My pick analyses. I value ORG more than WK, so mine is going to be a little different. Also, not going to discuss player skill below, will cover that later.
Smackdown
Mehmed of Sumer (EXP/ORG, Vulture/Ziggaraut, The Wheel/Agriculture)
Liz of Rome (FIN/PHI, Praet/Forum, Mining/Fishing)
This is my favorite pick by far, and the best imho. You've got a very obvious expander and very obvious supporter, and they both should be good at what they do. ORG obviously goes well with Ziggarauts. Once they hit Priesthood, they can expand relatively unhindered. Each city building an EXP granary and ORG Ziggaraut first, and their cities will get up and running relatively quickly. No real synergy between Rome and Liz, other than the minor combing the Forum and PHI. That will probably boost them in one or two cities, but be negligible otherwise. They clearly picked Rome as the best Mining/Fishing Civ left. Praets are not as good without AGG, but still should form a very effective deterrent to anyone who wants to mess with them. Combined Vulture/Praet stacks could be terrifying, but fortunately I doubt we'll see that this game as it woud be a massive economic drain. The anti-synergy here is not putting FIN on the civ with the most land, but with Darius off the table there was no real way to do that.
Overall Rating:
hammerhammer
LAME
Darius of HRE (FIN/ORG, Landsknecht/Rathaus, Mysticism/Hunting)
Joao of England (EXP/IMP, Redcoat/Stock Exchange, Mining/Fishing)
Commodore should be very comfortable playing this pick.
I'd tie this one in utility with our picks, though ours is significantly more flexible. The plan here is very obvious: Darius spams cities everywhere, growing cottages and managing costs with ORG Rathauses, Joao builds workers and settlers to support him. They're going to significantly handicap Joao and bolster Darius. If they can pull it off, it will be very scary. However, it's going to require a large degree of cooperation to make it work. As for UUs/UBs: LS's are pretty meh, nothing really to note there. Redcoats are in theory amazing, but they never have really shone in an RB game - maybe this will be the one? SE's are late, but solid. They're starting techs absolutely suck, but worth it for Rathauses imho. Overall, this pick is very dependent on teamwork and getting to CoL in one piece. If they do, however, watch out.
Overall Rating:hammerhammer
Real Men of Genius: Reloaded
Huyana Capac of the Maya (Financial/Industrious, Holkan/Ball Court, Mining/Mysticism)
Gandhi of Egypt (Spiritual/Philosophical, War Chariot/Obelisk, Agriculture/The Wheel)
Like I said above, I'd tie us for second with LAME. There is some good stuff here. As one of two IND, we have an advantage going for wonders and obviously have a high motivated to get to MC ASAP. No way anyone rushes us early with Holkans and WCs, and in fact, we should consider spitting out a few WCs to go harass our opponents. Obelisks are actually really good here as they allow us to leverage PHI earlier than normal. With the food bonuses at Start #1 + Obelisks + Gandhi, we should be able to power our early expansion with settled GPs. They'll also aid us to bulbing CoL quickly to unlock Courthouses. We really need to leverage IND into Oracle/Pyramids. To make this work, Gandhi really needs Representation to run a SE and cover our tech costs until Huyana's cottages mature and take over for late-game teching.
Overall Rating:hammerhammer
Team 4H
Bismarck of Native America (EXP/IND, Dog Soldier/Totem Pole, Fishing/Agriculture)
Victoria of Korea (FIN/IMP, Hwach'a/Seowon, Mining/Mysticism)
Nothing screams: I WANT STONEHENGE like Bismarck of NA (though we can still beat them to it if we'd like by virtue of turn order). I like these picks the least. There's some good stuff here - the leaders are overall good - however, I feel like these Civ choices are just sub-par. So, obviously they want SH, and after that...idk. Bismarck I presume will be the 'supporter' - building wonders and workers for Korea - while Victoria expands. I feel like IMP is limited in utility on Immortal though, at least before CoL. Hwaca'as and Dogs are okay UUs, but hardly anything to write home about. Seowons are slightly better, but still are a bit lackluster compared to some of the other options. I think the idea between SH/Totem poles is to be able to spam out 5xp archers for faux-protective and dare anyone to come after them. I'll be very interested to see how these picks play out.
Overall Rating:hammer
With 6 ancient era UUs, early rushes are going to be tempting for the teams here - but consequently may be harder to pull off depending on who you're rushing. I don't think it would behoove Mackseven very much to send Praets against dogs, for example. LAME may be a little at risk here due to their lack of an ancient/classical-era UU facing Praets, Vultures, Dogs, and WCs. We shall see, the map size may prohibit any sort of early military adventure a la PB6.
So, the total picks of each trait?
