aCK-1 Behaving Ourselves

[S.ilver]

Alright, so our leader for the maiden voyage of aCK is...

Catherine the Great, running at Prince difficulty on a Terra map. Cathy starts with Hunting, and as such gets a scout instead of a warrior to start with, so our initial scouting job may be a bit easier. Mining is also a solid tech, giving us the short path to Bronze Working.

We are running at Epic speed on a Standard sized map with the typical 7 civs, and since it's a Terra, expect some tensions early, as all civs will be packed in.

Taking a page from Boff-0 (and heck, the SG that inspired this; AKSG-01), we present 5 starts to choose from.

Start A:

Spoiler :

Start B:

Spoiler :

Start C:

Spoiler :

Start D:

Spoiler :

Start E:

Spoiler :

 

[Loki Strikes]

Lurker's comment

Start D looks most interesting to me, remember that you can settle in place on the plains hill (2H == , more so with Cathy's imp trait)

Also if you settle in place you can still settle that 2E of you because you can settle 2 squares away over water.

Since you guys want to REX I would recommend beelining TGLH, settle that island for intercontinental routes, and have fun REXing with the uber-low Prince maintenance costs + early intercontinental trade routes.

Also the massive food + decent production (with chops GLH will be no problem) allows for specialists to support a crashed economy if you can somehow manage that.


If you are leaning for a more land based, I would recommend B, and settle 1N to get some more floodplains and use that as a super science capital (hell since its prince might as well pick up the trio of early stone wonders)

Also 1W may be alright, but it gives up stone for unirrigated wheat(ick), but may pick up an extra floodplain, but I'd vote 1N

 

[sturick]

Start A: Solid crab resources but not much else...does seem to have the added benefit of being on the northern part of the map so we won't be boxed in.

Start B: Settler is on a plains hill..extra hammer is nice but very little in the way of food...maybe settling one north is better as we grab two flood plains tiles and the four resources. This leaves the wheat possibly for a future town...i see tundra here as well but we could still be surrounded.

Start C: Hill pigs and clams are nice and good mix of hills too...not much to say here for me.

Start D: Holy Seafood!!!!
I like this spot....however we don't possess any of the techs to work these tiles off the bat and the land to the south looks putrid so it might take a while to get it up and going. This capitol would not hurt for food thats for certain.

Start E: I think moving the scout 1SE or to the eastern hill might shed more light on this city...i like the stone in our BFC so we can build several different wonders double time...the oasis is nice i just wish you could build on it. Plenty of forests to chop too.

I think I like E the best...although I could be blinded by the stone as I NEVER have that resource available early on. D would be my second choice as I have never seen that much seafood in a start...I could definitely see the GLH/colossus/moai in that town. Third vote for A as I we probably aren't boxed in here which is a plus. Boff-5 is proof of that.

 

[cripp7]

Lurcker Comment

Start A: Solid crab resources but not much else...does seem to have the added benefit of being on the northern part of the map so we won't be boxed in.

Agree, worthless start

Start B: Settler is on a plains hill..extra hammer is nice but very little in the way of food...maybe settling one north is better as we grab two flood plains tiles and the four resources. This leaves the wheat possibly for a future town...i see tundra here as well but we could still be surrounded.

Move 1N and you'll have 5hill mined, 2 farmed floodplain + cows would be a production monster!

Start C: Hill pigs and clams are nice and good mix of hills too...not much to say here for me.

Agree with that

Start D: Holy Seafood!!!!
I like this spot....however we don't possess any of the techs to work these tiles off the bat and the land to the south looks putrid so it might take a while to get it up and going. This capitol would not hurt for food thats for certain.

Good Moai/GP city

Start E: I think moving the scout 1SE or to the eastern hill might shed more light on this city...i like the stone in our BFC so we can build several different wonders double time...the oasis is nice i just wish you could build on it. Plenty of forests to chop too.


I think I like E the best...although I could be blinded by the stone as I NEVER have that resource available early on. D would be my second choice as I have never seen that much seafood in a start...I could definitely see the GLH/colossus/moai in that town. Third vote for A as I we probably aren't boxed in here which is a plus. Boff-5 is proof of that.

Looks like ocean to the S so moving the scout would be beneficial there. Depending on that scout, I like B,E,D(if you go the TR(Trade Route) economy)

 

[goblinmarine]

Holy Succulent Sid's Sushi Batman. Start D has some crazy potential with Sid. Also, we know we'll be cramped but it also means we can put a few cities at the end of the peninsula to defend the seafood city. We could tech to astronomy quickly and go for a second round of expansion by being the first to find the new world. Just my thoughts on that one. Seems interesting.

