Leader / Civ Picking Thread

[Sommerswerd]

Egypt is pretty strong choice

@2metra

did you check the "Financial x Organized Battle round" thread posted by me in S&T? It's newest take on the traits.

As a matter of fact I did read that thread yesterday And I recall there were avid fans of both posting on the site, as well as a bunch who were renouncing the whole setup as imbalanced (because the simulation wasnt long enough and because the civs werent the same in the first go-round). But in the end it seemed to me that the majority opinion (which is not in and of itself and indication of 'correct-ness') was that FIN was a little better. Sombody did a good turn by turn analysis that had FIN score somwhere in the 80s' and ORG somwhere in the 70's... really people should just go look at the thread.

Anyway TMIT seemed to favor FIN, so I thought, he's pretty knowledgeable/respected so...

@ 2metra - I think the difficulty level is even higher (Emperor) for this game so your point is stronger in that sense. Also can you explain why TOROIDAL has such a big impact? I admit I have never played on a Toroidal map.

I still favor Mansa Musa, but I can be persuaded to Asoka if ORG is truly better than FIN. Anyone else... not so much.

 

[vranasm]

toroidal have big impact on the way the distance is calculated.
should have no influence over civics costs from what I remember.

Maybe will be bigger emphasis on building courthouses though. (Usually you're ok if city doesn't have over 6-7 gpt maintenance)

In a lot of games you can really delay building courthouses (my personal benchmark for building courthouse is around 5 gpt maintenance in the city and even then sometimes building wealth straight can be better option)

I think it was claimed by iranon that if you work around 30-40% of financial improved tiles in your empire, financial provides better benefit.

The whole thing is of course more problematic and drawing clear line is tough. You definitely have to take a look on the map to say which trait will be better.

For example the game I "created" there was actually pretty good scenario for financial, since as I stated that capital spot was clearly bureau cottage spot, basically ideal situation for financial to shine.

Really depends if you want/have to run high cost civics too... in a lot of games bureau can be viewed as useless (good rex, low commerce capital is typical scenario), otoh vassalage is high cost civic too.

Problem here is that organized is pretty tied to the civics you want to run and the high cost ones are the ones you're bothered with.

So for example if we don't plan to run bureau, OR based on the map/religions, it's completely possible the organized will be "useless"... etc

Financial is more universal and kicks in bigger amount sooner if you have land (sparing 0.5 gpt on slavery is not something I would call "yay" about)

 

[bistrita]

I read all arguments very careful,and i am realy sorry that my english its not beter so i can debate with more intensity,but i have few points here:

1.If a trait its picked by many teams doesnt mean its the best, its just that the people know to play that way.So i dont think financial its a must.
2.what strategy do we falow? We want to fight for early religion and got busted by 1 turn or even worse at thiebreker?With India we have to reserch :agriculture,animal husbandry, the wheel , potery so i think an early religion its out of question from my point of view.
3.We picked India(although i voted Darius) , lets use the civ , if we wanted stonehenge we should pick egipt or other civ wich has bonus from stonehenge, etiopia .My personal experince tells me India goes the best with creativ and becasue our UU its a worker its very good EXp too.

There its wrong conception you fall behind in tech because you dont have financial, you do that becasue of bad planing or becasue some neigbour declares war on you and there is nothing to do.
Practicaly with fin you lock yourself in a tipe of economy , and i fount that financial and spiritual actualy dont have a great sinergy.

So my option its to go for avery fast start completly ignoring early religion, and for that are 2 leaders:
Suryanam and Zara yagob.

 

[YossarianLives]

Hey guys, not only are we up, but we're getting passed up in the leader selection thread!

I don't want to rush the process since it doesn't seem that we have a clear consensus yet, but I also don't want us to look unorganized and disjointed by taking too long to make our decision. Everyone who has a preference should vote in the leader choice poll ASAP. I had originally voted for Isabella, but if it gets close between Mansa and someone else, I just want to point out that I've changed my mind to Mansa, fwiw.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Just a reminder to everyone. Civplayers made their pick about 9 hours ago. So we have about 15 hours to discuss under the "deadline" that Lord Parkin set.

Now we don't have to stick to the deadline at all, in fact since the next teams are picking Civs not leaders, there is no pressure on us whatsoever until Apolyton picks. However, once Apolyton picks AND the 15 hours are up, people are going to start whining.

Again, I don't care that they whine so much if we really need the time, but if we can come to a decision before whining starts that would be better, right?

 

[DaveShack]

Other teams said they would need time and got "it's important take all you need" as an answer. If necessary we should do the same.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This is a very rough analysis, so please forgive me, but it is just to give people an idea of where my head is at with leader traits.

Let's assume we have an empire working 100 tiles. Lets also assume that 40% of them are tiles benefited by the FIN trait. I assume this, because folks have stated (and I have read elsewhere) that you need 30%-40% FIN benefitted tiles to make it better than ORG. So lets assume 40% to be on the safe side.

So that's 40 tiles. 40 tiles benefitted by FIN = +40. This is because FIN gives +1 commerce on the tile for each tile getting the benefit. Every tile getting the FIN benefit will be making a minimum of 3 commerce, because that's how FIN works (2 commerce tiles get +1 commerce). So those 40 tiles make a minimum of 120 commerce between them.

