Norway does sound like an interesting pick, especially if the map ends up with each player on their own small island as opposed to divided 3 and 3 on two "continent" islands.
Here are a couple general thoughts on the starting 25 turns based on what I have seen in the previous PBEM games, and observations from single player:
• I think that the barbarians appear more scary that than they actually are (especially in the early game). After the the lack of barbarians in Epic 3 I was curious about how effective the barbarians could be ... well, I did a test game on Prince difficulty, deleted the starting warrior, settled the starting settler, and just kept hitting SHIFT+ENTER to end each turn immediately. After 130 turns the city was not attacked by barbarians once! Barbarians were milling around and occasionally entering and leaving borders, but never attacked! It seems that barbarians are only a threat to units (or pillaging), which means that until you have a builder or improvements to protect they can be completely ignored. I'm going to run a test Norway game since I have never played them and see what happens if I ignore attacking barbarians in actual normal play.
• Builder first seems to be an underwhelming start for a couple reason. (1) the builder and the subsequent improvements are vulnerable to early barbarian aggression and potential snipes and pillaging by other players. Without a builder to protect, your first military can be dedicated to exploring and meeting city states. (2) Most improvements are low-yield resulting in long payback time for the investment. The only situation where the improvements provide decent payback is when there are 3 production improvement possible (mines/pastures/quaries) and only when all will be worked (i.e. no point mining a bare hill when you can already work a forest hill). The camp/plantation 1g payback is worthless, and farms aren't much better since you need the production early and don't need the irrigation boost until later. Another problem with farms is that each additional pop costs about 10 more food than the previous pop [15, 24, 34, 44, 55, 66]. Therefore marginal growing resulting from the farm gets worse with each pop growth.
• Scout first - assuming 2/2 yield on the first worked tile for 5 cpt (still getting used to calling them cogs rather than hammers
), scout completes 2 turns faster than warrior and gets 1 additional movement. On an islands map, additional movement is likely of less value because you will run out of land on your starting island quicker. Even in the Pangaea PBEM games the combined starting scouts from all players only made a couple of additional first-to-meet contacts with city states. After the initial couple of contacts and early scouting, his snowball value decreases rapidly. He also does not fare well in barb combat, making it necessary to build a warrior anyway for escorting the first settler and defending improvements from barb pillaging.
• Slinger first - garbage on defense, once it loses 50% health it has 0 strength and automatically dies to the next attack. Doesn't do enough damage to kill barbs single-handed. Even getting in the first shot isn't enough unless sitting on very defensive terrain. One turn slower than scout, one turn quicker than warrior, worse at scouting, worse as settler escort. Worst of the options for first-turn build in my opinion.
• Warrior first - slightly slower to get out than a scout, but able escort the first settler and able to deal with any barbs that show up. 2 movement is enough to scout potential 2nd city locations and nearby city states in the opposite direction from the starting warrior.
tl;dr I believe earlier settler to be of more value than early builder. To that end, I like starting build order Warrior > Settler > Builder. One warrior can loop around to escort the settler while the 2nd can loop back around the time that the builder completes. Settler out around T18-20 depending on tiles in capital's first ring, Worker out 6-ish turns after settler.
The builder completes right about the time that culture research is ready for Craftsmanship boost, or can swap to Foreign Trade for a couple turns if you happen to find a culture city state that boosts your culture rate. Another problem with builder first is often the 3rd improvement for Craftsmanship won't even be useful this early. The capital will often work a forest hill + 2 improved tiles at size 3, so the option is to either build an improvement for the boost that won't be worked or wait until the 2nd city is complete (long after culture research would be waiting for the boost). With Settler > Builder you can put down 2 improvements at the capital and immediately proceed to put the 3rd down at the 2nd city.
After Warrior > Settler > Builder you have the flexibility to do some military if needed or wait until Agoge completes in 5-6 turns, slot in a scout for exploring, possibly sink some cogs into a monument or granary while waiting for the Agoge, or even sink the hammers into another settler. Probably would want another warrior as soon as Agoge is available, but might go halfway on a settler. By this time you have enough gold to purchase a warrior if desperately needed, or wait a few more turns and maybe purchase a monument at the 2nd city.
