[SPOILERS] Watch pindicator get distracted by shiny bonuses

[pindicator]

Oooooh, shiny lights:





Shiny Balls:





Shiny Liam:

[pindicator]

For reference:

Okay, like 32 the map is a 40x40 mirror, but level is Prince. You have a pre-placed city with 5 culture; a scout; and a worker. Note the railroad at A, the Forest Preserve on the tile west of A, the netted whales at B, and the town at D.

[img] http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28594063/Maps/PB...llRube.JPG[/img]

Fishing: City has 0 culture
Mining: Tile A becomes flatland
Agriculture: Tile B loses whale boats
Hunting: Tile C loses forest
The Wheel: Tile D, town becomes hamlet
Mysticism: Tile E becomes plains

Additionally there are some civilizations with effects should you choose them:
If you are India, you start without a worker.
If you are Inca, you start without a scout.
If you are Aggressive France, you start without rice.
If you are Charismatic Russia, you start without rice or pigs.

Aggressive: Observatory
Charismatic: Laboratory
Creative: Barracks
Expansive: Harbor
Financial: Customs House
Imperialistic: Lighthouse
Industrious: Stables
Organized: Supermarket
Philosophical: Colosseum
Protective: Levee
Spiritual: Islamic Temple

[SIZE="5"]Map and settings information[/SIZE]

* Toroidal, Standard size, 40x40, players are all equidistant from all others.
* It's totally mirrored. (The tile that is (x,y) away from my capital is the same as the tile (x,y) away from anyone else's capital.)
* No barbs, no huts, no random events.
* Always war.
* [strike]Noble[/strike] Prince difficulty.
* While there is enough saltwater that ships will be important, there are not enough water tiles to make circumnavigation possible. (It requires at least 33% water tiles, and there are only about 25%.)

[SIZE="5"]Rules recap[/SIZE]

* Setup is unusual; see above.
* No communication between players is allowed.
* Goes without saying, but play in good faith and put up a good fight.
* The only bans are:
- Spy missions to change civics, change religion, and steal technology.
- Great spy infiltration ability.
- Nukes.
- All UN/AP resolutions if AW doesn't automatically disable them.
- War Elephants added for pbem39

save password:

its2shiny

[pindicator]

Just pulling stuff out of the air:

* Victoria (IMP / FIN) would really get some mileage out of those water tiles. Except there are only two water tiles. Throw in Portugal as a civ and the lake becomes 3f4c while the whales get to be 4f1h6c. Except Portugal is probably the most useless civ on this map; not worth gaining 2c over. (Same thing goes for the Dutch and PRO).

* Agriculture + Fishing seems an awful combination to have. Why start with fishing unless you want to work the whales? I suppose the boats being netted only loses 1h & 2c so it's not the end of the world.

* PHI may be a winner in disguise. Colosseum could be paired with Maya (Ball Court for +3 ) or Greece (Odeon lets you run artists). PHI/AGG of France lets you do this without needing to work a citizen.

* Suleiman (PHI / IMP) of Greece: fast settler, fast great artist. Then go artist bomb someone's capital. Also an option with AGG / IMP of France

* France & Russia may not be worth going for, even with an AGG or CHM leader. AGG France (Agri, Wheel) loses the rice so you need to tech AH for a food. AGG/IMP of France may be able to get away with the work boat, but then you lose the work boat bonus on the whale (-1h, -2c). Russia almost has to be paired with IMP, otherwise your best food tile is a 3f whale. (IMP's lighthouse turns it into a 4f whale) - so Cyrus of Russia is the only workable combination. Only Russia (Hunting, Mining), means you give up the two 1f4h tiles in the start: forest plains elephant and railroaded grass mine.

* Without any combinations jumping off the page (aside from trolling artist bombs), it's probably best to just pick good traits and then a decent civ without too much of a tile malus.

[pindicator]

Starting with the starting techs. Lets rank these in order of least oppressive to most oppressive on the malus scale.

