greenline gets rushed and eliminated on turn whatever: Huyana Capac of Mali

[greenline]

here's one of my favorite south park episodes

[greenline]

Anyway this is the part where I'm supposed to introduce myself?

I've been lurking this site since around 2009 after hearing about it through Sullla's reports (if not for his Civ4 walkthrough and the Cuban Isolationists SG I'd have dropped the game because I had no idea how to play it). I was never all that enthused with the idea of playing in one of the games here because I had played a few Gamespy games and got completely trashed in almost every single one. But eventually I figured everyone starts somewhere. Plus I had finally got the hang of whipping and REXing in single player so hopefully I can do that in multiplayer as well.

Anyway as far as the picking system goes you either get a crummy Fin leader (Vicky or Hannibal), a midway Cre/Exp leader, or a great civ with a junk leader. A lot of the non agriculture civs are pretty good so I think I'll go for something like Vicky or Hatshepsut of Mali or Rome unless I get a double pigs start.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

List Randomizer

There were 4 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

s
g
j
p
Timestamp: 2016-03-31 20:29:11 UTC, IP: 90.203.177.30

You have 10 points

7: FIN, EXP
6: India
5: Inca, CRE
4: IMP, ORG, HRE
3: SPI, IND, Zulu, Sumeria
2: CHA, AGG, PHI, Ottomans/Maya/Byzantium (with War ellie ban)
1: Civs that start with Agriculture Tech unless otherwise stated, Greece/Rome
0: America, Native America, Civs without agri not already stated
-1: PRO arabia, germany, celts

Please post picks in threads, unless major objections I feel that duplicates should be allowed within reason, because quite a few civs have specific point costs to try to open up the field from the usual suspects.

Map taster info - fully hand crafted. SMALL 40x40 (based off small doughnut script if you wish to generate a map that size) VERY rich in resources. Stone/Marble are present but not easily reached early. Highly balanced but not mirrored/duplicated. FLAT map. IMMORTAL difficulty (it is very rich!) Moderate amount of water, but you could easily get away without a navy. GLH NOT banned. Scout starts for all.

As per your choices, no barbs, quick speed

Unusual tiles note - to spice up naval encounters, there are a few jungle/forest tiles hidden in the seas - these will give a defense bonus. Think of them as rich but dangerous to attack into lagoons, or places on the high sea that are rather dangerous.

You're player 1!

Here's your start - fogazing should be treated with caution, but the map is unlikely to change tbh.

Have fun and good luck!

[greenline]

First: thanks for making the map! I'm not sure what the list thing you posted means, though.

That's quite an unusual start. Yucky jungle but FP deer that gives something like 7 food? Crazy. I could build cottages on every tile but the PH and the food resources and still have enough surplus to run a bunch of specialists.

Looking at this I'm valuing early pottery. But since the deer is the biggest food you want to hook up early and there are no AH resources I don't think starting with agriculture is mandatory. So there's one point saved. Right now I'm digging something like Hunting/Wheel, Mining/Wheel, or Hunting/Mining. That gives Mali, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Germany, and some other civs. This is Immortal though so the Leader pick is much more debatable. Darius isn't available and the best FIN civs are Mansa and Huyana. I don't have the best handle on how to use SPI and I'm not sure what the best wonder to rush with IND would be. Henge might be of limited use if maintenance is killer. Oracling Currency or Monarchy seems like a better strategy since this is immortal and the only happy I can see is spices.

Another option is going Zara with an agriculture civ if ORG is needed to keep expansion up. I'd go with an Agri/Wheel civ that costs 1 point like France or Babylon in that case. Or maybe Asoka/Ramsesses of Sumeria.

To really find out, it's time to go to the simulator!

[greenline]

Alright for the first sim I went for Huyana Capac of Mali. To get the starts I rolled a small Donut on Quick/Immortal then manually edited the start. Tech path was Hunting(4t)->Agriculture(6t)->Pottery(5t)->BW(7t).

Cap builds worker first (8t) then grows to size three while building warriors (one completes, one unfinished). Cap starts another worker at size three. Once that worker finishes cap grows to size 4 while finishing the other warrior. Cap starts a settler at size 4, works both FP, deer, and corn. Settler finishes on turn 25.

Worker after being built camps the deer, then farms the corn. Then both workers build cottages on the floodplains next to the corn. Then workers move into plains river forest just as BW comes in to chop. The chop overflow goes into a worker after the settler finishes.



So that's one settler, two warriors (the third will be replaced by a scout in the final game), two workers with a third coming in 2t, and four improved tiles by t25. Annoyingly, an AI built a scouting workboat that ran into me despite me bothering to sink the capital to try and avoid getting known tech bonuses. Hopefully it didn't make a significant difference.

Next was Mansa Musa of Mongolia. Tech path was Agriculture(6t)->Pottery(6t)->Mining(4t)->BW(6t). Main difference is BW is one or two turns later. It still produces two warriors, one settler, two ish workers, and four tile improvements on t25. Mansa over Huyana lets me swap into slavery earlier but otherwise produces no changes. Also some forests grew but I didn't bother editing them out because they didn't affect the opening at all.



