SGOTM 10 - Chokonuts

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Im ok for you to move the units to take a check what area is like, although still think we need to come up with some plan as to how to play the initial turns. Playing how I suggested by using scientist to bulb Education is roughly getting lib in 60ish turns. We only need to self reseach Edu about 450 beakers so can half research another tech too.

Once we know settling sites we can work out more initial builds and worker actions.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

PS After yesterdays debacle at Headingley all I can say is

"Stand up if your one-nil up!!"

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, I'll grab this tonight and move some dudes around and repost some screenies.

I think we figure out where the capital goes and what direction we want the second city to bo in and then the first turn set can be really short, figuring out the next best shot for second city.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

I'd recommend northern Lbow NE, explorer to the gold and southern Lbow 1SW. Then we can hopefully judge more where we want cities then can move settlers and worker based on that. Im still in favour of capital 1S of Iron and 2nd city 1S or 1SW of grassland gold.

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, I load up the save and make the following moves

1. Longbow NE
2. Explorer S,SE
3. Longbow SW

I left the settlers and worker unmoved for now and here's the lay of the land.



I still think settling in place is the best option and going for the 2 gold and clams cows in a southern (and second city) on the desert hills.

What do we think?

 

[Ozbenno]

I'd recommend northern Lbow NE, explorer to the gold and southern Lbow 1SW. Then we can hopefully judge more where we want cities then can move settlers and worker based on that. Im still in favour of capital 1S of Iron and 2nd city 1S or 1SW of grassland gold.

That's what I did while you poted this!

If we move the settler, we lose the extra hammer in production from settling on a plains hill, what do we gain from moving 1S of iron?

 

[Ozbenno]

Actually we lose the crabs and jumbos as well if we move, my vote is for settling in place.

 

[ianw1610]

My vote:

First city in place.

Second city 1N2W of the Clam, unless we find a better option in the meantime.

Switch Civics immediately, as previously discussed.

Apparently we will be allocated a Religion... do we want to run that as a State Religion, or stay in No State Religion, for better diplomacy against the aggresive AI?

If we do want to run a State Religion, maybe go for Pacifism to get a Great Person benefit?? (although, to avoid yet another turn of Anarchy, we would need to stay away from Hereditary Rule if we do indeed revolt to Pacifism)...

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

The idea of 1S of Iron was mainly due to thinking that we wouldnt possibly be given such a ridiculously juicy starting spot without some sort of catch. I assumed that being there would be little space for decent future city sites. I certainly didnt expect the site south of gold would yield 2 more food resources Looks like some spot could be found with floodplains in SW too.

As for civics I can agree with foregoing HR and go for Pacisfism we will get three happy from the gold and Ivory so this will more than compensate. We will still have an extra turn of anarchy for state religion but as this will be first few turns will not cost us too much. To confirm civics I think we should goto Bureau-Caste-Merc-Pacifism.

What I have been doing in test games is running sci's in capital and merchants in second city. Usually get 2 Gs's (One to bulb remainder of Edu and one for Academy) and 3rd Great Person Merchant can used to bulb Economics for free GM or used for trade mission or Golden Age. In future cities run an artist for first few turns for border pop. Do not need in first two cities as we will get culture from capital and religion in 2nd city.
I would start with wrkboats in both cities and buildd as quick as poss, I would though be wary of polluting the GP gene pool in capital with engineer points it is critical we get GS first to bulb Education without that we will struggle to get Lib.

 

[ianw1610]

I agree with everything in @mighty's post

So, research path - go for Nationalism first?

Should we aim for Taj Mahal, for an early Golden Age?

REX up to 5 cities ASAP to enable fast Oxford?

Fair chance we will be DoW'd early due to Aggressive AI and Heathen Religion, so ensure we have a strong army from early on.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

We need to have researched about 450 beakers into Education before we get GS to be able to fully bulb it. We can half research a tech probs either Nationalism or Gunpowder with remaining beakers before then.

Taj will tie up too many hammers in my opinion, somebody will tech Nationalism and therefore beat us to it would rather build improvements or settlers etc.

We wont be in heathen religion for long once we have lib we can trade it around and other civs will switch to FR in the experience of games I recently played.

 

[mc-red]

Ok sounds like we have the makings of a plan.
Gunpowder over nationalism for me for any beakers not going to Education.
I think when choosing builds with the priorities of rex(settlers) and military(dow protection) that we also don't neglect workers.
As each city comes with pop two we will be working lots of unimproved tiles.

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, I'll settle in place, swap civics and move the second settler towards the gold site.

Do we want to start with Work Boat builds or workers? First worker to rice then iron.

Research to Gunpowder.

Civics to Bureau-Caste-Merc-Pacifism.

I'll stop again when we get the second settler in place and repost the starting area screenshots to confirm that's where we want it.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

wkboats for me as workers are pretty expensive until we are working 3-4 improved tiles in a city. ALthough I do second Mc's views on workers as mentioned above once we get to size 3-4 working good tiles we should be able to get worker out in 5-6 turns. So once we get to work fish,clams and iron in capital and rice corn clams in second city we should be able to knock up a band of workers pretty easily.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

All sounds good to me....

Ralph

 

[mc-red]

Second city will need a border pop to work clams. Easiest way without ruining GP gene pool would be to just build culture for border pop. This also bring cows into play which are superior to the rice.

For second city Corn before Rice as neither are irrigated and at some point need to get a grassland farm to chain irrigate them.
Early game ranks using the DaveMcW scores would be.

Corn (irrigated) > Clams > Corn (before irrigation) > Rice (irrigated) > Cows > Rice (before irrigation)

for the cap
Fish > irrigated corn > crab, clams > farmed(not irrigated) corn > grass iron

so normally I would try to farm corn before mining grass iron.
It seems here though the boost to work boats and also the movement of the worker favour the iron first as it is on one side of the capital and all the other improvable tiles are clustered to the other side of eastern forest.

so iron then corn then cows if we go for the border pop in city 2.

EDIT:
Seafood benefits greatly over normal start from the free LH

 

[ianw1610]

The 2nd city should be the holy city of our Religion, so borders should expand quickly.

We need to figure how best to spread our religion to our Capital (Monastery? OrgRel?), to make the most of Pacifism (which only works in cities with a state Religion). If the Religion doesn't spread to our capital, GP generation will be skewed towards our 2nd city.

 

[mc-red]

Ah good point on religion Ianw. edit just realized mighty had already mentioned this above

Also, given how powerful coastal fish with LH are and the fact that iron/corn in second ring.
I think worker should chop where it stands before going to iron. Rather than going to rice which is in first ring but weaker than the iron and corn.

 

[mc-red]

I didn't make a note of prob of auto spread of religion in test starts but would be an unreliable method anyway so we need a plan.

 

[mc-red]

One other thought is that we could be in island area.
Does this mean we could soon have barb trireme's and galleys to deal with?