[SPOILERS]yuris125 looking for inspiration in Pitboss 73

[yuris125]

Well, it's fair to say that the draft played out not in all in a way I was expecting, with everyone taking starts after Luddite locked in Artillery. I hoped to at least get start 3

I'm 100% taking Pacal, but have things to consider for the other pick:
* How much weaker is start 5 compared to 4? Is it worth spending a pick on start 4 here?
* How committed am I to trying to get cataphracts? Taking Pacal of India and accepting that I get start 5 and whatever military tech I can scrounge on the wheel is an option
* If I am committed to cataphracts, is it worth to just take Guilds now? Byzantium should be easy to wheel with Guilds off the board, so I would be near-guaranteed start 5 + Byzantium along with Pacal and Guilds. Is it strong enough?

[yuris125]

....and I think the answer is yes, start 5 is weaker enough to spend a pick on start 4 here. Especially for a FIN leader who will want to build riverside cottages

For reference

Start 4:



Start 5:



Start 5 has no cottageable riverside grassland, and no other rivers in sight. Whereas for start 4, the entire riverside is green, and there's another river in the vicinity (its riverside is jungled, but IW will be a high priority tech anyway if I go for cataphracts)

Not too happy about this pick, but think I have to make it

[yuris125]

This pick also forces Luddite into the slowest start, and if Artillery has a drawback as the starting tech, it is that its units are expensive. The Artillery player would need fast expansion and big cities (for 3-4-pop whips), and forcing him into start 5 makes that more difficult

That thought makes me happier about picking start now

[yuris125]

Kinda like scooter's Civil Service pick. Bureacracy right away for extra production in the capital is a big deal, and it sets him up on the path to Liberalism and another free tech. Only problem is the same as other economic techs - no military advantage, he has to self-tech all the way to Machinery (or maybe he's thinking about Liberalisming Rifling?). If I get 'phracts, I suspect I will get them out faster than he can get proper defences...

Surprised by Oxy taking Inca over India, fast workers have to be better than terraces.... unless he's planning very early aggression with quechua?

[yuris125]

Luddite must be thrilled to get India so late in the draft. That said, I disagree with his leader pick. I talked of it when I was thinking about taking Artillery myself - I think Fin is unnecessary with this pick, this game is unlikely to last long enough to let it fully shine, and once basic worker techs are researched, you have all the tools needed to win the game. The plan has to be to grow big cities as fast as possible, so that you can whip you expensive, game-ending units. For this reason, I would be looking at Exp to speed up early development, and Cha to raise the happy cap - especially when there's only a single early game happiness resource near the start. My leader pick in this spot would be Washington

I know, I know, picking Washington over Victoria would be madness in most games. But this is not a usual game

Feel free to disagree / explain why I'm wrong

Oxy's pick of Communism I discussed before, it was a strong pick in the single player adventure, and reading Sulla's report on how he abused it back in the day is fun. I don't think this strategy is remotely viable in MP. Looking forward to being proven wrong

[Miguelito]

I'd agree with Washington over Vicky for Artillery.

[yuris125]

Thanks for reassuring!

Apart from not being able to get a better start, I got pretty much what I wanted from the draft. As long as I can tech IW and HBR without dying, think I'm well set up for the game

Surprised by Cairo taking Gunpowder, I think it's a worse pick than Rifling in every aspect if you're going for an infantry unit. Maybe his plan is to pair it with France for easy-to-access 2-movers? If that's where he goes, we'll see if my approach of getting better 2-movers which require more research pays off

[yuris125]

Sooooo

1) Yuris: Pacal of Byzantium, Start 4 and Guilds

Pretty much the entire draft had Luddite's Artillery pick hanging over players, everyone had to figure out a way to stop that threat. Think I identified a viable way, we'll see how it plays out. Byzantium and Guilds were exactly the picks I wanted, and I discussed the Start 4 pick; Pacal is the only pick worth an extra sentence or two, especially after I criticised some leader picks, especially for overvaluing Fin. I actually valued Exp over Fin for this game, I think fast start will be more important than ever when we already have access to the military tech we hope to conquer the world with, so faster workers and faster granaries are more valuable than long term economy. However, I do need two classical era techs to bring my military advantage online, and Fin does help with speeding up early research as well - be it from riverside cottages, or from working coast. Plus, of course, if this game isn't resolved within 100 turns, and we start researching techs beyond medieval ones most of us picked, Fin will be essential to not fall behind

2) Scooter: Mansa Musa of Vikings, Start 3 and Civil Service

I'm a big fan of Scooter's picks. Feels that, just like me, he looked at the Artillery pick and asked the question of how to counter it. And just like me, his answer was - manoeuvrability. I'm trying to accomplish it via the most efficient 2-movers in the game; he's trying to accomplish it by controlling the sea. He does need to do even more self-research than me to unlock his unit of choice, but he does have the benefit of Bureaucracy from T0, and I suspect his plan involves Oracling Machinery - hence the Ind leader pick to pair with Fin. Wonder if I can contest the Oracle - I do start with Mysticism after all, and while Oracling HBR doesn't sound nearly as sexy as Oracling Machinery, it would be a big help to my plan, in addition to the denial value. Will see how viable it is once I know more of the map

3) Cairo: Willem of France, Start 2 and Gunpowder

I was wondering why Cairo didn't take India with his 2nd pick, and the why he took Gunpowder over Rifling - turns out he was going for 2-movers, just like me. I actually did consider Musketeers for myself, but Cataphracts seemed better in every way. Basically, I don't think this game will feature immediate aggression, I expect early game to play out similarly to a regular game - expand, improve tiles, skimp on military, and only then start looking for military expansion. In this game we won't have the luxury of taking our time to prepare - if Luddite builds a sufficiently big stack, we will not stop him. But I still think there will be enough time for early game research, enough time to bring my cataphracts online - and if they do, they're easily better than musketeers. In any case, it looks like Cairo's approach to the draft was similar to mine, and the game will show whose was superior. I will once again question the leader choice - as I said, I think Exp is higher value than Fin in this game, but if I was determined to take Fin, and planned to go for Musketeers, I probably would've taken Ragnar to make them ever so slightly stronger

4) Oxy: Joao of Inca, Start 1 and Communism

This may sound harsh, but Oxy is the sitting duck of the game. The ultimate expansion strategy may work in SP, but when you're in an MP game and each of the other players either has a unit you can't counter from the very start, or will get one within 50 turns, 70 if we're generous... you can REX as much as you want, you will die as soon as one of the other players sneezes in your direction. If Oxy lives beyond T100, it will be because everyone else will be focused on stopping Luddite's Artillery. But even then, even if we wait until T130 to attack Oxy, he will at best be at military parity, but without the benefit of building up-to-date units for previous 50+ turns

5) Luddite: Victoria of India, Start 5 and Artillery

Not much to add to what I already said. If Luddite is given time to develop his empire and build up a stack, he will win the game. It's up to us to not give him that time - and we already started doing that, by forcing him into the slowest start. Him getting India so late was a gift, but it is somewhat counteracted by him picking what I think is a suboptimal leader for his strategy. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing if we can stop him

[Commodore]

As a note, Mansa Musa is Fin/Spiritual, not Ind.

[yuris125]

ohhhh you're right of course, like one thing I didn't look up and I got it wrong. Mali having unique forges doesn't make Mansa Ind!