FFH style ALC game

I agree with the starting position just north of the gold. Send your warrior home via the quickest and safest route, and build a worker first, then three warriors, then a settler and two more workers. Your capital will be very short on hammers, so it would be good to look for a high-production second city to crank out more warriors: your capital will be good at building settlers and workers (especially with agrarianism), but poor at building military units.

I would research Calendar first, since it will let you build your first settler 50% faster (3 surplus food per irrigated floodplain with agrarianism, instead of 2). Then crafting->mining.

Edit: on second thought, crafting->mining->calendar. At Prince level, you can research crafting and a good chunk of mining while the worker is being built. By the time you can irrigate a few flood plains, you could have calendar researched.

1n of the gold is a good spot. You might even find another resource west since that is still covered.

I'd def. do crafting>mining>calendar for research.

I would NOT build a worker first though. Warrior (get to 2) then worker. You lose too much growth potential for almost no gain if you go worker first (you cannot do any real terraforming until you research crafting anyway. Grow a little and when you are done with your first warrior/size 2 switch to the worker.

Tasunke starts with Agriculture. Since the city can immediately benefit from a farm, worker first makes a lot of sense. The sooner farms are built the sooner you will reach your population cap and can shift to building settlers.

I agree about crafting>mining>calendar. Better to get the out of the Wine and Gold early. Those three techs will complete sooner if you follow that path rather than calendar>crafting>mining.

Edit: Actually, I would suggest crafting>calendar>mining. The :happy: from Wine will raise the pop cap by one, so more growth needs to take place. Switching to Agrarianism sooner will help speed growth. I still think crafting first for the Wine makes sense, because of the and it will provide, but trying to squeeze mining in before calendar would probably slow growth undesirably.

There isn't much point to working a foodless gold until you've got a lot of excess food anyway, so picking up Calendar before mining makes sense.

As long as you go Calendar fast, then worker first enhances growth, not inhibits it.

There isn't much point to working a foodless gold until you've got a lot of excess food anyway

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I disagree with this. A mined gold produces alot of , which at this stage of the game will all go into research. So going Crafting -> Mining -> Calendar would be quicker than going Crafting -> Calendar -> Mining, as along as we had a worker out to mine the gold before calendar.

Mu'min said:

I disagree with this. A mined gold produces alot of , which at this stage of the game will all go into research. So going Crafting -> Mining -> Calendar would be quicker than going Crafting -> Calendar -> Mining, as along as we had a worker out to mine the gold before calendar.

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Faster in tech, not faster in getting your second city (and so your 3rd, and everything else).

Emptiness: I can't be sure, but I was under the impression there were some 1F/2H tiles to work with, which when assisted by AgrarianFP farms are an acceptable means for getting the Warriors out. 2 warriors does sound very low in production.

Agrarianism only works on farmed tiles, where it increases food by one and lowers hammers by one. So working / tiles under agrarianism, for the purpose of production/settlers/workers is pointless. You lose hammers for production and come out even for settlers and workers.

Researching crafting>mining will allow the worker to start building mines right around the time that it finishes farming the last FP. By the time calendar is done enough warriors will have been built so that settler production can safely begin, and the shift to agrarianism at that time will have a purpose (in either case it isn't needed for growth, but it will help with settler output).

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It takes about 25 turns to build the first worker then another 19 to farm FP, by then mining will soon be finish. so we will probably only have time to farm 1 1/2 to 2 FP, before mining, not all 4 FP unfornutately. Also, mining the gold will give us 3 and lots of gold, while the wine will give us either 2 or 3 plus not so much gold and the FP will give 4 plus one gold. So for growth a wine/FP combo seems best, while for settlers/workers a mine/FP is best. Throw research in to the picture makes things more complicated. The more gold we get the quicker we can tech to calendar for agrarianism giving a boost to growth or settler/worker production. But to get there we will have to work the mine - slowing growth. And remember before we can use those settlers we will need warriors to look after them.

So, i was thinking we build a warrior to guard the city while waiting for 2 pop. that should knock off 5/6 turns of worker build time then back to warriors while we wait for city to hit happy cap. In the mean time the worker improves tiles. But do we go wine -> FP -> mine -> FP -> FP -> FP or FP -> wine -> mine -> FP -> FP -> FP or FP -> FP -> mine -> wine -> FP -> FP. If we go Crafting -> mining we should hit mining in time for the 3rd improvement and Calendar by the 3rd or 4th FP. We can then flip to agrarianism to churn out workers/settlers. While the warriors fogbust and gain XP.

