[SPOILERS] Team EggHeads: DMOC and TeddyKGB (Now Lurker-Friendly!)

[DMOC]

To other people playing in this game: please refrain from reading this thread until after the game is over (or until defeat).

Within a category, the table of contents entries are listed in order of where the post is located in the thread.

Table of Contents

Important Posts

• Pre-Pre-Game Thoughts
  
• Initial Starting Position
  
• Pre-Game Power Rankings
  
• Why Sury II of Byzantium?
  
• Actual Starting Location and Initial scout move
  
• Turns 0-33 Micromanagement Plan (edit: later modified here, but only consider up to turn 33)
  
• Likely Openings by our Opponents
  
• Turns 40-49 Micromanagement Plan
  
• Random Thoughts (Turns 55-60 ish)
  
• Workers and Warriors on Turn 60 / 1600 BC
  
• Diplomacy Update (Turn 109)
  
• The Grand Plan (1 AD Onwards)
  
• Diplomacy With Asterix (1 AD-ish): Some relevant posts (in order) are here, here, here, here, and here.
  
• Current NAP Deals, 50 AD (Turn 117)
  
• How Lurkers View This Game (Just an Observation)
  
• Diplomacy Update (Turn 120) and later after a long pause, here.
  
• Stop the presses! Barteq/Rome responds! (Turn 132/133)
  

Selected Turn Reports

• Turn 0 - 4000 BC
  
• Turn 5 - 3800 BC
  
• Turn 10 - 3600 BC
  
• Turn 15 - 3400 BC
  
• Turn 20 - 3200 BC (have contact with Team Care Bears)
  
• Turn 25 - 3000 BC (have contact with Team Margarita)
  
• Turn 30 - 2800 BC
  
• Turn 35 - 2600 BC (have two cities now)
  
• Turn 40 - 2400 BC
  
• Turn 45 - 2200 BC (have three workers now)
  
• Turn 50 - 2000 BC (have three cities now)
  
• Turn 55 - 1800 BC (have contact with Team Eagles & Condors)
  
• Turn 60 - 1600 BC (have contact with Team Orgynized)
  
• Turn 65 - 1400 BC (almost have 5 cities now)
  
• Turn 70 - 1200 BC (have contact with Team Blame Caledorn)
  
• Turn 75 - 1000 BC (have contact with Team Gladiator's Glory)
  
• Turn 80 - 875 BC (#1 in population, with 7 cities)
  
• Turn 84 - 775 BC (have an academy in the capital)
  
• Turn 90 - 625 BC (The Hanging Gardens!)
  
• Turn 100 - 375 BC (11 cities)
  
• Turn 107 - 200 BC (Hindu missionary deal)
  
• Turn 114 - 25 BC (13 cities, Organized Religion & Monarchy)
  
• Turn 118 - 75 AD (awaiting Rome's attack...)
  
• Turn 120 - 125 AD (Asterix replaced, map trades, and Lurker-Friendly reports)
  
• Turn 122 - 175 AD (Calendar resources starting to get connected, Code of Laws on the way)
  
• Turn 125 - 250 AD (SutOxy are pulling ahead)
  
• Turn 128 - 325 AD (War with Rome!)
  
• Turn 131 - 400 AD (We made a mistake.)
  
• Turn 135 - 500 AD (Civil Service finished) Note: At this point, discussion in our thread stopped, so the turn reports are in consecutive posts for easy reading, up to about turn 150. ~DMOC
  

Teams

1. Team Eagles & Condors - Oxyphenbutazone and suttree (formerly, Kurumi / HBHR)
Pacal II (Fin/Exp) || Native America (Dog Soldier (Axe) and Totem Pole (Monument); Fish/Agri)

2. Team Dinosaurs - Whiteye / Raptorous
Darius I (Fin/Org) || English (Redcoat (Rifle) and Stock Exchange (Bank); Fish/Mining)

3. Team Asterix (formely, Team Master and Margarita) - Asterix (formerly, Maga_R / slaze)
Willem (Fin/Cre) || Ottoman (Janissary (Musket) and Hammam (Aqueduct); Wheel/Agri)

4. Bowsling / Aivoturso
Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi) || Zululand (Impi (Spear) and Ikhanda (Barracks); Agri/Hunt)

5. Team Orgynized - Lord Parkin / Arkipeller / Magno_uy
Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind) || Netherlands (EastIndiaman (Galleon) and Dike (Levee); Fish/Agri)

6. Team Blame Caledorn - YossarianLives / Caledorn (with Scooter, Old Harry and Cheater Hater dedlurking)
Isabella (Spi/Exp) || Inca (Quecha (Warrior) and Terrace (Granary); Myst/Agri)

