Dr kossin #21 (Deity)

I am believe in safety, that why personally I would be going agriculture first.
Worker can camp ivory, which is fast and get capital to work good second tie faster. In additional it will provide production for a few warriors for exploring/fog busting, giving barbarian safety.

Think I'm going to try shadowing this. Just playing an immortal map with this leader and have walked it (really easy map though). Really liking spiritual at the moment too (although it does make me more inclined to go for early pyramids which I find a bit of a bland strategy).

Julian Delphiki said:

Aztecs start with hunting..

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And?

I still play into AH via hunting [or Hunting>AH]. In most cases forum discusiion is mnore fruitful if people don't assume others being idiot.

And who did assume that?

@Soirana: I would say to avoid researching AH full cost (well 20% discount instead of 40%). But imo with this start AH -> BW is fine. Agriculture adds more flexibility though regarding the choice of a site for city 2.

@JammerUno: I don't think people are saying irrigated floodplains are the way to go, just it's a pity to do agri later because 1) wasted beakers into AH, 2) in one or two techs, priority will be barb defense (archers/metals/horse), not agriculture.

AH will give you the sheep and the pigs in about the same number of workerturns as two irrigated FP, with equal commerce, higher production and more food. I don't get the discussion here: two AH resources vs. irrigating FP. Seriously?

JammerUno said:

AH will give you the sheep and the pigs in about the same number of workerturns as two irrigated FP, with equal commerce, higher production and more food. I don't get the discussion here: two AH resources vs. irrigating FP. Seriously?

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No...it's one AH resource (the sheep) vs. one farmed FP. The assumption is that AH would be taken immediately after Ag, if that were the choice.

The incentive for Ag being the discount on AH.

I often do [that is one of reasons wy i am called troll on some forums].

Honestly i see zero reasons to go through agri here:

4f1c vs 6f... Ain't really comparable especially since to farm FP you need lot of more worker turns.

Not finding more animal resources... In short you have three food types [skipping lighthoused lakes]:
Agri - corn and a like
AH - pig and a like
Fishing - crabs and a like.

On pictures i see zero agri resources. Founding some AH or fishing resources might put off agri a bit further away. So far you have zero idea if gold mine will have any food except possibly shared pig.

What i learned about deity is: if I keep things nice and simple - games goes nice and simple.
Food first is usually true since delaying growth of cap early on by x turns basically delays whole development bys same ammount. Well, you have nice 6foood fast improvable tile [pasture is faster than normal farm even without desert penalties], why you call it not safe option is beyound me... [the fact your worker is coming earliear due to 2hammer city centre is making AH even better]

Some might say you loose % on AH due to prerequisite. Well, if you met few AI by time you get back to Agri [opposed to doing it first], you will get another discount...
Your financial savings are very doubtful, while loses due to working worse tile is rather clear.

Artichoker said:

No...it's one AH resource (the sheep) vs. one farmed FP. The assumption is that AH would be taken immediately after Ag, if that were the choice.

The incentive for Ag being the discount on AH.

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I realise what the incentive is, but consider:

agri -> AH: farm FP, pasture pigs

vs.

AH -> mining -> BW: pasture pigs, pasture sheep, mine grassland hill, chop trees

The second one gives more commerce, food and hammers, and you'll know if you need archery for barbs.

JammerUno said:

I realise what the incentive is, but consider:

agri -> AH: farm FP, pasture pigs

vs.

AH -> mining -> BW: pasture pigs, pasture sheep, mine grassland hill, chop trees

The second one gives more commerce, food and hammers, and you'll know if you need archery for barbs.

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This game is being played with "no huts" option. Although I don't use this option myself, it is clear that early commerce will be important in this kind of game.

With 5 Flood Plains, a case can be made for early Pottery. Aztecs begin with Mysticism + Hunting, meaning that we have one less worker tech to begin with, and it's not Mining. So one might prefer Pottery over Bronze Working in this case. If that is so, then Mining can be delayed as well as Bronze Working. The Ivory will still be workable from Hunting.

Now, Mining enables the Gold to be worked, but this is only after the 2nd city is settled. When the time comes to mine the Gold, Mining can be taken.

There is only 1 tile (the unforested grassland hill) in the captial's BFC that can possibly have a strategic resource. It may be Horse (not likely on a hill), Copper, or Iron. Trying for the chance to skip Archery (by going for early BW) would be banking on the case it is Copper.