Now assuming it takes us until turn 200 to get to the point where we have a base of 120 commerce and that stays constant for the whole game (which it won't obviously) and the game goes to turn 300, that's 100 turns of 120 commerce or 12000 commerce total, a third of which, or 4000, is from FIN.

Now we want to change Civics. When we go into 1 turn of Anarchy we will lose that +40 commerce from FIN, in fact we will lose all our commerce being produced, but we will also pay no maintenance. We also lose all our , , , , , , points and , points.. But just looking at the commerce for now, we lose 120 commerce for 1 turn. Now the absolute most we could change Civics in 100 turns is 20 times, because you can only change once every 5 turns. We probably wont change civic 20 times, in 100 turns, but if we did, SPI would save us 2400 commerce (120 * 20). If we change our Civics only 5 times, which we certainly will, it saves us 600 commerce.

With bank+market+grocer in each commerce generating city this becomes 1200 saved. Now assuming we will have at least half as high food and hammer output as commerce including modifiers, that means we save about 2400 "widgets" with SPI.

What does all this mean? I don't know. I am just giving us a point to continue our discussion from. I am not intending for this analysis to favor any particular leader. I just want some meaningful comparison.

 

[DaveShack]

We are not being bypassed -- if another team with leader to pick comes up they'll have to wait. It's almost a bonus, we get to see some more civ picks and therefore know more of the total combinations.

 

[bistrita]

I see peole dont even consider Surry or Zara, and perhaps asking them self who i am that i strongly recomand them, i have a question are you ready for a dead slow start ,becasue that Mansa means: no bonus on workers, no bonus on buildings ,nothing .Just an example if you have a city wich potentila has cooper and corn but the city cant have both in first ring what you do? how much time will get for that city to be up an running, and same question goes for every single city,with vreativ expansiv you can have granary and border expansion before city goes to size 2, thing whic never will happen with other leaders.people when consider financial see just this wow gave 1 gold plus but cant see that with creativ you work cotage with 8-10 fatser with expansiv work more cottages faster, get discount on buildings so you save forests or whips for somethng else.

I played and won loads of game against financial civs ,and werent SP games ,but MP and the oponents were good.

Another thing usualy someone doenst feel to strong about atacking a creativ civ, you know getting the defence bonus very quick.

If we go with mansa our civ will slower even than boudica, at least they have charistmathic for bigger cities(this one could be good if scarce happines resource, or not that good if there are alot of happines resources).

 

[DaveShack]

Such a wide diversity of opinion, and lots of good reasons too.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I am not persuaded away from SPI, or to CRE as I think we can just chop Stonehenge. But Isabella with EXP is sounding better from bistrita's comments.

 

[talonschild]

I REALLY think we oughta go for an early religion - an early religion will allow us to have border pops without CRE, monuments, or Stonehenge. We have mysticism (though many others do too).

 

[DaveShack]

I also like the free at a difficulty level where it could be limiting.

 

[talonschild]

Everyone's encouraged to visit the Leader Choice poll. Alternates and Changes can be put in the comments.

We want to move towards a decision.

 

[Caledorn]

I am not persuaded away from SPI, or to CRE as I think we can just chop Stonehenge. But Isabella with EXP is sounding better from bistrita's comments.

I'm pretty sure our opponents think they can chop SH too. That being said, SPI is one of my absolute favorite traits, so I'm with you on the trait for certain!

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[tobiasn]

Spur of the moment-thing, I voted HC. But I'm also very cool with Mansa. I'm afraid if we don't go FIN we'll fall behind on tech in the early game, and since we have no military traits or SUs on the table, that can be kinda .

So why the hell IND over SPI -- well, as someone (Sommers?) elaborated on, we can get a lot of "traits" from wonders, henge has been mentioned.. Fast workers + IND leaves us with a much better chance, even w/o stone. And we can leverage that several times.

However, for me this is kinda strange.. I very seldom focus on wonders. Often I feel they're a waste of hammers and forests. But then again, I usually play quite agressively against the AI, and in a longer game wonders can be worthwhile in a totally different way. And they'll be much harder to capture.

I do see the benefits of SPI though, very much so. So it's a difficult decision. I really appreciate the work some of you put down in the analysis, it's very interesting.

 

[bistrita]

About Spi beeing that strong, you'll swich civics and enduring anarchy maximu 2-3 turns , one will loose few hammers and other only if will be forced to doit latter , if diplomacy will work well everithing will be timed with golden ages.

And again finacial its not beterr for early tech than creativ , becasue with creativ you get cities faster developed, work more tiles faster, get faste libraries.

About earliy religion its completly a play with that many cities wich start with mystices, and early religion means delaying worker tech, and delaying worker tech slow development,and slow development=fall behind in tech and population and everithing.People are saying civ its snowball game , how you get that snowbal going with SPI, fin? For me i dont see how.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I'm pretty sure our opponents think they can chop SH too.

