ALC Game #26: Willem van Oranje/Dutch

[Pindrus]

Are you counting the 20% discount for having Agriculture? 243 * .8 = 194.4; 194 / 9 = 21.6. Seems like it should be 22 turns, but maybe the initial turn is already counted?

 

[Fluxx]

^^

Yes, and yes.

20% discount, 1th turn generates beakers while tech is not chosen unless you do it manually.

 

[Ultimocrat]

But Fluxx, what about WB(fish)-worker?

Has it been noted that the tiles E-NE, E-E, and E-SE are all almost certainly coast? I think it's somewhat likely that there is a third seafood in there.

Settle in place-build WB-research AH seems to be the consensus -- I think you can play that much, without any fear of criticism.

 

[Fluxx]

But Fluxx, what about WB(fish)-worker?

Has it been noted that the tiles E-NE, E-E, and E-SE are all almost certainly coast? I think it's somewhat likely that there is a third seafood in there.

Settle in place-build WB-research AH seems to be the consensus -- I think you can play that much, without any fear of criticism.

WB fish - worker will build the worker 3 turns faster, and your city will grow a bit faster. However you will end up with ALOT of idle worker turns. The idea of worker after WB is compensating for early cow + choppage.

I even tried the variant wb/worker wb on crab and going for mining/BW. That was the worst of all the variations

The start is almost perfect though, only thing that could have been better was fish at coast, but an average of 10.2 yield a turn from start is simply amazing.

 

[pigswill]

Working fish instead of clams for WB>worker gives you 549 total yield and pop 5 at T51. The analysis is complex because going for early worker generates more hammers (cowtile=3c/3h/0c) and less commerce (clamtile=4f,0h,3c).

Have to agree with Ultimocrat that WB first while researching AH seems the majority view.

 

[z0wb13]

@ Fluxx: would it have made a difference if you had worked the fish tile first in the second example?

i would go for two work boats first though; food can be used to build workers, and you will get more commerce. if you set the city mayor to it actually does a pretty good job of juggling tiles for you, from the forest-hill to the fish and then back again, when you go WB first.

if i could time it right, start building the first worker at size 2 while working the improved fish and clams.

 

[Jaaboo]

Umm, I was told that there would be no math.

What a great start for your first ALC, LP. You get to avoid 10 pages of where to settle discussion, though, that might not be a good thing. I don't have anything fresh to offer in terms of advice, I would settle in place, WB > Worker while researching AH, but who am I?

One question though, I think it was asked - is it better to let cultural borders pop the hut? Since its two border pops away I wouldn't normally bother but with WvO's creative trait its not going to take too long.

 

[Preston85]

I'm a old player returning, a bit rusty and still trying to get out of old habits (and improve at monarch level) so will be following this closely (and hopefully posting often), thanks for continuing from Sisiutil.

1. I don't do the maths, just going on intuition so will leave the specifics for others. My main point/question is what do you want to do the with forests? I'd personally look to save them for chopping for Colossus+Great Lighthouse if its a viable strategy for this level? The Capital alone looks to have 7 or 8 sea tiles, plus the map type should equal a lot of coast tiles. Hence not to waste the worker i'd build two Work Boat's before the Worker since after 2 Pastures he will have to chop forest to improve tiles (or farm incence tile while i've never done, rather work a sea tile but no maths to back it up).

2. Warrior NW, no other option.

 

[oyzar]

Move the warrior onto the hut after settling as you can't pop barbs that close to your borders. You also can't pop techs before settling.

 

[Volapyk]

Wauv, so much discussion over so little...

Even though this is immortal with such an awesome start there is room to loose a few turns here and there.

Lord Parkin if want to showcase the different leaders/civs you should also take good use of the creative trait by doing some early aggressive settling, especially with these map settings you should be able to box in a rival or two very easily.

Also I had say regenerate the map just to get a bit of a challenge.

Spoiler :

Played the game through and must say it proved VERY easy, once you get TGL up you have won the game

 

[Trystero]

Wow. I got the first reply in before going to bed, and there are already 3 pages of discussion. This is an ALC thread!

