[PB72 SPOILERS] Aetryn learns humility

[aetryn]

How likely is IND to get picked by other players:

Xist: 4 Industrious leaders, including HC and Qin for a solid pairing with a financial trait. Also Boudica with CHA/AGG, I'd take HC, Qin, or Boudica over pretty much everything I rolled. Of course other players will be following their own preferred trait picks, and if they want a super fast early game they also have Joao, if they want max econ they have Pacal, and if they want a war oriented game they have Shaka and Alexander, but there's at least a moderate risk an IND leader gets pulled here.

Bing: Wow is that a lot of Creative and Financial leaders. No Industrious leaders, so definitely no competition here. Willem, Kublai AND Gilgamesh all on the same player?

Greenline: 3 industrious leaders, but none of them all that impressive. I could be totally offbase here, but I think there are better choices in this set than Louis, Ramasses, and Bismark.

Maybe. If I get an awesome seafood start and want to lean Japan anyway, I could roll the dice on Stalin. Otherwise, I think I stay away.

I'm sure everyone always complains about the leaders they didn't get. I suppose that's part of the charm of random block - I was trying to avoid too much analysis paralysis in snake picking, but was really hoping for assistance with borders to just not have to worry about that, and my options for that are pretty limited.

[aetryn]

Specifically Aetyn don't read this:

MUST RESIST RECOMMENDING VICTORIA!!!!



I half jest

Well, I did end up liking Vicki best of the non-border trait leaders, and I'm not entirely sold on any of Sury, Washington, or Stalin, so she's definitely in play.

[Mjmd]

So just some history on stuff you got for some background

Justinian has won a monarch game.
Stalin of Japan recently won the tiny always war game. Obviously much different environment but still I think Stalin is secretly one of the better Ind leaders. 
Pericles recently won a game. If you want to stretch your comfort zone with phil not a bad leader to do with. 

I MAY* love Victoria. Of my first like 4-5 games I think I picked Victoria for all or almost all of them. Last time there was a greens game I may have helped persaude Bellarch to in a snack pick go with Victoria of Inca and he built Stonehenge. Don't let the fact I've ded lurked this combo before discourage you. I have to be the most likely person to play a past combo on the forum. 


Overall I think you got screwed on picks as above 4 are really the only good leaders (although I have played Genghis, but prob not good) and only a couple serious civs.

I probably wouldn't pair exp with Inca. I've paired org with Sumeria but while I do like Inca I don't think savings on exp with Inca are worthwhile. If you want to go with Stalin I do like Inca as a pair. 

Other random thoughts going down civs and potential combos:
-Inca with either Stalin or Victoria. Inca just makes early game micro a bit easier and myst start for stonehenge obviously.
-Greece is basically a great defensive unit until cats. Holds up well against knights, that being said, I would probably prefer Mali over unless tech requirements.
-Japan is interesting with Stalin, but I think it fails the smell test. 
-Mali is probably just Victoria although if you want to do Pericles not a bad pick. I do love Mali more than most. I just like any econ civ and skrims are pretty good although teching archery is yucky. I have to admit start dependent if this was me I would be going for Victoria of Mali. In fact I have played this combo, but in a game that ended up being A LOT tighter than expected (Mali and Imp were good if nothing else there).
-Mongolia is very predictable but its not like Gers lose value with knights. If you are feeling aggressive the only succesful HA raids I can think of recently have been done by Mongolia, but I don't think its won a game since I started lurking. That being said there is a fun factor. Sury go kill someone?
-Ottoman is a civ that looks good and I'm sure there is a situation for it specifically with trying to get drafting up early, but other than for techs I wouldn't bother with. 
-Holy Rome - don't have an org leader, but it would be an alternate Stalin pick if you are feeling solid about micro.

[aetryn]

So just some history on stuff you got for some background

Justinian has won a monarch game.
Stalin of Japan recently won the tiny always war game. Obviously much different environment but still I think Stalin is secretly one of the better Ind leaders. 
Pericles recently won a game. If you want to stretch your comfort zone with phil not a bad leader to do with. 

I MAY* love Victoria. Of my first like 4-5 games I think I picked Victoria for all or almost all of them. Last time there was a greens game I may have helped persaude Bellarch to in a snack pick go with Victoria of Inca and he built Stonehenge. Don't let the fact I've ded lurked this combo before discourage you. I have to be the most likely person to play a past combo on the forum. 


Overall I think you got screwed on picks as above 4 are really the only good leaders (although I have played Genghis, but prob not good) and only a couple serious civs.

I probably wouldn't pair exp with Inca. I've paired org with Sumeria but while I do like Inca I don't think savings on exp with Inca are worthwhile. If you want to go with Stalin I do like Inca as a pair. 

