[Spoiler] On Board, Sianic misplays

[Elum]

C1 Impis protecting settlers with very early Ikhandas that doubles as a monument, and moonlights (together with Aggressive trait) as a slightly weaker Courthouse ... fast near-infinate cityspam, from where the snowball can roll

Sold.

With creative at +1 culture it balances out an Ikhanda nicely. It seems that people think cheap libraries are very strong, you feeling left out?

[Sian]

Nah ... I'll hopefully be able to push enough fast, cheap cities to make up for the higher Beakers they'll get in Food+Hammers+Raw Commence

[Sian]

lets pick apart the opponent choices ... as all of them is fairly new and / or i've been away for quite a bit i'm horrendusly unable to commend on the players themselves

Retep - Catherine of Arabia

Cathy is well known as one of the best expanders in vanilla, and other than slower second ring, she haven't really lost anything of that in RtR, on the other hand she doesn't really have much going for her when the initial expansion have gone through. Arabia is an interesting pick for the even more cheap Liberies, and +2 priest slots, suggesting that he'll focus on Specialists helping the early worker load that way. UU is a rather boring Knight that have +15% withdraw and no resource req, the later of which very likely not to matter on a doctored map of any kind. Put together i'm not sure they fit all that nicely together, as Creative culture might well be redundant if he uses the starting Mystetism to gain a religion, and the already cheaper Madrassa make sure that he have a smaller quantitative bonus from Creatives +100% (only saving 35h per build instead of 45h).

Grimace - Zara of Sumeria

Zara is probably one of the better leaders in MP, but i can't help but feel that he's at least somewhat miscasted together with Sumeria for a number of reasons. Creative as mentioned under Retep is likely to be somewhat redundant if he focuses on early Priesthood (picking up Buddhism on the way) for Ziggs, and said Ziggs have the same issue as Reteps Madrassas giving a smaller quantitative bonus from Organized. Not that its bad (see PBEM29 Green where i used Roosy of Sumeria to great effect), but it's a concern when Organized doesn't bring as much on the table in terms of effective savings on Civic Upkeep due to low difficulity and the map only being Cylindrical (although it would still be an issue on Torodial as RtR dropped the upkeep to Cylindrical ... still, probably a better pick than Cathy/Arabia in my mind.

AdrienIer - Willem of Greece

Willem is obiviously good in Vanilla, but i can't help but feel that Financial have been lowered that much in worth in RtR, that its not anywhere as clear a winner as it otherwise would have been. Greece on the other hand is a mindbaffling pick. Phalanx really brings nothing to the table other than saving you from building a few Spears here and there if you're concerned that someone is making a dedicated Chariot rush (which only Egypt might be able to pull of due to War Chariots) and even then they'd do nothing if you were facing a Horse Archer rush. Meanwhile Odeons gains +1Happy and +3 Culture over Colosseums (and +1 happy with Hit singles, but thats hardly relevant), but other than a bit toughing in case of Culture wars that really doesn't bring much to the table as Military police is still cheaper in hammers and have the added benefit of being able to get moved around as needed, at least not anywhere near enough to make Colosseums a good build in the first place. IMO only Ball Court and, on a very health-poor or deep in industrial period, Garden does. Decent marks for Leader, poor marks for civ. Would probably peg this as the weakest pick of the litter, as the Civ might as well be vanilla Armericans for what worth it'll bring.

Comments anyone? ... i have cookies (dark girl scout variant)

[Sian]

And we begin

As can be seen i SiPed, and sent my Scout NE-SE, with the intention of next turn going NE-NE semicircling around my capital a few times before deciding on a vector to explore. allready from the settling I'd note that Sailing should come relatively early as we'd have at least one not terrible city offshore for early game ICTR ... will probably be as 4th or 5th city or thereabouts. Stone is interesting but as i don't think there's anything that i want to use it for. At least, none of the early Stone wonders seems like what i want, as I'd rather want the '3 Settlers with defenders' Wonder. It'll be hooked up at some point but i'm not seeing myself rushing for it.

Early tech path is Fishing->Mining->Bronze Working and reconsider from there

Early Production is going to be Worker->Workboat->Warriors till size 3 (ideally working farmed Corn, pastured sheep and netted Fish at this point) building my first settler at this point, followed by mining a couple of hills for using my Imperialistic trait to full effect.

Unless i find a compelling reason not to, i'd hope for planting my first city where it would be able to steal the Corn

Cookies for the one guessing my name theme

[Commodore]

I agree with most of your combo analysis, although I think you're underrating Greece. Odeons can be very nice, those artist slots matter too.

[Sian]

the problem with greece paired up with Creative is that other than being even stronger at culture battles in a number of border cities (which to a certain extend can be combatted enough not to matter overly much unless the opposing cities are very tightly packed), it really doesn't bring anything of any worth to the table.

As another example in this game Madrassa brings nearly the same in terms of culture and 2 priest slots (which is worth more than 2 Artist slots, that i forgot those says something, and not just about my memory), and some 30-50 turns earlier, with a realistic chance of the culture being worth double after a millenium being worth more that double-digits

Sure i might underestimate Greece by a tiny bit, but that doesn't change the fact that at least 20-25 of the civs (out of 31 that he could pick from) would have been better in my estimation. And even then, all that was clearly worse (America, Japan, Celts, Portugal) have been boosted enough to at least be as good (Celts) or better than them (the rest)

[Sian]

Anyhows ... Ball is rolling now



Looks like I'm at the end of a spoke of a wheel, (as i also spot saltwater to my northwest), prehaps without the actual wheel.

Knowledge of Fish is useful but probably not immediately useable, next turn i thin its NW-N with the scout followed by it likely going W-SW (unless there's also a hill on the other side of the mountain 1E4N of Najdorf)

Demographics is nice and easy as we're 4 players



1 have 18 gnp and the other two have 17 GNP

one uses a 3f tile, one uses a 2f1h tile, one uses a 1f2h tile (at least, thats what making sense), not accounting for exact commence use.

Two opponents have two coasts in their initial ring, one have three coasts

In case anyone wonders about the late timestamp, tomorrow is Ascension Day, which is a official holiday in Denmark (with Friday being sorta-kinda unofficial holiday in some places including my livelyhood)

[Sian]

Actually, thinking about it with a fresher head, I might actually want to build Stonehenge, not because its critically important (as Ihkanda can do the same and many other things quite cheap), but because as all my opponents are creative, none of them would likely build it any time soon... Not going to rush for it in any way through.

... thinking about it Monuments should probably get the slightest of buffs (a small 5% culture increase?) in RtR now that Barracks can substitude them quite easily if your playing Aggessive

[Sian]

And i think i've found a reasonbly strong plant for my second city, grabbing Cows and Gold (both second ring through), and able to steal the capitals corn as need might be. Idea is to grab Bronze working (Slavery) before settler is online, swabbing while in transit, and whip out the Ihkanda asap via the corn.

... looking at the screen, maybe 1NE picking up wine as well (and having both Cow and Gold in first ring) might be viable as well if there aren't anything worth mentioning in the sea

[Sian]

That fish looks interesting, but i think it's easier to grab from the other side.