Lew Adores Mist starting positions

[scooter]

I'd be down with Pericles as the techer though. I floated it in the chat, but if he's there at 8, I'd also love to see Gandhi. Great bulbing flexibility which is pretty powerful here (both because of expensive techs and because bulbs are tied to the total team pop rather than just one civ's pop I'm pretty sure). Artists bombs are also obviously pretty great in MP, and Gandhi is the best for that. That said, I would be sort of surprised if he's still available at 8. But if he is, be ready for me to yell for us to pick him.

[pindicator]

Yeah, Vicky is alright. IMP is getting love from me because of the GG bonus paired with faster settlers. And IMP is only useful as a feeder civ; if it's spamming it's own cities then that's - but if it's feeding a wide techer, like Zara or Darius, then that's where it gets useful. EXP is probably better for this, but IMP is a solid backup.

I think we can do better than her for a techer though. Pericles, Sury, Peter, Elizabeth. I'm not seeing the PHI love that scooter is but I would definitely have fun figuring out a tech plan if we picked one

[plako]

Change to start 4-2. I'll move one of the forests to plains tile directly adjacent to the capital.

[pindicator]

We going to make Darius official? He seems to be consensus

I've been trying to talk myself into advocating for Joao but i can't quite justify that as top pick.

[scooter]

Here's my complaint against IMP: Our non-IMP is going to have to build its first few cities anyways. These two civs are not right next to each other, there's non-trivial amounts of land in between them. The ideal of "IMP builds all settlers" is cool, but it won't play out that way. By the time IMP actually can feed settlers, the bonus isn't as valuable IMO.

I do think we can pretty much lock in Darius. Are we waiting for anything?


I do want to clarify a bit on the PHI techer idea. Both teams will need to go horizontal and vertical of course, but Darius is ideal for going horizontal. FIN is a per-tile bonus, so to get the most of it, you work as many tiles as possible. ORG supplements this in 2 ways: 1) cuts down on cost of expanding well by making stuff like courthouses cheap and 2) cheap Lighthouses which makes FIN coast be a really solid tile (and lets you get away with fewer workers than normal because you don't need improvements). Therefore, Darius has a bit more of a horizontal focus than vertical, which means he makes sense as a funder. (Yes I know I've already beat this dead horse, just bear with me )

In contrast, our techer should have more of a vertical focus than horizontal. The bonus for the techer is there's easier access to strong science multiplier buildings - library/academy early, university midgame, observatory late. If we take a smaller amount of land with the techer (non-Darius), our goal is to make the cities as large as possible so that the science multiplier buildings have full effect. This puts added value on traits that make those multiplier buildings cheap (CRE/PHI), gives us scientists for academies (PHI), or helps us go vertical (CHM). And of course, a second FIN would work really great too. This is my logic behind something like Pericles being a really ideal techer. Feel free to poke holes . SPI gains attractiveness for several reasons too.

The main shortcoming here is this will be slow starting. However, I think everyone will run into an expansion wall reasonably early, which helps balance that out. I definitely think Darius belongs in the seafood spot, because that capital is not a great prospect for a potential monster science city, which is pretty much mandatory for a techer/funder setup. Plus cheap Lighthouses, lighthouseable FIN lakes, etc.

Anyways, we have lots of time to keep discussing this (and we should!), but I think we can at least lock in Darius. I'll of course leave that up to Commodore and/or Lewwyn.

[Commodore]

Well, the forest move in the France start makes Peter or Joao a little more viable there, I'll say. It's hard to decide without seeing who other people take...Lewwyn's Bismark would be excellent if he's still available, heck I could see arguments for HC, and I hate HC. Just hard to say much without seeing where the next six selections go. Pericles of Maya is nicely vertical for you.

More profitably, though, we need to consider what starting techs we need, along with civs (we can nail at least one synergy given the back to back turn picks). The trouble, of course, is that Plako is an evil genius who made Fishing a fairly good start tech and AH a very attractive target right off the bat. We will be clearing through the first couple rows fast remember; it's not until we plant second cities that maint starts biting.

Basically, we have a few options IMO, as I mentioned to Scooter yesterday:
-Fishing/Mining/Agri/Wheel. Any ole' Fishing/Mining, any ole' Ag/Wheel works fine here. Mali and Agri/Fishing also works this way, although Dutch/NA/Americans aren't amazing. Fish start goes WB first, research AH or BW, and rooooll out.
-Wonder chasing Agriculture/Mining/Mysticism/something. This is with HC or Bismark. Try to nail early 'henge, let the workers take advantage of Agriculture food to ignore AH/Fishing for a moment. Fishing/Mining and just building 'henge with mines at the pasture start might work too.
-HRE or Byzantium and [insert good techs here]. This is going for OP UB or UU respectively, might be worthwhile but it's nasty-slow. If HRE is available, I'd be hard pressed to not snap it up though...we'll have to see. Maya, Sumer, etc are picked for UBs too, but also come with very viable techs.

[scooter]

There's no way on earth I think we could justify passing up on Darius of HRE if HRE is still there at 8-9. That would be pretty beautiful.

[pindicator]

I pretty much disagree with everything scooter said about IMP. Yes, both civs are going to need to produce their own first few cities, but with the two civs only 10 tiles apart i don't think the delay will be as far off as you imply. (And if that is an argument why IMP is bad then what does that say for using PHI to get faster universities? Perhaps i misunderstand your argument for PHI.)

Darius is a notoriously slow starter. To pick a second slow starter would be a mistake IMO. I'm quite happy with EXP over IMP (but prefer both) because i think that would work better in concert with Darius. But i'm also envisioning Darius as a wide techer which does not seem to be a shared view. EXP probably is a better choice for Darius as a funder so that the small civ can grow faster.

Anyway, i'm happy to debate this with you off-thread. But i'm definitely in agreement that this is Lewwyn/Commodore's choice and i'm going to try my best not to spam up the thread with my point if view

Also definitely agree that it is all academic until we see what's available on pick 8

[Commodore]

You're welcome to say I told you so, Lewwyn.

[Lewwyn]

You're welcome to say I told you so, Lewwyn.

I would've rather just had Bismark.




I think Pindi makes great points. Personally I'm leaning toward Joao, sury, pericles or maybe peter. I think EXP is an important trait for the second civ, CRE for libs, or IMP to feed Darius. The more I think about it though Joao feeding cities and workers to Darius would be pretty magnificent.