choxorn 01: Low level training game

[scoutsout]

Here's mine. Don't look at it if you haven't played. (I took it a turn or two past 20). @Whomp: Here's my log:

Spoiler :

Pre-flight check: Mapstat goes nuts with info from a very old game in the autosave directory. Looks like I was Arabia in that one... down ... nevermind.

Turn 1/4000 BC - Since I'm not much of one for fog-gazing and exploring with workers, I found carthage on the spot. Set research to pottery at 90%. Due in 16 after I MM Carthage to work the Wheat. I sure would have liked to have that cow.

Turn 2/3950 BC - Worker Irrigates wheat.

Turn 3/3900 - Pottery due in 14.

Turn 4/3850 - worker has finished irrigating, starts roading wheat. Carthage grows in 3.

Turn 3/3800 - Pottery due in 12.

Turn 4/3750 - I had forgotten how powerful the industrious trait was in Vanilla/PTW. The worker has finished roading, Pottery now due in 8. MM the citizen to the riverside bonus grassland. This avoids a food overrun (city still grows next turn) and gets us another shield for the warrior. Worker moves to riverside BG.

Turn 5/3700 - Worker starts mining the riverside BG.

Turn 6/3650 - nada. Pottery due in 5.

Turn 7/3600 - Carthage has trained a warrior. Queue up a Barracks as a Granary pre-build. Warrior scouts nortward.

Turn 8/3550 - Warrior scouts north, spots furs. Worker starts roading mined BG.

Turn 9/3500 - borders expand. Research down to 70%, Pottery in 2.

Turn 10/3450 - Carthage is now size 3. Research to 60%, Lux to 10%. MM the city so that the third citizen works a BG instead of a forest. Worker to forest. Scouting warrior north... sees a vast expanse of jungle.

Turn 11/3400 - Pottery is in, queue up Writing at 10%. Swap Carthage's build to Granary. Warrior north. Spots a goody hut on a mountain.

Turn 12/3350 - Warrior heads for goody hut.

Turn 13/3300 - Warrior pops hut, gets a map.

Turn 14/3250 - I forgot to log this one...

Turn 15/3200 - bump lux to 30%. MM the city to get the citizen off the forest.

Turn 16/3150 - Worker has finished the chop, roads the grass.

Turn 17/3100 - warrior continues scouting.

Turn 18/3050 - worker moves to floodplain, and the stupid game crashes.

Turn 19/3000 - Carthage finishes its granary, queue up a worker. Worker irrigates floodplain (that's where your 5th food will come from team).

Turn 20/2950 - warrior keeps scouting.

At 2900 BC, Carthage is size 4 with a warrior due in 2. I have 2 workers, and the city is capable of producing 5 food per turn. When the warrior is trained, the 5th citizen will be working an irrigated floodplain tile... and you'll have your 5 surplus food per turn needed for the settler pump.

 

[jclast]

Here's my turnset.

Spoiler :

