[SPOILERS] Don't mention the war

[plako]

Greetings plako. Fancy another dedicated lurker?

Welcome, sir. Noblemen will always fit in.

Square Leg, unfortunately we've found a vermins from your room. Luckily we've found a very nice replacement that handily has easy access to cleaning devices and there won't be any street noise to bother you.

[plako]

TMIT did choose Shaka and we've a small mostly land based map. I really don't want to face aggressive Rome or Zulu without a strong counter units. Choosing aggressive leader myself could work. Also Natives could fair reasonably well. Naturally I could also choose either Rome or Zulu partly as a denial. Mali could also work via hopefully choking the Rome/Zulu, if we won't find a diplo way. Egypt wouldn't be that bad either, but I've already played them.

At this point I think I'll pick either Natives or Rome when my 1st turn comes and there should be plenty of ok leaders available to pair with them.

[plako]

Rome gone for Mack/Davy . I'm now thinking Agressive Zulus might be quite alright pick also. They've a nice UB also helping a bit with Emperor maintenance. No Fishing though so it would definately had to be worker 1st start. They've good starting techs to grab AH that helps a lot. Natives are still my #1 option.

[Square Leg]

PIG-EON?

Flying pigs?

Native America is looking good as dog soldiers fair well against praets naturally having the same strength so it is just a promo/defensive bonus war... which the defender would likely win.

Agri/fish is pretty sweet - start AH maybe then Min - BW. Dog soldiers available early and could be used for a choke/defence.

England have good best starting techs for this game as we could start on BW and use that to get into early slavery utilising that lake fish and the pigs after AH is researched.

[plako]

England have good best starting techs for this game as we could start on BW and use that to get into early slavery utilising that lake fish and the pigs after AH is researched.

Good points. Spiritual leader could work pretty well combined with mining/fishing indeed. We could grow while building WB and work just lake tiles until we get BW and then whip. Overflow could go to worker. That can't be much slower than straight up building WB using hammer tiles and in the end nets us more commerce. This raises the value of England (and Rome). Nevertheless we still need to solve Praet/impi problem. That means either Agr/Spi or settling only on highly defensive spots and obviovously securing copper would be top priority. Maybe Isabella?

[Square Leg]

Izzy of England would be very solid if we can avoid a choke.

I am a big fan of SPI in general and EXP is pretty much the best trait out there. The map is small though so we should still really consider the Natives for their resource-less dog's They solve both Impi and Praet problems.

[plako]

Just remembered that Locke/Cervantes played England of Isabella in PB4 . Well that is a new combo for me. My current thinking is to choose Isabella on 1st round and hopefully England or Natives on 2nd (preference for England at the moment). If both are gone, then possibly Carthage could be the backup. They also have Fishing+Mining and their HA replacement has a bonus against melee, but Cothon will be useless in this map.

With England we just need to settle highly defensive cities and secure copper early. Settling Copper should be relatively easy task with BW 1st approach.

[Square Leg]

If we take Izzy our capital should be Barcelona

[plako]

Serdoa took Carthage. Fishing/Mining is the King it seems. I did run some tests and Fishing/Mining gives definately best start. However Fishing/Agriculture is also ok. Therefore I'm reasonably happy to get either England or Natives and did choose Isabella.

[NobleHelium]

Isabella is in general the strongest leader with FIN banned IMO. Natives would be a very interesting pick...I don't think anyone's picked it before. Dog soldiers would do decently against praetorians. They'd probably lose unit for unit, but they're cheaper than swords. The UB is probably more useful than dog soldiers if you're trying to defend against praetorians, but it replaces a monument which is kind of annoying.

Overall I'd take England unless you're really scared of being rushed.

If you go with England my intuition says to dump hammers into a WB, tech BW, then whip the WB and overflow into a worker. The overflow will allow us to aggregate the 2h/turn and funnel it into the Expansive bonus whereas normally we wouldn't be able to get it. The worker can chop another worker while we tech AH. BW might take a while on Emperor, but it's a small map.

Yeah, I really like that build actually. England is definitely superior if you ask me.