For B I think the settler should go SE (after the scout explores) and get the stone with the second city. Or just settle in place and sacrifice a tree and risk losing the wheat due to the coast. But it is an option.

Can't really say anything for the other starts. D speaks to me in a sort of "Boff-0 Questionable Play TM(liq and sil) let's be masochistic" sort of way. Same as picking monty for every game you play. Other than that I'd say B, the others seem kind of "meh".

 

[Liquidated]

For B I think the settler should go SE (after the scout explores) and get the stone with the second city. Or just settle in place and sacrifice a tree and risk losing the wheat due to the coast. But it is an option.

South is the tundra and east is closer to the stone.... What did you mean by SE?

Also, where do you see coast in B? The unirrigated wheat is a trash tile, just best to ignore it before civil or as a life line for a tundra town built for grabbing silver =p.

As for the starts, imo B is the least worrisome. North one tile is a given as the two tiles in the fog are unlikely to make up for the gains of Flood plains and riverside grass forests.

Basic problem with the Setup in B is that the best food tiles are the two Flood Plains. The cow and stone effectively are food neutral when both worked so to work the plains hills will need farms on the floods. The nice part of all that is that the majority of the tiles are riverside.. that's a major boon.

Silk tiles are problematic in The starting Capital They are generally of marginal use early on, as they are using up valuable BFC space that could be hiding a more useful resource. Once calendar comes in, they will rock sure, but until then, they are marginal tiles.

In Map B, one of the two silks are is on its very best behavior for being Riverside for Both the farming option and innate extra commerce. Combine that with the fact they are free chops and honestly, they help out B's starting area in this case.

The one other option I can see is to move the scout North East one tile and then see from there where to move. If there's a real food source hiding in the fog there, its well worth spending an extra turn getting the capital in a location with better food/hammer balance.

Other thing about B is that there's surely some hidden Resources close by, lets just hope they don't require industrial age techs to unlock.

Overall B is a Capital that can go hammers or commerce, depending on what the surrounding land looks like. That's not half bad.



As for the other maps...
Map D is a huge Gamble as you only get a 5+ fishie start when you are really packed in. The aim of this SG isn;t about an adventure on the high seas hehe. Moai is a marginal National wonder to start with btw. To plan that for your Capital is a bad sign.

Map E is a grab bag as we have no idea what half the tiles are in the BFC and oasis' have no right to be in a BFC of a Capital. Nice tile at the start but they are completely unworkable and begin to drag down a town right away. In general, Stone is a nice tile to have Just outside your capital's BFC as the land surrounding said stone is generally ugly (talking non HOF quality starts).

Map C is a little more complex as to why it's 2nd tier... First off, it's polar (the trees) with the southish being water + desert in the corner. East is prolly coast North and east if you look closely and I'd guess the pole is to the north. That leaves expansion to the South west and maybe a bit of land south east. Ugly Stuff.


A is trash. As much water as forest and there's tundra just to the north and the south of the starting spot... meh. 3 Fishie start pales in comparison to the 5+ fishie start of D

Only real choice for maps I see is B btw, D is just too extreme for this SG..


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[goblinmarine]

Hey, getting left and right confused ALREADY . I meant SW.
Oh, and the tundra looked like coast to me guess it's time to get my eyes checked again.

 

[Arlborn]

Hey, can I be in the reserve of the rooster, just in case somebody needs to drop out? That'd be a perfect start in SGs for me(I normally play prince or monarch)! I lurk SGs for years, only tried once to play it but didn't really work out(1 month in a hospital bed, in the middle of the SG with 5 broken bones, didn't help either).

Otherwise, I am lurking a bit. An opnion about start is to move 1N in start B.

 

[sturick]

Alright so I am fine with site B if everyone else likes it...not really an obvious choice in the whole bunch. Moving 1N to found Moscow correct???
I don't see how I missed the stone in site B...would have chosen it over E if I had been paying attention.

Good discussion so far about city selection so lets keep it up team.

 

[Diamondeye]

I would vote for B or E. D looks funny - if we were Isabella. Which we are not. Unless I am confusing the ladies here

Also, I leave for Turkey (Istanbul) the 15th, so I will be OOP from then and to the 20th, perhaps 21st. So I would like to play a set before then. Being 3rd is fine for this.

 

[S.ilver]

Arlborn, I'll put you in as an alternate in case of any drops or OOP. Looks like DE will be gone for 5 to 6 days, not sure if we'll roll into his set by then, but you'll be on board for any turnsets we need to fill.