• Turn 1 - 4000 B.C.
  • I look around and notice that if I settle in place I've got wheat and a river. I send the worker south to check for coast. It's definitely coast, and no spot I can see looks better than where we started, so I settle on the spot. Upon founding I see a cow just outside Carthage's bordersand a whole bunch of jungle to the north.
  • Set Carthage to build a warrior for exploration.
  • Set research to 100% with +0 GPT. Bronze Working due in 18.
• Turn 2
  • Move worker to wheat and start a road
• Turn 3
  • Worker continues to build road.
• Turn 4
  • Worker completes road.
  • Set worker to mine wheat since irrigation bonus would be nullified by Despotism.
• Turn 5
  • Carthage completes warrior. Send him to explore the west.
  • Set Carthage to build another warrior.
• Turn 6
  • Warrior moves onto a mountain a spies some furs to the northeast of Carthage. They're too far outside of our borders to worry about now, but eventually we should get them. After all, everybody loves a luxury!
• Turn 7
  • Worker complete mine netting us 1 extra SPT.
  • Set worker to road to the west because I'd prefer to settle our second city outside the jungle. Despite my noobish tendancies, I am certain to not road over the river and negate the movement bonus.
  • Warrior continues to explore west and sees nothing new since he descended from the mountain.
• Turn 8
  • Worker begins road.
  • Warrior explores west,and sees what I assume to be another coast.
• Turn 9
  • Worker continues to build road.
  • Warrior explores north.
• Turn 10 - 3500 B.C.
  • Carthage's borders expand, there is a second fur source two tiles northeast of the first. We should definitely pick both up (one to keep and one to trade one we meet our neighbors).
  • Carthage completes warrior.
  • Set Carthage to build a final warrior (I'm not sure, but I think this one will serve as a garrison in case any neighbors come knocking).
  • Warrior 1 explores north; he's definitely on a coast (either that or we've got one HUGE lake).
  • Warrior 2 explores northeast.
  • Worker completes road, and moves west.
• Turn 11
  • Warrior 1 explores east.
  • Warrior 2 explores northeast.
  • Worker begins road.
• Turn 12
  • Warrior 1 explores north.
  • Warrior 2 explores northeast.
• Turn 13
  • Warrior 1 explores north and finds a goody hut and some silks. He'll pop the hut in 2 turns.
  • Warrior 2 explores northeast.
  • Set worker to road to a second city site near the silks. It's got silk, 2 mountains for mining, and some jungles for chopping, and it will be coastal for a harbor later.
  • I want to build a granary, but it won't be available until Pottery comes in. There's 4 turns left on BW, and Pottery will take 10. Unfortunately, a barracks (my pre-build) will also take 14, so I set Carthage to wealth for a turn.
  • Carthage completes warrior, and I set him as a garrison.
  • Warrior 1 goes northeast toward goody hut.
  • Warrior 2 explores north and finds a source of gold and two sources of silks.
• Turn 14
  • Set Carthage to barracks as a pre-build for granary.
  • Warrior 1 pops the goody hut and finds maps revealing lots of jungle and yet another source of silks.
• Turn 15
  • I'm reassigning Warrior 1 to explore the south. The north seems to be full of nothing but jungle.
  • Warrior 2 explores north, and finds the northern coast.
• Turn 16
  • Warrior 2 explores northwest.
• Turn 17
  • Bronze Working comes in, set research to Pottery. I must have missed a turn somewhere since BW took 18 turns and I started on the first turn. Pottery will come in in 8 turns. (What has changed, just a couple turns ago it was going to take 10!)
• Turn 19
  • Warrior 2 explores northwest.
  • What the hell? Now the barracks will be done in 5, but Pottery won't come in for 7 turns. I switch to a settler for our second city. Apparently I don't understand pre-building.
• Turn 20 - 3000 B.C.
  • Warrior 1 arrives on a southern mountain and sees both game and cattle to our southwest and south respectively.
  • As I leave it, we still have only one cith, Carthage. It is building a settler, while will be done in 2 turns, and I've started roading to a second city site. Also, since Bronze Working came in, we shouldn't ever build warriors again as we have access to Numidian Mercs.

The world as I have left it:

And the save:
jclast's attempt

 

[Whomp]

@ Cody play the first save for 20 turns. We'll evaluate everyone's opening turns and take the best save and build the roster from there.


Bucephalus and jclast can look at each others spoilers as well as Scoutout's.
Spoiler for jclast.

Spoiler :

A few things....BW isn't really necessary yet. It's useful but it could be traded is my guess since the AI likes to have BW. This is the expansion phase. Remember growth is power and we are not looking for any wars soon. We need cities not wars. NuMercs will be more useful later and hopefully after we're much bigger and in a republic. A republic GA is much more powerful than a despotic GA. We'd hate to have one triggered too early.

Turn 4
Worker completes road.
Set worker to mine wheat since irrigation bonus would be nullified by Despotism.

You can irrigate bonus resources like wheat in despotism.

Bronze Working comes in, set research to Pottery. I must have missed a turn somewhere since BW took 18 turns and I started on the first turn. Pottery will come in in 8 turns. (What has changed, just a couple turns ago it was going to take 10!)What the hell? Now the barracks will be done in 5, but Pottery won't come in for 7 turns. I switch to a settler for our second city. Apparently I don't understand pre-building.

Gold is the reason. The more citizens you have means more gold. More gold means more science. In fact, if you'd roaded the riverside bonus grasslands they would have produce even more gold. By roading outside of the capital we also lose the capability to have citizens work developed tiles which generate gold and science. Always develop around the capital since there's new citizens coming online that should be working those developed tiles. Especially ones on rivers since they'll give us higher commerce and science. Settlers will get to their destination when it's time. Instead there's only one tile developed for the 3 citizens. All 3 should be working a developed tile.

 

[kill fire]

Here's my set:

Spoiler :

Turn 1(4000 BC):
-Send worker 1 south onto BG- uncovers coastline. hm. Tempting, but I decide to put another city on the coast and found Carthage on the spot. Set it to build Warrior.

IBT:
-Start research: Pottery at 80%
-Notice Cow tile outside our borders. Nice.

Turn 2(3950 BC):
-Worker builds road. Although this isn't the tile the Cathagininan citizen is working, he's on it anyway.

IBT:
zzz

Turn 3(3900 BC)
zzz

IBT:
zzz

Turn 4(3850 BC):
-Worker finishes road. Send him to BG tile that's being worked, 1NW of Carthage.

IBT:
zzz

Turn 5(3800 BC):
worker starts road

IBT:
Carthage: Warrior->Warrior

Turn 6(3750 BC):
-Warrior starts exploring

IBT:
zzz

Turn 7(3700 BC):
-Send Worker to Wheat 1SW of Carthage to build road.
-Warrior gets a view from a mountain and sees a fur.

IBT:
zzz

Turn 8(3650 BC):
-Worker builds road and Warrior explores.

IBT:
zzz

Turn 9(3600 BC):
zzz

IBT:
zzz

Turn 10(3550 BC):
-Worker finishes road- Heads to BG tile 1 NE of Carthage

IBT:
-Borders expand
-Carthage: Warrior->Warrior

Turn 11(3500 BC):
-Carthage Warrior fortifies
-Worker builds road

IBT:
zzz

Turn 12(3450 BC):
zzz

IBT:
zzz

Turn 13(3400 BC):
-Worker finishes road, heads to start road to future city #2.

IBT:
zzz

Turn 14(3350 BC):
-Worker starts road

IBT:
-Pottery finishes, start BW

Turn 15(3300 BC):
zzz

IBT:
-Carthage: Warrior->Settler

Turn 16(3250 BC):


IBT:
zzz

Turn 17(3200 BC):
-One of our exploring Warriors strikes gems and pops CB from a goody hut

And the rest of the set was . Mostly just the Worker building road and the Warrior exploring. Here's the World looks like right now (the #2 is my intended city #2):

And a Save

 

[Bucephalus]

This spoiler is for Bucephalus' eyes only.

Spoiler :

I like your turnset. Very solid. I would have done much of the same thing. Worked the commerce tiles (fast pace for space!), chopped (any loss of shields?)and pre-built for a gran...absolutely beautiful. The only thing I may have considered differently is getting the wheat up and running. I would've probably moved the warrior in a straighline NW since another warrior would likely be built before a settler. Nice turnset!
Maybe add your gold and gpt so others can see.

Perhaps I was unclear with my description but I had roaded & irrigated the wheat by turn 20; I planned to work it with the new citizen, due in two. The warrior thing, I never play with barbs so I'm unsure of what threat they pose; didn't want to leave Carthage undefended.
Thanks for your encouraging comments.

 

[goodsmell]

Here's my turnset , I post it without a Spoiler because i don't know how , lol .

Turn 1 4000BC -
Looks good , everybody found Carthage on the spot , I guess I'll have other try.
Send settler South to the Coast , and the worker already Mines it's place .

Turn 2 3950BC -
Found Carthage. starts warrior , Science raise to 80% , researching Writing since we already have tradeable expensive technologies , and writing expensive too . we'll can trade'em for other technologies , I'm sure we'll can have Pottery + other tech and maybe + gold for those .
I'm going on risk to meet someone to trade with him. We're going for Space are'nt we?
btw..I've Cattle out of my borders, but it'll inside after cultural expand

Turn 3 3900BC - nothing , but my plans to send the worker to the cattle.

Turn 4 3850BC - Mine is ready , worker start road .

Turn 5 3800BC - nothing

Turn 6 3750BC - road complete , worker moves 1NW to do the same .

Turn 7 3700BC - Warrior is ready , i send him to explore east . Carthage starts Warrior .I down the Science to 50%, and the researching turns has no change , we've now +2gpt.
Worker start build mine .

Turn 8 3650BC - nothing

Turn 9 3600BC - nothing

Turn 10 3550BC - the Warrior explores and see Cattle on plains , river over hills and a Forest Game . worker start road the mined tile .

Turn 11 3500BC - nothing

Turn 12 3450BC - Carthage Warrior . I'm going for Settler ( 10 turns ) .We've Cultural expanding, and we can now work the Cattle.
Warrior send exploring the north. I raise the lux to 10%

Turn 13 3400BC - the east exploring warrior can see Wine between hills, it's not so far from the Cattle and the coast ( can be a good settle spot )

Turn 14 3550BC - two Furs founded north. worker mines the cattle tile.

Turn 15 3300BC - zzz

Turn 16 3250BC - zzz

Turn 17 3200BC - the worker roads the tile

Turn 18 3150BC - nothing

Turn 19 3100BC - worker go 1NE to mine and road , near river ..

Turn 20 3050BC - I can see with the warrior more Furs east ( but it's too far )
Settler is now finished . and Carthage goes for Worker .

Okay finished .

Maybe not the best choice , with the writing . but who knows

 

[Whomp]

Spoiler for Kill Fire and those that have finished their set.

Spoiler :

You did a nice job exploring and popping CB! My greatest concern about the turnset was you built roads but didn't develop any tiles. The capital needs shields since it will be our most powerful city at the outset. By not developing the tiles after they were roaded slows down all builds. You'll notice that you got a warrior out in 5 and the 2nd in 5 more. If the bonus grasslands had been mined and the wheat irrigated we could've finished more stuff in shorter times with more citizens. We really don't need a road to our 2nd city since the settler will get there.

Spoiler for goodsmell and those that have finished their set.

Spoiler :

I like your idea on researching writing. Good thinking for a space shot. The AI tends to finish all the first line techs before starting on the 2nd line techs. This makes writing very tradeable.

Turn 7 for warrior. Were you working the wheat? The wheat will allow the city to grow faster at the expense of production and commerce. The two bonus grasslands along the river are very powerful since they will be highly productive and high commerce sites. Your worker will not be able to finish in 3 turns since the city won't grow from size 1 for 5 turns. This is where irrigating the wheat would help a lot.

 

[Alex Johnson]

General comments:

On moving to the coast...

Spoiler :

A mistake. You have removed yourself from the viscinity of the river. That means you are capped at 6 population and need to build an aqueduct. Yes, you got access to the ocean, but many of your cities will probably have that. And you got access to a cow, but you don't need that with wheat and floodplains. You could build a second city next to the cow and the river AND the coast later.

On irrigating wheat...

Spoiler :

Irrigating grassland as a despot gives you nothing. See my math before. But irrigating wheat does. Normal wheat is what, 4 food, irrigated to 5 food? Despot penalty is -1, so those numbers are 3 food and 4 food. Irrigating still helps. The things you don't get a bonus from is irrigated grassland and mined hills (as a despot they are no better than forests).

On exploring...

Spoiler :

I see some of you exploring evenly and other lopsided. I'd make it a priority to get someone on that first mountain so I can see further. Standing on mountains gives you greater distance of vision. Then you start exploring. You'd find out that to the northeast there is a sizable jungle. I wouldn't spend much time exploring that since it won't be productive to build roads or cities that way. Once you learn the jungle is large, focus on the flat lands you will be expanding in.

On worker turns...

Spoiler :

We want our settler factory..er..capital to reach a population of 4 before it pops out a settler. So we should have our worker improve 4 squares inside the border of Carthage. I'd definitely irrigate the wheat and mine the bonus grass. I might also irrigate the floodplain (2 food sources makes an even faster settler factory).

On settlement choices...

Spoiler :

I see killfire is thinking ahead. And he's selected a good spot, but too distant for a second city. For my 2nd city I'd found east of the cow between the river and the coast. This will be my military unit factory (remember we need a settler factory and a military factory. That forest will provide plenty of shields while the irrigated cow will give a little more food so I can grow. 3rd city might be on the north side of the river near floodplains, mountain and furs (think about obtaining luxuries as unhappiness will suck early in the game). 4th city would be right where killfire suggested. It's got a cow, a river, wines, and is defensible (on a hill). One thing I'll note is that I see a choke point. One thing I want to do is to claim all the land from coast to coast. This way I can more easily hold off AI settlers trying to get between or around my cities. Later I'd find out what jclast already knows, that it is a peninsula. Knowing that helps me later since I know that unless the AI is using galleys, I have sole access to that land which I can settle at my convenience as slowly as I feel like.

