I am getting pretty convinced I should stick with a Chinese figurehead - Mao of Inca. Religion first and a size 1 granary out of which I can get the full 11f bonus. It's hard to see anything beating it. It doesn't quite excite me though. I'm more curious about Ind than Pro, which seems obviously good here, and I'm a bit tired of seeing Incans at the top of scoreboards lately, even if these are different Incans.
|
Thread of Lost Tales: Bismarck of Japan
|
|
Bismarck in the end.
I decided I would rather play Ind over Pro, even if that Ivory means a free hammer per turn from turn 18 or something like that. That left the 3 Ind options and all 3 sounded good to me to be honest. I had to make a decision though, so I ruled out Cre because it pushes away from Henge and Oracle and I'm not sure I want to rule myself out of 2 wonders already. Then I went Exp over Imp simply because no-one had picked Exp while we already have a load of Imps. Very logical reasoning.  I'm still thinking about civs, I've left the Inca opening available and oddly enough Japan has a very nice set of starting techs here. Hey if they can beat South Africa why not Inca?
Yeah, I think I can convince myself that Japan is better than the other options. An Agri/Wheel civ can be up up like 20f/h vs 40 commerce. But those hammers can only really go into a warrior while the commerce is desperately needed for BW.
Inca then is a special case. It's only a turn ahead in production. You can play it out a bit differently, access to mines and Stonehenge instead of cottages. But it is behind in tech and the micro is a bit easier for Japan because I can put down those cottages that I want to grow on. I might be able to convert that development into Stonehenge instead, but all I really want is a reason to pick Japan. 
Yeah and Fishing saves 15b over Agri. Probably still have to go worker first though.
I've got to say, I'm pretty disappointed no-one took Agr, I was looking forward to playing against it. (September 28th, 2015, 02:26)The Black Sword Wrote: I've got to say, I'm pretty disappointed no-one took Agr, I was looking forward to playing against it.Stalin the painfully ironic farmer was available to you...
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
I didn't want to play it myself, I just did that. But it would have been nice to play against it to evaluate it's potential OPness. Instead it looks like we're PB29: Return of the Fins!
Quote:as far as my knowledge goes, the second word is how you write TheBlackSword in japanese, as in the pronunciation, not the meaning I'll have to take your word for it.  So, Haram has picked Sumeria. I'm going to have to watch what Haram is doing pretty closely in this game, I might even do some C+D. Let's think about what our picks mean for the early wonders. At first glance Ind/Sumeria is advertising for the Oracle but I don't think they really benefit much more than any other Ind civ. Even at 90h cost, I don't see Ziggurats being good builds for a long time here, so any synergy is pretty minor. The Oracle is a primarily tech-constrained wonder and my pick is focusing pretty heavily on maxing my tech(more so than his anyway). Unless he manages to skip one of Pottery/Fishing/Hunting, I should be first to get the required techs, roughly around T48. My first whip is around T33, so I could overflow it from my 2nd or 3rd capital whip, or maybe even build it in the 2nd city. That seems a reasonable time to build it without handicapping myself, probably around my 3rd city. The other early wonder to build is Stonehenge, and here he definitely has the advantage. He starts with Myst and I'm not getting it till after T30. He could just trickle hammers into it as he grows and build it without risk that way. I'd be pretty happy to get it as overflow from my second whip, which would be around T42. Again I think that's a point where it would be good value and not be crippling me. So maybe that's the way things shake out, I take Oracle, him SH. I'd be happy to snag one of these early wonders, though I think I'd actually prefer SH unless I oracle something good. And there's also the possibility to consider that he picked Sumeria to tell me he's going Oracle, even if I don't think the synergy is there. The chances of one of us getting both seems pretty slim though, just seems too much early hammers invested in wonders. Other wonder thoughts will depend on the map. The Pyramids are probably my favourite target, but I'd like to get a fair number of cities out first and we'll have to be on the look out for stone. The GLH is the only other early wonder worth talking about. But it's value will also depend on the map too. I'm probably the favourite in this game and may have problems getting Open Borders already. But if we're all on one continent and there's enough island cities and coastal spots available then obviously the GLH moves up in my priorities.
Oracling Monarchy for the powerful plains wine tile?
 What's your take on IND forges in ToW? Considering that MC is cheaper, do you think it's a reasonable option for the first big Classical tech (instead of Currency, Calendar or CoL)? Or early forges aren't great due to not enough hammers to actually build them while you are still expanding? |
