Leader / Civ Picking Thread

[Sommerswerd]

Could everyone start giving some feedback about which ONE trait you think it is absolutely critical for us to have and why? Please only pick one, and please say why. Also, since this is just for me (as in I am asking everyone as a favor to me to do this) you dont have to say why if you already said why, since I read everything everyone already said. I will go first.

I want SPI most of all. A reason that I have not already said, is because given all the circumstances going on in this game, SPI will give us more Diplomatic power/leverage than any other trait we can pick. This game will be won by diplomacy, not wonders, REX, chops, espy, commerce, culture or science.

AMAZON won last game with a leader that was not FIN, ORG, CRE, EXP or SPI. What won the game was kick ass tactics by General 2metra, supported by rock-solid diplomacy that always put us on top of every dispute, disagreement etc in the game. We were the power brokers in the game, the one civ in the game that no one could mess with, because our military was strong and the treaties wouldn't allow it. That is why I want SPI most of all. In THIS game, it sends a message that we are to be dealt with diplomatically, not militarily and not covertly.

 

[bistrita]

Please no, Spi, creativ its the worse combo ever,you pick spiritual to use more caste sistem, to use religion to pop borders so: Spi ,Cre its realy bad as cre denies one of the uses of Spi.

Sommer hope you dont take this personaly but your post has so many 'faults'

Race to Stonehenge - The team that gets Stonehenge will have to beeline it, by settling and immediately starting it, or go Worker, then Stonehenge, and use the Worker to Chop it. Stonehenge is 60 on Normal speed IIRC so thats 3 chops (20 each). Our fast worker does that in 9 turns flat. The other teams all take 12 turns minimum, because they lose 1 turn everytime they enter a forest.

Stonehenge its 120 hammers, so not tha easy to chop.

You're absolutely right. Frankly, given the fact that 4 opponents are starting the game with Mysticism, I'd say we are in for 3 races right off the bat (SH, Meditation, Polytheism), and we can only win 1 of them.

Why do you want a race? When there is a solution to get a religion later and be 90% sure about it?

So that means we get SH on turn 24 going Worker-->SH chop. So at a glance it seems EXP does not help us here, as getting the Worker faster only means the worker sits waiting longer for BW to finish. We could add 15 hammers to SH by just working the Capital 1 + 2 forest, waiting for BW for 5 turns but that does not save a chop as chops are 20 hammers, not 15. If we are EXP though, it does save a Chop as those extra 2 turns mean 6 more , so now we only need 2 Chops instead of three, which means 3 less turns of worker action. So 15 turns to BW + 6 turns chopping = SH on turn 21 with EXP.

Waiting for bw to came worker can build a mine on hill without a forest and i am prety sure we will have at least one of those.

Going religion first its a very bad move , no worker techs no food improved we will fall behind with financial or not, nothing will save us.

Going creativ, expansiv we will not worry about early religions, other will race and loos thies, not worry about stonehenge, we will get all workers techs we need firs and make a fast run to math for even beter chops.we will be one of first civs to second city and we can plant that as we want not depeping on a monument.We can get very fast libraries and if the capitol has good cottage potential we can get a fast academy.

 

[bistrita]

Question: how spritual will gave us power in diplomay? This is not Sp to change to other religion to get them happy.

 

[Sommerswerd]

No no no! I don't take your words personal. Don't misunderstand my post. I am not trying to convince anyone. I am telling you what my thoughts are so you can look and tell me where I am wrong and where I am right. If my post has faults tell me what they are. I want to know!

Now I will read the rest of what you said

 

[bistrita]

AMAZON won last game with a leader that was not FIN, ORG, CRE, EXP or SPI. What won the game was kick ass tactics by General 2metra, supported by rock-solid diplomacy that always put us on top of every dispute, disagreement etc in the game. We were the power brokers in the game, the one civ in the game that no one could mess with, because our military was strong and the treaties wouldn't allow it. That is why I want SPI most of all. In THIS game, it sends a message that we are to be dealt with diplomatically, not militarily and not covertly.
____________

First , if you think oponets will so light like last time you wrong.
Second, this is not a TT game if you fall behind you dead you cant catch up .
I read other people thread in that game and lets say just this they didnt played 'good' played like SP like our were AI's and i can asure you RB players at elast far better than everithing what i read there.

I played and won over 10 pbemes with NTT and i was even atacked by 4-5 playes at same time , but i had destroyes or infanteries and they dont and they couldnt do nothing, so dont foul yourself thinking will be like last game.
I can say for example in turn 40 Rb will have 3 cities , 2,3 workers and if the snowball starts you cant do nothing to stop it.

 

[vranasm]

financial as strongest economy trait

but I agree with sommerswerd that MP games can be won with (or have to be) human manipulation then anything pure civ gameplay based.

