[SPOILER] PB37 Dark Savant tries not to be a blatant MP n00b

[Dark Savant]

I missed this in the RtR changes, but Toroidal maps now have Cylindrical maintenance costs -- that devalues both Aggressive and Organized in my estimation.

I'm going to double-check for other important changes I missed first.

[ipecac]

AGG alone is okay. Personally I don't like chasing religions; they don't really pay off IMO unless the map is massive.

Does this version of the mod have 2hpt everywhere you settle? And is workboat based on food+hammers?

And it would be good to confirm if the rice is dry.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, I found no other surprises in another read of the RtR cumulative changes.  

This version doesn't give you 2hpt city tiles everywhere -- everyone is guaranteed a plains hill start by the mapmaker though, so everyone has a 2hpt city tile if they settle in place.  It's very unlikely moving the settler will pay off.

I haven't set up a sim yet, but my instinct is that work boat first is in fact best (though food doesn't go into those in this version), as 5f/2c (boated freshwater clam) is better than 3f/3h (pastured plains cow) or 4f (farmed dry rice) to begin with, and we get it operational several turns earlier, at the cost of starting with 16 or 32 flasks less of starting tech and a later worker.

(With this version and settings, Fishing costs 64; Mysticism and Mining, 80; the other three starting techs, 96.)

As far as early religion goes, the point isn't just to get a super rich shrine; pushing the happy cap earlier and the +25% bonus for Organized Religion are also attractive.  I'm skeptical myself it's a worthwhile risk (if we play Fishing/Mysticism, we might not get a worker tech in good time), but we don't have a start that demands an immediate research of Bronze Working, so we can keep it open as an option.

[Dark Savant]

I set up a sim.

It turns out Mysticism and Mining cost 79 flasks, not 80.  That implies Civ 4 multiplies the base beaker cost by difficulty (1.15) and by map size (1.4) separately, and in that order. 

Anyway, let's assume we found no religions and get nothing from huts, and that we're Expansive.

Turns out building a worker first and work boat second actually gets us two workers just 1 turn slower: 10 turns to train worker; 3 turns to build pasture and 12 hammers of work boat; 3 turns of working pastured cow to complete work boat; 2 turns growing the city to size 2 using the clam.  18 subtotal; then 5 turns to train 2nd worker with both clam and cow (or we could grow to size 3 on a warrior and have third improvement ready to work, for a 4-turn worker).  23 total turns at size 2, or 26 turns if we grow to size 3 and use that time to train a warrior.

For work boat first: 7 turns for a work boat; 2 turns to grow to size 2 (it's not faster to train the worker immediately); 7 turns to train worker; 3 turns to build pasture.  19 subtotal, and then either complete a warrior and be size 3 on turn 20 (we fall just short of being able to produce a worker in 4 turns after that, so we'd then have the 2nd worker on turn 25), or directly produce a second worker by turn 22.

That's less of a difference than I thought it would be (worker first can train both workers exactly to 60 hammers, which doesn't happen as nicely for work boat first), so we don't need to demand a Fishing start.  A Hunting start works fine if we can get a better UU/UB out of the deal.  Hooray for RtR's Civ-5-style pastures before camps.   (The cheaper cost of Fishing is mostly made up by the early clam commerce and working the oasis for 3 turns: 24 science recovered, or 36 if we're Financial.)  Having both doesn't help, since we can just research Fishing if we start with Hunting.

[ipecac]

3T pasture? Is this game quick speed?

[Dark Savant]

3T pasture? Is this game quick speed?

Normal speed.  It takes 4 turns, but since we can put in 1 turn of work the same turn we complete the worker, we can train a worker and complete a pasture on turn 13.

And it turns out the rice is wet, which makes that tile actually good.  If that's the first thing our worker improves, the farm there is done on turn 15.  That's probably not the best opening, since a pasture opening accelerates the work boat better.  We can start with Agriculture if we get some cool UU/UB toys with it, but it's not a high priority.

