[SPOILERS] Lurkers Rooting for More Destruction

[scooter]

I'm not sure I saw any unasked-for mechanics information, but actually, I want to note somewhere (I think someone - maybe Magic Science - asked about this too, but I'd have to dig up where) that the Great Wall will have a big potential effect: When barbs end up in your borders due to border expansion or city placement, if you have the Great Wall, they instantly vanish! It won't affect longbows in cities unless the cities flip, but it might be the easiest way to get rid of a random mace/Jan/etc and get at the tile it's guarding.

I had not considered this, actually. This might actually be an interesting use case for Great Wall. Specifically, every player has Stone very close by, but they're all guarded by a Mace. If you're angling for Pyramids - which I think is very good here - this might be a creative way to get there. Maybe a tad expensive though. Speaking of, I think I screwed up and placed some players barb stone on hills (defense bonus) and some on flatland. Oh well.


I'm also curious what the barb city priority will be. One player commented they felt they were lightly defended. And they might be. I definitely considered defending them more strongly. It was 3 longbows initially, and I upgraded one to a Crossbow (CKN technically) to essentially slightly nerf Swords (+1 Sword cost). In general it takes about 7 Swords to be certain you'll capture. -1 Sword if you've got promotion(s) and +1 Sword if the city pops borders first. These are super approximate numbers obviously, and there are other units that can get you there, but it's a decent estimate.


There are a bunch of issues with this though that I don't think are immediately obvious. Some of them are more obvious if you watched PB76 though.


1) You either have to build 1 Galley and waste several turns ferrying them over 2 at a time, or you have to build multiple Galleys, which is really expensive.


2) None of the capitals are coastal (intentional) so you have to build a Galley from a new city, which is a real cost.


3) Many barb cities are contestable, so if you aren't careful, you risk wiping out the garrison just for an opponent to sweep in and collect.


4) While the cities are very good, there are really strong city sites everywhere, so is the ~300h required to capture one really worth the opportunity cost? It definitely is at some point, but it's tricky to figure out the right timing.


Fun fact: An earlier draft had Drydocks in each barb city. During testing of this was when I noticed the Barracks issue. While that was eventually solved, it spooked me off a building that impacted XP and unhealthiness. I also figured building capture RNG might be too irritating here.

[Jabah]

Since the barb cities are on a different Land mass it could be easier to flip them with a city 2 tiles away ?

[scooter]

Definitely could attempt to culture flip them with a holy city, and I'm curious if anyone will try. Some are more flippable than others. It's inherently a bit of a gamble. Worth noting that a lot of the flippable sites are also strong enough that they will build a Monument sooner than you might think, at which point they're going to be harder to flip. I saw a couple of them in my tests pop their borders by T60-70ish, for example. Most will take longer than that, though.

[Cyneheard]

Just now putting together that three players are using Fallout Vaults, but none of them chose the same ones...yet.

[scooter]

Just now putting together that three players are using Fallout Vaults, but none of them chose the same ones...yet.

Not quite. The cities were pre-placed, so I named each of them after Fallout Vaults as a fun easter egg. I tried to pick notable vaults from different parts of the Fallout universe. What's happening is 3/5 players have been too lazy to rename the city despite me explicitly encouraging them to do so.


See the barbarian city names for something very similar.

[Cyneheard]

Just now putting together that three players are using Fallout Vaults, but none of them chose the same ones...yet.

Not quite. The cities were pre-placed, so I named each of them after Fallout Vaults as a fun easter egg. I tried to pick notable vaults from different parts of the Fallout universe. What's happening is 3/5 players have been too lazy to rename the city despite me explicitly encouraging them to do so.


See the barbarian city names for something very similar.

Is "you're obligated to have a naming convention" just one of those Civ Boomer things we don't have to do any more?

I would probably be post-apocalyptic if I were playing, but something slightly off-beat like SM Stirling's Emberverse.

