[BTS] [Emperor] Obsessed with this Toku start

[Winth]

Hey, I have a save that annoys me. I restarted it because it has a potentially somewhat interesting premise:

Spoiler :

Semi-iso with land that I just can't leverage; I feel like it's hammer rich, but has relatively few resources

.
and played through it two times,

Spoiler :

both cases landing Astronomy in 800 AD and seemingly dominating the AI in tech, selling old tech to fuel research further. I would build very few Cottages and rely on Marble to pump out wonders while rushing Astro

,
but then I would fall off in tech before I could kill someone off.
Since I genuinely have like 40 save files from different phases in my tries of this game, I guess I'm now sharing my obsession with CFC.
Posting a World Builder save as well as an initial AutoSave because I don't have BUG / BUFFY / BULL or similar on this machine right now, and I don't know how that impacts most people.

 

[sampsa]

Well, the thing is capital is very -poor and leader's traits don't help much in the early game. Wheel+fishing is a very weak starting tech combo here, too (2 techs away from both AH and BW). Changed the difficulty to immortal, though I think the AI starting units are emperor level (so no worker?).

T33

Spoiler :

For me, settling on the marble for extra is pretty clearly the best. After moving the settler to the marble, I see that it might kill seafood which would be annoying, but I don't think spending more time moving is advisable. With so much forest I think mining-BW leads to the fastest start, settler at size 1 because we just don't have good tiles we want to grow on. So worker mines the sheep and then starts roading towards coastal fish spot. This way the starting techs are not horrible. Getting out 2nd warrior, then straight to settler.

Gold from first hut, just discovered a 2nd one this turn. Spots tentatively numbered in settling order.

Hut gives barbs and I die. Chop out the work boat asap in 2nd city, then chop capital area for another worker to help chopping settlers. Then farm fp and pasture sheep so that the capital can finally grow. Fish city probably 2-pop whips at least one worker. Another big challenge is that no -resources in sight. Monarchy might be something, could also failgold ToA then. Maybe try to Oracle monarchy? Not sure after going both AH and BW and lacking -bonus tiles...

 

[Winth]

*snip*

Hey sampsa, lowkey fan of your contributions to S&T when I lurk.

Spoiler :

I'm happy that I have a roughly same dot map as you do, except I settled 2nd city with Fish AND Cows and ultimately could only fit 6 cities, with the sixth being filler trash around the south marble with no food, for whipping and denying Qin (it used whatever grassland it had for grassland farms). I actually went Stonehenge on this map while beelining Oracle techs (snagged it for Monarchy) after a few worker techs simply because I had the hammers and felt like I might as well settle the GPro for gold. I didn't really know if there's a point to cottaging the capital in this scenario (hard to grow cottages when running specialists), especially since the necessary Astro bulb involves delaying Civil Service, so no Bureaucap.

 

[sampsa]

@Winth

Spoiler :

Yeah I thought about 2nd ring rice+cow, too and probably the difference is minor. I think Stonehenge is a big mistake (well, it usually is) and chopping out a bunch of settlers is called for. Get cottages up, grow cities to work them and take it from there. I think I won't go Oracle, let's see how it goes.

 

[Winth]

@Winth

Spoiler :

Yeah I thought about 2nd ring rice+cow, too and probably the difference is minor. I think Stonehenge is a big mistake (well, it usually is) and chopping out a bunch of settlers is called for. Get cottages up, grow cities to work them and take it from there. I think I won't go Oracle, let's see how it goes.

Spoiler :

Trust me, I'm not usually a fan of Stonehenge, but I went Oracle (so early Myst) anyway and with the scarcity of resources and a high hammer yield, the Stonehenge felt at least somewhat reasonable. Of course, since I was going Masonry anyway, I could have probably gone TGW and have GSpy points for when I start falling behind. Well, but anyway, I couldn't figure out how to squeeze in Cottages into this start, but I am probably undereducated in all the nuances of balancing Scientists for Astro bulbs and other things.

I probably just don't understand this start since, at a glance, it seems like it's going against my instincts - I would love to expand a lot, but I have a real hard time coming up with six city spots without potentially crippling distance penalties, and I'm not as bold or smart as USun).

There's also that I couldn't see how to expand further into the west since Qin blocks those spots fairly early anyway, and I was trying to run the slider as high up as possible, hence I didn't feel the need to rush out the Settlers too fast.

 

[sampsa]

@Winth

Spoiler :

Yes, I believe GW is a better choice, though you can't realistically expect to steal that much from emperor AI. Maybe Qin does go for MC-machinery line though for his UU (and IND forges) and it would be perfect to steal IW-MC-mach. Getting a GSpy means a later GS though.

I hope I can correct your instincts a bit with my game. I don't think you need to expand much to the west, unless there is something really outstanding. Land to the south is nice (food, rivers and enough green).