Whomp, what do you think? Am I making the right kind of comments? I'm trying to keep them hidden in case someone hasn't played his 20 turns yet. So why would you build a grainary in Carthage? I probably wouldn't. That is because with floodplains and wheat both irrigated, we're going to be growing almost too fast and those mined BGs might not keep up if we also had a granary. Plus building the granary slows down the first settler. What is your thinking on this?

 

[goodsmell]

Whomp you're absolutely right about the irrigation , Should Irrigate wheat first , missed that. maybe that's why worker won't be complete after 3 turns because the city grows only after 5 turns. Alex Johnson maybe you right about the Coast , but I don't know I see it's good to settle Coast. well everybody played or not ? Will you choose the SAVE we'll play the next ?
ohh I see choxorn did'nt play , so what you're waiting for ? go ahead .
and I think Johnson right about the Granary , we can advance our expanding early.

If continue my SAVE you can just change the production , someone said do not build Barracks before meeting someone in your continent , maybe you right but why should'nt we build it now , that we can release veteran units later . but also an option to irrigate asap the wheat and take care about our expanding .

btw , can someone please take my SAVE and check if it works ? I afraid I've reinstall again , and if I need , I'll do it now or as soon as you check it

 

[Whomp]

Let's be patient good smell and let Choxorn and Cody (anyone I missed?) have their 48 hours. We're in no rush. This is a training game.

Alex my comments...for lurkers and players who've played their 20.

Spoiler :

I agree moving off a river makes no sense. Your suggestions are solid. Dotmapping will be the next lesson for city placement. Generally, a cxxc placement will have many benefits and we will discuss this once all the saves are in and we've chosen one of them. There will be cases where cxxxc makes more sense so 'ducts are not necessary, to capture a resource or lux.

However, I would disagree on building the granary. I'd prefer to have the city go from pop 4 to 6 every 4 turns with a settler factory rather than at pop 4 to 2 or 5 to 3. Unless there's a shield intensive/high food site going from 5 to 3 can be a bit more difficult to get 4 turn settlers out.
Here's the math..
At pop 4 the city needs 5fpt and 6 shields to make this work. It would have12s in the bin when it grows to pop 5 and we get 2 added on when the citizen is added on the IT for a total of 14s.
At pop 5 the player needs to move the citizen off the forest to a bg (mined or not) for 2 more turns generating 14s again. On growth to 6 the citizen again moves to the forest and the settler pops with exactly 30 shields and the process starts again from pop 4 to 6.

It will be interesting whose start the team chooses but we still have a few players to go.

An aside...something everyone should do is have the governor "emphasize production in all cities" because this means the highest shield tile will get the new citizen on the IT. After growth the new citizen needs to be moved back to a food or commerce tile.

 

[jclast]

Granted, I'm pretty green, but the reason you don't build a barracks yet is because since we have nobody to fight, it's just lost money to pay the upkeep on the barracks. After all, if we need one really badly down the line we could always rush it.

 

[Whomp]

Very good jclast. Watch those nickels and dimes. We are in the expansion phase of this game (aka farmers gambit) and what use would the capital have with a barracks (rax) if our settler factory is in the capital? It's more likely a 2nd or 3rd city will provide our raxed units.

Start thinking about locations for these specialized cities (IE dotmaps).

Where is the settler facory? Where is the worker pump (a must have)? What city has military written all over it? Where is the high commerce/science city and why?
Where are these cities going to be placed to accomplish this and why?

As a sidenote, you will see smoke coming out of my nose, ears and eyes if I see any regular (vs. vet) unit produced other than a warrior or occasional archer.

 

[goodsmell]

Guys I'm sorry maybe that's stupid to ask question like this , but that's for my settlement along the Coast.