[scooter]

Just now putting together that three players are using Fallout Vaults, but none of them chose the same ones...yet.

Not quite. The cities were pre-placed, so I named each of them after Fallout Vaults as a fun easter egg. I tried to pick notable vaults from different parts of the Fallout universe. What's happening is 3/5 players have been too lazy to rename the city despite me explicitly encouraging them to do so.


See the barbarian city names for something very similar.

Is "you're obligated to have a naming convention" just one of those Civ Boomer things we don't have to do any more?

I would probably be post-apocalyptic if I were playing, but something slightly off-beat like SM Stirling's Emberverse.

I dunno, I think people still mostly do it? But we do have an eclectic group here including a person who doesn't really do themes (Gavagai) and someone who doesn't really play Civ4 (Thrawn). Honestly the only reason I did it was I planted the cities before players had Civs picked. So when I went to change their Civs after they made their picks, they all had wrong names. Like Gavagai's capital was Seoul. I was going to go put the "correct" capital names in, but on a whim I went with Vaults because I had already named the Barb cities after cities in various Fallout games.

[Tarkeel]

I think it's pretty fitting that the capitals are vaults, and would probably expand on it if I were playing.

[Mjmd]

@Scooter

I got the sense in PB76 that you didn't like the preplaced uber barbarian cities. And while I think most people expected pre placed barbarian cities here, the double gold with seafood barb citeis in this game are certainly very good. Would be curious on thoughts.

[scooter]

@Scooter

I got the sense in PB76 that you didn't like the preplaced uber barbarian cities. And while I think most people expected pre placed barbarian cities here, the double gold with seafood barb citeis in this game are certainly very good. Would be curious on thoughts.

Yeah for sure. Was planning to discuss this a bit, so now seems like a good time. I think the hangup I had about the barb cities in 76 was that they were much stronger cities than anything else available and very quickly available. Also being at the midpoint between players locked people into very zero-sum relationships with neighbors over the sites. I thought the idea was actually fun and liked it to an extent, but I thought this was a calibration issue rather than a fundamental problem. A few ways I tried to mitigate that here.


1) Players knew up-front there would be barb chicanery and could tailor their picks towards it. You mentioned this, but I think it was a key element here.


2) I raised the cost of capturing them significantly. In order to capture one you have to build a city on the coast, build a Galley, build a bunch of units (+1 Sword compared to 76 - the most cost-efficient base unit there), and then spend a half dozen turns ferrying all those units over 2-by-2. Also hope you do it quickly enough before they pop borders and pick up 20% defenses, likely raising the unit cost again. In 76 all you had to do was build a half dozen swords and walk them over to it on roads. 3 cities fell in under 50T, and the other 2 only lived because Thoth intentionally ignored them. (Worth noting he went on to win the game!)


3) I raised the opportunity cost of doing all this significantly by putting a ton of OP stuff elsewhere. There are some outright broken city sites available. Do you want to sink a few hundred hammers into capturing one of these or settle 2-3 cities elsewhere? I think it's a real choice. Not to mention the cost of protecting an island from a neighbor also on that water is higher than protecting a land city. I honestly think I would ignore them for quite awhile if I was playing in favor of staking out a larger land claim. Land borders are not very "pre-defined" in this game - there's pretty significant squishy areas that could be claimed legitimately by multiple players.


4) Not all players have equal access to the barb cities. There are 8 of them for 5 players. There are some cities that two players could reach, but one has the inside track on. I think that changes the dynamic a bit. Does the further player want to make a huge bet on reaching and snagging it? Would the closer player sandbag a bit to try to have their cake and eat it too? This is potentially a bit imbalancing, but I actually think this will result in players making different judgments about it and feeling less railroaded into racing for the barbs when you have really strong options elsewhere.


I also think some of the lessons of 76 will be considered by players here, which is that sometimes it pays to arrive second to the city and not first. I'm wondering whether anyone will slow-play them for that reason.