Haha get it? It's like a cruise, but with von Alder! I'm so funny...
Anyways, we're playing a team game here, with the latest version of RBmod.
Immortal/Flat map, so maintenance will be an issue. Org or Agg (for cheap barracks) will help A LOT. Our first two pairings have been to say the least, dissappointing. Genghis is actually a really good leader in this mod (buffed IMP and AGG give you cheap settlers and barracks for some nice cre/org-lite). Doesn't really have any late game viability beyond double the GGs, but the whole point is to get enough land so that doesn't matter. Unfortunately the Aztecs don't work well on our start (below), hunting/myst is bleh.
Next we got Gilgamesh of Japan, and we've decided for our final reroll. Life's no fun without a bit of risk.
The others will probably have something like this too. That site has great food, with resources improved, settling on sugar and floodplain we should have 10 food surplus. Also SIP gets 11 riverside tiles so this could be a great commerce capital. With this much food we can think about sharing some of it and found a city near our capital which use one the food resources and grow cottages for our capital. Early pottery is a priority. Production isn't that great.
I'm in favor of SIP, moving S loses either of the food resources and moving N loses riverside tiles. 3 food city tile is a nice early game boost.
Btw calling the new agg org-lite is misleading, org halves the civic upkeep cost and does nothing with city maintenance. I checked couple of my old saves (one close to dom win, other after axe rushing) to compare 25% of city maintenance (agg) and 50% civic upkeep, org won both times but not by much. So the new agg is pretty cool, I'd like to try that out. With agg barracks would replace the role of monument too.
So it looks like we've landed Montezuma of Greece. Agg-Spi is pretty good in RBmod, given that we get a cheap creative-substitute in the Aggressive Barracks, and the nice benefit of Spiritual allowing us a lot of flexibility in the mid-late game.
Priority should be leveraging our Phalanx UU as much as possible, it means we don't have to build spears until someone grabs HBR. Stacks of Phalanxes are really hard to kill.
Ok. Hunting and fishing as starting teches is weak though. I was wondering whether or not going BW first and whipping 1st worker would work here but without mining that won't work I think.
What is your opinion on where to settle? Agree on SIP?
I worldbuildered a sandbox of this start. immortal, quick, flat, standard size, standard amount of players. Not RBmod though but shouldn't influence the results. Tell me if you think something is wrong with my settings. Tried to attach it but didn't work, it said that "that type of file isn't allowed". Edit: added the sandbox as zip-file so you can use it too for testing early game approaches.
Anyway I SIPped, went worker and agriculture first, those seem obvious for me. Improved the wheat first, then rice. Then I grew to size 3 before starting settler. Had to work unimproved wheat instead of floodplain for 1 turn to get warrior before size 3. With this kind of opening I could get the settler in T20.
I tried out double worker start but it seemed awkward and getting settler earlier is quite big deal. It would lead to T26 settler if starting the settler at size 3 and not going for BW. Quick also nerfs chops.
Questions are what to do with the worker after improving rice and which teches to choose. This depends on the 2nd city location whether or not it needs roading so it can't be yet decided. Cottaging the floodplain is a priority. I think that after agri we should go for TW-Pot if our exploration doesn't find out something that would convince us otherwise like AH resource in our BFC or something. Our capital has a lot of cottageable tiles and the earlier we get them growing the better. Or beeline BW and get earlier chop and maybe whip production? That would lead to working unimproved tiles probably though.
I assumed no barbs since most votes were against barbs. And if barbs were going to be an issue then I guess players are not very close so I think we can get away with worker first.
Btw what do you know about the other players, their skills and playtstyles Hashoosh?
About phalanxes: they're a decent unit but I wouldn't let them influence our plans too much. I think axe-rushing in MP would be very risky and most likely would fail. Phalanx will be good on early defense though, they protect from enemy melee and chariots at the same time. Later when siege and HAs arrive they will be more important though obviously siege stack needs phalaxes to protection and (hopefully) clean up.
I checked the RBmod thread and none of the teches I went for were changed. And other results (T20 settler for example) should still be viable. Still I could do this with the right mod too.
Gavagai as Fredrick of Korea
Dhalphir as Saladin of Mongolia
eastway as Darius of the Celts
Hashoosh of Montezuma of Greece
Baii as Isabella of Maya
(Yesterday 08:17)BaII Wrote:
Gavagai
East
Dhal
BaII
Hash that's the time order I got.
Roll a 3, so:
1. Dhalphir as Saladin of Mongolia
2. Baii as Isabella of Maya
3. Hashoosh of Montezuma of Greece
4. Gavagai as Fredrick of Korea
5. eastway as Darius of the Celts
There is nothing to do yet so might aswell analyze the civ-leader pairings our competition got. I don't analyze the players since I know almost nothing about them. Maybe Hashoosh could help with that?
1.Dhalphir, Saladin (spi/pro), mongols (wheel, hunting), ger, keshik
I'm not convinced by the traits. Spi is useful mid- late game when civic swiches take time but early on it doesn't do much. Save one turn when adopting slavery? There are bigger early-game advantages. Pro has the fast granary but it's otherwise weak: if you're only defending cities, you're losing. Enemy has to be defeated on the field. Civ is decent and mounted warfare rules but the starting teches aren't that great especially if the starts are mirrored. Keshik could pull off some nasty attacks through rough terrain. I think that better starting teches and mounted warfare brings this combo above ours.
