Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 2 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4354542) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

This game will be played in Civ4, patched to v1.61.

You are cast in the role of Tokugawa, mighty leader of the Japanese. Tokugawa's brother has left the island city of Kyoto to avenge the death of his wife and only son. He has travelled to a distant land without finding their murderer. So the brother of Tokugawa will settle and found a new Japanese colony, and the Japanese have sworn to conquer the rest of civilization in order to hunt down and destroy their enemy.

The game is on a Standard size fractal map, modified as only Gyathaar knows how, at Epic speed. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the fastest teams to achieve a Conquest victory. The number of AI rivals has not yet been revealed. It will be played using version 1.61 of Civ4 with locked modified assets.

Individual start files for all teams will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) at midnight, server local time, at the start of August 8th.

Here's the start position.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM02_start.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Tokugawa of Japan
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, hand modified
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - YES!
Barbarians - Raging!!

Please visit the following link to ensure that you are adequately prepared:
Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439)

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization IV v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by Conquest.

C. All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

I'm sure you'll enjoy this game :D

I guess we need to check in.

New Team 1:

Murky
Big Pig
cas
johnpaulcain
Mitiu Ioan
nfora
Riker

Should we try to come up with a cool sounding team name or just leave it as is?

New Team 1 would be too confusing, as we already have Team One. If you don't give me an alternative it'll be Murky

O.k. - any proposal for a new name ?

Something like "Courageous newcommers" ? :)

Regards all

Hi guys

Looking forward to gaming with you all. This is my first SGOTM, should be excellent.

A little background always help's otherwise we are all just usernames! I am 28, from Milton Keynes in England, married, like football and have just moved house so playing is really gonna upset the old wife!

That sounds like an advert in the dating section of the local newspaper!

With regard to the name we may want something we can use in future games. In case we really enjoy this that is!

OK, looking at the user names I reckon Big Pig has the coolest name. How about "Pig Raiders" or "Raiding Pig's"!

Sounds cool to me!

Checking In!

Hi everyone. It's a pity - I thought 'New Team 1' had quite a nice ring to it, but it seems Alan H was quite adamant about not using it (5 posts!!). I'm not sure about 'Courageous Newcomers' as: 1. We'll probably end up cowering in fear in the island city of Kyoto;, 2. If we manage to stick together to SGOTM 5 or so, we'll be 'Courageous Old-timers' If you want a pig name, 'Swine Fever' has a nice ring to it :rolleyes: but I'm sure we can come up with a better and non-porcine name. 'Murky Waters' sounds pretty good too

Regarding the game, it looks like a complete pig of a start ('scuse the pun). I generated a test game which I'll try to post this evening (UK time); settling a new city immediately knocks the research rate to ~50% due to the astronomic maintenance costs, and of course being a 2nd city, it won't start expanding until we get some culture-producing buildings. And as for the barbs........ So, we need a good plan to start off the game - maybe delay settling until we get a few techs under our belt, or even try to move the settler and warrior nearer to Kyoto (trying to avoid too many raging bears on the way....)

And what's the deal with an unknown number of rivals?

It's a pity - I thought 'New Team 1' had quite a nice ring to it, but it seems Alan H was quite adamant about not using it (5 posts!!).
:lol: Sorry about the "spam". The forums seem to have gone into overload while I was posting. I've deleted them.

Checking in!

"Murky Waters" doesn't sound too bad for a team name, as though our play style will be dark and mysterious (that should help hide some of my :smoke: :p ).

I think moving our palace may be in order here, depending on the amount of land around the settler. Of course we could always just delete the settler and wait until Astronomy to settle anything… sort of an OCC without a good start for the first half of the game :lol: .
A little background always help's otherwise we are all just usernames!
20 from New Brunswick Canada, Classics major and CS minor, finishing summer exams just a few days after the game starts!

Checking In!

Hi everyone. It's a pity - I thought 'New Team 1' had quite a nice ring to it, but it seems Alan H was quite adamant about not using it (5 posts!!). I'm not sure about 'Courageous Newcomers' as: 1. We'll probably end up cowering in fear in the island city of Kyoto;, 2. If we manage to stick together to SGOTM 5 or so, we'll be 'Courageous Old-timers' If you want a pig name, 'Swine Fever' has a nice ring to it :rolleyes: but I'm sure we can come up with a better and non-porcine name. 'Murky Waters' sounds pretty good too

Regarding the game, it looks like a complete pig of a start ('scuse the pun). I generated a test game which I'll try to post this evening (UK time); settling a new city immediately knocks the research rate to ~50% due to the astronomic maintenance costs, and of course being a 2nd city, it won't start expanding until we get some culture-producing buildings. And as for the barbs........ So, we need a good plan to start off the game - maybe delay settling until we get a few techs under our belt, or even try to move the settler and warrior nearer to Kyoto (trying to avoid too many raging bears on the way....)

And what's the deal with an unknown number of rivals?

Nice name ideas so far. What about Shogun Showdown or Dogs of War?

I would think that settling 1nw would be the best bet. This way you get the fish, which would be nice since Tokugawa starts with fishing. Note also that we have the organized trait which means settling should be ok. Also, since it's a wrap-around map, it's not really that far.

"Murky Waters" doesn't sound too bad for a team name, as though our play style will be dark and mysterious

Unfathomable, anyway

I think moving our palace may be in order here, depending on the amount of land around the settler.

Agreed - tho' I think that requires masonry and a lot of hammers

I would think that settling 1nw would be the best bet. This way you get the fish, which would be nice since Tokugawa starts with fishing.

Yes, but it will take some time to expand to the fat cross. If we decide to settle immediately, maybe 2N would be better as that allows us access to the rice as soon as we know agriculture

we have the organized trait which means settling should be ok.

That's what I thought too before I tried a practice game. Anyway, I'll try to post it tonight so you can see what you think

Don't forget that we can research pottery right away and those river tiles will help. We should also shoot for sailing early on to get the trade route income going. We're going to need to do some serious fog-busting though.

Yes, but it will take some time to expand to the fat cross. If we decide to settle immediately, maybe 2N would be better as that allows us access to the rice as soon as we know agriculture

With raging barbs I don't think we can afford to wait another turn to settle.

Is there a way to tell just how far away the settler is from Kyoto without settling him and checking the maintenance? I can't think of one, and the tests I just ran show that we could have anything from a maintenance of 1 all the way up to 6 or 7 on a standard map, meaning we could hit as low as 40% science from the start. We can recover from it eventually, but if we're forced to 40% science pottery could take 45 turns to come in (it would go down as the cities grow, but still!).

I counted approx 9 tiles between the two cities. If we pop a goodie hut or two we should be good for getting pottery.

Goody huts might be a big 'if' in a hand modified Gyathaar creation!

I think Murky Waters sounds OK. Shall we agree on that so we can start concentrating on the good stuff?

Haven't paid too much attention to the start game yet, I will look tonight. Not sure why moving the palace is that much of a benefit in Civ IV(i.e corruption is gone)? Maybe someone can explain. I am aware of increased maintenance costs e.t.c but these are manageable, If we are going to do it at all it would be later as we need a very good start on Emperor, concentrating on moving the palace will be an unwanted distraction.

Just my thoughts, this is where I start taking a battering I feel!:)

Also we should always have the science sliders on 0% or 100% to avoid waste.

I just did some calculations based on the low quality minimap we see; calculations that probably have little to do with reality, but I'll let you all know what I've come up with.

The visible tiles around Kyoto (5 tiles vertically) make up about 1/6th of the minimap. A standard size fractal map I pulled up had close to 60 tiles horizontally total, rather than the 30 you would expect from the scale above. the two cities are about the height of the minimap apart (a bit more actually), so they would actually be around 60 tiles apart. On my test map that meant that the cities were actually about 32 tiles apart (in the opposite direction). Maintenance for the second city was 6gpt, breakeven point was 60% science with pottery in 23.

I'm not sure if all this really means anything, but the minimap actually looked fairly similar to the one we were given.


http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/8126/minimaptestwn1.th.jpg (http://img356.imageshack.us/my.php?image=minimaptestwn1.jpg)

I counted approx 9 tiles between the two cities. If we pop a goodie hut or two we should be good for getting pottery.

I agree with nfora. I make it roughly 30 tiles (the clear area on the world view map around Kyoto is 5 squares, so you can roughly work out how many 5-square blocks it is between there and the settler). That's a lot of maintenance and a big hit on the science. Also maintenance is going to be even higher for subsequent cities - unless we move the capital.

If we are going to do it at all it would be later as we need a very good start on Emperor.

I think its Monarch - but that's still hard enough!!!

I agree with nfora.

Although after re-reading his post, not his logic:p
Remember that before calendar you don't see the whole world map to scale - so there may be areas west of Kyoto and east of the settler that aren't shown on the mini-map

Although after re-reading his post, not his logic:p
Remember that before calendar you don't see the whole world map to scale - so there may be areas west of Kyoto and east of the settler that aren't shown on the mini-map

I based the numbers on the distance east of Kyoto and west of the settler, not the other way around, and extrapolated what the other distance would be (it happens to be the shorter one). I only used one test map so I'm not sure if the sizes I had are relevant or not. I think that at least the inner distance between the settler and city should be to scale.... maybe?

Regardless I am fairly sure it's more than a 9 tile separation we have to worry about, and I think we should count on a sizeable maintenance cost.

It's definitely too early to decide whether moving the palace is worth it though, we will need to do some exploring first to see whether we will have enough cities around the settler to make it worth the hammers.

We'll probably just have to play some test games with the same setup to get an idea of how much maintence will cost and how much it is going to affect research. Murky Water's is ok with me if the rest of you are ok with it.

