The Oz-Man
Enter: The VAIKE!
That's what I'm trying to pin down.
Artists are good for these things:
* Gold (but very little)
* Pushing out borders
* Some bulbing (but the bulb list is sort of eh... religious techs have a high priority on it)
* Bringing cities out of revolt
The last one is the one we haven't covered in detail. Drafting's been mentioned, but what about whipping? That's something we can do regardless of a city's culture. Bringing an artist into a captured city, building the Great Work, and immediately whipping out a defender or a barracks or another addition to the attack force.
Of these four, the first and the last seem the most interesting. I have a feeling, though, that we will in general be running fewer artists than we did priests just because utility is down.
I've got a start rolled for us, and it's a Pangaea map. No Huts/Events, and Choose Religions is on. Speed and size are both normal. Culture is turned off, but I've found that on a Pangaea map, it's easy enough to stop that the AI rarely if ever wins that way anyway.
Our fearless leader is, as mentioned above, De Gaulle of the Free French! Sacré bleu!
LEADER DETAILS:
De Gaulle comes into play with a very nice trait combination. Industrious, as with Ramesses before, will give us cheap Wonders and Forges, including the wide variety of National Wonders we'll be able to build in this game as opposed to the last. A wonder-fueled GP farm is very likely in the cards. Charismatic is, as I've mentioned in other threads, my favorite trait in the whole game. More happiness means bigger cities, and the bonus to unit promotions will get a workout for sure.
France's unique unit, the Musketeer, is a 2-move Musketman. Personally, I'm a fan of this one; a fast unit that can fortify and get defensive bonuses is a powerful bonus and one of the reasons why Conquistadors and Immortals are so good. Packing a handful of these guys along with our forces is a good idea, and they are of course draftable as well if that's part of our strategy.
The much-loathed Salon is France's unique building: an Observatory with a free Artist specialist because, um, yay, that thing? On a Pangaea map, I rarely bother with Astronomy unless it's absolutely needed. With Artists as our only specialists, though, it might become more of a priority.
The Wheel and Agriculture as starting techs speaks to getting a worker out early. I'd have liked Mining, but eh.
I rolled a few starts until I found one with an early wonder resource... and wouldn't you know it, it's the one I preferred of the two.
Spoiler :
This is after an initial warrior move when I saw the blue dot suggesting we settle 1SW. Right off the bat, I'm thinking 1S is better. Losing a floodplain is sort of eh when there are two more along with two stronger food resources nearby. We need to hit the coast with this start, though.
I'm liking the hills, though, and the promise of more hills to the north suggests a few strong production sites to come.
So when we do get started, what should our priorities be? I'm leaning strongly toward AH/Mining/Masonry as our first three techs, but we'll have to squeeze Fishing in there as well at some point. Given the fairly large amount of food at our disposal, my inclination is to tech BW before Fishing. It seems a shame to not grow on that food, but it does allow us to chop out a work boat. Longer term, the Aesthetics line is an important goal, with an incidental dip to Polytheism to grab the Parthenon. My priority wonders right now are the Parthenon, Mausoleum, Taj, and Notre Dame, which requires sort of a crazy tech path, but it may well be doable.
Save is attached. As always, put map spoilers in the proper tags.
All righty! Laissez les bon temps rouler!
