vranasm
Deity
With SGOTM 14 being close and after some of informations about the map I thought it would be actually good idea to make some training scenario.
You maybe ask at first place, why even participate in such scenario?
Well I think everyone could benefit with stronger participants overall.
The purpose is to concentrate the gameplay on the strengths of the combination of Traits, Starting techs and Difficulty.
Players should feel motivated to start different openings with the leader to see what can work with the traits and techs. No need to actually finish the games, because after set amount of time the gameplay doesn't depend much on the leader.
I would really like to get some training before the SGOTM and I thinking that some brainstorming could eventually lead to stronger games by all teams, as we say in CR "more heads, more knowledge".
Another quesiton that comes to mind, why I set it up "so low" with the influx of Immortal level games-players lately. It has of course it's reason.
Basically its about preparing people for the maintenance on Emperor (Deity players would feel like maintenance doesn't matter, Monarch players would feel that maintenance is "killing").
This training scenario could serve as some sort of benchmark that could help people judge how many early cities work, where are the break points of empire etc.
About the map.
At first I thought about world buildering the start that we already know about, but I think that is not purpose of the training.
Even if we optimized first 30 turns with maximum effort, we probably could find the absolute strongest start, but then there is the problem that most teams probably would choose such opening and basically would mean that would better to start with empires set up such way, diminishing the value of the actual start of the game.
Thus i rolled "similar enough" starting position on Pangea.
So to just reiterate some things about the leader.
Traits
Philosophical - you get 100% more GPP production basically meaning you get a little bit more great persons overall, the acceleration is most useful in the early part of game, where it matters most
Charismatic - that is in a way combination of war and economic trait and imo very strong one.
you get +1 happy in all cities just for the sake of having cities. And you can get another +1 happy for building monument (30H investment) which you will probably build in a lot of cities anyway, makes Stonehenge very interesting wonder. Meaning that in early game you will have happy cap of 6 in cities compared to 4 without cha, meaning if you place well cities and build enough workers you will have stronger empire. The influence of free happy diminishes over time, but certainly makes easier vertical expansion in the era where it matters most.
The other benefit is that you get cheaper promotions. This influence on promotions is imo useful mostly for producing easier level 3 units. for example to produce level 3 mounted units out of the gate you need barracks (3 exp), stable (2 exp), vassalage (2 exp) and theo (2 exp) or mix in settled GG. Without cha, you need 1 more settled GG to produce level 3 units (bigger investment).
Starting techs
Fishing - for the SGOTM 14 and this practice game it kind of feels like useless tech, but in SGOTM 14 allows working of the lake and offers discount on Pottery.
Agriculture - for SGOTM 14 allows improvement of 1 of starting foods, in this game (as you would see later) the biggest benefit is that it allows teching AH
Starting position
You maybe ask at first place, why even participate in such scenario?
Well I think everyone could benefit with stronger participants overall.
The purpose is to concentrate the gameplay on the strengths of the combination of Traits, Starting techs and Difficulty.
Players should feel motivated to start different openings with the leader to see what can work with the traits and techs. No need to actually finish the games, because after set amount of time the gameplay doesn't depend much on the leader.
I would really like to get some training before the SGOTM and I thinking that some brainstorming could eventually lead to stronger games by all teams, as we say in CR "more heads, more knowledge".
Another quesiton that comes to mind, why I set it up "so low" with the influx of Immortal level games-players lately. It has of course it's reason.
Basically its about preparing people for the maintenance on Emperor (Deity players would feel like maintenance doesn't matter, Monarch players would feel that maintenance is "killing").
This training scenario could serve as some sort of benchmark that could help people judge how many early cities work, where are the break points of empire etc.
About the map.
At first I thought about world buildering the start that we already know about, but I think that is not purpose of the training.
Even if we optimized first 30 turns with maximum effort, we probably could find the absolute strongest start, but then there is the problem that most teams probably would choose such opening and basically would mean that would better to start with empires set up such way, diminishing the value of the actual start of the game.
Thus i rolled "similar enough" starting position on Pangea.
So to just reiterate some things about the leader.
Traits
Philosophical - you get 100% more GPP production basically meaning you get a little bit more great persons overall, the acceleration is most useful in the early part of game, where it matters most
Charismatic - that is in a way combination of war and economic trait and imo very strong one.
you get +1 happy in all cities just for the sake of having cities. And you can get another +1 happy for building monument (30H investment) which you will probably build in a lot of cities anyway, makes Stonehenge very interesting wonder. Meaning that in early game you will have happy cap of 6 in cities compared to 4 without cha, meaning if you place well cities and build enough workers you will have stronger empire. The influence of free happy diminishes over time, but certainly makes easier vertical expansion in the era where it matters most.
The other benefit is that you get cheaper promotions. This influence on promotions is imo useful mostly for producing easier level 3 units. for example to produce level 3 mounted units out of the gate you need barracks (3 exp), stable (2 exp), vassalage (2 exp) and theo (2 exp) or mix in settled GG. Without cha, you need 1 more settled GG to produce level 3 units (bigger investment).
Starting techs
Fishing - for the SGOTM 14 and this practice game it kind of feels like useless tech, but in SGOTM 14 allows working of the lake and offers discount on Pottery.
Agriculture - for SGOTM 14 allows improvement of 1 of starting foods, in this game (as you would see later) the biggest benefit is that it allows teching AH
Starting position
I like the idea of some practise before my first SGOTM game.
.
