Least favored archetypes?

[Stringer1313]

What archetypes do you think could use some love / are least favored?

I find myself always trying to avoid / hoping to avoid from most useless to me to least:

- Builders: I don't need tons of new workers so badly i want the production cost, and building wonders faster doesn't interest me so much as being the first to start building one. And i'm always rolling in money.

- Tactician: the stun is cute but the leader's unit always gets slaughtered first anyway. I only ever pick tactician for the science boost in early game only

- Schemer: I find legitimacy to precious to ever waste and usually don't have a problem with kids. Again i only pick this for the science boost in early game only

- Orator: a little passive/boring. I do appreciate the religion boost but without some kind of unique action that only the orator can do, i don't really get this one.

Agree/disagree? Are there benefits to these that I'm missing?

 

[Verrucosus]

I'm not often very looking for any of these four in my next leader, but situationally they can be very useful.
- Builders: For a peaceful early game, a builder leader serving as capital governor speeds up both growth and improvement construction in that city. This is also the period when pretty much every new city builds a worker, so that's a lot of saved turns in total. The worker cooperation can in some situations where construction speed matters, for example getting the Pyramids built in half the time can mean getting new laws passed 5 turns sooner (or 50 % cheaper). Another example is when trying for a double victory that can easily turn on getting some wonders finished before your next opponent conquers another city or his cities reach a new culture level.
- Tactician: The stun ability feels extremely useful in early battles against small barbarian/tribal forces that can be finished a lot faster when one of their units can't attack. The 10 % attack bonus for hidden ranged units seems small, but it can add up in a large scale defensive war with archers shooting from trees.
- Schemer: Turning legimitacy into orders is something that I've done in emergencies, but those are very rare. The adoption mechanic is interesting for roleplay purposes. The hidden scout ability can help with ambitions to reveal the map before infiltration becomes available.
- Orators: In the late game, with a large empire and friendly families, the orders bonus can be significant. I haven't used the tribal unit recruitment. I know it's powerful from my Carthage games, but legitimacy is just too precious.
In a recent game, I have picked the archetype for my heir for diplomatic reasons to match that of a young foreign leader. They were both orators and got along splendidly once my old ruler had died. That could, of course, have been any other archetype, so it wasn't a specific benefit.

 

[King Jason]

The Builder is easily the most powerful archetype in the entire game and it's not even a contest. The other one would probably be Diplomat but that's only because in a single player game of Old World, the Diplomat is basically just a cheat code. If we assume that you don't want to use the archetype that can basically turn off all of the opponents in the game, then the next most powerful and impactful would be the builder. A Diplomat will turn off the game, a Builder just drops the difficulty. So I'd put those two in a league of their own. Every archetype breaks the rules in some way and each one is pretty solid / strong at they ways in which they do it. Schemers and Zealots are both exceptionally strong. A Hero or Tactician in a war can often be enough to win it. Judges and Scholars are both immensely useful. I'd say perhaps the Orator and the Commanders stand out the least but both are still solid. Assuming you get your opinion up, the Orator can translate to a lot of orders, but this can be fickle - something like a schemer is way more consistent and reliable. The commander packs a punch and your army will be stronger, less flashy than the other Generals but still solid.

An archetypes strength is only relevant if you use it. So a Diplomat being the strongest archetype is only true if you use it to secure peace with tribes, expand using purchase power, and secure a national ally to effectively make you immune to bullying or being threatened. If you don't press those strengths then the Diplomat won't seem useful. Similarly, absolutely nothing compares to the power of a builder. The statement "building wonders quicker doesn't interest me" highlights a devaluation of where the power of this archetype is. Same with the worker comment - the builder is less about tons of new workers and more about getting the workers you need faster. In fact, everything the builder does speeds up the game considerably, and that means you're advancing through the game considerably. Or even at the end when you're closing out a points victory and your economy is strong enough to buy build legendary wonders outright. A legendary wonders takes 16 turns to build and a builder can do it in 1 turn... So we're discussing an archetype that has the ability to speed up games by nearly 20 turns. When you hit certain benchmarks, builders can bring your power online immediately. For example when you unlock scholarship or hit legendary culture for universities? A builder can take a city from zero libraries to a library/academy/university in exactly 3 turns. Every other archetype this would take 15+ turns. Another example of the Builder basically speeding up the game by nearly 20 turns. This impacts everything from yields, to build que efficiency, tech pace, law pace -- everything. The efficiency of a builder spills over into everything. You basically get to build everything almost instantly - and that spikes your power at every stage in the game.