Ok, so it looks like we've heard from everyone except Petey, and it looks like we're leaning as a team for Start B. 1N for the city is also pretty universally agreed upon; we need the extra floodplain and grassland tiles to ever have a prayer of working all the hills in this city (unless we go with some windmills, which we may have to).

We don't really have a ton of food here, so I'll start off with Agri->AH to get those subpar cows moving, then switch over to grab BW so we can see the shinies for our first cities. Wheel after those 3 is pretty obvious to actually get stuff hooked up.

Afterwards, we can either go Masonry first for an attempted Great Wall grab (ugly, ugly, ugly Great General generation in the borders), or head for Pottery->Writing to support a REX strategy.

I doubt I'll even get to BW, so have fun discussing while I run the scouting patterns

 

[sturick]

So what makes sense for initial builds?
Warrior/Scout for extra scouting...I am a big fan of popping a few huts...the extra gold and techs early on can jump start the game. Maybe go warrior/scout ---> worker to give us time to research AH just as the worker is born? Maybe it is too late as Silver may be playing already.

There are a couple of approaches to starting city builds just throwing mine out there.

 

[S.ilver]

4000BC (0):

Leading off here... So yeah, pretty obvious tundra to the south of our start, so scouting in that direction first is fairly low priority. We want to find the good land! Mind you, we always want to have scouting done in all direction, except in this case, we'll set some priorities.

Anyways, first move is having that scout (now Boris) head to that Grassland hill... whilst founding Moscow on the previously agreed 1N spot. This is not only good for getting those higher food tiles, it also surrounds the city with river, giving it defensive bonuses from all but one side.

We see a hut and lots more territory, yay... Of course, that hut happens to be a forest tile as well, so we'll burn a scout move walking into it, sigh...

Alright, so I've spent much time with Liq debating the pros and cons of going for a Worker First, and otherwise delaying the growth. In our case here, our best yielding tiles are a total of 3, in any combination of food and hammers.

If we wait for the city to grow to size 2, we get to work another 3 yield tile. However, since the new citizen eats 2 food, we only really gain 1 extra food/hammer for production purposes. The worker is down from 23 turns to 18 turns, but all this time we have been working unimproved tiles.

We finish Agriculture in 12 turns, so our worker will be able to farm as soon as he's out. Therefore, we'll have a 4 yield tile that much faster. Also, once we grab AH, we'll be able to turn the cows into a 6 yield tile that much faster.

So, in general, a worker first is usually the best build to get a city on it's feet faster, and able to spit out other sorts of things.

3975BC (1):

There is nothing to do this turn except pop the hut with Boris. And we win... another scout! Great, so we'll be able to get our scouting done twice as fast.

Scout #2 (Ivan) heads for a grass hill just uncovered and spots another hut, as well as grass cows to the NW of Moscow.

3950BC (2):

Ivan pops the hut he just saw and we win a map.

Desert areas, but the floods make it useable.

3925BC (3):

Not much of interest, as I'm sending Boris into the mapped popped area to clean up the fog and try for the hut there.

Ivan is heading east and hits coast in a little bay where the river that feeds Moscow ends.

3900BC (4):

Moscow pops borders (gogo creative!), revealing coast to the south east, more silk to the east, and generally tundra-like conditions all around.

3875BC (5):

Boris makes it to the hut we won from the map that Ivan popped from the hut... ugh, ok he made it to the hut!

Always nice to get a tech. With minimal interest in settling water areas though, all it really does for us is cheapen pottery.

3850BC (6):

Nothing at all happening except we find 2 more cows. Plains cows. Eh... Bleh...

3875BC (7):

Scouts are heading in a counter-clockwise pattern around Moscow, and Boris has spotted another forested hut.

3800BC (8):

Boris pops the hut and we win another map of mostly ice filled areas that make me wince.

3775BC (9):

Ivan reaches a hill overlooking the bay, and it turns out to be a short peninsula wrapping around. This is good, as we won't have to waste any more turns with the scout looking here.

3750BC (10):

Boris is exploring south of Moscow, where we find two deer (one forested and on a hill!) flanking a river mouth. This river originates near the wheat, such that it would be a simple matter to get irrigation to that wheat come Civil Service.

3725BC (11):

The RNG rolls in our favour. That forest that we spared by not setting on? It spread onto the hill 1S of it. More trees as chop fodder!

3700BC (12):

We dial up Animal Husbandry in 14 turns. Worker is another 11 turns.

3675BC (13):

Buddhism is FIADL. Turn 13 makes me think that some religious freak is on the map with us...

Anyways, Ivan spots his first wildlife as he finishes mapped out the mini-bay. He also spots a hut on a jungle hill, so good to go next turn.

