Leader / Civ Picking Thread

Mansa Musa is great as allrounder. Won't be a bad decision, I think.

Surry is great if we have space to expand fast or if we are locked in but have a lot of ressources (where we'll build no cottages)

I'd rather leave the choice to the ones who will be involved in big strategy, as I won't be (or rather: I'd leave a comment here or there but am not skilled enough to form a plan)

So I agree that the choice should be one of those two, but who is better depends on the map.

I agree with you. Mostly, I would prefer Mansa Musa more than Suryavarman. But, if map is really big, with place for many cities, then Suryavarman could be even better.
 
Hey talons, I changed my vote to Surry. Just wanted to make sure you don't miss it in the other thread.
 
Just played the Surry save through T50. I got

-4 cities (on t46)
-5 fast workers
-6 warriors
-3 granaries
-2 cottages
-Researched Agri, BW, Wheel, Pottery

Pretty much killed my economy by t50, but with cottages and granaries just coming online, I think I could start recovering on that front pretty quickly. Haven't tried Mansa yet, but I do think Surry's start would be faster for us.

Also, I kinda cheated by settling on marble, giving a super-production start that we won't be able to replicate in the real game.
 

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Thank you. Though I do check that thread, you know ;)

Haha, I know. Just wasn't sure how easy it is to catch the edits, since the thread doesn't get updated with a new post.

It looks like you took a vote away from Mansa instead of Izzy. My count is 4.5 vs 2.5.
 
Here's my Mansa save. I had to play to T51 to get the fourth city planted:

-4 cities
-3 fast workers
-3 warriors
-2 cottages
-no infrastructure
-researched Agri, BW, Wheel, Pottery, 9 beakers shy of AH

To compare, here are my Surry results again.

Just played the Surry save through T50. I got

-4 cities (on t46)
-5 fast workers
-6 warriors
-3 granaries
-2 cottages
-Researched Agri, BW, Wheel, Pottery

Neither of Mansa's traits really got any use by t50, but my economy was going to be stronger post t50. Also, I did not settle on the marble this time, so that might explain a lot of the disparity. All in all, though, SURRY gave the much faster start, and my tests make me even more convinced that he's our best bet.
 

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That was a pretty rough estimation. Actually the number is a bit lower. But still, you have to be somewhat larger. The percentage depends on the land and tiles worked, at beaker % and number of cities and maintenance, so i just ended up with an estimate.

Fact remains, if you don't work more tiles, you're falling behind.
 
Size will not be everything. One saying I heard few times is: "When it comes to f&ck and fight, weight is not so important".

Like Sommerswerd already said who wins will depends on many things and tech rate and expansion are only 2 of those things.
 
Surely strategies that rely on us getting a rapid expansion are risky. Expansion can hit all sorts of limiting factors -- geography, diplomacy, etc. I support traits that offer an advantage all-game-long.

To me, fin is the biggie. I also actually like Ind for faster forges (though personally I prefer Phi for the great people -- sadly one of the other teams has already picked Lizzie).

Personally I've never been a fan of Spiritual -- to me it seems to be wasteful in that if you're forever changing civics you're probably not going to be able to maximise the advantage of any of them (eg, terrain improvements around cities don't instantly flip to the new stragegy).

Perhaps more importantly, SPI might also send the message to our potential diplo partners that we're going to be flighty and fickle.

But that's just my opinion. Others are keen on SPI, and seem to be making a solid case that they'll be able to work it to our advantage.
 
Ok, so I tried doing two starts from that save file again. This time I think I did a bit better, and I believe that these saves are consistent enough to make a comparison on. I made sure to settle the first city in the same spot, and followed a consistent strategy of tech and city placement, so the differences in these saves shouldn't be due to skill or strategy, just the leader selection.

The big thing that I got out of this exercise was the power of cultural. It definitely helps in the early game. It allowed me to begin improving tiles for my 2nd and 3rd city before the settler arrived, giving them an early boost. I was also able to get a farm up and running on some corn in my 2nd city without the delay, or wasted forest chop, of building a monument. And just as a quirk of the map, with cultural, my 3rd city was connected to the capital quickly, whereas it was left unconnected in the game without cultural.

Being expansionist helped with getting my granaries up, but the difference in worker production didn't seem too significant. I ended with the same number of workers, and similar improvements in both cases.

