[SPOILERS] Thoth and Mardoc Pretend Piracy Pays as Pacal of Portugal

[Thoth]

Toku and Inca gone.

I think I'll probably grab a civ on the way down and a leader on the way back.

One of: Mali, Russia or Portugal I think. Pair up Mali with a Philo leader (Peter prolly), Russia with an Industrious leader (Bismark?) and Portugal with one of Pacal, Victoria or Joao.

Hmmm.....Joao (Exp, Ind) of Portugal (Pro). REX beast on steroids. hmmmm.

[Thoth]

Not Mali it would appear.

[Thoth]

Portugal it is. Protective (cheap granary, walls and Feitoria) Carrack and Feitoria (replaces shipyard. +3 xp for naval units, +25% naval unit production, +1hammer/+1 commerce on water tiles)


Pacal if he's still available. Otherwise Vicky or Liz.

[Thoth]

Exp/Pro/Fin

Cheap workers, workboats, granaries, walls, markets, aqueducts, grocers, harbours, banks and feitorias. Extra commerce on tiles that produce 3 or more.

10t worker to start + cheap granaries to fuel some REXing plus cheap econ buildings meansI should have an excellent economy plus water tiles that turn into 2f/1h/4c with 100h invested in pier/lighthouse/fietoritas. And Protective walls/archers/gp units to help hold it. Come Optics, Carracks open up some naval opportunities

[Thoth]

I'm thinking of going with a Hodor theme.

[Thoth]

BRickAstley + Qgqqqqq - Tokugawa of Maya
Krill - Elizabeth of Inca
Cheater Hater - Peter of Mali
Pindicator - Joao of Ethiopia
Thoth - Pacal of Portugal
GermanJoey + Donovan Zoi - Sitting Bull of Germany
Plako - Willem of HRE

QBrick (aka Stanley):

Agg/Pro/Cha Holkans, Ball courts, and excellent Gunpowder units.
Cheap granaries, reduced city maint and border pops with barracks. They'll have excellent military units but they don't have much to boost econ and only a small boost to expansion. I think they could have done better here but time will tell.

Krill: Fin/Phi/Pro. Quechas (now nerfed) and Terraces.
Cheap Terraces. Fin/Phi will give Krill a solid economic footing. Cheap Terraces are a nice expansion boost. Solid but unexciting.


Cheater Hater: Exp/Phi/Ind Skirms and boosted Mints.

This is one of the combinations I was strongly considering, so obviously CH has made an excellent choice here.

Pindicator: Exp/Imp/Phi Stele (monument that gives 2 merchant slots) and Oromos

Fast expansion thanks to Expansive and Imp. Phi boosted steles to pop out a couple of early Great Merchants. The "free" settled merchants will help cover Pindicator's costs while the "natural" GMs can bulb handy techs like Currency (still good even without the trade route), CoL, Civil Service and/or Guilds. Looks good to me.

Donovan Zoi/GermanJojo: Pro/Phi/Ind. Ass Plants (forge replacement, boosted prod with metals) and cheaper cannons.

Philo Bismark. Ok expansion boost, cheap forges are always nice and new Phi to boost the economy. Probably good but strikes me as not very interesting.

Plako: Fin/Cre/Org with Rathouses and Landsneezes (+100% vs melee and mounted)

Easy border pops, cheaper libs, Financial boost to commerce, cheap Rathouses and cheap civics. Good pike replacements. Power econ combo but will be a bit slow out of the gate wrt expansion.

[Thoth]

BTW: Mardoc, I'm going to be settling in on a final thread title soon. Do you want your name in the credits or would you prefer plausible deniability ?

[Mardoc]

Hmm, interesting combo. Basically EitB Lanun without the pirate ports? Seems like the name of the game is sprawl.

Got some catchup reading to do, was gone all weekend.

Regarding the titular inclusion proposal: I want credit if you win or place and deniability if you don't, of course So predict the future and act accordingly

[Thoth]

Hmm, interesting combo. Basically EitB Lanun without the pirate ports? Seems like the name of the game is sprawl.

Yeah. Uber sea tiles for us from the early mid game onwards. Quay + Breakwater make for better water tiles than Fightorias do, but Fatoriums provide us with the Shipyard/Drydock naval xp/production boosts so we'll get all of the bonus from one branch of the seaside improvements and most of the benefits of a second. And we'll have them from Compass onwards rather than Currencey/Replacable parts. Plus we only have to input 40 base hammers into the Fietoritas to get our bonus yields.

Expansive/Protective gets us the cheap granaries and workers we'll need for some serious sprawl. Henge would be really nice to have. As would Colossus.

Got some catchup reading to do, was gone all weekend.

Regarding the titular inclusion proposal: I want credit if you win or place and deniability if you don't, of course So predict the future and act accordingly

I'll put your name in the title and then blame you if we don't win.

[Thoth]

Did up an initial sandbox (see attachment) and messed about a bit: