DMOC's DEITY Game #3 - Willem van Oranje

For what its worth, I'd go for A, shared floodplains with Capital, works the gold, leaves corn open for another city.

B=Too Many flood plains, in city (health)
C=off River
D=Just plain sucks.

This also leave's open the Option of settling on the hill for the Corn, Elephants, wine city. Moving further into the Eastern Wilds.

Blocking Tokugowa, Settle on the Desert Patch, accept 1 coastal tile, its only 1 TILE OUT OF 20, how soon are you going to work all 20??
 
Besides the Corn and Flood Plains, there is a sweet section of Grasslands just south of those Flood Plains.

Therefore, I think settling at site A or B would be a bit short-sighted, as it doesn't exert any control on the Grasslands south of the Flood Plains.

On the other hand, moving the Warrior into the fog to find a site south of D may be rewarding, since a city placed in that area (perhaps 1S of site D) will allow you to exert control over both the Grasslands and the Gold, while also allowing you to develop cottages in the Flood Plains between that city and the capital.
 
Well, I would settle:
1) JFlemes 2S of the southwestern Gold
2) 1SW of the northern Corn (1S of D?)
3) ...scout NW ;)
 
I've been thinking ...

since Peter is likely to gobble up the area west of me, it may be in my best interests to try and get at least one city there. That leaves cow/fish or gold/corn. Gold/corn is better at the moment so I think my first city will probably go there. As a bonus, I already have a fogbusting warrior there.

Also, I think I am going to tech Hunting -> Archery. This seems to be a pretty spacious map and I'll need all the help I can get.
 
I've been thinking ...

since Peter is likely to gobble up the area west of me, it may be in my best interests to try and get at least one city there. That leaves cow/fish or gold/corn. Gold/corn is better at the moment so I think my first city will probably go there. As a bonus, I already have a fogbusting warrior there.

Also, I think I am going to tech Hunting -> Archery. This seems to be a pretty spacious map and I'll need all the help I can get.

why not cow gold and some spices?
 
Well actually I do have to finish this game by September because that is when I am heading to college, where I'm likely going to find no time to play.

So I'm going to get it done by September 1st. Anyone want to place bets? ;)

Okay, I'm playing the next round. The aim is to have it reported by tonight.
 
Round 2: 3125 BC to 2050 BC [43 Turns] - The Gold City

This round's aim was to consolidate our land by fogbusting and to found the second Dutch city. To start off, I chose Hunting -> Archery as the research path. Some of you will criticize me for researching these "useless" technologies, but I do not want to take any risks with non-aggressive non-quechua warriors out on a large map with epic speed. And anyway, I noticed some ivory off to the east, which may justify having Hunting already researched.



One turn into the round, Peter founded his second city, Novgorod. Thank you for leaving me the gold, Peter. :goodjob:



When Amsterdam (which I would later re-name) grew to size 3, I focused on a production tile to get a warrior out ASAP. This was mainly for defensive purposes, but also because I could start a settler at size 4. I often prefer starting settlers when my capital is size 4, rather than 5, because ...

  • Capitals generally reach size 4 much sooner before size 5.
  • It is hard for a worker to improve 5 quality tiles in the capital to make it worthwhile to have a size 5 capital.
  • Many capitals do not have 5 quality tiles, such as Amsterdam right now.
  • I often do not have all technologies needed to improve the best tiles (such as now).
  • A faster second city leads to a snowball effect, and lets me landgrab a strong area sooner.
  • A size 4 capital means that I can vacate its defenders and use them as fogbusters. A size 5 capital suffers from unhappiness in that case.



Incidentally, a barbarian city popped up here. Excellent - I hope this can become a training ground for troops and a blocking city from other civilizations.



Once my worker finished his road on the rice, I moved him to road the pasture. I like how the capital is right between the two resources - it means that I can road and pasture without delay.



When the capital was nearing size 4, I emphasized production so that more hammers would go into the settler. I'm not planning on growing to size 5 soon so there is no need for me to focus on food here.



