[LURKERS] Civ 6 PBEM 15: May the Odds be Ever In Your Favor

[MJW (ya that one)]

For start bias, Russian tundra and Maori ocean stand out as noteworthy.

Tundra (plains for Russia) is good news for Russia as it discourages attacking them and makes them have an edge start, making it easier for them to get to Cossacks. Nothing game-breaking but another notch for Russia>Rome. 

On a serious map Maori should be banned because too much depends on were they settle and it's just dumb luck were they settle. But this isn't serious...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Banned list commentary:

Nan Madol: Gives way too much culture. You can see that in my Epic 2 victory the ridiculous drops and it would be even worse for someone who was optimizing in a serious MP game. It's very similar to Scythia and VA that it gives you double--it should give you one culture not two. 

In general, I feel that we should only ban stuff we absolutely have to in order to have healthy matches - so in my opinion, the only stuff that should be banned is anything that the other side can't counter, or anything that's so powerful it becomes the One Right Way to play (ie, city-state captures). Nan Madol, I feel, is counterable, because you could always just raze the city-state, or compete with envoys + Amani. It hasn't broken a game yet, so banning feels unnecessary.

VA, Scythia: No commentary needed. Double stuff is way too much for this game to handle. Maybe for a tactical wargame like Age of Wonders where you can BS things but here you just die. VA might be okay on Pangea but it doesn't make sense to unban it for just one map type.  

No arguments here. Building the VA, where it's allowed, is the One Right Play, and there's no way to counter endless Scythian horsemen.

Hungry: +2 movement. Other civs can technically do this but there's no way to trigger it. You can also use enemy roads in this game. It's basically turn 0 Super-Cossacks that last through the entire game that would consist of Rape (take out army), Pillage (get science!) and Burn (razing due to finite luxuries). 

It's only city-state units that get +2 movement. You have to hope they built a proper army and not, like, 12 catapults or something. Like Nan Madol, might be more powerful in this format since you can't murder city-states without declaring war on the suzerain, but honestly that rule seems trivial to get around, since the suzerain won't be able to defend city-states in your back yard anyway (and if he can, then he's probably won already). Note that Persia, which gets +2 movement with a surprise war, is not banned. 

Australia: Implict collusion. It only takes one d-bag to declare over and over again to give Australia double production for the rest of the game while they are dying. This is not a theory and would have happened if Archduke posted his thread because Sub offered Rowain 1g for 1g.

We've never seen anyone do this, and times they've gotten close, it hasn't worked (PBEM6). Plus, it's self-balancing - if Australia starts to dominate games because spiteful people keep throwing it her way via DoWs, eventually players will tire of this and they'll stop doing it. It's only for 10 turns, then a mandatory 10-turn cooldown, so 20 turns before you could do it twice. Generally, wars last less than 20 turns, at least when someone's clearly losing. This really doesn't seem to warrant banning the civ. 

Raiding (expect farms and fishing boats): Implict collusion. They keep repairing because they are annoyed at a third party. This could actually happen like with Australia--two civs fight each other to the death while a third civ comes in and raid-farms and the team keeps repairing (no worker-charge spent). 

Note that pillaging anything but districts now just gives gold or health. You can still get absurd science/culture from pillaging, but you need a Theater Square or Campus to do it (Norway I think can still get science/faith/culture from improvements, which is a sorely needed buff). And districts can't be repaired by workers. I suppose you COULD farm gold and split the proceeds via pillage - repair - pillage - repair on a 2-turn cycle, but that'd be really gamey and obvious and a rule saying "Don't do that" would cover that edge case. Otherwise raiding is fine now.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Nan Madol. Just because you can raze it (or take it out with envoys) isn't good enough. Sullla beat you and would have razed the VA if he didn't quit for no reason. VA and Nan Madol are still broken. It's also only a matter of time until Nan Madol spawns in someone's backlines too which would take away those options.