Although after re-reading his post, not his logic:p
Remember that before calendar you don't see the whole world map to scale - so there may be areas west of Kyoto and east of the settler that aren't shown on the mini-map
I based the numbers on the distance east of Kyoto and west of the settler, not the other way around, and extrapolated what the other distance would be (it happens to be the shorter one). I only used one test map so I'm not sure if the sizes I had are relevant or not. I think that at least the inner distance between the settler and city should be to scale.... maybe?

Regardless I am fairly sure it's more than a 9 tile separation we have to worry about, and I think we should count on a sizeable maintenance cost.

It's definitely too early to decide whether moving the palace is worth it though, we will need to do some exploring first to see whether we will have enough cities around the settler to make it worth the hammers.

Oops you guys are both right. :blush: I wasn't thinking about not seeing the whole map yet.

Still, I think to delay settling would invite disaster from the raging barbarian hordes.

Well, its certainly a gamble. In my tests, the barbs show up around 2500BC (animals before that) - and enter cultural boundaries immediately:eek:

But, if we beeline bronze-working or archery before settling, we can get them researched sooner and maybe have more anti-barb defence in place before they show up

Well, its certainly a gamble. In my tests, the barbs show up around 2500BC (animals before that) - and enter cultural boundaries immediately:eek:

But, if we beeline bronze-working or archery before settling, we can get them researched sooner and maybe have more anti-barb defence in place before they show up

This is going to require some testing but I think warriors as fog-busters will be more effective than a few axemen trying to fend off overwhelming numbers of archers and axemen.

Eying the screenshot again, I counted somewhere between 24-26 tiles distance.

Checking in!

Team name Murky Waters is fine by me.

Haven't formed a strategy opinion yet...too busy losing CIV4 GOTM-9. :lol: I don't play conquest style or Japan or raging barbs...so this game should be quite interesting for me.

short bio: 35, live in Phoenix AZ, work in sales, and I also like football. American, of course...not that English kind :p

cas

Checking in!

Team name Murky Waters is fine by me.

Haven't formed a strategy opinion yet...too busy losing CIV GOTM-9. :lol: I don't play conquest style or Japan or raging barbs...so this game should be quite interesting for me.

short bio: 35, live in Phoenix AZ, work in sales, and I also like football. American, of course...not that English kind :p

cas

Nice. I'm 35 too. I live in the mid-west and work as a technical manager.

36, :old: live in London (UK, not Ontario.....), work as a hospital doc

Well, its certainly a gamble. In my tests, the barbs show up around 2500BC (animals before that) - and enter cultural boundaries immediately:eek:

But, if we beeline bronze-working or archery before settling, we can get them researched sooner and maybe have more anti-barb defence in place before they show up

We definitely need some early defense (I thinkn we can discout an early religion), but I'm not sure about waiting to settle. Unless we want to move the settler around with the warrior, exploration would be cut back a lot.

...not that English kind :p

The original and the best!!!!:mischief:

@Murky: do you want to PM Alan and tell him our new team name?

The original and the best!!!!:mischief:

@Murky: do you want to PM Alan and tell him our new team name?

Sure. Is everyone in favor of "Murky Waters?"

We definitely need some early defense (I thinkn we can discout an early religion), but I'm not sure about waiting to settle. Unless we want to move the settler around with the warrior, exploration would be cut back a lot.

We're certainly not going to do much expanding with the Island city so settling on turn 1 or 2 is a must I think.

Pity we're not the Incas - those early quechuas would have come in handy.

In a normal Civ4 game settling in the 1st couple of turns is obviously important to get tech research going and to start building things. Here tech research (initially) is going to be faster by not settling - but of course we have to balance that against the need for expansion and security

Hmmm. Not liking any of the 2nd city options so far...

Settling in place = fresh water, fish is out of range even when the cross expands and wasting a fp tile which could be used for cottage.

2N = no fresh water, delay settling a turn, makes more fat cross tiles ocean when we need production.

1NW takes you off of fresh water (?), makes more fat cross tiles ocean, but allows for eventual rice & fish once the cross expands. But that is going to take a while if we churn out warriors for fog-busting.

Out of those options, I like 1NW the best....but I'm more inclined to move the settler inland and hope. Maybe take the warrior 1E to see if there is better land that way. If not, move the settler SW-ish along the river. Can't move too far or it creates another front for the barbs to attack (instead of having the sea to your back).

Dunno. Any thought to the research path ?

cas

Pity we're not the Incas - those early quechuas would have come in handy.


They are nice but Samarai are good in their own right. Once we get to that point, conquering the rest of the world should go relatively quick.


In a normal Civ4 game settling in the 1st couple of turns is obviously important to get tech research going and to start building things. Here tech research (initially) is going to be faster by not settling - but of course we have to balance that against the need for expansion and security

This is going to be a lot different from the normal game. I've seldom ever play with raging barbarians on. The normal ones are bad enough. I think expansion and security should priority this game.

Pity we're not the Incas - those early quechuas would have come in handy.

In a normal Civ4 game settling in the 1st couple of turns is obviously important to get tech research going and to start building things. Here tech research (initially) is going to be faster by not settling - but of course we have to balance that against the need for expansion and security

How does the game determine which city gets a religious center ? I had a crazy thought about going for Poly/Hindu first and settling the second city just before it hits...maybe give us time to explore and find a better location. But I'm not sure which city would get the Hindu. And then there are the barbies... :eek:

cas

Interesting thought. We should get there before barbs become a problem, but could easily be beaten too it by another civ. A holy city would almost certainly get put in the 2nd city - there is a formula on 1 of the threads for how it is decided (there's a link in Stormreaver's sig I think).

Without knowing how many AIs are out there and not having Mysticism, going for hindu or buddism would be a gamble with low odds of success.

We might get to nab confucianism because the AI rarely beelines for it.

What would you guys think about doing something like this.

Turn1:
Warrior moves Se1, if nothing of worth is there, settler moves 1nw and builds. Start researching pottery and start building a worker.

Turn2: Warrior continues scouting south-southeast.

The intitial goals will be to boost income through cottaging up the intial 2nd city and scouting/fogbusting with warriors.

After pottery we can then beeline writting for a library to boost science and culture. We could research Alphabet right away and start tech trading or we could just go for early techs like mysticism, mining, agriculture, etc.

We'll need sailing early on to protect our nets from barbarian galleys and increase trade income.

Without knowing how many AIs are out there and not having Mysticism, going for hindu or buddism would be a gamble with low odds of success.

We might get to nab confucianism because the AI rarely beelines for it.

Ooops. I just got through playing a couple of games with a civ that starts with Myst. Japan starts with wheel and fish, so Hindu is a not a good idea.

What would you guys think about doing something like this.

Turn1:
Warrior moves Se1, if nothing of worth is there, settler moves 1nw and builds. Start researching pottery and start building a worker.

Turn2: Warrior continues scouting south-southeast.



Any reason you want to explore south-southeast ? We are in the southern hemisphere so there should be more land to explore north. I would go generally east and then hook northish... of course Gyathaar could have really made an oddball landmass too. Or a smaller one that doesn't extend north.

cas

Ooops. I just got through playing a couple of games with a civ that starts with Myst. Japan starts with wheel and fish, so Hindu is a not a good idea.


This is a good time to brainstorm some ideas. With this type of game you have to think outside the normal game scheme so keep the ideas coming.


Any reason you want to explore south-southeast ? We are in the southern hemisphere so there should be more land to explore north. I would go generally east and then hook northish... of course Gyathaar could have really made an oddball landmass too. Or a smaller one that doesn't extend north.

cas

We should try to found our 3rd city somewhere east of the 2nd city for maintenance reasons. Even if we moved the capital then we would still suffer a huge maintenance penalty on the Island city.

We probably should try to connect the empire's culture up then move the palace to a central location later on.

Agree with researching pottery first thing, not sure about writing 2nd, I understand we need to get our culture up (with library) but with the number of forests and the hill 1NE and what looks like hills 2E I think mining and bronze working will be more useful for popping out wariors and rushing workers/setlers.

As far as exploring goes I think the hill 1E of the worker is the first move, you still get 1 more visibility from a hill dont you? Its not worth going north because it looks like coast.

Production: Worker, Work boat for exploring (I find these invaluable for exploring and trying to circumnavigate before barbarians pop up)?, warriors?

Agree with researching pottery first thing, not sure about writing 2nd, I understand we need to get our culture up (with library) but with the number of forests and the hill 1NE and what looks like hills 2E I think mining and bronze working will be more useful for popping out wariors and rushing workers/setlers.


I would agree with getting bronze working early but it could wait if we have sufficient fog-busters out.



As far as exploring goes I think the hill 1E of the worker is the first move, you still get 1 more visibility from a hill dont you? Its not worth going north because it looks like coast.



The far north looks like another river tile to me but I could be wrong. I like the hill idea instead of going se for more visability. There maybe something good up that way.


Production: Worker, Work boat for exploring (I find these invaluable for exploring and trying to circumnavigate before barbarians pop up)?, warriors?

I would hold off a bit on the work boat because our borders aren't going to expand to the fish until after we get some culture going. It might be useful to build one for exploring a bit later though.

I was thinking worker, warrior, warrior, settler...

I would agree with getting bronze working early but it could wait if we have sufficient fog-busters out.

True, Depends on how much land we have and whether or not we need to rush workers and setlers.


The far north looks like another river tile to me

You could be right there, good spot.:goodjob:

I would hold off a bit on the work boat because our borders aren't going to expand to the fish until after we get some culture going. It might be useful to build one for exploring a bit later though.

I usually use them just for exploring you can explore a lot quicker with 2 moves, they are also very useful for contact and getting a flyer on circumnavigation for the extra movement point. I have used this tactic on 2 recent games after spotting in it a SGOTM thread and have managed to bag circumnavigation both times and also have contact with most nations. It really was useful.

True, Depends on how much land we have and whether or not we need to rush workers and setlers.




