Dr kossin #2

VoiceOfUnreason said:

You're expansive: are you really going to be working a 3F tile while training your first worker? After all, the contribution to Worker training doesn't benefit from the production bonus (unless I missed a change in the last patch?)

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No, it's true, the food doesn't go into the expansive bonus. But unless if I'm reading the map wrong, there's no 3 hammer tile in the first ring, so you don't get any bonus from being expansive anyways (it's only +25%, remember). So, as it is, your choices are:

settle in place
work oasis tile until borders pop (5 turns?)
work plains hill for expansive bonus

vs.

settle on sugar
work 3F tile until borders pop (same 5 turns).
work plains hill for expansive bonus

The worker comes in one turn faster if you settle on the sugar, but you lose the oasis commerce. The main point being that until your first border pop, neither spot can get the 4 hammers you need to get the expansive bonus.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

You're expansive: are you really going to be working a 3F tile while training your first worker? After all, the contribution to Worker training doesn't benefit from the production bonus (unless I missed a change in the last patch?)

Click to expand...

I thought you needed 4 (or multiples thereof) to get the bonus. Which means a 1 city tile+forested plains hill (not available until border pop unless you settle NE) or a 2 city tile (on the jumbos) + forested grass hill.

EDIT: I see UWhabs beat me to it.

If you so worried about that bonus you can gamble and settle on plainhill eastwards.

IMHO, settling on sugar is best.

UWHabs said:

it's only +25%, remember

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I hadn't remembered that, or that the plains hill is second ring. Basically, I was still over on the ivory, where the 1F2P forest you need is immediately available. My bad - I'd have caught it if I had read the last paragraph more carefully.

Why do I seem to be getting a different turn count than the rest of you?

5 x 5 + 6 x 6 = 61 @ turn 11.
4 x 5 + 5 x 8 = 60 @ turn 13 (plus 10 extra commerce).

If my math is right, we get two turns after the worker is trained to work the oasis, which buys back some of the lost commerce. The net difference looks to me like

8 food, 3 hammers, 2 worker turns
vs
8 commerce

Given our starting techs, I'm not convinced the timing of the commerce matters much.

Edit: looks like kossin instead chose:

5 x 5 + 6 x 5 + 5 + 1 = 60 @ turn 11 (plus 2 extra commerce)

Round 1

I decided to settle on the sugar, as it really seemed like the best move.


Worker first on a 3-yield tile for 5 turns, then all but the last turn (Oasis for 2) on the 3 plains hill to get the worker out by 2960BC. Worker improves corn while city grows on Oasis, then switches to improved corn. The worker improved the riverside mine next.

On turn 6, I meet this guy coming from the north jungles:


He still declares at Pleased, doesn't value religions much and has a very late favorite civic (State Property). Not a nice neighbor, I'd rather take the cast from the last game

Research went mining>BW>Hunting>AH>Start on Mysticism (20 which is probably a mistake, Pottery would most likely have been better).

While the city was growing, I built a warrior. Upon hitting size 4, I made a second worker as being Expansive he was pretty fast with a chop.

A few turns later, I meet this guy coming from the North East:


Gah. Another bad neighbor. Looks like I won't get to play peaceful after the initial REX.

I had the worst luck, losing my initial warrior to a lion and the second one to a bear , hence the south isn't mapped very well, but it looks like it's ours (good news).

Both workers improved the Ivory+roaded it and afterwards chopped a settler. I sent one worker to pre-chop the forest NE of Istanbul while the other started on a grassland hill mine. Note there are horses just outside our culture which will pop in 13 turns, soon enough to counter barbarians. The worker could road the mine afterwards so that it is connected faster.

Once the Settler came in on turn 37, I stopped for input.


The north, where a city would seal off a good amount of land with the help of those peaks.


The south, with a preliminary dotmap.


Techs so far...


I am thinking of settling the 3 Dye+Banana city first. While it won't be able to contribute right away, it will be easy to connect to Mao for early trade routes and will effectively seal off my peninsula. The other option is the cows+wheat to help with production. I'm not sure if Mao would get a settler there before my second settler but I have a feeling he will.
I still need to scout around the horses to see if I can plant a city there with a food resource.

Techwise, I am now thinking Pottery>Writing>finish Mystycism.

