[SPOILERS] Team Orgynized: Parkin/Arki/Magno embark on a kinky adventure

[Lord Parkin]

...AND WE ARE JUST LYING TO KEEP YOU CALM BEFORE WE ATTACK YOU.

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Team Can't Fit Their Name In The Title

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Team Orgynized

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Team Super Fun

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Team we will eat you heart while its still beating and we are just lying to you to keep you calm before we attack you

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TWWEYHWISBAWAJLTYTKYCBWAY

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Team What A Mouthful

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Team WhAM

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Team With Too Many Damned Names

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The Best Team

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You know the deal: if you're not a member of our team or a global lurker, STOP READING NOW.

[Lord Parkin]

Hmm, I take it there's no longer mouseover text for threads on this forum? Well that's a shame.

[Lord Parkin]

First order of business is to start thinking about what civs and leaders we might be interested in playing with. Here's the proposed game settings:

Start: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Turns: Simultaneous
Difficulty level: TBD
Barbarian level: Normal
Tech trading: Off
Events: Off
Espionage: On, with hostile Civic and Religion Switching Missions banned
Goody huts: Off
Choose Religion: On
Corporations: On
Nukes: Off
Vassal States: Off
Leaders: Unrestricted (snake pick, no duplicates, nothing banned)
Full diplo
Version: BTS 3.19

The main thing to note there is that tech trading is off, which means that Financial leaders will be particularly appealing. I fully expect several, if not most, of our opponents to select Financial leaders. That's not to say we have to pick a Financial leader, but with perhaps 8-10 teams playing we'd better have a pretty good reason if we're passing it up for another trait - especially if we happen to be near the start of the snake pick.

Also of note is that the value of Organized will depend on the difficulty level (currently not decided), so we should bear that in mind if we're voting to raise or lower it.

With no leaders banned, the typically favoured picks at RB are usually Pacal (Fin/Exp) and Willem (Fin/Cre), so I'd expect to see those leaders in the game. I make no secret of the fact that I'm somewhat partial towards the Industrious trait, so it will be interesting to see if that affects the other teams' leader picks. Not to say that we have to pick an Industrious leader, though I do think it's an excellent and often underrated trait in many situations... but we'll want to know the total number of teams that are playing before we make any final decisions anyway.

Arkipeller and Magno, do you have any particular leader/civ preferences?

[Lord Parkin]

Copied from PM's with Arki and Magno:

Personally the leader that sticks out to me is Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind), but I can be convinced otherwise. Financial is very strong with tech trading off (and I fully expect most other teams to pick it), and Industrious is a personal favourite of mine.

Regarding civs I have less preference, as there are a larger number of approximately evenly strong ones. India and Inca are generally the ones agreed to stand out a little at RB, especially when paired with an Expansive leader. Otherwise, I tend to choose based on techs rather than anything else... and without prior knowledge of the map, The Wheel, Agriculture and Mining are generally the best choices. Fishing is only good if you're reasonably sure you'll have a coastal start, Mysticism is a bit unnecessary and Hunting is just bad with the settings we have (no goody huts for Scouts, and there was some talk about everyone starting with Scouts anyway).

So with a pool of The Wheel, Agriculture, and Mining, the choices are:

Egypt (Agriculture/The Wheel)
Ottoman (Agriculture/The Wheel)
France (Agriculture/The Wheel)
Sumeria (Agriculture/The Wheel)
Babylon (Agriculture/The Wheel)
China (Agriculture/Mining)
Mali (Mining/The Wheel)

The least desirable from that list based on UU and UB is probably Babylon, but the others are fairly strong or at least interesting. I'd be happy to play with any of them.

Note that with a high difficulty level (I expect Monarch or Emperor, the latter which was mentioned in the sign-up thread), beaker costs are higher than normal so it's especially valuable to have high-cost starting techs. Agriculture and The Wheel are the most expensive, followed by Mining and Mysticism, with Fishing and Hunting at the bottom of the pile.

