[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[Lazteuq]

With all this input from the lurkers, we're off to a great start! Maybe we have hope of winning the post count war since Miguelito doesn't have a thread in this one.  
Now it's time for me to throw in some random thoughts. Remember that I'm a weaker player than probably everyone else who has posted in this thread, so don't pay that much attention to me.

I think your interest in Organized is well-placed. I'm finally awakening to the power of ORG, a little too late. Early courthouses giving espionage dominance is a huge advantage, and feels oppressive to play against. The start screenshot will help us guess how many lighthouses we might need. I think ORG Aztecs could be great, but it depends on what techs we need. Sac Altars would really reduce the demand for early happiness, by CHM or Calendar or Hereditary Rule.

I don't have much experience with IND, but I definitely like it. It especially makes sense if we delay Currency (such as going Metal Casting first), because then you can use failgold to generate wealth at an unrivaled early game food->wealth rate. Oracling into early discounted Forges or Courthouses sounds great. It requires committing really early unfortunately. I don't especially like rushing Pyramids unless we're SPI or PHI though. I'm guessing Tarkeel will give everyone equal access to Marble and/or Stone. Based on his previous maps, I'm guessing he won't put them in contested areas, which helps IND. It's also possible that he leaves out one or the other entirely. 
In any case Roosevelt sounds pretty solid to me.

I also really like AGG. I think it's a far better deterrent than PRO, ironically. The addition of Barrage to siege weapons is actually a big deal since it means you can easily get Barrage III or Accuracy on units that otherwise rarely get there. Along with the Ikhanda, Agg Zulu sounds fun for forcing people into a defensive panic with a stack of Shock or City Raider Impis darting around between forests and forking cities. However that kind of aggression is also a great way to slow your neighbors down just enough that they all hate you, without much direct profit to show for it. I kind of dislike picking AGG Rome for the same reason as you said. Recent games have shown that it's difficult to make a profitable conquest with praets. I think the last time Rome actually worked out well for someone was Civac in PB55, and he wasn't even AGG!

I've really started to dismiss CRE and CHM lately. I know they can be useful crutches during early expansion, but I believe we can work past them. I think in pitboss they lose some power compared to the multiplayer you're used to. Here you have unlimited time to plan micro so you're maximizing the use of 2-pop whips. You have time to plan city sites so that border pops are less important. Of course the PB61 map was an extreme exception because of those ocean fish. I do expect Tarkeel to make sure that CRE is still relevant on the map. Also the map will likely have more food than a randomly generated map, so we'll be likely to have early city sites with 2 first ring foods, or sharing 1 with the capitol.
In a game with 10 players, I think we can reasonably expect it to end around the early Industrial era. Unless things go horribly wrong I the game should easily reach Rifles and Cannons. All the greens have dedlurkers, so no-one should be easy food.

I know you like PHI and I still like it too, but I think SPI is better overall. That's because SPI lets you easily run Caste and/or Pacifism to get temporary bootleg PHI, plus all the other flexibility of SPI, especially with the new Serfdom.

Since CtH is balanced enough that there are plenty of good combos, we should think about your weaknesses and strengths as a player: I don't have a clear picture, you seem to be pretty versatile.

I think CtH singleplayer is good for trying out leader/trait combos. The AI is as stupid as ever, but in the early game it doesn't matter much. Or maybe we can run a CtH live multiplayer game in the Zulan lobby? A few other people from RB who are on the discord server might be interested...

[Ginger()]

I see you've been enjoying Montezuma lately...
This is going to sound filthy rich after getting trounced by your Aztecs in last weekend's FFA, but I dont think Monty or Aztecs are that strong. As much as I like AGG and SPI, and they are very versatile traits, they don't do any one thing excellently (except formation pikes ). Additionally, about the Sac Altar, it's no doubt good, but I think Rathaus is better if we are pairing Org and swallowing Hunt/Mys. Sac Altar comes right after whipping is being phased out for growth, and if you're really pumping out the units after Calendar/Monarchy, your cities' pop is dropping precipitously to match the anger. If we want a happiness UB, I think EXP Ottomans is the way to go as we dodge the bad starting techs and the risky Oracle path.
AGG is powerful at tech parity, and is great at punching up in tech weight-class, but doesn't give either the REX nor commerce advantage to get to that tech parity, and punching up is generally not a good symptom. We'd probably need to pair AGG with an early-game civ like Inca/India and a sustained commerce trait like Fin/Org

