Shooting the Moon tips

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Alright, I just started a new game (warning: Marathon game and using BULL as mod, not custom assets). I decided that I was getting bored of Monarch difficulty and wanted to see if I could learn more from failure, so I rolled out a Deity level game with Random Leaders. I ended up with Joao.

So far, so good. Then I took a look at my starting spot and thought that it would be a shame if I couldn't win with this kind of start. And that's where you come in :D

My plan was to post every, oh thirty turns or so and ask for your critique. So, without further ado, here's a screenshot of the start:
Spoiler :



I decided to move my warrior up and to the right and discovered an oasis, so I moved my settler that a way:


 
OMG. Settle on the Rice!!!!!!!!!

Rice is one of the best starting resources to settle your first city on.

I'll probably try this at some point. What are Joao's starting techs? Is this standard number of civs?

If you have mining first (very important starting tech for Marathon) I'd go BW and chop out settlers, workers, and axes, and settle on high-production and high-commerce sites. As Joao, it would be like perfect. Food's nice, but to take advantage of it, you need techs like Agriculture, and AH, which takes a while to get. Besides, as EXP, you might get pottery instead for fast granaries. Whips don't matter as much until granaries are up.
 
I think that my starting move was pretty reasonable, so I just went ahead and played the next segment out. I decided to play out to turn 45 because my worker wasn't even out by turn 30.

Joao starts with mining, but I decided to ignore that for now. Instead, my techs so far are: Agri (for the wet rice) followed by Hunting. Since Hunting probably raised some eyebrows, here's my thought process: the start was too rich to really expect either horses or copper. Since this is a large map on Marathon, I can't spawnbust the entire area myself. Therefore, I need Archers. I'm going to go AH-->Archery-->BW. The mineral wealth should help commerce-wise, Joao's traits should help in expanding fast enough.

Here's a dotmap I put together:
Spoiler :


I'm especially unsure of white. Oh, btw, red has an extra gold resource to the north not shown in this screenshot.
 
OMG. Settle on the Rice!!!!!!!!!

Rice is one of the best starting resources to settle your first city on.

I'll probably try this at some point. What are Joao's starting techs? Is this standard number of civs?

If you have mining first (very important starting tech for Marathon) I'd go BW and chop out settlers, workers, and axes, and settle on high-production and high-commerce sites. As Joao, it would be like perfect. Food's nice, but to take advantage of it, you need techs like Agriculture, and AH, which takes a while to get. Besides, as EXP, you might get pottery instead for fast granaries. Whips don't matter as much until granaries are up.

Hi, MGR, I thought about settling on the rice, but I decided that since it's wet rice and my only food resource, I'd rather not settle on it. Maybe that was a mistake?

The Portuguese start out with Fishing and Mining. Both of which will come in handy shortly, though starting with Agri might've been better.

Pottery should probably go at the end of the list of techs that I mentioned in my last post. Good point about half price granaries.

You mentioned that you'd be interested in playing the save. Don't forget that you'd need BULL as a mod. For that reason, I didn't bother posting the original save. Just in case, though, I'll post it here anyway. Thanks for your insights!
 

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City 1 should be on desert hill between red and yellow dots. Shares oasis to grow until culture pop. White banana city doesn't exist before ironworking (if ever). I like 4w of white dot for coastal, cows, FP cottages
 
Settling on Rice is unreasonable..without seeing Cows/Fish, it potentially could have left @Um with no food or FPs. After seeing them, it's still bad cos it closes out a good city spot.
When looking at your surrounding land, you will need every spot you can find ;)
 
OMG. Settle on the Rice!!!!!!!!!

Rice is one of the best starting resources to settle your first city on.
Settling on Rice is absurd, especially when it's wet. :rolleyes:

If you have mining first (very important starting tech for Marathon) I'd go BW and chop out settlers, workers, and axes, and settle on high-production and high-commerce sites. As Joao, it would be like perfect. Food's nice, but to take advantage of it, you need techs like Agriculture, and AH, which takes a while to get. Besides, as EXP, you might get pottery instead for fast granaries. Whips don't matter as much until granaries are up.
Did you even look at the map. Agri-Mining is automatic here. Of course, Joao starts with Mining which is good. BW next. Yes.
 
I think that my starting move was pretty reasonable, so I just went ahead and played the next segment out. I decided to play out to turn 45 because my worker wasn't even out by turn 30.

Joao starts with mining, but I decided to ignore that for now. Instead, my techs so far are: Agri (for the wet rice) followed by Hunting. Since Hunting probably raised some eyebrows, here's my thought process: the start was too rich to really expect either horses or copper.
This is simply false. The Map Generator only modifies the starting BFC, which means that your chances of finding copper or horses are just as good as they are on any other map.
Since this is a large map on Marathon, I can't spawnbust the entire area myself. Therefore, I need Archers. I'm going to go AH-->Archery-->BW. The mineral wealth should help commerce-wise, Joao's traits should help in expanding fast enough.
My Deity experience is limited but, in general I find you have enough time for either BW or AH but not both. I would have gone for BW and fell back on archery if need be. Still, the safe course is not wrong.

