[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[pindicator]

If Brick's going to roll us a combo like that then he deserves some pandering!

[pindicator]

Now I'm glad that I hardly spent any time with pb10 - now I can honestly call this my first experience using Darius in MP.  He's a notoriously slow starter, and RB Mod hasn't done anything to change that.  The only difference is we don't get +1 commerce on river tiles (which is a big deal, because the first tiles you want to cottage in a game are the river tiles), and we get +100% on Banks as a small boost later in the game.  ORG gives us +100% on Lighthouses, Courthouses, and Factories, which is really one of my favorite spreads of bonuses - all three are useful buildings and they are spread across the eras nicely.

My one concern is that we are going to need to conquer people in order to be competitive in this game.  With 17 players, I would guess that we need to have at least two successful wars in order to get the amount of land we will need to win.  An Ancient Era war may not be a bad idea because there is going to be a lot of time to recover - but when we go to war will depend more on our land and our neighbors than anything else.

Our civ is worth some talk of itself; Vikings a very nice UB and UU for maps with a lot of coast and multiple landmasses.  I have always been looking forward to playing them again since pbem26, to improve on things I learned from using them then.  We should make a big effort to get circumnavigation, like scooter did in pb5.  Depending on the size of the map it may be worthwhile to scout for circumnavigation with a nav-1 galley in the water instead of a work boat.  That will be a greater hammer investment, but the nav-1 galley will move 50% faster and get defense against barbarian galleys, so in a huge map it could easily make up the time over an earlier work boat.

I would love to go a-viking-ing with berserkers, but that is going to depend more on our neighbors and the map conditions more than anything else.  If we end up trying to rush for 'zerkers then I would suggest timing our first Great Person as a mix of Great Prophet / Engineer / Merchant to bulb Civil Service or Machinery (ToA + Forge is a possibility), and then follow that up with a pair of Great Scientists to bulb Astronomy.  Not positive that's the best strategy overall, but it certainly would be fun!  

More generally, I feel like we should avoid early game wonders, barring stone or ivory in our first few cities.  We are not IND, there are 16 opponents, and the tendency for less experienced players is to target early wonders.  Better for us is to use our tech rate with FIN/ORG to target classical or medeival techs (like MoM or the Monk economy) and focus our early hammers on expansion and circumnavigation.

Hard to plan more until we see our starts, but I am definitely a lot more excited to play this combination than I was to play Suleiman of Inca!

[BRickAstley]

We should make a big effort to get circumnavigation, like scooter did in pb5.

And like I was 1 column of tiles short of doing in PB8....

[scooter]

Stole a lot of words out of my mouth several times. Unless we settle our capital ON stone or marble or something, we should just avoid wonders. Who knows, maybe we'll find out there are 0 INDs by some miracle, but I doubt it. I'm guessing our best wonder option is probably the Settler/Worker wonder or the Build Horse Archers wonder . Besides, yes we ARE going to be slow starting, so streamlining how we use our early hammers will be critical. The turbo expansion traits are generally nerfed, so we should be able to keep pace if we, you know, build granaries and don't get Commodore'd.

I share the same opinion as you on circumnav, Zerks, war prospects, etc, so I won't go through and +1 everything. Given the size of the map, odds are a work boat would get nicked by a barb galley at SOME point, so agreed on the worth of using a 3-move galley or two. We'll see, we could very well roll a landlocked start which would suck.

I'd like us to be a lot more adaptable in terms of big picture than we were in the opening turns of last game. We had an idea going into the game of how we could win with Huayna/Zulu, and as soon as we met our neighbor and saw the geography, that should have changed, but we spent a lot of energy trying to fit the surroundings into our preconceived idea of what would be the best strategy going forward. I think we did a lot better job of that in the second half of the game, but I just want to put a concerted effort into being critical of our plans to see how they stack up. So yes, while I agree some conquesting at some point will be necessary to get enough land to win a 17 player game, if we somehow do get dealt an isolated start, let's adapt accordingly. In contrast, if the best time to hit someone is with axes or with rifles, let's do that, even if we're biased towards Zerking someone. This is all brain-dead obvious stuff I'm saying of course, but I just want to put extra energy into being more adaptable, as I have a tendency to make a plan and then never know when to recognize that I need to shift gears.

[Cyneheard]

If Brick thinks it's fine for retep to be a separate player because there aren't enough spoilers, I don't see an issue with letting him play separately.

Also, I think the naming convention for our units is going to be supereasy - when each city produces a unit, then it should be a player/coach from that team.

Gus Malzahn as our scout? Feels weird having Cam Newton as a scout.

[pindicator]

Cyneheard, that's an excellent idea. And a hilariously confusing one

Went ahead and posted support for retep. May he land Mao of Inca

[Cyneheard]

Cyneheard, that's an excellent idea. And a hilariously confusing one

Went ahead and posted support for retep. May he land Mao of Inca

Heh, I can see the problem if we forget to name someone the turn they're made - but then we'd just pick from any random team that we've got a city for.

[Thoth]

6. commodore/kurumi - Putting Commodore this low feels wrong, but we shouldn't undersell the amount of value that Thoth brought to this team in pb8. Unfortunately Thoth could not be retained and is now a free agent; will the signing of a talented but unproven kurumi be enough to maintain this team as an upper tier contender?

ROTFL.

You may be overselling my contribution to Commodore's game in PB8.

But you won't have to worry about me doing up micro plans for insane pink dots against you in this game.

Well....it's like this:
I saw there was a spot open and I thought about participating in another Pitboss.
And then I chanted "NO" 20 or thirty times.

Thanks for the invite though. But I think I'll stick to global Lurking for the moment

[pindicator]

I thought you contributed a bit more as far as setting good overall goals for Commodore too, but that was just my impression from reading your thread. Also, I defer to my previous disclaimer:

these rankings are made up of a combination of reputation (20%), promised potential (30%), and pulling things out of my ass (50%)

[pindicator]

Aw, I'm kind of jealous about Commodore's pick

Oh wait, we're Darius of Vikings? Nevermind, I'm not jealous of anybody