picklepikkl embarks on the Fool's Journey

[picklepikkl]

Watch this space for further developments.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

List Randomizer

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Timestamp: 2016-03-31 20:29:11 UTC, IP: 90.203.177.30

You have 10 points

7: FIN, EXP
6: India
5: Inca, CRE
4: IMP, ORG, HRE
3: SPI, IND, Zulu, Sumeria
2: CHA, AGG, PHI, Ottomans/Maya/Byzantium (with War ellie ban)
1: Civs that start with Agriculture Tech unless otherwise stated, Greece/Rome
0: America, Native America, Civs without agri not already stated
-1: PRO arabia, germany, celts

Please post picks in threads, unless major objections I feel that duplicates should be allowed within reason, because quite a few civs have specific point costs to try to open up the field from the usual suspects.

Map taster info - fully hand crafted. SMALL 40x40 (based off small doughnut script if you wish to generate a map that size) VERY rich in resources. Stone/Marble are present but not easily reached early. Highly balanced but not mirrored/duplicated. FLAT map. IMMORTAL difficulty (it is very rich!) Moderate amount of water, but you could easily get away without a navy. GLH NOT banned. Scout starts for all.

As per your choices, no barbs, quick speed

Unusual tiles note - to spice up naval encounters, there are a few jungle/forest tiles hidden in the seas - these will give a defense bonus. Think of them as rich but dangerous to attack into lagoons, or places on the high sea that are rather dangerous.

You're player 3!

Here's your start - fogazing should be treated with caution, but the map is unlikely to change tbh.

Have fun and good luck!

[picklepikkl]

Thanks, REM, for all your hard work in putting this together for us! I really appreciate it.

A few weeks ago, I experienced some disruptions to my personal and professional life, which have rather reduced my time for Civilization (partly directly, partly indirectly by ensuring I'm travelling more often). Indeed, I caught this update while on a train, and have yet to have the chance to fire up Civ 4 and sim out an opening. I'm very glad that REM has set a 72 hour deadline, because that makes me feel less guilty about waiting until probably-tomorrow for a real opportunity to figure this out.

However, while on the train, I spent some time thinking about my options, and the one that's foremost in my mind is FDR of Sumer. To unpack this thinking:

• This is a map on which we'll want to expand very quickly; thus, traits that either accelerate that expansion or lower its costs are valuable.
  
• Expansive and Financial are costed fairly prohibitively for having other things of value.
  
• Expansive and Imperialistic are the expansion-accelerating traits. As I understand it, both of them are somewhat micro-heavy in the sense of "their bonuses kick in on your fourth hammer."
  
• The resources I have to work with are Calendar, Agriculture, and Hunting. I am also in a food-heavy river valley, lending itself to cottage spam.
  
• The high difficulty will make maintenance and city happiness real issues that I have to deal with.
  
• Early religion helps address my needs for both happiness and culture.
  
• Sumer has strong starting techs and a UB that helps address my maintenance issues and lies along the religion path.
  
• If I want Sumer, going Financial requires me to be Wang Kon.
  
• Organized will further discount my already-discounted UB and gives me more points to work with.
  
• If I'm going for Priesthood, both of the 3-point traits have synergy: Spiritual gives me cheaper temples and Industrious helps me build the Oracle.
  
• Industrious has guaranteed early-game strength because resource doublers aren't easily reached early.
  
• Spiritual requires micro skills to get the most out of it through civic swaps.
  
• Most crucially of all: I'm bad at Civ. I don't trust my micro. Therefore, I want blunt weapons, not precision instruments.
  

This is by no means final -- I want to play around in a sandbox and see how it feels. Starting techs seem like they have a high impact on a start as resource-heavy as this, especially when no-barbs and scouts for everyone means that I would be deeply shocked if anyone didn't go worker-first. In particular, I'm thinking about Philosophical, given the richness of food. But this is my knee-jerk.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Thanks, REM, for all your hard work in putting this together for us! I really appreciate it.

A few weeks ago, I experienced some disruptions to my personal and professional life, which have rather reduced my time for Civilization (partly directly, partly indirectly by ensuring I'm travelling more often). Indeed, I caught this update while on a train, and have yet to have the chance to fire up Civ 4 and sim out an opening. I'm very glad that REM has set a 72 hour deadline, because that makes me feel less guilty about waiting until probably-tomorrow for a real opportunity to figure this out.

However, while on the train, I spent some time thinking about my options, and the one that's foremost in my mind is FDR of Sumer. To unpack this thinking:

• This is a map on which we'll want to expand very quickly; thus, traits that either accelerate that expansion or lower its costs are valuable.
  
• Expansive and Financial are costed fairly prohibitively for having other things of value.
  
• Expansive and Imperialistic are the expansion-accelerating traits. As I understand it, both of them are somewhat micro-heavy in the sense of "their bonuses kick in on your fourth hammer."
  