Now, here is a situation where I had to think. Notice in the screenshot that the worker could move to the desert hill, road, then move to the desert (and road without delay), and continue on to the planned second city. However, I remembered 2 things: (1) I would not be improving or going on those desert tiles anytime soon, which to some extent means the road is a waste, and (2) a road on a desert costs an extra turn compared to roads on grasslands and plains. Therefore, the worker moved to the plains forest tile 1E of the desert hill. The added benefit to this is that the worker will have to road over the spices later - which will prove very useful once I acquire Calendar. I was thinking long-term here.



I received a notice that I was a more-than-respectable 4th place in terms of land area. That would turn to 3rd place once the second city was founded.



And here is the second city. I decided on this location, and this is my rationale.

  • It blocks Peter somewhat.
  • It improves a useless desert tile underneath the city center.
  • It has excellent barbarian defense with its mountains to the south.
  • It has decent food - a corn plus several grasslands.
  • It acquires a very valuable gold resource that is locatied on a plains hill rather than a desert hill.
  • I did not have Pottery, so founding a city on the floodplains to the east meant the floodplains would go to waste for a few turns.

In hindsight, perhaps founding it 1W may have been better (floodplains, gets rid of desert), but I'm afraid what's done has been done. I was also nervous of getting too many "close borders" demerits with Peter.

When you look at the screenshot, notice that I am researching Mining. I thought ahead and figured that Mining would be useful for the gold in this city. Also, look at my worker who has already connected Gold City to my capital. :goodjob: Moreover, he has pre-roaded a grassland tile because he (or rather, me :D) knows that the city will pop borders in 8 turns, so he is planning to later build 2 roads to lead to the corn, then improve the corn immediately once it is under Dutch control.



After mining, the next tech was, predictably, Bronze Working.



Once the worker was done in the capital, I had him mine the marble. I also changed the capital to build a settler - I figured that I had enough military for now.



Near the end of the round, I met another leader - Sitting Bull.

Spoiler :

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!


I have to feel sorry for this guy. He's hated by Peter, Boudica, Tokugawa and whoever else has a low base peaceweight. :lol: I hope he is bordering Peter so that he is Peter's first target, rather than me.



At the conclusion of the round, I am one turn away from my second manually produced settler. I am behind in expansion, but that will hopefully narrow the gap. I have made a preliminary dotmap. Assuming I do not have copper, I think city 2 (corn and floodplains) is the safest pick at the moment. Unless a gamble to the south is in the midst ....

 

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That desert hill 2S from the corn seems a bit suspicious. When do you plan on grabbing the fish/cow site to the W?
 
Great round DMOC, I especially liked the discussion on what size to start your first settler, always a conundrum for me. I also think that you settled your second city in just the right spot :goodjob:.

There's definately some more scouting which needs to be done, there is land to your north (see Peter's workboat) but interestingly it seems that rather than being a new landmass, your continent in the east seems to swing around to the north above you creating a big inlet type thingy of sorts. I don't think I've ever seen something like that on a map and its proximity to your capital could give you some interesting opportunities (i.e settling behind your enemy but close enough to your cap to not be isolated to the rest of your civ).

Anyway good luck, with this mix of leaders a win definately seems on the cards, I always think that once Bull is on the map it makes things just that much easier (He's like a lightning rod... with a penchant for poisoning wells).
 
bobbyboy29 - in hindsight, I should have settled the second city (Gold City) 1W so that it would give up some deserts and gain a floodplain.

However, at that time, I did not know Sitting Bull, and I was nervous about getting close border demerits with Peter. In that case, safety came over quality. However, it is unlikely that Peter will target me if Sitting Bull is near him.

Another thing - I assume because this is a large map that national wonders will take 7 building prerequisites, adding on to the difficulty level.

dirtyparrot - the fish and cow city is a low priority as I only count 2 good tiles, other than the hills. I may settle that as my 4th city, but it is unlikely to be my 3rd city.
 
Good Job (I think!! - struggling emp cannot really comment on deity play). You certainly have a gift for writing up these games, the right amount of explanation of the critical moves.

Next city is definitely in region of (2), though you may consider 1S as the corn/wine/gold looks like another city to me.

Overall this looks to a tough map, close borders on 2 sides already.
 
