[spoilers] Commodore and Dtay: Saladin of the Gael

[Commodore]

THRILL as the map gets slowly, painstakingly, uncovered!
MARVEL as the scout examines the river to find two pretty okay city spots auto-connected!
GASP as the game rockets along at a moderately decent pace!

Yawn as we wait for freaking ever on the worker.

I'm going to be taking the demos for these first few turns if anyone gets a wild hair to try a bit of C&D. Nothing much I care to glean for now, except that some ridiculously lucky jerk got a sugar/banana/dry rice plus other 3-food tile start. And someone is working an oasis and/or going double-prereq-tech first.

Turn 1:

We're up there in land area, at least.

Turn 2:

No BW pops yet!

I didn't see a mouse resource tile. What's that worth, -1 food for the crumb snatcher?

Ach, ma brae, 'tis us, nae the poor wee sleekit.

[dtay]

Thoughts thus far:

City-Spots: Nothing is screaming 2nd city spot yet, but good land in general. A food to the north or south would probably be ideal so we could share out the capital food (though I think that sharing with 2nd/3rd city isn't as hard and fast a rule as some cast it as).

We're not financial, but all the lakes are still pretty dece for staying above water tech-ing wise in a pinch.

Good choice on Poly. Anyone with myst+commerce start would be more likely to go meditation, assured of their own victory. Someone with myst+non-commerce start might use the same logic as us, but we'd at least get a coinflip.

Oracle->(metal casting?) in the cards given the marble + poly start + we want masonry for Duns? I think it should be, we need priest points for the great prophet if we get hinduism and colossus is such an awesome wonder.
other possible targets:
CoL - meh, early caste is cool with spiritual but if we get hinduism it loses a lot of the luster
Iron Working - unless the GOLDEN rush opportunity appears, meh

Honestly nothing else jumps to mind. A late oracle coud get calandar or currency, but both could be teched normally pretty fine and at that point we could just pretend to be playing against monarch ai and go for Bur... (TBC: 100% joking with that).

[dtay]

I'll try to see how early I can get the Oracle with this start without killing expansion once we have a bit more land revealed (especially down south).

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

MC is cheaper in the mod than previously. Would this change your Oracle tech target, knowing that MC is (more) reasonably priced now? I can't always keep all of the mod changes clear in my head, but this is one that sticks out to me so I've remembered it.

Edit: cheaper than base BtS, not cheaper than previous/recent RtR mods.

[kalin]

Now, I am slightly unsure if I should bring this up... I noticed with some amusement how the screenshots from Commodore hide the research, and also there's no marble visible in them. However dtay's post comes and reveals it all

As a lurker I am happy about that as I get to see what's going on. However, it may be worth as team mates to touch base on stuff like that maybe privately if one intends to hide something etc. to prevent accidental leaks. Anyway, I comment little these days so no danger of leaks from me.

Best of luck,
Kalin

[Commodore]

Okay, I've got a little bit more time now to report, sorry it's been a bit slapdash. Kalin, that's...actually pretty awesome, really did look like an attempt to hide tech/marble, didn't it? Heh. That's not really how I roll, though. Just hadn't picked tech yet, and I was focusing on what the scout had revealed.

But yeah, anyway; we're going for Hinduism, because as Dtay said we're more likely to see high-GNP starters like Mr. Oasis do Buddhism, plus, well, Monotheism is big and we're not likely to delay Masonry for very long (marble south of cap plus Pro Duns in a very hilly start land). This is going to make the early game slow, but going worker-warrior-settler and Poly-mining-BW ought not be too punishing. Wheel can be delayed a long long time if we settle for the wheat along the river. That wheat city actually would be a pretty fantastic capital if it had a bit more food...

I'm planning on updating the sim with all that is known about our local area when borders pop next turn. I'd be very very curious to see how Oracle works out, don't want to be too behind but for 100 hammers it's hard to deny. Nor would I dismiss Mathematics or Iron Working out of hand, because...

We got ourselves our first rival! Wetbandit, running JC of China, will snipe that hut out from under our nose. From civstats, actually, looks like he's played now, got no tech at least. Thoth managed a whopping two techs already, one from Creative capital border pop and the other via scouting. Behind already!