For a Hunting/Mining civ I went with Victoria of Ethiopia because Germany sucks and I don't know if Ballista Elephants are banned.

Tech path was Agriculture(6t)->Wheel(5t)->Pottery(6t)->BW(6t). This forced me to work all high commerce tiles for one turn otherwise my workers would not be able to chop the forest they moved into. The settler did still come out on the same turn. That might have been due to the IMP bonuses. Otherwise everything was the same as the last two sims.



Finally I tried a go with Asoka of Sumeria. I wasn't feeling at all restricted by not having agriculture so I decided to pass on Zara.

Tech path was Hunting(4t)->Pottery(6t)->Mining(5t)->BW(7t). Using the same build path everything turned out about the same. But I don't think having cheaper techs to research made up for the lack of FIN. The only other advantage I get from Agri/Wheel is being able to build cottages after farming the corn instead of going deer->corn->cottages. But I don't think that path comes ahead in most circumstances considering how key food is early.



So right now I'm leaning for either Victoria or Huyana of Mali. That's the strongest combo I'm getting from this. It gives FIN + IMP or IND for expanding or getting key wonders, plus Skirmishers and mints. People rave about England late game because the stock exchange gives 15% extra gold, but the mint gives 2/3s of that bonus but in a building that comes earlier and gets put in every city. I'd take the mint over the stock exchange in most cases.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Alright for the first sim I went for Huyana Capac of Mali. To get the starts I rolled a small Donut on Quick/Immortal then manually edited the start. Tech path was Hunting(4t)->Agriculture(6t)->Pottery(5t)->BW(7t).

Cap builds worker first (8t) then grows to size three while building warriors (one completes, one unfinished). Cap starts another worker at size three. Once that worker finishes cap grows to size 4 while finishing the other warrior. Cap starts a settler at size 4, works both FP, deer, and corn. Settler finishes on turn 25.

Worker after being built camps the deer, then farms the corn. Then both workers build cottages on the floodplains next to the corn. Then workers move into plains river forest just as BW comes in to chop. The chop overflow goes into a worker after the settler finishes.



So that's one settler, two warriors (the third will be replaced by a scout in the final game), two workers with a third coming in 2t, and four improved tiles by t25. Annoyingly, an AI built a scouting workboat that ran into me despite me bothering to sink the capital to try and avoid getting known tech bonuses. Hopefully it didn't make a significant difference.

Next was Mansa Musa of Mongolia. Tech path was Agriculture(6t)->Pottery(6t)->Mining(4t)->BW(6t). Main difference is BW is one or two turns later. It still produces two warriors, one settler, two ish workers, and four tile improvements on t25. Mansa over Huyana lets me swap into slavery earlier but otherwise produces no changes. Also some forests grew but I didn't bother editing them out because they didn't affect the opening at all.



For a Hunting/Mining civ I went with Victoria of Ethiopia because Germany sucks and I don't know if Ballista Elephants are banned.

Tech path was Agriculture(6t)->Wheel(5t)->Pottery(6t)->BW(6t). This forced me to work all high commerce tiles for one turn otherwise my workers would not be able to chop the forest they moved into. The settler did still come out on the same turn. That might have been due to the IMP bonuses. Otherwise everything was the same as the last two sims.



Finally I tried a go with Asoka of Sumeria. I wasn't feeling at all restricted by not having agriculture so I decided to pass on Zara.

Tech path was Hunting(4t)->Pottery(6t)->Mining(5t)->BW(7t). Using the same build path everything turned out about the same. But I don't think having cheaper techs to research made up for the lack of FIN. The only other advantage I get from Agri/Wheel is being able to build cottages after farming the corn instead of going deer->corn->cottages. But I don't think that path comes ahead in most circumstances considering how key food is early.



So right now I'm leaning for either Victoria or Huyana of Mali. That's the strongest combo I'm getting from this. It gives FIN + IMP or IND for expanding or getting key wonders, plus Skirmishers and mints. People rave about England late game because the stock exchange gives 15% extra gold, but the mint gives 2/3s of that bonus but in a building that comes earlier and gets put in every city. I'd take the mint over the stock exchange in most cases.

Khmer does have banned Wellies too. Note your Victoria of Mali is 11 points so rethink and drop a point in that somewhere! (if you wish that over Huyana of Mali)

[greenline]

Khmer does have banned Wellies too. Note your Victoria of Mali is 11 points so rethink and drop a point in that somewhere! (if you wish that over Huyana of Mali)

Oops. Forgot IMP was 4 points.

I think overall I'll go with Huyana of Mali. I say it beats Hannibal/Lizzie of France or Wang Kong/Asoka of Sumeria.

[Aurorarcher]

I'm not seeing any pics? Should I?

[greenline]

I'm not seeing any pics? Should I?

Yes. They're showing up for me. I'm hosting them from Dropbox, does that make a difference?

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I'm not seeing any pics? Should I?

Yes. They're showing up for me. I'm hosting them from Dropbox, does that make a difference?

I don't see them either