I will see what your responses are tomorrow late morning then play to turn about 100? and post the progress.

p.s. NO spoilers please, please put anything that might be a spoiler in tags. thank you

Mu'min said:

p.s. NO spoilers please, please put anything that might be a spoiler in tags. thank you

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Sorry about the spoilers. I was so interested in figuring out which way was more efficient that I didn't think about what I was doing. It might be better not to post saves of the game. If people download and inspect them it can lead to spoilers and can influence people's opinions and advice even if they avoid giving things away.

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Mu'min said:

It takes about 25 turns to build the first worker then another 19 to farm FP, by then mining will soon be finish. so we will probably only have time to farm 1 1/2 to 2 FP, before mining, not all 4 FP unfornutately.

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Mu'min said:

So, i was thinking we build a warrior to guard the city while waiting for 2 pop. that should knock off 5/6 turns of worker build time then back to warriors while we wait for city to hit happy cap. In the mean time the worker improves tiles. But do we go wine -> FP -> mine -> FP -> FP -> FP or FP -> wine -> mine -> FP -> FP -> FP or FP -> FP -> mine -> wine -> FP -> FP. If we go Crafting -> mining we should hit mining in time for the 3rd improvement and Calendar by the 3rd or 4th FP. We can then flip to agrarianism to churn out workers/settlers. While the warriors fogbust and gain XP.

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Worker first... although a very bold move and undoubtedly profitable in the long run, I'v had my ass handed to me by a stray lizard or spectre in the first 20 turns too often to advise it !

Even with the aggressive trait, I'd wait at least until at least another warrior has been built and you reach pop 2.

I prefer the crafting -> mining -> calendar path in order to take advantage of the gold ASAP, which is too powerful a tile to be postponed

work order : FP -> wine -> gold, since you don't wanna kill your growth by working the gold before size 3 at least.

Worker first... although a very bold move and undoubtedly profitable in the long run, I'v had my ass handed to me by a stray lizard or spectre in the first 20 turns too often to advise it !

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Yeah me too! Also, bear in mind we are quite close to the jungle here with its hordes of lizards, we know of one ruin already, which is only 3 turns away, for a lizard, from the capital site and we wouldn't know about it, too it entered our borders, then we would only have one turn to respond.

On the other hand we do have the option of pulling back our original warrior, from exploring, and having him guard the capital, while building a worker first. But that might mean missing out on goody huts and a delay in exploriation. becuz, lets face it, scouts rarely last that long. In fact they usually die so quick i have just given up exploring for long periods as the hammers were just getting wasted.

Mu'min said:

Agrarianism only works on farmed tiles, where it increases food by one and lowers hammers by one. So working / tiles under agrarianism, for the purpose of production/settlers/workers is pointless. You lose hammers for production and come out even for settlers and workers.

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You've misunderstood. Agrarianism civic allows an increase in production by giving you an extra food, which means you can move more citizens to grassland/hills/forests or plains/forest tiles without hurting your growth rate. You might do this to build warriors faster. Settlers/workers will be built faster using farms alone.

Mu'min said:

Yeah me too! Also, bear in mind we are quite close to the jungle here with its hordes of lizards, we know of one ruin already, which is only 3 turns away, for a lizard, from the capital site and we wouldn't know about it, too it entered our borders, then we would only have one turn to respond.

On the other hand we do have the option of pulling back our original warrior, from exploring, and having him guard the capital, while building a worker first. But that might mean missing out on goody huts and a delay in exploriation. becuz, lets face it, scouts rarely last that long. In fact they usually die so quick i have just given up exploring for long periods as the hammers were just getting wasted.

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If you're going to worker first, then use your original warrior for defense and even move your scout around the outside of your territory in a tight circle. His vision will prevent barbarians spawning and he can be retreated for extra defense very quickly. Given that hes going to die to animals/barbs anyway, you might as well use him to spot for your first ring of new cities, than run off in some direction on the chance of meeting another civ.

Mmmh only one warrior in capital (including starting warrior) means that the game will be lost ~ 30% of times if a lizard decides to pass by...

Would be a shame in an ALC game

With +80% defense (25% city defense bonus, 25% fortify, 20% aggressive combat 1, 10% culture), I'd take my chances with one warrior. By my calculations, it will take almost as long to build a warrior as a worker (13 turns for a warrior, 15 for a worker). More troops are definitely going to be needed, but I think the priority is to build a high-production second city to produce them; the capital will never be really good at building stuff with hammers, and should stick to commerce and settlers/workers.

As for a size 2 capital producing a worker faster than a size 1: production time would be reduced from 15 to 13 turns (after you've already spent 13 turns building the warrior). Size 3 would reduce the build time to 11 turns. Working more unimproved tiles doesn't make a huge difference; the important thing is to put those workers to work as soon as possible.

