[SPOILERS] scooter tries again: back to school! (Willem of Vikings)

[scooter]

Well, I'm beyond spoiled since I did the setup with Commodore but Mehmed is sneaky good on a map with a lot of coastal cities, you get discounts on everything. And I think Org is better than Fin on a toroid. But I'm also not that good, so don't take too much from me.

Cre is a fun trait, so relaxing.

Already chose Willem, so no worries on spoiling anything. I liked ORG better than FIN here and CRE better than EXP, so it was a tossup for me. In the end I wanted CRE because I didn't want to think about border popping on a map where I'm going to need to do a ton of it. Mehmed probably would've made me try Stonehenge which I'd rather pass on here.

But yeah, ORG here is IMP on PBEM32 - a midlevel trait buffed by the map and by the bonuses. Basically, I think this game is the same as a normal game except ORG joins FIN/CRE/EXP in the elite traits. Anyways, it should be fun. I feel like using Vikings is a little too copycat after Serdoa used them excellently in 32 and I'm using them in PB5, but it was the right choice for me IMO.

Anyways, in my tests I really don't think the Supermarket is totally gamebreaking. It's quite nice, but in the short-term it's a minor boost and in the longterm it's pretty much going to be invisible unless I hit the health cap or something. Random comment, but I think the free barracks is sort of cool for CRE. It's obviously nowhere near the strength of some of the other bonuses, but every single warrior I build gets a free C1 or Woodsman or whatever. Seems trivial, but that could save a city in AW CTON.

While I'm in full-on Barely Coherent Ramble Mode, I'll react to the other picks:

Pindicator: Took Montezuma (AGG/SPI) to go with his earlier Japan pick. This was the most unexpected leader choice to me, but I like that he is going with something south of the mainstream. He gets a free observatory (+25% sci + specialists slots for super early academy), +1 happy from temple, priest slots if he wants an early prophet, C1 Samurai (who also get Drill or something), etc. None of that stuff is overpowering, but it's a lot of good things. I'm not sure what the gameplan is here though. He'll be the early tech leader with the Observatory. Curious what he'll do with that - maybe grab another religion, but then swapping to that would negate the value of the Islamic Temple so yeah I'm not sure. [EDIT: ignore that last sentence because I am stupid - that was not even slightly true]

Yuris: Took Elizabeth (PHI/FIN) to go with his earlier Greece pick. Good pick by him. Predicted the PHI thing accurately. FIN/PHI is always a tad awkward, but it can be done. Now, a major benefit is often early academy by using PHI, but if he uses his first great person on an artist that negates that. Best gameplan would probably be to bulb Monarchy for early HR and just go vertical on mass cottages with one or two specialist cities for great people. That would be a strong economy.

Not sure if I'll do full-on player previews or what. I enjoyed doing the "guest posts" for PBEM36 previews, but I'm not sure I have enough material to pull off 4 more here - I struggled enough to do 3 there. By this point I've done so much analysis that I feel like I'd just be repeating myself in previews though. We'll see.

[scooter]

And Seven went with Rome. That's Fishing/Mining. So he loses the RR mine. That's not a huge deal - that's not really much different from losing 1h on the elephant camp. So his techs are pretty much same as mine. The Praetorian is not so great here. This is a large-ish map so a 1-move classical era unit is not going to get places too quickly. He probably won't rush with them - that's not really Seven's style anyways. He's probably more interested in the Forum than he is the Praetorian. His civ pick was one of the weaker ones, though it balances with one of the strongest leaders.

Anyways, I am now eagerly awaiting a save, as I'm first in the turn order. Honestly, the main benefit of this is my demos will always look a tiny bit better then everyone else's since I'll have an extra turn on them . Yeah it helps for wonder tie-breakers, but the problem is even if I win tie-breakers because of it, I'll never know during the game, which means I don't get any satisfaction from it.

Not going to do in-depth previews, but I will give a big-picture overview real quick. In the order we picked, we ended up with:

1) Dazed: Darius (FIN/ORG) of Sumeria (Ziggurat is -20h and he's ORG)
2) Yuris: Elizabeth (FIN/PHI) of Greece (starts with Odeon - artist slots + PHI)
3) SevenSpirits: Zara (CRE/ORG) of Rome
4) Pindicator: Montezuma (AGG/SPI) of Japan (best starting techs)
5) scooter: Willem (FIN/CRE) of Vikings

Overall, I actually think I did really well considering I had 5th and 10th choices. The main thing is I do believe if you take starting techs out of the creation, I easily got the best civ here. We saw Serdoa put on a clinic on the power of 3-move galleys on this kind of map, and I could've really used them in that game considering I had galleys out early too. If the game gets that far, Berserkers could be an unholy terror on this thing too. Slightly less awesome since they aren't Aggressive-boosted, but still, even 4 of them on 2 galleys could really put the hurt on a neighbor who was getting a bit lax. Even if they're just enough to force the neighbor to build more defensive units, they can be a win. My whining about missing Zara aside, I'm really not sure that Zara of Rome is as good as Willem of Vikings to compare with picking in the 3rd spot. Zara of Vikings would obviously be better, but that's not the point. Basically, I'm happy with feeling like I maximized my picks.

