Beyond The Sword

[mystyfly]

I agree with the 2nd city placement, but I don't agree with the way you plan to use our units, Smilingrogue. IMO our warrior should move along the coast to the east, until he reaches the site. Then, his sole purpose is to keep the city safe until the GW is built. I *think* barbs shouldn't enter borders yet so we should be safe; also we have many tiles spawnbusted so we shouldn't run into barb trouble.

As to build order, after the warrior straight to the settler because we can't start on the GW yet. I think the warrior should move south though, to locate Alex and maybe find good jungle spots.

The worker should just chop atm. Mining tiles is a waste of worker turns at the moment. Since you guys agreed to run a buerocracy cap (which makes perfectly sense) the tiles we chop should be riverside grassland because we'll want to cottage them soon. Thankfully we have plenty of them. The worker currently is on the plains mine, I would suggest starting the chop-spree from the tile NE of the capital (the one that's currently being worked).

How about playing until you hit AH?

 

[Smilingrogue]

How do you want the warrior moved as that isn't clear to me. If you want him to peek at the coast, we need to move him North and a few paces to East (or West) and then call him back South to help keep the settle spot clear of barbs spawning. Is this what you meant? See if there's sea-food near the Corn, move a bit to the East and go back South towards Gold?

Do you want the new warrior to head South to find Alexander? Revent wanted a workboat to plot out the trade-routes. Wouldn't that be a better way to find Alex than send our warrior through the jungle?

Worker plan sounds good. AH will take 13 turns + 8 for Masonry now. If Revent is ok with that, I have no problem playing.

 

[mystyfly]

Yeah, that's the warrior movement I had in mind. Explore while the settler isn't done, then move to the gold/pigs/marble site.

Yeah I would move the new warrior south. Exploring by WB is a great idea - if only we had a coastal city. We'll have to stick to land-based exploration for now. At least until we build 2 settlers, a worker and the GW in the capital... which should take quite a while

I think you're good to go. Good luck

 

[Revent]

Green from me

 

[Smilingrogue]

Turn 25
I move the warrior 1 NW into the forest and he reveals Clam.

Spoiler :

Worker moved into the forest 1 NE of the capital.

Turn 26
Our Northern warrior beats a hasty retreat along the Coast towards East, spurred on by a Bear and a Lion. Newly built warrior sent South, told to stick to jungle hills. Worker start chopping, settler queued.

Turn 29 - Worker finishes the chop. I move him to the Riverside Grassland Hill one East for another chop. Warrior along the Northern Coast finds one more clam.

Spoiler :

Turn 30 - Asoka adopted Slavery.

Spoiler :

Turn 32 - Second chop in. Settler next turn. But a stupid bear is sitting right on the path towards second city. Might have to dance around it.

Spoiler :

Turn 33 - Masonry in. Bear chasing after the warrior. Hope he keeps running after him. I sent the settler that way. I am going to wait till I can safely send him in. GW qued. AH next.

Spoiler :

Turn 34 - Greek borders located.

Spoiler :

I am debating leaving the Northern warrior in the forested hill as bait. I want the bear to move East and away from our settler. I don't want to risk moving the warrior out of bear's path and have it decide our settler is more tasty. Thoughts?

Spoiler :

 

[mystyfly]

Looking good. There's zero risk with the settler because barb animals can't cross cultural borders. Move the warrior east so he won't get eaten. Get the settler towards the site, maybe you'll have to wait for a turn or two but if you can get to within 1 tile of the spot you're fine.

That land up there looks predestined for a renaissance war.........

I'd work a 2f1h tile instead of the 3h tile to grow to size 4.

IMO you can continue a few more turns until something turns up.


PS I started an immortal game to get some sort of feeling for it... research speed and especially wonder builds are terribly slow but the oracle still was built fairly soon. However, the mids would be great here (and easily built, with stone and tons of forests), with that land we can run plenty of specs... early rep kinda bypasses the variant but could be huge. But that is no decision we have to take immediately. Sealing off land has priority.

 

[Revent]

Settler 1NW and skip turn (so don't use 2 moves). Next turn, move onto site and settle. That way, even if you end up next to the bear, settling city will get rid of all issues. Actually, you don't even need to do that. Barbs don't step on resources if I remember correctly.

Game is looking good so far!!


