[Spoiler] OW PBC1 Canada and Egypt again?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It's a lot to process. I think that Rome is the stronger choice, though, from reading up - and you can never go wrong with Rome in any ancient 4X game, in any case.

Assuming Bruindane takes Hatti, we will simply have to maneuver around it as best we can. The steady Roman benefits should outweigh the situational hill benefits, as long as we don't let him play to his strengths.

[Kaiser]

I definetly prefer playing Rome into Hatti than the other way around. Avoiding the fight inside hills is a good way to keep his advantage minimal.
Roaded Hills and City tiles will egalize the Hattusa advantage in hills, Hatti has no way to compensate for the statesmen orders and can only get his capital to have decree's with a constitution law (midgame).

That being said, it looks like we have to generate a new map. This time I will join from my wife's steam version so we can start the game as a PBC directly and do not have the hassle of going through the network game.

The idea is that you load your turn, take a screenshot or two (or we sync up and you stream) to decide on your pick.
To load your turn outside of your turn window (it will be Bruindane's window he will wait for our decisions) you need to "ctrl" + click on the PBC save once the game gets hosted by Bruindane. We can chat on this later today

[Kaiser]

Here is the direct PBC Game:

Kaiser Start



I need to think a bit about this, hopefully I have some time tonight, first gut feeling is an artisan start for the 2nd worker and the later excellent wood production, This would be a slow growth start though

CMF Start



With two farm ressources you can look into my plan for Rome/Hatti, this time the hills to the West might make Hatti the stronger pick to quicker claim westwards. Sadly you do not have Hatti (its part of the Heroes of the Aegan DLC), so can only gor Rome or Egypt for Landowners
The fur does not justify hunters in my opinion (as the pearls do not for my capital)

noticeable features



The capitals are located at the entrance to a valley and this mountain range protects our starting areas quite nicely, there might be two small (1-2 tile) passes or not beteen us. There definetively is a bigger pass to the N of your location (the very N, as the mountain range continues until you can spot the N map edge limiting mountain range).

Pushing to the middle seems the obvious play, I estimate that each of us has 2-3 city sites in the protected area and then there are probably 2-3 cities on the center line and 3-4 cities per player on our side of the map.
The question is if we pick more defensively of offensively considering that we can try to claim our fair share while having a more economy focussed CIV.



Pressing "alt" allows for getting the tile coordinate information as part of the advanced tooltip, my Settler is currently on 44,11 and will likely settle on 44,12 (one tile NW).
This allows for maximum terrain including two good lumbermill sites (forest next to river) and probably will save me an order claiming the ancient ruins visible in my screenshot as well. The downside is that I do not initally claim the sheep, but a mine on the ore and a miner specialist can remedy this as well as any urban improvement on the tile SW of the ore.



As this map is mirrored and we know from CMFs capital location that the map is 63 wide, we know that I am 20 tiles W from the Eastern edge. This means that the enemy team is just 23 tiles W again, but the thick forest will slow any approach. I will likely try to skirt around the forest in a NW direction with my scout while sending my unit W and slightly N to remain flexible.

I am not sure how to read the close proximity on the S side of the map best, rushing or more defensive play?
The forest will be mirrored as well, it seems to end at the fog (unclear if that is the case) so there are at least 10 tiles of 1 movement forest between the southern capitals. We need slavery to get access to roads or chop a path through the forest to speed any attack up.



General thoughts

Ginger's Egypt pick last game got me wondering (as I find Egypt without starting techs and Cleopatra a bit underwhelming) and he might have been playing for an early wonder. Wonder give 2 victory points and a city wide and a nation wide bonus. The city wide bonusses are nice but definetly not worth the invest in stones, civics and ther ressources as well as occupying (and using 1 order by doing so) 1 worker for 8-12 turns.

