Babylon's Nebula of Cheddar(Phi/Ind)

[The Black Sword]

Here's how my traits have helped me this game.

Ind has gotten me:

T30 - 40h (Henge), 
T48 - 66h (GLH),
T71 - 86h (HG)
T74 - 43h (Great Wall, not sure this should count)
T74 - 71h (Moai)
T76 - 100h (ToA)

Forges(60h each)
T55, T56, T56, T60, T61, T63, T69, T73, T74, T76, T76, T77

Granary dates(30h each):
T11, T16, T22, T34, T35, T38, T51, T53, T63, T63, T64, T68

There was a global anarchy turn on T31 I think from the switch to sequential.

Phi has gotten me:
420g on T58 (Trade Mission)
571b on T72 (Machinery Bulb)
420g on T87 (Trade Mission)
326h on T87 (Golden Age)
576g on T87 (Golden Age)
Academy on T91 (to be valued)

[NobleHelium]

[The Black Sword]

Thanks Noble. I assume none of the water tiles visible are fresh?

[The Black Sword]

Reminding myself of the RtR traits, I had to laugh when I got to this:

Industrious: +50% wonder production. Does not apply to Pyramids. +100% production of Forge. +35% production of Bank, University. -15% civic maintenance.

Actually, I started laughing at the Pyramids bit, then started again when I hit the civic maintenance.

[NobleHelium]

Thanks Noble. I assume none of the water tiles visible are fresh?

Correct, there are no lakes visible in the picture.

[The Black Sword]

Some thoughts:

Civs - I probably want one of the 3 Granary UBs, India, Inca or Babylon. Not perfect starting techs but they seem like quite an outlier in power level. If I get Spi then maybe starting with Myst isn't terrible too.

Traits - map is slightly on the smaller side, which minorly disincentives a number of traits. I'm strongly leaning towards Spiritual. Advanced start slightly improves it because the Slavery revolt turn is a bit more costly here. Just in general, there are more opportunities for civic swapping in RtR than BTS or CTH. Best thing to pair it with would probably be the cheap granaries trait(Pro here), but I just played that, so it's out. Actually, I just played CTH Expansive, which has the same effect as RTR Pro, and CTH Protective, which has the same name as RTR Pro. Got all my bases covered.  So I'll probably try for the IND or PHI I missed out on in PB53. 

PHI is always great, but I feel like I play it a lot. It maybe has some anti-synergy with Spi because of Pacifism. I'm not sure if that's true though, stacking the bonus is powerful and you get to pull shenanigans as soon as you get to Caste rather than waiting for Philosophy. From what I remember of PB18 that factor was more important. If it wasn't for that Pyramids change I'd be all in on the IND/SPI train ... Both traits suit the map size too IMO. 

Other traits I'm not sold on. AGG and EXP feel generally weak. EXP is even worse in advanced start where the worker bonus is worth less turns, AGG's maintenance kicks in better on larger maps. I like the general power level of IMP and ORG a bit better, but they have similar game specific problems, the map size for ORG and the advanced start for IMP. You only get the IMP discount on bought settlers, not placed cities, so you lose something either way. We already have 2 early happy faces visible in the Whales(at Sailing in RTR) and the Ivory, so I don't feel like CHA. CRE is good and if our 2nd city goes on the sugar then it does benefit from a border pop. There is some anti-synergy with Spi, which hopefully has access to artists and a religion. Maybe these are the perfect map sizes for Cre though? Big enough that there are a decent number of cities to settle and pop borders, tight enough that a lot of cities will be fighting for tiles with our toroidal neighbours.

Start - Putting a city on the plains hill is a given. The sheep is the next best resource, but there's no other visible good tiles around there. A sugar city to share the first city's river seems stronger. That city needs a border pop, while the first doesn't. But the first is definitely a better long term capital location. So I'll need to have a little think about where the Palace goes. 500 points means we probably want city 3, like in PB53. I lowrolled a really poor placement for my third city there but tbh I was still quite happy with it. It got through quite a decent amount of work. One option here is to be placed on the island. That means I don't have to tech Sailing or build a Galley for 2c trade routes. No new resource tiles though. The sheep is the only other option assuming I don't get any more visibility. The lack of resources in that northern area makes we wonder if there is some horse/iron etc. there. 4 cities might also be worth checking out since we have enough semi-viable targets. I remember not liking that option in PB53 though.

[The Black Sword]

So I forgot to mention Fin there. I'd group it in with Org, in that I generally prefer Phi as an economic trait unless the map is big.

However, I wasn't thinking clearly about the map size, it's over 120 tiles per player which is what I consider the average. I was thinking it was around 100 for some reason. There's a fairly decent amount (40%) water too, which also speaks for Org and Fin. And it has been ages since I've played either one, all the way back to my first non-FFH games on RB - PB13 with Pacal and PBEM53 with Zara. In comparison I've played Phi 3 times, including the exact Phi/Spi combo.

So I'm leaning back towards picking one of those two. Maybe Org, since Charriu is saying it is underpicked these days. I could maybe consider a Courthouse UB too.

[naufragar]

If it wasn't for that Pyramids change I'd be all in on the IND/SPI train ... Both traits suit the map size too IMO. 

How do you reckon? I'd figure you'd want these traits on a map that gives you some elbow room. (Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this game's map.)

[The Black Sword]

Other traits give you a bonus more on a per city or per tile basis. This is less the case with Phi or Ind, though there is still some scaling going on. The increasing gpp costs means great people and by extension Phi start to get less efficient the more of them you run. So while Fin gives you roughly the same value in cities 11-20 as it did in cities 1-10, that's not true for Phi. With regard to Ind, some wonders do scale like the Great Lighthouse or the Mids however others don't like The Great Library. The National Wonder bonus is another decent chunk of the trait that don't scale with city numbers.

[The Black Sword]

I'm thinking we probably don't want the island city after all. Anything it builds is stuck on the island until I tech Sailing and build a Galley anyway. Advanced starts are already pretty tech constrained, and if I go Spi I will want a religion too. Most likely I plan to focus my advanced start points on food hammers since that's the most efficient then try tech Pottery first to get some river cottages down and make up the tech deficit. Working 2/3 tiles sounds a lot better than trading hammers to beakers 1 to 1.

That means we want to start with 2 of Wheel/Agri/Hunting, and then buy the third to go to Pottery. Babylon is the Granary civ with perfect techs, so they look like my first choice. Failing that, I'll have to see just how bad the Inca/India starts are in comparison. India has none of those 3 techs, Inca at least has Agri, but I wouldn't mind popping borders with religion instead of Terraces. Sumeria is a decent back up option, good starting techs and a cheap, early Courthouse UB for Org.

The Natives are the other civ that really caught my eye. You can build a 15h tracker to immediately create a totem pole when you found the city. That's very competitive with Inca, it costs an extra 15h, but it border pops quicker and you get free xp for archers. Again though, I already want to use religion for border pops (and I have technically played the natives before.)