Speaker's super top secret thread for the purposes of world domination; Neener Neener

[sunrise089]

I expect to move my starting units like this:



In a nutshell Red city group gains silks and copper but looses cows. Sullla is of course correct that western red and eastern yellow would be ideal, but isn't a legal start.

Assuming there isn't fogged seafood 1N3E of the settlers then eastern yellow 1 and eastern yellow 2 can be compared now:

1) +2 coast, +1 plains
2) +3 river grassland

So my early sense is if I go yellow, then eastern yellow 2 is better barring seafood in the fog.

[Profane]

If you go Eastern Yellow 2, are you going to fort the Incense to boat the Crabs, or that will have to wait for your 3rd city or so?

[Speaker]

Most likely, your best two spots are E of your settlers for your capital, and W-W-W for your second city, depending on what the scouting units find, of course.

[Sullla]

That's the most confusing dotmap I've seen in some time. Why didn't you just use more colors, instead of triple yellow dots?

When we get the actual save file, the three of us should play the first turn together on Teamspeak. Hopefully sometime tomorrow, if all the logistics work out.

[sunrise089]

That's the most confusing dotmap I've seen in some time. Why didn't you just use more colors, instead of triple yellow dots?

I'm on my laptop and in a quite area, so I was trying to minimize mouse clicks

I figured at this stage everyone knows city plant rules, but I wanted to use colors to show city combinations. Doing it over I'd have labeled the inside of the colored circles as "1, 2a, and 2b."

[NobleHelium]

Now that your opponents' picks are announced, can we hear your thoughts on them?

[Speaker]

Team 1:
Cyrus (Cha/Imp) of Mongolia
Pacal (Exp/Fin) of India
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of England
Awesome picks, obviously.

Team 2:
Victoria (Fin/Imp) of China
Gandhi (Spi/Phi) of Ottomans
Bismarck (Exp/Ind) of India
Not the best choices, I don't think. China is a pretty weak choice. Cho'ko'Nus are a weak UU in MP. They get slaughtered by Mounted units. Ottomans are a so-so choice. Their UB is great, their UU is decent. This team may clean up the wonders though, seeing as they have the only Industrious leader in the game. Should be a lock for the Great Library, if they push it. Victoria should tech pretty well, I think. They lack Aggressive/Charismatic, so they may find their units outclassed on the battlefield every step of the way.

Team 3:
Pacal (Exp/Fin) of India
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of France
Genghis Khan (Agr/Imp) of Rome
Aggressive Rome will either work spectacularly, or fail miserably. I guess they get a stealth buff because Plako let each team select their individual starting locations, so if any of them had iron nearby, they could give that to Rome. On the other hand, this may slow down their tech, since they are not giving their Pacal/India first choice of starting locations. I think it will all depend on how they plan to use the Praetorians. If they send a couple and choke one player, that won't really accomplish much in the grand scheme of things, but if they can sneak an early city capture, that could be huge. Imperialistic will allow that player to use some early MFG on units and still keep up in expansion. Gandhi/France have little synergy, in my opinion. Musketeers need Aggressive or Protective to be really useful. They need to be able to get three promotions for "Formation," since a Knight can get "Pinch" with two. Hopefully I don't start next to Agg Rome!

Team 4:
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) of India
Ragnar (Fin/Agr) of France
Cyrus (Cha/Imp) of Mongolia
Pretty similar to ours. They chose Aggressive instead of Expansive. Ragnar/France could be a pretty strong pick. Gandhi/India is good. Cyrus/Mongolia is really good. This is my second favorite after ours.

[sunrise089]

I agree with Speaker that team 4 has the most solid non-us choices, and that the biggest single error IMHO was picking an odd leader on France for team 3.

I'd have not picked Rome once the map team let it slip in the main thread that we're on a Huge map. Huge of course doesn't guarantee we'll be far apart, but on average it definitely nerfs really early warfare IMHO.

[Speaker]

I agree with Speaker that team 4 has the most solid non-us choices, and that the biggest single error IMHO was picking an odd leader on France for team 3.

I'd have not picked Rome once the map team let it slip in the main thread that we're on a Huge map. Huge of course doesn't guarantee we'll be far apart, but on average it definitely nerfs really early warfare IMHO.

Run a few sims to see what Huge/Lakes looks like. It isn't *that* big of a map. You could still put on a pretty good choke with Praetorians....but I'm not sure what that would accomplish, other than slowing down one player out of 9. Still, I'd rather not have it be me that gets slowed down.

[sunrise089]

Run a few sims to see what Huge/Lakes looks like. It isn't *that* big of a map. You could still put on a pretty good choke with Praetorians....but I'm not sure what that would accomplish, other than slowing down one player out of 9. Still, I'd rather not have it be me that gets slowed down.

Definitely, and I certainly defer to you as I've not rolled a map at all.