[SPOILER] Cornflakes brings the popcorn

[Cornflakes]

Space filler

[Cornflakes]

Awaiting starting screenshot. Thanks Commodore!

[Commodore]

Fog gazing is of the devil, etc, etc. Your start:
   

[Cornflakes]

Thanks for the quick turnaround on the map Commodore!

First thought: at the SIP sugar repeat of PB9 start ...

Ok, so pigs & wet plains wheat & ... forested elephants! Put that together and that's 4 foodhammers from capital + 4 foodhammers from the elephant! or a 10-turn worker without EXP. And for this a second thanks is due to you, Commodore I do hope that the other starts are this good ... otherwise the rest of the land around me in the fog must be absolutely terrible.

[Qgqqqqq]

What sort of game are you looking at playing?

On instinct I feel like ORG is going to be very strong in this game - lighthouse spam! - because of how torusland maps roll. What's the difficulty? Zara is probably the strongest leader at this point. With such a super start I think EXP is weakened a little bit. But it probably comes down to who/what traits you want to play with. A bit strange that there've been so many civilizations taken. Some lovely rivers there, too.

Obviously we want agriculture here. Hunting is a bit strengthened between the elephant, the pig and the scout start (I assume?). Fishing is a big no-no. Mining and The Wheel each seem options, but not particularly boosted here. Mysticism is still very bleh. So either Hunting/Agriculture, Wheel/Agriculture or Mining/Agriculture, unless you have a particular civ you want to play.

Depending on difficulty/techs, it may be possible to get AH in time for first improvement, which is probably a bit stronger. The food really is quite far spaced apart (3 turns), but then again, it is normal.

That's all I can think of right now.

[Cornflakes]

I chose Brennus of the Ottoman Empire. I'll give you my reasoning tomorrow because I'm really tired this evening.

[Commodore]

Easy! Manly facial hair is a premium.

[Cornflakes]

Ok, so why Brennus? ... I want to play a game as SPI. This is one trait that I always undervalued until I found Realms Beyond. I want to try my hand at it. Below is my quick-and-dirty skin-deep comparison of the different SPI/something leaders.

Brennus (SPI/CHA) - CHA = +1Happy, +1Happy from Monument, -25%XP for promos ... I think this would be fun to play and it's not one I've played much. +1 happy gives some extra flexability with whipping in the beginning. Also, with a smaller lusher map the happy will be more important because we'll be going vertical earlier on. I have extra incentive to try for Stonehenge, but it's not killer powerful to burn everything over in the early game. -25%XP gives some added options for military action later in the game ... notably Commando available at 20XP

Justinian (SPI/IMP) - IMP ... On more cramped map, quicker settling is more important (I think? could be wrong on this one). GGenerals are fun to play around with, but between the two I think that CHA is the stronger.


Montezuma (SPI/AGG) - AGG ... meh, I really do enjoy war in Civ but CHA is almost as good at getting to Commando (which is the holy grail of modern-era warfare), but CHA offers better early/middle game play with a higher happy cap for whipping or going vertical.

Saladin (SPI/PRO) - PRO ... PRO leads to a rather underperforming and boring game. Nope

Ramsees II (SPI/IND) - IND = ... No, I already played a game as IND here, plus it's more on the boring side of traits.

Asoka (SPI/ORG) - ... NO, because ORG also falls on the boring side

Gandhi (SPI/PHI) - PHI ... NO, because I don't know how to use PHI and I don't feel like learning it in this game. I want a relaxed and play-by-gut-and-intuition-if-I-want-to game.

Mansa Musa (SPI/FIN) - no FIN allowed

Hatshepsut (SPI/CRE) - ... no, because CRE is boring

Isabella (SPI/EXP) - EXP ... no, because EXP is overplayed

This is more of a slower starting combination that picks up in the middle game. Why Ottoman? I didn't really know what to pick, but I didn't want and early game UU. I settled on Ottoman because of the Wheel/Agg + Hammam happy because more cramped means larger cities are important and UU gets a bonus against everything except gunpowder = middle game security. Now I just have to survive the early game without conflict.

[Commodore]

Barbs on is a huge Chm boost too.

[Cornflakes]

Barbs on is a huge Chm boost too.

Is it really? Is that because of farming XP is easier? Or because the 2nd promo comes easier and therefore it's easier to fight the barbs?