Don't mine me! - The hammerless challenge

[remconius]

This is really a very unhealthy place to settle, if we settle on the plainshill 1SW than we get -4 from floodplains...I prefer settle 1 NW, or on plainshill 1N.

It's not that bad. Being unhealthy means you lose food, but we should have a large surplus from all the FPs. Also health is usually not too hard to come by.

I did the maths on Health at 1SW:
Level= +5 ?
River= +2
2xForest= +1
11xFP= -4
Total= +4

That means at size 6 we will have:
City tile: 2
6x Floodplains: 18
Makes a Total of 20

We'll need 12 to feed our 6 pop. -2 eats another 2 food, means we'll still have +6 to grow. This surplus will shrink upon further growth if we start working Ivory. But by then we should hopefully have more + resources.

At size 8, with 2xivory and 6xFP we'd look like this:
Worked tiles +22
Eaten -16
Unhealthiness -4
We'd still be at +2 growth. Of course by then we might have chopped the forest. In any case an aquaduct is needed pretty soon.

That does not mean we have to settle there, just that unhealthiness doesnt need to be a major problem.

Sorry for being a bit of a numbers freak...

 

[cabert]

lurker comment : i can't say for sure what's wrong with your numbers (probably only +4 from level), but i did play a carthage game with loads of cottages on FP yesterday. I was unhealthy at size 3. Not a big deal, it's just that you have to work fp only, until you can grab a few health ressources.
However, later in the game, it was more of a problem.
At size 14 in 1300 AD, i was still unhealthy (-3 food), with granary, grocer, aqueduct, hanging gardens, loads of health ressources. Not a big deal, since i don't have more FP to cottage but still a pain, when you're going to stick at size 14 for 600 years.

 

[remconius]

Hmm, I guess I should review my numbers when I get home.

My plan will be to move E, NW with the settler to see if I can spot more health resources and big food tiles. Then decide where to settle. Probably wise if could build 3 cities sharing the floodplains between them.

 

[remconius]

Should we try to go for the pyramids? It would sure help with buying stuff, but difficult without serious production. Ivory gives some production. Maybe if we can find some stone, go for masonry asap and start right away.....

 

[remconius]

One more question I am uncertain about is what victory we should aim for...?

Space Race will be difficult without good production cities, or can we buy spaceship parts?
For Diplomatic we only need to build one wonder, which will be hard enough. We should then focus on making friends.
For Domination/Conquest, I guess we buy loads of units which means we should be technically advanced and have Universal Suffrage.
Time victory should be possible, but boring.
Cultural victory means getting religions, buying buildings.

I am not sure which victory condition would suite our variant best.

 

[angeleyes]

I prefer Diplomatic, we can use a few great engineers to build it.

 

[remconius]

If we go for diplomatic, I guess we make friends with every one always? Give in to all demand? Or we take over the world and vote for ourselves?

I dont usually play this. Anyone have experience?

BTW I am playing now, report will follow shortly.

 

[Chrono285]

It's pretty impossible to play without making enemies, as one side will ask you to stop trading with the other, or will ask you to help them in their war. Agreeing or refusing gives you negative penalties against someone.

If we want to go diplomatic, we should try to form a bloc with 2 or 3 other countries, make them the same religion, always help them.

We can't buy spaceship parts, or hurry them with an engineer

I like military personally, and cavalry will only cost 300 a piece to pump out, and we should have such a tech advantage by that point that they'll be up against longbows
Bwahahaha.

But we'll see how it pans out.

 

[karr1255]

I'd go with diplomatic or cultural. The culture slider with that many cottages could net us a culture victory around 1700-1800 easily.

 

[remconius]

4000BC
Settler moved E, NW. Wheat tile discovered

Warrior moved NW.

3970BC
Warrior moved NW revealing nothing more. I paused to think.

I saved the game and started a test game to see the effect of FP before settling. Each FP gives -0.4 Health rounded down. 9 is the magic number giving -3 health, whereas 10 gives -4. Our original start had 10 FPs, but 1W only has 9.

Health (size 6)
Level= +2
River= +2
4xForest= +2
wheat= +1 :health
9xFP= -3
6xpop= -6
Total= -2

At size 6 our city would then have:
City tile: 2 F
Wheat 5 F
2x Ivory 2 F
3x Floodplains: 9 F
Total of 18 F
-12 Food is eaten
-2 from unhealthiness

Still leaves +4 F for growth. A granary will give another +1 for wheat. Each additional FP will cover extra food eaten (2) and the unhealthiness (1), seems we can continue to grow.

I made a decision and settled 1W of the original start position.

3940BC
37 gold from hut Warrior discovers cows

3790BC
Tundra discovered to the North

3760BC
Wolves defeated.
Beaver spotted on ice.

3730BC
Borders expand

3670BC
Buddhism is founded.

3640BC
More wolves beaten while healing.

