[Spoiler] This is not Civ VI

[pindicator]

It is down to just you, but I'm not going to rush you if you want to wait an extra day to decide

[Kaiser]

For what reason did you exclude the Ottomans?

So Spain for Fishing, an ok UU and a questionable UB having a better early start due to fishing and being probably earlier to sailing.

vs.

India with a long time economy bonus based on earlier improvements, a late UB and a more land based start, with the uncertainty of the FW worth in later stages of the game due to the island map script.

For me that sounds like mostly a question of map knowledge, do we know anything about the map for the moment that would encourage us to pick Spain over India.
As you stated India's FW start to shine for the period between 2nd city and currency, so do we believe that we will be able to plant a 2nd (and maybe even a 3rd) city on the same landmass. The minimum city distance is 3 tiles I believe.



I did some fog gazing, so this is more of an educated and maybe misleading guess.

It looks like we should be able to plant at least one city to the W sharing the rice with our capital, potentially there is another spot to the S being able to share the capitals cow, but this is really difficult to see.
Did pindicator say anything about fog gazing information being accurate?

[AdrienIer]

Fog gazing is always a gamble. Either way, that river to the west is not going to be a 1-tile river, therefore there will be space for at least one more city.

I excluded Ottomans because I think this is becoming a worker first vs work boat first question, and if we go worker first India is better.

I'll do more simming assuming that there's only room for 1 more city on the starting island.

[AdrienIer]

With Spain I can put a settler in a galley by turn 33, with India by turn 36. I still like India better.

[Kaiser]

It sounds like India then.

Would there be a point to move the capital 2 in order for enabling a city on the spot currently 7 8 from the settlers position?

This spot would be able to shar the rice and the fish with the capital but our capital would loose out on one hammer.

[AdrienIer]

2 hammer start is a huge deal, it's a 100% increase in the beginning if you're using food tiles. I would consider moving if it was to bring a gold tile in the capital BFC or something but not for a minor city placement preference later.

Let's officialize then. I'm choosing Frederick of India.

[AdrienIer]

Alhazard:
Aztecs, Rome, Mali, Native Americans, France, Korea.
Catherine, Asoka, Suleiman, Julius Caesar, Brennus.

Commodore:
Russia, Germany, America, Sumeria, Greece, Celts.
Kublai Khan, Pericles, Napoleon, Hammurabi, De Gaulle.

AdrienIer:
Ottomans, Arabia, Spain, Byzantium, India, Holy Roman Empire.
Ramesses II, Genghis Khan, Stalin, Frederick, Justinian I.

ipecac:
China, Inca, Zulu, Khmer, Persia, Japan.
Louis XIV, Augustus Caesar, Hatsheput, Alexander, Gandhi.

yuris125:
Mongolia, England, Ethiopia, Maya, Babylon, Egypt.
Lincoln, Montezuma, Roosevelt, Zara Yaqob, Boudica.

Save has been sent to Commodore.  When you get your save please double check starting techs and settings.  It's been a while since I set up a pbem so please don't assume I did it correctly!

Here is what everybody chose for combinations:

Commodore is Napolean of Sumeria
AdrienIer is Frederick of India
Ipecac  is Augustus of China
Yuris125 is Roosevelt of Ethiopia
Alhazard is Julius Caesar of France

Commmodore : he had a choice between Greece Russia and Sumeria and chose the latter. He probably realized that maintenance was going to be a big thing. Then he had two possible org leaders and correctly chose Napoleon instead of Hammurabi. It's good that the best player in this PBEM agrees with me on maintenance.

Ipecac : He didn't go the Zulu route, but also surprisingly backed off the Inca route. China is solid nonetheless, with solid starting techs. He didn't have any org leader to choose from, and decided to not take a creative leader. I understand, because Augustus works well with China and a water map. Early Metal Casting brings him the Colossus, cheap forges and his UU.

Yuris : He correctly discarded Egypt (which is pretty useless on a water map), and then had to choose between England and Ethiopia. Ethiopia means better defense mid game, but no easy conquest late game. Pretty conservative, but that's more yuris' style. Roosevelt is an org leader, so I guess he agrees on org>>all.

Alhazard : Preferring Julius to Ashoka might be a mistake on this map. More water tiles means less production, which makes slavery stronger, which makes spiritual stronger. And the high maintenance costs make imperialistic less great until currency. Taking France over Rome (a fishing civ) and Mali is intriguing.

Edit : sorry I know you're rusty about civ 4 yet I didn't do a comprehensive explanation of everything, so if you have any question I'll gladly answer them.

[Kaiser]

No worries, this is sufficient commentary for me to start reading into their choices and the best alternatives they had on hand.

So ORG is a thing on this map as you predicted, whom would you rate as the strongest ORG leader chosen here, independent of CIV choice

[AdrienIer]

With fin and exp out of the way the best trait after org would have been cre. But here I think they all have their pros and cons. With a mid to late game trait like org you theoretically want early game trait, so imp is supposed to be best, but imp's great strength (faster city planting) is also a curse on this map where your maintenance is high and planting cities also depends on sending out a galley. Cha is not so great (moreso when you're not sure you'll get Stonehenge, with 2 ind leaders). So Frederick is probably the best, and even more so because our early economic game trait is the FW

[AdrienIer]

It has begun ! Password is german raj.  I decided to send the scout on the only tile that would discover new tiles, ie SSW, and discovered that there are at least 3 city spots on the starting island, with a deer + fish spot in the south. But the fact that our early game happiness is wine is a bit annoying, as monarchy is not in a direct route to salvaging an economy.