Now that all of the nine teams have gone through the snake pick, we can post some thoughts on how things shook out. My thoughts are in this first post, all of you are welcome to add your own thoughts below.
Actual snake pick order:
Team Pairings
We Play Civ: Ragnar (Fin/Agg) of Native Americans (Dog Soldier, Totem Pole, Agriculture/Fishing)
Threat Level: Low
These guys made it pretty clear that they don't know what they are doing. With the very first pick in the draft, they selected Ragnar, a weak choice considering that absolutely everything was available. While Financial is always great, Aggressive has proven to be a very poor choice in these long Pitboss games. Have we ever seen even one game where early rushing ended up winning over economic superiority (?) Maybe in one of the PBEM games, since we have done 50 of them. The great body of evidence suggests that Aggressive is simply not a good trait for this style of play, MAYBE if paired with Rome, but that's about it.
The Native Americans are also a weak pick, although there's more of an excuse for the last pick in the draft. Dog Soldiers do very well against axes and swords... and get destroyed by the (cheaper to build) chariots. They are a mixed bag at best, not a power UU at all. Totem Poles, to be honest, suck pretty hard for this kind of game. You don't want to build monuments in the first place unless you have to do so, and extra XP on archery units is fairly weak. Only useful if you are defending, and if that's the case, you're already losing. Very similar to the terrible Protective trait. Starting techs are not that bad, which is a plus.
WPC is the very definition of a community that plays the game for fun and not powergaming. Go over to their forums and read about their current Pitboss game, if anyone is curious. Nice people, not very good at Civ4. I will be very surprised if they are anywhere near the top of the scoreboard by the midgame.
Civforum.de: Isabella (Exp/Spi) of Inca (Quechua, Terrace, Agriculture/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Medium
This was the first team that broke with the meta by picking their civ first. Inca is one of the top civs in the game, and a solid choice. I would have gone with a leader pick instead, since I don't think it was worth it to trade Inca for the #8 leader pick, but this was a very defensible choice. Terrace is extremely strong (mini-Creative) and the starting techs and UU are decent.
The dream leader for this team would be Pacal, but of course that was long gone by the time their pick came up. The next best Expansive leader is Suryavarman, but that would then remove the advantage of taking Inca as a civ. (This is a reason why I favor India over Inca; you can still take Creative as a trait without feeling like you're wasting the civ's benefit. More versatile.) Further compounding the problem, Mehmed (Exp/Org) was also off the board by the time they picked. They went with Isabella (Exp/Spi), who is a fine leader in her own right, but weak for the game settings here. In a totally unrestricted field of choices, that's a subpar leader. Again, I do not believe Inca was worth sacrificing the opportunity to pick a Pacal or a Willem.
I don't know much about the German civ forum, and I don't speak the language so I can't read it. They are a bit of a mystery to me. They have a large team with a lot of players. I would not be surprised to see them do well, although not having Financial in a game where nearly everyone else does is a major disadvantage.
Apolyton: Elizabeth (Fin/Phi) of Ottomans (Jannisary, Hamman, Agriculture/Wheel)
Threat Level: Medium/Low
The Apolyton team went with what is often perceived to be the top teching leader, Elizabeth. Of course, after playing tons of games here, the general consensus is that Fin and Phi don't pair together particularly well, and I share that belief. This is still not a bad combination; it would be really good for something like the 5th or 6th leader pick. The problem is that they picked it with the second leader choice, when there were much better options available. I would have taken Pacal, Willem, Huayna, or even Mansa Musa over Elizabeth. So not bad by any means, but could have been better.
The Ottomans are a very good pickup for the 8th civ choice. Good starting techs, decent UU, strong UB even if it's somewhat unconvential to build. Any source of extra happiness can potentially come in handy.
Apolyton as a civ community is not very strong. In my experience with Apolyton, they are much more interested in having long arguments and posting dancing banana emoticons than learning how to play Civ4 effectively. I mark this as another role-playing team who is mostly looking to have fun (and there's nothing wrong with that - but you're probably not winning!) All of the Apolyton-centric teams in the Apolyton Demogame were pretty terrible when it came to actual gameplay. I'm sure they have improve since then... but Realms Beyond has improved infinitely since then as well. This is one of the teams that I want to start near, them and WPC.
