One Legged Hatty (Immortal)

The Start

That last immortal game was really challenging. I want to play another before moving up to deity.

This time, I pick Hatty (Spiritual / Creative, Egypt). And I was so impressed with AI Justinian last game that I select him as one of the AIs.

Also, I figured out how to install MacBUFFY as a custom asset. Which means you can shadow without having any mods.

Settings:

• Marathon, immortal.
• Fractal, all defaults.
• No tech trades or diplo victory. (Still hate the AP.)
• No huts or events.
• Barbs are on.

Detailed settings:


And the start:


I think it's fairly obvious to settle on one of the plains hill wines. +1H and +1C is just too good to pass up. The warrior finds:


Tundra at the southern one. Looking in the fog, there's flat plains by the southern one, too, and floodplains and grassland by the northern one. I'm thinking to settle the northern one, though that does lose the sheep. Thoughts?

Here's the save. Remember, I changed my MacBUFFY install, so you don't need the mod to play. Shadows welcome, please keep spoilers in spoiler tags.

Poor Hatty--always tragic to see diabetes do that to a person.

Settle on the northern PH and hope for some healthy grains to mitigate FP health suckiness. I'm starting to really dislike FP starts for that reason.

As long as you settle on the river, floodplains aren't a big deal. They just negate the +2 health. Plus I already have sheep and deer nearby.

And Hatty is super thin. I didn't realize she was diabetic. Always thought she lost the leg in a chariot accident...

Followed your last one closely, Rhino; I'll do the same here. For my money you and Oz are posting the most entertaining games on the forums right now.

I'm glad you share my views on Justinian. On my games he always seems to wind-up as a REX-monster, super-shrine-fueled behemoth.

OneLeggedRhino said:

As long as you settle on the river, floodplains aren't a big deal. They just negate the +2 health. Plus I already have sheep and deer nearby.

And Hatty is super thin. I didn't realize she was diabetic. Always thought she lost the leg in a chariot accident...

Click to expand...

Yeah she has to be careful to lay off the Phaoroh Rocher.

pixiejmcc said:

Yeah she has to be careful to lay off the Phaoroh Rocher.

Click to expand...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.*

pixiejmcc said:

Yeah she has to be careful to lay off the Phaoroh Rocher.

Click to expand...

Loved it.

That northern wine PH looks risky to me. It could leave you with as little as 1 hill in your BFC. 8 floodplains are showing already in that BFC. Does that give 2 or 3?

Too Many Floodplains (Turns 1 - 92, Years 4000-2620)

The thing you have to watch out for with floodplains-heavy starts is racking up too much unhealthiness. Usually not a problem, but it's always wise to count the FPs:


Holy cow, 11 floodplains! That includes 4 you can barely see in the fog. Guess I won't be settling the northern wine after all.

It burns a second turn moving, but it's a much better first city:


Not amazing long-term, mind you, but quite good for now.

Four turns in, I meet Ragnar:


Then Gilgamesh on turn 10. Looks like I have some close, dangerous neighbors.

After scouting the surrounding area, I'm really glad I didn't settle the northern wine:


That might make a great cottage capital later on, but it's pretty terrible for a first city. Gorf, you were prescient.

3655: Buddhism discovered in a distant land. We have at least one religious fanatic.

3445: Animal husbandry completes. No horses anywhere.

It does give me an interesting question, though. Complete the floodplains farm (8 turns), or switch to the sheep (12 turns).


I decide to finish the farm. The sheep only grants an extra hammer, and I'd rather have four turns with the extra food. But I put it in here because I really don't know which move was stronger.

Next tech: Mining --> Bronze working. Chops will be nice, and whips will be excellent with all this food. Plus, I'm hoping for some copper somewhere to fight off barbs.


I also thought about pottery, to cottage up some of those floodplains. But there are 4 golds I can grab fairly easily, and a fifth between me and Gilgamesh. I don't need commerce, I need settlers to claim all that loot. And long-term, I prefer specialists over cottages.

3085: Thebes is growing faster than my worker can farm. Soon, it will be working two unimproved tiles. I pause to make another worker.


(Aside from that, I've made 3 warriors, and put a few turns into a barracks.)

The workers continue farming the FPs. I intend to make this a whipping city, though I'll develop 1-2 hills soon, too. Thebes builds 2 more warriors to replace losses to barbs. Nothing exciting for a little while.

I don't remember the year, but I end the turnset when bronze working completes. There is no good copper, and with so many floodplains, I'm having a hard time planning cities:


Next turnset, I'll plan my dotmap, then either claim some copper, or tech archery. With this capital, I can expand really hard.

Next city 1n of eastern wine

Then I'd Rex due north, settle wine hill, NW for fp and corn, then get copper. If you are worried about barbs, go archery. You will have enough commerce that it will be a quick detour. I'm not sure how far away barbs are on marathon.

with so much amazing land the most sensible thing would be to rex it, tech to a commanding lead, and vassalize everyone.

