[SPOILERS]Luddite: A Man, A Plan, An Also-Ran

[luddite]

Interesting thoughts about the settle / bulb dillemma. So in the case of a GS, whose bulb represents significantly more beakers than any other GP(erson), the rule of thumb will be skewed towards choosing a bulb, right? Or am I not fully understanding your thinking here (bear with me)

EDIT: of course he also represents more raw beakers than any other GP when settled. Maybe I should start to take a minute to think before I post.

Oh, I only really calculated that with the great scientist in mind. But in theory, you're right- all the settled specialist bonuses are roughly balanced, but the scientist bulbs are worth more. I'm glad someone read through all that, anyway.

[ironstar]

Hmm yeah, I would assume it becomes a bit more complicated when you try to calculate eg. a settled prophet vs a theo (or similar) lightbulb, since the prophet's main contribution is not beakers but coin, which cannot be directly compared to beakers, but can be used to fund a higher slide percentage. There is also the extra hammer of course.

I like the idea of trying to put the choice into a sort of mathematical equation, even though it is incredibly difficult to judge, as the choice is often highly situational and there are also myriads of small factors such as the potential benefit from the bulbed tech (new civic, one time bonus) vs increased GPP from settling etc to account for.
Interesting nonetheless

[luddite]

mmm so about that map start.

Settling in place seems like by far the best option- it gives us a plains hill capital, and 4 specials within the BFC including riverside corn. Lots of flood plains too, but also a lot of hills. Only 3 forests directly visible. I could see this capital being good either for cottages long term, or hammers in the short term.

We'd have to wait for borders to pop in order to get the expansive bonus on the first worker. And by that point, it wouldn't speed up the worker at all (unless we choose exp/cre, which would speed it up by one turn). The health bonus would be somewhat nice to offset the flood plains, but with no first-worker bonus and very few forests I think we can safely rule out Expansive.

There are no 3-commerce tiles in the BFC until we can start making cottages. That does weaken Financial, slightly. However, with this map on cylindrical/noble (!) level, and I assume small size, research is going to fly. A lot of techs might be too cheap to get the full value of a bulb- conversely, there might not be time to develop many cottages. I'll need to think about that more.

With all that food and hammers, the capital could be an early production powerhouse. Industrious sounds promising. Or I could take spiritual, go into organized religion, and do the same thing. Maybe even both! I hadn't planned on going for the pyramids, but this start makes them tempting.

Creative... eh, I'm really not a big fan of creative. You can usually avoid making many monuments with clever city placement, or find some other way to pop borders. It's nice for border wars I guess, but that can also end up just pissing off your neighbors. I never have much use for early libraries, either. Gonna pass on creative.

Organized, no way, not with noble/cylindrical settings and no coast visible. Philosophical... maybe, but I'll avoid it unless I really have no other choice. And I'm not gonna pick agg/cha/pro unless I know for a fact it's a very crowded map where early axe rushes are a problem (and I'm really hoping it's not that kind of map).

So right now I'm leaning towards Ind/fin, Spi/Fin, and Spi/Ind. Which are also the traits I wanted before seeing the map, heh. But I do think they'll work well here.

The civ is a tougher choice. I was really hoping for a coastal start so that I'd be able to pick Spain and show off their cool UU/UB. As it is... I dunno. I think I can still make them work, but my brain is telling me I'd be much better off picking Egypt, or anyone else that starts with Agg/Wheel.

[ironstar]

Would you mind if I lurk your thread exclusively? I'm an Emperor SP player with zero hands-on MP experience, but I would like to gain some and I think that a place to start would be to dedlurk someone before playing an actual game.

For you this would entail another head to bounce ideas with, but possibly also having to reject silly ideas and ridicilous notions whenever my lack of MP shines through.

I realize you already has GES in the role of dedlurker, however the more the marrier right?

