[SPOILERS] SevenSpirits trashes three estates and a copper

[SevenSpirits]

Let's see, what images do I have lying around...


This is a thing, and it's awesome.

[SevenSpirits]

Settings and start info:

Okay, like 32 the map is a 40x40 mirror, but level is Prince. You have a pre-placed city with 5 culture; a scout; and a worker. Note the railroad at A, the Forest Preserve on the tile west of A, the netted whales at B, and the town at D.

[img] http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28594063/Maps/PB...llRube.JPG[/img]

Fishing: City has 0 culture
Mining: Tile A becomes flatland
Agriculture: Tile B loses whale boats
Hunting: Tile C loses forest
The Wheel: Tile D, town becomes hamlet
Mysticism: Tile E becomes plains

Additionally there are some civilizations with effects should you choose them:
If you are India, you start without a worker.
If you are Inca, you start without a scout.
If you are Aggressive France, you start without rice.
If you are Charismatic Russia, you start without rice or pigs.

Aggressive: Observatory
Charismatic: Laboratory
Creative: Barracks
Expansive: Harbor
Financial: Customs House
Imperialistic: Lighthouse
Industrious: Stables
Organized: Supermarket
Philosophical: Colosseum
Protective: Levee
Spiritual: Islamic Temple

Sure thing, scout is in The City, and worker on the farm 1S of the city.



Settings are the same as 32 with a WE ban added.

The 32 settings in question

[SIZE="5"]Map and settings information[/SIZE]

* Toroidal, Standard size, 40x40, players are all equidistant from all others.
* It's totally mirrored. (The tile that is (x,y) away from my capital is the same as the tile (x,y) away from anyone else's capital.)
* No barbs, no huts, no random events.
* Always war.
* Noble difficulty. [Prince, in this case]
* While there is enough saltwater that ships will be important, there are not enough water tiles to make circumnavigation possible. (It requires at least 33% water tiles, and there are only about 25%.)

[SIZE="5"]Rules recap[/SIZE]

* Setup is unusual; see above.
* No communication between players is allowed.
* Goes without saying, but play in good faith and put up a good fight.
* The only bans are:
- Spy missions to change civics, change religion, and steal technology. [All spy missions banned]
- Great spy infiltration ability.
- Nukes.
- All UN/AP resolutions if AW doesn't automatically disable them.
[Also War Elephants are banned]

[SevenSpirits]

My first impression is that the biggest thing to figure out is whether agriculture is a positive or a negative. The whale is the best tile to start so removing 1h2c from it is sad. But being able to improve a food resource from turn 0 (not to mention some river grasslands) is a big deal, and it also leads to AH which unlocks the pig.

Oh, I guess there is one even bigger question - do I want charismatic Russia? I think no but it needs to be investigated. I'm pretty sure I don't want the Salon start.

[Commodore]

Generally risky with the cutthroats I play with. The number of times I've won on turn or razor-thin one or two VP margins...I guess it depends on the deck setup. Trashing copper, though, is always nice.

[SevenSpirits]

Btw Commodore, the start is really interesting, so great job to you and the lurker team. Only thing I know I would change is leaving the grassland next to the jungle like that. Jungle spreads could just wreck someone if they got onto the rice or pig before they were improved. If you want to fix this, an easy solution would be placing e.g. a plantation on that grass tile, for no effect other than to stop jungle spreads. But it's your call.

[SevenSpirits]

Generally risky with the cutthroats I play with. The number of times I've won on turn or razor-thin one or two VP margins...I guess it depends on the deck setup. Trashing copper, though, is always nice.

On turn 3 or 4 (which was my implication), you unquestionably should trash the estates. It has such a dramatic effect on the quality of your deck that you will easily earn back those VPs and more in future turns.

[SevenSpirits]

Well the Russia (Lincoln) start gets an absolutely insane tech rate. First scientist settled t5, second builds an academy t16 IIRC. Settler out t15 and the tech rate is like 45bpt. I think I got fishing, agriculture, BW, wheel, pottery, AH, Writing by eot15 and Math due in 4, for example. Math-powered chops on t20? Silly stuff.

So basically if Russia is in the game, I can forget about being first to any given tech until at least the age of bulbs.

[SevenSpirits]

In any case, I think I don't want to be Russia. Either it's too strong, and I don't want it, or it's not, and I would like a less one-dimensional gameplan. So time to think about what the various bonuses are worth:

Agriculture costs 1h and 2c from a great tile, a high penalty. On the other hand it allows you to improve the rice immediately (the best use of the worker you can get) and grow in 4t.

Wheel loses the plains town, which is fairly inconsequential. It allows road building right away which is mildly useful, and is an expensive tech.