I'd settle to claim pigs/gold/elephants near gilgamesh, then either the 3gold site (2 fp frms is all you need to feed the mines) northeastern fish or the western corn + sheep(1w of corn), depending on which civ seems more likely to steal the spot from you.

Plan for a single OMFG cottage city, and settle 3-4 helper cities nearby to develop the cottages for you. 1w of the western corn is an ideal helper, so plan around that.

After looking closely, it seems that you can almost-fully block out gilgamesh by settling the desert hill near pigs+gold, and then a fishing village either 2s, 2s1w, or 2s1e of that fish in the 2nd screenshot. The peaks will complete the seal for you, and it's not TOO terrible if he swipes your southeastern corn+spice, which he might not even do.

Settling your first few cities so distant sucks for maintenance, but the gold will see you through the worst of it and the land you block is excellent, plus gilgamesh is SUCH an annoyance if you allow him to REX freely.


I'd settle both of the eastern cities first. 99% of the time, Ragnar's next city will claim the copper, leaving you a good shot at the sheep + corn even though you delay it until city #4, and even if he does settle around there you still have a shot at blocking him + stealing some good tiles thanks to you being creative.

Don't forget to get a scout onto the tile 1nw of the northern copper.There may be fish in that fogged ocean tile.

Go ahead and tech archery.

Thanks guys. Those are some really good ideas.

In terms of barbs, we already have barb archers, so I gotta get moving on some defense. I'll probably grab archery next.

I think that's the most continuous FPs I've ever seen.

rhino, i made some edits i think are important after you replied, you should re-read my post

Planning My Cities

Thanks guys, really helpful input. Here's what I'm thinking for the dotmap:

To the east, blocking Gilgamesh, I wind up taking both suggestions:


The desert hill will seal Gilgamesh off, and will take the pig. The 3-gold will keep everything connected nicely, and will take the floodplains. I would have put the gold city 1S, but there was no easy way to grab the 3rd gold.

These will be my first 2 cities. The desert ivory first, with the 3-gold right after. The 3-gold city also connects my culture to the northern blocking city:


Blocking Gilgamesh from the other direction. (I'll just take the 1-fish city, and leave the other for backfill later.)

Incidentally, all this sealing really only works with Creative. I'm quite glad for that trait this game.

To the west:


No blocking. Just some good cities.

1SE of the corn would make a good commerce city, though I usually skip that and just do specialists. I'm already at turn 92, figure I'll found that city in 20-40 turns, then it needs to grow, then 200 turns to pop cottages into towns, and we're around turn 400 by the time it's up and running.

But wait, I just checked my last game, and I got Civil Service around turn 450. So maybe it's perfect. I'll decide after sealing the east, and if I plan to go for commerce, move some other cities to overlap it more.

Also, it would be nice moved 1W to get the sheep, but I want this city on a river because of the floodplain unhealthiness.

This one will be my priority after the 3 cities to seal off Gilgamesh. (I may have to roll through Ragnar to do it, and if so, that's fine. This city isn't amazing yet, it requires Caste to really shine.)

Also, the city 1N of the wine would be nice actually on the wine, but that would also add another few floodplains for another unhealthiness. Expansive would be really nice this game, too.

The northwest:


Nothing fancy here. I'll probably have iron by the time I settle these cities, so the copper is moot. Also, these might move depending on what I do with the corn city.

And a couple southern backfill cities:


How do I grab all these cities? Grow Thebes to size 6, whip a settler, regrow on archer + barracks, and whip again. Even without a granary, Thebes can still whip well.


Since I'll be claiming gold and ivory with the next 2 cities, that will let Thebes stack whip anger and still regrow to size 6. Add in 4 chops for settlers (keeping 2 for workers), and I can power through 4 cities pretty quickly. Figure 1 whip anger fades somewhere in there, but it probably goes into whipping a granary. I'll probably slow-build a couple workers, too, while hanging out at size 4 waiting for a resource to come online.

Tech path is Hunting --> Archery. Hopefully that gets me enough protection for all this land grabbing.

i'd still recommend 1w of the western corn as a good city+blocker+helper that will get minimal unhealth from the floodplains.
Then later settle 1e of the current dot for the cottage capital. That site picks up a plainshill, a plainshill wine, and 3 more floodplains, losing a desert hill, 3 nonriver plains, and a nonriver grassland to do it. It gets an extra -2 unhealth but will still grow just fine when small, and actually has a slightly larger maximum size.

If you settle the 3-gold before the fishing village, you will almost certainly lose both of the northern fishing villages to Gilgamesh. It's a trade-off since you'll have those 3 golds up faster if you settle them asap, but the fishing villages are both pretty nice and would be a shame to lose. You dont need to bridge the culture gap between pigs/gold and fish, since the gap will be sealed by the peaks.

