[BTS] another Emperor Shadow Game

[lymond]

Sounds good. Your starting unit should scout the immediate radius around you cap - roughly 10 tile radius. Make sure you clear the coastal fog as well. Main goal simply to find nearby city spots and reveal resources. Then the unit can find a good spot to spawnbust - probably near the new city spot.

If you are not aware a single unit can spawnbust a 5X5 tile area from the tile the unit stands on. What this means is no barbs can spawn in that area. A very good way to reduce or even eliminate barb spawn near you. Your first few units should actually be out in the wilds spawnbusting as opposed to MPing the city.

AG is obvious first tech, and BW next seems most logical here for slavery and chops and copper reveal. I feel almost certain that there is a hidden resource somewhere in your BFC.

Worker should obviously work the corn first. Pretty sure BW will not finish by then so maybe best thing is laying a farm down next to the lake for a bit extra growth. Once BW is in you can start chopping.

I think you can play this turnset until BW is in and corn improved and likely a grass farm at least.

(Note: There's a little trick you can do at the start to possibly get a little bonus on the first tech. You can select/deselect a tech for 5 turns. In the meantime you might meet an Ai or two. If they own something like AG you will get a little bonus on the tech. I think you already put a turn into AG so that is out the window, but no big deal)

 

[Gumbolt]

Looks to be jungle up north. So far all i see is one food resource. I would scout in a circle round your capital. The rivers below might have some food? Be really cruel if there are no more food resources.

 

[jerza]

@lymond I have replayed from the start to test the tech deselecting trick, but only met Charlemagne on t4, so no bonus on Agri. Met Churchil on t6 and Qin Shi Huang also on t6. After Agri I went Mining to get BW, after worker I started a warrior.
I have paused a bit earlier than you suggested and I have two questions:
- who is the top techer I should assign my EPs to?
- scouting a 10 tile radius seems like a lot of land to scout (if I understand it right, that's basically 21 tiles in diameter), do you really scout that far?
thanks

Spoiler BC3200 :

Btw. do you still have problems opening my saves?

 

[Fippy]

SIP was fine, agree with your sumup and sorry for the late reply

While i know what Lymond means with 10 tile radius, in this case it's too far east (as you suspect).
I would not go by tile number, but landscape form. Going past coast that pushes inland made you lag behind a bit in explo.
Less problematic with 2h city tiles, but here your 2nd warrior is not coming out quickly and you are still almost blind around your cap.

 

[jerza]

@Fippy yes, I suspected that the 10 tiles is not a strict rule, but 5E just seem too little, so I ventured a bit further but I will have to replay anyway as I somehow didn't take into account that Aachen is the buddhist holy city since t9, it got a border pop right after my save (in t21) and my warrior got trapped....

Spoiler BC3160 :

 

[Gumbolt]

Agree with the above. Warrior needed to scout round your capital. Right now you have no idea where to send your settler. Your first warrior can scout the north above your capital if he head back in a straight line to unfog that land.

Actually growth to size 3 here is offering very little in term of extra production. I figure you gain 1 extra hammer. Where growth to size 3 has taken 5-6 turns?

The settler will take about 12 turns. So your new warrior has 12 turns to scout south. Keep him within 4 tiles of your capital in a circle.

Some big questions of worker use here too. Does it really help to farm 2-3 grassland here? Would that mine hill help speed up the settler? 4h vs 3 f?

BW will arrive too late to help on the first settler.

This is a tough start food wise.

Edit - Ouch @ warrior location. You can tell Achen has the shrine as you can see the religion symbol with the star.

If you replay consider S2 settler?

 

[sampsa]

You should be working the lake tile almost non-stop to speed up BW.

 

[lymond]

1. Yep, My is right on with her point on the 10 tile deal. Yes, I meant it more as a guideline than strict rule. And as My mentioned, the land layout obviously factors in like with coast just a few tiles E. Again, its more about finding city spots in the immediate area, and clearing some coast.

Of that bunch I’d probably go with Chuck on EPs as IMP leaders tend to be strong.

Oh ..haven’t tried opening a save yet on my other machine.

 

[jerza]

Ok, I have replayed again from the scratch and paused on T18 this time. Worker has just finished the corn farm and Madrid will grow to size 2 next turn.
Now there are a couple of decisions to be made (and different suggestions were made)
- @Gumbolt suggests starting a Settler at size 2; I assume the other option is building a warrior and starting a settler at size 3
- @lymond says the worker should farm the lakeside grassland next while @Gumbolt suggests considering mining the hill 2S of Madrid
- @sampsa suggests working the lake tile as much as possible to speed up BW

Three binary choices, that's basically 8 possible paths (or rather 6 as starting the settler at S2 AND working the lake tile does not make much sense); I will try some of them and see what happens

Spoiler BC3280 :

 

[jerza]

...well, I tried to play the next 15+turns a couple of times
- with a S2 settler, I get the settler earlier (T31), I got BW on T33, but there were a couple of problems - with the sole warrior down south (fighting off animals / healing rather than scouting) the settler has no escort (I solved that with settling Barcelona on plains rather than the plains hill), and also it seems it will take some time to get another settler
- with a S3 settler, I finish the second warrior first which obviously helps wih scouting and solves the escort problem, BW comes on T32 and a settler on T36 with a 1pop whip for 28 OF (or on T33 with 1 pop whip for 0 OF)

So the question is if getting a second city 4 or 5 turns earlier is worth the price. Btw. there seems to be no copper I could claim

Spoiler S2 :

Spoiler S3 :

 

[Gumbolt]

1SW of the wheat looks to be a good city. No point settling cities for resources covered in jungle. You want here and now cities. I would want a couple of cities on that river for commerce and the ivory! Ivory gives phants options. The wheat city could run 2 river cottages.

