The Big Picture

[OzzyKP]

Ok, so I suppose we are agreed on Elizabeth being our first choice for leader. What about a second or third choice? I suggest Gandhi 2nd.

As for civs, mzprox is right about the Impi, you need a unit with two movement to benefit from that promotion. So rifles and infantry won't be helped. I'm not really sold on the Zulu. I might put the Aztecs above them, but I really hate the Jaguar too.

I think Inca & Sumeria are the two strongest civs. Sumeria also has a courthouse UB, but it is both cheaper and comes sooner. Their UU is rather strong as well. A 6 strength axeman basically. That'd be great for fending off an attack, or making one of our own. Sumeria also starts with Wheel & Agriculture, probably the best starting techs.

The Inca are the obvious choice, I'm sure everyone else will want to go for them. Their UB gives us the creative trait, which is universally useful. I don't care too much about their UU, but as long as our neighbor doesn't have it they can't rush us with it. Though I'm sure Inca will be picked by others if they have the chance. But if it falls into our lap..

Finally, we might want to consider Rome as well. Their UB helps with our specialist economy, and their UU is one of the strongest in the game.

So if I were to rank our options, this is my thought:

1. Elizabeth
2. Gandhi
3. Pericles (I guess people like creative)

Civs:

1. Inca (Myst/Agri)
2. Sumeria (Wheel/Agri)
3. Aztec (Myst/Hunt)
4. Rome (Fish/Mining)
5. Zulu (Agri/Hunt)
6. HRE (Myst/Hunt)
7. India (Myst/Mining)

[OzzyKP]

Another question, if we are able to see our start first, and it proves to be a food poor start, do we change strategy?

[mzprox]

I think we can wait to decide on our civ/leader and strategy until we know more. If we can expect early war the philo leader might not be an optimal choice, expansionist, aggressive, creative etc are better.
If we can see our start then starting techs count a lot, if we see fish for xample then we most likely shoul start with fishing.
with certain starts and with proper choice on civ/lader we can plan out to take an early religion, wonder without much risk.

[Calanthian]

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.

True.

Aztecs however start with hunting/mysticism.. not really good for start. the aztec's UB is one of the strongest in he game if used well.

I like Holy Romans UB a lot better than Aztecs. (Rathaus: - 75% maintenance). With HRE early religion is an excellent option.
And Lizzy from HRE is also nice.

[Calanthian]

And Carthage should be on the civ shortlist too.. also excellent combi with Lizzy..
> on map with enough sea: this one is going to be loaded!

[DNK]

Willem (FIN-CRE) of Rome isn't bad either. We get a half-PHI from the UB, and their UU is excellent. Starting tech are mixed, but we do get Mining (though Agri would be better than fishing).

I dislike Gandhi. I feel SPI to be a weaker trait for the early game especially - more useful later once you have a decent civic choice - and since he doesn't come prepackaged with the Indian UU here, I think we can find a better PHI leader. The map isn't likely to be so packed that the temple building bonus of SPI is going to be as useful either, plus I doubt we're aiming for a cultural victory, so temples aren't going to be priority builds.

CRE is great for land grabs in the early game, and early border pops (and second pops especially) are good for defense. I think we're going to be playing fairly defensive here, plus focusing on REXing, so this is really a strong one imo. Cheap libraries and theaters are always good, too, especially if we're going with a specialist flavor to our economy. Pericles certainly makes good sense there.

IND is mixed. It's a lot more powerful in SP than MP, though cheap forges are really nice as they're very common priority builds (and expensive ones at that) - a good way to boost city production curves while getting a nice combat boost in the process. I don't think we should rule this one out still.

ORG, I've talked about enough. It has value, but it doesn't really shine until the mid game starts. I would prefer CRE or even IND over it. But if we do have a toroidal map and a courthouse UB, I think it's something to think about (but without both, not).

That said, my picks in no order after Liz:
1. Liz FIN-PHI
Huayna FIN-IND
Louix IND-CRE
Pericles PHI-CRE
Willem FIN-CRE

Civs:
Zulu
HRE
Inca w/o CRE
India
Mali w/ IND
Roman w/o PHI

Sumeria isn't so bad either.

[Robert]

Should we not first decide on a general strategy we like best for our combined tastes,
and then after that select the best civ/leader choice to fit that strategy?

ie. Are we going for:
- slaving
- cottage
- great people
- early wonders
- expanding
- early militaristic

I assume that this game is going to be a lot more warmongerish then we are used to in our diplogames.
Perhaps a militaristic approach won't hurt too much.
There are some odds that the early phase may be more about surviving then about expanding.

[Ben Kenobi]

What about alliances and non-aggression pacts? We should sign an alliance with one of the teams that we think we can trust. Or is that verboten?

[mzprox]

I agree that we can expect some warmongerism, so unless we decide on a very huge map we can expect wars quite eraly. normal multigames are always about war.

