One of the things stopping me from rerolling is that the tech cost chagnes from teh tech cost scaling mechanism make Machinery more easily accessible. I can have BW and a (different) food tech done by T18, AH and Pottery and Writing by around T35 and then reach Currency on a beeline by T70.
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[SPOILER] Krill rambles on
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OK, let's stop being a pessimistic bastard for once.
I'm playing an AGG leader that has collateral from boats. I can reach Amphib with 5XP from Feud along with a buffed Serfdom that I can swap into immediately. I have no way of popping borders other than AGG barracks which are actually quite functional. I played in PB15, I know that AGG works for that. I've learnt from PB18 that if I have no plans to found a religion I should just latch onto the first one that I find and use it. If I get lucky and conquer a religion later on, I can get the shrine then and spread more religion, in a 23 player game it's worth it. Don't be scared about spreading religion twice. I'm slow. I know this. Myst is cheap but I don't have to build barracks twice. Early game tech is cheap so late game traits don't suffer as much in the slow and late reach to Currency. I only have to build Barracks, Granary and rush Currency. Religion is gone unless I can beeline Judaism from T0, that might be viable other than getting Fishing/Agri which is 7 turns of base tech rate. Religion only matters in getting into Serfdom/Vassalage early and not having to rely on Slavery and trying to abuse the worker and mine advantages from Serfdom plus the free swap into Vassalage. What do I need to bulb Feudalism? Never viable but GM bulb of Machinery would be, but 18 turns after reaching Currency is not that great. Is this a viable combination? I think it is if I got a good start. but get screwed out from close neighbours in a 23 player game all settling towards me on a toroidal map and I'm going to have to scrap and can't win. But is that a problem that is inherent with the map and teh civ/leader combo is irrelevant? I could get other shit like a PHI leader that would just stop expanding at hte wrong time. That would be worse. AGG at least I can scare people with, and it will help me in reaching Machinery for CKN. At that point, fuck, PBEM64 is a good example of what you can do. What cheap buildings do I get? I get cheap:
OK that list sucks. Not gonna lie, I'd rather have EXP in there. What did I learn from PB18 though? I dragged the Babylonian civ up from a 1 hammer start to be unconquerable by a 2 hammer start EXP/PRO Ethiopia that got a 100 base gold per turn shrine and Oracle and had knights at T120. How much worse can AGG/SPI China be than that?
SPI and spreading whatever religion is available gives me ORG, means I can get buildings down faster than I did in PB18, and frankly I didn't build fuck all there until after Guilds was researched. Sure FIN banks at that point happened but AGG gives me something along those lines.
How valuable is collateral from CKN? Depends on how they are used. If I go for islands, very. Unparalleled. Combined with AGG for Amphib fuck it's almost unstoppable, especially on swords even against LB in coastal cities. That's map dependent. ON an all land map? on defense they are a bit meh, cats are just nicer as so much easier to get along with the extra TR from Currency. But in projecting power much better than cats as not able to be killed by HA flanking. Still die to HA though, but I can get Formation spears from AGG. So HA are not as big a deal as originally though, and Stables are cheap so I get an edge until stacks are mass produced, yet that would happen by the time that Machinery is researched. Still, I can deal with that issue from Xbow, so CKN are an asset for me. ...I'm still not convinced other than as a challenge.
Agg/Spi is pretty slow, but if its any consolation I can make sure you have a PH start at your capital!
I'd like a coastal start with 2 coast fish adjacent to the capital tile please
 Lake fish if possible!
Yeah,
for competitive reasons I would personally prefer to have at least one early trait, but based on PB13 experience AGG/SPI is possibly the most enjoyable combo of the whole game (in RtR). I haven't checked the 3.x change log if there have been major changes, but unless something major has happened those traits create small unique opportunities during the whole game. Compared to e.g. just spamming FIN cottages and building cheap banks those traits provide much more room for various tactics --> fun.
What is the risk of getting boxed in though? Everyone says the pb18 map was too big but it wasn't really, just fucked up variance in amount of land some people had. Some of the starts there were way to tight. If this game is even tighter...well in that case it's a real crap shoot.
August 13th, 2015, 05:41
(This post was last modified: August 13th, 2015, 05:42 by GermanJoey.)
what was the average number of land tiles per player in pb18?
Pb18 had 4706 land tiles total s 142 land tiles per player for the 33 real civs. Of which a fair bit was tundra.
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