[SPOILER] Close to Win

[Old Harry]

1. Superdeath- Catherine / ON DECK
2. Charriu- Mao / UP NEXT
3. pindicator- Charlemagne / Carthage
4. Mjmd- Victoria / India
5. AutomatedTeller- Boudica / Maya
6. Jowy- Hannibal / Khmer
7. Mr.Cairo- Tokugawa / Zulu
8. GiraRober- Cyrus / Japan

We're up and only Khmer is gone from your list. It sounds from the organizing spreadsheet like the map will be normally busy, so perhaps ten cities before we're butting heads with a neighbour. That doesn't particularly help Natives or France/Aztecs, so I'd go for either of America or China. The Ottomans are just a bit too dull...

[Charriu]

Boy the pick came sooner then anticipated. I was doing some more testing in the past days. Now I would have loved to take Khmer, but they are gone. Right now I was thinking about these three civs:

Ottoman:

• UB is decent and synergizes with EXP
  
• UU is pretty good like OH mentioned and even better with PRO
  
• Agriculture/Wheel works good as starting techs on this start
  
• Unfortunately no hunting for the scout
  
• Because of the Wheel I don't loose up to three turns of worker action in the beginning
  
• For culture I would need to tech Mysticism for Monuments or Writing for Library. Meh
  

Aztec:

• Strong UB, but no synergy
  
• UU is meh
  
• Hunting/Mysticism is a decent starting combo, moves stuff quicker along
  
• Hey Hunting for the scout
  
• I have at least three lost worker turns
  
• Having access to Mysticism gives me culture via monument, also slight chance of founding a religion, but there are two more Mysticism civs
  

Celts:

• UB isn't the strongest, but it synergizes with PRO and gives me another option for early culture, I do want Walls in every city anyway because of the +1 trade route from castles
  
• UU is at least better then Aztec and I may have a chance to get some use of quick moving swordsmen
  
• Hunting/Mysticism is a decent starting combo, moves stuff quicker along
  
• Hey Hunting for the scout
  
• I have at least three lost worker turns
  

• Having access to Mysticism gives me culture via monument, also slight chance of founding a religion, but there are two more Mysticism civs
  

America has lost for me the only really thing going for it is the UB. The starting techs are worse then the above, the UU is on the same level as the Celts but later.
China would be strong mainly for the starting techs and UU, but I already played them in my last PB.

Have to go to bed soon and will decide tomorrow morning.

[Old Harry]

Aha - the 25h (17h with stone) defensive monument sounds very nice. And Guerilla 1 is a great promo to have on everything as standard, especially since the Dun never obsoletes now. 5 XP on melee or gunpowder units gets you g3 50% withdrawal (mostly) 2-movers. I'd like to see a stack of those...

Celts are my new favourite.

[Charriu]

Actually the Dun does not give Guerilla 1 to everything. This is a misleading tooltip in BtS. It only gives Guerilla 1 to every unit that is eligible for Guerilla 1, so only Archery units, Gunpowder and Recon units. Still I will go with Celts because with PRO all my Archery units and later Gunpowder units start with City Defense, Guerilla 1 and Drill 1 and like you said Guerilla 3 is a great promotino and Guerilla 2 is also worthwhile to have.

So what it comes down to is we are taking the best defensive trait and combine it with one of the best defensive civs. Basically we are printing a big "Don't touch me" shield at our border. In our safe cities we will use the trade bonus and EXP bonus to advance the ages in peace. With Iron Working we will try a little bit of warfare maybe snatching some cities from a dying neighbor, even the crossbowman with Guerilla 3 isn't to shabby. Later we will rule the world with Guerilla 1, 2, 3, City Defense 1, Drill 1 Riflemen.

Sounds fun and interesting to me.

[Charriu]

I think the start here will be pretty standard.

Animal Husbandry->Mining->Bronze Working
Connect pig then sheep. Build a mine on the river hill.
Grow to 3 pop and start a settler, which will finish at T29, while BW finishes at T30

I think after Bronze Working I want to go into The Wheel.

I may need Agriculture before or after the Wheel depending on what I find at the second city. If I have the time after The Wheel I would like to try grab Polytheism for an religion.

[shallow_thought]

Wow, that did come round fast. I'm a little surprised that China was still available - I suspect it's a strong choice here, but fully understand you wanting to play something different.