Mysticism makes the rice tile -1f +1h which sucks. It allows you to build Stonehenge, but you want at least one warrior first anyway, probably more. It has no further benefit as, with the worker start, you need to research worker techs, not religions.

Mining loses a railroaded grass hill in favor of a railroaded flat grass. This is approximately a loss of 1h on the tile, and makes the capital more commerce- rather than production-focused. It allows you to mine a grass hill, which is not that useful since you already have a 1/3 tile (the elephants).

Fishing is strong, it allows you to work the whale sooner. But it's cheap. And it prevents use of the rice and ivory until your borders pop.

Hunting just sucks. It allows you to camp the ivory but said camp is worth only 1c more than the ivory would have been in the first place if you skipped hunting and therefore kept the forest. Only interesting thing is it leads to AH yet doesn't nuke your whaling boats. Still, bad.



So, about Agriculture:

Agriculture combines poorly with Fishing. It hurts the whale tile which is what you got fishing for, and fishing prevents you from improving the rice. Terrible. I don't want these two, but I probably want one them.

Agriculture also goes poorly with Mysticism (which is just Inca), because unlike other agriculture openings you don't get to grow in 4t, and then of course the tile you just improved is weaker. And Mysticism sucks anyway.

Agriculture/Mining aka China, I see no reason to take over Agri/Wheel.

Agriculture/Hunting is Zulu or Persia, neither of which are good enough to justify Hunting.

So for Agriculture civs that leaves only the Ag/Wheel ones:
Babylon
Sumeria
France
Ottomans
Egypt

Babylon is dumb, the rest are worth considering.

I'll get to Fishing civs next, gotta run some errands though.

[SevenSpirits]

So Fishing. Fishing makes your borders unpop (Note for Commodore: you can't reduce culture to 0 in world builder. But you can easily edit the WBsave file and set it to 0 there.) which means you will go 3 turns without:
* Being able to work the wonderful Whale tile
* Being able to improve the ivory, the grass hill, or the rice
(In the case of the ivory and grass hill, the penalty is 1t less because you spend 1t to get there anyway.)

In other words all your worker can do is build roads, or grass river farms if you took it with agriculture. Didn't even fully realize this before enumerating them. So two wasted worker turns and three turns of missing the whale. There are three ways to reduce the wasted turns:
* Greece + PHI: you get an Odeon, and your borders pop in 1t.
* CRE: your borders pop in 2t, duh.
* SPI: your borders pop in 2t because of the temple.
* (CRE + SPI: your borders pop in 1t)
(AGG France also gets you culture, but doesn't start with Fishing so it's moot.)

Huh, OK. So Civs with Fishing (and not Agriculture):

Fishing/Wheel is Japan. UU is a maceman that fares just as poorly vs knights as normal macemen. Not great.

Fishing/Mysticism is Spain. I really don't like the Myst start and Spain does not convince me otherwise.

Fishing/Hunting: We have Vikings and Greece. Serdoa showed Vikings to be good for this kind of map in pbem32. However, there, hunting was strong, and here it's just meh, so I'm not convinced about this. Greece has the aforementioned combo with PHI to get an Odeon, which would be really sweet if we somehow needed to produce an artist by turn 20. But that doesn't seem very useful. (Every time I say this, I picture myself getting totally owned by someone who did just what I was dismissing. That's OK though!) So, not totally out, but these don't seem great.

Fishing/Mining: OK, if we don't find a good civ in here I'm probably not taking Fishing. So what have we got?
* Carthage. Harbors won't matter much on this map but if you pair them with expansive it's +1 trade route at least. Numids are good vs spears, but bad vs other horse archers.
* England. A fine late-game civ.
* Portugal. So they can basically build 3-strength galleys with optics, and if they are FIN the two starting lake tiles get +1c. You're not going to build a Feitoria anywhere else.
* Rome. You all know about Rome.

Overall none of these excite me. But will any of the rest?

[SevenSpirits]

So the main alternative to starting with Agriculture or Fishing is to research it as quickly as possible. Fishing is 38b, Agriculture 56. That is 4 / 6 turns respectively. If you also lack Wheel and thus have access to the town, you can get them in 3 / 4 turns. AGG, CHA, and FIN all have effects that could increase your commerce, but they are not enough to get you faster than 3 / 4.

OK, so The Wheel is probably a liability. Let's look at civs that have the Wheel (but not Agriculture or Fishing, since we covered those):

Hunting/Wheel is Mongolia. Obviously not worth it.

Mysticism/Wheel is Arabia or Byzantium. Byzantium beats out Arabia here, and even then it doesn't look good enough for me. These techs are just awful.

Mining/Wheel is Mali. Safe enough to dismiss.