You could be right there, good spot.:goodjob:



I usually use them just for exploring you can explore a lot quicker with 2 moves, they are also very useful for contact and getting a flyer on circumnavigation for the extra movement point. I have used this tactic on 2 recent games after spotting in it a SGOTM thread and have managed to bag circumnavigation both times and also have contact with most nations. It really was useful.

Hmm. We'll need to test it out first but it sounds promising. This could prove usefull because we really don't know what the rest of map looks like. It could a bunch of continents, islands or a pangaea aside from our Island city.

It would be nice to have a good idea of the shape of things early on.

The only thing that worries me is this raging barbarians setting. We may need that extra warrior for fog-busting.

Anyone notice the tiles north of Kyoto? Looks like there could be a landmass up there.

Here's a practice start with the same settings. Kyoto is around 25-30 squares from the settler. See what you think......

The only thing that worries me is this raging barbarians setting. We may need that extra warrior for fog-busting.

I have just found that out on GOTM9! Security is probably the right move. Maybe Worker/Warrior/Work Boat, the workboat option is a bit of a luxury, if there are other more useful things to build that fit in well with our strategy then we can forget it and wait for galleys, but it definately has benefits.

Anyone notice the tiles north of Kyoto? Looks like there could be a landmass up there.

I'd be surprised if Gyathaar put land that close to Kyoto - but you never know. Maybe the real save will be more revealing

Well, we seem to have stolen a march over the other new teams by getting our name sorted. So at least we are arguing about starting strategy, whilst they are still arguing about what to call themselves.....:lol:

Here's a practice start with the same settings. Kyoto is around 25-30 squares from the settler. See what you think......

Nice work! I'm finding the world builder to be frustrating, never have tried it before to any extent like attempt to recreate a starting save. How do you get rivers to cooperate?

OK, after some testing I have to re-think my initial strategy.

What we might do instead is have our settler/warrior migrate east towards Kyoto until we come close to another civilization's borders. We then settle close to their border and closer to our capital. While in route, we will have researched some more techs and popped a few huts. In one test, I got an extra technology by doing it this way and we were ahead of the AI in tech when the 2nd city is settled. Another thing is that we can research bronze working and then make sure we settle within range of it so we can axerush that bordering civilization. That is just one possibility. We have time to refine our strategy. I'm definately open to ideas.

OK, after some testing I have to re-think my initial strategy.

What we might do instead is have our settler/warrior migrate east towards Kyoto until we come close to another civilization's borders. We then settle close to their border and closer to our capital. While in route, we will have researched some more techs and popped a few huts. In one test, I got an extra technology by doing it this way and we were ahead of the AI in tech when the 2nd city is settled. Another thing is that we can research bronze working and then make sure we settle within range of it so we can axerush that bordering civilization. That is just one possibility. We have time to refine our strategy. I'm definately open to ideas.

I've already said I don't like the starting location for our 2nd city from what we can see. We'll have to stick to the forest/jungle/hills as much as possible. I expect some jungle to the northeast which usually has panthers and is also a bad location for an early city. Even if the warrior wins every animal battle, he may have to heal 3-5 turns before moving safely again. We might get lucky, or it might be a very slow slog journey. The other problem is the AI aggressive box is checked. If we run into a naturally warlike civ juiced by Gyathaar, we will get archer-rushed before producing any bronze units.

Upside to having another civ so close is we cut down one flank to defend/fog-bust barbs...even better if we could settle with the sea on another flank. In this 'go east' strategy the obvious choice is to research mining->BW first. Ideally we would find a good copper location near a less aggressive civ with lots of forests and a river...settle on a hill for defense (that's a lot to ask). Pump out a warrior & worker first...then chop/slave axemen for a rush.

All this is good ONLY IF we don't get ambushed on the way or rushed once we find a spot. I'm willing to take this risk. I just think it is quite a large one.

cas

Aaahhhh - I wrote a longe message and I lost it. :cry:

Try to summarise :

I played a little bit the practice game like this :

1. Move settler on the hill. If scouting with the warrior around will not find another better place I would like to settle there after 5-6 turns for :
a) defensive bonus ( important IMHO on a map with ragging barbarians settings ).
b) could work flood plain and rice area.
c) a lot of forest to chop on future.
2. Start researching Pottery ( obtained it after ~16 turns ). But I'm not very sure this is the ideal starting tech. Building our first cottage would take ~35 turns and is still just +1 gold and ... we are on a map with barbarians ... is this strategy really working on it ?
3. Scouting around with warriors - if find money from a hut will be perfect !
4. Build 2 WB on Kyoto. It reach pop 4 and became unhealthy. :(

Regards all

Anyway - I propose to disscus a little bit about what technology to research first.

I should admit that I have no clear ideea at this moment ... :(

I like the "Nomad" (Wondering East) idea. Full credit for thinking outside the box, I don't think animals appear straight away do they? Also we have the advantage of a city already plus a settler, am I right in assuming that other nations won't have this?

Beeline for BW sounds good (assuming we don't want a religion?) we don't need pottery until the 2nd city is founded. Once Kyoto has improved the Clam and Fish it will be a good city to pop rush I think.

We can minimise the risk of "nomading" by sending the warrior in front a little and keeping to hills so that animals with 2MP cant creep up on us!

By the way what's an english translation of Mitiu Ioan??

I like the "Nomad" (Wondering East) idea. Full credit for thinking outside the box, I don't think animals appear straight away do they?


In my practice game animal appears in the 5th or 6th round ... :(


By the way what's an english translation of Mitiu Ioan??

:D
It's my name - so ... no english translation exist for this ( or, if you really want one - is something like Tomcatic John :rolleyes: )

Regards all

I made some changes to the practice file to closer approximate the river situation. Still couldn't get it to appear exactly how it appears on the screenshot but I think that all the fresh water tiles are correct.

What we might do instead is have our settler/warrior migrate east towards Kyoto until we come close to another civilization's borders. We then settle close to their border and closer to our capital. While in route, we will have researched some more techs and popped a few huts. In one test, I got an extra technology by doing it this way and we were ahead of the AI in tech when the 2nd city is settled. Another thing is that we can research bronze working and then make sure we settle within range of it so we can axerush that bordering civilization. That is just one possibility. We have time to refine our strategy. I'm definately open to ideas.

I think that is generally a good plan - although I think west may be a shorter distance. Fractal maps tend to have long snaky continents so we should be able to move a fair distance east or west on foot - although of course this map has been hand modified so who knows. It will certainly give our tech research more of a boost than settling immediately. I wouldn't rely on getting goody huts. I suspect they will have been removed (I don't remember reading about them in the couple of threads for SGOTM1 I read). Also, with a warrior popping the huts there is always the risk of unleashing a horde of hostile natives - and then bye-bye settler!!

Bee-lining to BW to reveal copper to help us decide where to settle is a good plan (and to allow chopping and pop-rushing). Maybe we should even settle on the copper to avoid delays in building a worker - and copper mines always seem to attract hordes of barbs intent on trashing them! Hunting and archery should probably follow BW as archers are pretty cheap to build / pop-rush. Pottery, writing and alphabet would all be nice too!

I suspect there will be more than 6 rival civs (which is why Alan H isn't telling us how many there are - if it was a standard 6 civ start, I'm sure he would have said). So getting to alphabet asap for trading (after BW and archery) may be even more of an advantage. We might also want to bribe civs to go to war with each other as much as poss (to make our job easier for us) - I'm guessing this will be easier with aggressive AI?

We can minimise the risk of "nomading" by sending the warrior in front a little and keeping to hills so that animals with 2MP cant creep up on us!

I think it might be better to keep the settler with the warrior at least at the end of each turn (unless the warrior stumbles accross a bear maybe) - we don't want to run the risk of a 2MP animal ambushing the settler from behind

We should certainly stick to hills and forests as much as poss if we do go the nomad route. On the flat we should use the settler to move 1 square to scout if the area is clear before moving up the warrior - if the settler sees animals he can retreat back to the warrior with his extra movement point. And we should be prepared to settle if animals threaten an already injured warrior (as animals can't enter cultural borders)

Once Kyoto has improved the Clam and Fish it will be a good city to pop rush I think.

Yes - although until we know pottery and writing, there won't be much to build there. Kyoto will be limited to size 5 by happiness for a long time so we may as well whip them till they bleed!!!

The nomad plan may work in the short term, but we won't be able to wander for long. I think we will need to settle before the real barbs show up at the latest (maybe 3600?). Beelining to bronzeworking is a risk, especially since the barbarians will have archers very early. I played a bit on monarch last night (I'm a noble player so even holding my own was a challenge!) and had I not lucked out on the location of the copper I would have been taken out easily.

Another thing: is going worker first the right move if we were to settle nearby? If we go nw the worker won't have much of use to do for a long while.

I'd say we should either beeline bw as a risk, and hope for the best, or beeline archery for safety. Feel free to tell me I'm being paranoid though :p

The nomad plan may work in the short term, but we won't be able to wander for long. I think we will need to settle before the real barbs show up at the latest (maybe 3600?). Beelining to bronzeworking is a risk, especially since the barbarians will have archers very early. I played a bit on monarch last night (I'm a noble player so even holding my own was a challenge!) and had I not lucked out on the location of the copper I would have been taken out easily.

Another thing: is going worker first the right move if we were to settle nearby? If we go nw the worker won't have much of use to do for a long while.

I'd say we should either beeline bw as a risk, and hope for the best, or beeline archery for safety. Feel free to tell me I'm being paranoid though :p

I think barbs (including archers) start showing up (in droves...) around 2500BC - but we will want to settle a while before then to get some defensive units, and also get our pop up a bit in the 2nd city in case we need to pop-rush some emergency defence. I agree that beelining archery would be quicker than BW - if we plan to settle early we should probably go for archery (as our research will be slowed by settling). If we decide to go walkabout, it would be nice to be able to take the location of copper into account before deciding where to settle. BW also gives us the ability to poprush emergency defenders, and take advantage of Kyoto's rapid growth rate (but low happiness cap). Either way there should be enough time to beeline either of these before barbs show up.

