Coastal Starts

[civac]

Just go AH here. You have 2 AH resources.

Maybe AH, Mining, Fishing and build workboats with gold, pig, forested plains hill for 9 hammers per turn.

 

[coanda]

Starting on a 3H city tile but without any worker techs besides Wheel makes Mining-first a good option here. Imperialistic leader and awkward tech requirements makes chopping out a settler at size-2 attractive. It's okay to mine that pigs instead of pasture, especially when later on you'll be able to get food from sheep and (eventually) seafood so there won't be a priority to re-pasture the pigs for growth.

With three solid land tiles like this those aren't clams, they're red herrings. I'd lean towards Mining - BW - (AGR / Hunting, depending on scouting and potential second city) - AH.

 

[Nick723]

Nice start @Whisker

I agree with coanda - intuitively (after round1) I would go mining->BW here. i think the lessons are similar to the first start (4 food seafood are underwhelming).

Did you play out any options to compare?

 

[Tonny]

Nice start, but pretty straightforward imo.
Going mining - BW leaves no unused worker turns. Mine the pig first and then the gold. BW will be ready in time.
Worker first and next a warrior followed by SH until size 2.
At size 2 you can start a settler with the IMP bonus for 12/turn aided with chops. When the settler is out going for its spot you can switch to slavery.
Bonus is that you will have saved 18 into SH for failgold.
Working gold from turn 23 will greatly speed up your research. There's no need to grow further with so many /turn for your settler.
Save attached. Played until the middle of turn 23.

 

[pi-r8]

Just go AH here. You have 2 AH resources.

Maybe AH, Mining, Fishing and build workboats with gold, pig, forested plains hill for 9 hammers per turn.

The problem is that you can't tech AH right away, you need agriculture or hunting first. And unlike the last start, you can't go BW first either, because you also lack mining! Justinian's starting techs of mysticism/wheel are the worst possible for this starting location.

I suggest: mining first, mine the gold, and work that while you build a settler (at size one, right after the worker finishes). Then you'll have enough commerce for hunting-AH while your settler finishes, and then the capital and the new city can both grow while building work boats.

turn 31:

Spoiler :

 

[Whisker]

@Tonny If we mine gold first, while growing on sheep, we get to work gold starting t20 as soon as city reaches size 2. Less hammers on SH, but we get commerce sooner.

 

[Tonny]

@Whisker
Interesting
Played again to compare both options at t23
1. mine pig first
SH 18, settler 24, 0 overflow (looking at fishing just for comparison)
settler ready t27 with 1 chop and 2 overflow

2. mine gold first
SH 0, settler 31, 9 overflow (looking at fishing just for comparison)
settler ready t27 with 1 chop and 9 overflow

The question is what are we aiming for. A bit of fail, or a bit more and .

 

[Tonny]

@pi-r8
I also took your approach to compare at t23
mining-hunting-ah (and ready on t24)
mined gold first and pigs next. started settler immediately after finishing worker.
settler ready by t26 without chops.
added save

edit:
maybe mining pigs is not the best way to play, but it was to compare with the other options

 

[Whisker]

@pi-r8 Interesting.
Never tried size 1 settler before.
Followed your example, but went BW after mining allowing me to get 1 road and 1 chop for the settler. 2nd city settled on t26 and fishing is finished. I send my settler to exact same spot as you. I guess I will chop wb's as I have no other food available.

 

[pi-r8]

@Tonny
spoiler from playing until turn 60

Spoiler :

This is an isolated, island map with very limited land and no happiness resources at all. So the optimal play here is going to be different than normal. I'm thinking that the key is to really maximize commerce. An early religion is possible, and might be useful. Avoiding hunting so that we can make warriors after getting copper is also useful.

 

[coanda]

I suggest: mining first, mine the gold, and work that while you build a settler (at size one, right after the worker finishes).

As Justinian (IMP, SPI), there are relatively few cases where worker-settler will actually get the settler faster than worker -> grow to size 2 -> settler with a 1-pop whip to finish it if you really want that settler out fast. I'm pretty sure this is not one of them.

22 food from growing to size 2 becomes 45 hammers from the whip, which is an extremely good rate of return.

 

[pi-r8]

As Justinian (IMP, SPI), there are relatively few cases where worker-settler will actually get the settler faster than worker -> grow to size 2 -> settler with a 1-pop whip to finish it if you really want that settler out fast. I'm pretty sure this is not one of them.

22 food from growing to size 2 becomes 45 hammers from the whip, which is an extremely good rate of return.

True, but it's not all about production. The point of getting the gold mine up ASAP is for commerce, not production. If you really want the fastest possible settler, you could just open with a settler. That's also viable here, I think.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I want to keep asking about the original question from @Nick723

Minor spoilers

Spoiler :

He lost. If you look through the video, the map was difficult. Even with perfect map knowledge I do not know what to do.

