ALC Game #23: America/Lincoln

Jet said:

It's for Sisiutil to say, but I will point out that people end up replying in other spoiler tags, and then before you know it someone has indirectly revealed something. Like:
Albert: "hey you should attack now." (spoiler)
Bob: (spoiler)
Carl: (spoiler)

I suggest you just not go there. You can always make a separate ALC 23 Spoiler Thread if you want.

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I agree. No spoilers in posts here, even if they're in tags. Please take it to a separate thread.

I like the idea of going Mining->BW and then pursuing Archery if there's no copper nearby. Being on Immortal makes me nervous, and the 3.17 changes to barbs even more so. With most of my food being water-based, I agree that Sailing is a higher priority than usual, again especially with the 3.17 increase in barb galley activity.

If I settle in place (which I think is preferable), I am leaning toward putting the Moai Statues in Washington simply because that city would have 9 water tiles, all of them earning 2 , and that's a darn good Moai Statues city in my book. I would be making Washington the GP farm in that case, so the flood plains (probably only 2 of them) would eventually be farmed. The MS would give the GP farm a chance of generating an unexpected Great Prophet, but that's not such a bad thing--they can be used to generate golden ages, or for lightbulbing, or settled for the always-welcome extra and . And who knows, if I capture a holy city without a shrine, they'd be handy then too.

Keep in mind that if this becomes the GP farm, finding a good commerce site for moving the capital/palace in time for Bureaucracy will be something we need to consider. That is a diversion of hammers in the early mid-game that may be less than ideal on Immortal. But it's hard to pass up 3 clams.

I think moving the Warrior is less important in this opener, so I'll probably just play and post the first round tonight. I apologize to all of you who look forward to those 10-page where-do-we-move-the-Warrior debates...

Validator, thank you for you as-usual cogent analysis of the city's hammer potential. However, with this being my first attempt at Immortal, and with no wonder-accelerating resources in the immediate vicinity, my inclination is to go on a wonder moratorium--at least until most of the nearby vicinity has been explored, the neighbours met, and so on. If Shaka or Monty or next door, for example, then it's gonna be units, units, units and hang the wonders.

One final note: I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fogged tile 2N of the Settler. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for either a food resource for an uber-GP farm, or better yet, for copper or iron.

Sisiutil said:

If I settle in place (which I think is preferable), I am leaning toward putting the Moai Statues in Washington simply because that city would have 9 water tiles, all of them earning 2 , and that's a darn good Moai Statues city in my book. I would be making Washington the GP farm in that case....

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That seems pretty weird to me, in so far that if you are running Washington as a GP farm, you aren't going to be working those empty water tiles. For a long time, you'll be getting a mere +3 and some prophet points. Rah.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

That seems pretty weird to me, in so far that if you are running Washington as a GP farm, you aren't going to be working those empty water tiles. For a long time, you'll be getting a mere +3 and some prophet points. Rah.

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I see your point, but I think the MS would be going in there later rather than sooner, to make something out of the five water tiles that have no bonus (I consider a lake next to a seaside city to have a +1 bonus thanks to a lighthouse--not much, but it helps).

Let's put it this way--the MS will probably go here unless a better MS site appears, and I promise to hold off making the decision for a while. I'll have plenty of other proverbial fish to fry before I go sticking any enigmatic stone heads in the ground.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

That seems pretty weird to me, in so far that if you are running Washington as a GP farm, you aren't going to be working those empty water tiles. For a long time, you'll be getting a mere +3 and some prophet points. Rah.

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+4. You're forgetting the lake, which with moai statues and a lighthouse would yield 3F, 1P, 2C.

Great prophets really aren't that bad here, since the hammers are very welcome on archipelago maps.

I am going to agree with VoU regarding the Moari. You are on a snakey archeoplego map, I cannot believe you will NOT find another prime MS site with adequate production/food to build them. Plus using your current capital to build the Moari without stone, you might as well just go after the GLH with teh hammers invested.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

You aren't wrong, as of the last time I looked into this. It's possible that one of the patches has changed that behavior, but I suspect that someone would have noticed.

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I popped a tech (Hunting, I believe) from a hut in a 3.17 game just last night.

I'd settle in place and tech towards BW. Any plans beyond that would be dependent on what my scouting reveals (and on the Immortal Barbarian spawn rate, which I don't have any enough experience with to judge).