Second edit: all of these turn times are for normal speed. Double them for marathon. Worker first is even better at marathon, since he'll have more turns to improve tiles.

Early lizard men generally don't happen on Prince. The capital will have its first culture pop before any barbs can even spawn, and enemies have to cross a river from 3/8 of its tiles.

Hey ! take the chances you want... I wouldn't, that's all I'm saying

I tend to walue early exploration/huts a lot, which often means sending the scout far away and leaving the warrior running around in circles until death or sufficient future city spots have been found.

But a worker first may beat that anytime I'm happy to be constrictively criticized

And I thought it was mentionned somewhere to be a jump to monarch or sth. I misread then.

As far as other city locations are concerned. I'd probably try and hook up the cotton and silk with one city and that second gold with another. I'm curious to know if there is any copper around. If so, I'd hit Bronze Working and also settle that area around the Dye sooner than later.

I'd make Festivals and Markets a priority. If there was no copper around, I might also take a detour for Horseback Riding.

For the long run, I'd be thinking about bulbing Currency with a Great Merchant to get a jump on Guild of the Nine.

Hi, finished the first round on turn 112. Here's what happened.

Settled the capital on turn 2 1N of the gold, then the scout pop'ed the hut for gold.

The build order in the capital went worker -> warrior -> warrior -> warrior -> warrior -> scout -> warrior (3turns to go).

The worker went FP -> wine -> partial FP -> copper -> finished FP -> gold and is now on a FP waiting to start.

Teching went Crafting (then poped from hut) -> Mining -> (Exploration from hut) -> mining -> Calendar.

The warrior went NW then W and South along the edge of the known map, he met a scout from this guy on turn 9:

After him the warrior went south and spied someones borders to the west, i didn't send him investigate as i wanted him back in the capital, which was build a worker at the time.

The scout followed in the warriors wake popping the first hut for the gold already metioned, the second hut for Crafting and the third hut for a map. This revealed a area to the NW, which looked cold, dull and empty, so i sent the scout NW then SW to fill in some gaps and to come down from the north onto the nearby civ, who turned out to be:

I spotted a lizard man sitting on a ruin next to her capital so took a wide berth around him heading south. Took advantage of a tower just south of Os-gabella to have a look around, spotted the mirrior of heaven just to the south, so ran up to that. The mirrior show a big area of map all the way to the jungle and a village. So took a cautious route to the village as there was a tiger hanging around, still got attacked by a griffon though, which i somehow killed. Got to the village which gave me some more gold, then the tiger turned up, so a legged it west. Got attacked again near the pool of tears which i could just see the label of. So took a gamble that i wouldn't be attacked and went to the pool to heal. From the pool i headed a little west, didn't see the elohim then, and headed north looking for the dwarfs. Got attacked again, retreated to the pool, then headed back north, found the dwarfs and carried on north following the coast. Found a couple of dungeons then a village which i popped for:


After that headed East along the snow line, found bridgit in the ring of carcer, popped a dungeon for the jade torc, dodged some bears and connected up with the areas already explored north of Gabella. Then i headed south down the western side of Gabella's turf and back past the pool. Soon found the elohim:

and started to head east along the bottom of the jungle. Soon ran in to trouble. Had to dodge a gaint spider, then ran into a lizard who almost killed me. the scout retreated eastward thanks to withdrawal promo. Only to run into a wolf coming the other way. I couldn't move in any direction that got me clear so i thought: right he going to die, might as well move to see as much as possible, and saw this before he got eaten:

a barb gargoyle! the only place that could of come from is the pristin pass, which means that somewhere, not far enough away, to the south some one disturbed the prisin pass and unleashed a horde of gargoyles.

This is when a decided to slip in a scout into the build queue so i could send him to explore east along the coast, but at the moment he is having trouble getting past a gorilla there that keeps chasing me off. I have sent a warrior off north to explore the NE corner, where he has found the letum frigus, which i got a event urging me to claim it for some reason..

Here is the known world at the present:


At the moment my city is 3 turns rom finishing a warrior, after that i am thinking a worker to help connect the gold and build other roads. That should knock up the happiness cap by another 1. Should we keep that in reserve or build an other warrior and wait for the next pop.? Warriors take 6 turns to build, workers 10, settlers 36 at the moment. But we still have one more tile to farm and agarianism to flip to.
What is the tech order from now? At the moment it is on AChants, so we can build monuments to pop borders, but after that? Should we go for archery for defense or AH to wok tiles. or BW for axes, or mysticism for eldar councils. And where to build more cities? Here are the views around the capital for dot mapping:
To the north:


To the south:


and to the west:


Look forward to your responses and dotmaps.