[BTS] Beakers With Bad Starts

[unas876]

I'll try not to wall of text

I play on Immortal. I can win pretty consistently I think. The main thing I have problems with though is bad starts.

In other words: I know three basic ways to get (and thus ):
-Cottage Capital. I know how to execute that when I have plenty of river tiles. Tile sharing and so on I am familiar with.
-Specialist Economy. I don't like it as much, but if I am IND or have stone close by, I can get the Mids, switch into Rep and get most of my beakers that way, which would otherwise only be a possibility from Constitution onwards, and by that time I either lost already or I already have a Cottage Economy.
-Traderoutes. AfaIk in by far the most scenarios where you play Archipelago maps or maps with plenty of islands and coastal territory you want to build the GLH, regardless of whether you are IND or have stone available.

Now this happens: I play a pangeae map. GLH is out of the picture. I'm neither IND nor do I have stone. Mids/early Rep out of the picture (are they?). I don't have any spots I can grab on time that have plenty of grassland river tiles or floodplains. Cottage Economy doesn't seem so great.
Btw: I'm not FIN either (love me my Hatchet ), so that doesn't help either in terms of like working lakes or whatever early game.

I only got some vague ideas that I can try to execute then. Build Mids anyways? Cottage non-river tiles or even plains tiles? Or do I have to get more confident in my early warfare abilities, axe/HA rush someone that has Mids or a good cottage spot to which I can move my Capitol?
I realize it depends on the game, but are there any alternatives, or any of the options which you can exclude as not really viable for Immortal or even the jump to Deity?

 

[sampsa]

Some keywords: coast, library. Rarely should you put much emphasis on non-river cottages. Don't build mids without stone/ind.

I think the ability to start a war at 3 or 4 cities is important if you want to beat 100% of immortal maps.

 

[Fippy]

Yep and esp. with Hatshie, both cheaper libs and war chariots.
You can still do something with normal scientists (no Rep), Spi helps with using Caste and it's usually easier creating enuf great peoples with it.

I think this question would be most interesting without war as option, rushing is usually the best play with bad or below average land.

 

[lymond]

Well, trade routes are always important regardless of map, and you should make sure internal routes are connected immediately if possible, and try to get foreign trade routes online as soon as you can via road or Sailing.

Hatty is a great leader with her early libraries and spiritual trait, as mentioned. Try to learn to use Caste effectively and get yourself some GMs to send on trade missions to ToA city. Many times the bottleneck is not so much BPTs as having enough gold.

Just running those scientists helps a lot anyway. Otherwise, just setup a good Bureau cap which will be the bulk of your beakers for much of the game. Other cities don't really need cottages unless said city has the land for it..secondary cottage cities are fine, but I value food and production most outside the capital.

So tech wisely, trade techs judiciously - including for gold, and use bulb strategies and great merchants. And don't go too long without Currency, as it is a big boost in more than one way.

 

[unas876]

Didn't mean to say I always play Hatchet. I mean, she's my favorite (in terms of traits and starting techs), but I had actually planned on playing more of the forum games (NC etc), so all sorts of different leaders.

Working coast I can see, but surely thats only gonna be enough in the very early game, until you get the basic requirements in terms of tech until you can do your axe/HA/whatever UU rush?

I think the ability to start a war at 3 or 4 cities is important if you want to beat 100% of immortal maps.

That means, if the land isn't that good in terms of commerce output, you wanna keep your empire small? Or do you mean in terms of being boxed in?

Libraries you would obviously build anyway, no matter what your source of beakers is, so I presume you guys mean running more scientists on a consistent basis, not just the usual two you would run in one city to get an academy? I suppose since that would hinder your early food and hammer output, you would only really do that until you have the techs you need to start pumping out guys for the early war, right?

Otherwise, just setup a good Bureau cap which will be the bulk of your beakers for much of the game.

So are there different opinions on non-river cottages then or am I missing the point?

rushing is usually the best play with bad or below average land.

That seems to be what it comes down to. Warring until you got a good site for a Bureau capital or at least the Mids.
I guess you're in a real bad position if your land is bad and the only guy close to you is like Mansa Musa or Sitting Bull, or anyone who is really hard to cut down with early war.

 

[sossos]

Get Pottery and Alphabet ASAP. This is the best way in my opinion with bad start.
This is why Toku often beeline Alpha in the game, I think. The game designer must have let AIs fight with each other and find the optimum parameters in the end.

