Buce01: The Slavemaster

William Shakespeare said:
....he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart; his passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put in to his purse.....we would not die in that man's company, that he fears his fellowship to die with us.....
Click to expand...

OK, we have a start, we have a civ, and we have a team of stout yeomen.

A few thoughts to add to what Phaedo has said:

Difficulty level: Some of you have indicated that you are inexperienced at DG; in truth, it's not such a big step-up from Emperor. The AI gets extra unit support, which makes the early game a bit more dangerous (particularly if you start next door to someone like Bismark), and they will out-expand us - especially the Agricultural civs - but it's not really a big deal; those of you who know me will know the contempt that I have for the AI's war-making ability.

The main difference is the tech pace; we would not out-research the AI, even without the added difficulty that this variant imposes.

An almost optimum strategy is to run zero Science and trade astutely (have a look at Phaedo's game, 'Rage against the Machine', to see how effective this strategy can be). I anticipate we will do this for a good percentage of the time, but we will self-research selected techs - ones which the AI tend to ignore, yet value highly.

The Greeks: Bit of an unknown quantity for me, I've never played them.

They have a couple of relatively useful techs (Commercial and Scientific if memory serves), and a very powerful AA UU; the downside is that it will be difficult to avoid an early GA, but that's a crutch that we can live without.

The Start: Not too shabby, from what we can see; rivers will help a lot until we can develop our land. I suggest moving the worker 1 North to see what that reveals, but settling on the spot looks good to me.

Opening Moves I would suggest road before mine on the BG 1N of our starting position; I think that very early contacts are fairly unlikely on a large map, so I think we should self-research Pottery to begin with - we need a granary pretty quickly. We can discuss where to go after that once we have it.

I'd like to see where that river leads, so our first Warrior should follow it, IMO; subsequent Warriors should get fog busting to the South, SW, and SE to try to get those early contacts asap.

Reputation As always, reputation is golden; be very careful when trading for hard goods on credit - it is easy to have our trade route cut without it being our fault. If in doubt - stop and ask.

Finally, a warm welcome to all our lurkers; we will try to provide some entertainment for you, in what looks like a very interesting variant, but as always your help and advice willl be invaluable.

So, unless anyone has any comments to add, it's over to Phaedo.
 
lurker's comment: Looks interesting; I'll definitely be checking in regularly.
 
The Greeks are pretty cool. I haven't played them in a while but I used to play them all the time. The Sci/Com traits are nice and the hoplites are great defensive units (immediate pikes). Probably their greatest strength is that they are defensive so we can manage our GA a bit. We will still be looking for horses and swords for any war we envision.

SO settle in place, work the BG to the NW (road>mine).
Obviously we need a warrior or two first. Then maybe a settler. I'd like to have at least one more city down before we start a gran.
Immediate research on pottery.

Am I playing 10 turns or 20? I'll play 10 now and then pause.
 
lurker's comment: Having made a few Hellenic empires at Emp and DG, I'd say that the Greeks can indeed start out-researching some time in the MA. Commercial and cheap education, gotta love it. A push towards Maths is not a bad idea, regardless of the presence of ivory or lack thereof.
 
Here's the first 10. They went pretty quickly.

Well, we're off. Not much to do as it is the beginning

4000BC Turn 0
Settle in place, send the worker ot the BG and up the science slider.

3959BC T1
start road

3900BC T2
Zzzz

3850BC T3
Zzzz

3800BC T4
road finished, start mine

3750BC T5
warrior finished, start another.
Warrior heads East

3700BC T6
Warrior heads east. Looks like the river heds to the sea

3650BC T7
exploring

3600BC T8
The river actually looks quite long. This is good for us.

3550BC T9
exploring

3500BC T10
Warrior built start on a hoplite
Warrior 1 heads across the river to check out the large body of water.
Warrior 2 heads to the hill for a look
Worker heads to the sugar (it will give us the same food and shields as the BG and we won't waste the movement across the river)

NB: The lux will have to be pumped up before the end of turn to prevent a riot

And here's our world thus far. See that cow? It may be a bit tough to figure out where to put the city without wasting BGs but looks like a settler pump to me:)

Spoiler :
Slave1.jpg
 
The hoplite build can be changed to a warrior maybe. It would give us another explorer which is especially useful on a large map. It's the lux tax that is at issue. We have some nice land for the first few cities. I thought I wanted a settler before the gran but now I'm wavering. The settler would drop us to pop1, which I don't like, where the gran would take about 10-12 turns once we grow.

I don't often play large maps but my guess is that it will be a while before we meet 2 Civs with whom to trade. That means some more self research and also means that with a settler pump or 2 we can catch up on city placement especially with early Grans. BTW, how many Civs are we playing with (I forgot to check)? Happiness is going to be an issue as I haven't seen any luxes. Iron next? There are a number of hills around.

I was thinking the next city could go SW of the forest on the river and then a quick one NW of the cow to get it in our borders.

After the sugar is worked, the worker can move across the river and work those 2 BGs before crossing back to the BG S of the cow.
 
lurker's comment: That's a very "sweet" spot. ;)

With so many BG's, I don't think settling on one would hurt a lot.
 
It is isn't it? River, BGs and the sugar on the plains. Too bad we can't build some more workers to take advantage of it;)
 
lurker's comment: I'd settle 1 SE of the cow--since you only need 5 spt for a 6-turn settler factory, losing 1 BG won't hurt. Also, it might be better to stick with the original plan and get the settler out before the granary so you can get 6-turn settlers as soon as possible.
 
I think it might be an idea to detour our warrior that is currently near Athens, and bust the fog to the west of the beef before we make a definitive decision on positioning our next city.

Depending on what we find, it might be an idea to settle two SE of the beef; without workers, BG's - particularly those adjacent to a river - take on even greater value than normal - it would also catch the sugar.
A spacing of cxxc would soon bring the beef on-line, and would help us to decide on whether or not to build a Granary in Athens; it has such potential as a military pump, and will be our only developed city for a while, and on a large map we have less pressure to expand quickly.

I also think the Hoplite build should be switched to a Warrior; we need those contacts as soon as.

Got it, but would like some input.
 
That was the location I first mentioned. There looks to be a forest under the fog NW of the cow. The hoplite build was a place holder more than anything else. It's the UU that concerns me. A warrior will get done in 3 and we start losing cash. Moving to the mount will give us a bit of an immediate line of sight but we probably want to know what is up North as the land looks better for growth.
 
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