[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[Ginger()]

So two Hunt/Fish civs picked, what are the odds that they got a mirrored start? Hehehe

If I want to use Cuirassiers offensively, I imagine I need to pair with 1 movers like Maces and Trebs to avoid being smacked around by Pikes. I suppose the availability of combat promos makes them less vulnerable than Cannons to medieval defenses?

Leaders I’m currently thinking of are Frederick, Gandhi, FDR, Nebuchad.
Ind and Org give hammer savings that Phi lacks until Edu. Spi/Phi have strong synergy but lack Org/Ind savings

The only reason I’m not fully sold on Phi as opposed to FDR is that our capital looks food/production heavy with 6 riverside cottages available and 3 plains hills, otherwise Academy ahoy it would be

[Ginger()]

Outline of my the leader choices:
Frederick (PHI/ORG):
This has been discussed at length, PHI as a tech trait, and Org to lower maintenance, while relying on Academy'd capital to pump research.
Pros:  Reliable tech pace, generally cushy traits. CoL plus Confucian shrine is poggies for gold income,
Cons:  FIN might be better for the long game, and this capital doesn't look commerce juicy. Also this combo has a hard-on for Oracle, and cries if it goes

FDR (IND/ORG):
Pros:  You built this? No, I built this... *takes GLH*. big power spike right after classical with Forges and CH
Cons:  ORG alone is not the best tech trait, this combo is looking for early or medieval war to make gains

Gandhi (SPI/PHI):
Pros: there is no way to Paci/Caste, Paci/Caste is the way. All the flexibility that comes with SPI, you adopt new civics as you unlock them, dont need to hit CS/Monarch/Mono all at once to swap when in GA. Gets stronger the longer the game goes
Cons: No hammer savings besides easy Org Religion, if we don't go religious/civic part of tech tree we lose a lot of SPI value

Ramesses (SPI/IND):
Pros: early Forges and Org Religion give an early 50% to infrastructure that can conveniently replace ORG hammer savings. After OrgRel and Forge, CH are 80hammers. Can replicate PHI with Literature beeline and Pacifism from Shwegadon Paya/Philosophy Bulb.
Cons: You *really* need to put in the work on this combo. Fail gold is powerful but unreliable.

Nebuchadnezzar (PHI/IND):
Pros: Synergistic as hell, Forges give hammers, gold and GPP gives tech. There's cute things to do with engineers early.
Cons: Unlike Ramesses or FDR who can benefit from the failgold, Nebu needs to actually secure the wonders for his engine to work. Power spike is unpredictable.

Surprise!  Huayna Capac (FIN/IND)
A new contender comes because I have strong suspicions that Colossus will be good on this map. This combo would double up on the fishing villages. Of course if Colossus is good, usually so is Astro.

Why I'm interested in these traits:
PHI: raw power of extra Great People much sooner than usual. Was great in BtS, got buffed because under-picked in PB meta. Can pseudo replicate SPI with easier GA

IND: Wonders are good, Forges are good. Capital looks production-geared, so lean into strengths?

SPI: Very good hole-plugging trait that can basically pseudo-replicate all traits.

ORG: It's no longer cool now that everyone and their mother has it this game   . Weaker GNP trait than FIN, but receives power spike at Code of Laws, LH boost is also nice on what is probably a wet map.

I'm curious if my lurkers share my assessment that the capital is not too hot on commerce as opposed to it's lovely F/H. Not many river tiles and even if I built cottage-sharing cities on the outskirts, it would take way too long to grow those cottages up to anything that wasn't baloney. As I've mentioned earlier, this is the only reason I don't pull the trigger on Gandhi or Frederick. Only a few riverside tiles, do you look at this and does it scream academy material to you? (Of course with pyramids, who needs river tiles?)

I'm sitting here posting this wall of text when Superdeath just hit the randomizer on custom character creation   
Maybe I let the lurkers decide leader? Cast your votes now! So I can ignore them later

[Miguelito]

Gandhi (SPI/PHI):
... Gets stronger the longer the game goes
...

I would argue he has a peak in the renaissance and falls of afterwards. It's ok,  the game might not even last much longer, but yeah.


What's been of Lizzy, is she out of consideration?

[Ginger()]

Gandhi (SPI/PHI):
... Gets stronger the longer the game goes
...

I would argue he has a peak in the renaissance and falls of afterwards. It's ok,  the game might not even last much longer, but yeah.


What's been of Lizzy, is she out of consideration?

Yes, I would consider Renaissance the end of the game usually. PHI starts falling off after that (gets another spike at Biology), but if you're not winning then, you're probably not winning later.
Hmm that's actually a really good point, she's still the best hard-techer in the game. There is slight anti-synergy with Fin/Phi and the priorities of specialist vs tiles, but it’s made up for by the academy.

