The essential form of the BFC may be relied upon, though we might still make superficial changes e.g. to whether the trees are deciduous, conifers, or snowy, and we might imaginably even rotate the whole thing 90 degrees or something since the surrounding terrain is still being finalized. The corner tiles may yet change, and the fog is a fabric of lies, but at least you've got your start!
Also note the nationality of the selected scout is arbitrary. Feel free to make assumptions about the unit underneath.
I'm torn on these starting options and somewhat constrained by upcoming life changes. Assuming an average of a new turn every 1.5 days (not unrealistic although I did not track this for the last big game, which I'll use as the closest comparison to this game's setup) it will take until approximately September to reach T150. I have a lot of spare time until around September. After this I'll have much less time to spend on Civ. This may lead to some high variant play. Whereas in PB18 I played the long game throughout, managing my empire's growth with an eye weighted strongly toward the future in anticipation of participating in the full game, here I may be better served to try to get into a decisive position, for either good or ill, before my ability to invest time in the game would negate my ability to be successful.
From my civ/leader options, Boudica (AGG/CHA) certainly presents the opportunity for variant play. Throw down a few cities and then try to overwhelm opponents with superior units. The obvious drawback here is the absence of a good expansion trait. How do you get enough build queues to do the job properly when others will naturally be able to expand faster? I played PB18 well in this regard without an expansion trait (PHI/CRE) but I also had relatively weak neighbors and other map advantages (end position on an island with only one front to defend and push into in the expansion phase) in that game that I cannot count on here. However, as AGG/CHA, my neighbors are likely to be wary of me and give the benefit of the doubt in situations in the early game that could become contentious, such as settling less aggressively against me.
I have warred in previous games with varying degrees of success. Gawdzak eliminated me in PB 32(?) using Mids/State Property and IND forges to overwhelm me with more units than I could handle. But he is a better player than the average in this game and looking at the field here he'd be in the top 5 players IMO. Alternatively, in PB18 I fought virtually every civ within reach with complete impunity, frequently fighting more than one civ at a time and never going backwards. This relied upon both technological and production advantages, though, which I can't count on with Boudica.
With Boudica I think I can count on making it out of the expansion phase with my share of land, either by using Boudica's traits to allow me to invest less in military, skating on reputation/fear of war, or by harassing my neighbors at a relatively cheap rate to hold land open until my later arriving settlers can fill the gaps. But fighting wars when there is still free land to settle is generally a losing proposition. The passive AGG maintenance reduction will help keep my economy moving along so it is possible that I may be able to secure a regional tech lead which may lead to the possibility of earlier warring for profit. In a vacuum, discounting the potential for difficult neighbors, this seems promising. If left alone I am quite capable of producing a lean, efficient empire.
I have to say that Catherine (CRE/IMP) is pretty underwhelming to me. On the one hand, expansion is better, but I don't think this is as strong as PRO and lacks the defensive bonuses. I was kind of hoping to give PRO a try this time and be able to get out to a faster start than neighbors and use this advantage to snowball. I did play CRE previously and didn't love it. I can get border popping from AGG + discount barracks and I won't need culture in every city immediately.
I actually just looked up the CRE trait and it is once again +2 culture. Had this changed at some point? It seems to me maybe it had. I also remember it not including a bonus to building libraries in PB18, which is now back up to 35% bonus in production. Not as good as BtS but better than when I played it. IMP is less good than it used to be with the primary benefit being +50% settler production bonus. This is more free hammers in the early game but it just doesn't seem as fun to me.
Khmer seems very meh. Ballistaphants aren't OP like they used to be and being able to selectively hit mounted units from stacks is not really a great help. A good player will simply move mounted stacks out of range of the slow-moving phants, negating the selective targeting so this then only really becomes a possibility when fighting in your own borders, which I don't intend to have to do.
Anyway, I'm going to play a couple of starts. Khmer has hunting/mining, which isn't terrible, but CHA wants to whip which means wheel/agri/pottery but also BW. Several techs in the way to get there. I need to compare that to BW and chopping. My guess is getting agriculture then BW is going to be the way to go. I haven't played a single game of civ in a long, long time so I'm quite rusty. Time to sim and knock the rust off.
It just occurs to me that Boudica is a troll by the mapmakers. Are you daring me to reprise Krill's most recent foray and wander into the wilderness? Is this my destiny?
It seems it must be so. It is written in the stars.
I think I may pick Khmer just because that blue is pleasant to look at. If I'm going to be spending hours in game by the endgame (why plan for any other eventuality?) then I at least can prevent my retinas from burning from extended exposure to bad colors.
I ought to try to see how bad things look with a fishing/mysticism start to compare with what I have now. I can make 4 cities, 3 workers (could improve this), 2 granaries, including one in the capital (theme needed, lurkers make your requests), 1 Barracks (should swap for worker instead, was placeholder), and 3 warriors happen by T50 with what I have here. That's enough to be within a shout of the leaders at that point and I can likely do better once I know I have more resources than the two wheat tiles I've used so far. I'll at least be able to see bronze, assuming the mapmakers haven't had enough of my shit and have put my bronze in a lake, so that alone will increase hammer yields on a tile I'm always going to use. So the odds are good that I can improve on what I have here.
