Pericles with food and stone

I'm mostly doing fine playing BTS with Solver's patch on Monarch, but there are a few big problems in my game. For one, I most often don't expand enough - I end up building buildings.. Also, I don't seem to keep enough military around most of the time. And when I start building units for offensive, I end up overbuilding my SoD and teching over so the SoD becomes massive but a bit dated.

I run CE almost exclusively. I've tried SE, but I have lots of trouble with the microing needed. I need to reload last turn way too often because I forgot to check cities for whips or specialists or tiles, or mismanaged my workers and forgot to stop their actions so a prechop went over..

Now, I got an excellent start here and decided I really want to get it right, and what better way to do it than to post here? I saved it as scenario file first so I can replay it later if I fail in SE again

So the game:
BTS,
Solver's patch (latest),
BUG 0.15 (will update as released),
XML modifications:
- GG emergence treshold increase lowered (next GG will cost less than it would in original game but more than current one),
- some units can be built even when they would normally be obsolete (units related to events and quests - I feel it more fair if eg. Elite Swords can be built even when maces are available, as they are better city attackers per hammer)

Difficulty: Monarch
Speed: Epic
Map size: Large
Map type: Big and Small, Island mixed in
Leader: Pericles of Greece
Options: No tech brokering, No tribal villages

The game options above are my standard settings. I got rid of huts at some point, as events bring enough randomness to the game already. Also no tech brokering feels fair - it encourages me to trade out the techs as I know they won't be passed around by happy AIs.

Pericles is Cre/Phi, so cheap libraries, theatres, odeons (Greece colosseum, very happy and cultured one) and universities.

Greek starting techs are Fishing and Hunting. Fishing is highly situational (here it's good), and Hunting is useful mainly for scouts (when playing with huts, which I don't do so not important), camps, and as prerequisite to Archery (if needed) and Animal Husbandry (often good idea).

I founded Athens where the settler stood after moving the scout and seeing the stone. Good? Bad? Well, it's done



Save from the start (before settling).

I'm sorry for the low quality of the image - it's resized to half the original resolution for more reasonable forum size.

So I have three clams, hill pigs, five floodplains, plains stone, forested plains hill, three forested grass hills, forested plains and four forested grasses. and only one non-resource costal tile. Cottaging all flatlands would come to 10, and with grass hills to 13 cots. Even then working all the tiles (incl. plains hill mine and stone quarry) the city would have +12 food at size 20. Or I could farm around and have more food than I can use

The general idea I had was to try SE again as I'm playing Philo leader, and with stone I should go for the big pile of rocks (aka Pyramids). I usually grab Great Wall as well when I have stone - it's cheap and gives nice Spy points as well as taking care of any barb issues I might have.

But first things first. The start is the most important time, so shouldn't skip ahead of the time yet.

I'm planning to run a circle clockwise around the city (or rather to the coast) with the scout, then reverse the course and run larger circle counterclockwise. Maybe. Unless I find something interesting This should reveal enough of the surroundings to plan some city sites. The scout will then wander off to meet other civs and whatnot, and I'll train a warrior to escort settler and garrison Athens.

For research, start with Mining (11 turns) -> Bronze Working (23 turns?), but then? Masonry? AH? Masonry would allow us to quarry the stone so Great Wall could be built soon enough that we don't need to worry about barb defenses at all, but this is probably even TOO soon - I'd prefer to kick out one settler first and then build the wall.

As I start with Fishing and I have clams, first build should be workboat. I have to wait 4 turns for borders to pop before I have forested plains hill I could work, so maybe I should just grow to two working floodplains then finish the workboat asap (working hillpigs and forested plains hill)? Growing to 2 working floodplains takes 11 turns and puts 11 hammers to workboat, which will then be finished in 7 more turns if as planned above.

After that - worker or another workboat? Worker should be 15 turns then, so would complete one turn before BW - maybe one more workboat instead (working clams + forested plains hill would mean 12 turns which leaves us at 24/36 food)?

My normal build order would be something like workboat -> workboat -> worker -> warrior -> settler -> worker -> great wall - worker would have enough to do mining the hills (four forested hills) with second worker possibly connecting second city and then improving it. But then there's the stone to quarry and.. Uhh... lots of worker activity needed.


The overall early plan I have is to settle second city, build great wall, settle third city, build pyramids. Having copper and nearby neighbour would of course change this plan, but large map rarely gives me neighbours near enough for axe rush, nor does BTS give me copper so often - and in the end, axe rushes are way more expensive than they were in Warlords so have to be considered case by case. I'm not so fond of early UUs as then you either ignore the UU or go for rush, where I easily end up choosing the former (ignore UU).

thats a nice start if ever there was one. Get the mids up and just never build a cottage ever.

Thats a sick starting location... did you regenerate many times ?

Hmm i would say go for the stone wonder with all those nice mountain titles + food and stone...

You sould get BW fast so you can whip some settles/workboats etc.