The question would be, does FIN GNP beat the turns I save with Gandhi's Spiritual? The starting location is very fast, so I can feel comfortable in taking late game traits. In fact the Frederick obsession was inspired by Elizabeth, with ORG as a more versatile concession to the vicissitudes of multiplayer meta and Charriu's Fin nerfs.

Edit:
Let's say I lock in PHI, and drop Ramesses and FDR or Huayna. It's between Gandhi, Frederick, Nebu and Elizabeth
I would pick FIN if my capital had more rivers, at the moment it would take 30 turns of growing cottages with helper cities to get them to 4 Commerce and swap them over to the capital, something I wouldn't really have the spare pop to start until turn 80, and then the villages would be ready for the capital when, turn 110? and this if I sink a trait point into FIN. It just all comes so late, but it is lovely when it arrives. This assumes I have the food and happy cap to work all those tiles with the capital and further assumes that its better than just working the hills.
The more I think about, I think Gandhi offers the best flexibility. FIN would be the pick if I had maybe 4 more river tiles in the BFC. Industrious locks me into chasing Metal Casting early. Org wants me to chase CoL. The only thing Spi really wants fast is some kind of religion. He also guarantees reliable PHI value past just scientists.

I will follow what I did with the civ picks, and pick the leader that follows the map best instead of trying to fight the map to give me what I'm comfortable with.

[Lazteuq]

Gandhi of Rome. Nice. This sparks joy.

We don't have to commit to any more interesting decisions for a while, until Turn 16. Then we'll need to think about what forests to chop, whether the second city will share with capitol, when(if?) we want to build warriors, and what tech order to do next.
I'm mostly confident that Hunting is the right choice after BW, especially because I think we may be sharing the capitol's deer. It especially works well on the 2-pop chop fiesta plan because the capitol isn't even using all of its good tiles then anyway. Then if we go straight toward Pottery, we can have it probably on Turn 37, early enough for the 3rd city to start on a granary immediately if we want to. At that point the 2nd city should easily be Size 2. We might go straight into a granary in the capitol. In my sim Pottery finished just as the second settler finished, which is really nice.
After Pottery we could make a push for religion if we feel that AH is still not important. I think we'd get Hinduism or Buddhism by Turn 55. A holy city gives a free border pop wherever it appears, which would probably be handy. I guess we could also forget about the first two religions and push for Monotheism instead (since that's where the power of OR is anyway), but I worry about someone else having exactly the same idea and beating us, leaving us with no religion until CoL! As a contingency plan we can try to get Theology for Christianity+AP like Civac and I did in PB60, but that was kind of crazy and only made sense with a bulb. I really do like the AP hammer bonus with SPI temples though, just saying.

Instead of religion, maybe we should get Writing immediately after Pottery to build a very early Library and even more extremely early Academy. I simulated 3pop whipping a library and having an Academy by T60. That would sacrifice some early settlers/workers coming out of the capitol, but might pay off soon enough to be worth it. The extra beakers might be enough to still win a religion race even after detouring to Writing!

Eh, whatever. None of this has to be decided for a long time.

One little wacky idea: Even though we get BW very early, we can intentionally delay the slavery swap to confuse our neighbors.

I don't think I've ever played Gandhi before, so I'll screw around in singleplayer a bit with him.

[Ginger()]

Gandhi of Rome. Nice. This sparks joy.

This is gonna be a fun, fun game if we escape the first 70 turns intact. 

There's loads of pathways, and yes it does depend on how long we can postpone AH, and scouting out our first couple of city sites will tell us (maybe we get "lucky" and meet Egypt for a discount). There's 3 CRE players   , so early religion might be nice to not get border bullied. Fabled/SD has yet to pick civ but nobody is Spiritual and nobody else is Mys start so Mono feels safe. Oracle is looking contested though with Sumeria in play and half the roster playing ORG. No Ind, Spi, or Phi means that Pyramids is a little less contested, though it's always a hot pick up. We do need to balance several priorities, including the all-important IW tech at some point. The advantage of Gandhi of Rome is that we have eggs in multiple baskets, but that's also a disadvantage as we are stretched very thin.

For PHI uses we can wait and see, we might find some lush river valley and move the capital there for the ideal Burea/Academy  , maybe the northern river meanders on some grasslands for some time, but we are above the equator so my hunch is north is a peninsula or coast of some kind. We might want a Prophet for the $ and spread, or if we get CoL we can bulb Currency with a 5 turn Great Merchant from Caste. We might build pyramids and pop a GE (probably going into AP). We might get merc'd by fcking Boudicca of Egypt. There's many ways to peace


Brief opposition analysis:
Pindicator's Greeks: $10 says he is aiming for a construction attack, possibly with a CRE-assisted Math bulb. CHA and Odeons allows for mass catapult whipping after completely ignoring the religious/civic techs (besides eventual Mys). He expressed his love of classical era warfare in the organizing thread way back, and this makes a lot of sense. Despite the blatant flaw in San Martin, his traits are still powerful early. 
Verdict: Befriend, Praets should be up in time

JackRB's Vikings: pirate shenanigans, wants to play the coastal game, IMP to stay relevant early, FIN to power to Beserkers. Not a very early threat but will be dangerous if goes unbothered. I am impressed with his play in PB61, the only reason he collapsed so spectacularly was a confluence of bad tech timing, poor army positioning, and a really well executed invasion by Bellarch. Until that point, or had Jack been a few turns faster to Engineering, he was a contender in food yield and commerce. 
Verdict: Not early threat, either hit with Praets or bulb to kill. You ignore FIN at your peril. 

