Team 5 Starting Position

IM with PG, deciding withouth having all information is a bad idea.

First thing is to move that warrior to 6 or 3 (east or South east), ¿why 3? becouse you can see all zones to the north has forest in them, that wont add a lot of information for us, i foresee all of them are plains or grassland plains, left ones have river, the upper right one doesnt and the right one has river too, im mor einterested in checking whats on 6-6, 6-3 and 3-3 from warrior.

Other than that, if first thing you are going to do is build a worker (thing that im for it) it worths to expend 2 turns moving for finding a production 2 hill (keep in mind grassland hills doesnt produce 2, only 1).

lets talk about research and general strategy laters.

I would prefer settling coastal.
- we get better trade route yield (harbor, customs house)
- less health problems because of harbor
- we could even consider a shooting for The Great Lighthouse. The Extra TR-commerce is extremely strong (especially when running Burocracy)

If we settle in place. There would be just 1 tile to attack our cap amphibious.
So regarding defense I think this would be way stronger.
Concering the defense-bonus: I'd rather prefer not to defend sitting in our capital...

I would not like having coastal tiles in BFC without being able to build a lighthouse.


Of course, before deciding where to settle we should move the warrior first. Moving the Warrior 6 (1E) should give us most extra info.

I didn't think about the Trade Route commerce, and in my BtS naivete didn't even know about the Customs House.

Excellent points. I was blinded by riverside financial towns

I agree that we should not rely on the defense bonus of the capital's tile to keep us safe - if the enemy gets that close, we've already lost the game

What can be found on the unseen tiles, that make me favorite another settling point.
I would be glad, if we se a cow, wheat or gold, but I wouldn't wander with the settler to east. The only move is to north, but I prefer the founding at this point. A bonus: We get with civil service the water to the rice without additional costs.

Perhaps all members (who prefer a warrior look before) say what kind of info will influence their decision.

Rantam
My warrior move is independent from new infos, but with the wish to see most land-tiles in the next moves. And my direction for this warrior is NE for 3-4 moves.

Answering to Husch.

WIthouth doubt i would change any decision made if we discover a tile with plans hills and stone or marble on it, that provide a 3 production starting city wich allow you to end workers in half time than any regular civilizacion 3/4ths to any civilization that started in plain hills with the advantage of having acces to the resource as soon as you research masonry.

Anyway that doesnt seems probable (although i happens), but the discovery of cow or gold (or even both) would make me reconsider the starting position.

Other than that, for the moving of the warrior i agree that for exploring, best direction posible is any diagonal, for exploring i would go, N-E 2 turns then S-E 4 turns, NE 4 turns and so on, with small changes depending on hills presence, i would do that becouse moving east and west is strategically more valuable than moving N and S.

N and S tends you get to less value terrain (either ice lands or jungle), anyway i would chosse a direction i dont mind wich one and keep it for as long as posible (it make best chance for finding an enemy civilization and capturing a worker or finding it before them being able of building the first warrior.

2 times people have said that gold will make them reconsider where to settle. Why not gems also?

I thought that gems was actually a greater commerce tile than gold.... but I'm frequently incorrect

I think we should move the warrior up the hill east. My guess is build the city where the settler is, but peeking with the warrior first is a smart thing to do.

My guess is starting with fishing and warrior, to get the scouting going and for the food and trade from the clams. Since slavery is only usefull when our city will grow fast, we need fishing too before effectivly exploiting slavary.

Yeah in my opinion gems would do also,

Problem with gems is tiles is use to apear, while gold apear on hills, gems apear on grassland and jungles, if its grassland its ok, but having jungles is very bad for a capital.

Grasland or plains gems would be huge...
(Gold gives 1 more commerce but gems usually give more enough food to support the citizen wrking on it...)

Unless our warrior finds some gems, gold or cows (or other great resources (esp. food resources)) when moving east, I would settle in place.

Gold gives 2 more than gems, silver gives 1 more. We play not OCC, so we can good settle the next city their,
btw the tile at 11 a hill without wood is in my opinion a signal for mining res copper, iron etc, but also then I wouldn't change the settle position.

