[Mjmd #59] Sea Shanties!

[Mjmd]

Lewwyn you've clearly made a mistake. I don't get good starts.

Definitely some food for thought, but gut is to move 1S and then there a sweet 2nd city that shares the fish and gets 1st ring pig 1N of elephant. Also grabs more river tiles for an academy capital. Lose the forested PH to work for work boat first and both fish and corn are second ring instead of first, but minor quibles for such a gorgeous gift.


Moving south also makes starting techs less of a thing, although I'm leaning towards keeping Portugal right now.

Edit: re posting picture so it is at top of the page.

[Mjmd]

Mjmd - quote from PB54 where my start was bland and even in hindsight about the 2nd or 3rd worse on the map (Scooter had the worst and correctly moved to a much better spot)

Repeat after me: "It is ok to give your small community base that will spend a significant portion of their time for the next 4 months an exciting start"

THIS START IS EXCITING. I actually woke up middle of the night (due to baby). After I got him back down I quickly checked, saw this, and immediately couldn't get back to sleep.....

I am pretty sure about an academy capital on sugar. Hopefully I can get a financial leader on the throw back (not likely), but we shall see. Makes Phil a bit better as a 'ok' combination. Plus Phil could help get me to currency with a math bulb. (would do math bulb and then academy to be clear, most likely). 

Other than my minor nitpicks I'm already annoyed at the forest 1SW of pig where I want to settle. I wonder if therefore I'm supposed to give up on the coastal spot and just settle 1S of the pig and share the wet rice. I'm assuming purposefully both spots have inland lakes. Assuming no other seafood north one of the two is unlikely to get a lighthouse. Could set up that city as more of a production city. Also could place 1 SE of pig lake and then put a future city 1NW of pig to grab the riverside grassland hill and also build lighthouse for that lake. 1SE of pig lake wouldn't get immediate trade though. Point being lots of options depending on scouting if I settle south on the sugar.

I don't need AH until second city (although second city could share / steal wet corn instead or even be placed so can share both), so I am still debating Portugal. I would love a civ with literally any economic UB or earlier UU, but I don't think that is likely if we I consider most of those are what I would classify as the "good" civs. If because of game type and size I bump Portugal up to "ok", should I keep. I've already stated both opportunities and issues with UU. Even if the game goes late their UB might get built once in Maoi city so that isn't a factor. Something I didn't fully  think about with their UU is that ocean trade doesn't open up until Astronomy so even if I settle Astro islands unless they are lush stupid good Realms astro islands they will be a bit of drain unless they are clustered. 

HHHRRRMMMMM - I might have to flip a coin on the civ. Maybe re-glance over other civs and actually figure out what I think is "ok" and see if on average they would be more exciting.

[Lewwyn]

 I'm happy you're happy

[Mjmd]

So I was going to do a weighted point scale, but then decided that would take too long. I was going to do a test game to see how much starting techs mattered, but with having to play PB56 I probably won't have time or energy and that will be against the deadline. So instead I just did a general "feel" for if I think including starting tech costs how Portugal stacks up against other civs. Note: Unknown civs I would like a certain trait to go with them IE for celts I would want protective, therefore I'm putting them at 'even' if with that trait they would be 'better'. Since I don't know if I will get said trait / traits, I considered them 'even' for math purposes.

TLDR
Better = 18
Even = 6
Worse = 6
Unknown = 3

If we assume 13 of the better civs got sent out 25/34 *18 = 13 ish and say people mostly agree and accept 12 of them that reduces number of 'better' civs down to 6. Lets say of the 9 'unknown' or 'even' civs 5 of them got sent back that puts total of civs in pool at (6+4+6) = 16. Odds of getting a 'better civ are therefore 6/16 = 37.5%. Obviously this is not even close to 50%.

Mind you this math is with my definition of 'better' being rather generous to anything with slightly more potential.

FINAL VERDICTS
Portugal = reluctant keep
Leaders = NEW PLEASE!!!

[Mjmd]

For the few lurkers that read me I did edit in the full list of what I consider better than Portugal in last post. To note total % of better and even is at 62.5%. This lines up with my previous civ math portion which roughly estimated 67%. Obviously though because I considered Portugal at least as if not more interesting than the other 'even' / 'ok' civs this tipped the math to selecting it.

Lets re-talk traits and leaders. Something I didn't fully consider in my math for leaders is that for 3rd round there may be some good leaders left. Total % of pool being distributed will obviously be down this round. I still think I'm heavily incentivized to take a leader this round.

Traits with more desperation in my step!

Organized, financial, and protective - ECONOMY TRAIT = YES. To note I got probably the worst pairing with protective, so can't get that again.

Charismatic as a pseudo economy trait with extra happy is going to be a "fine" I'll settle for this.
Industrious with no other economic trait = how fast can I build the pyramids (I'll have to go look at pitboss 88, but I think it was like turn 58 or something silly). Edit: kind of want to move Ind down to tier 3 with this many players.
Philosophical for academy plus bulbing a lot of junk is probably now more of an ok trait vs 1st round. Specifically bulbing towards optics may be considered. Overall note is that it is nice optics is an economic tech in this mod so I have x2 incentive to go for it earlier.

Imperialistic is downgraded with revealed start plus desperation for more relevant stuff as its unlikely I'll get organized or financial. Still not that interested in expansive, creative, or spiritual although Exp or Crea all are fine if paired with one of the first 3 (in fact it would be nice if paired with Fin/Org to make up for them not doing anything right away).

[Lewwyn]

You may choose to accept or reject again. After this you will have one more round if you reject. For civilizations. in the third round any civ twice rejected will be removed from the pool.

Second round choices:

Suryavaraman, Zara Yaqob

[Mjmd]

Lewwyn I already got Sury in the first round.

Also, I agree that changing the pick method to discard twice rejected civs changes maths (how many people actually did math and was it better than mine?). I don't think it moves the needle on my civ decision, but I can certainly see it doing so.

Lets see what I get as a replacement to Sury, but Zara is a heck of a 2nd round leader. Creative isn't a late game trait, but its a nice 'luxury' early game trait that synergizes nicely with starting techs as I can ignore mysticism until going for construction probably. Creative also recently got restored to its original strength which is nice.

[Lewwyn]

Sorry about that Mjmd, Sury was on 2 different lines in my excel and I missed that.

Your 2nd possible leader is Wang Kon

[Mjmd]

I mean I was pretty locked in on Zara. I was like "I'll ask but I don't actually expect the answer to change". Now HRRMMMMM. I would define both these leaders as "good". I feel sorry for other people who sent leaders back. Mind people who send back for round 3 might get one of these.

[Mjmd]

Found an article on Civac maintenance so figured I would share.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/c...ed.148840/

So number of cities seems to be the big thing as while it increases with pop it isn't a ton and that pop is doing something.

I'm rather attracted to Wang because he combines an early game economic trait with a late game one. I might do a test game and see when organized would start kicking in and how much vs protective. Mind having to research myst probably negates a descent bit of that. Wang has almost no hammer modifiers that matter vs Zara having a lot. Financial I think is still pretty good especially with all the river I'm seeing (which is also good for protective). Protective I only mainly care about due to domestic trade route increase. Ya test for early game tech speed I think. 

Hope you enjoyed random thoughts going around and around my head. There is more, but I'm getting lost in myself.