Tweet
Continuing in my trend of examining the effects of the MP environment on Civ3 play, I’d like to now address the issue of the Civ traits themselves in the MP environment. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel, but rather address how the MP environment changes the priorities.
Caveats:
1) As always, big ol’ “IMHO.”
2) This work draws its background from two EXCELLENT works by Velociryx and Arrian, entitled “The Virtues of Being Industrious” (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=50963) and “The Breath of God: Only the Penitent Man shall pass,” (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=52301) respectively. If either of these gentlemen have any problem with me “standing on the shoulders of giants” so to speak, I will certainly pull down this post.
3) This is based on what I perceive to be the current MP environment: namely, heavily biased to pangea/large continent, very violent ancient eras, and very few games reaching beyond the end of the feudal era. If you disagree with these criteria, you’re going to find a lot to disagree with ahead.
The above two works, as you may surmise, propose that Industrious and Religious are the two most important traits in the SP game, both ranking theirs first and the other second, and do so in great detail. I will not re-hash their work here, so if you don’t understand why these two traits are considered one and two in SP, you might want to read their work first.
And now on with our show.
Number-one “Gotta Have It” in MP
Industrious
Industriousness is still king, but both Industrious and its holy rival Religious aren’t as stand-out great in the MP environment as they are SP. The ability to ramrod dozens of units/settlers down your quickly built roads is very powerful in such violent ancient eras, and the ability to drop mines/irrigation to assist in your efforts is still irrefutable. Particularly if you bumrush your research to one of the governments (and you should,) the well-developed land will pay big dividends in the “endgame” of the ancient era, where swarms of swordsmen or similar units are flooding the lands.
And now to overturn applecarts – Number Two
Expansionist
Don’t get me wrong- religious was a very close competitor for this slot, and the benefits of a religious society are still far more easily measured than expansionism will ever be. However, in the heavily-single-continent-dominated environment of MP, expansionism offers two powerful abilities you pass up at your peril. Firstly: Finding your enemy before he finds you! Many times wars can start on first sight- if your scouts find borders first – particularly if you are smart enough not to reveal yourself until you circle around the border a bit – you can buy your offensive a lot of time while your enemy is still trying to find you. You may also be able to see “into the future” noting where rivals will probably try to expand, and block them off, potentially restricting an empire which might be loathe to war with you. (Carthage and Greece in particular can use cities/territory blockading of rival expansion as a strong defense.) Secondly: It’s not news that tech and other positive benefits come more often to Expansionist tribes, and this can pay off big in MP games. Picking up The Wheel and Horseback Riding for free while your culture is chasing Monarchy can mean one heck of a war machine is developing. The same thing goes for Iron Working.
Relegated to Number Three by only a hair
Religious
The article cited at the top provides many, many strong reasons for choosing a Civ with this trait, and most – but not all – of those hold true in the MP environment. Cathedrals might or might not be seen, but temples certainly will. You might not switch governments four times, but you’ll switch once (or maybe twice) for certain. When your troops are racing to the front to meet opposing troops doing the same, you don’t want a 4 to 6 turn break in production. Later, those extra units you are producing because you rule from a mandate by God, rather than a mandate through having a big thug standing behind you, will probably make the difference. Border expansion and cultural flipping isn’t the power it is outside of MP, but the power of this civ trait is still a serious contender for ANY of the top three spots.
This one will probably annoy people too – Number Four
Commercial
Before you close this window and call me insane, hear me out. Commercial cultures do receive benefits in commerce, blah blah blah, but they also have a larger radius in which cities can be built away from the capital before the dreaded 100 percent corruption kicks in. Being able to sustain – and adequately use – a larger empire means more tech, more units, more blah blah blah, you know the drill. Why is that important in MP? In MP, victory is very often determined by having just one more unit in place at the right time, and if that border city can squeeze out one unit every 10 turns, that might do it. (It's also worth noting that if your extreme border city is closer to his capital than vice versa, and can produce barracks and walls and your rival can't, good things shall come to pass for you.) Commercial cultures also start with alphabet, which is a component for two things people tend to value: Map Making and Construction. (The sometimes-maligned Great Wall can be very important in Elimination games.) Some folks also value the Great Library, but in my experience, players drop too fast in a MP game for the Library to meet its "three cultures must have it" qualification - particularly since the builder is often in the top three. Now I’ll explain why I’ve relegated the next one below commercialism.