One could argue that it's not important what we pick then, but still we should at least be viewed as strong competitor and financial trait is something that will be seen as mandatory and strength by other teams.

 

[vranasm]

I can say for example in turn 40 Rb will have 3 cities , 2,3 workers and if the snowball starts you cant do nothing to stop it.

no way on normal speed.

how much time we will get to discuss where to settle? I plan to make some test game where i want to test different openings.

 

[Sommerswerd]

OK I see now that SH is 120 hammers my mistake. I guess the nice thing about writing out your thoughts is others can correct you quickly when you are wrong.

So what you are saying about CRE, SPI is that it is a bad combo because when using SPI you use religion to pop borders. OK, so if we use SPI, then we don't need CRE. So how about Isabella SPI, EXP?

 

[bistrita]

but I agree with sommerswerd that MP games can be won with (or have to be) human manipulation then anything pure civ gameplay based.

Rb will do theyr part of that and this is NTT game you can manipulate as much as you want if you are way behind.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I can say for example in turn 40 Rb will have 3 cities , 2,3 workers and if the snowball starts you cant do nothing to stop it.

That sounds good to me. But RB is Pacal FIN,EXP of Egypt. They are not CRE either. So that's means we dont need CRE to get 3 cities by turn 40 right, just EXP? But we dont need EXP because we have fast workers.

I wish someone would test getting 3 cities from the same start on Normal speed with Pacal of Egypt, Mansa Musa of India, and Isabella of India and see what the result is. You could also try Sury and Zara and Asoka too to see if there is any difference between them.

 

[vranasm]

That sounds good to me. But RB is Pacal FIN,EXP of Egypt. They are not CRE either. So that's means we dont need CRE to get 3 cities by turn 40 right, just EXP? But we dont need EXP because we have fast workers.

I wish someone would test getting 3 cities from the same start on Normal speed with Pacal of Egypt, Mansa Musa of India, and Isabella of India and see what the result is. You could also try Sury and Zara and Asoka too to see if there is any difference between them.

unless we see the real start the result of test wouldn't hold much value, but if you have the willpower to generate some i think i can take some view on it...

 

[Sommerswerd]

Fast Worker, no EXP = worker in 10 turns 1 chop in 3 turns (13 total) 3 chops in 9 turns = 19turns total

Worker w/EXP = Worker in 8 turns 1 chop in 4 turns (12 total) 3 chops in 12 turns = 20 turns total

So after 3 chops, the Fast Worker is better than EXP.

 

[vranasm]

Fast Worker, no EXP = worker in 10 turns 1 chop in 3 turns (13 total) 3 chops in 9 turns = 19turns total

Worker w/EXP = Worker in 8 turns 1 chop in 4 turns (12 total) 3 chops in 12 turns = 20 turns total

So after 3 chops, the Fast Worker is better than EXP.

dunno what you calculate but this definitely is not timing of typical normal speed game...

worker costs 60H

if you have 4 hammers (typical start) you get worker 15 turns
if you start on PH/ivory (5 hammers) you get worker 12 turns

if you're expansive

4 hammers start yields worker 12 turns
5 hammers start yields worker 10 turns

but if you start with AH resource as food in BFC and have leader without agri/hunting aiming for 10 turns worker can be waste

 

[Sommerswerd]

if you have 4 hammers (typical start) you get worker 15 turns
if you start on PH/ivory (5 hammers) you get worker 12 turns

if you're expansive

4 hammers start yields worker 12 turns
5 hammers start yields worker 10 turns

but if you start with AH resource as food in BFC and have leader without agri/hunting aiming for 10 turns worker can be waste

OK, glad somebody knows what they are talking about at least so:

Fast Worker, no EXP = worker in 15 turns 1 chop in 3 turns (18 total) 3 chops in 9 turns = 24 turns total... 4 chops 27 turns total

Worker w/EXP = Worker in 12 turns 1 chop in 4 turns (16 total) 3 chops in 12 turns = 24 turns total... 4 chops 28 turns total.

So after 3 chops the Fast Worker breaks even with EXP, at 4 chops, the Fast Worker is better than EXP.