Anyway, this is what I have been mulling over after watching the starts in the first couple of PBEM's
Here are a couple general thoughts on the starting 25 turns based on what I have seen in the previous PBEM games, and observations from single player:
• I think that the barbarians appear more scary that than they actually are (especially in the early game). After the the lack of barbarians in Epic 3 I was curious about how effective the barbarians could be ... well, I did a test game on Prince difficulty, deleted the starting warrior, settled the starting settler, and just kept hitting SHIFT+ENTER to end each turn immediately. After 130 turns the city was not attacked by barbarians once! Barbarians were milling around and occasionally entering and leaving borders, but never attacked! It seems that barbarians are only a threat to units (or pillaging), which means that until you have a builder or improvements to protect they can be completely ignored. I'm going to run a test Norway game since I have never played them and see what happens if I ignore attacking barbarians in actual normal play.
• Builder first seems to be an underwhelming start for a couple reason. (1) the builder and the subsequent improvements are vulnerable to early barbarian aggression and potential snipes and pillaging by other players. Without a builder to protect, your first military can be dedicated to exploring and meeting city states. (2) Most improvements are low-yield resulting in long payback time for the investment. The only situation where the improvements provide decent payback is when there are 3 production improvement possible (mines/pastures/quaries) and only when all will be worked (i.e. no point mining a bare hill when you can already work a forest hill). The camp/plantation 1g payback is worthless, and farms aren't much better since you need the production early and don't need the irrigation boost until later. Another problem with farms is that each additional pop costs about 10 more food than the previous pop [15, 24, 34, 44, 55, 66]. Therefore marginal growing resulting from the farm gets worse with each pop growth.
• Scout first - assuming 2/2 yield on the first worked tile for 5 cpt (still getting used to calling them cogs rather than hammers
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• Slinger first - garbage on defense, once it loses 50% health it has 0 strength and automatically dies to the next attack. Doesn't do enough damage to kill barbs single-handed. Even getting in the first shot isn't enough unless sitting on very defensive terrain. One turn slower than scout, one turn quicker than warrior, worse at scouting, worse as settler escort. Worst of the options for first-turn build in my opinion.
• Warrior first - slightly slower to get out than a scout, but able escort the first settler and able to deal with any barbs that show up. 2 movement is enough to scout potential 2nd city locations and nearby city states in the opposite direction from the starting warrior.
tl;dr I believe earlier settler to be of more value than early builder. To that end, I like starting build order Warrior > Settler > Builder. One warrior can loop around to escort the settler while the 2nd can loop back around the time that the builder completes. Settler out around T18-20 depending on tiles in capital's first ring, Worker out 6-ish turns after settler.
The builder completes right about the time that culture research is ready for Craftsmanship boost, or can swap to Foreign Trade for a couple turns if you happen to find a culture city state that boosts your culture rate. Another problem with builder first is often the 3rd improvement for Craftsmanship won't even be useful this early. The capital will often work a forest hill + 2 improved tiles at size 3, so the option is to either build an improvement for the boost that won't be worked or wait until the 2nd city is complete (long after culture research would be waiting for the boost). With Settler > Builder you can put down 2 improvements at the capital and immediately proceed to put the 3rd down at the 2nd city.
After Warrior > Settler > Builder you have the flexibility to do some military if needed or wait until Agoge completes in 5-6 turns, slot in a scout for exploring, possibly sink some cogs into a monument or granary while waiting for the Agoge, or even sink the hammers into another settler. Probably would want another warrior as soon as Agoge is available, but might go halfway on a settler. By this time you have enough gold to purchase a warrior if desperately needed, or wait a few more turns and maybe purchase a monument at the 2nd city.
Anyway, this is what I have been mulling over after watching the starts in the first couple of PBEM's