Growing to the happiness cap before building any Workers or Settlers probably isn't actually the best idea. That's size 4 (or 5 if we build a Warrior) before we'd get any Workers or Settlers. Not a great idea, especially with two plains-Cows hanging around.

Work Boat first is fine, but I think we should follow it in short order with a Worker.

OK - I just moved up to Prince, so I am just getting to the point where I am beginning to understand the game in more detail, particularly micromanagement, so these opening discussions are really helpful to me.

I was under the impression that in most circumstances you want to build a worker first, because you will actually grow faster if that first worker improves a food tile (if there is one). Coastal starts with seafood are good because you can build a work boat to improve food yield while at the same time growing so that you can work more tiles. After the seafood tile is worked by the workboat, you can then use the additional population to produce workers faster so that you can improve land tiles. Since Bronze Working is usually an early tech goal, you can then use the whip to aid production and deal with unhappiness issues.

On second reading, perhaps you thought I meant you should grow to the happiness cap before starting a Worker. I actually meant that WBs were good because you can both grow (maybe not to the happy cap, I haven't done the math) to work more tiles while producing a unit that will increase tile yield. Is that the correct play of this opening?

The twin cows are the main reason for researching AH first - without them it'd be more of a dubious move. But yes, it'll be a nice side effect that we'll reveal Horses very early on due to our tech path.

Yeah, I understood that, but was pointing out what I thought a fringe benefit of going for AH first. I thought that at higher levels you need something to contend with encroaching barbs sooner or later, so if you had horses, you could postpone having to tech Archery.

Thanks again for your reply. My "suggestions" are really a way for me to determine if I was analyzing the opening correctly more than anything else. (In the future, I should probably be more explicit about my that. )

 

[oyzar]

Wauv, so much discussion over so little...

Even though this is immortal with such an awesome start there is room to loose a few turns here and there.

Lord Parkin if want to showcase the different leaders/civs you should also take good use of the creative trait by doing some early aggressive settling, especially with these map settings you should be able to box in a rival or two very easily.

Also I had say regenerate the map just to get a bit of a challenge.

Spoiler :

Played the game through and must say it proved VERY easy, once you get TGL up you have won the game

Spoilers about the game should really be in a separate thread...

Spoiler :

I kinda said so in the pre-game thread . The AI just can't handle it.

There is no reason to grow to size 2 before building a worker. The question is if you are going build a workboat first or not. I haven't calced it but i think workboat first then worker is probably a fine idea.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you're looking for a challenging version of a difficulty, look somewhere other than water map + dutch . Still, there aren't a ton of walkthroughs for water maps so maybe it's good for people to see anyway.

Give that coastal start to someone like sal and laugh at the starting techs .

 

[Fetch]

Seriously, folks... do you guys crunch this many numbers on turn zero for all your games? How long does it take you (in minutes) to settle after a map generates?

 

[pigswill]

Offline-games 0%.
SGs and shadow game 0%.
SGOTM and ALC 100%.

edit: time to decide on location, first build and first tech less than 1 minute.

another edit. Comparing WB>WB to WB>worker: by turn 54 WB>WB generates +49C -35H compared to WB>worker.

 

[Fluxx]

Seriously, folks... do you guys crunch this many numbers on turn zero for all your games? How long does it take you (in minutes) to settle after a map generates?

Depends on your start, if you play higher then your standard difficulty and if you play a HOF mod game.
Ranging from 1 second to 5 minutes I guess

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Seriously, folks... do you guys crunch this many numbers on turn zero for all your games? How long does it take you (in minutes) to settle after a map generates?

90% I settle in place right away.
10% I see some obvious reason to move.

No more than 4 seconds to settle anyway

 

[Volapyk]

Spoilers about the game should really be in a separate thread...

Yea, the spoiler however isn't much of a spoiler, it contains a minimum of information about the map, I wasn't sure if it was something people would want before the game was played out by Lord Palkin so I put it in a spoiler

 

[DMOC]

Another vote for settling in place.

PS: Does anyone else consider it weird that 4 food resources are aligned vertically?

 

[Rodwell]

Thank you for bringing back this series.