About the workers... i dont think you need more than one for some time. The amount of titles you can work is maximum 5, so don´t bother making the 2. worker for a while. If you have 2 workboats and 1 worker he should be able to keep up with the growth.

Hmm never played greece.. think i might download the save and play this game myself

I say grab the Pyramids and build an army of phalanxes for an early war with the nearest, weakest neighbour.

I didn't regenerate once - then again I have often enough discarded starts as "don't want to repeatedly hit head to wall" so an excellent one like this is bound to show up every now and then too

On whipping: working mines is likely to be better than whipping when happy cap has been reached (compare city with permanent -1 happiness with whip and the hammers you get per 15 turns to stagnating on mines), so most likely I will need three mines + quarry + clam (with lighthouse) or hillpig for total of 10 food and 14 (15 with hilldpig) hammers per turn until I get more happiness. Before reaching this I obviously will whip, and after that I think 3pop whips by growing one over happy cap is reasonable with 1pop whips simply out, 2pop whips roughly same as hammers from mines.

Mines + quarry will take over 50 worker turns, so second worker may be needed so second city will get some improvements as well if I plan to keep first worker chopping for capitol (which I do plan to do).

On food: As I have three clams, I don't think I even need more than two workboats for now. No need to eg. pasture the pig or farm the floodplains - worker(s) will mine, quarry, chop, and road.


And Phalanxes... I'm really not very good at axerushing. Phalanx is a standard axe that isn't vulnerable to its counter (Chariot) because of having bonus against the counter. And Pericles isn't aggressive. Thus, I doubt Phalanx rush would be cost effective unless there's a very vulnerable target. Isabella for example seems to forgo military in the beginning, preferring religions and wonders (she'll go for Oracle almost certainly) so is one of the neighbours that can be rushed with fairly low effort. No - I don't use random personalities which would indeed change this kind of thinking.

If this was Sumer or an Aggressive leader (such as Alexander), axe rush would be preferable. Also, Pyramids and dozen axes don't really mix that well - it's either or

I don't mean an axe rush to get cities just ruin his/her economy etc... I don't think you should go for Great Wall. What victory type are you going for?

Ah - so no rush just simple harassment war. Maybe - Phalanx is quite suitable for that being resistant to its counter.

Isn't it a bit early to think about victory types? I've had all kinds of maps with Big'n'small ranging from isolated starts to pangaeas with surrounding islands. Still in any case domination and conquest would be unlikely - as time goes on the wars become more tedious with lots of units, and I'm not exactly fond of moving units around by tens and hundreds. Most likely I will go for space, looking at possibilities regarding diplomatic victory (and maybe even religious one if opportunity presents itself) before that. If I see a chance at military victory that can be gained by clear and definitive action I'll consider that too.

Why do you think great wall isn't good? With stone it's 113 hammers, or two axe-equivalents. It provides spy points which would give me one for settling or scotland yard (either of which would practically remove the need to ever touch espionage slider for the passive benefits) or even infiltration should we see a good techer to steal from. Also, two axe equivalents of hammers is less than I need to put in axes (or other units) required for BarbWatch Corps - a good investment overall I'd think.
Of course the barbarian issue depends on the map, but large maps have way more space for barbs, which means lots more fogbusters required. BarbWatch Corps when I don't go for GW often push me to bleed annoying amounts of unit maintenace and unit supply.

Pyramids, Hanging Gardens for sure. Dunno about GW cuz it gives GSpy pts which can be good or bad.

With that much food you want to max out happiness and growth in your capital and run a pile of representation-enhanced scientists. Other high-food centers can run scientists as well, but most of the rest of your empire can be devoted to producing military once you've got a target picked out.

As you expand your empire peacefully though (assuming that is an option, which it usually is in bts in my experience) don't be afraid to build some commerce cities where city sites call for it. Keeping the science slider up with cottages while running a pile of scientists in other cities (hybrid econ) can be very powerful.

Basically what I'm saying is don't force cities into running specialists that aren't suited for it.

I think the GW is really situational this game. If you can manage barbs on your own and if you don't have a really close neighbour to make infiltration easier (spies are only 1-move so tech stealing can be tedious if far away) then the gp pool pollution isn't desirable when you could be getting GE instead (pyramids, hanging gardens) to use on say GL and also GS to lightbulb toward liberalism. GE could also be used on machinery while you tech to CS for early maces. If you get maces before your opponent gets feudalism it can be a serious romp.

Turn 32 / BC 3200

I played quickly a few turns, researching Mining -> BW, building two workboats, and scouting around. On the same turn Athens reached size three, second workboat was completed, and BW was researched, providing for first checkpoint in the game.

I found myself on some kind of peninsula with ample space and food to settle. I also met my first neighbour: Sitting Bull of Native Americans. Now there's someone I wouldn't rush in any case - even should I have copper in capitol for immediate axe buildup. Speaking of which, I don't see any copper yet. Then again, my scout hasn't come back to complete the counterclockwise circle - there's lots of black on the map still.


