Darius I: Emperor/Fractal/No Villages/No Events/Epic

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Hodory

Warlord
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I just started a new game as Darius and came upon this starting location.

In your opinion, does settling in place to utilize the plains/hills site make more sense? Or is it better to move 1W to try to grab more flood plains tiles for more cottages? (or maybe as GP farm?.. though it sounds silly for a financial leader) There seem to ample amount of food, and I want to keep the fresh water bonus.



I hardly play financial leaders so I am a bit shaky, as well as the fact that I have not been playing for nearly 2 years now.

Any advice or even a shadow game is greatly welcomed and appreciated.
 
is that a trick question? ... SIP away ... only reason, in my opinion, not to would be if you're scout could get east of your settler in turn one and check if there'd be problems building cities for seafood

the extra hammer early-game wins over 'almost' everything
 
I'd go 1W, cottage it up and as a bonus have the city tile irrigate the corn. Riverside wines are a very good tile for a very long time as an added bonus.
 
Sian said:
is that a trick question? ... SIP away ... only reason, in my opinion, not to would be if you're scout could get east of your settler in turn one and check if there'd be problems building cities for seafood

the extra hammer early-game wins over 'almost' everything
Click to expand...

I happened to move the scout to the west, so he already spent his turn. I didn't even think about moving east, though there clearly was a coastline to the east. All those floodplains and rivers, not to mention corn and cow, made me not even think about moving east.

Fleme said:
I'd go 1W, cottage it up and as a bonus have the city tile irrigate the corn. Riverside wines are a very good tile for a very long time as an added bonus.
Click to expand...

That was also one of the plus for moving 1W... the irrigated corn for extra food... so it was either more food/commerce or more base hammer production from the city tile.

I am still undecided... I almost never get a plains/hill start... it's almost too good to be true for me.
 
BigTime said:
In place is pretty obvious. Looks like you have enough food to get away with cottaging the cap.

I'll try a shadow, but I haven't played epic in a while so it may be a little different.
Click to expand...

Much appreciated.

I've always played on Normal speed, but wanted to see how Epic speed plays out. I am also playing a game as Alexander on Epic... I am getting used to slower build and research time... sometimes it feels like as if I am doing really bad because of the longer time to build and research.
 
I say SIP

3 hills, plenty of food, cottage land AND 2H city tile...

edit:
oh jeez... 2 hills of course only, it's a little bit late... but the 2H city tile is strong

monarchy is good tech target...

to the west on the visible plain tile could be good city for splitting those flood pains
 
I say settle 1W. It's a better overall city in the long run - more food, more commerce, more production = Bureau captastic. You have enough food here to make up for the 2H center tile.

2H start is nice but sometimes the better city supercedes it. You can also settle 1N on the wine for insta commerce boost, but I like 1W better
 
Settle in place. The plains hill to the NW of the scout looks like a good candidate for a second city, too.
 
Wow, thanks all for some good advices. I think both choices are solid in their own right. I have never debated so much about settling the first city.

Spoiler :
I decided to move 1W and settle there. I wanted to pick up more food and commerce potential, as well as the irrigated corn plus having 3 instead of 2 hills to mine with. In addition, I wasn't sure if there would be seafood resources to the east. If there would be, then I would be way too close to the coast and that would totally suck for any city I want to place there for the seafood.

Unfortunately, no seafood popped there... but that's okay.

This continent was rather tricky. Exploring to the north, I quickly reached the coast before even getting close to the equator... no neighbors. Seeing how I was located near the South Pole, I was afraid that I had an isolated start. Instead, the continent curved its way west a lot further than I expected.

Eventually, I met Gilgamesh and Brennus. They seem to be the only 2 neighbors I will share with on this continent.

I know I suck at building enough workers. This round, I really tried hard to keep that magic 1.5:1 ratio while researching the basic necessities. I researched Writing and then decided to go straight to Alphabet. Neither Gilgamesh nor Brennus has it yet.

Brennus founded Judaism and converted. He is also running Organized Religion. As far as wonders go, only the Stonehenge has been built so far.

