Team 1 Starting Position

[Sullla]

Map creation is finished! Here is the picture of your starting position for discussion:



A few quick notes for the game host and teams involved:

- The game is saved in Worldbuilder format. This was (by far) the easiest way for me to do the editing, and I have been told that PitBoss has no problems accepting Worldbuilder saves.

- The game is currently set to Noble difficulty. This was due to the fact that the AIs get various bonuses on higher difficulty levels, which we don't want. Game host, please make sure to set all five teams to Monarch difficulty when we start, as agreed upon here in the forums.

- Rather than fooling with team names, I've left the default ones. To rename all the important details, simply type Alt-D and fill in your team's preferences.

- Remember to come up with your team's password and send it to the game host! We'll need that before we can start too.

That should be everything, at least in theory. I'm really hoping I did this correctly, as I put a lot of time into crafting the map. You're going to enjoy this one, trust me.

[Kaleb]

Thanks for that Sulla - looking forward to gardually uncovering the rest of the map.

Team: we've got some food resources, rivers, coast and hills. All very nice.

It looks like our position is southerly as there is a tundra square to the SW, we should generally plan on exploring north to start with. First move should be warrior to NW. Being on the hill will give us a better view and see if there are any more resources.

The squares E and NE of the settler are coast as well, so if we build where we are we'll have 6 coast tiles and 1 ocean, which isn't very productive.

Depending on what the movement of the warrior reveals I would move the settler W, this will reduce him to just 3 coast squares including the clam which we really want.

Short term we may want to run a priest, especially if we get an early religion. Long term we want to cottage all plains and grassland around the rivers and mine the hills, possibly later putting a windmill on them.

We have fishing so a workboat early will be very handy. Should be a very healthy city indeed!

[cav scout]

Thanks Sulla!

I see several possible sites but I think where the settler is at now is the best one. It's on a plains hill so +1 and hill defense. Corn and clams are inside the close city radius, so there would be immediate access to these (work the clams right away for ). And we don't loose a turn moving. There might even be more seafood in the fog to the east.

Yes we loose out on the sheep, but those could go in another city. We should move our warrior NW to reveal what is in the fog over there. Unless we find stone or marble though I would say we are good where the settler is at now.

[Jimmy369]

One space SW could be a possibility also. we lose out on the river bonuses but we do get the sheep in our capital for even more specialists and growth.

[Indiansmoke]

Thanks Sulla!!

Our start is fairly nice...one more seafood would make it very nice

Like everyone said we must move the warrior at 7 and see if he reveals any resources.

Unless he reveals something nice, settling in place seems the best option.

I would not consider losing the river health bonus in capital by moving south...we will need our health...

1W is an option, but the extra hammer from plains hill is very nice to be missed....and there also the possibility of another seafood.

Coastal Financial is not that bad, especially if we get colossus....

[Indiansmoke]

Some points on opening strategy..

Our build order could be workboat (by working plains hill), warrior (by working clam), switch to worker as soon as size 2...get worker finish warrior after.

We start with fishing and mining....

From the start we got we can go work boat first.

So that gives us a few options in regards to what we tech first.

option 1: Hunting to get scout after workboat...scout could pay off if he gets some huts...also gives us the option to go archery if needed

option 2: Bronze working...solid option...will reveal copper, enable slavery...and will enable chopping...my favorite choice

option 3: Mystisism...there is only 1 civ that starts with this tech...we will not be needing any worker techs immidiattelly, so we could tech mystisism and go for religion...I don't like it much but it is an option

option 4: agriculture...not really worth teching it first as we will not go worker first propably

I am leaning towards bronze working first followed by agriculture and adopting early slavery...hunting also seems appealing since huts are in the game, but we will be counting on luck and leaving our development slightly behind.

Slavery
This is an important point we need to discuss...with the 2 food resources we have slavery could be very powerfull early..we could slave workers, settlers, granaries and accelerate our development alot.

I will make a test map, so we can test our start with different openings...

[Kaleb]

Originally Posted by Jimmy369

One space SW could be a possibility also. we lose out on the river bonuses but we do get the sheep in our capital for even more specialists and growth.

Definitely wouldn't do that as:
1) we start off with no resources in our immediate radius
2) we don't want to use the capital as our GP farm. It has hills so it will be good for production and later can be used for Oxford (which we should get first with our cheap unis).
3) lose river bonus

Originally Posted by Indiansmoke

Our build order could be workboat (by working plains hill), warrior (by working clam), switch to worker as soon as size 2...get worker finish warrior after.

Unless we get some nice resource to the east, I agree that we should build where we are. We may even get lucky and get another sea resource in those other coastal spots.

I totally agree with your early order build

We start with fishing and mining....

From the start we got we can go work boat first.

So that gives us a few options in regards to what we tech first.

option 1: Hunting to get scout after workboat...scout could pay off if he gets some huts...also gives us the option to go archery if needed

option 2: Bronze working...solid option...will reveal copper, enable slavery...and will enable chopping...my favorite choice

option 3: Mystisism...there is only 1 civ that starts with this tech...we will not be needing any worker techs immidiattelly, so we could tech mystisism and go for religion...I don't like it much but it is an option

option 4: agriculture...not really worth teching it first as we will not go worker first propably

I am leaning towards bronze working first followed by agriculture and adopting early slavery...hunting also seems appealing since huts are in the game, but we will be counting on luck and leaving our development slightly behind.

