COTM 15 Pre-game Discussion

[solenoozerec]

Oh, and I placed Bombay E, SE. Place it E and you have to call it St. Paul.

I am not sure that I understand advantage of E SE over E. IMHO even on E both cities will have enough tiles to work with.

 

[DaveMcW]

I was thinking about a 1 city conquest victory and was wondering how feasible you all thought it would be. If it would be extremly difficult what about a 2 city conquest. This would enable to the use of both cows.

2CC monarch conquest is challenging and fun. 1CC is theoretically possible but if you make one mistake you die.

The general strategy is research at 100% to stay even in tech, and build lots of military units.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I wouldn't want to play any variant that DaveMcW considered "challenging and fun"

 

[Più Freddo]

You want to irrigate at least one of the BGs for republic to work it together with the gold hill and still have a 4-turn cycle. Mining the BG before may not pay off.

Very good point. With Republic by 1700 BC did you plan to research Pottery first, or would you go straight for Writing etc.?

 

[Più Freddo]

I am not sure that I understand advantage of E SE over E. IMHO even on E both cities will have enough tiles to work with.

Bigger territory? We have a rather large pangaea to cover.

 

[Symphony D.]

Barbarians: Quietly roaming and very discreet.

I wonder if Barbarians aren't invisible...

 

[klarius]

Very good point. With Republic by 1700 BC did you plan to research Pottery first, or would you go straight for Writing etc.?

Straight for writing. With a second cow position available it's no loss to build a settler before granary.
My build order will be 2-3 warriors then settler. Should be enough time to trade for pottery.

 

[Karasu]

Well, this Pangaea is not really *that* large... I thought that an August map should not necessarily force too long a game.

Invisible barbarians? Now that's an interesting suggestion

 

[eldar]

Hmm. My test game has 4 expansionist Civs in it, and I'd still self-researched Pottery before I met anyone.

If we do have local "flavour" - and I'm guessing Arabs, Mongols, Russia, China, Korea, Persia, maybe a far-flung England even - those scouts can push the very early tech pace way up.

 

[solenoozerec]

Bigger territory? We have a rather large pangaea to cover.

Compared to E, E SE gives two additional tiles of the territory, but one turn later. I have no idea how much difference it will give in score, but I think that I would prefer having a second productive city one turn earlier anyway.

This is a standard pangaea with average 70% of water. Besides, predator conditions give additional settlers to AI, so I hope that building will be done mostly by AI. IMHO, on this map, earlier production, population growth and research are more important than earlier territory expansion.

Combined Piu Feredo and Klarius tactics sounds perfect for me.

Research: On maximum towards Republic (directly, hoping that I will trade pottery) and then towards chivalry.

Production: settler, than a worker or two. After that I probably will start pre-build for a granary. I will keep military at a minimum.

Diplomacy: I will try to avoid early conflicts (unless with a distant civ) before chivalry unless I have to fight for horses or iron.

 

[Redbad]

@ solen

I think you want to build a warrior or two also, for contacting other civ's. You still have to trade for pots.

And in your plan iron isn't that important. Moreover when you plan to play predator you can do without the horse also.

 

[solenoozerec]

@ solen

I think you want to build a warrior or two also, for contacting other civ's. You still have to trade for pots.

That is what I call minimal. I also may hope for AI coming to me, but most likely I will need to build one or two warriors, though maybe in a second city.

And in your plan iron isn't that important. Moreover when you plan to play predator you can do without the horse also.

O my, what an awsome UU! I did not know that, you are right I do not need any resources

 

[Caesar of Rome]

I will be hoping to expand until the war elephants are invented. If crusaders can build forts, jaguar warriors can enslave, how about elephants clearing jungles?

 

[Redbad]

Yes you’ve guessed it, it’s 20k time again!

I'm planning to give you some competion on this one. It seems to me that I've tried for ages to get a 20K award. So I just continu and hope I'm lucky this time.

The big decision is whether I should have the 20K city as the capital this time around. Something to think about anyway.

On monarch I can do without a palace-prebuild so I prefer the non-corruption of the capitol.

Anyway I am glad I'm not going to have to be building ships again, I really really really really hate ships

Let's hope Karasu is not inspired by the Japanese GOTM and has put us on a small island surrounded by a 7-civ-pangea


Edit:
And for 20K sake: hope Karasu hasn't forgotten to place the Indian elephant

 

[Cuivienen]

Civs will probably be:

Persia
China
Japan, renamed Tibet
Ottomans
Arabs
?, renamed Aryans
AND...
England, with an idyllic continent all to themselves. As soon as someone discovers Navigation and the English, the English shoot into the lead and become impossible to overcome.

 

[Redbad]

Regarding the decision of settling west or east

On asumption that:
1. my poor fog gazing skills are good enough
2. DaveMcW remark about a river west of the west-cow is correct

Both east and west have in their 20 workable tiles:
1 cow, 1 gold, 2 hills , 2 mountains and 3 bonusgrass

differences:
....... ....... west east
grass ............ 2 3
grass unknown 4 2
jungle ........... 7 8

riverbanktiles 10 12

In favour of west are the 2 more unknown grass tiles:
compared to normal grass it could be bonus and compared to jungle it doesn't require cutting.

In favour of east are the 2 times extra commerce of the riverbanks.

Personally I'm slightly in favour of west.

 

[Xerol]

The extra riverside tiles aren't all that useful with the first city, because 1) you'll be keeping your size under 6 while building settlers, and 2) you won't see size 12 until the late AA most likely. West also has one less jungle to clear, and more grasslands = more BGs most likely.

 

[Sabre]

Given that neither site will use more than 6 tiles for a long time I don't think it's really that important to worry about any tiles other than them except when discussing a possible 20k site. I'm betting that each site will end up being nearly identical anyway. More important to me is placing the capital closest to the center of the best land as possible. With the second river in the west (you can just barely see a bend in the river west of that cow) I'm inclined to chose the site 1 tile west to allow for close cities on both rivers.

I'm not sure what victory goal to pursue but in the early going it doesn't matter for me. Getting to the Republic and then Chivalry ASAP and then crushing my neighbors (at the minimum) like the little mice that they are is the opening plan.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Interesting start. Think I'll try predator this time.

 

[WetSawdustDemon]

@Redbad: Last month Kunningas got a great finish date using his capital as the 20K city, and that was on Emperor, so although it’s harder to do, it likely works out as giving a better finish date. My aim is to leave the AI far enough behind in technology that I can stop the wonder cascade.

Hopefully once we reach Chivalry I’ll have everything set up so I can build a sizeable army to go and generate some great leaders. A lot depends on how close our neighbours are, as my early expansion will be really really slow.

I really can’t decide which way is better. Tell you what Redbad, once you’ve decided which way you’re going to move the settler, let me know and I’ll move mine the other way, that way we’ll be able to compare how the different positions really stack up against each other.