For my tech, Fishing to grab the seafood in proposed future city sites, Sailing for lighthouses, and then Polytheism--> Priesthood to go for Monarchy, Literature, and Code of Laws... though not sure in which order.

It looks like I won't be able to fiddle with my UU: the Immortal, as I see no horses anywhere near me. I've been relying on my warriors fogbusting to try to minimize the barbarian spawn (which is also something I am learning). I've been doing okay so far in that regard, but being without horses mean that the copper located to the north is very important to me. I can't be defending with warriors forever after all.

Attached screen shot has the copper located somewhat in a weird situation. I am thinking about settling right on top of the copper. I almost never do this, but it seems logical. I didn't expand that way because I am trying to settle directly towards Gilgamesh.

The South: Lots of tundras by the south coast, but there are some useful resources like deer, fur, and silver. I could definitely use those to increase my happy cap, which is quite pathetic at the moment.
attachment.php


The North: Gilgamesh's annoying creative culture is clearly visible to the west. The copper, located nearby stone and clam, which pose an interesting debate for a city site there. At the very start, my map looked to be very promising, but now it isn't all that attractive anymore.
attachment.php


The Capital: Persepolis is building the library. I am chopping a forest or two down...may still need to whip, not sure. I am not too efficient with this mechanic. The cottages have been very helpful here so far, but increasing the happy cap here is really needed at this point.
attachment.php


Am I expanding at a reasonably good pace? It certainly doesn't look too fast to me. Also, was it a good choice to go for Alphabet? Also, if you see any rookie mistake, lay it all on me.
 
I would settle 1SW of the copper (chop the forest first). This city can help work some cottages for Parsagadae. Also, Parsagadae might have been better 1SE with some FP overlap with the Cap to work cottages. Don't be afraid of some city overlap.

Possibly settle on stone for a potential Maoi city. I like the city in the NE.

Try to get those 2 happy resources settled in the south for more early cap room. Consider 2 pop whipping settlers out of your cap at size 4, 5. or 6. At 4 turns to completion this will net you about 50 hammers that can go into the Library or a Wonder.

I agree with Alpha here. Often you can tell that certain leaders are not going to prioritize it. Gilgs and Brennus are 2 such cases - unless you play with huts and they lucky hut. I've seen Shaka with extremely early alpha in that case - reason i don't like huts.

Be wary of Gilgs. He's not exactly a psycho but he can be somewhat volatile if you don't get in his favor early or stay weak. Build some axes. Gilgs is one of the toughest early AI opponents due to protective and very tough UU. Obviously hope for religion spread and adopt HR as soon as you can.

In my play through:

Spoiler :
He attacked his Jewish brother Brennus at +7 positive diplo and actually wiped him off the map. I thought he was going to attack me since I'd yet to switch to Judaism and was relatively weak. I haven't seen an AI take out another AI so early in a long time.
 
Interesting... 1SW of the copper? That didn't even cross my mind. Although you have a great point about sharing riverside tiles that can work the cottages between 2 cities. The Moai Statue is certainly a must if I build on top of the stone, but considering that its hammers will come from only 2 forest tiles and that it will require a monument for a border pop to work the fish, wouldn't it be too time consuming to make it happen?

Update to 525 BC:

Spoiler :
I built 2 more cities, one to the extreme west that claims the cows, crabs, and some riverside tiles including a floodplain tile, built on a plains hill... and another one that claims fish and silver for extra happiness. I will be working on planting a city to the south to claim the deer and fur next.

The north is still a bit fuzzy for me, as I am still not sure of the copper city site. I will greatly take into consideration 1SW of the copper and another one on top of the stone, as suggested...

Tech wise, upon researching Alphabet, I realized that both Brennus and Gilgamesh were not very high up in the tech race... I did trade Pottery to Brennus for Priesthood to get a bit of a head start on going for Monarchy, which I am in process of doing right now. Yes, you got that right... Brennus as of circa 600 BC or so, didn't even have Pottery. That certainly is odd.

