[pb74 spoilers] Miguelito and Ginger bring about the end of the world

[Mjmd]

I knew I has asked this question. See Ref and Nauf talking about and Nauf posted a link to PB38 where it bit Noble in the butt. Edit: its a few posts down on that page.

https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...611&page=3

[Miguelito]

yo, so looks like we will have to make the scout do it. Can he get XP to make tech more unlikely?



picks are out! (editor's note, they have been for days, but I've been terminally hooked to BG3, so this took a while to write...)

Gavagai is Huayana Capac of England
>>> I was somewhat taken aback by how 66 finished for Gav, falling to the attack that he had been talking about for months doing to others. Anyway, he surely is a very solid player with tons of experience and it would be no surprise to see him competing for the win here. Huayna wants the Colossus; while we are Ind we only want it a bit and are looking rather towards monking. England's uniques can provide a nice if not amazing bonus in the mid/late game and I suppose the techs are pretty good.


Superdeath is Louis XIV of Babylon
>>> very un-superdeathy pick. Louis is curious especially and I commend him for trying it. Sort of feels like he wants to thread new paths? I suspect he'll go for GLH again? I also expected him to keep Byz, but he's played it rather recently, and if he wanted better techs Babylon has at least that.


Commodore is Darius of Maya
>>> we gave him Darius, Maya was the obligatory pick in the third round. Of course he can make anyone miserable with it, us included. At least he has no early bonuses.


Hubabl is Joao II of Korea
>>> Hubabl, who often logs in under the alias metal, is from Civforum, and typically has a status of slowly digestible food, sometimes spikes being found. João should allow him to build up a solid early base, to be even more slow to digest.


Greenline is Justinian of Aztecs
>>> He's playing in the Greens game, which I don't follow. Lately he's started to be active on the forum, but comes up with trivia of Pitboss games from forgotten ages, so evidently a veteran lurker. In some discussion in a PB71 thread he came up with the opinion that Holkan rushes should be banned, so of course he deserves a War Chariot rush.


Plemo is Victoria of Scandinavia
>>> Oh my, forego all hope, we're all dead. - Not necessarily though! While winning PB70 is an appreciable feat for Mjmd, his more impressive success, maybe not acknowledged sufficiently, was making sure that Plemo did not win PB66. To my knowledge this is the first time he has not won a game he's played in. Now, I hope there'll be somebody else willing to sacrifice themselves.
Anyway, power pick for powerful player, I'm scared.


Bing is Napoleon of Khmer
>>> I wouldn't mind playing Napoleon either. I guess he also fits Bing's casual style well?


Amicalola is Ragnar of the Ottomans
>>> All good stuff. In particular, those are 2 excellent economy traits at this point. Don't want to cross those Janissaries? I think Amica wants to play casually, no idea if they're even capable of that, we'll see. And if they are not and play as habitually they are easily in the top three for this game. Can't forgive them for not taking the spectacular Gandhi of Arabia, although it helps our plan of course.


Magic Science is Willem van Oranje of Mali
>>> My impression is that Magic thinks a lot over his games, but often arrives at conclusions that he regrets later? Well not that that could happen to myself, ever. The pick has nothing that I'd be excited about, but it's objectively top tier.


Dreylin is Mehmed II of Portugal
>>> Happy to see him! Dreylin actually dedlurked me in my very first game on RB, the long forgotten PBEM 64. Hope he enjoys his return. Portugal can have fun on this map, if Dreylin can shake off a truckload of rust.


Scooter is Elizabeth of Japan
>>> for Lizzy! scooter has been having the most exciting threads around here lately, with creative and top notch gameplay. I suppose this is a fun/novelty pick, but there's also a lot of fun stuff there.


Piccadilly is Tokugawa of India
>>> Toku, again, after Picc already had him in 66. But he's a pretty good leader, so not so sure how well he'll hold off into the endgame on a big map. Piccadilly is not top tier, but right behind, pay attention. He already gave a great show in PB59.


Miguelito is Roosevelt of Egypt
>>> I'm pretty happy. I can even see War Chariot shenanigans happening, with this start wanting to go AH first anyway. Main aim for Ind is Monk through Obelisks. I have floated the idea of Stonehenge to Ginger who doesn't like it, but I can see it making sense under a couple circumstances (not before 4th city or so, so if somebody rushes they can have it, and the culture bomb itself should do some valuable landgrabbing).


Tarkeel is Julius Caesar of Germany
>>> This includes civac. Both on their own are very respectable players; civac was my main headache in PB59. Germany definitely should get its moment. Julius is one of the best classical early/late combos, although maybe Vicky is better on this map. I like Org's factory bonus quite a lot for Germany - early factories without coal plants may not really be worth it, but this way they look quite a lot more compelling.


General Kill Cavalry is Nebuchadnezzar (PHI/IND) of France
>>> GKC can be a very solid player, but I think the last couple games he has been quite unfocused. Nebu is top meme, but Phi might fall off. Most pyramidal leader at least in this game. Judging from those last games he might well manage to build them, but they'd be somebody else's 50 turns later. I had a great time with France, but I am doubtful that GKC can achieve the position of technological superiority that drafted musketeers really shine in (59 had me invading Mjmd who had no knights yet, while holding off civac, covering against his galleons with 2 move draftees. IT was very exciting, if stressful).


GT is Kublai Khan of Zululand
>>> oh dear, it's Montezuma playing KK of Zulus. GT has a natural drive to early war, be it because he gets an opportunistic snipe, or he is somehow offended by something, because he pinkdotted and then doesn't like somebody else's dot... now he can be a really nasty opponent to attack against, even though my impression is that his build up is generally not strong enough to provide for actual conquest. But often enough to make his opponent's life hell. Careful if we meet him, and ideally we try to direct him towards another neighbours. In fact this is the guy you want to be your neighbour's neighbour.

Pindicator is Zara Yaqob of Sumeria
>>> I don't really have anything to say, it also seems very straightforward. You could criticize that Cre and religious tech don't really harmonize but so what, he gets early supercheap courthouses. Btw, is there a consensus among the elders if a building bonus on a cost reduced UB is good or bad? Not necessarily the one to build oracle, because especially with Cre he may not go for Priesthood until he really needs the Ziggs.


Xist10 is Wang Kon of Rome
>>> Isn't he playing Rome alreadyin the greens game? Don't expect much, but maybe he's made great steps ahead since CFPB88? at least I think he's been playing in a lot of games there.


Donovan Zoi is Suryvarman II of Inca
>>> another supercharged start. Much like Hubabl, Donovan traditionally has limited shelf life, which this might help to extend. He's an enthusiastic player and reliable reporter, so I surely hope it does.

[Mjmd]

I actually am prouder of PB66 than PB70. PB70 dog pile I had to make like 1 major decision in trying to get SD to go west. PB66 was a nightmare of decisions over a much longer time frame in a time period where I had basically no experience.

On Zara of Sumeria - I have purposefully picked org of Sumeria twice so I don't think its spoiler I like this particular one. Exp Inca though I'm more curious about. I might do some prodding of Donovan for reporting early on just to try to gauge this.

Are you going to include pictures of the Chile places pretty please?

[Miguelito]

I actually am prouder of PB66 than PB70. PB70 dog pile I had to make like 1 major decision in trying to get SD to go west. PB66 was a nightmare of decisions over a much longer time frame in a time period where I had basically no experience.

On Zara of Sumeria - I have purposefully picked org of Sumeria twice so I don't think its spoiler I like this particular one. Exp Inca though I'm more curious about. I might do some prodding of Donovan for reporting early on just to try to gauge this.

Are you going to include pictures of the Chile places pretty please?

As I wrote, I commend you greatly for your achievements in 66, although I am still sour over the map.
 
Zara of Sumeria would be a power pick in a snake, and it's a neat little detail how pindi commented how he was sold on Zara after dedlurking you in 70.

Bad news is I decided against the Chile theme for this game:




If we run out of myths we can just pick different aspects from the ones we found.
The hut gave gold, which I suppose is not terrible, but not that exciting. :popcorn:  for the next one, which I assume comes just next turn?
Founding 1 SW would have given more food but it would have been awkward. 3S1W looks lovely for food and cottage sharing.  Or 3S2W if we rather not waste a river grassland, but pig should be shared (the fish city will eventually, but it does not look like something we'll found super early)

[Mjmd]

[Miguelito]

harr harr.

Now I need to set up a spreadsheet and figure out if this might actually be the game where we take Pottery as very first tech.

boring Mining->BW is the other option.

Clam is a trap.


Also apart from us only Commodore got a tech so far, and only three left to play t1

[Mjmd]

Paid off for not selecting a tech as I know you said you were thinking of going AH first. 

[Miguelito]

Paid off for not selecting a tech as I know you said you were thinking of going AH first. 

It did!
But now I really need to set up some sort of sim and figure out what to select for teching... well, can always default to Mining, but we're seriously considering Pottery, or could also go for a religion, to be founded upon settling city 2.

Charred as we are from PB66*, we were getting a bit anxious, but thankfully we are not doomed to unluxurious hell again:


SE of rice is looking swell, now please have some horses on one of the yet obscured tiles...
E of phant could also be an option, if no seafood is orphaned and we can plant it with religion for the cow. A port on the southern coast wouldn't come amiss.

Scout goes E-SE next, then check out the southern tip of the peninsula, then 2 turns to ivory?


*nope, not going to stop the whining anytime soon

[Miguelito]

I set research to pottery. Turns out dumping early hammers into the granary is pretty awesome.
The question now is, do we dare go all in and build the first warrior somewhere around t40?

Basically the plan is to 4->2 whip the settler t31, with the worker having build pasture, rice farm, the cottage inbetween (yay for super early cottage) and one forest road, and having done a chop.
Big question is what comes afterwards; with OF and the chop we can either finish the granary, or 2t a worker. Now, are the worker improvements more valuable than the additional food from the granary? Ie, is granary food worth working grass forest? Also has to do with wether the ivory comes fast enough to be able to actually grow the cap, with first whip anger in already.

A minor detail: we have space for 1 chop before starting to farm the western rice (assuming city2 goes SE of it; I see only horse or copper possibly changing that plan). The obvious choice is the one S of the cap.
However I'm also considering chopping the city 2 tile itself instead. Of course the yield is just 10h, which hurts so early, but on the other hand we preserve a forest for wonders or whatever. And it also allows us to road the forest 2S of the cap instead of the one 1S. If the city tile is chopped, the city isn't delayed, and comes with a trade route. Otherwise we'd have to either delay the city or go at least 6 turns without trade routes (because rice takes priority). So I sort of like this.

[Miguelito]

So our mission is ivory monopoly apparently. I was wondering if to go that far south, but good to know it's no peninsula, and at this point I guess the best thing will be to circle the lake-sea. Who knows, maybe we'll find a hut? Also with 10 tiles it would have been lake tiles and super awesome right? Still very debatable for Moaii.
Need to go home afterwards though, very curious where horses are.

Now the southeast is pretty hard to dotmap. The yellow dot is necessary to not orphan the fish. A city on the hill beween cow and ivory seems pretty ideal, but if we don't settle the teal dot we lose at least the FPH out east (assuming I'm correct and there is no further land there). There might also be more seafood to orphan, in which case yellow dot could turn out the wrong choice.

Orange is stilll my go to second city, with shared food and a quick farm, the ivory, and just one road needed for a trade route. But we'll see horses and copper before the settler is out, so that might change it yet.

The culture expansion revealed nothing noteworthy to the west and north, just dry plains and a green hill.