I can get 6+ cities peacefully from the looks of it so I don't think I made too many mistakes (besides Mysticism and perhaps that worker pre-chop... oh and unlucky rolls against animals )

Look for next round tomorrow (or a very short update tonight due to bad scouting )

Looks like Blocker belongs 1W or 1NW. Upside is coastal, downside is that you lose two mountains and a desert.

Blocker 1W seems good, although I'd probably rather put the next city in at least a half-usable spot, probably NE would be better (along the river).

Cow/Wheat is an obvious production city. I'd probably move it 1N to get a couple extra grass tiles, but you really need to see the bottom part of the map before getting too busy plotting cities.

I wouldn't worry too much about squeezing that jungle city in yet. If you lose it, oh well. Since Toku and Mao aren't exactly the best neighbours, presumably you'll plan to take them out (Cat/Treb/cannon/Jans are my fav options with the Ottomans), the jungle city won't be that useful until that war anyways. I'd settle more useful cities before plotting that one.

This map is hell if you get unlucky. Mao and Toku tend to go pleased w/ each other very early due to hidden modifiers. Neither are very nice at cautious. This virtually guarantees you're going to be a war target, it's just a matter of when.

UWHabs said:

Cow/Wheat is an obvious production city. I'd probably move it 1N to get a couple extra grass tiles, but you really need to see the bottom part of the map before getting too busy plotting cities.

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I'm not so keen on Cowheat, because of the dead land to the west. I like NorthWestOfCow and then the wheat goes with a coastal city - either paired with the horses, or used further south as indicated by the map.

One possibly interesting idea is to concentrate the capital on cottages, "borrowing" the corn for brief bursts of growth. The primary purpose of the corn might be to fuel those production tiles near the horses (assuming the wheat is used elsewhere),

I am all for settling the sugar. Another open grassland NW of the 2nd sugar gives another possible strat resource, but more likely yet another sugar. Green hill 2N of the 2nd sugar means you are not losing out on production with the move. And what is NE of 2nd sugar, is that tile forest/jungle or yet another sugar? Settle 1N and name the capitol 'Candyland'.

Oops, a bit late with this post.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

One possibly interesting idea is to concentrate the capital on cottages, "borrowing" the corn for brief bursts of growth. The primary purpose of the corn might be to fuel those production tiles near the horses (assuming the wheat is used elsewhere),

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Also cottage spamming a capital is always nice if you run Bureaucracy. I do like the idea of blocking off Mao, I've never played with him before (or not in a close rivalry) so if he is the type to declare easily it might be a bad idea to block his expansion.

That site for a blocker is useless until IW/calendar for the banana, and the peaks fall inside the BFC and don't add any blocking value. Place blocker NW for 1) coastal 2) Hill defense (You are right on Mao's capital border so will be a target) 3) some hope of non-jungle value to the N and NW and 4) Solid block combining BFC, SE peak, and 3rd border pop from capital.

As for southern region, scout first. But the peninsula that you can see so far is irritatingly narrow: probably want to squeeze 2 cities in east-west (one coastal, the other landlocked). Just be sure not to put all the coastal cities on one coast- it will get irritating later when you are building a navy.

The blocker city looks like it will be a major drain on the early economy, which is troublesome because the rest of the terrain doesn't look like it will bring much relief in the economic regard either. I would recommend letting Mao suffer the early expenses and taking the land from him when he has done the hard work of chopping clean and improving the tiles. If you do settle the blocker, put it 1NW of the displayed location so you can at least easily get a Library up for 1 scientist, or a lighthouse for 4 * 2 commerce a turn.

Lots of interesting debate on this game.

Overall I dont like the neighbours. You have no copper early on! Although access to horse for chariots. Looks like we will see a typical Kossin Phant rush if you can hold off the Ai rush on you. Not looked at save but I am guessing the Ai might get Phants too as the ivory seems scattered. Hopefully you will find Iron somewhere.

Issues going ahead.

Tech wise. Pottery for cottages would be nice unless you intend to run capital as a worker/settler pump using org trait to rex. (The 2 hills and ivory make this look good with all the food.) Theres no obvious great cottage sites. In terms of IW I like to beeline alphabet first and trade for it although you have no obvious commerce resources to speed this up. Maths will be useful for UB and for construction.

On the plus side neither Toku or Mao are fast rexers although they both have good UU but are very defensive.

You need to explore more. The loss of the 2 warriors was unlucky but the area NE of capital is still unknown. I think the way the land is will make barb fog busting easier. Never under estimate 5-6 warriors for this!! I keep learing that mistake on games. 5-6 warriors vs building 5-6+ axemen later!

