Thoughts on the snake pick.
So long as we don't get another retarded start like in PB37 (triple food requiring three different food techs), I don't think that starting techs are going to matter much unless I want to make a play for religion first, or I have an opportunity to go work boat and BW first, and slave the first worker. Large tech costs are not unmanageable, and there is a link in the second post to the tech costs, but I'll put the relevant ones in this post:
With that in mind, I'm looking at Classical era through Ren era UB, and Medi era UU onwards as being more useful. I know that Big and Small maps, on large, can't return less than 1800 tiles. I know there is the potential for space, but you can find opponents 15 tiles or fewer close by. Even with that in mind, I'm not going to focus on picking, say, Egypt to WC rush someone. It is just as likely you start on your own subcontinent.
So these are the civs I like the idea of playing:
Whilst I've said what I would look to pair with each civ, I don't think that's necessary in all cases. I'm still mulling over what traits I'd like to play, but I know I don't want to play SPI.
So long as we don't get another retarded start like in PB37 (triple food requiring three different food techs), I don't think that starting techs are going to matter much unless I want to make a play for religion first, or I have an opportunity to go work boat and BW first, and slave the first worker. Large tech costs are not unmanageable, and there is a link in the second post to the tech costs, but I'll put the relevant ones in this post:
With that in mind, I'm looking at Classical era through Ren era UB, and Medi era UU onwards as being more useful. I know that Big and Small maps, on large, can't return less than 1800 tiles. I know there is the potential for space, but you can find opponents 15 tiles or fewer close by. Even with that in mind, I'm not going to focus on picking, say, Egypt to WC rush someone. It is just as likely you start on your own subcontinent.
So these are the civs I like the idea of playing:
- America - pick CHM leader, aim for CR3 swords and maces off boats to take out a player that started isolated.
- Arabia - If I decide to go religion first, with one of CHM/CRE/FIN, but probably not CRE.
- Carthage - pick EXP and a builder trait and play standard opportunism.
- China - pick whatever traits enable an early Machinery and CKN coastal raiding, probably FIN to work coasts to stack up pop to then whip down for the army.
- England - I think I like this the most, just pick FIN and an early game trait and see what happens. Maybe, just maybe, pick Huayna and then play the fundamentals to aim for the late game.
- HRE - pick ORG/EXP (Mehmed, always wanted to play him, never been able to except the aborted PB24) and just play it straight empire building
- Japan - CHM/CRE and see how tall it is possible to grow. Note, this likely needs an early hammer city to throw out the wide spaced settlers otherwise I think it gets crowded out.
- Mali - play IND/PRO and the early game is safe wherever you start, late game is built around IND, but I think it will stall out in the mid game.
- Portugal - the only civ that can complete ignore Astro, but realistically needs to be played as FIN/CHM if you want synergy. I don't think it needs synergy though.
- Rome - AGG and boat people.
- Vikings - Zerks don't get the city attack bonus of other maces because they are terrifying enough. Still worth it if you pick AGG/CHM or ORG/CHM or AGG/ORG.
Whilst I've said what I would look to pair with each civ, I don't think that's necessary in all cases. I'm still mulling over what traits I'd like to play, but I know I don't want to play SPI.