[Spoilers] Suboptimal - Welcome to the Tlachtli of Blunders!

[suboptimal]

The Pregame Show

Back in the PBEM saddle, this time in Newbies’ Paradise.  Let’s see what I’m up against.

Opponents

RFS-81: Don’t know anything about him.
rho21: Don’t know anything about him either.
Japper: Watched his play in PBEM 4, planning & play in PBEM 7 and have no idea what he was doing in PBEM 5 because Krill never really got up there until Japper was mostly eliminated from play.  His planning seems to be like my military escapades. 
Suboptimal: If you haven’t, read my PBEM 6 reporting and you’ll see why I list myself here.

Objectives

1) Be competent with my military
2) Be better at growing my cities’ population.
3) Killmore than three enemy units in this game (see also: Objective #1)
4) Make it to Turn 100 (see also: Objective #1)

Civs

Our pick list: America, France, Egypt, Brazil, Kongo, Greece/Pericles, Aztecs, Spain, India and Norway.  One of the reasons these civs are generaly ignored in PBEMs so far is that you’re going to wind up ignoring some or all of your civ’s abilities or uniques because of the nature of MP vs. SP.  Another issue is that for some of these civs (Spain, America, France) the abilities and uniques kick in very late in the game.  So, what to do?

In looking at this list, two stand out above the rest….

Brazil

The only civ with adjacency bonuses to districts right out of the gate.  The plan would be to do early Campuses and build the economy (like I did with Australia in PBEM 6) or try to go for an early religion and take it from there with Jesuit Education, DotF and Wats.  Which start I take would depend on what the map gives me.  One thought here is that if I could get a faith-heavy start I could try to see how Warrior Monks work....

Aztecs

Build a few Eagle Warriors for city-state conquests and to farm a couple of builders to start the game.  Get them promoted to make poor-man’s swords then go find a player to harass.  Wouldn’t need Encampments at the start either, since Eagle Warriors aren’t boosted by Great Generals.  Builders to build districts later on and the +1 CS bonus for luxury hookups.  Bonus: a player than has been historically inept with his military going full Monty will give the others something to attempt to comprehend.

After these two the pickings get murky.  My initial musings were France and Kongo…

France

Pure simplicity.  No early uniques to chase down so I can just focus on nuts and bolts.  The Flying Squadron would let me see what my opponents were up to with their policies (found that out about diplomatic visibility in PBEM 3) and the spy at Castles has me very intrigued.  Of course, I’d have to survive long enough to tech that far.  

Kongo

The plan here is to try to be Archduke-lite: found a second city, get an Encampment or two up, upgrade warriors to Ngao Mbeba and go find something to kill.  Early districts would be Encampments and Campuses.

But what of the others?

America

There’s the +5 CS when on your home continent and slightly faster accrual of legacy bonuses.  Has anyone figured out if the legacy bonuses ever really matter?  Everything else comes late, like Atomic Era late.  If the game gets to that point I think we’re all going to be more concerned about nukes than P-51’s.  The +5 combat strength could be useful early on.

Egypt

Well, since my look at this civ in PBEM 3 they’ve dropped the cost of the Maryannu Horse Archer.  That doesn’t change the fact that it replaces the Heavy Chariot at almost twice the cost and upgrades into Crossbows instead of Knights.  This civ also needs international trade routes to get any sort of civ-based bonuses and while the production bonus to riverside districts is nice I still can’t figure out how this civ could work in an MP setting.

Pericles’ Greece

The hoplite and the additional wildcard slot for policies is nice.  However, +5% culture per city-state you are suzerain of is….beyond useless when the “smart play” is to conquer city-states.  I also haven’t checked to see if the addition of anti-cavalry units to the policy cards is for R&F or the base game.

