REM goes on the Sudric Express [Pitboss 33 spoilers]

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

That's got to be what Commodore meant. Maybe a Dickens theme would be nice... Name by books and Characters for units :P

[BRickAstley]

Game Rules and Settings:

Server: pitboss.watto.no:2060

Game tracker: http://www.civstats.com/viewgame.php?gameid=2946

Claim your civ: (the password is sirian)

Game Host unified tech thread (for all Caledorn hosted games):
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...pid=494726

Host: Caledorn
Sponsor: BRickAstley
Starting Era: Industrial Era
Players: 7 Player game

Game Version: BtS 3.19, No Mod
Map: Custom-built, skewed towards balance. ~160 tiles a player, a reasonable water presence.
World Size: Standard
World Wrap: Toroidal
Game Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Prince

Industrial Era Start differences from Ancient Start:

Cities: Are size 3 when founded, start with a granary, market, aqueduct, forge, (lighthouse, and harbor if coastal).
Settlers: Are about 3 times as expensive as ancient start games.
Starting Units: 3 settlers, 2 workers, 2 explorers, 2 rifles, 1 machine gun (Changed from a rifle to limit early all-in rushes).
Tech: Steam Power, Scientific Method, and Steel researchable, all previous techs acquired. Picture:

Builds Available: See Pictures:


(Theater is available, not sure why it is grayed out there.)
Civics Available: All except Police State, State Property, Environmentalism:

Religions: On the 5th turn, each player will automatically found one religion. If you haven't founded a city by then.... Well you have bigger problems probably. (This is also partly why there's a strict 7 player slots, so the religions are spread evenly)

House Rules:
Banned: Nukes, Blockades, Active Spy Missions
No: Huts, Events, Vassal States, Tech Trading, Unit/City Trades, Diplomatic victory
Double Moves and Diplomacy:

Diplomacy: "Pitboss-AI-diplo"
You can make any offers for any item the trade window allows you to make, excepting cities.
Any trades offered to another player are treated as valid trade offers.
You my not communicate using: chat box in diplomacy window, unit names, city names, outside communication, in game chat, anything else in this vein.
You may not gift units to or trade cities with another player.

Double moves: "Don't be a jerk."
Peace time or when you're not planning to start war: play as soon as you are able, no need to worry.
During war preparation turn (at least 1 turn before) and during war, double moves are not allowed. When you declare on your opponent (and then end turn), he must complete a turn before you can play another one.
When going to settle a city, and you see that another player has sent out a settler in the general vicinity as well, you must attempt to alternate turns, to avoid double moving someone to claim a city site.
If there is a situation not covered above, where a player gains a clear and 'underhanded' advantage over another player in an area of contention due to a double move, that situation can be appealed to the game admin, who can determine if the game needs to be reloaded or is fine to carry on at his discretion.
If there is a problem with play windows making it impossible to observe a turn split, or a tangled web of wars that need to be straightened out for turns to be practically played, please PM the game admin for assistance resolving the situation.

Players (& dedlurkers):

• Pindicator (mackoti): Boudica (Agg/Chm) of Russia
  
• Boldly Going Nowhere (spacetyrantxenu): Asoka (Spi/Org) of Aztec
  
• Scooter (Sullla): Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Germany
  
• Cheater Hater & Donovan Zoi (greenline): Peter (Exp/Phi) of India
  
• Dreylin (Elum, OT4E): Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of the Khmer
  
• ReallyEvilMuffin: Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of Japan
  
• Gaspar&NobleHelium (Old Harry): Darius (Fin/Org) of the Dutch
  

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Barely had a chance to look at this start as been without a laptop most of the weekend... Late to the game!

I imagine that this would play fairly different to a usual game. I cannot imagine cottaging to be that great, even with running emancipation from the get go (not ideal) they just won't grow fast enough and a play would eat this player and their lovely cottages. SP is so close it screams to be used although corps are NOT banned unusually. So that is the early choice - corps or SP? I doubt one will be able to get many players to agree to feed their corp and they could perhaps coordinate cutting borders with the corp player who uses FM. Plus only one person can run each corp HQ, so I think SP is the safer option.

Early tech choice is a push for leevees and onto assembly line really pressing the hammer element home and inf v rifles. Sci meth and any of comm for SP and GP, Physics for airships and GP or biology for food is nice. Steel I feel has less utility at this start although cannon are always good! Choice would depend on civ and whether I could land the GP or not.


Map looks nice, but most important thing is traits. Leader traits. It is not a straight snake pick so traits have to be evaluated together, But I do think some are now quite altered in power.

Imp - I think in this age, Imp is king. Settlers are now 300-330 hammers, and a 50% bonus on this is massive. Add this to early even though the cities are built big they have limited tiles to work and you can easily whip out a quick settler or 2, or use the forests for a quick couple of chops onto these bonuses. It is like you are getting a bonus on all the buildings a city comes with. Obviously this is reduced as cities come with +25% hammers anyway through forges but this is a massive boost in my mind.

