Mikehendi Pitboss 16 Thread

[Mikehendi]

This thread attracted a lot more attention today.

I have a question for the more experienced players: how do I create a sandbox with the correct map dimensions? Serdoa said that the map will be 92 x 40 in terms of size, with Prince / Large / Toroidal map settings. I can get all of the other settings easily but I'm stumped on how to get the map dimensions correct. Any suggestions? Now is the time to set this up before the game begins.

[yuris125]

For ref, because I have a minute, and it will be useful

Sevenspirits/Krill - Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Zulu (Agri, Hunting, Impi, Ikhanda)
Zaldax - Huanya Capac (Fin/Ind) of Byzantium (Wheel, Mysticism, Cataphract, Hippodrome)
Gavagai - Darius I (Fin/Org) of Aztecs (Mysticism, Hunting, Jaguar, Sacrifical Altar)
2metraninja - Roosevelt (Ing/Org) of Sumeria (Agri, Wheel, Vulture, Ziggurat)
Jowy - Suryavarman II (Exp/Cre) of Persia (Agri, Hunting, Immortal, Apothecary)
Dhalphir & Hashoosh - Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi) of the Ottomans (Agri, Wheel, Janissary, Hammam)
Gaspar/Noble - Bismarck (Exp/Ind) of Mali (Mining, Wheel, Skirmisher, Mint)
Retep - Mehmed (Exp/Org) of Carthage (Fishing, Mining, Numidian Cavalry, Cothon)
Kuro - Isabella (Exp/Spi) of China (Agri, Mining, Cho-Ko-Nu, Pavilion)
Mikehendi - Elizabeth (Fin/Phi) of France (Agri, Wheel, Musketeer, Salon)
wetbandit - Hannibal (Fin/Cha) of Egypt (Agri, Wheel, War Chariot, Obelisk)
Goreripper - Zara Yaqob (Cre/Org) of Greece (Fishing, Hunting, Phalanx, Odeon)

[yuris125]

Quick thoughts on picks

Sevenspirits/Krill - Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Zulu (Agri, Hunting, Impi, Ikhanda)
They first-picked Zulu, clearly signalling that they want an aggressive start, and would've picked whatever aggressive leader was available. Interesting that they took Spi as the second trait wehn Fin and Org were available - although I can see reasons behind it
Likely strategy: Impi-rush a neighbour or two. Absorb the land. Be two times bigger than the closest rival. Build Pyramids. Run specialist economy and abuse Spiritual. Win

Zaldax - Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind) of Byzantium (Wheel, Mysticism, Cataphract, Hippodrome)
Huayna was on the short list for the best unbanned leader, so it's unsurprising to see him picked early. Byzantium is an interesting civ, because it has no strong points apart from overpowered UU. No synergy in this pairing, but the strength of the leader can be good enough
Likely strategy: Beeline Guilds. 'phract a neighbour or two. Hope not to be backstabbed in the process of 'phracting. See if he can capitalise on the gains

Gavagai - Darius I (Fin/Org) of Aztecs (Mysticism, Hunting, Jaguar, Sacrifical Altar)
No real comment on the leader, but the civ choice is interesting. Aztecs suffer from the same problem as Byzantium - everything but the UB is crap. And if you pick a civ just for Courthouse-replacing UB (and I can understand that choice, especially with an Org leader), I would snap Holy Rome over Aztecs any day. In addition to everything else, there's anti-synergy between Fin and Sacrificial Altars - with Altars, you want to whip often - therefore you need a lot of farms. But you also want cottages for Fin
Likely strategy: Attempt to whip a lot of Settlers and out-expand everyone. With no Imp leaders in the game, can work out well

2metraninja - Roosevelt (Ind/Org) of Sumeria (Agri, Wheel, Vulture, Ziggurat)
I know that 2metra likes the Ind trait, but I don't particualrly like that he chose a no top-tier trait to pair with Org, when both Exp and Cre were still available. Sumeria is a solid choice I think
Likely strategy: He needs Priesthood for his UB in any case, so going for Oracle makes a lot of sense. Then expand like crazy. Mid-game depends on whether he gets the Oracle and what he takes if he does, so can't really be predicted

