[SPOILERS] Bismark of Sumeria (luddite + Atlas1998)

[luddite]

Interesting that no one picked philosophical, even though it's often described as a mid-tier trait. I suppose the biggest problem is that a lot of the philosophical leaders were already banned- pairing it with fin, exp, cre, and spi were all banned, and of course there's no ind/phi leader, so the only choices left were agg, pro, org, imp, and cha. Charismatic/philosophical (Lincoln) could be a decent choice... but I just like other traits better, especially EXP and CRE. PHI also suffers from being a lot better in single player than it is in multiplayer- you can't bulb high value techs then trade them around, and you can't beeline education easily. On the other hand, maybe I'm being unfair to philosophical- it's most powerful (relative to other traits) when no other gpp boosters are available, and the other gpp boosters of golden ages, national epic, and pacifism are all much harder to come by in multiplayer than in single player. Philosophical could get you a lot more academies, early in the game.

[luddite]

Thoughts about opening build order:

I'm thinking worker first (settle in place of course) while researching hunting, then grow to size 3 before building another worker and a settler. I'll have to test out some other options, but it's usually best to improve the highest food tile immediately, and for us it's the grassland deer. Then, hunting will speed up animal husbandry.

edit: a better option seems to be teching bronze working after hunting, and building the worker and settler at size 2. The settler comes out significantly sooner.

[Atlas1998]

So the revised plan would be warrior until size 2 and then worker settler while taking a bee line to bronze working?

[luddite]

So the revised plan would be warrior until size 2 and then worker settler while taking a bee line to bronze working?

No we still want a worker first to build the camps. But after the first worker is done, we should let it grow to size 2 while building warriors, and then worker settler. The tech path I'm thinking of is hunting - mining - bronze working - animal husbandry.

[Atlas1998]

No we still want a worker first to build the camps. But after the first worker is done, we should let it grow to size 2 while building warriors, and then worker settler. The tech path I'm thinking of is hunting - mining - bronze working - animal husbandry.

Ok, cool. That will work, I was going to argue with you if you wanted warrior first.

[luddite]

Yeah it's almost always a mistake to make a warrior first. I can't really think of any situation where I would do that. Maybe if there were absolutely no good resource tiles near the capital.

[Atlas1998]

Two quick thoughts when looking at this map:

1) I am worried that there aren't any happy resources immediately on hand, we many think about trying to nab a religion if something doesn't turn up or at least getting monarchy on our to do list.

2) I still think this is a lakes map based on the freshwater lake to the NE and the coast to the SE. My guess is a lakes map with A LOT of lakes that form strategic choke points that the they have been perfecting for the last 10 days. Of course this is complete speculation and could have no real basis in reality.

[luddite]

hmm that could be true. Of course we've barely seen anything yet, so for all we know, a little more scouting could reveal that we're on an island and there's 5 happy resources at the edges. We'll definitely be on the lookout for happy resources when we're scouting, and get them with the cities we settle early on. (I don't want to say, get them with the first new city, but probably first or second).

The only civ that starts with mysticism is Adlain with Arabia, so I suppose there is a chance we could get an early religion. And since we're industrious, we might be able to snag the oracle too- maybe oracle monarchy. But I don't want to sacrifice too much to get that. We can decide on that after we've scouted the terrain more, and seen if anyone else goes for religions early.

For a lakes map... I'm not really sure what to make of that, if that's true. I suppose we could try and make the colossus, and work a lot of lake tiles. Or just try and settle strategically to control the choke points. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out!

[luddite]

Here's what our warrior has revealed so far:

big patch of tundra to the north. I'm going to cautiously assume that we have no close neighbors up there.

and here's the demographics

I don't see anything unusual there. No one settled next to the coast. Sunrise/rego are the only team which didn't settle on the first turn... I wonder why? I guess everyone's starting location is different, because I can't imagine not settling on the first turn with our land. We could have moved to pick up the sheep... except that I couldn't see the sheep before settling.

[Atlas1998]

Given all the forest what do you think about moving bw to second in line and chopping out some goodies such as a quick second worker, settler, or fast SH? Not sure of the order but perhaps chop out a worker and then both workers chop forest for SH. I need to double check but I think that SH costs a little over 4 chops. This may be a weedy move but the reason we chose bismark was for the wonder production and getting those early culture pops will help when we start running into people.