[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Jowy]

Scout 2 NE to find out what's in-land. Another hunting resource would make a worker first opening a great move. If there's nothing in the fog, then our worker will be twiddling his thumbs after connecting the pigs. Tech costs are high. Could be possible to move in-land and leave the fishes for another city.. Blah! I like our SIP start. Three rich food and four hills visible in BFC. Great for financial: working the lake and the fishes will each give us an extra commerce. Fishing start would have been fantastic here. Maybe do something as crazy as scout or warrior first, and research fishing, then double WB? I'll have to do some sandboxing, hopefully finding the best way to play this start. Lots of hills in the west; if only the pigs were on that side, it might have been a cool idea to move west and found a super production capital.

[BRickAstley]

I just realized I forgot to take your picture with tile yields on; if you would really like/need those let me know, but it'll be a bit before I can get a proper picture anyways.

[Jowy]

NP Brick, we'll have time to double-check the tile yields on the first turn to make sure we're correct on them.

[Jowy]

Here's a reference no-one will get.

[The Black Sword]

Well, at least it's a fish start. Should be a great location once we get it underway.

Agree on 2NE with scout anyway, that's the only other possible choice if there's something nice in the fog. Looks like forests and hills though.

My gut says double WB start looks best. Probably still first to get 1st and 2nd resource hooked up, though worker then has some adv obviously. If we get to size 2, we can work the 2 forested hills for 6 hammers and 2 bonus from expanisve, -1 food though so we'd need a turn getting a small surplus. Definitely need some sandoboxing.

Even crazier idea with double WB start: might have enough time to fit a religion in between fishing and hunting.

I need to go through the civ list and see who else starts with Mysticism for the competition. I'm also curious about the industrious civs. However 18 players makes the task look rather daunting.

[Jowy]

Tile bleed seems to indicate that there's at least a non-forest tile just east of the hill, so we should see further that way. Not sure if we see past the forests diagonally, not an expert on these things. Anyway not a challenge to test it, and those tiles would be outside our BFC if we SIP. Religion as a second tech sounds good, as long as we can go worker after the WB's and still have stuff for him to do. As far as techs in general go, I think Mining/BW are high on the list, and Hunting for the pigs.

I added some links to the first post, will keep it updated.

[The Black Sword]

I've been doing some simming and I think I like the fishing+religion start the best. Whatever way you look at it, our start is going to be quite slow, at least this way we get something a bit more long term out of it.

The start is an Indian dream btw, lots of worker turns saved with all these hills and forests, at least there's some return on these starting techs.

Fishing + religion start:
EOT 35: Settler, warrior, worker, 2 wb for fish, size 3, 161b into Polytheism, 113 into BW, 9h overflow, pastured pigs, 3 roads, no mines.

This gets the most beakers and Hinduism, it is a turn behind with the settler and also can't revolt to slavery while settler is in transit. If you didn't go with the religion, you could have gotten BW and put a chop into the settler to speed it up. Its also behind in worker turns. No wasted worker turns though, we got Hunting in time, after that I figured roads were important than mines since I was building the settler.

Worker ->WB->Warr->Settler
EOT 34: settler and BW finished, can chop second WB. pasture, 2 mines, 3 roads, 3 worker turns(mining or roading), size 4, 3h over.

Going 2 WB before the settler delays the settler by 2 turns, it does get to size 5 earlier though, I think they're even enough for comparison purposes. The worker has to spend some time roading while waiting for Mining after fishing, which isn't ideal.

Earliest settler: Hunting->Mining->BW.
T32: settler, warr, worker, 2 mines, pasture, 4 roads, size 3, 9h over.

Leaving fishing so long really pushes back our GNP, IIRC I had just finished BW here, so it's still a few turns before we can chop the workboats.

[Jowy]

Good stuff Can you upload the sandbox file please?
The start is indeed good for our fast workers, though those forested hills will still consume all our movement points.

Mysticism starts:
Plako: Ragnar of Maya - Mysticism, Mining
WilliamLP: Isabella of Inca - Mysticism, Agriculture
Suttree: Huayna Capac of Spain - Mysticism, Fishing

Plako is in the same situation as us, lacking food techs. Suttree treated the idea of a religion rush in MP as a joke in PB11, so I'm assuming he will not be rushing a religion. WilliamLP had a Mysticism start in PB11, but didn't rush a religion or even really consider it. They could always play this one differently, but I think we have good odds.

[The Black Sword]

Btw, you're right, I didn't get that reference.

Sanbox attached, I just rolled a big and small map, monarch, large and made the start on a little island. From what I understand the extra dimensions will affect the tech costs slightly but I'm not sure how. Some tech timings for the worker first starts can be tight and it might have an effect there.

Religion-wise:
Plako should be beatable. Financial fishing is the fastest food tech. He could have that option as well but I think our workboats coming out earlier due to expansive wins.

WilliamLP: very risky I think. Isabella is spiritual as well, so another reason to grab a religion. If they don't have a grain though, then we're fine.

Suttree: I'm not sure. If he gets a fishing start it's got to be very tempting to grab a religion first. On the other hand, as one of only 3() Industrious civs, and the only one to start with Mysticism, could be a good chance that he wants to get StoneHenge and use that to pop borders.

The chances do look good, we should beat any of them if it's their second tech and I doubt more than 1(if even that) would go for it first. For anyone else, spending your first two techs might be a bit much of an investment, quite likely to get BW instead.

[Jowy]

Thanks, I'll check it out tomorrow.
Tech rate should be fine. As far as I understood it's tied to map size. We're playing on a huge map, but where the size has been changed to large to reduce tech costs. So a large map should be correct.