[SPOILERS] Roland and Suboptimal Team Up

[suboptimal]

BTW, it was previously determined that in MP games setting the player difficulty to Diety did not give city-states walls, IIRC. This had been discussed in PBEM 14 or 15, I think.

[roland of gilead]

that's pretty strange but fair enough.

I think it best if you lead the army

Playing Japan just now and do think they are good first pick military religion possibly. so who do we science with in that case.

so we get either indonesa/australia/japan yeah?

shouldn't rule out Russia on land either i would say.

tech shuffle is a real wild card. in my game political philosophy s way late but mercantilism is really early. Spain could be mental or utterly useless.

[suboptimal]

Tech shuffle can do some really weird things. I've seen situations where a tech's eureka cannot be reached (Square Rigging being a prerequisite for Gunpowder, for instance). I've also seen posts on CivFanatics where all but one of the techs for an era were in the first column and they were all prerequisites for the last tech in the age.

I have no problem taking the lead on the army (or the navy). I think our first pick should be one of those three civs, in that order (Indonesia, Australia, Japan) and then go from there. If one of the two remaining ones makes it back to us I say we take that one. If not then we can look at Korea (if we want a focus) or perhaps China (if we want wonders). I figure we've got about 100 turns or so to get going before someone becomes a problem, so any civ that hits its stride in the Medieval or Renaissance would be a good pick.

I think if we get Australia and want a religion then we should pick up a religious civ. Australia could then handle science, culture & economy while the religious civ does faith + units.
For Indonesia we'd want a scientific/commercial civ (Korea?) and let Indonesia handle religion and military.
Japan gives us a wide open choice, I think, as it can do religious/military easily but also be used for science/culture/commerce.

Russia would be an interesting complement to all of them.

[roland of gilead]

yup that all makes sense.

[suboptimal]

I'm going to try to put some more thought into this tonight and tomorrow to get some strategies with pairings of our top three. Perhaps do the same so we can get to a better point in our thinking/pregaming for the picks.

[roland of gilead]

Thrawn took japan so we get one of our first 2 picks. Happy with that.

Both are strong.

Australia are just so good all round and a bit better even on water maps. Indonesia obviously strong on water and with Tech Shuffle perhaps epic. Perhaps not as good.

Australia are probably the safe choice. Do we want to be safe?

i think with Indonesia it's China ideally certainly a science culture civ.

With Australia Germany Russia China.

Tech Shuffle favors china.

going to load the game later and make sure i am not missing any obvious choices.

[suboptimal]

I think Australia is the good choice - it's got flexibility that Indonesia doesn't have as we can take it in any direction depending on our second pick. If CMF/Marco take Australia then I think we stick with Indonesia and start working on choice number two. We'll need one relatively quickly since the team after us picks double.

If we take Australia and Indonesia is still on the board when the pick comes back around I think we grab it and call it good? If not then Russia/Germany/China could all work here. Another possibility is a religious/naval Australia + science/commerce Korea.

[roland of gilead]

I think Australia is the good choice - it's got flexibility that Indonesia doesn't have as we can take it in any direction depending on our second pick.  If CMF/Marco take Australia then I think we stick with Indonesia and start working on choice number two.  We'll need one relatively quickly since the team after us picks double. 

If we take Australia and Indonesia is still on the board when the pick comes back around I think we grab it and call it good?  If not then Russia/Germany/China could all work here.  Another possibility is a religious/naval Australia + science/commerce Korea.

Agree with all that. We have 2 days to decide on second pick so let's not rush it to much. 

Like Japan Australia is a really good all rounder and given the lack of map info a good pick. Australia can bee good on commerce. Harbours and more importantly really good commercial hubs. Australia just really gives us flexibility 

Korea are a bit situational but only a bit. The others are all solid as well. 

their choice of japan almost certainly means some kind of early rush or pillaging where the costal bonus is most effective.

[suboptimal]

We didn't consider the Dutch in our initial analysis, I think because of the religion question.

Leader Ability: Domestic Trade Routes +1 loyalty for starting city. Foreign Trade Routes to or from a Dutch city give +1 to the Dutch city.
Civ Ability: Rivers give +2 adjacency to Campus, Theater Square and Industrial Zone districts. Completing a Harbor triggers a culture bomb on adjacent tiles.
UI: Polder: +1, +1 per adjacent polder, +1
UU: De Zeven Provencien: Frigate with +5 CS across the board and an additional +7 against defensible districts (centers, Encampments)

If Indonesia is taken but the Dutch are still around for our second pick we might want to give this a look.

[suboptimal]

Looks like we're up. Shall we move forward with Indonesia as discussed?