[SPOILERS] Oxy and suttree save the day, again!

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Double post, so to elaborate on our chat yesterday and also relay our thought process to the lurkers, here's some of the ideas brought up.

1) There are more or less two valid options for pick #1 under these settings, Pacal (FIN/EXP) or India. I guess you could go for Willem(FIN/CRE), but that just seems plain inferior to Pacal. Maintenance with Large/Toroid/Monarch will be significant, but not enough for ORG to beat out FIN or EXP.

2) That being said, ORG will be a pretty sweet trait here with a decent amount of water and high maintenance

3) There are 10 FIN leaders in this game, they can be arbitrarily separated into tiers

tier 1- Pacal(FIN/EXP), Willem(FIN/CRE)
tier 2- Mansa(FIN/SPI), Darius(FIN/ORG), Huayna Capac(FIN/IND), Elizabeth(FIN/PHI)
tier 3- Victoria(FIN/IMP), Hannibal(FIN/CHM)
tier 4- Ragnar(FIN/AGG), Wang Kong(FIN/PRO)

Of those, both tier 1 and 2 are worth picking in a 10 player game under these settings, and tier 3 is iffy. That means, there are about 6-8 viable FIN leaders in this game, which is a big deal because financial is such an awesome trait for a high maintenance NTT game. Unless a lot of teams screw up their pick, we're unlikely to get a tier 1 or 2 FIN leader if we go India first. That said, Victoria of India would be a pretty sweet combination now that I think of it.

4) A thought I had if we're picking India first, it's a pretty risky pick. We aren't guaranteed a FIN leader which means any economy we build will be inferior to our financial adversaries, UNLESS we utilize the pyramids. Specialist economies can be very powerful if done correctly and have some useful advantage over cottage spam economies. IND is also buffed, because wonders in general are a little better under these settings, with the high tech costs and maintenance and the large amount of land for each player. But again, it's extremely risky to build a gameplan around one wonder in a 10-player game before it starts. We could mitigate this by trying to pick Bismark(EXP/IND) with the 10th leader pick. He's very likely to fall that far, and it is likely that the only other IND leader that would be picked is HC. It would be very hard for anyone to beat EXP/IND India to the pyramids. The problem is that if a team starts with stone close by, it's not impossible. 10 players, even with probably half of them financial, might be too many to try for this. Plus, it's not like FIN leaders will never build the mids.

5) I think the consensus is leaning towards Pacal first, though it depends on what our start will look like. Yes, it would be more constructive to post on this after getting the start, but hey I'm bored

6) We're worried about some of the more inexperienced and unknown teams in this game. HBHR has played with a few of the players before and said that many teams will prefer rushing over economic development. Rushing, of course, is a terrible decision on a big map with crushing maintenance. I fully expect teams to pick AGG Rome or something of that nature and try to ruin someones game. Thus, we're interested in a civ with an early UU, both as a choke buster and and a choke deterrent. If a team decides to rush from t0, hopefully they'll prefer to pick an "easier" target. Also, with full diplo on, we can try to use the early UU as a negotiating tactic for a long NAP.

7) We also want to prioritize a civ with Agri/Wheel for starting techs. Large/Monarch has pretty high tech costs so there's an immediate beaker advantage from that. Also, with FIN/EXP, pottery is an amazing tech. Thus, some of the civs that stand out that could be available at pick #20 are Babylon, Sumeria and Mali. Carthage is another possibility with the EXP synergy and the early UU, but obviously the starting techs are a lot worse for early pottery. If we do get a coastal start, Carthage would be a good pick. This really is all dependent on the start, but in an ideal world where we get grains food, that's what we are considering.

8) I sure hope Parkin takes the "Don't be a Jerk" rule as, "hey, maybe I shouldn't play clock games in this game," and not "hey, clock games aren't explicitly banned in this game"

[Oxyphenbutazone]

HBHR, can you PM me the team email password so I can set up forwarding to my email?

EDIT: And naming scheme!!! This is clearly a matter of utmost importance for our success in this game

[HBHR]

PM send it

About naming scheme, i have no idea, any suggestion?

Edit: Well, i'm fan of The Game of Thrones series, naming ours citites like westeros's cities will be fun, but is only me, actually we are three members with equal voting
Edit-2: Hey Oxy, how you redirect to your email the team account? I don't know how in gmail

[HBHR]

I've screenshots ready. Have the settings now been fully decided and I can start presenting them in spoiler threads?

