COTM 04 Pre-Game Discussion

[solenoozerec]

I will have trouble with this, choosing between lots of settlers or throw in the odd JT at the same cost. But I suppose they are needed in a game like this.

I do not know if it will work. Would it be reasonable to hunt for slaves, join city and make settlers out of them?

 

[gozpel]

of course I need to road first, I hate wasting even one turn. But I should've said so

 

[gozpel]

I do not know if it will work. Would it be reasonable to hunt for slaves, join city and make settlers out of them?

A very good point. Usually I like free workers even if they are slower, bvut in the long run with enough enslaved workers I would throw in a few in cities to get more settlers. I will try to remember that when I start to play

Aiming for at least 15 cities by 1000bc, everything over that is a bonus

 

[Xevious]

I've changed my mind about one detail

Assuming the worker move west doesn't reveal a river closer to the wheat, my worker will road the wheat first, then move NE to the BG, road and then irrigate, then move back to the wheat and irrigate. This sequence gets the wheat irrigated one turn after borders expand. The food shortfall from that can be covered by using the forest for one turn less. This sequence trades one shield for the worker being one turn faster. The lost shield can quickly be gained back by having the worker mine the roaded BG after irrigating the wheat, and from then on he remains one turn ahead of the other sequence, a clear improvement.

Assuming the river won't wrap all the way around, maybe it would be better to just move the worker right to the BG initially. This uncovers less tiles, but does show the ones to the NW that we're concerned about. It would not only eliminate that extra turn, but give you one more.

Regardless, I don't like the idea of irrigating a tile that I plan to mine. This is why I plan to move the settler N first. If it looks unlikely for the river to turn SW, I will start the worker in place.

 

[Cuivienen]

The base level of barbs is 'restless'.

Of course we get Restless barbs when Raging would have been most useful!

 

[predesad]

Of course we get Restless barbs when Raging would have been most useful!

& we get cool & wet when hot & dry would have matched our traits

I am paranoid about this "good" start, i think one of two things are going to happen.

-Either it really is a good start and there are other bonus resources nearby, the river runs for several tiles, luxuries are near as well as reources

-or, more likely, what we see is about all we get and the river stops abruptly and we must deal with an abscence of resources (bonus / luxury / strategic)

 

[SirPleb]

Assuming the river won't wrap all the way around, maybe it would be better to just move the worker right to the BG initially. This uncovers less tiles, but does show the ones to the NW that we're concerned about. It would not only eliminate that extra turn, but give you one more.

I think it ends up being the same number of turns - either way can get the wheat irrigated, the BG mined (replacing initial irrigation), and both tiles roaded as of 3200BC. I think that the only difference is one shield less for the capital due to being able to use the forest for one less turn if starting by moving the worker to the wheat.

 

[Denniz]

As I said at the start, this game is on a large map. Can't remember the exact settings, but I think its 5 billion years old, cool and wet.
...
The level is Monarch, so that with a good starting location ( ) should mean that the Conquest-class players can do all-right.

The base level of barbs is 'restless'.

uh, oh. I see jungles. Lots and lots of jungles. Maya are Agricultural & Industrious, I think we are going to need the industrious triat. I wish they were mod'ed like in the Conquest scenario to get two food from jungle.

Does the Industious trait apply to slaves?

 

[chunkymonkey]

Does the Industious trait apply to slaves?

I think a slave works at half the speed of a non-industrious worker, and industrious workers work 50% faster than non-industrious workers. So regular slaves, including barbarians, should be a third as fast. Not a worry though, I've played some trial games with different barbarian levels, and I can amass plently of barbarian slaves by the end of the Ancient Age if I put my mind to it.

Does anyone know what happens if you do add a barbarian slave to a town? Which culture do they have, and do they get moody during wartime?

 

[Roland Ehnström]

As I said at the start, this game is on a large map. Can't remember the exact settings, but I think its 5 billion years old, cool and wet.

Pangaea or Continents?

