Civ Choice

[Hot Mustard]

I don't see it.

[Dominae]

Philosophical.

There's a lot of (hidden) potential in this trait. I already think this trait is very powerful, and have some game experience to prove it.

However, I do also have an ulterior motive in that I believe there's still a lot to learn about maximizing it, and I'm hoping that, as the best bunch of strategists around, we could use this game as an opportunity for exploring it (and leveraging it to defeat our enemies, of course!).

I think it's as much of a "GS trait" as DeepO thinks SPI is: many teams will not make the best of it, nor be able to anticipate our moves via adequate intelligence.

It's an open-ended trait that can support many strategies: burn Great Engineers for military techs, grab an super-early Religion+Shrine, rush to Liberalism, secure a branch lead and trade the tech around, get the jump an opponent with a Great Artist, etc., etc.

The fact that Great People are announced to the world is definitely unfortunate (especially the Great Artists!). However Civics changes are, too, so SPI's switch-tricks are just as transparent.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by dejon
I don't see it.

In that case, it hasn't been released to the public yet, I'm sorry. Please don't mention this to others...

DeepO

[Arrian]

Fascinating. Is it accessable from the beta test forum, DeepO?

By the way, I've no doubt we could've done far better in the Bobian war had we not been burnt out. We were coming off our Golden Age, we'd won a war, we'd micromanaged like crazy, and we had a "free" great wonder (Sun Tzu) from the MGL we got.

Nathan (and others, of course) were awesome in the War of Voxian Aggression , but he bowed out and there was a time where we kinda floundered.

That being said, we would've been far better off if we'd been playing CIV rather than CivIII, because we could've directly defended RP's cities without having them gift them to us. Oh, my, what a difference that could've made!

All that said, we were up against two opponents with 3-move knight variant UUs. They were tough opponents. I'll buy the idea that we could've possibly fought them to a draw, but not that we could've crushed one or both of them. Keep in mind that Lego came to their aid in the end, too. Stalemate, with us saving RP, was the best outcome I figure. Which would've been just fine.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Dom, I agree with PHI, it is a GS trait too.

So, based on the discussion so far, my 3 picks would be

1. SPI/PHI : Saladin : Camel Archer (knight)
3. SPI/AGR : Montezuma : Jaguar (sword)
3. SPI/FIN : Mansa Musa : skirmisher (arxcher) (not my favourite UU in this game, though, but I might be proven wrong... otherwise it would move up a nodge)

DeepO

[Arrian]

The skirmisher isn't great, but it's solid. It's STR4, IIRC (+33% str over the standard archer). I forget its other abilities... I just remember liking them, and surviving a visit from Montezuma's merry band of Jaguars because of them.

The Camel archer gets a + in my book b/c it doesn't require horses.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
Fascinating. Is it accessable from the beta test forum, DeepO?

I picked it up in one of the builds, and as I don't uninstall scenarios (nor game files or screenshots), I cant say in which build it was. Fairly early after v1.16, I thought, which is why I assumed it was in v1.52.

All that said, we were up against two opponents with 3-move knight variant UUs. They were tough opponents. I'll buy the idea that we could've possibly fought them to a draw, but not that we could've crushed one or both of them. Keep in mind that Lego came to their aid in the end, too. Stalemate, with us saving RP, was the best outcome I figure. Which would've been just fine.

-Arrian

What is so clear when fooling around in the scenario is that my plan would most likely have worked: forget about RP's original land, just delay ND and GoW there. Move all chariots up North, disconnect iron, and keep on building horses like crazy. Move galleys up North as well. Than, the moment we're ready, upgrade all our war chariots and horses to knights, and invade GoW right into their belly, aided with a combat settler or two. We could have slashed them before they had the chance to return their troops, and their home lands were virtually undefended.

Lego wasn't even near. When you get to play the scenario, it doesn't show one thing: just how many units we had... to balance it, Trip had to remove most of them. Obsolete units for sure, but with plenty of cash and all those cities on wealth, we could have had 100 knights easily, up against in total 70-80 3-move knights. Like I said, we could have destroyed one of the Bobians for sure... and the land we gained we could have used for saving RP, instead of banning them to that piece of land as we had nothing else to offer.

All hindsight, though. But the lesson learned is that we simply can't fall into disarray in such a critical time, no matter how the public forum acts towards us.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
The Camel archer gets a + in my book b/c it doesn't require horses.

The only knight I ever build, otherwise I always leap straigth at cavs. Or go the slowmover path.

Jaguar the same, BTW: resourceless too. You've got to be prepared to use them at exactly the right time, tough, so you're very predictable in when your attack will start.

DeepO

[Arrian]

I don't like the Jag. It's resourceless, yeah, but it's also weaker (str5). It's bonus is a defensive one (+25% defense in jungle/forest?), which I find irritating on a unit that replaces the standard str6, +10% city attack sword (sure, that needs iron). And axes absolutely eat it for lunch.

It's an early rush tool, and thus (like you said) is rather predictable... or it goes largely unused.

-Arrian

edit: but, given that I have never used it, I'm open to learning why it's better than I think!

[Solomwi]

I may be gunshy from PTWDGII (Arrian will understand ), but the resourcelessness of the camel archer makes it extremely appealling in a game like this, IMO. I know resource disappearance has been removed (or at least toned down to the point that I've yet to see it), but knowing we're guaranteed the use of our UU, especially when the base unit requires two resources, is nice.

Combined with Dom's post on PHI, much of which mirrors my own opinion of the trait, I agree that Saladin looks very, very good.

I'm also in Arrian's boat on the Jag, having never seen enough attraction in it to actually try it out.

[Arrian]

Oh yes, I understand. CoD had, what, 15? 20? warriors standing by for upgrade to swords when that ****ing iron depleted. Man, that sucked.

-Arrian

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Arrian
Oh yes, I understand. CoD had, what, 15? 20? warriors standing by for upgrade to swords when that ****ing iron depleted. Man, that sucked.

-Arrian

^^understatement^^

(member of ally, Monty Python)

[Solomwi]

And wasn't much better for us once Monkey hit our stack. Having to nursemaid our handful of remaining swords really bit into their usefulness.

[Harovan]

Is that a Python-CoD discussion?

Can I join in?

[alva]

I want to try to get some hub threads going as well, with pure links to important posts.

Just in case you hadn't noticed, we can still edit each others posts.