[Spoilers] Shallow Thought and Hitru's series of (unfortunate?) events

[shallow_thought]

I'm pretty sure Zulu and Inca are gone by the time we get to pick, but if not I would like either of them. I think Ethiopia, Korea and Persia are all viable here.

For leaders I would also add Pro-Imp as an option, especially if you happen to get inca. That does lack the economic trait, but it has enough early game benefits that you should get economic advantage from having more and bigger cities .

Otherwise I agree with your idea of expansion trait combined with economy trait. I do not consider Agg to be an expansion trait though as it does not save hammers for workers or settlers or give faster granaries.
Mehmed is really strong, for example, and works with basically all civs.

Ooh - forgot to check out Inca. They've been nerfed, but with a PRO leader... maybe I could cope with Myst as a starting tech; for that I do need the sandbox. I do think that one element of expansion is getting the border pops, and AGG helps a little bit as you get to build "monuments" that actually do something else useful (particularly combined with the free C1). I agree that it's too weak on it's own - AGG/ORG is too slow.

In RtR I feel that Julius may be better than Mehmed (who is a great BTS choice). Still missing that PRO/ORG option .

EDIT:

Character names? Duncan Quagmire, Frank Denouement, Jerome Squalor, Kit Snicket, Lemony Snicket, Vice Principal Nero, Olivia Caliban, Quigley Quagmire, Uncle Monty. X, Y, and Z are still a problem.

Yep, that Quigley Quagmire is just too convenient to pass up; thank-you. Might have to be just first names and initial though.  It'll be Jacques Snicket though, in honour of my wife's reaction to Nathan Fillion and Patrick Warburton appearing together on screen. If I get as far as X, Y, Z I'll make something up.

[shallow_thought]

Some more quick notes: the map is carefully chosen so that an EXP civ will gain a net hammer going straight into a worker, without any downside. Hmm. This thread is likely to be a bit of a stream of consciousness scratchpad BTW.

[Hitru]

Julius is also really strong, can't go wrong with Imp/Org. But Mehmed is also an excellent choice if he happens to be available.

Since we are fifth on snake we can choose civ and leader that work well together, like Pro Inca.

[shallow_thought]

Julius is also really strong, can't go wrong with Imp/Org. But Mehmed is also an excellent choice if he happens to be available.

Since we are fifth on snake we can choose civ and leader that work well together, like Pro Inca.

Never having to build a monument would be nice, but Mysticism is a dead weight. Getting two of Agri/Hunting/Mining - or even one with Wheel/Fishing - saves beakers for the Currency/Alpha beeline that might prevent me from running the economy into the ground. But PRO/[IMP|EXP] + Terraces would be tasty.

I have to say, with only six players there's no issue getting a playable choice.

[shallow_thought]

Well, some rough simming done; more a matter of comparing alternatives than any optimising.

Currently I'm feeling that the speed gain from being able to combine farming the wheat, pasturing the pigs, getting Bronze Working and a timely trade route to the first city make the Agri|Hunt|Min tech group a lot stronger than the alternatives over the first few turns. 

Fishing doesn't work well, either workboat first or growing on a workboat second (well, for me at least)

I'm also trying to compare EXP and IMP. In RtR that's initially 35% faster workers against 50% cheaper settlers. Assuming 1.5 workers per city and n cities, that's 90n hammers on workers, and 100(n-1) hammers on settlers, so your saving is 31.5n from EXP and 50(n-1) from IMP. You gain from the third city. On the other hand, you get half-price markets, which is very nice, and half-price grocers, which is still OK. The other gains are negligible. You also get to apply that EXP right from turn 1 on this map, with your first worker arriving two turn earlier, so your jump to a 5fh tile comes two turns earlier and so on. In my rough simming, EXP and IMP both get the second city out at the same time: EXP has a tile ready to work but has used an extra chop.

On a separate topic, does Civ IV cache information about WorldBuilder files it has loaded in memory? I'm kind of having to joggle the game (load some other saves, try different ways to load the WB file) to get text-editor changes to take effect. It's all working, but it's odd.

[Hitru]

I haven't simmed anything, but I think fishing fast is not good enough. Better to go with food tech - mining - BW. So I like your plan to aim for Agri|Hunt|Min tech group.

And I think your assesment of IMP being slightly better early game boost is correct and is balanced by half hammer markets and groceries. To be honest I think you are even undervaluing IMP as 1.5 workers per city sounds little bit too many workers to me after initial 4-5 cities.

Is your plan to grab one of those and pair with economical trait? That would be very solid and strong choice.

If we don't go pro and have seafood in second city we might go after fishing before pottery.

[Old Harry]

You missed CHA and IMP as military techs.    

I'll follow along, but don't expect me to do any simming.

[shallow_thought]

I'm liking [IMP|EXP]/ORG, with AGG/[PRO|IMP|EXP] as a fallback. Full on PRO/[IMP|EXP] may be an absolutely stronger choice, but is more prone to me making a total mess! In an ideal world I'd have time to at least try a game with RtR EXP to get a feel for how good those markets are, but I doubt I can fit one in.

It's not really anything relevant to picks, but there's a couple of oddities about the map that may trip me up:
- no early happy
- the food resources at the cap are not brilliantly placed for sharing cottage tiles with a second city (I'm actually penciling in a city on the dyes to share farmed sugar, although there'll be a bunch of scouting to do before that decision is confirmed, obviously).

[shallow_thought]

ST, how much do you want me to be involved as a dedlurker? I promise that I can also just answer questions and otherwise be silent even if it does not look that way in our pb38 chat.  

Basically this is your game and I will be involved only as much as you want.

Believe it or not I missed this post earlier - I think it was almost at the same time as I replied to DaveV.

I'm keen to get involvement if you have the time, but am not sure how to work things best. I'm certainly not going to be setting up a full-time gchat or anything - aside from anything else I'm a little limited as to when I can focus on civ, as I don't get open Internet access at work. I'll make a fuller reply when I get back in this evening.

Currently thinking "Persia" BTW, although Korea and Ethiopia are options. I'm quite impressed by the utility of the Immortal in a barbs-on game; nothing brilliant, but a help.

[shallow_thought]

So, after much discussion of the relevant strengths of IMP and EXP, and of combining two fast traits rather than one of PRO/IMP/EXP with ORG, we'd come down to Julius and Charlie.

Then this happened.

Your world, all of a sudden, changes. The Mantis are on board your ship OT4E is in your game.

Or, more precisely.

Our pick is Shaka of Rome

Now, I could easily be wrong   . Couerva could well have decided to do something different entirely off his own bat (he's one of the more experienced players in this game, by a small margin). However, if this pick was for techs or the UB, I'll go back to playing on Noble. AGG Praetorians it is. The techs are sensible, of course, just ... not that sensible.

So, suddenly, access to shock axes became a prioirty (I would not want to be RFS-81 ... ). So, with AGG/EXP off the table it was AGG/IMP or AGG/PRO. There's lots of reasons to go AGG/IMP (more absolute hammers from settler savings than granaries) but the choice came down to emotion. Even though I suspect that PRO is an absolutely stronger trait overall, it's close, and neither Hitru nor I want to play Toku. Perhaps the lingering stench of being the worst leader in BTS, perhaps the fact that I'm watching JR4 play him in PB39, perhaps ... PB38 stuff.

Anyway, looks like KHAAAAAN for us.