RBPitboss #2 Athlete4life10 & Kalin

[athlete4life10]

[SIZE="7"]******SPOILER THREAD******[/SIZE]

Welcome all to Athlete4life10 and Kalin's team. We are Willem van Oranje (Cre/Fin) of the brave Ottoman Empire(UU = Janissary, UB = Hammam).

If you are a player of the RBPB#2 game then don't read any further and please exit out of the thread!

If you are a lurker, you're more then welcome here, just please don't provide any information that might be considered spoilerish from another teams thread.

This thread will be used to update our team's game, thoughts and discussions we have to direct our civilization to victory! Well atleast to outlasting a few.

My leader selection was based around the Fin trait. With no tech trading that would be even more valuable. I chose Cre as I hate to manually border pop. I was very close to selecting Pacal II and I even considered Huyana Capac but in the end Willem won out.

I chose the leader by myself as Kalin was not yet a member of our team but following is the discussion we had on choosing our civ.

[kalin]

Thanks Athlete for the introduction in the planning thread

Here are some thoughts for the record and a request for comment:

I've been thinking a bit about the civ choice and came up with the idea of Arabia I know you are already playing with it in the PBEM, but think a bit about it: we are financial and would start with mysticism, so we have a good shot at an early religion, then we have cheap madrases for a quick prophet for the shrine. If we fail at an early religion we can try to lightbulb Theology with the prophet, then try to get a second for the shrine. The Camel Archers are also a nice insurance policy against the lack of horses or iron, but we'd probably get both.

Kalin

[kalin]

Here are some more thoughts:

I haven't played much with Willem. His traits are certainly very strong, but imo they don't lend themselves to any specific strong synergy with a civ, like an expansive Inca or agressive Rome or organized HRE. I also find the mix of Cre/Fin a bit at odds: Fin means we want to work cottages, but Cre means cheap libs and scientists... However, both are strong traits and would work well with a number of civs. FWIW, my favorite would have been Sury.

I would appreciate any comments on Willem. In particular, on his trait combo that seems to be a bit contradictory. I think I saw Sullla saying that he is a favorite in MP, and I'd be curious what playing approach people take when playing him.

Kalin

[kalin]

Given the choice of civs so far, I am thinking that going for a religion may be a risky endeavor. There are already 3 civs out there (India, Byzantium, Inca) and we would be the forth if we go with Arabia. We could try to go Poly/Mono, for the Theology lightbulb in case neither Poly nor Mono go to us. The drawback in this plan is that we start with no food techs: no fishing or agriculture, so I hope our food resourse(s) will not be only pigs/cows.

However if Shaka of Rome or Ragnar of Zulu are next to us none of the above will happen, as we'll have to do military techs asap.

Kalin

[athlete4life10]

I'm open to the possibility of Arabia but would prefer not simply as I am already playing with them. That was my original plan in the pbem but obviously that didn't work out so well. Not that I played a great game there but that belongs in a different thread

I think ideally we'd like to start with somebody who begins with the mining tech. All civ's that have mining have either Mysticism, Hunting, or Fishing as their 2nd tech except China (agriculture) and Mali (wheel). I would have loved to get Mali but there was no way that was going to happen picking first (unless I used civ as the first pick).

Another thing I'd like to take into consideration is a UB that is either early (and not useless to us like the stele or something) or early - mid. I'd love anything that will provide a health bonus such as the babylonians garden or the persian apothecary (though we'd just be straight up copying Shady? at that point) and the Ottoman's Hamman (though that bonus is happiness but gives a reason to build aqueducts in most places now). We do get the Babylonian Garden 1/2 price, but I would kind of like mining as a starting tech (though none of these civ's have it).

Here's probably my list of civ selections that I will consider not in order of preference:

Arabian (cheap Madrassa, Camel Archer)
Babylon (early defensive archer, Cheap Garden for more health/happy)
China (good UU, Cheap UB +3 culture and + 25% culture...not too hot for us but would pretty much guarantee us any land we settled towards, starts with mining)
English (The Redcoat awesome if we can make it there, Great UB but a bit later as well, starts with mining)
French (The Musketman, I love 2 movers so much more flexible...late UB but not a terrible one)
Greek (Pretty good early UU, more defensive imo which I don't mind, UB is half off as well though it's extra happy not health)
Holy Roman Empire (good UU, good UB, no specific bonus from our traits though)
Korean (ok UU, good later UB again no specific bonus from our traits though has mining :-))
Mayan (not big on the UU, nor the UB but the extra happiness and cheapness of it might be worth it...also starts with mining)
Ottoman (love the UU and the UB, we just have to make it that far...if they started with mining I'd choose these guys)
Persian (not keen on the UU as I feel it's more for rushing which I don't really like to do, the UB is definitely nice imo)

Not exactly a short list but lets try and trim it quickly. I for one am not to keen on the arabs or most likely the mayans.

[athlete4life10]

Thinking about it a little bit I can probably list my top 6 not necessarily in order of preference:

Babylon
China
England
France
Ottoman
Korea

but I'm open to any of the above from my initial civ posting.

[athlete4life10]

Given the choice of civs so far, I am thinking that going for a religion may be a risky endeavor. There are already 3 civs out there (India, Byzantium, Inca) and we would be the forth if we go with Arabia.

Only 1 other is Fin (Elizabeth of India), while the inca's have not yet picked a leader why wouldn't they pick Jao? That still leaves us with a decent chance if you want to go that route. Being placed next to an early rushing civ if you want to go that route maybe we should consider the mayan's or korean's as the are mining/mysticism and would allow immediate research into BW afterwards? Just some thoughts...

