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Are you, in fact, a pregnant lady who lives in the apartment next door to Superdeath's parents? - Commodore |
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[SPOILERS] - Available to new home, slightly used civ, 1 previous owner
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Oh, that wasn't the map you wanted to play again?
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
Please no. That map had similar resource scarcity to PB1 for my start. At least the Moose snake had food.
Quick comment on the change for Free Speech change: Base BtS boiled down to growing cottages and whipping. RtR seems to have developed into a balance between cottages and workshops but it did fall more on the workshops side because Free Market made up for a good chunk of commerce with the higher tech costs giving an opportunity to murder people for land (and their cottages). Still build cottages, but generally not too many.
This change to Free Speech is doesn't do anything to make cottages any more viable in the early game but does benefit those players that manage to invest into cottages...or captures a bunch of them. I don't think it's actually that large a change to change the balance particularly far away from where it is now but it should skew the point at which Free Speech is viable compared to Free Market trade routes and the 2 free specialists from Mercantilism to make it a viable option in some situations. Specifically, I think that those players that have an early game power spike and no end game advantages may have an opportunity to forgo some of that early game power by investing more heavily in cottages and planning on getting into Free Speech. Essentially it's a buff to early game traits because they get additional options, but I'm not sure how much it affects other traits.
OK, what do I want to pick for this game. I've already gone through the traits, and added some of my thoughts to what Commodore has written. But the most surprising thing for me was to remember that this is the first true snake pick I've done since PBEM20 back in 2011. It feels nice to have some control over what I play for the next year...
Out of all the traits there are a few that I don't wish to play, for various reasons.
The traits that I am 95% certain I'm not going to pick:
That leaves the following traits up: EXP, IMP, AGG, PRO, CHM, ORG. Not that many...and perhaps worst of all, I know I need to pick a late game trait on this map. As the map is larger, with more tiles per player, it's going to last long enough that late game strength matters. Out of that list, the only real option remaining is ORG; AGG is kinda there but I want the economic benefit. CHM is a possibility. That leaves which early game trait I want to combine with it, and having gone through the strengths of each of them I kinda want to go with EXP like I said before. Which is Mehmed, which I've slagged off enough times before as boring but oh well, hopefully this is the game where I pick him. That leaves civ, which is where I kinda have to break away from the desire of Mehmed for a moment. Assuming EXP/ORG is picked (noooo!) there are other combinations I'd take, but the most important thing on synergy is if I have to start with Fishing to get a work boat out due to having a seafood resource. If I have a seafood start, then I'll build the first worker with food and then EXP does take a hit. Even though I want to take it for the mid game power, I will have to reconsider if I want to pick it. The following civs start with Fishing, and are the only ones I'll consider picking plus relevant details:
Out of those, I'd pick Byz if I could go religion first, England I'd reconsider picking FIN, Japan I'd only pick if I could go Pottery first but I don't think it works with a work boat start. Rome I'd still pick EXP with and Preats work against everything until rifles. Vikings are a safe fall back but not that impressive IMO, on this map. In all Fishing/Mining cases I'd hope it was a double seafood start to go BW first and whip out something early. Personally, I'm hoping that I don't have a seafood start because things get a little fugly with them. And it would spoil a nice EXP start. If I'm lucky enough to get a land based food start then I just pick on starting techs plus what fits with Mehmed. My first choice would be HRE for the UB, but the starting techs aren't necessarily ideal. OTOH, if players do go civ first in the snake pick and most people don't have Myst the opportunity to go religion first is always tempting if food is sorted. Sure, it would be nice to fantasize about getting Shaka of Vikings at the bottom of hte snake pick, but that ain't going to happen and I'd probably get a double seafood start even if I could pick it. So..really, I'm just waiting to see what the starting screenshot brings. |
