Apocalypto

[Mikehendi]

Almost our entire nearby area can be fogbusted with only 4 units, one of them standing inside our culture. So the unit maintenance/supply costs for fogbusting are very low.

The one direction where barbs will come from, has a conveniently placed forested hilltop to catch the incoming barbs.

Only one tile on our peninsula remains fogged (either the current one, or the most northern tile if both fogbusters move 1S (southern fogbuster then probably adds unit supply, as he moves outside of cultural borders)

This means, we could go writing first, to pop a faster scientist, maybe set the capital up for a quick 3pop library whip... uhm... which requires BW ofcourse. So nevermind, get BW first.

The fogbusting thingy still stands, though. Marble city could pop out a few cheap warriors while growing. EDIT: BW cancels warrior building (we have hunting), so IF we want to spit out warriors, Marble city could spit out 4 of them in 12 turns (delaying BW by 1 turn)

Oh, and maybe we should try to retreat our 10XP Heroic Epic enabling explorer (and continue exploring with a holkan or so later on)

 

[nocho]

Almost our entire nearby area can be fogbusted with only 4 units, one of them standing inside our culture.

Umm, our culture itself busts fog, so there's no point having a fogbuster inside our territory.

The capital's borders pop in 7 turns, when that happens we have everything of our home peninsula fogbusted with just 2 units, one in the northwest and one in the south. Obviously if we want to bust fog in the jungle area due NE, we'd need more units.

Oh, and maybe we should try to retreat our 10XP Heroic Epic enabling explorer (and continue exploring with a holkan or so later on)

Why would you do that? HE remains unlocked, even if he dies. So then it must be to save him for a supermedic I guess? While it's nice to have woody3 on a supermedic obviously, I think I prefer for now to risk him dying and continue scouting, at least until we find where the other AIs live and until we have an idea of our home continent.

Plan:
Mutal: Worker > Settler
Lakamha: Monument > Warrior > Holkans
Tech: BW > Writing?
Workers: Cottaging the cap

Sounds fine to me!

 

[lymond]

Umm, our culture itself busts fog, so there's no point having a fogbuster inside our territory.

Well, it depends. Not sure what cupcake is laying out exactly, but I think he means spawnbusting. Culture does minimal spawnbusting compared to a unit. However, parking units on the edges of culture extends the spawnbusting while paying less maintenance. It all depends on the lay of the land though.

why did we not get that hut?

Plan sounds fine. I might actually get another warrior first before finishing the monument in marble city.

 

[Mikehendi]

Why would you do that? HE remains unlocked, even if he dies.

I never knew that!

Umm, our culture itself busts fog, so there's no point having a fogbuster inside our territory.

A few tiles 2 tiles away from our culture remain fogged after the capitals borders pop, which allows barbs to spawn there (Unless this is another " I never knew that!" thingy )

However, a unit standing in that spot on the edge of our culture, prevents barbs from spawning up to 2 tiles away from him (a 5x5 square), even if some of those tiles remain fogged.

That's why we need a fogbuster in our culture, odd as it may sound. (I now realize I should have said spawnbuster).

Originally Posted by Sengir
Plan:
Mutal: Worker > Settler
Lakamha: Monument > Warrior > Holkans
Tech: BW > Writing?
Workers: Cottaging the cap

Good to go!

sidenote: BW disables warriors, so IF we want to fogbust with cheap units, we could delay the monument in lakamha to spit out a few cheap warriors before BW finishes

 

[vranasm]

i thought you have to preserve yours lvl 3 unit to have the HE unlocked... this should be probably checked with WB better...

 

[lymond]

i thought you have to preserve yours lvl 3 unit to have the HE unlocked... this should be probably checked with WB better...

I'm almost certain it remains unlocked if he dies. It would be nice to keep him regardless, but he can still scout around. Just move him 1 tile per turn.

 

[nocho]

Epics about heroes are always better when they are actually dead. One thing though is that the unit should actually be or have been promoted. So reaching 10XP and it dying before getting its promos won't work.

Regarding the spawning, I indeed think that your culturally owned tiles act precisely as units regarding preventing barbs appearing, thus making fogbusters in your own territory totally unnecessary. So in a fogged tile 2 tiles away from your cultural border AFAIK barbs can't spawn. (a barb city could, but that's the same with units, i.e. with a barb city the busted zone is 3*3 instead of 5*5 for barb units). Slightly less sure about this than the HE-thing, but I always went with this premise and can't recall nasty surprises...

@lymond, we didn't get the hut because it was protected by a barb warrior and didn't want to risk killing our unit over a potential free map.

