The Big Picture

[DNK]

Liz has always been my favorite as well. Liz/India work particularly well, though from memory England's not so bad either, food aside.


By the way: EARLY RELIGION? Do we go for one or not? This is a fairly big decision that we pretty much DO need to decide before picking a leader that won't be very dependent on neighbors or any of that.

[Calanthian]

Early religion: I always decide when I see the start up positions and the starting techs of the competition.

[OzzyKP]

I consider Elizabeth to be the strongest leader for my playstyle, but Gandhi and Pericles are also very strong.
if this happen to be an always war gaem then phi leaders are even stronger (since we should run in mercantilism).
If we play unrestricted then we can consider choosing the aztecs. I've never played with them, but the sacrifial altar seems very strong.

This was my thinking. You seem to be an expert with specialists, so PHI seems like a strong choice for us. FIN is a strong choice for everyone so Elizabeth is probably a no brainer, plus decent UB & UU. SPI I'm personally fond of, so Gandhi would be good. The Indian UU is universally liked as well. I'm not really sold on Pericles.

I was thinking about the Aztecs too if we go unrestricted. A cheaper courthouse is nice, and if you are want to use and abuse the lash, then the slaving bonuses would be crucial as well. Elizabeth/Gandhi of the Aztecs (or Sumerians, or Romans) would be cool.

[Calanthian]

And Lizzy of the Zulu's: see other thread..

[OzzyKP]

Yeah, RB are huge, monstrous micronits, and extremely skillful it seems. I don't mind doing a bit of that myself, but they take it to an extreme... That said, it might help the forum to practice a little micronittery at the outset - what else do we have to do?

That said, we need to start checking out our other neighbors now. I've read oodles of pages of RB's forums, though I suspect others are more experienced on them. What do we know about the other forums' tendencies? Any Polish/Spanish speakers here? What's CFC like? We should get a basic playstyle guide going for each forum (though that might be impossible).

***

I never heard of RB until last week when this game started being discussed, so I don't know much beyond the fact that they seem to be pretty anal about their settings and have an accountant style of playing. Which is obnoxious as all hell, but probably makes them pretty strong. I bet Civ4Players, being ladder players, will mostly be the same. I know nothing about the international sites. As for CFC it seems the core of their team is going to be 2metraninja and Sommerswerd who we've had the pleasure of getting to know first hand in the last year or two. Both of them are obviously quite strong players and very savvy diplomatically.

I imagine that RB & Civ4Players will be more militaristic and less diplomatic. I'd think first to reach out to CFC, WPC and the internationals for alliances early on, not RB & C4P. Those two are probably the most likely to do an early rush on us, so let's hope we don't start next to them.

I think avoiding early war and aiming for a solid econ and REXing is good always and quite adaptable. I think we need to watch it on wondering, though, as those attract a lot of attention, and I know our captains, Ozzy and Cal, happen to be the "wonder whores of babylon" (no offense, but that's a good way to put it, eh) on that one, though perhaps that's just my anti-wonder opinion. Point being, if we have a solid econ and then get GLH and GLib, we're going to get dogpiled sooner or later, even if we think we're on good terms with our neighbors.

And this is my concern - we have a bunch of "wonder 'lovers'" as our lead players right now (and, yes, it works very well for economy, a good part of the reason I'm always a step behind you 3 in games generally), and I'm going to go on record saying that it's not necessarily going to work here unless we have weaker/passive players on our borders. This strategy, imo, needs to be decided once we're in-game and know who we have to deal with directly. As such, IND locks us into the approach way too much for my liking. We can get in-game, find we've got RB and another aggressive team on our flank, and find our IND trait all but useless, while we wished we had CRE or PHI instead.

***

Really, no war, no choking if we can. Just get on good terms with our neighbors and do what we can to keep on good terms. Find ways to be symbiotic if we can and work to integrate with better neighbors - build at least one border alliance, something with unit sharing or something involved that lets us specialize somehow, requiring reliance on each other - that's the only way to really ensure security in the long-term. If we have a weak neighbor, aim for a late Classical attack but keep them friendly until then. This is the ideal, imo, and a plan for success for sure. Great if we can get a neighbor that wants to do an Espy econ with us, assuming we can trust them well with all the info they get... No rushes, though if we catch someone totally off-guard...

***

Heh, I dunno if I'm a wonder lover or not, but I definitely think we should grab advantageous wonders that are available to us. But I don't think we should take IND, nor do I think we should beeline any wonders in particular. I'm guessing the Great Lighthouse will be less useful in this game. Even if we don't go with Always War it is going to be much less likely we'll see open borders with many players in a competitive game like this. And yes, we don't want to paint a target on our backs. We need to keep our heads down and stay away from conflict for as long as possible. If we win this thing it is going to be from getting our enemies to fight each other. Of the English sites I believe we have the lowest profile, so that should help us avoid attracting early attention. We should play to our strength, which, in theory, should be diplomacy and making friends. So let's be helpful, friendly, non-threatening and well armed. Try to stay at peace as long as we can and just grow our economy as much as we can. Pick up whatever wonders available to us, but growth is really our objective I'd say.

