Emperor Attempt

[Virupaksha]

On barbs: epic makes it tougher for you, and I'm not sure how big the difference is between immortal and emperor regarding barbs.

Don't know about epic speed but on normal emperor barbs come for the cities almost exactly turn 50, mix of archers and warriors, 2-3 at a time from different directions.

 

[sampsa]

Don't know about epic speed but on normal emperor barbs come for the cities almost exactly turn 50, mix of archers and warriors, 2-3 at a time from different directions.

That actually sounds harder than what I've experienced on immortal... I think the reason is that barb cities plop up earlier the harder the difficulty level, and they stop barb generation the same way as any other city does.

 

[sampsa]

It's hard yet to determine the value of alpha beeline. Can you see from if they've met more AIs? If there is only 3 of you, alpha goes down in value.

Just realized that it's pangaea, so you'll likely meet many civs soon. Still, don't think you should skip AH in favor of alpha-beeline.

Btw I'm glad that BIC seems to agree with my suggested line.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Imho, Agri --> Wheel --> Pottery can work
But it's a big loss in early production, when the objective is to set up the initial cities.

I'm not necessarily suggesting skipping AH altogether, just not before getting pottery. I haven't done the math on this difficulty/speed combo, but agri-wheel-pottery-AH should not be a huge loss in early production. Also, while expansion is nice, it hardly is the sole objective in the early game. Making sure you have enough commerce to actually research the stuff you need to further when you get those cities can also be paramount.

I think that Agri --> AH would work nicely, here
You have a tremendous spot for city 2 1E of the cows, grabbing 4 fps and later the fish.

This is a case of : food first.

An easy way to sort the early tech path is to examine your worker use.
Here, Agriculture first is a no-brainer. What does your worker do with that ?
8 turns : improve the corn
14 more turns : improve both riverside hills

--> 22 turns after your worker is produced, size 4 capital can work :
corn, 2x green hill, oasis.

This implies that your capital has no immediate use for cottages.
Therefore, you can look at other tiles.

I think this is a pretty suspect 'therefore'. You shouldn't just count improved tiles your city can work, imo, you should also consider what those tiles give you. Once again, commerce is the limiting factor on this map as you have no minerals or financial oasis/seatiles.
Also, by the same reasoning, there is a flood plain in both BFC that you can cottage, which can be worked by the second city for a while, implying that the second city has no immediate use for cows.

Improving the marble is a possibility but wouldn't help city 2.
Unlocking BW is a possibility but you have no additional agriculture resource in sight.
And then you could aim to improve the cows.

You need that next tech after 22 turns.
So BW could work, yes. Or AH and then you'd have some beakers into the next tech.

I actually like a Myst --> Mas follow-up to AH, if it doesn't seem that The Wheel will be needed.
You have a nice river network for auto-connect.
And improving the marble before getting to Priesthood drastically reduces the cost of The Oracle.
It delays it, probably, sure, but it also makes it that much easier to combine workers/settlers with the wonder.
(Capital doing 12 base hammers = 24h/t into the Oracle with marble = 7 turns build = no need for chops.)

If you go marble-Oracle you really can't go AH, it is just too slow. You will need to wheel to hook up marble (pretty sure) and without anything to boost your research, getting masonry, mysticism, meditation and priesthood is just too slow, you'll lose the oracle race.

Considering the high production you have, going AH into Alphabet is also conceivable.

Going Pottery first makes me most curious about the plains hills 3W1N of Rome.
Could share the corn from the capital so it could have a use for early cottages.

However, in those early turns, what you're really looking for are strong special resources. 6 yield tiles and the such.

 

[sampsa]

Also, while expansion is nice, it hardly is the sole objective in the early game. Making sure you have enough commerce to actually research the stuff you need to further when you get those cities can also be paramount.

Once again, commerce is the limiting factor on this map as you have no minerals or financial oasis/seatiles.

I think the main objective of the early game is to get good cities (3-4) up as soon as possible. That requires mostly . Also safety requires . Getting connected cities up asap gives you enough to get the main economical techs for this map, pottery+writing.

Also, by the same reasoning, there is a flood plain in both BFC that you can cottage, which can be worked by the second city for a while, implying that the second city has no immediate use for cows.

But cows is a 6-yield tile, much much better than a cottaged fp.

