[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[greenline]

Genghis/Zulu also did well in PB31, although the map there was also weird to say the least

[greenline]

I'm also wondering about alternative Oracle targets. HBR is so easy to get and then I'd only be 3XP from HE...Monarchy requires no additional tech. IW? Might be a first. Denial is important and i want it for the GP points, so the tech cost is less interesting for me than usual. Aesthetics is good because it's expensive and the main gate to an early HE, but there is still the 200 hammer cost of HE...Decisions decisions...

Getting HBR early to save XP for HE seems like shooting yourself in the foot since that's several hundred beakers not spent on the top of the three for A E S T H E T I C and no early GLib. Unless you turn around and crush someone with HAs (definitely not impossible though   ) it seems like too much a diversion from CURRENCY and math and also CURRENCY

[Krill]

The specifics of Genghis of Zulu are that it should work, and I figure that most of the failures are due to player error, but errors that don't even seem like errors when they are made. Add in the inflexibility of the traits to increase economic output and I think it's easy to understand why that combo falls into a hole so often. That doesn't mean it's a bad pick, just that it's not one that ie easy to play, or that it's a sure thing.

I fear that you are both right, that Oracle>Aesthetics is necessary. I feel that the Oracle build is justifiable, in terms of the GP generation alone, but the denial value is massive. Taking that away from Bismark would be quite a hit, forcing them away from the Aesthetics route, and making them consider MC versus Currency. Same reason I picked Inca really, and sometimes too similar to how I play some games. Denial.

So current plans are Hunting>Fishing, then reassess. Polytheism>Mining>BW, reassess (if CML takes Henge that should delay Oracle, need to consider options). Priesthood>Writing.

[Krill]

1. dtay - ___ of Zulu (Agri/Hunting)
   
2. CML - ___ of Russia (Hunting/Mining)
   
3. Couerva (Bacchus as DL) - ___ of Carthage (Fishing/Mining)
   
4. Dark Savant (ipecac as DL) - ___ of Ethiopia (Hunting/Mining)
   
5. Gavagai - Suryavarman (CRE/EXP) of ___
   
6. Krill - ___ of Inca (Agri/Myst)
   
7. Ventessel - Wang Kon (FIN/PRO)of ___
   
8. Germanjoey - ___ of Greece (Hunting/Fishing)
   
9. JR4 (DL requested) - Isabella (SPI/EXP) of Mongolia (Hunting/Wheel)
   
10. Germanjoey - Churchill (PRO/CHM) of Greece
    
11. Ventessel - Wang Kon of China (Agri/Mining)
    
12. Krill - Boudicca (AGG/CHM) of Inca
    
13. Gavagai -  Suryavarman of Ottomans (Wheel/Agri)
    
14. Dark Savant (ipecac as DL) - Shaka (AGG/EXP) of Ethiopia
    
15. Couerva (Bacchus as DL) - Cyrus (IMP/CHM) of Carthage
    
16. CML - Bismark (IND/EXP)of Russia
    
17. dtay - Tokugawa (AGG/PRO) of Zulu
    

I'm writing this list to explain a bit about the snake pick.

Due to the mirrored starts, I think that players have prioritized the civs because these are not as well balanced as the leader traits. I believe that this is a good example of why mirrored starts and snake picks are not always compatible in base BtS and RtR 2.X. The players at the top of the snakepick choose the most suitable civs, and then get to choose the leaders that respond best to the players at the bottom of the pick (IND when no one else picks it, only IMP to try and get an asynchronous, early game advantage). The fact that the starts are identical does not decrease the difference between the players, but actually increases the variance as players lower down the snakepick have to make do with "worse" choices.

The solutions to this problem are three fold IMO:

1. Don't mirror starts (should be setup decision).
   
2. Remove starting techs from civs (mod decision, should be implemented in 3.X if the next version ever gets made)
   
3. Don't have tech limited starts thus increasing the pool of effective civs to chose from (ie don't use all three food types, just use two of them). ie in this case, use seafood and then a grass pig and plains cow versus a wet corn and wet wheat, but maybe place the animals further apart to delay the hook up, and have the grains adjacent.

More to come later.

Oh and Greenline, to answer your question about when it was decided about anything in this mod, the basic answer is this: I decided, using my experience, based of game reports and knowledge and analyses of other people. But I made the final call in 95% of the decision for this mod. I've read pretty much all the threads for RtR games on this forum, and compared more than a few of the starts for rate of expansion and the like. Is it perfectly scientific? No. Does that matter? Not really, and it's sure more analytical than Firaxis have ever been.

[Krill]

Looking at that snakepick, I'm starting to think that Inca turned into a trap.

Immediately after picking INCA, PRO/CHM and PRO/FIN got picked. PRO/ORG doesn't exist. That left:

• PRO/AGG - Barracks antisynergy but irrelevant, build barracks later in specific cities still leads to hammer saving, no mid or late game economic bonus, gunpowder units annoying but not dangerous.
  
• PRO/IMP - go broke too quickly, no cheap buildings. Joao og Inca lite. Not playing that again.
  
• PRO/EXP - As above, so below, better mid game. Best choice of hte lot. Dtay in PB18 plan: grab Oracle plus shrine and knight rush someone.
  
• PRO/PHI - kill me now boring.
  
• PRO/IND - When someone counter picks Bismark and you don't want Henge, you sell out for Oracle but lose due to tech constraints of this start. Not pickable.
  
• PRO/SPI - Can't play SPI, too little time. Viable though, but focus on growth not wonders.
  
• PRO/CRE - WWWHHHHYYYYYYYY?
  

So PRO/EXP is IMO the only sane pick if Inca is chosen. I think that Inca might have been missed throughout, but really if Joey had been able to pick Inca he may have, and then been able to pair it with PRO/CHM which seems much better than the above choices. Or at least more fun. Early granary to grow tall and stack whip anger seems better than IMP hammer bonus, and better long term options (even if stagnate, that's 2 extra cottages, cheap libraries compared to IMP so more resilient with mistakes). PRO/FIN would also have been decent for that same sort of reasoning.

tl;dr is that I may have fucked up.

OTOH, the reasons I picked Inca come down to one reason: denial. if I had picked another Myst civ, I left myself open to someone else starting Myst and I lose a religion due to either a coin flip or other bad luck after attempting to research Poly or Med. This way, I'm the only Myst civ, so I seriously doubt anyone going Myst>Poly so should be safe. Boudicca is just for shits and giggles. Anything like EXP, IMP plus an economic tech would have been fine with Inca. Pacal, Bismark even would have been fine. I can't really justify Boudicca in anyway apart from the "Why not?" approach.

[greenline]

what I don't get about the snake pick is why it hasn't ended yet

[Thoth]

what I don't get about the snake pick is why it hasn't ended yet

If you look a bit more closely at the list that Krill posted you will see that it has ended.

[greenline]

If you look a bit more closely at the list  that Krill posted you will see that it has ended.  

oh yeah 

(is that really a non EXP carthage? and an ethiopia pick?)

[Krill]

Do you understand the vitriol about mirrored starts now?

[darrelljs]

Do you understand the vitriol about mirrored starts now?

Yup.  Didn't understand it at the time but now it makes sense.

Darrell