India

Stepwells are a good improvement for growing cities early or in places that lack fresh water.  The free faith from Satyagraha is nice but dictates a religious game for it to be of any use.  The doubled war weariness for opponents is nice, too.  As for the Varu, well, in the PBEM 3 pregame they were my biggest concern.  A little smarter and wiser (Editor: yeah, right ) and well, I don’t know.  They’re 50% more expensive than a horseman to build, upgrade into tanks and are slower moving on the battlefield.  I suppose in formation they’d be a nightmare, but are they worth it?

Norway

A unique unit that is weak on defense and strong on offense but expensive to build, coastal raiding and other naval goodies and a religious building that provides extra production to bonus sea resources.  All this on a map that probably won’t require naval units.

Spain

Most of the abilities don’t kick in until the Renaissance Era.  The +4 CS vs. civs of other religions is nice and Conquistadors could be quite potent with a religious unit in tow.  It would be like France in that the first three eras would be pure simplicity, but with a religious start.

[TheArchduke]

1) Be competent with my military
2) Be better at growing my cities’ population.
3) Killmore than three enemy units in this game (see also: Objective #1)
4) Make it to Turn 100 (see also: Objective #1)

I like those objectives. Especially 3) should be doable.

Brazil

The only civ with adjacency bonuses to districts right out of the gate.  The plan would be to do early Campuses and build the economy (like I did with Australia in PBEM 6) or try to go for an early religion and take it from there with Jesuit Education, DotF and Wats.  Which start I take would depend on what the map gives me.  One thought here is that if I could get a faith-heavy start I could try to see how Warrior Monks work....

Bonuses for rainforests that most the time you want to chop. A lategame naval UU? I would stay away from Brazil to be honest.

Aztecs

Build a few Eagle Warriors for city-state conquests and to farm a couple of builders to start the game.  Get them promoted to make poor-man’s swords then go find a player to harass.  Wouldn’t need Encampments at the start either, since Eagle Warriors aren’t boosted by Great Generals.  Builders to build districts later on and the +1 CS bonus for luxury hookups.  Bonus: a player than has been historically inept with his military going full Monty will give the others something to attempt to comprehend.

From the civ list you have, those are the ones with the best early game boosts overall. Builders for districts, capture units from CS and conquer 1-2 CS.
By far the best choice. You can always decide to build with them.

You can also go full monty and rush someone which would be ridiculously funny to see, but the Aztecs are like Rome, just enough economic boosts to stay viable if the military option is no option.

France

Pure simplicity.  No early uniques to chase down so I can just focus on nuts and bolts.  The Flying Squadron would let me see what my opponents were up to with their policies (found that out about diplomatic visibility in PBEM 3) and the spy at Castles has me very intrigued.  Of course, I’d have to survive long enough to tech that far.  

France gets a bad rep, they are slow to get off the ground. They got a silent boost in the expansion by the way of +3 Combat Strength for Diplomatic Visibility.
I concur though, undistracted by some fancy bonus they could serve as a relaxing nuts and bolts game. And there are no crazy civs to play against like Rome.

Kongo

The plan here is to try to be Archduke-lite: found a second city, get an Encampment or two up, upgrade warriors to Ngao Mbeba and go find something to kill.  Early districts would be Encampments and Campuses.

Much better civs around to do this. I find the Ngao Mbeba rather underwhelming, except for an attack on Brazil. You can play another civ and ignore religion just as well.

The Mbenza is a nice district though, bears to look at Kongo because of it.

But what of the others?

America

There’s the +5 CS when on your home continent and slightly faster accrual of legacy bonuses.  Has anyone figured out if the legacy bonuses ever really matter?  Everything else comes late, like Atomic Era late.  If the game gets to that point I think we’re all going to be more concerned about nukes than P-51’s.  The +5 combat strength could be useful early on.

Basically stuff on your same continent, may it be an enemy civ or a CS dies.

That´s it. It is a nice bonus, but the dependance on continent design is a risky thing.

