[SPOILERS - El Grillo PB54] Staying home and stargazing

[El Grillo]

Welcome to my spoiler thread! This will be my second Pitboss and first direct experience with CtH, and I look forward to applying some of the lessons I've learned from PB51 and PB52. The naming theme for this game will be stargazing and astronomy, a hobby/fascination of mine from earlier and simpler times.

Stay safe and take care everyone, and GLHF to my opponents.

Civ password:

lookup

[Commodore]

Waaaazzup

[El Grillo]

Thanks Commodore.

Observations in no particular order:
- +1h/+1c means we settle in place as a matter of course.
- 10-food surplus pre-Civil Service and Lighthouse is a good amount, and we have plenty of riverside grass cottages to feed, but dry rice and clam aren't quite the kinds of tiles I'm excited to work out of the gate.
- Naively and without any fog reading, that might possibly be an island to the northeast.
- There's no visible early happy resource.

Overall, this is quite a puzzle of a start. I'm pulled in two directions, either opening with AH to try and get the best tile worked ASAP, or a more conservative BW start. My second city wants to be along that river for the trade route even if I'm not PRO so I'm already wanting to check out 1SW of the pigs, but exploration results will matter more.

[El Grillo]

Separately, the snake pick order.

1. Naufragar
2. Ruff-Hi
3. Miguelito
4. MrCairo
5. giraflorens
6. El Grillo
7. Vanrober
8. scooter
9. superdeath
10. Elkad
11. Mjmd

Hmm, being in the middle of the pick order is less than ideal. I don't expect I'll be able to take my most favored traits, and there's no guarantee that I would be able to get my desired techs with a relevant UU/UB on the way back.

For traits, I want one of PRO or FIN, and I favor PRO with a tighter map where the defensive bonuses are more relevant and the prospect of having an island right at the capital for quick access to 3c routes. We've also seen how long it takes FIN to overtake PRO in raw commerce, and yet to see a game go long enough for it to be considerably stronger. I think I'd be happy enough with some boring combination of PRO/FIN paired with EXP/IMP/CRE/CHM/IND that I wouldn't expect to need to pick a non-FIN, non-PRO leader. The only traits I don't particularly care for are PHI, AGG, SPI, and ORG. I don't expect to be playing well enough to get enough value from SPI or PHI, and AGG and ORG just don't seem like they offer quite enough compared to the alternatives.

For techs, I'd need to run some sims but if my intuition about opening with AH seems reasonable enough, I think I'd like Agriculture/Wheel with tech set to AH.

After writing that out, maybe this turns into a salty runback of PB51 where I end up with Hannibal of Egypt, but I highly doubt it

[El Grillo]

Hmm, naufragar taking Spain first is presumably motivated by the unique Fishing/Mysticism start rather than the UU/UB, so he might have a fish seafood start where he's happy to build a Workboat while getting a head start on his Worker techs. I don't think I can afford to take Mysticism, I have too great of a need for AH and BW.

EDIT: In fact since I don't think I care as much about wanting a particular trait combination, picking a strong civ like China if it's still available might make more sense.

[El Grillo]

A quick sim shows that one AH prereq is enough to finish the tech in time for the Worker to get started on the pig right away. The opening is a bit tight on commerce with neither food being riverside, which makes me want to consider PRO or Fishing to pick up a few early coins. That brings us to America or Netherlands for Agriculture/Fishing, or if the dry rice is so bad that it isn't even worth improving before chops, Greece or Vikings for Hunting/Fishing. Gotta say those don't feel particularly exciting either, though PRO America has some synergy with both the UU/UB.

Alternatively, as a crazy thought, what if I pick Inca and use the new Terrace to make the rice into a 5f tile? A Granary that very occasionally provides +1f (but guarantees one at the capital) could be fun to play with, though it would require there to actually be dry grain on the map to begin with, and adds constraints to our dotmap as well. I don't expect anyone to value Inca since the nerf is certainly painful, so perhaps I try to get as good of a leader as I can and then expect to pick them up on the wheel. Agriculture/Mysticism isn't a terrible set of starting techs here either, and with barbarians on Quechua still have decent early utility plus the option for eventual HR spam.

[Charriu]

For traits, I want one of PRO or FIN, and I favor PRO with a tighter map where the defensive bonuses are more relevant and the prospect of having an island right at the capital for quick access to 3c routes. We've also seen how long it takes FIN to overtake PRO in raw commerce, and yet to see a game go long enough for it to be considerably stronger.

Just wanted to make sure that you noticed that in this version CtH the PRO trade bonus only applies to domestic trade routes.

[El Grillo]

Mhmm, but I'm taking into account (perhaps incorrectly) that the tightness of the map and the no-score rule could make wars more frequent and OB less likely to be signed in general, which could degrade the quality and availability of foreign routes.

[Charriu]

It is not my intention to push you in any direction. I justed wanted to make sure that you knew about the current implementation.

[Commodore]

Holy crap, I had missed how awful the new terrace was. Definitely should take Inca, automatic excuse for any bad showing ever.