I marked three city sites on the southern coast of the peninsula mainly based on seafood:

1) immediatelly south of Athens, grabbing pigs and clam. Has two plains hills and one grass hill for production, runs scientists otherwise. Food positive, so with Metal Casting will get workshops on the flat tiles for extra hammers, switching between military and scientists. Working the food and three hills would yield F=14 and 12 hammers.

2) a bit east along the coast, 2N of the crab. One plains hill, one grass hill, two plains tiles, 9 grass tiles, crab for food. Stagnates if works all these tiles without other food or farms, but could run 11 cottages with the two hills for hammers. See - I'm still thinking about the cottages 11 cots isn't too shabby, but in early game it could as well work mines for hammers or scientists with the crab - or cottages plus scientists when hammers aren't needed.

3) SE corner of the peninsula, grabbing fish, corn, two floodplains, three plains hills and three grass hills - hammers if I've ever seen them I left the pig out of the city, as that's not needed for food purposes here and it'd force me to settle on a hill that I would rather mine. The six hills would provide 21 hammers, and could be powered by fish + corn. The corn needs irrigation, which will be provided by farming either of the floodplains (the other can be used for watermill). Forested plains, riverside plains, and flat grass in addition to the above, so maybe workshop + watermill + lumbermill. But that's later on.

One city to grab the pigs in the central southern area, but I'll wait for the scout to sweep westwards from the NatAm territories before dotmapping the central peninsula.

There's also land to the south of my coast, visible past just two tiles of water. Whether they're islands, other continent, or part of this landmass remains to be seen. I will have to build a workboat (or galley) to explore when I find the time for that.



So, there's food and wine, there's good land and rivers. Jungle to the north - we started in the fertile mediterranean climate. Maybe there're some jumbos to the north of us, maybe gems? In any case, with no happies apart from wine revealed yet, and ample food to grow, monarchy looks an important target.

As it's time to choose research path and we don't see any copper yet, so:
Should I go for AH next? Agriculture isn't needed yet (I see two corns but there's no immediate need for farming) still it will eventually be desired and will lower the cost of AH, so should I research that before AH or not? If there're no horses around, there's still time for Archery, or even Wheel -> Masonry (as detailed below) although in that case might be better to train second worker to get stone up ASAP and two chops to complete GW immediatelly, training settler only after that's been done.
Otherwise I think Wheel -> Masonry would be the path with Great Wall built. Worker whipped after six turns of build (no overflow but we get the worker five turns earlier and the city will grow back to three in six turns working the clams) could go chop the hill south of the stone, road to stone from there (wheel should be ready then) connecting the stone to river (and thus Athens), the mine the hill while waiting for Masonry research to complete. In this time we could train a warrior, take the chop to a settler, then complete the warrior, then settler, build great wall (one hilltop chopped towards it, one worker won't have time for more chops), then proceed for another worker, warriors, settlers, pyramids...

Save


On the matter of Great Wall:

Infiltration and techstealing at Monarch isn't really worth much. I ran a couple of tries at Sumerian Spy Scam earlier, the result being mainly that my infiltrated target ran out of techs before I ran out of EPs It takes several spies (and thus hammers), some of which get caught causing possible diplomacy setbacks as well, mainly because the spies need to walk to the city you steal from (build a road if you go this way), lie low for five turns (for maximum discount), and will be returned to capitol after mission if not caught.

So Great Spy is useful mainly for Scotland Yard or settling. SY is best in a commerce city or capitol depending on if the four EPs from Palace are bigger than the amount of commerce to be multiplied using slider (and often enough capitol should be commerce city for bureaucracy effect - this isn't necessary though). I don't consider active espionage worth much except for specific cases (eg. incite revolt in a city when attacking it) so this is still of low value - the passive effects can be gained by running 100% espionage for a few turns against required target(s) when needed.

I consider GW mainly as a convenience, taking care of barb issues. It's cheaper than building the barbwatch corps most of the time, but situational indeed. At one time I just seemed to get maps where barbarians were a problem and just grew used to it, maybe even so much that building GW has become a routine instead of being actually considered each time.

So... It's good that it was questioned - forced me to think about it for this particular situation and in general

On this particular map, I believe fogbusting will be OK. Depending on eventual settling pattern (and that of Sitting Bull), it'll take 4-8 able chariots / phalanxes which would then also gain some experience that'd be useful in warring. Hammerwise BarbWatch corps will cost me 1.5 - 3 times the great wall, but again the comparison needs to consider the further value of the units. And regarding unit maintenance and supply, this'd probably come to 1-3 gpt - manageable amount. At least it doesn't look like I'd need to go to dozen plus BarbWatch units, which is often causes the imperial treasurer to moan and complain.

