[SPOILERS] Seven Russias Into the Periclous Fray

[SevenSpirits]

Mod: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=6632

Collected settings:

MAP SETUP
* Pitboss, normal speed.
* Monarch difficulty
* Barbarians on.
* No Tech Trading
* No vassal States
* No tribal Villages
* No Random Events
* Unrestricted leaders
* Tech cost Scaling
* Medium Distance Maintenance
* Torusland base
* Huge
* 44% seas, Inland Ocean
* 100x36
* 1 random improvement per 20 tiles

RULES/GUIDELINES OF PLAY
* No talking. (You can't communicate with other players about the game. No using text in-game to send messages. You can still do in-game diplo.)
* No city trading/gifting of any sort.
* Anyone who does annoying things with the turn timer will be taken outside and shot, then made to wear a dunce cap, then brought back inside and shot again.
* The goal of the game is not just to strive for sole victory but also simply to improve your civilization, explore how the game works, and survive. Not every nation will be America, but they are still worth something! ()
* We will try to maintain a brisk turn pace.
* No smurfs, please! Does this really need to be said? Well it's said.
* We will do our best to have fun and help our fellow players have fun.

Players:
Lord Parkin - Churchill of Zulu(CHM/PRO,agri/hunt)
HitAnyKey - Wang Kon of Spain(FIN/PRO,fish/myst)
Haram - Ragnar of Mongolia(FIN/AGR,hunt/wheel)
Mackoti - Charlemagne of Germany(IMP/PRO,hunt/mine)
SevenSpirits - Pericles of Russia(CRE/PHI,hunt/mine)
Gavagai - Willem van Oranje of Ethiopia(FIN/CRE,hunt/mine)
slowcheetah - Napoleon of Vikings(CHM/ORG,fish/hunt)
Douglas Quaid - Elizabeth of Egypt(FIN/PHI,agri/wheel)
Gawdzak - Boudica of Rome(AGR/CHM,fish/mine)
Kuro/Wetbandit - Tokugawa of India(AGR/PRO,mine/myst)
GermanJojo - Cyrus of Khmer(CHM/IMP,hunt/mine)

[SevenSpirits]

We're gonna have fun with opponent evaluations this game. That will have to wait until everyone's made their picks, but for now, here's our mapmaker:

[SevenSpirits]

Change of plans. After coming up with several cards, I realized that there were a lot of existing hearthstone cards that were pretty similar and fit just as well. Here's the card that I think best represents our great mapmaker Krill:



So yes, I am just copying part of Gaspar's PB19 evaluations wholesale. It's a different set of players though so should be nice to get the variety.

[Krill]

You know that's actually my favourite card in Hearthstone.

[Krill]

Seven

[SevenSpirits]

* Two food and plains hill plant.
* TWELVE forests
* Just four hills
* Almost all grassland
* Coastal
* Multiple calendar luxes in sight
* 12/20 tiles are riverside

The big surprise here is that it's a huge map. This doesn't slow down the early game due to tech cost scaling but it does mean higher tech costs compared to large that really start to matter later on.

Looking at tech costs, it seems that even starting without Agriculture or Hunting, I can go Hunting->Agriculture->AH to start and have the latter two in time for the 12t worker to improve the wheat and sheep without delay. So that's a breath of fresh air.

[SevenSpirits]

Whereas in BTS, the only way to make this start reasonable is to start with Agriculture.

BTS cost of Agri: 10 turns
ToW cost of Agri: 7 turns
ToW+scaling cost of Agri: 4.5 turns

BTS/ToW cost of AH: 14 turns
ToW+scaling cost of AH: 11 turns

So in BTS it could take 24 turns to get Agri-AH, leaving your worker useless for 6t. Here it takes only 18 turns and that includes hunting too (hunting takes 4.5 turns but also reduces the cost of AH).

In other words, the settings are enabling me to not fixate on starting techs. I could pick Arabia!

[SevenSpirits]

If I take productive though, the worker comes out 3t faster. In this case I will want to either start with hunting or agriculture, or skip hunting for a while. The latter is certainly an option - I'm probably not building a second scout and it's only a matter of time before this one dies to barbarians.

[Krill]

What if you only had pasture food resources.

[SevenSpirits]

Then I'd need to start with either Hunting or Agriculture.