I also researched for Fishing and Sailing to be able to work the fish, crabs, and clams, as well as the ability to build lighthouses (yay for organized and its cheap lighthouses). I need one of these in the silver city especially to make it more productive.

Should I also be thinking about going for or trading for Masonry --> Monotheism to run Organized Religion? Obviously all 3 of us are running the same religion, and Judaism did reach my capital as one of the AIs sent a missionary. I did convert to Judaism, no brainer, for a diplo bonus and extra happy face... but I am not too sure on running such an expensive civic, even though I am organized.

After Monarchy, I am not too sure which tech path to pursue. Metal Casting could be interesting for the possibility of building forges and the Colossus... though I am leaning more towards either Aesthetics --> Literature route or Mathematics --> Calendar/Currency or straight to Code of Laws. For Calendar, I do have one resource tied to it.. the incense at the Sumerian border... kinda trivial and risky due to being right next to Gilgamesh's annoying culture.

I am actually entertaining the idea of going for the Oracle in the capital. I didn't start production yet... I could go all out on it but if I were to do that, I would have to stop running my 2 scientists in the capital. Not sure if that's worth it.

My military is still weak, as I have not claimed the copper yet. At least I traded for Archery, so I can at least build archers. After the deer/fur city, the copper will be claimed next and some axemen.

Empire at a glance: The north has not been settled yet. You can refer to the previous screen shot from the previous post to see the site near the copper, fish, and the stone, as well as the clam/cow site.
attachment.php


The capital: It has now reached happy cap at 7 and is stagnant for the moment. I can keep assigning 2 scientists in the city, or have those guys put to the mines if I were to go for the Oracle. Even if I don't get it, I could use the gold. But not sure if that's optimal. At least a couple of cottages have matured into a hamlet on the floodplains, which is a good sign.
attachment.php
 
if you would have placed city on the north west plains hill you could have worked 3 flood plain cottages for later for capital and would have free happy cap in capital.

Don't be affraid of overlap. In early game I sometimes overlap with settling cities 3 spaces from themself if the resources are there, because the 20+ happy caps come too late. and of course less distance means a little bit less maintenance
 
vranasm said:
if you would have placed city on the north west plains hill you could have worked 3 flood plain cottages for later for capital and would have free happy cap in capital.

Don't be affraid of overlap. In early game I sometimes overlap with settling cities 3 spaces from themself if the resources are there, because the 20+ happy caps come too late. and of course less distance means a little bit less maintenance
Click to expand...

Do you mean 1SE of the riverside plains cows, 2E of Pasargadae? Yeah, it seems everyone is pretty much telling me the same thing about my city spacing, especially in letting the 2nd city work the cottages for the capital. I will consider it another valuable lesson taught. I do admit I am a little finicky when it comes to spacing my cities closer together. Had I done what you and lymond had pointed out, I could have planted more cities, not to mention decreased maintenance cost.

I am a bit relieved that I got that crab/cow city on the plains hill no less. I really wanted that place. I think part of the reason for my spacing of my cities was that I was too eager to expand toward the Sumerians as fast as I can manage.

By the way, what is your opinion on the site of the copper city?
 
The Moai Statue is certainly a must if I build on top of the stone, but considering that its hammers will come from only 2 forest tiles and that it will require a monument for a border pop to work the fish, wouldn't it be too time consuming to make it happen?
Click to expand...

That's what whipping is for. And don't forget you are now insta connected to stone that provides a bonus on Maoi. Build Maoi with whip overflow from the monument, cheap lighthouse and cheap CH. If you are able to run OR that's even better. While it may look somewhat production poor now, at least it has some food. Food is production. Think about what this city will look like later with chain irrigated grassland, workshopped plains tiles, and work 1H FIN coastal tiles. Not bad really. (The silver city is also a reasonable Maoi location)

I like 1SW of copper since a) you don't settle on a very high yield tile and b) you avoid working any desert tiles and c) it makes that stone city stronger. The copper city doesn't look that strong at first with no food specials but at least it is all farmable land and you have some production. I whipped like crazy in this city too.
 
actually at first I was thinking another PH, but you're right, that PH 1SE of cows is best, the other takes too much desert.

settle 1N of copper... you get all 3 good resources in 1st ring, would be a little bit light on food, but you get the copper, so it's fine.

getting blocker out is good thing! but that plains cow+crabs is a little bit too far away, the other one is good
 
re: your report

Spoiler :
First, I settled the same spot near the dear/furs. Actually not bad city for tundra. at least we got some farms to the north. This is my Conf holy city.

