this fennbandit thread is a font of knowledge [sorry]

[wetbandit]

That was fast, think I saw the first pick as I was beginning my night out and now we're up when the recovery begins. Edit: Or at least I notice we're up when my recovery begins

I agree, we like WK's traits and can make do with a civ after that. Pretty shocked that QSH got taken.

[Fenn]

Alright, posted our Wang Kon pick. Even if India and England both get taken (and India's pretty likely to go tbh) we still have some options.

[wetbandit]

I think Jowy's India pick with Hannibal probably upset some people down the line. Interesting to see four financial leaders go. I think England is going to make it to us, would imagine that Bismarck and Charlemagne will pick a civ that has some synergy, and England isn't one of them.

And for all of the internet money, GJ and Brick take Portugal!

[Fenn]

If I was a guessing man, I'd say that the Financial picks are from people with coastal starts who want to play with Wharves. What's a little more interesting is that EXP and CRE only appear once each in all the picks, and that AGR, PHI and SPI are simply absent. That's with PHI getting a buff too!

Bismarck/Charlemagne have better civs than England to pick, for sure. I might do some actual sims tonight, but I think I can already say that WB first is a losing proposition; working improved Fish doesn't get the Worker out any faster than the Ivory

[wetbandit]

England fell to us, so I went ahead and claimed it.

[Fenn]

That's good, because I've been doing all my sims with England.

Here's a few I did. Obviously they don't account for conditions outside our BFC, eg if we need to tech Mysticism for our second/third city, but it's a start.

Code:

Plan #1a - Tech Wheel->Pottery
T0 - found London, work Ivory (3/5/1)
T5 - Agriculture complete, tech Hunting
T9 - Worker 1 complete, produce Work Boat
    Worker 1 moves to Wheat and begins farming
T10 - Hunting complete, tech Wheel
T13 - Wheat Farm completed; London works Wheat Farm (7/3/2)
T14 - Worker moves to 1N of Ivory
T15 - Worker moves on Ivory forest
T16 - Wheel complete, tech Pottery; London grows to Size 2; Work Boat complete, begin Warrior; London works Wheat Farm and Fish Nets (10/1/3)
T19 - London grows to Size; 3 Ivory camp completed; London works Wheat/Fish/Ivory (13/8/4)
T20 - Warrior 1 completes, begin Settler; Worker 1 roads Ivory
T21 - Road on Ivory completes
T22 - Pottery complete, tech BW; Worker moves to river grass 1E of London and begins Cottage
T25 - Cottage completes

T27 - Settler completes:
    London: Size 3, 8/26 Food, 7h overflow
    Improvements: Wheat Farm, Fish nets, Ivory Camp, 1 river grass Cottage, 1 Road on Ivory
    Units: 1 Worker, 1 Warrior, 1 Settler
    Techs: Agri,Hunting,Wheel,Pottery; BW 6t away (T33)

Plan #1b - on T20 grow on Warrior instead of building Settler immediately:
T20 - Begin Warrior 2; Worker 1 moves to Wines
T21 - Worker 1 Roads Wines
T22 - Pottery complete, tech BW; Warrior 2 complete, begin Granary; Worker 1 cottages Wines
T23 - London grows to size 4, begins Settler; works Wheat/Fish/Ivory/Forest PH (13/11/4)
T26 - Wines Cottage completes; London switches from forest PH to Wines Cottage (14/9/8); Settler ETA not lengthened
    From here, Worker 1 can cottage river grassland, or road to possible C2 site
T30 - Settler completes:
    London: Size 4, 3/28f, 7h overflow
    Improvements: Wheat Farm, Fish nets, Ivory Camp, 1 Plains Wines riverside Cottage, 1 river grass Cottage (or 2 roads to new city?)
    Units: 1 Worker, 2 Warriors, 1 Settler
    Techs: Agri,Hunting,Wheel,Pottery; BW 1t away (T31)

Code:

Plan #2a - Tech Bronze Working:
T0-T9: Same as before
T10 - Hunting complete, tech BW
T11-T19: Same as before
T20: Warrior 1 completes, begin Settler; Worker moves 1N and puts one turn into Farm 1E of London
T21: Worker 1 moves to forested riverside PH 1S of London
T22: BW complete, tech Wheel; Worker chops riverside PH Forest
T24: Forest chop complete
T26: Settler complete
T28: PH Mine completes
T30: Worker 2 complete

Plan #2b - Bronze Working, build Worker from T20:
T20: Warrior 1 completes, begin Worker 2; Worker 1 moves 1N and puts one turn into Farm 1E of London
T21: Worker 1 moves to forested riverside PH 1S of London
T22: BW complete, tech Wheel; Worker chops riverside PH Forest
T24: Worker 2 complete, begin Settler; Worker 2 moves to riverside PH
T25: Workers 1+2 mine PH
T26: PH Mine completes
T27: Wheel complete, tech Pottery; Worker 1,2 do ???
T29: Settler completes:
    London: Size 3, 8/26f, 0h overflow
    Improvements: Wheat Farm, Fish nets, Ivory Camp, river PH Mine
    Techs: Agri,Hunting,Bronze Working,Wheel; Pottery 4t away (T33)

Sadly, improving the Ivory wastes two Worker turns. The only way to avoid that would be to go WB first and tech Wheel, but one Worker turn is still wasted and WB first is worse in other areas.