Spi - The other powerhouse trait this game IMO. I assume that civic switches are still 2 per turn of anarchy, and with 5 changes available at the start there is a lot of turns to earn very quickly. Added in is that early on a civic combo of rep/merc will be hugely powerful but then reduce as TR availability increases, whipping will be powerful early but loose traction, there are options to use artists for border pops... Basically we are in the era where spi shines. Enough said really!

Pro - slightly less garbage than usual. Most units will be gunpowder ones now which will all get the promos for free. Still obviously best on defence but could be nice to defend a space victory. Others I would hugely prefer over this.

Exp - from top to almost bottom now IMO. Cheap granaries have gone (essentially a trait in itself in RtR/ToW) and a moderate reduction in settler cost does not make this back to awesome. Workers are cheap at 48 hammers anyway, although you will need a lot early on I don't think this carries the trait. The extra health is nice in the industrial era, but on the custom RB maps health is usually too abundant to make this game changing.

Agg - I like this more than most and in the ind era agg is really nice. Cheap barracks and drydocks, and combat 1 on most attacking/defending units. Weak economically but a hammer economy with this could dominate easily.

Fin - unsure on this one. I was going to relegate this to junk as I cannot see there being a huge amount of point to cottaging on this late start, but actually this could make it more powerful - a watermill or windmill would both trigger the bonus commerce whilst also gaining hammers (and food in SP for the watermill) so I am back thinking that this could be top level again.

Org - A moderate reduction in hammers for a lighthouse... Unsure again. Courthouses might not be that useful if SP comes early eliminating the Distance bonuses. Factories will come early here though which could be big at double speed. Also the reduced costs are always useful (does inflation start at the appropriate level? Moreso if this is the case) I am hugely loving org in pb27 currently.

Phi - there is less time to make GP so this trait could be the difference to reaching that extra GA. Unis are available right off the bat but no mature cottage cheese to use them with. First GP to be an engineer and snag TM might be nice though. I doubt any other builds like an academy etc would be worth it. Of course corps also need a GP...

Ind - a moderate reduction to the settler cost with the free forge, and still of course faster wonders. Could be useful to reach one of the earlier wonders like SoL given as no copper is in sight but I don't think this warrants slowing down expansion that much... Few NW available and WW in general leave me mostly unimpressed by this.

Chm - Xp for promos is nice, but I think there are more useful promos out there. The happiness is likely to be unremarkable given RB maps.

Trait power ranking top to bottom

Imp
Spi
-drop off-
Org
-drop off-
Agg
Fin
Phi
-drop off-
Chm
Pro
Exp
Ind

Some combos are obviously better and may change the way that the game is played, but overall trait alone I think this is how I value them. I would want one of imp/spi

[BRickAstley]

Good thing there isn't any PRO or CRE then since they're so bad.

How's the pick selection coming along?

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Good thing there isn't any PRO or CRE then since they're so bad.

How's the pick selection coming along?

Slowly - work was more intense than usual, although apparently I met the son of God. He was one of the most entertaining and affable chaps I have ever met though.

I missed cre but it is very low on the agenda here... Early on the second city would get a religion pop anyway too. I've had non civ things to do and pb27 is becoming a huge (but enjoyable) time sink taking most of my civving time. I do think that on RB maps with lots of health exp is probably worse than pro, but that is an academic choice.

I can easily list out ones I do not want to play, it's just finding those I do want to play...

Fin I am really having trouble quantifying in my head... It will still make water tiles nice (with the nice cheeky netherlands in there) but I am unsure on how many tiles I could get it to trigger. ORG will be so so given it is only prince, and toro mait will be costly although SP is just around the corner making courthouses likely not needed...

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

It's who do I want to play as? I think most of them whilst requiring very different stratergies are viable, that is why I am not too concerned with simming the hell out of the start for something I might not even get!

Aosaka of aztec... cheap whipping buildings and ability to swap in and out of the civics. Not conviced on there being enough whipping done to need the altar, maybe if it were ren it would be more appealing, but the most appeal from this is the spi/org decent combo

Caesar - cheap 50% ham settlers, but a limited use of ind available. Free forums everywhere nice for popping GP but very minor boost to the growth

Boudica - Russia is nice although I doubt cossacks will get much use here. The UB is far away too even in the late game. power though!

Brennus of vikings... nav 1 to all ships that also have lower xp needs is nice, but I think he will be out ecoed, even with spi so I will stay away.

Darius of netherlands - making the water really powerful with this combo. Unsure of the fin value but lots here to like really. Would make settling easier off rivers as most sites will want the leevee this late and this wants Steam power first. Difficult path to go down though.