CRE is generally underappreciated as it's more than free Stonehenge, the library bonus means easy beakers when limping to Currency, and it's very useful in settling up favorable border cities (look at PB 62, Nauf's only saving grace as Philosophic Netherlands on that cramped map was being Creative and settling hill cities). But I'm more than happy to skip if we are looking to start with Mysticism or rush Oracle/Religion. If we end up with Rome* or Carthage on water map we'll revisit this, barring that scenario you can convince me to skip creative if you promise to help my micro .
*I agree actively leveraging Praets is hard and they come at an awkward time, but they could at least buy peace in our time (until Machinery). Besides for Fish/Min, who else, England or Portugal?  

CHA is very skippable, I agree, it's two meh traits slapped together. While theoretically making your cities 20-25% more productive early game, this is a false hope as most F/H comes from resources. There is a respectable synergy in Hannibal for 2 more cottages per city early game, but I'd rather pick Huayna or Mansa or Darius from the FIN goon squad.

Oooohhh god the old PHI/SPI question gives me some real bellyaching. I like both traits, in regular restricted leaders BtS, Gandhi is my favorite. Both traits synergize and act as bootleg copies of the other. I find the early Golden Ages from PHI can help with your civic switches come Philosophy/CivilService. (Hell, there's a fun thing to do with Gandhi where you swap into Caste, pump a merchant, and bulb Currency for lightning REX recovery  ). If we had a medieval start I would 100% pick SPI over PHI, but the early GPP output without Pacifism and National Epic is honestly abysmal. In 20 turns, a PHI city with 2 scientists will crank out the first 2 great scientists. Compare to 50 turns for non-PHI. 
I'm biased, I'll admit it, the only rational way would be to try to examine which traits leads us to a firing-solution on another player faster. We probably can't win a war solo pre-renaissance, so what gets us juicy cannon or rifles first, PHI or SPI? Which gives us more survivability until that point? Which would enable us to better vulture in medieval?
(I do have Ramsses in the back of my mind, but if we lose the mids race he's not looking so hot, and I remember Tarkeel's warning about basing IND picks around assumptions of landing a particular wonder)

How would I evaluate my strengths and weaknesses? Well isn't this just the picture perfect exercise in Dunning-Kruger? 
I struggle to both tech well and whip out a respectable army, though I'm usually capable of one or the other separately (Maybe Serf and SPI is a possibility to solve this?). My other big weakness is that the single-player and the AW teamers I play are both radically different games from PB with radically different growth/combat curves. My personality as a player is that of a passive builder who has accepted the reality that the only win-con is conquest, but maintains a state of grief-stricken denial of that fact. This reflects itself in my deep-seated desire to play Frederick of HRE, which, yeah, that should speak for itself . 
I suppose one advantage I might have is that I have no record on this forum, so other players don't necessarily have the right expectations. There's a voice in the back of my mind saying to pick Elizabeth as bait, then Superdeath my neighbor with chariots.

I've been playing some CtH singleplayer, and was very impressed with Charlemagne's new synergy, though his combo still drops off a cliff after 70 turns. I'm gonna play around with different starting tech civs to try and get an intuitive feel for the tech-cost changes on the first 40 turns. And yeah, I'll try to organize a CtH FFA on GKC's discord this Sunday.

[civac2]

It's not so easy to generate IND fail gold in CTH as you can't do the usual Moai thing and have to rely on someone else finishing pyramids or something.

You guys played an FFA game with Henrik (Mansa) last week, right? He showed some screenshots on his Youtube channel.

[Ginger()]

It's not so easy to generate IND fail gold in CTH as you can't do the usual Moai thing and have to rely on someone else finishing pyramids or something.