3650BC (14):

Boris finishes checking out our eastern coastline for us. It's pretty unspectacular in terms of seafood, only one fish, and that's near some ugly desert tiles.

Ivan pops a map, and ends up between a Lion and a Panther!

He's probably dead, ugh... all for a map of the water basically... Well, he's on the best possible defensive terrain (sans forts), so pray for good RNG rolls!

3625BC (15):

And Ivan lives due to a flawless fight against the lion, before the panther had a chance to chip him down to 0.7 strength!

He's at 2XP now, so giving him woodsman and telling him to rest for 2 turns until healed.

Boris is heading back west now...

2600BC (16):

Nothing happening this turn. No new territory revealed, no one met yet, ugh...

3575BC (17):

Ivan is all healed up, so he takes a quick dive into the jungle to reveal some coast, and then he's heading off next turn.

3550BC (18):

Boris blunders into a wolf, while he's standing on clear ground. My bad, I was in a rush to get him to the west.

3525BC (19):

Boris kills the wolf, but he's down to 0.6 health, going to have to stop and rest.

3500BC (20):

Zzz...

3475BC (21):

Wolves now blocking Ivan's path, sigh...

3450BC (22):

Ivan wins flawless, so don't have to stop, celebrate!

Worker due next turn, yay.

3425BC (23):

Our worker pops out, so we dial the long overdue warrior. 20 turns. We start farming the Flood Plains in the meantime, as AH is still 3 turns out.

We spot a hut beside someone's yellow border.

AI's seem to have problems popping huts on their borders, no idea why. I also can't remember the colour difference between HRE, Egypt, and Zulu, so tune in next turn!

3400BC (24):

Ivan pops the hut and wins 151 gold, nice.

We also meet Mummy Man!

Boris is finally healed, so heading off...

3375BC (25):

And Boris gets attacked AGAIN by wolves, omg... Down to 0.6 strength again, but we can now buy Woody1, so do that to save time on the healing.

Lions are trying to sneak up on Ivan too, so putting him across a river in a forest...

3350BC (26):

Ivan takes some scratches killing the Lion...

Only horses in sight are on the west side of that little bay that Ivan was checking out...

Hinduism is FIADL.

Bronze Working is 20 turns, dialing.

Going to pass off the save here, as it will allow goblinmarine at least 20 solid turns to get some scouting in before we have to drop dotmaps or stuff like that.

Maps (spoilered due to size)

The South

Spoiler :

The North

Spoiler :

Roster
1. S.ilver <-- Just Played --
2. goblinmarine >> Up Now <<
3. Diamondeye <-- On Deck --
4. sturick
5. Liquidated
6. PeteyP

Alternate: Arlborn

 

[sturick]

not exactly the greatest land to work with here huh?
Lots of flood plains around especially near our NW scout...might be a good city location where he is...but getting WAY ahead of myself here.

Good luck getting that early scout and finding plenty of nice huts. Very nice to have a woodie II scout already.

Hopefully copper plunks in a good location on gobllins turn cuz our map seems quite unresourced to me.

Not many neighbors which should make REXing quite easy methinks.

 

[sturick]

And Boris gets attacked AGAIN by wolves, omg... (angry) Down to 0.6 strength again, but we can now buy Woody2, so do that to save time on the healing.

Hey wait...Boris isn't woodie II...boo!
Got my hopes up Silver...oh well =(

 

[S.ilver]

Ack. ed on the promos there. Will fix that...

 

[PeteyP]

Yes, looks like some good REX opportunities, which is a skill I have been wanting to improve upon.
In the mean time i think the next turnset will be more scouting and getting pottery and the wheel, which we'll need to hook up the stone and get our economy going..

 

[sturick]

Probably the only way I'll get to call on you Silver.

So I take the opportunity now.

 

[Arlborn]

Alternate guy comment:

Uh, not such a good land, but it ain't bad either. I am curious about what is hiding around the gold tile, such a fan of gold!

You can even settle in a place where you take the silver + wheat, should be a half decent city. Not a early priority though, you guys should REX away it seems!

Edit: Upon further observation, you probably should forget what I said about the silver city, the place is worse than I tought!

 

[Liquidated]

The unirrigated wheat is a trash tile, just best to ignore it before civil or as a life line for a tundra town built for grabbing silver =p.

After a few Ice age Maps. Liq knows tundra!

The silver town is very worth settling later on.. it has the wheat to feed off of and that nice river. Honestly not a bad town and well worth the never obsolete happys from the metal.

So lets see a dot map! That's part of the training people. Put them in spoiler tags for now so everyone has a shot at it.

Spoiler :

Haha fooled you

Cheers!
-Liq