Fishing
Losing 5 culture is not a big deal. The biggest thing that this does is make it so you can't work the netted whales on turn 0. Normally you'll get them on turn 3, which is about how long it would take you to research Fishing if you were after those whales with another civ. Although you could potentially expand your culture and work the whale boats by turn 1 if you pick CRE + SPI to go with it.

Mysticism
We turn a 5f rice into a 4f1h rice. Not the end of the world.

Hunting
Without the elephant you miss out on a chop. I suppose you could keep the forest there and camp the elephants for a 1f4h1c tile.

The Wheel
Turns the 1f1h4c town into a 1f1h2c hamlet

Agriculture
Loses the nets on the whale, turning a 3f1h4c tile into 3f2c. You lose 1h2c, so a little more than wheel. Obviously you do not want to pair this Fishing. However, I am starting to soften to this being a really bad choice. The big perk of Agriculture is giving your worker something to do right away -- namely, farming the rice. And you'd have the rice available at turn 3.

Mining
The grass hill becomes a regular grassland tile. In other words, a potential 1f4h tile with a mine turns into a grassland cottage tile. I don't want to lose Mining.

My guidelines are that I don't want Mining, and that includes CHM Russia. I don't want a civ that pairs Agriculture & Fishing. In fact I'm leaning against Agriculture at all, but I will keep it on the table in the case of AGG France.

I have been shamelessly reading scooter's pbem32 pre-game thoughts and found this wonderful list (spoilered for length), listing all the non-Agriculture and non-Mining civs. His post is in the spoiler, but skip the spoiler and i'll list the conclusion anyway:

Stealing from scooter is fun!

Ok so I've chosen to eliminate Mining and Agriculture from consideration. That eliminates:

India (mining)
Rome (mining)
Germany
Russia
England (mining)
Persia (agri)
France (agri)
Carthage
Babylon (agri)
Egypt (agri)
Inca (agri)
Portugal (mining)
America
Mali (mining)
China (agri)
Ottoman (agri)
Maya (mining)
Native American (agri)
Zulu (mining)
Khmer (mining)
Korea (mining)
Dutch (agri)
Ethiopia (mining)

That's... quite a list actually. In fact, all it leaves is:
-Greece - eh
-Celts - no
-Holy Rome - no
-Mongolia - I love Keshiks
-Spanish - eh
-Byzantine - strong but no scout
-Aztec - sacrificial altar on T0 could be fun
-Viking - no
-Arabian - eh

I think Mongols, Aztecs, and Byzantines are most interesting to me, which is not the coolest bunch ever for a top 3. I'd really like to have Mongolia. The only issue here is I pick 4th both times, so if I go traits first, I would not at all be shocked if Mongolia is gone if someone feels similarly to me about the starting techs. I feel they are the best civ available with no Mining and no Agriculture.

Actually the more I think about it, I'm not sure the Sacrificial Altar is THAT big of a deal. It's more that it sounds fun. I definitely wouldn't take the Aztecs in the first round anyways.

So no Mining and no Agriculture (minus France) leaves us with:

* Greece - could be interesting with PHI. In fact, run an artist on turn 0 and then on turn 1 you'll be working a 3f1h4c whale tile.
* Celts - not interested
* Holy Rome - not interested
* Mongolia - keshiks are always fun. Pair with an IND leader for a free Ger in the capital.
* Spanish - i kind of like Spain, but only kind of
* Byzantine - I don't think we'll be seeing a Commodore-style run at Cataphracts, but they're still strong units.
* Aztec - not really
* Viking - I've played these guys already, and Serdoa already used their Nav bonus brilliantly in pbem32 so I'm inclined not to.
* Arabian - not really
* AGG France - the special case. No rice means your workers will probably be farming grassland tiles to start. No boated whales mean there's no point in going for Fishing. Animal Husbandry is probably the best bet out of the gate. Except you're fastest method of teching to it, the town, gets nerfed by virtue of France starting with Wheel also. How fast could we get to AH as AGG France? 9c in the capital, 2c from the hamlet, 1b from the free artist in the Salon all adds up to 12. +25% gives us 15 beakers. Which means we'll be putting 19 "true" beakers a turn into AH. At Quick, Prince, & Standard AH will cost 95 beakers. That means 5 turns on the dot to research AH. Just enough time for a worker to farm one grassland and then move to the pigs.