I'm starting to lean on AH first, with scout hopefully completing this circle during that time. If either copper is revealed in the fog or horses are found, settle them, otherwise go the wheel -> masonry -> chop GW route ASAP.
I don't really think archers are that useful as barbwatchers - their future value is fairly low. The drawback of course is that if I miss GW a bit this way a lot of time will have been spent already with little expansion to show for it, and Archery STILL will be required.

wth @ those city placements??? The single crab no other good titles is obviously not very good.. Though can be usefull later. The Corn fish pig city is pretty darn insane and could be nice to use as a GP farm(though admitedly some wonder will produce some gps and your capital doesnt have low food either...). The pig/clam city is pretty good since you are after all creative. I supose the "cottage" city might be usefull later but for the early game the high food cities are just better. The floodplain along the river in the north is better cottage cities anyways. there is also a pig / corn / double wine city that looks ok.

Well, those city placements are spots I'd normally consider good for cities. And it's all preliminary still - too much fog to dotmap the area between me and Sitting Bull, which is why I only dotted the three cities that are based on simply seafood locations.

Eg. #2 (not necessarily second I'd found, just second I dotted along the coast) with crab and forested grassland could run 11 cottages - that's not good? Of course without rivers around it wouldn't be good as high food city, but is there something wrong with cottages + some hills? On another note... What else can you do with this area? If you can provide another function for the crab or these tiles, please go ahead. That's exactly why I'm posting here.

The pig/clam city is good because I'm creative? It wouldn't be good otherwise? I'd just need Mysticism and monument in that case.

Again the SE corner where I dotted a city specifically leaving the pig out was because I looked at the city as "excellent production" meaning this could very well become my HE-city. Sure - take pigs in and we get 13 excess food from three tiles, up to 18 from five post-CS assuming floodplains farmed and corn thus irrigated. That's 9 specialists at size 14 - but then we're wasting best hammers I can see around (six hills, one settled five not worked). Also, capitol still has more food and will make even better GP farm (has almost as many hammers though - the two would be close in both food and hammer potentials).
Without the pig, the central southern part of the peninsula is almost worthless, but with the pig it can be made useful. So if I grab all three foods to one city, I also discard lots of other potential. Now, maybe the central southern part of the peninsula should not be considered as potential? Maybe it is not settlable at all, and thus the pig should be grabbed for fish/corn/hills city?

Yes - I can see the wine / corn / pig city too. But as I said, I'm waiting for my scout to reveal more terrain to dotmap that area - it's entirely possible that I need the pig for what's in the fog still. If not, then probably 1S of the peak. Other than the two foods there won't be good tiles to work until the grass can be farmed (mostly post-CS), so the city will early on just be whipped and later will run four or so scientists, more after CS when irrigation chaining can be done.

And considering there's jungle, there's bound to be good grass (given loads of worker turns) to cottage. And yes, the riverside might be good for cottaging, but isn't farmed floodplain good for SE too? I consider farmed grass almost junk pre-biology (3F tile? Hello? Half a specialist? four farmers to support two scientists or two plains hill mines?) but farmed fp supports one specialist per farmer.


Hmm... I guess I need to add one more problem I've had: I seriously want hammer cities. Such cities that can churn out stuff reliably and consistently. If it's all about the whip, then it's all about the 15 turn cycle, which is just unacceptably slow. And if we're talking about serious food, we're talking about caste system which means no whipping. No whip and no hammers begs the question of "you and what army?".

So, of the three dotted cities #1 has clear explanation of hammers, with and without whip. #3 was dotted with the expressed purpose of hammers without the whip, and moving it 1N to grab the pig doesn't change the fact that it still has five hills left and the flatlands can be workshopped (which are nice under caste anyway). #2 only has two hills and its food source is inadequate for serious whipping, so clearly it's not going to produce much.

Assuming wine/corn/pig city is good and will happen, then it'll be under dual-pressure: either farms or workshops. It's hard to configure a city to be capable of both running lots of specialists AND produce lots of hammers. I'd usually do that when I can combine food specials with hills.

Turn 47 / BC 2825

All things considered I decided to quickly nab AH, expecting to have a map suitable for dotmapping after that. That's pretty much what I got The brave scout earned Woods II in the process.
The shape of the peninsula (and depth - Athens isn't in the upper end like I had assumed) is now forming. Or maybe not peninsula at all? This could simply be west coast of narrower continent.

Whipped the worker and started mining hill 1W of Athens - I don't see need for road on that hill and I don't need the hammers from chop sooner than 11 turns anyway, so directly mining forested hill. I noted I will need garrison unit to Athens to keep whipping, or it'll cap at size 3 due to fear of grue combined with whip unhappiness.

So, I've posted turns 0, 32, and 47 already. Am I going to keep posting at intervals even shorter than in SGs? Nope - I'm just hoping that a perfect starting location will not be wasted by stupid early game decisions. Bad techpath can lead to development slowdown of 10 turns (for one unnecessary tech) to 30 turns (for weedy choice in path) easily. And bad dotmap can lead to need for fillers, resource grabbers, and junk cities still lacking the great ones.



So first things first:

Dotmapping

I've marked five potential city locations on the map. Two are as before (clam + pig + hills and crab cottages), one is almost as before (SE corner fish + corn moved 1N to grab pig), two are new based on revealed terrain and location of horses.

