First moves and getting those huts.

[TruePurple]

....

Please see my post right before your last one

 

[antimony]

I was writing as you posted the example.

Here's my idea for the opening:

EDITED: Didn't see the fish the first time around.

Spoiler :

Research Hunting (turn 7)-AH (turn 21)-Fishing (turn 28) - I might be a bit off on the timing. After that probably the wheel but depends what resources we find in future city spots.

Build worker (15T) who will mine the pigs on the hill (done T19), then pasture the pigs on flatland (reaches them just around time AH is done, finishes pasture on T25). After that the worker will be busy with the plains hills mine and eventually go all the way around to camp on those furs.

After worker is built, capital works the flatland pigs, then eventually switches to the pig mine, to grow to size 2 on turn 23 or 24 (depending if you want faster growth or more production. During that time you have built a scout or warrior (maybe scout for the huts?), and then another unit (maybe a warrior) by turn 28 just as the city turns to size 3 and you have fishing. Now you can build fishing boats with 4 hammers from the city center + pigs mine, +2 hammers from that plains hill that will soon have a mine for +4 hammers instead. That's 4 turns to build each boat. At this point it's up to you to determine how much you want to grow and when to stop to build the first settler. At size 5 with both pigs + all the boats you are getting settlers in 6 turns if my calculation is correct, and you will reach size 5 when the 2nd out of 3 boats is done I think.

If this was deity we would be worried about barbs entering our borders around T40, so perhaps more warriors would be needed, or teching archery after fishing. On immortal it should be fine to do a more greedy opening focused on economy rather than defense.

Also I don't play India often, but I see the synergy between the fast worker, mining starting tech and very hilly terrain is strong here.

 

[TruePurple]

Here's my idea for the opening:

Trying various things including your suggestions, it seems like going for fishing first is best. I might not have as many tiles finished that way, but sufficient for my population. But by turn 41 going for fishing first (and a warrior while fishing is researching) gets me nearly a half a tech more worth of research.

 

[TruePurple]

Also mining hill plains right before the pigs and then pasture the pigs makes for more resources than mining the pigs and then the grassland. +3 food for pasture on pigs, +2 iron for mining, not counting the trade resource

 

[Gumbolt]

The game has been studied and analysed by some of the best players on here. Hence why most will go worker first unless sea food start. With Indians BW early can be great. You will argue the huts change that.

Did a test run with Alex. Got 3 huts net gain was 31 gold. Maps are a poor return. The AI scout beelined most of the huts and beat me to one hut on my border. Even if I had perfect knowledge of the map i would of never got more than 3 huts. So beelining hunting would be pointless as the AI would reach huts before you could tech that and build a scout. You would need a map roll where you corner off part of the map so AI can't reach it. On T1 you have 12 AI scouts searching down the huts. They won't spawn barbs as scouts prevent that. Same for explorers too. Do the AI auto head towards the huts? It felt like that way. So my 2nd scout was likely to find 1-2 huts out of the 3-4 huts I could of grabbed. Is this 3-5 turn delay worth. Using fast workers again is not really worth it as you risk losing 60 hammers if you spawn barbs.

Maybe on huge maps this might work better? Barbs are a much bigger risk on huge maps. Not tested with a warrior start but I am guessing warrior will be worse than scouts as slower to reach any of the huts.

I think before you build a city units can't spawn barbs. So in theory you could settler scout. All seems a lot of effort for little gain. AI normally start 8-10 tiles away from the player.

 

[Gumbolt]

I would consider BW-Fishing as starting techs. You can then either whip a workboat or chop it. Mining pigs is common as you get a 2f3h tile. With Indians fast movement onto the forest.

Waiting 6-7 turns for fishing then 10 turns for a workboat. Plus 3 turns for workboat to reach the fish is 20 turns.
15 turns for worker. Chop forest 3 turns. 1-2 turns mining of pigs if spare turns. By end of turn 20 you have worker and a fishboat too?
By T29-32 you could likely have 3 workboats.

Why would you not build a worker till turn 41? Why would you not whip workboats if you have bronze working? Why are you so focused on AH when in short term you can have a 2F3H tile to help towards settler production. AH can follow later.

 

[civac]

Scout first is viable if there are a lot of huts.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Huts are fun.

A lot of people on here get their fun from optimising their games (doing things as efficiently as possible even if they are less fun) which is why you're talking past each other a bit on this thread. You might actually enjoy the Hall of Fame, whilst Huts and Events are generally turned off for our competitions you can use them in normal games.

Not optimal to go for scouts if you lack hunting? I don't get what you mean.

He means the turns spent researching Hunting are better used for other techs, if you start with Hunting then you have a scout already so the times you want to build one (even with Huts on) are very rare.

 

[TruePurple]

Why are you so focused on AH when in short term you can have a 2F3H tile to help towards settler production. AH can follow later.

Going for AH first was antimonies suggestion. So what are your exact suggested opening moves regarding tech and production?

When do people suggest going for a second settler? I think when you go for a second settler you should have a road or Sailing and along the same shoreline, ready for it to have trade right away.

 

[TruePurple]

Why would you not build a worker till turn 41?

You seem to have misunderstood something. t41 is when I would have all of that, the fishing boats, worker, 2 warriors and a scout Just trying different orders of production and research.

 

[antimony]

Going for AH first was antimonies suggestion. So what are your exact suggested opening moves regarding tech and production?

After reading @Gumbolt's post I think his Bronze Working opening is better. As you pointed out the problem with AH before Fishing was that the tech progress was slower, since the boats provide that commerce (energy as you call it I think?) Bronze Working provides plenty of production with the forests and later slavery, and fishing boats are done faster than in the AH opening. Pigs are very strong tiles and AH could show horses, but the ability to chop forests, have slavery civic and possibly show copper opens more options.

