[Spoilers] AT Ponders the number 52

[AutomatedTeller]

Please stay out of my thread, were you to be a player in this game we call Pitboss  52.   If you be not a player, feel free to peruse this humble thread, this den of not very interesting snark.

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eh, just a few more, I guess

[AutomatedTeller]

This post left intentionally blank to up my post count


Password is AT, should anyone need to play for me.

[AutomatedTeller]

This is a link to the mod https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...p?tid=9979

Thoughts about the mod:

Lumbermills get the financial bonus if A) on the river with electricity or B) on a river corner (what is the reason for this? Why, for god's sake, is there code to id the CORNER of a river? Civ IV is kind of weird sometimes)
Forest preserves are still pretty useless.

The main problem with these changes is that rivers are the best places for commerce, which means cottages. There will likely be some forests left at machinery, but not many.

I cannot really imagine bothering with a forest preserve, except in a national park city. Maybe in tundra city without rivers. That said, few MP games get that far.

Inflation is interesting - I don't really know how it is determined in the base game, so I'm not sure if this is a break for teach leaders or a brake on tech leaders. My guess is that it's supposed to be harder on tech leaders.

starting with mysticism is a good thing

change to customs house makes imp less good, but adding 100% to stable more than makes up for it.
change to financial is good - much the same impact long term, but it takes longer to kick in and fin civs no longer get a random bonus for an oasis.

Ind/phil seems to have an obvious strategy - research metal casting, whip a forge and run a GE for pyramids early. It's only 100 beakers more than researching up to priesthood and its 150 hammers less

Looks like cre/cha is anti-synergistic, in that cre doesn't want monuments and cha does.

The babylon UB seems potentially overpowered, though colloseums aren't cheap. But maybe not - RB maps are typically pretty lush - it would help on islands, I guess, or in areas with no lakes/rivers.

[AutomatedTeller]

ok - so, more thoughts:

The new combinations:

Org/Pro seems really quite boring. Not bad in the mid/late game, but expands really slowly and really has very little early benefit.
Cre/Cha, like I said, is inherently anti-syngeristic.
Phi/Ind is very interesting.

So, I might do Phi/Ind and try for using HA to take down an opponent.

Other possibilities:

I haven't gone fin in awhile and I've never done aggressive. I have a reputation for being passive, so maybe Ragnar? Or imp - I've done a lot of Imp, but it's great to pop out 4 cities very quickly - RB starts tend to be happy heavy, too.

[AutomatedTeller]

Some more thoughts:

I think the most important change was adding hammer to farms in serfdom. I suspect this is going to end up being a problem, to the point where I'm debating picking a mining/myst civ and going agri/med/priesthood/oracle monarchy/feudalism. that's be a bit radical - probably should throw BW, wheel and pottery in there, probably AH and fishing at some point - but a 2-2 or 3-1 tile is pretty amazing and frankly, combined with fast workers, probably trumps slavery pretty easily.

[AutomatedTeller]

Trait change analysis:

Fin nerf is important, but not huge - 10 commerce per river cottage, 20 for non river cottage. I figure this loses fin maybe 600 commerce over a game. It doesn;'t affect water, which is pretty important. Also, farms got a buff.

Exp nerf is pretty big. Adding back in an aqueduct is not great, but does make HG easier to get.

Cre nerf isn't bad - libs are still 2 pop whips, just with less overflow. losing colloseum is meaningless

pro buff is pretty big - makes me want to consider it. It might actually be comparable to the fin buff in raw commerce, but spread out more so harder to get multipliers out of all of it. I mean, it's better than the exp buff of harbors cause A) it's higher B) it applies to all cities and C) it applies immediately that you have a trade route. Add in that castles expire later and pro is better.

Cha buff is nice - makes getting stonehenge less important, at least. Still don't care about the colloseum

Imp buff is nice, but not awesome. stables are fine, but you are only gonna build some anyway. Customs house drop in production hurts imp some, but then, it's not like people build customs house to often.

agg buff is pretty big - +1 happy on a 1/2 barraks? yes please.

Philo buff is good - RtR used to do this, I dunno if it still does. With the buff to farms in serfdom, the lots of farms for specialists is enhanced.

Huh - from a "change from base" point of view, sounds like toku is the most improved!! Not sure if these things are now even with SPI, IND and ORG or not.

[AutomatedTeller]

Civ change analysis (pt 1):


Making everyone start with a scout means that agg is less powerful, but there are no real warrior rushes in RB MP.  Having it be move 1 and gain a move with hunting is a good idea, though.    It gives a real advantage to civs that start with hunting and makes that an interesting choice.

Swords being 20% city attack makes celtcs and aztecs more interesting. 

UB's not going obsolete is actually pretty interesting - protective spain makes for a strong military from castles on - protective/charismatic spain means 3 promo cats!!  with flanking being a less powerful counter!!  hmm

Inca nerf is good - it's still a strong UB and I'd rather have it than have to build a granary and a monument, but it helps

W1 holkan is a big change.  Why?  Because it means a holkan can be a 2 mover and be whipped at like turn 25 and catch a civ with warriors - if you can pop out 2, you should be able to take over another civ. hmm - this feels like I need to take this.   Probably need to test to see.  Honestly, I think it's overpowered.  

citadel getting 2 xp for naval units, on top of 5 xp for seige and not obsoleting makes it very good.

Germany gets a buff, getting grenadiers at chemistry, not mil science.  That's 2K dead-end beakers you don't need to get.  Bigger buff is the factory at steam, which can be gotten 5 or so techs faster than assembly line,which is very expensive in itself.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cQARfCY...sp=sharing

[AutomatedTeller]

So, based on my admitedly crude sim, given a 2 hammer hill, you can get a WII holkan by turn 27, which means it can hit a neighbor by turn 32, assuming nearest neighbor is 10 tiles away and there is sufficient woods.

[AutomatedTeller]

oh hey - I have a real sim. Ok - that may not give me a holkan on turn 27 - it might, it might not. if I go aggressive, it would.

I'm 5th in the order, but there's only 8, so I will likely get something I like - I cannot imagine anyone going, say, Toku. Not that I'm planning on Toku. Boudica of Maya might be fun. Lots of happy means lots of whipping or very big cities.

Wang of Spain is interesting, though doesn't expand well.