[spoilers] One last trip down Nostalgia Lane

[BaII]

I still remember my first PB 13 years ago...

I was 14 at the time haha so much has changed but still excited to do another PB after so long

[superdeath]

Any thoughts on who you would want to receive and who you dont want? Any neighbor preferences?

[BaII]

1. Bing / Cornflakes:  Mehmed of Egypt
2. Naufragar/Tarkeel:  Isabella of the Khmer
3. Commodore/Thoth:  Kublai Khan of Germany
4. BaII:  Justinian of the Native Americans
5. Yuris:  Asoka of Byzantium

quick tier list just based off leader + civ strength. Since the map is mostly randomly generated starting techs matter a lot more and Bing comes out on top with this Egypt just being a very strong civ. Mehmed is a solid leader too in this line up especially because there's no Fin leader. Looks like it's a pretty heavily water based map as well so ORG is very useful here.

Tarkeel also has synergy with his UB + exp so that's a fun roll as well. Although it was good it felt a little underwhelming when I played this combo in a RtR PB game a long time ago, still better than the other combo methinks.

Commodore and I are pretty close, I think. Not really impressed with totem poles and dog soldiers but Germany's UB & UU come out a bit too late to matter too much. Especially bcs I rarely see Grenadiers ever utilized. He's probably the scariest neighbor to be next too since he's the only 1 with a combat trait.

Asoka is good for Yuris since ORG is strong but Byzantium has such weak starting techs. A Cataphracts rush from Yuris is still scary. Just the issue is the start seems way too slow with a Wheel/Myst starting tech and no Imp or Exp to help curve out the early game.

Honestly as long as I don't start next to Commodore I'm happy. Don't want to deal with any aggressive CRE + AGG shennigans. Most happy to see Yuris next to me since they have a slower start.

Interesting to see 3 SPI leaders. It's not usually a trait that most people pick but might be fun to game it out. Normally ppl are always sitting in slavery civic so it's hard to catch them off guard but people will be swapping in & out it this game so it might be interesting to see if we can take advantage.

[civac2]

Germany is better than you give it credit for. You get Riesengarde at Chemistry so you can skip Military Science and Chemistry can be effectively bulbed too.

[greenline]

start:




fog lies. starting units yet to be updated to match the start settings.

[BaII]

Oh that is a good point, considering they're on a normal tech route rather than out of the way.

SD do you have any comments on the players? I haven't been paying attention to the PB for the last couple of years anything noteworthy of the players?

Also I just realized it's classical era start so ignore the starting tech stuff whoops. Probably moves Yuri's position up quite a lot

[superdeath]

Oh that is a good point, considering they're on a normal tech route rather than out of the way.

SD do you have any comments on the players? I haven't been paying attention to the PB for the last couple of years anything noteworthy of the players?

Also I just realized it's classical era start so ignore the starting tech stuff whoops. Probably moves Yuri's position up quite a lot

1. Bing / Cornflakes:  Mehmed of Egypt
2. Naufragar/Tarkeel:  Isabella of the Khmer
3. Commodore/Thoth:  Kublai Khan of Germany
4. BaII:  Justinian of the Native Americans
5. Yuris:  Asoka of Byzantium 


Uh, bing is more of a wacko than i am.. but with Cornflakes Dedlurking, he might listen to his advice which would make his combo an actual threat. His weakness is (again, even more so than me) lack of essential game knowledge, and not a great warmonger. Expect a solid settler spam into crawl to currency (i have NO clue what techs classical starts with) followed by standard play.

Nauf/tarkeel.. Nauf plays really well but can get a bit heated over random things. Small injuries towards him are not recommended. Tarkeel is basically Budget Old Harry (imo) and i didnt see if they were dedlurking, or teaming up.. but i bet some fancy plays along with a rush towards Hanging gardens or music could be in store. 


Commodore... Commodore.. He and i have gotten off on the wrong foot since day 1. Back when i was a certified noob (rather than the pro-noob i am today) i may have ate his either worker or settler in the first BIG game that i was apart of.. (pb38? something) Anyway, extremely solid player. Only ever has "issues" in late-late games, or when bordering Gav (i completely understand him there) 


Yuri's. Pretty solid player. I cant really come up with anything good nor bad to say about the guy. With a classical start, his combo has much better potential. Will either be slightly above bing in terms of threat, or closer to Commodore if left unchecked. Depending on the size of the map, i could maybe see a Asoka-led bulb towards knights?

[BaII]

Good to know Bing is more of a wacko, thanks for the other general stuff. Those habits are pretty useful like Nauf getting angry. I do recall being Commodore probably just being the best overall player of this bunch even though I know it's been awhile. Posting the techs here so you can see as well

Sailing
Pottery
Animal Husbandry
Archery
Meditation
Polytheism
Masonry
Priesthood
Monotheism
Bronze Working
Writing

So... Exp actually looks even better then although WC's are less scary now atleast. So Bing's position also moves down the list a little bit. Yuris is up. But atleast it makes Native Americans better lol since I was honestly going to ignore Archery for awhile.

[BaII]

start:




fog lies. starting units yet to be updated to match the start settings.

Thanks for the screenshot greenline

[BaII]

For the opening if we're getting an extra settler I might check the PH 1E of the wheat with that settler to see if that spot is also worth settling. Current spot is good but not sure if having only Cows in first ring is good. Would much prefer either the deer or Wheat as first ring. Is probably worth taking a peak around the area.

Math as a first tech seems much better than the other option although Monarchy is not bad since we are SPI. But with so many trees it feels more worthwhile to chop those into settlers with IMP bonus.

Original plan with 1 worker was that we chop into another worker in the capital and then improve wheat -> deer -> cows.

But if we're starting with 2 workers it's a lot harder to sim but it's likely improve cows -> wheat -> deer and settle 2nd city somewhere where it can share 1 of the starting resources. Or maybe it's better to just claim wheat with 2nd city and improve that tile first.

@superdeath do you see anything better off the top of ur head? Not as use to these quicker starting set ups so I feel like I might be missing something big