[plako]

Your starting position. Only visible tiles will be kept so no need to try to read the fog.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Hmmm,

-Immediate EXP bonus
-All of one forest for an Indian FW to chop.
-Good starting techs: Agriculture, Fishing
-Short river
-We should consider moving, this capital is good, but not great. It's mainly the lack of river tiles as FIN that hurts.
-If those northern forests are kept, we should consider settling 1N
-Depends on fog-gazing once we log into the game, but scout should go NE-NW, SW or W
-If we do SIP or move 1N, it may be a good idea to turn the capital into a unit pump and emphasize commerce in cities that are better suited for that. We can always move the capital around the time CS comes into play. At size 7, the capital can get 18 hpt with food to spare.
-With AH food, Mali is out. Babylon, Sumeria and Carthage can all be good picks here

EDIT: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en explains how to setup forwarding
I'd be fine with Game of Thrones, though I won't be able to contribute many suggestions for city names

[plako]

FYI - That wheat is irrigated.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Thanks Plako, that makes the capital much better

I think we should move our units like this



Here's my reasoning

-It guarantee's us a lighthousable lake, wherever Plako decides to put it to irrigate the wheat, either 1W or 1NW of the wheat.
-1N at least looks like it has better tiles and in essence we're giving up a couple of coast tiles and bare grasslands for potentially forested land tiles.
-It makes it a lot easier for a potential city site to split off the sheep and fish, this is pretty important with such a high-food capital
-It let's us use the settler as a pesudo-scout at no cost, the settler will reveal all of the white tiles by moving 1N. If 1W of the wheat is a lake, then it will also reveal the red tiles. It can then either settle or double back to the PH
-The scout sees if settling on the PH is worth it, moving 1S to reveal any hill tiles in a 2 tile radius and then 1NW to reveal the area around there
-It gives us at least one cottagable riverside tile
-Settling on river for health isn't worth it here with EXP, no flood plains and 3 health resources at the capital

[Oxyphenbutazone]

One last thing, are we all agreed on picking Pacal? We should try to get this snake pick rolling ASAP

[HBHR]

Double post, so to elaborate on our chat yesterday and also relay our thought process to the lurkers, here's some of the ideas brought up.

1) There are more or less two valid options for pick #1 under these settings, Pacal (FIN/EXP) or India. I guess you could go for Willem(FIN/CRE), but that just seems plain inferior to Pacal. Maintenance with Large/Toroid/Monarch will be significant, but not enough for ORG to beat out FIN or EXP.

2) That being said, ORG will be a pretty sweet trait here with a decent amount of water and high maintenance

3) There are 10 FIN leaders in this game, they can be arbitrarily separated into tiers

tier 1- Pacal(FIN/EXP), Willem(FIN/CRE)
tier 2- Mansa(FIN/SPI), Darius(FIN/ORG), Huayna Capac(FIN/IND), Elizabeth(FIN/PHI)
tier 3- Victoria(FIN/IMP), Hannibal(FIN/CHM)
tier 4- Ragnar(FIN/AGG), Wang Kong(FIN/PRO)

Of those, both tier 1 and 2 are worth picking in a 10 player game under these settings, and tier 3 is iffy. That means, there are about 6-8 viable FIN leaders in this game, which is a big deal because financial is such an awesome trait for a high maintenance NTT game. Unless a lot of teams screw up their pick, we're unlikely to get a tier 1 or 2 FIN leader if we go India first. That said, Victoria of India would be a pretty sweet combination now that I think of it.

4) A thought I had if we're picking India first, it's a pretty risky pick. We aren't guaranteed a FIN leader which means any economy we build will be inferior to our financial adversaries, UNLESS we utilize the pyramids. Specialist economies can be very powerful if done correctly and have some useful advantage over cottage spam economies. IND is also buffed, because wonders in general are a little better under these settings, with the high tech costs and maintenance and the large amount of land for each player. But again, it's extremely risky to build a gameplan around one wonder in a 10-player game before it starts. We could mitigate this by trying to pick Bismark(EXP/IND) with the 10th leader pick. He's very likely to fall that far, and it is likely that the only other IND leader that would be picked is HC. It would be very hard for anyone to beat EXP/IND India to the pyramids. The problem is that if a team starts with stone close by, it's not impossible. 10 players, even with probably half of them financial, might be too many to try for this. Plus, it's not like FIN leaders will never build the mids.

5) I think the consensus is leaning towards Pacal first, though it depends on what our start will look like. Yes, it would be more constructive to post on this after getting the start, but hey I'm bored

6) We're worried about some of the more inexperienced and unknown teams in this game. HBHR has played with a few of the players before and said that many teams will prefer rushing over economic development. Rushing, of course, is a terrible decision on a big map with crushing maintenance. I fully expect teams to pick AGG Rome or something of that nature and try to ruin someones game. Thus, we're interested in a civ with an early UU, both as a choke buster and and a choke deterrent. If a team decides to rush from t0, hopefully they'll prefer to pick an "easier" target. Also, with full diplo on, we can try to use the early UU as a negotiating tactic for a long NAP.

7) We also want to prioritize a civ with Agri/Wheel for starting techs. Large/Monarch has pretty high tech costs so there's an immediate beaker advantage from that. Also, with FIN/EXP, pottery is an amazing tech. Thus, some of the civs that stand out that could be available at pick #20 are Babylon, Sumeria and Mali. Carthage is another possibility with the EXP synergy and the early UU, but obviously the starting techs are a lot worse for early pottery. If we do get a coastal start, Carthage would be a good pick. This really is all dependent on the start, but in an ideal world where we get grains food, that's what we are considering.

8) I sure hope Parkin takes the "Don't be a Jerk" rule as, "hey, maybe I shouldn't play clock games in this game," and not "hey, clock games aren't explicitly banned in this game"

Hey, what mean "clock games" ?