[spoilers] - Pindicator's Industrial March Madness!

[pindicator]

Actually, I'd rather play Monty over Brennus so I'll keep him at #2. And by the clarification scooter & brick said in the tech thread (quoted below), then we should just rank the order based on how we want to play them. (Brick said that scooter's interpretation below is correct.)

Someone had a question about the process in their post, so for complete clarity here is the exact process I will be using for the picks.

To clarify... Let's say in the first round I have a popular top choice and don't get it. Unluckily, someone else ranked my second choice as first so that's gone too. Then you go to evaluate round two. My top choice is now my third choice, but someone else has it as their second. There is a coin flip still, correct? In other words, the numerical ranking does not actually matter, only the top available choice. Is that right?

So even if someone does have Monty first and we lose a Gandhi coin flip, we won't lose anything by putting Monty as #2 on our list. It will just go to our next highest option (Brennus at #3) and if there are then any conflicts we flip against the next person no matter if they put Brennus as their #2, #3 or #4.

Do you think Joao is worth bumping either Lincoln or Genghis for? He was someone I was looking at too but figured I should stick to leaders that make Commandos easier.

[mackoti]

Actually, I'd rather play Monty over Brennus so I'll keep him at #2. And by the clarification scooter & brick said in the tech thread (quoted below), then we should just rank the order based on how we want to play them. (Brick said that scooter's interpretation below is correct.)

Someone had a question about the process in their post, so for complete clarity here is the exact process I will be using for the picks.

To clarify... Let's say in the first round I have a popular top choice and don't get it. Unluckily, someone else ranked my second choice as first so that's gone too. Then you go to evaluate round two. My top choice is now my third choice, but someone else has it as their second. There is a coin flip still, correct? In other words, the numerical ranking does not actually matter, only the top available choice. Is that right?

So even if someone does have Monty first and we lose a Gandhi coin flip, we won't lose anything by putting Monty as #2 on our list. It will just go to our next highest option (Brennus at #3) and if there are then any conflicts we flip against the next person no matter if they put Brennus as their #2, #3 or #4.

Do you think Joao is worth bumping either Lincoln or Genghis for? He was someone I was looking at too but figured I should stick to leaders that make Commandos easier.

Ok, fine ten lets hope we get one of spirituals, after more tought i think i would prefer brenus over gandi as we have more options latter(miliatry ones) but i am fine with whatever you choose.

[mackoti]

Crazy ideea why dont e try Cha/agg of rusia?for sure no one will try to atack us early and I am prety sure we can micro better than others and when will be the time to atack, oh my...deadly cavalry with comando rifles..., and fast drydocks and navigation 2 navy, sounds grovy for me.

[pindicator]

I know, I was going to ask if you wanted to Cha/Agg higher and then talked myself out of it.

You know what, let's do that. Let's go more military focus. New list:

1. Boudica (Agg/Chm) of Russia , Settler is 322h.
2. Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Germany , Settler is 322h.
3. Brennus (Chm/Spi) of the Vikings , Settler is 322h.
4. Asoka (Spi/Org) of Aztec , Settler is 322h.
5. Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of the Khmer , Settler is 322h.
6. Genghis Khan (Imp/Agg) of the USA , Settler is 332h.
7. Lincoln (Chm/Phi) of the Mongols , Settler is 322h.

I also gave Asoka a bump as I realized whipping with SPI Aztecs could be very fun as well. I can move Gandhi back up if you think he's too low though.

[mackoti]

I know, I was going to ask if you wanted to Cha/Agg higher and then talked myself out of it.

You know what, let's do that. Let's go more military focus. New list:

1. Boudica (Agg/Chm) of Russia , Settler is 322h.
2. Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Germany , Settler is 322h.
3. Brennus (Chm/Spi) of the Vikings , Settler is 322h.
4. Asoka (Spi/Org) of Aztec , Settler is 322h.
5. Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of the Khmer , Settler is 322h.
6. Genghis Khan (Imp/Agg) of the USA , Settler is 332h.
7. Lincoln (Chm/Phi) of the Mongols , Settler is 322h.

