[Spoilers] Boldly Going...on a Bender and Pissing Off Xenu

[Catwalk]

EXP goes very well with Inca for el-cheapo Terraces. Suryavarman (CRE/EXP) could be good, but I'd be hard-pressed to pass on Pacal. You can cover all the tiles you want with culture, but if the other guy can keep up in expansion, pack 'em in tight, and slap cottages all over the place, then he'll be able to keep up in tech and take what he wants from you. FIN is OP for a reason. I don't know who was in 34s, other than Commodore maybe, I haven't looked at it. But, the players could have just wanted a different experience. FIN is the best, period. Maybe not for a tight map, but you'll have to seriously convince me otherwise. Maybe if I could get 'mids, and only if I could guarantee getting them, but I'm not taking IND on a tiny map, AW CTON game. That's begging for a rush. Call it Commo-cide.

I agree that the EXP/Inca combo is generally awesome, but I think it might work out differently on a tight map. You won't want very many workers and settlers. With upkeep costs that prohibitive, planting more cities faster won't really be the way to grow your economy and claim more land. I may be overstating it, but I really do think that culture (and military) are going to be massively dominant. For the same reason, I'm thinking spacing cities out. You want to claim as many tiles as you can with early culture. I agree with IND not being desirable.

Civ preferences
Inca
Arabia
Egypt
Rome (if seafood start)

Leader preferences
CRE/FIN (I do think FIN is decent, I picked it myself in 42)
CRE/AGG (only if paired with Rome)
CRE/PHI (especially for Arabia)

I would honestly pick CRE/FIN over EXP/FIN for Inca. You get more culture total, and you get it faster. Say yes to culture! 42 is extremely tight with 24x24, this is even tighter with 20x20. As long as you can keep from being invaded, I think it's all about claiming tiles fast before you get blocked off. You will only be able to afford a single expansion for quite some time, so you need copper at your first expansion.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Mapping out your choices so I can compare starting techs...

• Inca - Agriculture/Mysticism - Fast enough start, awesome Quechuas.
  
• Arabia - Mysticism/Wheel - slow start.
  
• Egypt - Agriculture/Wheel - Fastest economic start, good UU. Demogame, only with much less micro. Since I'm following that one pretty closely, I'd like to do something different here.
  
• Rome - Fishing/Mining - I prefer worker first, but building WB then whipping a worker could be just fine. Aggressive Praets would certainly command respect.
  

I would honestly pick CRE/FIN over EXP/FIN for Inca. You get more culture total, and you get it faster. Say yes to culture! 42 is extremely tight with 24x24, this is even tighter with 20x20. As long as you can keep from being invaded, I think it's all about claiming tiles fast before you get blocked off. You will only be able to afford a single expansion for quite some time, so you need copper at your first expansion.[/quote]

Great point on 20x20. I had to open up the game to get a feel for exactly how small that actually is. I keep thinking to myself "what would mackoti do?" and I think the answer in these crowded conditions (I guess, I'm not nearly in his class) would be grow quickly, beeline a good military tech, then send an overwhelming swarm toward someone. Here, it will be crowded very, very fast, so that tech would need to come early. Quechuas match up well trading hammers with regular archers (better than axes) and remain viable for a little while. I keep coming back to them.

[spacetyrantxenu]

And if Inca isn't available?

Don't forget Mack would also somehow build the Pyramids before his HA swarm finished you.

[Catwalk]

Call me crazy (some more), but I think snowball thinking is a little less important here than usual. You can't reinvest your growth as easily here as on other maps. You can't build more settlers, as that will bomb the crap out of your economy. You can't build (a whole lot) more workers, as you will easily have enough for the cities you can settle. You also can't build a ton more military, as you have little money as is. You can't easily grow your cities big, as you will have next to no luxuries (depending on map).

