DMOC's DEITY Game #4 - Suryavarman II

[vanillasine]

Very nice location. I hope you right saying every civ has enough space. .

I played a standard map of this generator last night-- I picked the option to have the landmass be relative to the number of players on it, and it was relatively fine, except that the placement of the starting cities on that landmass is not so ideal. In the game I played, I was alone on a continent, and the AI's were in groups of 2s. one pairing was split down the middle, but the other two were lopsided (1 badly).


Still, I like the overall balanced feel of it.

to OP: I would also SIP

can't wait to see the next set of SS -- lets see what u got!

 

[CladInShadows]

Damn, I'm overseas and away from my computer until tuesday, but I really want to give this game a try! That looks like a really interesting starting position.

 

[DMOC]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I didn't post yesterday because for some reason when I logged in with my username and password, CivFanatics wouldn't let me login. It's working now though.

Copper looks unlikely in the BFC. Archery will need to come quickly. With all the forests and jungle to the south, warrior spawn busting may do the trick. It looks like there may be a need for spawn busting in all directions, N,S,E & W. This suggests that at least a few warriors may be needed to fill all the gaps. So when does that leave time for workboats? Hmmm...

Edit: Wow! This is my first bat mod 3.0.1 game (just downloaded it), and it looks AWESOME!

Edit II: Note that that is an ocean tile in the lower right corner.

This is my first game using BAT. The main reason why I added BAT was not for the graphics, but to use BULL which gives me extra information such as with diplomacy. (Something that Civ 5 decided to reduce .) Of course, having better graphics is excellent as well.

I agree that if there's plenty of land and no copper or horses, I'll have to rely on archers.

That sury is so hot right now.
The start is so awkward! You need BW AG and fishing all really to make your worker gainfully employed. Call me crazy, but I think I might try settler>worker (settler is 20 turns w/ forest ph +ph city spot right? and worker 10?) That will give you enough time to tech stuff you need, and at least your worker will have stuff to do by turn 30...

Good luck, looking forward to it fo sho

EDIT: could also move cap somewhere less awk... what's near the blue circle?

EDIT 2: probably better than settler>worker: settler until 11 turns left for BW, 10 turns of worker, worker moves and starts chopping as BW is finished ->chop out settler while AG, then fishing etc...

I agree in that the start is awkward with initial technology paths. I would be disinclined to move the starting settler.

I like the idea of settler -> worker. In a deity game before, I actually started out settler - settler (two settlers out of a capital) and eventually won the game. However, that is totally dependent on being able to sufficiently fogbust. Since there aren't any huts to offer extra warriors and scouts, I think building a settler first is very risky. I won't neglect the idea, though.

I'm glad you brought this up. I think this site could make a monster hammer city or a decent GP farm. This does not look like a great cottage/commerce city. If this were immortal, I'd relocate the capitol in a heartbeat.

I tend to suck if I don't have FPs or riverside grassland in capitol for cottaging. For me, my commerce/research stalls early on with a hammer capitol or around liberalism with a GP farm capitol or a GL/trade route capitol.

Other than moving the capitol, what it the best way to cope with this?

I suppose the best way would be to rely on growing your secondary cities to size 10+ and working plenty of cottages. There are many other ways of getting solid research, though, such as deft management of gold per turn, trades, keeping 2 scientists on duty in certain cities ....

By the way, I think this capital is a great GP farm.

Oh wow, that was stupid of me. I was so focused on that little river. Maybe Ag is the better choice then.

Moving the scout directly 2E or 1N of that seems a no-brainer. If anything nice is revealed over there, I'd debate settling 1E for more production. Settling on the PH to start though is nice as the worker will come asap, but the later production potential is pretty huge 1E.

Good to see you are using BAT, DMOC. Great mod.

The irrigatable corn heightens the debate between BW / Fishing / Agriculture, but ultimately it seems to lean me towards researching Agriculture first.

I probably will not consider settling 1E for the latter production potential, because there are already 3 visible hills in the current capital spot, plus there is at least one more that's in the fog 2W of the settler. I had to zoom in close to see if it was a hill or not. What's more, it seems to be a non-forested hill.

tag for lurking

it's pretty interesting start. the idea worker->wb->worker is usually good but with you being expansive I am not sure you want to finish the worker on clams.
But working clams will improve a lot the tech situation and I am not sure right now, but I think you need fishing for those lakes too.

if you start worker first you will have him in 10T so that doesnt give you much time for research even if wet corn is strongest tile in future BFC.

Wait, how can I finish worker on clams?

With regards to the corn vs clams, the corn is better. And I do need the fishing technology to work the lakes.