Reasoning for the southern coastal cities stands the same:

1) clam + pig south of Athens is very near (low maint), has high food (can run up to 4 scientists) and has lots of production potential (2 plains hills, one grass hill, workshops).

2) crab + two hills + flatlands can run 11 cottages. Enough said.

3) SE corner fish + corn + pig is a production powerhouse. Now, I'm certainly stubborn but when argued against and given time, I will consider the arguments thoroughly. Yes - getting the pig into the BFC of this city is good. It can't be wrong to have more food in the city. Also, while I now waste one hill that could've been mined, I also get one more grass hill, so there's no net loss. And this location is riverside where 1S would not be - which means a LOT later in the game. And even should I need that pig for another city at some point, this city can live and work mines / workshops / watermills without it just fine. Thanks for the argument, oyzar

The two new city locations I've added are:

4) Horse city labeled "cot?". A bit NE of Athens, it's a natural location to nab the horses. For me at least - counter arguments are welcome It's labeled "cot?" because it could work 17 cottages, grassland horse, and desert hill windmill - 17 is more than I remember from many other games. I could move palace here to gain bureaucratic benefits, leaving Athens and fish+corn+pig cities to run scientists (or working mines and workshops).

5) foody, which was already noted before: pigs + corn + two wines. Cottagewise it'd be 11, which considering the amount of food available isn't good enough, so it certainly looks like something else. Scientists + work the food tiles? Post-CS farm the grasses? Workshop plains? Mine the hill (wine or no wine - flat plains wine is OK to work but hillwine I wouldn't)?


I haven't dotted the northern area yet. There's a pig just north of Athens, but I'm not sure yet what would be best use there, for example. There's jungle to the north, there's jumbos, there's dye. And there's coast. I need to map that area before I would commit dotting it, but if there's a brave soul with insight, please go ahead

Main questions I guess are related to the horse. How and where to nab it. What kind of city it would be.
In a few more turns I'll get the chop (will take into settler) to Athens, the warrior completes, and I hope to get 2pop whip for settler almost immediatelly after that, so settling party will be ready soon. If you see a priority higher than horse city, please tell me - but for now I assume it has to be settled ASAP as the horse is halfway between me and Sitting Bull.

After horse is settled, I would go for foody, thus blocking Sitting Bull from the rest of the peninsula.

So, dotmapping help now would be appreciated, including explanations of what the city is good for, how it could be improved, what it should be doing / working. I'm a cottager myself, as can be seen from my dotmaps, and will certainly need help to understand SE (/FE?) better. I will end up with hybrid economy unless the cities are very clearly geared towards either CE or SE, but from current dotmap I already gather two cottage cities vs. four food cities of which at least three will double as production cities. Note that this double capability I count as strength of SE/FE: you can run scientists or you can work hammers and you can also whip. Cottage cities rarely can double in any other capacity.


Strategy

Peaceful expansion, nab Pyramids, aim to make friends until we know who's going to be left standing when the music stops, then prepare for the eventuality. If things go well, it'll spell a start for a longer campaign to gain control of the continent (unless this is pangaea, in which case I doubt I have the guts to continue war to the end).

Sounds easy?

So what do we start with? We need to block Sitting Bull from OUR peninsula (sorry, we aren't sharing more than we have to - please go clear the jungles instead). This means whipping and chopping settler parties for blocking cities.

Two cities, but then we have to move attention: Pyramids aren't building themselves, so when those two settler parties are out, the cities will have to manage themselves. I would prefer second worker for chopping, but I'm not sure I'll have time for that.

And if Athens kicks out two settler parties then goes onto building Pyramids, who's going to get us units, how and when and what? Barbarians will appear before Pyramids are done, so something will have to be done by that time. And I'm keeping the only worker I have for now in Athens to quarry and connect stone then chop hilltops towards Pyramids (depending on timings I'll see if I mine / prechop + road / direct chop those hilltops).

What we need for all this?

Techpath

Wheel is needed to connect cities. Pottery is needed for granaries and cottages. Foody needs Agriculture to farm the corn. Masonry allows us to quarry the stone and enables Pyramids. Writing allows Open Borders and Libraries, being a cornerstone of SE. Iron Working would tell us if there's metal at all around and plan for that. Sailing seems a good idea, for lighthouses and coastal / river trade.

Priorities, priorities...

1) Wheel. Needed as prereq for Pottery, to connect stone, to connect cities. I think this is #1 here.
2) Masonry. Quarrying takes 9 turns afterall, so better be able to do it early.
3) Agriculture. As this makes Pottery cheaper being an additional optional prerequisite, it's better to get it before Pottery.
4) Pottery. Finally the granaries And I hope I can spare a worker to cottage some.
5) Writing. This is when SE starts, before this tech we don't have economy. Libraries are essential. Open Borders aren't needed - at least for now.

Those will take some 50-60 turns together I guess. Am I smoking good stuff or does this look good?