Financial: 4
Expansive: 3
Organized: 2
Industrious: 2
Imperialistic: 2
Philosophical: 2
Spiritual: 1
Creative: 0
Charismatic: 0
Aggressive: 0
Protective: 0
Smackdown
Mehmed of Sumer (EXP/ORG, Vulture/Ziggaraut, The Wheel/Agriculture)
Liz of Rome (FIN/PHI, Praet/Forum, Mining/Fishing)
This is my favorite pick by far, and the best imho. You've got a very obvious expander and very obvious supporter, and they both should be good at what they do. ORG obviously goes well with Ziggarauts. Once they hit Priesthood, they can expand relatively unhindered. Each city building an EXP granary and ORG Ziggaraut first, and their cities will get up and running relatively quickly. No real synergy between Rome and Liz, other than the minor combing the Forum and PHI. That will probably boost them in one or two cities, but be negligible otherwise. They clearly picked Rome as the best Mining/Fishing Civ left. Praets are not as good without AGG, but still should form a very effective deterrent to anyone who wants to mess with them. Combined Vulture/Praet stacks could be terrifying, but fortunately I doubt we'll see that this game as it woud be a massive economic drain. The anti-synergy here is not putting FIN on the civ with the most land, but with Darius off the table there was no real way to do that.
Overall Rating:
hammerhammerLAME
Darius of HRE (FIN/ORG, Landsknecht/Rathaus, Mysticism/Hunting)
Joao of England (EXP/IMP, Redcoat/Stock Exchange, Mining/Fishing)
Commodore should be very comfortable playing this pick.
I'd tie this one in utility with our picks, though ours is significantly more flexible. The plan here is very obvious: Darius spams cities everywhere, growing cottages and managing costs with ORG Rathauses, Joao builds workers and settlers to support him. They're going to significantly handicap Joao and bolster Darius. If they can pull it off, it will be very scary. However, it's going to require a large degree of cooperation to make it work. As for UUs/UBs: LS's are pretty meh, nothing really to note there. Redcoats are in theory amazing, but they never have really shone in an RB game - maybe this will be the one? SE's are late, but solid. They're starting techs absolutely suck, but worth it for Rathauses imho. Overall, this pick is very dependent on teamwork and getting to CoL in one piece. If they do, however, watch out. Overall Rating:
hammerhammerReal Men of Genius: Reloaded
Huyana Capac of the Maya (Financial/Industrious, Holkan/Ball Court, Mining/Mysticism)
Gandhi of Egypt (Spiritual/Philosophical, War Chariot/Obelisk, Agriculture/The Wheel)
Like I said above, I'd tie us for second with LAME. There is some good stuff here. As one of two IND, we have an advantage going for wonders and obviously have a high motivated to get to MC ASAP. No way anyone rushes us early with Holkans and WCs, and in fact, we should consider spitting out a few WCs to go harass our opponents. Obelisks are actually really good here as they allow us to leverage PHI earlier than normal. With the food bonuses at Start #1 + Obelisks + Gandhi, we should be able to power our early expansion with settled GPs. They'll also aid us to bulbing CoL quickly to unlock Courthouses. We really need to leverage IND into Oracle/Pyramids. To make this work, Gandhi really needs Representation to run a SE and cover our tech costs until Huyana's cottages mature and take over for late-game teching.
Overall Rating:
hammerhammerTeam 4H
Bismarck of Native America (EXP/IND, Dog Soldier/Totem Pole, Fishing/Agriculture)
Victoria of Korea (FIN/IMP, Hwach'a/Seowon, Mining/Mysticism)
Nothing screams: I WANT STONEHENGE like Bismarck of NA (though we can still beat them to it if we'd like by virtue of turn order). I like these picks the least. There's some good stuff here - the leaders are overall good - however, I feel like these Civ choices are just sub-par. So, obviously they want SH, and after that...idk. Bismarck I presume will be the 'supporter' - building wonders and workers for Korea - while Victoria expands. I feel like IMP is limited in utility on Immortal though, at least before CoL. Hwaca'as and Dogs are okay UUs, but hardly anything to write home about. Seowons are slightly better, but still are a bit lackluster compared to some of the other options. I think the idea between SH/Totem poles is to be able to spam out 5xp archers for faux-protective and dare anyone to come after them. I'll be very interested to see how these picks play out.
Overall Rating:
hammerWith 6 ancient era UUs, early rushes are going to be tempting for the teams here - but consequently may be harder to pull off depending on who you're rushing. I don't think it would behoove Mackseven very much to send Praets against dogs, for example. LAME may be a little at risk here due to their lack of an ancient/classical-era UU facing Praets, Vultures, Dogs, and WCs. We shall see, the map size may prohibit any sort of early military adventure a la PB6.
So, the total picks of each trait?
Financial: 4
Expansive: 3
Organized: 2
Industrious: 2
Imperialistic: 2
Philosophical: 2
Spiritual: 1
Creative: 0
Charismatic: 0
Aggressive: 0
Protective: 0
We may have to concede HG/MoM unless we rush there or get a 2nd GE, but Gandhi will be able to bulb religious Medieval techs quite easily and there's some good wonders there. I'd highly recommend we aim for the religious wonders with the only SPI civ in the game, everything else we'll have to decide on when we get there.
Nobody ever plays Russia or Japan, so red would be a bit out of the ordinary. Black would also be cool, a la Locke & Cervantes in PB4