Gilgs will probably beat you to Oracle. He often gets to it first since Priesthood is a priority for him. Like you though, Oracle went very late in this game and I could have easily gotten it if I didn't prioritize other things. Try 2 pop whipping Settlers and workers with the overflow going into the wonder. This is close to 50 hammers instantly into the wonder, while at the same to helping you to rexx. Remember, Darius is Organized, so you can expand fairly easily.

Don't be afraid to farm some wine early for extra food commerce. Nice tile yield for FIN.

I'll try to post up my game. I just Libbed Astro and met all the AIs so I need to hold off until you get there. I went from way behind Giggles early to way ahead. Darius is just such a good leader.

Consider focusing EPs on one AI early and try stealing a tech or two after alpha. In this case Giggles would be best since he is generally a better techer than Brennus. Your cheap CHs help a lot with the EPs. Also, note that Gilgs with his early Zigs will try to steal techs from you regardless of how much he likes you, so plant some spies around.

Persopolis is a very strong capital. Bureau while rock
 
lymond said:
That's what whipping is for. And don't forget you are now insta connected to stone that provides a bonus on Maoi. Build Maoi with whip overflow from the monument, cheap lighthouse and cheap CH. If you are able to run OR that's even better. While it may look somewhat production poor now, at least it has some food. Food is production. Think about what this city will look like later with chain irrigated grassland, workshopped plains tiles, and work 1H FIN coastal tiles. Not bad really. (The silver city is also a reasonable Maoi location)

I like 1SW of copper since a) you don't settle on a very high yield tile and b) you avoid working any desert tiles and c) it makes that stone city stronger. The copper city doesn't look that strong at first with no food specials but at least it is all farmable land and you have some production. I whipped like crazy in this city too.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I am wrong on this: On normal speed, 1 whipped citizen = 30 hammers and on epic speed (50% longer build time), 1 whipped citizen = 45 hammers... is that correct?

I have to admit, I am not great at whipping. I never whip when only 1 citizen is sacrificed. In the early stages, I only whip for 2 citizens. Maybe 3 citizens later on when city size is bigger and more food is available. Almost never 4 citizens unless it is for a wonder that I might lose out to the AI... is this a good guideline to follow?

Okay... your advice makes a lot of sense. I think I will try doing just that. Hopefully I don't screw up on the whipping.

What do you think about the tech situation? I think going for Monarchy was a no brainer, but what next? You mentioned Organized Religion... which makes sense since everyone is a Jewish on this continent. It requires me to get Masonry --> Monotheism. I know that Brennus has Mono since he founded Judaism, but I don't think there is anything I can give away to him to get that from him. Aesthetics--> Literature route is usually what I go for around this time, but going straight for Code of Laws or even Mathematics doesn't sound too bad.

I am contemplating on going for the Oracle, as mentioned previously... will have to stop running scientists in the capital though... 18 more turns....
 
vranasm said:
actually at first I was thinking another PH, but you're right, that PH 1SE of cows is best, the other takes too much desert.

settle 1N of copper... you get all 3 good resources in 1st ring, would be a little bit light on food, but you get the copper, so it's fine.

getting blocker out is good thing! but that plains cow+crabs is a little bit too far away, the other one is good
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I thought as well, since the other plains hill would have had too many desert tiles for anyone's liking.

I am surprised that I have managed this far only with warriors with no horse and no copper. :)

That crab/cow city is indeed a bit too far, but it was one extra health resource, and the location was too good... lots of hills, good food, river tiles and coast for commerce. I really would have felt boxed in if the AI settled there. My economy isn't broken yet, so I plan on making the most of it.
 
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