What you can do is:
1) Grow your first 2-3 cities to happy cap
2) Put up infrastructure (library mainly, maybe monuments for extra culture)
3) Get more culture

Probably repeating myself some more, but you can't snowball by investing into more settlers or (a lot) more vertical growth. I think this means that starting fast is a little less important than usual, in favour of culture. Another advantage of an early religion is that we very likely will be able to put the happiness to great use.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Yes, I was afraid someone might make me think past Inca... If they aren't available, well, I'd like to see the starting screen first. If we have fishing we can start with a workboat. But, depending on what the other food resource is (maybe a deer, so hunting will be viable? That would open up some other decent combos), I just don't know. I agree with Catwalk that Rome would be a good pick. Praets on a crowded map would be awesome.

Thinking about it some more, China could be a good pick. Starting techs, obviously, but maybe CKNs would be better than I had previously thought. It would take a little while to get them into the game, though. I'm going to roll a quick emperor game to see how long it would take.

Zulu: Impis, for the typical reasons, but maybe too for fundraising. Mobility spears for pillaging raids? Could be an option. Ikhandas will also help a little with maintenance costs.

Byz: Phracts. Likely would complete worker tech before worker completes. Same starting techs as Arabia, though, but I'm starting to think this could be less of an issue.

Meh, tired of thinking about it. I'll decide when I have a starting pic. Or, go with one of the ones we've discussed. Xenu, input!


Catwalk, you make a compelling argument for Financial. FIN/CRE is sounding pretty good.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I wouldn't be so hasty with FIN. On a map this small you won't have a ton of tiles to cottage anyway. PHI will be handy for bulbing, SPI is always great especially in quick games where anarchy hurts so much. EXP is good but we won't build that many workers, although we will have granaries everywhere. IND could make us a target if you go full Parkin on wonder whoring, but I don't think that's a great idea since we're going to need military early and often. CRE has been identified as strong on a close map and I agree we should try for it. ORG would be nice with high maintenance costs expected. CHM isn't as stupid as it sounds, more promotions for our leigon of soldiers we'll need, higher happy cap with having fewer cities in play. That gets more tiles into play sooner, maybe we could afford to spread cities out just a little more. You lose build queues that way but you pay less in city maintenance, which will be high on this map. PRO is just stupid even if this is AW, and even if Mao thinks it's the best thing ever. IMP, just no, we don't need cheaper settlers so this is a wasted pick unless you think you want to defend in your territory all the time and get tons of GG.

Therefore my recommendation is this, if you can get it:

But since that's only possible in a bullshit game of "what if" I recently played, maybe something else would be better

[spacetyrantxenu]

In which we talked about the second pick in the draft.

Boldly: ok
Hunting will be ok, but not awesome. That deer is on a PH.

Xenu: i don't favor a hunting start, unless it's been stated that we get warriors anyway

Boldly: i think we get 2 CG3 warriors unlness you take INCA
then you get quechas

Xenu: yeah but not promoted quechas

Boldly: right, but you still have quechas. still, nerfs them a bit

Xenu: yeah, you can still choke with them but you won't be able to score a quick kill

Boldly: still, can choke and get terraces, free culture
inca + creative. Overkill?

Xenu: i know it may sound stupid, but inca + cre?
ha
x-post in chat
it may be overkill, but it would force our neighbors to watch their border tiles more, or build extra infrastructure to counter

Boldly: yeah
Boldly: sounds like fun


Xenu: but that is probably not as important as other things we could consider

Boldly: the madrassa was fu n too
cre + 4 GP slots, lots of fun bulbing opportunities. map looks very green

Xenu: that would work well with a PHI leader
pericles?

Boldly: BTW, sip means 12 free river spots. awesome for FIN cap
I was thinking pack them in tight after grabbign land, backfill for tightness

Xenu: but we may want to have a military trait

Boldly: could get an insane HR/Bureau capital
with that many river tiles
FIN isn't to be scoffed at like that.
PHI is niec, but really only need one city doing the bulbign

Xenu: yeah, even when going with specialist economy i like a lot of cottages in the cities that aren't building GPPs

Boldly: i don't care about military (famous last words)

Xenu: lol you're going to die then

Boldly: so read the start. how do you open?
first, where do you settle? let's see if that changes the choice
i wish i had looked at this last night instead of the damned Georgia game. Total fucking disaster, that.

