[SPOILERS] Rusten prepares to face the music

[Rusten]

Ran some tests and preliminary results show that the religion gambit should be worth it. If tech costs are anything like my test game in the real game (should be) then I can have 2 settlers, 2 workers, 2 warriors, slavery adopted and a religion by T34. Seems pretty good. I'll probably wait for official sandbox with the correct settings or the live game before pursuing any more tests.
Unsurprisingly the river grassland hills are really good for IMP before whipping. They even beat out the rice for settler production before slavery/granaries.
Need to run it against some farm rice grow early variations though, but based on usual patterns the current setup looks strong.

Just thinking about how big this capital can become in the BCs already with charismatic and 10+ food surplus is giving me a civgasm.

[vandale]

Nether minion checking in. Didn't read it all, yet.

It would seem odd to start a settler at size 3, even with the IMP leader : unless you wanna share an agriculture resource with city 2.
(Which would be an excellently good reason ; extra fast development)

If the new claimed tiles are outside the capital's BFC, you certainly want to grow to 4 before starting on the settler.
Otherwise you'll stop working a mine when the city grows 3-->4.

I like that this thread accepts clear, proven evidence and the superior in general.

[Rusten]

BIC I presume? Nice to have you on board (the Darius hate train).
Maybe I missed a better path in the sims. Show me the light! The more paths to compare the better.

Do note that I think the final game will have lower tech costs than the test game I provided you with. So if you're just short of something you can add it in WB (I did this with BW).

[Rusten]

It would seem odd to start a settler at size 3, even with the IMP leader : unless you wanna share an agriculture resource with city 2.
(Which would be an excellently good reason ; extra fast development)

If the new claimed tiles are outside the capital's BFC, you certainly want to grow to 4 before starting on the settler.
Otherwise you'll stop working a mine when the city grows 3-->4.

This is why I'm glad to have you on board. Having you second guess me (and vice versa) can only lead to good things. I will say that everything fell into place and the opening felt very good, but I agree with you that the opening is "suspicious" because at the end of the day you settle new cities to work more tiles. If we're settling a new city at the cost of stagnating our capital at size 3 there has to be a very good reason. It grows so quickly even without a granary.

For the sake of comparison the first settler was out on T30 in the aforementioned setup. But that was with 16 overflow and I worked some suboptimal tiles to finish 2nd warrior as I grew to size 3. I'll try a run where I grow to 4 or 5 next as one of the chops are not necessary (16 overfow is almost a chop and this can be made back by being size 4 or 5).

In short, losing +/- 3 worker turns from making worker at size 4 over 3, but gaining them back by not chopping forest.

[Rusten]

Ran some more tests:

Coming to the conclusion that worker on size 3 is needed. Every extra worker turn is very useful. Chopping settlers is mega with IMP and we grow so quickly we need workers to prepare the tiles. If anything then an even earlier 2nd worker needs testing.

Worker size 3 and growing to 4 while finishing 2nd warrior resulted in first settler 1T later (t31) and 2nd settler 1T later (but without adopting slavery -- so technically 2T). Probably worth it for the extra commerce and capital growth (edit: actually almost no extra commerce as size 4 was working the ivory)? Less warrior scouting though.

It's a really complicated opening (so kudos to mapmakers I suppose) made even more complicated by IMP changing tile values around. Some of the differences are very hard to quantify without knowing what the nearby land is like and what our 2nd city would look like. These maps tend to be pretty rich in resources though, so I imagine it wouldn't be too hard finding a solid food resource + copper (with at least 1 of them being in the first ring). The main highlight for me from running these tests is how important the workers are.

edit: size 2 worker is also an interesting option. The workers would finish mining the hills at the same time and at the same time as BW is done and the rice would be improved.

[vandale]

Alright, I've read the mod's changelog. Only once, so I'm sure I missed some things.
Initial thoughts :
- The Renaissance tech costs are all increased. Metal Casting is cheap. Military techs can be unlocked faster (Trebs with Machinery).
I would think the scenario favours military action during the Medieval Era at the latest, at the latest. At the latest, that it is.
It's possible that a production surge during the Classical Era even is the way to go (diplo dependent, maybe ?).
Having military maintenance kick in when the tech costs increase seems "natural".

- Barracks produce culture / Colosseum gives xp. Good combo for Cyrus.

- The Slavery nerf... a whip produces 20H if there is active whip anger in the city. Do I understand it right ?
--> Means 10 turns cycles.
--> Drastically increases the value of mines over cottages/farms. Once the cities have grown, that is (grow first, duh).
If you want to develop a strong cottage base and retain the means to hammer items out,
Then it makes a lot of sense to go heavy on overlap in commerce cities. Any specialised commerce city could have 2-3 helpers.
--> Grow peripherals on cottages, later switch to mines.
If there's a decent spot, getting that one additional, specialized commerce city, besides the capital, would be a great asset, imho.

- "[EVERYONE] The PB38 Waiting for the Map Thread - Always War Deity Survival Challenge"
Just saw this, woah ! The madness. I think I'll try my hand at it.

