[SPOILERS]Zara Yaqob of Byzantium and the Melancholies of Gawdzak and BaII

[BaII]

Well interesting. It's a pretty close cut though between Bzy and Mali, why do you prize the Aztec UB so much though? Does it take effect the turn it's built so if we already had whip anger it would drop? I just think that a courthouse would probably be the 3rd or 4th building in our new cities, so a couple whips would have already taken place and dropped the effectiveness of the sacrificial alter.

[Gawdzak]

Does it take effect the turn it's built so if we already had whip anger it would drop?

Yes, it halves all existing whip duration. The reason I value it highly is because of the way I play: I probably use the whip more than a lot of people here and I depend on it to build military. The SA is particularly strong in a high food map.

You can make the final decision on the civ pick, I'm fine with any of Byz, Mali, Aztecs or HRE.

[BaII]

Wow I actually didn't know that. Yeah looks like the 4 civ's will probably be our pool here, let's just see which ones are left cause I'm fine with anyone here and since u have likely going to be the main turnplayer you should most likely make the final decision. The 4 civ's are pretty close in terms of power, although with the HRE as the weakest probably.

[Gawdzak]

Imma take Byzantium then.

[Gawdzak]

Here are the picks, I will give some of my thoughts on these.

FINAL PICKS:

*retep - Washington (Cha/Exp) of the Inca (AGR/MYST, Quecha/Terrace)
*suttree - Catherine (Cre/Imp) of China (AGR/MIN, Cho-Ku-Nu/Pavilion)
*Azza - Suryavarman (Cre/Exp) of America (AGR/FISH, Navy SEAL/Frontier Post)
*zanth/Bacchus - Victoria (Fin/Imp) of the Ottomans (AGR/WHE, Janissary/Hammam)
*GermanJoJo/Lord Parkin - De Gaulle (Cha/Ind) De Scandinavia (FISH/HUNT, Berserker/Trading Post)
*Barteq - Hannibal (Cha/Fin) of the Zulu (AGR/HUNT, Impi/Ikhanda)
*Gavagai - Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of Rome (FISH/MIN, Praetorian/Forum)
*Gawdzak/BaII - Zara Yaqob (Cre/Org) of Byzantium (MYST/WHE, Cataphract/Hippodrome)


*retep - Washington (Cha/Exp) of the Inca (AGR/MYST, Quecha/Terrace)

The Incas are changed in this mod. Terrace is a granary available at Agriculture instead of Pottery. I really see limited use for this. In order to get value out this building, I feel one needs to go Mining->Bronze Working first, then whip/chop an Terrace. Several problems with this, first of all, this requires one to be Expansive. Retep picked his leader well if he were to do this, he's also paired with Charismatic to give him the extra happiness to whip into. Another problem is that he will only have one food tech so unless he have double grain, this might get awkward. This building also have a small window of opportunity, effectively obsoletes by Turn 50. I mean would it really be wise to delay cottages much longer than that? Lastly I feel picking Inca going Mining->BW is not significantly stronger than picking another Agriculture/Wheel civ and go Mining->BW->Pottery. While having Mysticism can be nice, one would probably want to get the Wheel at some point right?

So overall I just think the Incan UB is just too situational and the benefits too little to be considered a strong pick. Washington is a pretty good leader however.

As for retep himself, I only know of his exploits in PB16. Where he made a blunder on T0 and thus eliminated from the game by SevenSpirits.

*suttree - Catherine (Cre/Imp) of China (AGR/MIN, Cho-Ku-Nu/Pavilion)

Catherine is a strong early game leader, which we considered picking ourselves. China is an extremely solid civ pick having the unique starting tech combo of Agriculture and Mining. He can easily get an early BW and chop out an early settler. Hopefully we don't have him as a neighbour. Recently I have gained a new appreciation for the Cho-Ko-Nu's, I think they are pretty good. With his double early game traits, we would not prefer to have him as a neighbour.

I don't know much about him since I haven't lurked many of his games. What I do know is that in PB13, he attacked mackoti early on and did not end well for him.

*Azza - Suryavarman (Cre/Exp) of America (AGR/FISH, Navy SEAL/Frontier Post)

Azza appears to have gotten a total random selection of leader/civ combo. It's not bad, another player with double early game traits. Both CRE and EXP is nerfed in the mod, but Sury can still do what Sury does which is to REX like a madman. He have to be careful not to go broke though and both traits falls off in the mid/late game. America, despite being buffed, is almost as terrible as they always were. The new UB is a Grocer replacement, which is simply too expensive to have in many cities while still comes relatively late in the game. The techs Agriculture/ Fishing is not bad but nothing special.

Azza ranked 10/10 on a "likelihood to pinkdot you scale" and with Sury, he can pinkdot you harder, faster and better than ever before. Definitely don't want to have him as a neighbour. I took over his civ in PB17 and I can't help but feel that significant improvement can be made to his gameplay.

*zanth/Bacchus - Victoria (Fin/Imp) of the Ottomans (AGR/WHE, Janissary/Hammam)

Victoria of Ottomans is a pretty solid combo. They get a boost in expansion and teching and Agriculture/ Wheel is never bad, but I just don't think it's anything particularly special. I still think Financial is not particularly strong in the mod.

I know of Zanth's dominance in PB17, however I strongly suspects his success was largely based on Gavagai's help, because I read Zanth's thread in AlaePB and some of his gameplay was... strange. Bacchus was also in that game and in PB13, let's just say that he really like to think outside the box. Pairing these two together is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you are going to get.

To be continued...