[athlete4life10]

For those lurkers out there (before Kalin joined up) I was originally hoping to pair a Fin leader with a civ whom started with mining, and oracle to get MC and hire an engineer to build the Great Library. In some practice play testing if I had a high food, high forest cap, I could generally have 3 cities with a worker each and the oracle completed by turn 70. I tried once with china to go to Machinery and had it done by roughly 86 I think but I definitely could have gotten it faster if I hadn't rushed through it. That being said my opening in all of them was research to BW, and build worker/worker/settler. Not exactly a great opening in MP as it's probably a surefire way to death. So any real planning of early game strategy will probably start after we see the starting position and as the map gets scouted.

*edit*
Oh I had also tried Huyana Capac of Mali (man that was fun ) which allowed me to the oracle in the early to mid 60's!

[kalin]

Here's probably my list of civ selections that I will consider not in order of preference:

Arabian (cheap Madrassa, Camel Archer)
Babylon (early defensive archer, Cheap Garden for more health/happy)
China (good UU, Cheap UB +3 culture and + 25% culture...not too hot for us but would pretty much guarantee us any land we settled towards, starts with mining)
English (The Redcoat awesome if we can make it there, Great UB but a bit later as well, starts with mining)
French (The Musketman, I love 2 movers so much more flexible...late UB but not a terrible one)
Greek (Pretty good early UU, more defensive imo which I don't mind, UB is half off as well though it's extra happy not health)
Holy Roman Empire (good UU, good UB, no specific bonus from our traits though)
Korean (ok UU, good later UB again no specific bonus from our traits though has mining :-))
Mayan (not big on the UU, nor the UB but the extra happiness and cheapness of it might be worth it...also starts with mining)
Ottoman (love the UU and the UB, we just have to make it that far...if they started with mining I'd choose these guys)
Persian (not keen on the UU as I feel it's more for rushing which I don't really like to do, the UB is definitely nice imo)

Lots of stuff to reply too

First, comments on the civ list. These are my opinions, so I am not claiming to be necessary the best choices, so I mean this as a discussion starter.

* Arabia -- One of the strongest choices imo, commented a bit earlier on it.

* Babylon -- The Garden is nice but in my SP experience happiness is the limiting factor in the beginning rather than health, so I don't think the bonus is that significant when it matters. That being said, I think Construction is a must in this game, and having a UB for which we get a discount is nice. The UU will probably not matter unless we don't have neither metal nor horses in which case we are probably screwed anyway. All in all it would be a pretty good choice I think.

* China -- I don't like this too much. The UU is expensive and easily countered by cheaper HAs. Also for collateral, we'd be probably better off with just cats. To chase the UU we'd also need to go to Machinery which is quite expensive. Is it worth going to machinery and not doing say math/construction? I am not sure, but it's probably not worth. The UB is meh imo. We'd get a lot of culture sure, but I feel that in this game the borders will be settled with troops rather than culture. In conclusion, I would rather not choose them.

* England -- It was also one of my choices. It depends a lot on the map size though. A larger map would certainly make them a good choice as both UU/UB come rather late. A good choice but probably not my first.

* France -- Same as for China, don't really like them. UB doesn't give a great benefit and comes very late. The UU is only ok: 2 moves is surely nice, but countered easily by everything. I'd rather not choose them.

* Greece -- Similar to Babylon, a pretty good choice I think, but not my first. Both UU/UB are good and we get discount on UB, but again UB comes very early and may simply be wasted.

* HRE -- Little synergy with our civ and a bit hard to leverage both the UU and UB. Better than China/France, but not than the others.

* Korea -- Same as HRE, although the UU/UB are not as good.

* Maya -- Decent mid-choice, we'd probably not go with them

* Ottomans -- Probably one of the best choices (imo). It'd force us to go math/construction, but we probably want that anyway.

* Persia -- Not crazy about them, we'd probably not get them.

In summary, I group the list in tiers:

Tier 1: Arabia, Ottomans

Tier 2: Greece, England, Babylon

Tier 3: HRE, Korea

Tier 4: Maya, Persia

Tier "no good" : China, France

I saw you expressing concerns about health as well as wanting to start with mining. Can you explain those a bit more?

IMO the starting techs don't matter all that much, and if given a choice I'd rather start with the more expensive ones: agriculture and wheel. We'd want BW asap sure, but we'd probably want to improve a food before starting to chop so we probably have time to research BW before needing it.

I think starting worker/worker/settler is extremely, extremely risky and I would rather not go for it. What the previous MP games taught me is that early exploration is paramount and with the above opening we would not be able to do it. We would need to keep some home defense for capital and protect the worker(s). I think that we should crank out at least 2 units to explore before going for a worker. I know the appeal of starting with a worker, but again I think it's too risky. While we build those warriors we can grow, then we'd be able to whip the worker.

This is it for now

Kalin

[kalin]

Only 1 other is Fin (Elizabeth of India), while the inca's have not yet picked a leader why wouldn't they pick Jao? That still leaves us with a decent chance if you want to go that route. Being placed next to an early rushing civ if you want to go that route maybe we should consider the mayan's or korean's as the are mining/mysticism and would allow immediate research into BW afterwards? Just some thoughts...

England of India will go for a religion if they have a lake almost for sure. Willem of Arabia cannot leverage well financial for religion chasing because we won't have fishing. The plan I suggested has some fail overs: go for mono if poly fails, and if mono fails lighbulb theo. Still we'll have to go out of our way for a religion and it probably won't be worth.

I think we have time to research BW even if we don't start with mining. The rushing civ would need to also research BW, then mine and connect copper, so I think there won't be that much danger.

Kalin