[SPOILERS] Vive l'Afrique libre : Bowsling and Aivoturso are Mansa Musa of the Zulu

[Aivoturso]

Don't forget Elizabeth (Fin/Phi) as a top pick. IMO, we should still go for Financial leader unless we aim for a specialist economy. AFAIK, SE is good in early game, but it will be left behind in mid to late game. Even when running Free Speech, having Printing Press and building cottages next to river, we'll get +12.5 % commerce per town. Most of the game the bonus is relatively speaking even bigger. So as long as we'll run CE (or a mixed economy), I'd say that Financial is a must. I agree that Exp is nice to have with the start we got but even so, I prefer Financial.

BTW, if we pick financial we can leverage the sea we got for some early game commerce if need be.

As for scouting, I think we'll be able to scout the northern river way before we get our first built settler even if we start by going south.

[Bowsling]

I think SPI is much more valuable than PHI. Do you agree that we should pick Mansa Musa?

[Aivoturso]

I understand that SPI is great if we plan to switch civics aggressively during the game. That's something I've never really learned to do, so if I was playing on my own I'd probably go for Lizzy. However, since this game is about learning I'm totally fine with Mansa. So in short, Mansa Musa it is.

[Bowsling]

Well, my learning experience would be with PHI. The value of changing civics almost whenever you want, along with all the saved anarchy turns, outweighs a handful of extra Great People and cheap universities in my mind. My only experience with pure SE was trying to mitigate the train wreck that was classical hero's civ in the Intrateam, so I'm a little nervous about that.

[Bowsling]

So a bunch of picks have been made. I'll compile a list when I'm on a computer. The last team used their double pick to pick Ragnar of Rome. classical hero/Halvgud used their pick to pick Sumeria, which I find kind of funny, given how many better options there were at that point.

[Bowsling]

8. Team Eagles & Condors - Kurumi / HBHR (with Oxyphenbutazone dedlurking) : Pacal II of Native America
10. Team Dinosaurs - Whiteye / Raptorous : Darius I of England
3. Team Master and Margarita - Slaze / Maga_R (with Jovan Kukic dedlurking) : Willem of the Ottomans
6. Bowsling / Aivoturso : Mansa Musa of the Zulu
1. Team Orgynized - Lord Parkin / Arkipeller / Magno_uy (with WilliamLP and Dp101 dedlurking) : Huayna Capac of the Netherlands
2. Team Blame Caledorn - YossarianLives / Caledorn (with Scooter, Old Harry and Cheater Hater dedlurking) : Isabella of Inca
4. Team Care Bears - Yuufo / Bisons : Victoria of India
7. Dick76 / DMOC : Suryarvarman II of Byzantium
5. Team My Little Marathon Cannibal Pony - Classical_Hero / Halvgud : Napoleon of Sumeria???
9. Barteq / Geo (with Harami dedlurking) : Ragnar of Rome

Two more civs will be picked before we are up next. Of the civs we were interested in, basically everyone is left so far except India, Inca and Rome. Khmer, HRE, Ottomans, Mayans, Zulu, and maybe England are all delicious civs, and at most two of them will be gone by the time we're up. Ten bucks that Team Orgynized picks Egypt. DMOC will probably pick one of the civs on our list.

With such a huge variety of civs, we should start to narrow down our options. England (Fishing/Mining) would actually work kinda well with our start, and would give us some late game leverage. Zululand is always a fun pick, and their starting techs are top-notch. I don't really see any reason to pick HRE any more (the Rathaus bonuses are the same as the Ikhanda bonuses), unless we want to deny them to Darius. Khmer is still Khmer, i.e. excellent.

EDIT: Byzantium and Victoria have been picked.

[Aivoturso]

It's our turn. Team Orgynized picked Netherlands. BTW, Rathouse bonus is a bit higher than Ikhanda bonus and it doesn't require building Barracks in every city. However, I'd rather pick Zulu due to their excellent starting techs.

[Bowsling]

So you want Zululand then? Not the Khmer?

[Aivoturso]

Khmer is also great, but Zulu has perfect starting techs for our starting position. Also, I'd prefer not to see Pacal of Zululand in this game. So, in short I'd prefer Zulu, but if you really want to go with Khmer, I'm OK with that too (+1 food from Aqueduct is quite tempting).

[Bowsling]

It's a done deal. I was partial to the Zulu as well, I was just checking to make sure.