DW01-B: Whistling In The Dark (Take 2)

[DWetzel]

There's only one thing that I know how to do well
And I've often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And that's be you,
Be what you're like,
Be like yourself,
And so I'm having a wonderful time
But I'd rather be whistling in the dark

-They Might Be Giants, Whistling In The Dark

This is take two of my first succession game. The basic parameters are as follows:

Level: Emperor
Civilization: Maya
Map: Large, 70% continents, wet/warm/4byo, roaming barbs, max opponents.
Win condition: Space

Special variant: Once build orders for a city are set, they may not be changed until that build order is no longer available. This means that units which are not obsolete (or have required resources unavailable) must continually be built in that city until such time as they are obsolete or do not have required resources available.

Buildings may be built normally, as these disappear from the build queue once built. This means that once started, settlers, workers, and armies (and a number of modern units, probably) must be built until the city is abandoned.

It also means no prebuilds for wonders and spaceship parts.



The starting position (post-worker move):

Spoiler :

The save is attached.

And finally, the roster (and I'll edit this once you remind me who I've forgotten/left out, don't worry!)

DWetzel
Elephantium
Greebley
Rodent
TheOverseer714

 

[Greebley]

Looks like you can go ahead and play your 20 with the tech path as discussed, with Granary first then settlers

If you do get a warrior I would send him north first.

 

[Greebley]

Actually read the other thread and see we got WC instead. We also got unlucky on the bonus grasslands which could be a bummer for us. Still it doesn't change anything.

 

[darski]

lurker's comment: Signing in -popcorn-

I like warrior code myself... very useful in many cases.

 

[Rodent]

Why is it that I am always last on the Roster ?

 

[darski]

Why is it that I am always last on the Roster ?

[grandmother mode] Aren't you supposed to be studying???[/grandmother]

 

[Greebley]

Surely you didn't go last in Rod1

Isn't there a saying about the rats being the last to leave a sinking ship? Or maybe that was the captain. The captain rat?

I also noticed in the two cases I know about where you go last, I also get to hand off to you - probably some messy war with units scattered all over. Hopefully that will be less common in this game than what I am used to.

So while we wait for the game to start - what do we go for in the second town?

I see some choices:
a)Barracks, Warrior
b)Warrior
c)Barracks, Jav
d) Jav
e) Workers
e) Granary and/or other

With higher shields I would say c, with higher food e?, otherwise a or b. Just not sure what is best here.

 

[DWetzel]

First off, apologies, meant to play last night but got sucked into, you know, the dreaded Real Life. Should be up tonight. I plan to go until settler ready to position more or less.

Max or min run alpha? Normally max is obvious but with no MPs and an early granary, it may not be much faster.

The answer to that sort of impacts my answer to greebley's question, because at max science I would say warriors for MP and no barracks upkeep is more important. At min science I think barracks is better, and in a vacuum I think barracks is obvious. We will crank out.a lot of warriors before iron, we may as well have them useful as sword upgrades. We will almost certainly have more warriors than we can effectively use as MPs.

As an aside, I have played the abandoned game through to about 500 BC. We ought to have stuck with it! Anyone interested in pictures as "don't lose hope" fodder?

 

[Greebley]

I would say max. I feel we can't afford to wait 50 turns for any tech. It will be faster toward the end to make up for the initial slow and come under 50. Edit: It is large which slows it some, but I think you can shave a turn or two off even with huge or larger. I would think large should be several turns shorter and that may make a difference.

 

[DWetzel]

Very well. My instinct was max also--but figured I'd toss it out there.

 

[DWetzel]

And so it goes. I've played until 3050 BC, when our first settler has popped after the initial granary. I'll dispense with the excitement of a spoiler box.

4000 BC: Set research to CB to not pop it. Worker to cow. Seeing no reason to not settle in place, I do so. Hut yields WC. Switch research to Alphabet at maximum.

3950 BC: Worker irrigates.
3900 BC: zzz
3850 BC: zzz
3800 BC: Worker starts road.
3750 BC: Lux to 20%. Second citizen works river forest.
3700 BC: Worker to river forest.
3650 BC: Worker starts chop.
3600 BC: zzz
3550 BC: zzz
3500 BC: Worker completes chop, no BG in place, boo.

Culture expands, gives view of some plains (with a sugar) to the north, and another river to the east.

Lux to 30% as we have hit size 3. Work the cow, the river BG, and the forest. Granary in 4, expansion in 5.

