[PB59] Ichabod realizes Civ 4 PB is for closers only

[darrelljs]

You've been using that excuse since PB2, and that was base BtS.

Didn't I win PBEM2?

Darrell

[Krill]

That game doesn't exist. In fact no games before PBEM20 and PB5 are real.

[darrelljs]

To be fair, I'm sensing that we will neighbor one of Mack or TBS

What th-, no one told me they were in the game!



Darrell

[darrelljs]

That game doesn't exist. In fact no games before PBEM20 and PB5 are real.

That's good, because I believe I purposefully sent the wrong save in pbem17 and was censured by the community.  And there was one game I gave you my army just as you were planning to attack me.

Ichabod, you sure you want me attached?

Darrell

[Lewwyn]

Your first Civ choice: Germany


Your first leader choices: Augusts Caesar, Hammurabi


Starting screenshots will be posted in a couple days. You may wait to finalize a choice until then. You may reject or accept any of these choices. You will have a max of 2 more choices of civ and a max of 4 more leaders.

[Serdoa]

Germany - Hunting / Mining, Riesengarde (Grenadier - new), Assembly Plant (Factory)

Augustus - IND / IMP
Hammurabi - AGG / ORG

We certainly should wait to see the starting position, but in my opinion Germany is one of the weakest civs you can get in terms of UU and UB as they come both very late in the game at a stage at which I think especially in such a big game you will be either in a strong position, making them at best a "win more"-mechanic, or you are already set back so much that this UU and UB won't change anything. Hunting and Mining are ok starting techs, but those depend so much on the actual start that evaluating them now is futile.

Hammurabi is imo a weak pick. ORG is good I believe and with yet another nerf to FIN might actually be not much worse than it or even better depending on the map. It also would synergize with Germanys Assembly plant as it gives a bonus on Factory costs. AGG however I do not think is providing enough value. It was changed to now:

Aggressive: -50% unit maintenance cost, free Barrage I for all siege weapons

That should be on top of the normal AGG bonus of C1 for melee and GP units as well as double production for Barracks, Drydock and Jail. But you only build a few Barracks anyway if not Zulu, I can't remember if I ever built Drydocks (though on a large map naval battles could be more important, even late game) and Jails are... just not worth it, with less war weariness than in base BTS. Maybe if Espionage missions are part of the game it could be helpful but I'm not sure if that was decided yet. 
So, that leaves us with the -50% unit maintenance. That certainly will save money, however it again comes into play rather late. Till then it is a few bucks every turn at best and for the first 50-60 turns probably nothing at all.

Augustus is probably even worse thinking about it. IND will be had by several players, making it weaker overall. I'm not sure that we want to engage in wonder-hogging in a 25 player game. But if we do not do that, then IND just gives a bonus on Forges. That's great but also not very much for a full trait. IMP I think is a good trait in a smaller game, you can get the snowball rolling faster than the others. But if it is not coupled with an economic trait you are going to bleed money long before you've settled all the land you wanted to settle. Or you only can settle 10 cities before bordering someone and then you can - with pink-dotting - probably get as much land as with IMP.

So yeah, not impressed with our selection tbh.

[Ichabod]

ORG/AGG goes well with Germany, I guess. The riesengarde is avaiable at Chemistry, rather than Military Science, so it could be a pretty dominant unit for a while, I guess. Assembly Plant also comes earlier than usual, and we build it faster. But, yeah, ORG/AGG of Germany really gives few early bonuses. Perhaps one think to take into account is that most big games like these end up being won by players that had a successful early war. Does that give AGG some merit? Or is it better to have more cities/infra than combat 1 in some units?

Regarding Augustus, I also worry about IMP, as we are going to play in Emperor diff. IMP + economic trait like ORG or FIN might work, but I'm not sure IND is up to that task. MC is cheaper in the mod, so forges can come online earlier, that's a plus. Also, there's the National Wonders. But cheaper National Wonders are a fixed number of hammers + earlier benefits of getting them sooner, it's not an advantage that grows while the game lasts for longer, life FIN. Well, IND can always be counted as a "better/earlier wealth", if you build wonders with fail gold in mind (that's an economic bonus, I guess). Those are bonuses that are not tied to actually getting a wonder. Furthermore, IMP/IND is probably one of the best combinations to get the earliest wonders, up there with EXP/IND, that might have some value. 

One thing worth asking, if we roll our choices, what are we expecting to get? What is our desired choices? IMP/ORG? One of EXP, CRE, FIN?

All things considered, I think we either keep ORG/AGG and Germany, or we keep IMP/IND and roll Germany and the other leader. Can we roll everything? Not sure.

Right now, I wouldn't mind either choice, I'm actually eager to play both options. 

[Lewwyn]

For rerolling you can either reroll both leaders or choose one to play. And the civ is a separate  accept or reroll choice from leaders.

[darrelljs]

I have no idea what changes are in the mod, but I love to gamble and support a re-roll.

Darrell

[Serdoa]

Well, before we decide the reroll we probably should think about that 24 other players got two leaders each as well. Insofar can we conclude that only 5 leaders have not been given out. Expecting the worst would mean we should assume that our 24 most sought after leaders have gone now. I tried to sort all those out that I felt would have better traits and gave up after 17 leaders. Everyone else felt comparable or worse to our existing ones. 

ORG probably is together with FIN the strongest economic trait, with PRO being weaker. There is a very slim chance we would get offered a FIN-leader I feel and so we most likely would get a worse pick in economic terms. There are a number of leaders that are really bad imo and than a few that have traits that do the same (FIN/PRO, ORG/PRO, EXP/IMP) and either are too slow at the start or fall off heavily in the mid- to late-game.