Fred of HRE screams perfect corp setup - cheaper mait costs, quick GP and away, but I dunno... Even on a lush map no one is gonna be so idiotic to give you their 5 fish like the AI will. BUT the map might be lush enough to make it work. I do think that anyone trying this will be steamrolled by a SP player unless they set themselves up well in the expansion phase.

Ghandi, the SP dream setup. Khmer is interesting here as it is essentiallly a free food in every city. This setup has the power to explode big early on with all the early civic changes available, likely first to a GP and the free food. Like this one a lot.

Ghengis - imp to make the cities and agg to take the cities... Plus agg marching navy seals in a game where they could make a difference!!! This is a very nice combo too IMO

Ham of UK - agg redcoats from the start (which is probably why the machine gun is needed!) This could seriously harm someone next to them at the start, however despite being in a frontrunner position in another pitboss I could not convert my agg redcoats to an advantage (although diplo helped there) and I am less taken on org than I was previously. I don't think SE will be built.

Jao - I think exp is weak on this start. Can rex very fast as always, and the free cothons will help but it will be a while before the extra routes really come into play IMO - not all that enthralled.

Caesar - I like him in 27 more and more. He will be nice here too. Japan with shale plants is a moderate boost, but it all helps.

Lincoln - mongols ger is not around long enough IMO to be worthwhile and no power trait either.

Moty of germans seems nice on paper but the assembly plant is a weakish UB saving around 50 hammers with coal and due to the panzer bonus I always find it targets a different unit type. Still I like the traits a lot.

Peter - don't like mixing the FW with the weakish exp. I do not expect huge issues with worker turns with steam power available early and cheap cost.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Asoka (Spi/Org) of Aztec , Settler is 322h.
Augustus Caesar (Ind/Imp) of Rome , Settler is 313h.
Darius (Fin/Org) of the Dutch , Settler is 322h.
Fredrick (Phi/Org) of the Holy Roman Empire , Settler is 322h.
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of the Khmer , Settler is 332h.
Genghis Khan (Imp/Agg) of the USA , Settler is 332h.
Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of Japan , Settler is 322h.
Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Germany , Settler is 332h.

These are the better choices IMO mainly based on the traits...

Looking at the game more I think active and constant use of the spi trait could be really powerful here... I would go rep/beuro/serfdom/merc/free relig to begin with, then quickly come back for a round or 2 of slaving, then back out to serfdom...

HOWEVER this is why it is really important to test! You can get 4 changes for 1 turn of anarchy at the start! That does change things somewhat. Argh I thought I had chosen then...

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I still think spi is powerful for the flexibility but the start is not as constrained as I thought without this... I do like the look of Ghandi, and really want to with genghis but I feel a power eco play from imp/org could probably best imp/agg.

The other thing that there would be to consider is if I go for a slightly less obvious combo I might get it without a dice roll and not relegated to a different pick, however I feel there are enough that I am happy with here for that not to be too much of an issue.

Asoka (Spi/Org) of Aztec , Settler is 322h.
Darius (Fin/Org) of the Dutch , Settler is 322h.
Fredrick (Phi/Org) of the Holy Roman Empire , Settler is 322h.
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of the Khmer , Settler is 332h.
Genghis Khan (Imp/Agg) of the USA , Settler is 332h.
Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of Japan , Settler is 322h.
Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Germany , Settler is 332h.

Final 7 - Got rid of ind imp as ind I think will just be a drain, and settlers costing 313 hammers will annoy the hell out of my mildly OCD brain all game. Really I will be happy with any of these, now for some sort of order... What would be fun to play? Fred is there mainly for the lols of making a corp play which I almost never do.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Probable final list - top 2 are not sexy but get good hammer boosts early. I wanted spi until I realised that one can get 4 civic swaps for free, and waiting 2 turns at the start might not be too bad anyway. Darius screams long term amazing but I don't know whether he can compete in the hammer intensive early land grab... It depends how obvious the player areas are, if it is islands then imp looses flavour but if I can grab extra then I might get really lucky. Something about the free khmer food and the spi/phi bash seems like it would be amusing to play though...

Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of Japan , Settler is 322h.
Genghis Khan (Imp/Agg) of the USA , Settler is 332h.
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of the Khmer , Settler is 332h.
Darius (Fin/Org) of the Dutch , Settler is 322h.
Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Germany , Settler is 332h.
Asoka (Spi/Org) of Aztec , Settler is 322h.
Fredrick (Phi/Org) of the Holy Roman Empire , Settler is 322h.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Official pick list.

They will all be fun, I am overthinking things. Please post the choices!

Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of Japan , Settler is 322h.
Genghis Khan (Imp/Agg) of the USA , Settler is 332h.
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of the Khmer , Settler is 332h.
Darius (Fin/Org) of the Dutch , Settler is 322h.
Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Germany , Settler is 332h.
Asoka (Spi/Org) of Aztec , Settler is 322h.
Fredrick (Phi/Org) of the Holy Roman Empire , Settler is 322h.