If possible (say, no barb city spawn), spot four should be your next objective. Nets you valuable resources in Rice and Ivory and gives you stuff to trade with. Combined with the barb cities it also forms a wall to the east.

With that in mind, once it's settled and a city between 4. and Utrecht (Gold City for you) is founded, you should take those barb cities if Copper is present. Then, it's just backfill and play diplo until the time is right.
 
Round 3: 2050 to 775 BC [52Turns] - Six Cities

This round's goal was to expand to six cities and try to research Aesthetics. I accomplished one of them, the six cities part.

Note: The images are in spoiler tags to reduce bandwidth.

When the round started, I made it an aim to put all my espionage points on Peter, so that I could see his research. I eventually had enough points to see that he was researching Alphabet, but then he put 4 points on me per turn, and I had to put the points elsewhere.

Spoiler :


:eek: That's an awfully early Great Lighthouse build date!

Spoiler :


The game went on, though. I founded my third city here, by the floodplains. I chose this site because:

  • The corn resource is an easily improved food resource in its first ring.
  • The city is riverside, which means that I can build a dike later.
  • The floodplains will be useful for cottaging.
  • The city is close to the capital, reducing maintenance costs.
  • When the borders expand, I can road to the edge and be right next to the barbarian city (for a possible attack).
  • The other options were not appealing.
    • The fish and cow city to the west has too many plains and only two food tiles, with the plains cow being a "questionable" food resource at that.
    • The ivory, cow, rice, spice, and incense city to the east was farther away, wouldn't be connected via trade route, and is not easily defensible.
    • The gold city east of Home is too weak to be settled early.
  • As mentioned before, this city is immediately connected to my capital.

Spoiler :


Ahhh, so Bismarck (Expansive/Industrious) is boxed in by that barbarian city. He would later found a city whose borders would touch the barbarian city. As you can see, I have parked my archer there in order to see if the city can be captured.

Spoiler :


I finally finished Bronze Working, and elected to research Pottery next for cottages. Was there copper? Yes!

Spoiler :


I had planned on switching to the Slavery civic after the next settler was done in the capital, since it's usually best to wait until finishing settlers and workers before converting to anarchy-laden civics. However, the archer that just came forced me to change civics - if he defeated my warrior, I would need to whip Gold City for an archer. Fortunately, my Combat I warrior in the forest defeated the barbarian archer, who did not even bother to pillage the corn.

Spoiler :


I dispatched a worker to improve and connect the copper. Notice how I am building workers in both Home and Floodplain City. I believe I would have 5 workers very early, which are important for cottaging as cottaging takes longer than farming, mining, and pasturing.

Spoiler :


Meanwhile, at Gold City, my archer was 1 turn away from completion. Therefore, I switched to a Barracks so that the archer would be promoted when it came out. However, if an emergency arised, where the archer would be needed immediately, then I could simply switch back to an archer and have him finished in 1 turn.

Spoiler :


The turn before Pottery was researched, I founded Desert City. It is close to Tokugawa, but it will be a while before we get "close borders" demerits. This was my fourth city; Tokugawa would found TEN cities by turn 100 (1500 BC). :crazyeye:

Spoiler :


Well, since Peter is my close neighbor and I want to keep him happy, let's sign a resource deal! Once one of us gets Currency, I'll probably adjust the deal so that he gives me gold-per-turn. I have little need for health resources now.

Spoiler :


Peter has a settler in Novgorod! This prompted me to start a settler in my capital. Also, notice how slow Peter has been in getting border pops. Good thing we are creative and he is not!

Spoiler :


Well ... time for the turn 100 report.

Spoiler :


I founded fish city here. I waited until the mine was finished so that the workboat would be completed quickly. I also held off on settling since I anticipated Peter settling there, and I wanted to settle the city right when Peter's settler was approaching that area, so as to waste some of his turns. However, that never happened, so I just settled since the worker was ready to imrove the city. I plan on building two workboats. One for the fish, and the other to explore. The nice thing about the fish is that it is immune to barbarian galleys.