You guys played an FFA game with Henrik (Mansa) last week, right? He showed some screenshots on his Youtube channel

Yes, it was a very silly game, Laz and I spawned near the polar band (toroid), I had a bunch of plains cows and unirrigated wheat, and Laz rolled the Oops, All Tundra! start, while Henrik settled ~10 cities on another continent. With the power of FIN, I hard teched Mil Trad after losing Lib by one turn, and after a combination of 1am brain and being cocky with tech advantage, I got absolutely wrecked by Laz's stack of formation Pikes and Maces, which then promptly got stack wiped by the one cannon I managed to produce before we conceded to Henrik, utterly exhausted. https://discord.gg/bP7VpFxjHj if you want to join our shenanigans

(I think one of my favorite changes in CtH is the GLH nerf, as I can now enjoy my favorite wonder without the massive shame)

[Tarkeel]

Ginger, here is your starting location. Beware of the danger of gazing into the fog, anything outside your settler's BFC is likely to change before the map is finalized.

[Ginger()]

after running a couple sims, it seems the correct play regardless of techs is to grow on the Banana while making a workboat, finishing the workboat one turn after turn 9 growth by working 3H tile with new citizen. With Fish/Mining and going straight to BW, I finished Settler turn 25 with one chop after improving Deer (can get it turn 24 by second chop, but doubt this is worth it, as you'd then be size 2 and lack the 4 food deer. The Cap is only size 2 at turn 25 but it grows in 3 working 4F1H and 5F2C.

With Hunt/Mys going fish->mining->BW, I finish the settler at turn 29 and complete both camp and mine on the pigs, and the cap is size 3, chopping, building a second worker.
I tried growing to size 3 before starting worker (it only took 3 turns), but it did not accelerate the settler to compensate for the lost worker turns (no pigs mine). I start chopping faster because of the Oasis Commerce from the additional time spent at higher pop, but the settler still slow builds turn 29 before BW-chop finishes.

Conclusion:
Hunt/Min or esp. fish/Min preferrable, Hunt/Mys is slow but playable thanks to CtH workboat changes. Carthage > Rome > HRE is what I'm thinking now for civ picks, but I'm feeling unconfident and wishy washy in that pronouncement.
Wheel/Agr is not looking good on this start, no grain/floodplains and there are rivers for trade connection.
The sim also tells me CRE is skippable because the Palace gives us a free border pop :P
Given how fast the settler comes with fish/min, I'm wondering if PRO is worth serious consideration as a means to pay for this privilege early game. But I'd give up the long term output of Org/Phi/Fin which will be needed if this game goes to Renaissance.

P.S. India (Fish->BW->Hunt) can get the Settler out turn 25 as well (I'm a couple hammers/beakers short of turn 24), but ends up with 2 pop capital working the Fish and Pig Mine (Camp finishes turn 28), which grows much slower than the Fish/Mining two pop capital that gets to work the camp over the pig mine.

[Lazteuq]

Thanks for the rapid mapmaking, Tarkeel.
Ginger, I like the way you think and write. I'm feeling optimistic about this adventure.
I don't have the dedication to respond to everything but here we go. Sorry about taking so long to respond. 

but I dont think Monty or Aztecs are that strong.

I just like Monty, I don't really have an argument here. I can't deny that SPI/AGG doesn't help with the most important thing in the game, early growth. I only discovered the Sac Altar recently because of that lobby game since we were playing restricted leaders. It does become sort of irrelevant quickly because more happiness is easy to get, especially since it's a no War Weariness game. You're right that sac altars come too late for the heavy early game whipping....UNLESS you oracle CoL of course!

the only rational way would be to try to examine which traits leads us to a firing-solution on another player faster. We probably can't win a war solo pre-renaissance, so what gets us juicy cannon or rifles first, PHI or SPI? Which gives us more survivability until that point? Which would enable us to better vulture in medieval?

That's a really good way to frame the it. I guess neither of us are really qualified to answer. I would certainly feel more comfortable with SPI, but that's partly because I suck at planning ahead enough to leverage bulbs well. You're the one playing though, and I trust your judgement. You make a good defense of PHI. Even though I don't like very early GAs, an early academy is great, and this start looks like a pretty good commerce capitol with coast, oasis, and a lot of river.

