(September 22nd, 2023, 15:12)yuris125 Wrote: I'll be honest - I didn't recognise Civil Service as one of the more powerful options to pick. I was too fixated on (tunnel visioned into?) picking a military tech
If I did see the power of Civil Service, think I would've been ok to take it alongside start 4. With only 5 players, I was sure to get a good Fin leader at any point in the draft. Yes, Pacal is likely the best leader in the game - but is he that much better than Willem / Darius? Or if all of the big 3 were gone, Mansa / Hannibal / Liz are still fine options. Scooter is doing just fine with Mansa after all
That said, I agree that there's a fair bit of bias due to how the game played out. I made an aggressive pick and lost to a heavily economy-oriented opponent who found a way to counter my advantage and outgrew me, with another economy-oriented opponent stopping me from shifting aggression his way by parking 4 triremes between us. So naturally this leads me to thinking that picking a military tech wasn't as important as I thought before the game started. If I shared the continent with Luddite, it's very possible that my opinion would've been different
Man I wish we could have been on the same continent! Not me vs you, but me and you in a 2v1 against one of the economy tech pickers. That would have made for a very different game! Seems like you were in a similar position as me, but with a more experienced opponent.