Builds

Athens
Hiliting the 7 turns of whip unhappiness left:


Athens will complete the warrior first. I'd put the two turns towards second warrior after that to grow to size 4 (for 2pop whip). Chop will come in before that though (and delaying that will cause loss of worker turns without gain) so I'll just switch to settler to take it in, then grow to 4 training warrior, switch again to settler and whip as soon as possible for 2 pop.

After settler has been whipped, Athens will complete second warrior growing, and will keep that warrior as garrison. The first warrior will, after escorting first settler, be ready to escort second settler.

Athens will build workboat for growth to size 4 at minimum, 5 at maximum, depending on timings (I'm horrible at calculating those that far as there's whip and unhappiness and chop and whatnot inbetween). As soon as stone is online, Athens will move to Pyramids. I certainly do hope one worker can be squeezed in somewhere in here, but I'm not expecting to get that. Second & third cities will have to take care of one more garrison unit, fogbusters, barbwatch, workers... Athens will handle Pyramids.

Sparta
Warrior -> Worker (-> Worker depending on Athens? ) -> Barracks -> Chariots (as many as needed) -> Library ?

Corinth
Barracks -> Chariots (as many as needed) -> Library ?

Save

This i what I made of it...

I started from black, its the only logical position to grab the pigs IMHO
The three down south are the same... but they are for later grabbing I think...

There is room for a fishing city NW of Athens, sucks tho that this dotmap doesnt grab the horses, but if you settle Red first by the time you are ready to hook up them horses your second border expansion will be about to happen I think... (maybe add a lib to make sure?)

I thought you were going for an SE? What is all this talk of cottages?



With the late resources (no copper and horses later) maybe its smart to grab the wall anyway...

I would mine the pigs, you have food plenty for the time beeing. The mined pigs is a nice 2/3/1 tile

Why a third workboat? You are not going to be working the third clams for a while yet... I think you have better places to send your hammers.

edit: I am no SE expert either, but am following this/shadowing this with great intrest.

i look at the red city and think of production. In the end game, with Metal Casting and Replaceable parts, as well as Civil Service, all the Riverside tiles become Watermills, the rest Workshops, and Farms as needed. A good Riverside Ironworks would be there. Also, the pink city is kinda unneeded. I can see why the pigs and crabs would be good, but stealing tiles from Athens would result in the hampering of an otherwise stellar capital. Also, a green city only for the crabs? Maybe a cottage city, as indicated, but food would be a problem since no river is nearby and CS is a long ways away.

Elandal said:

2) crab + two hills + flatlands can run 11 cottages. Enough said.

Click to expand...

nah, let me be a brat and add one more point in its defense. crab is a health resource we don't see anywhere else on the map. placing that city ( eventually, not recommending it as your second) will help every other city grow bigger, yummy!

Thanks for extra reasons for my crab-city, KMadCandy
Indeed, I can't think of any other use for the Crabs than cottage city. There's no river in the city area, so irrigation chaining would happen way later. Crabs is enough food for slowly growing cottage city, making the site just fine way earlier.

And yes, I'm speaking of cottages and of SE. See my problem? Still, one cottage city I believe is favoured in full SE as well, for bureaucratic capitol which is expected to provide commerce turned to gold so that slider is kept on gold while research is conducted by scientists in other cities. Athens isn't perfect for this purpose - it's way better as GP farm - so a good cottage city would be reasonable for transferring capitol? Please educate me on the matter.

Now, on NOT grabbing the horses in first or second ring (ie. in BFC) of a city simply isn't acceptable.
Second border pop requires total of 150 culture, or 75 turns. Assuming red city as Sparta, and techpath as laid out in my post, it'll be around BC 2500 for founding of Sparta, and about BC 1500 before I have Writing (so no Library before that). Maybe I could get second border pop in BC 1000 or so, then quick pasturing and connecting (I could of course road it already before that), but are barbs going to wait for that? I would have to go for Wall in that case, which means delaying third city (Stonehenge and Great Wall are likely to go around BC 2000), which opens a window for Sitting Bull to sneak in to my peninsula along the coast.

If the above scenario is acceptable or can somehow be worked around or made look good, fine. Please educate me


On mining the pigs: nice idea, but I don't have worker turns to add improvement I will re-improve when I finally do have some worker turns (probably as soon as Pyramids have been built and worker can move from chopping into pasturing pigs).

On sinking hammers: I was thinking the boat could make some exploratory circles before catching something. I don't think I really do have good things to sink hammers into at that moment, although again I might be wrong regarding timings. Also, just popped to my mind that building Pyramids will take long enough for hammers to rot, so whatever I do sink hammers into will have to be completed before Pyramids are built. One more warrior, barracks, or workboat? Those will probably be the only choices. IF I do have Masonry at that moment, there will be no hammer sinking but rather Pyramids will be started whether stone is online or not.