7. Team Care Bears - Yuufo / Bisons
Victoria (Fin/Imp) || India (Fast Worker (Worker) and Mausoleum (Jail); Myst/Mining)

8. Team EggHeads - DMOC / TeddyKGB
Suryavarman II (Exp/Cre) || Byzantium (Cataphract (Knight) and Hippodrome (Theatre); Myst/Wheel)

9. Team My Little Marathon Cannibal Pony - Classical_Hero / Halvgud
Napoleon (Org/Cha) || Sumeria (Vulture (Axe) and Ziggurat (Courthouse); Wheel/Agri)

10. Team Gladiator's Glory - Barteq / Geo (with Harami dedlurking)
Ragnar (Fin/Agg) || Rome (Praetorian (Sword) and Forum (Market); Fish/Mining)

[DMOC]

Pre-Pre-Game Thoughts

Welcome, everyone, to our spoiler thread! Let me first start out by saying that I'm really hoping this game will break my trend of "join a game but fail to finish." Over the past few years, I've joined about 8-10 Pitboss games, but in only two games, I was actually able to make it to the point where either my civ was dead (excluding if it got eliminated early) or when the game ended. Those games were the CFC Demogame and RB Pitboss Game #2. (And in those games, it was by and large my teammate(s) who were pulling the strings for our empire; I should have been more involved, but that was my fault and I'll take the blame for it.) In my defense, most of the games I eventually left were ones that started when I was at home (e.g. for a summer vacation) but lasted well into the school year, which presented a lot of difficulties for me playing once I entered college. I have a Mac laptop that's my primary computer, but it obviously can't run Civ, and I didn't have any room to bring my Windows desktop. This time, though, I know what room I'm getting and I definitely have enough space to bring two computers, and I've also configured Realms Beyond to send email directly to my primary email account. Thus, I should be able to stick around to the bitter (or glorious? ) end here.

And if not ... dick76, at least you will be around. In all seriousness, though, I'm hoping we'll be a good team. Maga_R spoke highly of you, and while I haven't played with you or him before, I'm definitely optimistic about this game. Just so we're clear on this, how often do you plan on posting in this thread? I would REALLY like to avoid spamming this topic with useless posts; it'd be far better to have fewer posts, but with tons of content within them. (This is one reason why I don't see the need to have an initial post that says "go away players" or something like that.) Also, I think we should probably start up an email for this game --- perhaps dick76dmoc - at - gmail - dot - com or something like that? It's full diplomacy, after all, so we'll want some easy way to contact all the other teams. Let me know on this thread or (preferably) via personal message or email. Incidentally, if you ever need to contact me, the best way is probably via email at dmocdmoc - at - gmail - dot - com. Do you feel comfortable with your English, dick76? If not, I'm perfectly cool with handing the majority of diplomacy --- just say how much you're interested and how much you'd like to do. Maga_R told me you're playing about seven Pitbosses (!), so I can imagine if you feel a little busy at times. I'll be sticking with just one game, for now.

Finally, what do we want to do about our cloak and dagger or other data? I was thinking we could have an Excel file that would keep track of as many notable events as possible for the other teams (e.g. they researched technology X on turn number Y, etc.), and we would obviously update this after each turn if possible. This would require a significant amount of time, though, and would also mean we'd need to post screenshots of demographics (and other relevant data) here after each turn. Of course, after turn 100 or so, we don't need to be as fastiidous as in the early game. What do you say? There really isn't that much to do in the early game, anyway, and it looks like we might be able to start playing turns as soon as mid-August, which is fine with me since I have loads of time --- my school doesn't start until the beginning of September.

All right, I think it's time to get some references in here, just so we all have quick access to some of the crucial ones.

• Great People Tech Preferences (in case we do slingshots)
  
• Micromanagement is Alive and Well in Civ4 (a bit of this is outdated in BtS, though, but I have a rough idea of the changes)
  
• Inner Workings of the Demographics Screen (cloak and dagger)
  
• The Whip (Just for review; slavery is by far the best civic in the game, so I need to refresh my memory on how to use it effectively)
  
• Cottages!! (No tech trading, so we'll need our own economy)
  
• Sullla's website (The RB Pitboss 2 walkthrough is especially helpful, and I learned a ton from it; we're also playing with almost the same settings as that game.)
  

Other random musings:

• Let's try to get a 10 exp unit early, preferably via barbarians.
  
• Related to the previous point, the "sentry" promotion is more useful in multiplayer than in singleplayer; we should try and use them if possible
  
• Move workers to minimize wasted turns, i.e. moving a worker 1 spot, roading (and canceling), then moving to another spot and building an improvement is better than just moving 2 spots and then building the improvement.
  
• Have a plan for national wonders! They provide some of the best bonuses in the game.
  
• Expand, expand, expand, the teams that expand fastest are often the ones who are most competitive late game.
  