Hungry. Despite the limitations +2 movement is too much. Other civs can technically get it but it's impossible to trigger. I also wanted to ban them because it shouldn't be possible. Like Biorhythm being banned in Magic EDH even through Tooth and Nail is better because it shouldn't be possible to do 100+ damage with a single card.

Australia. Well it only takes two civs now. Big whoop. In a five player game you have Australia, the guy wanting to kill it and the other three guys. The other three guys all benefit from stalling the killing guy so they WILL DoW Australia. No one will ever DoW you which is too much. That game Archduke won also doesn't count because it was only possible because sub played horribly (splitting his units for no reason). It's like saying the VA should not be banned because Sullla beat you. The only reason Sub didn't bail out pindicator was because Archduke's salty Q&D thread because he sent a 1g for 1g deal. The other three guys also see the DoW and so pre-DoW Australia like Sub was planning. Finally 20 turns is a very long time and it would only take one other civ to make that happen (remember the guy wanting to kill Australia is a free trigger).

Raiding. Gold farming is enough to take action. After the city-state rule that's all that's needed. I'm really saying that this should have been done, not the city-state rule.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Wouldn't the trick of transferring the game into SP still work with reveal all? If that doesn't work maybe remove the city-state with a mod and they don't need a mod because it's still a valid save-file? Maybe ban becoming the Suzerian of Nan Madol (if there's no way to ever exclude it)?

[williams482]

With every player in this game openly embracing randomness, taking great pains to exclude one powerful city state (which inevitably burns when someone else finds it) seems more than a little silly.

[Quagma Blast]

While the game is unlikely to go that long, it would be very interesting to see what happens to the military game in the Modern era. Around that point basically everything starts taking Oil upkeep - Standard Melee, Heavy Cavalry, Siege, and Naval Raider class units are all competing with each other for the same resource, Naval Melee and Naval Ranged units eventually migrate to it (although Battleships stay on coal until the Information-era Missile Cruiser), and Flying units briefly dip into it before jumping ship to Aluminum. And you can only keep two units going per claimed source! I can see a lot of those unlocks ending up as poison pills in the same way that the one-two punch of Submarines doubling production cost and halving the production input was in the naval PBEM.

[Exrook]

VA, Scythia: No commentary needed. Double stuff is way too much for this game to handle. Maybe for a tactical wargame like Age of Wonders where you can BS things but here you just die. VA might be okay on Pangea but it doesn't make sense to unban it for just one map type.  

No arguments here. Building the VA, where it's allowed, is the One Right Play, and there's no way to counter endless Scythian horsemen.

As horsemen are resource dependent in GS, Scythia is now somewhat less overpowered.  Might be worth a reconsider.

[Banzailizard]

VA, Scythia: No commentary needed. Double stuff is way too much for this game to handle. Maybe for a tactical wargame like Age of Wonders where you can BS things but here you just die. VA might be okay on Pangea but it doesn't make sense to unban it for just one map type.  

No arguments here. Building the VA, where it's allowed, is the One Right Play, and there's no way to counter endless Scythian horsemen.

As horsemen are resource dependent in GS, Scythia is now somewhat less overpowered.  Might be worth a reconsider.

How does the free horseman work with the resource limit?  Lets say I need 2 horses each and I produce one light cav unit as Scythia.  Do I need 4 in my stockpile to get both or just the 2 and the second one is actually free?  Same question for the VA. If the units are free does not make them less overpowered so you seem to be implying that the stockpiles are needed.  Just want to be clear though.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I think you get massive penalties for going over stockpile so you would want to disband the extra units anyway.

VA is still broken because of having access to resourceless sea units. It might make it okay on Pangea but as I said before it doesn't make sense to unban it for one map type.

[williams482]

Only Pindicator, Archduke, and Woden have posted starts, and Archduke's looks like the worst by a significant margin. Woden doesn't have fresh water, which hurts, but he's costal with a bevy of resources and the ability to grow reasonably well on Magus jungle chops once he hits the housing cap.

If the nonreporters have Archduke quality starts then I like Pindicator's chances already.