One more alternate plan is settling earlier then just producing warriors until archery then produce archers until the barb situation is under control.

One more alternate plan is settling earlier then just producing warriors until archery then produce archers until the barb situation is under control.

Nope - this risk to cripple even more our research because of extra cost for additional warriors. :(

Anyway - what's the general impression on settling ?
I see the following alternatives :

1. Imediate - Settle the 2nd city in first or second turn.
2. Short-delay - Settle after/just before researching our first, "critical" tech ( we will discuss if this is Mining, Hunting or Pottery ).
3. Long-delay - Wander east/west with warrior as protection until discover one key resource ( Bronze or Horses if we choose to go to Hunting -> Animal Husbandry ) and settle near it.

Here could exist a combination of version 2 and 3 - 3.a. start to wander and if we found gold/silver on a hill settle nearby.

Could we vote on this alternatives or there is any other option ( 4, 5 ... etc ) ? If yes - please describe them. :)

Regards all

Nope - this risk to cripple even more our research because of extra cost for additional warriors. :(

Anyway - what's the general impression on settling ?
I see the following alternatives :

1. Imediate - Settle the 2nd city in first or second turn.
2. Short-delay - Settle after/just before researching our first, "critical" tech ( we will discuss if this is Mining, Hunting or Pottery ).
3. Long-delay - Wander east/west with warrior as protection until discover one key resource ( Bronze or Horses if we choose to go to Hunting -> Animal Husbandry ) and settle near it.

Here could exist a combination of version 2 and 3 - 3.a. start to wander and if we found gold/silver on a hill settle nearby.

Could we vote on this alternatives or there is any other option ( 4, 5 ... etc ) ? If yes - please describe them. :)

Regards all

That could work.

I suspect the real map and AI situation will be drastically different from any practice map we will produce. The landmass could be smaller and there could be more AI civs to clear the fog quicker which means less raging barbs to deal with. It could go completely the other way with a larger landmass and fewer AIs. There's no indication in the description as to climate or sea level so it's totally a shot in the dark at this point.

The best plan will probably involve a specific tech path and build order that will be focused on security first, technology 2nd and expansion 3rd based on what we can see now instead of what might be out there.

Yes, we can put it to a vote.

I fancy 2/3ish sort of thingy me jiggy:crazyeye:

Could we make a new practice map with medium sea level and temperate climate with more AI civs? This could give us a closer approximation to the real thing.

The short-delay to find a better spot might work out better. In the current location that was initially suggested we won't have access to a good resource for quite some time. We'll be batting off barbs left and right with no end in sight and eventually get overwhelmed. If we wait too long we won't be able to defend ourselves from the other civs or barbarians.

To put out a 4th idea. What about exploring with the settler just north of the rice patty? Then if we find a nice 2nd resource there, go ahead and settle it.

Could we make a new practice map with medium sea level and temperate climate with more AI civs? This could give us a closer approximation to the real thing.

The short-delay to find a better spot might work out better. In the current location that was initially suggested we won't have access to a good resource for quite some time. We'll be batting off barbs left and right with no end in sight and eventually get overwhelmed. If we wait too long we won't be able to defend ourselves from the other civs or barbarians.

To put out a 4th idea. What about exploring with the settler just north of the rice patty? Then if we find a nice 2nd resource there, go ahead and settle it.

I'll try to knock out a map this weekend. I think we need a bit more practice to explore which of the various options work best. My gut feeling is option 3 or 2. Even if we found a gold hill or similar (for options 3a and 4), it might still be better to wait 'til we have researched whichever tech we are beelining for before settling next to it. We'll have to test how much benefit to our research rate the coins from gold gives us - and whether this is better than the benefit of settling nearer to Kyoto

I'll try to knock out a map this weekend. I think we need a bit more practice to explore which of the various options work best. My gut feeling is option 3 or 2. Even if we found a gold hill or similar (for options 3a and 4), it might still be better to wait 'til we have researched whichever tech we are beelining for before settling next to it. We'll have to test how much benefit to our research rate the coins from gold gives us - and whether this is better than the benefit of settling nearer to Kyoto

Thanks. I'll try to work another one up too.

To put out a 5th idea have a really long delay until we research Iron working. Then find a nice spot with Iron and a food resource nearby close to Kyoto as possible. This should afford us the ability to build axemen, spears and swordsmen.

The barb pattern that I'm seeing is animals (lions, panthers, bears, etc) then warriors/archers, then axemen/swordsmen and finally horse archers if there is still fog around. We'll need to find some way to counter all of them. There seemed to be approx 3+ barbs to deal with each turn after 2500 BC.

I think it's safe to check out this thread. It details a succession game with raging babarians on.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=175230

I can tell I'm on a different timezone than most of you. Lots of replys while I was sleeping last night. :sleep:

I wouldn't rely on getting goody huts. I suspect they will have been removed (I don't remember reading about them in the couple of threads for SGOTM1 I read). Also, with a warrior popping the huts there is always the risk of unleashing a horde of hostile natives - and then bye-bye settler!!

I agree completely with this. I'm against popping huts with the warrior/settler wanderer. One bad RNG roll and that settler is toast.


I think it might be better to keep the settler with the warrior at least at the end of each turn (unless the warrior stumbles accross a bear maybe) - we don't want to run the risk of a 2MP animal ambushing the settler from behind

separating them only makes sense if there are no 1 move point tiles around in any direction...like in the middle of a thick jungle patch. otherwise they need to be kept together and on flat ground use the settler moving ahead of the warrior as a scout with the first mp.

I think barbs (including archers) start showing up (in droves...) around 2500BC - but we will want to settle a while before then to get some defensive units, and also get our pop up a bit in the 2nd city in case we need to pop-rush some emergency defence. I agree that beelining archery would be quicker than BW - if we plan to settle early we should probably go for archery (as our research will be slowed by settling). If we decide to go walkabout, it would be nice to be able to take the location of copper into account before deciding where to settle. BW also gives us the ability to poprush emergency defenders, and take advantage of Kyoto's rapid growth rate (but low happiness cap). Either way there should be enough time to beeline either of these before barbs show up.

This was in response to nfora's concern about barb timing and whether to go archery or BW first. One thing I would add to Big Pig's response is that if we settle near an AI civ on one flank and possibly sea on another, that cuts down on the initial barb threat to the second city (less directions to fog-bust/defend). Of course, I would not settle next to some blood-thirsty civ like Aztec...and it is a gamble whether we can find bronze in a good location.


Anyway - what's the general impression on settling ?
I see the following alternatives :
1. Imediate - Settle the 2nd city in first or second turn.
2. Short-delay - Settle after/just before researching our first, "critical" tech ( we will discuss if this is Mining, Hunting or Pottery ).
3. Long-delay - Wander east/west with warrior as protection until discover one key resource ( Bronze or Horses if we choose to go to Hunting -> Animal Husbandry ) and settle near it.
Regards all

I'm against opt1 and favor option 3-2. If we find an incredible location early with the wandering settler/warrior, I'm open to settling sooner rather than later. If we don't find a great spot, I say we continue wandering and go for option3 / look for bronze near another civ.

BW isn't just one key resource. It is a key resource plus the power of pop-rushing (and eventually chopping...not sure that will be useful before barbs start showing). Even if we don't find a good bronze location, we could settle on a good food location (hopefully with a $$ luxury resource) and beeline hunting -> archery.

cas

To put out a 5th idea have a really long delay until we research Iron working. Then find a nice spot with Iron and a food resource nearby close to Kyoto as possible. This should afford us the ability to build axemen, spears and swordsmen.

I tried this in a practice game. The problem with it is that by the time IW is done it is after 2500BC (although admittedly I think I did make a few tech detours on the way rather than a concentrated bee-line - maybe someone could try a direct beeline to IW to see what the earliest date we could get it is?) The barbs tend to ignore you if you stay out of sight with your settler and warrior and head for the cities of rival civs - but as soon as you settle they start swarming around like wasps on a picnic. This leaves a single warrior for barb defence (as you can't pop-rush until your pop grows to at least 2) which is bad news!

BW seems a reasonable delay as there is time to build up a few defenders before 2500BC, but I think IW would be too much of one. With copper we can knock out spearmen too when the horse-archers come calling.

It will be interesting to see how many teams settle immediately - everyone who hasn't played a practice game I would think as it seems the logical thing to do at first glance - and I guess it is a safe, if unspectacular start. We should be able to work it out from the power graphs when this thing starts.

I tried this in a practice game. The problem with it is that by the time IW is done it is after 2500BC (although admittedly I think I did make a few tech detours on the way rather than a concentrated bee-line - maybe someone could try a direct beeline to IW to see what the earliest date we could get it is?) The barbs tend to ignore you if you stay out of sight with your settler and warrior and head for the cities of rival civs - but as soon as you settle they start swarming around like wasps on a picnic. This leaves a single warrior for barb defence (as you can't pop-rush until your pop grows to at least 2) which is bad news!

BW seems a reasonable delay as there is time to build up a few defenders before 2500BC, but I think IW would be too much of one. With copper we can knock out spearmen too when the horse-archers come calling.

It will be interesting to see how many teams settle immediately - everyone who hasn't played a practice game I would think as it seems the logical thing to do at first glance - and I guess it is a safe, if unspectacular start. We should be able to work it out from the power graphs when this thing starts.

I tried the IW thing in a practice game too. It didn't work because once we settled the barbs just swarmed in and overwhelmed. We can't be too protective against them until we have expanded enough that they no longer pose a serious threat.