[Arkipeller]

Listed the alternatives here. Some of them are quite useful. I've listed only the difference between them and their ordinary alternatives.

Egypt (Agriculture/The Wheel) - Early units and buildings. Unit is fairly strong, but req horses. If we want an early religion and shrine, the obelisks could be of great help.
Unit: War ChariotsChariot) +1 Strenght, Immune to First Strikes
Building: Obelisk: Can employ 2 Priests

Ottoman (Agriculture/The Wheel) - An Aqueduct that gives happies!
Unit: Janissary.(Musketman) +25% vs. Archery, Melee, and Mounted Units
Building: Hammam (Aqueduct): Gives +2 Happiness

France (Agriculture/The Wheel) - This is usually not interresting, but maybe you like it
Unit: Musketeer: +1 movement
Building: Salon (Observatory): 1 free Artist

Sumeria (Agriculture/The Wheel) - Early Courthouses means we may start spying/stealing from early on! Good Unit too!
Unit: Vulture (Axeman) +1 Strenght
Building: Ziggurat (Courthouse) Requires Priesthood instead of Code of Laws!

Babylon (Agriculture/The Wheel) - Very Defensive civ.
Unit: Bowman (Archer) +50% vs. Melee Units
Building: Garden (Colloseum) +2 Health

China (Agriculture/Mining) - Do we need catapult-backup? In that case this unit is ok. Building is worthless unless you go for cultural victory.
Unit: Cho-Ko-Nu (X-bowman) 2 first strikes and Causes collateral damage (x-bows got 1 FS)
Building: Pavilion (Theatre) : +25% culture

Mali (Mining/The Wheel) - Unit is fairly good for very early rushes, building gives a small bonus.
Unit: Skirmisher (Archer): +1 Strenght, 1-2 First Strikes (Archers got only one)
Building: Mint (Forge) +10% income

[Arkipeller]

So I suggest in that case:

Huyana Capac of Sumeria:

Vultures instead of Axemen
Early Courthouses
Industrial
Financial

[WilliamLP]

Hi, unless you object I'll be ded-lurking you guys because I think I can learn something from this thread. I'll still pretty green but I'll throw questions and opinions out that you can feel free to ignore.

My intuition, too, is that IND is undervalued on this site. There are just so many wonders that change the game and have an impact far beyond the cost of the hammer input. It also scales up with fewer players, so is even better with only 7-8 teams in this game I think. I'm also a fan of bold plays that make a civ distinct in the game, kind of like creating an imbalanced position in chess.

For civs, my feeling is Egypt is far ahead of the rest listed, because the WC gives a unique advantage in the land grabbing phase, and the rest of the game can snowball out of that. Chariots are a unit that will be built and used anyway (much more than archer-based units) and WC have a much greater utility into the Medieval age than regular chariots do. The obelisk is nice for generating a prophet, but with IND, some wonder that generates the points ought to be possible.

[Magno_uy]

Im on Financial civ + same early UU. like to take some neighbor in troubles soon :D

so, from the mentioned Egipy or Summeria would be muy choise.

[Qgqqqqq]

Note: Vultures are not as good as described, as they lose 25% to melee. For a while they were generally regarded as worse (as this meant they lost versus axes) but the meta has since shifted in favor of them having different advantages.

[WilliamLP]

As someone who only recently started studying the detailed mechanics of Civ IV, it was never clear to me why Vultures lost to Axes. (5 + 50% is equal to 6 + 25%). But now I understand it's because everything but Combat X is actually a subtraction to the enemy, not an addition. So the vulture has effective strength 6 - 50%, and the axe 5 - 25%, which is better. (Edit: THIS IS NOT HOW IT WORKS AND WRONG!) I don't think anyone here needs to be educated on this, I'm just posting in case some lurker is confused by this as I was!

That being said, even though Vultures have advantages, having a disadvantage in Axe v Axe combat is a pretty big deal. That matchup happens a lot in the early game, against barbs if nothing else.

Edit: by the way, I'll be no help with the kink in this thread. I'll be advocating for missionaries.