[spoilers] Commodore gets medieval

[Commodore]

I'm scared. I have no idea how any of this is supposed to work.

I do remember Great Artist push to Music bulb is suboptimal.

[xist10]

Take Rome and ignore the fancy medieval units and defend with praets and catapults ?
Should be viable till cannons, even if macemen are dangerous.

[greenline]

What I want to know is why the medieval start games always end up with the weird barb sub gimmicks as well.

[Commodore]

I suppose I should talk a little bit about where my head is at regarding civs and traits. With the proviso that I have zero experience with the variant...

Take Rome and ignore the fancy medieval units and defend with praets and catapults ?
Should be viable till cannons, even if macemen are dangerous.

Rome is certainly worth consideration, the lifespan of 8-strength praets is hard to underemphasize. The difficulty is on the keyword you just used: DEFEND. It's a good unit to not die, but winning is prosecuting aggression, in the form of knights or sea-vessels. That being said, the top "unit" civilizations to consider for me are, in order of brokenness:

Vikings (assuming water): Faster boats are such a big deal that you could ignore Berkzerkers entirely and still argue for the Vikings. TRADING POSTS ARE ALSO FREE UPON SETTLING EVERY CITY.

Byzantium (assuming unbanned): It's a freaking 12-strength knight, that's ridiculous. Hippodrome is also pretty nice to be available at the start for what it's worth, but cataphracts are silly.

China: Two-movers (assuming hills) with collateral. Or three+ movers off of boats. Again the UB is okay, but Chucklenaughts are absurd in general, particularly with this setup.

Portugal (assuming water): Faster transport very early with carracks; Optics is incredibly easy to get but Astronomy+Paper is a million miles away. Fetoriae are also very nice in the late game, fwiw. Spoiler alert:

This is a 5-player game, there is no "late game"

Arabia: Camel archers now having march makes them quite good on a blitz, and there are a lot of shenanigans available with the maddrassa priest access.

Mongolia: Keshieks available at the beginning is nice, but those gers make knights insane in particular.

India: Fast workers are extra strong with mobile forces and a lack of 5,000 extra years of culture build-up.

I'm not entirely sure that picking for UU is the best focus, though. The primary issue with medieval start is SNOWBALLING...your techs start out taking a million years to research, you still need to build up infrastructure, settle fast, improve fast...basically, you need a good base with which to launch your aggressive play. This is more trait-centric than civ-centric, but some infra bonus civs:

India again: Fast workers and a never-reached UB.

America: Unique way to get great people early.

I can see a handful of others to argue for, but this is more than enough. Traits are simple:
SPIRITUAL IS A MUST. Snowballing is all-important, so Serfdom is a huge boost to early productivity, but you also need Slavery, and Caste for a bulb. Spiritual is literally The Most Important Trait.

There are five I could all see being paired with SPI, and I don't particularly care which it is:
Industrious. Half-priced forges and cheaper wonders are both huge for the snowball. Literally first build in some cases.

Imperialistic. Cheaper settlers, yadda, yadda, blah.

Charismatic. Vassalage/Theocracy is right next door, so every unit with 4XP saves 50h per city (barracks), also allows two-move galleys. Combine with Mongolia for the really nutty stuff.

Financial. Because screw cottages, coasts for all 100 turns of this game.

Philosophical. Because screw cottages, bulbs for all techs in this game.

[Commodore]

This is pretty cool.


One of the best things about a Medieval-era start? Much more time in the Medieval-era and Ren-era ambient music.

[Tarkeel]

Commodore, here is your starting area. The fog might be truthful, or it might lie.

[Commodore]

Dangit. I'm 99% on what the map setup is and I hate it.

[Krill]

Missing your Oracle before Pottery garbage land from PB71 yet?

[Commodore]

Missing your Oracle before Pottery garbage land from PB71 yet?

Heck yes I am.

Pindicator plays first. Blame Random.org, not me.

Scooter gets to pick first, so he gets Vikings, which is an auto-win button. Arc of the coast plus my start being Start E means we're all on the inner portion of a inland sea, probably a doughnut setup:
 .        A

.B                C

.     D      E
Long island means there's coastal access to each other. Vikings will be ridiculous, completely impossible to defend against. If I cannot land Vikings or maaaaybe Brennus then the only course of action is to go Mongols and blind rush hoping for a Viking K/O.

[Commodore]

Even if Vikings do get banned, nothing long-term gets invested in a coastal city. Brennus or Rammer of China would be my default, although arguments for Dutch or Portugal could also be made.