[BaII]

I'm pretty sure it's Gavagi is the main reason for Zanth's dominance, in fact it seems as though half of the turns are played by Gavagi for PB 17, well we'll know the truth once the game ends. One more thing to keep in mind, Zanth managed to land arguably the best leader for that map. I'm not sure if we need to worry about Azza to much though, he always seems to fall behind and then lose interest in the game. He might be a good neighbor to have since we can hopefully crush him with our UU.

Suttree, well I don't really have much to say for him, He didn't report much for PB 13 so I don't know what he'll do but from the looks of Old Fin's thread he does fight to the bitter end. Same with Retep.

JoJo+LP I don't know these people like at all, I just know that LP is known for his timer camps. He's taken over for Eastway in PBEM 59 but I really how good he is currently. I'm guessing LP is a strong player as i believe he was in Aplyton Demogames and has been on this site for awhile. So he has experience on his side.

Barteq is a completely new guy I think. So new clue on what he'll do. There's Gavagi who played an interesting game in the Alae game. He seems to have good game sense and appears to be very good at warring. He's probably one of the top threats to this game.

[BaII]

I'm so surprised their's very little ORG used, probably because it's the same thing as base BTS, but it's probably one of the strongest traits in the game though. I think we have the edge in terms of late game purely due to the fact no one else has ORG. We should also have an EP advantage too cause we have cheaper courthouses and allow us to get city vision on our first victim for cataphract.

[Gawdzak]

Yes I too believe ORG is a strong trait. For the last 3 base BTS games, all of the Darius (FIN/ORG) players have done pretty well:

PB12: Serdoa's Darius of Sumeria won the game.
PB16: Gavagai's Darius of Aztecs were probably in a top 3 position in the end, after Seven and maybe "Goreripper".
PB17: Zanth/Gavagai's Darius of Babylon is currently leading in score.

Now you can argue that there is a small sample size and that the players that are playing Darius are all good players. But is it because Darius is doing well because good players are playing him or is it something else? A plausible theory is that good players recognize the power of Darius and thus end up picking him. Or it could be something else completely.

With Willem and Pacal banned, there's evidence that Darius is the strongest leader in base BTS. Organized would probably be at worst the 4th best trait after Financial, Expansive and Creative. Now in this mod with the top 3 traits nerfed, Organized would be the strongest unchanged trait. Is it enough to be best trait? In the ToW mod, it's good to think of Organized is the "benchmark" trait, where everything better was nerfed and everything worse was buffed.

Anyways opponent analysis continued:

*GermanJoJo/Lord Parkin - De Gaulle (Cha/Ind) De Scandinavia (FISH/HUNT, Berserker/Trading Post)

They are the only Industrious leader, so they certainly have an advantage in building any wonder they choose obviously. Both of these guys are playing Charismatic leaders in PB20 and they picked it again here, so obviously they value that trait highly. I also have Charismatic in PB20, I feel even with just one early happiness resource, Charismatic is significantly weaker and with 2 early happiness I think almost any trait would be better. The Vikings are alright, their UB is nerfed and their UU is nothing really to write home about so they probably picked the Civ first for the techs more than anything else. They probably have a fishing start.

Not much is know of GermanJojo since he's pretty new also. I don't follow his PB18 thread because the way he talk about other players in the game is a little irritating to read. I have read about PB4 that Parkin played in on this site, and he won that game. He was also playing De Gaulle there. Since he is the only Industrious leader in this game, I don't think he will do the Stonehedge before settlers thing again.

*Barteq - Hannibal (Cha/Fin) of the Zulu (AGR/HUNT, Impi/Ikhanda)

Hannibal is an alright leader I suppose, but my problem with this leader is that he will start so slow compare to many of the other leaders. Financial pretty much does nothing now for the first 60 turns of the game. Charismatic looks pretty good on paper but still it doesn't give any concrete boost to anything. The Impis are nerfed and for good reason. Ikhanda is a good building, but I really don't like the Agriculture/Hunting tech combo since they are both super cheap now. Barteq is a guy who haven't played in any previous games I think, so nothing is known about him.

*Gavagai - Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of Rome (FISH/MIN, Praetorian/Forum)

I think Rome is the best fishing civ in the mod, Praetorians are good. 40 hammers for a unit that beats pretty everything until the Medieval era. Gandhi is a fun leader, he can make plays that no one can. He starts slow though. Gandhi loves the Oracle since Code of Laws is such a great tech for him. He would get Caste to pop borders and easily run specialists. He could choose to get an early Academy or bulb an early Currency.

Gavagai is a pretty good player in my opinion. On the other hand, he is super aggressive. He will definitely look to hurt us if the opportunities arise. In this game he also have the tools to do so, the Praetorian as I mentioned and believe it or not Gandhi is a pretty good warmonger in this game.

*Gawdzak/BaII - Zara Yaqob (Cre/Org) of Byzantium (MYST/WHE, Cataphract/Hippodrome)

Gawdzak is a new player in these forums and he clear shows it here. Creative is nerfed and now pretty much sucks. Organized is an useless trait that does absolutely nothing in the early game. Byzantium is a noob pick, the starting techs are horrible, does he not know that food is the most important thing civilizations? Whenever Byzantium gets picked they always do terribly, have anyone actually won a game with Byzantium before? If the synergy here was meant to be Creative Hippodromes then that is just stupid. Terrible pick.

[Commodore]

Zara is teh bomb. Org is amazingly good; Darius is far closer to Pacal and Willem in even base BtS than I think people realize.

[Gawdzak]

So enough talk about the game, we are driving away all the lurkers. Any ideas on naming schemes?