Play the Map I: Big & Small, Snaky Continents & Low Sea Level

Hi! The goal of the Play the Map games is to explore how changing the map settings to something other than contintents or pangea should force us to alter our strategy to fit the map. "Play the game that the map tells you to play" seems to be common advice to most players trying to get better. Even on a standard map, you may find yourself in a situation where your core cities are all food poor or production poor, and therefore YOU need to do something about it. Those seven plains tiles aren't suddenly going to change into grasslands (well, they could but I'm not doing a worldbuilder thread here) so you need a strategy to fit the map.

I'll be playing these games at Monarch/Epic. I'm relatively new at Monarch, but with most of my Prince games turning into romps, it seems like it's been time to play this level for a while now.

I'm using BtS 3.17, with the BUG and BAT mods. The Mods include a few different map scripts, and would allow us to do things like alter the amount of resources available and generate maps almost entirely covered with forests and jungles at the start.

For this game, we're going with a group of options availiable without Mods:


The snaky continents and the low sea level should mean that we'll have room for tons of coastal cities. Seafood should be plentiful, but I imagine that we may need to run around a bit to pick up strategic and happy resources. Also, I will assume that waging war is going to require boats. Lots of boats.

I've decided to go with Napoleon as the leader for this game. He doesn't have water friendly unique buildings or units, but he does have Organized half price courthouses and lighthouses. He's also bringing the warmonger's Charasmatic trait of reduced XP for promotions (drydock ships will pop out as level three) and the two extra happy from the trait plus a monument. Combined with the extra health from a harbor in every city, it's almost like we're playing at a lower level on the city happy/health scale.


And, lastly, the starting position. I've never actually seen a seafood cluster like that before. Normally, it's just three clams, so this is kind of interesting. Settling in place seems like it would be a pretty decent plan. Let me know where you think I should move the warrior (either 1S or 1NW in my opinion) and I post a second screen shot.


I'll attach the 4000BC saved game file after I move the warrior and we decide where to settle.

Something special would have to come up to move from in place, imo.

Move the warrior SW,on the hill for maximum view. But I also think its settle in place.

I say settle in place... unless the warrior shows something very special. If there were a food resource 3E, then it might be worth moving 1E. You wouldn't lose the freshwater bonus. However, 1E may mean you lose something west. I'd move the warrior 1NW to see west, or 1NE to see east. Tough call. I'd probably move 1NW with the warrior, and still settle in place.

Given that your trees below you are snow covered, and you can faintly make out some tundra on the coast, I'd peg you for southern hemisphere. I'd probably move SW, on to the hill, to see if you can open up and see what you have inland.

But damn, with 3 different fish resources, harbours in every city means you won't have any health issues. And with +2 happy from Chm, you'll be able to grow quite big before unhappiness problems. Thus, forget about researching monarchy.

Also, squinting at the top edge of the map, I think I see more coastline (makes sense given snaky continents). But that sort of analysis can probably wait for you to actually settle.

If I move the warrior 1SW, won't my view of two of the three tiles claimed by settling in place still be blocked?

Then again, I suppose it doesn't make sense to want to see what I get for settling in place as opposed to finding out what I'll miss if I settle in place, does it?

So, I guess I should lean towards just taking a look around from the hill, and then plopping down the city. Like you all said, unless I see something like Gold just out of reach, I think we're looking at a pretty strong capital city right where we stand. Paris will be world famous for it's seafood salad.

So, I moved the warrior 1SW. He saw absolutely nothing of interest other than a grassland tile to his ESE that has potential for a strategic resource, so I had the settler set up Paris right where it stood.



It's even better than it looked before. Cows will be nice, and the wine on the plains hill is not the best thing that could be there, but not the worst either. To be fair, if I've got more wine elsewhere, I would seriously consider mining that hill given all of the food I've already got in this city. We can talk about that at some point.