Spanish Apolyton: Boudica (Agg/Cha) of Zulus (Impi, Ikhanda, Agriculture/Hunting)
Threat Level: High (early), Very Low (late)
The team with the single most bizarre pick of the whole draft. With the third leader pick, and many extremely strong choices available, they went and took... Boudica? Aggressive/Charismatic?! Uh... ok? This is roughly equivalent to the guy who takes a kicker in the first round of your fantasy football draft. Agg/Cha are godawful traits for a long game where the winner is usually decided by economic power. There is almost nothing here to provide an advantage outside of an early game rush. Agg and Cha don't even go together very well, since Agg only works on melee units while Cha works best on mounted units. This is one of those pairings that sounds awesome to people who don't know what they are doing, and have never really played MP before.
The Zulus are OK, I guess, as the 7th civ selection. They are correctly paired with Aggressive trait for the cheaper Ikhandas, but I've never really seen that combo work out particularly well. Aggressive on Impis doesn't make too much of a difference; they are impossible to dislodge if choking pre-copper, and easy to kill if you have copper for axes. The 10% extra doesn't matter. Overall, Zulus are amazing for Ancient Age 100t MP games, but not so good for this style of play. Even if you could choke someone successfully, that only hurts 1 opponent out of 8. Meanwhile, someone else is building tons of Fin cottages and zooming past you. This whole leader/civ combination doesn't make a lot of sense for this game.
I don't know a whole lot about Spanish Apolyton, although I recognize one or two names from Imperio. I considered that team solid and not spectacular at the time, although by current standards of play they would be rather weak. (Stonehenge before a settler, Oracle falling on T95, never getting an Academy in an insane floodplains cottage capital, etc.) This team is dangerous only for the early game rush potential. After that, they should fall behind very rapidly due to their awful traits.
CivFanatics: Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi) of India (Fast Worker, Mausoleum, Mining/Mysticism)
Threat Level: High
This team did well for themselves in the picking phase. They were right to pick India first, as there were enough good leaders remaining that they were guaranteed to get one (which they did). India is the best civ in Civ4. Not really much more to say about that. The Fast Worker is the best unit in the game.
Mansa Musa is a criminally good leader to get with the 8th leader pick. Both Fin and Spi are always good traits, and even if there's no obvious synergy, never having to lose an Anarchy turn for your cottages is pretty nice. A couple of you guys posted that Huyana would have been a better choice, and that's probably true: Fast Workers + only Industrious leader in game means a free shot at any early game wonder that you want. Fortunately we did not see that picked, meaning we have a good chance to target certain key wonders.
I don't think the CivFanatics players are exceptionally good at Civ4. What they are good at is rules lawyering and bullying people online to get their way. This team is dangerous for that reason alone. Sommerswerd has also clearly picked a fight with our team before this game even begins, and this team likely is out to get us, including using unsavory backdoor methods. Their choice of a Spiritual civ makes some kind of espionage bullshit strategy extremely likely. This is a team to watch out for.
CivPlayers: Darius (Fin/Org) of Aztecs (Jaguar, Sacrificial Altar, Hunting/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Medium
This is the ladder team, and they have somewhat of an odd combination here. Darius is a decent choice for a leader, made better by the high maintenance settings of the map. I still feel like Organized is a weaker choice that the other possibilities though; Exp and Cre were both available to pair with Financial. Toroidal map or not, those traits are simply better. They were likely hoping to pair Darius with the Holy Roman Empire, but that wasn't available...
...so we have the Aztecs instead. An odd choice. I wonder if the influence of the ladder is affecting this pick. Aztecs are much stronger in the standard 120t Ancient Age setup for Civ4 ladder MP. Their UU is not bad under these settings, and their UU is pretty darn good, as you can whip every 3t on Quick. Since you are normally whipping units non-stop in those games, it works really well. But in a Normal speed game where you have to build tons of infrastructure, and you are whipping buidings much more often than units, the Aztec UB falls off significantly. It doesn't really matter if you only have 6t of unhappiness after triple-whipping that forge, because it takes 10t to grow back the population anyway. Add in the godawful starting techs of this civ (Hunting/Mysticism) and you can see why Aztecs are rarely played here at Realms Beyond.
