[SPOILERS - El Grillo & Charriu PB51] One step at a time

[El Grillo]

Welcome to my spoiler thread. With self-isolation comes a nostalgic yearning for simpler times, and I'm looking forward to playing Civ4 again. Kindly overlook the fact that I haven't played a game of vanilla BTS since at least 2017, and this should be fun! Just expect a fair bit of   while I jog my memory on how this all works. Thank you to Charriu for volunteering to dedlurk me, I hope we'll be able to have some productive discussions.

As a brief introduction, these days you'll find me playing Codenames or in Sullla's Friday Teamfight Tactics streams, but I started lurking RealmsBeyond and playing Civ4 back in 2010. It took me a long time to start posting, but I eventually played two PBEM games in PBEM 74A/74C and dedlurked the fun Renaissance-start PB 35. In more recent years my Civ experience has been limited to playing casual modded games, either on my own mod or with the historical scenarios in Rhyes and Fall. Maybe 3-5 years ago I would've felt better about my chances here, but I think I'll aim for having a reasonable opening, making and executing plans, and not playing complacently.

I fully expect Commodore to make changes to specific point values in the course of making the map, so I'll hold off on thinking too much about that for now. Many of the players are new to me and I haven't read the recent games with superdeath/GKC in detail, so opponent analysis will have to happen in real-time. That just leaves my naming theme for this game, which I've decided will be hiking and backpacking trails that I've enjoyed, in another attempt to reflect on happier memories during these uncertain times.

Stay safe and take care everyone, and GLHF to my opponents.

Civ password:

letsgo

Planning Spreadsheet

[El Grillo]

Okay, I'm comfortable with these points:

4: FIN
3: EXP, CRE, India, Inca
2: SPI, IND, ORG, IMP, China.
1: PHI, Agriculture Civs
0: CHM, AGG, All other civs
-1: PRO

SNAKE PICK ORDER:

There were 10 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

Superdeath
GeneralKilCavalry
Giraflorens
Vanrober
Lazteuq
Amicalola
Mjmd
Ramkhamhaeng
El Grillo
Plemo

Well that's something to think about. First, being in position 9/10 on the snake pick means I'll probably have to take a synergy pick after the earlier players take the obvious power picks, but we can make it unlikely for Plemo to completely trainwreck our first pick. It's impossible to play Pacal, Willem, or Suryavarman, and there are only 4 FIN options (Elizabeth, Hannibal, Ragnar, and Wang Kon). I expect these all to be taken fairly early, we've been told to expect lots of lakes on a donut-shaped map. I think India and Inca are both worth their 3 points and might be taken above the weaker FIN civs, especially with a decent chance to pair either with EXP/PRO, which no one else should want. Another thing to note is that Byzantines with the Cataphract is a 0-point civ, and if taken early can't really be denied a leader that combines a 3-cost early-game trait and a 2-cost scaling trait.

We'll have to wait and see what the other players are thinking, but I think what's most likely to happen for us is to try and take a 3+2-cost leader and a Mining civ like Mali or Rome, or maybe a 3+PHI leader with an Agriculture civ if at least two Agriculture/Wheel civs are available. 2+2 leaders seem a tier below since IMP is much weaker on a maintenance-heavy Toroid, and PHI could be made to work with some planning in a high-food but high-cost setting where bulbing is more attractive.

[Charriu]

As a brief introduction, these days you'll find me playing Codenames or in Sullla's Friday Teamfight Tactics streams, but I started lurking RealmsBeyond and playing Civ4 back in 2010. It took me a long time to start posting, but I eventually played two PBEM games in PBEM 74A/74C and dedlurked the fun Renaissance-start PB 35. In more recent years my Civ experience has been limited to playing casual modded games, either on my own mod or with the historical scenarios in Rhyes and Fall. Maybe 3-5 years ago I would've felt better about my chances here, but I think I'll aim for having a reasonable opening, making and executing plans, and not playing complacently.

Reporting for duty.

Reading this it fells more like I am the greens player as I'm only reading here since 2017/2018.

If you like Rhyes and Fall you may also want to try Dawn of Civilization, which is a modmod of Rhyes and Fall.

Good points about leader/civ selection. I think a further discussion is needed when the snakepick comes in our direction.

[El Grillo]

Hey there Charriu! I was actually referring to Dawn of Civilization myself. I was active in the CFC subforum for a bit last year testing out the East Asian UHVs. Really looking forward to the big map update Leoreth is working on now, but I kinda burned myself out on playing 1.16

[El Grillo]

superdeath first picks Rome.
GKC picks India.

Sensible, dangerous picks. superdeath can probably wheel Shaka or Kublai if not Ragnar, and as I mentioned before GKC is likely uncontested for Mao, if he wants him.

I'm a bit curious to see if this prompts a shift in mentality toward everyone favoring civs over leaders on this first pass, there's still a long way to go until it gets to us.

[Charriu]

Classic Superdeath.

Well with our position in the snake it almost doesn't matter if we pick civ first or leader first.

[Charriu]

Superdeath ???/Rome
GeneralKilCavalry ???/INDIA
Giraflorens Rameses II / ???
Vanrober ???/Zulu
Lazteuq Pericles/???
Amicalola UP
Mjmd ON DECK
Ramkhamhaeng
El Grillo
Plemo

Looks like we might have the option of at least one FIN leader. Should we consider it?

[El Grillo]

It's worth considering. I definitely wasn't expecting SPI/IND or CRE/PHI to be taken this early, those leaders both have potential but ask more of the player to unlock it. I respect the Zulu pick a lot, it has both AH prereqs so a worker start is almost guaranteed to have useful tasks, and Impi can trainwreck your game out of nowhere if you're not careful.

Of the FIN options on the table, I think I'd be most willing to consider AGG/FIN of Agriculture/Wheel, especially if Sumeria is open, and particularly to deny Ragnar to superdeath's Rome. FIN/PHI of Mining/??? has lots of mid/late-game potential but the opening could be awkward if we're stuck going Bronze Working into chopping a quick second worker while researching food techs, I think I would prefer FIN/CHM of Agriculture/Wheel over it. FIN/PRO feels significantly worse, and opening up China as a civ option doesn't feel all that great.

Alternatively, EXP/PRO of Inca could be interesting if both are left open. It would deny EXP to GKC's India and allow for new cities to get off the ground quickly, though I worry about lacking any economic bonuses further along. I expect this option to be off the table by our turn, in any case.

CRE/ORG of Aztecs is the other combination that stands out to me. I'm a big fan of ORG on toroids for the lower costs and cheaper courthouses, CRE makes it a bit easier to play a start with weak techs, and think a lake/water-y map will be good for both cheap lighthouses and Sacrificial Altars. Plus, if the picks make it to us, we can take Zara and have the option to take HRE instead if Plemo goes for EXP/ORG Aztecs, which would only be a small setback for us.

[Rusten]

Happen to have any hiking or backpacking trails for Canada to recommend? IDK if you've been, but given your theme I thought I'd ask.
I was going this summer but it's obviously on hold due to the whole Corona thing. Faint hopes of going this autumn, but might have to push it all the way back to next summer at this rate.

Good luck with the game!

[Commodore]

Hiking/backpacking is the precise best vacation plan now.