That said, different archetypes shine in different ways - while the Builder and the Diplomat would reshape the game as a whole, neither do anything particularly interesting in a war. So a Hero on the throne during a war will also feel game changing.

The difference, in my mind, is that the use-case for the Builder is basically universal. The Diplomat, on the other hand, basically asks the player to be comfortable playing a neutered game.

Excellent for players who like chill, peaceful, builder-friendly style games. If you're a warmonger, though, then the Diplomat is effectively a cheat code.

 

[Stringer1313]

I've been playing OW from the beginning and I think i totally missed some buffs. I literally had no idea builders could speed up ordinary buildings too, not just wonders...! I do play on high difficulty so often lose the wonder race which is why I had found builders so useless.

But i def agree Diplomat is game changing - I totally abuse the ally thing too.

 

[PiR]

That's very personal I guess, and shows which aspects of the game I master or not:

Least appreciated
Hero will be awesome in offensive situations only. Tacticians and Orators are nice in very specific situations. Judges and Schemer I try to avoid, or would be OK late-game in specific situations.

Most appreciated
I find Zealots always powerful whatever the situation. Commander will always be nice, and Scholars I always desire, after having built Archive in all cities.
Builders are incredible. One reason not mentioned is you can gain terrain very rapidly through urban tile. Even if you're not ready to settle some places you can surround them by your territory so that no other settler can reach the site.


EDIT: after a few years not playing the game I understand you can miss the info about key changes!
Check out the spreadsheet when you can https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...6qKfrwZJoqyU/edit?gid=973834616#gid=973834616

 

[Verrucosus]

Builders are incredible. One reason not mentioned is you can gain terrain very rapidly through urban tile. Even if you're not ready to settle some places you can surround them by your territory so that no other settler can reach the site

I never considered using the "add urban tile" like that. It sounds like this costs a quite number of worker turns and a lot of stone, both precious early on. Isn't it easier to just park a unit on the site?

The Builder is easily the most powerful archetype in the entire game and it's not even a contest.

I would not put it like that, not least because I'd be worried to trigger more archetype changes. As you point out, Builders are as powerful as they are because they speed up the entire game, but that's only when their abilities are put to use early. The faster worker training is a good example because workers get built early in almost every city and because not just the workers themselves, but everything that gets built after them (including settlers and everything from their new cities!) happens that much earlier. (The manual author Velocyrix called this "Turn advantage" many years ago in his Alpha Centauri guide.) Speeding up the occasional mid-game worker training does not have the same kind of ripple effect. Speeding up important buildings later by on combining workers is still powerful, of course, but so are many of the other archetypes benefits.

 

[Solver]

Builder starts are banned as a house rule in many MP games, because of the turn advantage specifically. Cheaper Workers - you can get started on shrines/odeons sooner - stack workers to finish those even sooner - urban specialists earlier to give you the science edge or Zoroastrianism. And that's just one of the several ways to get a significant turn advantage with builders.

 

[PiR]

I never considered using the "add urban tile" like that. It sounds like this costs a quite number of worker turns and a lot of stone, both precious early on. Isn't it easier to just park a unit on the site?

That's true, my use-case is probably a niche, and explained like that, it would be better to just park a unit indeed, but it can forbid all passage (as long as you don't have open borders). So that you keep for yourself a group of sites where there are tribal/barbarian units still, which you want to deal with later (because you prefer to expand towards other civs and conquer this zone later).

 

[PiR]

I found an old game to illustrate this:

On the east, Hatti is moving north. I was planning to seal them south of the territory I wanted to conquer.

On the western front, I wanted to deny Persia to enter on my "continent":

 

[Verrucosus]

Thanks for explaining, PiR! I think this is the Egyptian "Learn by Playing" Map, and I actually remember the Hittites beating me to the eastern Vandal settlement shown on your first screenshot back when I played it. Sealing off an entire part of the map to "protect" tribes until I get to them seems a little crazy, but some of my rulers *are* crazy, so I'll keep it in mind!

 

[PiR]

I think that's the game yes, and probably a very peaceful one to allow such a tactic. Of course, if you have open borders or war, then it nullifies the whole operation.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Just lost a game this weekend because I couldn't finish a Wonder in time. I started looking through my family tree to figure out how many descendants I'd have to get rid of to be able to abdicate to a Builder, but I didn't have any in the blood line.

 

[PiR]

You can also change the succession system, from Primogeniture to something else.
Interesting thing about Primogeniture: that's the reason why the game never generates twins (just kidding)