 

[sampsa]

Yes, you're very right about The Wheel... I hadn't noticed that.
The capital has 0 connection to rivers as it is. My bad

I'm not sure about that. I've seen some very counter-intuitive trade networks, especially when capital is next to lake, but not by the river. That's why I asked OP previously

Is the river north of capital connected to capital? You can see it by zooming out and choosing "toggle different trade routes" or something similar below the scoreboard. If yes, 2nd city would be insta-connected to capital without wheel, which is always great (+2).

but this is still unanswered.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

I think the main objective of the early game is to get good cities (3-4) up as soon as possible. That requires mostly . Also safety requires . Getting connected cities up asap gives you enough to get the main economical techs for this map, pottery+writing.

It is all a balancing act. It is definitely possible to expand too much at the cost of your commerce, giving you a bunch of early cities that can only build things that cost even more maintenance, crashing or slowing your economy down. Getting a couple of cottages up running first so you can challenge to get to the certain wonders or key trading techs can definitely be superior. Connected cities requires roads in this case anyway, btw, also, it is not enough on its own.
This map has plenty of space, decent food in grain and lots of floodplains, but no commerce without cottages.

But cows is a 6-yield tile, much much better than a cottaged fp.

Which is a 5 yield tile, turning into a 6 yield tile after some turns. Not to say that an improved grassland cow tile isn't better overal early game then a cottaged fp, but lets not exaggerate the difference of getting it a couple turns later while working a decent tile in the meanwhile.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Yes, you're very right about The Wheel... I hadn't noticed that.
The capital has 0 connection to rivers as it is. My bad
So The Wheel is needed, probably right after Agriculture, as has been advised. And then Pottery is a very cheap tech to get.
I still don't think there is immediate use for cottages but the cost for Pottery is minimal.

The mines are 4 yield tiles + commerce vs 3 yield tiles + commerce for floodplains... for the purpose of building workers.
Working 2 mines + corn + oasis = 12hpt towards worker
Working 2 cottages + corn + oasis = 10 hpt towards worker

Now... being IMP...
Working 2 mines + corn + oasis = 16hpt towards settler
Working 2 cottages + corn + marble = 12hpt towards settler

You're right that just getting the maximum amount of hammers isn't necessarily what matters.
Ensuring the commerce output is good as well.
However, with a trade connection, the first two cities can raise the commerce output instantly (provided they're not too far and/or can work some riverside tile).
This is without requiring even an improved tile.
So, getting the first (two) settler(s) out asap is actually pretty big.
In this light, improving mines instead of cottages makes a lot of sense (to me).



ps : which is more :
Settling earlier cities means they can produce earlier workers, which could end up with a faster cottaging - or at least allow to catch up with a cottage first approach.

This is a pretty good analysis. You do have to account for the fact that cottages will improve as they are being worked, however. Ideally I'd work cottage fp while building warriors/workers and mines while building settlers because of the imp bonus, but realistically some sort of compromise working a single mine plus floodplains cottages might have to be reached.
Which is also why the backfill cottages tactics has limits. Two early improved cottages are more efficient then a bunch of fresh ones.

 

[sampsa]

It is all a balancing act. It is definitely possible to expand too much at the cost of your commerce, giving you a bunch of early cities that can only build things that cost even more maintenance, crashing or slowing your economy down.

It is, but on emperor, a connected 3rd city should be at least -neutral even without high -tiles. So getting it up asap simply wins +. will catch up later due to bigger cities.

I am not talking about rexing to 8 cities here or something like that.

Getting a couple of cottages up running first so you can challenge to get to the certain wonders or key trading techs can definitely be superior. Connected cities requires roads in this case anyway, btw, also, it is not enough on its own.
This map has plenty of space, decent food in grain and lots of floodplains, but no commerce without cottages.

It's a balancing act, like you said. Without barbs I wouldn't have any complaints of getting some cottages up first. I haven't played epic/emperor in years, so I still don't know what exactly to expect and would rather err on the side of caution, meaning a more -heavy approach.

Which is a 5 yield tile, turning into a 6 yield tile after some turns. Not to say that an improved grassland cow tile isn't better overal early game then a cottaged fp, but lets not exaggerate the difference of getting it a couple turns later while working a decent tile in the meanwhile.

Sampsa (and I) count the floodplains cottages as 3 yield tiles...

Yeah it wasn't my intention to confuse you (pun intended). I also like to play a very -heavy game to get a tech lead, but in my experience focusing first on to get those settlers/workers/warriors out, then switching to cottages is often the fastest way.

 

[Lexicus]

Ok - first of all thanks all for the posts, all very helpful to read.

I think I will upload the turn 15 save after work, and you guys can play with researching AH or Pottery first and see which one is better

I know I still don't have all the land immediately around the capital revealed, so perhaps something else will come into view that makes the correct path clearer.