Here's a dotmap I put together:

I'm especially unsure of white. Oh, btw, red has an extra gold resource to the north not shown in this screenshot.
From what you show us, white should be 1N. Of course, nothing should be settled east until IW and Calendar. I think red should 1N too. Can't tell from the screenshot though. Ignore the suggestion to split red and yellow. Your objective is to bring in the gold. Having both in the inner nine is huge. The city build order should be red-green-? Before green you will need some military.
 
Settling on Rice is unreasonable..without seeing Cows/Fish, it potentially could have left @Um with no food or FPs. After seeing them, it's still bad cos it closes out a good city spot.
When looking at your surrounding land, you will need every spot you can find ;)

Calling it unreasonable is being kind. The only 6 yield tile for a very long time and settling on it seem noobish and I am being kind too.

Too bad the placement of the second Gem lead to missing the cows out of BFC.
 
This is simply false. The Map Generator only modifies the starting BFC, which means that your chances of finding copper or horses are just as good as they are on any other map.

My Deity experience is limited but, in general I find you have enough time for either BW or AH but not both. I would have gone for BW and fell back on archery if need be. Still, the safe course is not wrong.

Exactly. Given that I moved my settler before settling, I shouldn't count on finding either. Think of it this way: not counting tiles in the cap's BFC, what are the odds that a random tile has a horse or copper resource? Pretty darn low. Only when the map has been "nudged" can you count on it. I probably have something on that bare grass tile, but I have no idea for sure. Even if there is something, I can't depend on it being, say Horse and not copper or iron (or even Aluminum, Oil, Uranium or nothing at all).

Hunting is an optional prerequisite to AH, my "gamble for resources" tech. Otoh, I know that I'll need BW and I could probably put off AH, depending on how I settle.

From what you show us, white should be 1N. Of course, nothing should be settled east until IW and Calendar.

Thanks for confirming that. I was trying to judge between where I currently have white and 1N and either way, I knew that it would be a long time before I was ready to settle that city. Looking back at the screenshot, though, I noticed that a bubble isn't showing up: there's a source of incense on that desert tile at the bottom. There's actually another one, but any city that would claim it would be pretty much be just to claim it/ them.

I think red should 1N too. Can't tell from the screenshot though. Ignore the suggestion to split red and yellow. Your objective is to bring in the gold. Having both in the inner nine is huge. The city build order should be red-green-? Before green you will need some military.

I'll have to take another look there. I remember debating with myself on moving it up or not, but I thought because I'm using "Flood Pains" (not a typo), for food it shouldn't matter whether both of them are part of the box of nine. In that case, I might as well save myself some maintenance. On the other hand, by moving red 1N, moving yellow 1N starts making sense.

Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions. I appreciate it.
 
I disagree.

By settling on the rice, you get an extra point of food WITHOUT having to research Agriculture.

This means you can aim for BW first, which makes dealing with barbs sooooo much easier. Also, a Bronze city (second city) is very good for spamming workers and settlers if you're IMP and EXP. Furthermore, earlier BW is equal to more chops, which means faster second city and workers.

In other words, since you're EXP and IMP, you need production, not food, to take advantage of it.

This is Marathon/Huge (right?), meaning that you have MUCH more space to take advantage of good land. This means that the initial city placement should be focused on short-term goals of getting out more settlers and workers, and less focused on long-term goals.

In other words: the capital matters less on larger maps.

Your capital city can easily just be at pop 3 or 4, spamming settlers and workers for like forever.

Consider this:

Rice provides +5 to the production of workers and settlers.

A mined hill produces +5.5 to the production of workers and settlers.

In other words, a mined hill is BETTER than a worked rice if you're IMP and EXP and you're building workers and/or settlers, which you'll be doing for a while due to the larger size of the map.

Try the start again, but this time do it by placing the city on the wet rice, and compare the two. Granted you have more map knowledge, but it's a good learning experience.
 
For those of you who felt that the screenshots weren't good enough, I took two more screenshots (I also added two more city spots, but I doubt that they're even possible, much less desirable any time soon).

Spoiler :





Edit: I just realized that I only posted one of the two images. Oops. The other one is now in the spoiler too.
 
Cross-posted with MGR again.

I actually went with a Large map (for no particular reason). Also, while I agree that the capital isn't as important, it's still important. If I'd settled on the rice, I would have nowhere with a food surplus. Before you can work the mines, you need food to pay for them ;)Besides, Agri is almost always an important tech to get early.

