(March 3rd, 2015, 14:36)GermanJoey Wrote: Thank you, Tsargon. Any opinions on leaders? I'm fairly sure I want Agg, but haven't really settled on anything more firm than that...
No not really, I'm hoping mostly to watch and learn.
(March 3rd, 2015, 14:36)GermanJoey Wrote: Thank you, Tsargon. Any opinions on leaders? I'm fairly sure I want Agg, but haven't really settled on anything more firm than that...
No not really, I'm hoping mostly to watch and learn.
Fair enough. I'll go into more detail on what I'm thinking then. (Tsargon is an old pal of mine from another site that's recently got into MP civ. He wanted to join this game but found out about it too late, so I asked him if he wanted to join my team.)
So, first of all, what I look for in my leader+civ pick is something with strength early combined with something with some mid-to-late game power too. Like, think of it like drafting a balanced DotA lineup. You want 2-3 cores to base objectives around, you want heroes that can win their lanes and early skirmishes (typically supports and the mid), you want heroes that can set pace and initiate (the offlane or mid), and some heroes that can carry you to victory. Few heroes fit neatly into one specific category and some redundancy is never a bad thing. Gimmicks can sometimes work if the enemy is unprepared, but IMHO its better to play smartly, leaping on opportunities where the enemy is weak, and powerfully, so that you can set the pace of the game for yourself instead of always reacting on the back foot. This last point is especially important because Civ4 pitboss is typically an FFA rather than a 1v1 teamer match and thus it is a lot harder to capitalize on opponents' specific weaknesses in the pick phase.
Right now, I've picked probably the single strongest early game Civ I could have. They have the most expensive starting techs, which are luckily perfect for my start, an extremely powerful early-game UU that I intend to get online quickly, and a great UB that synergizes with my intended Agg trait in two different ways. Agg itself is kind of a weirder trait, in that its about evenly useful throughout the game and its about evenly good on almost any map. I had actually not intended to pick Agg originally, but I had a chance at Zulu so... Anyways, since I'm already pretty balanced, what I think I want now is something to give me some sort of explosive power. However, I'm not sure where I want that... I could emphasize the early-game more, to come out with a truly outstanding start (e.g. Imp), or keep some tricks in my back-pocket for later. (e.g. Fin, Ind, maybe Phi or Spi?) What other players pick will greatly affect this, of course.
Here's my RtR mod generic trait review, since I'm in a typing mood today, as rated for my personal playstyle on a blank map with a blank civ. By the way, the mod changelog is here:
The changes might look like a lot of stuff, but its still pretty much the same Civ4 you know.
Rating scale of 1-5 for each era
Aggressive: has just a bit of early game power, due to saving you from researching the religious line, helping you get borders out only second to Cre and helping speed you to various worker techs. Later on, its primary power will be in the extra promotion (or two or three...) its troops will have compared to rivals, which can gain you both a tactical advantages (e.g. Amphibious troops and Commandos) and a SoD hammer-advantage (as 1 of your troops will be worth more than 1 of your enemy's). The maintenance savings also becomes pretty significant as the game progresses... its not quite as good as Org's savings, but will typically be around 60%-80% of that. Agg will be even better for us here than these ratings due to its special synergy with the Zulu.
ancient era: 3
classical era: 2
medieval era: 3
renaissance era: 3
industrial era: 4
modern era: 4
Expansive: This is essentially a completely new trait compared to BTS, having lots of little bonuses all through the game. I wrote about it really extensively in my PB24 thread, so go and check that out if you want to read more. Long story short, I think its pretty good.
ancient era: 3
classical era: 5
medieval era: 5
renaissance era: 2
industrial era: 4
modern era: 2
Protective: Basically, if you combined BTS' Protective and Expansive into one trait. I love BTS Expansive but hate Protective and I think, overall, that I don't like the combined trait. It gets a lot of power from early granaries, its main lure, but the rest of it is pretty blugh, mainly a psychological deterrent more than anything else that can be summed up as "you lose worse." Fuck that, I want to win, and I want to win by banging pots and pans together! #GamerHellYeah
ancient era: 5
classical era: 6
medieval era: 2
renaissance era: 2
industrial era: 2
modern era: 2
Creative: very powerful early if you can get some special spots that you could ordinarily not settle and work food/happy tiles far earlier than you otherwise would be able to. Cre was one of the best BTS traits but has been heavily nerfed in RtR mod due to the removal of half-priced libraries. In fact, it is now generally considered the worst RtR mod trait, a reputation it might not actually deserve - note that many of the leaders in PB18, at various stages of the game, have been players playing Cre leaders.