I can hear the screams of irate fury now – Number Five
Militaristic
Let’s take a good, hard look at what Militarism really gives you: cheaper barracks, and more quickly promoted units. With all due respect to those staunch fans of Militarism, speaking as a ‘warmonger’ type player, barracks just aren’t THAT expensive. Yes, it does make barracks cheaper – but is it worth using up a Civ trait when there are so many other vital needs early in the game? Promotions are also a spiffy thing, but once you get that barracks built, there’s only one level of promotion to go. When you’re talking about units with values between 1-3 (4 if you count Persian Immortal offense) the difference between a veteran and an elite unit really isn’t that staggering. Random chance can see a regular with 2 defense crush an elite with 2 attack. Again- this isn’t to say that promotions aren’t important, and barracks aren’t important. It is saying that given the other needs in a MP environment these just aren’t quite as important as avoiding Anarchy or getting that road built to funnel your troops down, or knowing where to send your troops to begin with!
Last, and decidedly least – Number Six
Scientific
A Civ trait of mediocre value in SP, Scientific simply isn’t worth the bother in MP. A free tech at the end of the ancient era? Enjoy your monotheism- you really plan to waste time building that cathedral? (Okay, if you’re a religious culture, it might be worthwhile in a few cities.) A cheaper library? I’ve played lots of games in which I never even researched literature. And uh…the other benefits….hmm. There aren’t any. For MP games, forget scientific.
That’s all for now in part 3 of the “Let’s look at how the Civs operate in the multiplayer environment” saga. Hope you enjoyed it/laughed at it/learned something from it, and feel free to comment.
Caveats:
1) As always, big ol’ “IMHO.”
2) This work draws its background from two EXCELLENT works by Velociryx and Arrian, entitled “The Virtues of Being Industrious” (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=50963) and “The Breath of God: Only the Penitent Man shall pass,” (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=52301) respectively. If either of these gentlemen have any problem with me “standing on the shoulders of giants” so to speak, I will certainly pull down this post.
3) This is based on what I perceive to be the current MP environment: namely, heavily biased to pangea/large continent, very violent ancient eras, and very few games reaching beyond the end of the feudal era. If you disagree with these criteria, you’re going to find a lot to disagree with ahead.
The above two works, as you may surmise, propose that Industrious and Religious are the two most important traits in the SP game, both ranking theirs first and the other second, and do so in great detail. I will not re-hash their work here, so if you don’t understand why these two traits are considered one and two in SP, you might want to read their work first.
And now on with our show.
Number-one “Gotta Have It” in MP
Industrious
Industriousness is still king, but both Industrious and its holy rival Religious aren’t as stand-out great in the MP environment as they are SP. The ability to ramrod dozens of units/settlers down your quickly built roads is very powerful in such violent ancient eras, and the ability to drop mines/irrigation to assist in your efforts is still irrefutable. Particularly if you bumrush your research to one of the governments (and you should,) the well-developed land will pay big dividends in the “endgame” of the ancient era, where swarms of swordsmen or similar units are flooding the lands.
And now to overturn applecarts – Number Two
Expansionist
Don’t get me wrong- religious was a very close competitor for this slot, and the benefits of a religious society are still far more easily measured than expansionism will ever be. However, in the heavily-single-continent-dominated environment of MP, expansionism offers two powerful abilities you pass up at your peril. Firstly: Finding your enemy before he finds you! Many times wars can start on first sight- if your scouts find borders first – particularly if you are smart enough not to reveal yourself until you circle around the border a bit – you can buy your offensive a lot of time while your enemy is still trying to find you. You may also be able to see “into the future” noting where rivals will probably try to expand, and block them off, potentially restricting an empire which might be loathe to war with you. (Carthage and Greece in particular can use cities/territory blockading of rival expansion as a strong defense.) Secondly: It’s not news that tech and other positive benefits come more often to Expansionist tribes, and this can pay off big in MP games. Picking up The Wheel and Horseback Riding for free while your culture is chasing Monarchy can mean one heck of a war machine is developing. The same thing goes for Iron Working.
