Smackdown Starting positions

[Krill]

BTW, I think that if someone else picks Lizzie (not likely, Hannibal should be paired with Bismark, Huayna needs someone fast, Darius gets Joao or something stupidly fast) I think that FIN is still the correct choice for that river start. However....Pericles at the fish start...that could be interesting. Mehmed at the river start should still be able to get enough pop together to work a bunch of cottages and still expand pretty quickly.

[SevenSpirits]

Huh, no one wanted Mali. On the other hand it looks like every other team wanted Sumeria.

I'd assumed HC was for Oracle/Colossus. What I'm curious about is if the other teams have a start that really needs fishing like ours. So far we have 3 mysticism picks and 1 with hunting, which I'll be really happy about if they end up needing fishing too. I'm glad we skipped mysticism.

Btw, time to decide if we prefer England or Rome.

[Krill]

If you get Lizzie it doesn't matter as much, though I tend to prefer England, if you can't and will not pick anything but PHI, then Rome for a bit more early game dominance I think.

If you can't get either then I'd say Portugal just for shits and giggles (cos I view Carthaginian UU and UB as a net negative TBH)

[Krill]

Trololol. Looks like that's a discussion you don't need any more Seven.

[Krill]

That went quickly. Lizzie and Rome, right?

[Ichabod]

Well, Krill, even if we aren't the ones, someone will try your proposed strategy (João/Darius). That's nice! At least we'll be able to see it being played.

[Krill]

Lew Adores Mist: Joao/Darius+England/HRE (Fishing/Mining/Hunting/Myst)
H: Bismark/Vicky+Korea/NA (Agri/Fishing/Hunting/Mining)
RMOG2: Huayna/Gandhi+Maya/Egypt (Agri/Wheel/Mining/Myst)
SD: Mehmed/Lizzie+Sumeria/Rome (Fishing/Mining/Agri/Wheel)

That HRE pick to me screamed tunnel vision, but it's pretty much the perfect fit for a Joao/England who gifts a billion settlers and workers, just need to deal with the junk starting techs. I think they might go for CoL before Currency and I expect it could be made to work. I fully expect Huayna pick to get punished if RMOG go for Henge (which their starting techs indicates to me). Actually, I'm amazed everyone chose to take Myst.

[Krill]

A few other points:

1. Team H aren't 100% sure they will get Henge because they didn't pick Hannibal, so hedged with Vicky.
   
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2. LAM are going to have great difficulty using Joao in the first 20 turns, because they are 2 techs from Pottery (edit: I'm a retard), and still need to get BW to make Joao work effectively with the granaries. Assuming each team has the same set up, a coastal start with high food, land start with low food at small city sizes, then LAM need to get about 5 techs by T10.
   
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3. RMOG2 just bet the farm on getting Henge right after a Bismark pick, even going so far to pick Egypt which probably gets paired with Gandhi. I'd expect them to get one of the first two religions, but they can't put Fishing off, so perhaps they will not research religion until third tech?
   
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4. On that note, I don't get the RMOG picks, I don't see anything beyond "We want Henge". They have no traits to aid expansion at all, the FIN leader looks to be thrown at getting Henge, and Gandhi can't pick up the slack. LAM and SD have 1 leader that is focusing on expansion and H have got IMP and EXP on different leaders so have something to help out. I think they mispicked.

[novice]

LAM are going to have great difficulty using Joao in the first 20 turns, because they are 3 techs from Pottery

Quite an achievement, when you have four starting techs.

[Krill]

It would also help if I bothered to read what I write, because I'm wrong. They are only 2 techs away as they start with Fishing, so it's not as bad as it seems, but if they have the same kind of start as we do, with grains at both starts and needing pastures at one start, they probably have to get Agri within 12 turns anyway.