[SPOILERS] AlaePB1 - Zanth's reporting thread

[zanth]

TheHumanHydra, thanks for you opinion.
Last PB game I played as Willem and fully understand overpowering Fin trait. Moreover, I've understand, that Cre was underestimated by me too.

And what's so good in Org and Exp?

And as for Spi it seems that the power of this trait significantly increases w/ early religions and ability to perform some swithes between civics? Are there any aadvices in this?

[TheHumanHydra]

Expansive is very good because it decreases the cost of the most important unit and building in the game (worker and granary), both of which you build early and often to get your development "snowball" rolling; saved time here has cascading effects for the rest of the game.

Organized is good - but on a different tier - because of the reduced maintenance costs and the discount to courthouses, which are a key building that further reduces your maintenance costs. Reduced costs allow you to expand more and/or devote more money to research, both of which are all-important. Organized is particularly good on toroidal maps, where maintenance costs are higher, and on water-heavy maps, where the discount to lighthouses is relevant.

Spiritual is good because of the ability to switch between different civic combinations frequently without penalty - the discount to temples is just a minor added bonus, like Organized's discount to factories or Expansive's +2 health. For this reason I wouldn't say Spiritual pushes you toward an early religion - I think that's a bit of a false association based on shared theme. What you want to do with Spiritual is, say, in the Medieval era be running Bureaucracy and Organized Religion to tech and build infrastructure, then tech say Guilds and switch to Vassalage and Theocracy to build super-promoted knights and crush an opponent, then switch to maybe Caste System and Pacifism to pop out a bunch of Great People for Golden Ages, then oh! you're attacked, into Nationhood and/or Slavery and Vassalage and Theocracy again to fend him off, then into Free Speech and Organized Religion for further domestic development, and so forth. Spiritual gives you great flexibility, but requires skill and planning to use to good effect. It's the "expert player" trait.

Anyway, hope all this is helpful. Good luck in your game!

[Qgqqqqq]

Hey do you think you could post larger pictures? I don't know if that's a postimg.org issue but its really hard to get a feel from thumbnails. If they end up too large you can always use [ spoiler ][/ spoiler ] tags (remove spaces).

1) I would go traits to starting techs to UU to UB, but it depends on a case by case basis. For example there are two exceptions, Inca and India, who are considered to have significantly superior UB and UU (the terrace and Fast Worker respectively) which are powerful enough to be close to a additional trait in and of themselves, and easily surpass their bad starting techs. Certain UBs(like the Ziggurat for Sumeria) are superior to the civs UU, and so on.

2)I think THH covered this well.

3) Largely not. There could definitely be benefit to using SP to practice your micromanagement or learning to whip frequently, but most interaction with the AI is just too different from how humans behave to be helpful. I would suggest dedlurking someone reasonably active and reading what they post and asking questions as to why they are doing things, as I find that discussion is what most improves my play.

[zanth]

What do you mean by toroidal maps and whip more often?

Let's compare Exp and Imp, especially the bonus +50% for settlers prod and +25% for workers prod. As far as I know average worker per city ratio is ~1.5. Let's say even there's 2 workers per settler. So we have twice more workers but their cost is nearly twice lower, so the total number of hammers is nearly equal. But the bonus is twice higher for settlers. Double speed of granary and harbor makes Exp better from prod point of view, yes, but is the difference so large, that you put Exp at 2nd class and Imp at 4th or 5th class? Especially if we compare the remaining +2 health and double speed of GG commence? From my last game, I saw how generals could help overcoming war situation, when forces are nearly equal.

[zanth]

good news

so, my warrior defeated a bear in jungles, and I found horses

it seems there are at least 2 good places for 2nd city:
1) Jungled sugar
2) 2E from cows

I would end BW and settler simultaniously, where would you suggest me to settle first?
My plan is anarchy and adopt slavery, then start researching fishing and building warriors. Worker would already build farm on sugar and go to grass forest hill. In order to built a mine there. After fishing immediately change prod for workboat chopping would soon be done, so it would be produced in a few turns.

[Old Harry]

Hey Zanth, welcome to RB. The best analysis of traits I've read is in SevenSpirits PBEM43 thread from post nine onwards. Hope that helps.

Torroid maps wrap north-south as well as east-west.

[zanth]

Old Harry, thx for the link.

What do you think about this city distribution? As for the orange city there are no other opitons, but i'm not sure about the dark blue

[Old Harry]

Looks okay, but light blue will take too long to get going (1S of cow might be better and allow you to claim the fish later) and purple is a bit bleak (1N of the wheat gets more forests to chop). I'd explore the west and cross my fingers that you get something better to settle before them... What turn are you on?

Getting a couple of cities on the fur island will be good for trade income once you get to city five or six.

Edit: If you don't have fishing yet the sugar city could be better. If you'll get fishing fast and can net the shared sea food quick then orange is probably better.

[zanth]

It's T25 and 7 turns till BW and settler.
Atm I would need 6 turns till fishing. But it seems, that w/ slavery and 2nd city I would have to pay maintance, so 1turn of money collection should be present.

As for now, I slightly tend to sugar city and producing a worker there. So 1st worker would go to wheat after chopping a mine, and after boosting a workboat, capital would grow to cize 4 rather quick so 2nd settler would be slaved soon.

Btw, what should I do w/ wounded warrior 1S from horses? It seems it's better to heal him there, to expand my visible part of a continent, to prevent barbarian's summoning.

As for light blue city: I also don't especially fond of his possible location, but it's the only way of getting at least 1 gem tile. Or I am over evaluating the role of it? And as for purple, I've placed it so I would be able to have a banana plantation. But maybe I'm wrong there.

And fur city would be nice, I was even planning it as a 4th city, but it seems that I won't be able to research sailing soon enough. As for now plan is BW-fishing-wheel-pottery. And then maybe myst, but I'm not sure: there are no civs except mine, that has extreme benefits from Stonehenge. Or it's definitely bad idea to try building it?

[Qgqqqqq]

I would settle the sugar (light blue) city first, as otherwise there isn't really enough food to make sharing worthwhile, and its best not to have to build work boats this early.

I would move light blue to 1SW of the cows, but you probably won't be getting the gems up and running for a long time, and you will want a backfill city to work them both later on anyway, so its not vital, the main reason is to get two lighthoused lakes. As for purple, I'm ambivalent really, as that makes it more of a stretch plant, but remember you'll want another city in the jungle anyway, so it won't go unused.

Let's compare Exp and Imp, especially the bonus +50% for settlers prod and +25% for workers prod. As far as I know average worker per city ratio is ~1.5. Let's say even there's 2 workers per settler. So we have twice more workers but their cost is nearly twice lower, so the total number of hammers is nearly equal. But the bonus is twice higher for settlers. Double speed of granary and harbor makes Exp better from prod point of view, yes, but is the difference so large, that you put Exp at 2nd class and Imp at 4th or 5th class? Especially if we compare the remaining +2 health and double speed of GG commence? From my last game, I saw how generals could help overcoming war situation, when forces are nearly equal.

Firstly, worker production can be more important in getting a earlier worker from T1, speeding everything up, but secondly, the granary production is really massive, as it is a building you want everywhere first, and EXP no only gives you an extra 30 hammers in each city, but because of the half price you can get it up much easier, just a single post-maths chop or a one-pop whip, which means you will grow faster produce other things quicker and so on. Its the snowball effect.