Other random thoughts going down civs and potential combos:
-Inca with either Stalin or Victoria. Inca just makes early game micro a bit easier and myst start for stonehenge obviously.
-Greece is basically a great defensive unit until cats. Holds up well against knights, that being said, I would probably prefer Mali over unless tech requirements.
-Japan is interesting with Stalin, but I think it fails the smell test. 
-Mali is probably just Victoria although if you want to do Pericles not a bad pick. I do love Mali more than most. I just like any econ civ and skrims are pretty good although teching archery is yucky. I have to admit start dependent if this was me I would be going for Victoria of Mali. In fact I have played this combo, but in a game that ended up being A LOT tighter than expected (Mali and Imp were good if nothing else there).
-Mongolia is very predictable but its not like Gers lose value with knights. If you are feeling aggressive the only succesful HA raids I can think of recently have been done by Mongolia, but I don't think its won a game since I started lurking. That being said there is a fun factor. Sury go kill someone?
-Ottoman is a civ that looks good and I'm sure there is a situation for it specifically with trying to get drafting up early, but other than for techs I wouldn't bother with. 
-Holy Rome - don't have an org leader, but it would be an alternate Stalin pick if you are feeling solid about micro.

I'm not feeling solid about anything. The goal here though is not to get cute, or just go attack someone for the heck of it, it's to play good straight-down-the-middle civ as much as possible for the first game.

Some questions:
1. Why do you think Inca makes the early game micro easier?
2. Is 10% extra gold on a forge really enough to make Mali an econ civ? Or is there something else here I'm missing?

Yeah, I really don't love any of the CRE/CHA leaders I got. So early lean is either Stalin or Vicky.

[Commodore]

Inca: Agriculture / Mysticism, OK but not great. I'm not going to be rushing anyone with Quecha and barbs are off, so the UU is minimally valuable. 

As a note, one seldom-mentioned trait of Quecha is that they upgrade directly to maces, which means that hooking copper does not block you from still making them. In other words, they're the cheapest and easiest Military Police available for a very long time.

[Krill]

They also die if anyone turns up with a real unit so YMMV.

[Mjmd]

1) Easier may have been the wrong word as Bellarch and I actually put a fair amount of work into in PB61, that being said it does make overflow into a lot easier. You don't have to two pop whip grans as much early. You can two pop whip a worker and then overflow into a pretty short build granary for instance. Or use a minor amount of overflow plus chop vs a lot of overflow. It definitely helped Bellarch explode onto map in PB61, that being said, it isn't HUGE and you can probably attribute alot of it to imp plus stonehenge. I do agree with Commodore on cheap MPs don't sell them short. 

2) There aren't actually that many econ civs. Below is a list I made when analyzing America UB and UBs in general. There are only 3 good econ UBs. Now obviously there are other factors as I pick India over Holy Rome every time I get a start that can support myst. For those looking at civs I've played recently you will recognize all three. 



Also, while early its only a gold or three city dependent, its still more than most civs. It also scales well as the game goes on.

[Mjmd]

I will note that none of those 3 econ civs has won a game in CtH......... There is clearly more to civ, but it does help keep relevant (EDIT although again Inca does as well just in a different way).

[aetryn]

1) Easier may have been the wrong word as Bellarch and I actually put a fair amount of work into in PB61, that being said it does make overflow into a lot easier. You don't have to two pop whip grans as much early. You can two pop whip a worker and then overflow into a pretty short build granary for instance. Or use a minor amount of overflow plus chop vs a lot of overflow. It definitely helped Bellarch explode onto map in PB61, that being said, it isn't HUGE and you can probably attribute alot of it to imp plus stonehenge. I do agree with Commodore on cheap MPs don't sell them short. 

2) There aren't actually that many econ civs. Below is a list I made when analyzing America UB and UBs in general. There are only 3 good econ UBs. Now obviously there are other factors as I pick India over Holy Rome every time I get a start that can support myst. For those looking at civs I've played recently you will recognize all three. 



Also, while early its only a gold or three city dependent, its still more than most civs. It also scales well as the game goes on.

Great! I will keep that in mind. I'm not going to go too in depth until we see what the start looks like, because obviously the starting resources, presence of forests, etc. will play a significant role. I think it likely to be Inca or Mali with normal starts, and we'll have to reassess if we get a start crying out for some other set of default techs.

Regarding my earlier analysis of other players' IND options, I didn't think about also looking to see what civ choices they have.

• xist10 has 4 industrious leader choices, some of which are moderately strong, but only two civs with Mysticism to start, neither of which have Agriculture. These are Arabia (with The Wheel and Mysticism) and Celtic (with Hunting and Mysticism). Xist also has China available with great techs and Rome, which still has powerful units. This is slightly more encouraging for a Stalin choice as it seems at least plausible that even if xist takes an Industrious leader, I could still be the only one starting with both Industrious and Mysticism.
  
• Greeline has 3 industrious leader choices, which don't look as strong to me, but eh, what do I know as a green? They have 2 mysticism starters, Byzantine (great UU, Wheel + Mysticism), and Korea (Mining + Mysticism). They also have America (generally considered strong), Sumer (good techs). So this feels pretty unlikely to be Industrious-Mysticism competition.
  

Obviously this is all totally idle speculation, but I'm feeling a little better about trying a Stalin-Stonehenge play. It's still a dice roll, but maybe a dice roll that's likely to be in my favor.

[Mjmd]

To note starting techs got costs changed so agriculture isn't end all be all anymore. Also to note you don't NEED either Ind or a myst civ to go Stonehenge. Sure it helps, but plenty of games been built by someone else.