Mids would make the variant completely pointless, or almost completely : Plus, land is power and we have good land, quite a bit of it as well! This game does seem a bit silly because I'm sure it would be a lot easier to tech everything ourselves now for space but at the moment, I'm not comfortable on deity

 

[Smilingrogue]

Our settler's out of moves. The bear will move IBT. If it moves 1 SW onto the Plains forest, won't it trap our settler?

 

[Revent]

Let's see how the bear moves. But if you move the settler JUST 1NE, you can move him back if the bear DOES move 1SW.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Ugh! Another edition of "Dancing with the Barbs!" Let's hope it doesn't come to that

 

[Smilingrogue]

Turn 36 - The warrior was moved out of harm's way and the Bear wandering off North allowing me to settle Eridu right on schedule. Worker queued in Eridu as Revent suggested.

Spoiler :

The warrior to the South was moved onto Alex's borders to see if we can peek into his territory and finds that Alex is right up against the Southern Coast. Hoping he started Coastal, this should allow us to block him in.

Spoiler :

Turn 39 - Uruk grew. Microed to work another grass forest instead of plainshill forest tile.

Turn 40 - Asoka settled a city between turns. It's Southeast of Eridu. I was moving the Southern warrior along Alex's borders to the East to see how much land he has down there and find his second city. Starting to look like he is indeed on the Southern Coast.

Spoiler :

Turn 43 - Southern warrior discovers Eastern Coast and Cliffs forming a natural barrier to Alex.

Spoiler :

I start moving him to the West to see how much land he (and we) have available towards the center. (Warrior won't move beyond my set. He can be given new orders as desired.)

Turn 45 - North spawned a few barbs who were annoying. But nothing dangerous. And the Great Wall made them a non-factor. (We will still want to get a spawn buster up North near the cows to stop barb cities spawning.)

Spoiler :

I am now going to pass the game off to the next player up. I was told to play till AH is in. But settling the second city delayed that by 3 turns and GW is a nice benchmark to pass it on, me thinks.

As for diplo, Alex and Asoka keep hating each other on and off even without religion. (Strange Asoka didn't land one)

I would suggest building a warrior in Uruk for MP. It will grow to five next turn and whine. Then a settler. After AH, we can go Pottery -> Writing. It seems we can hold off on fishing as settling towards the Southern Pig and Corn to block in both Asoka and Alex should be a priority in my opinion.

 

[Revent]

Great play SmilingRogue!!

Glad to see we got TGW! The more I look at the map, the more suited it seems for the Mids But that is not what we are going to do!

Anyway, I think City 3 would be best situated on a hill. This is because I have a feeling that Alex will be coming for us sooner or later and a hill city will absorb his whole stack considering we will get feudalism very quickly (since AI always prioritise it).

 

[Smilingrogue]

Hill city sounds good to me. As I said before, the dot-map I drew up is only tentative and I am fine with better placement.

I am starting to wonder if we are stuck with A & A (A squared? Double As? OK, I will stop now. ) till we have Optics?

 

[mystyfly]

Looking good.

The reason that stopping at AH is better than stopping at GW because we have new intel to discuss but alright. You did play quite some turns, no?
There's food for many coastal cities up there, fantastic At least 4, as I see it.

The way it looks we'll have indeed to settle east of Uruk and South of Eridu to completely seal off Asoka. I'll map out the territory there with the warrior closeby.

I'll MM for 1t growth and 2t warrior with max. overflow for settler. We'll be for 1t but it's either that or build some other unit for 1t to grow, which sucks.

Why do you want to chop the grass hill? I'd rather chop another flat (riverside) tile, for cottages.

I'm not worried about holding off Alex' attacks. We're protective and have vultures, one of the best melee of their age.

I'm like 90% sure we're in a threesome. It also appears that Smilingrogue forgot to focus EPs on Asoka.

I'd like to run binary science.

What tech path do you guys suggest?

 

[Smilingrogue]

The reason that stopping at AH is better than stopping at GW because we have new intel to discuss but alright. You did play quite some turns, no?

20 turns I think. I didn't realise we will have to stop and discuss based on Horses.

There's food for many coastal cities up there, fantastic At least 4, as I see it.

Yup, after seeing that and realising Alex is Coastal, I was hoping he would build the Great Lighthouse for us to liberate.