Definitely settle in place. Chances are there's a food tile (or at least a resource) 2E of your start (if need be check it with the scout), and a plains hill is worth a lot in the early game because it helps so much with early production. I doubt there's better city sites further away.

As for tech path and early build order, I'm not so sure though. A worker will be out in no time, but might have little to do until Bronze Working. Going for early Fishing (and then Agri -> Bronze Working + worker in the meantime) might be a better idea - especially considering the extra speed you can make work boats with - but to be fair I have no real idea because my deity experience is +/- 0.

The problem with fishing first is that the corn is miles better than the clams. Of course, there's the problem of the worker idle ... Hm ... I need to think about this!

Im no deity player but I agree with most here, SIP is best, this is a very good site for a expansive leader, plenty of health resources, and this will definatly be a good production city. I'd open with worker-Workboat-Workboat, and improve those resources. It's good to have you back on the civ IV fourms by the way, i'll probally give civ V 5/10 aswell, mabey it will get good after an expansion or two...

I am not sure if an expansion would help Civ5. The main gripes I have with the game have to do with the 1 unit per tile rule, the AI moves, and the overall slowness of the game. It would be very difficult, though not impossible, to solve this with an expansion pack. Still, I will be optimistic. At least I did not pay for the game.

I'd move the scout 2E and find out what you can see from the top of the hill. Unless there's something interesting like gems, I vote for settling in place.

I think I agree.

I found it - i was wondering that myself earlier: Planet_Generator_0_68

Correct.

Very nice location. I hope you right saying every civ has enough space. Settle in place, perhaps some unforested hill for idle worker might be.
Fishing first, workboat can be built in 6 turns. In 30 turn you will have capital at population of 4, 4 additional commerce from sea tiles and one worker (and no military units).
The wheel after fishing perhaps, although archery seems tempting.
The question is what use of those forests? Will you use them for an early wonder or save them for buaerocracy (damn spelling) improved power.

Scout someone said 2E seems to be best option for me. Good luck ...

edited: There is always a catch, no agriculture , so Agriculture->Fishing->Archery perhaps ...

Barring an unusual map, the civs should have enough land for up to 10 cities, perhaps more if they expand fast. As a human player, I am positive that getting at least 6 is doable peacefully with these map settings.

A hill city on an isthmus has good strategic potential, I like it.

Fishing first seems good because:

• Two of the three good BFC tiles are seafood, may as well get them improved asap.
• There is only one river tile so clammerce is the only kind of commerce in town for a while.
• Expansive worker will get its 1H bonus so long as it's not built totally out of seafood. Hence grow to size 2 on one clam before finishing the worker.

PS. Subscribed!

This is a tempting start, I'll see how it compares to the agriculture first start.


Note: In the next post, I'll show a screenshot of the scout move along with some analysis on my part.

 

[vranasm]

Wait, how can I finish worker on clams?

With regards to the corn vs clams, the corn is better. And I do need the fishing technology to work the lakes.

well maybe I wasnt clear enough then. On coastal starts without fishing, I start building worker and tech fishing, after fishing is home I build work boat (worker will retain the hammers) and finish the worker after WB is built and you finish him on sea food (working the sea food tile... dunno maybe i am too confusing...).
With expansive leader you want to build the worker on hammer tiles though.

 

[DMOC]

4000 BC: Starting scout move and settling

I was figuring out where to the move the scout. As I sifted through the discussion here (and my own plans) there didn't seem to be much reason at all to move to the west. There were a few suggestions for moving 1E, but overall the current capital location seemed to be the best option. Given that I would not be moving west, moving the scout there as well would be a waste. Therefore, I moved the scout 1E and then 1NE so that he would reveal more of the northern tiles.



There was hardly anything of interest to the east.

Therefore, settling the capital in place was best. Since there was almost no benefit to moving the capital east (already on a river, already next to a corn and a clam, already on a plains hill, etc.) then there was really no reason to move.

Plus, I was a bit suspicious of the empty plains hill that was 2W of the starting settler location. I could zoom in to see that it was a hill, and the settling confirmed that:



It's too bad we miss the gold, although there's no way I could have known it was there. It's on a plains hill, so that's great. I hope there are at least 2 land-based food resource within range so I can put a second city there. The surrounding land should be fairly decent given that we're just north of the equator due to the jungle south of us.

Overall, though, I'm happy with the settle-in-place. The current capital has several poor tiles (non-clam coast, flatland plains on forest) but it has enough food and production to serve us well. There are only 2 riverside grassland so cottaging is probably not the best idea for this capital. Another reason why I like this capital over 1E is that it seems to be a tile closer to the "mainland" while the east looks to be a small peninsula. Scouting will show the answers.

