[PB72 SPOILERS] Aetryn learns humility

[Krill]

[ Screenshot] [/ screenshot ]

[Mjmd]

So cylindrical warp is very interesting as they will be both your east and west neighbor, but if memory serves the top bottom neighbor situation is closer. Small seemed pretty big, but might worth to roll more and try to figure out a reasonable city count in a divided by 4 area.

So combinations that I think are valid. Note: I've been trying to avoid influencing too much and just listing weaknesses and strengths. Honestly the start is so open I don't even know if I want to tie leaders and civs into combinations, so lets go back over serious options

1st to note I don't think stonehenge is required, but will be mentioning. Again, I've gone without it or any cultural expansion and been just fine (IE I've picked Vicky a lot). Also, again, even without a myst or ind start we can still try for it potentially. And you may very well scout around and find it isn't worth it (or that it is great).

- Stalin - easiest for stonehenge. We are ON water. While colossus is probably not as good as normal, we know it won't be nothing. If the game goes later Agg does save on a lot of unit expenses. If it ends up being tighter than we think also good there. Obviously there are other wonders to build and Stalin can do it without sacrificing as much.
- Victoria again depending on size Imp will either be good or not needed. If this was emperor I wouldn't even be considering, but monarch...... Well getting over fair share every direction seems good and Vicky can do that while having a mechanism for crawling back out. Financial for both Vicky and Mansa is good going late, which if map is on bigger more land locked side of things is where I expect game to end up.
- Mansa - slower than Vicky but better for later in the game. Being able to switch specifically in and of serfdom / slavery is appealing. To note while I know spiritual can be used to pop border and I've seen it done, I would not rely on.

- Inca - helps a bit with the early game and might be good for waterless patches in the map, but not sure how much value I put on that. I can see if being bad, great, or anywhere in-between. Does start with myst, which can be both bad and good. The good is you can put random hammers towards stonehenge the bad is if you decide to delay or not need it puts you a lot farther from key expansion techs and pottery. Pottery being a key tech as far as granaries go. I should note I'll probably encourage you to not cottage too much too early.
- Mali - Good defensive UU that goes well on hills (although you have to tech archery YUCK) and a good UB that synergizes with any of the considered leaders albeit for different purposes. Has good starting techs as far as cost is concerned which will help with early game development, but nothing early beyond that.
- I'll mention Holy Rome as maybe, but honestly if you want an economic civ I think Mali is probably better early and late although Holy Rome may be better mid game for economy.

[aetryn]

So cylindrical warp is very interesting as they will be both your east and west neighbor, but if memory serves the top bottom neighbor situation is closer. Small seemed pretty big, but might worth to roll more and try to figure out a reasonable city count in a divided by 4 area.

So combinations that I think are valid. Note: I've been trying to avoid influencing too much and just listing weaknesses and strengths. Honestly the start is so open I don't even know if I want to tie leaders and civs into combinations, so lets go back over serious options

1st to note I don't think stonehenge is required, but will be mentioning. Again, I've gone without it or any cultural expansion and been just fine (IE I've picked Vicky a lot). Also, again, even without a myst or ind start we can still try for it potentially. And you may very well scout around and find it isn't worth it (or that it is great).

- Stalin - easiest for stonehenge. We are ON water. While colossus is probably not as good as normal, we know it won't be nothing. If the game goes later Agg does save on a lot of unit expenses. If it ends up being tighter than we think also good there. Obviously there are other wonders to build and Stalin can do it without sacrificing as much.
- Victoria again depending on size Imp will either be good or not needed. If this was emperor I wouldn't even be considering, but monarch...... Well getting over fair share every direction seems good and Vicky can do that while having a mechanism for crawling back out. Financial for both Vicky and Mansa is good going late, which if map is on bigger more land locked side of things is where I expect game to end up.
- Mansa - slower than Vicky but better for later in the game. Being able to switch specifically in and of serfdom / slavery is appealing. To note while I know spiritual can be used to pop border and I've seen it done, I would not rely on.

- Inca - helps a bit with the early game and might be good for waterless patches in the map, but not sure how much value I put on that. I can see if being bad, great, or anywhere in-between. Does start with myst, which can be both bad and good. The good is you can put random hammers towards stonehenge the bad is if you decide to delay or not need it puts you a lot farther from key expansion techs and pottery. Pottery being a key tech as far as granaries go. I should note I'll probably encourage you to not cottage too much too early.
- Mali - Good defensive UU that goes well on hills (although you have to tech archery YUCK) and a good UB that synergizes with any of the considered leaders albeit for different purposes. Has good starting techs as far as cost is concerned which will help with early game development, but nothing early beyond that.
- I'll mention Holy Rome as maybe, but honestly if you want an economic civ I think Mali is probably better early and late although Holy Rome may be better mid game for economy.