• The resources I have to work with are Calendar, Agriculture, and Hunting. I am also in a food-heavy river valley, lending itself to cottage spam.
  
• The high difficulty will make maintenance and city happiness real issues that I have to deal with.
  
• Early religion helps address my needs for both happiness and culture.
  
• Sumer has strong starting techs and a UB that helps address my maintenance issues and lies along the religion path.
  
• If I want Sumer, going Financial requires me to be Wang Kon.
  
• Organized will further discount my already-discounted UB and gives me more points to work with.
  
• If I'm going for Priesthood, both of the 3-point traits have synergy: Spiritual gives me cheaper temples and Industrious helps me build the Oracle.
  
• Industrious has guaranteed early-game strength because resource doublers aren't easily reached early.
  
• Spiritual requires micro skills to get the most out of it through civic swaps.
  
• Most crucially of all: I'm bad at Civ. I don't trust my micro. Therefore, I want blunt weapons, not precision instruments.
  

This is by no means final -- I want to play around in a sandbox and see how it feels. Starting techs seem like they have a high impact on a start as resource-heavy as this, especially when no-barbs and scouts for everyone means that I would be deeply shocked if anyone didn't go worker-first. In particular, I'm thinking about Philosophical, given the richness of food. But this is my knee-jerk.

Imp bonuses kick in on 2nd hammer, exp 4th (unless its the granary, then every hammer is a bonus) Note of course not on food tiles.

The difficulty on BTS does not affect happy/health like in vanilla. Mainly just on maitainence costs and tech speed without AI/barbs on the map.

[picklepikkl]

Thanks for the note about happy! That changes things.

Am now strongly considering Gilgamesh (CRE/PRO) of India, given that my bonuses are two tiles away and FWs lets me improve them faster. Not sure if the worker techs line up usefully, though. Things for the sandbox!

[picklepikkl]

Now here's a crazy idea: Kublai Khan of Zulu. Border expansion, good starting techs, and fast ikhandas as a poor man's courthouse.

While looking at pro-economy UBs, I also realized that Huayna Capac of Mali is possible. Not sure I like starting with zero food-improving worker techs and banking on a Metal Casting beeline. Similarly, I played around with some sort of Organized Aztec idea, but that's equally reliant on a CoL beeline (and leaves at least one point on the table, which my tidy-mindedness loathes).

Can't wait for work to be over so I can work on this in earnest!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Now here's a crazy idea: Kublai Khan of Zulu. Border expansion, good starting techs, and fast ikhandas as a poor man's courthouse.

While looking at pro-economy UBs, I also realized that Huayna Capac of Mali is possible. Not sure I like starting with zero food-improving worker techs and banking on a Metal Casting beeline. Similarly, I played around with some sort of Organized Aztec idea, but that's equally reliant on a CoL beeline (and leaves at least one point on the table, which my tidy-mindedness loathes).

Can't wait for work to be over so I can work on this in earnest!

I completely understand the hate to leaving points on the table!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

No rush as long time left on the arbitrary deadline I set, but when you decide we can begin!

[picklepikkl]

Oh dear, I hate being holding people up. But I have my final answer: Darius I of Germany.

Basically, I soured on Creative (despite the fact that when I finally figured out sandboxing I realized Creative got me my first worker 1t sooner!) due to the lushness of the map -- if I'm going to be packing cities tightly to make the most use of the terrain, border expansion seems less useful. For this reason as well, having traits that allow my expansion to be maximally sustainable seems most useful. Yeah, my UU and UB are blank, but I like the starting techs, and it's not stretching the truth too far to pretend that my actual UB is a 50% cheaper Courthouse.

Will post more about my sandboxing results when I'm not posting from my phone.

EDIt: Also, if it's not too much trouble, could my civ color be Greece's blue? I don't like the German off-white much. If this is an issue, no worries!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Oh dear, I hate being holding people up. But I have my final answer: Darius I of Germany.

Basically, I soured on Creative (despite the fact that when I finally figured out sandboxing I realized Creative got me my first worker 1t sooner!) due to the lushness of the map -- if I'm going to be packing cities tightly to make the most use of the terrain, border expansion seems less useful. For this reason as well, having traits that allow my expansion to be maximally sustainable seems most useful. Yeah, my UU and UB are blank, but I like the starting techs, and it's not stretching the truth too far to pretend that my actual UB is a 50% cheaper Courthouse.

Will post more about my sandboxing results when I'm not posting from my phone.

EDIt: Also, if it's not too much trouble, could my civ color be Greece's blue? I don't like the German off-white much. If this is an issue, no worries!

I think you are the only person to mention in the sims that cre gets a faster first worker as intended (over exp) I'll try to change civ colour but I'm not that good at the notepad stuff so it could end up being any blue.