[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

[Rusten]

Agree that settling on the sugar makes the most sense. To answer your questions: 
Huge amounts of food isn't great for Exp short term if there's no happiness to go with it. Can easily outgrow your granaries, but we have ivory already and can share some of the food. 
Never pottery before BW, IMO. Need either whip or chop to complete the granary anyway.

Tech costs are higher than usual with emperor difficulty and huge world size, so those Fin river cottages are going to be amazing once they turn into hamlets. That's a lot of tiles with 1 extra commerce. However, neither the sheep nor the ivory will provide the extra commerce, and as you touched on even the fish will be 2c for a long time. So that's absolutely 0 benefit early game, which would usually mean I'd not consider it, but this game my brain is still telling me it's the right pick.

Not high on wheel for this start as we will likely connect our 2nd city to trade network without it. And for pottery purposes fishing does the same (besides, we want BW before that anyway so even mining is better). For that reason I'm happy to throw away Babylon. Agriculture is cheap enough that we can tech it in time even if we are unlucky with our 2nd (or 3rd) tech pairing.

I think most players would bite your hand off for a chance at Pacal. If you really feel Justinian you can pick it, but I wouldn't be able to justify it personally.

[Rusten]

I'll also add that I consider the huge food surplus a slight nerf to Imp, because we'll have no problem whipping settlers for 3 pop.

[Miguelito]

Hm, but isn't early pottery the whole catch of Pacal? I mean, if we don't really want early granaries, not that I would want to actually get it before BW. Otoh lots of food at the cap can also be played just sharing a lot. That makes early granaries more appealing, frees up workers for some early cottages and lets cities share them, and also counteracts the Imp nerf that you described.
The obvious second city shares sheep while grabbing the wheat (that one does not have a TR though for wheat in the first ring). It has the downside of needing AH for the second city, however if we go for AH we can also pick up hunting and the ivory. We want agri either way I suppose.
So, send the scout south along the coast first while teching agri/mining/BW, to see if there is a good city sharing the fish. If not, go agri->BW/AH (order tbd) and fishing only afterwards. If yes, agri->BW->fishing->AH

Regarding the leader pick, I think we are largely on the same page. I agree that Pacal is the rational choice. I think you can also understand my soft spot for the Spi trait. I do feel like we should try something new; but late game Spi is also something new for me, and I imagine it being very fun.
Maybe it comes down to this: is my idea of landing one of Judaism/Confu/Tao/Christianity, and making up for the lack of Fin commerce with the shrine, realistically achievable with Justinian, or even wise? You could certainly argue that Pacal has an easier time getting a religion, and there will be all sorts of Fin/Org/Phi leaders around.

Regarding the civ pick, we should consider what the likely alternatives are. There are only 2 civs that were not sent out to players. So which civilizations do I think players are likely to send back?

• America (Agri/Fishing)
  
• Arabia (Myst/Wheel)
  
• Ethiopia (Hunting/Mining)
  
• Korea (Mining/Myst)
  
• Maya (Mining/Myst)
  
• Natives (Agri/Fishing)
  
• Portugal (Fishing/Mining)
  
• Sumer (Agri/Wheel)
  

As less likely, but still possible, I see:

• Celts (Hunting/Myst)
  
• Dutch (Agri/Fishing)
  
• England (Fishing/Mining)
  
• Greece (Fishing/Hunting, new Phalanx)
  
• Germany (Hunting/Mining, new uniques)
  
• Russia (Hunting/Mining)
  

How do they compare to Babylon?
I would see as clear upgrades: America and all of the second list but the Celts.
slight upgrade: Portugal (underrating?), Arabia (although techs are tough)
Downgrades: Ethiopia, Maya, Korea
Neutral: Celts (rate higher with Justinian probably)
Unsure: Natives (why does everybody hate the dogs?), Sumer (the UB is way better, but the UU is problematic). I lean rather towards slight upgrade on both.

Of the civs not listed (which would hence be among the 2 not in the pool), I would only not want to play Byzantium (yes, the cataphract is still unnerfed).

What do you think of this assessment? If we only take the first list, we're looking at a chance of 3/(8+2) = 30% of a downgrade. Seems reasonable to take, with another roll available afterward, although the pool will become even dirtier.

[Rusten]

I think we always go hunting before AH, it saves so many beakers, but I haven't simmed yet of course. The ivory is a strong tile on grassland with a river and we'll need the happiness.
Not sure I consider any of those civs downgrades tbh, for me Babylon is about as bad as it gets. They're all either on the same level or better. I could be convinced if you produce a promising sim with pottery before BW, but I don't really believe it. In particular you strongly underrate Ethiopia. Oromo is useful and culture is an important VC for huge games.

