The last players are taking their time to choose so I'll start my analysis with Commodore and up to Mackoti (once they've chosen). I'll rank the picks in a later post, for now I want to gather all my thoughts in one post.
First of all I want to say that I've never played against any one of these players, and have only read about a couple of their games at most so my impressions are not too deep, and probably flawed. Then I want to say for the record that I intend to compete with Commodore for most viewed thread and most updated thread.
Overall this game is a nice gathering of some of the best players on this forum, most of those who did well in PB13 which I followed closely (mostly Scooter and Pindicator's thread). Mackoti, Plako and Commodore (and even dtay IMO) are in that category. In PB20 (no spoilers, just from the scores) 2 of the players here are having a bad time, one is middle of the pack while one (Gawdzak) is doing very well.
Commodore is Tokugawa of the Dutch.
Commodore seems like the kind of person you don't want as an enemy. He can wage war really well and has a reputation for aggressiveness (that won't be negated by his aggressive leader pick this time), even though he recently tried to play the builder in a few games.
PB13 ranking : 4th. But his bad land, imposing southern neighbor and solid play going after useless ice cities in the north for more and better trade routes means he can take a bad situation and turn it into an almost-winnable one. Not sure we want to be too close to him.
Pick analysis : The Dutch I can understand very easily. He most likely has a fishing start, and remembers how strong the Vikings were on the similar map of PB13 (if indeed we get a similar map). I wanted to take the Dutch myself, so good pick there, especially at last place in the snake order. Tokugawa is more interesting. I can see 3 reasons for taking him : first, now that he's not as bad as he used to be I was tempted for a second to take him just for the sake of playing him. Maybe he was in the same mind ? Second, aggressive is now one of the strong traits and protective has acquired the cheaper granary that some people just love, so it could be a true choice of his to spam barracks and granaries for quick expansion and then mid game spam double promotion units to destroy someone early on. Third he may have wanted to take Boudica, the most aggressive leader, and had to fall back on Toku once HAKflakes took her. It's probably a combination of those, but he is a strong player probably entering this with every intention of winning so reason n°2 is probably closer to the mark.
Synergy : The Drydocks come in at the end of the Indianman era and he'll sure have some great endgame ship production with dykes and cheap drydocks. But for someone who's last on the snake pick I wonder if he couldn't have gotten a better combo synergy-wise.
Gavagai is Huayna Capac of England
I don't know much about him, but I expect him to be reasonably good despite what's happening in PB20.
Pick analysis : Because there are not many ind leaders in this game (good thing Plako went for one, I hope mackoti takes one as well) Gavagai got himself one of those combos where both traits, UU, UB and starting techs are good if not very good. I'm not saying they're exceptional or gamebreaking but he'll have many different bonuses (I'd rather not use boni...) in the mid game. England is a super strong renaissance-to-industrial power, and those cheap stock exchanges will come in handy I'm sure. The main downside of England is that you actually need to survive that long in order to use your advantages. And if you're not a power to be reckoned with by the time you get to banking, your bonuses won't help you become one. That's why his leader choice is odd, Financial is an obvious choice to go with the stock exchange, and will help him keep up in tech, but I think I'd have taken an early trait to avoid getting left behind in the expansion stage. Of course Pacal was gone by then (along with Darius) so I'd have taken Victoria, Ragnar (buffed by the barracks changes) or Willem (nerfed by the barracks changes) which is suboptimal. Probably Ragnar.
I know I'm analyzing this wrong because he chose his leader before his civ, but with only one guy to go after him chances were on his side to be able to get his choice so I think he chose them together and hoped for Commodore to not take his main option (and I perfectly understand that he took the risk of playing as HC of something else rather than England with a leader he didn't want). So my analysis is not that wrong
Synergy : As I said, there's the cheap UB (first time we encounter that, but not the last as can be expected). And Financial + bonus to wealth is pretty good. I just think he might be left out in the expansion stage because of wondermonging and no early trait. I might have taken Mali instead of England for the cheap mints (much earlier than SEs), the Skirmisher allows you to be more aggressive with your settling. Fishing starts seem to be common so I'd say that's part of what drove him towards England.
