LK152 - the weak Venezuela

We go at it again attempting to win from South America with the weakest of the 3 civs down there.

LKendter (up)
Elephantium (on deck)
Northern Pike
Greebley
Room for one more.

Northern Pike said:

2. I notice that Venezuela starts with two workers. Since they're fast CCM workers, I'd suggest that one of them--from the first turn--should dash up through Mexico before it's blocked by Aztec cities, to make very early contact with the Aztecs, Sioux, and Americans. This might let us get some trade value out of our initial techs, after which the worker can come home.

Click to expand...

Any thoughts from the other 2 on this? We are slowing down terrain development to get a few early techs. Is it worth it?

I'd be okay with trying that.

I am not against trying it if that is what others want to do. I am not sure if it is the best strategy, but it is trying something new which I like.

3950 BC (1)
The worker toward Central America exposed some deer, that justified delaying a turn to get this site.

3650 BC (7)
We meet the Aztecs, and fall just short of grabbing pottery.


3450 BC (11)
We give the Aztecs burial, $3/T and $37 to grab pottery. I want that early granary.


3250 BC (15)
We meet the Sioux. Both our techs aren't good enough to grab alphabet.


3050 BC (19)
Operation go north is completed, as we meet America. We have no techs to offer.

We can grab bronze working and $10 from the Sioux for warrior code and burial. No two ways deals are possible, as all of North America knows bronze working.


Summary:
This isn't my typical to wrap the first turn so quickly. However, while our capitol is decent, there is NO clear second city spot. The settler is one turn away, so it is time to debate the location.

We still haven't met either of the South American civs. Hopefully they will appear next set. I suspect they are our best chance of more techs. We really want alphabet to start heading toward Asia.




Blue dot - marginal spot that will let us build ships on both coasts. Production will be limited until monarchy.

Red dot - another site to let us build a pacific fleet. With monarchy we can irrigate the grassland from the oasis, and support some production.

Pink dot - the jungle burn with be expensive, but if we want to play for the Great Library, this spot at least can support some hills with the irrigated banana.

Black dot - this isn't on a river. However, the banana will give it some food.

Summary:

ROSTER:

LKendter (just played)
Elephantium (up)
Northern Pike (on deck)
Greebley
Room for one more

Well done getting the early granary built. Food +5 in the capital is great, for this terrain.

Could you post the save? Apparently Greebley's disease is catching.

It's hard to be certain which tiles are on rivers from a screenshot, so I won't comment on our next city site just yet.

And the save.

I probably won't have time to play until this weekend; could I swap with someone?

lurker's comment: I would take the pink dot and move it one tile N. There it has more coastal tiles (for furture commerce) and also it can work two grasslands immediately instead of zero. (One of which would never be worked on for the entire game, if you settle on pink.)

ROSTER:

LKendter (just played)
Elephantium (on deck)
Northern Pike (up) (if can play quicker)
Greebley
Room for one more

I think we have to get the Great Library to survive, since with this dreadful selection of city sites we won't have enough income to stay in the brokering game past the mid-AA. So on the premise that our second city will build a temple and then start the palace pre-build, I think we should found it at 1 on the screenshot. We could fairly quickly develop a city here to where it would be working three irrigated plains, four mined grasslands, and two forests at size nine; this would require two forest chops*, with which we'd build the temple almost immediately, but no jungle burns or mining of hills. If we chose to let the city borrow the capital's mined BG during the run for the GLib, it would be even stronger. I don't see any other location that looks as good for a GLib drive. I don't think the nearness of this site to Caracas is a problem, since the game will be decided when cities are no larger than size twelve, as usual.

*Of course we can't do any chops once we've started the pre-build, or it'll have tainted shields and we won't be allowed to switch to the Library.

I'd suggest that we try to found our third city at 2 on the screenshot, to have two cities rather than one in Central America. We could even press on to the river in the Yucatan if the Aztecs let us, though that seems unlikely. If this doesn't work the settler can just fall back to a site in Panama, as indicated by LK.

Since barracks only cost us twenty shields, perhaps we should vary our usual formula and build one in the capital almost immediately, before it starts pumping out warriors for MP duty. This would give us the option of a mass warrior--> swordsman upgrade later, very cheaply.

LKendter said:

Northern Pike (up) (if can play quicker)

Click to expand...

OK, I'll play late this evening (Thursday). That'll give everyone time to provide input.

Northern Pike said:

Since barracks only cost us twenty shields, perhaps we should vary our usual formula and build one in the capital almost immediately, before it starts pumping out warriors for MP duty. This would give us the option of a mass warrior--> swordsman upgrade later, very cheaply.

Click to expand...

Can we really afford to build warriors in the capitol? It is our only decent source of workers / settlers. Food is pitiful in this section of South America.

1 has no food bonuses? How are we going to get it to a decent size?
We can't afford our only food city building nothing but workers to merge into that city.

lurker's comment: Two questions:
- In retrospect, do you think the experiment with using the second worker as explorer worked out ok? You got two techs for it, iirc, but the capital looks a bit under-developed: size 7 but only 4 improved tiles to work.
- I'd like to try this scenario myself. I found the batch file in LK147, but it looks like I also need to install some kind of scenario. Is this the right one? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13124208&postcount=204

I think the above is the right version. I'm at work right now and can't check.

I started a game as Venezuela, but neither got the wine nor the deer resource?! (Nor the gold hill for that matter?!)

LKendter said:

Can we really afford to build warriors in the capitol? It is our only decent source of workers / settlers. Food is pitiful in this section of South America.

1 has no food bonuses? How are we going to get it to a decent size?
We can't afford our only food city building nothing but workers to merge into that city.

Click to expand...

By merging, as you suggest. Given that 1) Caracas can produce two-turn workers, and 2) this cramped start will reduce our need for early settlers, I don't think fitting workers into the build sequence will be too damaging. I'm not claiming there's no trade-off involved, but my premise is that the Great Library has to be our absolute priority because this position looks hopeless without it--would you disagree?

I find that in a position like this the capital generally builds some warriors just because it can produce them so much more quickly than other towns, even if it's against theory. But a fast barracks in Caracas is just an idea, and if it's unpopular with the team, no problem.

Lanzelot said:

In retrospect, do you think the experiment with using the second worker as explorer worked out ok?

Click to expand...

We're still in the period when we wouldn't have contact with the Sioux and the Americans if we hadn't sent the worker, if you see what I mean, so the final returns aren't in. But I'd happily trade about seventeen worker-turns for two techs.