(June 29th, 2023, 11:29)T-hawk Wrote: I've only read your thread so I'll comment. The pick that really calls to me here is Civil Service. This works so well with this start and Mansa locked in - Bureaucracy multiplies Financial working all the lake tiles, and Spiritual saves the anarchy to get into it. Then count on the civ pick for some kind of UU against rushes, I'd lean towards Rome if possible. If you do get rushed before you can get to that, then yeah you probably couldn't have done anything about it anyway without sacrificing the game anyway.
edit - oh, did everybody else pick a tech so Civil Service is yours anyway if you want it? Then yeah pick a civ now, though I'm not sure between Vikings or Rome.
To be clear, I've already locked Civil Service. I probably should have pulled the draft into this thread so you didn't have to read the pick thread to follow this. I've got Civil Service and Mansa locked, and now I'm up for a Civ pick to end things now.
Because Civil Service is locked, Vikings are appealing because 1) easy access to 3-move Galleys and 5-move Galleons are super powerful on water-heavy maps, and 2) easy access to super early Berserkers by either bulbing or Oracling Machinery, both of which are possible because Bureau-FIN-Lakes makes teching Metal Casting pretty painless. So that's the baseline.
Rome is probably the safer but less exciting pick for sure.