Dr kossin #7

Welcome to Dr kossin #7, which stands for Daily Round.

Yes, I will aim to get in a update every day - as long as I have the time (work, girlfriend, etc). I might skip a day here and there but I will compensate by playing an extra round here and there.
Now I don't plan on very long updates, sometimes just 10 turns, and will stop at strategic times.

That being said, I'm not a great player but I can manage at times. My goal is to improve and, if possible, help others improve as well. I couldn't beat Noble when I started reading this forum (could barely beat Warlord) and I am now in the process of getting comfortable on Immortal.

That's where you come in. I need your ideas, your criticism and everything else you can throw at me - even if you can't beat Noble. Since I plan on an update everyday, there will be mistakes from my part and I might not always get the best advice going forward. That's life!

You are also welcome to shadow this game, although I would prefer you post it in spoilers and no further than I have already played. You can still shadow the whole game and post it but it is important that no one uses that knowledge (land, AIs) to help me.

Without further time wasting, let's go to the game.

Dr kossin #7

Round 0 Quechua move
Round 1 Guess what? JUNGLE!
Round 2a Checking out the neighborhood.
Round 2b Contested land ownership
Round 3 Doing what HC does
Round 4 Finally some free time
Round 5 Towards Liberalism
Round 6 Teching along nicely... .... ??? !!!

Game settings:
Immortal
Fractal (I've had a friend check that it is not isolated or semi-isolated)
Normal Speed
No Huts/Events
BULL 1.0+BUG 4.2 in Custom Assets
Everything else normal.

The leader this time is Huayna Capac! Quite often cited as the 'best' leader.


Fast forges, +50% production towards Wonders and +1 on tiles already producing 2.

His UB: a Terrace that gives 2. It sometimes eliminates the need for Monuments since it's a building you'll want everywhere.


His UU: An Warrior that starts with combat 1 and with +100% vs. Archery units. Pretty much takes care of most barbs problems.


We start with Agriculture and Mysticism.


Agriculture is always good to have, and Mysticism is okay. I suppose giving The Wheel to HC would be too easy

And the start:


Here's what I think is in the fog:


1 irrigated corn, dyes, a river south, 3 hills as usual, and a lot of green tiles.

Looks like we're in or just above the jungle belt. I pray there is decent land north and no neighbor, I'm getting tired of developing early jungle

I might move the settler. 1SW would give me access to the river and later levee but I might lose on a resource that seem hidden in the fog amidst the trees east and also I can't see more than 1 hill there right now. 1S would give me the best of both worlds but cost 1 turn, but I still see 2 hills only. Lastly, there's settling in place or an exotic move somewhere else (SE for more hills, for example).

The only way the warrior can move to help determining the settling location is SW: it could show a resource 3W from the settler which would be gotten by settling SW.

my first thought were settle in place, does'nt settling in place give you acess to the river? I thought the river reaches the border of the tile ...

Nope, you only get the river bonus if the tile you're on has an extra (or would have an extra if it has a forest or jungle).

Then i might go for the 1 SW spot i guess.

In place seems decent, you've still got fresh water for health, possibly a hidden resource 1 sw, possibly resource in fog 2 east and levees are fairly late game in terms of winning/losing. If I was to move it would be SE for more production, that seems the biggest problem with the current site and you don't lose any pre-calendar resources.

Edit: In place may help to seal off more land quickly, two border pops and you reach the sea. Only a minor consideration though, might not help at all.

People go crazy sometimes about settling to get levees, but this does look like a juicy river. I wouldn't be surprised if settling 1 SW would give you about 12 rivers in your BFC.

Either spot is fine. Take one and live with it. At least it looks nice that you have lots of green land to cottage.

Try an early religion for a bit of madness, got a 3C tile right there. In place seems good depending how many hills are in the fog.

Inso said:

Try an early religion for a bit of madness, got a 3C tile right there.

Click to expand...

Madness? This Is Inca!

More specifically, a civ that starts without the Fishing Tech, which makes that 2F/3C lake something of a mirage right now.

Certainly the direct move 1S is wrong - it costs nothing to use the first movement point to move SW, and collect the extra information before committing to the trees.