I'll need to look more closely at the timings (a mock-map could be good) but I'm thinking that we should go for bronzeworking first to make sure we have it for the first worker. that worker can then chop straight away.

I think there is a hill 2N from the settler, so this should be the first chop. We can move back from there to farm the corn and then back to the hill to mine it.

We can then go for hunting and agriculture so we can build a scout while the city goes to size 3 from where we can build another worker

We should go for a religion but let's focus on development and tech first, we can then try to get to CoL first.

Slavery
This is an important point we need to discuss...with the 2 food resources we have slavery could be very powerfull early..we could slave workers, settlers, granaries and accelerate our development alot.

Slavery is good because it means you can get production by running cottages and then whipping, rather than using hills which won't be advancing your commerce much

I would aim for wheel>pottery early to get granary and cottages started by those rivers for +2 commerce straight up

[Indiansmoke]

Originally Posted by Kaleb

Slavery is good because it means you can get production by running cottages and then whipping, rather than using hills which won't be advancing your commerce much

Exactly


This is the best way to expand...work cottages and slave for production....

Pottery should be a priority....normally i would go bronze, agriculture, pottery...but we might need to insert hunting for scout?

[donsig]

First, I really think huts are off this game (by a vote of 3 to 2). Barbs are normal and events are on so there is talk of Atilla the Hun and barbarian uprisings. Anyone know anything about this? I don't have BtS.

Bronze working seems good for our first research project.

I like the idea of moving the warrior NW and then settling in place if he finds nothing good.

I'm not sure of the build order yet. We do start with a warrior who can explore but another quick one for exploring is appealing, too. Not sure how to weigh the benefits of a second explorer versus the benefits of the work boat.

[Indiansmoke]

Originally Posted by donsig

First, I really think huts are off this game (by a vote of 3 to 2). Barbs are normal and events are on so there is talk of Atilla the Hun and barbarian uprisings. Anyone know anything about this? I don't have BtS.

Bronze working seems good for our first research project.

I like the idea of moving the warrior NW and then settling in place if he finds nothing good.

I'm not sure of the build order yet. We do start with a warrior who can explore but another quick one for exploring is appealing, too. Not sure how to weigh the benefits of a second explorer versus the benefits of the work boat.

Huts are off...of course

No need for hunting then...even better

Regarding the events Attila and barbarian uprisings, they are bad random events which cause a stack of 5 archers or horse archers, to appear near a city of yours and head straight to attack the city...if you are not prepared city is lost!!! the possibility of getting them is low, but it tottaly ruins your game if it happens...

[Kaleb]

Ah huts are off, missed that. Skip the scout. I wouldn't bother about rushing for another warrior as we by a coast and the 1st warrior can explore most of the nearby area which is all we really need as we aren't going to want our first city too far away.

Once we have wheel and (hopefully) horses then I would make a chariot for exploring further afield.

[Jimmy369]

I didn't think that one space SW was very good, but I wanted to see what other players would say about it. I like Indiansmoke's build order and agree with going for Bronze first.

[jkpsmp1]

The start looks great! Thanks, Sulla! It looks like the fog to the east is all sea squares, so we don't want to settle any further east unless something good is lurking out there.

I agree with the rest of the team - settle where we are - explore NW - work boat - bronze working

Jeff

[Herviov]

Originally Posted by jkpsmp1

The start looks great! Thanks, Sulla! It looks like the fog to the east is all sea squares, so we don't want to settle any further east unless something good is lurking out there.

I agree with the rest of the team - settle where we are - explore NW - work boat - bronze working

Jeff

I agree with this overall conclusion. Depending of what is more at the south, we must keep ourselves teh possibility of making a city on the tundra spot (in a distant future).

Workboat/bronzeworking is the fastest way to some good whipping

[Herviov]

Whta's even more cool is that we get a 2 shield city and naval producing fortress. Coast is easy commerce for a financial leader. We seem to have 5 hills (the 2 fogged spot in the north of our city radius look like hills. This city is going to be a monster.

[donsig]

Any spreadsheet gurus out there who can give us a time table for settling in place, researching bronze working first and building work boat, start warrior then switch to worker when we reach size 2?

If we're team one do we play first?

[Herviov]

If anyone transfer me a file of such spreadsheets (that is unrelated) I could figure out how it work and make one. I'm a master student in management so I will figure out. I just don't want to do the whole R&D of developing one

[donsig]

I don't know if a starter spreadsheet exists for like there is for . All I've found so far is a terrain calculator.

[cav scout]

I just created a test game in world builder replicating our starting location. I will play out a few different scenarios and report back with the timelines.

[Indiansmoke]

Originally Posted by cav scout

I just created a test game in world builder replicating our starting location. I will play out a few different scenarios and report back with the timelines.

Can you please post this test save here