[BTS] Emperor Shadow Game With Zara Yaqob Ethiopia

[CGQ]

My second attempt at a shadow game, help me get my first win on emperor!

Spoiler 4000 B.C. :

Settings:
- Pangea Map
- Standard Map Size
- Normal Speed
- Temperate Climate
- Emperor Difficulty
- Huts & Events both turned off

Leader was picked randomly:

Creative leader with gold start...not bad. So far creative is my favorite trait, second being philosophical and third being financial.

While there's gold, there's a lot of plains and with only two plains cows, it's a very food poor capital. I could move my scout further south but given that I see temperate trees north of the lake, I move the scout up north:

This revealed elephants and irrigated corn! Should I settle the city 1N of the settler? I would get the corn, an extra forest, more health plus two more green tiles, but I would lose the gold tile and some riverside grassland tiles. I'm thinking this capital would make a great production capital with bureaucracy later on with those hills.

My plan so far is SIP, tech AH, then mine the gold and keep the workers busy mining the cows while I tech BW, then chop a settler maybe at size 2. It'll take forever for this capital to grow, definitely no whipping lol

Or if I settle 1N, I can tech agriculture, AH, then BW. I can work the elephants to keep workers busy, but I don't know how this would work out yet. All input is appreciated!

 

[lymond]

what do you mean by more health?

Actually I would have held for start analysis. My first instinct was to move scout toward gold ..either on the gold or SE>SW. Gold plus plains cows is not a great combo although SIP could get plenty of farms.

however, IMO with your scout over here revealing wet corn that is just too hard to pass up. Wet corn is by far the best visible tile, so I would settle 1N and go AG/AH.

Gold could be grabbed by city 2 and possibly sharing the cows and maybe there is hidden food over there too. Cap will produce settlers very fast.

 

[Jarno]

I'd also settle 1N, extra food make such a difference. You could grow your cap to size 4, I think you could even get a 6t settler / 4t worker working the corn, 2x cow and ivory, that's be awesome. Seems like there is coast 2S as well, so there might be seafood near the gold.

 

[krikav]

My inclination would also have been to move southward. I would have moved the scout up on the gold to scout the possibility to settle 1W of the gold with the aid of some seafood. If nothing I would have settled in place.

There is some merit in what you tried to do, and see the types of trees though, and moving north wasn't bad, you moved away from coast and toward the middle of the map.

Very lucky find with the corn, that is now the important factor of this start.
Gold will be safely in your culture if it's inthe capitals third ring, and I personally never care that much about getting gold/silver/gems in my capital if I can grab it with a second city easy.
So here corn is way more important than gold.

You can get even more information if you just move the settler 1N and think again though, not sure what it could reveal that would change anything though. But it's a good practice to always try to aquire the maximum amount of information before commiting.

But 1N capital, Agri->AH looks like the way to go.

 

[CGQ]

what do you mean by more health?

Actually I would have held for start analysis. My first instinct was to move scout toward gold ..either on the gold or SE>SW. Gold plus plains cows is not a great combo although SIP could get plenty of farms.

however, IMO with your scout over here revealing wet corn that is just too hard to pass up. Wet corn is by far the best visible tile, so I would settle 1N and go AG/AH.

Gold could be grabbed by city 2 and possibly sharing the cows and maybe there is hidden food over there too. Cap will produce settlers very fast.

Freshwater gives +2 health but now I realized I'd still have it if I SIP since the lake on the right was fresh too haha

Spoiler Played to Turn 15 :

I move the scout southwards while I wait for the worker and start exploring the land east of my city. West doesn't seem too appealing because of desert tiles. I go south of gold:

No fish

Further exploration:

Plain sheep and fur. Maybe a city here later in the future?

No sooner then later, I meet...

Aggressive AI...oh boy.

As I move I stumble into a lion, thankfully I'm in a forest on other side of river:

I defeat the lion and while my scout heals I meet our next AI...

Hmmm...Interesting.

Then...

Hatchy and Cathy from russia are the cutest leaders in my opinion

I heal up only to run into another lion and kill it:

I promote my scout to hill defense.

Here we are now:

Now my consensus is since there's no fish to the south, to settle my second city somewhere near the gold tile south of my scout before Alexander gets his hands on it. Given the direction of his scout he's definitely gotta be east somewhere.

My worker is heading to the wet corn to farm it and then he'll farm both cows and elephants while I tech BW and grow my capital. The warrior will probably spawnbust east around the area of my second city while my scout will explore the west side of this map.

 

[lymond]

Yep, plains hill 1S of gold would work great, but start your settler asap at size 3. Another city can go 3S1E of Aksum and share cow later.

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler Played to Turn 21 :

AH revealed horses everywhere! Including just north of the future second city site by the gold.

As I scout west, I meet another AI:

I hear he's a jerk. Is that true?

Here's the map now at T21:

Are those ideal locations for city 2/3?

 

[lymond]

Yeah ..city2 is fine actually. Not much difference really but you do grab horses and appear to have more river grass. city probably needs some farms to help with growth to work gold even with cows but actually could probably get some cottages eventually too. city 3 is exactly what I had in mind.

