[SPOILERS] Ceiliazul's First Dance: Louis of the Ottomen

[Ceiliazul]

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan." -Gen. Clausewitz

And with that. Let the bungling begin!

[Commodore]

Dedicated lurker checking in! I hearby nominate myself official team scapegoat.



Let the rampant speculation begin! Are you aiming for the cool-crowd Isabella or Bismark, or something nice and transgressive, like Ramses II or Jao?

[Ceiliazul]

In my initial brainstorming, I had the traits ranked like this:

Fin > Exp > Ind > Phi > Cre > Org > SPI > Imp > Chm > garbage

Then Seven Spririts had this to say about the map:

The map is 30x30, has toroidal wrap, and has NO saltwater.

Impacts:
-At first this screams ORG, but we'll only get ~9 cities each. Still, ORG gets a bump.
-This is a recipe for long dynamic borders, CRE jumps up the list.
-No saltwater means no seafood, EXP health will be stronger than usual.
-only 9 cities means IMP is downgraded
-With few civs, IND becomes stronger due to more wonders per civ

CRE > EXP > IND> ORG > PHI others

Leaders in order of this ranking

Sury (CRE/EXP) - nearly banned on principal, and stronger than usual here
Louis (CRE/IND) - kinda 'meh', but not bad.
Zara (CRE/ORG) - again, a strong leader now made stronger
Bismark (EXP/IND) - he'll likely be available on the way back
Peri (CRE/PHI) - Specialist economies are not my strength, but interesting

[SevenSpirits]

Let me assist you in changing your valuations a bit more, I guess



I have cropped everyone's screenshots to remove tile bleed. I decided I didn't want anything to ride on people's differing abilities to read the fog of war from a screenshot. I will say however that the lake you see is only 3 tiles big, and that the bottom right grassland is riverside. I've not cropped out any visible tiles. Naturally, if you choose a hunting start, your warrior will be replaced by a scout.

To repeat what I posted in the organizing thread:

Here is some very important general info, which everyone gets:

[SIZE="3"]The map is 30x30, has toroidal wrap, and has NO saltwater.[/SIZE]

Settings are as you discussed - standard size, emperor difficulty, and no barbs being the main ones to remember.

Good luck!

[Commodore]

Warning! Warning! Org is nerfed! Lighthouses don't exist!

[Ceiliazul]

are you joking?

Edit: My understanding was that a small lake with seafood allowed both lighthouses and work boats. I simmed it and discovered you are right.

Thank you for that tip!

[Ceiliazul]

I took the Ottomans. Ottomen?

Without the slam-dunk choice (Sury) I was torn between several leaders, and realized that my choice must reflect the choices of others. Maybe misguided, we'll see who's left on the way back!

[Commodore]

Yeah, sorry for a succinct post before, I had to run out but I wanted to make sure disaster didn't strike. Ottoman Turks are a generically good Civ, not terrible UU and UB, generally good starting techs (although less than wonderful for a fishing/AH start). It's an interesting start, overall. Leaders should be interesting to pick. I like Louis if no Ind leaders are picked.

[Ceiliazul]

I like Louis if no Ind leaders are picked.

That line of thinking is exactly why i took a civ. I went down the whole list of civs that started with fishing, and didn't like anything I saw. I'm sure I'll see some of them picked by others, and we'll see how that goes.

If I land one of my next 3 leader choices at the far end of the snake pick, it'll take it as a win. If I fall all the way down to Pericles, not so much.

Could be worse, I could have started with hunting. :-D

[Ceiliazul]

I thought long and hard about taking the Romans. I fully expect to see them in the field.

I see in the Veterans tech thread that Sury was NOT the first choice, but them's the breaks.