Anyways, regardless what you do, you have some juicy land =]

Since you praised Creative and Organised in wrap up for the last game, I thought you were going to play Zara this time. But I guess Rhino playing a spiritual leader is as sure as death and taxes

I started a shadow, but my entire plan had to be canned as barbs spawned a city right dab in the middle of a nice dotmap I came up with for a Buro cap. Might retry. Good luck to you, Rhino

this one is must shadow for me... so I didn't read (or tried to not read) anything about the map or reports...

I like the eastern wine as settling spot, would probably move warrior 1SE

based on the corner south west it looks like we're south

AH, pottery, writing all big plays, but something against barbs is needed

Here's my concern: Ragnar is going to take one look at that big mass of floodplains and decide he must have a city there. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was his second city, but certainly no later than his fourth I would expect him to be pushing against your capital's culture. This is paired with the fact that he's got copper pretty much guaranteed, unitspams, and is a nasty neighbor in the best of times to make me worry about an early dagger. Your current plan doesn't seem to get any metal until pretty late, which could leave you in a particularly nasty spot if Ragnar hits early. Even if he doesn't backstab, I'd consider any dotmapping to the west premature if you're really planning on burning your first 3 settlers on boxing in Gilgamesh. By the time you get to filling in the west, Ragnar's culture will probably be forcing you to make trade-offs and adjust cities anyways.

As an alternative, I'd consider going for a 4-city elepult rush against Ragnar. Your two blocking cities plus the 3-gold that ties them together should get you an excellent tech rate to Construction; it'd be a bit light on production but you can probably scrape up enough to make a decent army, especially if you over-grow your cities before Construction for whipping purposes. Odds are those blocking cities render Gilgamesh pretty weak on the east side of the continent, so you might even be able to take veterans from crushing Ragnar and pivot to the east. Sure, you can expand hard with your capital, but sometimes it's just better to grab the biggest stick you can lay your hands on and start hitting people.

Here's my concern: Ragnar is going to take one look at that big mass of floodplains and decide he must have a city there. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was his second city, but certainly no later than his fourth I would expect him to be pushing against your capital's culture. This is paired with the fact that he's got copper pretty much guaranteed, unitspams, and is a nasty neighbor in the best of times to make me worry about an early dagger. Your current plan doesn't seem to get any metal until pretty late, which could leave you in a particularly nasty spot if Ragnar hits early. Even if he doesn't backstab, I'd consider any dotmapping to the west premature if you're really planning on burning your first 3 settlers on boxing in Gilgamesh. By the time you get to filling in the west, Ragnar's culture will probably be forcing you to make trade-offs and adjust cities anyways.

As an alternative, I'd consider going for a 4-city elepult rush against Ragnar. Your two blocking cities plus the 3-gold that ties them together should get you an excellent tech rate to Construction; it'd be a bit light on production but you can probably scrape up enough to make a decent army, especially if you over-grow your cities before Construction for whipping purposes. Odds are those blocking cities render Gilgamesh pretty weak on the east side of the continent, so you might even be able to take veterans from crushing Ragnar and pivot to the east. Sure, you can expand hard with your capital, but sometimes it's just better to grab the biggest stick you can lay your hands on and start hitting people.

@ Rhino

I've already shadowed this and you'll find it 100X easier than your previous

Having said that I can say quite confidently that you don't need archery early to fend off the barbs. You've got Giggles and Raggy at your edges and really only need to fogbust in the northernly direction. I did fine with 1E, 1W, and 3 northernly. Who cares if they come from the bottom sw because they have to cross a river to attack your capital which is on a hill. I call that free experience!

To piggy back what Coanda said.......You're not going to get all the sites you want and IMO a REX would not be the best choice. I agree with Keliah and you with the exact spot of city #2 (imo settler @ 3pop or risk losing it). Quite perfect. For city #3 I'd suggest settling on the Marble so you can farm 3FP, 2gold mines, and mine the wine too. You could opt for the 3gold FP city you have outlined but imo that has weaker sustained production and commerce. Marble gives 2gold plus room for commerce/production at the same time. The other city tells me all whip or all gold, which is fine, just not my 1st choice.

City 4 could go anywhere......I opted for 1W of spice, 1off coast with corn and wine. Not a great long term city but good for some chops/whipping early. The Pig/Ivory/Gold city can work 2 FP cottages quite nicely and get production but aside from that city, I don't see the need for any other early cottages. 3Gold/2cottage should be plenty early. Chop>build>whip. Move capital and cottage spam it a bit later.

From there I'd just go Phant/Cat with taking a couple cities from Raggy then all attention on Giggles. Tech wise I'd suggest AH>Min>Writing for early writing and 2scientist>Pottery>BW>HBR (start early on stables)>Hunting>Archery>Masonry>BULB Math>Construction finishes at around 1200BC. I opted for 2cities to have Rax/Stable (phant) and 2 cities for Rax (Cat) only.

Edit: early construction leads to