[luddite]

No, go for it! More ded lurkers is always better =)

[ironstar]

Awesome

Okay looking at the map, I agree agriculture is a no-brainer.
But then what? There's only two forests in the bfc, so an early BW via a mining start doesn't seem that attractive does it?
We have a riverside plains cow and a floodplain in the BFC, so either animal husbandry or pottery would be good choices for first tech. AH we can research straight out the gate with agriculture as starting tech while pottery requires the wheel.
I don't see any better starting techs than these unless you want to go for myst and chase a religion (is Inca banned?). The worker could be busied with hooking wheat and corn while teching meditation or polytheism, but really that feels like a suboptimal play to me.

So who starts with Agri/wheel? Well that would be France, Sumeria, Babylon, Ottomans and Egypt.
France: I wouldn't bother with.
Sumeria: Noble and cylindrical nerfs the UB into the ground.
Babylon: Meh.
Ottomans: I like the UB and Jans are solid.
Egypt: Egypt would have good synergy with an early research of AH if horses are revealed. Who needs to invent bows and arrows when you have War Chariots?

On to leaders:
I simply love SPI. Awesome possibilites with this trait. For sure I would pick this.

The next one is a bit more difficult.
I agree that Industrious could be great with all the potential production, but we're probably not the only ones thinking this. As soon as more than one civ has Ind, it's power is vastly diminished imo. Still solid though, and awesome if we could be the only one having the trait. Maybe if we chose a civ first and then based the leader selection on wether Ind is already chosen? Off course we can also choose Ind first and perhaps make the others then shy away from the trait. Tricky one.

I like Phi as I usually go for a SE-heavy economy. But I think Phi is actually nerfed a little bit when paired with Spi because of the ability to switch in and out of pacifism. Anyway, can't remember if Gandhi is off the table either.

Fin could be really strong here. We already have a riverside cap, with more floodplains in the north and the river continuing down south. I can see us using the food in the cap to cottage all the otherwise mediocre plain tiles. It is a long term investment though, and it looks like a mountain range blocking expansion to the west, so the capital needs to work its own cottages in order for them to grow.

All the other traits I wouldn't bother with in this setup.

So TL:DR version would be that I pretty much agree with your take on leader/civ pick.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I don't think your rice is wet, even though it is next to a FP. But it will only take one plains farm to irrigate it through your capitol.

More thoughts to come later. Busy day at work, but I have a red-eye tonight back to the east coast for a half marathon this weekend. Airport lay-overs should provide ample time for thoughts.

[dazedroyalty]

The Oasis will make the rice wet.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

The Oasis will make the rice wet.

LOL, that is an oasis. Been a while.

[luddite]

On to leaders:
I simply love SPI. Awesome possibilites with this trait. For sure I would pick this.

Just so you know, I didn't totally ignore you. I was strongly tempted to pick Spi/Fin. GES wanted me to do that also, but there's a few reasons I went with industrious.

First of all, like you said, getting industrious is great when you're the only one who has it. Since this is only a 4 player game, there's a high chance that everyone else will pick a FIN leader, giving me the only industrious leader. Also I noticed that there's no stone or marble visible anywhere in the starting shot- that doesn't prove anything, of course, but there is a good chance that no one would have stone or marble at all. Having the only industrious leader under those circumstances could be very nice.

Also, I know that Scooter and Sian really like the pyramids- Scooter even suggested banning them at one point. I'm almost certain that Scooter wanted to pick HC. I'm not sure yet whether I'll go for the pyramids myself, but it's nice to have the option, and make them more expensive for anyone else.

Another thing is that, regardless of what else I do in this game, I plan to heavily prioritize the MoM and the Taj Majal. Those are really good wonders- not only do they give you a nice production and research boost, they also give you a massive GPP boost and the perfect chance to swap civics in the mid game. If I land those (or even one of them, really) I should have no problem making use of pacifism/caste system even without being spiritual.

Mackoti said it well (in his typical blunt yet cryptic style):

I was talking about scooter post and i think i said if he priorised Mom enough.I consider MoM one of the stronger wonders in the game and i think actulay as you said its more stronger for a cotaging civ than one going with specealists.And i was thinking this way: get MoM fire golden age and with that benefit do a run for Taj.Of coures you could stop him(Serdoa) but you said you was thinking to go directly for mercantilism(a very strong move in my opinion)and you had a big war with Commodore and everyone started to see you(serdoa) like run away , and usualy those got atacked.