[SPOILERS] scooter's Rule of Three

[scooter]

I finally have a good game-appropriate theme! Theme will be things that come in 3s. I have so many ideas.

[scooter]

Time to start considering options. And by options I mean draft city names.


There's a few ways to go with this. This will probably be a relatively high city count game, so I think I'll need quite a few. There's culturally famous things that very specifically came in 3 - Stooges, Musketeers, Blind Mice, Tenors, Amigos, etc. There's generic things that we traditionally think of as sets of 3. Traffic lights, meals, time of day, primary colors, olympic medals, triangle sides, etc. There's also words/concepts that are not explicitly a set of 3 themselves, but are instead things that refer to a set of 3. A hat trick, trilogy, trio, trifecta, triple, or even a Cultural Victory which refers to 3 legendary cities.


My general lean here is to use a little bit of all of these, but I could be convinced to narrow it down to one path.


I'll try to write up leader/civ stuff at some point. But my gut instinct is a lot of stuff is viable here. I should be able to strike a good mix between stuff that is good and stuff that sounds fun to play.

[scooter]

Alright, I think traits are the most interesting question here. Let's run through them alphabetically. Actually, first, let's call out a few small things from the setup that impact valuations.


* Roomy map buffs the value of traits the push expansion. However, 3-city elim nerfs aggressive expansion. Every city plant must be totally defensible. Might be a wash.

* The above puts a premium on vertical expansion a bit relative to horizontal expansion. Not enormously so, but it's a small factor.

* Military traits are buffed a bit. A promotion could be the difference between a city falling or holding, which could be the difference between winning or losing.

* Barbarians will be a factor here. Classical barbs are a touch scarier.

* Everyone is guaranteed a religion in the capital. This maybe opens up some options.

* Random map means lower average land quality.


Aggressive: Good here. There's the obvious benefits, but also I think players are reasonably likely to keep large-ish standing armies. It won't save as much money as the Money Traits, but it's nice.


Charismastic: I think this is good here too. Cheap Monuments are nice when culture is important here. I also think 2-movers will be really important here. 2-movers are so valuable for getting cheap razes, and they like Chm.


Creative: Creative is really buffed by random map. Hand edited maps are more careful about where the foods are. Random does not care about your dotmaps. Also, larger cultural borders is really essential here I think. It helps fog-busting, and it's so much harder to be surprised out of the fog. High value trait for me.


Expansive: Expansive is in a really good place in CtH. Cheap Granaries are cheap Granaries. Harbors being a non-factor here is a minor negative, but I think it's offset by the higher likelihood that Aqueducts will be relevant.


Financial: This does fit the vertical aspect I mentioned. It's not top of my list, but if I get a cottage friendly capital, I have to consider it. In a low-player game I like FIN as it just becomes so easy to be the tech leader and have the luxury of reacting rather than have to force plays. In bigger games it has less value as you can simply Find The Fish and profit that way. I think I'm out on this unless I'm on a huge river valley or something.


Imperialistic: Boy am I torn on this one. Roomy buffs this trait for sure, but also the aforementioned issue about careful expansion is still an issue. The low-key benefit here is the GG emergence. I think this game could well be decided by a Great General play. IMP gives you more of them. Hmmm.


Industrious: Aside from the obvious, I think Forges will be really valuable here in what will likely be a higher city count game that goes a bit deeper. Also, barbarians will mean unlocking Heroic Epic will be fairly easy, so a trait that can get it online super fast appeals. I'm not sure this trait will make the cut, but I think it's viable. I think Pyramids is probably really good, so if you want it, you probably want IND.


Organized: Always playable and good. I think this game will be lower on Lighthouses, and I place a lot of value in that bonus for the trait, so I'll probably pass on this one.


Philosophical: I've played this a lot in CtH, so I'm passing on this. I think it's good, but I don't think it's massively impacted by the settings. I think the main benefit here is some sort of bulb rush towards a power spike.


Protective: I think this is also very good here. It may be a bit before trade routes happen, so having a passive commerce boost early is great. And obviously it makes it very easy to defend your city plants. However, I have spent the last 6-7 months playing this trait, and I'm ready to do something else. Pass.


Spiritual: I initially didn't think much of it here, but I'm starting to wonder. See, everyone will start with a religion, and I do wonder if there's room to play the religious game here as a result. What I like about Spiritual is the ability to utilize Monotheism for mini-IND and missionaries for mini-CRE and a shrine for mini-FIN. Beyond all of this, if there was ever a game where the need to be flexible is huge, it's this one. SPI could get you out of a jam bigtime. In addition, random map games buffs Serfdom a bit. Finally, one of the normal downsides of Spiritual is that you feel the need to divert down the Mysticism path early, but that's taken care of for you here. There's just a lot of little things nudging it. The main drawback: I played it in both PB70 and PB73, so it's a little recent still.


My gut says Creative is essential. But I'm not 100% on that yet. Honestly, I'd be happy with a lot of these. I really think there's a lot of different ways to play this. My general feel is to take an expansion trait and a military trait, but I need some economic oomph. I dunno, I need to see a screenshot to really take this much further.