Looking at the nationwide effects, I can see the following interesting wonders:
- Hanging Gardens - Nationwide 20% growth is basically a mini-Babylon bonus, nice but typically you focus your growth in 2-3 cities for worker and settler production and all the other cities just need to increase their population. This might be worthwile early, as at least I tend to build Workers first in nearly all cities
- Ishtar Gate - 100 culture in all cities means you can instantly get all your cities at that time to be developed. This often serves (in SP) as a way to achieve a double victory as each city culture level brings 1 VP as well as the wonder itself 2 VP. But just being able to rush in all cities is a big production advantage although the high civic cost will likely mean you can only execute this once or twice if you have a full pool of civics (2000 is the pool limit for training and civics)
- The Lighthouse - 100% increased yields from nets, a mini-pathfinder which works in addition. As there are coastal capitals and hunter picks are definetively possible if not likely, this might become a big advantage on the coastal side of the map
- Apadana - a very strong wonder as it reduces corruption (and so turn based money loss per city) by 50%. It basically is a CIV4 courthouse in every city and helps in financing holes in your economy with the market

[Kaiser]

I have recreated the map with worldbuilder as far as we know and these are the approximate distances (I am not sure at which tile the other side starts as the border has the inverse multi-hexagon shape). Fringy shapes on the edge of the starting screens are me reading into the fog.

I think this illustrates quite well the case for close distance I made.

I think I want to push my urban tiles westward into the forest, but on the coast (where adjacencies are not important) to claim the coastal movement in that direction for quicker army transport. This means chpping down most of the forest there, but that wood will be needed in any case, just possibly a bit later.
An alternate path would be chopping a corridor into the forest.



Regarding my pick, I do expect other coastal sites and they normally should have more than just one seafood, so Hunters are a big plus as a family, but they are not my target family for the capital.
The Hunter CIVs are Assyria, Babylon and Persia and we can work without but at a high opportunity cost as one seafood rich hunter city (or camp rich) can have incredibly good yields for growth and/or culture and money.

So let me look at the start.
This start here comes with 2 growth + food ressources (wheat and sheep), one of which we can immediately improve, the other one is gated behind Ironworking -> Animal Husbandry.
The seafood ressource is a culture ressource, which is nice but does not help us getting Settlers out quicker (50 turns until rushing is possible, 25 with hunters).
Ore is a standard improvement for capitals and will be done quickly, this ore with a specialist can bring the sheep into our culture while keeping the city as far W as possible for a better spawning point and more terrain in the W.
There are few hills (3 plus ore) for Iron mines and 5 very good lumbermill locations which come only into play later. There is no good mountain nearby for quarries but a lot of arid terrain (+20% so base yield 6 stone).

So early grwoth is tech gated, only Landowners with specialists or Babylon with its innate 20% growth bonus (I checked Greece the 25% reduction is just the food invest, not the growth threshold, this is basically only interesting on higher difficulties where you start with less/no food) has any way of speeding up this capital.

There is a 2nd pasture in the horse, so Persia with its bonus on pastures is an option. However, even when beelining, it is possible to be delayed by the way the tech cards are drawn. With a no tech start, you are offered all 5 base techs (we are guaranteed Iron working) and then there will be a reshuffle and a draw of 4 out of 6 techs (Ironworking unlocks two) so a 1 in 3 chance of not getting animal husbandry. Even if it is among the 2nd tech draw, it still is 80 (IW) + 120 (AH) beakers away while we generate 22 beakers (base 10 for "the good" difficulty, +8 for no tech start +4 for competetive mode). Characters and city might add to this, but we will very likely stay below 25 so it is minimum 9 turns until AH can be finished.

[Kaiser]

Which families are suited to this start:



Artisans 
Seat:
Their additional worker is arguably the biggest advantage early game, speeding up the infrastructure considerably. This might become an early order issue, but we are playing on "the good" so with 10 base orders. Starting with 2 workers mean I spent most of the time 1 order more for the worker than the competitors with every 3-4 turns even 2 or more orders being needed to start a new improvement. This will mean we have to consider between occupying the worker and scouting or military unit positioning earlier than the others.
Another issue might be running out of good infrastructure, especially with the no starting tech option. The base infrastructure are farms, mines and nets. This start has 1 farm, 1 mine, 1 net on ressources and additional 3 mines off ressources (2 need chopping next to a river, which I prefer not to have to do). 
There is always chopping and I should be able to start quarrying the E starting on T5 (T4 is the due date for the first two imrpovements). I secretly hope for an early tech from the ancient ruin which brings an urban improvement (Divination, Drama, Polis or best case, Military Drill). 
Quicker Urban Improvements will mean quicker city expansion and access to urban specialists and higher worker efficency. This might be a double edged sword as nearly all urban improvements (only ranges come to mind needing wood) need stone as well as 2 stone upkeep. In this capital this means we need 1 quarry for paying the upkeep for 3 urban improvements.
All cities:
Build better ships and siege, +20% strength is the single highest unconditional damage increase in the game and might make a big difference in Naval engagements and later when bringing Siege to the table
Increase yields for lumbermills and mines is nice, especially lumbermills as the improvement comes later but wood is essential for ships, archers and some mounted units. This will increase the ore mine efficency to 2.2 training and 12 iron.
Get 4 culture as well as quicker urban improvements. The 4 culture are the biggest culture bonus of any family leading to a T25 developed capital. This start can speed this up to T18 by building the pearl net on T1-3 to increase the culture yield to 6 from T4 on.

