[SPOILERS] Bacchus and Archduke serve a mouthful of Pecorino Romano

[Bacchus]

Tier list in order of winningness:

Ichabod -- capable, motivated, at a high point in morale, running the strongest long-term civilisation with a very clear later-game victory lever (cossacks). Enjoyed the power of Choral Music in PBEM3 and will likely do so again. Weaknesses are macro waffling and a tendency not to push advantages to their ultimate conclusion. That's really exaggerating the matter though, these weaknesses are not at all pronounced. Seems to have most time on his hands too.

Drawn second: Krill and Bacchus. Krill by far the better calculator, me running a better civ. Neither has too much time, Krill gets better returns on time spent and, sadly, I'm far too capable of having a good time without winning, which Krill is completely incapable of. My weaknessses: completely lackadaisical micro (most of the time), risk aversion. Krill's: readily talks himself into bizarre models of reality, especially regarding the behaviour of other players, which can lead him to adopt strange behavior in turn. Exaggerated whenever Krill is not clearly winning and has to rationalize this as someone else's fault. (Yeah, yeah, I'm still bitter about Carthage-Inca).

Comfortable fourth: Rowain. Here to have a good time first and foremost. Expect replication of PBEM3 performance -- competent, solid, with an occasional weirdness.

Wildcard newbie with a trash civ: Emperor K. No idea, but in his other PBEM he (sorry Archduke)

Picked Georgia and is planning on two wonders before a district, including a wonder which mostly yields food.

[Bacchus]

Couple of milestones that will be hanging over this game whatever the map reveals: the need to hit a timing push, if not an attack for extra space around T40 with Legions, and the need to hit Russia in the face and very hard around T120. If neither us nor Krill border Russia, the game could actually be close to lost on T0. Naval attack is not really viable on Pangea in that timing.

[Japper007]

What is your opinion on Choral Music vs Theatre Squares (since you are the only one to have used them extensively so far in one of these games)? Isn't it just better to go straight for Theatre Squares for culture than go the roundabout way with Holy Sites and GP projects?

[Bacchus]

So obviously a lot depends on the cost of winning that religion race, as well as who you are competing with. Japan will probably pick JE over choral eveytime as they will be building theatres anyway. For Russia choral music is an absolute no-brainer because of discounted and multifunctional HS. What I don't immediately see are ways to keep up in culture that would match JE and Choral.

Also, faith from HS is never extraneous - you will get at least some won GP races out of it, and maybe a round of units. Plus the output from choral buildings is just plain higher than from Square buildings which are underwhelming, as they mostly.exist for great works.slots and points.

Not that Squares are bad, I think they are undervalued, but Choral is super-strong and really should be changed. And nothing stops you from doing both, as I'm sure Ichabod will.

[TheArchduke]

Well, culture wise, with Rome you are way ahead the growth curve compared to Russia in culture even with Choral. You can check PBEM 7 for that.

[Woden]

Here is your start...




Good luck! I will PM you the save in a little bit.

[TheArchduke]

Good start, though I like moving 1W or 1E for the plains hill bonus. Probably 1E.

The wheat tile could probably be used by a city W of the 3 mountain range we see.

[Bacchus]

Alright, here we go.

After much deliberation with myself, I move to settle on the horse rather than the plains hill. Several reasons:

1. 4-food tile in the first ring, letting us grow quickly to two and start working two 1-3 tiles for absolutely massive early cog output.
2. Allows to build a bath and generally better districting (strategic resources in the first ring are just an annoyance, really).
3. Leaves the forest for chopping.
4. Retains the +1 city tile cog bonus.
5. Retains the ability to score three improvements
6. After apprenticeship the mine on a hill is as good as a camp on the horse.
7. Gives 4 4-yield tiles in the first ring.

Cons: loses defensive bonus.

Nothing interesting on settler overlay.

[TheArchduke]

Your reasoning is valid.

Although you should still move 1E to see more and perhaps 1E is better, if you see nothing interesting the horse settle sounds good.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, you are right on the movement and I fucked up. Settle revealed some coffee and confirmed we are bang in the middle of the jungle belt:



Started slinger. Will go Slinger-Settler probably, as we can do it without a penalty to culture (Craftsmanship Eureka is 20 culture, so bringing the city forward ~6 turns avoiding a builder doesn't hurt. What's important to note though, is that it doesn't help either, you don't actually get extra culture as Rome in the very early game).

Tech Path will be to Currency.

Another note. The map is small, so there will only be 3 religions. Russia, Japan and Arabia are all in the game, so we probably are not getting one, unless we want to use Stonehenge to try and snipe the second religion from whoever loses the Japan/Russia race. But no stone visible yet, and even if there was, kinda have to bend over backwards for it. Still, shame, religion is not bad.