I'll do an apples to apples run with shitty starting techs to see how badly I risk my opening by potentially giving up viable starting techs. The assumption has to be that the best starting tech civs will be retained by others so the reject pool is going to get more cluttered with clunkers the further into the process we go. One benefit of giving up Khmer is that I'll have a chance to be able to apply AGG to my UU. Ballistaphant doesn't get much from AGG.
Another option: If I do end up rerolling, there's a decent chance there will by Mysticism tech civs in the trash pile which could open a play for religion first! With this many players an early religion is certain to spread and a shrine will be quite generous. I can't even begin to quantify how badly the RNG screwed me in PB18 with my shrine attempt and bad how the knock-on effects were. I think dtay had a shrine pulling in 200g+/turn in the mid-game. That is a quite meaningful sum to pull in passively every turn for the rest of the game.
I have not used Hunting at all yet, so it stands to reason that I can get a decent opening and still spare time for a religion. It would be more viable if the mod had flattened tech costs for the first row techs but a disparity remains (Fishing 69b, Myst/Mining 85, TW/AG/Hunting 103) in the sandbox I'm using now. Much to consider to find the optimal solution...
In order to guarantee a religion I would need to start with Mysticism. I also need Agriculture for my start. Inca starts Ag/Myst but I seriously doubt that option will be in the pool. Someone would have to be crazy to pass up Inca in a field this large. Arabia also starts with these techs but what are the odds I can roll exactly the civ that I need with only two chances? Also, someone may want Arabia anyway so this is a very risky proposition.
Other thoughts: I've been operating under the assumption of mirrored-ish starts but this may not be the case. Starts may be similar but it could be that starts only require one food tech (pick one among Ag/Hunting/Fishing) to get going, and any of these can be researched prior to the first worker/boat completing. I remember Krill kvetching about the initial worker tech requirements needed for PB37 and I assume that, at least initially, he has been a primary mapmaker. At the very least he will bray about this tech situation in the setup thread and folks will defer to him on the issue. I feel pretty confidently that this is how the starts will be balanced this time around based on what I've seen from my start.
The impact of this is that it is possible that some folks will see the map and reroll civ and perhaps get one that has the food resource needed for that start. There are several more Hunting/Mysticism civs than Agriculture/Mysticism civs, so it is possible that one of these starts will snipe an early religion before I can get there because I have to go Agriculture first given my map. Or, if I swap civs and manage get an Agriculture civ (no guarantee), then I'd still have to research Mysticism, so I'm still a tech behind.
The probability of getting exactly what I need from the civ roll to guarantee the early religion is lower than the possibility that I can do a more traditional fast opening with what I have now and find some way to get religion later, particularly with Boudica. I can go tall and work cottages and use AGG's maintenance discount and try to beat teams to CoL. Or I can wait for someone to get the religion and build a shrine then go take it with highly promoted units as long as I manage my early game economy sufficiently, keeping in range of game leaders in city count and important demos.
I tried Cathy's (IMP/CRE) opening with Khmer and I'm still underwhelmed. It's a bit faster than Boudica but I end up with approximately the same civilization by T50, with just a little less development. I didn't play ahead further and it makes no sense to do so with no map knowledge but Cathy will start to pull ahead by T60 as cities with granaries will be more fully grown and better able to consistently work tiles with good output sooner than CHM/AGG. But it just isn't as fun as having strong units that other players will be deferential toward. Therefore, I'll KEEP BOUDICA.
And while Khmer isn't the most fun pick to me, the starting techs are too important to risk getting completely hosed. I see these tech options getting worse rather than better as the picks continue. KEEPKHMER.
Map request: If the Patriots win the Super Bowl on Sunday, please revise dtay's land area sharply downward and replace with a Serdoa Ocean of Tears™. We can discuss the pros and cons of this in my thread to drive page views and win the thread war.
For the life of me I can't imagine what others are so furiously posting about. I guess I should have rerolled to keep new information coming in so I could at least remain competitive with the thread views.
Request for Ocean of Tears withdrawn. Ocean is rising in Boston metro area now. Salinity level off the charts. Chris Colinsworth is the leading contributor. So salty. It's annoying when the color commentator is the biggest fanboi and is biased throughout the broadcast.
I'm finally ready to start making some opposition analysis, but only if I can get a little lurker participation. I know there aren't many lurkers with so many playing in the game, but here's a little chum for you guys: it comes with a tier list.
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![[Image: GettyImages-914346954.jpg]](https://media.nbclosangeles.com/images/652*435/GettyImages-914346954.jpg)
![[Image: 300-231274-ocean-food-chain.jpg]](https://media.buzzle.com/media/images/illustrations/aquatic-animals/300-231274-ocean-food-chain.jpg)