[SPOILERS] Will the Sun(rise) Ever Set on Washington, Mongolia?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Your start:

[Whosit]

Gasp!

Oh ho ho ho (devilish laugh).

Y'know, a few days ago I got to thinking about the RB meta, worker first, etc, and was thinking "what would happen if I went Warrior first?" and was thinking about what kinda start I'd need to have the best shot at wiping someone out. I thought "plains hill plant, with a forest plains hill in 1st ring, but THAT will never happen." Well, ta-da! Of course, I'd have to assume everyone else would have a similar start, and blah blah blah, the odds of me actually catching someone before they could get a Warrior out is slim, but an entertaining thought....

Putting that aside, interesting coastal start without any sea food. Grassland Pigs is good and I like Grass Cows as a secondary source of food/hammers, sad to see that there's no 3rd food resource for the capital (I consider a 2 food capital to be OK, 3 to be GOOD, and 4 to be GREAT). Hunting start would be good here. While I see a river, if we SIP we'd get a number of non-river tiles. Would FIN make sense here? I see river to the north, too.

2 options to move scout once game begins. Well, more than 2, but the first two to mind are: 1NW + 1NE OR 1W + 1 SW/W/NW. OK I guess those are four options Ah, also 7 forests if we SIP. Hunting/Mining means we could improve all visible food resources and go right for BW, which could make IMP good if we grow to size 4 quickly to whip out first settler?

Expansive: +35% Worker, so making 5 base hammers, that's still just 1 free hammer, so 6 hpt, 10 turn worker. Good. Have to run more later.

[Whosit]

Alright, I made a list!

Hunting Civs!

Aztec: Mysticism/Hunting
Celtic: Mysticism/Hunting
Ethiopian: Hunting/Mining
German: Hunting/Mining
Greek: Fishing/Hunting
Holy Roman: Mysticism/Hunting
Khmer: Hunting/Mining
Mongolian: The Wheel/Hunting
Persian: Agriculture/Hunting
Russian: Hunting/Mining
Viking: Fishing/Hunting
Zulu: Agriculture/Hunting

Hunting/Mining Civs!
Ethiopian: Oromo Warrior (Musketman), Stele (Monument)
German: Kanone (Cannon), Assembly Plant (Factory)
Khmer: Ballista Elephant (War Elephant), Baray (Aquaduct)
Russian: Cossack (Cavalry), Research Institute (University)

I will of course want Gavagai's input on this, but I think a Hunting/Mining Civ might be what we want here, though any Hunting civ could do if it brings something else to the table. However, at the moment, I am strong considering the Khmer for a couple of reasons:

*We have Ivory at capital, that means we are guaranteed to be able to build Ballista Elephants (not sure if they are still considered a good UU, though).
*Will definitely be picking an EXP leader, which means we can get Barays at half cost! For +1 food, I usually hear people say that they are worth building at normal cost anyway (since in BtS no trait gives a discount to Aqueducts and their variants).

Zulu would probably be a close second pick for me. Gotta love some Impis....

Also, regarding scout moves, I think some sort of West move would make the most sense, because it would mean moving towards the food at the very least. Moving north would mean giving up cows most likely. Settling 2W of current position could be good if there's something worthwhile in the fog, but it means losing a turn and not getting ivory in BFC (which is fine, we don't need it immediately anyway).

Food resources will never spawn next to each other, right? So probably scout either 2W or 1W, 1NW. Would be useful to know if Pigs count as fresh water to determine if that's... oh, yeah it's a lake. 2f/0/2c water tile.

However, incentive to stay in place is plains hill city and forested plains hill in 1st ring.

EDIT: 3 hammer tile doesn't matter for 1st worker, oops. At least, not in combination with plains hill start. Do want to have at least 3 hammers available for any start, though.

[Whosit]

Oh one more thing I should post:

You have your screen shots, here's your snake pick order.

1. Dreylin/Ipecac/Ruff
2. AdrianIer/Old Harry
3. Agent427/TBS
4. Caledorn/Plako
5. Elum/Mackoti
6. Grimace/Wetbandit
7. Whosit/Gavagai
8. Whosit/Gavagai
9. Grimace/Wetbandit
10. Elum/Mackoti
11. Caledorn/Plako
12. Agent427/TBS
13. AdrianIer/Old Harry
14. Dreylin/Ipecac/Ruff

Dreylin/Ipecac/Ruff you guys are on the clock. Enjoy!

