[PB74 SPOILERS] scooter's Bluey Adventure

[scooter]

In which I attempt to do the thing I always fail at doing - play really casually.


I just hope everyone has fun.




a day in which I did not have fun


In the interest of having fun, I'll be maintaining a scoreboard. Keeping score is the best way to be super casual, right?


The Scoreboard

Ragequits: 0
"This game might ruin my life" Quits: 0
Misc Quits: 0
Turn Split Controversies: 0
Non Turn Split Public Rules Lawyerin': 0
Reloads Due to Misclicks: 0
Adorable Newb Accidental Rule Breaks: 0


Will accept other things I should keep score of, as long as they're relatively easy/infrequent to track and do not require spoiler info. For example, I thought about tracking pauses, but that sounded like too much work.

[Krill]

I didn't sign up as thus was a game where the only way to win is not to play.

Does that count for something?

[scooter]

I didn't sign up as thus was a game where the only way to win is not to play.

Does that count for something?

It means you robbed me of an easy point in one of the quit columns. Though I'm not sure which one!

[Krill]

Four points, all but four and six...

[Zed-F]

Is there a chance that this involves ‘have fun by winning’, then, since you’ve said you’re not great at being super-casual?

I guess we won’t know until the game starts and you see your situation / neighbors.

[scooter]

Is there a chance that this involves ‘have fun by winning’, then, since you’ve said you’re not great at being super-casual?

I guess we won’t know until the game starts and you see your situation / neighbors.

I don’t really want to be in a winning position late-game because it’s a huge probably water-heavy map, and those are the sloggiest games late. I’d be cool with getting into a good position and doing something interesting with my civ/leader. However, the basic “problem” with larger games like this is that they really play to my strengths. Bigger games are made up of 3 distinct groups of players.

1. Contenders - the top 20-30% of players who could realistically win if they play well and things break their way. The size of this group really depends on how good the best 1-2 players in the game are.
2. Competents - the middle class of players who are pretty unlikely to win but will execute fairly well. Most importantly, they are players that have the tools to handle the next group.
3. Food - the players who have no realistic designs on contending let alone winning. I don’t mean to be insulting either as “food” is relative to field power in any game. But anyone who would like to contend must consume at least one of these players at the correct time. (A player in group 2 who screws up their start can drop to this group too.)


Most of the time I’m on the border of group 1 or 2, depending on the field. I’m definitely on the bubble of it in this field. My “problem” is I’m good at the food eating part. A big part of contending in these bigger games is just picking your spots. Basically, keep your head down, peacefully expand, grow your commerce, and then when you see a food-like opening when the borders start to touch, eat up.

So, I can come in here and say I’m gonna take it easy, report a little less, etc. But realistically I’m gonna end up next to someone in Group 3, and I’m not going to be able to resist. If that goes well, suddenly in 4 months I’ll look up, and I’m comfortably in the top-5, and at that point the allure to try a little harder is too much.

[scooter]

1. Contenders - the top 20-30% of players who could realistically win if they play well and things break their way. The size of this group really depends on how good the best 1-2 players in the game are.
2. Competents - the middle class of players who are pretty unlikely to win but will execute fairly well. Most importantly, they are players that have the tools to handle the next group.
3. Food - the players who have no realistic designs on contending let alone winning. I don’t mean to be insulting either as “food” is relative to field power in any game. But anyone who would like to contend must consume at least one of these players at the correct time. (A player in group 2 who screws up their start can drop to this group too.)

A follow-up. It's important to recalibrate during the game. Another feature of these big games is players surprise you! In PB18 while the final two contenders were not surprising at all, I think Boldly Going Nowhere is a guy I would have slotted into Group 2 pre-game, and he was a serious contender for a long time in that game. For a more recent example, in PB59 I definitely would have put Amicalola into group 2, maybe even lower down in that group, but he turned in a legendary performance there. It'll happen here from someone.

[scooter]

I have no idea if I should take or reroll these, so I should put some thought into trait analysis here. My only CtH games have been small games, and those play pretty differently to big games. A reminder to self on the CtH trait changes.

Traits

• Financial:
  Remove +1 commerce on tiles with 2+ commerce
  +1 commerce on land tiles with 3+ commerce
  +1 commerce on water tiles with 2+ commerce and lighthouse in the city
  +50% production of bank
  
• Expansive:
  +100% production of Aqueduct
  Remove production bonus for Workers
  
• Creative: Remove production bonus for Colosseum
  
• Charismatic:
  +100% production of Monument
  +100% production of Colosseum
  
• Aggressive:
  -50% unit maintenance cost
  Free Barrage I for all siege weapons
  
• Philosophical:
  +150% GPP instead of +100%
  +100% production of monasteries
  
• Protective:
  +100% domestic trade route yield
  +50% production of market
  
• Industrious: +100% production of national wonders instead of 50%
  

Alright, so I think we're playing Big & Small, and the map will be Huge I guess? And there will be 19 players. So, some things you have to consider for this particular setup.