[RefSteel]

Here's your starting screenshot. The fog is probably accurate since this is meant to be a minimally-edited map, but I suppose if there's enough time before the game starts, it's possible something more substantive than tree color (you'll notice the map generator put snowless conifers on tundra and I haven't decided what I think of that) might change for mostly-aesthetic reasons, so maybe don't trust the fog too far!

Good luck!

[scooter]

Thanks Refsteel!


Will have to think about this more later, but some quick reacts. I'm going to assume the map parameters are right here that this is mostly random.


* FIN is probably back on the menu. Capital has 8 riverside cottageable tiles, 10 if we count the grass hills.


* Having to potentially choose between a plains hill start (1S) vs a Corn is a little tricky. However, the Corn appears to be dry and tile bleeding suggests more floodplains south, so it may be worthwhile? Capital goes from 8 -> 10 flatland riverside cottages tiles 1S, while picking up 2 or 3 floodplains - hard to tell for sure. It's probably right to move. Can check later.


* If I move the capital here, decrement SPI usefulness a tiny notch as we'd revolt T0 anyway


* Tundra nearby is a little nervy given that's likely to be barb-infested.


* Stone right at the capital is really interesting. Again, if this is mostly random, there's a very high chance nobody else has this. Stone and an above-average number of forests is hinting at something. I suppose I need to double-check which wonders are available on Classical, but I think it's all but Stonehenge.


* Moving capital 1S increases the chances health is a mild bottleneck towards making this cap huge. Possibly a modest bump in favor of Ottomans, for example, which were already on my radar and would see their UB be doubly useful towards vertical growth.


Will think about it more later. My gut says it's going to be worth moving 1S and that the 2h plant and floodplains will fix a lot of the problems that come with only one real food. I really didn't want to pick FIN here, but it also feels like there's an obvious win-con here where I build an insane capital. To be fair, this is true with or without FIN, but it would be worth a fair bit here.

[pindicator]

I'm excited to follow this one. Especially for the naming scheme.

[scooter]

I'm excited to follow this one. Especially for the naming scheme.

Glad you like it! If you're unspoiled, feel free to chime in on pick thoughts.


I'm debating what to name the capital. LegendaryCities is loosely tempting just to start with the Civ theme, though I'm not wild about how unwieldy it is nor the requirement to cut the space to make it fit. Also, Civ choice may impact it. For example, France is a civ on my radar, so a "Musketeers" would be such an obvious choice in that case.

[pindicator]

I was thinking Culture Victory would be a cheeky capital name when I was first reading your theme.

[scooter]

Alright, finally have a minute to write up the picks thinking. I sort of landed on feeling Creative was essential for the reasons mentioned in a previous post. In particular, I value the benefits of Creative on a random map which I think frequently gets forgotten and Tarkeel helpfully reminded me of. I wanted a trait to help keep me safe and a trait to help me expand, and Creative gives me a bit of both.

Past that, I was really drawn to Kublai in particular. I was kinda drawn towards taking a military trait. I especially liked the idea of going Kublai France and terrorizing enemies with forking well-promoted 2-movers with defensive bonuses. Who wouldn't want to do that? And then I saw the capital.




How am I going to see this capital and not take Financial? Settle 1S and I've got 11 flat riverside cottage tiles not including the Stone, 5 of which appear to be Floodplains. I've already decided on CRE, and a fun-sounding gameplan starts to take shape. One that revolves around a monster Bureaucap. Libraries are cheap, let's generate a Scientist and Academy this sucker early.


I also began to doubt the value of an aggressive pick. After all, is this actually going to be a super aggressive game? The truth is with 3-city elim, it's actually incredibly risky to invade someone. First, your other neighbors could simply backstab you while your army is away. In addition, we are playing razes only. So in trying to kill another player's city, you are actually benefitting everyone else at a cost to yourself. If you succeed, then the other players will simply settle their land and thank you for your efforts. I chatted with Tarkeel to bounce ideas, and when I mentioned this, he said the following which I thought was really well-put, and I hope he does not mind the quote.

I agree that aggression is likely to look different from other games, probably closer to the AW games actually (which are funnily enough the least aggressive games here)

I think this is exactly right. Also amusingly, looking at opponent picks, it sort of looks like the others agreed. So, that was the Willem pick.


So, America again

As for Civ, the top choice I was really considering was Japan. Even without IND, the 20h Forge discount is really valuable for hitting whip thresholds easier, and the extra XP is a mini-Aggressive of sorts. And I think Forges will be good here. However, when I saw America get skipped, I couldn't help myself. It just fits the gameplan way too well. It also gives me two really appealing choices on the UB for the opening. Namely:


1) Very quick Scientist for the Academy

2) Very early Engineer for something like Great Library, which itself will produce a nice passive GP Engine.


What could go wrong?


There are downsides worth mentioning. I think the main one is that the Classical start does delay cottage growth a bit. A huge part of the supercap is getting the Town timers ticking ASAP, and we're losing out on some turns of that. I think the other players made some interesting picks that could give us some grief as well. More on them at some point.


Finally

It's time to nerf America. Their pick/ban presence is practically 100%. Charriu isn't around anymore, but it's time to do this. I mostly think CtH should be largely left alone, but there's no denying America is simply too popular. I maintain a real part of it is because it's fun, but also it is simply a very good and impactful UB.

[scooter]

I was thinking Culture Victory would be a cheeky capital name when I was first reading your theme.

Yeah I definitely like this!