We're last in the pick order, BUT at least that means we get to pick Leader/Civ together. We may not get our first picks on either if we're unlucky, but I'm sure there will be an EXP leader of some sort available.

Also:

Map is essentially done. Toroidal. Impossible to get balance for 7 players without it, unless use a ring type map which has other balance issues. Suggest Monarch difficulty to go with standard map size; map dimensions are 76*28. If using RtR, huts and events are nerfed such that there are no negative events ie slave revolt, and no one can pop anything more expensive than BW.

So, Monarch Difficulty, standard map size. I think for making a sandbox, that's enough info to get correct tech costs? I am unsure how to manually adjust the actual map dimensions. However, it sounds like it's going to be rectangular. Something to keep in mind, I suppose.

[Whosit]

OK, I have so little patience I threw together a "fake" sandbox using Pacal II (EXP/FIN) of Khmer to see what I might could do with this start. Went Bronze Working > The Wheel > Agriculture opening (kind of a blank shot because I don't actually know what the scout will find). Went Worker > Warrior > Warrior (did a little micro to finish Warrior and grow to size 4 at same time) > Settler. Forgot I wasn't IMP for a second had revolted to slavery after 2nd Warrior finished. Worker chopped a forest into the Settler same turn I 2-pop whipped so it resulted in overflow for a 1 turn Worker after that!

1st Settler OUT turn 28 (would be faster if we had IMP so yes I will consider that Gav, hmm).



When I went into the world builder, I saw one AI got a really awful terrible start:



Also as I was digging through my civ screen shots, I saw something I was saving just because I thought it looked cool:



Kinda neat how all the buildings got arranged, and I never realized how big the Stele was.

OH! One more thing. Gav, shortening your name makes me think of Gaav, Demon-Dragon King.

[spacetyrantxenu]

One thing to point out about your starting screen shot, evidently it's missing fresh water adjacent to the starting tile. Expect to have a river tile somewhere next to your settler when the game goes live, that has to have been an oversight. There's no legitimate reason I can think of to deny only one player the +2 fresh water health bonus.

[Gavagai]

First, I strongly advise against going warrior first.

Second, I think Hunting/Mining is a good starting combo, the problem is that respective civs have crappy UU/UB. Also, though we would have a short path to BW, our path to Pottery would be pretty long. And do we really need BW that early? Our worker should be ready to chop by T20 if my calculations are correct. How quickly can we research Mining and BW?

Third, I think the start adds some points to Fin as it is pretty commerce-poor. However, it is now useless to speculate about leader pick, given that we are last in pick order. All top leaders would be taken by that point, to compensate we should be able to choose a relly powerful civ. My only thought is that expansive is a good pick for this start as it is immediately usefull and it is best comboed with something that allows to keep the slider low.

[Gavagai]

One thing to point out about your starting screen shot, evidently it's missing fresh water adjacent to the starting tile. Expect to have a river tile somewhere next to your settler when the game goes live, that has to have been an oversight. There's no legitimate reason I can think of to deny only one player the +2 fresh water health bonus.

Would it be possible to show us genuine starting screenshot before pick? This information is pretty important.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'm not the actual map maker, I'm just making promises on Krill's behalf. If I were to make the edit I would just draw in a one tile river on either the southern or eastern edge of the hill tile your settler starts on.

Edit: That is, dumping the mouth of the river into the coast tile SE of the starting hill tile. The goal would be to provide fresh water and minimize changing any other characteristics of the start.

[Whosit]

Going warrior first isn't something I'm seriously considering, especially since I'm trying to learn for this game! However, it's just something I've mused about because I think it would be hilarious if I managed to catch someone off guard. Maybe it would shake up the metagame a little. Or... Krillmod nerf warriors? Heh heh. But, no, I know that opening has too many ifs. Don't worry.

Are there any civs you're thinking about? I'm not sure that we could get Mining > Bronze Working in 20 turns. It was like 15 turns to get BW out the gate here (assuming I got my test world settings correct). Zulu is my second choice, and since they start with Agri, that's one tech on the Pottery path, plus they have better UU/UB. I'd still be happy with Khmer, even if they aren't the strongest civ.

Also, nice to know we'll have some fresh water of some sort at the start.