ALC Game 20: Vikings/Ragnar

[kniteowl]

If you intend to Bulb Machinery => Optics, here's the order of techs that a GS will light bulb.

Writing
Mathematics
Scientific Method
Physics
Education
Printing Press
Fiber Optics
Computers
Laser (BTS)
The Wheel
Alphabet (BTS)
Philosophy(Delay Meditation)
Chemistry
Fission
Fusion
Optics!!!
Paper(Delay Civil Service and Theology)
Astronomy
Biology
Electricity
Flight
Genetics
Compass
Satellites
Aesthetics (BTS)(Going for Great Library anywayz)
Sailing
Calendar
Medicine
Ecology
Advanced Flight (BTS)
Iron Working
Metal Casting
Engineering
Steam Power
Liberalism
Agriculture
Masonry
Bronze Working
Machinery

It's possible as long as you get Maths, Alphabet, Calender (Too bad you only have silk) Metal Casting and Compass before you can bulb Machinery and Optics.

Unless you want to instead build an Academy and leverage the Financial Trait instead but that may take longer to reach optics.

Wonder what your first Great Person will be? If it's a Prophet then I dunno probably Settle it for the extra Gold to pay maintenance and Hammers used towards producing wonders

If it's a GM then you can bulb Metal Casting on your way to optics but remember to delay maths and Alphabet or he'll bulb currency ( not that it's a bad thing but MC is probably more important.

If it's a GE then you'd probably just save him top bulb Machinery which means you can beeline to optics even faster.

This is all assuming your isolated. /B]

 

[ratrangerm]

I'd certainly start expanding and exploring. Have to look at the previous dotmap, but yes, some bumping around will be necessary given that the other island doesn't have food resources.

I'd first claim the land to the east, then get two cities on the smaller island. You can easily get four cities built that way. Keep exploring with the Work Boat and save your Galley to transport units from one island to the other.

I'd certainly be heading down the path to Optics at this point (am I correct Iron Working will be picked up along the way) just in case there is nobody else nearby.

 

[Kietharr]

Make a breif detour for the GL, send a settler on the marble (saves turns hooking it up and will use the only food resource accessable from that island, and will pop to get silks and isn't a half bad city post beauracracy) and grab lit, then beeline optics for trading. We probably won't get a mehmed redux considering you've got both stone and marble as well as two cities that will soon be good for production.

REX up the main island quickly, cut off the top from the bottom with archers/chariots and fill the warmer bottom up first. You really want to avoid Barbarians in your core (we saw what this did to mehmed), though it's less tragic with a capital like yours where they can't really touch half of your good tiles. The danger of barbarians isn't loss of cities, it's wasting precious time you don't have when you're isolated on a high difficulty level. Aggressive AI could be very nasty if you have no metal.

 

[Conqueror78]

This is looking a bit ominous, but I concur with the general impulse to Rex/barb. defend--Pyramids can be skipped, I think, given the other imperatives.

 

[CivSetä]

Decent start! Keep exploring to find more city sites, there too much tundra around!

I would definitely try grabbing pyramids too. If there is not any industrial civ with stone around, you still have a change. Your 2nd city is growing fast and there is not that big hurry to expand. In 2nd city, build 2-3 archers to defend and later on, just settlers and replacement archers. You can afford waiting couple of turns before building next settler, secure your land while capital is building mids! After mids you can easily expand up to 8-10 cities thanks to mids and TGL. I would try getting GL too because of marble, but that's all - don't go wonder-crazy! If you manage to get mids and GL, you have all you need.

I made a dotmat:

Red city is obvious one, great GP farm.

Yellow city could be great candidate for 4th city. It's on other landmass, which means increased trade to other cities. Low food, maybe one farm to accelerate growth and then cottages+windmills until happy/health cap. This city will finance your further expansion!

Orange city is my candidate for Moai. Seafood to fast growth (maybe more hiding?) and at least two hills to build Moai fast. Also on separate landmass which means more better trade routes.

Brown city is built on marble to grab one more hill and to make room for one more city on starting island. Decent production, fish allows working three hills and city square has 2 hammers too. Found when needed.

Blue city has moderate food and production. It should be built after island cities, which means 4 gold from trade routes immediately. City can support itself right from the start.

Light green city is similar to blue one.

White city should be founded when extra happiness is needed. Bigger cities (maybe you have at least 5-6 at the time) will pay the extra maintenance.

Dark green city is poor fishing village. Maybe iron will appear on northern wastelands to make it better? Don't hurry with this one, I bet you can find better city sites on unknown parts of the world!

