RBP3 [Spoilers] Capac of Mali

[Swiss Pauli]

This is where Broker33, dsplaisted, and I will be hanging out for this game.

Better late than never...

EDIT2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling...iscography

Worker names: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/art...ember.html

EDIT:

Time to show the lurkers some love, and give an insight into our choice of civ and leader. With Broker & Daniel busy in other games, so it was me doing most of the talking

We have 17 civs, Emperor difficulty, normal speed, standard starting unit, NTB (so tech alliances will play a role, even if we limit them somehow), and no spies. Based on the current pitboss games, all civs will have similar yielding food specials, horses, and a source of metal near their starting position for balance.

I think the following leaders are of first rank (in no particular order): Willem (CRE/FIN), Liz (FIN/PHI), Mansa (FIN/SPI), Darius (FIN/ORG), Pacal (FIN/EXP) & Peter (PHI/EXP).

Second rank: Fred (PHI/ORG), Mehmed (EXP/ORG), Bismarck (EXP/IND), Zara (CRE/ORG), Capac (IND/FIN), Pericles (CRE/PHI).

Third rank: Roosy (IND/ORG), Ramesses (IND/SPI), Louis (IND/CRE), Alex (PHI/AGG), Gandhi (PHI/SPI), Stalin (AGG/IND), Ragnar (AGG/FIN).

If one can get good synergy with the civ, then leaders of the 3rd rank can also work really well, so moving to the civs:

First Rank
India: fast worker (warrior)
Rome: Praets (w)
Ottoman: Janissary & Hammam (w)
Byzantium: Cataphract & Hippodrome (w)
England: Redcoats (w)
Inca: Terrace (w)
Korea: Hwacha & Seowon (w)

Of these, Rome, England & Byz are at risk from a kill-them-before-they-get-their-overpowered-UU-in-play attack.

Second Rank
HRE: Rathaus (scout). Pair with ORG, and one of EXP, CRE, FIN for maximum expansion.
Mali: Mint & Skirmisher (w). Pair with IND for an Oracle gambit for cheap, early Mints.
Maya: Ball Court (w). +2 happy
Aztec: Sac. Altar (scout). Cheap without ORG, and great if you have enough food for regular whipping.
Spain: Conq (w). Really want a lake to guarantee a religion.
Egypt: War Chariot (w). Risky rush.

Third Rank
Zulu: Impi (s). Scout means warrior-first opening.
Sumeria: Ziggurat (w). Cheap without ORG.
Greece: Odeon (s). +1 happy
Ethiopia: Oromo (w). Drill is flaky until IV.
France: Musketeer (w). Extra movement is good.
Carthage: Numid/Cothon. Strong on the right map...
Khmer: Ballista/Baray. Strong with Ivory.

I don’t think there’s anything too controversial about my groupings into first rank, but the 2nd & 3rd are considerably less clear-cut (e.g. Spain as 2nd rank might just be ).

When the snake pick was announced, we were 17th and last. Although this gives the opportunity to get a synergetic leader & civ combination, it meant we were not likely to get any of the first rank. To make the most of the pick, one has to analyse a multitude of possible combinations with the foreknowledge that most of these will be off the table by the time the pick would reach us: hardly a great incentive to debate, but it seemed like the pick wouldn’t go too rapidly based on the previous PB game, except…

Wow guys, the picks are going fast and it looks like we will be up tomorrow! The picks so far are:

Leaders:
Pacal
Willem
Elizabeth
Pericles
Darius
Ragnar
Suryavaraman
Ghandi
Mehmed

Civs:
Inca
India
Byzantium
Rome

One half-decent combination I noticed is Zara of Mali (I'm probably partial to Mali due to RBP1 though).

