Civ Choice

[DeepO]

First impressions, before reading the debate above:

Please give us SPI (with the only exception being when we would go ORG, as ORG means less changing around). The anarchy bonus is the same as 2 GAs, spread out (at least 5 turns of anarchy in all my games), but it truely shines in adaptability, and major efficiency. Really... if there is one GS-trait out there, it's SPI.

Further, let's be careful in picking Caesar. Praets are amongst the best units there are, but there are rumours of them being unbalanced. I would hate to play for a year on a certain path, just to get those Praets running around, only to find some patch changes our UUs and thus disrupts the whole plan.

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In general, I think this discussion has to come second. First of all, we need to talk about which general tactics we're going to pursue. Without Mysticism, there won't be an Oracle gambit, while an ancient UU might give us some rush potential. Stuff like that.

DeepO

[Arrian]

I totally agree with you regarding SPI and also regarding Rome. Praetorians may not actually be as game-breaking as some people think (faced with hordes of axemen, they don't look so good, do they?), but I think that a civ playing Rome will get labeled as a dangerous civ that must be destroyed quickly. We don't want that, do we?

As for tactics... um, to win! How to win kinda depends on how best we can leverage our civ... which leads us back to picking a leader. It's the chicken and the egg, DeepO.

-Arrian

p.s. Why no oracle gambit w/o mysticism? We could start with another tech that helps us complete the Oracle before another civ. What if we start with mining and get BW quick and chop the Oracle? Let's say we're Qin. IND/FIN, starts with mining (and agriculture?). Surely we could still pull off the Oracle. I'm not saying that's definitely the way we SHOULD play, but I don't see why it's right out just because we don't have mysticism to start with...

[Krill]

Well, I for one don't like choosing tactics until I have seen the land. For example, we could plan on rushing someone but dind out we got a flood plains start that deserves nothing but cottages.

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Oh, and with regards to an Oracle gamble, I would say in a demogame there is a better strat.

An Alphabet Beeline, and trade for everyones techs, while making one of our first 2 cities a research city.

The ideal Civ for this, IMV, is Mansa. A pain to rush, needs either fishing or agri to research pottery to get cottages, and pottery is on the way to alpha. Cottages speed that, as does Fin.

Oh, and he is Spi as well

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(and don't forget, if none of the other teams start with myst, there is always the chance of an oracle beeline)

[DeepO]

I agree it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, yet there are differences.

If we want to play agressively, there are plenty of leaders to take. And while last time we didn't really want to be aggressive, we fought continuous wars from war chariots on wards.

If we want to go the religious route (Oracle, perhaps), we might want to focus more on that too. Personally, I like one early religion (being one of the first 4) myself, but don't care for more.

Chopping focus is another question... this will be more important compared to MP than SP. As such, I think chopping is a must, and as much of it as early as possible. easy access to BW, and possibly the Indians are going to be more important to us than in a normal SP game.

A lot will depend on map options too, so in case we know we have map specific things (like loads of coasts), we should try for that too. Or, OTOH, we might want to go with a rather blend early leader, in favour of a later boost. Such a leader will be less risk to leverage than e.g. the Romans: if you don't have iron, you're screwed.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oracle is not so interesting at all, but with the right land we could get e.g. IW, Alphabet, or CoL from it. All very nice techs we don't want to give to others that easily.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Well, thinking of over-arching strategy, I'm just not a warmonger. I'm a builder at heart, and I feel that we (with our good MM abilities) are also best at that as a team, despite our military prowess at times in the PTWDG.

I'd prefer to play as a builder... with teeth, so to speak. And if an opportunity presents itself (such as a neighbor who presents their soft, white underbelly to us), certainly we should grab it (by ripping their guts out).

-Arrian

[Dominae]

I'm not really sold on Spiritual. Is 2 GAs worth a whole trait? As for flexibility, yes, that can definitely come into play. But it may not.

Let's list the multiple-switch tricks that Spiritual enables:

1. Switch to Organized Religion to build some quick Missionaries, then switch back to avoid Maintenance costs. Problem is, unless we have Theology for Theocracy, we would probably want to stay in Org. Rel. at the time when Missionaries are needed - early on.

2. Switch to Theocracy to prevent foreign Religion spread. This sounds cool but would probably not come into play. If it does, it means that we do not have our own Religion and want to control who gets "in", or we're waiting to found our own. I think that if a neighboring civ founds an early Religion, Theology is too far off for us to use this as an effective countermeasure.

(This gets me thinking that we need to seriously discuss Religion - the line of sight ability scares me.)

3. Switch to Universal Suffrage to rush-buy stuff with Gold, then back to something better while the Gold accumulates again. This seems like a nice one, but it presumes that we have constant supply of free cash on hand. There's definitely some nice synergy with the Kremlin, but I would prefer not to base our civ choice on something that comes so late.

4. Switch to Police State, Vassalage and Theocracy for a military buildup, then back when ready to build again. This is the one classic "swap" that we will probably need to do in this game. Spiritual makes it easier, no question there.