One thing I did differently from the other saves I've seen is I prioritized fishing, and an exploratory workboat. I believe it will be very important for us to meet other teams early and begin diplomacy. So I made my tech order: Agriculture, Bronze Working, Fishing, The Wheel, Pottery. In both games I finished all of those and was able to put a few turns on Animal Husbandry as well. In the game with Sury I got that workboat out at turn 39, for Mansa, turn 38, so practically the same.

With Sury I settled my 4th city on turn 50, with Mansa the settler was there, and ready to settle on turn 51. The Sury game has more progress towards granaries, and a more developed 2nd city, but I expect after turn 50 the financial bonus is going to come more heavily into play as those cottages come on line. The downside I see to Sury is that the economy is in pretty poor shape with 4 cities, Mansa will be able to dig out of that hole more quickly.

I think that will be more significant than the cultural bonus, and therefore I'm on board 100% for Mansa now.
 

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From the new leader choice thread:
Bit confused that the options in this thread seem to be different from the other one (where did all the HC votes go?) Anyway, I just voted HC on the other thread.

Some of us changed our votes in the original thread and some wanted to vote for leaders who weren't in the poll, so talons was keeping a running count, but it was confusing to try to keep up with everyone's preferences. Not everyone who originally voted has posted in the new thread (I think).


As someone who would prefer to see Sury picked, it seems to me that there is a clear majority forming around Mansa. There are still several people who have had an active voice in this thread that have not yet voted in the new leader choice thread. We should definitely wait until everyone feels they are ready to make their decision, but it is looking unlikely that any other leader can get more votes than Mansa (unless 2metra/bistrita can convince more people to switch to Sury!)
 
OK so this is where we are as best as I can determine from our private forum.

We have 20 members on the team, however Provlution and Halvgud havent done much posting, so I am thinking that they are not that interested in this particular issue at this time. So that's 18 potential players that might be interested in this. IIRC, Calis has not posted at all on this particular issue (leader choice), leaving 17. Caledorn has stated that he is fine with any pick made by 2metra or myself so we can count him for Sury, leaving 16 (I am defering for the purposes of counting, leaving 15). DaveShack AFAICT has not expressed any preference, leaving 14. Here is what we have. Correct me if I made any mistakes.

1. Grant2004 – Mansa
2. whb – Capac / FIN
3. Majic – Capac / IND
4. 2metra – Sury
5. Yossarian – Sury
6. Jovan – Mansa
7. Socraly – Mansa or Sury
8. Bistrita – Sury
9. Avioturso –Mansa
10. Talon – Mansa
11. Bowsling – Mansa
12. Vranasm – Mansa
13. Cav scout – Mansa
14. Tobiasn – Capac
15. Caledorn - Sury (by proxy - will support 2metra or Sommer's vote)
16. Sommers - Mansa or Sury
17. Calis - abstain
18. DaveShack - abstain
19. Halvgud - abstain
20. Provolution - abstain

So that's clear 7 Mansa, 3 Sury, 3 Capac. 4 for Sury if I defer Caledorns vote to 2metra. So even if you count myself and socraly for Sury, Mansa still has more votes than Sury. Now everyone knows that I favor Mansa Musa, however, I am truly willing to accept Sury if most people want him. But it seems that most on the team want Mansa.

I will pick Mansa for our team in about 10 hours unless the majority changes. I encourage everyone to use the test maps provided by vranasm and look at the test saves and keep the two practical considerations in mind. I don't think these are controversial, indeed, using the test saves showed me this pretty clearly.

1. With Sury we will get out to a faster start.
2. With Mansa we will have higher commerce.

The last thing I would like to do is encourage everyone to at least symbolically unite behind one leader choice. I encourage the ones choosing Capac to "renounce" him and choose Sury or Mansa. I also encourage those who have not given their opinion to support either Mansa or Sury.

Regardless of what the final choice is, I really, really would encourage everyone to have a "Great! Glad that's done, now let's go fight over the ruleset!" attitude as opposed to us arguing over the choice after its made or trying to re-poll it or any of that kind of thing.

Again, I will pick Mansa Musa in about 10 hrs if nothing changes. Now is the time to speak up if you have anything more to add.
 
Well said, Sommer! :)

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
 
Grant , sorry but i cant see how your saves are relevant,not a single cottage build,and thats the diference between mansa an sury, sury can setle how he wants, so comapring that way , ie kiping same city iste and everithing its not fair for surry.
 
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