I don't like where the coastline seems to be, and therefore am almost tempted to recommend a move SE, to leave room for a city to the west. But with no additional visibility, it's such a shot in the dark.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

Madness? This Is Inca!

Certainly the direct move 1S is wrong - it costs nothing to use the first movement point to move SW, and collect the extra information before committing to the trees.

I don't like where the coastline seems to be, and therefore am almost tempted to recommend a move SE, to leave room for a city to the west. But with no additional visibility, it's such a shot in the dark.

Click to expand...

This pretty much is how I feel about it to tell the truth. I'll move the warrior SW in a bit to see if it's any help.

If you find any other civs nearby, I'd like to request the oft bad-mouthed Quecha rush. Not only is it the optimal play much of the time with the Inca, it is also rarely demonstrated on the forums because it is perceived as broken. Your stated goal is to improve and getting the most out of a civ's UU is part of that.

With HC and this much green land, the game will likely be over before levees become an issue.

Moved the warrior 1SW and...


Settling 1SW would give something like 14 riverside tiles, but I may have to deal with some jungle. It also doesn't leave that much room for a city west but it some overlap could be useful to grow more cottages. The thing that makes me say no is the lack of hills visible there, only 1 is bad for early production.

I'm starting to like the idea of sending the settle SW and then settling south from the current location, for at least 2 hills but maybe 3 less riverside grasslands.

Lastly I could just settle SE for more hills and to avoid overlap but I get even less riverside tiles in the capital this way. I'll wait a bit to see where to go from here.

I wouldn't mind a Quechua rush but it'll depend on closeness of neighbor, neighbor traits and terrain. I've done a few Quechua rushes on Emperor but never actually tried on Immortal.

Levee will probably not be an issue but in the case it is, it's a welcome nice bonus.

Round 1

I sent the settler 1SW and saw what looked like coast to the south so I sent the settler further south east to avoid being 1 away from the coast... I got mixed results.


It was a lake after all. I gained gems but they are under jungle... I sense another early IW beeline. I sent the initial Quechua north and found the first neighbor.


He's quite far but it looks as if he's on a small peninsula. The French came from the south though.


I lost my Quechua to a Panther while he started exploring southeast, at 88% chance of victory

Tech path was Mining>BW>TW>Pottery and stopped there. I'm thinking hunting>AH next. Writing would also be good to have and then IW. The alternative is IW right now but unless I get a good amount of cottages down it'll take forever and I'll be unable to get all those good tiles improved to the south.


A potential dotmap...


Since I have 41 hammers invested in a settler in Cuzco already, I think IW will have to wait a bit. Getting fishing and Sailing would be nice too for traderoutes but I can't get everything at the same time.

I'm not a big fan of the city that only has unirrigated rice + the corn tile that is the capital's only food resource, but I don't see a better dotmap available. I guess I'd settle the elephant city towards Louis with the expectation of Quecha rushing him. It might be nice to let him build some wonders for you first, but I always feel like if I don't rush someone with HC I've completely wasted the UU (which I guess is true!).

I didn't know you could pump 2 settlers and still pull off a Q rush, what was your build order? Just curious.

Need discriminated dots on your dot map - colors, numbers, something more specific than compass points. Anyway

Too much good land wasted to the east. Take ivory-corn-dot and move it onto the elephants for an extra hammer, or immediately south of the elephants to create more space. Push dye-dot east. Cow-dot is now possible, as a nice little cottage center with a couple of scientists.

If you are going to triple ivory-corn-cow, it looks to me as though it belongs on a brown tile (1N) don't even need culture if the goodies are all in the first ring.

northwestern-red-dot probably belongs on the hill for the extra hammer. Yeah, in theory the current position can use the corn when the capital doesn't need it, but how often will your most important city not need its only food resource? Might as well take the free hammer.

Solon70 said:

I'm not a big fan of the city that only has unirrigated rice + the corn tile that is the capital's only food resource, but I don't see a better dotmap available. I guess I'd settle the elephant city towards Louis with the expectation of Quecha rushing him. It might be nice to let him build some wonders for you first, but I always feel like if I don't rush someone with HC I've completely wasted the UU (which I guess is true!).