 

[TruePurple]

So I tried a run where first I made I made a warrior, using 2f 1p forest while researching fishing. When my cap expands I switch to the fur forest. That causes me to finish warrior in the same turn I get fishing.

Then I keep working the fur forest while building a boat and researching BW. My boat finishes in the same turn my city gets to size 2. I send the boat to the fish since that has one more food.

Then I switch to producing worker. Once the boat gets to the fish combined with with size 2 city production time is something like 8-9 turns. But midway through worker production I get BW, switch to slavery and whip my worker finished.

Start work on a second boat, chop it finished. Research hunting.

Build a scout and have it get huts the warriors have found, 2-3 turns build time.

Got some gold and writing tech! Build more workers to work tiles and send one to carefully explore with. Research husbandry and then road.

No copper or horses, research iron working.

Does anyone see a way to improve on that?

When should you produce a second city by?

 

[antimony]

We can calculate it without the game but it would be easier if we had the initial turn 0 save to play.

 

[TruePurple]

We can calculate it without the game but it would be easier if we had the initial turn 0 save to play.

Do you know where that save is under Linux?

 

[antimony]

Then I switch to producing worker. Once the boat gets to the fish combined with with size 2 city production time is something like 8-9 turns. But midway through worker production I get BW, switch to slavery and whip my worker finished.

That's around T22-23, correct? So we're essentially comparing a Fishing-BW, warrior-workboat-worker opening to a BW-Fishing, worker-warrior-workboat opening that ends almost on the same turn (@Gumboat said 20 earlier but I doubt BW-Fishing can be researched before T22 on immortal.) Main difference is in your opening the warrior is out earlier and the boat is out earlier (so you get that extra food and commerce) vs. in @Gumboat's the worker is out earlier and build a mine and chop one more forest (extra production, so maybe the next boats come out a bit faster). Again it's a bit tedious to try to simulate it on paper beyond the early turns.

Are you playing Gandhi or Ashoka? With Gandhi (Philosophical), getting Writing earlier has a greater appeal since a library with two scientists working it produces a great scientist in 9 turns only. With Ashoka, you get cheaper lighthouses so perhaps Sailing gets more value, you could even go for the Great Lighthouse with such a water-dominated start, in that case you probably delay AH-Writing even further. However it really depends on what the map looks like, where the cities are planned, etc. Why would you want iron working early?

When should you produce a second city by?

Fippy's beginner guide suggests growing the city to work all the "good tiles" before producing a settler, and it's generally good advice. At that point either you produce it without whipping which stops growth, or you let the city grow further and whip to take the population down, but ideally big enough to still work good tiles. With just fishing and mining, you best tiles are the 3 boats and the pig mine, and working them all at a population of 4 you get a settler in 8 turns. But alternatively, you can let it grow to 6, at which point it's unhappy, get 10 production into the settler and whip to finish the settler, dropping the population to 3 (but you need to grow back to 4 to get all your good tiles). The advantage of the second option is that you can put production into something else while it's growing. If you have a granary (but that requires pottery) whipping becomes much better, but before a granary, often just stopping growth with all the good tiles worked is best.

Obviously if you go for Hunting-AH next then the pasture pigs become the best tile for growth and settler production, but you have so many good tiles you may not need to wait for / prioritize that, unless it fits in your bigger plan.

A good benchmark that people use is to have 3 cities by turn 50 (the capital might go settler-worker-settler for example).

Note that if your 2nd city is also on the coast and all the coast tiles between it and your capital are within your borders, then it's connected by trade even without sailing.

 

[Gumbolt]

So ideally you should be running 3f tile sooner to reach size 2 faster as it allows 5H workboat production sooner. So your micro is off. Unless you use more sea tiles BW could take 16 turns.

On your strat. If you go forest plains for 5 turns then pigs on T5 and grow to size 2 on 3f pigs this is better. Then a choice of 6T workboat or 10T workboat with BW 2 turns sooner? (Workboat sooner is likely better for food?) Worker whipped T21 and completes T22. Size one and 5 turns till growth.

So BW first you would have workboat and worker by T24. Albeit workboat 3 turns from being settled. Capital not whipped. 1 forest spent. BW 16 turns. Fishing 6-7 turns. Techs here is the main delay,

BW first you get pigs mine sooner but lose 2 forest. You might get 2nd workboat sooner but is it worth 2 forest. On both runs by 2920bc I had at least WB and worker.

Not sure how much value the pigs mine adds here if you can whip with fish. Sea starts are always hard to judge. AT size 3-4 pigs mine is a nice tile. Of course you can whip the settlers at size 4.

 

[TruePurple]

Is someone going to answer my question about finding the save file under Linux?

 

[Gumbolt]

Autosaves?

 

[antimony]

Is someone going to answer my question about finding the save file under Linux?

I don't use Linux, but under Windows the auto-saves are at:

Users/[username]/Documents/My Games/beyond the sword/Saves/single/auto

The Linux path must be similar starting at beyond the sword... Note that it will contain the 4000BC auto-save for the last game that was started, not previous ones since it overwrites.

 

[TruePurple]

Found the files /proc/1222/fd/4/drive_c/users/ming/My Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword/Saves/single
I should have looked there first So I got the base start and one with some progress. The prgress one, can sometime tell me why I have to keep turning down my research? Because units are outside of a city? But I thought I needed to "fog burst" aka have a bunch of units outside my city. I don't have that many units in the first place.

Does scout increase unit upkeep for in enemy territory?