[SPOILERS]Boudica of Rome and Gawdzak ask: "Raise your what?"

[Gawdzak]

[Gawdzak]

Alright in this post I will give an update on the situations in this game so far and my future plans.

Last turn I met another player:Douglas Quaid,who is Elizabeth(FIN/PHI) of Egypt. He chose to pick the Egypt in the snake pick first before picking his leader. He is a new player here at RB like myself,so little is known about the guy. However I remembered him making this comment in the sign-up thread:

One thing I'm kind of curious to see with this mod is whether or not financial remains the runaway best leader trait. I still think that realistically, you can't beat the extra coins.

To me,this is a guy who values techs above all else and Douglas Quaid picking Lizzie certainly reinforces that theory. He also picked Egypt which was one of the best Civs in base BTS,having the excellent Agriculture/Wheel starting tech combo and terrifying War Chariot. In the ToW mod WC are nerfed to 4 strength and having 2 first strikes (any plans to nerf WC in the RBmod?) and the relative strength of Agriculture as a starting tech is reduced as well, however I think Egypt is still good and this is a good pick if he has farming resources. On the other hand,Elizabeth is somewhat more of a dubious pick. From the games that I lurked in RB,it seemed that the popular opinion is that Elizabeth is more of a tier 2 leader since neither FIN or PHI helps with expansion. In this mod, with the buffed PHI and nerf FIN, Elizabeth faces similar problems. I would never play Elizabeth in a RB game because falling behind in expansion means certain defeat in my opinion.

Now let's talk about Douglas Quaid (DQ?)in this game. What I know from civstats and top 5 cities screen is that he whipped something (1-pop) around turn 28 (worker most likely) and he has since grown his capital to size 5. However he is the last to settle his 2nd city;he just logged in and settled as I am writing this,turn 39. I noticed that since I met him 2 turns ago he has not put any EP against me, meaning he has met someone else. I don't know why he grew to size 5 before settling his 2nd city. Turn 39 is quite late for a 2nd city. To compare,mackoti settle his on turn 26. Since meeting DQ I have changed my tech to Hunting,so I can build spears in case he rushes me with war chariots. I will have copper hooked up in 2 turns however I won't have horses for a long time. The thing about new players is that you never know what they are going to do, better to play safe in case he turn out to be a total nut.

The AI he reminds me of:

Mansa Musa

About my own plans,I think I am going to take a shot at the Great Lighthouse. Even though the GLH is nerfed to 1 trade route per coastal city,it will still help me out because from what I have seen, many of my cities will be coastal and there's quite a few islands that I definitely want. I will try building that in the capital. If I get it, I can use the great merchant points as well: I will build a library at the capital and run 2 scientists.If I get a scientist I will build an academy and if I get a merchant I can bulb Currency with it. Currency is worth 718 beakers (huge map,tech scaling),a bulb is worth it in my opinion.

Now what are my chances of getting it?Well if someone is determined enough and sacrifice expansion to try to build it with just 2 cities PB4 style then I can't beat them. Slowcheetah is ORG Vikings, and the Productive leader certainly has an edge over me as well. However I think it will ultimately comes down to who is willing to sacrifice more...

[Gawdzak]

T43




Great Prophet is born last turn,this must be DQ's Philosophical Egypt. This will explain why he's slow to his 2nd city. I went on civstats to find that he has whipped on T26. I think he whipped a monument and then run one priest specialist to get a Great Prophet in 15 turns as Philosophical. If so, this is not optimal, as Philosophical you want to run 2 specialists instead of 1 at a time.




Settled our 3rd city. I think I'm 4th to 3 cities after mackoti,Kuro and Haram.




The known world.




The demos,nothing spectacular on my part.

Anyone have any questions?

[Gawdzak]

T46

Last turn I pillaged a winery and gave me 12 gold,pretty good and helps me alot there.




I got graphs on DQ this turn:




More power than me, doesn't look like he's rushing me though.










Going for that Great Prophet really set him back here.




That looks like a capital monument to me.

Will settle my 4th city next turn.

[Gawdzak]

Settled another city






Demos before we whip away 5 pops in the next few turns:

[Gawdzak]

T52

So a Great General was born this turn. A lot of fighting has been going on apparently. I didn't really mention it before but the "Top Soldiers" count is awfully high in my earlier SS.

Well it's not DQ though,I have more power than him with 3 warriors,an axe and a spear. Next update will happen when I settle my next city.

[Gawdzak]

Of course score doesn't mean everything,but:



Draw your own conclusions.

Douglas Quaid PYFT

[Gawdzak]

Settled another city,fish netted.




You can also see the land to my south,you can't quite see it here but the dry wheat and flood plain to my south west is actually part of the main land. I thought it was a large island at first.

DQ gets writing:

[Gawdzak]

Agricultural the Trait: An Quantifiable Analysis based on Gawdzak's Roman Empire

So there have been some debates in the PB21 set-up thread about the ToW mod and the strength of the new traits. I thought I would compare the Agricultural trait to the other traits in the mod for the first 55 turns from my Civ's perspective.

