[PB61 - Spoiler] bell's uncreatively named spoiler thread

[bellarch]

1st note that with mod changing tech costs that mining / fishing is generally considered the best tech pair possible now. IE agriculture isn't the end all be all it was in base BTS (for those unaware last couple base bts games Realms did agriculture was worth a full point in the picking system and you only got 5 points).

Generally when picking India I use my first pick on it instead of a leader. I still like Victoria, but there are replacements and she hasn't been picked since latest financial nerf (other than large PB59 game where we got random leaders).

Caveat to everything: a lot can depend on size Tarkeel ends up on for map. How much room do we have ect.

Just going down your list
Byzantium would require a start without a lot of worker techs. Also, require a larger map as people SHOULD target you before UU.
China is still good even with agri cost going down. Still only UU that does collateral off boats. UB isn't nothing.
France is just fine - all of its stuff hits a little bit later. Something that takes some adjustment for multiplayer is there is a HUGE emphasis on early game snowball.
England - if the map is really big I like them better than France especially if you take financial. Good starting techs
Khmer - no one has picked since the UU was nerfed, but I still think its a good civ. I don't even think you HAVE to be expansive to pair with.
Russia - while both English and Russia are late game, the English UB is just sooo much better. Also, England has better starting techs. That being said 2 movers are valued much higher than 1 movers. That being said by this era a lot of warfare is actually about the navies (something I wasn't fully prepared for entering multiplayer).
Celts - Protective celts has certainly been done a lot. I'll get to protective in next post, but overall over rated. If it was a tighter map maybe.
Mongolia - How early can be beat down is again map size dependent. They are pretty good at it. With barbs being on it means people have to build more axes and therefore less spears early which is useful. Also it should be noted it looks like no score passed which is good for being aggressive.
Persia - not a fan unless its tight and then would rather just choose Egypt for UU. UB is subpar.
Arabia - Just like Byzantium would require specific start. Kind of a cool go religion thing, but overall would rather pick Byzantium.

I also like Rome because of techs and overall top 5 UU (you don't have to be aggressive even although I've lived that life and its fun). UB also not nothing (probably on par with Persia).

I can definitely see the argument for picking India instead of a leader, especially since we're realistically likely to get an Imperialistic leader with a good secondary trait still. We'll see if that's actually an option on the table lol.

Your points on civs are giving me ideas - I think we'll have to see what we know about the map before making any real decisions, though? [under the assumption that we can't just pick India because someone else does] That being said, all this discussion is leaning me in favor of India/Khmer/Inca I think, for the purposes of early expansion/growth/development. My thinking is that the later game hinges more on how well one plays the earlier portions of the game than specific era-specific advantages, and I'm not really sold on the value of early aggression - so unique benefits that come early and help with expansion and growth seem the most useful to me.

[civac2]

Industrious is weaker in CTH than in the base game. Yes, you get relatively more advantage when constructing wonders since the strategic resource bonus is lower but this in no way offsets the nerf to fail gold. Being able to generate fail gold more efficiently constitutes the strength of BTS IND next to the cheaper forges.

The thing about Organized is that the 100% discount pushes court houses into viability. You not only get them cheaper you can build them earlier and in more marginal cities. I do agree that FIN is still better though on Monarch.

[Tarkeel]

For IND; don't underestimate the benefit of cheaper forges. The difference between a 2-whip at size 4 vs 4-whip at size 8 is enormous; You can almost whip them out in all cities the moment you get metal casting. This again increases the value of all later whips. The wonder bonus is almost an afterthought for me.

[Mjmd]

Inca's definitely a civ that I was thinking about at one point, but I was unsure how good they would be with all the nerfs applied from the patch. I wasn't thinking about the Terrace irrigating nearby dry agriculture resources, though.