Otherwise on the dots:

black) I agree on the logic of black. But horses just have to be the starting point unless Wall scenario is chosen.
Now, as a city site it could either:
- 16 cottages OR
- 1 mine + 9 watermills + 2 plains workshops OR
- pig + fp farm + 8 grass farms -> F+16 working 10 tiles (F+8 working 2) and two more grass farms (F+2) with CS
Again please educate me on benefits of grassland farms pre-biology. Two farmers for one specialist is IMO bad ratio, considering three citizens can either get up one specialist or three cottages (if there's good argument for specialist at this ratio, please tell me).
My conclusion: black is cottage city.

red) Red looks a bit unsatisfactory, and is supposed to be my second city... The only GOOD tiles it has are two floodplains, or F+6 working two tiles assuming farmed. It grabs hillwines (meh), two desert hills (double meh), two deserts (yawn), a lake (whatever), five freshwater flat grasses (farmed for F+5, so totals F+11 working 7 tiles?).
OK - let's consider it for potential as riverside ironworks instead:
- 6 watermills: fp + 2 grass + 3 plains,
- 1 mine: plains hill wine - add 2 desert hill mines only if otherwise ends food positive
- now has F-2, so one floodplain farmed for balance
- four grasses and two plains left, so two plains workshops + four grasses balancing farms
Hmm... Not stellar. Not even great.
As cottage city? 12. Well, it's kind of OK - good cottage filler when I have time for it. But great? Not even close (crab city is better because it grabs a resource).
My conclusion: red city is pure filler unless someone educates me on the matter.

pink) Exists from my first map on, and will certainly NOT steal tiles from Athens. It has food, it has hills, it runs scientists, it can switch to hammers - it's a good city? Founded when first priorities are over - it's close to Athens so low maintenance burden.

yellow) [it's green but yellowish and there's "the other green" that is bluish, so this better be yellow] grabs crab, works up to 11 cottages, can't think of other uses due to lack of fresh water. Founded when I get around to it, not priority city.

brown) Loads of food, loads of hills, can run up to 9 scientists or work six mines + workshops + watermills for extreme production. I would priorize this at "after blocking cities and Pyramids" and make this my main production center.
My conclusion: brown shares burden with Athens equally, be that production or scientists.

purple) corn + pig, one grass hill, coastal. Scientists. Grass farm south of the peak (lakeside) and irrigation chained after CS. F+10 working three tiles (pig + corn + grass farm) pre-CS for 5 scientists, add three grass farms and irrigation for corn with CS for F+14 working 6 tiles post-CS.
Cottaging would net 10 at most, so not even an option for this.
No river -> no levee -> workshoppable to low degree but never going to be great at production.
My conclusion: size 7 for 4/5 scientists - works pig + corn + one grass farm pre-CS for F+10, pig + corn post-CS for F+10, stagnates at size 7 with four scientists, five post-CS.

white and green) Look just fine but I refrain from comments until fog is cleared.


Overall impression: I don't agree with namliaM dotmap

Well one must chose some point of reference to start...

I think the southern 3 cities are "set in stone" Moving the Red city 2 north creates a gap of 3 tiles between Yellow (granted dirty yellow) and Red, also it makes for a painfull situation with the pigs. Plus you have to move Black 2 or 3 west giving it no access to fresh water
This could be an alternative...


Given the resource distribution around Green/blue (near the indian) he will probably settle a city 1 east, opening up a (biger) spot between white and green for a filler city to grab the horses. But given the lack of
- river
- food
and proximity of jungle... it will not be a great city site.

The orignal black one, having an FP and Pigs gives +2 (farm FP) +4 (pigs) = 3 specialists + 2food to spare from the city center.

How much better would your "Foody" be over my purple? Wine is +1 food with the winery and IIRC + 2 commerce (or possibly only 1) not a great tile to be working. Love the you get from the winery... but I dont mind it beeing outside of my workable area of if it is... like the hill, to just mine it.

I would/will be aiming for an early-ish WE/Cat crush on Our neighbours

True - starting point is needed. I consider the only visible strategic resource I can grab the only viable starting point

However much I'd like to say that "nothing is set in stone", I can't see a way to move the three southern cities really. Maybe we could nitpick about moving clam-pig one west, but that's about it. They're tied to seafood. They also have very simple and clear plans that will last all the way to modern age.

I guess before I continue I must again consider some of the issues here. As said, I'm cottager, but Pericles is better suited for FE/SE, so this isn't as easy for me as some other leader would be. Before proceeding, let's review quickly the SE w/Pyramids idea:

- Food is used to hire Scientist specialists which under Representation civic provide 6 beakers and 3GPP (GS) each do the research.
- One city (generally capitol for bureaucracy multiplier) is cottaged, and slider is run on gold so that commerce (generated mainly by this one city, although trade strategies may generate more commerce) covers all expenses but is not used for research.
- Gold multipliers (Market, Grocery, Bank) are built in commerce city or cities, as well as possible shrines or other great gold sources
- Beaker multipliers (Library, University) are built in food cities that, under Caste System civic, can run several scientists to provide the research.
- Hammers are provided often by whipping, as the cities have lots of food and thus grow fast, making whipping reasonable. Additionally hammers are gained from mines, workshops, and other usual hammer tiles. Production oriented cities are still needed as usual.
- Great Scientists are used to build Academy in the highest food city (GP farm) because it'll be running most scientists, thus providing most beakers, and after that to lightbulb techs. Main focus there is the liberalism line, bulbing Philosophy, Paper, Education using 2-4 Great Scientists for this, researching the rest conventionally.