Due to being coastal, it is likely that we will want naval dominance to have quicker supply line than our enemy. This means we need to get our boats anchored for transport and stop him from doing so. The efficency difference is huge, a 2 move infrantry unit moves 3 tiles per fatigue on a road and 7 on water (anchored or inside own territory), more than double as effective.
The worker is the clue though, I can get a quicker developed capital as well as start the snowball on infrastructure earlier. The downside is that it slows me by occupying orders so or giving up the worker bonus for keeping pace.

Champions 
Seat:
The capital will come with a whopping (8 + 2 + 2 ore)*1,25 = 15 training for 4 turning Warriors and Slingers (to 10 for standard capitals and 12 for Riders and Hunters).
The militia is a body to throw into the fray with marginal damage, but helps clearing early sites just a bit faster at the cost of spending orders on the most inefficient unit of the game.
All cities:
Here is where champions shine, these are among the best all city bonusses in the game.
Steadfast is great for early clearing tribal/barb sites.
2 Training is great to reach the threshold of 10 training to get to 6 turn T1 units, as well as having more impactful barracks and ranges later on.
The defense bonus is in my opinion a reason why Champions are better suited as a 3rd, maybe a 2nd family choice. Their cities become border fortresses with high unit production.
 
Would be a military production power house, but does not speed up the landgrab outside of military dominance. I think Rome is a contender for CMF and this would be the strongest unit pump, Assyria could be an option. 

Clerics 
Seat:
Researching Monasticism is 400 beakers worth of science alone, getting a religion secured is great for later discontent management and to top that off, the seat gets -50% production for disciples (growth based) to spread the religion or set up Monasteries, Temples and Cathedrals. This is likely the most valuable bonus of all Seats, but takes time to get into effect and is not really required on lower difficulties (with less base discontent)
All cities:
-2 discontent is a big buff, it will be easier to keep the Clerics family happy as their cities accumulate less discontent early. It will still need some measures to be taken later, but on "the good" we have only 5 or 6 base discontent, so this is a big improvement
Building improvements on Sand is nice but not essential, you get otherwise unusable tiles to build urban on and the biggest impact is likely that you can bridge desert with road connections this way.
Doubled yields for Monastry, Temple and Cathredal are a good bonus as religious buildings and their specialists are among the highest yield specialists you can get, especially advanced specialists (Monk is 4 culture, 2 beakers and gets up to 8 culture, 4 beakers, 2 civics as an Elder Monk) 

All in all a good pick for higher difficulties and not necessarily for the capital as there is no immediate boost but a lot of development in this pick.

Hunters 
Seat:
Hunt is a repeatable project increasing growth by 1 and netting lump sum food (100 on weak culture). This is only really important on the highest difficulties where you start without any food and might have a barren map.
+50 to all rural ressources is nice but again only really relevant on higher difficulties where starting ressources are low/non-existant
All cities:
2 Training is great to reach the threshold of 10 training to get to 6 turn T1 units, as well as having more impactful barracks and ranges later on.
Build betterranged, +20% strength in your own territory is a very powerful yet defensive bonus. It is important to remember clearing expected combat sites from scrub and forest as these add very strong defenses against ranged units 
Camps and nets (both rural) are either 2 grwoth 10 food ressources or 2 culture 10 money ressources, doubling these yields is very impactful for any city, especially if you have multiple ressources. It is very likely to find a 2 - 3 seafood spot on the coast andnot unlikely to have 3-4 or a camp added into. This is additive with a governor and a leader with the pathfinder trait and it also increases specialist yield.