Black cities are just fillers. Southern fishing village should be ok, it has low maintenance because it's close to the capital. Canal city will grab second source of horses, but will stay junk city. Maybe just fort is better if canal is needed? Inland filler city has some production, but no TGL trade routes means higher costs. Maybe last two should be forgotten.


So I suggest buildin mids, aiming fo GL and founding 6 more cities quite rapidly. (red, yellow, orange, blue, light green, white)

 

[oldsaxon]

Sis, you said you were thinking of the Great Library. That brings up a pretty basic question: where do you see your tech going? Are you still planning to beeline for Optics, or are you going to take a more conventional path?

For wonders, well done with the two you got: much as I'd like to see the Pyramids, I agree we need to leave them now to REX. A northern fur/horses city now seems obvious. Remember when REXing: the workboats should be made by established cities, and ready as soon as the borders pop.

I also second popejubal's ideas of a Sentry chariot on a Galley (eventually), and a possible culture bridge city if you get the opportunity.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

A fort up north on that hill would not only be nice canal it will also be place you can also maybe put one or two defenders ther to keep the barbies from coming out of the ice and asking bout whats in your wallet until you have time to send settlers up to hook up the squirrels for fur. it might even be a chance to get some units some free xtra experiance later before you send em off plundering and pillaging

Kaytie

 

[KMadCandy]

One thought: If you can get a chariot with Sentry and you load him into a galley, then you effectively create a galley with Sentry (and NavI, for Ragnar). If you are isolated, then being able to see that one extra tile across the water might just tell you where you could settle a city so that the border pop(s) let you launch across the ocean to contact a/the other civ(s) a thousand years or so earlier than you would have otherwise been able.

...plus, founding that city might give you the opportunity to invade another continent before Astronomy and that's at least worth considering. I don't think you need to chase this as an active strategy, but you're probably going to end up with a galley or two anyway, so if you have a chariot out busting barbarian heads, consider giving him Sentry instead of Medic.

i never realized that they look around and take advantage of sentry even while napping on a ship! that's awesome, thank you! i do think it's a good idea if we have the units, because if there are spots like i ran into with shaka, where it's a matter of "he who owns the ocean tiles gets to come across but the other one can't", we definitely want to be the he *giggle*.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^Another thing to add to that: in the case of a hipotetical 1 ocean tile strat building a city that makes that ocean ours gives acess to trade routes in the other side ( I don't think that the opposite is true ). As we have the GLH that would be extremely helpful ....

 

[TheArchduke]

Well, let´s hope you find some neighbours, because imo the GLH is not worth it without any neighbours. It is too quickly obsolete when you make contact.

 

[Zanttu]

Decent start! Keep exploring to find more city sites, there too much tundra around!

I would definitely try grabbing pyramids too. If there is not any industrial civ with stone around, you still have a change. Your 2nd city is growing fast and there is not that big hurry to expand. In 2nd city, build 2-3 archers to defend and later on, just settlers and replacement archers. You can afford waiting couple of turns before building next settler, secure your land while capital is building mids! After mids you can easily expand up to 8-10 cities thanks to mids and TGL. I would try getting GL too because of marble, but that's all - don't go wonder-crazy! If you manage to get mids and GL, you have all you need.

I made a dotmat:

Red city is obvious one, great GP farm.

Yellow city could be great candidate for 4th city. It's on other landmass, which means increased trade to other cities. Low food, maybe one farm to accelerate growth and then cottages+windmills until happy/health cap. This city will finance your further expansion!

Orange city is my candidate for Moai. Seafood to fast growth (maybe more hiding?) and at least two hills to build Moai fast. Also on separate landmass which means more better trade routes.

Brown city is built on marble to grab one more hill and to make room for one more city on starting island. Decent production, fish allows working three hills and city square has 2 hammers too. Found when needed.

Blue city has moderate food and production. It should be built after island cities, which means 4 gold from trade routes immediately. City can support itself right from the start.

Light green city is similar to blue one.

White city should be founded when extra happiness is needed. Bigger cities (maybe you have at least 5-6 at the time) will pay the extra maintenance.

Dark green city is poor fishing village. Maybe iron will appear on northern wastelands to make it better? Don't hurry with this one, I bet you can find better city sites on unknown parts of the world!

Black cities are just fillers. Southern fishing village should be ok, it has low maintenance because it's close to the capital. Canal city will grab second source of horses, but will stay junk city. Maybe just fort is better if canal is needed? Inland filler city has some production, but no TGL trade routes means higher costs. Maybe last two should be forgotten.


So I suggest buildin mids, aiming fo GL and founding 6 more cities quite rapidly. (red, yellow, orange, blue, light green, white)

I agree on going for the mids, for the reasons I have posted hundred million times here already. GL is one of my favourites, because it boosts your research a bit (especially if you run early representation like I would do) and gives you the important GS for academy.