• If we get a coastal start with seafood, we should seriously consider moving inland; having scouts should help (and we all should have them, according to the pregame discussion)
  
• Let's try to ensure we get an early great scientist, for academy. I try to get them by 500 BC or sooner in my deity single-player games, but we may be able to get it even faster here since we'll likely be playing something like Monarch
  
• Try not settling cities unless we already have a road network to them and we can easily defend it. Ideally (unless we really need to block something) our first cities will just be surrounding the capital to protect it.
  
• We need a REALLY good reason to build a world wonder. Pre-chopping here will be beneficial.
  
• Our first classical era tech will probably be Monarchy (a very good multiplayer Civ4 player a few years ago -- oyzar -- told me that monarchy is almost always the first such tech he gets), since we need large cities.
  
• Let's not neglect the power of religion! I made the mistake in my previous multiplayer games of building too many monuments. Having a religion is one way to speed up culture. We shouldn't go out of our way to build a shrine, though, since they're way overrated.
  
• Related to the previous two points, we really should try and find some way to get the Organized Religion production bonus.
  
• Since we're going to have rules on double moves, it is to our benefit to move settlers, workers, etc. during peacetime early in the turn (or just play our turns early) so that if we're ever in a race to settle, we'll be in strong position to do so.
  

Once the game settings get finalized and we see our start, then it will be time to get into serious discussions about our leader. Yes, I know I went a little overboard in writing this post; I'm looking forward to the start of this game.

--- (Part 2 below, updated later) ---

There's not much going on apart from some more debate about the settings, so I thought about a possible naming scheme for cities (and workers), as well as my first choices for leaders and civilizations.

First, since I'm a (soon-to-be) computer scientist/mathematician, I thought it might be interesting to name our cities and workers after the best schools and people in the field, respectively. In particular, for our cities, we could name them after the best US computer science schools, and for the workers (we probably want to be naming workers, just to make micromanagement easier to explain) we could name them after the greatest mathematicians. Obviously both cities and workers would be named in order of greatness.

E.g. for our cities, we could name them in order:

1. Carnegie Mellon
   
2. MIT
   
3. Stanford
   
4. UC Berkeley
   
5. Cornell
   
6. etc.
   

While I do disagree with some of the rankings in both the schools and the mathematicians list (I think Gauss should be above Newton, for instance), we might as well follow them to avoid confusion.

If the names exceed the 15-character limit, we can just abbreviate it in some way, e.g. Massachusetts Institute of Technology would be MIT in the city naming.

Dick76, let me know if you have other thoughts or ideas on a naming scheme.

Okay, now we can discuss a pretty important part of this game - the leader and civilization selection process.

Just to recap, here are what the settings will (probably) look like:

1. Normal Speed
2. Barbarians ON
3. NO tech trading
4. Monarch difficulty
5. Unrestricted leaders
etc...

Since there is no tech trading, I think it's essential that we pick an economically strong leader (or civilization, but leader traits are more important). In my opinion, the financial trait is the best for this type of game, so we should try and get one of those leaders unless we end up near the bottom of the snake pick, in which case we'll need some backup plan. Here are the financial leaders:

1. Willem (Fin/Cre)
   
2. Pacal II (Fin/Exp)
   
3. Darius I (Fin/Org)
   
4. Elizabeth (Fin/Phi)
   
5. Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind)
   
6. Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi)
   
7. Victoria (Fin/Imp)
   
8. Hannibal (Fin/Chm)
   
9. Rangar (Fin/Agg)
   
10. Wang Kon (Fin/Pro)
    

Incidentally, I've listed the above leaders in rough preference order. I value the Creative trait quite highly, and in a game where plako said we would have lots of room to expand, that means we'll likely be planting a lot of cities. I really don't want to overbuild monuments or waste time constructing Stonehenge, so this trait really helps out in that regard. Also, since this is on Monarch and we have barbarians, we'll have to be wary of at least some axes/spears coming near our cities, and it'd be great if we had extra border pops for visibility purposes. Expansive is another excellent trait for this scenario, since it again lets us build up our civilization quickly with fast workers and granaries. (And I would also be okay if this was our #1 choice, as well.) The only problem is that we might be forced into some suboptimal city locations if we can't get culture there quickly.

I rate Darius third after Willem and Pacal, since the Organized trait might prove to be useful for fast courthouses; we're playing on a toroidal map with higher maintenance costs than a flat or cylindrical map. In addition, plako said there would be water, so lighthouses will definitely come into play. One could also make a compelling argument for Elizabeth for this spot, since having our faster scientist means a faster academy, which then results in a snowball effect, etc.

The next set of leaders -- HC, MM, Hannibal, and Victoria -- are still solid, but I don't consider them in the same tier as the first four leaders. The industrious trait can be useful and powerful under certain circumstances, but in all likelihood, the wonder races will be won by either (1) the team that was first to the necessary technologies, or (2) the team that has the appropriate resource to speed construction by 100%. I rate HC fifth here due to the faster forges. Spiritual isn't a bad trait, but we're not going to be making too many civic swaps when we're not in a Golden Age, apart from the mandatory switch to Slavery. Faster temples are pretty unremarkable to me; I'd rather get our happiness via other methods.