I'd assume I'll have one east (and west) neighbor and one south neighbor, with the other one being diagonal. Or it could be zigzag - one SE, one SW, one equally far E or W.  It would be really weird to have one east, one west, and one directly south, as then everyone else has more room than I do. But then Krill did not want to move the starting locations, so really who knows what we'll get?

My green-opinion-so-probably-totally-wrong is that with all the defensive terrain and chokepoints that this is NOT a rush map and it is likely to go to a later gamestate (though depending on how lush the map is, that might not necessarily be a later TURN).

[aetryn]

Hmm. Does loading a mod not overwrite your local XML files? I thought I had activated the mod but when I went to play a game my personal tweaks were definitely still active. I can work around that for sandboxing, but concerned that it's going to break my ability to connect to Pitboss.

EDIT: No, something is definitely wrong, as I'm not seeing the modified FIN yields but instead seeing the normal ones.

EDIT2: Figured it out. Stupid Windows unzipping library creating an extra folder level I didn't need.

[El Grillo]

I’d recommend making a duplicate fresh install of civ and putting the mod in its folder, if you have other xml edits you will get out of sync errors when you log in.

[aetryn]

I’d recommend making a duplicate fresh install of civ and putting the mod in its folder, if you have other xml edits you will get out of sync errors when you log in.

Well, I'd edited the civic files to be actually pretty close to Close to Home for my last single player game, and messed with a few leaders, but those should be overwritten anyway. I seem to be okay now that I've actually got it loading the mod and not a top level folder. If I run into issues with syncing because of stuff that isn't overwritten by the mods I can create a fresh install but... um, I'm not ENTIRELY certain where my physical CDs for the game are. They're around somewhere, since I've reinstalled in the last 3 years when I got my new PC, but would rather not turn my office upside down unless it becomes necessary.

[Mjmd]

My head gets confused with warps until I see them in game, but I rolled a few maps and just doing a diagonal setup like PB65 makes a lot of sense. Also, small highlands is HUGE. Even accounting for lack of water we are talking 300 tiles / player. Sure it may feel like a 200 tile / player map, but that's still one of the larger maps we've played in a while. Its possible you sink the north and south to create connected seas again like PB65, but even still huge. Are you ok playing on that big of a map? Large empires are a real drain later in the game (as I type avoiding my PB66 turn because I'll spend the first 30 minutes just looking at things). Lurkers if this map is super big maybe confirm this question with all the players? Am I slightly fishing for size, maybe, but also its a valid question.

[aetryn]

My head gets confused with warps until I see them in game, but I rolled a few maps and just doing a diagonal setup like PB65 makes a lot of sense. Also, small highlands is HUGE. Even accounting for lack of water we are talking 300 tiles / player. Sure it may feel like a 200 tile / player map, but that's still one of the larger maps we've played in a while. Its possible you sink the north and south to create connected seas again like PB65, but even still huge. Are you ok playing on that big of a map? Large empires are a real drain later in the game (as I type avoiding my PB66 turn because I'll spend the first 30 minutes just looking at things). Lurkers if this map is super big maybe confirm this question with all the players? Am I slightly fishing for size, maybe, but also its a valid question.

Well, the maps I rolled had lots of dead zones with mountain clusters and inland seas, so some of that space isn't usable space, assuming this map is similar. It's impossible to know how you will feel about a situation you've never been in, but I'm willing to go forward with the understanding that this might be a "big empire" situation at the end. I do think it's fairly unlikely that there's an even enough level of play in this game that it remains balanced enough to not have a concession late into the game. Someone (quite possibly me!) will probably screw something up badly enough that one player is in a pretty commanding position.

[Mjmd]

Ya I would suspect this game ends in concession when someone runs over a slow expanding or under teched / developed neighbor and then proves they can hold their border against the other two.

A warning about civ4 multiplayer is that it actually sucks you in WAY more than you would expect. My 2nd game I remember losing sleep over. I've since gotten warrior rushed, backstabbed, randomly pointlessly stabbed, and made so many mistakes it doesn't bother me as much, but its a good note.

[aetryn]

Ya I would suspect this game ends in concession when someone runs over a slow expanding or under teched / developed neighbor and then proves they can hold their border against the other two.

A warning about civ4 multiplayer is that it actually sucks you in WAY more than you would expect. My 2nd game I remember losing sleep over. I've since gotten warrior rushed, backstabbed, randomly pointlessly stabbed, and made so many mistakes it doesn't bother me as much, but its a good note.

I did a brief run with Inca and Mali which are my two finalists, both have reasonable tech paths although Inca either has to give up a worker turn roading that would otherwise be wasted or delay Bronze Working to pick up Wheel early. Does that matter? Chopping settlers can be nice, but unless I want to be doing that at size 1 I have enough time to finish BW on either civ.

I'm having a really hard time picking between the two civs. Mali seems better in a straightforward sense with the more useful UU and UB that helps econ a bit, while Inca is hard to quantify but could be amazing in some spots (or also only a slightly cheaper granary and nothing more).