Settling immediately has an advantage against the barbarians but it will set us back in research far behind any creative civs that are out there. Could use tech trading to catch up and once we cottage up we should be ok.

One thing to note about barbarians, raging or otherwise is that they can be manipulated somewhat. You can use a warrior or scout to lead them away from your city to a rivals territory. They are mainly after plunder. If you can lead them to a rival they will wreak havoc on them instead of you.

I had some thoughts on Kyoto. The happiness limit is a base of 4 and +1 with a warrior present. We should try to limit it's growth to avoid paying for unhappy citizens either through stagnating growth or pop-rush but then what would we need to pop-rush there?

I had some thoughts on Kyoto. The happiness limit is a base of 4 and +1 with a warrior present. We should try to limit it's growth to avoid paying for unhappy citizens either through stagnating growth or pop-rush but then what would we need to pop-rush there?

Is there some $$ lost each turn paying for unhappy citizens ?

The city can grow to size 8 assuming (2) clam and (2) fish have boats. That leaves you with 1 extra food, 5 tiles being worked, and 3 unhappy people. 4 pop can be whipped.

Early game when there is nothing else to produce but military units that will sit there and count against our free limit, we could research mysticism (very cheap) and use Kyoto to start building Stonehenge. You need approx 93 hammers (31 turns at 3h/turn) and then you can whip 4 ppl to finish it. Or if you don't like Stonehenge, same concept with Oracle once we have Priesthood. It takes approx 139 hammers (46-47 turns) production and then you can whip 4 ppl to finish it. If you build one of those, you eventually get a GProphet too.

You can always take a break from the wonder to whip a library or granary or something useful...and then go back to it. If you lose the race for the wonder, you still get gold from the hammers.

Once we research more techs, there will be more to produce. But early on...after the 4 workboats...I think Kyoto should be used for a slow wonder build.

cas

The city can grow to size 8 assuming (2) clam and (2) fish have boats. That leaves you with 1 extra food, 5 tiles being worked, and 3 unhappy people. 4 pop can be whipped.

Early game when there is nothing else to produce but military units that will sit there and count against our free limit, we could research mysticism (very cheap) and use Kyoto to start building Stonehenge. You need approx 93 hammers (31 turns at 3h/turn) and then you can whip 4 ppl to finish it. Or if you don't like Stonehenge, same concept with Oracle once we have Priesthood. It takes approx 139 hammers (46-47 turns) production and then you can whip 4 ppl to finish it. If you build one of those, you eventually get a GProphet too.

You can always take a break from the wonder to whip a library or granary or something useful...and then go back to it. If you lose the race for the wonder, you still get gold from the hammers.

Once we research more techs, there will be more to produce. But early on...after the 4 workboats...I think Kyoto should be used for a slow wonder build.

Sounds a good idea. The money from a failed build will come in handy, and we might get lucky. I think preisthood is quite an investment in research but mysticism and Stonehenge would be good. Don't forget also we can pull people off the coast squares to produce 1 hammer per turn as non-specialized citizens to speed things up (marginally)

I'm going to play my broken record one last time for each team:


Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=180489) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

Anything I post there will NOT be repeated individually in every team thread. You may even find some useful information there now :p

One thing to note about barbarians, raging or otherwise is that they can be manipulated somewhat. You can use a warrior or scout to lead them away from your city to a rivals territory. They are mainly after plunder. If you can lead them to a rival they will wreak havoc on them instead of you.


That's a great idea. Works best with open borders, or a 2MP scout I would think

Here's another practice save.

Edit: updated to reflect the number of AIs and distance tha Alan specified.

Oh and I did a quick test. AI built Stonehenge 1600bc.

I like the idea of a short wander, and hope for some nice resources to show up for us. Even if they don't, we will probably (read: hopefully) be able to find at least an equivalent site.

With the number of AIs I'm sure we'll find one nearby, in fact I think we can (almost) count on having one close enough for an early war. I did a test with Aggressive AI last night, and had an AI declare on me before archers were around!

Stonehenge would be nice, but if we go for workboats first, I'm not sure we'd even have a chance of getting it, so it would just be a way to get a bit of cash. Given our settings that may not be a bad plan anyway though, come to think of it, given the state our economy is going to be in for a while.

For a tech path then, what about a beeline to bronzeworking followed by mysticism and then if needed a beeline to archery?

Played Murky's test game this morning (Thanks!)
Built Stonehenge in Kyoto in 1570BC ater researching Mining>BW>hunting>archery>myst (could probably have got it a few turns earlier if I had started the build the same turn as getting myst).
Once we have writing, Kyoto is a good place to run science specialists and build an academy

Played Murky's test game this morning (Thanks!)
Built Stonehenge in Kyoto in 1570BC ater researching Mining>BW>hunting>archery>myst (could probably have got it a few turns earlier if I had started the build the same turn as getting myst).
Once we have writing, Kyoto is a good place to run science specialists and build an academy

Cool. What overall strategy where you using? What do you think works best?

Cool. What overall strategy where you using? What do you think works best?

Well, not really much of a strat:crazyeye: I wandered around with the settler and warrior in the general direction of Kyoto and settled around 2900BC on a plains hill next to stone and 2 squares from copper. Settling next to the stone gave a reasonable number of hammers on the unimproved resource to be able to get a couple of reasonably quick archers. Then worker, archer, ?barracks.....
Of course in the real game it will be completely up to chance what resources we have close by at ~3200BC which is when BW comes in if we don't settle earlier (I think - although I don't have Civ on this PC so I can't go back and double check).
With Kyoto, I switched 3 pop to 1h producing citizens once we had researched Myst (right after archery). This stagnates the growth rate in Kyoto (at size 5 with a warrior in the city and 2 workboats working a fish and a clam) - but Kyoto's happiness cap is 5 anyway. With a poprush of 2 pop at the end of the build to finish it off, this means SH can be built in ~32 turns. After Writing we should get a library and scientist specialists in Kyoto asap to help with tech research and start generating GS points

I am more and more convinced that beelining to BW before settling is the 'best' opening strategy - although probably not the most 'risk-free' as the warrior and settler could suffer unlucky RNG fending off wild animals. I would suggest that we settle asap after this though to allow for the production of another warrior or preferably an archer (or 2!) before too many barbs start showing up around 2500BC. And we should get our defence sorted before building workers or granaries/libraries etc.

In deciding where to settle, the following factors will be important:
1. plains hill (for the extra hammer and defence) - a grass/desert hill if not
2. a high unimproved yield square (e.g. 3h, 1f) in one of the 8 squares next to the city - to allow relatively quick production or growth before we have workers to improve the terrain.
3. Copper (ideally!) - at least within the fat cross, preferably in the 8 squares next to the city. Settling on the copper might be an even better option if it was on a hill - although it seems a pity to waste the future production benefits of a copper mine.
4. Coast on 1 or 2 sides of the area to limit the direction barbs can show up from
5. As near to Kyoto as poss to lower maintenance
6. A river, 2 gold hills, ivory, stone, marble and a few flood plains would of course be useful too!!:lol:

{...}ater researching Mining>BW>hunting>archery>myst

I like this research path ! :)

BTW - which order will we play the game ?

Regards all

I like this research path ! :)

BTW - which order will we play the game ?

Regards all

That research path should work.

The order is normally the order given on the roster, player #1, #2, etc. I think what might work is whoever had the best start with the practice save.

If everyone could play the practice game for 50 turns then post their save and score, we can then take a vote on who should go first. I will abstain since I know what the map looks like.

You can set your roster order. I only list players in alphabetical order, with my nominated initial coordinator placed at the front.

If everyone could play the practice game for 50 turns

errm - what year is that?

Hi guys

Sorry I haven't been around much, new house = lot's of decorating and not much Civ! However looks like you guys are getting on fine without me!

I agree with the research path and strategy, probably won't do the save game as I am a bit busy at the moment. Was up to half 2 trying to sort a new bloody wireless router out! Got some guy from Pakistan on the support forum and there were a few translation issues! Probably my fault though I dont speak IT!

I am happy wherever I am in the queue.:)

My only problem is that, honestly speaking, I don't want to play the first moves ... :)

Not confortable for the moment with such responsability. ;)

Regards all

Do we have anyone who feels they can play the starting moves well?

I probably could take a survalist approach and produce a "safe" start using a rather conservative strategy. It would most likely not be a spectacular start.

errm - what year is that?

I'm not sure. If you turn the autolog feature on I think it records turn numbers along with events.

It would probably fall somewhere around 1500BC I guess.

Everyone seems nervous!:lol: I can just see us running into one of Huana's babies and losing our settler after 2 turns! I don't mind doing it but what happened to using the best results from the practice start?

Everyone seems nervous!:lol:

It's a pretty tough start. If we're not carefull we could easily get in trouble fighting the raging barbarians.

I agree, being my first SGOTM I am also realising that it's not just your own game you are buggering up. It's all part of the fun though. I think a safe approach is definately the way to go. You can chat about strategy mid way through turns though can't you? I think this will be crucial at the start.

I agree, being my first SGOTM I am also realising that it's not just your own game you are buggering up. It's all part of the fun though. I think a safe approach is definately the way to go. You can chat about strategy mid way through turns though can't you? I think this will be crucial at the start.

That's the part that is the most nail-biting. It's bad enough if you mess up your own game but to mess up a team game could be really stressfull. Worst case scenario in this game would be losing our 2nd city to the barbarians at the start. The next worst case is being able to fight off the barbarians but falling too far behind the other civs and not being able to catch up.

Everyone seems nervous!:lol: I can just see us running into one of Huana's babies and losing our settler after 2 turns!

I think we would be desperately unlucky if the AI declared on us before we settled. After all we wouldn't have had time to choose the wrong religion, trade with the wrong people, choose the wrong favourite colour, or any of the other myriad of things that seems to piss these guys off!