Nine water tiles is pretty crappy for Mocha Statues. It also uses up one of your NatWon slots. Ne is probably going there and perhaps GT for a drafting city. In my experience (vast yet unsuccessful as it may be) Mocha statues are best on thin pennisula's with a seafood resource. Workshopping the small amount of land is there to build the staues and then switching to pure sea tiles.
Washington has too many good land tiles to work that will contribute more to city/empire than a 2 1 2 seatile. If Washington is going to be a GP farm then Mocha statues will be a waste since you will be running a lot of specialists.

About the hut popping:

If I read VoU's link correctly it implies that no matter how Sisiutil pops the hut it will not give a tech. The only way to get a tech would be for the settler to move at least twice and settle such that it does not pop the hut immediately, and then pop it. Popping it by culture expansion will then give better odds at obtaining a tech. Of course this is rather a mute discussion as no one wants to waste two turns just for a small change of popping a tech.

Glouglou said:

I would go 1W : the point is that you will still have the hammer of the plain hill when producing your 2 workboats (obviously the 2 first things to build!). If you settle in place, you will have 2 from the plain hill and 1 for a forest and 2 (riverside hill) after first culture pop which make 3 before culture pop and then 4. If you settle 1W, you immediately start with 4 for fast production of the workboats!!!

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When I read this something bothered me, and it took me half a day of thinking but I've figured it out. Going west gives you one extra hammer, but at the cost of two food. Thus you will get the workboat out quicker, but the food you gain by working the clam quicker is lost beforehand multiple times by trading one hammer for two food (as a simulation will tell you).

Intuitively I know that settling on plains hill=quicker city development, and it works here too.

Regarding the Maoi Statues and Washington as GPfarm, I once had a similar situation. A city with much food surplus and many sea tiles, so I built MS and National Epic there. Then I recognized, that only one of those national wonders could reach their full potential, since I could maximise the use of sea tiles OR the number of specialists running, but never both.
You don't necessarily need HE in an early GPfarm, but don't build NE and MS in the same city. One is going to waste.

3 seafood usually means I 'm isolated. At 3.17, barbarian galleys makes workboats wasted hammers. I prefer Validator's site. It comes with 4 flood plains. A base 20 hammers is not to be sniffed at as the game progresses

Just because this is Immortal does not mean you can't build the Great Wall and the Pyramids. You've got plenty of forests.

Good food and production on the coast equals Great Lighthouse and/or Colossus for Great Merchant Economy in my mind.

Actually staring at the opening screen for a bit, I think 1W might be better. From what you can see in screenshot you gain 2 floodplains and a riverside grassland in exchange for the claims and 2 seatiles. Washington almost has too much food. Might it be better to spread the wealth? Those southern clams could go towards another city. We can pretty much guess what the warrior will reveal with a move 1NW, 3 floodplains. Move him 1SW to reveal what a second city to the south could reveal. Settling 1sw of the southernmost plains hill will be a coastal city with 2 plains hills(washington will not be working the plains hill for a while in favor of specialists) some workshoppable plains and potentially the Mocha statues.
With washington being the GP farm production needs to come from elsewhere.

I would settle 1W. You can see from the screenshot that you'll be gaining some floodplains (if you want to be sure, move the warrior NW), and while you'll lose one clam, it seems you'll actually be gaining food. This will make Washington an awesome GP farm.

My hunch is to settle in place, but I play on Warlord so I'm not that good at specialisation. As people say, Moai + commerce + clams is probably going to get you a lot of good generative power. Move the Warrior 1 NW to make sure you have the whole picture though as the fog does keep you from making the decision based on the whole story. You might even get a bonus from being on a hill and seeing a lot more of the surroundings though does this work with forested hills as opposed to open hills?

at size 6 (the default happy cap for Lincoln at Immortal, before a monument), by settling in place Sisiutil can work 3 clams @ 4F 2C, a floodplain cottage @ 3F 2C, a mined grassland hill at 1F 3H, and a plains hill at 4H. This is 16F, 7H, 8C plus the city tile production, and is perfect for cranking out settlers/workers, running specialists, and whipping.

Assuming that the floodplains are also on the other side of the western river, I also like settling in place because it divvies up the floodplains between 2-3 cities for health purposes. Remember that all those clams still just deliver 1 . Fewer floodplains gives you more chopping options for a quick wonder.

