Wow, so the starting spot and bonuses have been posted, so I'm going to do an initial reaction. I'm going to rethink this more tomorrow, so this is just my gut reaction, and is highly subject to change
. I'll quote the stuff as we go for reference so you don't have to tab between this and the tech thread.
SevenSpirits Wrote:![[Image: pbem32startshot.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1116194/pbem23pics/pbem32startshot.jpg)
You have a pre-placed city with 5 culture; a scout; and a worker one tile south of the capital. Note the village at B, the workshop on the flood plain, the railroad at D, and the Forest Preserve on the tile two south of the capital.
Also note the fort on desert NW of the capital, the ready-to-go incense NE of the capital, and the mysterious roads next to the incense. ALSO note that SevenSpirits got evil with the crabs and made it so we can't improve them anytime soon as we'll have to wait and found a city east and adjacent to the lake so we can get a work boat on it. The stone covered by jungle is also interesting - either serving as a wonder rusher or a time waster. Industrious + Stonehenge will be tried by someone I can pretty much guarantee. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Quote:Depending on your civilization's starting techs, certain things will be changed about your start:
Fishing: Your city loses its 5 starting culture.
The Wheel: The village on Tile B is removed.
Agriculture: The Corn is moved to Tile C (where it is forested).
Hunting: Tile A loses the forest.
Mysticism: Tile C becomes plains.
Mining: Tile D becomes flatland.
The Mining one is painful. The railroaded plains hill is quite awesome and a railroaded plains flatland is worthless. I am ruling out Mining already. Fishing is pretty bearable as is Hunting. Mysticism is as well but that's just a blah tech. I guess that's the point. Agriculture seems really bad and I probably should avoid it. The Wheel is bearable too actually as I feel the village is only really useful for a quick religion race, but overall I'd rather be working some of the other nice tiles here. I think the plan here is to pick which techs I don't mind starting with and cross-reference that with civs I would like to play.
Quote:Additionally there are three civilizations with effects should you choose them:
If you are India, you start without a worker.
If you are Inca or Byzantium, you start without a scout.
Definitely not going to bother with India. Byzantium is made stronger in this game by the fact that their usually obnoxious techs are not terrible here. I'll consider them and Inca, but I've played them both before and this seems as good a reason as any to skip them.
Quote:Depending on your traits, you will additionally start with two free items (in your capital, in case that's not clear):
Aggressive: Library
Charismatic: Granary
Creative: Courthouse
Expansive: Hospital
Financial: 1 gold
Imperialistic: Grocer
Industrious: Castle
Organized: Supermarket
Philosophical: Airport
Protective: +2 Population
Spiritual: Warrior with the Sentry and Leadership promotions.
Clarifications:
a) Yes, Financial starts with a buck. Not 1gpt, not a gold resource. $1.
b) If your civ has a unique unit/building version of a starting unit/building of yours, you'll get your special version, not the regular version.
That Expansive Hospital is just as worthless as Financial's 1 gold - note the abundance of health resources nearby in addition to the natural Expansive bonus. Creative's courthouse is really only useful for the EP boost you'd get, and even then I'm not sure how valuable that is. This is getting long already, but these traits seem especially interesting:
Aggressive - pair it with Philosophy and hello Academy.
Charasmatic - I'm really curious how valuable that Granary is compared to a stronger trait, but I feel like this one actually warrants consideration. Combine it with the fact that Chm is good for AW and this trait could be fun.
Philosophical - So we could airlift a unit from the capital straight to any other city? Pump units in the capital and instantly ship them to the front-lines. Or even use it to win a settling race. Pretty fun. Quickly get a missionary into a new city for culture pops. I'm sure there's more uses, but this seems ripe for abuse.
Protective - Quick start trait. Would be nasty to pair this with Expansive. Protective still sucks, but is ever so slightly less terrible in AW.
Spiritual - An extra warrior lets you get workers/settlers out quicker. Cool. Spiritual is always underrated anyways, though I've always felt I'm not good enough to leverage it to its full extent. Still, it's nice to see a good bonus for an upper mid-tier trait.
Alright that was gut reactions, now I need to sleep and I'll think this over further tomorrow. Dazed I'd love to hear your thoughts on this sometime tomorrow. I'm still liking the idea of nabbing one of the "elite 3" traits and pairing it with a trait that has a really useful bonus.
That said, I look forward to reading your thread. 
