[PB58] Tarkeel and Amicalola's rule through fear

[Lewwyn]

I need to sim it myself to see, but given the tech bottleneck I understand the appeal of the 2c from working clams. I'm not 100% opposed to WB openings, I mean I went WB first in PBEM 78. If all the caps are as tech and weak food restrained as this one then it might be doable. I still think we're going to be behind with a WB start on clams though. If anyone has fish or wet corn ima be a sad panda Pin.

Don't think I'll have time to sim until tomorrow though.

[Amicalola]

I'm sure it could be optimised further, but before breakfast this morning I ran a few quick sims with Darius of Dutch, to see if it was unplayable. I think it's ok?

The first settler is slow, but I had a version with the 1st settler out T31 (ouch) and 3 workers by T35 (2 ready to improve cows for growth, 1 ready to go to 2nd city). 4 forests chopped, capital size 2 but growing quickly. Not amazing, but not terrible either. That does include 0 military to that point though, which I'm not sure the map is big enough for?

[Tarkeel]

The good news is, we'll get one of the three civs we've discussed. Superdeath picked Sury (CRE/EXP), which I don't understand the appeal of as a first pick.

I'll try to see how the Vikings stack up, but some of the appeal of the Dutch is if those revealed times can be farmed... I seriously doubt it though.

[Lewwyn]

I really think the dutch are suicide. You get agr/fishing which means no hunting or mining and pushing back BW... I mean even with the little extra commerce you're not getting BW for a long time and that means workers just have much less to do necessitating the slow WB start. But even with the WB start the worker won't have anything to do after camping because there's nothing to farm and nothing to mine without chopping first. We end up just being so many worker turns behind everyone... for what half a tech of commerce? Can't eat gold, or build a settler with it.

[Mjmd]

You can buy Ice Cream with it and really isn't that enough?

[Tarkeel]

I agree that the Dutch are probably too slow, the interesting part is how little I wanted to work the clams even after they were improved. I could easily get BW completed at T23, before camp finishes at T24, but that's more due to the late worker start. Personally I felt it was worth the effort working through it, and will have a look at the Vikings next.

If nothing else, it's worth looking at alternatives if Serdoa or Jowy snag Khmer.

[Lewwyn]

I agree that the Dutch are probably too slow, the interesting part is how little I wanted to work the clams even after they were improved. I could easily get BW completed at T23, before camp finishes at T24, but that's more due to the late worker start. Personally I felt it was worth the effort working through it, and will have a look at the Vikings next.

If nothing else, it's worth looking at alternatives if Serdoa or Jowy snag Khmer.

Agree that's its worth looking at alternatives, but I would look at one of the other Hunting/Mining civs as possibilities. If you want to go with a fishing civ, then it should be paired with hunting/mining, probably preferring mining over hunting. Rome? Fish/mining?

[Amicalola]

Hmph, sounds like Khmer is the go, unless Vikings works out. I guess it’s fits the naming scheme better.

Biggest problem I see with Rome is the UU being the reason to pick, and coming too early for the map size.

I think with Khmer we could reasonably have ORG pair with EXP, FIN, IMP, IND and not be too sad. Maybe CHA?? Note these are not in preference order, just alphabetical.

If Khmer is taken and Vikings are poor, I remember we considered Carthage at one point?

[civac2]

I thought Praetorians were too early in PB55 too (moderately big map) but they were/are amazing. They are just generically good against everything and fairly cheap. If this map is very big I can see them being too early but if you can expand to 20 cities or so you should be able to get some mileage out of them (perhaps defensively).

[Tarkeel]

Another Hunt/Mine option could actually be Germany, with an early (ORG-boosted) factory and slightly boosted grenadiers.

I gave the Vikings a run (without FIN), and we have the options of slightly speeding up tech by working whale instead of unimproved game between T6 and 16. We trade 10 hammers (1 turn slower worker) for 20 commerce. We still end up with some wasted worker turns between 18 and 21, but if any of the 5 "new" BFC tiles are unforested hills, we could mine those instead. If we take a FIN leader we'll have some more leeway as well. First settler out at 28, AH at 31, and workboat instead of military.