Relegated to Number Three by only a hair
Religious
The article cited at the top provides many, many strong reasons for choosing a Civ with this trait, and most – but not all – of those hold true in the MP environment. Cathedrals might or might not be seen, but temples certainly will. You might not switch governments four times, but you’ll switch once (or maybe twice) for certain. When your troops are racing to the front to meet opposing troops doing the same, you don’t want a 4 to 6 turn break in production. Later, those extra units you are producing because you rule from a mandate by God, rather than a mandate through having a big thug standing behind you, will probably make the difference. Border expansion and cultural flipping isn’t the power it is outside of MP, but the power of this civ trait is still a serious contender for ANY of the top three spots.
This one will probably annoy people too – Number Four
Commercial
Before you close this window and call me insane, hear me out. Commercial cultures do receive benefits in commerce, blah blah blah, but they also have a larger radius in which cities can be built away from the capital before the dreaded 100 percent corruption kicks in. Being able to sustain – and adequately use – a larger empire means more tech, more units, more blah blah blah, you know the drill. Why is that important in MP? In MP, victory is very often determined by having just one more unit in place at the right time, and if that border city can squeeze out one unit every 10 turns, that might do it. (It's also worth noting that if your extreme border city is closer to his capital than vice versa, and can produce barracks and walls and your rival can't, good things shall come to pass for you.) Commercial cultures also start with alphabet, which is a component for two things people tend to value: Map Making and Construction. (The sometimes-maligned Great Wall can be very important in Elimination games.) Some folks also value the Great Library, but in my experience, players drop too fast in a MP game for the Library to meet its "three cultures must have it" qualification - particularly since the builder is often in the top three. Now I’ll explain why I’ve relegated the next one below commercialism.
I can hear the screams of irate fury now – Number Five
Militaristic
Let’s take a good, hard look at what Militarism really gives you: cheaper barracks, and more quickly promoted units. With all due respect to those staunch fans of Militarism, speaking as a ‘warmonger’ type player, barracks just aren’t THAT expensive. Yes, it does make barracks cheaper – but is it worth using up a Civ trait when there are so many other vital needs early in the game? Promotions are also a spiffy thing, but once you get that barracks built, there’s only one level of promotion to go. When you’re talking about units with values between 1-3 (4 if you count Persian Immortal offense) the difference between a veteran and an elite unit really isn’t that staggering. Random chance can see a regular with 2 defense crush an elite with 2 attack. Again- this isn’t to say that promotions aren’t important, and barracks aren’t important. It is saying that given the other needs in a MP environment these just aren’t quite as important as avoiding Anarchy or getting that road built to funnel your troops down, or knowing where to send your troops to begin with!
Last, and decidedly least – Number Six
Scientific
A Civ trait of mediocre value in SP, Scientific simply isn’t worth the bother in MP. A free tech at the end of the ancient era? Enjoy your monotheism- you really plan to waste time building that cathedral? (Okay, if you’re a religious culture, it might be worthwhile in a few cities.) A cheaper library? I’ve played lots of games in which I never even researched literature. And uh…the other benefits….hmm. There aren’t any. For MP games, forget scientific.
That’s all for now in part 3 of the “Let’s look at how the Civs operate in the multiplayer environment” saga. Hope you enjoyed it/laughed at it/learned something from it, and feel free to comment.
I don't bother with Iron Working until after I get Monarchy- particularly if you're using one of the above Civs (or the Iroquois, or the Babylonians...) Swordsmen are a threat, but by no means unparryable. (Pun intended.)
Comment