[wetbandit]

I can't get the damn sim working right, it forces random/random civ selection on me. I'll build a sandbox tomorrow, or do you mind sending me your WB file to tvswetbandit at gmail?

I didn't realize how drastic the effect of Tech Cost Scaling is on these early techs. 5 turns on Agri/Hunting is ridiculous. Glad we went with something a little more expensive, I'm guessing that's exactly what TBS was aiming for as well with Japan as his civ. Will we see someone take Byzantium to bank the max beakers? And since their starting techs might be an advantage here?

I find myself constrained to always rushing BW as quick as possible, so the pottery opening makes me scared because it's Different. That said, I think I like the pottery results better in your sims, namely 1b. We don't have to make a decision, fortunately, until T8-9 as I completely agree that the tech path will remain the same under either option.

In 1b, I think I like cottaging the riverside grassland instead of the wines. I'm not sure without doing my own sims, but having the FIN bonus hit the wines is an interesting choice. Trouble is we will be paving over it when Monarchy comes in, which won't be too long away, so we lose the 40-50ish turns of investment into a riverside cottage. And we work another -1 net food tile. But if we need to hit a key tech early for some reason, that would be in favor of that more, like, perhaps, getting to monarchy in the first place.

I did run spreadsheet numbers on WB first and it doesn't have the same return as worker first. Like what we initially thought.

It's too bad that we lose the benefit of five turns of extra scout movement early on given that we have to get Agri first instead of hunting. That's doubly bad because we like to have those extra moves to make a decision on what plan to use.

[Fenn]

Alright, sent you an email with the fixed sandbox. What I did was fix the starting techs, replace every instance of JAPAN with ENGLAND, and replace RAMESSES with WANGKON (not WANG_KON - that tripped me up at first).

I can't imagine what else TBS would see in Japan, but Fishing/Wheel works well when first row techs are so cheap, and especially if his start is like ours (ie coastal, no AH food).

IIRC cottaging the Wines in 1b shaves a turn off of Bronze Working, but that might not be relevant depending on how long the first Settler spends in transit.

Not having Hunting early is a shame; taking Fishing/Hunting would probably add a turn or two to Bronze Working ETA but maybe that wouldn't be a big price to pay for better scouting. I think it'll work out okay, it's just ten turns to Hunting.

[wetbandit]

Ugh, removing the underscore was the only thing that I needed to do. Thanks for the fix and the sim.

Not having Hunting early is a shame; taking Fishing/Hunting would probably add a turn or two to Bronze Working ETA but maybe that wouldn't be a big price to pay for better scouting. I think it'll work out okay, it's just ten turns to Hunting.

With respect to this, I thought one thing and didn't write it down, but I was initially thinking we would do hunting and then agri. Then I realized that the worker would come out 1t early with nothing to do and then that plan doesn't make any sense. Not a comment on the starting techs.

[wetbandit]

Writing some thoughts down on a break because why not.

GermanJoey/Brick - Victoria (Fin/Imp) of ___ NEARLY THERE

THE MYSTERY Edit: Well they got Byzantium and I don't want to start close to them and get phracted. Religion candidate.

Tsargon - Willem (Fin/Cre) of Greece

This combo is the best imo. Doesn't have to worry about border pops, cheap libraries, cheap +2 happy coliseums, all with extra commerce from Fin. The UU is even somewhat useful.

Borsche - Julius Caesar (Org/Imp) of Vikings

ToW has significantly different naval mechanics. Extra naval movement may be annoying to deal with, depending on the lay of the land (or water). What with the extra water building (wharf), I imagine this map will have many coastal cities, and speeding a lighthouse is a nice benefit. Other than that, JC is a prototypical one good trait early, one good trait late that makes him a very good leader.

Haram - Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro) of Sumeria

Hello, I intend to build the Oracle and take Metal Casting. Religion candidate.

Scipio - Cyrus (Cha/Imp) of Khmer

Insanely tall early cities with doubled markets/grocers to fund expansion and more happiness. Not sure that this is that great.

wetbandit/Fenn - Wang Kon (Fin/Pro) of England

I'm happy with our combo, but think it pales in comparison to Willem of Greece. We will have a faster start, somewhat, but I think creative will earn all of it back with the border pops and faster libraries. Our civ helps us out later with a good UU for the era and help with the UB, but we have to get there first.

Dreylin/Grimace - The Burger King (Imp/Pro) of Rome

Super fast start, civ is uninspiring. You can do much worse than praets, and the extra GPP is meh. Swords are far less useful in ToW than RtR.

TBS - Bismarck (Ind/Exp) of Japan

TBS is the best player in this game and he could have a fighting chance with blank leader and blank civ (Sid of the Barbs?). I wouldn't like to play this combo, but Bismarck was an interesting leader to me. But honestly, what do I know about anything? He gets a max cost tech on the way to pottery and the expensive food tech.

I'm not sure which early wonder TBS will prioritize, as Haram could easily beat him to Stonehenge, even with TBS's fantastic micro. With the fishing pick and the maintenance on this map, I'm going to make this wetbandit's Stone Cold Lock of the Century of the Week that TBS will aim for the Great Lighthouse to fund his expansion. Or the Mids because rep is awesome. Like I indicated, what do I know?

Jowy - Hannibal (FIN/CHA) of India

More tall is more good. Religion candidate. Fast Workers are great.