Foundation and Empire #4

[VoiceOfUnreason]

At what point do you decide you've built enough settlers and prep for war?

The shorthand answer is LAND not REX.

More specifically, I'm specifically advocating a balanced approach in the expectation that you can't get into serious economic difficulty AND sustain top rank GNP out to turn 115 without deliberately trying to game the system.

Given than, I think the general answer of "you prep for war when there is no good land readily available". If you pressed me further with pathological cases, it would probably turn out that I really meant contiguous land.

Roughly, you should be able to estimate when war should come by the distance between your capital and the target (compare this game with FnE #1, for instance).

A broad approximation is to consider three separate classifications of war - pre-catapult wars (your rushes, including the horse archer rush, go here), the catapult wars, and the post catapult wars (I'm a bit vague on where I think the real boundary is here, but you get the idea).

I'm deliberately avoiding things like warrior rushes and early chariot rushes because I don't think that learning about attacking warrior garrisons is all that useful.

 

[Mylene]

I would build one more worker at size 3.
With many forests and the wheel, i'd say 2 workers before a settler should be better here.
I consider waiting beyond size 3 as not optimal with average food, like this Capi

 

[Keilah]

well if we're planning to war i can give you some guidelines:

pre-cat war: 2-3 cities, rarely 4 if there's a REALLY good 4th site, but it will slow your attack date

cat war: 3-5 cities. More than that will slow you down a bunch, less than that is poor production. Also in this category are things like crossbow or engineering rushes, assuming you get the techs fast via oracle/bulbs

post-cat war: a little vague but i'd say you want at least 6 cities, and the more you get past that, the later the war tech. But really, 6 cities will see you through.

So generally, follow these guidelines and adjust for how distant the enemy is and how good your available sites are. Closer enemies and crappy land = earlier rushes. Distant foes and Good land = later wars.
If land is poor, stay on the low end of things. If there are plenty of awesome sites, aim for the upper end of the scale.

In this game the enemies are medium distance and you have sites for 4 good cities and a few mediocre ones, so go for a catapult war with 4-5 cities.

 

[cseanny]

@ Keilah

One of the best post's I've come across in a very long time. Spoken very well .

 

[Keilah]

thank you =)

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

The position at turn 40 - the first part of the plan is in.

To reach this position, I did one tech shuffle that I'm happy with, and one that I retrospect I don't like at all.

Culture in Osaka is more important than it would normally be for a second city in a less cramped position. To my mind, enough more important that I wanted to ensure that I could get a monument started right away -- remember that the Karakorum borders are going to pop in 10 turns, and I want to control the tiles in the middle if I can manage it.

I also slipped in Pottery - thinking that I needed to be able to drop some cottages. The better choice would be to take the more normal route of finishing Bronze Working first. That which can wait, must wait, and chopping forests in the capital is going to be more useful than dropping cottages in Osaka.

This is made somewhat more urgent by the fact that my second city has not secured a strategic resource. Ergo, I'm still limited to warriors for barbarian defense. Now, because of the forestation in Kyoto, I know that I don't have copper there. So I'm not losing use of a good tile with the delay.

But the obvious next question is blue or red, and that really depends on how urgent the horses are, which in turn depends on whether I've got easily secured copper.

In retrospect, I wonder about the placement of red. It's fine as a mega city, and the corn in the first ring helps it start quickly, but I'm not sure it actually uses the land well. Red to the north east is still decent early, though not quite so fast, and leaves room for a city immediately west of the horses that can use the corn.

White square is a possible location for a "filler" city. This the gems+cows location I mentioned earlier. It's not ripe until Iron Working.

Tech path has normalized again -- after Bronze Working I'll proceed directly to Writing, and then make a decision on the fork.

 

[goldys_lackey]

Since you have pottery I'd probably start food sharing from your capital, with a city 1 SW of the corn maybe.

 

[RD-BH]

Take red, cottage the flood plains and fund expansion and military to deal with mongol horde.

 

[Keilah]

Don't take white square until after your first war (if ever). You'll not get iron working for a long time.

Tech path after writing is either math -> masonry -> construction or masonry -> math -> construction. HBR can come later, to assist with wiping your 2nd/3rd victim.

Bronze working is about to complete so I don't mind telling you that it will influence your decision on where to place red square. 1ne looks good.

Remember to complete the road into Mongolia for trade routes.

 

[Keilah]

Need updates!

 

[Marcvs Avrelivs]

I've always felt that I missed a lot of things out, especially regarding land, hence why I can barely move a difficulty rating up Hence, subscribed