It's hard to predict how the ladder team will do. Sometimes these guys do really really well in a longer game, taking use of their attention to detail and skill with micro. At other times, they grow bored due to the slow pace and put in a half-assed effort. I don't know what to expect from CivPlayers. They only have 4 players listed, and the team is pretty much just OT4E playing from what I can see. He's very skilled at the standard ladder games, but I'm not sure how much Ironman he's played. And does this team have the patience to work through a lot of tedious diplomacy? That was PAL's great weakness in the Apolyton game (they barely wrote anything to anyone else and were generally dicks in the public forum all the time). We shall see.
UniversCivilization: Mehmed (Exp/Org) of Holy Roman Empire (Landsknecht, Rathus, Hunting/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Low
These guys made some choices that look solid on paper, but kind of fall apart the more that you think about it. Their first choice was the HRE civ, which has always been a classic trap for newcomers. The UB looks so amazing - a courthouse with -75% maintenance! At least until you realize how many of the economic costs in Civ4 don't come in the form of city maintenance (unit support, civics upkeep, inflation, etc.) none of which the Rathaus does much to combat. Combine with a fairly useless UU and absolutely atrocious starting techs (Hunting/Mysticism?!) and it becomes clear why HRE doesn't see much play.
For their leader choice, this team likely wanted to pick Darius, which was already taken. They went for Mehmed instead, picking up Organized trait for their Rathauses and pairing it with Expansive. In the abstract this is a decent choice, but it's very weak when you remember that they could have simply taken Willem or Huyana or Mansa Musa instead. No Financial trait in a game where nearly everyone else is. No Creative, or even Philosophical. They have Expansive (good), and... some really good courthouses. Nice, I guess? But there were stronger choices available.
I know literally nothing about this team whatosever. Their player base is a true wildcard.
CivFr: Willem (Fin/Cre) of Mayans (Holkan, Ball Court, Mining/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Very High
And here we have the team that did unbelievably well for having the last pick in the snake draft, CivFr. They ended up with the #2 leader in the game with the #9 choice, which is both a tremendous grab on their part and an abject failure from the rest of the competing teams. Even better for them, they are the only Creative team in the game, allowing them to easily win border disputes with anyone in the early game. They had to be dancing for joy over the luck involved in that.
Then their team made another stellar choice, pairing Willem with the Mayan civ. Decent if non-spectacular UU, slightly below average starting techs, and an amazing UB that synergizes perfectly with their leader. Double-speed colosseums that give +3 happiness? Effective cost of 40 shields for +3 happiness?!? YES PLEASE!!! With Inca and India off the board, I do not think they could have done much better on the civ choice. Not considering their leader choice. Maya would not have been that great for us (ironically with us having Pacal!) but it works beautifully for them with Willem. Great, great choice.
CivFr also has two extremely talented players on their team. Moineau and Penny are some of the best ladder players in Civ4 history, easily winning the Ironman games in many CCCs. This is a skilled team that knows what they are doing, as shown immediately from their leader/civ choices. They are the biggest threat to win the game in terms of actual Civ4 skill. Be extremely wary of this group.