...the tile at 11 a hill without wood is in my opinion a signal for mining res copper, iron etc,...

Click to expand...

Are you saying that copper, iron, etc never appear where there is forest?

If this is true, I have never noticed it before. That does not mean that I do not think it's true - I'm just saying that I've never noticed.

iirc gold gives 1 more and silver gives 1 less then gems.

HUSch said:

...the tile at 11 a hill without wood is in my opinion a signal for mining res copper, iron etc,...

Click to expand...

Never thought about it too, but thinking of it, it sounds very true. So the quare without forest to the east of our settles might have copper or iron too...

Iron or copper are never forrested in any mapgenerator. So that tile is quite suspcious. (single tiles with no jungle/forrest in the middle of a big jungle/forrest are very likely to have an hidden resource)
But Sullla might have added copper/iron on forrested tiles or forrest on copper/iron... or erazed it...

I say to move the warrior east to the hill and if he doesn't see any gold or lots of marble and cows or anything spectacular then settle where we are currently. If by chance there is something worthwhile then perhaps we should move north-east in between the rivers while still being on the coast. This would give up the rice and clam which is not worth it... unless there are some good resources hiding in the shadows. Alternately we could move inland and only lose the clam but I prefer the coast for the myriads of benefits.

Btw
I 'm against the idea many turns to play without discussion. I want every turn a possibility to discuss; if then is no important, then we the turn can be make.
In my opinion we have to decide at least the move of our explorer.

I agree completely. However, the idea of a group play session is possible if several of us can all be on the forums while the turnplayer is active.

Screenshots can be posted, a chat room can be opened. I can see it working.

I second Husch on the idea of fast playing some turns.
Moving the explorer is quite important in the beginning. Which generell direction do we want to take? How far do we want to our warrior to be away from our city? Do we accept the increased danger of staying in the open field? Do we want to check out that last land-tile to the coast for resources or move faster in a different direction for more landtiles discovered...


... back to topic:
What do we want to do on our initial turn?

I suggest moving the warrior to the east (on the hill) to check out the terrain in that direction.
In case we don't find any tempting resources (cow, gems, gold and lots of beautiful river tiles) I would settle in place.
(Of course, our turn player should move the warrior asap and post a sceenshot here for the final discussion upon settling.)


My favorite opening strategy: warrior till pop2, then worker

T0: settling; begin research BW; cap is working rice(3N) and is building a warrior
T6: cap changes worker from rice to forrested grasland-hill
T7: cap grows to pop2; cap begins on worker working 2xforrested grasland-hill -> 5 base-production generating 6H due to exp-bonus @stagnation; warrior is at 10/15 and can be finished in 1 turn in case of emergency
~T14: BW researched; start on fishing?
T17: Worker finshed
T18: Warrior finished

I think this opening is stronger than worker first for some reasons.
Our worker is delayed by 3 turns but we have already grown to pop2 and have a second warrior in our city any time we might need it or latest 1 turn after our worker.
(We can also get our worker right after BW by switching into slavery and rush the worker.)


To sum up the won/lost hammers/food in turn17:

food:
- Worker first: pop1 and 9/22F (when starting to grow working the rice after worker)
- Warrior 'til pop2, then worker: pop2 and 0/24F
-> 13F in favor of growing first

production:
- Worker first: T0-T14 Worker (+1F+3H)=4H; T15-T17 Warrior (for growth working the rice) 1H => 60H+3H => 63H
- Warrior 'til pop2, then worker: T0-T6 Warrior (for growth working the rice) 1H; T7 Warrior (working forrested grasland-hill) 3H; T8-T17 Worker (working 2xforrested grasland-hill) 6H => 10H+60H => 70H
Since we only have Mining+BW in these first 3 Worker turns we might lose, we can only delay our first mine by 3 turns -> losing 3H (longterm (meaning sometime after turn17...))
-> 70H-63H-3H = 4H in favor of growing first

Great summary.

I didn't check details but if all is right this sounds like a decision (all in favor of grow first).

, as long as the details are accurate

I especially like the fact that the warrior will be available in case anybody tries any funny stuff