Pigs will be hooked up by our worker on turn 7. Capital will grow to size 2 at end of turn 7 and then be able to work Pigs. From there we would go to Mining. Or maybe Pottery will be more ideal. AGG France is going to have early problems with commerce as well as food: no whale boats, no town, no rice. In return you get a Great Artist on turn 23 that we can use to bulb Monarchy (need to tech Writing, Polytheism, and either Monotheism or Priesthood to do this bulb). Which honestly doesn't seem like that great a payoff for what you're giving up.

So I guess I just talked myself out of AGG France. Sorry, oledavy.

[pindicator]

Well, Ragnar of France may work.

I'll go through traits tomorrow

[pindicator]

Well, Yuri took the civ I was looking hard at. I wonder if he pairs it with a PHI leader. Dazed's leader was very vanilla. FIN plus a solid +1 food in the capital with ORG.

Since we're at 1 leader, 1 civ, I need to pick opposite whatever Seven goes. If he goes leader, I'll pick a civ; if he goes civ, I pick a leader. With civs, I may have to open things up to Agriculture leaders. I'm just not feeling any love for the ones on the short list below.

[Commodore]

Scooter skipped Japan and Russia in his list, for completeness' sake.

[pindicator]

Thanks Commodore. Russia's been discussed in the tech thread. Japan could be interesting... Fishing, Wheel start, and this is a good game to start with Fishing. I'd probably look at Mansa Musa as a leader to combine with him - get that whale tile on turn 3 at 3f1h5c. Or Victoria and put all the initial turns working the water tiles: the 3f3c then the 4f1h5c on turn 4. Of course, Japan also begs to be paired with an AGG civ, both for C1 samurai and also with the initial observatory in the capital. AGG / SPI would be entertaining from a great person potential and I've been itching to play a game with SPI here.

My gut tells me that early research is going to be stronger here than usual. CHM Russia may have been the most obvious of the plays, but someone like Ragnar or Hannibal paired with a fishing start is going to get a lot of early beakers. I looked at both those leaders with a non-fishing start, and I can't quite get to a 2-turn Fishing. 8c palace + 1c city + 5c working the town = 14c x 1.25 from the Observatory gets you 17bpt, so you're putting 18 into Fishing. Fishing costs 38b, so you're just shy of 2 turning it. Conversely, it will also take you 3 turns to have your borders expand normally with a Fishing start (unless you take SPI or CRE).

I wonder if this has to do with why the difficulty was raised from Novice to Prince. Slightly higher initial tech costs to offset the early beaker gain.

So for leader traits right now I am leaning towards pairing AGG or CHM alongside a strong economic trait like FIN or EXP to get a quick boost in research. CHM would be if I want to target a mounted UU civ; AGG if I want to target a draftable UU. EXP gets a little nerfed thanks to the starting worker, so I am leaning towards Ragnar or Hannibal.

And if I'm going to pick Ragnar... here I go talking myself into France again. Anyway, forget all that earlier crap I said about bulbing with a great artist. What you use that early GA for is staking land. Put the artist in city #2 or 3 and don't worry about popping borders there. Maybe even settle it for the 3g. I'd probably even try to run a few turns of scientist in there just on the hope that I get a low-odds Great Sci instead.

[Commodore]

Well, as the official Japan advocate...one of the (few) advantages of Samurai IMO is that they start with Drill 1, enabling Shock or Cover with the first promo, and somewhat less efficiently Formation at 5xp. Making Toku even sadder, as even his Agg trait boosted UU doesn't really care.

*edit, just so it's clear, that's my observation about the units. I don't presume to know what the best selection is for you, nor would I tell you if I did.

[pindicator]

Wait, Samurai start with the actual Drill promo? I thought they just had 2 innate first strikes like a CKN. That would change my opinion of using Japan a little, being able to carry over the drill promos.