Two Heads Think Better than Three

[Krill]

I completely disagree. First I think there is room for more than one IND leader in the game. Second, I even said earlier in this thread that Mansa + Pericles looked like a strong combo to me despite not liking Mansa in general.

If you really wanted Mansa to be the techer (so aren't willing to pick creative, other good choices IMO include Mehmed, Roosevelt, Washington, and De Gaulle. And there are even more choices that aren't great but are reasonable.

Let me preface this by saying this is your game, so you make the leader picks.

The issue with players picking multiple IND leaders is the tech pace. The later wonders are going to be decided by tech pace not by IND. The only early wonders that IND would influence are Henge, Mids and maybe Oracle, and depending on the map Oracle might just get chopped out by anyone. Basically, why pick IND after someone picks Bismark, it's a huge telegraph that that player wants at least one of those early wonders. Is the pay off of getting Henge worth the risk of picking, say, De Gaulle? I can see why multiple IND leaders would turn up in the game, but if you pick IND but not EXP/IND you leave yourself open to losing that initiative but also losing any synergy between leaders and having your strategy countered T0.

I understand the concept of Pericles/Mansa but TBH I don't think it's a good idea. I disagree that saving those hammers is actually that important, but it's better than picking two random leaders which is effectively what 1st pick ends up having to do. That said, I can see Pericles being chosen by someone else if you were to decide not to use it.

So, in the end, we might actually end up with similar picks either way, right? Pericles/Mansa was still possible for the first pick in your example and I bet there were other combinations superior than picking another financial leader. Maybe doubling on SPI/ORG would be better than doubling on financial?

I don't see doubling up on ORG or SPI as affecting the game as much as doubling up on FIN. I don't see the point in banning duplicate leaders because allowing the duplicates isn't going to break anything, but provides greater versatility when picking, allowing teams to not lose the game on T0. And with so few teams in the game, I think it would be more fun for the players to not have one opponent in a whole at the beginning of the game, but maybe that's just me being opinionated.

[darrelljs]

Welcome to having Krill as a dedicated lurker .

Darrell

[Krill]

Difference between Seven, mackoti and you is that they have actually won games.

[Krill]

Reason why what I suggested in the public thread should be illegal: Take Joao/Mansa (or any FIN late game powerhouse). Joao expands out to 5, maybe 6 cities, then focuses everything on providing cities and workers to his partner. The turn he settles a city though, he chops in a forest to complete a granary at eot. He offers the city then ends turn, getting the granary (once Maths is in, anyway) then the partner accepts a city with granary that cost 63-ish hammers all told and EXP workers in place, completely bypassing the slow start that is inherent in the partners traits.

Truth be told though, that trick is probably the only time I think EXP is worth picking if you want to have fun, except with Bismark.

[mackoti]

Reason why what I suggested in the public thread should be illegal: Take Joao/Mansa (or any FIN late game powerhouse). Joao expands out to 5, maybe 6 cities, then focuses everything on providing cities and workers to his partner. The turn he settles a city though, he chops in a forest to complete a granary at eot. He offers the city then ends turn, getting the granary (once Maths is in, anyway) then the partner accepts a city with granary that cost 63-ish hammers all told and EXP workers in place, completely bypassing the slow start that is inherent in the partners traits.

Truth be told though, that trick is probably the only time I think EXP is worth picking if you want to have fun, except with Bismark.

This kind of play needs alot of coordonation and loads of planing so i would not be realy against it.6 cities on immortal toroidal would be instant bankrupcy without serious cotage build, so yeah that plan of yours fast expanding would have been good for a noble dificulty , not this one.

I am more and more inclined for the funder(i hope its right term) to get if we can an ORG/something of Sumeria.Becasue that civ for long term will need just granaries and courthoses(markets a litle to expensives)

[Krill]

It's Immortal/Large/Cylindrical, so I don't think 5 cities is unreasonable if the land isn't awful. A sixth city would have to have a very good reason to be settled though, I'm thinking something like bottleneck city or gets a happy resource that the other cities can benefit from plus river and food resources, otherwise just stick with 5. The point about Joao (which I'm not advocating being picked given the settings, it's just an example) is that you only run cottages and food resources though, so 5 cities would be running at least 6 cottage and at most 16 depending on the slave cycle with no additional happiness (each point of happiness generally means 1 additional cottage per city because you only need 18 food over 4 turns to grow from size 3>5, and 19 food to grow from size 4>6) and only need 2 pop to slave out the settlers. Those whip cycles don't have to be for settlers or worker though, they could be for military, infrastructure via overflow, missionaries...EXP alone can't actually stick to those cycles without additional happiness and more food if you want settlers, so I think that's a bad pick. I agree that ORG Sumeria would be a decent pick up, but I doubt Sumeria will not be highly regarded by all the teams.

[Ichabod]

What about HRE and Aztec for discounted/better courthouses, would they be good picks? Their starting techs are at least viable with everyone starting with scouts. Sumeria will be a top pick, in my opinion.

A civ that I think will be very good is the Byzantines. Their UU is awesome and I like their UB too, because it's cheap and gives 2 happiness (1 from building and 1 from horses, while a theater only doubles the dye happiness). The worst thing about them is the techs, which won't be so bad here. Perfect combination would probably be china, I guess. Mostly for the starting techs, but the fact that the UB is at the same tech and the UU is on the same path also helps.

Greece and Maya are also a good pair, I think. Problem is, we'd start without agriculture.

I know my comments are pretty random, but I was having fun coming up with civ pairs (that are probably going to be invalidated as soon as someone makes their first pick).

[Krill]

Truth be told I don't really think much of the civs beyond starting techs. Provided you come out with at least Agri, Wheel and Mining, anything else is just a bonus (though I woudl always want the fourth tech). One of the issues with some civ valuations is that there are quite a few Agri/Wheel civs, butthere are few Mining/Myst civs, and if you were to choose to rush Henge at the start of the game, some civs would be more valulable than others. I kinda care a bit less about pairing UB with the corresponding trait, for instance. Then again, Seven and mackoti probably feel differently about the civs to me.

[Sareln]

They should just go Arabia/Byzantium for paired Knight UUs, ignoring everything else.

[Krill]

They should go Germany/America just to prove the early game doesn't matter. Or pick Sid as one of the leaders.