The Charismatic and Imperialistic traits have their uses, but in a large map like this (and if we get Hereditary Rule!), we really shouldn't have that many happiness issues. Imperialistic might net us some city spots early, but the benefit completely disappears after we get our cities settled. In contrast, the Creative trait's effect continues all game, though it also exhibits diminishing returns.

Ragnar and WK are last, to me, since having warmongering traits seems like a waste in this game, where the economically superior civilization will probably win. This is why I put Hannibal higher than these two, since the Charismatic trait at least has some economic benefit.

While the Financial trait is clearly strong, if we're forced to pick Wang Kon or a similar leader with a weak second trait, there are other leaders we should consider. Here are some of my suggestions off the top of my head:

1. Peter (Exp/Phi)
   
2. Suryavarman II (Exp/Cre)
   
3. Pericles (Phi/Cre)
   
4. Gandhi (Phi/Spi)
   
5. Isabella (Exp/Spi)
   

Let me know if you have other thoughts on leaders.

My thoughts on civilization choices will be a bit shorter. Some of the ones I'd be interested in are Byzantium (superb UU), India (superb UU), Ottoman (superb UB), Inca (superb UB), Egypt (superb UU) and France (superb UU). Of course, if we end up picking a Creative leader, then the Inca pick isn't so hot. But overall, I like this section of civilizations. We'll obviously need some backup, since I only listed six civs here, but hopefully we can get one of these.

As always, feel free to add your thoughts. We can get more specific once we see our start, which may indicate if we want to proceed with a certain civ (e.g. starting techs).

[DMOC]

All right, plako has updated us with the snake pick selection. For reference, here's the updated selection courtesy of Maga_R in the general Pitboss 14 thread:

Updated team info and pick order:

8. Team Eagles & Condors - Kurumi / HBHR (with Oxyphenbutazone dedlurking)
10. Team Dinosaurs - Whiteye / Raptorous
3. Team Master and Margarita - Slaze / Maga_R (with Jovan Kukic dedlurking)
6. Bowsling / Aivoturso
1. Team Orgynized - Lord Parkin / Arkipeller / Magno_uy (with WilliamLP and Dp101 dedlurking)
2. Team Blame Caledorn - YossarianLives / Caledorn (with Scooter, Old Harry and Cheater Hater dedlurking)
4. Team Care Bears - Yuufo / Bisons
7. Dick76 / DMOC
5. Team My Little Marathon Cannibal Pony - Classical_Hero / Halvgud
9. Barteq / Geo (with Harami dedlurking)
9. Barteq / Geo (with Harami dedlurking)
5. Team My Little Marathon Cannibal Pony - Classical_Hero / Halvgud
7. Dick76 / DMOC
4. Team Care Bears - Yuufo / Bisons
2. Team Blame Caledorn - YossarianLives / Caledorn (with Scooter, Old Harry and Cheater Hater dedlurking)
1. Team Orgynized - Lord Parkin / Arkipeller / Magno_uy (with WilliamLP and Dp101 dedlurking)
6. Bowsling / Aivoturso
3. Team Master and Margarita - Slaze / Maga_R (with Jovan Kukic dedlurking)
10. Team Dinosaurs - Whiteye / Raptorous
8. Team Eagles & Condors - Kurumi / HBHR (with Oxyphenbutazone dedlurking)

So we're the eighth pick. This likely rules out us getting Willem or Pacal, but if we're really lucky, we might be able to get Darius or Elizabeth. I say this because in a snake pick like this, I think the teams that get to pick in the top three or four are basically guaranteed to choose leaders rather than civilizations. It's probably a complete toss-up for the 8th through 10th teams as to whether they choose leaders or civilizations --- too much depends on what the previous teams have chosen.

However, being in the 8th (and 13th) selection slots, I think we have a strong chance of landing one of the better civilizations as our first pick, so that might be something to consider. The second pick could then be a leader that has traits which support or go well with our civilization choice. Here are some options:

1. We pick India as our civilization pick, then pick Sury II (Cre/Exp) as our leader pick to get faster fast workers and faster border popping
   
2. We pick Inca as our civilization pick, then pick Peter (Phi/Exp) or Isabella (Spi/Exp) or Bismarck (Ind/Exp) or Joao II (Imp/Exp) as our leader pick to get a cheap culture-providing granary and quechas to potentially protect us against barbarian archers.
   
3. We pick Ottomans as our civilization pick, then pick whatever "best" leader is left as our leader pick to get an awesome building (i.e. no Charismatic needed) and a decent musketman. There's unfortunately no trait that speeds up the aqueduct build, which would be great to have for the Ottoman Hammam.
   