I agree, being my first SGOTM I am also realising that it's not just your own game you are buggering up. It's all part of the fun though. I think a safe approach is definately the way to go. You can chat about strategy mid way through turns though can't you? I think this will be crucial at the start.

Totally agree - buggering up your own game is bad enough, but messing up the game for 6 other people too :sad: I think we should pause and discuss strategy often during the initial period. Certainly in the case of where to settle - and possibly also in the case of deciding whether to stand or flee from wild animals as one bad RNG could result in a rather dull OCC game.

I'm happy to start the settler/warrior walkabout - or equally happy to let anyone else who wants to. Are we all happy with the idea of waiting until BW before settling? If not, then the tech path we have discussed of mining>BW>hunting>archery>?myst will likely not get us archery before 2500BC, and we should probably reassess our tech path and switch to get archery sooner. If we decide to go with this strat, what (if any) circumstances would we change our mind and settle earlier (e.g. if we find 3 gold hills and 2 elephants; if our warrior gets savaged by a marauding bear down to a health of 0.1)? (Obviously we can discuss this if these occurences happen)

Well I am happy to start, as long as we have a clearly defined strategy and we are all available for comment during the turns to chat over screen shot's e.t.c. But I am easy either way. Just let us know the roster mighty murky one!:worship:

You know us brit's always do what you guys say!:joke:

I think the short walk and mining->bw->hunting->archery->myst was the general consensus on what strategy option we want to use. I am still open to suggestions but we need to decide soon.

Whoever plays first should post screenshots and ask for frequent advice for the first several turns.

If a bear shows there's about one way to deal with it. Have the settler get away and settle ASAP. The animals will not enter cultural boundries.

Should we have some kind of standard objective form before each persons turn. i.e:

Tech Strategy:
Build Strategy:
City Placement:
Political Strategy:
Points to remember: i.e Research Slider 0 or 100% only e.t.c

This will obviously be different at different stages of the game.

Should we have some kind of standard objective form before each persons turn. i.e:

Tech Strategy:
Build Strategy:
City Placement:
Political Strategy:
Points to remember: i.e Research Slider 0 or 100% only e.t.c

This will obviously be different at different stages of the game.

That reminds me. We might want to try out "Binary Science" where instead of running 60% you run at 0% for 40% of the time and 100% for 60% of the time. This cuts down on wasted beakers and gold.

Whoever plays first should post screenshots and ask for frequent advice for the first several turns.

Agree 100% - that way, if the worst does happen, we're all responsible:(

Should we have some kind of standard objective form before each persons turn. i.e:

Tech Strategy:
Build Strategy:
City Placement:
Political Strategy:
Points to remember: i.e Research Slider 0 or 100% only e.t.c

This will obviously be different at different stages of the game.

Sounds good - open for 24-48 hours before each persons turns

A cautious approach to moving would be to always have the warrior move first, forest and hilltops where possible. Then have the settler follow. If a bear pops at a bad time, you can settle so that it would not be able to come in and kill either the warrior or settler.

That reminds me. We might want to try out "Binary Science" where instead of running 60% you run at 0% for 40% of the time and 100% for 60% of the time. This cuts down on wasted beakers and gold.

We just need to remember to look at and change the settings each turn. Shouldn't be too difficult in a 10 move set of turns, but I often wind up forgetting in my GOTMs only to find 20 turns later I have a treasury of 3000 gold (and no new techs) :blush:

I presume we plan to have sets of 10 turns? Possibly the first turn sets should be longer while we are on walkabout?

We just need to remember to look at and change the settings each turn. Shouldn't be too difficult in a 10 move set of turns, but I often wind up forgetting in my GOTMs only to find 20 turns later I have a treasury of 3000 gold (and no new techs) :blush:

I presume we plan to have sets of 10 turns? Possibly the first turn sets should be longer while we are on walkabout?

Since this is epic speed we might want to do 50 (start with everyone's involvement),15,15,15,15,15 then go dwn to 10,10,10,10,10 once things get rolling so that everyone get's a good number of turns.

A cautious approach to moving would be to always have the warrior move first, forest and hilltops where possible. Then have the settler follow. If a bear pops at a bad time, you can settle so that it would not be able to come in and kill either the warrior or settler.

Yes. But if crossing plains, have the setller move 1 square first - that way if there are any animals around the settler can retreat with its 2nd MP back to the warrior

It might be wise to try to avoid unforested hilltops too as it is the only terrain which a bear could surprise us in (if he was the far side of the hill) and have a combat odds advantage over the warrior (a 1MP animal shouldn't be able to surprise us on plains if we use the strat above)

Yes. But if crossing plains, have the setller move 1 square first - that way if there are any animals around the settler can retreat with its 2nd MP back to the warrior

It might be wise to try to avoid unforested hilltops too as it is the only terrain which a bear could surprise us in (if he was the far side of the hill) and have a combat odds advantage over the warrior (a 1MP animal shouldn't be able to surprise us on plains if we use the strat above)

Good plan.

Since this is epic speed we might want to do 50 (start with everyone's involvement),15,15,15,15,15 then go dwn to 10,10,10,10,10 once things get rolling so that everyone get's a good number of turns.

50 sounds a lot for the initial turn. Why don't we have the 1st player take us through to settling the second city i.e. ~3000BC (with frequent discussions and everyones involvement) - or even split the walkabout at ~3500BC? Once we settle then 15,15,15,..... going down to 10,10,10...sounds good

Binary Science definately, 15 going down to 10 is fine with me, Move settler first idea cool. We just need to start now. We already have 25% more posts than any other SGOTM2 team! Who is going first?

We already have 25% more posts than any other SGOTM2 team!
I fear it may be a case of quantity over quality tho';)

How does this sound for start?

Tech Strategy: mining>BW>hunting>archery>?myst
Build Strategy: Workboat in Kyoto?
City Placement: decent spot nearer Kyoto
Current Objectives: Find a decent spot nearer Kyoto
Points to remember: Research Slider 0 or 100% only (Binary Science), move warrior first unless on grassland or plains?

I'm not going to take the first moves since I'm not even sure how to post a screenshot. Does anyone have a link or instructions ? I need to learn how to post pics for this game.

If you let me know when the first person is going to start, I can try to be available to give my opinion and really make a mess of it. :p

cas

I usually use the "PrtSc" button and Paint. If you press PrtSc when the screen shot is how you want it and copy into paint, you can then save it (I find .jpeg best) then just use the attach button when posting.

"PrtSc" was very useful while plaguerising much of my degree!:)

How does this sound for start?

Tech Strategy: mining>BW>hunting>archery>?myst
Build Strategy: N/A yet
City Placement: decent spot nearer Kyoto
Current Objectives: Find a decent spot nearer Kyoto
Points to remember: Research Slider 0 or 100% only (Binary Science), move warrior first unless on grassland or plains?

Political objective: Be nice to the wild animals.....

A further refinement to the walkabout strat is that it may sometimes be better to move the settler 1MP first if there are plains/grasslands adjacent to the hill or forested square that is the warriors final destination, then move the warrior to the hill or forest square, then move the settler's 2nd MP to join up with the warrior. This slightly reduces the risk of the warrior stumbling accross any unexpected surprises (e.g. bears) as the settler will be able to see into at least 1 square adjecent to the final destination.

Sorry - this is horribly unclear!! Ok, consider:
The warrior and settler start in a forest. The tile N is forest, the tiles W and NW are plains. We want to end the turn 1N.
If we move the warrior first 1N, we could be ambushed by animals from tiles 2N, 1N1NW and 1N1NE as we cannot see any of those tiles from our starting tile. If however we 1st move the settler 1NW into the plains we can now see the tiles 2N and 1N1NW of the starting tile. We can then move the warrior 1N and then the settler 1E to end up with both in the forest tile 1N of the starting tile. Clear?!!!!:crazyeye:

(We could of course be eaten by a hungry bear lurking in the tile 1N1NE that we never see, but hey......:blush: )

50 sounds a lot for the initial turn. Why don't we have the 1st player take us through to settling the second city i.e. ~3000BC (with frequent discussions and everyones involvement) - or even split the walkabout at ~3500BC? Once we settle then 15,15,15,..... going down to 10,10,10...sounds good

That's ok with me. How does it sound to everyone else?

On the screenshots you just use the PrtScn key (SysRq on mine) and it saves them a directory in your CivIV folder called "My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\ScreenShots\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\ScreenShots."

Also, with the GOTM rules we can't reload too often so you can't exit the game to post a screenshot. Instead, you have to alt-tab to minimize it. This can be an issue on machines with switching between programs.

Also, with the GOTM rules we can't reload so you can't exit the game to post a screenshot. Instead, you have to alt-tab to minimize it. This can be an issue on on machines with switching between programs.

So, we can't save the game, post the screenshot, have 24h of discussion and then re-open the game and continue? I thought the no-reloading rule applied to going back and replaying turns

So, we can't save the game, post the screenshot, have 24h of discussion and then re-open the game and continue? I thought the no-reloading rule applied to going back and replaying turns

Alan can correct me if I'm wrong but I think they way they enforce the no reload rule is that you have to play some minimum amount of time/turns beween saves.

With SGOTM I think you have to play all your player turns in the turn sequence before you can save. So if we go with 25,15,15,15,15 then the first player gets the initial save and plays 25 turns and saves. The next player then has to play 15 turns before saving.

This means then than you couldn't play 5 turns take a scrnshot, exit, post screenshot, get feedback then restart the game and open the save.

Are we all happy with the idea of waiting until BW before settling?

I'm not very happy with this one. This way we risk to discover BW a little bit faster, but not having time to build defenders against wandering barbarians ... :rolleyes:

I still hope that we found a good city placement in first 10 turns and settle after discover Mining. ;)

Regards all

Mmmm, this is what I was getting at earlier. I thought you could take your time, didn't think you had to complete all your turns in one go. Is there a way to confirm this?