(I do have Ramsses in the back of my mind, but if we lose the mids race he's not looking so hot, and I remember Tarkeel's warning about basing IND picks around assumptions of landing a particular wonder)

I think picking Ramsses (of India?) and going all-in on Pyramids would be a lot of fun. Or rushing Oracle, except I think that's even riskier. I guess it all depends on whether you want to take chances early or not. Here's my philosophy: The presence of Cornflakes, Cairo, and Pindicator changes everything. If it was entirely new/newish players, I would think playing safe is good. However, with those three guys in the game, I think risky and decisive plays are probably the only way to have a decent chance of winning. If we play cautiously, we'll be almost surely beaten by someone who either is just more skilled at playing it safe, or someone who made a decisive risky move and profited massively, with a mixture of luck and skill. I think playing safe is a luxury that only the better players can afford. I know this is an idea of "variance" that NobleHelium talked about a few months ago, but I don't remember what thread. Also risky plays are probably more fun for us (and for the lurkers).

passive builder who has accepted the reality that the only win-con is conquest, but maintains a state of grief-stricken denial of that fact.

#relatable. I started playing as a 7-year old and spent most of my time in denial of what it means to be a 4X game. I still lament the loss of those days when I played the game as if it's SimCity.

I suppose one advantage I might have is that I have no record on this forum, so other players don't necessarily have the right expectations. There's a voice in the back of my mind saying to pick Elizabeth as bait, then Superdeath my neighbor with chariots.

True, people are likely to underestimate you, I think you have quite a bit more skill than is expected of the average green.
I love how Superdeath is a verb now. That would be hilarious.

About the start:
Picking civ first seems obvious. Fish/Min is surely good as you say. A non-IMP T25 settler sounds wild, but everyone will probably have this option since the plainshill+forestbanana is so fast. I'm guessing all the starts are mirrored, so most people will probably think along those same lines. There's a decent chance both Carthage and Rome will already be taken in the first 4 picks if the starts are mirrored.
Since the water is only 1 food, we do know that it's an ocean, not a lake. Seeing this coastal capitol means the map might be pretty wet, but we can't say for sure. EXP Carthage for Cothons sounds good. It's awkward though, EXP demands early granaries to make it worthwile. I also don't like EXP much anyways. I wonder if we could go Wheel-Pottery right after finishing BW. We might be able to ignore Agriculture and AH for a while, and just leave a mine on the pigs for a long time. If we settle for copper we can forget about horses for a bit. 
Rome feels like a safer choice than Carthage because it doesn't depend on how wet the map is, and praets are a stronger deterrent than numids.

wondering if PRO is worth serious consideration as a means to pay for this privilege early game.

I'm conflicted about this, I feel totally unqualified to say how necessary PRO is. My instinct is that ORG starts beating PRO pretty quickly. I think it all depends on how long we expect to be isolated without foreign trade routes. That's dependent on how long until we get Writing and Sailing. With only 2 coast tiles in the capitol, we probably won't go for an early lighthouse, unless ORG.
Maybe PRO lets us neglect Writing for a long time because you just don't need OB. Sailing is still valuable even with PRO because there will almost certainly be a nearby island to use for ICTRs.

One trait we haven't mentioned much is IMP. I thought of it because we might be running a chop and mine-heavy, low food economy where IMP is most effective. Even after PB60, I still don't really know what to think of IMP.
Ah, I don't know what to think in general. Too many options. I keep forgetting ideas before i can even write them down.

The sim also tells me CRE is skippable because the Palace gives us a free border pop :P

I'm going to make my own sim now and mess around.

[Ginger()]

I'm sorry for forcing you to read so much, must be the slave-driving instincts of a Civ4 player

I totally agree that for us to win, something needs to *happen*. We are not going to coast/micro our way to a win, be it the economy of early growth or the economy of traits. That said I have little clue how beyond ooh shiny-wonder gambits or eating a fellow green when their dedlurker isn't home.
Yup we pick civ before leader, there's simply fewer of them and greater power steps. All that's remaining is for Fabled to kick it off...

Also of interesting note is that (in my sims) Fish/Hunt accomplishes the same as Fish/Min. And there is a certain civ  that begs for water maps. But here's the thing, we don't know if this is a big lake or the inlet of an actual ocean. Pindicator did ask for strategically important bodies of water, I guess it remains to be seen to what extent Tarkeel will oblige him.

Early stuff like Imp*, might synergize with India. I'd be surprised if everyone got fishing starts. I guess we'll see as the picks roll in.
*I am not as experienced with making this pay off. If IMP ends up giving me more cities, it's great, if it just gets me to the same count faster, I'm not sure I can turn those few extra turns gained into a real advantage.



