Aaaarmy Training, Sir!

I see no urgent need for costal access and would prefer to settle on the red dot, which will make a great 2nd city. We'll have lots of action on our home continent before there is any need to look overseas.
 
I would still advocate settling a blocking city. Fractal/Immortal/Organized maintenance costs are really not that scary. And I would rather have 12 cities whipping cheap courthouses rather then 8 cities building wealth.

Hell, I would even go for the corn+gold site to the far NW. The gold mine will probably compensate for the distance maintenance.

My 2:commerce:'s

p.s.: After writing a blocking city is actually useful for creating quick international trade routes.
p.p.s.: Only real downside I can see are the negative diplo points for shared borders. They can really delay Friendly status.
 
My concern with that wouldn't be the cost, but defending it and connecting it.
 
I see no need for coastal access either, especially a city on coast with no seafood. There's no urgency for this and we have coastal spots to settle later. Personally I would settle right between cow and rice with another city 2N of cows for minor food sharing, plus gems sharing. 2nd city gets bananas later. However, the corn/2gold spot to the SW looks somewhat appealing for an earlier cit although those golds aren't as lucrative on a desert.

The important thing to me is settling close to the cap and getting immediately productive cities that can tile share with cap as needed.

Anyway, I will play later today. I apologize for the delay, but wanted to get some discussions going. I'll play to the settler popping, so we don't have to make a final decision right now.
 
The important thing to me is settling close to the cap and getting immediately productive cities that can tile share with cap as needed.

This is most beneficial if we have either commercial capital growing cottages or excessive food sources near capital. Since we have neither settling close to capital just for the sake of lowering maintenance is not that productive. Especially with organized AND double gems. Grab land! :king:
 
Sorry, I just don't think that is realistic or feasible. Very good chance we don't even get that spot with our first settler. Not a cottage cap possibly, but sharing those gems is pretty huge..actually very huge. Cow/rice ain't great but it is productive.
 
t35

TW>AH finished. Horses just NE of borders. Not great spot but we could put city there (NW of horses) and share rice later.

Met this joker a coupla turns in from the NE:

Spoiler :
ihslOFC.jpg


Unfortunately not a great deal of scouting as a step into a friendly lion, so scout was healing much of the time. Did reveal a corn just N of those cows. Land is unreasonably flat around us.

worker finishes road next turn and settler can settle next turn. Personally, I like spot right between cow and rice. (i don't like city on the sugar in this case anyway)

Barb archer 2W of where Warrior stands now or thereabouts

Land:

Home:

Spoiler :
KdBiQOA.jpg


NW:
Spoiler :
CA4KzlS.jpg
 

Attachments

I think we need chariots before we settle either of the gold sites, so the horses are probably next. 1NW of horses looks best - not a great city site though. Barb pressure is gonna ramp up significantly over the next 10-20T. There's just sooo much open land here, and quite a bit of jungle too.
 
Yeah, I agree. Horse city should be next. I also like 1NW of the horse for that. Also, since we have horses so close to us, HA rush? :mischief: The only real problem is we don't have an AI who's close enough. Even Izzy is kinda too far away to absorb her land. Maybe if she expands towards us. I'm really curious to where Biz is located, since we met him fairly early.
 
Well, at least we do have horses.

4. yena (Up)
5. ShiVvV (on deck)

I believe our first order of business is deciding exactly what tile we want to settle on for cow/rice city. I gather coastal is no longer in consideration so it boils down to two possibilities as I see it.

A) NE of rice on the grassland
B) N of rice on the plains

I favor option B on the plains. Folks should chime in with their preference so we're on same page.
If we do end up settling on site B, the sugar site could be moved 1W (which would grab the marble with border pop).

I very much doubt we can get the clam/corn/dbl gold site. The southern dbl gold site is doable though. There is a desert tile that could be settled which would allow 1FP, corn, and both gold to be worked. Surely there's more food south of gold we can't see yet so we may have options how to settle this area.

We may kinda have a free hand in the south if we block it off quickly enough.

Our next fastest priority (after settling cow/rice) will be getting the horses site up (1NW of horses only real option). We're gonna need the chariots for barb defense/gaining promos.

As far as micro/builds/tech I'm leaning towards following:
1) Revolt now. Settle 1N of rice. Worker gets on the cow.
2) Put one more turn of production into the capital worker after revolt (T2/ 26prod). Switch to warrior. Grow to then S4>S2 whip worker with OF into settler. Switch to warrior and new worker can chop settler. (New city can work gems until cap grows back to S3).
3)Tech--Writing>Math...>partial tech Alpha in order to trade for it?