* IND is slightly nerfed in that it's hard to land the early wonders with 18 opponents. However, the world wonder bonus itself is only like 20% of the value of IND I think, so that doesn't ruin the trait. However, the national wonder bonus is also slightly nerfed as National Wonders are inherently less impactful when there are more cities. Plus I just played IND. Don't really want.


* AGG is pretty bad I think? Honestly no idea. Late-game that unit maintenance probably would matter, but I still think this is a bad trait. Do not want.


* FIN is really strong if you're coastal at the start or soon after. Given that this map will likely have a lot of water, this is a strong trait here. The CtH nerfs sacrifice a bit of early commerce, but you can be confident it'll come online eventually. Returning the bank bonus is nice too for the mid-game.


* PHI is very slightly nerfed by the fact that it's harder to found a religion, which potentially limits the Monastery bonus. However, Great People are a great way to collect key early game first-to bonuses, and those are inherently harder to get in a big game. So PHI is pretty good here. I'm a little less excited by it given that I just played it, but I think it's good on these settings.


* EXP is definitely good still. The Granary bonus was always much bigger than the worker bonus, and CtH EXP retains that. The ability to get your newly settled cities contributing faster matters a ton for the early land-grab phase.


* PRO is nerfed badly here. International trade will feature heavily in this game. Do not want.


* CRE gets a slight boost given that other border popping options are thinned out. Harder to get early religion, harder to get Stonehenge, etc. Definitely an option.


* CHM is interesting and possibly most impacted in both directions by the settings. The cheap Monuments are really buffed by the settings IMO. As mentioned earlier it's harder to pop borders, so +1 happy + border pop for 15h is an incredible deal. The unit XP stuff is also more important here in a game guaranteed to go late, as those extra promos open up options for CHM that are much harder otherwise to attain. The flip side is all the happiness options CHM has are maybe a little suspect given that trading for excess happy is easier in a big game - at least in the mid-game when you start making contact with way more people.


* IMP gets buffed when there's more land to grab, which I think there will be. Worth considering.


* SPI is about the same as always - all-around good. Downside is harder to get an early religion. Upside is the game will go late, so lots of time for SPI to provide value.


* ORG is hard to pin down here. I think it's probably uber here, but there are reasons for pause. First, cheap Lighthouses are really underrated on heavy water maps. They matter a ton. ORG also gets some priority on GLH as a result, which will also be very good here. In addition, there's talk of picking Emperor, which seems silly to me, but that increases maintenance and buffs ORG. ORG is also a late-game powerhouse as it regularly matches FIN. I also think people really overlook the power of Courthouse EPs which give you a very real edge. THAT SAID, the one caveat is the huge map will lower distance maintenance, which definitely reduces the Courthouse power spike. I tend to think this is still one of the best traits, but I have a little bit of pause due to map setting uncertainty. Will look to get clarification.


One final thing that matters for civ pick more than leader pick - early game tech costs. They're already going to be quite high with this map, but if we go Emperor that boosts them even more. That makes it that much more painful to get a civ with poor starting techs. So my options are:

Pericles (CRE/PHI)
Elizabeth (FIN/PHI)
Washington (EXP/CHM)
Japan (Fishing/Wheel)

That is a good set of leaders - good enough that a reroll is highly unlikely to yield options that are on average better. I don't love any of them, but I do like all of them, if that makes sense. A big part of me kinda wanted ORG or IMP, but I'm not guaranteed to get those with a good pairing, while I have 3 perfectly good pairs here that you can do work with. Also, if I have like a Wheat/Deer/Forest start, Japan is a rough draw. That said, I'm afraid to reroll into a Mysticism civ, so I guess we'll wait for a screenshot and decide.

[Zed-F]

Agg’s cost reduction is pretty strong overall, but it needs help from the right civ with a barracks UB that offers something in addition like culture to really stand out. I wouldn’t pick it if I weren’t planning to take such a civ, and it’s not one of our options here anyway.

CRE is probably the least exciting early game trait, TBH. Elizabeth seems ok in the mid-game, but how do you get off the ground? Washington seems to offer a decently fast start, but you need a wonder to have a competitive economy, as opposed to just scraping by. I’d probably try to make something work with the latter. I agree these seem just ok, but odds of getting better aren’t great.

[Qgqqqqq]

Remember that we will modify the size to Large, so both tech costs and maintenance will be less affected.