Egypt

Well, since my look at this civ in PBEM 3 they’ve dropped the cost of the Maryannu Horse Archer.  That doesn’t change the fact that it replaces the Heavy Chariot at almost twice the cost and upgrades into Crossbows instead of Knights.  This civ also needs international trade routes to get any sort of civ-based bonuses and while the production bonus to riverside districts is nice I still can’t figure out how this civ could work in an MP setting.

Expensive UU, rather useless UI and if you want wonders, take China. Oh, China is not here. Hmm, better choices around then Egypt, still.

Pericles’ Greece

The hoplite and the additional wildcard slot for policies is nice.  However, +5% culture per city-state you are suzerain of is….beyond useless when the “smart play” is to conquer city-states.  I also haven’t checked to see if the addition of anti-cavalry units to the policy cards is for R&F or the base game.

Greece rides on the wildcard, the hoplites suffer, even if the policy card got repaired.

Into which unit do they upgrade? Right.

Keep your hands off them.

The wildcard is strong, very strong for an early Great Person, but imo you are better of building an early district if you are desperate for a religion.

India

Stepwells are a good improvement for growing cities early or in places that lack fresh water.  The free faith from Satyagraha is nice but dictates a religious game for it to be of any use.  The doubled war weariness for opponents is nice, too.  As for the Varu, well, in the PBEM 3 pregame they were my biggest concern.  A little smarter and wiser (Editor: yeah, right ) and well, I don’t know.  They’re 50% more expensive than a horseman to build, upgrade into tanks and are slower moving on the battlefield.  I suppose in formation they’d be a nightmare, but are they worth it?

India is awesome. I can´t believe they get taken so seldom. The WW can be a nightmare in long MP wars (check PBEM #4 for my WW.) The Stepwell is a stepup from a farm and provides faith and the Varu is unbelieveable nasty which results in a safe early game (noone will attack into Varus if they are sane).

Norway

A unique unit that is weak on defense and strong on offense but expensive to build, coastal raiding and other naval goodies and a religious building that provides extra production to bonus sea resources.  All this on a map that probably won’t require naval units.

Needs water, yep.

Spain

Most of the abilities don’t kick in until the Renaissance Era.  The +4 CS vs. civs of other religions is nice and Conquistadors could be quite potent with a religious unit in tow.  It would be like France in that the first three eras would be pure simplicity, but with a religious start.

Spain is destinied for true variant play. In a PBEM you are sure to get a religion if you want one, unlike SP where the AI is insane about going religion.

Still for a religious game, any other religious civ is the stronger choice.

[suboptimal]

Archduke, I'll avoid a full requote but here are my thoughts on your comments:

Brazil

I got in a couple of test games. If the start position is at the jungle belt it works, as a 2nd ring district can pull adjacencies from the non-choppable 3rd ring tiles. Trying religion + science with this civ was hit or miss - too much to try to build district wise at the start. Also could never get warrior monks as I always lost them to whichever AI civ built Stonehenge. Maybe I'll try again with the typo patch installed, but the monks come around as swords are available and there's not enough faith accumulated to make them worthwhile. I've done OK with this civ in a science-only start.

Aztecs

They've moved up to #1 on my list - early strong unit with good build potential later on. The one issue I ran into frequently was builder overflow - when taking a city-state you can get 3-4 builders in the process if you plan accordingly. The issue is then running them around to avoid getting picked off by barbs or other players.

France

This isn't a Rise & Fall game and the +3 for diplomatic visibility is not in this game (as far as I know). I'll recheck that tonight. The simplicity and espionage aspects would be interesting.

Kongo

Outside of functioning as a cheap aqueduct and the yields is there something I'm missing about the Mbanza? I suppose the apostle could get the Martyr promotion and then run into the nearest city-state or barb camp for the relic and its bonuses. I also need to see if I can figure out what happens in a Mbanza or Theater Square is built and there's no religion in any of my cities. Would I still get an apostle in that case?