Worker starts mine in place.
3450 BC: zzz
3400 BC: zzz
3350 BC: zzz, except swap 3rd citizen to the tile the worker is working, as granary will finish anyway.
3300 BC: Worker completes mine, starts road; Capital City finishes granary. Settler started, due in 8. Our treasury is getting dangerously low.
3250 BC: Size 4; lux to 40%.
3200 BC: Worker completes road, moves to BG.
3150 BC: Worker starts mine.
3100 BC: Pick up two citizens for scientists, I am still getting the settler next turn, and this gives us a nice boost toward Alphabet. Science to 80% for one turn.
3050 BC: Capital City settler-settler.

And I'll stop here, as I have no idea where we want to go. Instinct says settle between cow and river and crank out a bunch of warriors ASAP. We need the MPs desperately.

We could alternately send the settler roughly 3E of our starting spot and settle on the river there, which might also not be a bad call--there is at least one BG in sight there. May also end up wanting to go E-E-N.

Screenshot of our mighty empire:

Spoiler :

 

[Elephantium]

City sites we should consider:

W-SW (red): This gets us a coastal riverside city with access to another cow. It'll be of immense long-term value.
2N or 3N (yellow): Riverside city with access to sugar. That will give it early growth and shields, and worker tasks will turn it into a powerhouse.
3SE (green): Riverside city with access to forests. It's quick to settle and could start out as our Warrior pump. Plus, the Settler will get a nice mountaintop view of the immediate area on the way there.
3E (blue): Another riverside city with at least one BG. It's probably a good site, but it's kind of an unknown.
W-W-N (brown): This place looks ideal for a Worker pump. The cow gives it fast growth, and the relative lack of shields isn't a problem when you're building Workers. Of course, this will ****** growth in our red dot city for a while, so we should wait a while before settling that dot.

I favor settling blue, then brown. The territory around the blue dot looks promising.

I don't think E-E-N is worthwhile because it's not a riverside tile (I had to double-check the commerce to be sure).

 

[Rodent]

I like red Dot, settle that first

I would probably settle Green before yellow, We cant build warriors (now)and its better to have a city in the back then a city on the front which might be greeted by Bismarck

We need more intelligence to do a real good dotmap

 

[Greebley]

I like red dot 2nd and building workers. Third city straight south going for barracks then units. 2nd city will provide worker to chop trees for barracks in 3rd.

Remember there is no harm building near our current capitol as it will never be big. Also you can never have too many workers because they can be joined with cities.

 

[DWetzel]

I think red dot first is blindingly obvious, honestly. If my simple-minded math is right, that should yield 3-turn workers once the cow is mined (assuming it can pick up one of Capital City's forests on growth to size 2). That has to be a good thing. (I was branded a heretic last game, but if our second town is workers, it MAY be worthwhile to send one out as our initial scout.)

I'll second the point about settling close to the capital not being a significant issue. In fact, at some point in the fairly distant future I'd contemplate settler-abandoning it entirely. My suggestion for town placement is:

1. Figure out what the town is going to be used for,
2. Figure out what tiles it will need to do that job effectively,
3. Settle in a place where it can easily use those tiles and not take up much more space than that.

 

[Greebley]

I think it would be more effective for a workers to chop trees to get the barracks up so we can send units out to explore than to have them explore themselves.

I could see the 3rd or 4th worker possibly extending our borders somewhat if the barracks aren't complete. I wouldn't send them far because of barbarians.

Now if you had chosen no barbs (like a lot of games do), then a worker exploring would be a bit more reasonable. Once barbs appear it seems too risky to me.

Note that pop will limit our workers rather than shields at first. Once the cow is irrigated, the workers will be every 5 turns with no other square needed [Edit: I think I am wrong - actually it may use one other square and make workers every 4 turns once irrigated] . It can stay on workers the entire game and fill our worker needs.

 

[DWetzel]

You're thinking similarly to me in terms of the worker exploration. I'm not saying send the first one out on walkabout--just that we may have a "spare" one to a degree and we shouldn't dismiss the possibility.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Workers not working is a waste, but with these rules (not complaining), it may be necessary. I think Red makes sense early, but we need some mps and explorers more robust than workers, also. I think that green or yellow need to be settled next to get a barracks built and then start pumping veteran warriors to man the flurry of towns that the capital will spawn and to explore. Also, mps can lower the lux rate.

 

[Greebley]

Green or yellow probably can't get barracks up faster than some forest chops which could be started as soon as we get our 3rd town.

That is why I like Workers second, and units 3rd. I think we will get our first unit at about the same compared to trying to build a barracks on green or yellow - however we already have 3-4 workers which will allow for units much faster.

If we really want to get someone out soon, then Green or Yellow building regular warriors is going to be fastest. We can switch when we get Iron.

In other words, we waited 8 turns by using the 3rd settler instead of second, but catch up again using forest chops. We can either have 1 warrior or 1 warrior and 4 workers. I like the workers.

 

[Elephantium]

Won't we need a forest to keep the settler factory running smoothly?