Chopping - my style is to chop early and often for expansion. On that, we can have the discussions when we have a solid, specific scenario in the game. I aim for 1.5 workers/city usually. I know Ozzy happens to hate workers for some reason (and lighthouses), but they do have a purpose...

***

Hahah, yea I noticed when you subbed for me you set half my cities to making workers. I know I'm guilty about not building enough workers, but that was overkill.

[mzprox]

In my G&H game i deliberately skipped early wonders to see how well i can manage without them. (later I built the Apostolic palace and the Sankore university). instead of wonders i had focused on science and i think it's more safe that way. none of the early wonders are that good. Ofc if we are industrious and have the resource it's a different situation, but as a phi leader i wouldnt build wonders.

I also don't care too much about early religion, but we need one none the less. We can bulb Philo if needed, but going code of laws after writingis a usual route I take.

[OzzyKP]

I think the early wonders are the best ones. Pyramids, Colossus, Oracle and the Great Lighthouse are probably the best in the game. Two of those are map dependent of course.

I'm ok with skipping early religion as well.

[DNK]

Liz of the Zulus sounds great to me.

We're going to have like 10 teams, and if we have a coastal start I don't see finding trade routes being much of an issue. Basically, GLH should be just as valuable, though if it's pangaea less so.

There aren't many early wonders I don't like. It will be start dependent. I'm not saying "get no wonders", but heads down a bit.

As for CFC it seems the core of their team is going to be 2metraninja and Sommerswerd who we've had the pleasure of getting to know first hand in the last year or two. Both of them are obviously quite strong players and very savvy diplomatically.

Yeah, they worry me a lot. Especially given how tactically gifted they have seemed.

Heh, I dunno if I'm a wonder lover or not,

Perhaps...

Hahah, yea I noticed when you subbed for me you set half my cities to making workers. I know I'm guilty about not building enough workers, but that was overkill.

You had like 4 workers for 15 cities and islands with like 3 cities and 1 worker... And I still don't get your intense distaste for lighthouses given your intense love of great lighthouses, but to each his own

1-1.5/city!

[Ben Kenobi]

I used to do 3x engineers per city.

[OzzyKP]

You had like 4 workers for 15 cities and islands with like 3 cities and 1 worker... And I still don't get your intense distaste for lighthouses given your intense love of great lighthouses, but to each his own

1-1.5/city!

My mainland is fully developed. There is no need for workers!

[Hercules]

I echo what DNK speaks of on post 14. I also have looked at the RB and CFC Demogame threads and this from SilentConfusion http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=358534 is worth reading. I was the hapless default turnplayer in the Apolyton MTDG. I joined the Templars to lurk and learn. But many big name sign ups , for whatever reason simply were not there at crucial times to offer advice.

The Templars offered the promise of role play, but it never happened. Our objective was religious spread but other teams objective was dominance.

In Team Merlot, Monarchy was a cute idea roleplay wise, but it fizzled out and became a game of survival against a 4 team alliance.

The lesson from both: Have a strategy re other teams (Sommerswerd and 2metraninja approach) and study the intel (eg Mostly-Harmless(RB) and SilentConfusion (Amazon).

[OzzyKP]

The more lessons and info you have from previous demo games the better.

[DNK]

The Sullla writeup on the first Apolyton one was certainly good reading.

Ozzy, we have differing opinions on "fully developed"

[Calanthian]

Liz of the Zulus sounds great to me.

>>> What do others think?
(on the mobility promotion of the impi: it stays (I am sure of it),
so if we pick it we get late game infantry which can move 2 tiles through any terrain)

>>> if snake pick: first pick Lizzy, then Zulu

[mzprox]

Impi is a good early uu, but if upgraded the only unit which benefits is the mech inf, by then there won't be many forests so the only advantage that they can move through hills-and this upgrade costs a lot.

Jaguars get woodsman 1, woodsman 3 is strong promotion even without forest (2 first strikes and 15% healing (normal medic is only 10%))
Aztecs however start with hunting/mysticism.. not really good for start. (zulu: hunting/agriculture, a bit better). the aztec's UB is one of the strongest in he game if used well.

for starting tech the best I think Mining+something fishin if we have sea resource, agriculture if corn/rice/wheat. i don't like hunting because scouts are quite uselss without huts.

On civ choice much depends if we can expect early wars. If tat's the case we need strong early UU, otherwise we need best economic start.