In terms of next cities the far south city looks good as a blocker. The Jungle city will do nothing for years. The rice fish city can be back filled. I would want barb busting cities early on. Again it would help seeing more map.

I am sure you will walk this as ever.

Monsterzuma said:

The blocker city looks like it will be a major drain on the early economy, which is troublesome because the rest of the terrain doesn't look like it will bring much relief in the economic regard either. I would recommend letting Mao suffer the early expenses and taking the land from him when he has done the hard work of chopping clean and improving the tiles. If you do settle the blocker, put it 1NW of the displayed location so you can at least easily get a Library up for 1 scientist, or a lighthouse for 4 * 2 commerce a turn.

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Major drain? Organised should be a bit cheaper.

The blocker city shall wait, if Mao takes it, then I'll just have to wait a little bit until he improves it for me I guess If it's still available after a little while, I'll put it coastal on one of the hills for extra defense.
I like VoU's horses/wheat/borrowed corn suggestion, but I'll have to see if there's a food source in the fog first.
So let's finish Mysticism and then look for a city in the horses area.

Regarding neighbors... it looks like, since no copper looks handy, I'll need to tech Archery sooner rather than later. I'm really hoping for a third AI or else teching will be hell with Mao's 50% and Toku's 100% trading restrictions.
That being said, it would make HBR more interesting as well. Not too keen on going to war too much unless there's another neighbor to keep me up in techs, but elephants will make great garrison as well.

Round 2
Once again a short round, but I may get another one out tonight. I just have to decide where to go tech wise.

I finished Mysticism as the new City would need a border pop to be better. Pottery was next for fast granaries (no cottage built yet).
Some scouting revealed food:


Together with the banana, rice, horses, Ivory and several hills, this city has a good production potential.

After a few warriors for exploration and some fogbusting, I made another settler, and sure enough, Mao settled the 'blocker' city. On a funny note, can you spot the mistake here?

Turn 49, the capital border pops on turn 50 meaning I should have sent the worker to road the horses ahead of time, not start a mine

By checking tiles I could settle on (x), I pinpointed Mao's city location so that I could connect my empire to his more easily for early trade routes. I had started research on Writing anticipating that he would be fairly close.


The settler had another position to be heading to though...


Copper/wheat/fish would be another good production city with several hills. Meanwhile, my workers finished a road connection to Mao and said hi to a barb archer!


A library whip overflow in a granary... gotta love Expansive.


I had more great luck against a barbarian warrior, losing at 90% odds


I stopped the round here as I have a few things to decide before going on, mainly techwise.

As TMIT pointed out, Mao and Toku are in love with each other.


Tech tree


I've just finished Fishing. From the amount of EP's against me, I suspect Mao and Toku don't know any other Civilizations, which is bad. Ankara will build a spare workboat and I'll use it to scout and hopefully find someone nicer.

That being said, Toku will likely not trade many things to me and Mao either I fear. Aesthetics is not an option then. I could go Alphabet and hope I get it before Mao perhaps. Then trade it for IW which they would most likely both have (thus Mao would trade).
Another option is to head to Calendar, there are a lot of nice resources in the jungle and Istanbul. Then again I can just focus on filling my peninsula, but this will let them get more cities.

Awaiting your ideas on how to proceed from here

I probably wouldn't have settled the copper, instead settling 1E of the wheat for Wheat, fish, and 5X hills for a strong production city. I'd probably settle your next city up the river near the bananas and save the peninsula to backfill.

UWHabs said:

I probably wouldn't have settled the copper, instead settling 1E of the wheat for Wheat, fish, and 5X hills for a strong production city. I'd probably settle your next city up the river near the bananas and save the peninsula to backfill.

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It's a good idea but I don't trust barbarians (too many spears show up in my games) and my neighbors so I wanted some real protection sooner rather than later. The copper city will waste some tiles in between itself and the capital but I also don't know if there's another food somewhere down there beside that one flood plain.

If I settle east, it will likely be on the hill as Tokugawa is in that direction and he's bound to attack me I fear. (which also strengthens the Calendar 'bee-line').

Since you'll probably be the one getting DOWed first, I would try to put my border city on hills if at all possible. I might be tempted to plan for defensive wars and build GW, but I have no idea how fast that's usually off the board on immortal and whether you'll have time for that border city first.

Edit: I just noticed that it's 1400BC, so forget about the bit of advice about going for the GW