4. We pick the best creative leader left, then pair it up with either the (1) Byzantines or (2) the Mayans. The former gives us a faster and nice (though not great) UB (more happiness in most cases compared to normal theatres), while the latter gives us faster ball courts, which provides an extra +2 happiness on top of the colloseum's +1 base happiness. The Byzantine Cataphract is an excellent UU, and the Mayan Holkan is useful if copper is unavailable or in a poor spot. Alternatively, if we get Zara (Cre/Org), we might consider pairing it with HRE for the rathaus, which will be helpful on this monarch and toroidal map.
   

Obviously, this will depend on what others pick, but based on the previous selections at Realms Beyond, I hope there's a chance we can get one of these combinations or better. Heck, at the current CFC Multi-Team pitboss which had 9 teams and a similar snake selection process, the team that picked ninth (and tenth) was actually able to get Willem (!) and Maya. In addition, there's a good chance that someone picks an Aggressive leader and pairs it with Rome. This is bad for their neighbors, but good for the rest of the civilizations.

Dick76, feel free to add anything. Lurkers, you're also welcome to contribute and give me feedback on my choices of civilizations. At this stage of the game, there's not much to be spoiled (apart from the other teams' selections plans, though, so don't tell me what they are!).

[Merovech]

I agree with most of what you posted, though I'm not a personal fan of Elizabeth. Actually, I'd rate her as the 7th best Financial leader and probably the 10th best leader overall. The only place other where I'd disagree with you is I think that you are overvaluing the Hamman and undervaluing starting techs, or at least not mentioning them. The Ottomans are good, imo, but not as good as, say, Egypt.

[Fintourist]

The Ottomans are good, imo, but not as good as, say, Egypt.

Well, it's situational. When nothing is known about the map, yeah, Egypt is a stronger bet. But e.g. in PBEM45 (not really a spoiler) it was to be expected that map is water-heavy, early aggression unlikely and therefore I have never regretted picking Ottomans instead of Egypt.

[DMOC]

I agree with most of what you posted, though I'm not a personal fan of Elizabeth. Actually, I'd rate her as the 7th best Financial leader and probably the 10th best leader overall. The only place other where I'd disagree with you is I think that you are overvaluing the Hamman and undervaluing starting techs, or at least not mentioning them. The Ottomans are good, imo, but not as good as, say, Egypt.

Interesting claim about your financial leader rankings. Would you mind posting your full list? I'd be interested to see who you have higher over Elizabeth.

True, starting techs are important, but I'm not sure if they should carry as much weight as the UU and UB for a civilization. Both the Ottomans and Egypt start with Agriculture and The Wheel, which are excellent anyway. I'm not sure if I'd rate Egypt over Ottomans ... they're roughly equivalent (in my opinion) in games like this one because while the Egyptian war chariot is clearly better than the Ottoman janissary, the Ottoman Hammam is clearly better than the Egyptian obelisk. To me, the gap is wider with the buildings, since monuments are generally crap and I don't see myself needing prophets, while Hammams are auto-builds in any cities after Mathematics (an early technology). Again, these maps aren't really conducive to early warfare, but I do concede that even a few war chariots could be useful to surprise an opponent.

Then again, the obelisk would be useful if we found an early religion ...

The Ottomans are good, imo, but not as good as, say, Egypt.

Well, it's situational. When nothing is known about the map, yeah, Egypt is a stronger bet. But e.g. in PBEM45 (not really a spoiler) it was to be expected that map is water-heavy, early aggression unlikely and therefore I have never regretted picking Ottomans instead of Egypt.

Well, hopefully we won't have to resort to early aggression and can focus on building libraries and granaries instead. But war chariots might be useful as a deterrent to other teams for not attacking us.

[plako]

Your starting position. Only visible tiles will be kept so no need to try to read the fog.

[DMOC]

Your starting position. Only visible tiles will be kept so no need to try to read the fog.

Okay, so I won't do any tile bleeding analysis. Thanks for providing the start!

Unfortunately ... we have water (ocean) at the start. I'm seriously considering moving the settler 1-7 and then founding the city there, which gets rid of the fish, but also wastes a turn and wastes a grassland hill. Otherwise, if we settle in place, we may be forced to pick a civilization that has fishing if we want to go max hammers at the start (using the 3H tile), or we can try and get a civ that starts with Hunting and then research Animal Husbandry. (The pigs are a superior food resource early on.) Settling in place isn't a bad capital, of course, it just means there's a ton of useless water. We'll probably need Moai here.

The scout should probably go 1-7 in my opinion, just to see what options we have out west. This may change once we get the real game started, since tile bleeding will tell us what tiles get revealed.

Dick76, feel free to add your thoughts once you get back. In the meantime, I'm going to run some simulations that assume we settle in place.

