[no players] Lurkers' paradise for PBEM3

[Woden]

Looks good to me and looks like everybody has a decent start. I do think England will complain at first because she doesn't have a obvious 2nd city location on fresh water. There is one up north by the bananas and one to the west by the deer but after that pretty dry, but I think the numerous options for coastal cities will definitely make up for it. England should have a rock solid economy once she gets it going and she does still get a trade route for both the harbor and CH. I think India has the start I would want with all the spice within reach and lots of wood to chop.

Japan has a rock star location for Petra. I wonder if he will pursue it. Interesting that there is no real choke points. Everybody should have access to numerous neighbor. Surprised that there is 3 religious and science CS and only 1 each of the rest. Map looks good and fair. I would stick with this map.

[Singaboy]

Woden's assessment is pretty much spot on. England might also suffer from the lack of a tectonic split next door. Well, you can only do so much

[Cornflakes]

Looking at this with my minimal-to-date in game experience ... it seems to me that Arabia's start next to the natural wonder is game-breaking if their extra-settler-vision can see the wonder-boosted rice tile. Move SE T1, E T2 and settle for first ring 3F/1Science/1Culture. Border expansion picks up wonder-hill.

[Sullla]

Well, in the end no one seemed too set against this map, and as a result it's the one we're going with. I also have some concerns about that natural wonder, but I kept telling myself, is it really any more unbalanced than certain players getting double Cultural city state free envoys (+4 culture) in the opening turns of certain other games? Probably not. If we get an unbalanced game as a result here, at least we'll know for the future.

[Alhambram]

I wonder whether how much religious city states (there are 3 in this map) are playing role this time with India, Arabia and Japan who can build up religion since:

Spoiler for PBEM 2 players!

I think that I already identified all 10 city states in PBEM 2 and none of them were religious city state, which mean bad thing for me: no boost for my religious game play. But it also made for other players besides Woden more difficult to set up their religion themselves, so in both ways it were good and bad for me. I really liked to have Jerusalem middle in eastern continent due its suzerainty bonus 

[Singaboy]

Looking at their starts and the 'luck' with city states, I do wish that there will be a map editor of sorts soon.

[Ituralde]

The high number of religious city states may even lead to Arabias UA being useful. If too many players go for an early religion he will not be shafted out of his. Will be interesting if we get to see a more religion heavy game here.

[oledavy]

The high number of religious city states may even lead to Arabias UA being useful. If too many players go for an early religion he will not be shafted out of his. Will be interesting if we get to see a more religion heavy game here.

I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it, although I still feel fairly certain that religion is only worthwhile for certain civs to go for (Russia, Arabia, Japan, India, etc). Spain desperately needs some way to make it easier for them to found a religion.

Changing topics, it occurs to me, Japan is perfectly setup for a mathematics beeline with 3 cheap districts, and that in turn dovetails really well into their desert heavy start. 

I think a really solid Japan opening in this game would aim to hit the following targets: 

1. Build a Holy Site, Encampment and Campus/CH
2. Research Mathematics and Build Petra
3. Research Military Tactics (Not an especially worthwhile tech normally but here, perhaps - especially as it's behind Mathematics which they may have early)
4. Run over a neighbor with samurai/GG

Seriously though, I don't see Japan doing a whole lot this game without landing Petra.  

On another note, I expect Rowain to be Arabia's worst nightmare, as he has strong incentive to settle westward and attempt to invade him.

[MJW (ya that one)]

mjw's civ picks post

Ichabod
France sucks and Greece is out so he has to pick England. He gets a slight buff from being at an edge of the map.

Rowain
Russia is out. So it's Brazil and America both are which are not good. I think Brazil would just be better because this format is hostile to America due to being harder to get threw the tech tree (smaller map, regular speed and post-patch which inflated tech cost).

I've seen Ichabod and Rowain play here so they are above everyone else; with Ichabod's England and edge location pushing him over Rowain.

Bacchus
Germany and China are out so he has to pick India. He's very active here so he gets bumped up over the final two players.

suboptimal
Greece is out. Despite this format favoring Egypt over Arabia (compared to NoQuitters) the gap is too much Arabia is the best pick. He takes a slight hit from being in the "middle" of the map.

Kaiser
Kongo is trash with no huts and Aztecs are out so he has to pick Japan. I know nothing about suboptimal or Kasier but suboptimal's Arabia beats not being in the "middle".

[Singaboy]

Do you guys realize that most of them except for England all move west for scouting. is this by coincidence or do we all have that inclination?