Gaspar & Noble make their triumphant? return; mostly just get asked about "The List"

[NobleHelium]

I edit like 80% of my posts.

[BRickAstley]

I edit like 80% of my posts.

No excuse for breaking the rules.

NobleHelium

[NobleHelium]

I think there's no more simming to be done until we lock in a leader and probably scout a few tiles. We might still do one or two workers, it all depends on what we find out there.

[pindicator]

This makes my day.

I feel like the last two panels could have been "mapmaker also gets distracted"

[NobleHelium]

Gaspar & NobleHelium - Byzantium (Mysticism, Wheel, Cataphract, Hippodrome)
Rusten & Hitru - Justinian (Imperialistic, Spiritual) of Aztec (Mysticism, Hunting, Jaguar, Sacrificial Altar)
Serdoa - Wang Kon (Financial, Protective)
Lewwyn - Charlemagne (Imperialistic, Protective) of Spain (Mysticism, Fishing, Conquistador, Citadel)
superdeath & GeneralKilCavalry - Mao Zedong (Expansive, Protective) of China (Agriculture, Mining, Cho-Ko-Nu, Pavilion)
Bobchillingworth - Hannibal (Financial, Charismatic) of Maya (Mysticism, Mining, Holkan, Ball Court)

Okay so we have 3 PRO, 2 IMP, 2 FIN, 1 EXP, 1 CHA, 1 SPI. For a while I thought everyone was going to take FIN or PRO, but Rusten broke the pattern. Missing traits are AGG (duh), CRE, IND, ORG and PHI.

We have 3 Mysticism (+us, +maybe Serdoa), 2 Mining, 1 Hunting, 1 Fishing, 1 Agriculture. We are the only civ with Wheel. Not sure what exactly that means in terms of early religion, but it's quite possible that we won't be able to compete for them if the FIN/PRO civs go for them. And I expect Rusten will since he really likes early religion. I like early religion too, but I would never research it as my first tech while he has done that before. I don't think there's much more to be read into the other starting techs.

Justinian was a leader we were considering so obviously that is out. It might be a quasi-deny pick, but it is also good with Aztec since he'll wait early CoL for his Courthouses so getting SPI to get some Caste System action makes sense. I fully expect a religion -> Priesthood -> CoL play from Rusten.

I described the map as a "good mix of land with some water." Most likely we are all getting coastal starts, but I'm also assuming that there won't be too much water (PB52ish which I also mentioned), assuming pindicator stuck to my description. In my sims I wasn't too impressed with FIN, but that's also partially because we'll likely have a late Pottery. I feel PRO will likely generate similar amounts of commerce to FIN. I am actually hoping the map will hit the right balance for water levels to serve as a benchmark for how good FIN will be. I'm not saying that all maps should be at this level, but there should be a expected baseline that maps deviate from and for which the mod is balanced. It is perfectly OK and actually desirable for traits to be better on some maps and game situations than others! That is how you achieve a balanced game without having everything be the same or be a different way to express the same thing, leading to a homogeneous and overall worse game. Being able to identify when some traits are better and when they are worse is one of the ways to express player skill.

Not sure there's much more to be said about the civ picks right now. Aztec is a good civ to pick if you expect the map to have a lot of food but not necessarily the happy to support a lot of whipping. Jaguars and Holkans seem to be pretty meh units, we have to watch out a bit for attacks through the woods via W2 I guess. 3 happy from Ball Courts is a lot of happy, but Colosseums can't be built until Construction and they're not a building you usually build. China is China, I've played it and you've probably played it. The collateral is nerfed a bit and the techs are nerfed a bit, but it doesn't really significantly change the civ. Spain is an obvious combo with PRO and might be something I play in the next version of the mod, when the building will most likely not require Walls to build. Of course, Walls will be cheap for Lewwyn to build as well.

I still really like cheap Granaries, but with the way the start is and what our starting techs are, we can't tech Pottery for quite a while. So we are most likely not going to pick EXP. That doesn't apply to China though. IMP is a good early expansion trait to pick if you are not picking EXP (or think it is less valuable), so I assume Rusten and Lewwyn picked it based upon similar logic. That and people seem to be rating IMP really highly these days, even though I am not convinced. Not much to say about Serdoa's pick, which is the full on economy pick. Bob picked FIN along with something that helps expansion a bit (cheap Monuments and happy to a lesser extent), I guess he likes that more than EXP or IMP. For the most part people's picks are the classic combo of expansion trait + economic trait.

Astute lurkers may already have a good guess of what our pick will be, but we'll wait for Serdoa to decide before finalizing it. Then I will likely have some additional thoughts after that.

[BRickAstley]

Gaspar was killed.

You happy now Noble? You wished it into being.

[NobleHelium]

Great, now I also wish for us to get every single wonder in the game.

[BRickAstley]

Oh, so you are picking an IND leader then?

[Gaspar]

Gaspar was killed.

You happy now Noble? You wished it into being.  

I'm not.

[Gaspar]

Alright, I'm never going to get back into the swing of things after WW if I don't get back to my usual blabbering, so I'm going to do opponent previews over the next day or so...

I'm posting this here to force myself to do it.