Cromagnus
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2012
- Messages
- 2,272
But Pathfinders cost so much more than scouts that you realistically won't be finding more ruins than average, in fact you'll probably find less. Faith ruin picks don't become available until after turn 20, which is usually when all the ruins have been found on an average map. America can build almost 3 scouts for the same cost of your second pathfinder, and with their extra sight, they can find ruins and CS much faster. With Shoshone, their scouting game is like building a second warrior to use for scouting. For that price, you better be able to pick your reward.
America has a similar ruin game to Shoshone because, while they might not be able to pick the ruin, they find way more of them, resulting in similar rewards to the Shoshone, on top of more gold. I might even argue that America is better than Shoshone once you actually pass the start, because the UUs are both fantastic, but Shoshone's UA is oh so satisfying, and strangely cathartic.
Anyone could make a Tradition start ridiculous. Tradition is the "safe" tree that pretty much all civs do well with, and Shoshone aren't particularly good at doing anything with Tradition that it doesn't do with anyone else. No, what makes the Shoshone great is their ability to make Tradition's border growth redundant, to make their Liberty start look like a Tradition start. Fast expand on ALL the luxes! Shoshone are wasting their potential by taking Tradition.
The border expansion UA is far more useful than anything the pathfinders do. I've built second pathfinders and never even found a ruin with it, so the ability to pick your reward is still highly luck based. They are fantastic Liberty users because their extra land more than makes up for the slower border growth, so you can settle farther from luxes and closer to the food/rivers/mountains, box the AI in to prevent them from claiming your other spots, improve luxes and resources faster with your extra worker, then be ready to defend when the inevitable war comes.
Also, if you're gunning for a faith ruin, why skip the monument? Monuments are very important, give you long-term culture, and if you take Tradition anyway, it gives you an Amphitheater. Better hammer and gold return. Faith ruins are no guarantee, since they only appear after turn 20. You're better off skipping the shrine until you GET a faith ruin, that way you don't waste time chasing a religion that might not happen.
I get what you're saying, but to me there's no comparison. 4 ruins with Shoshone > 8 ruins with America, because all 4 are game-changers. Getting your first policy 20 turns earlier? Reliably? Getting to 5 pop 15-20 turns earlier? Reliably? Getting a free tech reliably? Getting your choice of pantheons most of the time? Getting a composite bow 50 turns early?? Come on, how can you say that isn't uber??
Prior to the expansion, people would constantly argue that you should play with ruins turned off because lucky ruins = easy win. And they were right. Playing Shoshone just feels like easy mode, like I'm getting a 20 turn head start. Consistently. Every game. It turns Deity into Immortal. You can't change my mind on that because I know from many play throughs. I got bored of playing as the Shoshone because it was too easy. So, believe what you will.