[no players] We like to lurk lurkers lurking.

[Commodore]

In other news, Catwalk is up! Hoping for something new and retarded!

Isabella (FIN/PHI)

Yay! Retarded and generic all at once!

[spacetyrantxenu]

So you've seen....5% of the map and have the same spoiler knowledge as everyone else who would sign up. Not a total deal breaker, even if it isn't ideal.

[Krill]

My next game can't start until PB15 is finished and after January 25th.

But if it's as good as you say you have my attention.

Also Damnit Commodore, stop trolling the players where they can't see you!

[SevenSpirits]

In other news, Catwalk is up! Hoping for something new and retarded!

Isabella (FIN/PHI)

Yay! Retarded and generic all at once!

Man, catwalk is by far our best deadpan comedian.

[WilliamLP]

At what point does Organized become equal to Financial? Does Monarch / Torroidal do it yet? Why don't people play on the settings where the two are equal, so at least there are two uber-traits (in addition to EXP) instead of one? Yeah, you'd have to ban Darius perhaps...

[Serdoa]

I think the starting screenshots should show the whole BFC for everyone. The idea behind starting screenshots is to give everyone an idea of his surroundings so he can plan accordingly and to open up more potential civilizations as viable (else you have to plan for the unknown which means not starting with Agri is suicidal). Only showing them part of their BFC - and more importantly not all the resources they have available in the BFC - is pretty much doing the exact opposite of why you show them these screenies in the first place.

Honestly, I think this is more unfair then not showing them any screenies at all. That way they would at least all have to guess. Now instead some know exactly that they have an Agri-resource available while others have to believe - from their screenie - that they HAVE to open with Fishing as that's the only food resource they have that is shown.

(And it's a shame to boot because it is obvious that you did invest quite some time to make the starts different and still somewhat balanced by how good or bad resources can be gotten into one single BFC, number of forests etc.)

[Commodore]

At what point does Organized become equal to Financial? Does Monarch / Torroidal do it yet? Why don't people play on the settings where the two are equal, so at least there are two uber-traits (in addition to EXP) instead of one? Yeah, you'd have to ban Darius perhaps...

Erm, hard to say, the trouble is Organized isn't really helping with maint until CoL, so a bunch of tiny, stunted, feeble low-city empires early on....I'd still prefer Financial for a good long time.

[Bacchus]

It would be quite fun if the pick was by trait, one at a time, rather than by their combination all at once. First pass:

We pick FIN
We also pick FIN
We, on the other hand, pick FIN
We'll go for FIN
FIN for us
FIN all around
Can't have enough FIN!

I seem to remember there were some attempts to do a points-based drafting, with a tiering of civs and traits and a limited budget each player could allocate among these. DId that just prove impractical?

[SevenSpirits]

The answer is, ORG does not become equal to FIN based on raising the difficulty level.

ORG does two things - it saves on civic maintenance, and it saves hammers. Civic maintenance only increases a small amount before emperor and not at all after that - plus there are some rounding artifacts at the lower difficulty levels which benefit ORG - so raising the difficulty does not significantly impact that part of the trait. As for the hammers saved on courthouses... past, say, monarch/toroidal, you're going to want those courthouses regardless of your traits, so ORG is just saving you the hammers, it's not creating new opportunities to have a useful building, nor is it saving you money from that. And at that point, IMO it's still not as strong as FIN. And the more you raise the difficulty, the more plentiful hammers become compared to beakers, so the worse the hammer bonus gets compared to FIN's commerce bonus! I mean, it doesn't get MUCH worse, but you can't deny it goes in the wrong direction.)

Then of course, ORG does give a lighthouse discount as well... but FIN gives +1c on water tiles, which is useful in the same situations. So you can't really increase ORG relative to FIN by changing the amount of water on the map, either.

[Commodore]

Darius, Mansa, HC, Elizabeth, Victoria, Sury, Izzy, Bismarck, Hannibal, Ragnar, Mehmed, Louis.

China, Egypt, France, Ottomen, Sumer, HRE, Rome, Babylon, Mali, Dutch, Zulu, Viking.

Darius, Mansa, HC, Elizabeth, Victoria, Sury, Izzy, Bismarck, Hannibal, Ragnar, Mehmed, Louis.

8 for 8 so far. 2metraninja might do something oddball like Monty/Zulu, because that's what Skillvets do in a green field.