I disagree about the utility of the Ngao Mbeba - there are better civs out there for this type of rush but are they on this list? The +10 defense vs. ranged is a significant advantage. I need to figure out if sending a bunch of these without archer cover is a workable idea.

India

You seem to be implying that Varu are suited for a defensive game rather than taking them on an offensive campaign, is that correct? I'll have to take another look at this civ in test games tonight.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, the fixed housing is one thing, but actually:

Fixed.

+5 Housing
+2 
+4

This is quite strong actually.
The problem is you will never find relics early game, except for a lucky Kandy draw and then exploration stop until 3 envoys.
And who would share a religion with you?

The swordsman replacement needs no iron, big deal, you want to warrior upgrade, not build them and you need only 1 iron for that.

Still, quite a good housing right there, but you will get this with guilds.

To be honest, Kongo plays to your strengths. The Aztecs force you to shake up your playstyle.

Do check out France and the Diplomatic Visibility.


The Varu has value as a deterrence as much as a real unit.
Who would attack you early game when he knows you can build those. It is like the DotF.

[suboptimal]

...

The swordsman replacement needs no iron, big deal, you want to warrior upgrade, not build them and you need only 1 iron for that.

...

To be honest, Kongo plays to your strengths. The Aztecs force you to shake up your playstyle.

Do check out France and the Diplomatic Visibility.


The Varu has value as a deterrence as much as a real unit.
Who would attack you early game when he knows you can build those. It is like the DotF.

You are right about Kongo playing to my strengths.  Of course, maybe I need a shakeup in my playstyle.....

Regarding the Ngao, warriors upgrade into them since they are a swordsman replacement.

[suboptimal]

Did some investigating tonight...

- The +3 CS bonus for diplomatic visibility does not apply when using the vanilla rule set. It's R&F only.

- Ngao Mbeba cost 110 to build.

I messed around with the Aztecs for a bit tonight. I tried a few starts on Prince to see how poachable city-states are. I scouted with the initial Eagle Warrior and my build order was Eagle Warrior -> Eagle Warrior -> Settler. In both starts, provided I put the city-state under siege, I was able to conquer a city-state and self-found a city by Turn 32 or so. In one of the starts I was able to use the initial three Eagle Warriors to besiege and take a 2nd city state by Turn 45. The downside was that the captured builders were too far away to be of use to the capital and the cities were a bit spread out and scouting was limited. The upside was four cities at Turn 45. That leaves the question of whether or not it's better to farm city-states for builders and conquer later or if conquering "now" and trying to consolidate that early in the game is a better approach.

Yuris125 in his PBEM 1 writeup noted that it was possible to take a city-state with two Eagle Warriors. This is no longer the case since city-states' defense values were buffed (start at 19) in one of the patches.

Tomorrow night I'll have to play one of the aztec starts beyond Turn 50 to see how it plays out as well as mess around with Kongo or India some more.

[TheArchduke]

So, how did your playtest go? With the Aztecs especially?

[suboptimal]

I spent a good amount of time with the Aztecs.  The problems I had were actually the map script for Pangea - I usually wound up surrounded by city-states or had only civs and no city-states within 20 tiles.  However, I still fleshed out the Aztec strategy I'll use.

Build Order: Eagle Warrior -> Eagle Warrior -> Slinger -> EW/Settler -> Settler/EW -> Builder -> ???

Targets: Religious, Military, Industrial City-States without lake/coast in the first ring.  City-states of any type for which I didn't get the first meet envoy are likewise targets.  I haven't decided if keeping the +2 // from the first meet envoy is better than taking the city-state early.  Thoughts?

Plan: First EW finds a target and defogs around it.  Next two catch up and the attack launches in the late 20's/early 30's.  If the first EW doesn't find a target it backtracks towards the capital while the first built EW heads in a different direction.  The city-state must be in a position where it can be put under siege.  Two EW's can take a city state (just) if it can be sieged with only two units.  Captured city-state repairs its monument then cranks out a Scout while the EW's heal.  If there are no suitable targets then one is declared upon to farm builders, the 2nd EW stays at the capital to defend against barbarians and the slinger build becomes a settler to avoid falling too far behind.