Mmmm, this is what I was getting at earlier. I thought you could take your time, didn't think you had to complete all your turns in one go. Is there a way to confirm this?

There may be more of a time limiting factor than a turn limiting factor. For regular GOTM I think you have to play atleast 30 minutes between saves. So play 7 turns and wait 30 minutes (from the time you started), take screenshots, save/exit, get feedback then resume the game. With the alt-tab you don't have to exit.

play x turns, take screenshot, save, exit, load last save is fine..

however, play x turns, save, play y turns, take screenshot, exit, load save is not ok (unless its a crash instead of an exit ofcourse.. in which case you should try to reproduce all the moves you did after last save).

autosaving every turn and/or saving every turn is encouraged incase you crash so you dont have to replay much.

it is generally encouraged to save and stop and get team opinions if you are unsure how to proceed...

That's ok with me. How does it sound to everyone else?

On the screenshots you just use the PrtScn key (SysRq on mine) and it saves them a directory in your CivIV folder called "My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\ScreenShots\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\ScreenShots."

Also, with the GOTM rules we can't reload too often so you can't exit the game to post a screenshot. Instead, you have to alt-tab to minimize it. This can be an issue on machines with switching between programs.

alt-tab is not a problem on my machine. thanks for the info on screenshots. That will help quite a bit with this succession game format.

How does this sound for start?

Tech Strategy: mining>BW>hunting>archery>?myst
Build Strategy: Workboat in Kyoto?
City Placement: decent spot nearer Kyoto
Current Objectives: Find a decent spot nearer Kyoto
Points to remember: Research Slider 0 or 100% only (Binary Science), move warrior first unless on grassland or plains?

this is ok with me except we should be smart on the 'binary' science thing. If we can get to archery or BW a turn quicker with the slider moved from 100% down to 80 or 60...then we need to do that. With the barbie and AI aggro settings, getting to BW and archery as quick as possible is more important than a few coins in the early game.

cas

I played Murky's save right now.

Our strategy may not work very well. :(
I settled only after Mining -> BW BUT ... I was almost swarmed by barbarians. One turn my 3 warriors fight against 5 barbs ( 2 of them archers ). Managed to build Stonehenge in 1540 BC - but ... I was lucky to found in a hut Archery ... otherwise ... :(

Should we consider also the "safety path" of Hunting -> Archery first ? :rolleyes:

Regards all

@johnpaulcain: I'll pm Alan and ask

@Mitiu Ioan: I appreciate your concern - 1000 years does seem a long time to delay settling. However, as soon as we settle out research rate will drop to ~60%. Sure we will generate :commerce: from our 2nd city too, but for the first 30 turns or so after founding this is only likely to be 2-4 gold (until we have grown, built a worker and improved some tiles) so our effective tech rate compared to if we didn't settle will be ~65-70%. If we follow the tech path we suggested, then archery comes in after 2500BC (at least it did in my test game, but I would be very happy to be proven wrong). This leaves just warriors for barb defense initially - which might be ok if we build enough of them. Alternatively if we forget BW and go mining>hunting>archery then BW and slavery are greatly delayed. We would also be unlikely to settle by copper, so would probably have to build a settler and found a 3rd city before we could build axemen and start conquesting. So, although settling after mining is a 'safer' start (in that our chances of ending up lunch for a pack of bears is reduced), I think it hinders our ability to keep up with the AI with tech- and military

Of course, SGOTM is a team game, so if everyone would prefer to settle after mining, then that is fine by me!! I would suggest eveyone that hasn't done so (and has the time) plays thru' Murky's save game until ~2000BC with a couple of different strategies to get a feel for what they think works best

I'll pm Alan and ask

Too late! Thanks Gyathaar

Should we consider also the "safety path" of Hunting -> Archery first ? :rolleyes:

I think it all boils down to whether our strat is:
1. Settle after BW, or
2. Settle after 10 turns or so.

If we decide to go with 2. then Hunting>archery is probably better as it allows us to get more archers ready for the barb onslaught. If we go with 1. then beelining to BW is clearly a priority

If we go with Hunting->Archery we could opt to go SW. There we might just find some Ivory since we would probably be closer to jungle. If we do then we could go the construction route and use war elephants for conquest.

If we follow the tech path we suggested, then archery comes in after 2500BC (at least it did in my test game, but I would be very happy to be proven wrong).

You're right, played again I also obtained Archery in 2630 BC using that strategy. And - if settle on hill - we could resist pretty good with 2 ( 3 ) warriors. I'm far more relaxed now ... :)

Seems that the only reasons for settling just after first discovered tech would be if we see gold/silver resource verry-verry quickly after Mining or Elephants after researching Hunting first ? :rolleyes: I should try to play a game in this conditions ... even producing a worker first for improve that tile could be a dangerous gambit too ... :(

Regards all

P.S. : You're right about the two alternatives - and I'll say that 80% Mining -> BW path is better because we also need slavery for obtaining ASAP Stonehenge in Kyoto via a whip. ;)
P.S.S. : Go to sleep right now ... talk again tommorow. When will be available the saves ?

I don't think we need to rush into playing soon as the save is available.

As Kyoto tends to get rather ignored (at least it did by me in my test games:) ), I decided to play a few tests with a bit of micromanaging in Kyoto.

If we play the mining>bw, then settle strat then:

if Kyoto works either the fish or crab (?clam) it will grow to size 2 in 3490BC
If Kyoto then works 2 fish (or 2 clam etc.) in 3370BC it will be 2 turns from completing the workboat - however if we switch in 3370BC to working 1 fish and have 1 citizen specialist producing 1 hammer, the work boat will be completed in 1 turn (and the number of turns to complete BW is not affected)
Next turn, switch the citizen back to a fish (:confused: ) and put the WB to work on a fish (fish has 1 better food yield than crab/clam)
Kyoto should grow to size 3 and BW should be researched in 3160BC
Switch to slavery immediately on discovering BW - and poprush 2nd WB in 3130BC (1 pop)
Put 2nd WB to work on a crab/clam. Build warrior next in Kyoto, then further WBs, switching to SH once Mysticism is researched (avoid further poprushes to maximise growth to size 5)
Use citizen specialists when building SH - Kyoto should be size 5 at this point (or soon after) - use 3 pop as 1h producing citizens and poprush SH when you can. This should produce SH in the BC1500s

I don't think we need to rush into playing soon as the save is available.
Agreed. Let's get a consensus on our initial strategy first

I'm still in favor of mining->BW and try to settle on bronze closer to Kyoto. preferably near a AI and with sea to at least one flank.

Big Pig...have you tried whipping a 3rd & 4th workboat once you reach size5 and have slavery ? I will have to try that tonight (later). I don't like taking citizens off the sea squares to produce 1h because it slows down $$/science.

Of course, you lose some $$/science by whipping down from pop 5 to 4 to produce the 3rd and 4th workboats...but I think with the extra food you will quickly recover and make up for it. If all 4 fish/crab squares are being worked, you can have pop8, continue to work 5 tiles with $$ and build SH in 32 turns by whipping the last hammers with 4 pop.

I'll test just the Kyoto thing tonight. Does Kyoto have a warrior in it ? Or do we need to build one ?

cas

Big Pig...have you tried whipping a 3rd & 4th workboat once you reach size5 and have slavery ? I will have to try that tonight (later). I don't like taking citizens off the sea squares to produce 1h because it slows down $$/science.

Of course, you lose some $$/science by whipping down from pop 5 to 4 to produce the 3rd and 4th workboats...but I think with the extra food you will quickly recover and make up for it. If all 4 fish/crab squares are being worked, you can have pop8, continue to work 5 tiles with $$ and build SH in 32 turns by whipping the last hammers with 4 pop.

I'll test just the Kyoto thing tonight. Does Kyoto have a warrior in it ? Or do we need to build one ?

cas

I haven't tried it - mainly because the extra work boats don't increase commerce, only food. I'm not sure you could build SH in 32 turns with Kyoto pop 8 as the extra angry citizens consume food but don't contribute to production - so you would be working 5 coast tiles (with no extra production) and have 3 angry citizens (with no extra production). To get SH in 32 turns you need a source of extra hammers - which can only come from citizen specialists (or later from engineer specialists). Of course, when we are not actively persuing production in Kyoto, we should maximise commerce by working as many coast tiles as poss

You need to build a warrior in Kyoto at some point before pop 5

Dang it, I accidently clicked on the wrong thread. I didn't read anything and quickly changed. Hope it doesn't mess us up.

You have to watch clicking before the forum is completely loaded. :blush:

What do you guys think of this order:

Big Pig (first turn because he's had the most success with practice so far from what I've read)
cas
johnpaulcain
Mitiu Ioan
nfora
Riker (Currently MIA)
Murky

I haven't tried it - mainly because the extra work boats don't increase commerce, only food. I'm not sure you could build SH in 32 turns with Kyoto pop 8 as the extra angry citizens consume food but don't contribute to production - so you would be working 5 coast tiles (with no extra production) and have 3 angry citizens (with no extra production). To get SH in 32 turns you need a source of extra hammers - which can only come from citizen specialists (or later from engineer specialists). Of course, when we are not actively persuing production in Kyoto, we should maximise commerce by working as many coast tiles as poss

You need to build a warrior in Kyoto at some point before pop 5

I tested this as best I could. A lot depends on when Myst is founded...which depends a lot on the 2nd city found date/distance from Kyoto/tiles.

