GOMAW 29 AW wheel replay

and the grumpy old men try the AWM wheel game again. In order to be able to cope with the higher difficulty, no tech trading is enabled

played 40 turns, settled west just to find clams if we had settled in the east
our warrior popped 2 hostile huts but survives all three warrior attacks
we got 96 gold from the 3rd hut

went for AH which came in just a turn before our first worker was done
went for the wheel and pottery

went for high growth, so Bejing will soon hit pop 4. Build a pasture for the sheep, irrigated a flood plain
and started to mine a hill so we have some heavy shields once we have grown to size 5
pottery is in next turn, we can stop the mining for a while and build a cottage first

our land looks happy and fertile with marble near


a closer look at our capital, note that it worked high food throughout the set and thus we built only 1 warrior so far



save

The Roster
Rat
Greebley
Knupp
T_McC
Bez
Romeo

it is clear that we will grow to pop 5 very fast, I would build cottages on 2 flood plains.

After that warrior build, start another warrior we hit size 5 and then quickly get out a settler?

In the meantime start to research BW for copper, then are we going for CoL?

Someone to come up with a good dot map, we have our part of the land fully xplored with the 3 connections visible already

Checking in. Looks semi decent. Let the games begin.

You sure wont be in lack resources.

My bad on recommending the move - what I thought was a desert hill was actually a plains hill. I think settling on that hill actually would have been ideal, as it would have allowed the gold to be worked early, would have given us the two hammer city square, and would have had two food bonuses. Oh well, where it is doesn't suck - nice blend of tiles for good flexibility.

I'm thinking second city to the southeast to get gold/ivory hooked up expeditiously. Should be able to sneak in a whip in the capital about the time those resources are hooked, as it can grow out while the unhappiness wears off. Probably should use that whip for a granary.

Ok, I got it.

I am thinking BW so we can chop out workers next.

Agree on BW, also because we need to know where the Copper is as that will affect where we settle.

First thoughts on the south:


Red dot first since that city can feed itself initially. I think we want to settle on the desert Incense since we won't work the tile prior to Biology anyway, and this saves a better tile and some worker turns. Red dot is a production city (founded on a Plains hill and has a food bonus with shields), blue dot can be set more for commerce. I'm not concerned with the overlap since one of the six tiles is a desert, and two tiles are water tiles that the red dot should only be working at size 17+. Blue dot should have enough food to work cottages on all grassland, and a decent number of shields from the Horses and the couple of grass hills it possesses. It can also borrow a cottaged/irrigated FP from Beijing upon founding, so it can whip an Obelisk if we haven't built Stonehenge in order to put the Rice in its boundaries.

I think red dot is pretty strong unless that Plains Hill also has Copper on it. I would seriously consider a 2nd worker with the first forest chop (the forest on the Plains Spices will have to come down eventually ... and it immediately creates another 3-commerce tile ... ) since we are already working unimproved tiles at Beijing. This also frees the 2nd city to build Stonehenge if we wanted. There should be two choppable forests upon founding.

Concur with T_McC. Red dot first, build Henge there too. Use the first chop to get a worker, and possibly a 2nd chop to get the settler coming.

Not that it will matter on my turn but there is a lot of overlap there. I assume that is so we can build in the desert? Moving SW would grab a lot more sea squares for example and may be better.

Of course smaller towns do help with WW...

I wouldn't be averse to sneaking a whip in there to get the settler out quicker. It would mean sacrificing the use on one tile for fifteen turns, and another couple while the pop grows back, but the benefit would be getting the henge city founded ten turns or so faster. Actually, there's more forests than I thought, so probably better to chop both the worker and settler with help from the second worker. We make more hammers working the plains hill than whipping and regrowing that citizen.

I don't worry too much about overlap in early cities, as the most important part of the game takes place before it makes a difference.

Bezhukov said:

I don't worry too much about overlap in early cities, as the most important part of the game takes place before it makes a difference.

Click to expand...

Ya, this is true though it depends on the amount of overlap.
However, by that argument then one square west is better as it adds a grassland we can put a cottage on The fact that we have more desert squares isn't going to affect anything in the early part of the game and one more grass square will mean more cash so it still seems better.

Ill be lurking around this game. Good luck to you guys, I expect AW Monarch to be very hard, even with the few chokepoints.

Greebley said:

Ya, this is true though it depends on the amount of overlap.
However, by that argument then one square west is better as it adds a grassland we can put a cottage on The fact that we have more desert squares isn't going to affect anything in the early part of the game and one more grass square will mean more cash so it still seems better.

Click to expand...

No, moving the blue dot 1 W does not add a grassland. You lose the one you are founding on, and also lose a river/grass/hill. All you add are two deserts and two coasts. So it makes a difference starting at size 18, although you would always have less Hammers.

Founding on the Incense will also make the city center a 3-trade tile by virtue of the commerce bonus of the Incense and our being Financial. We "lose" the Incense plantation by founding on the Incense tile, but we are unlikely to have the food to work that tile before Biology anyway.

"What's the difference between,let's say,2 overlapping tiles or
2 useless tiles?"
That's a question I keep asking myself everytime I want to
found a new city.Is there a difference?

Ah ok, I see what you mean now. You have convinced me. Blue dot it is.

"That's a question I keep asking myself everytime I want to
found a new city.Is there a difference?"

The overwhelming factor in founding early cities is access to resources, both for health/happy/unit availability and maximizing the bang for your citizen buck. In GoTM I founded my second city right up against the edge of the map, with only 13 workable tiles. Those workable tiles however were all on a river and included two food bonuses, a gold tile, and several hills. That city counquered several more out of its production alone.

Blue and red look fine with me.

I have a feeling that the desert tile south of our capital will house either copper or iron. Well, that's what i hope at least

I'd actually like the third city to go on the desert tile to the NE working the cow and getting the marble hooked for an Oracle build. With those three city sites, we'd have a decent shot at an AW culture win.

I opened the game and it looks like we gain a fish if we move the blue dot SW like I stated. That must be why I liked that spot. I am psychic.

Am I allowed to change my mind again? For fish I want to move. We will have rice, fish, and horses. Not a bad spot though we do need a border expansion for both the fish and the rice.