Cornflakes's Egypt: this is filthy. If we keep reasonable standing army and tech to Praets, we should be safe, but Agg/Cha makes him a terrible target to attack without a decisive tech advantage. Pray he's on the other side of the map
Verdict: Nopenopenopenope

Cairo's China: Suryavarman is one of my favorite leaders from BtS, along with Gandhi, Pacal, and Frederick. Very very fast cities with a strong Civ to match, he's incentivized for early Machinery and ChoKoNus are quite the pain train. 
Verdict: hope he REX in someone else's face

Mjmd's Sumeria: Especially with ORG he's going for Priesthood early, he is our top contender for the Oracle. My guess is that he targets HBR or MC (maybe Monarchy but why pick CHA then?) He's not afraid to be proactive and I'm very impressed with his micro in PB62, picking a fight with Vanrober was bad diplo though. I gather from reading his threads that he has a reasonably pragmatic philosophy about conflict early and stable borders, he might make a good ally if someone needs-a-dogpilin'. 

Superdeath: Augustus of Maya is a little problematic. I was hoping for Pyramids with Gandhi, and Augustus is very well suited to that purpose. There is some hope that he instead goes for the Augustus Henge synergy, but hey could certainly grab both. Superdeath is dangerous but at least this pick isn’t too threatening beyond the odd woodsman2 holkan to watch out for

Fabled: Mehmed/Ottomans is solid. I think Pacal would be superior for the early Pottery play but this works well too. Likely picks up Hanging Gardens. Janissaries stronk if we get there. From Fabled's own posts he likes to play early aggression, but I just don't think he has the experience to overcome a human defender. Not expecting much early or late pressure tbh. There is a small problem in that his dedlurker, Amicalola, knows me from discord playing FFA games, and has some idea what to expect from my play. If Amica starts to play for Fabled like what happened with Joshy in PB61, I'll start sweating.

Bing: I'm not sure what to make of him, in both previous games he got knocked out early (which might say something in itself), in one he provoked a neighbor to start an incredibly pointless war, in the other he died to an axe rush, on the admittedly very cramped map of PB62. Zara Yacob is a good leader, I enjoy him, lots of hammer discounts, reasonable blend of mid and early game utility. Mali is likewise, a solid civ. I do not detect any synergy between leader and Civ other than CRE plus no-mys starting techs. But both are good choices that do not raise eyebrows.

[Miguelito]

What do you want Oracle for?

[Ginger()]

What do you want Oracle for?

CoL for Caste, Confucianism is nice too, but mainly swapping to Caste with Gandhi. Allows artists for budget creative in new cities and Merchants to bulb Currency or Civil Service. Also gives Courthouses but those are of debatable value early without Org discount.
I should be clear that I don't necessarily want Oracle, it's just a very nice swing for us and I want to try to focus on making some kind of play. Ideally we find forests and stone and rush for the Pyramids instead.

[Ginger()]

I've updated the op analysis with Fabled/SD/Bing
Trait totals:
ORG: 3
CRE: 3
CHA: 3
EXP: 2
IMP: 2
FIN: 1
IND: 1
AGG: 1
SPI: 1
PHI: 1
No protective means they want OB as much as we do so yay for that. Seems that early traits or hedge picks were favored for the most part, with only Pindicator and Cornflakes choosing telegraphed combos. That leaves us in a very awkward spot in the early game, but hey, turn 24 settler if we need it, this start seemed far too fast to justify picking IMP. I agree Lazteuq that Academy is PHI's main way of pacing with ORG and FIN outside of strict bulbs, we'll see if theres a better spot than the capital after some scouting is done. Speaking of scouting which way do you want to go? I was thinking either going straight SE to follow the river or going SW to follow the coast then loop east to circle the capital. The plains hill will be 'stepped on' by our cultural borders in 5 turns so I dont think its necessary to go there, and north is forests that doesnt give us full scout 2 move value.

Here's a question, how do I download the right PB mod? I followed this link https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...p?tid=9510 to here https://civ.zulan.net/pbspy/game/1/ And tried to download PBmodv9, but it wouldn't let me. I ended up installing PBmodv8, will this work?

[Charriu]

Wait till Ramk provides everything. There will be a download link