I am quite sure that it is not worth to pick for only one pearls to double yields to 4 culture and 20 money on this capital. Especially as Artisans can get the 4 culture from the get got, but the dream is a good multi seafood hunter city close by to the West which would help the growth curve for REXing and serves as a military pump.

Landowners 
Seat:
Buying tiles in the capital can help getting crucial ressouces inside the borders, in this case the sheep would be candidate but it can also be claimed by a specialist on the ore or an urban improvement SW of the ore.
+2 citizens is mostly important for early specialists, this combines nicely with their all city bonus but is otherwise not very impactful (there is 0.2 orders and science I think)
All Cities:
2 growth is great to reach the threshold of 10 growth to finish settlers and workers on point. The first, half done settler can be done in 4 instead of 5 and any other settler and worker from this city will be 10 growth more expensive than the one before.
-50% rural specialist production is a nice early bonus, rural specialist are weaker than urban ones (base beakers 1 instead of 2, there are no advanced rural specialsts) but they can accelerate the early game and are necessary to spread borders and claim luxury ressources
20 money per crop ressource is a nice income boost, on higher difficulties this might help scraping together some ressources via the market

Hunters and Landowners are certainly the families with the biggest early game impact, both are depending on the ressources available but there is a reason why no family has access to both families. In this start with only one crop ressource it is probably still the better growth accelerator than hunters but it would mean having no hunter family around for other coastal sites.





Patrons 
Seat:
The family seat option is not impressive, especially as it does not trigger when founding, but it is nice to keep this family on better terms for longer. I prefer the clerics permanent -2 discontent though
The court minister is a small global yield boost, likely civics (minister) maybe a good governor comes out of it (a judge with a good governor trait is wishing for too much I think :D)
All cities:
Patrons bring specialists easier into play with +2 from their ability they start with 10 instead of 8 civic production, this is a threshold again as specialist start out as multiples of 10 (40/60/80) and then diverge from it depending on the amount of specialists present in the city.
The luxury can be used to push a city to get developed quicker (it gives +2 culturer -2 disconten) or to bribe tribes
The culture doubles down with the specialist strategy in getting patron cities quicker to the next culture level

This package is quite well rounded for having a family pushing specialists, Landowners can already push rural ones quickly, so Patrons should focus on urban ones which are in any case more valuable from a yield perspective. Now that I think about it, I like it better than I thought, but there is no early game synergy here outside of getting maybe one rural specialist out quicker (pop wont be available for a 2nd)

Riders 
Seat:
The seat will be able to train all types of units, this is great for a 2nd or 3rd city as most capital locations start with horse. Elephants and Camels are only used for one unit each (and one UU) while horses are the most important mounted ressource. It is possible later on to get ressources via events, so a nice but not essential bonus.
The free scout is a great tool for getting an information advantage but quickly runs into order issues as two scouts + military unit + worker are a strain even on "the good" difficulty. My experience is that the 2nd scout has maybe 10 - 15 turns of worth and afterwards will barely be moved due to order shortage. My goal is typically to have him in a forward position (best case in a forest so he is invisible) to monitor my enemies movement. This is an argument for Riders 2nd city as well, as you can scout away from the free starting city site with your normal scout and then get another scout near your 2nd city to explore there
All cities:
2 Training is great to reach the threshold of 10 training to get to 6 turn T1 units, as well as having more impactful barracks and ranges later on.
Cities always connected means you get the first worker out quicker as all cities get +2 growth and -10% maintenance
Saddleborn gives a whopping +25% strength bonus when flanking (attacking with an adjacent unit)

A solid family, most suited for a 2nd or 3rd city pick. There to get a military unit pump and some intelligence

Sages 
Seat:
25% science is very nice but will not really come into play early (~1 beaker), you capital is likely to become the most developed city in your empire, so this has a lot of potential and gets better the longer the game goes
Free tech is a random pick among the researchable techs for you. Best case I ever managed was a T4 tech (like Monasticism for the clerics) but getting a T3 is already decent also because you have some influence on it by determining the available techs with your research choices. I do not know if there is a bias for the highest tech possible, but it has never been a T1 tech for me. It is beneficial to delay settling the seat to optimize the gains. Tech cost are 



All Cities:
This revolves all about urban specialists, +2 civics and -20% cost reduction to get them out quicker +1 science to make the best science source even more valuable. 

