I'm going to have to get in the habit again, of seeing all these juicy threads and not clicking on any of them.
I found this game by accidentally clicking on an old bookmark to Realms Beyond while drunk and signed up on a whim. The next day I realized in horror what I'd done and nearly quit. Then the next day after that I realized in horror what I'd done and nearly quit. Hi everyone.
Probably the most impressive Civ achievement of mine is surviving to the final turn of PB 11, 13, and 18. Rusty would be an understatement. I haven't looked at a Civ 4 start in years and I have no clue what the key changes are in RtR. I used to have really strong feelings about some parts of the game, but I can't remember the details of what or why.
What I still remember is that the most important factor in the game is who you start next to and in what circumstances. I'm not sure how engaged I am going to be in this game but how that start plays out will affect that a lot. Another thing I know is, based on the game size, nobody is going to be relevant in this game unless they manage to conquer a neighbour or two.
Full disclosure: I accidentally clicked on the map thread, thinking it was the setup discussion. I closed as soon as I realized where I was, and don't think I saw anything that will affect my gameplay.
Here are the choices we rolled for you - when you've decided whether to keep the civ or reroll it, and which (if either) of the leaders you want to keep, post the inforrmation here to let us know.
Options: Tokugawa (Agg/Pro)
Louis (Cre/Ind)
Japan
The essential form of the BFC may be relied upon, though we might still make superficial changes e.g. to whether the trees are deciduous, conifers, or snowy, and we might imaginably even rotate the whole thing 90 degrees or something since the surrounding terrain is still being finalized. The corner tiles may yet change, and the fog is a fabric of lies, but at least you've got your start!
Also, in case it's not obvious due to the resource icon partly blocking the yield icons, note that your elephants live in a forest.
What interesting choices! Not an actual decision, my gut without knowing the mod is I want to take Toku / Japan blind because of, well, aggressive Samurai. Not just powerful but they appear in a fun part of the game.
I'll comment more after I learn the mod. I need to know what, in the modmaker's mind, you need to research to eat animals these days.
The good news is the start is redonkulous and settling in place couldn't be more clear.
(January 19th, 2018, 23:47)WilliamLP Wrote: I'll comment more after I learn the mod. I need to know what, in the modmaker's mind, you need to research to eat animals these days.
You Hunt sheep and pigs and such, while you carefully Husband your deer, elephants, and Furs. No other changes to my knowledge, just the swapping of those two techs' abilities.
Haha thank you Mardoc and Coeurva for clearing that up! I'm sure the real point is that any civ can "hunt" sheep and pigs with just one tech and no prereqs.
On general metagame, there is no trace of coastline or chokepoint in the starting screenshot, so I have to be prepared to have multiple neighbours. This favours the prickly military traits.
On leader choices: Louis (Cre/Ind). I reject simply because I don't want to build wonders, it's too high variance for my tastes. Since there are at least 10 players in this game better than me (maybe closer to 20), rationally I should go for high risk, high reward play. I could try and role-play Mackoti and beeline pyramids. Except that actual Mackoti is in this game. (And he along with others have surely figured out better ways to play now!)
Tokugawa (Agg/Pro). These are the underpowered traits in vanilla that modmakers have been known to overcompensate for sometimes. Let's see what they are in this game.
Quote:Aggressive: Free C1 promo for melee and gunpowder units. -25% city maintenance [Not shown in trait description. Bonus not shown in interface. Bonus is multiplicative with other maintenance modifiers. Final displayed city maintenance value is correct and includes this bonus.] +100% production of Barracks, Stable, Drydock.
Aggressive looks nice here for the late game maintenance and the barracks bonus means they can replace monuments, since they give culture in this mod, and so I can avoid Myst for a very long time.
Quote:Protective: Free City Garrison 1, Drill 1 promo for archery and gunpowder units. +100 production of Granary, Walls.
The Granary bonus looks good here. The free promos are intangible overall, except that this would be a major disincentive to attack me in the early game, which I like very much.
In general to be competitive I think you want at least one big economic bonus at the start and also something that scales into the late game. That plus some synergy with the Civ. Ideally I'd get an acceleration that starts immediately, with Exp or Imp. Advantages from granaries don't kick in until a few cities are settled and growing. But I can definitely work with this. The leaders that will appear in the second round probably won't include the community perceived best choices anyway. So, keep Tokugawa.
Quote:Japan: UB is now Pagoda, an Observatory replacement with +10% hammers. Samurai: Japanese Unique Unit: strength 8, starts with Drill 1, 2 free strikes, +50% against melee, +25% against cities, cost 70 hammers, requires Civil Service, Machinery, iron.
Okay, so no nearly worthless shale plant! The Pagoda is a nearly free flat hammer bonus because many cities get Observatories anyway. The Samurai is still just a maceman with the first strikes. I trust the modmakers have balanced this to be a useful unit, and it is something that will probably see real action. Though, as I recall, that part of the game is very close to gunpowder so these would be a unit for attacking a backward civ. There are some greener players here so that could be fine.
Fishing as a starting tech is just flat out terrible on this start, clearly the worst option with Mysticism the close second. I don't mind Wheel though since it allows very early small gains in micro plans, where you can move-road to avoid wasting a worker turn. I'm going to guess without checking that I could research Hunting in time to pasture the pigs, since this situation is exactly what the mod addresses.
So, keep Japan. I'm totally sure that my choices are already suboptimal.
It looks like a few weeks until the map is finalized, that should give me time to remember how to build a sandbox. And probably a who-I-don't-want-to-start-next-to list.
The more I think about it the more I realize that Japan is just a bad choice for this start. But I don't care. It means I'm sure I have a UU that I can use in significant combat, with synergy on Aggressive.
I used to have really strong feelings about some parts of the game, but I can't remember the details of what or why.
![[Image: DStart.JPG]](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AqdLLjjmLBs/WmEW0MN3y1I/AAAAAAAAEiw/HZo5IiA56QsZxbnjVYjqIBTVKhINhgMEwCLcBGAs/s1600/DStart.JPG)
