[SPOILERS] Lurker thread; the omniscient view

[SevenSpirits]

To recap, I'm going to remove the village 2NE of the capital, and swap the PRO/CHA bonuses.

Additionally:
1) Looking at nearby expansion possibilities I think the east looks a little too good; I'm going to take off the farm from the Oasis, maybe add one to a different Oasis. Any other map feedback?
2) Looking at civs I agree with Plako that wheel/mysticism/fishing are nicer starting techs than usual and this point to Byzantium as being much nicer than normal. (It's normally got irritating starting techs to balance out the crazy UU.) With the map also being big enough that combat may start right around that time, do you think they need a mild nerf?

[kjn]

2) Start without the warrior?

[SevenSpirits]

No one starts with a warrior. Just city/scout/worker.

[kjn]

No one starts with a warrior. Just city/scout/worker.

Ah, missed that. Maybe use the inca solution, ie removing their scout. Or borrow from the Dan Quayle game, and give them a one-move starting worker?

[SevenSpirits]

Ah, missed that. Maybe use the inca solution, ie removing their scout. Or borrow from the Dan Quayle game, and give them a one-move starting worker?

Yeah, removing the scout probably nerfs them into not being taken but I'm happy with that. Cataphracts are dominant, and I'd rather see more equal warfare.

[Cyneheard]

Suggestion:

Make the Railroad tile a grass hill? An 0/5/0 tile isn't that good. A 1/4/0 tile is quite a bit better: you want that tile to be tempting to improve and keep, otherwise mining isn't much of a cost. 1f ~ 2h early; an 0/5/0 tile is roughly the same as a regular old grass mine. I.e., not much of a loss for what's normally a strong starting tech.

[SevenSpirits]

1f ~ 2h early

Well, that only becomes true with granaries. I don't think you're planning to grow on mines; you're going to work it when you're producing a settler/worker, and in that case the plains hill is equal if not better. You're right that a grass mine would be a bigger incentive, but not that much bigger (particularly because it gets converted to a flat grassland (good) instead of a flat plains (bad) unless you were planning on changing that too). But I think Mining is acceptably disincentivized compared to the other starting techs.

[Krill]

I think you went overboard. There is no way that I would ever pick agri, for instance. Fishing is a totally worthless pick as well. You're basically stuck choosing from Hunting (which is a no brainer IMO), Wheel and Myst. Mining perhaps has some synergy with CHM for a quickly double slave (Cyrus FTW).

[SevenSpirits]

I think you went overboard. There is no way that I would ever pick agri, for instance. Fishing is a totally worthless pick as well. You're basically stuck choosing from Hunting (which is a no brainer IMO), Wheel and Myst. Mining perhaps has some synergy with CHM for a quickly double slave (Cyrus FTW).

What if the new corn spot if you pick agriculture was still freshwater? Then it's only the temporary benefit and then drawback of the corn being forested. I was concerned that would be too strong.

[Krill]

I got a worker and I want to use him for as long as possible and delay the second worker until the last second: I want to push out a settler asap to get a new city up and running to grow. To do that I need to grow vertically so I need food, and then production to finish that settler (I don't want to slave at size 4 without a granary). I need that farm on the corn asap to do that. Starting with Agri but not Mining means that the corn can not get hooked until around t17, maybe a turn or two later. I can get it hooked by t9 otherwise, giving me an additional 24 food just from researching Agri first. If I start with Agri, I don't have to start with Hunting to have something to do at the start of the game so I can research Hunting first and then on to Mining: it doesn't fix the problem if I can actually improve the tile straight away into something good.

TBH, here, Hunting is always the right choice: you are actually allowing the player to hook up that deer one turn sooner. and there is nothing else that the worker can do on t0 that is productive. Also, that RR hill is an absolute godsend.

To put this into perspective, as Joao of Mongolia I can finish a settler eot t13, with a capital at size 4 and 2 warriors built, and 3 improved tiles, a fourth finished hte turn after (2 mines, camp and farm) capable of 20 production a turn into settlers and 17 production per turn into workers. Nothing is going to compete with that: Pro can't finish a settler until eot t10 if they start with Hunting/Not Agri.

EDIT: Checking the paedia, there are 6 civs that would let me do that: Aztecs, Celts, HRE: Myst; Greeks, Viking: Fishing; Mongolia: Wheel, so you can always pick a Hunting civ with an IMP leader.

I think one option would be to say if you pick Agri first you get stuck with a wet rice? and move the grain resource 1W so the worker can't get there on the first turn to improve it as well. Then it's a proper choice, but I think you need to change hte Hunting choice: make it that the deer is not forested unless you pick Hunting to start with.

Starting with Mining, well...that just isn't a good choice no matter what as you do not want to research BW early here. I dunno, I'd just maybe say if you pick Mining first you lose the RR and the grass hill gets turned into a plains hill, but Mining sucks because I never want to mine early anyway, even if I start with 3 pop and a granary, I'd just tech BW and slave hard *shrug*

Fishing, dunno, that just seems like a good pick as the lesser of two evils so you don't have to pick Mining or Agri, even with the above changes...