- Player count : 25
I don't have any issues with founding a religion ;
Even an Oracle gambit seems fine to me (although it's probably terrible) //
// Actually, the Statue of Zeus is the wonder that draws my attention. It costs as much as 3 barracks for an Empire-wide Barracks effect.
Producing 7xp units with a CHA leader gives you those triple promotions units... ///
Player count : I don't know how you handle this. It seems naive to think neighbours will be friends and to try and speed up their development. Trade partners should likely be somewhat far away.
I know you want to escape a quick death to scouting archers but, apart from that...
... Archer bust, is this a thing ? Probably not a thing that I would wanna do but certainly something you wanna stay safe from (means research Archery sometime early and get a couple of units out).
Play towards : wipe out the neighbours, out-tech the more distant rivals. I suppose this is the basic approach to this sort of game.

- Early scouting :
Getting an idea asap of the amount of land (i.e. cities) available seems key if you wanna assess timelines : expansion against research against production.

- Early micro :
More later. I can understand why you would want a second worker before the first settler.

- Wild guess :
You'll be able to peacefully settle 7 cities.

[Krill]

SoZ only affects the city it is built in.

Whips give 30 hammers for the first pop whipped, 20 hammers for all subsequent pop. So a 1 pop whip gives 30 hammers, 2 pop whip gives 50, 3 pop gives 70. Before modifiers.

[vandale]

Military :
Cheap Metal Casting.
Not so useful swordsmen (Archer boost).
Trebuchets unlocked with Machinery.

--> Makes a Machinery bulb especially attractive ???
Trebuchets + Axemen action.

Can bulb it with :
- Great Scientist, Alphabet, Mathematics and Aesthetics ; no Fishing, Philosophy not unlocked ;
- Great Merchant, Alphabet, Maths, Currency, Code of Laws, Civil Service, Monarchy (a little too many techs for a rush but very science-friendly tech path).

The Scientist bulb into Machinery could have upsides. Unless you think mounted warfare is the bread and butter.
I'm not sure you can have a use for Great Prophet bulbs (Monarchy bulb is out ; Theocracy is an option).
But if you do found an early religion, running Priests off of a Madrasa cannot go real wrong anyway.

SoZ only affects the city it is built in.

Whips give 30 hammers for the first pop whipped, 20 hammers for all subsequent pop. So a 1 pop whip gives 30 hammers, 2 pop whip gives 50, 3 pop gives 70. Before modifiers.

Great, thanks for clarifying it all !

[Rusten]

In random order:

Peaceful expansion: I was looking at some previous games, especially PB 27 (23 players) should be a good indication, and I think we will have space for at least 10 cities before having to declare on anybody. If an opportunity presents itself it's better to attack sooner of course. The amount of land available is part of why IMP is so attractive for these games. It's not only the first settler that's faster, but also the next 15. Always useful despite not being an "uber" trait.

Military expansion: Depends a lot on neighbours. But the main things to look at IMO are HAs, swordsmen (+50% attack in this mod) knights. The latter is great if we have a lot of luxurious land, but chances are we want to striker sooner. Axe rush could be good, but these maps are usually so lush that it's better to expand peacefully. Even more so with IMP. Astronomy is also a wild card depending on map type.
Having a few trebs could be useful but generally catapults are what you want (especially on defense). A lot of the combat happens in the field compared to SP. The fighting is usually over the periphery cities which also have very little cultural defense. You can only reach the core once an enemy is truly broken.

Archery bust shouldn't work. Every civ will have a strategic resource nearby and most will settle it with their 1st city (or have it in starting BFC). They're more of a defensive units to stop chariot rushes without metal. Skirmishers is a different story though, if we start next to Mali I will not be happy.

I'm having some ideas of highly promoted flanking camel archers. I need to look into how effective that could be. There's probably a reason why I haven't done it before, but who knows.

Economy: Our capital will contribute immensely and civil service is a priority. I agree that cottages are the standard improvement for most cities.

Wonders: Oracle would be good. That's another reason why I think the religion gambit is worthwhile (not wasted beakers). If we could grab aesthetics for instance that would help us secure the SoZ. But on a 23 player map it's hard to rely on it. In PB 27 somebody built it with 1 city in 2500 BC which is just madness (not worth it). The CHM+SoZ synergy is definitely there and it's something I've had my eyes on. Polytheism (as opposed to meditation) is required for the HE so hinduism would likely be my choice of religion if we do go for it. It also keeps lightbulbing flexibility.

GP: Prophets will be used either for a shrine or for a GA I think.
The idea of delaying fishing and bulbing machinery with a GS is interesting! Something to keep in mind depending on map type. With trebs that early they could prove useful, or even a knight rush. Also take note that windmills and watermill are buffed in this version. They get the +1 Replaeable parts hammer immediately. Early-ish GA with watermills and windmills -- sign me up!

[vandale]

Ah, yes, human warfare ^^ So, mounted is the superior.
Well, a Machinery bulb could be a role-player in a Knight rush. Hmm... In that case, you wanna bulb it before getting Civil Service and unlocking Paper. (Assuming Scientist bulb and no Caste switch, here.)
Doesn't seem like a difficulty, provided you go Aesthetics. I assume Aesth is low priority overall. Compared with, say, Maths.

Otherwise, it's the usual expand, tech up, get an edge. Makes sense. You don't wanna fall behind because you invested in military too early.

I agree the Slavery nerf doesn't seem so drastic that it should make us reconsider the classic tile improvements' hierarchy.

With so many players, I can see going after the Oracle backfiring real bad. The richer the land, the more unnecessary the wonder.
The question always is : settler vs Oracle. With IMP that's 2 settlers for the wonder.