I definitely do think we should have an early game expansion/eco trait to combine with SPI, as opposed to IND or PHI.
Starting with Myst is enough to pretty well guarantee a religion already, but might not be necessary with so few players.
We want to be able to start using SPI as soon as possible, which means reaching Monarchy soon. I think IMP and CRE, PRO, and EXP look good for that. People seem to think IMP is overpowered. I hardly ever play with it so I'm not sure what to think, but it's probably not bad! EXP doesn't sound as good as IMP, but I like the idea of combining Carthage with Expansive for easy +1 trade routes. Carthage doesn't seem too great otherwise though.
CRE is always solid and easy to use, but not very interesting. Helpful for those early beakers to get to Monarchy.
I agree that Inca would be good. India and Korea have good UUs and start with Myst as well. Ok, maybe Korea's isn't that good.
I have to go to work now, I'll be back online tonight.
I guess one big decision is whether to settle in place. We could really go weird and move 2N onto the sugar, which gives +1f and grabs the deer, while still leaving a plains hill city site open in the south. However, that loses coast access, and would have no 3f tiles until borders pop. I feel like Tarkeel wants us to settle in place, but I'm not sure.
Of course we'll move the scout first, presumably 2W.
I have no idea how to tell what would be a good leader for this start, but I know we'll want AH and likely Fishing early.
If we settle in place, starting with Fishing allows us to work the 3f2c whale right away, which is kind of a big deal for the first few turns if we're trying to grow. If we're making a worker, it's not such a big deal. If we're Creative, it only takes 2 turns for the border pop, otherwise its 5.
If we settle 2N, we could start with any techs, because building a worker and camping the deer will take long enough that AH will be finished. At 10bpt, it takes 18 turns to get Hunting->AH on Emperor/Standard map.
I think this is a place where Charriu's FIN lighthouse change makes a big difference.
I'm going to calculate different starting options later today. SIP with workboat at max production, SIP with workboat and growing, going on the sugar (are there other choices?). However, I expect the sugar start to blow the other options out of the water. The problem is that the start is lacking commerce which does not fit well with the wish to get a religion.
My thoughts including a suggestion in the spoiler. Spoilered because I don't want to predispose you to anything if you want to make up your own mind.
OK. I have a very hard time evaluating this start. Normally, I use spreadsheets for this. But here this is difficult because I don't know what the tech order should be. Partly, because of the wish for a religion, partly because there is no clear spot for a second city so I don't know which techs are critical and which can be dispensed with (eg. if there is corn at the second city AH can be delayed, if there is a pig reseraching it early to improve the cattle is obviously better).
My intuition is still that the sugar is overwhelmingly stronger than SIP and if staying on the plains hill is the price for religion that price is too high. It's received wisdom that starting with a work boat for clams or crabs is bad. More to the point, the sugar spot will have +2 food hammers over the plains hill and that's without having to waste 30 hammers on a work boat like the plains hill location.
It's also notable that there is no early happiness resource visible which runs counter to recent practice. Hence, SPI religious play does have significant upside as it alleviates the happiness issue. Moreover, Bronzeworking can perhaps be delayed slightly.
I suggest picking SPI/IMP (Justinian?) of the Maya (Mysticism,Mining/Holkan/Ball Court), settle on the sugar and research Hunting. Then there is the option to continue with Meditation or Animal Husbandry or Bronzeworking depending on the situation. We can defend ourselves with Holkans and IMP allows settler production without Bronzeworking. Another option of course, is to stuff the religious part and go with Hunting/Mining for the umpteenth time. However, as I said an early religion does have some upside.
Thanks for spoilering, but I immediately read it anyways.
I definitely favor the sugar site. It felt like an extreme move when I first thought of it, but now I realize it's not crazy at all. In my experience, having an extra +1f in the capitol is worth a 1 turn delay. Having deer instead of clam definitely feels like a good trade.
I was thinking of SPI/IMP Justinian yesterday, and I like it. Miguelito/Rusten played him with great success in PB54.
Your idea of not needing Bronzeworking right away is totally new to me, but I really like it! I suppose that's part of why IMP is considered so good. IMP Maya feels like the perfect combination. We also don't have a lot of forest, so chopping isn't very important. The tech path flexibility sounds very nice. I'm sold.
I also think Holy Rome's Mysticism/Hunting could work for getting religion even earlier, but I like Maya a lot more. I think Holy Rome would only be a better choice if we did SPI/ORG for the Rathauses.
I am hopeful this map has minimal early luxuries. I think part of Slavery's dominance is because mapmakers almost always give one or two easy luxuries. That hurts Charismatic too. I wonder if Tarkeel sees it this way?
Now, which to pick first... We're almost in the middle of the pick order: Jowy is the only person who can interrupt our plans. I think we should take Maya first, because I see a few backup leader options, like SPI/EXP or SPI/CHM.
Your thoughts echo some of mine. I also considered Holy Rome and rejected them for the same reason (also though because Hunting is cheaper than Mining). I also agree about CHA. However, a lack of early happiness resources can be a miserable experience. There should be at least one. With one early happiness resource CHA is still quite good. Only with 2 or 3 does it start to become weak. Another problem is, that you don't know how many there will be in the picking stage.
IMP is strong chiefly because it enables easy 2pop whipping of settlers. Slowbuilding them is also an option though. With two plains hill mines the capital on the sugar would build a settler in 6 turns on size 3.
I'd say Justinian is more important to take than the Maya. Without IMP possibly delaying Bronzeworking is a much bigger problem.
