[spoilers] Now, Commodore Frogger, roll those 71 dice

[Commodore]

Changelog for my reference:

Sumeria: The Wheel/Agriculture. UB: Courthouse replacement: Ziggarut. Available at Writing. Cost 90. UU: axe replacement. Vulture. Strength 6. 25% bonus against melee. 5% bonus against axemen.

Seriously, what the hell Krill? Sumer was a superb top-tier civilization in base game, why buff the UU and MAKE THE EXCELLENT UB AVAILABLE AT WRITING??? The only awkward thing before was having to spend the small cost of Myst->Med->Priesthood to get the discount courthouses. Now it's on the simple default path.

[scooter]

Changelog for my reference:

Sumeria: The Wheel/Agriculture. UB: Courthouse replacement: Ziggarut. Available at Writing. Cost 90. UU: axe replacement. Vulture. Strength 6. 25% bonus against melee. 5% bonus against axemen.

Seriously, what the hell Krill? Sumer was a superb top-tier civilization in base game, why buff the UU and MAKE THE EXCELLENT UB AVAILABLE AT WRITING??? The only awkward thing before was having to spend the small cost of Myst->Med->Priesthood to get the discount courthouses. Now it's on the simple default path.

I would have recommended not signing up for the game like me.

More seriously, this mod is mostly tuned for Krill's game design preferences and not as much balance. He was talking about nerfing Holkans recently for pretty much no reason other than he died to a Holkan rush once after misplaying his start and got mad about it.

[greenline]

The Holkan complaint seems more valid to me. In that game, there was only one option to stop a Holkan rush, which was to go BW first and settle on the copper. That tends to be kind of a frustrating way to have to play, especially when you don't even know most of the time if you're going to start near the Mayan player. Of course, it's also an argument for not neighboring superdeath...

The Sumeria buff makes no sense though.

[Mjmd]

I mean Pin/Krill just decided to not build a settler forever. Then just decided to not have a scout near said SD Holkan player, then decided despite evidence in power graph of a rush decided to still not settle on copper.

Also, ya Ziggs at writing seem suspect...... I've willingly chosen Sumeria twice with it at priesthood with no vulture buff lol.

[greenline]

They certainly could have done things differently to handle the rush better. At the same time, maps or civs that force players to settle on copper to be competitive don't really add much positive to the game. I won't miss em.

[Zed-F]

I seem to recall that they decided to gamble the rush wouldn't happen because they were not interested in playing a game where they were forced to settle on copper and lose slowly to someone else on the other side of the map who would out-expand them; they preferred (a) not being in a game where settling on copper was required, or (b) dying quickly and leaving the game early rather than dragging things out, if settling on copper was the 'right' play that would nevertheless lead to dying a slow death.

[scooter]

Is any of that because of Holkans being OP, or is it because they started next to a rush-happy player with a rush-happy civ? (And then chose not to adapt their play to those two facts.) How many game wins out of the 100-something MP games we've played do Holkans have? It's not clear at all that Holkan rushing is actually a good strategy to win a game.

Opponent luck: the great (im)balancer.

[greenline]

The reasoning for removing the holkan and holkan rush wasn't that it was a game winning or even a good strategy (unlike the impi rush, which is great at doing both, amazing it took so long for those to be nerfed). Rather that there shouldn't be any units enabling those kind of super early rushes because dealing with them is annoying without messing with the growth curve. How effective the early rush is will be very map dependent, but again, I'm not going to cry if that option is removed from the game given how it works in practice.

[Mjmd]

I mean again, don't' forget they just didn't build a settler forever. They totally could have settled next to copper at a reasonable timeframe if they weren't doing 1 city challenge lol.

But yes I can see why people wouldn't like getting maya'ed

[Commodore]

I'm betting poor Yuri wishes he'd had resourceless spears right about now.