2.Baii, Isabella(exp/spi), maya (myst, min), holkan, ball court
Exp is a great trait for a faster start and overall faster expansion, helping to keep up the worker count. They should get their first worker before anyone else. I'd like an economic trait with exp but well spi is decent enough mid-game. As for the starting teches I like mining a lot and would have wanted to get it for us too. With mining at the start you get to BW faster which is great and again gives them early game advantage. Myst isn't that great, I'd rather have a worker tech. Uniques: normally I like Holkan but I suspect that the starts are balanced and everyone has bronze anyway so it's not that big a deal. Ball court is a good unique coming with a key military tech. So clearly the best early game stuff. Not so much economical stuff though. Maybe the best combo since a fast start means a lot.
3. Us, Monty (agg/spi), greece (hun, fish), phalanx, odeon
Agg is an interesting jack of all trades with the RB-mod changes. Cheap barracks means we're likely not building a single monument this game. -25% city maint gives us at least something to buff our economy and encourages expansion. And finally the C1 promo for all melee will probably come in handy. Then we have spi. Greece isn't really my favourite civ. Starting teches are weak (maybe the worst of all, depends on how close the coast is) especially with our start though hunting is significantly better if we find AH-resources (should I call them hun-resources now?). Phalanx is decent but not that great and odeon is like a weaker version of ball court. Actually I think our combo is the weakest of all, mainly due to starting teches and the fact we have almost no economical buffs or early game stuff.
4.Gavagai, Fredrick (phi,org), korea (min, myst), hwacha, seowon
Traits are all economical, not so much about early game. Phi means it's possible to get a very early academy. There's also nice synergy between the ub and philo and faster seowons mean faster oxford which is a big deal in the mid-game. More gp means we can expect more golden ages and more bulbing from Gava. Org saves quite a bit of money with expensive civics like bureau and org rel and also saves some hammers on infra with cheaper lighthouse, courthouse and factory. It's good but doesn't help during early game. If left unchecked the combo sounds dangerous. I already commented on the starting teches, let's just say that better than ours. Both uniques are good. If we have to fight Gava during construction-era we have to have enough non-melee units to defend against hwacha. Overall sounds dangerous but no real early game stuff. One of the best if not the best combo here.
5.eastway, Darius (fin, org), Celts (hun, myst), Gallic warrior, dun
Again a leader who s all about economy, but this time it's about getting a lot of cottages. Fin is nerfed but still rather strong and basically makes riverside and non-riverside cottages almost as good. So I expect a lot of cottages from them, but since slavery is nerfed they need to get something for production aswell. Starting teches are weak, almost like ours. Depends on how close the coast is whether or not ours is weakest or eastways. The uniques are all about hill warfare but swordsmen are bad in the first place. Guerilla2 Gwarrior could be good for defending hill cities though. G2 promo for all units could be trouble though, need to be careful. Still the uniques are weak imo. Overall good leader but other stuff is bad. The leader means that imo better combo than ours.
(February 23rd, 2014, 05:48)von Adlercreutz Wrote: 3. Us, Monty (agg/spi), greece (hun, fish), phalanx, odeon
Agg is an interesting jack of all trades with the RB-mod changes. Cheap barracks means we're likely not building a single monument this game. -25% city maint gives us at least something to buff our economy and encourages expansion. And finally the C1 promo for all melee will probably come in handy. Then we have spi
...
Actually I think our combo is the weakest of all, mainly due to starting teches and the fact we have almost no economical buffs or early game stuff.
I'm playing RBMod Monty in PB13 and my analysis before the game (and still now) is pretty similar to yours. However, I would say that AGG gives an economic buff that is quite reasonable while not on the par with FIN or ORG. And exactly as you said, when you are getting neither a real economic boost nor speed for your early game, Monty is solid, but does not feel like a top leader. That said, it might well be one of the most interesting and enjoyable leaders to play as new AGG does all kind of nice little things that you can incorporate in your plans and SPI as usual opens totally different options compared to non-SPI leaders. So... have fun!
(February 23rd, 2014, 05:48)von Adlercreutz Wrote: 3. Us, Monty (agg/spi), greece (hun, fish), phalanx, odeon
Agg is an interesting jack of all trades with the RB-mod changes. Cheap barracks means we're likely not building a single monument this game. -25% city maint gives us at least something to buff our economy and encourages expansion. And finally the C1 promo for all melee will probably come in handy. Then we have spi
...
Actually I think our combo is the weakest of all, mainly due to starting teches and the fact we have almost no economical buffs or early game stuff.
I'm playing RBMod Monty in PB13 and my analysis before the game (and still now) is pretty similar to yours. However, I would say that AGG gives an economic buff that is quite reasonable while not on the par with FIN or ORG. And exactly as you said, when you are getting neither a real economic boost nor speed for your early game, Monty is solid, but does not feel like a top leader. That said, it might well be one of the most interesting and enjoyable leaders to play as new AGG does all kind of nice little things that you can incorporate in your plans and SPI as usual opens totally different options compared to non-SPI leaders. So... have fun!
Thanks! Btw I think we're fellow countrymen since I'm a Finn and you're a Finn too, right? I've checked your thread on PB13, now somewhere around page 50 and seems solid play to me, making the best out of a rough start. For a while I was worried you would wait for library in Cannae to get border pop for gold, but gladly noticed you decided to build a barracks for the culture.
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0428.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28594063/PB5T0/Civ4ScreenShot0428.JPG)
Edit: added the sandbox as zip-file so you can use it too for testing early game approaches.
). Phalanx is decent but not that great and odeon is like a weaker version of ball court. Actually I think our combo is the weakest of all, mainly due to starting teches and the fact we have almost no economical buffs or early game stuff.
