[SPOILERS] The Ministry of Truth. A factual account of Thoth's PBEM 50

[Thoth]

Hey Commodore,

You know how we picked a fishing/mining civ so we can tech BW first and build a WB?

Well, as we discussed last night in chat, worker first is stronger so we're not building the WB.

And I'm going to tech Ag/AH/wheel/BW.

Worker mines the bare grass hill then pastures the pigs (backwards but AH won't be in until eot 11 so the worker has time to finish the mine. The mine hammers will go into WB to improve clams while the bacon is frying.

BW due eot 21, settler due eot 22. t23: revolt to slavery, t24 found city 2 on eastern PH.

Oracle MC ~t34?

[Thoth]

Tech set to Ag in preparation for some uber food goodness.

Scouted Eastwards and found some more salt water. Forgot to grab a screenie, but 1 fort SE of the capital plus a city on the PH to the East and a deep water port will let me shift naval assets from one sea to another.

[Thoth]

Quick notes on the players:

Thoth

(esoteric, effective) as Chuck Doogle(Ind/Chm) of England (Fish/Mine)
-We all assume must have 'henge
-Meh leader
-So-so Civ
-Fearless player

Has played 0 quick speed BTS MP games. Has odd notions that often don't pan out. Has Kzin-like tendencies when he doesn't plan ahead.

Is going to skip Henge in favour of Oracle/MC gambit.

http://youtu.be/GsgVspgy184

Ichabod

(unfocused, underrated) as Louis (Ind/Cre) of Persia (Hunting/Agri)
-Novice will be boosting
-Good leader
-Not-good civ
-Monomaniacal player

Ichabod's a solid player. Lewy does well with either an Oracle/MC sling or a Mids gambit. I'm guessing Mids as Creative Lewy has little need for the Monk path until he wants to unlock Fuedalism and or Org Rel/Theo ect.

Kyan

(flakey, whiney) as Sury (Cre/Exp) of Germany (Hunting/Mining)
-Around turn 65, will be given to someone else
-Incredible leader
-Not terrible civ (techs okay)
-Skilled player

I'm not all that familiar with Kyan or his playstyle. Krill ranked him as one of RB's top players somewhere or another in this epic thread: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=5304

So I figure he's got some vague notion of what he's doing.

Awesome expansion leader, no UU or UB, starting techs situational.

Figure little early World Wonder competition from him, but he'll be pushing the "lots of cities and land early" wonder pretty darn hard.

Serdoa

(paranoid, excellent) as Jules (Imp/Org) of the Vikings (Fish/Hunt)
-Brilliance as ever marred by self-doubt and self-destruction
-So-so leader
-Specialized civ
-Scary player

Huh. I thought Serdoa was German, not Australian.


He got the leader/civ I wanted with this start

Another good player with a very solid leader/civ combo. Imp will speed his early expansion, Org will help keep his econ afloat.

also Org Trading Posts. Expect some annoyingly fast galleys from him if we have water contact.

Seven

(perfect, pompous) as Zara (Cre/Org) of the Celts (Hunt/Myst)
-will tech ahead to victory unless cheerios are peed in
-Great leader
-Terrible civ
-Masterful player

Wrote the map script. Game is already fixed in his favour. The fact he didn't settle turn 0 is a dead giveaway that he moved to a riverside plainshill stone tile with double wet corn and pre-mined floodplain gold.

Need a few more pints in me to build up enough steam for adequate cheerio anointage.

Krill

(raging, brilliant) as Asoka(Spi/Org) of the Dutch (Fish/Agri)
-effortlessly wins normally, might have trouble here
-Good-but-slow leader
-Good-but-slow civ
-Great-and-fast player

I hope his tech thread post regarding his blog means he'll be doing something close to his PB 5 level of reporting. (Yeah, I looked at every single city screenshot he posted in that game.)

He's Krill. He'll build Henge and fuck up a neighbour or two with whatever is expedient (prolly knights, Krill likes to build a bit before explaining his neighbours mistakes to them)

[NobleHelium]

Nice pictures and adjectives. What is monomaniacal?

[Thoth]

Nice pictures and adjectives. What is monomaniacal?

This is:

http://youtu.be/GsgVspgy184






(edit: fuck. wrong link.

try this instead: http://youtu.be/NzlJRh_Z6Jk?t=18s )

[Thoth]

I like what I can see of the map so far:

Now that borders have popped, I'll swap to working the Lake Fish next turn.

[Commodore]

This is where we really wish for Imp. For two reasons:
1. Needs lots of settlers, and Imp makes 'em cheap.
2. Needs lost of settlers, and Imp is less tempted to sink 80h into a not-settler.

[Thoth]

settler at size 2 gets me second city with road connection settled t21. Bronze delayed to t25.

I think it's worth the earlier city.

Pottery before Monk path for sure

[Thoth]

Hmmmm.

[Thoth]

t4 scouting:

Thinking about the possiblities inherent in Blockades and early Trading Post boosted Triremes. Don't want to deal with that.

Gotta see if I can shave a couple of turns off that.