[SPOILER] Close to Win

[GeneralKilCavalry]

The revealed area is just an artifact of how I made the sim, ignore it, it's not in the final file.

free commerce refers to the creative trait giving +2 culture?

[Charriu]

Ah yes you are right about that. Didn't look at what traits I have in that sim.

[Old Harry]

Starting a tile off the coast is a bit crap.

Do you wish you'd swapped pastures to hunting?  

The good thing about being second in snake order is that you'll be last or second-last to pick leader or civ so you can see a lot of what people are thinking on one aspect at least.

I probably need to think about civs and traits a bit more, but I think the Aztec ub might be pretty powerful with un-nerfed slavery and you get myst and hunting as start techs. I'd caution against picking ORG/PRO though - they're both economic boosts and a bit slow to act. I like to have something saving hammers at the start of the game and I don't feel like any of the civs give you that so I'd pair PRO with one of EXP, IMP or CRE (or SPI because I love it).

[Charriu]

Starting a tile off the coast is a bit crap.

It's only one coast tile, could be worse.

Do you wish you'd swapped pastures to hunting?  

I was only waiting for someone to mention that.

I probably need to think about civs and traits a bit more, but I think the Aztec ub might be pretty powerful with un-nerfed slavery and you get myst and hunting as start techs. I'd caution against picking ORG/PRO though - they're both economic boosts and a bit slow to act. I like to have something saving hammers at the start of the game and I don't feel like any of the civs give you that so I'd pair PRO with one of EXP, IMP or CRE (or SPI because I love it).

I'm very much set on PRO. For the other trait I have this ranking

1. EXP: Granary, Harbor and for some civs even the Aqueduct sounds great
1,5. CRE and IMP: Having not to worry about culture in the early cities is great or throwing down a lot more cities earlier for the trade bonus is also great.
2. CHA, IND, PHI: I could even see those working. CHA also gets a hammer discount on the monument early on, IND could be interesting to get those wonders I want and PHI has some light synergy with PRO
10. ORG, SPI, AGG: ORG is always nice, but as you mentioned not the optimal choice, SPI is great as I have learned from you, but I don't know if I have the time and mental capacity to make it work, AGG is a little bit boring and I've already played in twice in my past PBs

I intentionally left FIN out, not because I think it's bad, but because I want to see the economically effect of PRO without FIN distorting this effect. All in all I think I can make either EXP, CRE and IMP work here. There's also the question if anybody else will steal those combos from me. There is a lot of uncertainty among players regarding PRO, so I don't many will choose it.


Let's look at civs. As mentioned before I want either Hunting or Agriculture and of those to Hunting is more interesting as I don't have any Agriculture resource in my BFC and would love to have the 2 move scout right away. As the other tech Mining, Wheel, Agriculture or Hunting and last Mysticism are interesting to me. My ranking for civs here with Pro in mind are:

1. Ottoman: Starting techs are a little bit sub-optimal for my liking, but their UB will get great use especially if I get EXP and their UU benefits from PRO. They will also work with CRE and IMP.
2. America: Starting techs are a bit worse then Ottoman, but I like their UB more. UU is less desired. Works great with EXP and fine with CRE, IMP and PHI
3. China: Great starting techs. UB is worthless. UU is awesome for PRO. Can work with EXP, CRE, IMP and maybe with CHA
4. Khmer: Best starting techs for me, UB is useful enough, UU is actually good now, works best with EXP or to a lesser degree with IMP, CRE can work too.
5. France: Same starting techs as Ottoman, UU is awesome for PRO. Can work with EXP, CRE, IMP.
6. Aztec: Starting techs are good enough, UB is awesome as you have mentioned only down side is that there is less synergy with PRO and the other traits, UU is interesting, but not good, works with EXP, CRE, IMP and ORG
7. Native America: Starting techs are great, UB is interesting (I did a crazy test game, in which I teched to Machinery early and attacked with double promoted crossbowman, very fun game) UU is okay, Works with EXP, IMP and CHA less so with CRE as I want those UBs up anyway.

I think I still have some time until I need to decide. I'm still unsure if I should go with civ first or leader first. I have three leaders with which I'm fine with. I'm a bit more worried about civs, because I really like Ottoman or America. Then again taking EXP/PRO works great with all of Ottoman, America and Khmer. Decision, decisions, decisions.

[Charriu]

I also did some quick sim runs with the following starting techs:

Agriculture/Hunting + Mining: Settler finishs at 28, BW at ca. 25, 1 chop needed
Agriculture/Hunting + The Wheel: Settler finishs at 30, BW at 30
Mysticism + Mining: Settler finishs at 31, BW at ca. 25, 1 chop needed
Mysticism + The Wheel: Settler finishs at 32, BW at 32
Fishing + Mining: Settler finishs at 32, BW at 30

In all test games I've built one worker which is enough and grew the city to 3, working the pig, sheep and a river grassland hill mine.

[shallow_thought]

Starting a tile off the coast is a bit crap.

Do you wish you'd swapped pastures to hunting?  

The good thing about being second in snake order is that you'll be last or second-last to pick leader or civ so you can see a lot of what people are thinking on one aspect at least.

I probably need to think about civs and traits a bit more, but I think the Aztec ub might be pretty powerful with un-nerfed slavery and you get myst and hunting as start techs. I'd caution against picking ORG/PRO though - they're both economic boosts and a bit slow to act. I like to have something saving hammers at the start of the game and I don't feel like any of the civs give you that so I'd pair PRO with one of EXP, IMP or CRE (or SPI because I love it).

I think the ORG/PRO was my test game, not anything Charriu was actually thinking about. One coast tile isn't too bad - it's better than a desert or peak, at least.

Received wisdom is that traits > techs > U[U|B] in BtS. I do wonder how much that holds for a start where you're two techs away from any food though. Having to fit in AH as well as BW is quite a constraint. But if you don't go leader first, what options will be left? I agree that having one of EXP, IMP, CRE will make the early game way smoother.

[Charriu]

I agree traits are more important and I coming to the conclusion that going leader first is the right way. Even with only AH resources available, there are enough civs that I find interesting to play after the others have choosen. I will give myself some 10 more minutes to think about it, but I will probably choose EXP/PRO.

[Charriu]

Ha and there goes one leader that I might have taken. But I can't complain, I'm very happy that somebody else tries the new PRO. Thanks pindicator. Overall very interesting decisions by the other players. So far we have

1. Superdeath- Catherine (CRE/IMP)
2. Charriu- Mao (EXP/PRO)
3. pindicator- Charlemagne (IMP/PRO
4. Mjmd- / India (Mysticism/Mining)
5. AutomatedTeller- Boudica (AGG/CHA)

So far nobody took FIN. I can't wait to see if the others only wanted to try out the new stuff or actually valued FIN less. Right now everybody is playing choosing stuff that has been changed.

[Old Harry]

Before you choose a civ do you know how much water there will be? Iirc more than 35% so the American UB will get some use.

I'm not sure what the attraction of the ottoman UB is? You didn't change it did you? The UU is pretty good though.

China's start techs and UU are always great...

[Old Harry]

Ah, I'm confusing ottoman and Khmer UBs, the ottoman one does look really handy.

Khmer is fine, France and the Aztecs are good on a spacious map where you don't fight early, natives are good on a tight map where you do. Any ideas on how many tiles each civ gets?