Leader Selection: Round 2 of 2

This poll follows on from Round 1, which closed a few minutes ago.

Vote for your first choice leader out of the two top possibilities. The winner will become our #1 preference for Team Saturn for the upcoming game. The loser will become our #2 preference.

You have 24 hours to vote.

Hi, just wanted to ask Team Saturn if you had come to a decision on duplicate versus unique leaders. (It looks like the process to pick a top 5 list is well underway!) Please remind me which one is the case by the end of tomorrow. Thanks!

Sullla said:

Hi, just wanted to ask Team Saturn if you had come to a decision on duplicate versus unique leaders. (It looks like the process to pick a top 5 list is well underway!) Please remind me which one is the case by the end of tomorrow. Thanks!

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We had a dead even 50/50 split on the duplicate leaders poll, so I can't say for certain. We'll probably need to have a further discussion amongst the team to decide for sure.

In the meantime, what I was thinking is that Team Saturn will submit our top 5 leader preferences. With any luck, our top leader pick will not be the same as any other team's, so there'll be no problems. However, if our top leader pick happens to be the same as another team's, then you can inform us and we'll have a quick (1-2 day) discussion and/or re-poll to decide whether or not we'll keep our top leader preference.

Does that work for you?

Yes, hopefully there won't be any conflicts. I'm hoping that all five teams will each select different leaders and thus make everyone happy!

Since that probably won't happen, I'll use your suggestion in the event of a conflict.

Looks like Darius will win. So the Persians will be the first to colonize Saturn and its illustrious moons. Maybe the Vikings kicked them off Mars? Jupiter is a big gas planet anyways.

The polls have now closed. Our list of five leader preferences is as follows:

#1 - Darius
#2 - Ragnar
#3 - Elizabeth
#4 - Huayna Capac
#5 - Mehmed II

Now we await news from Sullla.

Sullla's announced the results, and we got our first choice - Darius.

Team 1: Elizabeth of England
Saturn (Team 2): Darius of Persia
SANCTA (Team 3): Willem of the Netherlands
Team 4: Joao of Portugal
Team 5: Pacal II of the Mayans

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Early strategy is naturally dependant of the map, but what do you think about these alternatives/questions:
If horses available, try Immortal rush (Rivals might be too far for this) or try to hinder the development of the nearest rival by declaring war and keeping rival away from metals using immortals. Or is it bad idea to go to early war just to freeze the development and let other teams to develop peacefully?
If marble, go for oracle to get Code of laws.
If stone, go for Great wall, Stonehenge or Pyramids.
Neglect early wonders and religions (except code of laws that probably should be in high priority in most of the strategies), and concentrate on fast early expansion where low science slider is compensated by running specialits in most of the cities.
Early religions are probably not nescessary although Mystisicm might be needed relatively early to get monuments.
How useful The Great Lighthouse is in MP? Are there usually open borders to take advantage of foreign trade routes?

plako said:

Early strategy is naturally dependant of the map, but what do you think about these alternatives/questions:
If horses available, try Immortal rush (Rivals might be too far for this) or try to hinder the development of the nearest rival by declaring war and keeping rival away from metals using immortals. Or is it bad idea to go to early war just to freeze the development and let other teams to develop peacefully?

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Distances between civs will probably be too large on this map for effective early wars. Still, Immortals should at least be useful for warding off barbarians.

plako said:

If marble, go for oracle to get Code of laws.

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Depending on the situation, we could go for the Oracle even without Marble, since nobody is Industrious and it's a very cheap wonder. An early jump to Code of Laws would certainly be quite valuable, especially with Darius.

plako said:

If stone, go for Great wall, Stonehenge or Pyramids.

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Sure, but no rush on those (unless stone is really nearby). It's probably unlikely that we'll get Stonehenge unless we delay expansion for it (which I don't think is worthwhile). The Great Wall might be possible at a push, but I don't think it will be hugely valuable for us (our Immortals could use the XP from barbs anyway). Pyramids would probably be the most interesting option if we have stone nearby. As for other options, the Great Lighthouse could be on the potential wonder list too - it's usually quite powerful.

Overall though, I think that the Oracle is still a more important wonder to prioritize, if the situation is right.

plako said:

Neglect early wonders and religions (except code of laws that probably should be in high priority in most of the strategies), and concentrate on fast early expansion where low science slider is compensated by running specialits in most of the cities.

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First of all, we should build cottages (preferably on rivers) instead of running specialists in most situations, to make the most of the Financial trait. Secondly, while fast expansion will be good, let's not expand so much early on that it starts hurting us badly. Of course it's not a good idea to spend a lot of time building wonders in the early game, but building just one or two doesn't hurt expansion too much, and can actually help to put us in a better position.

So I'd say we should get a few cities out, then perhaps think about trying for a wonder or two.

plako said:

Early religions are probably not nescessary although Mystisicm might be needed relatively early to get monuments.

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With Team 5 being the only team that starts with Mysticism, the early religions are probably out of the question for us. However, if we end up going with the Oracle plan, we could very well grab Confucianism. We'd need Mysticism, Meditation and Priesthood though, and we wouldn't be starting them until after quite a few other techs (see the Starting Position thread for current plans).

plako said:

How useful The Great Lighthouse is in MP? Are there usually open borders to take advantage of foreign trade routes?

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As I mentioned before, the Great Lighthouse is certainly a useful wonder. We can almost certainly count on Open Borders with at least one other team (and probably more), since it benefits everybody to have those foreign trade routes.

Perhaps we should continue this discussion in the other thread, so that all of the strategy stuff is together?