Gavagai's thread of depression

[Gavagai]

Byzantium is tempting: so far the civs have been chosen in alphabetical order with only Arabia skipped and Byzantium would continue the trend. But I really dislike their starting techs: in the advanced start, technology should be a serious bottleneck - or so I figure. Also for Byzantium we should have taken Toku.
Right now I really like Khmer:

Khmer: Mining/Hunting. UB: Aqueduct replacement: Baray. +1 food, +1 culture, +1 Artist slot. Cost 80. UU: War Elephant replacement. Ballistaphant (I don't know the actual name). Targets mounted first outside of cities. Can construct baray.

Ballistaphants make it really hard to attack you and baray is a nice way to pop borders quickly for 40 hammers (or a Ballistaphant). Alternatively, Persia still remains an option. General, ideas?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Considering starting techs persia probably wins out slightly, we'd be able to start improving everything immediately.

Let me list all the options that might be interesting:

Khmer is interesting, but isn't the whole point that you build ballistaphants in core cities to instantly plcae barays in new cities? makes the exp bonus a bit redundant.
Korea has catapults that can kill, which I think is pretty good, it can decrease the number of units needed for an attack by a bit. Good starting techs, but seowon is a bit too late game.
Persia - a top choice, good techs, and I'd want to play around with immortals.
Ottomans - UU too late
Zulu - barracks that gets bonus from iron not trait, but impis are basically nerfed, not sure how fun it is to play anymore...

So I agree, it is between khmer and persia. Khmer will be fun to try because a lot of people have been picking it recently and not been doing very well with it, maybe we can improve.

[Gavagai]

Went ahead and chose Persia.

[Tarkeel]

Any thoughts on how to spend the initial budget?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Any updates?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

updates?