Gaspar/Noble - Bismarck (Exp/Ind) of Mali (Mining, Wheel, Skirmisher, Mint)
This pairing is well known for its strength. Mint is the only UB which has synergy with Ind, and is pretty strong as UBs go. Starting techs are flexible and allow to go for BW or Pottery as the 2nd tech. And Exp... well, I don't need to tell you why Exp is good
Likely strategy: Make more Workers than anyone for early chops. Get the Oracle and take Metal Casting with it. Spam cities, spam Mints, spam Skirmishers to defend those cities. If they pull this off, they'll be one of the top contenders

Don't really have much to say about the rest of the players. Except noting that I really like our picks, Elizabeth of France is a very solid pairing, and considering our position in the draft, it is stronger than I expected to get

As for our likely strategy.. I'm sure Mikehendi will tell about it in due time

[Mikehendi]

I haven't thought too much about long term game strategy so far. I imagine that we'll try to play a standard game and see what happens. Focus on growth/expansion, put down lots of Financial cottages, that sort of thing. We can use Philosophical trait to get an early Academy up and running for the capital, the starting location can support a lot of cottages. I would guess a Great Person strategy that gets one early Scientist for Academy, some kind of second Great Person later for a Golden Age, and then use the GA to pop out three or four more Great People. With Golden Age + Pacifism + Philosophical, we would have 4x normal Great Person point generation. 12 GPP per specialist. Maybe something like mass Great Scientist lightbulbs of Education and Liberalism? Perhaps! It would be fun.

We'll want to emphasize Education as a tech heavily due to our traits, get a fast Oxford up and running. We actually get a surge of power in the Renaissance era, with Philosophical universities and French musketeers. We'll just have to survive to that point. I like our chances to pull something off if we can make it to that era in a good position.

[Mikehendi]

Also still looking for help in setting up a sandbox for the start. The only thing that I don't know how to do is get those starting map dimensions. How do you set it to 92 x 40 size or whatever Serdoa picked for this map?

[Old Harry]

Hi Mike, welcome to RB! I'm not certain, but you could try creating a large map, then save a worldbuilder file, open it in a text editor and check this bit:

Code:

BeginMap
    grid width=92
    grid height=40

If it's not 92x40 already you'll probably need to adjust the plot info too...

[Mardoc]

Old Harry's method works just fine for verifying dimensions.

Different map scripts use different dimensions for the different sizes, so if Fractal doesn't have one that's 92x40, try Big and Small or Terra or some such. I can't find a table of sizes, though, my google-fu is inferior.

[Mikehendi]

Thank you, Old Harry and Mardoc. I will look into setting up a map with those dimensions over the weekend. All of the maps that I rolled had very different sizes. This map seems to be very narrow along the north/south direction. I also hope that it's mostly land or else the teams are going to start right on top of each other. (If the map is 50% land and 50% water then there's only 1840 land tiles, 153 per player. That's not much at all, and our civ is not exactly aiming for early game war.)

Traditional list of other team picks:

Sevenspirits/Krill - Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Zulu (Agri, Hunting, Impi, Ikhanda)

This looks like a troll setup to me. I don't think that Sevenspirits is taking this game very seriously. First pick Zulus, then second pick of Montezuma. They have the Aggressive pairing with Ikhanda, otherwise this is a horrible economic setup. They can rush someone with Aggressive impis, but even with Combat 1 impis still lose to non-Aggressive axes. If this is a rush, it's dependent on hitting a team before they can connect copper. Not too likely on a balanced map of resources. I hope that we do not start next to this team, they are pretty clearly not in serious mode and screwing around with other players.

