A Record of Joey's Journey to Immortality

[GermanJoey]

Spoiler Alert: I die. RIP. 

[Mardoc]

Your start:



Fog does not actually lie this time, although you're certainly welcome to read more into it than is actually there

[GermanJoey]

Thanks Mardoc.

Hmmm hmmm, this is a tricky one.

[GermanJoey]

WB first is... 9 turns? Cripes. Dare I to wander?

[GermanJoey]

Ok, Mardoc said in the tech thread that the rice is irrigated, so that's a 5f tile too. I think we want a Hunting/Mining or Agri/Mining civ and go BW->Fishing, then chop out the WB? The worker can improve either the rice or the cow while waiting for fishing to finish. That sounds about right.

[GermanJoey]

krill was flipping out about the unfairness of the zulu first-pick on discord, but IMO Russia was way better here.

first, hunting/mining are the techs you want, imo; you pick up fishing for cheap first thing, then go for BW. BW is too expensive and the clam is too important to chop it out, so you need the cow hooked first to get the wb; however, I don't think you wanna pick up agri right away unless there's a wet corn or wheat at your first city site because otherwise you'll get BW too late. (it's like a 17 turn tech w/ the oasis)

next, russia's ub is one of the very best, especially in a snake pick when you can pair it with phi and an early expansion trait. god forbid you land the mids. and of course, then there's cossacks, one of the only worthwhile late-game UUs.

anyways, i'm traveling this week and i just found out that my internet access will be a lot more spotty than I had expected. so, if i'm not around and the picks are waiting on me, could a lurker please follow this flowchart for my pick:

always pick civ with my first pick, then pick a leader depending on which civ I get.

if Greece is available then:
a.) Churchill
b.) Lincoln

if the above are not available, but HRE is:
a.) Julius Caesar

if none of the above is available, but Khmer is:
a.) Mehmed
b.) Mao

if none of the above is available:
hold the phone because my mind is blown

[GermanJoey]

OH, and if the game starts and i'm not around, please just SIP and move my scout around in a big circle around the capital or whatever. seriously though, i should at least be able to show up on-site for at least once a day. i just don't want krill's head to explode like that dude from scanners because his game got delayed.

[GermanJoey]

I guess I'll make a short update here too.

First of all... Krill, jesus this guy. He nags me relentlessly to join this game and then he pulls off this bullshit. I yelled at him for a long time on Discord about this. First of all, I vehemently disagree with him about the setup here. I mean, yes, the start is a lot slower than I prefer too, but IMHO mirrored starts w/ a snake pick is perfectly fine for this sort of start! There's multiple ways to play it! Imp or Exp leaders can ignore the rice for awhile! Or you could make a trade off to pick something slower but more powerful long-term! Plus everyone has to deal with the same thing! So what if someone gets fucking Zulu here! You could have still taken Persia (and I told him this before he made his awful civ pick!) if you think starting techs are that important!

On top of that, spending 3 turns moving off a PH is ridiculous dangerous. If he doesn't find a PH or a 3f tile to settle on, just how good of a capital would he need to make up for SIX TURNS lost? Really, really good I think. Like, at least 3 6f tiles + lots of trees to beat out an unmoved capital before T50, or maybe even T60. And that's not comparing against an Imp civ that could settle this new super site by like T22. (which is what he shoulda done if he hated this capital so much). On top of that, he's gonna end up fucking with his copper/horse/iron positioning, potentially putting him in a spot like I had in PB20 where I moved and ended up forcing my only neighbor copper to be foodless and essentially unconnectable until the capital popped 3rd ring. Or there's retap in PB16. Or what if the copper is auto-connected along the river, like in pb25? There's Impis on this map, dude! Oh yeah, and you might have just moved yourself 7 tiles closer to an opponent! Hope you don't get your capital murked by a warrior before your first worker is done! (LURKERS: please tell Krill's neighbors to drown him in warriors before his first worker is done!)

I seriously can't believe that he'd spend so much effort setting up the game and then risk strangling it in the grave.

