So here's a quick overview
Mehmed of HRE
Traits:
EXP/ORG
- 25% faster production on workers
- Half-priced Granary
- Half-priced Courthouse
- Half-priced Lighthouse
- Half-priced Harbour
- Half-priced Factory
- + 2 health per city
- Civic upkeep reduced 50%
UB:
Rathaus
- Courthouse replacement that is 2x as effective as a regular Courthouse
- Cost: 60 hammers
UU:
Landsknecht
- Pikeman replacement
- Requires Iron + Engineering
- 100% bonus against Melee + Mounted Units
- 6 strength
- Cost: 60 hammers
EXP/ORG is a pairing of traits that has some degree of synergy.
The EXP trait allows better development of surrounding land thanks to faster worker production, and faster growth at the start thanks to the cheap granaries.
ORG gives you cheap buildings to allow better-rounded cities, and lower costs so you can support more cities.
Combining the two gives you larger, better-developed cities that cost less to maintain (which in itself allows more cities), and an additional bonus on the cost side of the equation to allow even more cities to be built.
Additionally we were able to pair Mehmed with a very strong UB that receives a discount thanks to one of our traits. The Rathaus is twice as effective as a Courthouse - no small bonus at Emperor - it comes into play early and at the critical time when maintenance costs start becoming a serious headwind to expansion.
The permanent reduction in costs is unmatched and will be a constant advantage for our team throughout the game (State Property will lessen it but not eliminate it altogether).
Right off the bat when we were considering the traits we wanted, FIN, EXP, and CRE stood out, with ORG a close fourth. In fact if you add up the traits chosen, these 4 turned out to be the most popular:
FIN 7
EXP 6
CRE 5
ORG 4
PHI 4
IND 2
AGG 2
CHA 2
SPI 1
IMP 1
PRO 0
So it was somewhat surprising that when it came our turn to pick, 2 of the 6 leaders that combine 2 of those traits were still available. In the end, we decided that the combination of EXP+ORG offset the lack of the FIN trait (which is pretty indisputably the strongest one out there) and went with Mehmed.
If we were surprised Mehmed was still available with the 13th pick, we were even more surprised that HRE was up for grabs, particularly with 2 teams behind us picking ORG leaders. In the end we were able to grab HRE after both Zara + Napoleon passed. HRE was the 8th civ picked; we initially had it ranked somewhere in our second tier behind Inca, Ottomans, and India, but moved it up even higher after it was confirmed we'd have an Organised leader.
We took our 5th leader choice and 4th civ while picking 13th. So while losing out on Inca and the strongest 3 FIN leaders was disappointing all in all you could definitely say we were pleased with our picks. But it wasn't all good news. We identified 4 key weaknesses we'd have to address, from easiest to hardest to fix:
1) we start with a scout
2) our starting techs blow
3) we are not financial
4) we are not creative
1) and 2) go hand-in-hand, as does the solution. Going with a warrior first will allow us time to research crucial worker techs. We'll be going warrior first unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise, e.g. a game tile in the BFC (and even then this will be up for debate)
3) there is nothing we can do about the gold bonus FIN civs get - but you don't get to spend gross gold, you spend net of costs and this is where ORG+rathaus really gives us an advantage.
No plan survives contact with the enemy but at the moment it looks like after knocking out Ag, Mining, BW, AH, and Pottery (and maybe Fishing, depending on terrain), we will beeline CoL. Getting Rathauses into play asap is at the forefront of our thoughts, you can be sure of that
How we get there is of course subject to a great amount of discussion, particularly in light of
4) i'm not quite as pessimistic about the amount of room we'll have to expand into as the civs who chose resourceless UUs but it's a fact that having a CRE civ next door will put us on the back foot in terms of settling plans. Oracling CoL would be a massive advantage and solve 3) and 4) in one fell swoop, but there's the small matter of 16 other civs out there who are no doubt thinking along the same lines.
To start with there are 2 IND civs out there, and while Mali would probably target MC, India will not.
Added to that is the fact our early research potential is not up to the FIN civs' standards in the event we decide researching CoL from scratch is the better option.
And finally there is SPI/PHI Egypt who is a threat to bulb it.
What we've decided is that Oracle is only something we'll be pursuing if Marble is available, but even then Masonry would be required. Bottom line is don't expect us to land that wonder - or Stonehenge for that matter. I expect at least one team to attempt the 'Henge before their first settler, and we neither CAN compete nor WANT to compete with that.
In the end, while the lack of CRE is the hardest problem to solve (obviously it's not the most important, lacking FIN is), it might even be a non-issue.
a) we may not start right next to a CRE civ; the odds are pretty low with 5 civs in 16 neighbours, but not out of the question
b) i mentioned earlier i'm not as pessimistic as some others about the amount of land we'll have [cue me eating my words when a warrior waltzes into our capital on turn 5
].
I counted out the tiles and the map for RBP1 was approx 85 * 48, with 35% water for ~2600 land tiles. With 11 teams, that’s 240 tiles each, or ~12 cities. If we were to use a similar-sized map, with 17 teams (definitely fits the “less land” some people asked for), available land area per team would be about 156 tiles – 7.5 cities, or a bit smaller than a 13 x 13 square.
c) we may be able to come to reasonable settling agreements with our neighbours - one small advantage of starting with a scout is that we'll have a good idea of the lay of the land + can make informed decisions.
![[Image: siege.png]](http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/2446/siege.png)
Less emails now! 