This start should be lots of fun from an early-game micromanagement standpoint, too. With the plains hill start, you can finish the first workboat fast, and before hitting size 2, just by working a 2F 1H forest tile. That's the beauty of the plains hill in action.

I again make my final plea: once you get your military resource(s) uncovered, raise the happy cap with Monarchy/HR (Oracle chop, anyone?)! You have enough food to grow to size 10-11 very quickly.

By settling 1W, you gain at least 1 Grassland + 1 Flood Plain, with the potential for 2 more Flood Plains (depending on what the Warrior reveals), and only lose 1 Clam.

However, even though this loses the Clam, it's still available as a surplus resource, even though it's not in the BFC.

If there are enough cottageable tiles, then it potentially makes way for a NE/OX capital, especially with the combination of Flood Plains and seafood resources. This wouldn't allow Maoi Statues, of course.


In comparison, settling in place lets you have 3 seafood resources and a plains hill, paving the way for an accelerated start. Chances are it won't make a strong candidate for Oxford, however, because of the lack of cottageable tiles. In that case, the Maoi Statues looks like a good alternative.


Given that the map type is Archipelago, a large amount of trade income is available through the Great Lighthouse. To unlock this potential, however, you will need a lot of cities. This is more easily attained by having an accelerated start. But it requires beating the other civs in building that wonder.



In summary, I think settling in place is the better option overall. The land tiles you lose by doing this can be recovered by taking them with cities settled later.

A non-game related question:

How do you get that kind of font in your games? In my games, my font seems slightly different from this one.

From a solid Monarch/tentative Emperor:

I find it difficult to believe there won't be a better site for the Moais. Better to make the capital a NE/Oxford city, and crank out the scientists IMO. Having pigs with lots of nearby hills leads me to believe there will be adequate production nearby to fend off any early Immortal barbarian attacks/AI rushes.

Looking at that screen shot I made a few observations of my own.

It is almost a 100% thing that by moving the settler west, Washington will immediately gain at least 2 floodplains in its BFC. What I am more concerned though is what lies beyond those floodplains to the west. Since I am seeing what looks like plains tiles directly NW of the pigs, I fear that perhaps the land to the west of the floodplains might end up being dry deserts.

Also, the tile 1S of the warrior's position seems to be the only viable city site that will take both the pigs and the southernmost clams. Of course, that southernmost clams can be taken by another site across the bay, but at this point, the tile 1S of warrior seems to be a good site that we can verify right away. And it looks like across the bay, those tiles look like plains tile with that brownish color, which, without rivers, mean poor food.

Ever thought about moving the settler 1N? I don't think anyone has suggested that yet. We do not yet know what lies north of us, but at least we will gain one riverside tile for sure by the looks of it. The other 2 tiles also seem to have that greenish color indicating that at least the base tile will likely be grassland. With that, we still keep 2 clams, 3 floodplains, 3 ordinary coastal tiles.

The south seems to be a very dry place with the high possibility of yielding low food. I am thinking city placement here, and by moving the settler 1N, perhaps we can have the option to at least secure a site with descent food output without being too close to each other.

In the end, I think settling in place is the safest bet. The possibility of dry desert seems high to the west, and leaving some of those floodplains out there seems to a better option, not just for the sake of having a plains hill capital with 3 clams, but to ensure that we can place our next set of cities with descent growth potential.

Just thought I would spit out some weird thoughts of mine here.

Sisiutil said:

However, with this being my first attempt at Immortal, and with no wonder-accelerating resources in the immediate vicinity, my inclination is to go on a wonder moratorium--at least until most of the nearby vicinity has been explored, the neighbours met, and so on. If Shaka or Monty or next door, for example, then it's gonna be units, units, units and hang the wonders.

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Settling SW doesn't commit you to using the s to build wonders, it just leaves that option open. If you find there are more pressing issues you can use the s for other purposes, such as units.

My earlier post wasn't really meant to be a comprehensive discussion of the pros and cons of settling SW since I thought we would have some additional information after the warrior move. Since that's not going to happen settling in place is probably the best move for the reasons everybody's pointed out.

Of course these map settings can make high city sites pretty rare, so you may be forced to live with a sub-optimal HE city.