[spoilers] Commodore is absolutely confident this will end well.

[Commodore]

---

This is a very stable number of players.

[Krill]

The larger the game, the longer it lasts.

200+

[Thoth]

The game will go for at least 150 turns.
There will be setup thread drama.
One of the "newbs" (an odd spelling for "sockpuppet" I think) will flake within the first 50 turns
There will be at least one threatened rage quit over turn order.
The bitching about turn pace will start before turn 20.

[Commodore]

The game will go for at least 150 turns. 
There will be setup thread drama.
One of the "newbs" (an odd spelling for "sockpuppet" I think) will flake within the first 50 turns
There will be at least one threatened rage quit over turn order.
The bitching about turn pace will start before turn 20.

I find this all plausible.

[Commodore]

Theme: I think I'm going to go for cryptids. If you have a cryptid you're willing to admit you believe in, I'll make it the next soonest city.

[Lewwyn]

Your first Civ choice: England


Your first leader choices: Lieu-ye, Brennus


Starting screenshots will be posted in a couple days. You may wait to finalize a choice until then. You may reject or accept any of these choices. You will have a max of 2 more choices of civ and a max of 4 more leaders.

[Commodore]

Hrm, thanks Lewwyn. Obviously need to see the start before picking, but it's fun to speculate.

England sucks. Both of those uniques come ridiculously late and although banks are awesome I don't see the small bonus to be all that worthwhile, while rifles are actively a terrible technology to aim for. I'm going to make the controversial statement that outside of a very rare cavalry push you really shouldn't research rifling until you are looking to make infantry. Please note, both of those units are not boosted by England.

I do like both of the leaders, Brennus is a pretty standard good one but I have just played those two traits in the last two games. Lieu-ye, on the other hand... I did just play around with protective but this is a completely new leader combo and if indeed we are going to be looking at emperor level organized is not just its usual good but becomes great. I do not like that this doesn't have anything directly to push the early snowball, but she is probably the single best leader to not get stopped by economy crashing threats in her expansion.

[Lewwyn]

Here is the starting screenshot. Let me know when you've decided whether to lock in either the civ or leader or what you'd like to reroll. Confirm in the next two days please. I will be rerolling for everyone that rejects either civ or leader or both once I have all confirmations for this round of selections.

Your start:

[Commodore]

Thanks Lewwyn.

Gross, Huge Emperor. That's going to be sloøōõöòóôooooow. Nerfs Organized a bit, but makes the extra commerce of Protective worthwhile. Going to be a miserably slow tech pace, so forget any late civ, even though Fishing and Mining is a viable start with the plains hill. Lock in Lieu-ye, reroll English .

[Commodore]

Okay, on the start itself:

Kind of icky to need three techs for food. Going work boat first is slightly more attractive just for that reason; might as well get the extra commerce from coast. South to the plains hill is kind of the Default Choice, with 6 (vs 5) forests, easy Hunting-first priority, 5hpt for a fast work boat, and a solid second city spot 3N that auto-connects (Protective makes that important). North to the sugar is the slightly more valuable +1f instead of +1h, stops the wastage that is jungle (EMPEROR HUGE SCREW YOU IRON WORKING IS FOREVER AWAY), and gets the only +6f tile available until Sailing. Organized means a lighthouse is fast...might even be worth thinking about GLH despite the gigantic field.

TL;DR, defaulting to south, but if I get a civ with Agriculture then north needs to be considered instead. Please hand me something cool and early, Mr. Wyn.