(August 7th, 2013, 09:55)Krill Wrote: The Egypt pick is a red herring, and it synergises better with PHI to abuse the ease of popping out GP.
Yeah, it actually occured to me yesterday that PHI Egypt - with a single obelisk - could be neat . PHI Arabia does not look that bad, either, althought starting techs are much worse and unlocking madrasa much more difficult.
Wow, have to read your PB2 and especially PB3 then .
More Jovan's thoughts. Please keep in mind that he mostly reordered my far from optimal lists. I think I will go with more traditional civ choices - unless we will get to see the start. Any opinions on FIN leaders rankings? I would definitely downgrade Vicky
Jovan Wrote:1. Pacal (Fin/Exp)
2. Willem (Fin/Cre)
3. Victoria (Fin/Imp)
4. Darius (Fin/Org)
5. Huayna (Fin/Ind)
6. Elizabeth (Fin/Phi)
7. Hannibal (Fin/Chm)
Civs:
1. Ottomans
2. Inca
3. Maya
4. India
5. Dutch
6. Mali
7. Vikings
Phi is generally weak, unless we are on separate continent, which is less probable. India is not so good to take first place, only that fast worker. This list I made is mostly based on your list, modified by my ideas which I had in last few minutes. Maybe I'll make some better list later.
Just posted the above post in public thread - not good . Perhaps should stick to posting Master and Margarita excerpts, not to leak any sensitive info .
Jovan told me that we have to put leader and civ picking discussions on hold until he will teach me some basics of civ playing . I mean, he expressed it much more politely , but that was the gist of it.
So we are now dueling - which is not as scary as it sounds (no contact before astro, so I am still alive, not dead after single digit number of turns, as I initially expected ). It is actually fun so far, except for the time difference that makes it difficult to find good playing times for us both. Do not hold your breath for the outcome, though .
I think that the Ottomans are overrated a lot, but they're certainly not bad.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
(August 7th, 2013, 20:20)Merovech Wrote: I think that the Ottomans are overrated a lot, but they're certainly not bad.
Yeah, I was also surprised Jovan put them at #1. He is an excellent player, but he has been playing only with restricted leaders so far - so maybe part of his high Ottomans rating should go to my favorite, Mehmed .
You have a lot of nice discussions here. One thing I wanted to say was: I consider EXP and India to be antisynergistic. Why?
There are two good ways to build granaries.
1) EXP.
2) Chopping.
You really want one of these in order to get new cities productive quickly. Well, a big benefit of India is it's really good at chopping, especially in new cities. So a large part of the benefit of EXP is redundant with it.
That's not to say I would complain about being India and EXP; both are top tier.
(August 8th, 2013, 04:38)Nicolae Carpathia Wrote: Well, that's perfectly fine, chop one maths forest, bam, done. It's not like the next forest will be wasted.
Well it's -30h no matter if you have fast workers or not.
I guess your point is that without fast workers, other ways of quickbuilding granaries may gain strength, like grow to size 2 and whipping, but chopping before the food bar gets half-way is still probably the best option.
. PHI Arabia does not look that bad, either, althought starting techs are much worse and unlocking madrasa much more difficult.
. Perhaps should stick to posting Master and Margarita excerpts, not to leak any sensitive info 
.
, but that was the gist of it. 
