Pre-Game Discussion

[WarriorKnight]

Checking in.

So, to be a buzzkill and bring us back to civ discussion (although a name is important as well), what civs do we likely right now? I think my current preference is Shoot's suggestion of:

Fin/Exp India
Spi/Phi England
Agg/Imp Rome

I don't think there were any team suggestions after that (I'm not reading through all those e-mails again! ). Perhaps if everyone can say what civ combination's they want the team to take and we can narrow it down from there.

[oledavy]

Best of luck guys. Oledavy- you didn't mention my suggestion! I'm so upset

Kyan's suggestion was Gandhi of the Ottomans, which I think could actually be a really good setup. I'm not sure I prefer it over Gandhi of the Inca, but it's at least worth considering.

The idea is that the Gandhi player will be running cities with large populations to facilitate running specialists. Large populations naturally need more happiness, this is where the Hamman comes in (+2 happy +2 health - the 2nd best UB in the game). The Jannisary offers a good way to leverage this large population and food surplus into a military advantage through drafting, especially since the player is running spiritual and can switch in and out of bureaucracy/org religion and nationhood/theocracy to take full advantage of this for a powerful military.

My choices would be:

Huyana Capac (Fin/Ind) of the Indians
Gandhi (Spi/Phi) of the Ottomans/Incans (I'm undecided)
Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp) of the Romans

[scooter]

My preference list:

Fin/Exp India - Mildly prefer Exp over Ind. Exp feels weak since granaries are free, and Ind feels weak because 1) lots of wonders not in the game and 2) marble/stone will be available supposedly

Phi/Spi Ottomans - I've cooled on Inca. If Inca happens to get our religion, it was a completely wasted pick. I'm not keen on running a 33% chance that we wasted a civ pick.

Agg/Imp England - This would be perfect as England would be our "funder" civ running and gifting gold all the time, which meshes nicely with their UB. Also, redcoats are good I hear.


Some notes on the last two choices:
1. I don't want Rome on a huge lakes map. PB1 and PB4 were huge lakes maps (with similar number of players) and in all cases there was WAY too much space for Praetorians to be of any use. In contrats, Janissaries/Redcoats will both likely see action if Spullla hasn't blown us all away by then.

2. For the Phi/Spi pick, my vote really is "Ottomans/England" - but since I'd like us to use both of them, I picked Ottomans for Phi/Spi and England for Agg/Imp

[scooter]

This would be perfect as England would be our "funder" civ running and gifting gold all the time, which meshes nicely with their UB.

Quick clarification on this. Ideally we want 2 techers running 100% science all (or as close as possible) the time who mostly ignore the gold buildings, and 1 funder who runs 100% gold all the time who mostly ignores the science buildings. We want the Financial civ to be the techer because duh. We also want the Philosophical guy to be a techer because of cheap universities... So that means the "me smash heads" 3rd combo should be the funder.

[scooter]

One last note: my preference list doesn't actually carry any weight since I'm not actually going to be a turn-player.... Just throwing my opinion out there .

[WarriorKnight]

Kyan's suggestion was Gandhi of the Ottomans, which I think could actually be a really good setup. I'm not sure I prefer it over Gandhi of the Inca, but it's at least worth considering.

The idea is that the Gandhi player will be running cities with large populations to facilitate running specialists. Large populations naturally need more happiness, this is where the Hamman comes in (+2 happy +2 health - the 2nd best UB in the game). The Jannisary offers a good way to leverage this large population and food surplus into a military advantage through drafting, especially since the player is running spiritual and can switch in and out of bureaucracy/org religion and nationhood/theocracy to take full advantage of this for a powerful military.

Otto's is a interesting choice with a decent UU and UB. Question though, how high of a priority is building an aqueduct? Sure it gives 2 happiness, but if you want to run specialists with a high happy cap then HR would be a pretty good substitute.