Zaldax - Huanya Capac (Fin/Ind) of Byzantium (Wheel, Mysticism, Cataphract, Hippodrome)

Huyana Capac was a good pick to start out. Byzantium was not such a great pick due to the worst pair of starting traits in the game. They essentially knock Zaldax out of the running for any early wonders because he will be so far behind at the start. I also don't see any kind of synergy between FIN/IND traits and Byzantium as a civ. Not feeling this pairing at all. Side question for longer RB members: has Byzantium ever won one of these games? The civ did badly in all of the games where I saw them picked.

Gavagai - Darius I (Fin/Org) of Aztecs (Mysticism, Hunting, Jaguar, Sacrifical Altar)

Same thing as Zaldax, good leader and weaker civ choice. Synergy is obvious between ORG trait and Aztec UB altar. But again this leads to crummy starting techs, Mysticism and Hunting. I hope for Gavagai's sake that he has Hunting resources at his start. I would take Holy Roman Empire over Aztecs for this setup, since they share exact same starting techs as Aztecs and have a better courthouse UB. I'm also not sure that maintenance is going to be that bad on this map. Difficulty is only Prince, tech costs felt low in my sandbox compared to Emperor games. Why not pair Darius with a better civ than Aztecs? Had to be something stronger than this.

2metraninja - Roosevelt (Ind/Org) of Sumeria (Agri, Wheel, Vulture, Ziggurat)

I think 2metraninja screwed up the snake pick worse than anyone else (excluding Sevenspirits in obvious non-tryhard mode). He took Sumeria with his 4th pick and then was left with 11th leader pick, ending up with Roosevelt. I'm not a big fan of IND/ORG pairing, those traits have some anti-synergy between building a civ tall and building it wide. Only team (aside from Sevenspirits) with no FIN, EXP, or CRE traits. There's not much economic benefit here. He gets very cheap Sumeria UB courthouses and that's about it. I don't see that as being too valuable in a game with espionage basically turned off and Prince maintenance costs. Also Sumeria has a UU axe that loses to non-UU axes, possibly the worst UU in the whole game. I think we'd be very happy to start next to this team.

Jowy - Suryavarman II (Exp/Cre) of Persia (Agri, Hunting, Immortal, Apothecary)

Suryavarman is a great leader, very fast at starting out. Persia is a pretty uninteresting civ, it has OK starting techs and nothing else. The immortal's UU bonus is fairly useless against humans who don't build archers. The UB is a grocer with slightly more health... fairly pointless. Hopefully the civ was picked to complement resources at the start. I predict that Jowy will get off to a fast start, and then crash and burn somewhere in the midgame with poor decision making. That seems to be his fate in every game that I've read here.

Dhalphir & Hashoosh - Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi) of the Ottomans (Agri, Wheel, Janissary, Hammam)

These are both very solid picks for leader and civ. Slow-starting, no early game benefits, get stronger as the game progresses. Their setup is a lot like ours, FIN civ with Agriculture/Wheel start techs that will become better down the road. We have better civ in France, they have slightly better leader in Mansa. They can do very well if others overlook them. Quietly good setup here.

Gaspar/Noble - Bismarck (Exp/Ind) of Mali (Mining, Wheel, Skirmisher, Mint)

Very obvious setup here, use EXP trait to power early workers and then use IND trait to land early wonders of choice. They are overwhelmingly most likely to chop Oracle and turn it into Metal Casting. With no India and no stone/marble on this map, they should land any early wonder that they want. Then they will have to snowball the game from those wonders, since they have no FIN, CRE, PHI, or ORG traits for other economic edge. Civ choice was a very good pairing, Mali for UB mint and Mining starting tech. They'll have to research Agriculture or some other food tech first, and then they can go straight into Bronze Working for chopping. Mali also has a very good UU, no one can rush them early in game. This is a very strong pairing overall. It is not the style that I like to play, I do not like to go for early wonders, but it should work out well for them. (What would be awesome would be Sevenspirits starting next to this team and then impi rushing them. It would not happen since Sevenspirits would not choose to impi rush a team with skirmishers, but we can dream. )

Retep - Mehmed (Exp/Org) of Carthage (Fishing, Mining, Numidian Cavalry, Cothon)

Not a huge fan of this particular setup, even though it does have some synergy. I'm guessing that Retep is starting on the coast, since he picked a civ with Fishing tech and a naval UB. The ORG trait would make lighthouses cheaper and EXP drops the cost of cothons (which are more expensive than normal harbors). EXP/ORG is certainly not a bad pairing, lots of cheap buildings. I've never particularly liked Carthage though, I don't like UUs that have lower strength than the normal unit. Starting techs are not that great either. Retep will need to leverage naval stuff to take full advantage of this start.