I'm thinking Horse Archers here would be a good gift for Alex plus eliepults later for everyone else.

 

[krikav]

Toku is mainly annoying. His tendancy to go into mercantalism and generally hold on all goodies makes him much of a nuisance.
In almost all games though, he tends to fall behind the crowd and can be easy pickings.

 

[lymond]

Not to mention the whole open borders mess

 

[CGQ]

Yeah ..city2 is fine actually. Not much difference really but you do grab horses and appear to have more river grass. city probably needs some farms to help with growth to work gold even with cows but actually could probably get some cottages eventually too. city 3 is exactly what I had in mind.

I'm thinking Horse Archers here would be a good gift for Alex plus eliepults later for everyone else.

Gift him HA's like as in gift him horses or do you mean to rush him?

Spoiler Played to Turn 34 :

I continued south for fish and encountered a lion. Despite being in a forest...

I lost the scout. In hindsight I should've sent him to the hill N of the lion since he had hill defense promotion. R.I.P. buddy. Thank you for your service

Luckily a turn later my first warrior comes out, and the city grows to size 3 right at the same time. As lymond suggested, I immediately start on a settler. I send the warrior to the future sight of my second city to spawn-bust...

And run into lions...

I hold my breath and click next turn...

The warrior survives!

Here we are now:

T34, my settler is on his way to the City 2 site, and my workers just finished the elephants. Now this is where I struggle...

What should I do next?
Should I build another warrior in the cap or a second worker or should I allow it to grow to Size 4/5 then whip a worker? Should I save worker turns and send my worker with the settler to immediately start on the gold then build another worker in my cap to begin chopping my next settler?

 

[lymond]

ha..that was a bit of a joke.. Most definitely did not mean a friendly gift of Horse Archers.

I would put what I would suspect was a reasonable amount of overflow (OF) from the completed settler into a new likely fast produced worker and finish it now. Then 1t of new settler...then look to grow on a couple of warriors or so, with settler#2 taking chops when ready.

Old worker moves with new settler to improve gold now

Worker 2 moves 1S to chop that forest then onto the forest you will settle to chop that..both forest will go into settler 2 which I think should just about complete it.

City 3 will be connected by the way

edit: ok..opened the save

13H OF should go into new worker definitely.

edit: do not go-to route your settler ...in fact as worker and setller step toward their respective hills they can actually stay within your borders next turn...probably not a big deal now..but two things to consider 1) hidden nasty 2 move barb animals lurking in the fog 2) this is more a thing to consider later but units outside borders cost maintenance..so just think about that later when moving things around..even workboats. units cost less in borders

edit 2: actually worker can put a turn into a farm right there which city 2 will need anyway later. before it moves to gold. just a little thing to consider but important. make use of worker turns whenever you can even in the process of moving from point A to point C.

edit 3: turn settler moves to hill check that now animals can target it then move warrior to gold to protect worker moving there. you don't wan to do that blind since there is a lot of hidden tiles to the S

edit 4: meant to comment on scout loss...granted that happens sometimes but do consider it a bad loss. you just lost your free spawnbuster and honestly I would have had him spawnbusting the city two spot earlier ..not the warrior. after the initial sweep the scout does around city he should spawn bust and//or you can start using 1 moves and avoid blind moves.

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler Played to Turn 48 :

Worker 1 moves to farm tile W of elephant, and settler moves to hill. Warrior scouts area and absorbs another wolf attack on the gold hill. Just after settling city 2, we meet another AI:

Gondar (City 2) is settled on T37 in 2520 BC. I revolted to slavery around then.

I move warrior further SW after giving him forest defense promotion.

I see Alexander's borders. They're a bit close. He's just settled his 2nd city.

First warrior barb appears. I'm not not exactly shaking in my boots since he can't enter borders yet, though I'm not sure what turn they can enter. He heals in the forest for two turns.

I feel I could settle another city around the rice/floodplain area,given there's lots of trees for chopping HA's later for Alexander. It could share the cows?

Alex's borders

He's the closest neighbor so far. I hear he's a warmonger too. City 2 border pops thanks to creative leader.

Worker 2 finishes goldmine and moves on to cows

Gondar will work the gold, cow and farm tiles once it reaches size 3.

City 3 is settled on Turn 47 and begins working cow tile while I chop our third settler. Should I whip this one?


City 3 will begin working gold tile when it reaches size 2. Should I farm those river tiles for city 3 or build cottages?
State of the empire at turn 48:

Might settle city 4 by the floodplain/deer site. I'm gonna further scout NE with that warrior to see what else is there.

If I do a HA rush, when do I start researching HB riding? Is my tech path good for this? I figure granaries are really important especially in this food poor map, or should I have gone for writing first? What should I tech next in this game so far?

Also Stalin seems annoyed by me for...no reason lol

 

[dgang]

Hope you don't mind if I follow and learn along too?
Would we want to prioritize hooking the elephants to increase the happies? Also, wouldn't we want to prioritize horses to get better military online?