You can argue between culture and science, but for me this pick is a straight upgrade to patrons. It will likely end up as third family and is definetively economy oriented so it has to be judged if it is worthwile or to risky to go for it.
An intersting thing to test would be if Artisan Workers can construct urban improvements quicker in Sage cities (normally there is 1 turn malus, but with 2 turn bonus it would still net a 1 turn advantage and the possibility of boosting a city directly after founding)

Statesmen 
Seat:
Decree is a very strong repeatable project transferring civics into orders (and are rushable). This is unlikely to come into play early, but tailoring a statesmen seat to civic production to the have a permanent order boost this way is a great ability to have. There is a law (constitution) which allows the capital to produce decrees as well, which is why it might be better to settle Statemen as an off-capital seat. The opportunity cost is that you block build queues for order generation, which might be a bit much with 2 build queues.
400 civics are guarantee that you can enact your first law (exact cost) but can also be used more flexible for governors, council positions or to rush production. This a nice benefit, but it comes into play just a little bit later (so roughly between T25 - 50)
All Cities:
1 order per turn is a nice and steady order increase, this is the equivalent of garrison + stronghold and all game long benefit. It is certainly the most impactful in the early game when orders are sparse
1 civic per opinion level is a nice way to get passive civic income and your family seat to a civic production powerhouse. Familiy opinion level are each 100 opinion (I think, need to confirm this) getting 1 or 2 civics this way is already challenging albeit possible on "the good" difficulty
Treasury 1 gives straight 100 money and 10 money per turn without spending the 20 stone for the building, I will check but I think getting it this way means that there is not the 100 money lump sum. The permanent projects are rare to build as units and specialsts are typically more impactful.

Great for an early 1 order advantage and a decent specialist city, I prefer them as 2nd pick so there might be two cities producing decrees later. There are no real starting bonusses outside of the order, but that one is of high impact (10% total orders on the "the good")

Traders 
Seat:
Caravan lets me turn food and orders into money (not sure how much, but is rare that you want to trade orders away.) apparently I can also make CMF like me more with it 
The court merchant will likely bring some discipline (so money generation), this is the least important early game but it is flexible. The hope for a good governor is always there
50% money increase sounds great, but I am not sure I can build it before the city can hit legendary (normal time you can build fairs, also they need to be adjacent to a grocer which can be built on strong culture), I need to test if this is actually automatically added to the city when founding
All cities:
Multiple roads are great, but also order intensive to build (3 moves + 3 roads means one builder can consume 6 orders), these guys can get their road network down quicker than anybody else and become more order efficient for supply lines. This actually also offers the easier potential for surprise attacks by roading multiple tiles over rough terrain.
Halving Hamlet growth will net you the benefits in half the time (20 years is normal growth) Hamlet brings 10(20) money for 1 food -> village 15(30) money for 2 food -> town 20(40) money for 2 food (and 10% defense and -1 discontent when you enact guilds law), this is decent but your number of hamlet chain buildings is based on your culture level, so it won't be possible to abuse this for crazy money income
The +2 culture per bullion is nice as you want to mine them typically quickly because of their high money yield. Farm and Pasture ressources are higher priority though for the growth and food income.

A money focussed package, money is the duct tape of Old World, so great to have but not essential. I like the possibility of building roads most but the package in total is a bit underwhelming


So my personal family preference right now is:
Artisan > Landowner > Hunter = Statesmen = Champion

There is no CIV with all 3, but Babylon (Artisan + Hunter), Persia (Statesmen + Hunter), Rome (Landowner + Statesment + Champion), Carthage (Statesmen + Artisan) + Greece (Artisan + Champion) and Assyria (Champion + Hunter) are the CIVs I still in close
It feels like Babylon is the favourite due to it also bringing a growth buff to the table.
Rome and Assyria are more aggressive picks, but slower than Babylon.
Persia with the 2 pastures and statesmen is certainly the strongest order generator early game, but has no growth accelerator. Maybe a 2nd city hunter?
Carthage likely lacks income for getting many mercenaries and has no growth accelerator either.
Greece feels underwhelming, no growth acceleraotr but I might underestimate the value of the food reduction on lower difficulties.