I'm uncertain it's worth it to actually produce two workers and a work boat that quickly.  The problem is that our start position wants lots of things that don't help that many tiles, so we're scrambling for worker techs more than usual, and I'm not sure two workers will have enough snowball-enlarging work to do (not as many forests to chop as usual).  That is also a very good reason not to chase a religion; this isn't a start where we can subsist on one or two work techs while we chase religion.

For decisions to make soon, this start is food-heavy compared to how light on production it is.  Can we presume the mapmaker puts in enough happy to keep pushing the happy cap until we can get Monarchy?  The answer is probably yes, but I'm wondering if Charismatic is seriously worth considering after all.

And if we take Organized, both the Aztecs and Holy Rome (courthouse UBs) have Hunting/Mysticism starts, so we might have a Mysticism start even though we're not chasing an instant religion.

Since you're suggesting we do want a long-term trait, I'm going to de-emphasize Protective.  If I want a military trait, I think I'd rather actually have Charismatic, and definitely Aggressive.

[Dark Savant]

Let's look at civ choices.  Any civ that doesn't start with one of Fishing, Hunting, or Agriculture is out.  Agriculture without Fishing or Hunting wants a noteworthy UU/UB pair to be worth considering: my list is Ottomans, French, Koreans (Agriculture/Mining in this version), maybe China ... that's probably all.

Wow, the Vikings have been nerfed to oblivion.  It's not just the lack of extra ship movement; the base maceman got a buff in RtR that the berserker didn't.  Is that a deliberate design choice?  They don't look appealing at all.

Ethiopia and the Khmer (both Hunting/Mining) look good, as does Carthage (Fishing/Mining).  After that, I think I'd prefer the Greeks (Fishing/Hunting) over any other Hunting/Mining or Fishing/Mining start; there are quite a few but they come with late UU/UBs or are otherwise unappealing.

I think the Dutch are good; I expect there will be enough coast for their UU to be strong if we last that long.

So are the Zulu, though if I take that with Aggressive it's going to be a diplomatic liability.  (It should be clear I both have no plans for a rush, and don't want to make neighbors think that I might.)

Aztecs are good, maybe even if we don't land Organized.  (It's likely Mehmed II won't be available by the time we pick.)

That's enough so that we should have a choice of those in the second round.

What do you think about civ choice?  We do want to think of this when we're selecting a leader.

[Dark Savant]

Forgot a couple civs:

Japan (Fishing/The Wheel) doesn't have the problem with their maceman UU that the Vikings do, so that looks like a decent but not strong pick.  Their UB here is an observatory with +10% production, too late to mean much.

Mongolia (Hunting/The Wheel) has something of an anti-combination of starting techs, but it's actually acceptable with our start position, and they have a good UU/UB.

... Hey, wait, if we take Washington and then land Mongolia, we can get easy triple-promoted keshiks and knights.    I'm wondering how many of the other Expansive leaders I'll get to pick from; I expect the ones I want most to actually be gone.  Isabella is the other Expansive leader I expect to likely still be there when we pick; she's a little less valuable because I definitely don't want to go for religion out the gate, but Spiritual becomes strong once your core is mature and you have worthwhile civics to switch back and forth from.

Mehmed II, Pacal II, and Shaka I expect individually to likely not be available, but we'll probably have a shot at one of those too.  (I get the impression I have a higher opinion of RtR-Financial than most other players.)

[ipecac]

On the whole I think your approach towards aggression is overcautious. The more experienced neighbours should only react to AGG Zulu, for example, if his power graph spikes.

Vikings were considered to be too overpowered in most situations. I've never seriously considered Japan because the UU loses to X-bows.

Only 2 hills in your BFC means that you'll need to rely heavily on whipping to get most stuff out. So CHA looks more okay than normal; and Aztecs for Sacrificial Altars may be worth considering.

[ipecac]

Other scattered thoughts:

This start is actually quite interesting and (imo) challenging since there's little production, and you will want all 3 food techs early.

2 workers seem overkill unless you have the Wheel early so that worker turns aren't wasted.

Furs in your borders latest T50.

Anything from Dutch/Aztec/Holy Rome/Ethiopia/Khmer/Mongolia/Ottomans/French/China/Greece/Zulu looks okay. But you should try to do some deeper simming to see which combination of techs give (for example) the fastest second city, and so on.