You're absolutely right. Frankly, given the fact that 4 opponents are starting the game with Mysticism, I'd say we are in for 3 races right off the bat (SH, Meditation, Polytheism), and we can only win 1 of them.

Race to Stonehenge - The team that gets Stonehenge will have to beeline it, by settling and immediately starting it, or go Worker, then Stonehenge, and use the Worker to Chop it. Stonehenge is 60 on Normal speed IIRC so thats 3 chops (20 each). Our fast worker does that in 9 turns flat. The other teams all take 12 turns minimum, because they lose 1 turn everytime they enter a forest.

A worker is 60. Its essentially 45 for EXP civs with the 25% discount. Generally you can work a 2tile that gives you a worker in 10 turns. Capital 1, 2 + plains forest 1 2 =6 prodution/turn. 60/6= 10 turns(So if we are EXP we get the worker in 8 turns). So we would get SH on turn 19 (turn 17 if we are EXP) going the Worker-->SH route...

EXCEPT, that we need Bronze Working to use chops. BW is 120. You get 8 from the palace which running 100% gives 8 per turn. So that's 15 turns to BW if we beeline it, which we can do, because India starts with Mining

So that means we get SH on turn 24 going Worker-->SH chop. So at a glance it seems EXP does not help us here, as getting the Worker faster only means the worker sits waiting longer for BW to finish. We could add 15 hammers to SH by just working the Capital 1 + 2 forest, waiting for BW for 5 turns but that does not save a chop as chops are 20 hammers, not 15. If we are EXP though, it does save a Chop as those extra 2 turns mean 6 more , so now we only need 2 Chops instead of three, which means 3 less turns of worker action. So 15 turns to BW + 6 turns chopping = SH on turn 21 with EXP.

The last option is to just build SH right out of the gate working our highest tile. Assuming that's a 2 forest, we take 20 turns to SH. However, that is the same for everyone. So if anyone is before us in the imbedded order (like if they are Player 1 and we are Player 2), they will win the race by default if we finish on the same turn. If we are IND, our 3/turn becomes 4, and SH finishes in 15 turns. We can also pick up that extra hammer by settling on a plains hill, which gives +1 to the capital. Of course if we dont spawn on a plains hill we will have to lose 1 turn minimum moving to one. Also, if we do spawn on a plains hill it is highly likely that everyone is spawning on plains hills, because some would call it unfair otherwise.

Civforum could still pick an IND leader (Capac for instance) and since they have Inca as their civ, they start with Mysticism. If they pick IND, and go SH right out of the gate, no one can beat them to it, period. Now to me, picking IND, just so we can get SH is dumb. We could just pick CRE and then we already basically have SH. and we can go for a religion instead. But IND is good for other wonders besides SH of course.

Bottom line is that the best way to get SH is build it right away, and Fast Workers, BW, Chops, and EXP are irrelevant. The only way to guarantee SH is to pick an IND leader and build it right away. If we are not going to do either of these then we should forget about SH cause we're not getting it, maybe go for a religion instead. If we are, then I would recommend we don't pick Capac, pick someone else and see what Civforum.de does. If they pick Capac or any IND leader, then we forget about SH. If they don't pick Capac, we see where we are in the playing order. If we are in front of the other Mysticism teams, then we are a shoe in to get it and we should build it right away.

Of course if we go with CRE then we can ignore SH no matter what anyone else does.

 

[vranasm]

well honestly not sure about the obsession with SH...

it costs 150 hammers for non-ind leader, so basically you get the hammers back after you settle 5 cities past capital, aka when you get your 6th (capital doesn't need one) and you can have cities where you even don't need to build monument (religion, all good tiles first ring, overlap with capital etc.)

non-creative leaders have to settle with food first ring, which can be a bit issue

and last investing 150 hammers into wonder before 2nd, 3rd worker, 2nd settler and couple of warriors is definitely foolish even on SP, can't imagine how foolish it can be in MP game.

don't forget we need 2nd city out very soon since it is net benefit for empire if you get river connection off the go (the increased commerce the city together with TR brings is more then maintenance cost).

We should not fall into economy traps.

 

[Sommerswerd]

About Spi beeing that strong, you'll swich civics and enduring anarchy maximu 2-3 turns , one will loose few hammers and other only if will be forced to doit latter , if diplomacy will work well everithing will be timed with golden ages.

And again finacial its not beterr for early tech than creativ , becasue with creativ you get cities faster developed, work more tiles faster, get faste libraries.

About earliy religion its completly a play with that many cities wich start with mystices, and early religion means delaying worker tech, and delaying worker tech slow development,and slow development=fall behind in tech and population and everithing.People are saying civ its snowball game , how you get that snowbal going with SPI, fin? For me i dont see how.

The more I think about it, I would not mind going with Hatshepsut SPI, CRE so we can ignore SH, go worker first and maybe get a Religion. Nobody picked a civ with Fishing IIRC, so no one has any advantage going for religions unless you have a tile with commerce. If we do, and we are higher in the order than other Mysticism civs, we work the commerce tile to get a religion first. If not, then we go BW-->Masonry and Chop GW. Then we can REX without having to worry about Barbs. Then with Masory we can get Monotheism (after Polytheism)