So, I would say the next moves should be:

- Send the warrior off to explore whatever it is he can see. Hopefully, he won't get eaten by a bear.
- Set research on fishing, then I would say mining->bronze working given the number of trees and food resources here. After that, I'm not sure.
- I think I'll probably have the city build a worker while I research fishing, then switch over to a workboat as soon as fishing is done. (The worker won't have anything to do until I'm either done with bronze working or if I move Animal Husbandry up in the research order.) Then after the workboat is done and is working the fish tile, I'll finish up the worker. This should time out pretty well with the completion of BW.
- I'll then use the worker to chop at least one more workboat before we figure out what to do next.

Sound like a decent plan?

No probs. Make sure once BW is done to have the south explored, since I think 90% of my games there's a copper in a nearly completely useless spot in the tundra.

It'll also be interesting to see if that little part to the right is the end of the continent or simply a small gap. If it is the end, you'll only have one real direction to expand to.

The other thing, with heavily water maps like this, getting sailing early to try for getting extra trade routes would be useful at some point. Does that come in usually after bronze working?

That looks like a nice production capital, can I see 5 hills in your BFC?

One question, why have you started building a worker? I assume you will switch to a work boat when fishing is finished but wouldn't a warrior be better? This will allow the capital to grow so there will be more hammers for the boat.

Production wont be a problem, you have 3 plains hills, the cow and several plains tiles besides the wine so I'd say you can safely put a winery there.

AndrewN said:

One question, why have you started building a worker? I assume you will switch to a work boat when fishing is finished but wouldn't a warrior be better? This will allow the capital to grow so there will be more hammers for the boat.

Click to expand...

Heh. Great minds think alike. I did a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation, and came up with a scenario which looks like I will finish the worker exactly the same turn I finish BW if I do it this way. I'm not thrilled with the idea of not having a second warrior, but I think the worker timing on this plan will let me use chop overflow hammers from the workboats to quickly field a few warriors right around the time I'm going to need them.

Plus you may decide to have it as a SE city, since working the 3 seafood resources and the cow will let you run about 7 scientists if my food match is right.

Excellent place.
No need to sacrifice the wine resource,as the city shall have 3 other plains/hills,cows and
the plains/hills with the wine itself, so 17 raw hammers.
Plenty of food and health and charismatic leader: an high pop city.
First concerns, as you said, connect the sea food, mine the hills, know the surroundings
and the copper/iron situation.
Best regards,

He should mine the wine until monarchy comes in. Then he can just change it.

save please

I'll attach the 4000BC saved game file after I move the warrior and we decide where to settle.

Click to expand...

Promises, promises.

You want Sailing and a Lighthouse quickly in a start like this. Use those seafood for a lot of whipping. It makes those lakes decent too, at 3F2C. Thats better than a riverside farm.

I hope we have some islands around, you should build an extra workboat to explore a bit, you can always settle it to jump start a future city somewhere, and if it gets eaten by a barb galley, oh well, worth it if you find land. You want islands just right for 2 cities, max, the 3rd city on a landmass makes the maintenance go way up.

I also play starts like this Warrior, WB, Worker, Chopped WB for civs without Fishing. Usually Fishing and that first Warrior are done around the same turn. A WB next to make the Worker build faster, then that worker can chop out a 2nd and even 3rd boat (or you can whip it).

Snaky Continents + Big and Small means that the majority of your cities will be coastal. You certainly want GLH and Collosus.

Napoleon is one of the most underrated leaders. Charismatic is a great early trait and the best military trait overall along with Aggressive. Musketeers are a great unit!! The more I use them, the more I love them. They go great with Cuirassiers and Spies for rapid conquest and are mobile defenders that let you respond to unexpected threats. Organized is also a warmonger's trait. Cheap courthouses and -50% civic costs allow for big empires.

I'll be following this closely..

That's a terrific capital. 2 lakes and all 3 seafood as well, plus a cheap lighthouse

EDIT: I'd go for an Oracle/Metal Casting strat here, Colossus + Moai Statues = super city.

JT, can you post the save?!?