[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[scooter]

I dunno, this kinda looks like a Vikings angle to me.

Yes, I'm just gonna start every thread with that now.

[Zed-F]

It does! Sadly they are banned, so you'll have to tell us your grand plan to get around that. Unfortunately, last in the not-snake-pick seems less than ideal.

[Commodore]

I dunno, did you ever consider Charismatic Mongols as a naval civ?

[scooter]

I dunno, did you ever consider Charismatic Mongols as a naval civ?

I'd be lying if I said the thought hasn't at least briefly crossed my mind for this game.

[civac2]

What about Spain?

[scooter]

What about Spain?

Paired with Protective might be interesting, wonder if anyone's tried that. Was also considering Russia.

[Commodore]

A reward for being early on the thread-posting train:

Fog lies.

[scooter]

Thanks!


So, my main challenge with the picks is that I pick 5th and 10th, so I'm going to get last dibs on a lot of things. So if I were to identify a clear Best Leader or Best Civ, there's very little point in getting hopes up because probably someone else will identify it too. So it seems best to instead cast a wider net here and think about different avenues. Here's a few ideas I'm stewing over.


1) Hardcore Astro beeline. This one is obvious. It requires avoiding Paper (and by extension Civil Service and Theology) as well as Meditation, and generate two scientists and double bulb Astro after teching Writing-Alpha-Calendar-Optics. Of course, you'd have to backfill Paper to actually unlock Galleons, but that's easier to line up. This probably requires taking PHI and/or SPI. I mean, you could make it work without, but someone who takes those traits will simply get there faster. Of course, you have to immediately leverage it as fast as you can, because you're probably going to be behind other players who played more traditionally. Someone will try this almost for sure.


2) All-in Pyramids. Take IND at minimum to make it work. This is a bet that a specialist economy is the way to go in a world where a bunch of other economic engines are banned.


3) Protective + Expansion trait and expand, relying on domestic trade routes. Pretty simple. The catch of course is if enough players are running international IC routes, this trait could fall off in usefulness. But I think there's enormous potential here for this to be the all-around choice. There's some concern over whether it has the oomph to compete with the previous two options, along with the next one. There's a case to be made that Protective isn't necessary for this at all, and you could just go Joao or whatever and trade with other players. But I think this is a strong contender.


4) Monk Economy. I think the islands will lend itself to an above-average number of cities relative to the number of land tiles in the game. I also think Monk Economy is sneaky good in CtH and generally underappreciated. For example, PHI picking up cheap Monasteries is a low-key serious buff to the Monk Eco. Also, just the ability to generate hammers on what is likely to be a hammer-poor map is really helpful. This one is hard to get going, and those wonders are expensive, but once you get the ball rolling it's a beast.



This isn't an exhaustive list, but I think it's a decent snapshot at a few styles you could pursue in this setup. I think I like 3-4 right now, but I would be happy to pivot to 1-2 if the other players' picks invite it.

[Tarkeel]

I've decided to embark on this journey with Scooter, and will be playing the role of the elderly man in the bar yelling out random thoughts and facts.

Being a specifically water-heavy map I think some traits are going to be better and worse than normal, mainly:

CREative: City placement is likely to be more dictated by the shape of the land than where resources are placed. Border culture might be less important than usual, but it could also go the other way: Water sometimes gives you the option of settling only 2 tiles away from your opponent, and if you start with free culture it's actually quite possible to flip the city.

CHArismatic: All of the parts could be very useful here: It's not unlikely that the extra happy will matter more than usual, cheaper monuments for culture (see CRE above), and especially more promotions on ships.

PROtective: With ORG and FIN banned and presumably easy access to internal ICTRs, PRO looks almost mandatory for economy, except for...

PHIlisophic: Lets you bulb to Astronomy faster then the competition, which could be the key to victory.

INDustrious: Looks worse off at first glance with it's two key wonders banned, but you might actually be the only player to afford forges.

AGGressive: Makes Amphibious much more attainable for attacking off those ships.

IMPerialistic: Doesn't seem to be worthwhile when you're likely to need galleys early on.


There's also some stand-out civs:

Spain is likely to be under-rated for a water-y map, and the extra ship-xp from Citadels might be a bit late, but probably still worth it.
Germany can have very early grenadiers to load on boats.
America is always good to combine with PHI-bulbing.
Carthage could be very good but really needs to also grab Mao (EXP/PRO) to make the most out of Cothons.

Thoughts on the start will come later.

[Tarkeel]

Some thoughts on the start:

The crabs are a trap; Wet corn is the way.
Only one river-tile in BFC and only three hills.
Moving W might be an option; worth checking with scout?
Lake means starting with fishing leads to more commerce, which looks sorely needed here.