Spoiler :


If you are interested in paying attention to worker micromanagement, look here. I have two workers working on Desert City. One is on a desert tile that is 3/4 roaded, while the other is on the rice tile that is finished with roading. Most players would just have the worker on the desert road that tile and then move the rice worker on that road elsewhere. However, it gives you more flexibility if you cancel the desert worker's actions (to be safe, cancel the action the previous turn after the desert worker finished roading). Then, move the rice worker on top of the desert tile and road that tile. Finally, the desert worker is now on top of a road and can move further away than the rice worker could. Think of it this way: the desert worker starts on a road with 2 movement points left. If the desert worker finished the desert road, and the rice worker moved to that road, the rice worker has 1.5 movement points. 2 movement points is better than 1.5 movement points.

Spoiler :


HA HA! Saladin's work boat is stuck! I will be watching this city every turn for one of Peter's galleys, since I want to see what the northern landmass is in case I can settle it.

Spoiler :


I want to make an interesting point on Floodplain city. When I was a Monarch/Emperor level kind of player, my habit was to just whip libraries ASAP (like granaries). However, I have since learned a better way to manage whipping libaries. If culture is not an issue, you should generally not whip a library in a city if it will cause your research output the following turn to decrease. Taking the example below, I see that I will generate 12 beakers a turn next turn. If I whip a library now, then next turn the city produces 9*1.25 = 11.25 beakers per turn (due to the loss of a cottage) which is lower than the preceding turn. Therefore, I opted to let the city continue growing and working its cottages.

Spoiler :


I founded my sixth city in 800 BC. I'm not sure if that's fast or slow for me, but I'm happy nonetheless. I am going to farm the floodplains rather than cottage as this city needs a lot of food. Most likely, I will farm the riverside grassland.

Spoiler :


The updated map is below. Even if I can't get either barbarian city, there is still some grassland to the south I can settle, as well as the gold city in my land. I'd better settle that quickly before Bismarck gets any ideas.

Spoiler :


Here is the capital, working on getting its Great Scientist. My aim for all leaders is to have my first Great Scientist by 500 BC. We may be tarry in achieving that goal, but I did have to settle a lot of land early. More good news next turn: another citizen comes back to work on the mined marble to speed up the worker (which will be my sixth worker for my six cities).

Spoiler :


Here is the technology screen. It's not looking good - but no one has Aesthetics yet. That will, hopefully, be my key to catching up in this game.

Spoiler :


Upcoming agenda:
  • Use Aesthetics as trading bait
  • Acquire masonry to quarry the marble
  • Have Floodplain City create my seventh settler after its library is done
  • Create 2 more axemen out of Desert City and try to take a barbarian city
  • Don't anger Peter
  • Work cottages
  • Explore south with my warrior
 

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I can't say I like the looks of world diplo. Jews to the west, Hindus to the east and Boudica as a wildcard (tbh she can pull off being heathen). What's worrying is the thought of you being the only actual neighbor of Toks other than Pericles and while I'm sure Toku has no warm feelings for Pericles either, he sure as heck won't have them for you.

There are a few things I would consider, given the current diplo/tech situation.

-Consider gift cities. One for Peter, another one for Toks. Make sure to place them far away enough for no extra border hate though.
-Either side with the jews, the hindus or play neutral. You will most likely be first to aesth and you have Gold. You could make a play for the Shwedagon Paya for neutrality and FR granted immunity from "switch to this religion". Only Saladin favors a religious civic so that's the only demand you might get on that front. Choosing a side will be tricky as while to the west you have somewhat pacifistic and reliable civs, on the other hand side you have Tokugawa who will kill you if he gets in the mood. The flipside of FR would obviously be that you won't really be anyones friend.
-Consider the Parthenon and the Great Library. As I see it, you've pretty much done your settler expansion by now and a good GP farm will take you far. Amsterdam looks best for this since it has food for specialists and forests for swift building.
 
The horses to the south might be worth claiming (they sell very well). Otherwise, your current cities should be enough for your purposes with a nice long river. Paya is an attractive move here - I'd make sure you trade aesthetics to a civ that won't broker it away or build the wonders very quickly. Probably Boudica out of this bunch.
 
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