The Wacky Snakepick
In this game, we get to pick a third starting technology after the snakepick is over. I have written in previous games that starting technologies are the most important part of a civilization and it is a bad idea to pick any civ with suboptimal starting technologies, no matter how tempting their Unique Things might be. All Unique Units and Unique Buildings are “bad gambles,” more or less. Since then, I have started to doubt that. Maybe Rome is good enough to justify itself even if Fishing/Mining are suboptimal. Maybe others too. But in this case, that does not matter because Rome is banned and we get to pick a third starting tech.
Thanks to our third tech, we only need to start with one of the two optimal starting techs, and can just pick the second one. Of course, there must also be a set of three optimal starting techs, but a set of three contains three unique sets of two, so that is still less restrictive than usual. Also, I suspect that the difference between having the three optimal starting techs and only having two optimal starting techs plus one suboptimal tech is not that big of a difference.
The point is, getting to pick a third starting tech means we can worry less about choosing civs based on their starting techs. But you probably already knew that.
Maybe we should consider taking this opportunity to pick a civ that is usually hindered by poor starting techs?
Byzantium is the obvious one, but it is also banned.
India is another one, but I am writing my thoughts late and Gavagai already picked it. Even if he had not, I worry that the oddities of this map might make Fast Workers less effective than usual. Fast Workers in CTH are (almost) no better than Normal Workers on Roads, and we can already see some pre-placed Roads. Also there must be more pre-placed improvements out there, and they could just make Workers in general less important. And the Raging Barbarians might make improving tiles more a matter of military power than Worker power. Don’t get me wrong, India could still work out great for Gavagai, but the map could screw it up for him.
Arabia is another civ with poor starting techs that comes to mind. Camel Archers are pretty good in CTH, but I think this 5-player game is not quite their optimal environment. I think that Camel Archers shine either if you are doing a Knight blitz against a weak player and the thing slowing you down is just needing to heal your units, or if it is the opposite and you are facing a tough dogpile. I recall the second one being the case for Cornflakes in Pitboss 65, and
PITBOSS 74 SPOILERS BEGIN
PITBOSS 74 SPOILERS END
In this game, Superdeath might be weak enough to the target of a Knight blitz, but he is not always. It varies from game to game. And Thrawn, complete newcomer to Civ IV might be weak enough too. However, the best precedent we have for this situation, Ljubljana in Pitboss 75, turned out okay for the Civ 6 immigrant. As my own dedlurker surely knows.
. Sorry, buddy.
. And Thrawn did even better back in their Civ 6 games, right? And about the second good scenario for Camel Archers, the dogpile, I am just skeptical that the big picture of this game is likely to lead to that situation. I cannot seem to put my reasoning for that into words though, sorry.
…
I am burying the lede terribly in this post.
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The actual wackier part of the snakepick, in my opinion, is not the third starting tech, but our knowledge that Raging Barbarians is On. That basically means we already know that we will face a rush of Warriors and Archers shortly after settling our second city. That is a big deal! We should certainly pick a good Ancient UU to help with that, right? Usually I say that UUs are “bad gambles” because of the high chance that you don’t get into the right kind of war at the right time, so they don’t do anything, but in this game, we already know one of our “wars” in advance, in detail! So let’s just pick an Ancient UU and be guaranteed to get some good use out of our UU, right?
The thing is, this game is also a Mystery Box game. We know that Raging Barbarian is On, but we don’t know all the context. Scooter could have removed Archery from them. We could even be in a little cell, with a wall of Peaks just out of sight to the north and south, another ocean to the east. Everything would be easily fogbusted and the Raging Barbarians would be a joke. Then we expand to a bunch of tiny islands and see no Barbarians the whole game.
. That is possible. Anything is possible in the Mystery Box! But it is very unlikely. Why turn Raging Barbarians On just to weaken them? The point is, there is still uncertainty.
But I think betting on being attacked by waves of Barbarian Warriors and Archers circa Turn 40 is still the correct thing to do. It is pretty likely to happen, and we should pick a civ with a UU that will help defeat them.
But as I mentioned in a previous post, Mystery Box could also mean that Scooter screwed with our strategic resources somehow. He could have deleted them from the map. Or hid them. Or gave them to Barbarian cities. This is relevant because some of the civs with good Ancient UUs depend on strategic resources, and some don’t. I will summarize.
NEED STRATEGIC RESOURCES: Egypt, Zulu, Persia.
ONLY GOOD IF THERE ARE NO STRATEGIC RESOURCES: Babylon, Maya
BEST WITH NO STRATEGIC RESOURCES, BUT STILL USEFUL IF THERE ARE SOME: Inca, Mali.
And maybe Native America belongs in there somewhere too? More for the Totem Pole than the Dog Warrior.
Did Scooter screw with our strategic resources? And if so, how? We don’t know!
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By the way, if he did, Arabia might be the correct long-term choice. If we have Knights and no one else does, we just win.
Our strategic resources are most likely around as normal. That is my best guess. Probably. I think it could be a terribly unfun distortion of the game if they were absent, and maybe Arabia and Maya would be banned too. But I don’t know.
