[spoilers] Commodore and Dtay are Sitting Bull of Inca, somehow.

[Dreylin]

You sure you want to go head-to-head with retep for the Title....?

[Old Harry]

Your start. The fog is made of mist and mirage.

[Commodore]

Your start. The fog is made of mist and mirage.

Thanks Old Harry!

So, pretty much "standard issue" start. Crabs are kind of a fool's errand. Lots of hills for natural hammers. Looks like a wonderful second city sharing rice/corn, so an incentive for a silly-fast settler.

Thoughts for techs:
Hunting- Bleh, no
Fishing- Nope
Mysticism- If a plan calls for it, maybe.
Mining- Cheap but vital
The Wheel- Great, important, might be waivable with river city plan.
Agriculture- Wonderful (I know we could research it in time, but...)

Soooo...unless you have some really compelling plan for another, Dtay, I'm going to semi-arbitrarily narrow it to three civs:
Arabia Korea Egypt

[dtay]

Only quick thoughts until later tonight -

Strongly agree fishing is a trap start tech unless we happen to want the civ for other reasons
Arabia is the most interesting imo of those options

Is inca off b/c repeat and/or is the obvious choice? Because inca is awesome if not dq'd for those reasons (and will be gone by the time we pick anyway)

France? Ag + reasons kind of interesting earlier

I think I recall sumeria being one of your repeats right?

favs by catagory
Phi Arabia my favorite for "Never done this before alt path to victory"

Cre France 2nd favorite in same

Pro Inca my favorite for "is literally the best combo here but is boring"

Agg Zulu 2nd favorite for same, but also pretty sure i remember you being zulu before

Aztecs favorite for "screw the starting resources we wanted them last game"

[dtay]

Of listed + france (just gonna go ahead and assume we're dq'ing the obvious ones) I would order

Arabia
France
Egypt
Korea

[Commodore]

Of listed + france (just gonna go ahead and assume we're dq'ing the obvious ones) I would order

Arabia
France
Egypt
Korea

I am not expecting to ever ever ever land Inca all the way down at 8th on the snake pick. If we do...I kind of think we have to take it, and for the quixotic impulse pair it with Qin or Sitting Bull or Churchill. But I don't expect to see Inca available.

Arabia can actually pair well with anything; Philosophical is nice for rapid great prophet spam but the Theology->Code of Laws->Civil Service chain ain't rapid-fire with Writing as the gateway tech. The easy shrine is appreciated by any leader with a religion. Julius Caesar, Bismarck, Peter, Gandhi, Pacal, or Elizabeth would be pairings I'd think of with the Arabs. I favor Arabia as top choice (after duh Inca) too unless there are already a couple religion-chasing choices ahead of us.

I'm less convinced about the France over Egypt thing; war chariots have an immensely long day in the sun and there are snackable dudes in this crowd in the classical era, I think. Certainly pushable, at least. Couple that with the fact that the obelisk really is early, for good chain Great Prophet bulbing, and Phi Egypt looks very nice to me. Less so with a non-Phi leader, though. Agriculture/Wheel techs are excellent so in the weird setup where Egypt, Inca, and Arabia are all taken or disqualified, France is very definitely a strong pick. Pericles of France, methinks.

Korea was attractive to me for trying out a probably-bad but definitely-interesting combination of Hwatcha and swords; the biggest weakness of the New Sword, covered by the siege in the stack? Sounds pretty cool to me. Agriculture/Mining is also beyond excellent of course...

[Commodore]

Slowest snake pick ever.

On to another subject- Naming Scheme. Currently, I'm thinking of two:
-Timothy Zahn titles.
-Terragen Sphere/Orion's Arm.

Any other ideas/votes?

[dtay]

Ooh, like the Timothy Zahn idea.

[Commodore]

Ooh, like the Timothy Zahn idea.

Capital, with all the rivers and hills: Cascade Point
Heir to Empire -Forbidden Palace city (or moved cap)
Cobra -generic second city
Blackcollar -hilly city
Triplet -Some place with three resource copies?
Spinneret -Metal-poor region.
Deadman Switch -cove city
Icarus Hunt -hunting resource(s)
Manta's Gift -seafood, natch
Conqueror Pride -captured city
Angelmass -empire's own black hole of waste?
Warhorse -horses, natch
Star Song -Astro-isle?
Distant Friends -distant city

Plenty of cities, with short stories available.

[Commodore]

Okay, by the way, this?
   
This is why next RBmod game I'm going to "get random combo roll(s)". Holy crap on a cracker, team DZ/AI have spammed 3 pages worth today without anything remotely approaching consensus.

Tactical Note: Eat them, they are not decisive at all.