One thing I can't decide is to what extent we should hedge. I usually do so in other games, and Mjmd sure likes his Vicky (maybe we pair our fast Carthome civ with Elizabeth/Gandhi/Ramsses/FDR). But if we are trying to make a decisive play, maybe the answer is to put all our chips on the same number, a lot of unknowns.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing
I finally broke down and made a spreadsheet for the openings. I have become math, the destroyer of fun. I was going to list the results for Imperialistic or for 4->2 whipping the second settler but then I looked in the mirror. This all feels a little twisted and ironic to me, because under no circumstances will I be able to maintain this level of engagement consistently, but hey, I'm on vacation until Monday. Likewise, simming every possibility will get impossible after the third city, and I fear I'll go back to my usual play by ear habits. 
Speaking of habits, I have a burning bias to play HRE here. Yes Frederick of HRE for high slider and Academy capital is a very good combo, but come on, Rome is the winner here, and Oracle prevents GLH or Pyramids play. I suspect its because every time I've tried out the Rathaus strategy, I've felt hamstrung by the starting techs. So here, presented with as generous a start as can be, I worry I won't get a better chance. I guess the lurkers can read the chart's results and tell me if I'm crazy or not. It's an average 3.6 turns difference between the two starting tech combos, not great, not terrible.

[Tarkeel]

I love this kind of back and forth discussion, so I'm really looking forward to how the game will go for you. I can't really comment too much though.

[Lazteuq]

So many possibilities with this start, but I don't see anything that stands out. Since there are too many decent options, I think you should just pick based on subjective desires. If HRE is what your heart wants, that's fine with me. If we keep hunting for the truly optimal combo, we'll probably go insane. That level of simming is not sustainable, but it doesn't have to be. Planning will make playing very easy in the first 30 turns or so.

Second settler date is a good benchmark, so it's good that you simmed out to turn 40ish. I've been playing with worldbuilder but I haven't discovered much that you didn't already say. I've mostly been playing with the Hunt XOR Mine, grow to 3. It seems fine to me. Whipping 4-2 doesn't save many turns and doesn't seem very efficient, especially if we end up sharing capitol food with a second city. The oasis and banana forest both incentivize keeping the capitol large. Working oasis instead of banana is good for getting BW on t27 instead of t28 but that doesn't matter much. It's only important to reveal copper before the first settler is out.
We all talk about foodhammers being king in the early game, but I think actually commerce is almost as valuable as hammers until you get Pottery. Compared to the bananaforest, Oasis trades a hammer for two commerce. I think that's nearly always a good trade. It really sucks to be stuck inefficiently building workers/settlers and growing on warriors/monuments? when Granaries aren't available yet.

Did you include a turn of anarchy after the first settler is done in your sims?

I guess it would be a little strange for everyone to have mirrored starts with 9 players. PB60 did have them, but that was a pretty small game, with only 6. That fish seems too important to ignore. The PB59 starts were all basically identical, BUT that start was a lot more flexible, with wheat and grassland plains sheep, making it much more open to Agri or AH. This start doesn't feel flexible enough to be
Tarkeel made PB61's map as well, but that one isn't as "engineered" and so it's harder to draw any conclusions from it.
My best guess is that sea is sort of like PB60's: Not one universal ocean but large enough to touch multiple civs and allow naval conflict. Vikings do sound fun. Jowy in PB60 was making good use of them.

IMP India definitely does have synergy, as long as there are plenty of forests to chop. Also the Mobility on workers immediately has benefits for this early micro stuff. As you talked about yesterday, India wants to neglect Hunting, otherwise the pig mine gets done and then the worker has nothing to do. That loss of food hurts a bit, but is still manageable I think. I'm sure India would be interesting to make some wonder chopping plays too, but it doesn't seem amazing.
I'm pretty sure there will still be an acceptable ORG leader to pick up on the way back to pair with HRE (or Vikings?), I don't think you need to worry about hedging for that. Same idea with an EXP leader for Carthage, and Rome doesn't even care.
I am increasingly believing in the power of IND/ORG (FDR). It doesn't actually lock us into an Oracle rush. Pyramids and GLH are always solid even if you're not SPI or PHI. Depending on the map, GLH might be a more worthwhile wonder than Oracle. I think oracling CoL too early can be wasteful, since we'll still be spamming settlers and granaries anyway, not wanting courthouses yet even if they are discounted.