I didn't know you could pump 2 settlers and still pull off a Q rush, what was your build order? Just curious.

Click to expand...

I don't plan on settling the rice/dye city anytime soon, anyway not before Calendar at which point I might have Civil Service to irrigate the rice. If I have enough land south and east I might just settle a monster city with pigs-fish-rice-dye and 3 hills. It will waste 2 dyes unfortunately.

The problem is I don't know where Louis is right now so I kinda put the Quechua rush on the shelf. Hammy is too far for it too work, plus Bowmen eat Quechuas. If I find that Louis lacks copper/horses (and find him soon) then he dies.
Build order was worker>Q>Q>Settler>worker whip>overflow settler start Q

VoiceOfUnreason said:

Need discriminated dots on your dot map - colors, numbers, something more specific than compass points. Anyway

Too much good land wasted to the east. Take ivory-corn-dot and move it onto the elephants for an extra hammer, or immediately south of the elephants to create more space. Push dye-dot east. Cow-dot is now possible, as a nice little cottage center with a couple of scientists.

If you are going to triple ivory-corn-cow, it looks to me as though it belongs on a brown tile (1N) don't even need culture if the goodies are all in the first ring.

northwestern-red-dot probably belongs on the hill for the extra hammer. Yeah, in theory the current position can use the corn when the capital doesn't need it, but how often will your most important city not need its only food resource? Might as well take the free hammer.

Click to expand...

The big problem is I don't know enough about east yet. There's a lot of green wasted but that's why it's a preliminary dotmap.
I like the settle on Ivory suggestion for the extra hammer, the only problem I see with that is the city doesn't get any hills to work early. Pushing it south a bit like you suggested (say 1SE of Ivory) gets me two hills, corn and Ivory for a nice production city. And then the Cow site gets to work a lot of green tiles.

As for settling order, either Copper or Ivory first, the rest should be timed with techs more or less. I'm thinking Ivory for the boost and since Copper-Cow will require a border pop to get the copper. In any case I'll push as much towards Louis as I can. Hammy can get the 2~3 resourceless cities up north and waste his hammers spreading Hinduism to me.

I can also see flood plains 2S2W from the copper which should be investigated.

Need to scout around the fish/pigs site. If you have another food source, that'd be a nice GP farm, which means that you could maybe move the rice city SW to the grass hill, and steal the better land to use.

UWHabs said:

Need to scout around the fish/pigs site. If you have another food source, that'd be a nice GP farm, which means that you could maybe move the rice city SW to the grass hill, and steal the better land to use.

Click to expand...

You could also get a great GP farm by moving the city 1N, picking up the rice as well as the river for a health bonus. Of course you lose the somewhat dubious northern city by doing that, but it's a viable option.

UWHabs said:

Need to scout around the fish/pigs site. If you have another food source, that'd be a nice GP farm, which means that you could maybe move the rice city SW to the grass hill, and steal the better land to use.

Click to expand...

Most important things I can see there at the moment are copper and elephants. Losing either of those to Louis would be terrible. If he was due east, with those two mountains there copper/cow/corn might be a good blocker as well as being a hammer powerhouse.

Round 2a

Scouted a bit more to the south and east. I've found Louis is the good news. Bad news is he settled the copper. Other good news is I could just Quechua choke him

You can barely see Paris' culture in this shot.


Next turn though, he settled Lyons to claim copper in his second ring.


If I don't choke him, I can always settle on this hill to steal the copper (1st ring culture vs. his 2nd ring culture). It wastes some land but it'd be a strategic move.


Turns out there was some Clams to the west so I moved cities about so they both get 2 food sources. It wastes 1 dye but it's the best I could think of.


Good city site over to the south


And there's an island or more over by Hammurabi.


I checked Louis and he still only has archers so choking him could work for a while. Should I? He's not a very trustworthy neighbor and is Hammurabi's worst Enemy right now. I think 4~5 quechuas could do the job if I keep him away from the copper (and he doesn't have horses or copper elsewhere).