Random Stats
Traits
6 Financial
3 Expansive
2 Spiritual
2 Organized
2 Aggressive
1 Creative
1 Charismatic
1 Philosophical
0 Industrious, Imperialistic, Protective
Starting Techs
5 Agriculture
5 Mysticism
3 Hunting
2 Mining
2 The Wheel
1 Fishing
Strong Civs/Leaders Not Picked
Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind)
Suryavarman (Cre/Exp)
Byzantium (Cataphracts)
Rome (Praetorians)
France (Musketeers, techs)
Actual snake pick order:
Quote:1. Team WePlayCiv - Ragnar (Fin/Agg)
2. Team Civforum.de - Inca
3. Team Apolyton - Elizabeth (Fin/Phi)
4. Team Spanish Apolyton - Boudica (Agg/Chr)
5. Team Civfanatics - India
6. Team CivPlayers - Darius (Fin/Org)
7. Team Realms Beyond - Pacal (Fin/Exp)
8. Team UniversCivilization - Holy Roman Empire
9. Team Civfr - Willem (Fin/Cre)
10. Team Civfr - Mayans
11. Team UniversCivilization - Mehmed (Exp/Org)
12. Team Realms Beyond - Egypt
13. Team CivPlayers - Aztecs
14. Team Civfanatics - Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi)
15. Team Spanish Apolyton - Zulus
16. Team Apolyton - Ottomans
17. Team Civforum.de - Isabella (Exp/Spi)
18. Team WePlayCiv - Native Americans
Team Pairings
We Play Civ: Ragnar (Fin/Agg) of Native Americans (Dog Soldier, Totem Pole, Agriculture/Fishing)
Threat Level: Low
These guys made it pretty clear that they don't know what they are doing. With the very first pick in the draft, they selected Ragnar, a weak choice considering that absolutely everything was available. While Financial is always great, Aggressive has proven to be a very poor choice in these long Pitboss games. Have we ever seen even one game where early rushing ended up winning over economic superiority (?) Maybe in one of the PBEM games, since we have done 50 of them. The great body of evidence suggests that Aggressive is simply not a good trait for this style of play, MAYBE if paired with Rome, but that's about it.
The Native Americans are also a weak pick, although there's more of an excuse for the last pick in the draft. Dog Soldiers do very well against axes and swords... and get destroyed by the (cheaper to build) chariots. They are a mixed bag at best, not a power UU at all. Totem Poles, to be honest, suck pretty hard for this kind of game. You don't want to build monuments in the first place unless you have to do so, and extra XP on archery units is fairly weak. Only useful if you are defending, and if that's the case, you're already losing. Very similar to the terrible Protective trait. Starting techs are not that bad, which is a plus.
WPC is the very definition of a community that plays the game for fun and not powergaming. Go over to their forums and read about their current Pitboss game, if anyone is curious. Nice people, not very good at Civ4. I will be very surprised if they are anywhere near the top of the scoreboard by the midgame.
Civforum.de: Isabella (Exp/Spi) of Inca (Quechua, Terrace, Agriculture/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Medium
This was the first team that broke with the meta by picking their civ first. Inca is one of the top civs in the game, and a solid choice. I would have gone with a leader pick instead, since I don't think it was worth it to trade Inca for the #8 leader pick, but this was a very defensible choice. Terrace is extremely strong (mini-Creative) and the starting techs and UU are decent.
The dream leader for this team would be Pacal, but of course that was long gone by the time their pick came up. The next best Expansive leader is Suryavarman, but that would then remove the advantage of taking Inca as a civ. (This is a reason why I favor India over Inca; you can still take Creative as a trait without feeling like you're wasting the civ's benefit. More versatile.) Further compounding the problem, Mehmed (Exp/Org) was also off the board by the time they picked. They went with Isabella (Exp/Spi), who is a fine leader in her own right, but weak for the game settings here. In a totally unrestricted field of choices, that's a subpar leader. Again, I do not believe Inca was worth sacrificing the opportunity to pick a Pacal or a Willem.
I don't know much about the German civ forum, and I don't speak the language so I can't read it. They are a bit of a mystery to me. They have a large team with a lot of players. I would not be surprised to see them do well, although not having Financial in a game where nearly everyone else does is a major disadvantage.
Apolyton: Elizabeth (Fin/Phi) of Ottomans (Jannisary, Hamman, Agriculture/Wheel)
Threat Level: Medium/Low
The Apolyton team went with what is often perceived to be the top teching leader, Elizabeth. Of course, after playing tons of games here, the general consensus is that Fin and Phi don't pair together particularly well, and I share that belief. This is still not a bad combination; it would be really good for something like the 5th or 6th leader pick. The problem is that they picked it with the second leader choice, when there were much better options available. I would have taken Pacal, Willem, Huayna, or even Mansa Musa over Elizabeth. So not bad by any means, but could have been better.
The Ottomans are a very good pickup for the 8th civ choice. Good starting techs, decent UU, strong UB even if it's somewhat unconvential to build. Any source of extra happiness can potentially come in handy.