The pigs city is not bad but will likely annoy the Chinese. If that is his capital it's likely there will be some culture pressure. You would need a border pop for corn.

The rice city maybe on the jungle hill. Least then long term you can run all those dye tiles. Is this really a bureau capital? Plus you avoid having 3 jungle in inner ring. 1 more health. Not a great city really short term.

Main problem here is any good cities are 4-5 tiles away. The capital 1N would of captured all those dye. Lack of commerce will be the issue early on. So delaying to size 3 to run the lake tile helps commerce. However you still want to be grabbing land at this level. 2400bc is normally late for a second city.

Wheat vs rice first? Or grab pigs first? The rice city is nothing special early on. Wheat offers commerce. Pigs a nice food city to whip.

In terms of the warrior. If you find a good city location warrior should normally fog bust around that area.

See what others think. If you go wheat you want pottery early,

 

[Fippy]

Size 4 whipping settler is often also an option with wet corn & going BW, but i would have to look closer.

Imo Wheat + Jumbos looks like the best spot, no matter what happens later you can always do something with Eles,
and it's higher distance can be made up for with good river tiles.
Jumbo would be 2nd ring, but maybe another city up that river can follow later.

I would ignore jungle banana, gems and so on for now..if going up there you want the key military resi
(1nw of wheat from what we can see now)

Adding, wheat city looks river + ocean connected to Madrid, so putting down roads has low priority on this long way.
Worker following your settler to improve wheat has high prio thou.

 

[jerza]

@Fippy size 4 2pop-whipping a setler definitely looks like an option I got BW on T29 and the settler on T33 with 29 OF
I might have missed something (pretty sure I have ), but so far this seems to be the best way to go

Spoiler S4 :

 

[Fippy]

Looks good on S4 yup, i like the worker completed fast as well.

Wow wheat and Jumbos are contested by AIs, imo it's clear you need that spot first.
Distance plays no role in this case, too good with even marble
Should be possible to hold wheat against Charly culture with a monument, and also means there will be no barb activity close.

 

[jerza]

@Fippy so is there some kind of rule of thumb for these things? is it the 6f tile (with BW) that makes the S4 settler path work?

Ok, so back to the main line, I left off on T18.
Worker has finished farming the corn and starts farming the lakeside grassland (T19). Warrior is on his way south, but (while in my cultural borders) has to spend 3 turns healing (T19-21) - had been attacked by panthers previously
Madrid works the lake tile to speed up BW, and the lakeside grassland is farmed just beore Madrid reaches pop 3.
Worker goes to mine the PH 2S of Madrid.
Warrior south moves to a forest to defend against lions, gets Woodsman I, but while healing (from 1.7/2) is attacked by another lion and killed
Madrid grows to S4 on T26 with just 1h left to finish a warrior, so finishes the warrior on T27 and switches to a settler

I paused at T29 (as @lymond suggested). BW comes next turn, worker is ready to chop, warrior heads NE.

Spoiler BC2840 :

I guess the next things to tech are TW and Pot, right? And the next builds after the settler would be a quick worker and then a warrior or two..

 

[Fippy]

I would say it's a combo of 6f tile, no other good tiles or 2h city (which would boost an earlier settler),
and free Slavery switch. Can also work the lake (as mentioned by Sampsa) longer while growing, without losing already weak production.
And farming an otherwise weak 3f tile also makes some sense now, which you did i think.
Quiet rare to find so many good points for whipping the first settler.

 

[jerza]

...not sure if I can dare to go on with this game, could someone experienced plz confirm The Wheel and Pot are the techs to go for now?

 

[Fippy]

Sorry for not replying on that,
yup Pottery for sure. Cannot go wrong there with exp granaries and cottages for wheat / floodplains city.

 

[Zavior]

Where to settle next? Maybe 1N of the dye, SE of the rice? Or go bold and try to grab the pigs, settling on the plains hill, hoping russia won't settle there?
I think there is enough time to chop a settler to grab the pigs spot later on after settling the rice against an emperor AI. Maintenance should be just fine with early roads + pottery.

South looks to be a peninsula with cows being the only visible food. No strong city to settle right away. Perhaps some space to backfill later?

 

[jerza]

I have moved on to T46 (BC 2160), I have founded Barcelona 1NW of the wheat and sent a worker to chop/improve. I started with a monument there. Unfortunately, Barcelona is not connected (I guess I need Sailing for that, right?). Another problem is England just founded a city 1N,1NW of the Elephants and will likely claim them..
Madrid has just produced another settler; the pigs spot has already been claimed by the Chinese, so I want my city 1S of the rice? And Barbs have a city south of Madrid now, seems like a peninsula indeed.

Pottery is coming in 3 turns, should I then go for Writing (or AH to see if I have any horses available) (or Sailing to get Barcelona connected)?

Spoiler BC 2160 :