ancient era: 5
classical era: 4
medieval era: 3
renaissance era: 3
industrial era: 1
modern era: 1
Financial: fairly useless early, becomes great at Bureau and then better and better the later the game goes. Still the best late-game trait for sure, although its considerably more awkward to use in RtR mod compared to BTS.
ancient era: 1
classical era: 2
medieval era: 4
renaissance era: 4
industrial era: 5
modern era: 5
Organized: Kinda useless early unless you want to build a lot of lighthouses, but then the civic and courthouse savings starts adding up once your empire has grown some. Late-game half-price factories are typically ignored but they probably shouldn't be, this discount is really really really great.
ancient era: 1-3 (depends on what kind of water you expect at start)
classical era: 2
medieval era: 4
renaissance era: 4
industrial era: 6
modern era: 4
Imperialistic: Huge early-game boost; late-game has some staying power potentially due to masses of GGs a front-runner could produce. I don't think custom houses will make much of a difference in this game.
ancient era: 5
classical era: 3
medieval era: 1
renaissance era: 2
industrial era: 3
modern era: 3
Spiritual: The free swap into slavery (and Bureau, etc) is worth more than people realize, not only due to starting the whip-counter earlier but due to more freedom in when to research BW. Later "standard" swaps like into Bureau and Economics are similar and also yield quite a lot as they no longer need to be timed with GAs, which in turn makes your GA focus even better. Mid-to-late game this civic is very powerful due to RtR mod buffing many formerly-useless civics. This is the most difficult trait to use and requires a lot of careful planning to maximize its potential.
ancient era: 2
classical era: 3
medieval era: 4
renaissance era: 4
industrial era: 4
modern era: 3
Philosophical: Another difficult, advanced trait that's generally under-rated. You can use it to pull off some crazy gambits via bulbing, a tactic that becomes weaker as empires get bigger, but also is a great "win-more" trait to pull off more (and better-timed) GAs than other traits. I'm rating it lower than I should be here because I've always been uncomfortable planning GP-timings. Maybe I should pick it here to break out of my shell, eh?
ancient era: 1
classical era: 2
medieval era: 3
renaissance era: 4
industrial era: 4
modern era: 3
Charismatic: A very awkward, map-dependent trait. I played a stronger version of it in PB20 and PB21 and couldn't get it to work for me, partly due to some of my own screwups and partly due to my lack of early-game power. Definitely can be made to work; S&S are dominating with it in PB63 as Boudica, and IIRC Krill crushed an old pitboss game with Brennus.
ancient era: 3
classical era: 4
medieval era: 3
renaissance era: 2
industrial era: 2
modern era: 2
Industrious: My favorite BTS trait is heavily nerfed in RtR due to the removal of failgold shenanigans and the whip nerf. It got a small boost (the price of metal casting is vastly reduced) but it hardly compensates. It's still a great trait to have if nobody else has it; the trait is primarily about cheap forges but its make-or-break point is still "how important is landing certain wonders for you and how much hammerage will you save that way?"
ancient era: 3
classical era: 6
medieval era: 4
renaissance era: 2
industrial era: 2
modern era: 1
FWIW I think that Org and Exp are the two strongest traits in RtR, but I don't think I'll pick either here, due to Org being somewhat anti-synergistic with Agg and Agg/Exp being a combo I've already done twice. Spi would be the one single trait I'd want in a vacuum, important as I'm not sure what to expect on this map.
(March 3rd, 2015, 21:16)GermanJoey Wrote: Ok, now look at all that great stuff, so everyone posting in Commodore's thread come post over here instead!
Thank you for the write-up, it was very interesting! It seems like you're pulling towards Montezuma, which I think would be fun to see because, as our PB game has gone on, I've been thinking more and more about traits like spiritual and philosophical, traits that let you do something very specific as opposed to the ones I picked (mehmed for organized and expansive) which just sort of make me generally strong. Which I guess has worked out for me but I still think it would be fun to go into a game with some Big Plays pre-planned!