The above strategy propels a civ through Lib race to Industrial Era, but as soon as other civs gain access to Emancipation via Democracy, civic switch starts looming ahead. Times of Caste System will be over and the strategy starts to slow down.
Transition to Cottage Economy is most common choice at this point, cottaging over farms then running Emancipation to grow the cottages fast into towns. This is not absolutely necessary (eg. CE/SE comparison game with Peter of Russia had SE used all the way to space, but Peter of Russia is best equipped for this considering Russian UB) but alternatives may be hard or have special requirements.

As post-transition is running late game civics, usually US, FS, Em, FT(/SP), FR, the capitol does not need to be considered from Bureaucracy multiplier point of view anymore.

Hybrid Economy (which as the name implies, combines aspect of different economy models, mainly by having both cottage cities and specialist cities throughout the eras) is easier to transition to pure CE if need be, but has the drawback of slider having higher effect on research, thus calling for cottage cities to possibly build both gold and beaker multipliers. There's of course the ideal of "work more cottages, they're worth more than multiplier buildings" which can be considered here in the sense of still building multipliers for only gold.


From the above considerations I assume each city needs to be considered in all of "early game", "midgame", and "post-transition" roles.


So to start with the (alternative) dots again

Athens is I believe best suited for GP Farm throughout eras. In early game it has to fullfill the multitude of capitol burdens, but those should slowly lighten as other cities are founded and take over. I'm not considering NP yet, as that's late game wonder, but I guess remaining forests in Athens can stay as is - there's no need to improve those tiles, and I don't see need for more chopping in immediate future.

The three south coast cities:

clampig) scientists and hammers. Will never be cottaged as there's nothing to cottage.
yellow) cottages, as that's all the city can become
brown) scientists and hammers, as it's almost equal to Athens in quality. Will focus on hammers as much as possible, as that's its highest strength - it'll lose to Athens in foodrace.

As seen, their roles stay the same throughout the eras. They're pretty simple in many ways.

red) Immediate purpose is to grab horse. Best suited for cottaging (17 cottages) and thus should get palace when we get closer to Bureaucracy. It's geographically better capitol anyway.

black) Purpose is to grab jumbos for happiness and war phant troops. 8 grasses, 4 plains, grass hill, grass jumbo, pig. Lack of fresh water makes it hard to farm this city for more scientists, so we'd rely mainly on the pig and could thus run only three scientists. Alternative is 12 cottages. Post-CS irrigation is easy, from rivers south and east of the city. So... Early game: 3 scientists + pig + grass jumbo? Midgame farm the grasses and workshop the plains? Transition to cottages when Emancipation becomes necessary?

green) Without any food sources and just four flat grasses (that could eventually be farmed for food) this is a pure filler city. Improvements would be "whatever it has food to work"... Founded if I ever want to found a city for the reason of founding a city
The above reason is why I would go for foody instead of pink - the tiles pink leaves available for this filler just will never be worked anyway.

Comparison of foody vs pink)
- pink is coastal (harbor -> trade benefits)
- foody has fresh water (health)
- foody tiles: pig, corn (post-CS irrigation), 5x flat grass, 7x flat plains, wine, hillwine, lake
- pink tiles: pig, corn (post-CS irrigation), 5x flat grass, 5x flat plains, grass hill, 5x coast, 1x ocean
Both have same number of flat grasses, same food resources, both have one hill (foody has plains with wine, pink has grass), foody has flatlands winery. Plains tiles are food-negative anyway, coastals are barely worth working (financials would work them for sure).
Early game: scientists, whip
Midgame: farm grasses, workshop plains, mine the hills, winery on flatlands wine -> scientists, whip
Late game: transition to cottages
It seems to me that they're roughly equal, with foody having the freshwater and winery advantages where pink has coastal advantage. Lategame foody can run more cottages (12) due to more flatland tiles.

I agree on wine being great resource but not identical tile to work. Wine adds 1c to tile, winery adds +1f +2c, so it'll become 2f 1h 3c - a reasonable tile even if not great. But as hill it'd be 1f 2h 3c - about the same as windmill. Hmm... Actually, it means maybe it should be winery and worked as that if city is commerce oriented, then windmilled over (if wine resource not required) after electricity (when windmill is otherwise equal but provides one more hammer)?

Again, white looks OK but I'll refrain from commenting until I see more. Also blue depends heavily on Sitting Bulls plans, and is later problem in any case.


Bah, I'll go play quickly to settle Sparta (new red, Horse city, my plan being cottaged capitol to provide gold from commerce in SE era) and we can continue discussing SE/FE/hybrid and dotmaps maybe with even a few more tiles shown by scout. Once it's settled it'll be carved to stone and we can only discuss how it should be improved and run, no longer where it should be founded