We could pick Inca or Mali as a hedge. Quecha would be pretty good at fighting Barb Warriors and Archers on their own. But if there is Copper and Horse, we will still build a few Quechas in the very early days, and they could still be handy. Skirmishers are similar. They would be the backbone of our military if there are no strategic resources, but if there are strategic resources, I think they can still be valuable. Getting Barbs to suicidally attack our cities could be good, and Skirmishers are better at that, and better at attacking out if they must, than normal Archers.
Part of the uncertainty here is that I’m not entirely sure what the best strategy for fighting the Raging Barbarians is anyway. I think “intercept them with Chariots if possible, otherwise try to get them to stupidly attack Archers in cities”? But maybe not.
This is way too rambling and long.
I LIKE PERSIA! Immortals are perfect for fighting the Raging Barbarians. We send them out to intercept the Barbarians as they come into view, just like with Normal Chariots, but they do better at it because they get defensive bonuses. With Normal Chariots, we try to bait Barbarians into attacking us, but that just takes away their defensive bonuses. With Immortals, we get our own defensive bonuses too! AND THEY HAVE A BOOST AGAINST ARCHERS. It’s perfect. Even better than War Chariots on most terrain or against Archers! Or Impi against Archers! And it pleases me to think that such an unusual civ, Persia, is actually the best one. My contrarian streak rears its ugly head!
And Agriculture/Hunting are the perfect starting techs! We research Animal Husbandry in time, pick Mining for our Scooter-provided starting tech, and then Bronze Working. Worker goes Pig, Corn, Ivory, chop! Alternatively, pick The Wheel if the Worker building Roads along the way is better than chopping sooner, depending on how the timing works out. There are pre-built Roads to connect to that could speed our Settler. And Hunting first boosts our Scout’s survivability. Very important! Scouting is key on the Mystery Box map, but the Scout will be mostly useless very soon, as soon as the second cities are founded. Hunting ensures it does as much as possible in its brief effective time against the animals.
PERSIA IS PERFECT! AAAAAHHH.
But maybe we should just be the Incans? Terraces will be good no matter what, Mysticism is not that bad with the third starting tech to help, and Quechas, normally an afterthought, could be great here! They are a hedge against the uncertainty that I am so worried about. But it’s so mainstream! Boring!
Mali, well, I’m not sure I want to play them twice in a row. But depending on what the optimal anti-Barb tactics actually are with or without strategic resources, Mali could be the correct choice too.
.
…
Okay. Lastly, the traits. I am coming back to this after a five-minute break, so I hope my sanity has been restored.
. Be calm.
CREATIVE. Creative is the king trait for this game. Prove me wrong! You can’t do it! Boom!
Regardless of rather or not we have strategic resources, if the Raging Barbarians are anything like normal, and they probably are, then Creative will get a big boost. Creative gives us better fogbusting, better culture defense, and lets us found on hills easier. Against Raging Barbarians those are all very useful.
And then Creative can do all its usual useful things too.
Creative does make me a bit uncomfortable because it is the “build-your-own-trait” trait. IMP and EXP just give you 30 hammers per city, more or less. Creative can do that too, but you have to find opportunities. You have to work for it. And the map might just not give you those opportunities. Maybe all the seafood will be adjacent to the land, and all the hills will be perfectly placed to settle on, etc. That is not likely to happen. There will be some opportunities to get benefit from Creative. But it is possible for a map to just no-sell the trait. Maybe on this map it is more likely than usual?
But this is just anxiety talking. I had the same worry in Pitboss 74, and Creative worked out fine in the end.
Creative is the best trait, pick Creative. CRE.
What about the second trait?
IMP is banned, for some reason.
CHA is redundant with CRE. And we can already see Ivory.
FIN would be reasonable, but I’m not sure that I want to play Wilhelm again so soon.
SPI is a bit anti-synergistic with CRE, because SPI wants religion and Caste System, which can pop borders, , but we already have border pops with CRE. Also, Scooter could have given the Barbs all the religions. Or can the Barbs just found them on their own if their cities are good enough?
ORG is maybe a bit weak on Monarch.
I think AGG is a bit underpowered in general, even in CTH. That demands further research, but it is my feeling for now. Fun though, and could be useful against the Barbs. But if Chariots are the best way to fight the Barbs, then AGG is not so good.
PRO. Sure, reasonable.
But I really like IND. The Great Wall is a strong wonder in this game, when usually it isn’t, which I think boosts IND. Though IND is a bit anti-synergistic with CRE, because IND could maybe just build Stonehenge to imitate CRE. Also, I also have a theory that IND could work great in a small game like this. Lots of Wonders are nice to build, but not worth it to rush, or even build right away. In a big game, for a lot of Wonders, someone will either be foolish and rush it anyway, or happen to be in a situation that makes building it relatively early a good idea. In a small game, that won’t be the case, and IND can just devour all the Wonders. The best time for us to build all the secondary Wonders, Temple of Artemis, Parthenon, etc., will be significantly sooner than for everyone else. So we basically get a lot of great, special infrastructure. Lots of culture.
And the Forges too. I like Forges. They worked great in Pitboss 69. And I haven't played IND before. And I want to try.
Summary: Louis XIV of Persia! This is what peak performance looks like!