Daniel

This certainly caught me napping or, more accurately, sound asleep :zzz: because most of the picks were made through the European night! We’d not even discussed any combinations at this point, so I hastily drew some up…

Zoom. There's three teams still to pick before us, and my pool of strong leaders looks like:

Mansa
Peter
Fred
Zara
Capac
Bismarck

Civ-wise:

Mali (wheel/mining)
England (fishing/mining)
HRE (mysticism/hunting)
Korea (mysticism/mining)
Ottomans (wheel/agriculture)
Maya (mysticism/mining)

Of the civs, I think Ottomans are the best because they have a strong, early-ish UB, a solid UU, and excellent starting techs for MP (one tech away from pottery/AH). Mali would be next: 'unrushable' skirmishers, and decent starting techs; the UU works best with an IND civ to get it cheaper, and into play sooner (Oracle). Korea has a soild UU, and a great (if slightly late) UU if one is Phi. Maya's main selling point is the UB, but it's still weaker (if cheaper) than the Hammam. England is all about getting the UU, and I think HRE must start with a scout, making worker-first a risky choice on a possibly crowded map (and warrior first is very meh).

My preferred combinations are:

Mansa of Ottomans
Capac of Ottomans
Capac of Mali
Bismarck of Mali
Zara of Mali
Zara of Maya
Peter of Korea
Fred of Korea
Mansa of England
Capac of England
Zara of HRE

What do you think of these, and do you have some other combinations in mind?

In retrospect, I think I should have promoted Maya a bit more: whilst their Ball Court isn’t as strong as the Hammam presenting it in this negative light made it seem worse than it is. I didn’t mention the Holkan at all, and whilst it’s nothing special it is early, and resourceless, so it’s good for barb duty (without copper) and deters a chariot rush. How I didn’t select Mansa of Maya as one of the options in my long-list is beyond me

With Broker out of town, it came down to Daniel & I to decide. Ottomans fell 15th (though I find it remarkable that they went unpicked for so long), so Daniel went for:

Mansa of Mali
Zara of Mali
Capac of Mali
Mansa of England

And I had:

Capac of Mali
Zara of Maya
Mansa of England

We picked Capac of Mali in preference to Mansa of England because both the UU & UB come into play early...time will tell whether this choice pays off!

[Swiss Pauli]

And here's the start:



So what does the start have in store for Capac (FIN/IND) of Mali?

Hurrah for grass river silver...boo for it being under jungle

We've got river rice (5/0/1), and plains river sheep (4/1/3) as food.

Warrior & Settler on the same tile to minimize tiles revealed Looking at the tile bleeding of the fogged tiles, we have:

North (west to east): river plains, plains, forest plains.

East (north to south): plains, grass forest, grass hill (unfogged)

South (w to e): grass hill, grass river(?) hill, river(?) plains. Question marks because it seems to me that this may be the source of the river, and thus non river tiles. There seems to be a desert tile on the SE diagonal.

West (n to s): grass river/fp?, grass river hill, plains(?).

Bearing this in mind, I think our warrior should move either S onto the forest hill, or NW onto the silver. South would reveal whether the river really ends where I suspect, the presumed desert and one more fogged tile; NW will reveal another river tile 2NW, which could be a flood plain.

I'd move him NW, and settle in place unless we reveal an FP (in which case I'd burn a turn and settle 1N).

[dsplaisted]

It doesn't sound like moving south would reveal anything that would change where we found the city, so I'd say we may as well go NW.

[novice]

Nice start, terrible camera angle. What is even south in that picture?

[Swiss Pauli]

Now there's progress for ya...



Hope to find some food upriver for an overlap city with the capital for max cottage development.

[novice]

Nice, thanks. Are you using a Realms Beyond theme?

[Swiss Pauli]

Undecided on that, but Daniel named his capital Sullla in PB1, so we decide on a similar tribute here.

PS: we're not competing with rego for the Golden Spam award.

[Swiss Pauli]

Looks like we got 'unsettled' when sunrise had to reload. So, once more, with feeling...

[Swiss Pauli]

PS: we're not competing with rego for the Golden Spam award.

Honestly

Resettled. Guys can you keep an eye on civstats if we have to reload again tonight as I'm checking out. Ta.

[dsplaisted]

So where do we want to move our warrior next turn? In order to protect our capital, we'll probably want to loop back and have the warrior available to defend the capital by around turn 10-12, I would think.