I feel that I would not be able to play as effectively as others here.

You then need to throw out all naval UUs, khemer as it is ele (though useless anyway) stupidly late ones like the SEAL and panzer and ones that are a very poor upgrade on the original. Things in that category are the conquistador, bowman, camel archer etc. Whilst they all have their uses, it is either to stave off defeat until later here or to be resourceless which isn't an issue on a good map or like in the conquistador that some people really like, how often are you facing pikes with currassiers? If you are that far ahead currassiers will do the job anyway and if you aren't then they will be building their own to combat yours.


The building can be important but is usually secondary to the UU. Again maybe I am tainted from playing a lot of teamer games, but I generally shun eco eco multiplyer buildings for more empire and units to defend it, building wide rather than tall. I also like upgrades to a building that I would most likely build in every city anyway. Hence why I consider terraces, irkandas, mints and UB courthouses very powerful.

Whilst people go on about the happy boost from ball courts or hammams, I am not that keen on those builds. Again there should be a lot of happy resources floating around because mapmakers as a rule go heavier on resources rather than lighter, so their usefulness is reduced as you will likely find a lot more happy to pick up. Also they are there purely for happiness, whereas a forge gives a hammer boost, the courthouses decreased costs etc. I will work with my happiness limit and whip away as needbe rather than looking to make cities as big as possible up until the end of the medieval era really.

So essentially with all that in mind, UUs I considered were: cataphract, hatchwa, musketeer, redcoat, cossack, praetorian, kesik, numids, impi, war chariots

UBs - rathaus, mint, sewon, ger, irkanda, sac alter, barray, ziggarut

There are relatively few buildings that are worth choosing a civ over. Some are immediately dropped like sumeria and khemer as the UU is basic or even a kinda downgrade. Others I felt think of the map size would come too late - this isn't a continents or a big/small, and will be fully settled and won/lost quicker than others with 5, so I decided against any post gunpowder UUs.

So I was left with byzantium, korea, HRE, zulu, mongolia, egypt or rome.

After thinking about it a bit more, like previously mentioned things, mongolia egypt and rome all have a window a little too early for my taste. Zulu don't quite fall into that catagory as with the UB they can sustain an advance a little better. Koreas UU is very powerful when elephants are out of the equation. It will get odds on all classical units except HA and be pretty viable against most medieval melee, also coming with a strong UB to boot as you can easily augment a tech path to include education early. HRE are a teching beast with huge amounts of land and the UU whilst not game changing makes attacking you very difficult so is a worthwhile upgrade.

In the end though I choose byzantium as with the start I knew I was safe from being too held back in the beginning with no food improving techs. And then the UU is pretty much in a class of its own. It is essentially a currasier that doesn't ignore walls an era earlier, and much better fits my play style than most of the other choices. I feel I would have warred too much as zulu and overexpanded even with irkanda help. I would have become a big juicy target for someone as korea or the HRE and it would have led to combat taking place later than I am comfortable with.

If anyone has any comments about why I do not value a UU or UB ask away, I am always happy to learn something that I have previously missed.

[Commodore]

Appreciate the walls o' text! Good luck on 'Phractageddon.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Lol I have a lazy bank holiday off after a seven day week, and with minimal game spy civ this felt like good fun.

I guess they are all expecting a cataphract breakout play. Just have to see how it plays out and hope I can get it faster than they realise, and not be outteched or rushed!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

As a question for lurkers and commodore, knowing that I start with the wheel and myst, what is the fastest that you think I could get a worker and settler out seeing the lay of the land as it is?

I have done a few calcs in my head and have a rough idea. I am assuming the corn to be dry (which it will be unless the desert tile to it's left is a cheeky oasis) and the flood plain to be rivered because commodore said he would change that.

[GermanJoey]

I think I will get more out of IND, especially with there not really being any lighthouses to build so you are only saving courthouse hammers. Failgolding wonders is often viewed as a more lucrative and powerful deity play option than fin don't forget, although I dislike single player modes.

This is true, and I think that failgolding in-general is highly undervalued here at RB for various reasons (not the least of which is that failgolding national wonders is patched out of the RB mod) but also don't forget that human players are much less likely to build junk wonders like Angkor Wat, University of Sankore, the Chicken Pizza, the Parthenon, etc etc at a competitive time at least as compared to mindless automaton Deity AI.

[Commodore]

More likely than Gamespy players too, if they're score-pushing!

[von Adlercreutz]

Wow seriously you're planning to play with 0-1 libraries whole game? That would mean no Oxford. I think you're being quite optimistic if you think you can win with only cataphract, I'd think them more as a means to get enough land to get in the winning position and that winning position requires strong economy with good infra in cities.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Wow seriously you're planning to play with 0-1 libraries whole game? That would mean no Oxford. I think you're being quite optimistic if you think you can win with only cataphract, I'd think them more as a means to get enough land to get in the winning position and that winning position requires strong economy with good infra in cities.

Well before this post essentially yes. They are 90 hammer buildings which is another phract, and in the early stages only valuable in the cap and perhaps a gold site. I hope to have a cataphract whipping civ by the early ADs and then use conquest gold to subsidise research of techs I will skip like currency and the like.

However just thinking about my gameplan of fail golding actually makes libraries more valuable. Because I will be getting gold (or trying to) independent of the slider, I will be running it at 100% more and therefore get more worth out of the libraries than usual... Maybe that needs a rethink. The other determinant is how fast the tech rate will be, which I cannot judge without seeing the land. if it is slower I will get more out of a few more libraries.

But in answer to second question, I expect to be either dead or more hopefully kill the others before oxford is useful here. I am basing this on a cramped map though so that could all change depending on mine/commodores definition of cramped. From what I have seen at civfanatics gamespy players are much less concerned with large amounts of land.

But my background involves a large amount of always war teamers, which I do think will skew my perceptions. Opportunity costs of libraries there are HUGE and often result in death. So maybe I am being too harsh on the books?