 

[Virupaksha]

That actually sounds harder than what I've experienced on immortal... I think the reason is that barb cities plop up earlier the harder the difficulty level, and they stop barb generation the same way as any other city does.

Another reason might be that you do your fog busting a lot better than me.

Very interesting how you guys approach things. On this map I would have gone BW first and chopped out a second worker, although with the plains hill start you waste two worker turns. After that Agri, then wheel, and road to wherever the copper is for first city, second city would take the fish.

Problem with this is it leaves no warriors for fog-busting, how many would you need on a map like this?

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

It is, but on emperor, a connected 3rd city should be at least -neutral even without high -tiles. So getting it up asap simply wins +. will catch up later due to bigger cities.

I am not talking about rexing to 8 cities here or something like that.



It's a balancing act, like you said. Without barbs I wouldn't have any complaints of getting some cottages up first. I haven't played epic/emperor in years, so I still don't know what exactly to expect and would rather err on the side of caution, meaning a more -heavy approach.





Yeah it wasn't my intention to confuse you (pun intended). I also like to play a very -heavy game to get a tech lead, but in my experience focusing first on to get those settlers/workers/warriors out, then switching to cottages is often the fastest way.

Fair enough, my personal experience is often the other way around. When I was improving from monarch-emperor-immortal there were a few games where the lack of early commerce combined with a fast expansion made me have an early game dip where I couldn't afford more cities and those I had couldn't do much usefull due to lack of the right tech. I've often been more concerned about research bottlenecks then land ones since.

One fogbusters, quite few on this map. There is quite a bit of no mans land around for a pangaea map. In fairness to the pro-AH side, hoping for horses isn't purely a luxury, a couple of chariots could really help clean up around the cities.

 

[sampsa]

Problem with this is it leaves no warriors for fog-busting, how many would you need on a map like this?

At least 3-4. Often it's enough to control the direction where they come from. Them attacking fortified warriors in our hill capital (across the river hopefully) is not a problem. Them pillaging improvements is worse.

 

[sampsa]

When I was improving from monarch-emperor-immortal there were a few games where the lack of early commerce combined with a fast expansion made me have an early game dip where I couldn't afford more cities and those I had couldn't do much usefull due to lack of the right tech.

Yes, this is an important insight. It's more the non-river starts that require a lot of attention in this respect.

 

[Lexicus]

I'll admit I haven't played a non-financial leader in a while so I'm a bit paranoid about lacking commerce as well.

I'm going to play the next turnset soon, here is the initial save if anyone wants to play around with it:

 

[cseanny]

This map seems to be shy of good commerce. Self teching IW would take a bit of time which is a pain considering Emperor AI tech so slowly. If I recall correctly Large and Epic will end up producing a rather unpleasant amount of barbs (even for Empreror). With Marble in BFC I can see Masonry being nice. I can totally seeing myself getting TGW here lol.

Normally I prefer to get the Praetorian ball rolling asap but I don't see any close neighbors. I actually just finished the Challenger HoF Seires #4 (Rome, Standard size, Standard Speed). Ideally I prefer to work max and while stealing a worker or two for quick initial expansion. Then as you're on your way with your Praetorians you can start spamming cottages and start to work them as your cities regrow from the whip. Rinse and repeat.

Besides, Epic and Praetorians in conjunction with Conquest gold (and cities w/ improvements and population) make it a much better option than expaning to more than 3-5 cities Imo.

I might play this one rather wonky. For some reason something like Agr > Masonry > Tw > Pottery > Wrt > Alpha (backfill all) looking attractive. While I definitely agree that cow tile is super strong Imo I can live w/out it early. With little to no forest in sight and enough via hill/marble I could do w/out BW too. Not like we're gonna be Prechopping anything. I would miss the whip a tad but you can't have everything.

By skipping BW and AH you'd be able to quickly trade for Myst, Med, and or towards Priesthood and chop out The Oracle for something nice. Definitely not my typical or preferred start but I can see it working.

 

[Lexicus]

First move, the warrior hits the plains hill to survey the land, finding....a barren expanse of plains and desert.

Spoiler :

After an unlucky run-in between my warrior and a pair of bears, we strike gold, literally :

Spoiler :

This is strange actually, since I thought gold can't normally spawn on grassland hills. I guess those rules are relaxed for the case of random resource spawns from mines?
I don't know. Either way, I'm going to offer sacrifice of a bowl pack to the Civ gods for their beneficence

After Pottery, I start teching Animal Husbandry. I start a Settler once the capital grows to size 4 and the third warrior pops (we have a total of only 3 because one of them was killed).