5. Switch in and out of Slavery to maximize poprushing. Unless we run Caste System, though, Slavery is our best option until Emancipation. Caste System is a nice Civic, but something of a luxury unless we're Philosophical: to make it shine requires a lot of pop, and I imagine we're going to need that pop for Mines/military.

And that's all I can think of right now.

All of these tricks assume that we have access to the relevant Civics, which is not a given tech-wise. For a large periods of the game there usually is one best Civic option, at least in my experience.

[Dominae]

If we do pick Spiritual, Mansa Musa and Saladin are my picks. Of these, only Saladin starts with Mysticism.

I do not particularly like India and it's Fast Worker. The resource turn advantage that it provides is at its best when Forest-chopping (since it can enter and chop a flatland Forest on the same turn). This advantage quickly disappears once there is no more Forest. Is early momentum worth a UU?

[Arrian]

Dominae,

1) Religion/line of sight - yeah, that's a worry, isn't it? I suspect teams will keep borders closed and/or negotiate open borders with the caveat of "no missionaries."

2) I think we really want our own religion (just one).

3) You're right that Spiritual's value can vary quite a bit. I'm certainly open to suggestions for a different trait (Financial I think we all agree is powerful).

4) I love Mansa Musa. I'm down with that.

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The best non-spiritual choices, IMO:

Qin (FIN/IND), Crossbow variant dude. Agriculture, Mining.

Elizabeth (FIN/PHI), Redcoat. Fishing, Mining. Fishing is a crapshoot, but if you start on the coast with one or more seafood specials, it's great.

Also interesting:

Bismark (IND/EXP), Panzer - scout to start? Hunting, Mining.
Peter (EXP/PHI), Cossack - scout to start? Hunting, Mining.

-Arrian

[Krill]

Yeah, Bismark gets a scout to start. We would know of our surroundings alot earlier, and could plan accordingly...one tech away from archers, and Bronze working, so you can choke someone with archers if you want to. It's worked for me in MP.

[DeepO]

Dom, every switch you describe is nearly worth one GA. Think about that... 1 turn switching to something + 1 turn switching back equals roughly the same production and commerce as 0.6-0.8 GA.

GAs are pure turn advantage things in both commerce and production, and extremely important.

And there are more possible switches... in and out of state religions will be less important than in SP, but if we are able to get our hands on a holy city, switching to that religion can give us a full update on all cities sharing that religion. I've used that a couple times so far to scout out an enemies land before invasion, very powerful in specialty situations.

Also, switching to no-state will accumulate culture on all holy cities... 5 turns of that is enough for the first border expansion.

By MMing production, we can really gain a lot... if we've got SPI, we can switch every 5 turns between buildings and units. We can time all our units to get XP bonusses, even if they are mainly build while our civics give no XP. We can really squeeze the most out of our specialists too, without ill effects on our empire. And even things like cottage growth can be speeded if necessary.

The possibilities are seemingly endless, and I'm sure we can come up with new strats in any era of this game... we're still over a year away from rifles...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Besides, it's just fun. ORG is extremely powerful too, but you always end up with all the high civics, and ecology. If we can switch every 5 turns, it gives us something to discuss in building lulls.

BTW: Ecology? Wow!!!

DeepO

[Arrian]

You mean environmentalism? +6 health and happiness from forest/jungle?

I used it in a game recently (I was Asoka, on my own continent, and nobody liked me). It was quite useful in that context... for a while (until I stomped one of my enemies, gaining a number of health resources, and made a friend who would trade with me). Then it was back to Free Trade.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

yeah, that's it. It now comes with medicine, which is available very early if you go for it. It's just crazy if you've left some forests around: in very few turns you can have so many specialists that they offset the commerce from an extra trade route.

It's also the perfect isolationists choice: you don't need food/happy trades. Could become quite important in this game...

It's fairly useless if you don't specifically play for it, though. You need to keep the forests, and you need some extra growth in every city when you just switch... you'll need more workers to turn improvements around a bit.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Ok, there are basically three important things and a fourth less important thing we need to evaluate:

1) Traits
2) Starting Techs
3) UU
4) Scout or warrior to start

We've mainly focused on #1 so far, with some discussion of #2 (wrt Mysticism) and a few mentions of #3.

It seems to me we've largely dismissed a few traits, for various reasons:

Organized (requires size to really shine, and also picks up value once expensive civics show up - mid to late game)
Creative (may piss off neighbors, extremely weak after the early game)

Three others haven't really been discussed much:

Aggressive
Expansionist
Industrious

And then these three we've talked a lot about:

Spiritual
Philosophical
Financial


Based on the above, it seems to me that the frontrunners are (in no particular order):

Mansa Musa
Saladin
Qin

Several other interesting possibilities have been bandied about, of course.

If I had to pick right now, going with the gut, I'd pick Mansa Musa.

Hopefully we'll get the thoughts of some newcomers soon, though...

-Arrian