To respond briefly to the more interesting points on traits (although this is all good and useful information!):

Organized: I was discounting this because (a) slightly lower difficulty than I'm used to (b) I've found that it's markets, not courthouses, that really fix early economic problems. I suppose this may change though, given that the goal is to do an extreme early game snowball, which probably entails more cities earlier.
Protective: honestly I'm partially valuing this because it helps to protect against the possibility of an early-game rush if we end up next to like Aggressive Rome or something. Not sure how relevant that really is - I suppose that's why I have you around to ask questions!
Charismatic: honestly this always seems like it should be better than it turns out to be for me. The issue is that you're usually whipping off unhappy pop or otherwise have happy from resources or HR, so the increased happy cap (imo the best part) turns out not to be relevant.
Industrious: gets several direct and indirect buffs from CtH, but I'm not convinced the benefits are all that worth it - wonders are easy to overvalue. That being said, it's perhaps something to consider if we could be the only Industrious civ or have stone/marble at start.
Creative: I'll say here that I personally consider the best part of Creative to be the cheap libraries and not the extra starting culture - cheaper libraries means more of them faster, and thus more commerce multipliers and faster Great Scientist access. But on second thought, that benefit is also dependent on a highish-food map.

Only 1 player has picked Inca since the change and they sadly got rushed and overrun. I think its still a good civ with a really good UB, but between which techs they have and India just being so sweet I default to India. 

Org: The civic maintenance discount on organized kicks in pretty fast, so its some nice 'free' savings. Helps cost of spitting out cities which is a major part of the calc for civic maintenance. The cheap lighthouses also help early game.
Pro: Again if it it is tight map ANB you have specific early game techs (religion  /GLH run) you are trying to get to I don't mind it for an econ trait. Part of the problem with protective is it doesn't do anything militarily until you research archery, which I avoid if at all possible until post currency (or if going for HR rush). Archers also aren't the greatest defenders ironically because unlike single player players don't just run units into cities. If a city has too many archers they can just bypass or raze all your improvements and all the city defender archers in the world can't attack out. 
Cha: Part of what made it so good in PB55 was that it was a lush map and it let us whip faster than normal 10 turn whip cycle without caring about consequences. Also, cities were able to grow onto that happy pretty fast. 
Ind: Industrious has been pretty heavily talked about in mod thread. I don't think its spoiler that I didn't choose Victoria in PB60 partly to experience it directly in a multiplayer setting. I would say that being the only Ind player is 100% preferred. 
Creative: so creative is basically a hammer saving trait in both not needing monuments and discounted libraries. The 1st is an uncertain benefit, but map dependent can still be great. At this point I don't think its spoiler that Tarkeel (who is making this map) made the PB60 map very good for being creative. PB59 I also liked early. The 2nd hammer discount on libraries is a little more iffy. Even being creative not every city wants a library early. Usually its capital and 1 other city to produce a GS. As far as early great scientist (which I do like early academy's), it is relatively simple to time a chop with a two pop whip.

[Mjmd]

The map will be a modified standard sized pangea, with about 120ish tiles per player.

It actually is very abnormal for the map maker to state map type. Also, technically most maps we play on are pangeas (for lower # of players), so I would expect this to be extra pangea ie. 120 tiles is a nice sweet spot of you need to be fast, but there is room (depending how map is made). PB56 had 110 tiles but was cramped due to layout and PB60 is also 120 but actually pretty non agro of a start. I would expect this to be more 1st ring cities safe, 2nd ring citise prob safe? After that FIGHT!


Imp or Crea are therefore recommended. It seems like you like creative and this might be big enough that this is perfectly fine and also tight enough that it fits there too. Also, earlier game civs than late.

[Tarkeel]

Bellarch, here is your starting location. Beware of the danger of gazing into the fog, anything outside of the BFC of where you settler is can possibly change before the map is finalized.

[Mjmd]

This is either the best or 2nd best start I've ever seen. I am VERY jealous. I would expect at minimum the 1st ring deer to be mimicked because otherwise no one reviewed the map (glares at lurkers from PB56 and Vans capital)

Edit: just an fyi 4 forested hills tones down power of India a smidge. Fast workers can't step onto them and chop.

[bellarch]

Wow. This start is crazy, right? Honestly better than I was expecting, and I was expecting a pretty good start! (good compared to the average roll you get from the map generator, that is.)

FYI to Mjmd if you see this first, JackRB has picked Khmer. I think that substantially increases the odds of getting Victoria and/or India. We have four picks before us, so we're guaranteed at least our fifth choice of selection. My thought process right now is something like:

1. India
2. Victoria (swap with 1?)
3. Catherine
4. J. Caesar (going off of what you said about Organized being good)
5. Charlemagne

We could easily do some swapping of leaders here, though. Also, I've been doing a little testing and I think that I'm okay taking Inca if something obviously better isn't on the board - the biggest issue is that Bronze Working comes later (since we don't start with mining), so we can't start chopping as fast, but especially with a capital like this our workers should have plenty of stuff to do anyway. I'll try to do a bit of testing tonight and see what everything looks like now in the context of the known starting location.