In all honesty, with the changes this mod brings to the game I'd play HC (and maybe other fin leaders as well, but him even more) in a special way : watermill your rivers for production (unless you need more food) to build wonders and cottage your grasslands. I don't know how strong that would truly be but that would be my initial plan anyway.
Now
GermanJojo and
Borsche as Shaka of Carthage
Borsche is new on these forums but GermanJojo says he knows what he's doing. And GermanJojo seems to be playing all the latest pitbosses, and is kind of low-middle of the pack in PB20 (once again I'm basing it on score alone, but at this point in time it's kind of reliable). I'd rate them with Gavagai in the "because of all the top tier guys in this game I really want to start next to them" category, but I guess that's what mackoti thought about Fintourist and Old Harry in PB13 till they proved to be worthy opponents.
Pick analysis : I'd like to mention that I officially hate these guys for taking Shaka from us. The Shaka strategy has been explained here, expand quickly, grow your territory with cheap barracks and scare away your competition with your double promotion units. Carthage probably means we have yet another fishing start. Interestingly their revised UU gives them another unit with C1, and with cheap Barracks and stables from Agg I expect them to have a lot of promos as soon as they're built. I'd rather not see them build the GLH, and we should consider not giving them OB if they threaten us in any way.
Synergy : That's some nice synergy right there, a cheap UB, a UU that can be given healer promos from the start with a cheap barrack and stable, both traits useful from the beginning to the end of the game, a UB useful from the mid to end game and an average UU. At first my gut feeling was pretty meh about this pick but the more I think about the possibilities it brings the more I like it.
dtay is Wang Kon of Inca
dtay looks like a capable player, prone to creative plans (we'll come back to that later), that seems to like wars from the comments he made after PB13 was over (but not to the point of unreasonably declaring them).
PB13 rating : 5th. Definitely behind the big four (if you want me to compare mackoti/Plako/Commodore/Scooter and Pindicator to BPL clubs I can try), but a very solid game. His commando attack on the FinHarry capital was particularly interesting. He knew when to attack, when to defend and when to flee.
Pick analysis : First dtay chose Inca. Do I even need to talk about Inca ? With the mod the Quetchua lost part of its utility, but I don't think anyone ever picked Inca on MP because of the Quetchua, because unlike the AI no human player likes to spam archers. And now the terrace. Because you'll want granaries in all your cities and sooner rather than later, when those granaries give you culture as well you can't help but love how the game is going. It's true that the Terrace got a triple nerf with the mod, with barracks getting some early culture, the -1 culture and the double production bonus going from Exp to Pro. But those terraces are still damn good ! So dtay took Pro, and because you're never wrong to choose Fin he went for Wang Kon. Not much to talk about.
Synergy : Protective terraces and that's it. But that's already a lot. Is it worth it to live on only that and a nerfed Fin ? We'll see.
Gawdzak is Julius Caesar of Zulu
All I know of him is his PB20 run. (spoiler for PB20)
Pick analysis : That's an odd one... Imp and Org ? That's the combo for expanding quickly and being able to afford it. Which admittedly goes well with the Ikhanda. But not taking Agg means he'll pay his Ikhanda full price, so is it worth it ? (PB20 again)
The problem of overexpanding is that you need to keep up in terms of workers and military to defend the land you just settled (with Impis he should be ok with that). He'll want Ikhandas in every city and at full price that will probably slow his expansion. I'm not sure I like the gambit he's making, going all in on settlers and threatening his neighbors with Impis in case they don't like it. I'd rather not be his direct neighbor. But this combo is probably one that I wouldn't want to play myself either. My prediction is that he'll go Granary-Ikhanda-Impi-Settler (maybe even skipping the granary) in all his cities and beeline CoL, and I'm expecting him to either build a huge empire or be crushed by an angry neighbor who doesn't like his aggressive settling. The synergy is strange in this one, and I'd take Hammurabi of Zulu over this any day.
I'm stopping there for the time being, I'll do the rest once the picks are done. I'll also do the same thing for us, and will try to be as critical of our pick as I have been of other people's. I'm aware that there are no perfect pick (honestly for the last one a 3 trait leader with Imp, Org and Agg would be pretty perfect for early expansion), I'm only pointing out strengths and weaknesses, not criticizing their picks because as far as I know we'll die on turn 80 and some of those I like the least will be among the game leaders.