I also gave Asoka a bump as I realized whipping with SPI Aztecs could be very fun as well. I can move Gandhi back up if you think he's too low though.

Looks excelent for me.

[pindicator]

Okay Brick, that's our list!

[mackoti]

Okay Brick, that's our list!

I supose we will not get a eligion till a GA,and for start will go just slavery ,buro because i think getting rep too will take 2 turns of revolt?Or if is not to late to go for Brenus first? man i know i am indecis.

But still we can ate 2 turns of revolt as will take some time for setler to go and workers to chop....

[pindicator]

Yeah, the 2 turn anarchy shouldn't be an issue. It looks like we're going to want to take 2 turns of movement to get one fo the settlers towards the resources in the upper left of the screen. Speaking of which, that should probably be the next thing that I look at...

Not getting the religion swap could be a little bit bigger a deal. Still, I think I'm okay with delaying the revolt. Chm would kind of offset the happiness loss, so we're just losing out on whichever civic bonus we switch to. (Which probably means we want to swap over to Org Religion if we don't land a SPI leader.)

[pindicator]

Ended up with the first choice after all. You were right about Monty, but I guess I'm surprised that nobody ended up with Brennus.

Anyway, I agree that the micro is going to need to be sold, but I think we're up to the challenge

[pindicator]

Cities

I've come up with 2 ideas for how to place initial cities:



Capital would settle in place, relying on the border pop to grab all the resources. The two other cities are then placed to grab as many first ring resources as possible. This does leave the deer, gems, and sheep unclaimed, but those could be claimed with future cities.



Capital would go to the southeast, again using the border pop to get all the resources claimed. One of the cities gain goes to the northeast to grab the wheat/sheep/iron location, but the other city goes to the pig/deer. First settler out could then pick up the sheep/sugar spot marked in yellow.

I think I like the first idea best. While the second option claims all the visible resources more easily, it also has a worse capital location.


Civics

Speaking of which, the initial part of the game has to be all about the growth curve. So I think initial civics should be Representation / Bureaucracy / Slavery / Mercantilism / Organized Religion.

With every city getting 3 population, that is a huge worker deficit that needs to be addressed. We start with 2 but need improvements for 9 citizens immediately. So I would propose going worker -> worker in every city, and whipping both workers to completion. Can look into the details for this later today -- and probably stuff I should have looked at earlier but I haven't had the energy for this game that I probably should have. (This is me trying to jump-start myself.) That will give us 8 workers, which may even be too many. I will try to sim out the first 40 turns and check on that.

Representation and Mercantilism are debatable - we could also go with Universal Suffrage and attempt to buy some of the initial units. But one thing that they do allow for is a Great Engineer gambit. I know we didn't pick a SPI or PHI leader, but it could still be useful to build to keep our options open. I doubt we'll be able to sneak in a Statue of Liberty -- the first great person will take 27 turns with just a single specialist -- and I'm all but certain there are teams looking to beeline Communism for the Kremlin. So perhaps we want to go Steam Power -> Assembly Line and use that Great Engineer to bulb The Pentagon? And if that doesn't work then the consolation prize of Railroads and Mining Inc is still a possibility. Or if all that fails, then there's our first golden age.

I know Communism and State Property is the eventual goal, but there's still got to be a bit of a ramping up period where we need to get our research going, and as such I think cottages are still going to be the improvement to make for at least the beginning of the game.


I think it's also worth considering Unviersal Suffrage to rush buy some workers. However, I'm not sure that this would really get us all that much because we'd only be able to buy 1 worker without really gimping our initial research. And this led me to another idea:

Universal Suffrage / Nationalism / Slavery / Mercantilism / Theocracy

Maybe we could try for an early rush on someone? US & Slavery to get an early jump on workers, Nationalism to draft rifles, and it also pairs with our cheap Barracks. Just turn off research and go all in from the start, counting on finding someone with Explorers and then going all in on that target as soon as possible. Waterways look to be a thing on this map, and as such rush-bought galleons could lend for a quick strike -- with this setup it will only take a barracks and religion in a city to promote units to Amphibious.