We're playing as Carthage ,we're Industrious & Seafaring , Seafring giving us a commerce bonus when we're building a city near the Coast and Harbor will be much easier to build and ships unless likely to sink at middle of the ocean or the sea .

Doesn't it help ? Does'nt it usefull ?

 

[Bucephalus]

Guys I'm sorry maybe that's stupid to ask question like this , but that's for my settlement along the Coast.

We're playing as Carthage ,we're Industrious & Seafaring , Seafring giving us a commerce bonus when we're building a city near the Coast and Harbor will be much easier to build and ships unless likely to sink at middle of the ocean or the sea .

Doesn't it help ? Does'nt it usefull ?

In PTW Carthage is Commercial & Industrious

 

[Alex Johnson]

This is one of those annoying, confusing things about expansion packs and changing the rules of the game that I hate. In PTW they added Carthage. In C3C they changed Carthage. To play this game you'll have to be playing PTW version.

 

[choxorn]

@goodsmell: Here's how you do spoilers: type

Spoiler :

[ /spoiler] omitting the space.
@scout: You're playing?
Oh, and I'm spoilering this for cody. He shouldn't though, since everybody but him has played now.

Spoiler :

Turn 1(4000 BC):
-I like this start, and build Carthage on the spot. Set it to build Warrior.
-Send worker to improve BG tile 1NW of Carthage which is being worked by citizen.

IBT:
Start research on BW at 80%

Turn 2(3950 BC):
-worker builds road

IBT:
zzz

Turn 3(3900 BC):
zzz

IBT:
zzz

Turn 4(3850 BC):
-Send worker to wheat tile 1SW of Carthage

IBT:
zzz

Turn 5(3800 BC):
-worker roads

IBT:
Carthage: Warrior->Warrior

Turn 6(3750 BC):
-Warrior finds two furs

IBT:
zzz

Turn 7(3700 BC):
-Worker finishes road- prepare to road towards furs where I intend to build second city

IBT:
zzz

Turn 8(3650 BC):
-Worker clears forest

IBT:
zzz

Turn 9(3600 BC):
zzz

IBT:
zzz

Turn 10(3550 BC):


IBT:
Carthage: Warrior->Warrior

Turn 11(3500 BC):
-New Warrior sets out to explore SW

IBT:
zzz

Turn 12(3450 BC):
-Warrior in North disturbs angry Thracian Warrior- make that 3 Thracians

IBT:
-Thracians attack warrior: He kills them both, loses one HP, and promotes to veteran 3/4. (2-0)
-Carthage: Warrior->Warrior (I don't know why it was two turns instead of 5, either)

Turn 13(3400 BC):
-New Warrior explores west
-Worker finishes clearing forest- build road
-Warrior attacks third Thracian, redlines, but wins.

IBT:
zz

Turn 14(3350 BC):
-redlined Warrior fortifies

IBT:
zzz

Turn 15(3300 BC):


IBT:
zzz

Turn 16(3250 BC):
-Worker now on furs clears forest

IBT:
zzz

Turn 17(3200 BC):
zzz

IBT:
Carthage: Warrrior->Settler

Turn 18(3150 BC):
-Carthage Warrior fortifies

IBT:
-I discover BW: research set to Pottery

And nothing else interesting happened the rest of the set.

Here's what my workd looks like:

Note: My intended second city spot is the square 1NW of where the worker is now. Guess I forgot to put it there.

And Here's a save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Hannibal_of_the_Carthaginians,_3000_BC.SAV

 

[goodsmell]

1NW of the worker , is'nt it BG ?I never settle on BG's I settle near them .
Why did you start with BW ? better was early researching pottery , before the military tech.

You did'nt work your 1st city Tiles , and you already working on the 2nd . The settler will be ready in 7turns untill those 7turns you could mine at least the BG near the river .

you chose a nice spot to settle , but I can't avoid the spot near the Wine Cattle and River and Coast

 

[Abegweit]

Some comments. Not on people's games but on initial strategy.

Exploration:

As far as possible explore along cardinal lines: north, south, east or west. A move in these directions reveals more new tiles than a diagonally move. When you reach a shoreline, generally keep close enough to the coast to know where it is, but not right on it. There will be nothing of interest in the water for a long long time.