Ag is neither mandatary for AH nor Po, but it provides bonuses for both of them.

Artichoker said:

This game is being played with "no huts" option. Although I don't use this option myself, it is clear that early commerce will be important in this kind of game.

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okay, you got goldmine. huts are not that much deal, IMO, just changes balance a bit...

Soirana said:

okay, you got goldmine. huts are not that much deal, IMO, just changes balance a bit...

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Both are helpful in boosting early commerce. But at some point, expansion will reach the point where the Gold mine alone is not enough to sustain optimum income.

Another thing to note is the presense of both Gold and Ivory in boosting happiness, which will raise the happy cap from 5 to 7. Having 1 or 2 farmed flood plains will help reach this city size.

Round 1 (for true this time!)

Let's recall our position on turn 0 after settling...


I do not select a technology to research right away. Instead, the beakers are "banked" and next turn there will be double the normal turn worth's of research invested in whatever tech chosen. (You can do this for longer than 1 turn, I forget the exact mechanic but I think it works until you have as many stored beakers as the cheapest available tech).

Upon moving the scout next turn, there doesn't appear to be anything else that counts for food in the immediate vicinity of the gold.


Thus I select to go with Animal Husbandry right away. As debated already, it may not be the best beaker-wise choice but it is the faster opening and will get us working the gold faster.

Of course, the very next turn I am proven wrong and uncover a non irrigated corn.
Technically, there is still time to swap for Agriculture and then finish Animal Husbandry.
However, the corn is awkwardly placed: the city cannot be founded and get both the corn and gold in the BFC right away, it'll need a border pop - giving me enough time to research Agriculture after Animal Husbandry.



I plan to have the city under the lake so it can share the pig with the capital to grow to size 2 and then work the gold right away while slow-building a monument which in turn will open up the corn.

In between t4 and t5 (turn 4&5), I meet the first neighboring AI.


This isn't so good news. He is likely about 10 tiles from my capital, meaning getting a second city in his direction will be difficult. On the plus side, it means less barbarians from the east. Further scouting reveals his borders the next turn. Estimates give me 14 tiles away which is a little bit better that my initial guess and he also settled his second city in another direction which is also good. The next screenshot shows some of the uncovered land.

I turn my scout around and move him south a bit (north is tundra, not worth exploring so much). There's much desert and coast - not many city sites.

Turn 5 also means border pop for the capital... there's a corn just out of reach which will go to another city. It's also seen in the next screenshot.

Speaking of which, the IBT (in between turns) 10 is a busy one.



On the bright side, they're both far away by the looks of it (20ish tiles possibly). What I don't like is that I seem to be in the middle of all these civs. The land seems pretty good as well which means they might expand in my direction faster than otherwise. (I don't have any idea if they have any backroom either). In any case, there could be quite a few barbs coming from these 2 directions.

Scout reveals an interesting find.


As AH completes, there isn't any horses to be seen. I queue Mining next (Agriculture isn't useful right now, the worker has his hands full with Pig, sheep, Ivory and it'll add a mine on his to-do list) for the gold tile.

After the worker, I build a warrior that will keep watch over the corn-gold site.

I start the settler upon growing to size 4 (t25). Working 2 unimproved flood plains doesn't add much to production right now although it adds 1 commerce. Since I plan on giving the pig to the second city, the capital will focus on hammers (Ivory/mine) to get some defense after producing the settler.

I didn't want to take a chance with all the land west/south and the tundra to the north so Archery came after Mining (no guarantee Copper was to be had in current culture).

After that, techs were TW>Ag>Pott> finally BW.

TW allowed extra commerce (a lot of techs to research and facilitates movement of defenders).
Ag allowed to improve the corn.
Pottery finally allowed the capital to improve the flood plains.
BW is a no brainer in just about every situation. Perhaps it should have come before Pottery and I should have farmed a flood plain in the meantime.

Looking back, I only produced 3 Archers so Archery wasn't exactly hot stuff. I didn't have casualties against barbarians however so it wasn't a complete waste. It did delay production however, which isn't good.

Turn 35, the gold city is up. I assign it to work the pig tile for growth in 4 turns. The worker gets there in time to mine the gold by the time the city reaches size 2.


My Scout actually did not die this round. He mapped the land pretty well until I assigned him to fogbusting duty in the north. He found a nice spot to the west with 2 food resources, stone, and wine.