One last thought: given that I have a lot of jungle around, I'm not sure that city-spamming from the capital makes sense in this game.

All that said, sure, I'm willing to give it a go. Both of the traits, as well as the speed, reward early chopping. It's possible that it really is the best way to go.
 
So I played and wtf...

Spoiler ~2000 BC :

See I thought I was being very safe. Agri---> Archery---> BW, used woodsman II warrior and archers to block off barbs. No barb ever set foot anywhere near the capital.

Barbs were easy but Ragnar herp derp DoW at 2100 BC with half a dozen metal units. lawl. I suppose I could have settled copper or maybe I should have only built all archers. -_- Can you deity guys survive a war so early?
 
Since Hunting probably raised some eyebrows, here's my thought process: the start was too rich to really expect either horses or copper.

This is simply false. The Map Generator only modifies the starting BFC, which means that your chances of finding copper or horses are just as good as they are on any other map.

Exactly. Given that I moved my settler before settling, I shouldn't count on finding either.

I disagree with your assertion that a "rich" start precludes the discovery of other beneficial resources.
 
So I played and wtf...

Spoiler ~2000 BC :

See I thought I was being very safe. Agri---> Archery---> BW, used woodsman II warrior and archers to block off barbs. No barb ever set foot anywhere near the capital.

Barbs were easy but Ragnar herp derp DoW at 2100 BC with half a dozen metal units. lawl. I suppose I could have settled copper or maybe I should have only built all archers. -_- Can you deity guys survive a war so early?

Spoiler :


lol :D

2100 is very early, but again, Ragnar and the aggressive AI's tend to declar war from 2200 BC - 2000 BC on Marathon. Did you do anything to piss him off, like taking the wrong Religion or settling to close to him?

Half a dozen metal units by 2100 BC are beatable though, it just takes leaving cities undefended and stacking in border-cities which should have walls, which again is even more difficult with barbs on as one can't just move every single troop to the city where the attack happens.

That's why I suggest picking the opponents and turning barbs off, this might hoever get really funny to read now, as Um seems to have taken some really hard settings in addition to playing Deity his first time :D

 
@ Seraiel
Spoiler :

Nope, I didn't do anything but die. ;) And the map is large so I'm not anywhere close to him. Which is why I pretty much ragequit when I saw his stack march so far to get to me. I suppose I could survive by abandoning the new city and concentrating all my archers in capital, but eh, no mood to deal with that crap. :lol:
 
I disagree with your assertion that a "rich" start precludes the discovery of other beneficial resources.

Map Generator confusion:
Spoiler :
Oh, OK. I understand that probabilities don't apply when things aren't random. I guess I don't understand how the map generator does its thing then. As I understand it, the map generator will guarantee at least one tile worth three food (with a rare glitch where it counts plains cows) and three hills (of any value). Other than that, you have no guarantees but you do have an increased chance of getting other resources. Say, a 90% chance of one more resource of any kind, 81% chance of two resources of any kind, etc. with weird restrictions like unlike resources can't spawn next to each other, certain resources can't spawn next to each other, and so on. If you can clarify where I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it.


I have two tiles that don't have forests on them. Let's say that we can guarantee that at least one of them has a resource and it's equally likely that it's one of six different resources (which I listed before). I only have time to research either AH or BW, meaning 5 out of 6 resources are not going to help me survive. In that case, my gamble has a 1 - 5/6*5/6 = 1 - 25/36 = 11/36 of success, or roughly 1/3. Those don't sound like winning odds to me when failure means death.

I'm willing to bet that horses are fairly likely though because I think that the odds are weighted in favor of horses and because if I lose the bet, I can fall back on Archery. It's still a gamble unless I use the cows soon, though.

As for what order to settle the cities: I think that the capital will be able to handle my commerce for a long time. I think I should go for a short-term hammer city. If I weren't Joao, I'd prefer a food city (green). Horrible as yellow is long-term, I think that it's just the ticket for REXing. Rice and oasis to size three, mines. Next would be red, then green.
 
Unfortunately I don't have any more insight into the map generator than you do, so I'm mainly warning against the subjective nature of judging a start. Note: If only the BFC tiles are "enhanced" we can't consider the northernmost gems in our evaluation of the quality of the start. Even if we could do we know that the distribution of strategic resources is applied only if the start is poor? My intuition suggests that either of metal or horse is a common find in the BFC, it's not a guarantee but it's one consideration in moving the initial settler.
 
Oh wait. I think there's been a little misunderstanding. When I'm talking about resource-rich, I don't mean rich in commerce. I meant extra resources.

Still, I am curious. If anyone understands how this works better, I'm willing to listen. I'd also listen carefully if you tell me that you often just take the gamble. I think I've seen Deity games where people go BW ASAP.

Edit: Also, if the second gems doesn't count, then neither does the northernmost bare grass tile, cutting the odds in half.
 
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