[DMOC]

Scenario 1: Settle in Place, Start with Fishing and a Work Boat

The first set of simulations will assume that we settle in place and start with fishing, so that we can go max hammers at the start to build a quick work boat. The following civilizations start with Fishing:

1. America (Fishing/Agriculture)
   
2. Carthage (Fishing/Mining)
   
3. Dutch (Fishing/Agriculture)
   
4. English (Fishing/Mining)
   
5. Greece (Fishing/Hunting)
   
6. Japan (Fishing/The Wheel)
   
7. Native America (Fishing/Agriculture)
   
8. Portuguese (Fishing/Mining)
   
9. Rome (Fishing/Mining)
   
10. Spain (Fishing/Mysticism)
    
11. Viking (Fishing/Hunting)
    

Wow, that's a pretty lackluster civilizations list. If we really want to start with Fishing, there's a high chance we'll pick a civ that starts with Mining, so I decided to run a simulation assuming we pick England as our civ. I wanted to test the worst case scenario, so I assumed we were Tokugawa (Agg/Pro), who has two traits that we're certainly not going to want with our leader. Here is the starting position according to the given image:



I used a Donut map to create the simulation, and put in nine other civilizations so that it aligned with the 10 civs we have for this game. I cut off contact from us to other teams to again assume the worst case (no tech bonus).



There are a couple of options I can see. Option 1 results in a settler 3 turns after Option 2, but Option 1 counters that with an extra worker ready to road...

Option 1: Double Workers

Summary: This is a bit of a dangerous route, since we create 2 workers, 1 settler, but only have 1 warrior (and hopefully our scout) at this time. We may need to keep the scout back for fogbusting.
Technology: Start with Fishing and Mining, go Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> Bronze Working -> The Wheel
Capital: Work Boat -> Worker -> Warrior (grow to size 2) -> Worker -> Warrior (grow to size 3 and finish via chop) -> Settler -> Warrior (grow to size 4).

Details are in the spoiler:

Turn 0: Settle in place, work plains hill forest
Turn 1: Research Hunting (64 beakers on Monarch)
Turn 7: Finish Hunting, start Animal Husbandry (min 6 beakers of overflow). Keep capital working the 3H forest hill, but we could move it to the unimproved deer to get a head start on AH (extra beaker but loses on overflow).
Turn 8: Finish WB, put it on the fish, start Worker, and work the improved fish. Worker due in 10 turns with 8H overflow to start.
Turn 18: Finish Worker, start Warrior. Unfortunately AH will be at 159/161 beakers, so we waste a worker turn sitting in the capital. If we get lucky and meet another civ with Hunting, we might be able to get those extra 2 beakers...or alternatively, if we're financial, we're guaranteed that this works.
Turn 19: Finish AH, start Bronze Working (193 beakers), and have Worker start on the pasture for the pigs.
Turn 22: Pasture finishes, but have capital continue working fish since we grow to size 2 anyway.
Turn 23: Capital at size 2, start immediately on a worker (due in 6 turns). Worker moves to deer, and will improve next turn. Capital obviously works the improved pigs and fish.
Turn 24: Worker starts on camp for deer.
Turn 27: Worker finishes camp, but capital stays with the pigs and fish.
Turn 28: Worker moves to grassland hill 4-4 of capital
Turn 29: Worker 1 mines the hill he's now on; new worker in capital (Call him Worker 2 and the older worker "Worker 1") will move to the same tile as Worker 1 (a bit of a waste but not much he can do). Capital now continues the warrior, but will stay with working the pigs and fish.
Turn 30: Worker 2 helps with mining.
Turn 31: Mine is finished; one worker will be free. Without loss of generality, let worker 2 be free. He goes on the forested plains hill, preparing to chop. Capital switches from pigs to the mine just formed, because we still grow to size 3 next turn.
Turn 32: Finish Bronze Working, start The Wheel (96 beakers) due in 9 turns. Capital at size 3, 1 turn left on the warrior. Worker 2 chops, worker 1 goes 9-9 on grassland forest. Capital now works plains hill forest, grass hill mine, and the deer for max production.
Turn 33: Warrior finishes, he goes to the ideal second city site. Worker 2 continues chopping, worker 1 starts chopping. Capital switches to settler (due in 8 turns) and works pigs, fish, and the deer, causing The Wheel to be sped up.
Turn 34: Worker 2 finishes chop and starts a mine on that same tile.
Turn 35: Worker 1 finishes chop into settler.
Turn 36: Worker 1 goes 8 onto another grass forest.
Turn 37: Worker 1 starts chop.
Turn 38: Settler done in capital, which continues onto a warrior due in 2 turns. Worker 2 finishes plains hill mine. Worker 1 is 2/3 turns done with his chop. The Wheel is due in 2 turns.