Tendency right now is Babylon > Rome/Assyria > Persia, feel free to convince me of one of the others 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

hey guys, just so everyone knows, Kaiser's not talking to himself here! I'm reading his essays and we consult on Steam for the moment. I'll resume regular (if short) reporting once the game is rolling.

[Modo]

That's ok, CMF, even if Kaiser was talking to himself it's quite interesting. Old World will probably set a standard for how to start a 4x inheriting from Offworld the ability to pick your nation/family/archetype after the map is generated (ok, in Offworld it was the HQ but still).

[Kaiser]

The game is rolling, Bruindane picked Carthage, so we have to look out for an early tribal unit swarm. There is one gold generating ressource in my start position, I will take some time tonight to figure out what I would do with Carthage on this start.



As mentioned, I decided to invest 1 additional order to move the Settler 1 NW now for a slightly better capital position (more land tiles, especially later lumbermill tiles in the city, 1-tile shorter supply lines in N and NW directions) and settled Artisans for the 2nd worker, the culture boost and the later ship production with ingeniuty. => 2 orders spent

I checked the governors but decided against appointing one right now, as there is nothing pressing for the first turn among the options.

Worker 1 moved onto the wheat for 2 to farm it => 3 orders spent
Worker 2 moved onto the pearls and nets it => 2 orders spent

I was debating the last order between attaching Nabopelassar (let's call him Nabo) to the slinger or moving the scout and ended up to move the scout.



Yellow are marked two areas of interest:
- the top bar shows this cities (or characters if you are looking a character) contribution to the global pool. -2 Stone comes from upkeep for the garrison any capital starts with. The total upkeep per turn is -3 as the slinger has an upkeep of 1 food and 1 stone as well. -5 food are the slinger with -1 and each worker with -2 food upkeep.
- the bar on the right is a sub menu for sorting, it is easily overlooked but quite powerful. It exists in nearly all sub-menus and helps especially when filtering for governors and generals. This view is all city production and I stumbled onto a small surprise here for the culture, I did not realize that there was a base culture of 2 for the capital and I forgot about the base culture for the pearls, so new estimated "developed" status for the capital is T13

Red marked are cutouts I entered from different screenshot for better overview.
- top right shows my leader details, we were lucky in getting educated which boosts science further which we already have a slight advantage due to Babylons inherent 1 science/city. I will check if I can find a source on the progression for the ratings, but I remember it being exponential and believe I have a 2~3 science/turn advantage right now of Bruindane (if he does not have educated)
- bottom left are both governor choices
=> as you can see Napo would bring some growth but no traits and only minimal yields on top of himhaving a very high utility value as a general with +1 movement (leader) and the stun ability (tactician)
=>Abil-Sin brings 2.4 civics and -1 discontent(orator archetype) but costs -1.6(slothful trait) training and 3 money. This is a mixed bag, discontent reduction is nice, but not necessary this early, the civics are decent but his negatives are an issue, especially the training reduction
=> Sheritum brings 3.3 civics and 40 familiy opinion for Chaldean (Artisans) on top of the opinion for assigning a governor from their family. She is a better choice but no guaranteed pick either, it takes her 33T to have a net civic gain, but the localized civics will help us getting specialists out faster. The most likely specialist right now is the ore miner as he will claim the sheep for the city, it is no immediate need. The opinion boost might come in handy, especially if she should come up the Oligarch of the Artisan family



Next turn I have 10 orders available:
- 4 for moving the slinger on the ruins and adding Nabo
- 4 for moving the Scout W/NW
- 2 for governor or harvesting with the scout

[Kaiser]

2 free early city sites is a great start for Babylon with its native growth advantage.
The N site has a camel which is improved by a camp, so we are looking at a possible hunter location bringing us 0,5 orders as value.
The NW site has some marble which is the only improvement bringinf civics, this could be great for sages as they want civics to get their specialists out. Sadly this is the direction of Bruindane/Ginger so we might prefer having a more military oriented city there. There is marble to the NE, so sages could go to a yet to discover city site in that direction.

The SW dyes gives me hope that there is a coastal city with hopefully multiple seafood ressources as a forward hunter seat location.
Dyes is double great as it is one of the requested luxuries for the artisans.

Are we running cooperative a naming scheme this game or do we come up with out city names ourselves?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I like going individualistic with naming conventions. Gives your civ a bit of personality.