[SPOILERS] naufragar earns no points

[naufragar]

Password is

fish

[naufragar]

I wonder if the organizers realize this means no one can win a Time victory.

Setup thoughts:
-I'm not completely sure what the No Score mod is meant to accomplish if graphs are still visible through EP. Presumably, the Power graph lets us notice wars, and Crop + GNP show the leaders and losers.
-Personally, I'm in favor of anything that raises the skill ceiling. I mean that anything that a more skilled player can exploit is good. I'm not that player, and the line between "skilled" and "endowed with copious free time" gets fuzzy with cloak and dagger. Still, no harm in removing score, I guess.
-Currently, it looks like snakepick civ/leader selection is leading the voting over a random method. I'd like snakepick, although an 11 person snake makes getting the good stuff a little dicey. I voted for snake because I really don't want to get stuck playing trash (not referring to any other current game...   ).

Pseudo-edit: I had thoughts on the traits written here, but they deserve a fuller post than I've got time for. Short version: give me Imp, please.

[Commodore]

You gonna dye:

[Charriu]

Would love to hear what exactly brought you to Spain?

[naufragar]

Thanks, Commodore, for the map.

I said I'd talk about traits next, but the pick phase started sooner than I expected so let's talk about civs and techs.

Here are the tech changes in CtH 1.4:

Techs

   Agriculture: Cost 40 instead of 60
   Mysticism: Cost 60 instead of 50
   Fishing: Cost 50 instead of 40
   Metal Casting: Cost 300 instead of  450
   Alphabet: Cost 250 instead of 300
   Mysticism: Now adds +1 commerce to Palace
   Refrigeration: lose +1 sea movement

These changes mean that Agriculture civs are a bit weak. My start has seafood and corn, so there's a line of play in which I take something like Fishing/Mining, tech Agriculture-> Bronze Working and chop out a work boat. I decided instead to be a bit metagame-y. I got first slot in the snake pick, so I went with Spain. Spain can beat every other civ to a religion by working a water tile. I was bluffing with my pick. I do want a religion, but I don't want to race for it, so I had hoped that by picking Spain first, I could scare away the other players from Mysticism civs. Of course, the very next civ picked was Byzantium (Wheel/Myst).   And it was picked by Miguelito/Rusten.    

Wheel/Mysticism probably wants to go (Food tech)-> Mining-> Bronze Working all before religion, but I need to think about other tech paths they could take. I myself wanted to go something like Agriculture->Mining->BW before the religious tech (hence, a bluff). The no score mod means I can't track Miguelito's techs, and he and I are stuck playing a game of chicken. How long can we delay founding a religion for critical worker techs? I'll talk more about the players when I make a tier tear list, but I'll say up front that Rusten, when dedlurking, is very engaged in the opening micro (as demonstrated by M&R's thread being 3 pages already), and he's probably the best at openings on the forum. Oy vey.

So my gambit has sort of already blown up in my face. That gambit was the largest part of picking Spain, but Spain does have one more useful component. In CtH 1.4, the Spanish UB, the Citadel, replaces the Castle and gives naval units +2xp. I feel like I'm always linking this thread, but the thing holds up: here is Commodore explaining naval warfare. Since naval warfare is so symmetrical, a small promo advantage can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

I admit I didn't sandbox this out. (Superdeath was posting scary memes in the tech thread!   ) With competition for religion, the Spain pick looks much worse. Hopefully, after two Mysticism civs, the rest of the field is scared off. Surely, right?  

Pseudo-edit: Ah! Charriu, you beat me to it! In short: my position on the snake gave me an opportunity. I tried to capitalize on it by going big, while also grabbing expensive starting techs.

[Charriu]

... but Spain does have one more useful component. In CtH 1.4, the Spanish UB, the Citadel, replaces the Castle and gives naval units +2xp.

It also never obsoletes like all UBs do in CtH.

[naufragar]

Oh Charriu, I don't care about the following, but I mention in case it's of interest. RtR made Spain's UU replace the Cuirassier. In base BtS, the UU replaces the Knight. In CtH, like RtR, the UU replaces the Cuirassier. If this change is intentional, I don't think it's in the change log.

I don't care either way, and I feel weird pointing out a change log issue after I've made a pick. (I did this in PB45, too. ) For what it's worth, I was referring to the in-game Civilopedia when making my picks. I had just gotten so used to RtR, that the Conquistador was stuck as a Cuirassier replacement for me.

Edit: Again, I truly don't care one way or another. I picked the civ thinking it had a Cuirassier UU. Honestly, a knight UU with +50% versus melee is probably broken beyond belief.

[naufragar]

Ninja'd! Yeah. I haven't decided on leaders. All the talk about Pro plus having a Castle UB is making me think thoughts...

[Charriu]

Oh Charriu, I don't care about the following, but I mention in case it's of interest. RtR made Spain's UU replace the Cuirassier. In base BtS, the UU replaces the Knight. In CtH, like RtR, the UU replaces the Cuirassier. If this change is intentional, I don't think it's in the change log.

I don't care either way, and I feel weird pointing out a change log issue after I've made a pick. (I did this in PB45, too. ) For what it's worth, I was referring to the in-game Civilopedia when making my picks. I had just gotten so used to RtR, that the Conquistador was stuck as a Cuirassier replacement for me.

Edit: Again, I truly don't care one way or another. I picked the civ thinking it had a Cuirassier UU. Honestly, a knight UU with +50% versus melee is probably broken beyond belief.

Sorry to disappoint you, but even in BtS they replace Cuirassiers

[naufragar]

Oh Charriu, I don't care about the following, but I mention in case it's of interest. RtR made Spain's UU replace the Cuirassier. In base BtS, the UU replaces the Knight. In CtH, like RtR, the UU replaces the Cuirassier. If this change is intentional, I don't think it's in the change log.

I don't care either way, and I feel weird pointing out a change log issue after I've made a pick. (I did this in PB45, too. ) For what it's worth, I was referring to the in-game Civilopedia when making my picks. I had just gotten so used to RtR, that the Conquistador was stuck as a Cuirassier replacement for me.

Edit: Again, I truly don't care one way or another. I picked the civ thinking it had a Cuirassier UU. Honestly, a knight UU with +50% versus melee is probably broken beyond belief.

Sorry to disappoint you, but even in BtS they replace Cuirassiers

Yeah, oops! My bad. In my defense, the Civilopedia flavor text calls them "the Spanish replacement for the Knight."