As for the Janissary, it is pretty good seeing as it has a bonus over all the medieval units. It has the same problem as the Musketeer though that you need Gunpowder to unlock it, and that will take quite a while. In the meantime we won't have anything else between now and then to give a military edge, and I dunno if that's a wise thing to do.

If Inca happens to get our religion, it was a completely wasted pick. I'm not keen on running a 33% chance that we wasted a civ pick.

I agree completely and that's the main reason I'm against Inca.

1. I don't want Rome on a huge lakes map. PB1 and PB4 were huge lakes maps (with similar number of players) and in all cases there was WAY too much space for Praetorians to be of any use. In contrats, Janissaries/Redcoats will both likely see action if Spullla hasn't blown us all away by then.

It depends really. In PB1 Ruff could've had quite a bit of fun with Preats against Byz if Tech Trading wasn't on. And in PB4 I could really have used some Preats given how close I was to plako, although unlike most civs I was quite squished for space.

Back to this game, it's impossible to really be able to tell how far away the other civs will be right now. Given how fast everyone can build up though (T30 for a decent core) and how slow everyone will tech will be at the beginning (and the low priority of machinery on everyone's research list) I'm still leaning towards Rome.

[oledavy]

I now believe Agg praets may be worth the investment, if nothing else for the early intimidation factor.

Having praets will force the teams nearest us to go machinery first, or risk losing cities and getting hamstrung at the outset of the game. Furthermore, this means we can delay machinery for macemen for awhile since we already will have an 8 Strength unit.

They won't be good for very long, but for the time they, they'll give us a leg up that could snowball into a commanding lead later.

The preferred tech path for a team in medieval start game is either bureaucracy or music first. Let's presume all teams would prefer to go for music first and bulb civil service with a GM. Unless they have Rome, they will have to run into machinery first or build a lot of axemen. A win-win scenario since machinery is the weakest of the three starting techs, and building a mass of axemen means a slower growth curve. So the immediate effect is that we ideally get music first and a free Great Artist, which we could leverage into a golden age or culture bomb. This also gives us the ability to run culture in new cities to immediately pop out borders.

So at this point (after us and everyone else bulbs CS), we have:

Music
Civil Service

Everyone else has:

Civil Service
Machinery

Shock praets get good odds against macemen when defending, so a mass of these will keep us in good shape for awhile.

This will allow us to run right into another economic tech: paper. The Gandhi player would run scientists for a GS (could skip this if we land the GL and get a GS from that) and bulbs education with this GS. At that point, we can either back track to machinery, for maces - or go straight into philosophy (could bulb with GP) and then liberalism, choosing gunpowder.

As long as no one makes a dedicated assault against us while we're defending with praets, we'll be in good shape and should come away with a sizable tech advantage. This would mesh well with picking the Ottomans, pumping out a horde of Jannisaries, and...

[Ilios]

My preference list:

Fin/Exp India - Mildly prefer Exp over Ind. Exp feels weak since granaries are free, and Ind feels weak because 1) lots of wonders not in the game and 2) marble/stone will be available supposedly

Phi/Spi Ottomans - I've cooled on Inca. If Inca happens to get our religion, it was a completely wasted pick. I'm not keen on running a 33% chance that we wasted a civ pick.

Agg/Imp England - This would be perfect as England would be our "funder" civ running and gifting gold all the time, which meshes nicely with their UB. Also, redcoats are good I hear.


Some notes on the last two choices:
1. I don't want Rome on a huge lakes map. PB1 and PB4 were huge lakes maps (with similar number of players) and in all cases there was WAY too much space for Praetorians to be of any use. In contrats, Janissaries/Redcoats will both likely see action if Spullla hasn't blown us all away by then.

2. For the Phi/Spi pick, my vote really is "Ottomans/England" - but since I'd like us to use both of them, I picked Ottomans for Phi/Spi and England for Agg/Imp

+1

I don't think Praetorians will be worth it, unless we want to build a bunch, put them on boats, and have them go on a world tour.

[Ilios]

I rest my case.

[oledavy]

^ nice pic I always pictured them more like this: