[Spoiler] OW PBC1 Canada and Egypt again?

[Kaiser]

Luckily there is no Canada in this game, else we would be tempted :D

here is a fail for the first game I hosted:

If this game sticks (Bruindane seems to have already connected, not sure if it was succesful there was just a prompt) then we can already analyze the starts.

We are relatively far apart, me on the western border of the map, so our enemies are very likely East of us. Coastal rain basin has typically one map edge fully coastal, it seems it is the southern edge in this case.
CMF will be a bit closer to his mirrored enemy than me, so a quicker scouting to his East might be necessary.

The map script typically has 2 or 3 city sites located on the center line of the map and is otherwise mirrored. There might some unmirrored ressources around the centered city sites.

CMF


Two farm ressources and a coastal start. The farm ressources combine well with a Landowner families start, even thought their bonus today is 20 income instead of doubled yields.
The coastal start could mean more coastal sites so Hunter families might be a good choice, but it remains a gamble to pick for that, so I would go with a Landowner based CIV here.

Landowner starts would be:



Kaiser

[Kaiser]

I am curious if the "long turn 1 network game" start idea works, while we are waiting for the other to join or the game to shut down a quick pre game analysis.
We are playing without starting techs and without preset archetypes. Instead we are given a different Archetype

CMF


An interesting roll, early game you can ease your REX phase by hiring the Tribal units before attacking the settlement, if done correctly you might not even need to dispatch a real unit but can liberate Tribal sites with their own units. 
The clear downside is that these units have 1 fatigue less (so 1 movement option less), are 1 strength less (strenght 3 and the upgrades are relatively expensive on training (but not on ressources or money). But with one upgrade they fight on par with normal Warriors/Slingers and they are typically quicker to be upgraded than you can achieve Tier2 units.
I do not know the required Legitimacy amounts necessary, so I am not sure how quickly you can get this into play. (Carthage can do this with money and they can get it quite quickly if focussed on it). 
The other downside is that every 10 Legitimacy are effectively 1 order, so you are paying with order potential for sub-par units.

The 2nd bonus is great if you are in control of your families, +2 orders/city for friendly families is a good ability although it is not that easy to get families to become friendly (200). It becomes even more difficult over time with discontent levels and number of cities rising (and possibly events though)

Leader not being capable of becoming a general is a bit of an issue, as leadergeneral units are very dominant early game.

Civics are seldom critical, but good governors or lucky tech picks (quick Serfdom -> Navigation) might let the added civic generation shine.

Kaiser


A very strong Leadergeneral, but only a situational other bonus with the added sight range and hidden status for ranged units. Stone is often an early game ressource issue and buildiing slingers might compete with other infrastructure needs. However a surprise kill of a unit can change early game military dynamics quite considerably.

2 Wisdom and 2 Discipline is a decent start, better science and income to compensate for ressources or pay for events is always handy. Passive XP generation and more crit chance on the leadergeneral is probably not really going to become a factor though

[Kaiser]

This will be a small CIV analysis rundown

Egypt



Sadly farms are not always on a river, otherwise you would have a great food start (mostly needed for settlers and workers, but later also for horse units). It becomes necessary to build some farms at some point due to growing food need for upkeep and horse units, but then you save a couple turns of worker labor and some wood.
400 stone is a great bonus, it might tempt you to build wonders but you can also postpone masonry and start developing your cities with it or bring bigger numbers of slingers into the game
The 25% ressource reduction for adjacent improvements comes into play later, when you might want to build more urban improvements which easily require 50-120 stone each. You are saving here from the get go, though, even though the normal rural improvements typically only cost 20 ressources.

The UU Light Chariot is decent, like all UUs it is not tech gated but level of garrison (stronghold, citadel) gated which is based on the number of active laws (4/7) which is a kind of tech gating in itself. The Persian UU is a straight upgrade though as it can do everything these guys can, but routs as well.

Part of Egypts strong suit is being close to navigation and the law which gives +5 orders, as well as starting with Iron Working and Masonry, but we play without techs, so it is irrelevant this game

The shrines are so so:
- +0,5 orders and +20% to adjacent farms
- +2 culture and +50% culture/mountain and +100% culture/volcano (you have a decent 2 adjacent mountain spot in your capital, so 4 culture => 25 turns to being able to rush with your civics)
- +6hp healing for idle and +2 growth for each adjacent grove (mid game improvement)
- +1 level for ranged units and +20% to adjacent camps (this could work with a strategy to transform your 400 starting stone into 8 slingers, but it will take long to produce them)


Hatti



+2 civics per yity/year is a 25% bonus on civic generation. You get specialists, projects quicker done and it is easier to accumulate civics for managing your council and governors as well as laws
However "can remove vegation" and "ignore hill movement cost" is great, you can focus your workers on imrpoving and let your army chop when you have spare orders. The hill movement reduction is basically an order advantage, as long as the terrain is hilly, as hills reduce movement by one.

The UU Heavy Chariot is a better Chariot, so basically a Horseman with circle ability, but it also more pricey than the Chariot and the Horseman.

The shrines are better than Egypt but not Rome level, they are an exact mixture between the two
- +2 training and +10XP for units idling on it
- +6hp healing for idle and +2 growth for each adjacent grove (mid game improvement)
- +1 level for ranged units and +20% to adjacent camps
- +2 culture and +10 income per adjacent ressource


Rome



The additional fatigue is great as you can easier shuffle units around and maneuver better, but this comes at the cost of a higher order requirement. This shines mostly early game when you have spare orders but later you will want to move your armies coordinated and it will be rare that you move all fatigue points. It can be used for surprise cavalry strikes or deep incursions.
The +2 training per city is a 25% buff (8 is base city training) so it is a great CIV to get units out early.

I personally dislike the Hastatus and Legionary, you get Axemen (1 less strength than Hastatus) and Swordsmen (equal Strenght to Legionary) as I find the cleave and anti-polearm or anti-infantry abilities better than tetsudo (competes with fortify, takes 3 turns and forces you stay stationary for just  giving 60% ranged damage reduction (a forest brings 50)). They are very good at holding choke points, but sadly more expensive than their counterparts, i.e. Legionaries are sadly also 160 (instead of 120 for Swordmen) training for production, so 30% more expensive

Its shrines are early and combat focussed
- +2 training and +10XP for units idling on it
- +20% adjacent mine production and +1 training per adjacent lumbermill (mid game improvement)
- +2 growth and +20% for adjacent pastures (great for a settler, worker, disciple pump)
- +2 culture and +10 income per adjacent ressource



Persia



Pastures are a a frequent and important improvement and them giving 0,5 orders additionally is a great source for an order advantage as you are building them anyways. This will likely net you ~5-10% more orders at the early and mid game and will only normalize later.
The ranged reduction applies as well to the Palton Cavalry

The UU Palton Cavalry is a straight upgrade over Egypt's Light Chariot (it has the rout ability on top and costs 50 food and 100 iron vs the Light Chariots 100 food and 50 wood, both hard to come by) and one of the stronger UUs in this game, ranged rout ability, yes please

The shrines are decent, sepecially the shrine of Mithra is great as it gives +1 level to ranged (Palton Cavalry for example)
- +0,5 orders and +20% to adjacent farms
- +20% adjacent mine production and +1 training per adjacent lumbermill (mid game improvement)
- +20 income and +20% for adjacent nets
- +1 level for ranged units and +20% to adjacent camps


Greece 



suffers from not having Philip and Alexander, their 25% settler discount helps rexing, but on this map size you will build maybe 6-8 cities per player.
The free culture guarantees your cities get to rushing level within 50 turns, but you will want to speed it up (or build the Ishtar gate to get them all to 100). I see it as more helpful to get to strong for the upgraded UU but then we are already talking mid/late game with 7 laws needed.

Their UU the Hoplite is good, but you need to bring it in numbers and adjacent and it is weak against Axemen and Swordmen.

They have the volcano shrine and access to Champion families for border cities while multiple possibilites to improve Science (shrine, Sage family) so they have a relatively balanced setup

Shrines:
-  +1 science and +1 civic/adjacent courthouse (mostly mid game oriented, but a nice boost to science (roughly 4% early game science)
- +20 income and +20% for adjacent nets (probably worthless for my start)
- +2 culture and +50% culture/mountain and +100% culture/volcano  so 4 culture with 2 mountains or 6 culture with 2 volcanoes
- +2 civics and +1 order/adjacent wonder (mostly mid game oriented, sounds nice but risks to be very expensive for the order, it might be good to get this one down in a patron city to chew out specialists)


Babylon 



is the other science CIV, it gets a bit quicker of the ground with its growth bonus and I would need to calculate if Greece 25% reduction is better for producing or the 25% growth bonus from Babylon (Greece will save the food over Babylon though).

The UU Akkadian Archer is a stronger Archer with a splash effect (basically ranged circle) which is good and not achievable otherwise, but is slower than Palton or Light Chariot due to not being cavalry

Family wise I am not to conviced with Babylon outside of a strong Hunter start though.

Shrines:
-  +1 science and +1 civic/adjacent courthouse (mostly mid game oriented, but a nice boost to science (roughly 4% early game science)
- +2 growth and +20% for adjacent pastures (great for a settler, worker, disciple pump)
- +2 culture and +50% culture/mountain and +100% culture/volcano  so 4 culture with 2 mountains or 6 culture with 2 volcanoes
- +2 civics and +1 order/adjacent wonder (mostly mid game oriented, sounds nice but risks to be very expensive for the order, it might be good to get this one down in a patron city to chew out specialists)

Carthage



200 civics per city is great, that means 2 council seats or half a law per city can be enacted. Civics are also used for rushing. This does not help immediately though, as you have to research the council positions or build garrions and get suitable governors in the first place. Luckily civics help here as well, as some of the social interactions also cost civics.
The mercaneries actually depend on the difficulty, as the more units the more choice there is, but even on weak you will be able to find units to recruit. Tribal units are typically 1 strength less in their base version than equivalent CIV units, but they can be upgraded by training and then can lead to a short time unit quality advantage. One big downside is that they only have 2 fatigue, so are about 33% slower than CIV units and they do have higher upkeep.
In contrast to the orator, you can hire the mercaneries with income instead of Legitmacy. Income is easier to come by and every 10 Legitmacy(and you might end up with 200 if you have a very successful ruler) are worth 1 order.
The 10 income when connected is a nice bonus to achieve with rivers and ocean connections to get the money necessary for hiring the mercaneries. It also incentivzes establishing road connections which are typically a good thing to do even though you have to balance them with your other worker tasks.

The UU the African Elephant is a straight Elephant upgrade, as he Routs on top of the elephant panic ability. Rout is great, but elephants have the same speed as Infantery

Shrines:
- +2 growth and +20% for adjacent pastures (great for a settler, worker, disciple pump)
- +20 income and +20% for adjacent nets
- +2 culture and +10 income per adjacent ressource
- +6hp healing for idle and +2 growth for each adjacent grove (mid game improvement)


Assyria



focus I is a straight 10% when attacking, so all Assyrian units are strong on the offense
100% pillage yield is a strong ability, as pillage yields are tied to the improvement and there are civics and science to be gained from courthouses and libraries. It comes in a bit later though as you have to engage into your enemy and have spare time and orders to use on pillaging instead of attacking.
the 2 orders per military unit killed work also off barbarians, meaning you will have a constant influx of orders in wars and skirmishes which makes Assyria very effective at both, especially combined with their Focus I on every unit

The UU the battering Ram is the earliest Siege unit achievable and it is terrifying to defend against these. You basically have to try to face them in the field instead of in the cities as their 50% city attack is devastating.