On the dotmap:
Looks good but I would disband the northern black city, and make a fort there instead for a canal. Then I would move the white city 1E 1SE because that way we get the furs and horses in the same city. We aren't really needed to work all those fur tiles, just grabbing one of them is a must. Then I would move the dark green city a bit to the east to get more coast tiles, since they are better than ice and tundra. Okay, that's it this time

 

[fizbankovi]

white city 1 south east

 

[CivSetä]

white city 1 south east

Yes, that's better.

IMHO green tundra city should wait until IW, juts in case the only source is in north. Moving the city 2E will gain 1 more water tile (or two if there is better location for orange city) which is not that valuable if iron appears near.

 

[CivSetä]

About teching: I seriously suggest grabbing astronomy with liberalism. There is at least two great GP cities, so generating five Great Scientists for academy-philo-paper-edu(=2) while researching optics line shoudn't be too hard. Map don't favor Caste system though, because some heavy whipping is probably needed for basic buildings. GP pollution from Henge (I woudn't have built that!) and TGL can be problematic, but building GL and running many scientists should help.

 

[Porphyrius]

One thought: If you can get a chariot with Sentry and you load him into a galley, then you effectively create a galley with Sentry (and NavI, for Ragnar).
[...]
...plus, founding that city might give you the opportunity to invade another continent before Astronomy and that's at least worth considering.

Yes that does work and should be aimed for, to speed up invasion without astronomy. However if one considers the time needed for border pops after the proper city site is found(etc.), optis likely will come sooner. Besides we need contact with as many AIs as soon as possible.




@kniteowl
We are pretty set for most certainly a GProphet in 18 turns with slim chances for a GM. No libs in time to get a GS in time instead.
Bulbing so early may be a waste in a map with limited , but bulbing optics themselves may be worth it.


We dont need 2 barracks/military cities one (Upsala) will do. Get a couple of archers there after the barracks are done followed by settlers.
Nidaros should make use of the current surplus and a whip to make a galley and a settler. Settling both on the smaller island as per the recent dotmap will net trade, marble and horses when hooked.

I think overall city no should be kept low however for now. The 2nd GP farm will get us to a total of 5 which should be enough for a tech focused buildup.

 

[KMadCandy]

Brown city is built on marble to grab one more hill and to make room for one more city on starting island.

the "cities have to be 3 squares away from each other" rule is lifted if they're on different land masses. so if we wanted to, for example, we could put a city 1E of the marble and also put a city 2 SE of that on the starting island. i don't really think that would be a better spot, i just wanted you to know about the rule exemption if you didn't.

 

[Munch]

Well, let´s hope you find some neighbours, because imo the GLH is not worth it without any neighbours. It is too quickly obsolete when you make contact.

Obsoleting it can be postponed for a while, but yes, it is shortlived after Astro.

I would consider giving independence to that western island once you've exploited the marble to build the Great Library on the main land. Doing this, I believe, will:

#remove colony maintainance
#allow you to work that north-west clam with your capital again, as food shortage on that island is no longer your direct concern
#spawn another palace, which means your vassal will get extra commerce, helping you by having a non-useless trading partner (the same applies for vassals building another copy of Maoi etc)
#allow you to build perhaps 3 cities instead of two on that island, meaning extra trade possibilities with the Great Lighthouse's bonus foreign and intercontinental trade routes
#stop you from getting lonely
#be entertaining, particularly if you spawn an attack-dog like Alex or a science fiend like Mansa

 

[ori]

Obsoleting it can be postponed for a while, but yes, it is shortlived after Astro.

I would consider giving independence to that western island once you've exploited the marble to build the Great Library on the main land. Doing this, I believe, will:

#remove colony maintainance

there won't be much colony maintenance with just two cities on that island...

 

[Gooblah]

The colony thing won't really affect gameplay. We'll have, at most, 2-3 cities on the other landmass.
Also, I just realized something! We are like a Canadian Island north of the AC!
Seriously, we're right next to the Northern Polar Cap. In my experience, this means a few Ice/Tundra tiles bordering the Cap, with some Fur/Deer/Tundra Forests. Not much, but decent, especially if there are seafood resources around it.

Also, are there any rivers on the mainland (if you can call it that)? Why I ask is the fact that we can't build Farms w/o irrigation till Biology, right? So we're kinda screwed on food resources until we can do so. If there is, I suggest founding that city as a priority, so we can use chained Farms to provide food to cities like CivSeta's brown/green cities. Wait! Just noticed some. So settle red first, then chain farm north (is that even possible?) to Green and White...

 

[sveusb]

I would consider placing a city one east of the marble. It would have one seafood square of its own and can share one by Nidaros.