Edit: NVM from right

 

[vranasm]

you work city tile (typical 2F1H1C), you work 1 more tile (flood plain riverside 3F1C, forrested hill 1F2H, 0F3H)

that's 2+1+3 "hammer" production -2F for feeding that 1 citizen = 4

edit:
if you get better city tile you produce more hammers, you can't produce more then 3 "hammers" with the free citizen.

settling on marble/stone can bring a lot bigger production in capital (like 3H city tile) and is heavily favored usually.

edit2:

the trick with expansive is you need to work REAL HAMMERS to get expansive bonus... so if you land in area with no forested hills (and now you prefer plains hill) you can't get bonus hammers for expansive

so the starting area surely defines how good expansive will be and at what point you unlock the expansive bonus and how big.

as you can see there are points where building normal worker and expansive worker takes the same number of turns if the 2 civs get a bit different starting location (expansive without access to hammer tiles comes to mind)

 

[2metraninja]

I'm deadly tired at the moment (actually just very tired, will not die out of exhaustion so it is exageration and pathos, but still I was 1/10 a second from a car crash on the highway with 160 km/h and this was just the beginning of a long day, so now I think to get my quality time instead of reading/arguing civ leader choice where I am not convinced myself, so I cant give certain vote).

But one thing I can say about bistrita: He kicked the hell out of me with about 50% more point till medieval time (well, points can be deceiving, I know, but then he killed me with army too). And he was using what he believes is slower in development trait - FIN. I cant imagine what he can do with his desired tools CRE and EXP.

Just a hint how his words and opinion on game mechanics can be valued.

 

[talonschild]

Ay, caramba.

Okay. Well. This is... fun.

My must-have trait is Spiritual. Establish us as an espionage powerhouse and we can discourage espionage war.

Financial to keep up in tech would be excellent. Establishing ourselves as a technological power and by extension a military power will discourage a military attack.

That leaves one avenue of vulnerability - diplomatic. Our gameplay will have to make that up, but it would need to anyhow, for no trait gives us charisma outside the game.

For this reason I support Mansa Musa. Fin, Spi. I would be willing to abandon Stonehenge for an early religion. As for a slow start, our UU will ameliorate that somewhat - and seriously, how fast do you expect other teams like Elizabeth of the Ottomans to expand? We might not blaze ahead like RB, but we won't be left a pathetic 9th. We'll make up the ground later as we emphasize diplomacy.

 

[Aivoturso]

Financial. Unless we are going strictly for specialist economy (which I understood we are not), it'd be foolish not to take FIN. We can't really afford being left behind in research. So viable options are Mansa Musa, Hyana Capac and Victoria (FIN/IMP, excellent for REXing I believe).

This goes a bit to general strategy level, but since we have both, mysticism and mining in the beginning, we are in perfect position also to rush for Great Wall. We get all the bonuses for researching Masonry. Unless Civforum.de picks IND leader and we don't, no one can contest us for GW assuming relatively fair starts.

 

[YossarianLives]

Could everyone start giving some feedback about which ONE trait you think it is absolutely critical for us to have and why? Please only pick one, and please say why.

EXP, for the reasons I have mentioned.

I'll go into a longer post now, but I wanted to get Sommers question answered first.

First, I wanted to say that I really enjoy all the discussion going into our choice. Its excellent to read everyone's reasoning for the very different preferences that are being expressed. I'm learning a lot through this process. I'm looking forward to such robust discussions on other decisions we will need to make throughout this game! That said, I notice that Apolyton has made their choice now, too, so maybe we should say something in the Planning thread to acknowledge that we know we're up? I agree that we can take more time than 24 hours if needed, as other teams got this, and it is a very important choice we're making.

I think part of the reason that this decision has been tough is because there are a lot of really good leaders left on the table for us. Whichever way we go, we'll end up with a strong leader, and as has been mentioned, the game will rely more on good diplomacy than the "right" leader pick, so I'll be happy with whoever we end up with (well, with most of the leaders that are being considered, at any rate).

I've been going back and forth on my vote for leader. I strongly feel that Civ is all about the snowball effect, and did have concerns that Mansa would give us too slow of a start. However, when there was little traction for EXP, and it seemed to be b/w Mansa and HC, I wanted my vote to count and think Mansa is the better option. If Isabella and/or Surry are being considered, though, I do think they might be better choices. It would mean we are giving up FIN, which as others have pointed out will be a steep price to pay, but a faster start is probably better long-term than having a FIN civ.

I admit I have little understanding about how civic upkeep is calculated, so I might undervalue ORG. I think maintenance will be killer on this map, but ORG doesn't affect maintenance early enough in the game to impress me too much.

And finally, I would be very cautious about choosing which races to enter. I think we are up against some top-notch competition here, so races for wonders or religions will require intense optimization in order for us to pull it off.

 

[talonschild]

Indeed, Yossarian.

I would be glad to play with any leader on the table. I confess I may be undervaluing bistrita's opinion simply because he has yet to establish a strong presence on the team. That being said, my ideal pick is still Mansa. I am warming up to EXP, though, so Isabella would be very good, too.

Not that Huayna, Hatshepsut, Asoka, or even Suryavarman or Zara Yaqob would be horrible.

Suryavarman's kinda an ugly bastard, though.