[SPOILERS] scooter's thread: how to finish second

[scooter]

If you ever need someone to finish in a very good position other than first, I'm your man. My strategy for this game? Design all my cities this way:



I don't think this plan has any holes in it whatsoever.

[scooter]

Start location plz?

[Commodore]

For your consideration.


Fog-gazing is of the devil and should not be trusted.

[scooter]

Well, that plains hill is a bit of a tease. You pretty much have to go for the fish here I think.

[scooter]

I definitely want last choice on leader/civ. I like this system Seven proposed, but the side effect of its nice balance is that (IMO) the difference between 1st/5th and 6th/10th is a smaller impact on the game than being first in the turn order... So I'm definitely hoping for first in turn order here.

[scooter]

Welp I just got literally the opposite of what I wanted. Time to figure out what to pick. I've got a few ideas, but nothing concrete.

[scooter]

Anyways, let's narrow things down a little. It helps to try to figure out what's overvalued and undervalued by points and go from there. Scoring system, 5 points to spend:

4: FIN
3: EXP, ORG, India, Inca
2: SPI, IND, CRE, Vikings, Dutch
1: PHI, Holy Rome, All other Agriculture civs
0: IMP, CHA, AGG, PRO, All other civs

Okay, for starters, Inca + India are trap picks here IMO. Just don't do it. Also, there's not that many forests visible either, so India is toned down as is. So those are eliminated. Vikings are also a major trap pick here IMO. Dutch are interesting. They have the potential to be pretty awesome, but it requires weakening yourself pretty significantly in the short-term. Someone in this game might do it and make it work, but that person won't be me. At the 3-pt level we have EXP and ORG. I think ORG may be better here weirdly enough. Everything about this boosts ORG considerably. The maintenance means courthouses are better, the water means lighthouses are crucial, etc. It's a good trait here. Ideally I think you want either FIN or ORG here, and since you can't combine EXP with either of them, I'll eliminate EXP. I'm also not taking Holy Rome. Severely overrated civ IMO with horrific techs. I'm not sure why they were even worth a point. Well I guess it was to make ORG + HRE more costly which, fine. I still think it's a sucker's choice. That leaves us with this:

4: FIN
3: ORG
2: SPI, IND, CRE
1: PHI, Agriculture civs
0: IMP, CHA, AGG, PRO, All other civs

Much more manageable. So the real question I'm working on now is if I want Agriculture bad enough or not, and I can easily go picking from there. If I want Agriculture, Victoria & Hannibal are the obvious choices. If I choose to live without it, that opens up some real good ORG combos. One caveat here though - ORG lends itself to a GLH play, but I'm screwed on trade routes here given I'm last in the turn order. An economic play that's less dependent on trade routes is ideal to me in that cases, so that gives some weight to just taking FIN. Lizzie isn't ridiculous here I don't think, and that would be a new one for me.

[scooter]

From a meta-standpoint, this is a really interesting field. I really like it. Of the 5 of us in this game, sure you could rank some players in this game over others, but it's all close enough that I think this should be a really competitive game. There's no obvious candidate to crush everyone, and there's no obvious slightly-in-over-his-head candidate. I'm not sure many PBEMs can say that. Winner will be whoever invests the most time into this game probably.

[scooter]

I think I'm taking Carthage. I'm not sure if that will surprise people or not.

[scooter]

Alright, why Carthage? When picking here, the real mystery to solve is Agriculture vs no Agriculture and then make your picks from there, unless you want to get cute and pay for one of the other civs. I don't think Agriculture is critical here. I didn't bother making a sandbox, but some rough approximations seem to show that taking Fishing and going WB first has some serious merits too. There's a chance worker first and chop WB would work too, but I didn't test it extensively yet. In short, I don't think Agriculture is absolutely necessary to start with here. The point you gain from giving up Agriculture seems to me to be more valuable than an Agriculture start. At least, I believe this is true when you're talking first pick in the draft.

So if I'm going to skip Agriculture, I want to find the best non-Agriculture civ available. That will then let me spend all 5 points on a good leader. To me, that means taking Fishing tech and going WB first (moving settler of course), though that's not strictly necessary. I'll actually test this thoroughly tonight, but Fishing/Mining in particular gives me several options, so it's just a matter of finding the best one from there. All I needed to know is that these options are competitive with Agriculture start, and they are as far as I can tell. Anyways, Carthage, Portugal, and England are all Fishing/Mining. All 3 of those are attractive to me.

Carthage - Numidian cavs are fun UUs, better than people give them credit for. They're weaker against archers/horses, great against everything else. The Cothon is the real winner here though - a harbor with an extra trade route. One bummer is that I'm 5th in the turn order so I get a trade route nerf, however that nerf is there no matter what I pick, and Cothons will help. I'm just assuming there will be islands involved here since this is supposed to be pretty water-heavy if I'm not mistaken, and that means I can get some IC routes and get myself a GLH alternative. That should help offset the trade route disadvantage very nicely.

Portugal - I like this too. The Feitoria is nice, but you need a Harbor anyways just to build it, so that's one issue here - takes a lot more work to unlock it.

England - We haven't had a game yet where somebody did real damage with Redcoats. Would be fun to take that for a spin here.


I like Carthage best out of this group obviously. Portugal is probably a little better than England here, and I'd say it's a worthy alternative. So the question is, civ or leader first? I could've spent my 5 points now and hoped Carthage will be there. It's only 4 picks away, after all. If somehow it gets taken, England or Portugal is a solid enough consolation prize. In the end though, I estimate the gap between Carthage and the 2nd best 0-pt civ to be bigger than the best and 2nd-best 5-pt leader, so Carthage has to go first. That leaves me with a vast array of options for my leader. I'd be happy with several of them.