I regret picking Bismark, perhaps. IND has done less than any other trait would have in this start. Possibly about Vanilla PRO level bad: IND forges versus PRO walls and Castles. I've never slammed into both the horizontal and vertical expansion barriers so hard before, at least, never at the same time in an RB PB game. I don't think it was the amount of land available, I think the happy situation and being so far from OH, superjm and Lewwyn. I don't see how it would have been possible to pull off a HA rush TBH, and the majority of the port cities were the last ones settled because of the horrible food situation for all of them, and the tech struggles. Settling them earlier just doesn't seem possible even looking back. Nor could we compete for Circumnavigation, so right now I'm fighting that uphill battle, into Circumnavigation and a tech superior opponent, but that was out of our hands, so...I feel the start was definitely winnable, but I imagine most people will look at the sheer amount of land, think it's an automatic win, and then not realize it's quite sparse with food (I was re-reading earlier, and comparing all the single food cities to everyone's double food cities) and the lack of happy.
I'm not saying I'm particularly pleased with how I played it, or how it turned out. I know I've made significant misplays since coming back in February. But I know the delay in stacking up and being able to attack Lewwyn and deal with OH sooner is because of the delay to growth, and that's down to the map and leader.
I'm not saying I'm particularly pleased with how I played it, or how it turned out. I know I've made significant misplays since coming back in February. But I know the delay in stacking up and being able to attack Lewwyn and deal with OH sooner is because of the delay to growth, and that's down to the map and leader.