Major spoilers

Spoiler :

Not much food in general.

Desert to the South, and jungle to the South. Distance is too far. Even if you settle it or take some cities there, what you get is less than the increase in maintenance cost.

Justinian to the West. Justinian builds a ton of units but is also imperialistic, so even more units. Axeman rush does not work. No horse and no iron. Even if you conquer it, the land to the West has little food and little commerce.

What do you do?

 

[sampsa]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

What do you do?

Drafted rifles? Haven't looked at the game fully yet, but it seems like even with SIP it was possible to set up a decent core. Also, are you sure there is no way to get horses or iron via trade?

 

[Lennier]

@Tonny
spoiler from playing until turn 60

Spoiler :

This is an isolated, island map with very limited land and no happiness resources at all. So the optimal play here is going to be different than normal. I'm thinking that the key is to really maximize commerce. An early religion is possible, and might be useful. Avoiding hunting so that we can make warriors after getting copper is also useful.

Spoiler :

Isn't gold a happiness resource?

 

[Tonny]

played also up to turn 60 (continued from my first play)

Spoiler :

tech: fishing-agri-ah-sailing-masonry-pottery-writing (due in 3 turns)
settled 3 more cities, 1 ne of sheep, 1 north to claim fish and 1 on the island to claim horses. Just finished another settler and that one is also going to the island for the clam/wine spot.
Capital is going for GLH. This is an excellent map for GLH! I have 3 workers to chop all those forests and a galley prepped for a 2 pop whip. I believe I can win this race. TGW and SH went slightly late.

@pi-r8

Spoiler :

This map has 3 happiness resources. Gold, wine and spices!

edit:

Spoiler major spoiler :

I hit enter and what do I see?!?! GLH built far away

 

[pi-r8]

Spoiler :

Isn't gold a happiness resource?

played also up to turn 60 (continued from my first play)

Spoiler :

tech: fishing-agri-ah-sailing-masonry-pottery-writing (due in 3 turns)
settled 3 more cities, 1 ne of sheep, 1 north to claim fish and 1 on the island to claim horses. Just finished another settler and that one is also going to the island for the clam/wine spot.
Capital is going for GLH. This is an excellent map for GLH! I have 3 workers to chop all those forests and a galley prepped for a 2 pop whip. I believe I can win this race. TGW and SH went slightly late.

@pi-r8

Spoiler :

This map has 3 happiness resources. Gold, wine and spices!

edit:

Spoiler major spoiler :

I hit enter and what do I see?!?! GLH built far away

Yes, you're both right of course.

Spoiler :

I was exaggerating, there is some happiness but it's very limited. You've got that gold to start with and then nothing else for a long time. Definitely seems like going for the Great Lighthouse and spamming small cities is the way to go here. Then grow upwards once you've got monarchy for wine and HR. I don't know what to do if you lose GLH.

 

[pi-r8]

I want to keep asking about the original question from @Nick723

Minor spoilers

Spoiler :

He lost. If you look through the video, the map was difficult. Even with perfect map knowledge I do not know what to do.

Major spoilers

Spoiler :

Not much food in general.

Desert to the South, and jungle to the South. Distance is too far. Even if you settle it or take some cities there, what you get is less than the increase in maintenance cost.

Justinian to the West. Justinian builds a ton of units but is also imperialistic, so even more units. Axeman rush does not work. No horse and no iron. Even if you conquer it, the land to the West has little food and little commerce.

What do you do?

Spoiler :

I was able to get both iron and horses by settling out very aggressively on their borders. They'll both stay pleased/friendly as long as you adopt their religion, and creative really helps here for dominating borders. Justinian even built a gold mine for me! Haven't finished it yet but it seems winnable from here. I got the music artist too.

 

[soundjata]

Not sure about this T74 quoted average

Normally (deity difficulty) GLH is "safe" before 2000BC / Mids before 1500BC or at least that's my rule of thumb...

Of course it's less of a gamble the more forests you can chop.

Edit : back in the days (@Snaaty, @GKey, ...) it was kinda demonstrated that under almost any circumstance building TGLH (and sacrificing "everything else" to rush it early) was an auto-win

 

[coanda]

Average turn is very different from "safe" turn.

I'm not sure where the T74 figure comes from (possibly some really useful thread I missed, in which case someone please pass me the link). I do remember that about a year ago I ran a handful of quick tests on standard fractal maps for wonder timings on Monarch and Deity. The big thing that stuck out to me was the wide range of turns wonders can go. Deity GLH went anywhere from turn 46 to 90 (mean of 76), Pyramids went anywhere from turn 60 to 121+ (I stopped the trial at 120, and in one of the five games Pyramids was still not built at that point).