Shrines:
- +2 training and +10XP for units idling on it
- +20% adjacent mine production and +1 training per adjacent lumbermill (mid game improvement)
- +2 civics and +1 order/adjacent wonder (mostly mid game oriented, sounds nice but risks to be very expensive for the order, it might be good to get this one down in a patron city to chew out specialists)
- +0,5 orders and +20% to adjacent farms

[Kaiser]

Ginger had issues connecting so I re-hosted a new game (well, I probably should just have saved the map and re-hosted it, but I did not )

Let us see if this works out or if maybe somebody else can host and I try to join, I think I am the outlier using Epic Games for Old World

Here are the new starting screenshots

Kaiser



I have the possible Landowner start this time, even though the wheat is out of my inital settling range. I do have less hills, so Hatti becomes less order-efficent in comparison and I do have a lack of stone (only 3 decent quarry spots) which could point in direction of Egypt. It looks like we are on the East side this time, meaning that I am closer to the enemy which could point in favor of Rome and its capability of getting units out earlier.
I am having difficulties priorizing here I would say Rome = Hatti > Egypt

Carthage as a generic option to spend money into units?
My river flows into a lake, so we need to hope that there are other rivers flowing into it so I can benefit from the 10 income for connected cities, but it is not a game breaker. A rider city will always be connected so likely settled westwards and with some Iron will make a good unit pump itself.

Assyria to bring the stronger units to the table and steamrolled with the gained orders? That works also off barbs if I remember correctly so some order gains would be there. In that case a Champion start (even though I wont fron cities to be Champion over the capital) and aggressive barb killing Westwards.


CMF



A broad spread of ressources and nothing that screams Landowners or Hunters like the last start, the deer is out of range of you settling options so you will need to invest before being able to claim it and I am not sure that distraction is worth it. 
Hatti is still a possibility with all these hills, but you could go generic like the options I pointed out.
You have two volcanos, so going for a civ with the shrine for culture from volcanos you could get up to 8 culture to be rushing quickly and gaining access to your UU quickly.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So, I've logged in successfully.

Now, I've played just enough Old World to grasp the very basics - I'm like someone in Civ who understands what science, gold, production, etc, are all for but not a clue how they all balance against each other. Is it better to have more of this or more of that? Some players like thrawn can look at these things and spin out entire castles of air from pure theory, and win, too, damn them, but I believe in learning on the job. Instead, I think my strengths are usually towards strategic analysis, reading the meta, and knowing the other players. Bruindane and Grillo are brand new to me, I might have to go read old Civ 4 reports (ha! With what time? I'm squeezing this quick writeup into my morning "getting dressed" routine, still have my Civ VI PBEMs that resumed, and need to devote one morning a week to Wars of Napoleon until I finish that.). Well, I'll see what spare time at work I can dig up...

Anyway, from my read, I'm thinking Babylon is an overall stronger choice than Greece - a faster start is almost always better than a slow burn in Civ VI (ask me about Canada), with 25% boost to growth...except that Greece lets you get to rushing cities faster, and again, from VI experience in the early days the chopping meta was everything. Rushing is like IV's slavery, and with planning seems like the key to higher level play. Throw in the 25% food savings on growth and it seems about balanced.

So personally, I'm inclined to take Greece with their volcanic shrines, and we try to put together a gameplan based on early access to rushing production cities. For you lurkers new to Old World (like me!), I'll put in newbie tutorials to my reports as I go, like I did in the AGEOD thread, to explain various game mechanics. It'll be education via ass-kicking, if you will.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

If I take Greece, do I take the family with the free worker? Seems snowballiest, but maybe I want extra authority or extra training each turn. Hm. This game DOES have interesting choices!