Your method (3citizens 1h each while working only 2 sea tiles) works better if we found much closer to Kyoto and Myst comes earlier...sometime after the 2nd workboat, but WELL before the 3rd. However, you lose quite a bit of commerce in the process. 5 pop with 2 working sea tiles and 3 citizens as hammers for 32 turns. That is 3 citz * $2 lost per sea tile * 32 turns = -$192 commerce while building SH (compared to all 5 citz working sea tiles)

If Myst comes around the 3rd workboat completion and pop6 (approx 2350bc) I'm convinced it is better to finish workboat#3, whip workboat#4, and work all four fish/crab tiles growing to pop8. When the unhappiness goes away from the workboat#4 whip, you will be able to use the 5th citizen as a hammer. This does get SH later (~35 turns total, around 1300BC) but:
(a) you will have completed all four workboats
(b) you can break from SH and rush a library or other city improvement very quick with 7-8 pop versus limiting to 5 and then you grow back fast with 2fish+2crab boated
(c) you lose less commerce thus getting our next tech faster. It's too late tonight, so my math skills are not up to snuff atm. I'll calculate it tomorrow.

My suggestion of building SH was not so much to complete it asap, but to have a place-holder for wasted hammers and have a reasonable chance of completing it. I just don't like limiting the size to 5 and taking 3 citizens off the sea tiles to produce hammers when the best thing Kyoto has going for it is high food (whip potential) + decent commerce.

cas

In my test games the AI completes Stonehenge in the 1500s sometimes so if we want it we need to get done before they do.

In the test game I knocked Stonehenge out quite easily. I would agree with cas, we should try and get all 4 workboats up ASAP. Whipping is far more efficient than hammers so growth and commerce should be emphasised in Kyoto.

Won't the extra unhappy/unhealthy citizens maintence slow our research?

Does anyone know how many hammers we get per pop when whipping a wonder on epic? (i know it is a lot less with wonders than things like units or granaries etc)

What do you guys think of this order:

Big Pig (first turn because he's had the most success with practice so far from what I've read)
cas
johnpaulcain
Mitiu Ioan
nfora
Riker (Currently MIA)
Murky

That's fine by me. If everyone is happy I'll aim to start tomorrow evening (that's ~30 hours from now). I'll stop and post frequent screen shots for progress and for critical decisions (e.g. fights with animals) so it may take a while to play through the turn set. How many turns do you want me to play for?

Tech Strategy: mining>BW>hunting>archery>?myst. This may have to be altered if we have to settle early or if we stumble across many herds of elephants
Build Strategy: Workboat in Kyoto (swith to citizen in 3370BC for 1 turn only to complete WB 1 turn early). Start second WB immediately after 1st
City Placement: decent spot nearer Kyoto (see below)
Current Objectives: Find a decent spot nearer Kyoto and settle as soon as poss after BW . I plan to move the warrior and settler combo WEST to do this. I know it looks further on the mini-map but remember pre-calendar we don't see the whole map. I measured it is about 30-35 tiles to Kyoto in this direction, and I think a standard sized map with these settings has ~75 tiles horizontally. A decent spot will ideally be a plain hill, near lots of useful resources (including copper) with some sort of natural protection on 1 or more borders from barbs (e.g. coast, another AI). However deciding where to settle will be a group desision - and if all goes well should be after my turn set anyway
Points to remember: Research Slider 0 or 100% only (although it will always be 100% before we settle); move warrior first unless on grassland or plains; 1h citizen for 1 turn only in Kyoto in 3370BC to bring the first WB in a turn early

Comments?

Fully agree with this plan. Good luck Big Pig !! :)

Does anyone know how many hammers we get per pop when whipping a wonder on epic? (i know it is a lot less with wonders than things like units or granaries etc)

I know I had to build SH to around 92 hammers before I could whip 4 pop to finish it. SH costs 180.
(180-92)/4pop = 22h/pop. This makes sense because you get 44h/pop with normal stuff. So I would say you get 50% when whipping a wonder.

edit: These numbers are on EPIC speed, of course.

edit#2: I also agree with your beginning strategy, although I thought you were going to take the first turns until we settle the second city ?

cas

How many turns do you want me to play for?

I reckon about 20 first, or even to founding of 2nd city? What does everyone else think? As for the plan, sound's good to me.

Won't the extra unhappy/unhealthy citizens maintence slow our research?

I don't think it slows research. Obviously you don't get the associated commerce but you wouldn't if you had less citizens working anyway.

I don't think it slows research. Obviously you don't get the associated commerce but you wouldn't if you had less citizens working anyway.

Isn't there a -1 maintenance penalty per unhappy/unhealthy citizen?

I would go 25 turns Big Pig.

That's fine by me. If everyone is happy I'll aim to start tomorrow evening (that's ~30 hours from now). I'll stop and post frequent screen shots for progress and for critical decisions (e.g. fights with animals) so it may take a while to play through the turn set. How many turns do you want me to play for?

Tech Strategy: mining>BW>hunting>archery>?myst. This may have to be altered if we have to settle early or if we stumble across many herds of elephants
Build Strategy: Workboat in Kyoto (swith to citizen in 3370BC for 1 turn only to complete WB 1 turn early). Start second WB immediately after 1st
City Placement: decent spot nearer Kyoto (see below)
Current Objectives: Find a decent spot nearer Kyoto and settle as soon as poss after BW . I plan to move the warrior and settler combo WEST to do this. I know it looks further on the mini-map but remember pre-calendar we don't see the whole map. I measured it is about 30-35 tiles to Kyoto in this direction, and I think a standard sized map with these settings has ~75 tiles horizontally. A decent spot will ideally be a plain hill, near lots of useful resources (including copper) with some sort of natural protection on 1 or more borders from barbs (e.g. coast, another AI). However deciding where to settle will be a group desision - and if all goes well should be after my turn set anyway
Points to remember: Research Slider 0 or 100% only (although it will always be 100% before we settle); move warrior first unless on grassland or plains; 1h citizen for 1 turn only in Kyoto in 3370BC to bring the first WB in a turn early

Comments?

The main drawback of going west is that it probably takes us south. South on these type of maps usually means jungle which could produce Ivory but is less likely to have copper, a plains hill or other nice resources.

Also, Kyoto is north of the settler so if we go south we could get a worse maintenance penalty than if we go east/NE.

I'm thinking the best starting path would be settler 2N and warrior to hilltop.

edit: I just looked at the test map in world builder. It's a much shorter distance if the settler goes east on that map.

The main drawback of going west is that it probably takes us south. South on these type of maps usually means jungle which could produce Ivory but is less likely to have copper, a plains hill or other nice resources.

Also, Kyoto is north of the settler so if we go south we could get a worse maintenance penalty than if we go east/NE.

I'm thinking the best starting path would be settler 2N and warrior to hilltop.

Kyoto and the settler are both in the Southern hemisphere (resource bubbles point to the equator) - so going north will more likely find us in jungle

The position of our 2nd city vertically (ie N-S) with respect to Kyoto is only important (in terms of maintenance) when it exceeds the horizontal (E-W) distance (e.g. a city 10W of Kyoto will have the same maintenance than one 10SW, less maintenance than 11S6W and more than one 9S8W). I don't think we are going to get that close to Kyoto horizontally, that going a few squares further South will matter.

What will be a problem is that if this is a snaky continent, then it may be one end of the continent is further to Kyoto than the other, and we have to guess which direction that will be

edit: I just looked at the test map in world builder. It's a much shorter distance if the settler goes east on that map.

On your test map, how many horizontal tiles are there (before you get back where you started....)?

On your test map, how many horizontal tiles are there (before you get back where you started....)?

Actually, I think the test map may be irrelavant because I edited in Kyoto manually. It just seemed logical to put it 30ish tiles east of the settler because of the shape of the original map. Since the box on the screenshot of the real map includes both the settler and Kyoto then west is the shorter distance. Standard map size is 84x52.

I'm good with the plan and the roster, I'm just worried that once bronze working comes in we'll find copper someplace we visited earlier, rather than reasonably close to the settler. For all we know there could be copper a tile away from the settler, though of course the real goal of moving is to reduce maintenance.

I'm just worried that once bronze working comes in we'll find copper someplace we visited earlier, rather than reasonably close to the settler.

Yes, there is that risk. We have to hope there will be some not too far from where we are when BW comes in. I'll try to avoid delving too deep into jungles and forests when I'm exploring as copper never occurs there

I'm good with the plan and the roster, I'm just worried that once bronze working comes in we'll find copper someplace we visited earlier, rather than reasonably close to the settler. For all we know there could be copper a tile away from the settler, though of course the real goal of moving is to reduce maintenance.

Secondary goal is to get close (but not toooo close) to another civ for an axe rush. Third goal is just to find a better starting location (fat-cross tiles) than the inital one.

Of course, we could be right next to another civ. No telling with a Gyathaar creation. Jungles could run north/south for all we know. :crazyeye:

cas

Got the save, and checking in with first progress report.

First, the Good News:

we're still alive!
no-one has declared on us yet (actually, we haven't actually met anyone yet....!)


Now the Bad News:

it doesn't look as if we can get much further west......


Our starting position was about 35 squares East of Kyoto as measured on the mini-map - which means it is about 50 squares West of Kyoto assuming 85 horizontal tiles on the map (per Murky's count). So, we have 2 options:

1. stick around the current area, exploring it thoroughly so we know where copper and other resources are. Settle in this area once we have BW and accept the hefty maintenance cost. This has the advantage of:
having sea to the west and north west, limiting the direction barbs and other AIs can attack us from
Making it relatively likely we can settle near to copper as soon as we have BW as we should have thoroughly explored the local area by then


2. start heading east to try to get nearer to Kyoto going 'round the back'. To reduce maintenance to less than that we would get from settling where we are, we would have to move at least 15-20 tiles East.

Of course, knowing Gyathaar, we may well be all alone on a small continent, and going east won't get us very far either.....

I would vote for staying in the present area, exploring it thoroughly and settling next to copper quickly after BW. I plan to play again in 10 hours or