I wouldn't call the roman forum half-phi, that's only 15% great person if I'm right. The strenght of the phi trait is two fold: 1, they get 3 great persons for the same gp points as non-phi civs get 2. and 2, they build universities fast-this actually much more than getting that 25% sci bonus sooner, the true benefit is to get the Oxford university much faster., hundreds of years sooner..(to slave a phi university you need to slave 3-4 pop, so a 6-8 size city can build it few turns after discovering education, otherwise you would need a 12-14 size city and usually my cities are smaller) and since we are settling our great scientists in our capital (after the academy) we can get huge science boost this way.

Ofc if we are to fight before education it might be better to play for survival.

My leader pics would be:
1 Elizabeth
2-3 Peter-Pericles
4 Gandhi

Peter is Phi/exp, exp is considered to be one of the strongest trait, it may cut a few turns from worker production and double prod speed for granaries.

As for civ:
Peter with Inca (any exp with inca) is quite broken
Pericles of the Aztecs- the sacrifical altar can make slavery even more productive and it's cheaper than normal courthouses.

[Robert]

Lately I do not follow the Great Scientists approach but the Great Merchant one.
More money means we can have a higher % research, which affects money output in more cities.
Embedded Scientists give hammers, which are usually useless in science cities.
Embedded Merchants give +1 food, every 2 embedded merchants = +1 Merchant specialist in that city.

Money multiplyers come in earlier, grocery, market and bank = +100% pretty early in the game
library, university = +50%, and then observatorium and lab = +100%, but quite late in the game.
Extra monastries deliver +10% each, but that means that we need 5 monastries to make up for the lost 50% untill observatoriums/labs come in the picture.
Wall Street comes in a bit later then Oxford though, but not much, especially not if we focus on it!

We only need 1 great scientist to build an academy in this science city.

Especially the +1 foods will improve the output of great merchant specialists a lot on the long term.
+10 food in the late game at least.

[mzprox]

I build the oxford long beofre the bank in my capital. by then the science bonus is : 25%+25%+50%(academy)+100%(oxford)+10%(1 monastery)=210%
wallstreet is usually going into a holy city.. if I ever get a great prophet.. lately i'm having difficult time to produce one.
Burocracy makes the +1 production of the GS into 1,5 hammer.

Great merchants are also very good, I usually get 1-2 and then settle them. It's just easier to collect scientists.

[DNK]

Forum is +25% GPP, which is a quarter of PHI - both wrong

I'm not sure what was up with my saying IND gives us a combat boost - but I guess more forges = more units...

Also, I meant Aztec not Zulu above. Bah, lots of mistakes in that post...

I love GMs because if you make your GP farm your gold city (though then it can't convert to a globe draft city down the line), then you settle them there and get an extra half specialist per GM settled, which works well. GS's work well for the major cities, but yeah, GMs once you get there. The problem, though, is they don't scale so well with expenses - the first one can cover about a 10% tech rate, while even with a bank/grocer/market you'll need a couple to cover 10% midgame - still, not bad. I used to do this but stopped lately for some reason, but it worked very well, especially if you lack a holy city.

[Calanthian]

I build the oxford long beofre the bank in my capital. by then the science bonus is : 25%+25%+50%(academy)+100%(oxford)+10%(1 monastery)=210%

Same strategy here. Throw in a corporation or two, a great lighthouse and Colossos and it goes through the roof (see Carthage in DoF).

[OzzyKP]

Should we not first decide on a general strategy we like best for our combined tastes,
and then after that select the best civ/leader choice to fit that strategy?

ie. Are we going for:
- slaving
- cottage
- great people
- early wonders
- expanding
- early militaristic

I assume that this game is going to be a lot more warmongerish then we are used to in our diplogames.
Perhaps a militaristic approach won't hurt too much.
There are some odds that the early phase may be more about surviving then about expanding.

Yea, I think picking a strategy first should be the plan (at least what I was attempting to do with this thread). My thoughts, based on mzprox's general economic skill in all our games is to go with his approach of a super specialist capitol city. He seems to be an expert with the lash as well. So great people + slaving. I assume we'll go more cottage heavy in our other cities, but capitol will be more about specialists.

I think our neighbors will be warmongers, we certainly should prepare for it and keep pace with their militaries but I'd argue against an early war of conquest. I think we are better suited to set up some alliances/NAPs, keep our heads down and build. Attack if we see a favorable opportunity, but otherwise just try to stay peaceful.

With that said I think PHI is an an important trait for us, with our great person strategy. Considering we are probably going to be fending off an invasion or two I think a classical era UU is important too (though the Impi and Jaguar aren't terribly useful).

[mzprox]

So great people + slaving. I assume we'll go more cottage heavy in our other cities, but capitol will be more about specialists.

It's better if you cottage the capitol and settle the great persons genereated from other cities there .