T55

Spoiler :

4 cities, 6 workers. Paying 2gpt unit maintenance, but that will be solved soon when my cities grow a bit. Capital gets another settler in 2T with the help of chops. Changed my mind and remained at size 1, since now I can get the granary out quickly and it pays back better at size 1. The economy is nowhere near "crashed" despite making only 6 at 0% slider. Cottages are coming online in a few turns and I'm expecting to be +20pt very quickly. Then deciding on the tech path, but I think it will be the religious line, for ToA failgold and Oracle (expecting failgold) and monarchy. There are just so many grass river cottages I want to be working asap.

 

[krikav]

I think that the mining->BW approach is best, but what I did was to use the floodplain to size2, prior to starting the settler, to get two warriors out first. (Safety first!!)

Spoiler :

Could have started settler one turn earlier but wanted the second warrior out too, did this to avoid having stagnant food in the bar.

1 hammer short. Always annoying.

Revolt in transit.

I think this is abit inferior to your approach @sampsa ? Fish city is behind, but capital is already at size2 which got to be nice? Growing to size2 without taking citizen of the sheep mine (which one doesn't really want to do) will be problematic. But you have a worker almost done.
Nice play!

For comparisson:

Spoiler T34 Standard Agr->Min->BW opening :

Treating the floodplain as a agriculture resource, feels clearly inferior.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa I looked at your T55 and mimiced abit.
I did continue with the approach to stubbornly try to grow the capital though.

Spoiler T55 :

The land is nice, an unreal amount of forest, and even 6 workers feel like too little!
Fish city has 1popped two workers.
I have a granary in capital now, but now in hindsight I'm not even sure that was a good idea.
We are stuck at pop5 as max, and it's likely that capital would perform perhaps one 2 or 3 pop whip of another settler, and then perhaps a library, but thats likely it?
Perhaps I should have put more chops into workers/settlers and grown only on SH instead (only 11 hammers invested there now)


I thought next settler would go 1N of southern horse to get the good tiles right away. I guess your resoning was more riverside tiles, and getting both wines...?

 

[krikav]

@Winth
Thanks for the worldbuilder save helps alot.

I don't like SH either, would rather have just the 120g.
most cities are absolutely fine w/o borderpops, and the GProphet points would likely just cause troubles.
I likewise see little point going further west than this, at least not for some time.
From my T55 screenshot, settle the horse/wheat site and the cow+ocean fish site and then something by that green cow.
But after that, expansion could be put on hold while maturing cottages and creeping toward currency.
If going astro, then further expansion can be put on hold even more. Unless you are scared of Qin getting too big.

Something that skewed this game enormeously for me was the free 73g I got in the beginning, which allowed me to steamroll straight through AH->Pottery, I would really recommend turning that setting off.

 

[sampsa]

T79

Spoiler :

Building cottages, putting some into granaries. The most important thing at this point is IMO don't whip. While a granary is great building, whipping them at this point is a huge mistake. -cap just doesn't allow it you need that pop to work the cottages. Got a monument up in the only city that needs it. I didn't whip even that, rather work a cottage even if the fish is delayed, since can't use that efficiently. Poly in T77, priesthood will be T81. Oracle is still available and I've planned a quadruple chop to one-turn it. Fingers crossed. Getting a very beneficial tech for 4 forests would be awesome... If not, just manually research it and put failgold into ToA. I have granary whips planned in 3 cities, overflow into ToA. Oh yes, just settled cities number 7 and 8 like a boss. I believe that river grass cottages make them pay back.

 

[Winth]

Kay, I'm meticulously comparing notes:

Spoiler :

• My Stonehenge play comes from completely flawed assumptions that this start heavily struggles with keeping a food surplus and that I will need to run a lot of Scientists, further chipping into notion of growing Cottages. So instead I got farms. That, and Sampsa's screenshot shows me that his Priesthood is up later than I deemed necessary, as I expected Oracle and ToA failgold build up (my default plan) to take priority.
• It completely didn't occur to me that I can make a Settler at 1, or that I can bleed research to 0%, because the semi-isolationist setting made me believe I won't be able to get away with it and that I need to rush Astro as hard as possible.
• My city placement needs work. Normally I don't shy away from overlap, but I definitely should have created a more sparse core of cities sharing more food resources. Instead, I had a weak 6th city and refused to move west. But it turns out my lands aren't THAT bad.
• At least I correctly identified that I shouldn't whip; indeed, I only revolted to Slavery along with Hereditary Rule that I snagged from the Oracle->Monarchy slingshot.
• With my specialist focus, I also didn't clear as many trees, and with only 4 cities at Turn 100 (375 BC), I rationalized that I can get away with only two workers and that I have enough production. I figured I can chop trees with Maths, probably around the time I would find an AI to declare upon.
  
• I took the Aesthetics route thinking that I'm going to play a somewhat demented wonderspam / bulbing style in order to achieve a Cuir-breakout. In spite of the Prophet pollution, I pulled off 5 GScis and managed Astro at 800 AD. I'm not very well-versed in Astro starts and I don't know what are "acceptable" detours.
• Since I was so neglectful of commerce, I did not opt for Academy play, instead relying on bulbs and golden ages.
  
• The start, overall, intimidated me into playing like a Prince-level, tall-growing wonder junkie. I bungled this opening something fierce.
  