 

[lymond]

E
@lymond, we didn't get the hut because it was protected by a barb warrior and didn't want to risk killing our unit over a potential free map.

ahh...I hate when that happens. I've always disliked that mechanic. Everytime I kill the barb I just pop more barbs with the hut.

Nocho - I'm not saying you are wrong or right about culture borders. However, in cases where you have...say...coast on the backside of a city 2 tiles away, I've often seen barbs spawn in that 1tile next to the coast. Also, I see a lot of crack players that plant units just inside their borders.

and yes...as long as you actually take the 3rd promo, your HE is unlocked regardless of whether that unit bites it later

 

[Sengir]

Switched Lakamha to warrior for cheap fogbusting

Build 2 warriors in Lakamha, then started the monument; build a worker and a Settler in the cap.

Researched BW, I haven't revolted yet (wanted to wait until the settler was in)

Had 4 barbarian incidents (2 in our home turf, 2 with our explorer), won them all. Fogbusters are in place (except for the NE part), though we should review their locations with the new city in mind.

Cap has a Granary as a placeholder, we might want to build a Holkan or even another settler instead. Writing will be in in 5 turns. Settler is unmoved


Discussion points for next set:
Where do we settle our next city?
What techpath do we follow?

The save is attached

 

[Cam_H]

Sengir,

Thanks for your turnset - 'man' you guys are good with the Barb's! Wait 'til I kill off our Woody III in the next lot!

Discussion points for next set:
Where do we settle our next city?
What techpath do we follow?

'Yeah - sure' we could 'splash around in our own little puddle' and settle close to home where the good tiles are, but I doubt that we'll regret heading north east and securing some land and then backfill.

Turning on food resource bubbles (only), I'm leaning to three spots;

'X' is the most sensible spot, and will require a diversion to Fishing for the 'unpillage-able' seafood with a view to Rice post-200AD. Really production poor, but we can whip > workshop I guess.

'Y' is appealing but will kill us with maintenance. Still, eventually with time it'll get a border pop and has riverside Grassland Cows and Jungle Ivory, which is sort of OK until we can knock over the jungle and use the Bananas.

'Z' has workable Cows that lead to workable Horses. Post-200AD we also pick up Stone (Oxford? Sankore? ) and dry Rice.

Anyway - that's my gut feel on the best options in the north east. I'm reluctant, but understanding, if we opt to take a spot closer to home.

On tech';

I'm definitely keen to finish Writing.

If we opt for 'X', then I'd propose Fishing somewhere soon.

In the interim, with Marble I'd recommend Masonry > Polytheism > Priesthood for a Metal Casting with Oracle slingshot.

By way of PPP in addition to above;

Slavery immediately.

Mutal to start working on a Holkan, grow to 5, Library > Settler.

Lakamba to press on with the Monument and then a Granary in light of the riverside Rice it'll pick up.

 

[vranasm]

ah Cam wants to kill our tech rate ;-)

to me it's big no... the AI's can have it for all their care... they at least can clear the jungle.
From my experience the AI's expand into jungle very slowly so I don't really see any danger for waiting to claim the land later or once we start the war machine.

I don't see any good spot in north east until 200 AD.

Settling only 1 north east city to "claim the land" won't distract AI's to settle everything around eventually, so for all we care we could leave it to them completely and concentrate on our maintenance and teching speed towards important things.

 

[Cam_H]

Well - I'm reluctant, but understanding! Just kinda hoping for some bold decisions rather than meekly mincing around down the south west.

I'm not oblivious to your points, but I think 'X' is the most sensible of the three, and we could work 'Financial coast' and the Fish, and whip merrily away without too much pain to the accounts.

Anyway - it's that, or Fish-Ivory to our inner north west I'm thinking, which, again will require Fishing in the technology mix.

 

[vranasm]

Well - I'm reluctant, but understanding! Just kinda hoping for some bold decisions rather than meekly mincing around down the south west.

I'm not oblivious to your points, but I think 'X' is the most sensible of the three, and we could work 'Financial coast' and the Fish, and whip merrily away without too much pain to the accounts.

Anyway - it's that, or Fish-Ivory to our inner north west I'm thinking, which, again will require Fishing in the technology mix.

glh could make this a bit more attractive, but given the circumstances I guess we won't build it ;-)

fin coast is good, but we would need LH to get it work...

nothing against fishing as next tech ;-)

 

[nocho]

I'm with the meekly mincers, I'm afraid. None of the sites is stellar enough to warrant such a leap into the jungle, as yet. Of those only Z brings something to it (4 resources), but not enough for the time being.