First districts out would be Campus in two of the first three cities, depending on where adjacencies are available.  After that Encampments would be unlocked first and I might build one or two but Commercial Hubs would be the priority, I think.

AI Note: if a unit goes into or within one tile of a city-states boundaries the AI immediately recalls all of its units and attempts to fortify a warrior in the city center.

Upsides
- A capture after Turn 30 usually nets a Monument (that needs to be repaired) or a Builder that can be captured, in addition to EW unit captures. 
- Three cities by Turn 40 with and   in the high single digits.
- I've usually gotten Political Philosophy in the late 40's or early 50's, depending on whether I've found a cultural CS while scouting.
- Early military buildout with units close to or having a promotion
- If two city-states are stacked on top of each other (not likely on a human-edited map) I could ussualy capture both before Turn 50.  

Downsides
- Undefended capital until slinger is built
- Capital usually gets a full barbarian attack around T30.  Good news is nothing to pillage and the slinger can earn a promotion and two eurekas.
- Direction of initial expansion chosen by the map and space between captured CS and capital.  Can cause settling issues since intervening space may not have fresh water, good settlement spots or otherwise be subpar compared to settling in a completely different direction.
- Sometimes won't know if the CS is backline or frontline until more scouting is completed.

Undecided
- I haven't been able to figure out if taking a scientific, cultural or commercial city-state is better than keeping it with a first-meet envoy.  In PBEM 1 Yuris125 took Lisbon early - Sulla's post-game analysis suggested that it was more useful intact as it was in his back lines.
- Urban Planning or God King once Code of Laws comes in?  How necessary is an early pantheon under this approach?

Other Civs

I am not planning on testing with the French - what I do with them in a nuts and bolts game will be map dictated but likely an Encampment/Campus build out with turtling early.  With Kongo the strategy remains to use your playbook - two Encampments, warriors & slingers to upgrade to archers & Ngao Mbeba and then attack something/someone.  I did one game with India last night for about 60 turns.  Statistically it wasn't a slow start but building two Holy Sites first feels slow.  Need to play a couple more games to get a better feel for this.

If I had to pick now, my civ order would be Aztecs, Kongo, France, India.

[TheArchduke]

I think it depends. Longterm scientific CS really pay off. Any others are so-so. Commercial are very long term. I personally find cultural, military and faith CS useless.

I would however concentrate on taking and owning them as with the Aztecs you are setup to do so (like Germany I guess) and it REALLY pays off long term as settler costs do not increase with city count, but built settler count.

I would go with the Aztecs strategy, fall back on Kongo and France if you have to.

Is it a snake pick?

[suboptimal]

I find the early gold from commercial CS to be useful for upgrades or tile purchases. In the Aztec test games I've even used early accumulated gold to purchase a builder for the capital outright. Might not be "optimal" under MP play but you're talking with me here. Keeping the cultural CS early and taking another CS usually netted Political Philosophy in the T45-T50 time frame. I'll have to try one or two games where I take the CS regardless of type and see what I think.

One other thing I did learn about Eagle Warriors - if they get too powerful they cannot capture warriors. In one test game I had a situation where I got too many bonuses to combat strength - I was able to push combat strength into the low 40's through a combination of battlecry, flanking bonuses and luxury hookups. The result was that I could do ~50 damage to a warrior in a single hit. The issue is that there's no capture chance if the unit has too much health when you hit it - I think the unit needs to be in the red when the attack happens (40hp?) for there to be a capture chance.

Irony Alert - player cities are easier to take than city-states since city-states get +5 defense for being city-states.

It's a snake pick - last player in turn order gets first priority of their list and it goes from there. Here's hoping my turn is near the bottom of the order....