Kuro - Isabella (Exp/Spi) of China (Agri, Mining, Cho-Ko-Nu, Pavilion)

He took China with the first pick, and that may have been a mistake. China has those awesome starting techs, but then the price was having to pick the 10th leader, and that turned into Isabella. EXP/SPI is simply weaker than a lot of other leaders taken here. It's a great pairing for a game where no one can take FIN or something like that. Not the case in this one. Kuro will have to leverage China's outstanding starting techs and his EXP trait to put himself in a good position. If he plays like he did in the other Pitboss game, I hope we start next to him. No spoilers but it was a pretty humongous trainwreck.

wetbandit - Hannibal (Fin/Cha) of Egypt (Agri, Wheel, War Chariot, Obelisk)

This is the kind of pairing that I expected our team to get, a FIN leader with a weak second trait paired with a very good civ. Egypt is maybe the best civ available for this game. Very good starting techs, very good UU, even the UB is semi-useful. Hannibal's FIN/CHA is a lot less impressive. If happiness resources are as common as I expect, the CHA trait will be almost useless. Cheaper third promotion on mounted units I guess. Wetbandit should have picked Victoria here, FIN/IMP is a lot stronger and much scarier for the landgrab. Kind of shocked that no one picked Victoria for this game. No one has IMP trait.

Goreripper - Zara Yaqob (Cre/Org) of Greece (Fishing, Hunting, Phalanx, Odeon)

I feel sorry for this guy. Having the 12 pick out of 12 was a crippling disadvantage and he ended up with a weak pairing. CRE/ORG simply isn't that good compared to the rest of the field. Lots of cheap buildings, early Creative culture, and then not much else. Greece also feels like a poor selection. Weak starting techs, marginal UU, and fairly useless UB. There were much, much better civs available to pick. Goreripper could have taken Victoria of France here, and think how much stronger that would have been. This would be another good team to start near.

Traits

FIN 5
EXP 4
ORG 4
IND 3
SPI 3
CRE 2
PHI 1
CHA 1
AGG 1
IMP 0
PRO 0

Financial was the most popular trait as expected. I'm somewhat surprised we didn't see one or two more FIN leaders. There was also a huge priority on EXP and ORG traits. Expansive I understand, Organized feels somewhat more dubious. I don't think it's that great when we're playing on Prince. Teams didn't value CRE much at all, somewhat surprisingly. CRE/IND and CRE/PHI were both unselected, while all of the Expansive pairings were taken (EXP/ORG, EXP/IND, and EXP/SPI). We are the game's only Philosophical trait, which definitely feels strange. Teams highly undervaluing Philosophical. Sevenspirits has the game's only Aggressive trait.

Starting techs

Agriculture 7
Wheel 6
Hunting 4
Mining 3
Mysticism 2
Fishing 2

About what you would expect here, Agriculture and Wheel techs were taken most often. There's a good chance that other teams have an ivory resource or something like it at their starts, given the number of teams with Hunting tech. Fishing and Mysticism are the least popular techs, as usual.

I will put together a sandbox with correct dimensions tomorrow and see what I can figure out for our start.

[Serdoa]

I think PHI has been dismissed for quite some time now on RB. Would love to see a game that actually showcases how to use it.

[Mardoc]

When you sandbox, don't forget to make it Toroidal. That makes maintenance costs a lot higher. I think that might be part of why you rate Org so low. Although it's possible that RB conventional wisdom is due for shaking up, true.

About Seven: expect him to try to win, despite his leader choice. I don't think he's capable of doing otherwise.