Apolyton as a civ community is not very strong. In my experience with Apolyton, they are much more interested in having long arguments and posting dancing banana emoticons than learning how to play Civ4 effectively. I mark this as another role-playing team who is mostly looking to have fun (and there's nothing wrong with that - but you're probably not winning!) All of the Apolyton-centric teams in the Apolyton Demogame were pretty terrible when it came to actual gameplay. I'm sure they have improve since then... but Realms Beyond has improved infinitely since then as well. This is one of the teams that I want to start near, them and WPC.
Spanish Apolyton: Boudica (Agg/Cha) of Zulus (Impi, Ikhanda, Agriculture/Hunting)
Threat Level: High (early), Very Low (late)
The team with the single most bizarre pick of the whole draft. With the third leader pick, and many extremely strong choices available, they went and took... Boudica? Aggressive/Charismatic?! Uh... ok? This is roughly equivalent to the guy who takes a kicker in the first round of your fantasy football draft. Agg/Cha are godawful traits for a long game where the winner is usually decided by economic power. There is almost nothing here to provide an advantage outside of an early game rush. Agg and Cha don't even go together very well, since Agg only works on melee units while Cha works best on mounted units. This is one of those pairings that sounds awesome to people who don't know what they are doing, and have never really played MP before.
The Zulus are OK, I guess, as the 7th civ selection. They are correctly paired with Aggressive trait for the cheaper Ikhandas, but I've never really seen that combo work out particularly well. Aggressive on Impis doesn't make too much of a difference; they are impossible to dislodge if choking pre-copper, and easy to kill if you have copper for axes. The 10% extra doesn't matter. Overall, Zulus are amazing for Ancient Age 100t MP games, but not so good for this style of play. Even if you could choke someone successfully, that only hurts 1 opponent out of 8. Meanwhile, someone else is building tons of Fin cottages and zooming past you. This whole leader/civ combination doesn't make a lot of sense for this game.
I don't know a whole lot about Spanish Apolyton, although I recognize one or two names from Imperio. I considered that team solid and not spectacular at the time, although by current standards of play they would be rather weak. (Stonehenge before a settler, Oracle falling on T95, never getting an Academy in an insane floodplains cottage capital, etc.) This team is dangerous only for the early game rush potential. After that, they should fall behind very rapidly due to their awful traits.
CivFanatics: Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi) of India (Fast Worker, Mausoleum, Mining/Mysticism)
Threat Level: High
This team did well for themselves in the picking phase. They were right to pick India first, as there were enough good leaders remaining that they were guaranteed to get one (which they did). India is the best civ in Civ4. Not really much more to say about that. The Fast Worker is the best unit in the game.
Mansa Musa is a criminally good leader to get with the 8th leader pick. Both Fin and Spi are always good traits, and even if there's no obvious synergy, never having to lose an Anarchy turn for your cottages is pretty nice. A couple of you guys posted that Huyana would have been a better choice, and that's probably true: Fast Workers + only Industrious leader in game means a free shot at any early game wonder that you want. Fortunately we did not see that picked, meaning we have a good chance to target certain key wonders.
I don't think the CivFanatics players are exceptionally good at Civ4. What they are good at is rules lawyering and bullying people online to get their way. This team is dangerous for that reason alone. Sommerswerd has also clearly picked a fight with our team before this game even begins, and this team likely is out to get us, including using unsavory backdoor methods. Their choice of a Spiritual civ makes some kind of espionage bullshit strategy extremely likely. This is a team to watch out for.
CivPlayers: Darius (Fin/Org) of Aztecs (Jaguar, Sacrificial Altar, Hunting/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Medium
This is the ladder team, and they have somewhat of an odd combination here. Darius is a decent choice for a leader, made better by the high maintenance settings of the map. I still feel like Organized is a weaker choice that the other possibilities though; Exp and Cre were both available to pair with Financial. Toroidal map or not, those traits are simply better. They were likely hoping to pair Darius with the Holy Roman Empire, but that wasn't available...
