[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[Mardoc]

Your start will be this, or a mirror/rotation of this. Fog lies.

[Commodore]

For something landlocked, that's still pretty Vicky.

[scooter]

Quick react: so this is definitely not a Byz start. We start with ivory (presumably mirrored) which is yet another counter available for Phracts. Landlocked start I think suggests to me we'll have some space between us which may deter early combat.

And yeah, this setup does look geared towards a cottage cheese capital. I was on the fence about bothering with cottages, but this start makes a pretty convincing case that they're at least worth building here. I think Julius is still the way to go. The river looks nice for Victoria, but the lack of water doesn't.

[Sullla]

Wow. Lots of resources there. Expect another turbo-charged early game, which seems to be the common RB theme currently.

Given this starting position with a gazillion river tiles, and the fact that this map is apparently Cylindrical and not Toroidal, I'm thinking along the same lines as Commodore. Is Organized better than Financial here? I honestly have no idea. Really tempted to grab Vicky here, put both cities on that north/south river a few tiles apart, and then cottage the bejeezes out of everything. Someone please talk me out of this idea.

[scooter]

Well I'm not so sure. We won't be cottaging much of anything past the first city or two. So from cottages FIN will be worth at most like 10-12 commerce/turn. Then there's the lack of coast. Mardoc said fog lies, so we may well be on an all-land map for all we know. At best there will be very little water, which is the other place FIN shines.

So in the most optimistic scenario FIN is worth like 20 commerce/turn. ORG was netting REM like 100gpt last game. That ignores courthouses and factories too. Am I missing something?

[scooter]

You know, with Cylindrical nerfing ORG, maybe Suleiman is worth putting back on the table. Cheap universities to unlock Oxford is an actual nice perk if we're thinking a cottage cheese cap is the way to go.

[antisocialmunky]

What's the map size?

I think with this starting era, you are probably close to the break point of ORG vs FIN. I think the issue in deciding here is how you feel about a greedy FIN powered farmer's gambit if you start next to the guy who takes the Byz sucker pick or Mackoti. How do you feel about farming some of that and abusing PHIL instead? I think the real question might be bulbs vs mature cottages and a Bureau-cap.

EDIT: I do kinda like cheap Unis, one of the reasons ORG was so good was in addition or the normal ORG bonuses, it allowed REM to factory spam faster.

[Sullla]

Good discussion all around. I think that out of the three economic options we threw out here (Imp/Fin, Imp/Org, Imp/Phi) I still end up preferring Organized as the pair for Imperialistic in the last analysis. A couple short reasons:

* I agree with scooter that this start should be pretty close to the break-even point for Organized versus Financial in pure economic benefit.

* However, Organized has a really strong secondary benefit in those cheap factories if we would get that far, enough to potentially be game-deciding. And after playing the Industrial game with almost no building discounts, I'd like to get some of them in the form of a very good economic trait.

* Organized also opens up some otherwise unappealing civs as options on the second half of the snake pick. Cheap sacrificial altars? Cheap rathauses? Not bad picks if the civs we expect to get taken are gone. Fin and Phi don't provide quite the same options (maybe Korea for Phi?)

* On the Org versus Phi issue, I still feel like Organized is just the better natural fit to pair with Imperialistic. Philosophical wants Spiritual to pair up with Caste System and Pacifism, but Imperialistic wants Organized to pop out those cheap courthouses. I would happily take Imp/Phi with the third or fourth pick, but for the first pick, we might as well grab the natural pairing.

* Finally, Org courthouses do provide another hidden benefit in the form of the passive espionage bonuses. REM got a lot out of this in the Industrial game, and I'd love to have the chance to get the same benefits from doing stuff we'd be doing anyway. There are a good number of "first-to" benefits in this period, and passive espionage can help a lot in snagging them.

So in typical RB fashion, we probably end up in a circle and wind up where we started again. Worth discussing further before picking, but I think I'm still on the Julius Caesar train.

[antisocialmunky]

Do Ren games even go as far as factories before concede? It seems like drafting is the biggest production bump in this setup and the most practical to plan around exploiting.

I am also wondering what leader will get us Lib Fastest assuming that's a high priority. It still seems like its the biggest prize in the early game as you can either get Nationalism free and try to Taj with the marble or get the free GM to pop a single guy golden age.



Everyone has mirrored starts so all micro being optimal, what's the best leader/combo to get here fastest with starting with 2 x 2pop cities.

It also seems like the marble is there so people can taj race.

[Cheater Hater]

Is Liberalism that good if we don't go with Financial (and thus don't Cottage everywhere)? I think the reason why Liberalism is so prioritized in ancient starts is that the Universities at Education are much better (as you have a bunch of cottaged cities), and then Liberalism is cheaper than Nationalism (or something you can delay it for if you're really ahead in the race). Here you don't need Education right away, so why not just research Nationalism instead of risking the Liberalism race (especially since Nationalism is cheaper than normal thanks to Divine Right)? Or are you thinking of another target other than Nationalism--maybe the Economics merchant?

As for leader choice, Julius seems fine. Speaking of espionage, don't forget that spies are a thing even if active missions are banned (which I assume they are).