 

[lymond]

So are there different opinions on non-river cottages then or am I missing the point?
.

Ha..I think you may be missing the point. Comment on Bureau cap was not connected to the non-river cottage discussion, which I did allude to in another place in my post. When I say "city has the land for it", I mean rivers/flood plains. With that said, I am not adverse to non river cottages in a Bureau cap, but I want most of them to start next to rivers.

Again, it's likely that most of your cities will not be "cottage' cities and not have cottages at all.

 

[sampsa]

Working coast I can see, but surely thats only gonna be enough in the very early game, until you get the basic requirements in terms of tech until you can do your axe/HA/whatever UU rush?

No. For clarity, I'm talking about 22-tiles, i.e. lakes or lighthoused coast. 12 is rather weak indeed, but sometimes the best option. Whipping is mentioned a lot on this forum when giving advice to improving players, but sometimes you need , not and instead of whipping you should be growing on food neutral (2) tiles (and of course, always working your high tiles).

Optimally, you want those 2 tiles to be riverside grassland cottages, but when you don't have them, coast comes to the rescue. Yes, these tiles don't improve over time like cottages, but they also require no worker turns, which is very important.

That means, if the land isn't that good in terms of commerce output, you wanna keep your empire small? Or do you mean in terms of being boxed in?

Well, it mostly means that when you have a possible lucrative war, you want to start it as soon as you can (especially if the alternative is to found mediocre cities). For axes, that is 1-2 cities, HAs 2-4 cities and elepult around 4 cities, but of course these are no hard rules as every game is different.

Libraries you would obviously build anyway, no matter what your source of beakers is, so I presume you guys mean running more scientists on a consistent basis, not just the usual two you would run in one city to get an academy? I suppose since that would hinder your early food and hammer output, you would only really do that until you have the techs you need to start pumping out guys for the early war, right?

Library is a good building, but for non-creative it's 90 so probably it's not optimal to try to get one in every city. But yes, I was mostly talking about running scientists. Note how weak a scientist in itself is though, 03 (+25% though from library, making it 03,75). Running specialists is good mainly because great persons are so strong. You can try to calculate how much one -point is worth. It depends on how many great persons you have generated, because you generate one after 100, 200, 300 etc -points. A great scientist is always worth at least what it can bulb, so we are talking about at least +600 (maths?alpha?). So when you haven't generated any , working a scientist that leads to the generation of is worth ~22 per turn. It's an investment with diminishing returns though, and most of the time you will use your first GS to an academy. Still I think it's fair to say that running a scientist to gain your first is worth at least 15 per turn.

So are there different opinions on non-river cottages then or am I missing the point?

There might be, I don't know. I'd nearly always aim to cottage every flat grassland in a bureau capital, but probably nowhere else. Lighthoused coast starts off 1 higher for the first 10 turns, then they are equal for 20 turns and then cottage/village starts to win 1 per turn. So it takes 40 turns before non-riverside cottage starts to beat lighthouse coast, and latter doesn't require any worker turns. Something to keep in mind.

That seems to be what it comes down to. Warring until you got a good site for a Bureau capital or at least the Mids.
I guess you're in a real bad position if your land is bad and the only guy close to you is like Mansa Musa or Sitting Bull, or anyone who is really hard to cut down with early war.

Well, even if you can get only 4 decent cities, you can blow away the AI in tech with strong play. Check out this thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/just-not-winnable-antarctic-dance-remix.609533/ I posted a lot of screenshots there that might be very helpful for you.

Get Pottery and Alphabet ASAP. This is the best way in my opinion with bad start.

Also, this has lots of truth in it. Building resolves many issues as you can switch your whole empire to research-mode. Tech trading is very lucrative for a skilled player, doubling or even tripling the actual research rate.

 

[dylanmeditates]

For what it's worth- don't rule out glh on Pangaea. Often enough you can fit 4-6+ good cities all on the coast.

 

[blunderwonder]

I have the same issue. If you go back and look for IU 99 Genghis Khan map, its exactly this sort of situation. Its garbage land, and no real way to get beakers, but it is still very winnable on IMM. After you get currency/alpha/CoL you can make almost any city profitable, sometimes it can be hard to get there because you over expanded on bad land or because you cant get to techs to trade. If you have the chance though, that IU99 was a series I learned alot on, despite garbage land you have alot of different options.