Pindicator wins the prize as the most unique picks - and the picks the look the weakest on paper. Samurais are less terrible when paired with Agg, but I'd still take Berserkers over them, and Berserkers are just a situational Mace anyways which means both are uninspiring UUs. Samurais are definitely not a UU to base your gameplan around. Sure they get first-strikes, but Knights ignore first-strikes. Crossbows counter Maces. So they're not really good against anyone honestly. The other 4 civs took 3 FINs and ORG which is basically the same as FIN here. So the short version is basically I'm kind of expecting maybe a Pyramids play here, which would fit nicely with SPI. Honestly, he kind of needs them to be able to keep up in tech. Although that said, he does start with an Observatory here which is really nice in the opening turns, so he will actually be ahead in tech for awhile. I expect him to try to leverage that into Pyramids or GLH or GLib or something like that.

The others I think I've said enough about. In terms of player skill, we have SevenSpirits at the top and then the four of us a bit below that. The other 4 I think are fairly close in skill level (some mild disparity, but nothing huge), but Seven is clearly the favorite here - this game played 10 times he probably will win 8 or 9 of them. That's ok though. I'm not going to go ceding the game here - I just need to play my best here. Yuris I think has really improved in his games here. I think in the past people took him a bit lightly as a greenish player, but he's clearly improved, so I think he's a much bigger threat now than, say, a year ago. Good for him. I'd expect him to make a good showing here in a game with above-average skill level. I'm not going to do predicted order of finish or anything like that, but I'll just say I like Seven's chances the most, but if he were to play a no-worker variant or something I'd like everyone else's chances pretty evenly. Should be a fun game.

[scooter]

T0 gets a second chance

Off we go! Let's try to do better.



First note: 1205 land tiles. Last game was 1195 tiles, so it's a 10 tile difference or 2/player. So basically, land/water proportion is identical. Works for me. Also, my capital is named Second Chance. Obviously that's aimed at my thread title and me being the only guy to play in both 32 and 39, but I'm thinking about moving it into the college them. I figure, I just graduated in RL, so why not twist it into "second chance back at college" and name cities after majors that way or something. Or something. We'll see. Anyways, a better shot:



Well, we see a road and cottage over to the west. That's interesting. I'm going to move my scout along the railroad which I expect most everyone to do:



Calendar may be important again here. A fort! Wonder if this will have the strategic resources again? Or is this a teaser? We'll see. Betting it has copper/iron/horse or something in it again. First off, I'm seeing a bit more grassland than PBEM32. This makes my inner cottage spam + FIN very happy. So that's a good sign. One sucky thing about my techs is the worker has nothing to do til border pop, so why not scout!



Another river! This is good. Riverside tiles is good news to the FIN soul. Good chance I settle a city just east of the capital with fish + floodplains + FIN lake + river. That's yummy stuff right thar. Also good to see the return of the lumbermill - those are super fun. Quick verification of the settings:



All looks to be as planned, which is good.

One oddity is that Dazed and myself have civ colors different from others, yet the other three have their proper colors. I'm guessing that's because Vikings look like Greece and Sumeria looks like...? Maybe Rome? Or because Dazed said he wanted a different color?

Anyways, my glorious capital:



One micro note - I had a choice here. I could work the pigs and grow 1T faster, or I could work the farm plains and grow 1T slower but tech Agri 1T faster. However, I simmed it out and the pigs come out ahead. I actually should not have needed a sim - the food gained from working +1F pigs for 5T is far greater than the bonus food from 1T of farmed rice. So pigs it is, even if it means some downtime for my worker. When borders pop I'll build 2/3rds of a camp on the elephants, then run over and farm as soon as Agriculture comes in.

So that's the plan. Any questions from the lovely audience?

[Commodore]

Yeah, the Greece/Viking/Rome/Sumer color setup just didn't work.

[scooter]

Yeah, the Greece/Viking/Rome/Sumer color setup just didn't work.

Well I feel special for being one of the cool folks with a special color. So that's cool.

[scooter]

T1 strives after clean energy

WINDMILLS.



Quick pause here. See, here we are in college. Everyone's favorite class is, of course, History of Civilization right? So to all you new here at college, it's time for first class period of History of Civilization (IV). Some little-known facts:

1) Willem Van Oranje actually led the Viking empire
2) The Vikings wore yellow basically all the time.
3) The Vikings were the pioneers of clean energy - discovering the first ever windmills. Unfortunately, they basically just thought it looked super cool and didn't realize their value.

Alright kids, come back next time! Scouting:



Welp, there's water and MORE grass river tiles. Yessss. Seeing slightly more green tiles than in PBEM32 is making me feel better about taking FIN. Demographical things:



Hmm, I'm not in 1st in any of these, so I don't know why I bothered posting them. Well actually, I'm tied for 1st in a bunch, but the Random Rank Generator (furthermore known as RRG) apparently hates me.


Class Dismissed.

[NobleHelium]

It's not random (or a generator).

[scooter]

It's not random (or a generator).

Oh I know - I think I remember someone explaining it once, but I like my explanation better. We put an emphasis here on fun and not so much of that fact stuff.

(Also, I like that you corrected the RRG thing but were totally cool with the Willem/Vikings and Vikings always wear yellow thing )

[Commodore]

I see a lot of yellow...



Also, didn't the early Vikings worship those windmills to the point of sculpting their beards in the shape of them?

[treskies]

Some little-known facts:

1) Willem Van Oranje actually led the Viking empire
2) The Vikings wore yellow basically all the time.
3) The Vikings were the pioneers of clean energy - discovering the first ever windmills. Unfortunately, they basically just thought it looked super cool and didn't realize their value.

That doesn't sound right, but I don't know enough about Vikings to dispute it.