Now that I've settled, I need to figure out an opening for this game.

A settler will take 20 turns, a worker will take 10 turns, and a warrior will take 8 turns if I grow at max food. I don't think building a barracks or a scout (same hammer cost as a warrior) first is wise. So there are 3 decent options.





Techs:

Agriculture will take 11 turns starting at turn 0. BW - 17 turns, and Fishing - 7 turns. This means that if I start with a worker and research Agriculture, I have to wait 1 turn before I can farm.

Opening 1:
Worker first, research Agriculture -> Bronze Working -> Fishing
This gets the best food and the best production tile up and running early, but provides low commerce, and wastes as many as 4 worker turns.

Opening 2:
Worker first, research Fishing -> Agriculture -> Bronze Working
Switch production from a worker to a workboat with fishing, then grow to size 2 and go back to the worker? This seems to be a pretty common tactic I use.

Opening 3:
Settler first, research Fishing -> Bronze Working -> Agriculture
I can switch from a settler to a workboat with fishing, and then grow to size 2 and finish the settler then, or I could use the whip and put overflow into a worker, assuming I get BW quick enough. This lets me use a quick second city, possibly to the east if the peninsula there can be fogbusted effectively with one city.

Opening 4:
Warrior first, research Agriculture -> Bronze Working -> Fishing
The warrior would let the city grow, while the worker is built at size 2. But I'm leaning away from this because I don't want to delay adding a 6 food tile to the emprie. The warrior would provide exploration and protection from barbarians, for a time.

There are certainly other openings, and I'll have to try and see which one seems best in the next few days. I could even insert "The Wheel" somewhere in the starting 3 techs. But getting techs like BW and using the food for whipping will be too valuable to ignore.

 

[DMOC]

well maybe I wasnt clear enough then. On coastal starts without fishing, I start building worker and tech fishing, after fishing is home I build work boat (worker will retain the hammers) and finish the worker after WB is built and you finish him on sea food (working the sea food tile... dunno maybe i am too confusing...).
With expansive leader you want to build the worker on hammer tiles though.

Oh okay, my thought was that you were using the worker to improve the clams, which is an illegal move in the game. I understand now, though. I could grow this capital to size 2 and then build the worker ... but again that delays the corn.

 

[JammerUno]

Getting the WB before worker isn't good. Ideally you want to grow on that 6F tile while building them. I feel agri-BW-fishing with worker-warrior-settler-WB will give the best yield over the next 40 turns. Use a chop to get a settler out, your worker doesn't have much work around the capital anyway, so it can go to the new city immidiately while your capital builds/whips WBs.

 

[kossin]

Worker first
t0-t10 worker
t11-t15 +3F
t16 onwards +6F
----
33F up to t18

Warrior first:
t0-t8 +3F (growth)
t9-t18 worker (you'll get 7H/turn instead of 6H/turn)
---
24F up to t18

Settler first:
you're not Imperialistic and be weary from barbs. Plus, you don't know that you have a decent close by 2nd city atm. (no clue about food around gold)
20 turns is a long time, especially when considering barbs are coming ~t40, you'll be stuck with unimproved tiles for a long time.

