[Spoilers] luddite tries to remember how this game works

[chumchu]

It's good to sim it out. 6-7 happiness and mines is easier techwise. Calendar by turn 80 is good tempo. I play mostly on Immortal and the tech pace is slower then. We can also build the unnerfed mausoleum if there are no easy targets nearby.

Was your tech-path: hunting, bw, wheel, fishing, agri, pottery, ah, sailing, writing, Math, calendar?

The strike force sounds good for the timing. How many cities did you settle? The concern for me is too few attackers. We can kill max 5 units per turn and every turn not capturing a city is 1 turn for them to reinforce. Like, what do we do if they stuff 15 warriors and archers in the city we are targeting. I
would add some cheap units to the strike force just to increase the speed of conquest. They can be built earlier as barn defence.

[luddite]

Overall, I'm happy with the tech picks others are making. I was afraid they'd all have both a military tech *and* a better start. But oxy picked communism, that's going to take a while to take effect. If he's my neighbor, I think I could hit him first (or ideally just after he finishes the Kremlin...). Same with Scooter and Civil Service.

Plus it has great meme potential...

It's good to sim it out. 6-7 happiness and mines is easier techwise. Calendar by turn 80 is good tempo. I play mostly on Immortal and the tech pace is slower then. We can also build the unnerfed mausoleum if there are no easy targets nearby.

Yeah, being on monarch makes the tech pace a lot faster than it would be on Immortal.  I could certainly like to *have* the mausoleum, it's a very powerful wonder, but I think preparing for war will be more important at that time. But it's a possibility if war seems impossible.

Was your tech-path: hunting, bw, wheel, fishing, agri, pottery, ah, sailing, writing, Math, calendar?

Almost. I went: hunting, bw, fishing (because my first city needed fishing), wheel, pottery, agri (wanted granaries asap and I had no use for early agri), ah, writing, math, sailing, calendar

I feel like that's about all the techs that really help. Possibly iron working just to reveal iron? I don't need construction or anything like that. theology would be nice but it's too expensive and I have no way to bulb it.

The strike force sounds good for the timing. How many cities did you settle? The concern for me is too few attackers. We can kill max 5 units per turn and every turn not capturing a city is 1 turn for them to reinforce. Like, what do we do if they stuff 15 warriors and archers in the city we are targeting. I
would add some cheap units to the strike force just to increase the speed of conquest. They can be built earlier as barn defence.

6 cities in total, so 5 plus my capital. The timing is going to be hard to get right. With an IMP leader, settlers are just so cheap- but I can still only whip once every 10 turns without stacking unhappiness.

I'm not worried about killing on attack though. If they want to stuff all their units in a city and sit there, I'll be more than happy to whack them with collateral and them mop up 5 units per turn, every turn. It makes things easy for me since I get use collateral and City Raider promotions. And I'll keep adding units as the war goes on, of course. But yeah, I'll likely have a few axes just from leftover production.

My real concern is that they'll counter-attack me with overwhelming numbers. If they can mass up enough axes or whatever, they'll eventually break through. That's why I would like to get some drill promotions, they're the best at handling tons of weak units.

[luddite]

Hmm OK. So Mr Cairo chose gunpowder, Yuris chose guilds/byzantine.

That's not *ideal*... I wish they would have chosen economic techs... but I think it's still manageable. Wonder what they have in mind? Guilds with Byzantium seems designed for an early rush. Gunpowder with start #2 might work well to just defend while out-teching.

Oxy with Inca, Start 1 and communism seems like he's going all-in on economic victory. Someone needs to take him down early or he'll just run away with it.

Scooter has start 3 and Civil Service. I don't think that'll be as much of an economic boost as just having Start 1... but we'll see!

I am hoping that Oxy or Scooter are my neighbor. I am surprised, but grateful, that no one chose rifling or rocketry!

[luddite]

Vikings for Scooter is an interesting choice. Obviously it synergizes with Civil Service because Scooter can rush machinery and get fast berzerkers. But... not *that* fast. The rest of us will have musketeers/cataphracts/AT out already to counter any berzerker shenanigans pretty hard. 3-move triremes pillaging my seafood would be annoying though, I'll have to watch out for that.

France is always a solid choice with their ag/wheel starting techs, and I like the musketeer as a unit for it's tactical possibilities. But, I'm not sure how well it'll work here... doesn't it just lose badly to cataphracts or my artillery? I thought he was going to pick Oromo Warriors or Janissaries.

It's also interesting that no one picked Democracy. Wasn't that the big winner when Darrelljs/Sullla et al ran this adventure back in the day? That was a long time ago though, before I discovered this site. Admittedly that was a single player game, and everyone has learned some tricks since then. But it still seems like the best economic tech to me. Admittedly emancipation means you can't use slavery, but I'm not sure you'd need it with so many early towns + US. You could pair it with Spi to still use slavery, too... oh well.

Overall I'd rank the picks like this:

#1: Cairo: Willem of France, Start 2 and Gunpowder
An excellent start + leader, and a solid military tech for defense. He can easily grow into an economic lead while still having a good defense everywhere, with musketeers playing zone defense. And if he wants to, he could even rush someone's border cities with 2-move musketeers before anyone else has time to reinforce. I still think he would have been better off with rifling or rocketry, though.

