How to Rise as a Ruler
A RaR Manual
Chapter 1: In the Beginning
On map settings
Goal is an interesting game with a competitive AI. If you want an easy game, you can always choose ‘No Barbarians’ on a 80% water Archipelago, and pick the only SEA Civ against nothing but EXP opponents…
For surprisingly many reasons, the usual rule of “Medium everything=Balanced game” is a not entirely true for RaR/ DyP.
*Map Size
A matter of personnel taste.
*Land Form and Water Coverage
With no generic ships before Longboats able to even enter Ocean tiles, islands are more isolated here (especially for the AI).
*Humidity
Rivers/ Lakes are less important in the early game; cities will hardly grow large enough to require an Aquaduct before Construction is known, and you cannot irrigate before the second era anyway.
And, Coastal cities can build Ports, which are cheaper than Aquaducts.
*Climate
You cannot found cities on Tundra and Desert. That makes the extreme settings tougher.
*Age
Most important issue. Grassland in the unmodded game rules – in RaR, it cannot be mined; thus, an all-Grassland start is not that great. Then, some terrain types are way better in RaR. Mountains are superior to Hills for production, and Jungle is a quite good terrain; it cannot be cleared before Industrial Age, but gives a nice 2fpt/1spt right away. Plus many resources.
Since the human player tends to restart until he gets a decent start anyway, young (3 billion) worlds are usually more interesting – sure, some AI Civs will end with ugly starts, but some will get really nice ones.
*Barbarians
The unmodded Barbarians are, depending on the level you play, either a nice target practice and source of extra gold and Techs for the Human and AI Civs, or only for either the Human or the AI. Because of that, most players prefer no Barbarians for the higher levels (unless you play an EXP Civ, of course).
In RaR, the Barbarians are quite threatening… 4.3.2 Riders! In other words, Warriors and Archers have a hard time against them, so Barbs are a nice way to help with the additional AI units on the higher levels.
Also, all Civs have access to Scouts, and Curraghs are 0.0.1, so they don’t count as military units, allowing the Human to pop huts without risk of getting Barbarians until you start building Warriors/ Tribal Guards.
To summarize that, I suggest to choose moderate/moderate/young worlds with roaming Barbarians as standard settings; either continents, or Pangea/Archipelago depending on the Civ you want to play.
Picking a Civ
DyP already had 31 Civs, designed for a better distribution on World Maps. RaR uses the same selection, so none of the new c3c Civs is included.
Also, some Civs have different traits compared to c3c. Most unique units are the same (exception is America – while you can argue how useful Naval UUs are, F-15s as UU plain simply suck), but may differ in their stats.
Traits:
DyP and even more RaR wants to make the traits feel even more different, especially in the early game. And, some traits (especially AGR) are a bit unbalanced in the unmodded game.
For that reason, most traits offer right from the start a ‘Trait-specific Unit’ (TSU) or ‘Trait-Specific Improvement’ (TSI), to either help them, or, in case of AGR, weaken them a bit:
SCI:
Wiseman TSI, a 20sp scientific city improvement (no culture, though). Considering the amount of scientific buildings, the impacts of Wisemen in the late game isn’t that big, but a single Wiseman in your capital drastically redouces the research time for the first techs.
COM:
Counselor TSI, additional Courthouse. Again, the impact on the late game is limited, but for the first Governments with their horrible corruption, those things rule.
MIL:
Champions (2.1.1) instead of Warriors. On Monarch and below, MIL Civs are often able to overrun a neighbour in the very first turns. ‘Always War’ Games are quite fun as well…
And, since Barracks aren’t available before late Ancient, the more frequent promotions really help.
EXP:
Rangers (0.1.2 ‘All Terrain as Grassland') instead of Scouts. Combined with the proposed Young Worlds, contacts and exploration are a lot easier for EXP Civs. The defence value may sound meagre, but since Rangers tend to retreat when attacked, their survivability against Barbarians is pretty high.
Also, EXP Civs start with Domestication (Horses!), for me the best starting tech at all.
SEA:
Curraghs are only available to SEA Civs. No other ship before Longboats (except for the Polynesian UU) can even enter Ocean tiles…
IND:
Serfs (instead of Workers), cost no upkeep. Not only do you need less workforce, they even don’t cost you any gpt.
REL:
Nothing. Considering you simply must revolt at least two times, and you have a selection of 13 different Governments, REL Civs really need no help.
AGR:
Cultivators/ Hardy Cultivators instead of Clans, cost 1 population point more. Because of the way the tile penalty works, AGR cities grow insanely faster under Chiefdom than those of non-AGR Civs. An AGR city without any food bonus grows form size one to size two in 10 turns (20 turns for other Civs). Adjacent to fresh water, it’ll grow in 7 turns!
While this at first looked like a huge balance problem, the Cultivators in fact made AGR much more realistic: You will have settlements that are a lot larger with all the benefits in no time; expansion, however, isn’t that much faster. Note also the smaller AGR bonus (+1 Food from irrigated Desert) has a weaker effect in RaR, since citizens consume more food, and many other tiles yield more fpt.
So, how strong a Civ is surely may depend on the map settings, but there really are no weak traits in RaR. Nevertheless, for the highest levels AGR still is the trait of choice.
To be continued.
. Sorry, but 8 is really enough normally...
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