Smackdown Starting positions

[Ichabod]

Any interest in picking two Fin leaders?

Krill: Why pick 2 FINs...
It's the same as going Joao/Lizzie except slower
ie costs aren't as bad because you aren't actually growing fast.
Also, it's boring, the cardinal sin

I think thats the main argument against it.

[Ichabod]

I'm trying to make a sandbox for us. How do I make a 64x40 map? I tried making a change in this line of the WBSave:

grid width=64
grid height=40

But this bugged the save. I made no other changes, but the original map was large size, which I guess is what made it go wrong.

Can someone help me?

[novice]

You have to edit the actual tiles as well, which is very time consuming in a text editor. But you can resize a map with my tool.

Anyway, I cooked up a sandbox with correct settings and map size:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15215428/PB10/Sa...dSwordSave

We're teamed with an AI but we can at least study tech and maintenance costs, GPP costs, etc.

[Ichabod]

You have to edit the actual tiles as well, which is very time consuming in a text editor. But you can resize a map with my tool.

Anyway, I cooked up a sandbox with correct settings and map size:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15215428/PB10/Sa...dSwordSave

We're teamed with an AI but we can at least study tech and maintenance costs, GPP costs, etc.

Well, if you save this as a WB Save and open it in hotseat, you can actually play the two civs. Wouldn't that help or is there something I'm not seeing?

[novice]

You have to edit the actual tiles as well, which is very time consuming in a text editor. But you can resize a map with my tool.

Anyway, I cooked up a sandbox with correct settings and map size:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15215428/PB10/Sa...dSwordSave

We're teamed with an AI but we can at least study tech and maintenance costs, GPP costs, etc.

Well, if you save this as a WB Save and open it in hotseat, you can actually play the two civs. Wouldn't that help or is there something I'm not seeing?

It would work, but you'd have to resim your sandbox from t0 every time you need to do a worldbuilder edit.

[novice]

I updated the sandbox to reflect the starting screenshots.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15215428/PB10/S...dSwordSave

[Krill]

-How good is an early religion? It seems to me that going for an early religion nerfs EXP a bit, by delaying the very quick granary Krill was talking about. But do we want it? How are our chances of getting a "later" religion? On the subject of the shrine, 2 civs help a bit with that, since you could have one of them building a pure Great Prophet pool, while the other gets the relevant GPs that you need earlier. Of course, that'd mean going for Egypt or Arabia as a Civ, because, now that I think of it, these are the only civs that can get a GPRO without religion already present or wonders. And if the plan is time the GPRO with the founding of a later religion, we'd need Madrassas or Obelisks.

Starting Myst is likely to require a somewhat lacklustre set of starting techs. Fishing is mandatory because the coastal start has to go work boat first, but slavery is also important for getting out a worker quickly from that start. Not going BW slows down one start quite a lot, so religion has to somehow make up for that. What traits there are at the coastal start don't really matter as much as the starting techs. And if you were to start Myst, you have to give up one of Agri, Wheel or Mining. Agri is necessary for the land start to have a tile to hook up with the starting worker, so it's either Wheel or Mining: really far from slavery or really far from a granary.

-Are there wonders, especially early wonders, that are so good we should plan our game to get them? I can't think of any right now. I discussed with Krill a possible Oracle -> Currency, while slow teching Math (as far as I can tell, we'll have a good beaker output early with gems + the "team discount").

Personally I think that there are no wonders that are necessary to win, but it is possible to pick leaders that have to get wonders to be effective. That said there are certain combinations that could be fun. Hannibal/De Gaulle going for Henge, Pericles/Bismark that bulbs Maths and Oracles Currency, to name a couple.

-Krill, do you think IMP beats ORG on saved hammers? You have to consider that we'll probably want a courthouse on every city of the ORG leader, possibly Lighthouses on a lot of them. I think you were making your comparative analysis of saved hammers almost based on a single city. Of course, there's the snowball effect, which is probably more important and thougher to quantify. I think we could try to compare the settler whiping cycles in the first start city between a IMP and a non-IMP civ, to see if it makes a lot of difference (I'll try doing this, I'm likely to make things suboptimally, though).

IMP can:

• Save 20 hammers per settler, which is the same hammer amount saved with light houses, but the light houses save hammers in hammer poor cities.
  
• Still make settlers for the second civ, so for Joao specifically I think there are certain strategies where every single settler does get built by Joao (Joao/Lizzie, Writing T30, Lizzie goes straight Library>Academy only building a worker or 2). So ORG only saves hammers on their own cities but IMP can save them for the second civ.
  
• Finish first settler T20ish with a granary, worker and fish hooked (as Joao) compared to about T25 for EXP/whatever (in other words, I think IMP can reach the third settler only just after none-IMP can reach their first).
  
• Can do 4>2 whip cycles in any city with 4.5 food surplus over 4 turns, which can't be done by other traits without happiness. And if there are only single sources of happiness that means they can be traded to the second civ which just goes vertical from T0 to abuse the multipliers (like Seven wants).

Ultimately, the viability of Joao can be simplified to two points: Can you get cities out early enough that they can keep the snowball rolling, and can you be a good funder. Joao does 1 thing really well: he basically has more population on a given turn than anyone else (although some of the population in this game would be gifted to the second civ in terms of free settlers). The question can be rephrased as: Can that population be more productive than the gold saved from ORG pre- and post-court houses. I don't think any of us can give a definite answer to that without knowing exactly what land the coastal civ can expand into. What we can say is that given land to cottage on a given turn Joao would make more commerce than Mehmed pre-courthouses. Post court houses, I'm not sure.

-Considering we went for a João/FIN strategy (i.e. small funder/settler civ and a big/techer/financial one). How do we win the game? Do you think the game will last until Spaceship? If not, how do we get an army? One civ is not that big, while the otehr would have to whip cottages off. Probably more of a theoretical issue than a practical one, but I'll leave the question here anyway.

Same way any of these games are won. One player fucks up and one of the other 3 players gets a bunch of first-to boni then runs away with the game because they are too strong on defence and tech too fast to catch. Joao pick means that you want to be leading on %age population in game and everyone wants granaries anyway. Just because it's more inefficient to slave at higher populations doesn't mean that the pop doesn't exist for reaction whips. Also means you have the option to expand into one players face (Joao doesn't have to be that small. The size is just a method of illustrating what Joao could do: grow to 5 cities quickly ie horizontal whilst FIN goes vertical with libraries then Joao has the flexibility to either keep growing himself and gift no settlers through to gifting everything to the FIN leader. It's a whole spectrum of choices.)

Also, Bollocks to Commodore, Darius/Joao could have been..well not fun, but powerful.

[Krill]

As an aside, I think I need to clarify something: I don't think Joao is necessarily the right choice. I just think that Joao works better than all of the other EXP leaders with these starting positions. Seven (and perhaps others) think otherwise. Picking a leader for it like Gandhi which utilises a different strategy isn't a bad decision either (although we might think differently about all this with hindsight).

[Ichabod]

As an aside, I think I need to clarify something: I don't think Joao is necessarily the right choice. I just think that Joao works better than all of the other EXP leaders with these starting positions. Seven (and perhaps others) think otherwise. Picking a leader for it like Gandhi which utilises a different strategy isn't a bad decision either (although we might think differently about all this with hindsight).

Hey, hey, hey!

We don't allow second guesses in here, you hear me?

It's Joao or nothing. EXP/IMP all the way.

[Krill]

Just you wait. We'll see Joao and Mehmed get taken in the next 2 picks and then we'll all be pissed off.