Spoiler :

 

[dgang]

Why are the warriors fortified in borders? Shouldn't they be either in a city (no defenders in some of the cities) or exploring or spawn busting?

 

[Fippy]

Your Jumbo (Eles) question, connecting happy resis has time until at least one city would become unhappy.
Ofc if your workers have time (and the wheel ) it can be done sooner, especially if roads are needed to connect cities.
Sometimes roads are pushed back in priority, for improving power tiles or chopping forests.

Better units (chariots) hmm..this hugely depends on difficulty level, on deity you would want them connected fast..top priority, as barbs enter borders around turn ~40 already. On other levels you might want to do more urgent improvements first (like food).

 

[lymond]

Hope you don't mind if I follow and learn along too?
Would we want to prioritize hooking the elephants to increase the happies? Also, wouldn't we want to prioritize horses to get better military online?

Not necessarily...happiness is not an issue right now when cities are small. They can eventually be hooked up as part of the road network. Same with horses. As My said above, it may depend on difficulty. Deity you need barb defense fast. Emperor not so much. Especially if you have good spawnbusting.

Priority is hooking up food specials and chopping to get settlers and workers faster. Food specials are always first priority.

Good worker management is one of the keys to success in this game and prioritizing the right actions for them

Why are the warriors fortified in borders? Shouldn't they be either in a city (no defenders in some of the cities) or exploring or spawn busting?

Great question. And actually CGQ should not even have that warrior in Aksum. Spawnbusting would be best, so both warriors should be in good busting positions outside the borders, especially near future city sites. In case you are not aware, a single uit will spawnbust a 5X5 tile area from the tile it stands on, meaning no barbs will spawn in that area.

I'd probably want 1 warrior down in the SW area near that corn and probably another down in the S area.

Oh..and glad to see you pursuing higher learning

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler To Turn 52 :

Moved my warriors to spawnbust and further scout more land. I found marble!

The worker heads to improve the horses after improving the cows:

(That 2 in the city is from taking the screenshot key, the worker actually went straight to the horses)

More barbs:

To the west, I see the borders of an unknown CIV:

The last AI I haven't met yet. Light blue-ish...could it be Persia? He's the only light blue-ish CIV I know lol


I 2-pop whip the 3rd settler:

First archer barb:

He's been through stuff, that's for sure.

That leaves us with this...

(Exiting to desktop)

What should I do next with that worker? Farm that land he's on or improve the horse tile (It will take 2 turns for him to get there)
Also where to settle that 4th city? I was thinking somewhere here:

Since my leader is creative, in 5 turns, I'll have the wet rice and marble. I could farm or cottage the floodplain. Lots of forest too. Not sure. Another city can probably be built later for the deer and fur. What do you think so far?

 

[lymond]

Yep, I think that is some Persian over there. Ooops that warrior got trapped. Hope he survives.

I like the settler whip into a worker ....good.

However, I'd like you to be far more judicious in your forest chops. Chopping into a barracks not good. What if you gave that tile to Aksum and had chopped the forest into the new worker? With the OF from settler whip..now 33H sitting in Aksum this turn combined with the 20H from chop, that is 53H for that new worker. These are little things I encourage you to start thinking about.

Worker in Gondor could have stepped into forest and chopped it, then started on horse. Chop could later be used on a new settler in the city (still maintaining its growth at the moment) Granted on higher levels I might prioritize the horses sooner..i'll give you that.

I think I like cottages on those two river tiles between Aksum and Lali, as both cities can share them and help develop mean. Eventually, ofc, they will be for Aksum. (Note: gold/cow city can eventually get its own grass farm later chained from the tile 1S of cow, but expect this city to be relatively smallish for some time..yet still fairly productive)

hmm..you have so many options here. Really strong start and map and you still have more info to glean down SE though it is tundra-ish. Marble is not a priority for me here though. You know you have Greece to the right and what appears to be Persia to the left. Deer/marble/rice/FP..all that stuff..could be settled several different ways I think. What I do know is that is that the city you marked to the W next to corn is a definite. You want that. Good food and easy to road to later. I'd say grab that now and getting it going.

Sheep/fur I have my eye on at some point to be coastal. Whales is certainly not an attraction, but you are ORG so an easy chop early for a LH to make that whale 3F1C..not too shabby. I'd be interested in what is E of that area too.

Deer could be settled on desert tile right between deer and spice. Not bad for commerce really as it can get several cottages.

How to incorporate rice I'm not sure about at the moment but Alex will likely grab it in some way before you I suspect. If so you will kindly take it off his hands anyway. You don't want to encroach on him too early.

General guideline though is that unless I'm trying to grab some specific key resource that happens to be further away that I like, I tend to settle the good cities in close proximity that can be easily reach, improved and connected.

 

[lymond]

oh..and new worker can help with new city

edit: Actually, now that I think of it, if you settle corn/cow to the west, I would move that worker over there to help now. New worker can probably move to forest 1W of aksum to chop that.

oh..and restart this turn and put that chop into the new worker...chop into barracks was just not good.

generally, if at all possible, you want at least a worker moving to help with a new city asap.