[PB82 Tech Thread] 3-city elimination

[superdeath]

1. Barbs suck (my record with barb vs anything of mine is horrible) 2. I... as much as i love joining PB's, a new game Ashes of Creation with its Alpha is out and ive been playing that on the weekends, and soon it will be available to play throughout the week which will put my available time much lower than usual. I might lurk with some interest though.

[scooter]

Also in no rush at all to get started. The week of December 8th I'll have no Civ access, though I will have internet access if we are picking civs/leaders then. Of course, if we do launch before then, it shouldn't be hard to find a sub to move my scout. Happy to give it a bit more time to see if we pick up another, but also would be fine with this group of 4 too.

Scooter, I was also leaning towards Pangea with a preference for "Solid" shorline.

Sounds good to me. Generally agreed with the idea to have the map be somewhat roomy. Maybe the best approach is to leave it at that and have our map maker/roller look at player counts and make a determination at what combo of size and sea level works best to get what we're aiming for.

I've never played classical start so I loaded a quick test game and ... wow, classical raging barbs on large map is a variant in itself. Turn 35, had 9 barbs (4 axes, 1 spear, 1 archer, 3 warriors) in my territory and 10 turns later there was a fresh invasion by 8 barb axes plus a half dozen warriors/archers. I'm ditching the raging barbs setting if we go Classical.

I'm always up for Classical, however something does have to be determined regarding religions for it to really work. This is usually the sticking point. It's not terribly hard to do a pseudo-Classical by starting in Ancient but adding much of what accounts for a Classical start.

[yuris125]

The concern with pseudo-Classical start would be that it doesn't lock out the wonders which are only available on Ancient start. Oracle would probably be the biggest concern - of course, we could just ban it

That said, I don't think doing pseudo-Classical addresses the issue with religions? The early ones still have to go somewhere. I forgot how much of an issue it is

[xist10]

I think Stonehenge is the only wonder which isn't avaible with a real classic start.
So pseudo classic shouldn't be a real problem there.

For religions you could not give the reli techs ?
Maybe mystic for everyone, so you have to decide if you want to chase after a religion ?

[yuris125]

Henge, Oracle, Great Wall, Statue of Zeus, and Moai are unavailable with Classical start iirc

Pseudo-classical without the Mysticism branch sounds interesting tbf (I wouldn't give Mysticism either, so that going for that branch is a choice, and not a coinflip for whether you pick the correct tech between Meditation and Polytheism)

[scooter]

This is what you start with on a Classical start. You also start with a Worker, Archer, and Scout. I like Yuris' suggested tweak of the pseudo-Classical of simply blocking out the Mysticism path. The only catch I guess is I sort of suspect everyone would immediately tech Mysticism-Med or Mysticism-Poly anyway, and we'd just be flipping coins regardless. (Also some civs start with Mysticism, though we could simply block that.)


The other option I can think of would be to give everyone all starting techs, but nothing from the second column of techs.

[Cornflakes]

Another option for classical start would be to just ban the Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish shrines. Everyone will get religion via either:
• a holy city (with a little extra culture in the capital), or
• a missionary (which could potentially be used to get +1 culture in the 2nd city).

That difference seems reasonably in line with the existing randomness in huts/events/barbs. Code of Laws and Theology are expensive enough to make pursuing the holy city a real investment, especially since everyone is already guaranteed access to a religion. The Confucian or Christian holy cities just open up a future option to build a shrine.

[scooter]

Another option for classical start would be to just ban the Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish shrines. Everyone will get religion via either:
• a holy city (with a little extra culture in the capital), or
• a missionary (which could potentially be used to get +1 culture in the 2nd city).

That difference seems reasonably in line with the existing randomness in huts/events/barbs. Code of Laws and Theology are expensive enough to make pursuing the holy city a real investment, especially since everyone is already guaranteed access to a religion. The Confucian or Christian holy cities just open up a future option to build a shrine.

I believe in this case the players that do not get Holy Cities would probably get fewer natural spreads? This might be a reasonable option.

[Commodore]

I think the PB80 mod managed fine if CtH is an open codebase.

[Krill]

PB80 is RtR.