[SPOILERS] Jowy & Stampy

[Jowy]

Proceed carefully, for the thread is dark and full of spoilers.

[Jowy]

I was assigned Pericles of Khmer. Traits are Phi/Cre, UU is Ballista Elephant, UB is Baray, starting techs are Mining and Hunting. Ballista Elephant is one of the weakest UU's, but I am allowed to build it even with War Elephants banned. That alone makes it good. Techs are okay. Hunting is bad, but Mining makes up for it. Mining leads to Bronze Working, which reveals copper and enables slavery and chopping. Baray is a non-factor. Traits are really good. Much will depend on the map though. Ideally I get a starting location with ivory for elephants and high food to work specialists.

Other picks were interesting. Three industrious leaders. The more there are in the game, the less useful the trait becomes. Five early game UU's. Rome is guaranteed to go to war against someone. Having ivory should keep Mongolia off my back. I'm the only one with Phi trait. Inca is the only one with Mysticism start, they will grab a religion. Will have to see how rushable the map is. If an early rush is in the books, I will have to build defense very early. However, my first build will very likely be a worker regardless. If I get killed by a lone warrior, then it is what it is.

[Jowy]

Meta-game post, skip this one if it's not your thing!

Here is a good piece of advice for anyone setting up a game: Decide all the settings before picking civs. Things like lifting off the ban for war elephants, amount of food on the map, amount of forest on the map, and starting units, have a different effect on each team. There might be more I have missed, and there are way more conflict of interest depending on which civs you pick. It's not a big deal for this game as it was never intended to be perfectly balanced, but you will save yourself a headache or two by locking the settings first.

[Jowy]

Meta-game post, skip this one if it's not your thing!


General thought on some of the settings while we wait for the game to start :P

• Huts & Events on: Scout start becomes a bit better! However... We all get a starting scout now. Huts will have a big effect if someone pops a tech. I got Iron Working in one of my test games, felt good man. Events on means that I should keep a few hundred gold in my treasury to pay off some of the events for a better outcome. Also pray that I don't get the infamous barbarian uprising. Another good reason to build up my defense early. I might also attempt to manipulate some random events into appearing. For example having a mine makes it possible to get an event that gives the mine +2 production. There are a ton of events though, I will have to decide if it's worth the time investment to keep track of that stuff.
  
• Espionage on: I generally know what to do, but I've never heavily invested in espionage. I will investigate some strats so I know how to play against such strategy. Civic/religion swap missions are not allowed though, so no cheese. Philosophical has some synergy with espionage.
  
• Statue of Zeus was not banned: It gives enemies +100% war weariness during wars, and gets double production speed from ivory. That combined with my phants is a very powerful combination.
  
• AI diplomacy allowed, "scout diplomacy" allowed: WHAT! I... I don't even know. I thought they were joking! I don't really know what to expect here. Well, I just know someone is going to rickroll another player with scouts. Grab your popcorn ladies and gentlemen!
  

[Jowy]

Meta-game post, skip this one if it's not your thing!


Gameplay philosophy for the upcoming game, while waiting for it to start!

• First off Baray is okay, it has good synergy with specialists - which in turn have good synergy with my Philosophical trait. It's still not amazing, but calling it a "non-factor" was stupid.
  
• I've changed my gameplay philosophy since PBEM4. In that one, I theory-crafted this elaborate (bad) plan to go for a Great Library rush, that's before even seeing the map if I recall correctly. I'm never playing a proper game that way anymore, unless it's specifically to try out a gimmick. Rather, I follow the flow of the game and react to what happens. I will try to keep my options flexible and I will not go for desperate maneuvers unless it's the absolute last moment to react.
  
• My micromanagement was actually kinda decent in PBEM6. I had the worst start but managed to be second after SevenSpirits, until I had to abandon the game. But there were so many small things I didn't really use back then. Things like pre-chopping or putting a single turn into an improvement to not waste worker turns. The small things add up. Another MM related improvement I want to see in myself is better city tile management. I now understand better which tiles to work and why. I remember in PB2 just randomly trying out different tiles to work and different orders in which to build stuff. Hopefully never again, but who knows, maybe after this game I will again look back at it and do this:
  

[Sareln]

Your Start.

   

[Jowy]

Two five food tiles with luscious grassland and fresh water for irrigation! This is how I like it. However, notice the snowy trees and the tundra in the south? I am at the southernmost edge of the map. Ivory spawns on plains and jungle, I think, both of which I don't have here. But it might not take a long trek north to find suitable terrain. I prefer this spawn over a spawn full of plains or jungle anyway! Anyway, there doesn't seem to be any obvious best place to settle. I will definitely grab the corn. So my choices for settling are 1 SE, 1 SW and perhaps 2 W. First I will move the scout though. Going north doesn't seem wise since we want the corn in BFC. Unless this is some kind of a trap opening with awesome resources just in the fog which would make settling ON the sheep the best option. But there is no way to know, and I won't make a gamble. So the scout will either go 1 SE + 1 NE, or 1 SW + 1 NW. Fog in the west has 1 peak, 3 grassland tiles, 2 grassland forests. Fog in the east has 1 tundra forested hill, a lake, and more forest with unintelligible terrain. I'm leaning towards the spot 1 SE. It gets more river tiles, it gets a ton of forests. It would also be settled on the first turn. Downside is that it's 1 tile further south, giving it more tundra. I think I'll probably scout the west, and if there's nothing interesting there, then I will simply settle 1 SE.

[Serdoa]

You wrote two 5-food-tiles, but the corn is irrigated and therefore a 6-food-tile. I guess you just worded that badly (or not and it is just my lacking English, in that case, sorry).

[Jowy]

You wrote two 5-food-tiles, but the corn is irrigated and therefore a 6-food-tile. I guess you just worded that badly (or not and it is just my lacking English, in that case, sorry).

Yup you are absolutely right. I must have forgot to account the irrigation bonus in my write-up, even though I did notice it was a fresh water tile.

[Jowy]

Here's a revised version of the first turn The scout will move to the non-forested(!) hill, marked with a white cross. Why there instead of the forested hill (marked with A)? This will allow the scout to see past the peak, revealing one more tile from A's BFC. It will also reveal more tiles to the south. If I don't find anything, I'll settle C. If I do, then A or B. Btw, I'm sorry for changing my plans like this! I could always write notes in private to allow myself to think things over and then only post the final version. Would you guys prefer that or this?