...so we have the Aztecs instead. An odd choice. I wonder if the influence of the ladder is affecting this pick. Aztecs are much stronger in the standard 120t Ancient Age setup for Civ4 ladder MP. Their UU is not bad under these settings, and their UU is pretty darn good, as you can whip every 3t on Quick. Since you are normally whipping units non-stop in those games, it works really well. But in a Normal speed game where you have to build tons of infrastructure, and you are whipping buidings much more often than units, the Aztec UB falls off significantly. It doesn't really matter if you only have 6t of unhappiness after triple-whipping that forge, because it takes 10t to grow back the population anyway. Add in the godawful starting techs of this civ (Hunting/Mysticism) and you can see why Aztecs are rarely played here at Realms Beyond.
It's hard to predict how the ladder team will do. Sometimes these guys do really really well in a longer game, taking use of their attention to detail and skill with micro. At other times, they grow bored due to the slow pace and put in a half-assed effort. I don't know what to expect from CivPlayers. They only have 4 players listed, and the team is pretty much just OT4E playing from what I can see. He's very skilled at the standard ladder games, but I'm not sure how much Ironman he's played. And does this team have the patience to work through a lot of tedious diplomacy? That was PAL's great weakness in the Apolyton game (they barely wrote anything to anyone else and were generally dicks in the public forum all the time). We shall see.
UniversCivilization: Mehmed (Exp/Org) of Holy Roman Empire (Landsknecht, Rathus, Hunting/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Low
These guys made some choices that look solid on paper, but kind of fall apart the more that you think about it. Their first choice was the HRE civ, which has always been a classic trap for newcomers. The UB looks so amazing - a courthouse with -75% maintenance! At least until you realize how many of the economic costs in Civ4 don't come in the form of city maintenance (unit support, civics upkeep, inflation, etc.) none of which the Rathaus does much to combat. Combine with a fairly useless UU and absolutely atrocious starting techs (Hunting/Mysticism?!) and it becomes clear why HRE doesn't see much play.
For their leader choice, this team likely wanted to pick Darius, which was already taken. They went for Mehmed instead, picking up Organized trait for their Rathauses and pairing it with Expansive. In the abstract this is a decent choice, but it's very weak when you remember that they could have simply taken Willem or Huyana or Mansa Musa instead. No Financial trait in a game where nearly everyone else is. No Creative, or even Philosophical. They have Expansive (good), and... some really good courthouses. Nice, I guess? But there were stronger choices available.
I know literally nothing about this team whatosever. Their player base is a true wildcard.
CivFr: Willem (Fin/Cre) of Mayans (Holkan, Ball Court, Mining/Mysticism)
Threat Level: Very High
And here we have the team that did unbelievably well for having the last pick in the snake draft, CivFr. They ended up with the #2 leader in the game with the #9 choice, which is both a tremendous grab on their part and an abject failure from the rest of the competing teams. Even better for them, they are the only Creative team in the game, allowing them to easily win border disputes with anyone in the early game. They had to be dancing for joy over the luck involved in that.
Then their team made another stellar choice, pairing Willem with the Mayan civ. Decent if non-spectacular UU, slightly below average starting techs, and an amazing UB that synergizes perfectly with their leader. Double-speed colosseums that give +3 happiness? Effective cost of 40 shields for +3 happiness?!? YES PLEASE!!! With Inca and India off the board, I do not think they could have done much better on the civ choice. Not considering their leader choice. Maya would not have been that great for us (ironically with us having Pacal!) but it works beautifully for them with Willem. Great, great choice.
CivFr also has two extremely talented players on their team. Moineau and Penny are some of the best ladder players in Civ4 history, easily winning the Ironman games in many CCCs. This is a skilled team that knows what they are doing, as shown immediately from their leader/civ choices. They are the biggest threat to win the game in terms of actual Civ4 skill. Be extremely wary of this group.
Random Stats
Traits
6 Financial
3 Expansive
2 Spiritual
2 Organized
2 Aggressive
1 Creative
1 Charismatic
1 Philosophical
0 Industrious, Imperialistic, Protective
Starting Techs
5 Agriculture
5 Mysticism
3 Hunting
2 Mining
2 The Wheel
1 Fishing
Strong Civs/Leaders Not Picked
Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind)
Suryavarman (Cre/Exp)
Byzantium (Cataphracts)
Rome (Praetorians)
France (Musketeers, techs)
