Figured I'd get things started off in this forum by starting the first player thread......
......so yeah, if you aren't me or aren't myself or aren't someone by the name of me or at least in my brain, then you better be someone that isn't playing one of the other civs in the game. Because if you are one of the other civs, then look very deeply into my brain right now, so that you can get so scrambled in your own brain that I can easily conquer you.
And on that note, I suppose it's time to await the starting location to try to figure out what to do for the snake pick. Picking what to use for a Leader & Civilization are the things that I really am not good at and often don't care all that much about. I'm half tempted to take the full list, toss it into a random number generator and let that be how I choose.
Though I'm already leaning towards wanting to try something that will help me expand super fast. That supposedly seems to have been my biggest failures in past games. So I'm leaning towards putting Organized and Imperialistic as the top traits I might want. I don't usually go that route, so it would also be something new for me which I also like.
Going to be dedlurking you like I said in the signup thread. Can't promise many brilliant insights but I'll do my best to give sound advice.
Creative is also really good for early expansion, I'd say - not only do you save hammers from not having to build Monument/Barracks it generally gives you more freedom in where to plant your early cities, since they don't necessarily have to share improved tiles with your capital. Plus it ensures your culture will dominate borders early on which helps discourage early aggression.
India would be pretty good for fast development even with the nerfs; Fast Worker is still great and worth the iffy starting techs imo. Being able to move and chop/road across rough terrain is really good earlygame to get the snowball rolling. Mysticism start might actually be helpful for getting an early religion if you aren't Creative.
That said I think this mod makes every leader and just about every civ usable. Good civ/leader combos are more important than good civs or leaders, so pick whatever's interesting would be my suggestion.
Ok then....interesting start. Lots of food....and lots of food options, since there is seafood, farm food, and animal husbandry food.....pretty much allows for any starting techs.
Any thoughts from the peanut gallery? I'll start thinking about it myself a bit later since I have some other things I want to do tonight. Since I need to go find a list somewhere that has the various leaders/civs and techs, etc. Try to figure out which things I want to match up.
(March 1st, 2015, 20:33)HitAnyKey Wrote: Ok then....interesting start. Lots of food....and lots of food options, since there is seafood, farm food, and animal husbandry food.....pretty much allows for any starting techs.
Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
This is RBmod, right? If so, the pigs are a hunting resource, not an AH one.
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.
Persians might be good - they're the only civ to start with Hunting/Agriculture; meaning the first worker will have plenty to do, and Hunting/Ag have about the best beaker value among starting techs if I'm not mistaken. Immortals will be helpful for defending forward cities or for launching early aggression too. The Apothecary is alright, the health is handy but not all that much of a big deal - the main thing is that it's redundant with Expansive's free health.
Portugal (Fishing/Mining) might be nice too depending on how watery the map is - the Feitoria would pair well with Imperialistic if we choose to go that route, and Victoria (Fin/Imp) in particular would be great for Portugal. Plus Imp would help with the quick expanding. If we go with Portugal I think we'd want to start off with a Work Boat so we can grow to size 2 and have Agri/Hunting researched by the time our first worker comes out. Would have to do some sandboxing to be sure though.
Picking the civ first is probably best, it gives more viable options when the second pick comes around. Since you pick 5th/14th you shouldn't be able to rely on, for instance, Victoria or Portugal being available on the second go, so probably don't plan for combos that require a specific civ/leader pair.
Btw, if you or Mindy (she said she was going to ded-lurk me too) are any good at making sandboxes, please see if you can do one for this start. I'm really terrible at making them, especially from scratch. If I have one that's been made, I am sometimes ok with editing it. But not making one from scratch.
GJ already helped me along in one of my decisions. Zulu was one of the civs I was kinda wanting to play, but he already took it. So on to the part of finding something different.
So for leaders, I'm currently leaning towards Julius Ceasar, Sulieman, or Victoria.
Though I might actually pick a Civ first. I'm thinking I want to find one that has a decent relatively early UB and a decent mid-range UU (something around the Knight timeline). The early UUs don't seem to do much for me. And an early useful UB will help with getting a good start.
Still trying to decide if I might want to shoot for an early religion. I have't aimed for one in awhile, so I think I might be due. But that would require picking a civ that starts with Mysticism. Anyway, will keep thinking on it after dinner. And after a couple more people have made their picks.
Just checking in. I don't think that my ded-lurking contribution will be too extensive at least early on.
Your thoughts on civ first are defensible given the rebalancing of traits. Having said that, I find Expansive to be a very strong characteristic; strong early with worker + workboat, strong middle with markets, grocer + harbour, health benefit at the end.
I can see that you like Imperialistic. Its very good early of course.
Regarding Caesar,...Aggressive's -25% city maintenace makes it nearly as good as organized but with more flexibility. Swords with their 50% bonus on City attack are now monsters and make early warfare viable so getting C1 on them is a pretty big deal consideration since you could get odds on defending axes (especially with 1 promo shock).
Regarding Victoria,...always tempting to be financial even with the nerf. It does pair well with Imperialist where you grow quickly onto grasslands. Not sure that it makes sense, but I still "feel" that Expansive is better for the start speed (see-food) and decently strong economics.
Anyway, that's my $0.02. Can't say that that I've thought this through too much.
Right now I'm leaning towards picking the Arabians as my first pick. Two decent techs of Mysticism (50 beakers) and Agri (60 beakers). Going this route, I'd start with a worker to go make that Rice farm. And I'd research one of the two religion techs first, and then go for Fishing or Hunting.
That civ fits my bill of a good early UB (Madrassa replacing the Library) and the later good UU (Camel Archer replacing the Knight).
If I get a leader that has Expansive, then that'll help along the Worker first start. Though I do still kinda like the Imperialistic trait for the faster Settlers. I think that getting settlers out quickly compared to quick workers might be better in the long run, but we'll see what leaders are left when it comes back around to me.
I'm still not set in stone on picking Arabians, but I can't really think of anything else right now that is peaking my interest.
Hmmm, just looked a bit more an HRE might also be a good one. That gets my Hunting instead of Agri, so allows the worker to pasture the pigs on the turn he gets built, rather than wasting a turn hiking through that forest. And the UU & UB are both pretty good.