worker-workboat
This will be very similar to a warrior first for building the worker... 4-yield tile vs getting the Expansive bonus.
You do gain 2 commerce/turn for a little bit, but I think you'll be fine on commerce here with the nearby gold.

~~~

Remember you're getting a 2nd border pop at t25 so you can keep your worker pretty busy while waiting on BW. (if it takes that long, didn't check)

 

[Mylene]

Hello, in this case i would def. build a worker first too, wet corn is too good to pass.
Work boats are not really important as you have enough food then, so warrior spam after worker for fog busting.

 

[DMOC]

I'm going to try and lay out a plan. I am currently leaning on buildin a worker first and researching agriculture first. The plan below is based on the worker - warrior - warrior build order.

I like JammerUno's build order as well, with only 1 warrior. We'll see what the map tells me to do.

Turn 0-10: Research Agriculture, build a worker, explore with scout
Turn 10: Worker finished, capital grows to size 2 while working 3F corn. Capital has 0/22 food, and starts a warrior (0/15 hammers) due in 8 turns.
Turn 11: Agriculture finished, worker farms (5), research Bronze Working (17 turns), capital has 3/22 food, warrior has 2/15 hammers invested
Turn 12: Worker farms (4), capital has 6/22 food, warrior has 4/15 hammers invested
Turn 13: Worker farms (3), capital has 9/22 food, warrior has 6/15 hammers invested
Turn 14: Worker farms (2), capital has 12/22 food, warrior has 8/15 hammers invested
Turn 15: Worker finishes farm, capital has 15/22 food, warrior has 10/15 hammers invested
Turn 16: Now the food bonus kicks in, capital has 21/22 food, worker moves, warrior has 12/15 hammers invested.
Turn 17: Capital grows to size 2, has 5/24 food. Worker moves again. Warrior has 14/15 hammers invested. *I could alter the configuration and work a 1F 2H tile so that the warrior is finished this turn with 1 hammer overflow while the capital has 0/24 food for size 2. As of now, though, assume I work the 6F corn and a 1F 2H plains forest for production. This means the capital gets a 5F surplus from the corn and the plains forest, while getting 4 hammers (2 from center, 2 from the forest).
Turn 18: Worker moves on top of plains hill. The capital has 10/24 food. The first warrior is done and explores. The second warrior starts with 3/15 hammers due to overflow.
Turn 19: Worker mines (4), capital has 15/24 food, second warrior has 7/15 hammers invested.
Turn 20: Worker mines (3), capital has 20/24 food, second warrior has 11/15 hammers invested. Switch the capital to work a 3H plains hill forest, while keeping the irrigated corn worked.
Turn 21: Worker mines (2), due to the switch last turn the capital still grows to size 3 this turn (0/26 food) but there is an extra hammer of overflow so the second warrior is done, and 1 hammer of overflow goes into a settler. (1/100 hammers invested.)
Turn 22: Worker finishes mine, so now the capital works a 6F corn, a 4H plains hill mine, and any other tile that produces a combination of 3 food and production. While this happens, I believe Bronze Working should be ready in 6 turns maximum, probably earlier due to overflow and/or research discounts from meeting other civilizations that know the technology.
Note: after the settler, I think Fishing should be almost ready, so with an early settler out before workboats are produced, the first worker can go to the new city while the capital produces workboats, followed by another worker and settler.

Adjustments, Questions .... :
1. Turn 17: Keep working the corn, or maximize production and just work barely enough food to grow to size 2? This plan is probably contingent on whether or not I start an early settler on turn 17. It may be safer to grow to size 3 with 2 warriors out for protection.
2. I'll have to throw this plan out the roof if I suddenly have to settle earlier or if I think I can wait and settle later.

I like having early second cities close to my capital, and the plan above exemplifies that. The first 11 turns are definite, though, so I'll play those out soon and see where I go from there.

 

[DMOC]

Round 1: 4000 BC to 3560 BC [12 Turns] - Triple (Weak) Seafood

Hello everyone.

As I mentioned before, I settled in place. I decided to proceed with turns 0 through 11 of the plan I outlined in my previous post.

Since my scout was heading east, I decided to just have him continue moving east. Contrary to my expectations, the east was not a peninsula, but rather seems to lead to a whole new continent. Being Creative, we got a good look at the map right away on turn 3.



There is some marble nearby - so I could aim for the aesthetics and literature wonders. I tend to do that a lot, though, so I'm hoping I don't have to rely on the marble wonders in this game.

On turn 10, the worker was done. Unfortunately, I couldn't work a tile that had even one commerce in the capital other than the city center, so the farm had to wait to be improved the following turn.



On the next turn, it was time to research Bronze Working after Agriculture finished. As I expected, it was less than 17 turns - 16 turns to be exact.



Here's what I've explored. My scout is currently on his last turn of healing after surviving a barbarian bear attack. I'll probably explore 2 or 3 more tiles, than have him fogbust by standing on the silk tile. The sign I posted was just "Farm (1/5)" as that indicates how many turns have been invested in the farm improvement.



Now, I stopped just before researching Bronze Working. I have a very, very tempting city site right here:



This site makes me lean towards the plan JammerUno was talking about before. Ideally, I would be able to grow to size 2 with a warrior for security, and then chop a settler while researching Fishing. Then, afterwards, I could build workboats or more warriros if necessary. On the other hand, I could still wait until size 3 before starting a settler, as my plan last post indicates. Note: Bronze Working will be finished on turn 27.

Why do I like settling here?

1. Plains hill, so another +1 hammer boost
2. 4 food resources, with 3 albeit weak (clams) at first. It shares with the capital so I can ensure that none of the 4 food resources go to waste unless necessary
