Leader / Civ Picking Thread

[2metraninja]

Unless you think outside the box. What if we were to forge a tech trading alliance where trading is done with espionage? It could work like this:

1. Teams A and B create a Great Spy and zounds of normal spies.
2. Teams sychronize their teching relatively far in the future. Both keep EP:s towards the other player to the minimum.
3. Team A dumps the Great Spy to team B's city and uses all EPs gained to steal unresearched techs.
4. When team A's EPs are spent, team B repeats the process.

This is completely untested method as I just came up with the idea. Obvious drawback compared to tech trading is that trading is not instantaneous. So for limited period of time there may be unwanted gaps in the tech tree. This also requires a trustworthy ally and at least NAP until "trade" is complete.

Compared to normal tech stealing this method would be much cheaper if the teams can agree to keep EP as close to zero as possible before the exchange.

I like your way of thinking. And this is not untested at all. I myself am using this for many games, currently using it too. And I know a lot about the ways to be implemented.

One glitch is that it becomes hard for the one partner to steal techs, because the other have way too many "espionage points spent" factor. It does not matters how many espionage you spend on specific player, but cumulative all point you ever generated.

 

[Aivoturso]

Maybe I should have phrased it as "I have not tested this at all and don't know if it'll work in practice." Anyhow, thinking it a bit further, an obvious workaround for rising costs is a circle of friends. E.g. A steals from B, B from C, and C from A. And this wouldn't even need GS, as my reasoning for using those was based on incorrect assumption of bonuses depending on current EP ratio.

Difficult part in forging "Circular Tech Stealing Alliance" is that it would practically require a perma-alliance between all involved teams. And I'm still not sure whether this or just spending resources in science would be more efficient.

 

[2metraninja]

You are right that it requires the teams to be in somewhat permanent alliance for this to be implemented.

 

[vranasm]

You are right that it requires the teams to be in somewhat permanent alliance for this to be implemented.

there should be 4 teams not? making 3/4 world in one PA is somewhat ???

one idea I thought about after the mention of "they will come for us" was that if you choose as EP target civ behind another civ there is good chance that the target AI won't have so easy access to military actions.

There is problem with the distance multiplier though...
In SP there are usually used some bait gifted cities...not sure human opponent would fall for it :-D

 

[bistrita]

I think one of the setting decided was 2 axes world, so toroidal, and usualy the dificulty its picked prince, monarch so i thing for sure one trait whch can't be wrong its organizat.

I know there are alot of debates between ORG and financial and i read most of them
,but here we have to count that its MP game and you'll want buildings to finish realy fast so a plus for organizat, and how i see it from experience practicaly playing with organizat its like having a good shrine(just falow the cost of civic upkeep in game, and you'll see how those are growing), and faster corthose and faster getting espionaje its a big plus.

I know some SP are saying usualy saying a Courthose its not worth until yuo have like 8 gold in costs in a city , well i dont agree with espionage think like that you have abuilding which gaves 4 gold and 2-3 beakers, would you build that?i supose yes.

And what i realy think in MP organizat its the most underated trait, and having a toroidal world its just became the best.

Ps:
I cant wait the game to get started.

 

[talonschild]

I'd toss in a vote for Organized. Maybe Napoleon? Asoka? Frederick?

While I have a great affinity for the blunt instrument Cataphracts are, I suppose our rivals will have no difficulty building pikes. Ditto for conquistadors.

My preference is also to get an early religion, reinforcing those that start with mysticism.

I know that was in no way coherent. So, to summarize: Organized and Early Religion Friendly get my votes. Combining with above posts perhaps Darius or Frederick would be good picks. Civwise, I like UUs that are blunt instruments, strong. Bonus points for fast. Cataphracts and Conquistadors, for instance.

 

[Sommerswerd]

OK gents. We have our picking order...

The order is this one:

1. Team WePlayCiv
2. Team Civforum.de
3. Team Apolyton
4. Team Spanish Apolyton
5. Team Civfanatics
6. Team CivPlayers
7. Team Realms Beyond
8. Team UniversCivilization
9. Team Civfr
10.Team Civfr
11.Team UniversCivilization
12.Team Realms Beyond
13.Team CivPlayers
14.Team Civfanatics
15.Team Spanish Apolyton
16.Team Apolyton
17.Team Civforum.de
18.Team WePlayCiv

So we are right in the middle for both rounds.

That means we need to pick our top 5 leaders and our top 5 Civs for round 1. Then we can make an adjustment for round 2 based on what we get in round 1.

 

[talonschild]

Should we discuss more, or set up a poll? Maybe poll for preferred traits, to narrow down our focus on leaders?

 

[bistrita]

5 place is good that means we can land one of these for sure:
1.Darius
2.Pacal
3.India
4.whilem
5.inca

So will have a very good option anyway and depending what we can get from those we will make decision for second round.

