[SPOILERS] Don't mention the war

[NobleHelium]

Whelps, no England for us.

[plako]

Yeah I was starting to lean quite heavily on England too, but Natives it is and I'm not that unhappy. It is very rarely used for a reason, but in this case it has good starting techs and small map makes its uniques a tiny bit more useful. We'll get Fishies hooked up as soon as everyone since BW takes 9-10T to research depending on the micro used. However our worker will be delayed because we can't whip it when BW comes in.

We need to decide also whether to go towards BW or AH. All 3 Fishing/Mining starters will go towards BW. We probably should choose AH. If we get lucky, there are horses but no copper close by and we'll be definately 1st to get both food tiles improved that helps catching others quite a bit. We also want to do plenty of early whipping with this capital and it isn't connected to river so Wheel-Pottery after AH and BW seems best.

[Square Leg]

No England is a shame but its not the end of the world. Native Americans are pretty decent too. We will be slightly later to whipping than the others but so be it.

AH -> Min -> BW sounds best.

The only other option would be Min -> BW -> AH. If we do this though and go WB -> Worker will we have BW in time to whip the worker?

[plako]

No England is a shame but its not the end of the world. Native Americans are pretty decent too. We will be slightly later to whipping than the others but so be it.

AH -> Min -> BW sounds best.

The only other option would be Min -> BW -> AH. If we do this though and go WB -> Worker will we have BW in time to whip the worker?

1st worker won't come out any faster with Mining-BW. However possibility to whip/chop gives us option to get another worker or settler out faster. Another worker would be helpful and could e.g. farm the flood plains, but we can build it normally via utilising the Fish and later Pigs when they come online.

I'll run couple of test more in the evening, but now I think AH and improving pigs as 1st woker action is better for us. With food tiles improved we could grow to size 4 and then use whip from 4->2 to get what we want. While growing we can also get couple of early warriors to scout and have possibility work more lake tiles in case we really need early commerce.

[plako]

Picks:

TMIT - Shaka (Exp/Agr) of the Ottomans
OleDavy/Mackoti - Kublai Khan (Cre/Agr) of the Romans
Serdoa - De Gaulle (Ind/Cha) of Carthage
Plako - Isabella (Spi/Exp) of Native Americans
WK - Louis (Cre/Ind) of England

I'm suprised about Ottomans for TMIT. After picking agressive and no good Fishing starters he should have picked Zulu I think.

OleMack has total killer and in this setup strongest pick especially since I'm sure Mackoti knows how to use Praets. Definately the least favorite neighbor by far. Everything is setup for aggressive settling on your neighbors doorstep and if you don't follow their progress you'll soon find Praets stomping your cities. Luckily they don't have much going on economy wise so Emperor level won't be very friendly for fighting a war for them. They might even go straight to IW utilising the lake tiles to get there although again Emperor level makes it a bit of a challenge.

Serdoa - Carthage is not bad either. Best starting techs and Numids to stomp Praets (and Dog soldiers ). De Gaulle was overall weakest pick. PB4 had a special circumstances that made it work. I don't think we get even remotely similar situation here. I'm not sure I want to build Stonehenge despite of my UB, but Serdoa is definately my biggest competition to get it.

Plako - Isabella is probably the strongest overall leader from the pack. Expansive for early game stregth and Spiritual for late game. Natives are not ideal, but not bad either. They do reasonably well against Praets and option to build them without copper gives some extra security. Very vulnerable to Numids though so some Spears/archers and copper are very nescessary.

WK - England has good starting techs. Unique features are probably too late in this setup, but I regret a bit that I didn't pick them. Portugal would have had also Fishing/mining, but there the UU and UB are totally useless. Louis is alright a bit above De Gaulle in usefulness.

All in all we seem to have 1 truly agggressive nation. 2 wonder hogs that are probably mostly on defense. TMIT isn't too intimidating despite of Aggressive. I should have most adaptability in the pack starting from opportunistic Dog attack and later utilising the civic switchis as seems nescessary.

[NobleHelium]

I wouldn't go for Henge unless you can find Stone nearby or it doesn't fall until later (highly unlikely). You don't need totem poles everywhere, although you'll need to get culture from somewhere. But there's always Caste System.

[plako]

I wouldn't go for Henge unless you can find Stone nearby or it doesn't fall until later (highly unlikely). You don't need totem poles everywhere, although you'll need to get culture from somewhere. But there's always Caste System.

I agree. If it doesn't go early I might try to get it. I definately try harder, if I see easily accessible stone close by.

[NobleHelium]

Last in turn order, boo.

[Square Leg]

See the wording of iskender and my NAP in ffh5 - it offers a neat solution to being last in the turn order. It is in a recent post that I can't be arsed to link as I'm on my phone

[plako]

I didn't easily find the terms what do they say?

I really would like to play the game without NAPs. However they are usually win-win situations to both parties so it is not optimal to avoid them. We'll at least I try to avoid ridiculously long NAPs.