-- Roland

 

[eldar]

We've had continents twice and archipelagos once. My money is squarely on pangaea.

Neil.

 

[klarius]

I made up my mind (w/o even throwing a coin).
I will settle NE, the position is already nearly perfect, no need for any risks. We even have 2 forests so 1 can be cut (mind you, in only 3 turns).
The worker will do a road on the starting tile, because this road is anyways needed later no matter which tile is irrigated.
If there is anything interesting on the other side of the river the second build in the capitol will be a worker to minimize river crossings. Because we need to work only one food bonus, growth is not affected by going down to size 1. The few shields lost will be easy to get back by more improved tiles and a cut forest.
The BG will probably get irrigated and if more BGs are available it may even stay so all the way to republic (which hopefully will come quite early).
An irrigated plain grass will probably never be needed at this position, so there's no waste even if the BG needs to be mined after irrigation.
The exact sequence can be worked out only after the capital is settled, but I'm positive that the settler pump can start pumping very early.

 

[chunkymonkey]

@Klarius

If you do settle NE and road with the worker where he is, why not irrigate this plain grass, to allow wheat irrigation? This way, you do not have to irrigate the BG and then mine it. Both the same number of worker turns, and the result is still the same (you end up with a mined BG and irrigated wheat) but you end up with an extra irrigation square for later...

 

[klarius]

@Klarius

If you do settle NE and road with the worker where he is, why not irrigate this plain grass, to allow wheat irrigation? This way, you do not have to irrigate the BG and then mine it. Both the same number of worker turns, and the result is still the same (you end up with a mined BG and irrigated wheat) but you end up with an extra irrigation square for later...

As I said that's to be decided after the capitol is settled. If there are more BGs, especially on the river, we may not even need this BG mined. And really the plain grass needs no irrigation. This city will be so food rich in republic that it will not work irrigated plain grass.

For the AA we need only enough good tiles to work the settler pump, worst case we have only what we see. But another BG over the river would already allow the irrigated BG to stay irrigated.

I would even not try to make a combo pump out of the capital even if it should be possible. The rapid growth of an agricultural civ and the fast path to republic in conquests makes this effort much less attractive IMO.

But again, I will only decide after the city is settled, so I may also go the course to irrigate the starting position, but then there is a good chance that this tile gets mined later in a golden age.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Thanks for the explanation. Seems very sensible to me.

I keep forgetting we're agricultural!

 

[Peglegasus]

I'm fairly certain that barbarian workers cannot be added to towns, though I haven't tried it to see for sure.

 

[grs]

You can join them - they are just like any other slave worker.

 

[Caldazar]

Why isn't there anyone willing to mine the wheat? With the agricultural trait we have +2 in growth anyway.
If there are no luxuries close by, maybe the extra growth isn't worth it. Just trying to wake a discussion

 

[grs]

You can't discuss a possible 4-turn settler factory on 95% of the maps. The game sadly is very flat in this perspective - if you can get one you have to take it. You can have a look at COTM2 where even wandering 6-8 turns to get it, was worth it. You could mine the wheat, if you get a second food bonus.

 

[predesad]

You can't discuss a possible 4-turn settler factory on 95% of the maps. The game sadly is very flat in this perspective - if you can get one you have to take it. You can have a look at COTM2 where even wandering 6-8 turns to get it, was worth it. You could mine the wheat, if you get a second food bonus.

i agree, you HAVE to irrigate the wheat unless there is another wheat or a cow nearby. the 4 turn settler factory on a large world w/ the industrious trait should have us a very large empire by the time the REX phase is over.

Why isn't there anyone willing to mine the wheat? With the agricultural trait we have +2 in growth anyway.
If there are no luxuries close by, maybe the extra growth isn't worth it. Just trying to wake a discussion

this makes a 4 turn settler factory into a 6 turn settler factory, the difference is that in 12 turns you have 2 settlers built while if you had irrigated you would have produced 3, that's a whole settler's difference in just 12 turns, every 12 turns.