[SPOILERS] Ceiliazul's First Dance: Louis of the Ottomen

[SevenSpirits]

I thought long and hard about taking the Romans. I fully expect to see them in the field.

I see in the Veterans tech thread that Sury was NOT the first choice, but them's the breaks.

The vets were smart and banned Sury.

[Commodore]

The vets were smart and banned Sury.

Well, maybe it's just due to Pocket Beetle, but my overall impression is that Cull isn't going to break the game with Sury, would be much more worried if Ad Hoc or Pegasus got him.

Ceiliazul, why the lower valuation of Spi? Isabella, Hatty, and Ramses all seem like viable contenders to me. Peter is neck-and-neck with Pericles too, if specialist economy is what you want to play with.

[Ceiliazul]

Did they now? We'll see how game breaking he really is I guess.

Or maybe I'll rename my starting warrior "Mulder" and hunt down that blue alien.

[Ceiliazul]

Ceiliazul, why the lower valuation of Spi? Isabella, Hatty, and Ramses all seem like viable contenders to me. Peter is neck-and-neck with Pericles too, if specialist economy is what you want to play with.

Honestly, it's due to lack of experience with SPI. Other than the caste system visits for border-popping artists, and a very occasional turn saved on civic swaps, what is the draw?

[Commodore]

Honestly, it's due to lack of experience with SPI. Other than the caste system visits for border-popping artists, and a very occasional turn saved on civic swaps, what is the draw?

Two other nice factors: Once you get Philosophy and Theology, you can flexibly shift in and out of OR, not just for their respective benefits, but for the nicely lowered torriodal maintenance. Letting you glean at least some of the net benefits of Phi and Org.

The other nice thing is running the priest economy. With the AP, SM, and UoS those cheap temples are very impressive buildings. That requires a very strong focus on the priest economy though.

I'm not suggesting you change your Louis preference, he's solid and especially good if he's the only Ind. Just saying that Spi is worth its usual valuation too.

[Lewwyn]

Honestly, it's due to lack of experience with SPI. Other than the caste system visits for border-popping artists, and a very occasional turn saved on civic swaps, what is the draw?

SPI is underrated. Its extremely useful mid and late game when you need to swap into slavery or into caste or into Nationhood and back to bureaucracy. Or how about from OR to Theo and back again. So much potential. I rate SPI above PHI and probably 4th after FIN/EXP/CRE.

[Ceiliazul]

Hmm, I've done exactly one priest economy game in SP... and it did work out pretty well. Unfortunately those priestly buildings can't benefit more than one religion each, right?

At the rate this snake pick is going, maybe I can blast off a quick SP game before it comes back around

[Ceiliazul]

I guess I was fashion forward in picking a civ first. After waffling, Catnip picked Rome. It was inevitable, and I hope I don't regret leaving them on the table.

Not to take away from you fine folks, but Catwalk has been getting some serious veteran juice in his thread. I'm sure they'll tell him that Rome has to capitalize in the early game... <shudder>

[Ceiliazul]

I've been doing some sims with my limited info... I may have stuck myself. After banging my head against the wall to keep a worker-first start from being tech limited, I tried loading the sim with Rome and they were, um, impressive.

It wasn't until that point that I realized the power of freshwater fish. SIX food?? Oops.

And so, as these things go, I've been staring at the start trying to read the bleed-proof cropping job that Seven did. I know it's silly to explore with your settler, but the SE river looks good for an Ottoman farm/cottage start.

This is foolishness without seeing the bleed and moving the warrior. I'll keep simming too, looking for a better way.

[Commodore]

Well, the thing is river hill pigs (5/1/1) are a good strong tile too, though the fish are also very very nice. You'll be able to get AH while making the worker, right? And there are no barbarians to worry about. Why not be ridiculous about this and make nothing but workers while you research AH, Mining, BW, then Fishing. After pasteurization of the pigs your worker force can run around pre-roading the local forests, then pre-chopping the nearby woods while you get ready for building the workboat. Maybe even go worker-worker-settler? Never mind about growing until your fish are improved, and then do an instant-deforestation to build work boat, warrior, granary (pottery is a fast tech after fishing is done), and more settlers.

That is a bastard of a start for future planning. I wish the warrior was on the other side for exploring the eastern river, but perhaps with the pig-hill he could spot some grains nearby for a more Turk-friendly spot. I'd be a little hesitant to leave the freshwater plains-hill capital location, as with some effort the spot can be a fairly strong Bureau capital.