[SPOILERS] yuris125 - PBEM55. Travelling around England

[yuris125]

My strategy for this game


And my strategy to deal with other players reading my thread

[yuris125]

Hopefully this is going to be a better thread than the PBEM51 one (which I will update shortly, promise!)

My choices for the leader/civ combo were
Genghis Khan of HRE
Hammurabi of America
Isabella of England

Genghis is the weakest of the bunch. With the changes to Agg, he's ok as leader, but not spectacular, and Mysticism start HRE has is still miserable

It was a difficult choice between Hammurabi and Isabella. Agg/Org is a very good combo in RBMod - with all maintenance costs halved, expansion is easy, and free promos from Agg help to protect the cities. Spi/Exp is always good, and while Exp is weakened in RBMod, cheap Markets and Grocers are nothing to sneeze at, and extra bonus to Worker production is also relevant. In terms of civs, UUs and UBs are comparable, I would probably give slight edge to England for UU and slight edge to America for UB. Starting techs for America are better (Agri/Fishing vs Mining/Fishing), but also not by much

The tie breaker for me was the Spi trait. First, I would really like to learn to abuse it. Second, it has added value with more viable civics available in RBMod (e.g. Serfdom is a very strong civic, unlike vanilla)

So.. let's see what I can do with this combo

[yuris125]

Whosit as Kublai Khan (Cha/Cre) of India (Fast Worker, Mausoleum, Mysticism, Wheel)
India is nerfed a lot in the mod. The only benefit Fast Worker has left is that it can move onto a Forest and start chopping it on the same turn. Myst/Wheel are awkward starting techs, UB is irrelevant. How good is it? We'll see. Kublai is a solid leader, +2 free happy allows for early vertical growth, and free border pops are always nice
Thing to watch: are the nerfed Fast Workers still the best UU in the game?

Dhalphir as Mehmed (Exp/Org) of France (Musketeer, Salon, Agri, Wheel)
It's not a secret that France is one of my favourite civs, even more so with Salon buffed. With addition of cheap Markets, I think Exp regained a lot of its value, and is a good trait despite losing cheap Granaries. Org is always solid. I like this pairing
Thing to watch: how good is the new Exp?

Gazglum as Brennus (Spi/Cha) of Sumeria (Vulture, Ziggurat, Agri, Wheel)
This combo is basically unchanged from BTS, the only difference being that Cha doesn't need Monuments to get the full happiness bonus anymore. There is a lot of value to go for an early religion with this pairing, get early Priesthood and start building Ziggurats to make expansion easier. Will this be the route Gazglu takes? This combo can be strong if leveraged properly
Thing to watch: how much will he prioritise the religion branch of the tree?

Ilios as Cyrus (Imp/Cha) of Inca (Quechua, Terrace, Agri, Mysticism)
Inca is probably one of the stronger civs even with RBMod nerfs. Quechua still rules the pre-metal era. Terrace still gives free culture. Agri is still the best starting tech. Extra-cheap Imp settlers will allow fast expansion, with easy-to-produce cheap early defenders. Margins are smaller in RBMod than in BTS, but this might be the best pairing
Thing to watch: is nerfed Terrace still the best UB in the game?

Interesting stuff. Two civs start with Mysticism, but neither of Spiritual leaders does. 3 Charismatic leaders mean a lot of large early cities, non-Cha players will have to expand faster to keep up. No Fin, no Ind, no Pro. Can't wait to see how this plays out

[yuris125]

Password is bella

[yuris125]

This is the start



Abundance of resources, and a couple possible directions to go. I could move 2E and settle on the plains hill next turn. Or I could move to the west and have an inland capital with 2 food resources, and save the plains hill spot for the second city. Moving onto the plains hill was tempting, but the price was giving up early access to silver. And that didn't look like a good idea

Now, I probably made a mistake with the first scout move. I moved S-SE to make sure I wasn't missing anything there. However, I was already set (or almost set) on settling W, but there was a small possibility of settle SW instead. Small, because having resources in the 1st ring saves precious early Worker turns. But a chance nonetheless. Thus, the correct scout move was SW-SW to see if there's anything tempting down there

As it was, I didn't see anything interesting - a plains ivory tile, which will be useful at some point, maybe as city #3, after I research AH. Nothing to change the plan in any case. So I moved the Settler and founded London



Working the 1/2/0 hill forest to get the Exp bonus hammer. +35% Worker production bonus in RBMod means that you get a bonus hammer for every 3, not 4 like in BTS

Plan for Scout - get the hut next turn, then explore clockwise. Second city is almost certainly going onto the plains hill to claim the crabs and share the wheat with London. But who knows what I will uncover

Plan for research - Agri - Hunting - BW - Wheel - Pottery. Maybe BW before Hunting, don't know how much I need the sheep early. At the moment, I like growing London to size 3 and working both food resources and the silver before switching to Workers and Settlers. But we'll see if something changes my mind

[yuris125]

Did some sandboxing. The current plan (Hunting after AH, grow to size 3 before building Settler) gives the 2nd city on T25, Settler for the 3rd ready on T32, with 1-pop whip on the 3rd Worker (which also frees up the wheat to give it to the 2nd city). On T32, I have cities of size 2 and 3, 2 Warriors, 3 Workers, and a Settler

BW before Hunting, stopping growth of London on size 2 and not using the sheep is notably slower - the 2nd city comes down faster thanks to an earlier chop, but it's not worth it

Double-Worker start is slightly faster, but not as much as one would expect. They have to waste a turn waiting for BW to come in, and don't do that much extra. The difference I had was that I also had time to build a mine next to London. But the end result is still the same - 2nd city on T26, 2 Warriors, 3 Workers + 3rd Settler on T32

Considering barbs are on, I'm going with the original plan with earlier Warriors and growing London to size 3. Unless I pop a useful tech from a hut - that may change things

[yuris125]

Being on holiday has an unfortunate consequence of me being awake at 5am
T1 played. Got 34g from the hut. Saw flood plains in the south. Moving Scout properly on T0 is a good skill to have - that was certainly a reason to settle 1S of the current spot. Everyone settled on T0 except Gazglum. Screenshot tomorrow

[yuris125]

Decided to cheat and post a T2 screenshot instead of T1. This way, you get to see something more exciting than a single uncovered flood plains



*tears and shreds all early dotmap sketches*

Dammit Commodore, why do your maps always have so many options??? Thinking is hard.....

At the moment, I mostly think that I need to move the Scout around as quickly as possible and pick up that hut W of London before someone steals it. Hate hut stealers.. unless it's me doing the stealing... grumble grumble

[yuris125]

The way I see it, it should go like this:
City 2 - on the plains hill W of the crabs, as originally planned. Sharing a food resource with the capital is too powerful, and with a chop into a quick Workboat, it can become productive really fast
City 3 - somewhere by the gold. Either 1N on 1E of the gold unless I see a food resource nearby
Other cities in the territory I scouted so far are somewhere by the ivory, claiming the remaining flood plains, and 1W of the deer. Not sure about this one - considering I see polar ice 2N of that spot, it doesn't look like great. Maybe 2nd city should be 1NW of the crab, getting deer in the BFC as well. Then I can't claim the northern crab anymore, but maybe it's not that bad... still have about 20 turns to decide

[yuris125]

T4

There's that food resource near the gold I was hoping for
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