PB81 - Continental Drifters (TBS)

[The Black Sword]

After checking out the start, I think we need a civ with 2/3 of Agri/Fishing/Hunting and then to take the third with the free tech. That leaves our list of possible civs as:

America
Dutch
Greece
Natives
Persia
Vikings
Zulu

Hard to see how a civ with different techs could compete, the only one I might consider strong enough to make up for it would be Inca.

[The Black Sword]

I did play one game with CTH Pro and it was very good for me. But it was pretty much ideal circumstances - I got rushed early, there was no intercontinental foreign trade, and I was Carthage. I think I had a limited choice of options and was forced to take it or something. If I hadn't screwed up and gotten rushed I think other traits would be better. Even then I wondered if I would have just played differently with another trait. I'll agree there are situations where it can be good but I think we'll have to disagree on how a big a range of situations those are.

I see Cre as generally competing with IMP and EXP, all three of them give you ~30 free hammers per city. Most border pop methods are going to cost you ~30h anyway, in monuments and missionaries. And Cre is better than them! So it can be worth more than 30h. Then Cre's additional bonus of half priced libraries is better than the Imp or Exp add ons. I think we used to nerf Cre to +1c per city and I always felt that was perfectly competitive so when it was put back to it's original state it looks very good to me. 

There are definitely other good ways of getting culture but they all have costs attached to them too. I think Cha is a very competitive trait but on an average-happiness map, I would prefer the Cre snowball. For me the main counterargument for Cre is: can we dotmap better? That changes with every map and is a hard thing to evaluate, but in practice I've always felt like I got that value out of it.

No worries about pushing for different stuff, I like having to think things through. I also am quite happy to take a combo I think is weaker but want to try it out.

[Zed-F]

Of those civs you listed, I think America and Vikings are the most interesting. Probably play quite differently though.

Let me rephrase. America and Vikings are probably the 'best' picks; the others might be interesting if you are specifically looking for a handicap or are more interested in being prickly and less interested in overall power.

[Tarkeel]

Just to try illustrate settling the value of a settling a GS, since it would probably be a bit of a contentious decision. Suppose the first GS goes for an Academy and the 2nd is settled (in practice we might go the other order). Then the settled GS is getting 10.5bpt and 1hpt. How many hammers would you pay for a building that does that? 200h seems like a very reasonable number, even ignoring potential growth in the future from more mulipliers/Rep. If we are paying 200gpp for that then 1gpp=1h. And each Phi scientist is getting you 7.5gpp = 7.5h, 3b. That's an amazing tile we'd love to work.

In general, everyone tries to get even better value from the Great People, so gpp are more valuable than that. But the thing with Phi is we want to start getting value from our trait quickly so we need to find good uses for them as early as possible. Especially if you combine with the Pyramids and even more free gpp from America I think settling can work really well. Late game with Oxford/Rep/Emancipation/Factories it scales to 6hpt, 29bpt. Talking myself into this combo here ...

FWIW, Charriu did try the settling plan in PB67, which was aborted early on.

[The Black Sword]

I thought we were doing free worker+tech for the accelerated start, but it looks we are only getting a free tech. I was looking forward to skipping those early turn building the worker, but on the bright side it means we don't need to have all those 3 techs immediately, we probably only need a civ with one of them, take a second with the free tech and manually tech the third. So a lot more options should be open.

[Zed-F]

We’re likely starting on the bottom right corner of the island given where the coast seems to be in our starting screenshot so we probably don’t have 3 direct neighbors. And given how TBS feels about military traits, I don’t think he’s super inclined towards a rush. In general, rushing in the ancient era tends to be a losing strategy.

[scooter]

If we do go for Phi America, I'd love to try for Mids and settling a bunch of GS. 

Would love to watch this if that counts for anything. I've long felt settling GS might be more viable than it's considered, but I haven't been in the right spot to try it.

[The Black Sword]

You mentioned EXP thrawn, and I think with the tech acceleration this could be a start where it is super-powerful. If we could finish Pottery in the 10t (haven't checked how well this matches up) we are building the worker, we could use the 4h ivory to get full value out of a size 1 Granary while the worker is completing the wheat farm. The extra immediate happy from the Ivory also alleviates some issues with running into the happy cap.

I wouldn't rule out Eygpt, War Chariots are great, but I wouldn't be committing to an early rush before the game begins. I'd keep the option of an attack open, but most likely after we have already settled a decent base. Horse archer attacks at that stage are very powerful and WC get to skip the tech and have a better hammer/strength ratio.

If we get America, I think Phi/Cre is hard to turn down. If we wanted to do a similar strategy with a different civ then I could see Phi/Ind. If we are Ind then Stonehenge is always a possibility if we can fit it in. The prophet points might throw off the scientists though. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I'm trying to keep an open mind until the pick gets to us.

I did check out Charriu's America game and it looked like settling the GS was going quite well for him, even without Mids, before the game was abandoned. His plan was 2 settled GS and an Academy before hopefully finding more powerful things for the GPs to be doing.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, the early EXP granary works, and it's crazy good.

We start with Fishing, Wheel, Agri and build a worker into a size 1 Gran:



Then we grow to 6 before building a settler:



(Not actually a 4t settler, this sim is with Joao, EXP/IMP ).

I think if it gets to my pick and America is still available, I'll go for that and try to pick Phi/Cre or Phi/Exp afterwards.

If America is gone, I'll probably take EXP with something.

[ljubljana]

It does look great. I also tried it slighly differently with whipping the settler but the worker isn't as effective and it's not as good.

T32 settler
- Start with the same techs, pottery T9, mining T16, BW T28, hunting T32, AH T37
- Worker T10, granary T16, WB T22, warrior T27, settler T32 after revolt and 6->3 whip.
- Worker improves wheat T14, road T16, cottage 1 T20, cottage 2 T24, then ?

T34 settler
- Start with the same techs, pottery T9, hunting T15, mining T21, BW T32, AH T37
- Worker T10, granary T16, WB T22, warrior T26, warrior T30, settler T34 after revolt and 7->4 whip.
- Worker improves wheat T14, ivory T19, cottage 1 T23, cottage 2 T27, then ?

as a genlurker i have no feedback, but i just wanted to thank you for doing the lord's work of prodding TBS to fill this thread full of valuable insights, since i am unable to do so

wishing you all exactly enough luck to maximize the amount of tricks that have to be pulled out of the hat, and therefore exposed to public scrutiny, to salvage the gamestate