  Here's the situation on Turn 100 in my game:
  

• 
  Thanks for giving me something to think about, looking at this I feel like I need to go back to basics a bit, since the start is a bit simpler than I thought.

Also,

Spoiler :

I thought riverless grassland cottages aren't good?

 

[krikav]

The most obvious thing I see in that screenshot is that the wheat+cow spot isn't settled at T100.
Two 6 yielders (7 if you count the riverside commerce) is awesome and that spot should have very high priority.

Riverless grass cottages are nice tiles but obviously worse than riverside.
They are food neutral, which is splendid, they are therefore nice to work when you want to grow.
They are not spectacular, but what is the alternative...?
Financial coast with lighthouse (or just regular coast) is perfecly OK as well, and in many ways preferable as it saves workerturns.
I seem to cottage riverside less than others seem to do, I like farming stuff alot.

Another reasoning that it's good to place cottages riverside is because those tiles already give commerce, and it's best to concentrate commerce (not if you have to bend yourself backward to do it, but anyway) in specialized cities, as that can enable you to get away with less buildings.
Every day you can get a city to contribute in a good way to your empire without having to build a library there is a good day.

 

[sampsa]

@Winth

Spoiler :

Agree with Krikav, that wheat+cow city should be settled asap. Overall I don't think your strategy to go aesth while not expanding very much is completely without merit, but one extra city and more chops would make a difference. My game is the complete opposite, I go a bit overboard with expansion, but those cities are really good pretty soon.

I think all green tiles should be used, if possible. Yeh, non-river grass cottage (21 ) is not great at first, but at least it's not -negative. I'm pretty sure rapidly expanding to 6-8 cities and spamming cottages will lead to the best astro date. Lots of trees to chop into failgold. I usually don't tech math if going for astro bulbs (maybe should have here), sometimes CoL or monarchy, rarely aesth. Academy normally only thinkable if PHI leader.

I don't think this is an easy start. It requires a lot of intricate empire management which is something not everyone enjoys, or so I've gathered reading this forum. I guess the lesson is simple - you should found good cities asap!

T100

Spoiler :

Gifted a city to Qin. Pretty sure it would have been better to gift earlier (for example instead of settling my 8th). Qin completed Mids, which is great for me later. Decided to go for 8(!) libraries because I don't have much else to put my into. Not insta 3-pop whipping them but whipping away when growing to marginal tiles. ToA is somehow still not gone. I have ~800g failgold coming, hopefully sooner than later. Started running scientists for double astro bulb (scientists out T133 i.e. 450AD, when I probably have optics done).

 

[sampsa]

450AD

Spoiler :

Nobody wanted to build ToA which was getting annoying. Finally 300AD I get my well earned 1500. Settled a crap city on copper, whipped forge in Kagoshima, overflow into Colossus, whip when available, remove from queue. Gift crappy copper-city to Qin. Another 300, though wasn't really necessary. My sentry scout chariot on a galley spotted first Genghis, then Hatty and Cyrus. Nobody has alpha, wtf? They haven't been warring either.

Had improved another marble down south and gifted it to Qin and he was spamming wonders in his capital, good boy. Optics 425AD, got scientists ready for bulbs. Had to self tech alpha and got only math via trade and need to go aesth+calendar myself, well only 2T each, so 540AD astro expected. Then engineering on Qin I guess.

 

[sampsa]

A save at astro and some earlier autosaves, in case someone wants to look at the details. Should work without mods, just used BUG in custom assets.

 

[Winth]

Spoiler :

Wow, a few things I'm already noticing is that I completely screwed up growing my capital (frankly Osaka was much bigger than Kyoto in my game) and plains riverside cottages work decently well at shared food surplus.

Are you building Workshops on plains riverless tiles in anticipation of Caste or State Property?

Another side effect of your much better expansion and correct valuing of the Grassland tiles is that you got way more failgold than I did! I aimed for ToA failgold as well, but mine provided me with a mere 500 gold (being built in three cities consecutively) compared to the bank you made. Wouldn't have occurred to me to use forest chops for failgold, either, as I tend to get "precious" with those, hoarding them like a beginner RPG player would hold on to his potions "until the last boss". I guess in my case I was saving the forests for a prospective unit rush.

By the way, when do you reckon is the "last" moment for Cottages to be worth building? I know they get phased out by Watermills/Windmills in many cases.

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Yep, plains riverside cottages are not horrible at all (and get a double boost in golden age), especially when a city is close to -cap. Laying down some workshops in capital area, as there isn't much to do. Probably putting HE to capital and those tiles won't be horrible forever (caste+guilds+chemistry makes them ok, SP is a huge boost later but I don't think this game lasts that long). The failgold came pretty late for me, which delayed my optics date, but on the bright side I got more of it. I did put a few chops into ToA (maybe around 4-5?), as I think 40g for a forest in BCs is a decent price. Forests go down in value the longer you hold on to them. Here I don't think I'm building cottages in the ADs, but it depends a lot on how long you think the game will last.