3610BC
Warrior promoted with woodsman I

3580BC
Agriculture -> Wheel

3520BC
Ocean discovered to the East and Gold mine

3490BC
More Gold discovered.

3430BC
Bear beaten by warrior.

3400BC
Hut discovered, it gives a scout.

3370BC
Cows east.

3310BC
Scout gets xp from hut.

3280BC
Saladin arrives, we sign peace.
Scout is promoted with woodsman II.
Cows and wheat are seen to the east.
Worker built in Carthage, warrior started.

3250BC
Worker starts farm on wheat.
Scout sees bananas and ocean to the east.

Excellent we seem to be in the center between the oceans east and west. Will be good for our commerce startegy.

3220BC
Wheel is discovered, Pottery is next.
Marble found to the east.

3190BC
Scout beats lion and is set to heal.

3160BC
Tokugawa shows up.

3100BC
Scout beats another lion while healing.
Hinduism is discovered.

3040BC
More Ivory and bananas found.

3010BC
Farm complete

2980BC
Panther beaten by warrior.

2950BC
Warrior promoted to Woodsman II
Rice and more ivory spotted.
Scout finds clams

2920BC
Warrior1 completed, settler started.

2860BC
Isabelle shows up, founder of buddhism.
Pottery is discovered, Masonry started for Pyramids.
Worker starts to build our first cottage.

2800BC
Scout discovers beaver heaven.

Roster
1. Remconius Just played
2. efendi <- Up next (2800BC - 1900BC)
3. karr1255<- On Deck (1900BC - 1300BC)
4. Asperger (1300 BC - 925 BC)
5. Chrono285 (925 BC - 700 BC)

We are looking good, if only we can cut the AI off from our land, we should have a good bit to settle. We would need to build two cities to the SE.

We are building a settler in the capital. Once it's finished I would like to start the Pyramids, which we can build with two Ivory, maybe a forest or two. (8-11 hammers total) Once we get BW we can chop one forest in the city radius, if we want to keep 4 forests for health. Then we can chop a few more outside fat cross and finish off with a whipping. It's a long shot but well worth it if we get it.

Research:
Hunting, BW, .... then what?

Big question is where to settle our second city. If we want to block Saladin, we should send it SE.

I guess it should focus on building up our defenses against Barbarians.

View attachment 139278

 

[angeleyes]

I'm against building the Pyramids without stone and not being industrious and not allowed using mines. We can use our money to speed up our techpace and be first to liberalism and economics. We are lucky having hammers around in ivory, cows and gold

 

[karr1255]

2800BC
Scout discovers beaver heaven.

Sounds like a strip club.


Anyway. I think after BW maybe writing get a library and run 2 scientists with the food surplus we will have and then an academy for our cottage paradise.
This is in my opinion much better than going for a wonder. We wont have great production and that makes pyramids way too risky I think.

 

[remconius]

I am pretty sure we can make it to the pyramids, because we'd be starting very early. I went for the pyramids in one of my test games and I made it easily. It costs 675 hammers, you can whip 3 pop (135), chop a few forests (60) leaves 380 shields at 11 hammers per turn. In total it takes about 35 turns.

Question is whether the investment outweighs the costs. In the same time we could build more cities and block off the AI from our part of the world. Build a few libraries and focus on science all the way. We should be able to get to to Universal suffrage fast anyway.

Personally I would go for it, but we can make a team decision not to. Dont forget that losing the race to the Pyramids also means earning 500-600 gold in cash which we can use to run science at 100% for a long time.

 

[cabert]

lurker comment : you only have 1 spare forest in the fat cross if you don't want to hit health cap at size 3 (!). You can chop outside of the fat cross, but the reward is small.
You'd be better off with troops vs barbs IMHO (but hey, i'm not playing )

 

[angeleyes]

We don't mine so i also think it's against the spirit of the game to begin with such an enormous hammerinvestment. I also don't like throwing everything an one card. (is this a correct english expression?).

 

[karr1255]

We don't have a lot of production so I would invest it in libaries and concentrate on science. Universal Suffrage won't benefit us that much anyway, since gold rushing at this stage is a double edged sword. For maybe 20 gold per turn you could bump the science slider up 30%. And the hammer bonus is worthless so early.

 

[remconius]

Good points, let's skip wonders and go for a science strategy. That means we aim for techs that increase science, give us great people or free techs.

 

[remconius]

I PM'ed efendi to pick up the game and post a game plan.

If he doesnt respond in the next hours, karr1255 can pick up and make a plan.

 

[efendi]

Sorry but I will have to miss this one.
One other hand I was thinking to play with Elizabeth - Fin/Phi - making a lot of commerce and to krank out GP for more and valuable techs.
Sorry again.

 

[karr1255]

So it's my turn then? If so it will have to wait until tomorrow(cest) but I will start it off ASAP.