3. Very close to the capital, so easy trade route connection and defense
4. It can whip and run scientists easily while my capital acts as a worker and settler pump. This would also give me an early Great Scientist.
5. It has plenty of forests to chop
6. There's no point in growing the capital to size 5 now, since that would make my worker idle other than chopping (and I don't want to spend all forests now).
7. I could settle a second city by the gold, but I generally like high-food second cities that offer great whipping potential
8. There doesn't seem to be much else the east has to offer, other than a crapload of forests.

The kicker with this is that I have not met any AI so far, so I'm guessing the west will have enough space so that I can afford to stunt the growth of Yasodharapura and have time to settle cities there.

What do you think? Lots of possibilities.

 

[Mylene]

Hard to decide without seeing more land around the gold, but i would prolly set my 2nd city to get that online first.
A city 3N of the capital on the plains tile would also be efficient quickly, if there is no more seafood and stuffs hidden it can borrow the clam.

 

[DMOC]

My second option was a city 3n of the capital as you indicated. I really don't like it as my first city, though, because it has less food, seems to have less blocking and fogbusting value, and won't be able to run 2 scientists and work the gold that easily. It's also less effective as a future worker and settler pump.

Now if there was another seafood resource, I'd probably choose that site over the triple clam. The border pop on turn 25 should reveal the possible water tiles.

 

[Benginal]

The hill site was very appealing to me also. I'm pretty thrilled you confirmed my idea of settling a quick city 2 there.

But I'm not sure why you're so eager to get there. If you build the settler right after this warrior you'll get the settler before you have fishing. I'd be more inclined to build another warrior for the extra defense and then the settler. That way you should have fishing by the settling of the second city so that the city can work a coastal tile early. This also gives you a little extra time to explore for a possibly better second city.

 

[ABigCivFan]

given the low commerce, you will need to work the coast tiles ASAP.

i suggest: Agri-fishing-BW-wheel (worker tech + hook up gold and 2nd city)-archery
build: worker-warrior-FB-FB

corn gives fast growth while building warrior and boats, your worker can farm the corn, mine the ph and wait for BW for chopping the boats, nothing wrong with that.

also get a quick settler out to work Gold/Cow can help with early research.

Explore more.

 

[DMOC]

The hill site was very appealing to me also. I'm pretty thrilled you confirmed my idea of settling a quick city 2 there.

But I'm not sure why you're so eager to get there. If you build the settler right after this warrior you'll get the settler before you have fishing. I'd be more inclined to build another warrior for the extra defense and then the settler. That way you should have fishing by the settling of the second city so that the city can work a coastal tile early. This also gives you a little extra time to explore for a possibly better second city.

Yeah, I'd at least grow the capital to size 3 myself.

given the low commerce, you will need to work the coast tiles ASAP.

i suggest: Agri-fishing-BW-wheel (worker tech + hook up gold and 2nd city)-archery
build: worker-warrior-FB-FB

corn gives fast growth while building warrior and boats, your worker can farm the corn, mine the ph and wait for BW for chopping the boats, nothing wrong with that.

also get a quick settler out to work Gold/Cow can help with early research.

Explore more.

Good plan ... what about if BW comes before fishing? That way I could use the chops for a settler and the continue chopping to take in workboats? Alternatively I could whip the workboats quicker. I haven't invested beakers in BW yet.

The low commerce on the map is one reason why I haven't totally discounted the cow and gold site. There seem to be 2 options for an early second city that would work well.

 

[shulec]

My second option was a city 3n of the capital as you indicated. I really don't like it as my first city, though, because it has less food, seems to have less blocking and fogbusting value, and won't be able to run 2 scientists and work the gold that easily.

I like the idea of your 2nd city being able to use those clams (3W). I have played your save and did more exploration the other direction, so did not consider that option. I elected to not settle 3N of the capitol since it requires AH to make this site viable. As you say, it also does not help with land blocking. At the time, I only considered settling 3N, 1W, which would not be able to work the clam that a 3N city would.

 

[Mylene]

I elected to not settle 3N of the capitol since it requires AH to make this site viable.

No, even working the gold and nothing else (but there is the clam which makes it really good early commerce) would give a big enough boost.
This is deity, you cannot worry about little details like a cow here, if there is gold you are wise to grab it fast. There are so many forests, iam not sure why you guys worry about settler pumps, that would be my last concern here, but commerce would indeed bother me without the...gold

 

[shulec]

No, even working the gold and nothing else (but there is the clam which makes it really good early commerce) would give a big enough boost.
This is deity, you cannot worry about little details like a cow here, if there is gold you are wise to grab it fast. There are so many forests, iam not sure why you guys worry about settler pumps, that would be my last concern here, but commerce would indeed bother me without the...gold

I agree.

Spoiler :

I went a bit NW to grab the gold with my second city. It is still a low food city, but it does block the west a bit. I do doubt this move a bit, due to several jungle tiles, but I still feel it was a good move.

 

[babybluepants]

I like the city 3E - great food sharing and lots of chops. You should make sure there's no more seafood just north of there.