'Cause I'm the Taxman

[Rusten]

Clam is not so amazing anyway, especially early on when we have irrigated corn already. The reasoning behind the work boat would be to have it ready for city #2. If we put our 2nd city 1W of the fish it will be hooked up to our capital with fishing. If the work boat is ready that city will bring in 5, 1 and 5 instantly (+1 or 2 maintenance).

The 2nd city would also have cows and a grassland hill in the first ring which means no need to make a monument (possibility of loaning another hill from Bibracte). It will grow quickly and could support our expansion while Bibracte gets the GLH.

 

[Emperor Peter]

Agree with the tech plan.
Fishing after BW probably. Build worker first> warriors until fishing> wb for clam> settler> wb for fish(completes while settler moves)> 2nd worker(hopefully Bibracte will be size 6 by then)

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

So many interesting SGs... How do you get to sign up for these things anyway? Check the forum for new threads every 2 hours?

Yes At least to get into your first you must have some luck to find a place, or start your own game (easier sometimes).

When to start on settlers? Size 4? Or do we want a second worker first? I'm thinking work boat might be better because of the fish.

workboat before settler or second worker looks dubious too me... need to check teching time but my guess is we won't have fishing by then (turn 25 <-> 30). It would be interesting to check demographics to know how many capitals are coastal (land area give an hint at start). We can prolly make the work boat after settler and before lighthouse if we haven't too many opponents coastal.

editPeter: I don't think we'll be working clams while building the settler. corn + 2 mines. We want a fast settler to 1) go out of the peinsula, 2) start early on the lighthouse. Fast is around turn 35. A second worker chopping gives better returns than wb for clams imo. As Rusten said, first wb is better going to fish anyway

 

[Rusten]

workboat before settler or second worker looks dubious too me... need to check teching time but my guess is we won't have fishing by then (turn 25 <-> 30). It would be interesting to check demographics to know how many capitals are coastal (land area give an hint at start). We can prolly make the work boat after settler and before lighthouse if we haven't too many opponents coastal.

I think either fishing before BW, it doesn't take long, or whip settler with overflow (overflow to wb).

I'll remember to check the demographics.

edit: I prefer fishing first seeing as we're so low on commerce. Getting sailing+masonry takes longer than you might think and that opening brings in more commerce.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I agree with the edit... you should have vetoed any no luxury start

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Have we already settled? Did we consider settling on the sugar? I agree on fishing here as we need the techs ASAP to be sure of getting GLH...though it's less likely to go super early on this script than some others.

 

[Rusten]

No, we haven't settled. I was planning on playing tonight, but the current WOTM took up more of my time than I expected. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

I don't like settling on sugar, we lose the irrigated corn and several forestsfor the GLH.

 

[ungy]

Clam is not so amazing anyway, especially early on when we have irrigated corn already. The reasoning behind the work boat would be to have it ready for city #2. If we put our 2nd city 1W of the fish it will be hooked up to our capital with fishing. If the work boat is ready that city will bring in 5, 1 and 5 instantly (+1 or 2 maintenance).

The 2nd city would also have cows and a grassland hill in the first ring which means no need to make a monument (possibility of loaning another hill from Bibracte). It will grow quickly and could support our expansion while Bibracte gets the GLH.

this sounds like the best plan to me.

 

[Emperor Peter]

Maybe we should scout a bit before deciding on the second city, we don't know much of the map yet. A WB for fish might therefore not be necessary right away.

 

[Rusten]

Yes, the city won't be settled during my set, it's just the initial plan. No hesitation to change plan if we find something important.

 

[Rusten]

OK, this could be a ridiculously tough start. Paused the set.

We are severely blocked in by 2 creative AIs (and are not creative ourselves). The Greek leader is Pericles.



It looks like Pericles is surrounded by water too, so there's a big risk we end up with only 1 more city (peacefully) on this landmass. There's even the problem of the Khmer settling towards us, but hopefully he will go for the fp first (then again he could get his 3rd settler before our 2nd).

Very difficult situation. I think we can't afford to get the GLH, these forests should go into axes instead. There are 2 ways to play it I think.

1: Get the GLH anyway and settle the islands.
2: Prioritize metal and rush one (or both).

