[spoilers] PB42 ot4e is attacking everybody or get attacked by everybody (find out)

[OT4E]

Surprisingly first in snake pick.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Going to break the new iteration of IND BY shoving 100000 horchers at someone?

[OT4E]

Well, heh. It has never been 100000. I always use the least possible number, sometimes it is not even enough, lol.

I want to try AGG something this time to have different options. Or PRO looks pretty well in this mod. I think Krill ignored offensive potential of PRO units in his tests.

I doubt I will stop my choice on IND this time, but everything is possible. With 1st pick I will have to live with trash civ or sub-optimal leader.

[Mardoc]

Your start:

OT4E

[OT4E]

So it is Tokugawa, and here are some words to explain.

I think in most cases leader makes more impact on gameplay than nation.

People keep picking zulu despite of it getting downgraded with every patch. Cheap archery, bonus against impis and just -10% is not worth spoiling 1st pick imho. Also map promises be severely watered, so it is hardly possible for wide land borders to emerge.

Inca doesnt make enough sense imho because of bad starting techs for this start and just +1 culture from terrace and cheap +1 culture from barracks onn the other hand. Original terrace works like cre making decent pressure with +2 converting to +4 after some time.

Other nations have some tools but I dont think they are decisive. I think I will find one with good starting techs at least.

Why AGG/PRO then? Well AGG suits my gameplay best of all. Maintance discount and bonus for stables are good to have compared common BTS where I often finished picking AGG after all. The situation around PRO is ambigous. From one side it lost its annoying CG part but I think that it got buffed in general. Archery units now start with Drill 1 and Drill 3, thats 0-3 first strikes and 20% less collatherial from box. But it easily turns into 2-5 FS and, 40% less collatherial and +10% against mounted. This is significant. I really fear 3-7 FS skirmishers having 4 strenght just for 25 hammers.

Well I am not hoping to get Mali here but I really think PRO has potential and I want to try it out combined with AGG.

[OT4E]

Well viable options are:
- England
- Ottomans
- France
- Ethiopia
- India
- Vikings
- Germany
- Egypt

I havent decided yet.

[OT4E]

In short list there were
- England (Mining/fishing)
- France (Agri/wheel)
- Ottomans (Agri/wheel)

I didnt want to pick Egypt because it demands heavy rush beelining which will be very expected by my neighbors. India lost some attractiveness in rtr. Also among late game civs I focused on gunpowder based UU for obvious synergy with AGG and PRO.

For a moment it seemed that England was no brainer choice. Techs looked better for this start and UU and UB were also great except that they are coming too late.

But on the other hand Fishing is the cheapest tech and considering 9 turns to complete work boat it is more than enough to research it and no reason to start with it. Agri and Wheel are the most expensive starting tech costing more than Mining. They doesnt make anything good in short term but considering workboat start I dont have urgent need it improvements.

Workboat complete on T9 and you get 5 food tile immediately while worker can come online only by T12 which means that sheep can get worked by smth like T16. And with WB you still get worker on T19 having 2 pop.

But with Agri/Wheel I can make some expiriments with early Pottery. I dont really think that sheep is worth teching Hunting by itself, the granary looks better.

The other thing against England is that I dont believe that game will be not decided before Rifling and Redcoats can make much difference. Banks are awesome but I need to be one of the leaders to capitalize its effect. Banks dont help losers to win the game.

Musketman UUs look more attractive. In every game there are some actions with knights and knights are 1 tech away from muskets. Usually it doesnt make much sense for 2 reasons:
1) muskets die to knights
2) muskets are slow

Believe me or not but ottoman janissaries still die to knights (pinch promotion). French musketeers still die to knights but at least they are quick. You can gather them in 1 place. You can use them to reinforce your stack while it is already away. You can relocate them from one border to another and get proper defenders where you need. Actually 2nd movement changes everything and puts this unit into another class: 2-movers. Also they are draftable. So what I expect from French at least is to be way harder to kill in the middle of the game, what is important if I manage to get some extra land. But the rest of the things Tokugawa will have to take care of.

I have already played for Ottomans and jannisarries are good and do their job but being still as slow as common musket prevents them from making truely big impact in the game. Also hammams are not relevant without EXP bonus and usual number of luxuries RB maps provide as I could see so far.

So let it be Tokugawa of France.

[OT4E]

Password is

toku

[OT4E]

I am doing one of the worst opening ever. In fact the start favored to EXP civ by far, but even without that I got my scout hurt very early and after healing it died to the lion on the place where I wanted to plant city. My only warrior got to 0.1 meeting bear. I know warriors often die in such encounters but 0.1 is close to dead one considering that my scout didnt make a scratch.

So I will be last to plant 2nd city and it will have suboptimal location. Hopefully I will have time and opportunity to recover.

[Hollybombay]

Now that you have had time to recover, any updates? War plans? Tech plans?