Xenu: i want an agriculture start for the corn, unless we can research it before the first worker builds
no shit, they looked horrible.

Boldly: on quick the first border pop will be fast

Xenu: T3 right?

Boldly: T2

Xenu: i know borders pop before worker, i don't know if ag finishes before worker

Boldly: 4/turn

Xenu: i don't know emperor costs

Boldly: SIP no EXP will be an 8t worker using the deer
40h on quick

Xenu: i'm just noticing that Merovech was careless in his screenshot. he had just exited worldbuilder when he took it, you can see more forests in the black as it was fading back in
i wonder if that falls under "other areas subject to change"
there is a sign on the right side of the screen under the fog that says "Extent of E..." but it's cut off

Boldly: are you talking tile bleed?

Xenu: this is what i get for looking at the start from my phone last night
not via tile bleed, you know how when you're going back into the game from being in world builder, how the map goes from visible to hiding tiles in the fog of war?
it's in that process when he took the screen
so some tile details are visible that aren't supposed to be
he screwed up the screen shot

Boldly: I think we can research agriculture in 5t

Xenu: i see 2 more forests on the tiles directly south from the deer hill

Boldly: i can't see that

Xenu: oh now i see more signs. it says "Extent of Edit"
it is just an outline of the area Merovech touched up

Boldly: ha. I can't see it from the pic in the thread. let's not discuss that anyway, i don't want to be shady

Xenu: no pun intended i hope

Boldly: so let's sip, 8 forests to chop
do you have a better plan than CRE/FIN here?

Xenu: well CRE/FIN is always a good plan
but just think of this. how many tiles do you think you're going to be able to cottage in this game?
is it enough to make FIN better than other options?

Boldly: i know military is goign to be important and that FIN won't be as good as on a larger map, but it's still going to be good with this cap. I see most of my research coming from the capital, other cities specializing in other ways

Xenu: example, will you be able to grab more beakers via PHI bulbs than you could with standard cottaging?

Boldly: and I still like inca, so that I can build cheap HR quechas even with BW.
maybe, but i'll stay close i think and be able to use those GP on golden ages later on hopefully

Xenu: ok, so which would you take first, Inca or Willem? because you're probably only going to get one of them.

Boldly: Will

Xenu: maybe the inca 'nerf' will put others off?

Boldly: I'm fine with arabia on this start. madrassa for culture and GPP, combined with CRE. also, agriculture and hunting start
maybe. I would be happy with either one. I played the entire game as Willem/Arabia last night and destroyed emperor AI.
I doubt CRE/FIN will be there on the back side.

Xenu: i don't think i've ever played as arabia, somehow. i missed that the madrassa was +4 culture
yeah, so if you want Willem that's good, no one ever got poo pooed too much for picking him. there will be several good civs to choose from on the way back
so willem?
we're going to get chided for taking this long to pick him you know

Boldly: wait, arabs are myst/wheel. not as good for this start. shit.
yeah, Willem

Xenu: ok, post willem and we'll figure out your civ

[spacetyrantxenu]

So apparently Slowcheetah had the same idea about Pericles that I did. I'm a bit worried about FIN here. I think it will get us ahead in the very early game but by mid game we're probably going to have trouble keeping up if everyone bulbs through the Renaissance. I don't think you'll be able to keep enough mature cottages for that. Let's see if anyone else goes PHI though.

[Catwalk]

I think Willem is a safe pick, FIN is not as awesome as in a normal game but I don't think it'll be bad at all. I'm going to seriously suggest picking Arabia for the culture, although Pericles would have worked a little better for that (awesome culture + GP synergy).

Safe picks would be China or Egypt IMO. How do you envision whipping working out with expansion this restricted?

[Merovech]

Ummm...thanks. I'll be more careful with my screenshots in the future, although I can't actually see any of those tiles in the shot. Do you have super vision?