I would prefer getting our leader civ to be more a debate than a simple poll.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Well there are a few too many leaders to poll from scratch right? I would like to rank my fav traits

1. FIN - 4 points
2. PHI - 3 points
3. IND - 2 points
4. CRE - 1 point

So that makes:

1. Lizzy - 7 points
2. Capac - 6 points
3. Wilhelm - 5 points
4. Pericles - 4 points
5. Louis - 3 points

Obviously that's just my opinion, and does not address synergy between UB's UU's, starting tech etc.

 

[Aivoturso]

Just to clarify, will snake pick be executed so that first everyone everyone pics a leader and then civ (or vice versa)? Or does everyone in the first round get to select whichever from the remaining first and then the second on the last round?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Another thing to consider is maybe we want to use our pick to get a particular Civ rather than a leader. I would like these for different reasons, but mostly because they have early UB's that you always build in every city:

1. Mali
2. Inca
3. Sumeria
4. Zulu
5. Egypt
6. India - for the best UU

EDIT -xpost - Yea you get to choose whether to pick your Civ or leader.

 

[Aivoturso]

Seems that there is the same confusion in the public forum as well So if everyone gets to choose (except the last picker) we get at least top 3 pick on either leader or civ. If we want to stick onto one (e.g. we definitely want to pick leader first), we'll get at least top 5 on our preference.

For the second pick, we can actually be anywhere from 5th to last. So if we don't want last or second to las pick on either, we'd have to select whether to pick civ/leader first based on what majority before us have selected.

All in all though I'd say we got quite lucky on the draw as we get some room to manouver on our selections.

 

[talonschild]

I'll trait-rank, too:

Org 3
Fin 2
Phi 2
Spi 1
Chm 1
Agg 1

giving Darius, Frederick 5
Elizabeth, Asoka, Napoleon, Hammurabi 4

civwise, I approve of strong, 'blunt-instrument' UUs, like Rome, Byzantium, Spain, England, or maybe Ethiopia

 

[YossarianLives]

What about the idea that a UB or UU that you always build and build early (like Terrace, Mint or Ziggurat) will help you all game, and that a small benefit early and all game helps you exponetially more than a big benefit later in the game?

Or a UU that you can use to your advantage all game (like Fast worker) or for an early advantage (like Dogs)? Aren't early benefits always superiour to late ones?

I definitely think we need to pick a leader/civ that will give early or all-game advantages. Imo, financial and expansive are by far the most powerful traits, and we should try to get at least one of those two. As for Civ, we should consider starting techs that will give faster openings, such as Agri for farms or mining for bw (chopping and slaving are HUGE in the early game, not to mention knowledge of where to find copper for city placement). The snowball effect is very important, so an early advantage is much more important than a late game advantage imo. Also, fast workers are way op for their ability to build unexpected roads on neutral forests/hills when attacking.

 

[YossarianLives]

And since expansive hasn't been mentioned by others, I'll explain why I think it's important. Slavery is the fastest way to get production in the early game, and granaries double the power of slavery, so granaries are definitely needed in all cities (I would argue as the first build in most cases). Faster granaries are. Also, faster workers mean faster improvements. If we can start with a plains hill forest and expansive, that shaves a few turns off of that first worker, allowing us to start improving our land before any other teams. Even if we don't start with a plains hill forest in the bfc, we'll be building lots of workers, so expansive is powerful no matter what.
So to give an order of traits:
Fin 5
Exp 4
Ind 3 (primarily for faster forges, needed in most cities)
Creative 2 (border pops without otherwise useless monuments and faster libraries)
Spiritual 1 (to abuse constant civic switches, especially if we go with a SE)
Philology 1 (if we decide to go a SE, but then we need to go for the 'mids)

 

[cav scout]

So what is more important to us- getting the leader we want or getting the Civ we want?

I think we should scoop up a Financial leader no matter what on the first go around.

I would go for the one of following in this order of preference:

1. Elizabeth (Financial, Philosphical)
2. Pacal (Financial, Expansive)
3. Darius (Financial, Organized)
4. Hannibal (Financial, Charismatic)
5. Huayna Capac (Financial, Industrious)

Once the first round is over we can see what Civs are remaining and make a new preference list for the second round.

 

[talonschild]

Seems to be a consensus thus far that a leader is more important at present. I support the above post with Darius and Pacal swapped.

 

[bistrita]

Seems to be a consensus thus far that a leader is more important at present. I support the above post with Darius and Pacal swapped.

Its my opinion if cant get one off the above we should pick india,and take care to getan an expansiv leader with it like:Suryanam or Mehemed.

About picking Elizabeth I dont rank her that good, becasue her traits dont love each other and because its a very slow starter and very slow to develop: no half price building until education not like expansiv where we get : 25% on worker,half granary,i dont count harbor,organizat which again i want to remember , beeing a torroidal map we will have to get to courthose ASap,lighose and getting all the time some gold from Civic upkeep saving.I think even industrious its beter paired with financial then philo.

About that we need to get a financial i dont necesay agree, for example i would consider mehemed of inca very strong and very flexibil to play.

 

[2metraninja]

I dont really think we will end up with toroidal map. People are not used to it at all and will most probably not support such option. If we do end up with toroidal map, ORG is a must.