[GermanJoey]

Anyways, about my pick here. First of all, I wanted to give the buffed Cha a whirl. It gains +35% to libraries (a minor buff) and half-priced colosseums (hmm...), in addition to +2 happy and discounted XP requirements for unit upgrades. I'm really unsure how strong it'll be here, but I've always found the souped-up versions of Cha interesting. I've played ToW Cha twice, in PB20 and PB21, and couldn't quite make it work, although those were kinda odd games. But this Cha is a little more solid than that Tow Cha. Anyways, I figure if I have half-priced Colleseums, I might as well pick up a good one. So I picked Greece for the Odeon. 2 happy, artist slot, +3 culture, +1 XP, for 40h - pretty interesting, right? Reminds me a bit of Exp, where the trait can kinda gives you a "new" building that other people kinda don't get. So then I figure, what goes well with Cha? Gotta be Pro. Exp is my favorite BTS trait but I haven't played a pitboss game w/ in like 3 years now, and I don't think ever on RB. I also think Pro is nearer the higher end of the RtR trait tiers, below Org but in the tier below that. On top of that, I've been trying to convince Krill to remove Pro's free CG promotion for years, and this game might be a good chance to show him how dumb-broken it is. Thus, Pro/Cha of Greece.

Unfortunately, this isn't a very good start for Pro or Greece. Shitty wet rice makes you want to avoid Agri, and relatively low food surplus means that growing tall early is a poor choice. High tech requirements mean starting with fishing is a disadvantage. However, when I did a few very basic sims (all I had time for), I noticed that a few convenient coincidences in the way micro works out, as well as the option to take cheap RtR Archery, means that Pro isn't too bad here after all. Also, the clam and the oasis should cut down a few turns on tech timing compared to an ordinary start. Well, we shall see! (very very slowly, that is, because this turn pace is awful and we've already had 3 timer pauses plus a reload in just the first 6 turns!)

[Tacitus]

Anyways, about my pick here. First of all, I wanted to give the buffed Cha a whirl. It gains +35% to libraries (a minor buff) and half-priced colosseums (hmm...), in addition to +2 happy and discounted XP requirements for unit upgrades. I'm really unsure how strong it'll be here, but I've always found the souped-up versions of Cha interesting. I've played ToW Cha twice, in PB20 and PB21, and couldn't quite make it work, although those were kinda odd games. But this Cha is a little more solid than that Tow Cha. Anyways, I figure if I have half-priced Colleseums, I might as well pick up a good one. So I picked Greece for the Odeon. 2 happy, artist slot, +3 culture, +1 XP, for 40h - pretty interesting, right? Reminds me a bit of Exp, where the trait can kinda gives you a "new" building that other people kinda don't get. So then I figure, what goes well with Cha? Gotta be Pro. Exp is my favorite BTS trait but I haven't played a pitboss game w/ in like 3 years now, and I don't think ever on RB. I also think Pro is nearer the higher end of the RtR trait tiers, below Org but in the tier below that. On top of that, I've been trying to convince Krill to remove Pro's free CG promotion for years, and this game might be a good chance to show him how dumb-broken it is.  Thus, Pro/Cha of Greece.

Unfortunately, this isn't a very good start for Pro or Greece. Shitty wet rice makes you want to avoid Agri, and relatively low food surplus means that growing tall early is a poor choice. High tech requirements mean starting with fishing is a disadvantage. However, when I did a few very basic sims (all I had time for), I noticed that a few convenient coincidences in the way micro works out, as well as the option to take cheap RtR Archery, means that Pro isn't too bad here after all. Also, the clam and the oasis should cut down a few turns on tech timing compared to an ordinary start. Well, we shall see! (very very slowly, that is, because this turn pace is awful and we've already had 3 timer pauses plus a reload in just the first 6 turns!)

Could you enlighten me on just what is so bad about the free CG promo? Its a pain in single player when the AI spams a bunch of archers with it, but I always thought it was a fairly unimportant part of the trait given how static defenders get so easily destroyed by collateral damage. What am I missing?