Relying on getting a shrine is very suspect, and its returns are generally overrated, but we will get some money back from running better civics.

[Miguelito]

yes, hunting into AH was my point, sorry if that wasn't clear.

You've got me pretty much convinced at this point to keep Pacal and send back Babylon (it was the spirit of my previous post already). No need to lock it in just yet when a third or so of players have not even posted in their threads yet after getting their starts, but pretty sure that's what we'll end up with.

Not going to sim for picks, and Pottery before BW was meant rather as a bit of silly time. And good point on Ethiopia, with the stele not expiring it is actually relevant.

[Rusten]

Having fun is what matters, so if you think you'll have more fun with Justinian I am fine with that pick. But if we're playing to win then I'm pretty sure Pacal puts us in a much better spot. And winning is pretty fun too.

[Miguelito]

As usual, I'm not expecting to win i nthis field, although our last game has evidently helped my confidence. But seriously, there's just too much variance in a game like this to expect anything.
Anyways, losing can be pretty unfun, so that's reason enough to do our best. (Although I'd claim that I did enjoy most of PB49 also when it was already hopeless. There was at least the local conflict with Cairo for small victories).
And as nice of a story 4 Justinians in a row are, I should probably try something actually new (for example I'm not sure I know how to plan GAs for revolts :P). And Pacal is promising some interesting stuff no doubt.

[Rusten]

There are a couple of benefits to settling PH over sugar TBH, but we can decide later. Depends on starting techs as well. Still imagine we go sugar, but don't lock yourself into it.

edit: Generally speaking it will be very difficult to make up for the fact that on sugar is right next to corn for worker movement and grows faster.

[Rusten]

I did some sims based on Babylon and sugar city can get a size 3 settler out end of T29. PH is 2 turns behind that.
Sugar has a warrior before the settler too (completed with 2 overflow upon growing to size 3 to speed up settler 1t). We won't have BW in time (maybe if we start with agri+mining), so getting the settler on size 3 using our best tiles comes naturally.

Sugar seems far superior, and I'm not sure any starting tech combo could change that. The only thing PH has going for it is a guaranteed great 2nd city spot 1N of sugar, but I'm sure we can find something good either way.

If we get fishing+mining on our 2nd roll I'd be interested in trying wb first and whipping the worker, but haven't checked how that performs yet.

[Miguelito]

Still torn.

So, Pacal is among the top 3 BTS leaders, likely the best, but he is also the most nerfed one (2 traits were nerfed in CtH, and he has both).

• Exp loses 1/3-1/2 of its value (and identity) with the worker bonus, and in exchange gets the aqueduct bonus. We're most likely not Khmer or Ottomen, so that amounts to a 50 hammer discount on the HG. We also expect for the game to reach the industrial age, so the Exp health may be useful eventually, and maybe we'd even build an additional aqueduct or two. But before that the trait is just the granaries. I don't remember actually having a lot of trouble getting the granaries up in PB54, but it was probably a speed bump to our expansion. They are the most important building, and getting them with a chop/whip less is awesome of course.
  
• Fin has been pretty popular in CtH despite the first nerf of requiring 3c on land tiles for the bonus. You just wait ten turns on your riverside cottage. That's a bunch of commerce less, but still great. Then for 2.0 Charriu took the double nerf hammer, removing the bank bonus and making the Fin bonus require a lighthouse. He was advised against the latter in the thread for a lot of good reasons but still went through with it (bit out of character for him). I guess he really cares about making Pro the early economy trait and Fin the late one. I estimate this to be worth somewhere between 40 and 200 commerce during the first 75 turns, depending on how many additional seafood cities we settle in that time. That stings. Losing the bank bonus altogether is also huge. Makes me wonder how good the trait is with that double nerf.
  

Meanwhile, Imp got the stable bonus removed that it had in earlier versions but that was not a reason to pick the trait. Compared to Exp, it kicks in from the first city on, and saves a bit more hammers per new city. The difference of course being that the granaries have to be built in new cities that have more trouble producing those hammer. Imp's GG bonus is pretty useful compared to Exp's health.

Spi got buffed in CtH by more useful civics, and this version has a slight buff in the earlier access to serfdom. I'm not sure if cheap temples are better or worse on a lush map. More luxuries, but also more food (reminder to myself we don't know yet how lush the map will be on a whole actually, only that the start is pretty juicy).

(Apologies if the back and forth is getting exhausting, and thanks for going into the sim.)