Luddite/Pindicator

[pindicator]

Yeah, I don't know why he didn't pick an Org leader if he wanted to grab HRE. Not a big fan of their starting techs either. Although the one or two games I've played with Fierce in MP have not left with an impression that I should be worried too much about him.

I agree that Louis is a good pick. If I was picking last and there were no Ind leaders taken, I would probably do the same thing.

Regarding Maya, I think half-priced ball-courts would give flexibility in your teching. For 3 happy you are essentially paying 27 hammers (53 hammers at quick spead w/ double production bonus). That's a cheaper hammer-to-happy ratio than building 3 warrior MPs in monarchy. So you would have options in case we chose to focus on Mathematics -> Currency part of the tech tree, or if we wanted to go for early catapults we would also be picking up a econ build on top of it.

That said, I'm not in love with it. The holkan is a serviceable UU, but the starting techs could be better (Mining/Myst).

I do like Egypt also. When I play Egypt I try to make my first GP a prophet for either a shrine, or settling him to finance more early cities. In fact, it sounds like we can pencil in Egypt as our civ, if it's still there. Ottomans and Zulu both have good starting techs, and I'm hoping I've convinced you enough to keep Maya in the mix too, should Egypt be taken.

[pindicator]

We're up again. Sadly Egypt & Ottomans both have been taken. I think I like...

Maya
Ethiopia
China
England
Babylon

[pindicator]

Here's our sandbox for turn 0.

In the end we picked Surya of the Zulu. Luddite did a good job convincing me that all the extra hammers saved from cheap Granaries and Libraries are better spent on Ikhandas and Impis.

[luddite]

The thinking with Zulu is, that with Suryavarman, we've got ourselves the ultimate fast expand combo. Since we're all (I think?) on the same continent, we'll be able to grab land super fast. With expansive and creative, we only need one chop to set up each city- no need for a monument, and half price granaries. Then while they grow they can build ikhandas to cut down on maintenance, and pump up our power a little, and we'll have impis as a mobile defense force in case someone sends chariots at us.

Also, with this start, their starting techs (Ag + hunting) are great. Assuming we move west to that plains hill, we can get animal husbandry and a worker both done in 7 turns, and then hook up those cows. We can either build 2 warriors while growing to size 2, or just build a settler at size 1.

I'm wondering now whether it's better to go for BW or pottery after AH is done. Normally BW is better, but here the workers won't have much to do if we go that route. Wheel would at least give them something to do, and cottaging the flood plains would pay for our early fast expansion.

[luddite]

So all the choices are in now.

1) luddite / pindicator: Suryavarman of Zulu
2) mackoti: Pericles of Greece
3) novice / spacemanmf / sevenspirits: Isabella of Egypt
4) sian / ichabod: Hatshepsut of Ottoman
5) fierce: Cyrus of HRE
6) yuris (+ nicolae carpathia): Louis of Byzantium

Greece starts with Fishing + hunting
Egypt starts with Ag + wheel
Ottoman starts with Ag + wheel
HRE starts with mysticism + hunting
Byzantium starts with wheel + mysticism (eeewwwww)

If everyone got an identical start, Egypt and the Ottomans might move like we're planning to, but go for the rice first. We'll definitely be the first to hook up a food resource, though. The others I think will be forced to settle in place, because of their starting techs. It's interesting that nobody starts with mining, so noone can use a fast BW opening.

I don't what Byzantium would do. I guess settle in place and research hunting? Starting with wheel and mysticism just makes everything difficult.

[luddite]

I wonder if Mackoti will go for the pyramids again. He seems to really like that wonder, and Pericles probably gets the most use from it of any leader.

[pindicator]

Haha, that seems like a safe bet. One game he rode them to a great tech lead, the next game ... well, you're pretty familiar with what happened to him there I do admit I'm not too keen on picking Greece as a civ. Maybe he's planning on going 1E and settling the coast? But work boats never seem like good ideas for a capital.

I agree, I don't know what I would do with either civ. HRE is such a tough civ to play because of that reason, but if he gets the deer & fur hooked up early enough that may help him power through some of those early worker techs. Byzantine would have to research Hunting before hoping for any of that.

Anyway, back to the most important civ -- ours :neenernee

I ran a few more test cases with the sandbox and if we go AH -> Mining -> BW then first worker will not run out of things to do before BW comes in. We could do a build order of Worker, Settler, Warrior, Worker or Worker, Warrior, Warrior, Settler, Worker - in both cases the first worker has time to pasture the cows, run to the rice and farm it, then run to the furs and camp them, finishing the turn before BW comes in. So the question becomes one of do we think focusing on hammers (slavery, chopping) or on commerce to fund and connect cities is the best way to go? I really don't know, but I would think with a furs tile that we could get away with delaying pottery past BW.

Also, what's the plan with turn-playing?

[luddite]

It would be really funny to rush Mackoti again if he's building the pyramids...

Anyway, I'm not keen on the idea of camping the fur. For one thing, when are we gonna work it? The capital will be stuck at size 2 for quite a while building workers and settlers, and when it does grow I'd much rather grow onto a cottaged flood plain than a plains fur camp. Also, if we get the early settler, we'll need the worker to go off with the settler as soon as the rice farm is finished. It might have just enough time for a road, though.

For the turns, I'm guessing we'll have a turn tracker set up, so we could have them email it to both of us and then whichever of us gets to it first would play the turn. If that's too chaotic then we could make a schedule for when we play it. I don't want to make just one of us the turn player, since I think it's too hard for the other to stay involved that way.

[oledavy]

I gotta say - I really like your civ/leader pic Impi rush anyone?

[luddite]

I gotta say - I really like your civ/leader pic Impi rush anyone?

yeah, we got lucky with going first. Impi rush would be fun, but we'll probably just abuse Surya and the Ikhanda to peacefully grab more land than anyone else.