[PB69] Naufragar turns over a new leaf. Randomly.

[naufragar]

Underneath is the same old naufragar.

Password is

rev

[El Grillo]

You just can’t escape fate, it seems I’ll be rooting for you!

[Mjmd]

I read all your PB64 thread and could not tell you what your avatar was, I think my mind just auto replaced.

[yuris125]

I will stick to just your thread for now, not committing to being a full on dedlurker who can possibly offer valuable insight, but if you need someone to bounce ideas off, I could be that guy

[Mjmd]

[naufragar]

Thanks for the start (and map in toto) Mjmd!

Welcome, Yuri! Your first mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out what in the world Montezuma of Spain is good at!

Mission impossible, indeed. And now I realize I should've titled this thread Montezuma's Revenge. Oh well, next time.

Before I spend any thought on the start, I want to try and figure out something, anything that our Leader+Civ combo does. It seems absolutely terrible. When analyzing combos, I try and find each one's particular excellence: "what does this trait or civ do that nobody else can? Can I build a gameplan on that strenght?" Gotta be honest, I see nothing that Spanish Monte does. At best, he's Spiritual, so he'll do the normal Spiritual things.

What are these Spiritual things, you ask? I...don't really know. I've played Spiritual once (another Montezuma game) but my civ never got farther than Axe technology...

Let's brainstorm: Spiritual can run Serfdom for the hammer output without worrying about having its guard down and being unable to emergency whip an army to stop an invasion. It can run Caste System to become pseudo-Philosophical and chain Great People. If it lands the Pyramids, Spi has immense flexibility between martial and peaceful civics. The same is true to a lesser extent for the Shwagon Papaya. Aggressive is a great trait (and in Civilization ); it does two main things: 1) it discourages opportunistic enemies in the Ancient and Classical era. 2) It makes Commando infantry 9XP cheaper. In PB64, I could've made Commandos and had a plan along those lines, so maybe this game too goes that far. But really the first point is the major one. (I'll have to check what kind of savings I can expect from Agg using Charriu's Turn Reports. It bears saying every time: Charriu, you're a wonder.)

Agg in this version of CtH also gets Barrage 1 on catapults. Spain then has a building that gives +5XP to seige. We could easily be producing Barrage III catapults (often even with an extra promo). These are nasty, nasty weapons. I don't have access to my math right now, but last I simmed, a catapult collateral hit against a knight does 7hp damage, while a Barrage III hit does 12. If those seem like small potatoes, consider that ideally a catapult hits 5 units with its splash damage. So those promotions are the difference between 35hp damage total and 60hp. That's easily more than another round of combat, which in turn is a massive swing in odds.

What I'm coming to as I think out loud is that Monte of Spain is slow. Duh. But more than that, he needs to play defensively. He doesn't have the traits to take advantage even of a successful early attack. (And probably can't manage one, anyway). It's a truism that you can't win one of these pitbosses with just your starting land. You need to eat somebody. But for us, that feast is going to have to come late. Knights perhaps. But perhaps even later.

So, plans? I want to leverage Caste System as hard as I can, which likely means timing Caste with Golden Ages. To make that easier, I would like the Mausolleum of Maussollos. That's very expensive, so I wonder if we can Engineer it. That would require running an Engi specialist from a Forge for 34 turns. That's a long time, but it's likely that I could be running a scientist in parallel that could immediately launch the Golden Age. Any chance I could be near Caste System by then? Unclear.

In the meantime, we hold fast with Barracks-promoted axes, spears, cats, and things.

So let's all remind naufragar. He's not going to be able to win many if any settling races, and then he's going to have to sit on his hands and let the other player hold my their spot. We don't have the capacity for early aggression. Say it again. We don't have the capacity for early aggression.

New leaf!

[Charriu]

You can still change the thread title

[Tarkeel]

Before I spend any thought on the start, I want to try and figure out something, anything that our Leader+Civ combo does. It seems absolutely terrible. When analyzing combos, I try and find each one's particular excellence: "what does this trait or civ do that nobody else can? Can I build a gameplan on that strenght?" Gotta be honest, I see nothing that Spanish Monte does. At best, he's Spiritual, so he'll do the normal Spiritual things.

IMHO Spain is one of the better semi-late civs. Yes, both the UU and UB come late, but usually early enough to matter.

I find that Cuirassiers in general area good if you combine with serfdom; see our PB58 game for an example of this. Conqs get an extra bonus to melee and get defensive bonuses, so a roving stack is very hard to dislodge. My experience from 58 is that Cuirs with shock/pinch promo (10xp) are only bothered by LBs while attacking.

The real star however is the Citadel. Castles in general are a decent building, mainly hampered with the extra cost of walls and obsoleting too soon. Citadels have neither of those problems, before you get to the bonus XP.

[Amicalola]

Rough luck on the combo, although it really does seem like fate. I am also rooting for you, against all judgement.   I think this pick is grim, but as you mentioned there are some very cute things you could try to do. At least you aren't Commodore?

Will you do the same style of opponent analysis? I want to play the sorting game!

[naufragar]

Tarkeel, I agree with you on Conquistadors. I've gained a whole new respect for mounted units that can take defensive bonuses after Amica's use of Immortals. There were a few times where his Chariot Immortal was behind walls on a hill and my Knights weren't getting guaranteed kills. Mounted units have roughly the same strength as infantry plus one move, but balanced by the effective anti-cav units plus the lack of defensive bonuses. And then the Conquistador completely upsets that calculus. Artists bulb Military Tradition, I believe, so you bet I'm going to try to make a beeline for them. (Still, it's a long beeline...)

But castles I'm more skeptical of. In PB64 a castle would've just been +1gpt from its trade route. And I wasn't really ever in a position where its defensive bonus would've mattered. The citadel looks really nice for the XP, but I suspect on this map it's not going to be a standout economic building (for non-Pro players).

You can still change the thread title

You're right, but I already worry people are going to perceive me as too aggressive with the avatar change. And my lighthearted joke about ailments/Spanish colonialism might be interpreted as a diplomatic message...

Actually, Amicalola's the reason I originally switched from Monte to Gandhi in the first place. I was Montezuma in Civforum's PB88, hence the avatar, and I kept it for RB PB59 which was running concurrently. After what felt like dozens upon dozens of turns at war with first Pindicator and Amicalola, I changed the avatar to Gandhi as a sarcastic gag. But to be honest, Gandhi's kind of grown on me. Don't know how long I'll keep ol' Monte.

Will you do the same style of opponent analysis? I want to play the sorting game!

I'll try! Although with a repeat cast, I'm not sure how tricky it'll be.  But the opponent analysis is going to be a little slow in coming. The game's already up. Ramkh, Mjmd, Charriu, you all are amazingly quick and competent.

So the most pressing concern is figuring out a start:


Logged in. Settled first, hoping to spot some huts with border pops. We're south of the equator, so I'm moving the scout north: greater probability of opponents and such.

Spain's techs are abysmally bad. And I've got an Animal Husbandry start. Ouch ouch ouch. And the forests and hills make navigation around the BFC atrocious. Oh this start is pure pain. I need to do a lot more work on it, but I think workboat first, Hunting->Animal Husbandry is the way to go. I don't really know what to do after that. I'm toying with the idea of growing to like size 4 before starting a settler. I don't know. It's all so miserably slow.