Hello my moist and larcenous friend. Sure are a lot of hills this way...

Turn 3:

Thoth, you're a monster. And your borders are fat!

Turn 4:

Yawn. Still no POWER POP techs.

[Commodore]

The standard Commodoric OpForAnal is going to be slow to start, but I'll at least do Wetbandit, our nearest neighbor. Dtay, if you'd like to amplify and add your thoughts as these come?


Wetbandit (soggy, 6th commandment breaker)
as
Julius Caesar (Organized, Imperialistic)
of
China (Agriculture, Mining, Chucklenaught, Pavilion)
Our damp little hej-wizard here is the last of us four PBEM 64 players to have made the switch to this pitboss, and he's a welcome late addition. I honestly don't know of anyone who's had a problem with Wetbandit the entire time he's been here on Realms Beyond, he's an affable, quick-playing, and reasonably skilled fellow tending to finish respectably high but never yet with a big win. He's definitely worth treating with caution...he's a competent economist and a good general, although he's been known to bite off more than he can chew.
Skill Consistency:
Fear Factor:
Here in the two dozenth pitboss our drippy robing is driving JC of China. China is still the same China we know and love, with fast starting techs, a stellar unique unit, and a completely forgettable building. Julius is a great leader for just about any civilization, able to push hard on expansion and pay for it with organized's always-on monetary boosts, plus courthouses. There isn't much in the way of synergy here, but who cares? Good civ plus good leader equals good.
Combo Power:
Early Game Power:
Middle Game Power:
Late Game Power:

How we treat this player:

[Commodore]

Updated sim:

[Commodore]

We've gotten in these five turns before this whole silly EP on/off boondoggle stopped us. Looks like Thoth has indeed popped a third tech, which has sent GermanJojo, never the calmest of individuals, over the emotional edge to despair. Dangit, why couldn't we neighbor him? Psy ops would reduce him to a weeping ooze in about half a turn.

So here's what we know, and all we'll know for a week more given the strange restart zeitgeist. The scout sits next to a fantastic pink dot city site; coastal access, flood plain, sheep, river-protected, on a hill, on a Celtic roadway. Not sure how practical that is, though. Sims will inform us a bit and hopefully third-ring borders from Hinduism will inform us a bit more but right now I see two kind of okay second-city spots, although both need extra tech. Wheel early, then Masonry and Fishing soon, makes the shared sheep/marble/clams spot nice, and GNP aiding at that. More conservatively, with Agriculture the plainshill wheat location on the capital's river is acceptable enough. It's also got the benefit of going due east; that's our primary front-fill direction as south, west, and north are all sea-protected.

I'd love to see more food, really, this dotmap sucks.

A general strategic thought: We have a map with 2790 land tiles, and 12 people. Our “fair share” of land is about 230 tiles...so a game-winning empire is going to conservatively own about 460 land tiles. Say 500 total tiles, or a 20x25 rectangle, for the “goal” size. I don't mind using peaceful REX, aggressive pushing, or raw conquest to net that size, but that'll come at the expense of one or more of the neighbors. Gaelic warriors are fine vehicles for claiming and capturing in the early classic era, and I'm not going to discount a “rush” (Polytheism-first means that no, we're not in a pure rush clearly).

Oracle is a nice booster, but if someone Ind wants to push hard I don't see us winning; I do want to wait for the efficiency of marble before trying it. Nor would I ever discount the value of Monarchy as an Oracle target; beelining Feudalism of all weird things totally works for us, plus we have wines nearby, plus, well, we're going to be hurting for further happy. Much simming and thought is needed.

Turn 5:

Yeah, I still got nothing.

[Commodore]

Okay, whaaaat.

Then we play on, I guess.

edit: I think I'm just gonna ask for a sub, this isn't the kinda game I wanted to play, the settings drifted too far from what I thought I was signing up for. Apologies, y'all, and good luck. Thanks again to Seven for the map and to Krill for organizing the efficient game setup!

Sure. Take my preferred civilization and leader then quit.

"settings drifted too far" is a misspelling of "somebody else got three huts techs and I'm freaked out"