To me this map looks like a heavy farming, specialist-heavy bulbing game. It looks like we may have to use most of our capital forests for settler/worker chops unfortunately.
 
I agree with the N of rice as a better settling option (not like there are great choices here to begin with), and we definitely need to get that horse site up ASAP.

I'm also in agreement for the worker micro. I only have a question so I know the strategic reasoning , why Math? Is that for the more effective chops and the techs it opens up?
 
Calendar is going to be a significant source of commerce/food, so early math would be good.

More dotmaps for fun. These feature Red Dots that we have to settle, then three settling paths, blue, green and pink.

North:

Dotmap.jpg

South:

Dotmap south.jpg

-Red Dots Gotta settle these next two cities. I'm torn between red dot and black now, both are fine though. Definitely need the Horse/Rice next and get our Chariots out.

-Pink: We expand towards izzy and try to steal the corn/clam/gold city. We can probably skip one of them and backfill, though I think this path is the least likely to work out. I feel like we would either be late or we'd have to settle so aggressively that infrastructure would suffer.

-Green: Feels rather conservative, as we might be able to grab this after going Pink, but it does give some decent production and we could get a cottage city going on the river. Don't know if we've got anyone north of us up there, but I think those three are easily get-able without having to worry about someone else grabbing them up.

-Blue: My favored option. We still get a gold resource, while nabbing marble and incense as well. We could cut off Izzy from the southern part of the continent and backfill as well, assuming no one has a capital down there. I like this one best because it synergizes with an early calendar run, we can lock down MoM and push through the rough land with some extra golden ages.

Just food for thought.
 
Worker was a placeholder, but we probably do want another one asap. We could chop it too after worker roads cow next turn, as I already have 1t pre-chop on forest on the same road path. OR we grow for now on warrior, get cows up asap for city 2, and then chop worker once cows are done.

I've already stated I'd like city between rice/cow (Quip's black city).

(Rusten - oh legendary lurker of the gods - where would you settle first? how fast would you settle a gold spot and which one?)

and yeah, switch to slavery. I should have done that already if I haven't.
 
Math can sometimes be traded for relatively early. Possibly not the best collection of AI here so far for trades, but Cyrus and Churchill both trade at 30% and cautious. If the idea is still to tech to Alpha and then trade for IW and such, Math might be obtainable via trade as well.

As for settlers and workers, one idea i had was to switch to warrior right now in the captiol and grow to S4 (warrior is 4T as well). Settle 2nd city and grow to S2 then start worker. 4 > 2 whip settler in capitol, city 2 takes gems. 2nd city might even be able to 2 > 1 whip worker once the capitol can retake gems. 6 yield cow tile will build a worker fairly quick even without a whip though.

I haven't worked out the timing on any of that yet, just tossing out the idea.

Whoever is playing next, remember to finish road next turn before settling the city to get the trade route.
 
Yeah, Maths is something you rarely self-tech at this level. Really depends on the situation and AIs present. We do have good early commerce so we have flexibility, but if HA rush is in the cards then we should be heading up that road soon. HBR is pretty good trade bait as well.

Although I haven't looked at the timings closely, I like Iz's initial idea on micros for the cities. Again, another reason why close cities provide such an advantage early on.

@Deo - As mentioned, Maths was thrown out there as a suggestion by someone, but not necessarily the best thing to tech early on this level..nor is Calendar for that matter. These are both AI priority techs and can be traded for. Again it depends though. Calendar does have some value here for food, happy and commerce. However, it is something we do not really need to rush to get early and can make a determination on what we need to do with Calendar as we get closer to it and know what the AIs are up to.
 
Got it. Busy atm but will have a look at your comments and the save later today and share my thoughts.
 
N of rice is better - we can grab sugar with it. Do not plan for taking marble in the second ring of future city - marble is already lost to Izzy if we don't take it with the second city.

Grow cap to 4 and whip settler. Worker in city 2.

Horses are in a very unfortunate spot. We should discuss going archery and looking for a better third city.
 
Izzy hasn't found or connected metal yet. I think horses are more important than marble, so third city should grab them. HBR after writing would be good for trades and open for a HA attack if Izzy comes closer.

As for the second city N of rice gets my vote.

Tentative plan for my set:
- revolt to slavery
- road to second city N of rice.
- Use Izuuls suggestion for worker micro. New warrior goes north to fogbust the horse site. 1st worker will improve cow tile, then road to horse site.
- Tech: Writing -> HBR (if team agrees)

I will play 24 hours later, to give time for more discussion.
 
Back
Top Bottom