I'd be inclined to settle 1S of the horse next. It'll be a decent city with horse and wheat and a nice bunch of riverside cottages. I guess we should indeed settle fish/ivory at some point, but pre-border pop it's a downright horrible place and even after border pop it brings just that, ivory and 1 fish. The happy from ivory is important, but I think the horse site as a city has more long term potential and thus I'd settle it first to get to work on it sooner.

Another site of interest may be around the clams 7E from Lakamba. A city NW of those clams can have a reasonable number of cottages at least. Of course depends if there's more sea food (scout that). Even the clam might be combined with the rice that Cam had for his X. At least I thnk it's more viable in the short/medium term than X, but at least it goes a bit towards the NW.

I would NOT go for the Oracle. With low production we won't have a big shot, even with marble I think. Maybe better prepare for GLib.

In general I think we'll just have to cottage stuff up and live from that.

I just want to remind about the necessity of a librabry in Lakamba (imo) to generate a GS asap.

 

[Mikehendi]

I'm in favor of settling both the fish-ivory site (and see what's the case with that overseas land tile in the north), and the horse-wheat site near us, before we take off to the jungle.

It doesn't look like an AI will settle there soon, so there's no hurry to claim that land, while we have better and cheap-maintenance spots near. Maybe we should scout back towards the banana-ivory region, and see if there's an AI over there.

We're too late to try for Oracle imo.

EDIT: How about making the horse-wheat site inland, 2E1S of the horse? It could help the capital grow a cottage or 2.

We could also put the library in the Cap for the GS generation, and let Marble city take over the capitals abandaned cottages. I didn't do the math on that, though.

 

[lymond]

Of X,Y,Z, I only like Z at present as it gives us immediate workable hammers. However, I would place the city 1SW of cows. X has little value until IW, same with Y, but Y should go 1NW. Anyway, we have no defenses to settle in the East at present.

Horse/Wheat makes sense has it can help work cottages in Mutal. Fish/Ivory is ok, but we can delay fishing for a while. I would settle Horse/Wheat and start sending units East to keep the land clear for future settling.

Next player - I would switch marble city to steal grass cottage from Mutal this turn. I'd rather get the cottage growing now - we need all the commerce we can get. It will only delay Monument 1 turn, which is no big deal. Marble city can build a few Holkans afterwards.

Let's make sure we clear all the fog in available land. Woody should move SW at 1 tile per turn so that he does not die. I liked to keep the guy. He can help spawnbust the area.

Workers should be making roads to new sites- not roading resources.

 

[Cam_H]

I admit that I also like Horse-Wheat for the reasons already noted.

Can I please check however;

(a.) Coastal or inland as proposed by Mike? Overall, inland has better tiles despite overlap with capital, but if we're at all considering The Great Lighthouse, then coastal makes sense. Inland also won't interfere with Whales-Sheep at a later stage.

(b.) Something I'm not advocating especially, but alternately we can settle on the Wheat and pick up the Fish, and later cover the Horses with a more northerly city. Any interest in that?

On technology;

There seems to be calls of opposition to The Oracle but support for The Great Library. I can see a case for The Great Lighthouse, but 'again', low productivity will be an issue. As such, what's our preference?

On tile use,

I was thinking the same thing as lymond.

 

[lymond]

GLH is a total pipedream with this variant. TGL on the other hand is a reasonable goal for multiple reasons.

That fish down there is awkward, but the city on the wheat just doesn't look very appealing. I will settle on a resource like that to pick of fish if the city is good, but other wise it seems a bad use of land. I see no reason to make horse city coastal though. I like it overlapping the cap. It can use the farm south of Mutal initially (farm needs to be completed - 1t) and then work cottages for Mutal later. We really need to push commerce early in this game. It is our only weapon.

again - let us be careful with roading and worker management

I was thinking the same thing as lymond.

Great minds think alike...

 

[Norvin_Green]

Oops, my apologies - forgot I joined in.

Not a fan of heading NE yet either. Settle the horse/wheat inland. Like lymond said we need to utilize our only weapon at our disposal right now and that's tech rate.

 

[vranasm]

well GLH was mentioned purely because it's the only thing that would make such far cities bearable. I don't really think we could go for GLH with none coastal city yet.

I think we could move the horse city inland, it was my thinking from beginning anyway.

Fish city is almost always productive just because of fish. Fish on itself can feed 3 scientists. Not sure if settling on wheat will provide bonus above base 2F but I am almost afraid it won't.
But surely this city can wait, but I would think about not killing it with settling horse city.

We want at least 6 cities and with clever settling we could get 5 nice cities on our peninsula (didn't check the south from capital)