When exploring large land areas, move in a swastika fashion. One explorer goes out along one cardinal and then turns ninety degrees and continues. The next starts ninety degrees away and turns in the same direction. This optimises explorer moves.

Don't be afraid to leave cities empty. The AI rarely attacks until the land is filled up or if you settle right nextto it.

Techs:

There are only three possible setting for the slider: no research, 1 beaker research and as much as you can afford. This means that at the beginning, it should always be set at 10-20% (whatever gives 1 beaker for a 40 turn gambit) or 100%.

Plan on trading for techs. As such, never choose Bronze Working or Warrior Code as your initial research. The AI loves to research these. Get something else and trade. trade. trade.

The right initial choice depends on the situation. When you need a settler factory, as here, pottery is usually the best.

Any second-level tech you have access to immediately is another good choice. You have the jump on the AI towards that tech and will likely get it first so you can trade it around.

The final possibility is to gear up for the future. This means that you research Alphabet followed by either Writing or Math. The former is good because it opens up a bunch of third-level techs and enables contact-trading, the latter because the AI doesn't like it much. Maximum research on Alphabet followed by minimum on one of these may be a good tactic, especially it you want to save up money for an early war.

Later in this era, do not research MapMaking (unless you are alone, in which case it is top priority) or Construction. Good choices are Polytheism Literature, and especially Currency.

Carthage starts with both Alphabet and Masonry, the only civ that does, so a 40-turn gambit on Math is quite attractive even after researching Pottery. Personally I prefer max research even so, unless I am planning on an early war. This doesn't appear to be in the cards in this game.

 

[Whomp]

xposted with abegweit.

@scout: You're playing?

No Scout is not playing however in a training game it is very useful to have a player of Scout's caliber shadow the opening moves he chose versus what the "cool cats" did. I recommend reading it again because IIRC Scout had a couple warriors, a gran and 2 workers within his 20.

OK it doesn't look like Cody will be able to play within the 48 hour limit.

Let's talk about what you like and don't like about each others first 20. I have my thoughts but this is your game so I would like to see what you all think.

Once we decide on whose save to play then we will get this thing rolling. A dotmap for city placement will be necessary once we choose the save.

A few things I think need some improvement right off the bat. Worker tasks were very scattered. We will need work on this. Many of you decided not to develop the capital and instead build roads to places no citizens could work the fields. The fastest way to get commerce and shields improved was to develop the two BG's that are on the river. Very powerful early game impact. The other decision was the wheat. Irrigating the wheat immediately gives power of growth. My guess is some of you left a new citizen on a forest tile when the city grew. Remember in this game "growth is power". It take 10 turns to grow on a BG tile and 20 on a forest tile.

Research choices were mixed. I don't see a lot of benefit to researching BW since the AI loves to research it. There was much you could've learned about who the other civs are in the game and made a good decision that way. No one told us who the other civs are in the game.

Does anyone know how to find this out?

Exploration was good for the most part. I prefer to head on an angle either SW/SE/NW/NE using hills and mountains to find the other civs based on where I'm at on the minimap. A second warrior can either head the other direction and/or scout out new city sites.
For Choxorn...

Spoiler :

Turn 7(3700 BC):
-Worker finishes road- prepare to road towards furs where I intend to build second city

Choxorn you built a lot of roads but no developments and started developing for a 2nd city when we don't have a 2nd city. The capital is the only place where science can be improved so roading and developing the BGs makes sense as well as getting that wheat irrigated. The faster we grow the more cities and more science we create. You chopped for 10 shields. Where did they go? Overrun for the warrior? Better to have chops go for expensive items rather than cheap ones. On top of that we have unit support with only warriors being built. I tend to go for techs the AI won't research. BW they will research.

 

[goodsmell]

Yes they'll early research tthe BW and also the Iron working .
So we can go for writing / math ..or just run to the 3rd techs and go for a slingshot.
But as Whomp said for researching it before the AI will , we've to use every opportunity to grow up and hurry our researching , since it's not an Emperor level or above we can research by ourself and not Gambit no Regent ! ( I think it's stupid )
we can do Settler factory it'll be very very usefull for our expansion so we need a dotmap as Whomp said , let's rock.

We can't know if the AI will research the Polytheism or not , I saw AI not researching it and some researching it . I guess everybody played their 20turns , what now great Whomp?