IMO the 2nd is far superior if we have metal.

Note: Ran into a mongolian scout on the grassy hill W-NW of the khmer spice on turn 10.

 

[Rusten]

What now: I'd be inclined to follow the fishing first plan. We should try settling near the corn/pigs, but let's be honest, it's not looking good for a city there, and then the fish will be back-up.

so fishing -> BW -> IW if no copper?

Charismatic will help for a rush. We're one turn ahead with spiritual and can whip a little more. Furthermore our two starting cities have very good tiles at low pops, so I see a rush working out.

PS. I accidentally found out Joao, Sitting Bull and Stalin are in the game when checking relations between the people we've met.

 

[Silu]

Rambling Lurkerage:

Wonder if it would be possible to get GLH (after settler?) and still rush Pericles if there's a 2nd-city-grabbable Copper around. GLH would help the possible IW-crawl as well in case there's no Copper though admittedly BW->Sailing->Masonry hurts a lot. That would set you up for life though if successful. Rushing Sury straight away would probably give more land but his start is dynamite. Pericles has a coastal (assumedly) forced-to-spam-workboats start that hinders earlygame troop production, and a holy city which somewhat syncs with 0% slider.

Including GLH in the plan offers a better plan-B in any case than a botched (= no resource) rush. Though any plan is a bit of a gambit with that start

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@Silu: My thinking would be to rule out any wonders while being boxed in. Wonder => no rush, there is no wonder -> rush possibility. Pericles can have feudalism around 1500 bc in immortal.

If we can put chops into the first settler (starting size 3), I would skip fishing. I think the priority is to settle copper. Would come in handy to have a settler asap. My first thought was corn/pig too. Imo you should play till BW so we can discuss location of second city.

But for me, it's on AIs face here

edit: lol, Pericles has even gems... forget about wonders really...

 

[Emperor Peter]

I'd prefer to keep Pericles alive, he could be useful as trading partner. So we should take as much of his land as possible (peacefully i mean), and attack the khmer (sury is usually annoying so no need for mercy). If we block Peri and he starts wonderspamming, even better for us.
GLH might still be possible but after we block peri, as we may have the only coastal capital? It might not be too late for a rush vs sury then.
We can always settle some islands. We haven't scouted enough to conclude we're completely trapped, Terra maps are often odd shaped. The continent could also continue S of peri and connect with the land we see south of our cap.

 

[Silu]

@Silu: My thinking would be to rule out any wonders while being boxed in. Wonder => no rush, there is no wonder -> rush possibility. Pericles can have feudalism around 1500 bc in immortal.

1500BC LBs on Immortal? Not flippin' likely... Are you sure you haven't played too much Deity lately?

Anyway, availability of Copper is a huge variable here... I wouldn't totally debunk the GLH plan in case there is none. Then again variant might favor rush since a military tech lead isn't that likely in the future and a bad commerce->tech ratio necessitates more land.

^ There's an ocean tile 2S1E of Athens so a big land area there is unlikely. Still a possibility though

 

[bestsss]

lurker2: GLH in, settle the islands (each is like 10c upon settling) and you are good to go. If you fail the rush (or no is copper) you lose the game totally. Skip the mainland till you muster enough to break them, since the islands would be a lot I bet the mainland is damn crowded, so no big profit from rushing...
Agree about longbows so early, I dont remember seeing them, even on deity.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm feeling a rush. No GLH, we need to sell out on the units. Maybe pericles builds it for us though and he's the less aggressive of the two by far so hit Sury first IMO.

We can play nice but we'd not have enough land generally.

Note: of the known AIs, Sury, Joao, and pericles (if we run his religion since he has the holy city) are the easiest to get to friendly using civic + religion. Since we're going to be piggypacking for tech we'll want to suck up to one of them. My instinct goes toward HR loving Joao here.

 

[admtanaka]

lurker3:

This looks to be a fiendishly difficult start. I'll be reading this one with interest. I hope you guys can pull it off.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I am out of town till sunday evening guys...

@Silu, bestsss: do I need to make a triple install (3.13, 3.17) to find one save with 1500 bc LBs (even AIs can oracle feudalism)? I swear I remember those... oh wait , I am a goldfish...