#2: Oxy: Joao of Inca, Start 1 and Communism
By far the best economic growth potential. Joao if Inca with that start is going to spread like a plague, and with communism he doesn't even have to worry about maintenance costs. If he's left alone to grow, he's going to win. That said... everyone knows that right? Surely *someone* will call him on unchecked growth, right? He has a military disadvantage vs all of us until quite late, and he doesn't have financial. Once he builds the Kremlin he'll have amazing production, but that'll take a while to finish, even with stone.

#3: Scooter: Mansa Musa of Vikings, Start 3 and Civil Service
Good start and good early boost from bureaucracy. I think he might have the fastest initial worker production of anyone. And bureaucracy + financial can give sick commerce once it gets going. However, he has nothing to boost initial food, and it will take a while for the capital to grow large enough to work many cottages, and also a while to unlock berzerkers, which don't even do that well against what the rest of us have. I'm not sure what he has in mind- he can grow well, and he can do some raiding with berzerkers, but he's not really the best at either economy or military.

#4: me: Victoria of India, Start 5 and Artillery
I'm not feeling super confident about my picks. I feel like it's way too obvious what I have in mind, so everyone will be prepared, and then they'll just out-grow me with their massively superior starts. The only way I win, I think, is if I start next to Oxy or Scooter and get some good combat rolls. Otherwise, I can ruin someone else's game but not actually win myself.

#5: Yuris: Pacal of Byzantium, Start 4 and Guilds
Like me, he has a tech that's (almost) pure military, plus a bad start. But cataphracts just seem inferior to artillery... they require two techs and two resources to make them, and they have no way to lower city defense. Pacal is nice but not enough to match the economic boosts that other people have. I feel like he has to rush someone to win, but whoever he rushes can just spam spears and archers (or musketeers) and out-produce him. However, the cataphracts do have awesome forking potential. He can certainly ruin someone else's game, if he commits to a rush! The best case scenario is probably that me and him team up to take down one of the others and split their land. Worst case is, we fight each other while Oxy or Cairo grows into a monster.

[chumchu]

Since no one picked rifles or rocketry we at least have a military edge against everyone even if we have to watch out for the speed of cataphracts, musketeers and maybe zerkers by the coast. We also have to watch for one of them eating a neighbor.

The reason noone picked democracy might be the target it paints on your back. Communist Joao has no military bonus but looks less juicy to conquer with the extra production. He needs metal casting and machinery to use it properly though.

[luddite]

Yeah, I do feel relieved that noone picked rocketry or rifling.
*usually* the way these games go is that an early war is unprofitable even if you win. But... we will see!

Funny thing about State Property- I think the 10% production bonus will just round down to zero for most cities, except for whipping and chopping. So there's barely any production bonus at all per city, he's just going to have a *lot* of cities. Which will also drive conflict if he's settling up on someone else's doorstep.

[pindicator]

Musketeers with France is going to be very similar to someone getting Knights at the start. Speaking of which, Arabia and Guilds seems like the better combination for Yuris, but perhaps he thinks the time to get Iron is negligible. Don't just label France as a defensive pick, those guys can be used on offense, especially early.

And that production bonus with State Property is actively going to work against him for overflow; he's going to lose a hammer on every overflow for early game. Once his cities get larger it won't matter.

[Commodore]

And that production bonus with State Property is actively going to work against him for overflow; he's going to lose a hammer on every overflow for early game.  Once his cities get larger it won't matter.

Funny thing, +35% and +60% are actually pretty nice and definitely plannable with early.

[luddite]

Musketeers with France is going to be very similar to someone getting Knights at the start.  Speaking of which, Arabia and Guilds seems like the better combination for Yuris, but perhaps he thinks the time to get Iron is negligible.  Don't just label France as a defensive pick, those guys can be used on offense, especially early.

That's true, i should never underestimate a 2-mover for offense. Has there ever been a game here where someone rushed aggressively with musketeers?

And that production bonus with State Property is actively going to work against him for overflow; he's going to lose a hammer on every overflow for early game.  Once his cities get larger it won't matter.

Remind me how that math works again? I know that you get a negative bonus for when you take away the specialized bonus (like, me as an IMP leader whipping a settler and then overflowing into something else). But I thought for state property it's just a flat 10% bonus to everything so it wouldn't matter? And it'll round down to zero on most things until his cities get larger.

An interesting thing I just noticed: nobody picked an IND leader. That might mean that the oracle goes rather late, since no one will be gunning for the IND -> oracle -> metalcasting forge beeline. Potentially someone could oracle something crazy. Like, Yuris with guilds could oracle gunpowder! Scooter could oracle paper (probably not helpful), or bulb philosophy then oracle nationalism (drafting berzerkers???), or potentially just oracle machinery. I could, uh... oracle rocketry? But I'd have to research rifling first, so probably not gonna happen :P.

[luddite]

One cool/nasty thing Scooter could potentially do is rush military science. Berzerkers *upgrade* to grenadiers, but they don't actually *obsolete* them. You can keep building berzerkers, upgrade them to CR2, and have CR2/amphibious grenadiers. Plus the viking speed bonus for ships, it makes for a really nasty naval attack that chews through rifles with ease, sometimes even without needing to lower city defense. And scooter could potentially could there very quickly: bulb paper, oracle education, lib astronomy, bulb chemistry.

However, they only get their attack bonus against *rifles*, not AT or artillery, so I'm better protected than the other players. I guess I shouldn't be complacent, but if that's his plan, I don't think it would make any sense for him to attack me. Maybe there's some opportunity there for me to work together with him later in the game, if it looks like someone else is a runaway. Or I could just sit and catch up in tech while he fights the tech leader.