Agricultural (+1f on tiles with 4f or more) :

Fish (Capital) improved T6 - 49 Food gained
Cow (Capital) improved T18 - 37 Food gained
Corn (City 2) improved T31 - 24 Food gained
Corn (City 3) improved T45 - 10 Food gained
Wheat (City 4) improved T51 - 4 Food gained
Fish (City 5) improved T54 - 1 Food gained

Total: 125 Food gained

Pretty straight forward here, 125 bonus food, no subjective interpretation needed.


Productive (+1h on tiles with 4h or more, +50% worker production, +50% workboat production) :

I have built 5 workers and 2 workboats. The 2 workboats would have saved me 20 hammers. The savings on the workers are a bit ambiguous since food was also used to build the workers. I would estimate the saving would have been around 60 hammers for my 5 workers (2 were whipped,1 were chopped and 2 mostly built with food).

Now regarding the tile yield part of the bonus:
Copper (Capital) improved T33 - 20 Hammers gained (this tile was not used for 2 turns when I whipped it down to size 2)
Copper (City 3) improved T48 - 7 Hammers gained
No plains hill mine.

Total:~107 Hammers gained

Productive would have saved me around 100-110 hammers here,some estimating involved but I don't think I'm too far off the mark.


Financial (+1c on tiles with 3c or more) :

Total: 0

That's right,the god tier trait in base BTS would have given me nothing for the first 55 turns of the game in the ToW mod. If this were base BTS Financial would have given me at least 50 bonus commerce(probably closer to 100) since I had a fish at the start and I worked quite a few lake tiles.


Expansive (Double speed granaries, +2 health (no harbor or worker bonuses) :

I have 2 Granaries so 60 hammers.

Total: 60 Hammers gained

The cheaper granaries means I could complete them earlier and thus saving some food however that is hard to quantify and given the way I built my granaries I don't think it matters. One of my granaries was completed with a forest chop and a 1-pop whip and the other was completed with whip overflow and a forest chop. You could argue that I would have prioritized granaries more in my builds had I been Expansive. Possibly but not likely.


Creative (only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum) :

Creative would have given me border pops at my 2nd and 3rd city. That's equivalent to 2 monuments that I will build there.

Total: 60 hammers.

Of course Creative would give me get the border pops earlier but again the value in that is probably low.


Spiritual (No anarchy, half priced temples) :

This would save me a turn of anarchy would yield:

Total: 20 food, 8 hammers, 13 commerce


Industrious: (double speed forges,+50% productive of wonders) :

Total: 0

Have not completed any wonders yet.


Organized (half civic costs,double speed production of Courthouses,Lighthouses, and Factories) :

I have 1 lighthouse. Civic cost only went up to 3 gpt after I settled my 5th city.

Total: 30 hammers,1 gold


Philosophical (+150% gpp, double speed universities) :

Total: 0


Imperialistic (+100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets and banks) :

Built 4 settlers, all were whipped except for the first one.

Total:~110 Hammers


Charismatic (+3 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements) :

Now this one is hard to quantify since it doesn't give any direct benefits but it is certainly useful right now as it allows me to grow my capital to size 5 right now while carrying 2 whip anger. I don't know how much this is helping me but I am certainly not unhappy (heh) to have picked it.

Total: Inconclusive


So for a early game ranking:

Agricultural: 125 Food
Imperialistic: ~110 Hammers
Productive: ~100-110 Hammers
Expansive: 60 Hammers
Creative: 60 Hammers
Spiritual: 20 food, 8 hammers, 13 commerce
Organized: 30 hammers,1 gold
Charismatic: Inconclusive but positive
Industrious: 0
Financial: 0
Philosophical: 0

So you can probably see here that both Agricultural and Productive is pretty good. Only comparable to early game traits like Expansive, Creative and Imperialistic. However neither Agricultural and Productive falls off as hard as the other early game traits. Agricultural will be good all throughout the game and its power will peak at Biology. On the other hand, Productive gets a power spike once improvements to workshops are unlocked and again when Railroad is researched. I think both Agricultural and Productive is too strong for the same reason that the old Financial is too strong: they are both really good early game AND late game.

[The Black Sword]

Interesting analysis, now just discount everything for time and Seven will be happy. I expect that only favours the new traits even more though. Agricultural certainly looks very powerful, also curious that about 1/3 of it's value comes from 4f tiles. If that ratio stayed fairly constant then I could see switching it to 5f tiles being reasonable.

The only one that really stands out to me that you are undervaluing is Expansive. You usually want to chop in a size 1 granary with Exp almost as soon as the city has been settled. Seeing as you have 5 cities, you might estimate 4 granaries should have been built at this stage, if you had Exp? The bonus from getting the granary earlier is also very powerful, you might estimate it allows each city to grow 1 extra size, worth another 30h via the whip. So, you could put a value of 240h on expansive.