[SPOILERS] Shoot Plays Another Restricted Diplo Game

[Shoot the Moon]

If you're from another team in this game, this would be the point where you leave.

And now for some random pictures from my photobucket account :

[Shoot the Moon]

Alright, so thoughts on the picks so far:

First off, Kyan stole the pick I was going to make. I think Louis is pretty clearly the best pick available, even with GLH and Mids banned (if either of those weren't banned the pick would be even more ridiculous). Musicman really should have but IND or PHI in his "only pick one out of", not ORG. ORG is really quite weak.

Being middle of a 5 person snake pick kinda sucks, but the way I approached it was to rank my top three civs left and top three leaders left (three because I can't get lower than that on the return) and compare.

My civs were:
Mali
England/Ottomans/Portugal/China (couldn't particularly decide between those)

My leaders were:
CRE/PHI
PHI/SPI
CRE/IMP

While I rate CRE/PHI and PHI/SPI higher than CRE/IMP, I realized that CRE/IMP of Mali would be quite nice. I saw a bigger dropoff from Mali to the other civs because England or Ottomans would realistically want aggressive, Portugal gives no real advantage on my starting continent, and then China, while solid, I'm not sure will get back to me (that is I really had to consider the third, not second choice).

As such, picking Mali and then being happy with any of those three leader choices seemed the most appealing route. If it's either of the first two it could be interesting, as I've never run a SE before. That being said, without the mids in play not sure if I truly will with CRE/PHI. If I get Pericles (CRE/PHI) depending on the land I may just use it to get a ridiculously quick academy and then mainly utilize PHI in one or two GP farms while still mostly running a cottage economy. PHI/SPI though I think has to be run as a specialist economy. CRE/IMP obviously just mean REXing heavily with skirmishers to back it up.

[Shoot the Moon]

Well there goes Pericles. Nice pick by Nakor; I had him as my top ranked leader that was left. Agree with his sentiment that it would hurt for mackoti to have gotten him, although I'm not sure Gandhi is any better for Mackoti to have.

[Shoot the Moon]

Changed my mind actually. Having to do a SE without mids around isn't as appealing as REXing with Mali, so CRE/IMP it was.

[BRickAstley]

Happy Birthday!

[Shoot the Moon]

Hmmm. My initial thoughts say to settle in place. I don'y see anywhere else that is as appealing. Moving east loses too many forests (and since I'm doing an REX strategy forests are my friend) and I'm not trecking all the way to the coast, especially with GLH banned.

Tech wise, I'll have to sim out BW vs. Agri as first tech; the other one will almost certainly come second. I suspect the tech path will probably go something like Agri/BW --> BW/Agri --> AH/Pottery. I wouldn't mind then getting writing early for a cheap library and thus early GS for an academy (library/GS probably coming from my second or third city).

[Shoot the Moon]

Don't actually answer this (unless he has a teammate or something I didn't notice in the signup thread), but how the hell is it that mackoti has posted once in his thread and yet it has 24 posts?!?!

Anyhow, I'll be doing some sims later tonight (in addition to playing the first turn) and might even have time to slip in some analysis of picks/players.

[BRickAstley]

Don't actually answer this (unless he has a teammate or something I didn't notice in the signup thread), but how the hell is it that mackoti has posted once in his thread and yet it has 24 posts?!

If we will have atracker pleas add seven adrees , as he will play first saves for me .I am leaving in vacantion for four days.

[Shoot the Moon]

Alright, so some quick investigation with the save says that the map is 54x54, for 2,916 total land tiles. 1,383 of those are land tiles. 47% land.

Off to go make a worldbuilder file.

[Shoot the Moon]

Ok, so after doing some quick sims, Agri first comes out nicely ahead. Compared to BW, at t24 (when both finish the first settler as I currently have them) Agri first comes out 14 beakers ahead, with the capital at size three with 16/17 food in the box (compared to size two and 0 food for BW first) with two workers three warriors and the settler out. The only advantages that BW first had is being in slavery at that point and having an extra 17 hammers overflow off the settler (but that 17 hammers is less than even a one pop whip, let alone the 16 extra food). So agri first it is, now I just need to figure out whether to do pottery before or after AH and try out some more worker stuff (but I have time for that while I sit and hit enter).