Found Saladin on Turn 57:

Spoiler :

And founded Antium on turn 54, building the pasture and going straight for a WB to get the fish.

Spoiler :

I'm not totally sure where to go next. There doesn't seem to an obvious spot for another city.

I started doing Writing directly after AH, I'd think I'll get BW next and then tech Alpha.

On turn 59 the warrior reveals some interesting stuff:

Spoiler :

Unfortunately the one tile that claims both fish also puts them both in the 2nd ring.
Okay, I think there's enough screenshots there to have a general idea of where I'm at as of Turn 60.
The question is, what to do next. Rushing Saladin seems like an attractive option since he's pretty close by. I will need to see what the metal situation is first though.

 

[cseanny]

Great gold pop!!! I'm gonna play this one out too but I doubt I'll enjoy that heh! Did you pop any Scouts at all? Either way keep going on the fogbusting/exploring. Imo you need more information still. Try and see who has better land, better cities, more luxuries, more forest, etc. And when possible, I find it desirable to expand towards my next target.

Why did you decide to settle Antium in that spot? I prefer to split food up for more cities, and in many cases this translates to closer cities that can tile share quite nice. I.e., there was potential to settle Antium 1W of the Cow which would allow it to share 3FP cottages and 1grassland cottage for the Capital (make that 2 grasslands - you got Gold now!).

Another city could then be placed 1E of where Antium is now. Cumae would then be working the cow while making a WB (and eventually working fish/2 FP cottages) while Antium was already size 2+ and working FP cottages for the Capital. Then once you have IW both those cities would have nice food surlus to whip away.

So look at it like less distance cost, shared food, more commerce, tile sharing, and much stronger production than just one city. Seeing how you popped gold (gives you more research choices) and don't have Horsies you need to either tech BW or keep fogbusting with warriors as you go Alpha. In the future I'd suggest making your 2nd Settler/3rd city a bit sooner. I see you're almost size 5 and no 2nd Settler yet (or is it already finished?).

Edit: Thanks for posting the game btw ^ and good luck.

 

[sampsa]

I prefer to split food up for more cities, and in many cases this translates to closer cities that can tile share quite nice.

This is spot on.

Lexicus, with an area like this (huge amount of river tiles, floodplains), your focus should be to settle several (4?) cities on this area as soon as you can. I can't stress this concept enough. This means that this part of game should be about settlers, workers and units to prevent barb annoyance.

I see that you are slow-building a granary in capital while having only 2 cities and one worker(?), maybe out of habit or maybe because you've read that the granary is awesome (well it is!). However, in general a granary that early is not a good play (expansive might be different, as half price makes it an even more attractive building). After having a granary, you should never be slow-building settlers/workers, because in doing so you make the granary useless. Also stagnating in any other way is bad of course. Post-granary it's best for your city to fluctuate a lot in size, because it's growing in size that makes the granary shine. You don't have BW yet, so you don't have access to "fluctuating size". I think going BW before writing would have been better if you choose to build a quick granary.

On writing: More often that not, my first building is a library in capital, usually when I'm at 3-4 cities. It's also an awesome building (tempted to call it a wonder ), especially if you turn slider to 0% while building it and run two scientists immediately upon completion. That and open borders with most AIs, especially someone who founded a religion, preferably buddhism/judaism as meditation unlocks monasteries for building missionaries and mono unlocks a civic that allows missionary build without a monastery. Having them put into something that gives you and is great.

Anyway, I think you should go BW, grow capital in the mean time (granary/warriors) and whip out some settlers/workers (chop 1-2 forests, too?). Settle by the river, everything else is too far away/slow/hard to defend for now. 1N43W and 1N43E of capital, as mentioned earlier, are probably the best spots. Make them grow cottages for the capital. Well, this is how I would play it.

 

[Pangaea]

Very lucky with the gold pop there, woot That takes care of the commerce problem.

IND+marble+stone also gives you some rather good options for the future. Once you get up some cities, you can get a lot of failgold from wonders, or of course the good wonders cheaply.

Since there is so little decent food around, splitting up the fish + cow city would probably be good.

Since you already have Writing, think I'd go fro Alpha from there, and backfill techs, including BW. It depends a bit on how much of a tussle you'll have with barbs, of if you can effectively lock them out with spawnbusters. Alpha probably takes a while (but much less due to the gold pop), but so does BW, and if you get to Alpha first you can get BW for "free" in trade. Plus lots of other stuff. At least if some more AIs turn up.

edit: Oh wait, Julius isn't IND is he, that's the other lad