Thus, by this time (2480 BC), we'll have a warrior already out to the second city spot, with the settler ready to follow him. The scout will hopefully be alive and fog-busting. The capital will finish another warrior quickly for defense and happiness, and upon growing to size 4, can work the mines to get a fast warrior (about a 3 turn warrior if working the 4H mine, 1H deer, and the free +1 H from the city center). This would also be the time to switch to Slavery.

With this approach, we can settle a second city by turn 40 (2400 BC) and have 2 workers ready to improve it and get a road network set up. For comparison purposes, my team in RB Pitboss 2 founded the second city at turn 47, while the winning team of Speaker/Sullla founded theirs on turn 35. (Most teams get their first city somewhere in the 30s or 40s, but I really think we want to aim for the mid 30s.) We'll have also researched both Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working, so this will tell us if we have a strategic resource nearby. At no point does the capital ever work an unimproved tile apart from the 3H plains hill forest.

The downside is that we use up the forests quickly from chopping, and other civs may steal our workers due to just 1 warrior for defense. But then again, everyone starts with a scout...

Option 2: Single Worker & Fast Settler

Summary: One worker before the settler. This will probably be useful if we see an awesome early second city spot, preferably one with a 5 or 6 food resource tile in the first ring and a strategic resource.
Technology: Start with Fishing and Mining, go Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> Bronze Working -> The Wheel
Capital: Work Boat -> Worker -> Warrior -> Settler (at size 3) -> Worker -> Warrior

Details are in the spoiler:

Turn 0: Settle in place, work plains hill forest
Turn 1: Research Hunting (64 beakers on Monarch)
Turn 7: Finish Hunting, start Animal Husbandry (min 6 beakers of overflow). Keep capital working the 3H forest hill, but we could move it to the unimproved deer to get a head start on AH (extra beaker but loses on overflow).
Turn 8: Finish WB, put it on the fish, start Worker, and work the improved fish. Worker due in 10 turns with 8H overflow to start.
Turn 18: Finish Worker, start Warrior.
Turn 19: Finish AH, start Bronze Working (193 beakers), and have Worker start on the pasture for the pigs.
Turn 22: Pasture finishes, but have capital continue working fish since we grow to size 2 anyway.
Turn 23: Capital at size 2, CONTINUE warrior (different from previous plan). Worker moves to deer, and will improve next turn. Capital obviously works the improved pigs and fish.
Turn 24: Worker starts on camp for deer.
Turn 25: Capital switches from pigs to the 3H forest; we still grow to size 3 next turn, but this time we have 0 food overflow, and the production goes to a warrior anyway.
Turn 26: Capital grows to size 3, works the unimproved deer (but continues ignoring the pig).
Turn 27: Worker finishes camp, capital finishes warrior (who goes to the proposed city site) and capital starts on a settler and works the pigs, deer, and the fish. The settler is due in 8 turns.
Turn 28: Worker moves to grassland hill 4-4 of capital
Turn 29: Worker mines hill he's on now.
Turn 32: Finish Bronze Working, start The Wheel (96 beakers) due in 9 turns. Worker finishes his mine.
Turn 33: Worker moves 6 on plains hill forest.
Turn 34: Worker chops tile he's on.
Turn 35: Capital finishes settler, and starts on a worker (can be warrior if safety is needed)
Turn 36: Worker finishes chop into worker
Turn 37: Worker mines tile

So by turn 37 (2520 BC), we may have our settler already in position to found a close second city, with a worker shortly coming. The Wheel will also be done soon, allowing for road connections to occur. We do need to decide when to switch to slavery...

Finally, one little thing I'd like to add; if we end up getting a strategic resource in the capital (horses, iron, or copper), then the proposed move to settle 8-8 of the capital will not lose it. One thing we need to be careful, though, is if there's going to be land east of the capital that can use the fish. In plako's screenshot, there's a strip of land that will allow us to make use of the fish; if that's not there in the real game, we may have no choice but to settle in place, which isn't a bad option. Otherwise, if the fish causes us to be too slow, we can save it for a Moai city east of the capital.




Scenario 2: Settle in Place, Don't Start with Fishing

This case assumes we choose a civilization that doesn't start with Fishing, so we couldn't start with a workboat even if we wanted to. Here are a couple of options.

Option 1: Single Worker & Fast Settler with civ starting with Agriculture and The Wheel; Ignore Fish

Summary: One worker before the settler. The Ottoman and Egypt civilizations start with these technologies, so I chose the Ottomans for this simulation. The leader is again Tokugawa, but keep in mind that our workers will be faster if we use an expansive leader, since we have a 3H tile to work.
Technology: Start with Agriculture and The Wheel, and research Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Bronze Working
Capital: Worker -> Warrior -> Warrior (partial, grow to size 3) -> Settler.

