[PB58 - spoilers] AT's Order of the Civ

[AutomatedTeller]

Every ranking I have had had Rome as #1 (among the civs I was looking at). Why is it odd that I chose them? I mean, Greece is fine and it would allow for a specific play style, but honestly, everyone is out expanding me anyway.

it may well be that plopping down 6 cities and hitting people with praets before they get cats is the right thing to do here.

Forum isn't great, but with creative no longer giving 1/2 colloseums, I'm not building an 80 hammer odeon anyway, either.

[civac2]

Just asking. I may have missremembered what you wrote about your civ preferences.

[AutomatedTeller]

Jowy takes aztecs, which is interesting. Guess he's going to do a lot of whipping. Could be a strong combo.

[AutomatedTeller]

Tarkeel takes Org/Ind and Serdoa takes Ethiopia. Just SD to go and off we are!!

In looking at my start, I have an interesting decision to make right off:

WB first or worker first.

Standard is to go WB first in this case, but standard doesn't include a forested deer, which is a 4 yield tile. Also, I have a 3 food/3 commerce tile, so a WB is not a huge improvement over that - but a 5-1 tile is a good one.

I need to work it through - I suspect worker first might be better in this case than WB first, but I'm not sure.

[AutomatedTeller]

so, everything is picked!! We pretty much went for anti-synergy in traits and civs lots of expansion.

1. Superdeath - Sury (EXP/CRE) / Mongolia. Fast expansion and then super horse archers. My guess is that keshiks are no longer state of the art by the time he's ready to start conquering.
2. Serdoa - Victoria (FIN/IMP) / Ethiopia (Oromo Warrior [Musketman] / Stele [Monument]). Strong combo - expansion with IMP, stele makes border pops a little faster. Oromo is a pretty good UU - Drill is heavily underrated for production of GG.
3. Jowy - Julius Caesar (ORG/IMP) / Aztec (Jaguar [Swordsman] / Sacrificial Altar [Courthouse]) the most synergistic of the combos, though I think SPI goes best with aztecs, since the Sac alter is already cheaper than a regular court. Jags are more dangerous than they look, but not scary
4. Tarkeel - Roosevelt (IND/ORG) / Khmer (Ballista Elephant [War Elephant] / Baray [Aqueduct]) - a kind of an odd choice - ballista elephants are maybe the best UU in the early game, but ind/org expands very slowly.
5. AutomatedTeller - Willem (FIN/CRE) / Rome (Praetorian [Swordsman] / Forum [Market]) - Clearly, this guy is clueless on anything.
6. Ruff_Hi - Catherine (CRE/IMP) / India (Fast Worker [Worker] / Mausoleum [Jail]) - expansion!!! everything about this is to expand. Ruff will be leading the scoreboard for the first 100 turns or so.

[AutomatedTeller]

In prep, I think going worker first is the right move. Might spend a turn or two building a WB upfront, since I won't get BW in time for me to be able to chop right away.

[AutomatedTeller]

ok - so, pre-season rankings, cause everyone does it:

1) Serdoa - the obvious favorite, powerful leader, underrated civ. vicky gets picked in every game and is always a score leader, which makes me think that either it's overpowered or we aren't very imaginitive Ethiopia starts with Hunting/mining, making me assume we probably all have deer.

2) Jowy - the most synergistic (org/imp) of Aztecs (myst/hunting). I assume Jowy will go for a religion. Jowy has shown he can build an economy - he hasn't shown he can actually attack someone and take them out. Not that I have, either.

I think the rest of the pack is pretty close. Really, I think it's 1) serdoa, 4) jowy, tied for 5) everyone else, in terms of skill.

3) I think I'd put Ruff here, not because I think he's strong, but he's got good synergy in his picks. Ruff will absolutely snowball well and the fast worker is still an effective unit that lasts a long time.

4) Me - I think, as I look at it more, that creative is underrated as an expansion trait. It's not imperialistic, but it and exp are tied for 2nd - one gets granaries up faster, the other claims land faster - most importantly on a map that looks to have water, it gets offshore food online faster, plus makes it easier to settle city sites where I want them. I can, conceivably, pick up iron working by turn 50 or so and send a few praets out to take people's border cities, though I doubt I would do that so quickly - more likely is to get out to 4 or 5 cities and whip a stack of 6-8.

5) Tarkeel - don't know anything about him. Don't fully understand his pick. My guess is that he picks up oracle and collosus and then drives to construction, but who knows? He might be able to turn all that into Pyramids, too, which would be good for him. Hunting/mining is an odd combo if you are going for oracle, though - why not start with mysticism and get the extra commerce right from the start?

6) SD - SD tends to sabotage himself. I am not sure why he picked who he did - there's no synergy there, but he should have fun. I don't think he's quite as volitile as he was to start off, but I'd prefer to not start next to him. Mongolia starts with hunting/wheel, which is a thing.


Again, I don't really know that there is a substantive difference in the lower 4, though some of that is that I don't know tarkeel at all.

[Charriu]

2)  Jowy - the most synergistic (org/imp) of Aztecs (myst/hunting).    I assume Jowy will go for a religion.  Jowy has shown he can build an economy - he hasn't shown he can actually attack someone and take them out.  Not that I have, either.

[AutomatedTeller]

some more thoughts:



There seems to be an island to my southeast. I assume that's a peninusla with my very balanced jungled plains iron, since both sides of it are ocean. (just poking fun, Pindicator!! I really do believe that the starts are balanced. I dunno how well we balance the land outside the start, but i'm sure we balance the start positiions)

My scouting plans are to move through the woods to the east, for a couple of reasons:

1) My scout will be 1 move until I get hunting, so it makes sense to send through the woods at first.
2) I expect my worker will be stuck to the east and so I'll probably end up sending my first settler that way, since I'll have the worker to improve tiles in it. We'll see what we find, obviously.

We'll then make the big loop around. Finding city spot #2 is more important than scouting out, at least for now.

[Charriu]

Scouts are back to 2 moves. The only thing they gain from Hunting is an extra +100% vs animals