[bellarch]

I went ahead and simmed the start using India, England, and Inca. (Victoria was the leader, but other than imperialistic she's functionally blank for the length of this sim). Results seem encouraging - while I'm not pretending this is at all fully optimized (I should have mined the cows in the India and England sims, for starters), I was able to produce 2 workers, 1 warrior, and 2 settlers by Turn 30 (England and India) and Turn 32 (Inca). The first required four chops; the second required two chops and a whip. Images of the capital at the end date are attached. I also have detailed worker micro descriptions written, which I'm probably going to toss that in a spreadsheet or something. In case you're wondering, I specifically tested England because it's a civ with Mining but without Fast Workers, and I was slightly worried that picking a civ that started without Mining would severely decrease the explosivity of the start. I'm happy to say that was definitely not the case!

https://imgur.com/a/yLoIiPA

Edit: link to google drive folder with saves, in case Mjmd/anyone wants to try something with the starts and doesn't want to go through worldbuilder

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...sp=sharing

[Mjmd]

Under new reply, hit add image and put the direct link from imgur in there to show pictures. Although for multiple sim ones like this it is fine how you did.

Thoughts: -Disclaimer - you can choose not to listen to me and just play what you think is fun!

-While the normal thing with Imp India is to do two workers into chop a settler, with 3 food resources all pretty easily improvable early I think I would be interested in trying 1 worker grow to size 3. 2 settlers 2 workers by turn 30 sounds fantastic though. 1st ring deer is such a speed up. I am glad to see you microing. I do not have time to even do beginning like I did for Amica (for which I'm a little sorry, maybe I'll take a crack before major decisions). I like doing saves at decision pts to speed up the process. Some people also just use spreadsheets, but I don't have one made.
-No fishing needed and England is a late game sim on an average size map. Any fishing civ would probably have to be pretty good early (like Rome, although not aggressive this big would still be ok taking).
-If you are feeling agro this wouldn't be a bad Egypt start. Main downside is no early chopping and whipping. Main upside   .


-I'm not a fan of Cathy on this big of map because she got nothing after early game. You basically should be attacking someone as fast as possible because all your early game advantages go pretty fast. I think I'm a Cathy fan at like 100 tiles per or less.
-I'm not a big fan of protective as stated (would rather do something well than 2 things meh). I will say I think its better on higher difficulties for not crashing early. 
-If you want a later game trait I would choose either financial or organized. Both have their advantages. Let me know if you want me to discuss more (basically org is early no work savings and hammer discounts which help build more stuff and speed up vs financial late game building modifiers). I do recommend one of the two.
-With this busted of a capital it is possible Imperialistic isn't needed. PB55 we used charismatic in a situation like this to basically overclock whipping. However, I understand the desire to go fast early! Also I believe PB55 was a bigger map.
-If you really like creative again map size and type might benefit from. I will say a lot of the capital food looks pretty sharable which might decrease how much it matters from a speed standpoint.

- We can discuss more as we see more picks, but If you are really feeling India I am not going to be the ded lurker to talk you out of it and I would 100% keep as 1st pick regardless. If India gets taken I would take preferred leader because I just don't think Inca is getting taken (ie you'll have descent options).

-1st city is likely going to share deer and be along river south for trade routes. Scout to cow and then down in that area first (just stating while thinking about). This obviously might change micro (ie should workers be south to improve that city, are you stealing the deer). Pre game micro is more just "ok lets check to make sure this civ works for the start" not here is the final and spend a ton of time on.
-The fact we aren't near coast is interesting in and of itself. Also, while thinking about one of the earlier cities (2-4) should go on coast to then build a galley to then get an island city for trade routes with sailing.
-I also wonder if its a PB51 situation where everyone starts inland or if its more old school random how you start like PB55 (which was busted due to how circumnavigation worked in that mod, but don't worry about that here).
-Might be worth noting how many fishing civs get taken because it could mean we might have more neighbors than others which might affect choices. 7 people does not divide well for neighbors unless its just kind of a circle blob pangea and then I would expect everyone to mirrored ish (Tarkeel did mostly mirror PB60; I at the very least expect starts to be more balanced than a Commodore map ).