[spoilers] The 49ers: Sanctimony and Public Defecation

[Commodore]

Now Samurai beelines...

I want these to succeed, so I want you to succeed. Good luck!

Thanks, Naufragar.

If it gets down to me while I sleep, I'll take Boudica to let you guys go ahead and kick it off.

[Commodore]

ROSTER:
9) Miguelito / pindicator - JUSTINIAN of INDIA
8) Ruff_Hi - MONTEZUMA of NORTH AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
7) Superdeath / GKC - STALIN of ROME
6) Fintourist / et al - ISABELLA of INCA
5) Elkad - JOAO of KHMER
4) Mr. Cairo - MEHMED of PERSIA
3) Cornflakes / giraflorens - NAPOLEON of BABYLON
2) Raskolnikov / Rusten - CATHERINE of CARTHAGE
1) Commodore - BOUDICA of JAPAN

Interesting field. I think people are in general are wise to not taking too much stock in the “6-8 cities” claim…it’s hard for most mapmakers to accurately guess how tight people will pack their dotmaps. My Agg discounts will be seen, the Imps will enjoy settlers, etc, etc. I am slightly weirded out by the mass popularity of Spiritual, but hey.


Miguelito (talkative, enthusiastic) is JUSTINIAN (Spi/Imp) of INDIA (Nice Granary, Nice Pike)
I have positive impressions of Miguelito from his one game (where he won Liberalism and lost the game, classic). Anyone who can string coherent sentences together makes you assume general competence. His dedlurker Pindicator will help with wisdom, but I don’t think detailed micro and everything else. He’s piloting the fast-expanding, kind of economically stinky, Justinian of India. He’s going to enjoy the discounted granaries he gets, but the real nice bit will be that +1  that every city gets. Engineering is kind of grossly overpowered in this mod version; I’m not sure moving Privateers there was anything like a nerf. The Ukuru pikes can stop anything short of cavalry for mounted, which is nice. I don’t see a single focused game-plan here, which is of course fine. Mysticism and Spiritual says…these guys are going to want Hinduism or Judaism soon. Not the best neighbor, but not the worst either.


Ruff_Hi (sleepy, confused) is MONTEZUMA (Spi/Agg) of NATIVES (Pathfinder, Totem Pole)
Ruff’s got himself some wonderfully wacky stuff here with Monty of NA. I don’t see synergy, and beyond the nice cheap/instant monument thing he’s got jack, diddly, and squat for snowball speeding. I’m not 100% sure that Ruff is aware that Dog Soldiers are gone…


Superdeath (kamikaze, postal) is STALIN (Agg/Ind) of ROME (Praetorian, Forum)
Aggressive Rome is a fairly stereotypical Superdeath pick, although he’s not really quite a berserker, more a people-blind irascible guy prone to kill himself by messing up whatever neighbor his RNG lands on. Praetorians are great, Forums are fine, cheap forges are good…eh, I guess he’s fine. Please let us not neighbor this guy.


Hitru, Fintourist-flavored (perfect, beautiful) is ISABELLA (Spi/Exp) of INCA (Terrace, Quecha)
The Fintourist flavor of Hitru-puppet is pretty formidable. The only real weakness is that I don’t think he has quite the same amount of time to run 60+ city empires. As the entire map is set to hold 60 some odd cities, I…think he’s okay. Cheapish terraces are solid, expansive is solid, spiritual is great when someone has the wisdom to use it well...this guy is going to be formidable. I might actually want to neighbor them, assuming a light other-side neighbor, better to be able to push them early and often.


Elkad (combative, vengeful) is JOAO (Exp/Imp) of KHMER (Baray, Ballin’ Pants)
I think I’ve been underrating Elkad as a threat; he’s a scraper. His biggest weakness seems to be a tendency to fall behind in tech and development, but he is fine to mass axes, caravels, longbows, whatever. Joao will help him in nothing falling behind on cities, and Khmer Stuff is nice (if you were going to Mass A Thing, war elephants aren’t an awful choice), but I think he’s got nothing to help him keep up economically. Still a crummy neighbor, he’ll push your borders and then mass eight million axes when you object.


Mr. Cairo (peaceful, serene) is MEHMED (Org/Exp) of PERSIA (Satrap Court, Immortal)
The placid and calm Mr. Cairo is a lover, not a fighter. He wants nothing more than to enjoy -75% maint cities and build up his magnificent infrastructure. A competent player (as indeed seems to be the whole field), Cairo’s reputation for passivity might be slightly overstated but it has a reason. I just don’t get the impression that Cairo is always seeking to grab an objective, he is just content to generally take the game as it comes. His combo isn’t doing him favors there, although it’s fine. He’s fine, but possibly my favored neighbor?


Cornflakes (motivated, strategic) is NAPOLEON (Org/Chm) of BABYLON (Garden, Bowman)
Nice, we have the cheap-granary trifecta represented here. Cornflakes seems like a fan of Babylon, having picked them in PB50 as well. There’s plenty to like, the Garden lets him avoid Pottery for his start, and the Bowman is a generally solid defender and can even choke if you need it. I don’t know that this map is going to be high enough maintenance to justify organized, but I like Chm if he has a capital this lush and strong. Not easy food here, but maybe can be squeezed a bit.


Raskolnikov (involved, personable) is CATHERINE (Cre/Imp) of CARTHAGE (Numidians, Cothon)
This must be a tech pick on a coastal start, as Carthage is otherwise a decent but pretty dull civ. The greenest player in the field, I’d be discounting Raskolnikov pretty heavily were it not for his friendship with Rusten, who is extremely involved here. Cathy is quite the bucking bronco to ride, though, she’s fast out of the gate but doesn’t give you much coin once you’re in the main stretch. At least his horse archers are slightly better against swords, praetorians, and samurai? We’ll see how the kid does, it’s a wild ride.

[Charriu]

Superdeath will love the comic strip.

I have to ask though. Where did you find that bonkers picture for Elkad? And was the blood already there?

[DaveV]

I was puzzled by the Cairo picture at first (Cairo != Christos), but chi rho is clever.

[shallow_thought]

Hitru-puppet

I think we prefer to see ourselves as artisans, implementing the master's designs.

[Commodore]

Superdeath will love the comic strip.

I have to ask though. Where did you find that bonkers picture for Elkad? And was the blood already there?

DDGIS is wild, makes GIS look like a pansy.

[Commodore]

We're rolling, lads. Looks like we've already got a potential plains hill second city site that shares deer and corn, rockin'. I'm going to have a lot of BUG mod functionality to figure out here, but most importantly...what's the theme?

Password is "Ginger"

[Commodore]

...and turn 1. Hey piggy piggy, you lookin' mighty fine.

With six hundred and some odd tiles, I think the peak line shows a pretty clear border area.

[Commodore]

Oh hey, check it out:

Definitely looks like a classic "contested border region". Them golds sure would speed a feller on to Machinery, wouldn't they?

[Commodore]

Welp, there are better neighbors, but not many. Newbie with awesome dedlurker of Carthage. Fear Numidians, and Creative even more.