Nothing like the Prodigal Sons: The Odd Couple actually play as themselves.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This is regular BTS, right? So no riverside financial nerf? From that group, my vote is Mansa. We have one IND already and the possibility for others coming behind us. I don't peg wetbandit going for one, nor perhaps retep, but newer players (ME!) fall in love with wonders so I wouldn't put it past one of the guys after us to water down the trait further with a third IND leader.

Financial uber alles, no?

Picked so far:

1.Sevenspirits/Krill - ??? of Zulu
2.Zaldax - Huanya Capac of ???
3.Gavagai - Darius I of ???
4.2metraninja - ??? of Sumeria
5.Jowy - Suryavarman II of ???
6.Dhalphir - UP NEXT
7.Gaspar/Noble - ON DECK
8.Retep
9.Kuro
10.Mikehendi
11.wetbandit
12.Goreripper



Moving W/NW would net 7 river tiles, but only five which would get the financial cottage bonus. Well, six if you cottage the wine, but I'm assuming we would just farm that until Monarchy. Both the W/NW grass hill and the 2S PH appear to be 1 off the coast, based on the mouth of the river. Also, these are some pretty short rivers. I'm assuming Serdoa added them in to make the start a little better and to give some options for settling the capital.

I have to run right now, but I'll think about this some more. Between prince difficulty and ivory, we'll have a high early happy cap. Any thought regarding SIP and working the hills for some fast IMP settlers? Probably, though, in this field it may be better to avoid early shooting to the top of the scoreboard, which rules out IMP. SPI won't get us off to quite as fast of a start and is a sandbagged trait, making us stronger than we would otherwise appear via score/stats early on. But, I'm probably putting too much into this aspect right now. Gotta run.

[NobleHelium]

Wine will get the bonus once there's a winery. I'll talk more about this later.

[NobleHelium]

Actually wine immediately gets the bonus because it's on a river...

[NobleHelium]

Okay so clearly they don't want us to play FIN. Unless there's a good second trait that I've overlooked. I suppose we could take Victoria if we're going to pick IMP anyway. I guess we could consider Elizabeth as well.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Despite what I posted earlier, if your top four were Louis, Zara, Bismarck or Mansa, of these I think Bismarck is best. Zara is ok and would help toward securing GLH if Serdoa's ocean of tears proves quite vast and there is the toroid map, so ORG is good, but I don't love it combined with CRE. EXP is better with ORG IMO, and so much the better if GLH is still available. But, EXP >> a shitty financial, which is kind of where we're at with Vicky/Lizzie the best still on the board, so long as we can throw down a lot of cities and keep the costs down.

I didn't pay close attention to the map dimensions. How many tiles can we expect to be "ours", based solely on land numbers? I guess I could look that up.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Well, ok, that wasn't so hard after all.

Sorry guys for the slight confusion I have caused. From a map standpoint there are no bans (neither wonders nor civs/leaders) necessary. My recommendation would be to go with the bans I had actually deemed agreed upon already: India, Inca, Pacal, Willem.

As for map-dimensions: 92x40

Only thing that I revealed about my map is that there will be several continents but no one will be isolated.

Bolded for emphasis. Not surprising, really, but at least confirmation that we're not looking at a PB4-style GLH nerf by connecting islands to the mainland with mountains. Anyway...

92x40 = 3680 total tiles. 12 teams, so ~307 (306.666666666666666) total tiles per team. What is a good average percentage range of land to water for a "large" map? I'm guessing ~70% so I'll start there.

60% land: 307 - 40% (123) = 184
70% land: 307 - 30% (92) = 215
80% land: 307 - 20% (61) = 246

That seems reasonable. As for what to do with that information, bah, who knows. Anyway, no one has taken an EXP leader yet with Pacal being banned, so we have our choice of the rest of that bunch and I think we should take it. I'm not terribly in love with CRE given the relatively high number of land tiles (from my perception) above. I just think we can get more for our economy out of another trait besides cultural control and cheap libraries (etc).

What do you think about Hannibal, by the way? I know CHM doesn't do as much for the economy, particularly with the low difficulty level, but it's the only other non-pure trash FIN we haven't really mentioned. I don't think he's awesome, but I'm throwing out ideas here, including crappy ones.

For convenience:

1.Sevenspirits/Krill - ??? of Zulu
2.Zaldax - Huanya Capac of ???
3.Gavagai - Darius I of ???
4.2metraninja - ??? of Sumeria
5.Jowy - Suryavarman II of ???
6.Dhalphir & Hashoosh - Mansa Musa of ???
7.Gaspar/Noble - UP NEXT
8.Retep - ON DECK
9.Kuro
10.Mikehendi
11.wetbandit
12.Goreripper

[NobleHelium]

There will be at most 66 percent land because circumnavigation is available. And there was one EXP taken, Sury. I don't think Hannibal is as good as Elizabeth or Victoria.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I'm seriously bored tonight and my wife isn't home to chase me off the computer. So,

SIP - no expansive bonus until borders pop T5.

T0 - 6/60 (city tile 2/1/1, Wheat 3/0/1)
T1 - 12/60
T2 - 18/60
T3 - 24/60
T4 - 30/60
T5 - 37/60 (PH 0/3/0 + 1EXP)
T7 - 44/60
T8 - 51/60
T9 - 58/60
T10 - 65/60

SIP does not get the worker out any faster using EXP.

SIP - 7 river cottages + river wine/farm for FIN bonus.

Other: NW of the ivory looks like desert

Edit: I agree on Hannibal being worse than both Lizzie and Victoria, but I wanted your thoughts as well.

[NobleHelium]

We're discussing this on chat so you should send me an email at nh dot rb dot pbem at the G for a chat invite...

Else if we decide to pick Churchill it's not my fault.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

We're discussing this on chat so you should send me an email at nh dot rb dot pbem at the G for a chat invite...

Else if we decide to pick Churchill it's not my fault.

boldlygoingnowhererb at g email