I also think SIP. If I move one tile west, I get 4 extra tiles in my starting ring but I lose access to the wheat. A resource seems more important than a few extra plains or hills, since I'll pick those up organically over time and my early workers will want to improve resources first for fastest RoI.

So, right now, I think Greece -> Artisans -> SIP for my turn one.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Will do proper turn 1 report at work, but in consultation with Kaiser I settled on the Persians (for easier access to orders) and took the Statesmen family, the Achaemaenids, for my starting family, which granted more orders per turn and a boost to my, um, legitimacy. Authority? Dunno. Too many currencies in this game. I'll learn.

We started a farm and popped a free tech from some nearby ruins. :D

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Old World Turn 1




After a lot of discussion with Kaiser via Steam, I eventually settle on Persia as my Civ selection. Greece seems to rely for most of its early game strength on Philip and Alexander, who aren't present in this game, making them less appealing. Hattusa is, apparently, a DLC I don't have, so they were out. That left Babylon and, interestingly, Persia. Persia has boosted harvests from their scouts and extra orders from pastures. The boost seems useful for snowbally purposes, and the extra orders seemed noob-friendly so I took that. 

To hold the capital, I selected the Statesmen family of the Achaemaenids. The Statesmen grant me a further additional order per turn, a free treasury, and a one-time boost of 400 Authority (or legitimacy? I haven't worked out all the currencies yet).

Noob Corner: Orders!?

One fundamental mechanic of Old World is the concept of orders. There are a limited number of actions your state can undertake each turn, represented by a finite amount of orders. Move a scout? That takes an order. Have the worker build a farm? Another order. Etc, etc. It's a nice abstraction of the limited administrative capacity that early states had - you can't do everything you want all the time. You have to prioritize. 

The order concept seems very forgiving in the early game and in times of peace - the military can stand idle and you have plenty to spare to nudge all your workers around improving the empire. In times of war, though, when you have to maneuver entire battlegroups across the map, I can see it becoming very constrictive and requiring a great deal of thought as you take your moves. Running out of orders in the midst of a pitched battle will see my entire army grind to a halt, possibly in a tactically compromised position. That should be exciting!

Anyway, Persia should grant me a bit more orders per turn than the other 3 players, and I hope this will both give me more room for error and the ability to build a bigger snowball down the road, as I can take a bit more actions per turn than anyone else.

With my capital of Parsa founded, I have access to the tech tree for the first time:



On Kaiser's recommendation I take Stonecutting, as it leads to valuable techs and boosts down the line. The quarry improvement, as well, is one of the crucial early-game improvements as it begins trickling stone into my coffers, which I shall need for buildings and other improvements. 

2 of my starting 7 orders are spent ordering the scout to explore some old ruins to hte northwest, the equivalent of tribal villages and goody huts in this game:



The scout pops an event that lets me choose between buffing my leader's stats, or spending a hefty amount of food in exchange for a free tech:



Rhetoric isn't even on the tech tree yet, so I feed the starving lorekeepers and learn their secrets. 

My remaining orders are spent organizing a farm on the wheat near Parsa, good for 10 food and 2, uh, growth? Which is different from food? a year:



And that wraps up the first-ever turn of multiplayer Old World at Realms Beyond! 

[civac2]

Thanks to both for the detailed reporting. Gonna follow this for sure.

Growth is needed for growing your cities. The more growth a city generates the faster it gains more citizens similar to surplus food in Civ. Moreover, certain units (settlers, workers, scouts, militia?) require growth to be build. If you build a settler all growth of that city goes towards the settler, meaning the city does not grow during settler construction and also the build time of the settler depends on how much growth that city can generate. Meanwhile, food your cities generate gets stockpiled globally (current food stockpile is shown on the top). Various builds require an upfront food cost to be made, eg. the Palton cavalry. The Palton cavalry also requires a food upkeep each turn after being trained.

[El Grillo]

Yep, I will also be following with interest. Old World felt like too much to digest when I looked at it, maybe this will influence me to try it. Good luck and have fun!