[Spoiler] Fintourist loses his multiplayer virginity

[Fintourist]

So the map size is standard. What does it mean for my sandbox? Slightly lower distance maintenance? Anything else?

And again, IMP or CHA, horizontal or vertical growth, I want both..

[kjn]

Higher distance maintenance but lower number of cities maintenance. Slightly higher research costs.

[Fintourist]

Thanks kjn, if I read correctly the rise will be 10 % and that will screw up my opening. Damn.. But let's see what the discussion in vets tech thread brings. It is my turn to pick and I have no time to further simulations even though they would be useful, so let's go ahead.

I will choose Hannibal, IMP might well be the better choice, but I do not want to copy any of the Vets (Victoria was picked there). And I do think that CHA has some clear benefits so that the difference between these two options is not enormous.

If anybody is out there I would truly appreciate comments regarding my first opening plan.


Hydra picked Spain. Probably because of +1 trade routes from Citadel. Interesting choice, I hope I do not have to build castles, attack is the best defence and so on.. They start with mysticism and fishing. Way too cheap techs in my opinion, but I guess that means they settle next to the fish and open with WB. Tech Agri etc. They will be in hurry to get Wheel,Pottery, Mining & BW timely in play.

They have 5 points left to use in Leader traits so they can get something nice there. Their strategy might definitely be superior to mine..

[kjn]

Hydra picked Spain. Probably because of +1 trade routes from Citadel. Interesting choice, I hope I do not have to build castles, attack is the best defence and so on.. They start with mysticism and fishing. Way too cheap techs in my opinion, but I guess that means they settle next to the fish and open with WB. Tech Agri etc. They will be in hurry to get Wheel,Pottery, Mining & BW timely in play.

Castles also give +1 trade routes. The Citadel gives +5 XP to siege units over the normal castle.

[Fintourist]

Castles also give +1 trade routes. The Citadel gives +5 XP to siege units over the normal castle.

Thanks Kjn, I totally wrote some BS there. So is the Spain pick really about the religion or are conquistadors that good? I think that must be then a spain+lake thing. Is that opening strong enough in MP? I guess time will show, at least I do not have experience to assess that..

Sury is definitely a good pick, but still I am kind of happy to see that. One competitor less if I decide to go for Stonehenge, which would synergize well with my already chosen leader...

I hope that the map settings are soon finalized so that I can make a sandbox that really matches the reality..

[Fintourist]

Ok,

so the three leaders that I also speculated are taken (Sury, Victoria & Hannibal).

Sareln took Rome, I think it's a solid pick. I believe he will take an EXP leader, settle next to the fish (NE) and tech BW. That will mean 12t worker. EOT 15 WB is chopped out. And he has worker & extremely good tile being worked (T16). I will have my rice worked T16 as well, but since fish is better tile this is a faster start. However, he will grow so fast with the fish that he can't keep up with worker labor unless he quickly chops or builds the 2nd worker. I think this start will be faster than mine (I guess I will sim this out), but that is only possible with EXP (otherwise you are 3 turns behind and the start is not anymore so brilliant). I hope that FIN will be better in the long run.

I would have personally picked Carthage over Rome (+1 trade route harbors), but of course there is no need to justify Pretorians. I am already scared.

I will sandbox the start with fish+mining (test Carthage), but since I am no EXP I will most likely end up with the original plan and take civ with Agri+Wheel.

The options are:
- Egypt (War chariots + UB, which synergizes with my trait, but do I really need priest specialists for absolutely anything..)
- Ottomans (Janissary helps against conquistadors + late prets, With Hammam + CHA + Monument, I can grow vertically without help from HR/Representation. But do I want that? Warriors as military police are cheaper than aqueducts..
- France (Musketeer + Salon. It is a bit difficult to value the use of these. But there is value..)
- Sumeria (Vultures are not much more helpful against Prets than normal Axes. Cheap courthouses with priesthood -> I can make a case for that)

This is difficult..

[Fintourist]

I simmed FIN leader Fishing/Mining start. Worker-> chopped WB -> etc. This can be a nice start, capitol works extremely good food tiles etc. But I simply can not match the speed that I get with SIP. 2nd city is later up, capitol grows couple turns later, etc. (EDIT: New tries brought the capitol up also pretty nicely, but I still can't get settler out as fast as with SIP.)

I understand that there might be long term benefits that outweight the benefits from SIP (e.g. in the form of better civ such as Carthage or Rome). And I admit that there are better civ players than me here, who probably can make way better openings than I do. I might simply have missed the optimal path/build order there.

And as already said, with EXP you get things done with good speed, but I did put my money on FIN..

Is anybody reading my confused dialogue with myself? I probably shoud ask T-Hawk to create a sub-folder for me, so that I could have one thread with clearly written reports and plans and second thread where I can scratch my head alone.

[Fintourist]

So out of Agri/Wheel civs I chose Ottomans.

Mainly because War Chariots or Vultures (I can be wrong here since I do not know the details of combat math) are really no good against pretorians. Musketeers are nice tactical units, but Janissaries are stronger. However, I can go tech heavy path paper->education->gunpowder and then get janissary in play if necessary. They are solid against maces, any ancient units, and get at least some kind of odds against conquistadors (and in emergency I can build them and as soon as I get rifling upgrade them..).

Hammam is expensive, but I'm pretty sure there will be a couple of situations when it is useful. I considered Sumeria because of Ziggurats, but in the end I valued defence boost from Ottoman UU higher. And again, I did not wan't to copy vets.

[Fintourist]

Viqsi has Sury of Carthage. Damn I am jealous. That is strong. If I would have not decided to go FIN, this would have been my dream pairing. Now I just have to hope that FIN will prevail in the end.

Luckily at least my game will not be decided in the leader draft. I will make dozens of another mistakes that will determine my success (or more likely the lack of it)..

EDIT: I get from Viqsi and his posts a "Locke feeling". Or perhaps it's because I am kind od regretting that I did not take Sury.. :D

[Fintourist]

So the teams are clear

Sareln playing Bismarck of Rome
EXP/IND, Fishing&Mining, Preats.
Sareln will get the fast start next to the fish. And Preats make me nervous. IND is extremely annoying, Sareln is both before me in the turn order and has 100 % multiple when building TGL, Colossus, Henge, Oracle etc. He is capable of screwing my plans in many different ways.

Azza playing Victoria of England
FIN/IMP, Fishing/Mining
Azza settles next to the fish, starts slower than Sareln, but has FIN.

Viqsi playing Suryavarman of Carthage
EXP/Cre, Fishing/Mining, annoyingly useful Civ
Practically same start as Sareln has.

Fintourist playing Hannibal of the Ottomans
FIN/CHA, Agri/Wheel
I hope to last at least the first 50 turns and that SIP is not totally inferior opening. There's a reason I chose this approach, but who knows whether it pays off.

Hydra playing Ashoka of Spain
ORG/SPI, Fishing/Mysticism
This is the most exotic starting combo (Religion first in MP?). I would say this provides the slowest start, but I might just be blind for something.


Summary:
It looks like that everyone else is going to settle next to the fish. I expect that Sareln, Azza & Viqsi will tech BW, start with worker and chop WB. EXP leaders will get faster start than I do, but Azza should be somewhat slower than me. I really hope that Sareln and Viqsi won't get the snowball rolling and outexpand me etc. My hope is that FIN is the right solution.

I also do hope that there is a decent place for the city next to the fish that qualifies as the 2nd city candidate so that I can do my tile swapping games. Chances are high that I get at least something useful, I have approximately 13 tiles there that I can use. If everything is just desert then it's just Fingers crossed.