I have to say that I'd have assumed that Mining/Hunting civs were worth a look myself, just to get a better start on AH/BW as the immediate follow-ons, but I suspect that it would have been a bit late to be throwing out completely new suggestions at this point ... even if I had managed to get the suggestion in before you actually made your pick .

I do think that PRO culture walls sounds strong, along with the potential guerilla shenanigans. It's going to be interesting finding the beakers for Masonry while having to research Agri/Wheel/Pottery, but I'd missed that Myst gives you the second pre-req on it - and I guess it's a really good chance to see how far PRO trade can carry you.

I also suspect that your pick will suggest "cautious turtler" to the oppo. PRO/guerilla archery units are going to be a nightmare to attack into (assuming your cities are on hills, duh). This, of course, gives you a chance to make it a psychological bluff and go on a complete rampage .

[Charriu]

Well the only Mining/Hunting civs still available were:

• Ethiopia
  
• Germany
  
• Russia
  

Unfortunately Jowy already took Khmer.  

Ethiopia would have been nice, if PRO would sync a little bit better with their UU. Germanies UB is very late and while the UU is now available at Chemistry, I did not see much appeal from it otherwise. Russia on the other hand didn't have enough synergy for my liking.

Fitting in Masonry is somewhat of a challenge, but as you have mentioned we have both requisite techs and concerning culture, we can still use the monument for those early cities until we get to Masonry. Masonry is also important if I want to attempt the Great Lighthouse (again). Maybe I can lift the curse of failing to finish Great Lighthouse in time.   
More important we need to make sure that pindicator does not get it. He already gets enough trade routes from his UB, which thankfully cost 100 hammers instead of 80 and he's not EXP.
OH also mentioned that we may run into the problem that others won't open borders with PRO leaders. Well so long as the PRO leaders can open borders with each other we are fine. For that reason I hope that Mr. Cairo can provide that later.

I also suspect that your pick will suggest "cautious turtler" to the oppo. PRO/guerilla archery units are going to be a nightmare to attack into (assuming your cities are on hills, duh). This, of course, gives you a chance to make it a psychological bluff and go on a complete rampage .

That would be a job for our gallic warriors.

[Charriu]

I think now is also a good time to reveal my city and worker naming scheme. Does anybody else know this little gem of a board game?

Small World

Nice little game about the rise and fall of civilization in a simple but fun approach. For those that don't know the game. You take over different fantasy races (elves and orcs) with special abilities in that game. These ability/race combinations are randomized and that way you generate glorious races like: Flying Ratmen, Heroic Skeletons or Pillaging Halflings. I already combined some races and will add a list to the data post in the beginning of the thread.

Now Small World obviously makes fun of the good old D&D, so it would only fitting if I choose something from that universe for my worker names. The character classes like Druid, Rogue and Fighter would fit well here. Note that I will only name worker units and the occasional outstanding unit. That way I can better differentiate the workers in my micro planning tool.

Speaking of which. I will also add a link to my spreadsheet in the data post.

[Charriu]

And once again it remains true that detailed microplanning is awesome. By growing one additional turn to pop 4 when the pasture on the sheep finishs, I was able to push BW to T29. So now Settler and BW finish at the same time and I can neatly switch into slavery with the first settler on the move. Awesome. Now I only need to verify that in the sim.

[Charriu]

Did verify my micro plan and wouldn't you know it, I had some mistakes. I missed the 1 commerce from the city tile itself and I didn't reset my planning tool properly, which is why I had a granary assigned to my capitol. Well back to the drawing border and I'm no longer growing to 4. Instead I start the settler right away with the 3rd pop. Thanks to the missed 1 commerce from the city tile, BW finished before the settler.

Now with the new plan my settler finished at T30. Planning tool revealed that in T29 I have 99/100 hammers in for the settler. Ok, were do I get that extra hammer to finish the settler in T29. There's no way that I can improve the tile use as this is maxed out... Wait a minute, I finish the first warrior one turn before I grow to pop 3. If I work 1 turn of something else then a warrior (e.g. barracks), I finish the warrior the same turn I grow to pop 3 and with the warrior 1 hammer overflows into the settler, which let's me finish the settler with no overflow in T29. Awesome.