Why do you want to chop the grass hill? I'd rather chop another flat (riverside) tile, for cottages.

I guessed we will be building worker and settlers here for a bit at least. Since a riverside grassland hill mine has a higher yield than a cottage (at least early on) I like chopping and mining those. Is that not sound?

I'm not worried about holding off Alex' attacks. We're protective and have vultures, one of the best melee of their age.

On the Vultures note. We don't seem to have Copper anywhere. How highly should we prioritise Iron Working since we seem to have lots of Jungles?

It also appears that Smilingrogue forgot to focus EPs on Asoka.

Aargh! Mea culpa! I usually just put points on the best techers as I meet them, so it slipped my mind to focus EPs on Asoka.

I'd like to run binary science.

What tech path do you guys suggest?

Won't we need libraries first to get the most out of binary research? The savings till then won't matter. Or is that not the case?

I think Pottery -> Writing for cottages and Cre powered libraries.

And please don't take my questions as arguments, I am not an amazing player, merely trying to learn.

 

[Revent]

Binary research gives us tech discounts as well if AI research it.

 

[mystyfly]

Yup, after seeing that and realising Alex is Coastal, I was hoping he would build the Great Lighthouse for us to liberate.

Would be great but unlikely hehe

I guessed we will be building worker and settlers here for a bit at least. Since a riverside grassland hill mine has a higher yield than a cottage (at least early on) I like chopping and mining those. Is that not sound?

We already have 2 or 3 hills which is plenty, early on. The cows are plains IIRC so it's 3f3h as well. That will be enough hammers, quite a bit should be whipped as well. Workers and settlers also eat food surplus so we shouldn't have trouble getting those out.

On the Vultures note. We don't seem to have Copper anywhere. How highly should we prioritise Iron Working since we seem to have lots of Jungles?

We'll likely have iron and with the jungle, IW is high priority. It's not so expensive and we should be researching that before alphabet maybe.

About binary research: 3 big advantages:
- less loss to rounding. Rounding occurs before multiplier buildings are in place. Example: Working 2 riverside tiles in the capital yields 11 commerce: 8c (Palace) + 2c (tiles) + 1c (city square). Running 70% research gives 7.7 -> 7b + 3.3 -> 3g which means we lose 1c per turn. Doesn't sound like much but it adds up.

- discount, like revent said

- flexibility. (Probably won't apply in EE much). Say, we're stockpiling gold for a tech. We see that the AI just got it so we change target and research another tech and trade for the one we initially wanted. If we just went with some % slider, we'd be halfway done with the tech and wouldn't benefit from switching tech.



As to tech, I'd think fishing next, so we could hook up coastal resources. We'll only need it just yet if we find some resource to the east, I think our next city should definitely make sure Askoa doesn't sneak by. After that, I'd suggest Pottery for granaries. Writing then seems like the obvious choice but sailing (for early TRs) is appealing as well imo.


I could play a few turns, discover horses, work towards the settler, explore some more and report back. What I need is a decision for tech.


@Smilingrogue: I'm here to learn as well, I make mistakes too and I won't others for making them. Discussion is (and always has been) an integral part of SGs and the way many many players here learned to play.

 

[Smilingrogue]

@Mystyfly.

Thanks for explaining mechanics of binary research. I always saved gold and then ran 100% slider, but never cared to do that much before I had libraries as I didn't realise it will make a difference whether or not libraries are built.

I am not sold on Fishing next though. If we are going to settle South first to block, we won't need it. If we are looking to settle North, then there are food tiles that can be improved before Fishing. As things stand, we don't have any sea food to take advantage of and we don't have water tiles in our culture to get TRs yet. Don't think the river extends to Greece, so we won't get trade with Alex for a while.

 

[mystyfly]

I was thinking that we'd want fishing soon anyway (with all those coastal sites) but wouldn't need it just yet if we block off asoka with a non-coastal city (I don't like the corn/pigs spot too much). And since we'd tech fishing soon, and it gives a discount on pottery, we'd do them in order but I'm fine with doing pottery directly after AH.

 

[Smilingrogue]

I think we will save one turn of research and about 20% of beakers on Pottery if we get Fishing. (I am not sure about that, though)

If you and Revent think that's worth it, let's do it. I don't think that's worth it though as we can start on cottages earlier if we just go for it now. I think more commerce sooner is better than beakers gained later.