I personally feel like HC of India might be the most fun combination in the game.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Sorry Mero, in the end I tossed a coin. Mansa is probably the right choice as I imagine Serdoa's wall of Cataphracts will come after whoever has the most wonders, and being able to switch to Vassalege/Slavery/Nationhood at short notice might be necessary.
Basically I'm playing defensively already. Should I research Archery first?
Mansa is quite a fine leader in his own right. He is stronger, in my opinion, than HC in most situations, actually.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
It was the year 4000 BC (although we didn't know it at the time) and blah blah blah... Oh look! Azza didn't settle on his turn - I wonder where he went?
I'm happy that my plans for settling in place are good so rather than scout around first I thought I'd settle and then decide which way to investigate. So welcome to the beautiful market town of Altrincham. Don't the dyes and floodplains at the other end of the lake look enticing:
It's coastline to the north of the wheat (sorry forgot to turn the resource bubbles on) so my guess is that Azza moved 2N to settle. I might have a look.
Bannanas and seafood? Looks like the plains jungle tile might be a good city... Also it looks like my sandbox is slightly off - I had Hunting down as a 32 beaker tech, not 34 - so I'm going to need to check how that affects the micro plan. At the moment I'm going Hunting - Agri - BW - AH - Wheel - Pottery, to get the first settler out t24. I've left the research unselected for this turn whilst I see how this changes things.
It looks like there is a lot of water on this map - I think the whole world is supposed to be 32*40 = 1280 tiles so about 50% land?
I also failed to say: Which way are we scouting next? I'd like to check out the northern plains jungle but I think down south is a more promising 2nd city location. Do we go for a circuit of the area or head off to discover other civs?
And I've got an idea for unit names, but I don't want to share it until you've guessed how the cities are getting named...
Sixty years had gone by in the blink of an eye, and the good citizens of Altrincham wondered if they should chase the funny animals, roll things around, go for a swim or make pointy things:
In the end they decide to mess about with the green things in the mud.
I've readjusted my sandbox to get the right tech costs and played through a frustrating number of times trying to get near my previous 1st settler time. At the moment Agriculture -> Bronze Working -> hunting -> Animal Handling seems to work best, with some mucking about with the 2nd worker and a warrior to grow to size 2, some forest chops and an overflowing whip into a settler. The settler arrives t22, but Altrincham is in a shocking state - sz1 and without the sheep improved. But it'll grow quickly after that. I'll need to play through a few more times to see if it can get better or I might just let the settler come out t24 instead.
Meanwhile Jimmy Glass has discovered Lake Crabs!
If only I had some way to pop borders and Calender the tile 1N of the jungle would be a great city...
Down south, with resources turned on this time. I like 1E of the lake for a city, but 1NE (shrouded in darkness) will set up one turn quicker...
And here are all the cities. Serdoa should be top, Azza settled last, but he's Creative, so he's just leapfrogged me, anyone know why I'm ahead of The Hydracal - is it a coinflip or am I doing something brilliant?
I was tempted to take a look at your sandbox BUT I have a paper to write so I had to resist
EDIT: hmmm ... the banana-smileys aren't dancing for me. Can you see them dancing? Seems they are working now. Probably got refreshed when I opened my browser again.