Babylon's Nebula of Cheddar(Phi/Ind)

[The Black Sword]

I'm going to get through some player previews before the game heats up.

Cornflakes as Ragnar(Fin/Agg) of America(Minutemen, Armoury)

Neither Fin nor Agg are too high on my RtR trait tier list, even if I have bumped Agg up from the bottom. No free hammers is a big problem and the commerce is very slow to come online when Fin doesn't work on river tiles. We do have a lot of water on the map which is good for Fin, but I think this factor can be overrated. A normal civ does not want to work a 2/0/2 coast tile. So when a Fin civ works a 2/0/3 coast tile, it looks like Fin is gaining 1 whole free commerce but we should be comparing it to the tile the normal civ would be working. This opportunity cost factor is a problem when trying to evaluate most traits of course, but I think it has a bigger impact when talking about Fin and water tiles.

America's armoury most impactful effect is to give an extra 2xp to melee units. So his melee units will come out triple promoted. If you don't pull off an early rush then the civ feels a bit too blank to me though, and I think this will be a hard field to rush.

I'd rate Cornflakes pretty similarly to Pindicator and Gavagai in terms of general civ abilities. All 3 can be top players on their day, but that day comes less consistently for them than it does for OH. The thing that distracts Cornflakes the most from those days IMO is getting locked into a plan. His pick is the best at this thing, so that's got to be how he wins the game, even if it would be better to pivot to something else. Here there's a real chance he goes for that ancient era rush IMO, takes out his opponent and then finishes 4th. Hopefully my Bowman UU with +50% against melee units means that target won't be me. 

On the other hand he could just use those monster melee units to scare the kids off his lawn and take his fair share of land despite the lack of early hammers. Then let his econ traits take over. That sounds like a better formula for winning but it's still a package that feels very average to me.

Prediction: 4th

[The Black Sword]

Horse location was not so juicy. 



At least I know to change my sheep settling location to pick it up in the 2nd ring. Plan is still to go Warrior -> Stonehenge in the capital after this settler. No early chariots for me though, I might have to detour to archery to pick up my UU instead.

I'm not too convinced of this plains cottage south of my capital. How often do I really want to work a plains cottage? Especially with my eye on the Colossus, so coast becomes better. Mostly I really want the worker to be free when BW comes in to deal with potential copper mines, and any other moderately useful task takes too many turns away from that.

OH settled the first post-advanced start city, while Cornflakes did the first whip, so he might not be too far behind.

[The Black Sword]

Free shock for Gav. I thought events were off tbh. I got his graphs and they don't look great for him, so he could probably use the help. I don't know about his 2 city advanced start.

Demos begin to look not so great for me either:


I find it hard to believe the top food and hammer figures are anybody but OH, since neither Pin nor Cornflakes has an early expansion trait. I stopped bothering to track population once the land points came in to disguise things. I guess he's only ~+2 pop though. Anyway, to make myself feel better I tell myself I have 3 granaries built that will cost him 180h to replicate, whose effect does not show up on this screen.

[The Black Sword]

Charriu, is something up with the known tech bonus?


I met OH, and he's in Slavery along with Gavagai. So they both definitely know Bronze Working. But the indicator on this screen shows 0. This caused me to check manually, and I'm getting no extra beakers researching BW compared to HBR(there's no way anyone knows that yet). 

The KTB should be 0.06 per civ I think (0.3/5 civs), so I am making enough beakers that it should show up.

[The Black Sword]

Never mind.

1. Looks like Charriu is ded-lurking OH.

2. I forgot RtR changed how the known tech bonus worked. It's removed in the ancient era. 

Might as well give you a game-related picture:

[Amicalola]

2. I forgot RtR changed how the known tech bonus worked. It's removed in the ancient era. 

Hi, enjoying the thread. I was wondering how you feel about this change? Personally I like it since it removes a lot of the luck behind early scouting, but I am curious what a better player thinks.

[The Black Sword]

Thanks for the question Amica.  I'll respond tonight when I have more time.

Just wanted to say, if lurkers are considering a reload, I'd prefer to leave Gav with his shock axes and play on, rather than replay a couple of turns. If I'm outvoted or there is another event causing the tech thread ruckus fair enough.

[The Black Sword]

Actually, it sounds like Cornflakes wants a reload, which makes sense and is pretty fair. The guy with extra promotions on his melee units obviously doesn't want someone getting a free event that counters those units. It sucks to replay the turns, but oh well.

[The Black Sword]

So, about the known tech bonus change in RtR, there are a couple of effects to the change.

-As Amica mentioned, it decreases the value of early scouting. Technically this is probably good for me, because I'm pretty sure I build slightly less scouts than other players. On the other hand, if I don't think early scouting is a great investment, then I don't think nerfing it further is a good thing. Decreasing the variance of a lucky scout meetings is good though as you say.

-It makes big 30 player games play similarly to small 6 player games in the early stages. In BTS, 5 contacts in a big game is like a 0.06 known tech bonus. In a small game, if you explore the same land and find the same 5 contacts you are getting a 0.24 KTB. I think that's a positive.

-In big games, it increases the rubber-banding effect and emphasises the value of hammers over beakers. Why invest in beakers now, when I can fall slightly behind first and then get a 60% bonus in the future? I'm not a big fan of that, again I think beakers are often the weaker investment already, so it doesn't need to be nerfed. More hammers often means more units and more wars though. 

-It takes up a spot in the change log and makes me forget things. Ultimately, that's the biggest factor for me. I'm quite happy playing the game with either ruleset, it feels more like a sideways move than a clear positive or negative. So in such cases I'd prefer to stick to the original ruleset.

[The Black Sword]

Also, I got a view of my copper before the reload occurred. It is 1NE of my Ivory.(I didn't get a pic, and obviously can't log in to take a new one). Another pretty bad location, not in the BFC of any of my 5 planned cities and no first ring food.

It is 3rd ring in my capital though, which will be popped relatively quickly if I build Stonehenge. So I've 2 options:

-change the wheat city to 1N of the wheat, nuking a forest and losing the plains hill plant.

-Settle a quick city by the NE fish, also getting the copper 2nd ring.

Either way I'll be quite some turns without either horses or copper, so I may need to fit archery in.