Details are in the spoiler:

Turn 0: Settle in place, start worker, research Hunting, work the unimproved deer (if Expansive, work the plains hill)
Turn 6: Hunting finished, start Animal Husbandry. We have Agriculture, so this means we get both prerequisites.
Turn 15: Worker finishes (if expansive, we finish on turn 13), capital starts warrior (work 3f pigs to grow) and worker starts on the deer.
Turn 17: Finish Animal Husbandry, start research on Mining. This is debatable -- do we want Fishing instead? I figure it's easier to chop the workboat than to slow-build it, so I like getting Bronze Working before Fishing in this case.
Turn 18: Worker finishes deer. Capital works the deer.
Turn 20: Worker starts improving the pig.
Turn 22: Capital grows to size 2, works the unimproved pigs instead of finishing the warrior next turn.
Turn 23: Pasture finishes
Turn 24: Warrior finishes, so capital starts on another warrior. Worker moves 1.
Turn 25: Mining comes in, set research to Bronze Working. Worker mines his tile. Capital grows to size 3 and switches production to a settler (due in 10 turns) and works the three highest yield tiles.
Turn 28: Mine finished, switch capital to work on this tile
Turn 29: Worker roads tile
Turn 31: With road finished last turn, worker now starts roading pigs tile.
Turn 33: Worker moves to mine other open grassland hill OR can build road towards city site
Turn 34: Settler finishes

So this way only nets us a settler 1 turn faster, than Option 2 under Scenario 1 (and with the same amount of military and workers), but lags behind on Bronze Working and Fishing. The benefit is that we have a quicker trade route connection. I'm not sure how much to add here, but it's looking more and more like we need a civ that starts with fishing in order to get a fast start. This start has the downside that we'll need to switch to Slavery after founding the second city.

Option 2: Research Fishing early, and get fish set up

Summary: Again, I chose the Ottomans for this simulation.
Technology: Start with Agriculture and The Wheel, and research Fishing -> Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Bronze Working
Capital: Worker (partial) -> Workboat -> Worker (finish) -> Warrior -> Settler -> Warrior

Details are in the spoiler:

Turn 0: Settle in place, start worker, research Fishing, and work the deer tile for the added commerce. I'm not sure if this should change if we're expansive...
Turn 6: Fishing done, switch production to workboat and work 3H tile. Hunting is now due in 7.
Turn 13: Hunting done, research is now onto Animal Husbandry.
Turn 14: Capital finishes workboat and production resumes on the worker, with the capital obviously working the fish.
Turn 20: Worker finishes, camps deer, capital resumes warrior production.
Turn 23: AH done, research onto Mining.
Turn 24: Move worker over to the pigs.
Turn 25: Capital is now size 2 and works the improved deer.
Turn 28: Capital grows to size 3 and the worker finishes pasturing the pigs. Capital will work the 3H tile, though, to get maximum overflow to upcoming settler.
Turn 29: Capital finishes warrior and starts on a settler due in 8 turns (and switches production to the improved pig). The worker moves 1 and will mine the following turn. Mining is also done on this turn, and research is onto Bronze Working (13 turns).
Turn 33: Worker finishes mine, move to another mine the following turn.
Turn 37: Settler finishes, capital starts warrior. The warrior previously produced will ideally be at the site of the second city already.

Unfortunately, we don't have Bronze Working at this stage, and the settler isn't produced notably faster. The lack of commerce besides the deer and the fish is worrying me, since our rivers are very short. If we see rivers when our scout moves, we should seriously consider moving westward and saving the fish for another city.

Some final thoughts: if we start with fishing, then we can get a workboat out on the fish and the first worker done by turn 18. If we don't start with fishing but research it immediately, we can get a workboat out on the fish and the first worker done by turn 20. Is a two-turn improvement worth it to take a possibly inferior civilization over one of the powerful ones? My gut says no, but we'll see what happens to the teams above us in the snake pick.

[SevenSpirits]

All right, I think it's time to get some references in here, just so we all have quick access to some of the crucial ones.

• Great People Tech Preferences (in case we do slingshots)
  
• Micromanagement is Alive and Well in Civ4 (a bit of this is outdated in BtS, though, but I have a rough idea of the changes)
  
• Inner Workings of the Demographics Screen (cloak and dagger)
  
• The Whip (Just for review; slavery is by far the best civic in the game, so I need to refresh my memory on how to use it effectively)
  
• Cottages!! (No tech trading, so we'll need our own economy)
  
• Sullla's website (The RB Pitboss 2 walkthrough is especially helpful, and I learned a ton from it; we're also playing with almost the same settings as that game.)
  

I would be careful about using references or guides from CFC other than the great people tech preferences one and posts by DaveMcW, for three reasons:

1) Most contain some outdated information, from before BTS patch 3.19, mixed in with everything else.
2) Surprisingly many of them contain blatant errors - misunderstandings of how the game works.
3) Almost all are written specifically for single player games vs the awful AI in games with tech trading enabled. Correct strategy is massively affected by having silly AIs in the game, as well as by tech trading, so they end up containing a lot of advice that will counterproductive to you here.

Good luck!