( SPOILERS ) A Minnow Among Sharks- Superdeath takes another swing at it

[superdeath]

First post-

Ill have to think of a city naming scheme, but i already know what kind of Civ/leaders i want.

Civ- Something in the form of defensive UU, or great UB would be fantastic.
Leader- Looking for basically anything new to me, Really thinking about trying to get the most out of PHI/spiritual if i can. although if something stupid good comes up ( Cre/pro or Pro/cha ) i wont say no...




PW-

grapejuice 

I should be able to make all turns except maybe a small pause at random Christmas/ect times. If i somehow havent played nor asked for a pause im likely dead, so please make common sense moves until further notice

[Mardoc]

Your first round choices are:
Carthage
Ragnar (Agg, Fin)
Wang Kon (Fin, Pro)

[superdeath]

Hmm.. interesting. Fin is really nerfed in RTR.. But if there is a fair amount of water it gets a little bit of use. Agg is a really great trait now... same with PRO. If only i didnt get FIN to go with them lol.
Carthage isnt terrible, so i will KEEP

Toss back the Fin pair. Get me something i havent played before please.

[chumchu]

Do you want a dedlurker? I am mostly unspoiled as well.

[superdeath]

Sure! Nice to have someone to bounce ideas and other things off of

[chumchu]

Good!

What is you rating of the different traits for this start?

My thinking when choosing traits is that the game usually progresses through three phases. In the early game you need hammers to expand and grow as fast as possible. In the mid game you need economic bonuses to avoid crashing your economy from all the expansion. After that you need a military edge to win. You ideally want something in all three categories. I do not rate Darius very highly for that reason as organised and financial means that you lack early hammers and any big military advantage. In this game I think that mid-game economy will be the problem due to a sparse map. Carthage is amazing for that reason. Mining/Fishing works as we can go Hunting/Bronze Working. Solid pick.

Financial: +1 commerce on all non-river tiles that have 2+ commerce. +100% production of Bank.
Good eco but no help with hammers and military. With the nerf it takes 10 extra turns to get the bonus from cottages which is significant. The other improvement choices are better as well. It is good on water heavy maps where you will be working a lot of coast such as this one. No-RB means a much less lush map where that might happen more.

Expansive: +2 health per city. +35% production of Worker, Work Boat. +100% production of Market, Aqueduct, Grocer, Harbor.
Helps with both hammers and eco. I think it is underrated in the current meta because of the loss of granaries. Faster workers/work boats and markets is a nice compensation. You gain 3 turns on the worker right from the start in most cases and a lot of upfront hammers during the entire expansion phase. Markets and Grocers are not bad at half price either as you unlock them with already important techs currency and guilds. This map seems good for it with workboats to be built and plenty of places for Cothons. The health might also matter on a non-RB map.

Creative: +2 culture per city. +100% production of Theatre. +35% production of Library, Observatory.
A good help with early hammers from free border pop. The bonuses to eco and military are small. I personally do not rate this trait

Charismatic: +2 happiness. +1 happiness from Broadcast Tower. -25% XP needed for promotions. +100% production of Colosseum, +35% production of Library.
A small help with early hammers from the extra happy for slaving or growing onto mines. The happy also helps with eco in the early midgame. Really good military bonus with the extra xp. Especially for water as can be seen in PB37. Fits perfectly with numidians. . We only see one happiness resource and with a non-RB map we are not guaranteed many more.

Protective: Free City Garrison 1, Drill 1 promo for archery and gunpowder units. +100 production of Granary, Walls.
Good early hammers from granaries. Good but defensive military bonus.

Imperialistic: +50% production of Settlers. +100% Great General points. +100% production of Custom Houses.
Best trait for early hammers. The eco and military bonuses are underwhelming.

Aggressive: Free C1 promo for melee and gunpowder units. -25% city maintenance. +100% production of Barracks, Stable, Drydock.
No early hammer bonus, the culture on baracks just means that you get a better building than a monment for culture needs. The economic bonus is small but good because you get it from early and for free. The military bonus is great.

Philosophical: +150% Great Person production, +100% production of University
Only an eco bonus and one with diminishing returns. You need a good plan to use midgame bulbing for something else to make it strong. Weakest trait in my opinion. Better in late starts though.

Industrious: No change from BtS
Decent early hammers from cheap forges. Metal casting is significantly cheaper now and on the road to machinery so it is more possible to get it early. Mid-game economy is unfortunately wonder dependent. This map looks prime for GL or Colossus but can we get them?

Spiritual: No change from BtS
No early hammers but a small bonus form fewer turns in anarchy. Good midgame eco and decent military from the ability to switch between civics. The buff to many civics and the fact that they are earlier helps spiritual a lot. It requires a different tech path to unlock them though.

Organised: No change from BtS
No early hammers except from lighthouses on heavy water maps such as this one. Good midgame eco. A decent military bonus from espionage advantage.

My subjective tiers for the traits:

1 Expansive, Charismatic,
2 Organised, Aggressive, Protective,
3 Spiritual, Financial
4 Creative, Imperialist
5 Philosophical, Industrious

I think anything with Expansive/Organised/Financial and some military is fine on this map. I would probably have kept Wang Kon. But I'm hoping for Washington now=)

[superdeath]

I'm really hoping for anything with CHA. Although if I get something like exp/imp with something I might just take that. Gameplan is to out expand my neighbors and use land advantage to either grab a big hanging gardens, or whip some numi cave and crush someone. I haven't played basically any big and small maps, so I'll have to see what they typically look like when I get off work. If they have a ton of water I might try and secure CHA even more for better naval engagements.  

If I were to rank the traits based on my experiences-

Cha/imp/agg
Pro/exp/cre
Phi/spi/Ind/org/fin. 

I like creative for the early border locks, it may be a more " noon " choice especially with barracks giving culture making agg almost like a mini creative as well.. But the bonus for libraries isn't bad. 

My top leaders Washington, Kublai Khan, Boudicca, joao.

I'll have to see if having a dedlurker will help with my near constant need to bumrush someone.. Although Carthage doesn't have a "early" uu... So that may help.

[superdeath]

If you've seen the starts, you can't ded lurk except with total agreement from other players as you are spoiled.

That said, the map has not been posted.

Hrmm. Hope no one objects.

[chumchu]

I do not think so. If I had seen the map it would be different.

[chumchu]

Big and Small usually has a lot of water and islands with fish. It is a common map for space races in SP as Sid's Sushi is very strong on that map. It can also produce clusters of resources that are useful for amazing starts like 5 grassland gems 2 corn.

Our main points of disagreement is exp/imp/org.

What is the economic plan with Kublai Khan?

Abour creative. Creative culture is way better than aggressive culture and is the main feature of the trait. 2 culture from the start versus 1 culture after the barracks, that is 10+ turns of difference. I think creative is worse on a map like this with less resources to fight for. However it is also better on water maps as it is very helpful for fishing villages.