The Scout is fogbusting a 2xfur, silver, copper, fish city in the north, which is why I'm giving Fishing any beakers. I could have started on Writing right away but I didn't have the worker turns to get a network going with the neighbors nor the hammers to spare to get a library up right away.

I also get lucky with my next settler.


However, just edging out settler parties like this means they will settle close by:


Unfortunately, while I was focusing on beating Lincoln and Boudica to these close-by spots, I catch a bad break and lose this great spot by 1 turn (whipping the settler this turn and moving him 3 tiles is 1 turn late... I'd have needed an extra road.)
I think they both went settler first in their capital and possibly their second city. This is where delaying Bronze Working hurt me, I couldn't generate hammers fast enough and got clogged in.

Too bad... I really don't handle Deity openings so well - gotta get used to the faster pace.



I crank up the science slider and finish Writing 2 turns later, in 1400BC.


Willem placed his 3rd city 2E of the copper it seems - which blocks my ? city. Why couldn't he go bug someone else to the east?


Here's is the "best" spot for a city that I know of. Consequently it's the only decent one I see available.


Diplomacy - Lincoln and Boudica share a religion but she doesn't like Willem so much. In any case, I'm still very much in danger for an early DoW. Hopefully she goes to Annoyed with Willem.


I've got 2 settlers under production (both finish in 3 turns baring whips). 1 obviously goes to the fish/copper spot (I could have delayed Fishing up to this point). What to do with the other though... I'm pretty cramped in from every side.

As I've played further than this save, I scouted the northern coast [no seafood] and ended up not using the settler for some time. It turned out ok but perhaps settling earlier would have been worth it.

I'm not so happy with this round. I'm pretty sure some of you can get a much better opening out of it. Notably, my settlers #2 and 3 were quite late. If only I could have sneaked a settler east...

I don't have a good read on the absolute needs of Archery right now on Deity. On Immortal I get away without it a lot of the time but on Deity barbs are usually pretty bad for me. i guess it'll come with experience and practice. Obviously, skipping it in favor of BW has a reward potential with earlier cities but you risk losing fogbusters and getting pillaged more.

I'll post the second round in a few hours - as soon as I can manage.

On a side note - writing a report from auto-saves is a pain.

Pottery before Bronze Working may have worked for some maps. But it seems that this map was a crowded one, so rushing out the settlers was crucial.

Getting Bronze Working before The Wheel was also an option.

looking at turn 1 picture (reviewed BFC), I would go AH-Mining-BW-(Archery)-Wheel-Ag-Pottery. This tech path prob allows the fastest REX speed. Archery could be even postponed given enough Agg warriors.

All your river hills had trees on them, also being spiritual, BW should not be delayed.

On the diplo side, it's pretty clear that you need to adopt hinduism. Boudica is your main threat and Willem doesn't favour religion much and will go FR as soon as he can. You could even try trading him aesthetics so he builds shwedagon paya...(this could backfire)

I don't think you need to worry about Boudica too much so long as she continues to hate Willem. AI Boudica in my experience doesn't really care that much about religion. Toss her a favorable trade later on, maybe bribe her to attack WvO and that'll maybe kill two birds with one stone.

Not too experienced with Lincoln, guessing he's very much a builder like Pacal?

I love the fact that you call a city with 2 furs, silver, fish and copper decent. I think it is a very good city, especially because it raises the happy cap with 2. Good start Kossin.

Killroyan said:

I love the fact that you call a city with 2 furs, silver, fish and copper decent. I think it is a very good city, especially because it raises the happy cap with 2. Good start Kossin.

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It's decent, but not great for the position he's in. It needs a Monument (45 hammers, or a growth/slave pop), 15 turns for culture (less if it gets a religion randomly spread to it), a fishing boat to work the fish, and possibly even a lighthouse down the road (5 food to 6).

The copper tiles does provide one food, but the silver and fur tiles are actually food negative, so at best it's a meagre commerce city with ok production, but it'll never grow past size 6 (quick guess?) until post-biology.

It's also nowhere near fresh water so none of the tiles are farmable until maybe civil service drags in some food.

To sum it up: There's a massive time/hammer investment to get this city up and running.

^ There are forests to chop to accelerate things. Presumably other than the resource tiles, you will be working sea tiles. You can chop out your monument, wb, and part of your lighthouse.