Jatta Pake
Warlord
I've started my 2nd BNW game hoping I would soon be getting crushed by the AI. I moved up a level to Emporer and selected Indonesia on Continents Plus (Large map, standard speed, 22 AI Civs and 20 CS). My intent was to get beaten up some as it makes for far more interesting and fun writing. Unfortunately I'm doing way, way better than expected.
Open All Policies Strategy
I am a mediocre civ player. I don't run any of the info mods even though I know these utilities really help. I also avoid mathematics. I know many players calculate all types of minutiae to give themselves an edge over the computer, but I don't play that way. My playstyle is like that of the human hero of a typical sci-fi flick - I like to beat the damn computer robots with human pluck, instinct and gumption.
My first game ended in Fail. I adjusted my strategy and decided to select culture policies in a different way. Rather than work to close out a social policy, I decided that I would go for opening everything. My thought process was this - most policies have some crappy options but all policies have some good stuff. The good stuff is inherently situational. In the middle of a nasty war, the Honor stuff is useful. When you are trying to expand, the Liberty policy is great. When you need some City States, Patronage is awesome.
The problem arises when you are several policies down the Liberty tree and you get faced with a brutal war. You have only two options - open Honor and lose the closing out benefits of Liberty, or bite the bullet and continue closing out Liberty.
My hypothesis is this: Opening every policy doubles your policy options. This doubling of policy options outweighs any benefit of closing out any single policy. Options Over Closing - BNW requires players to be flexible and able to adjust to changing factors within the game. When you start a game you don't know if you are next to Shaka or Ghandi. You don't know if Greece, Austria, or Venice will be in game messing with city states (if you selected default AIs).
Racing through and closing a social policy is inherently inefficient when faced with random variables. You may get lucky and nail the right one. More likely, you will need to maintain strategic flexibility throughout the game rather than be locked into a single strategy because you want the bonus from the policy close out. As it stands though, none of the policy closing bonuses outweigh the benefits of having more situational policy options.
Tradition, Liberty, Honor
This is going to be a bold sentence. But I think the best opening culture path is:
1. Open Tradition
2. Open Liberty
3. Open Honor
In that order. Why? Each opening provides additional Culture. Using your first three policies to increase culture will allow you to get more social policies. Yes, it does make closing out a tree more expensive but why do you need to close out a tree? Opening the three above instantly gives you seven policy options for your fourth policy. And most of the close out bonuses for these trees don't even become available until later in the game. Going to close out Liberty with your first three policies would give you five options for your fourth policy. Two of those options would give you more culture (open Tradition or Honor) that would have helped you get to your fourth policy faster.
I detected some math in the above paragraph. Bad math, but some math anyway. But rest assured my hypothesis is based solely on my gut feelings. I didn't do any math to come up with this optimal strategy. I think BNW optimizes when you don't close out a policy but go for opening as many as you can.
What do you think?
Open All Policies Strategy
I am a mediocre civ player. I don't run any of the info mods even though I know these utilities really help. I also avoid mathematics. I know many players calculate all types of minutiae to give themselves an edge over the computer, but I don't play that way. My playstyle is like that of the human hero of a typical sci-fi flick - I like to beat the damn computer robots with human pluck, instinct and gumption.
My first game ended in Fail. I adjusted my strategy and decided to select culture policies in a different way. Rather than work to close out a social policy, I decided that I would go for opening everything. My thought process was this - most policies have some crappy options but all policies have some good stuff. The good stuff is inherently situational. In the middle of a nasty war, the Honor stuff is useful. When you are trying to expand, the Liberty policy is great. When you need some City States, Patronage is awesome.
The problem arises when you are several policies down the Liberty tree and you get faced with a brutal war. You have only two options - open Honor and lose the closing out benefits of Liberty, or bite the bullet and continue closing out Liberty.
My hypothesis is this: Opening every policy doubles your policy options. This doubling of policy options outweighs any benefit of closing out any single policy. Options Over Closing - BNW requires players to be flexible and able to adjust to changing factors within the game. When you start a game you don't know if you are next to Shaka or Ghandi. You don't know if Greece, Austria, or Venice will be in game messing with city states (if you selected default AIs).
Racing through and closing a social policy is inherently inefficient when faced with random variables. You may get lucky and nail the right one. More likely, you will need to maintain strategic flexibility throughout the game rather than be locked into a single strategy because you want the bonus from the policy close out. As it stands though, none of the policy closing bonuses outweigh the benefits of having more situational policy options.
Tradition, Liberty, Honor
This is going to be a bold sentence. But I think the best opening culture path is:
1. Open Tradition
2. Open Liberty
3. Open Honor
In that order. Why? Each opening provides additional Culture. Using your first three policies to increase culture will allow you to get more social policies. Yes, it does make closing out a tree more expensive but why do you need to close out a tree? Opening the three above instantly gives you seven policy options for your fourth policy. And most of the close out bonuses for these trees don't even become available until later in the game. Going to close out Liberty with your first three policies would give you five options for your fourth policy. Two of those options would give you more culture (open Tradition or Honor) that would have helped you get to your fourth policy faster.
I detected some math in the above paragraph. Bad math, but some math anyway. But rest assured my hypothesis is based solely on my gut feelings. I didn't do any math to come up with this optimal strategy. I think BNW optimizes when you don't close out a policy but go for opening as many as you can.
What do you think?
Yes, this is why I haven't posted about my new game yet. I still have a long way to go so there is hope for me to screw up yet.
So, as I mostly focus on peaceful games, is just the opener worth picking up? I don't think so, the honor you gain is negligible by the end game. I might take it if I randomly roll Songhai, as I'll be building more units and hunting more barbs just for early money. If I'm not actively hunting them, I usually get away with just building an archer or two to help out my free warrior/spearman and scout/rune-upgraded archer.
