Full Monty

[babybluepants]

Got it. Quick thoughts:

Definitely another worker quickly. I think we could whip it complete for substantial overflow (30h) on the turn we hook up copper. That lets us catch up with land improvements and gives us a quicker first vulture?

City location: I'm liking 1S of pig. It's hillside, which is good since Chalc Monty is most likely right over there; gets spices; we can hopefully settle a gold/rice city, as well. Alternatively, we also get gold with this city.

IW first sounds interesting. Should be doable in about the 26t it's showing. That's Turn 56 - 1760 BC. If we cancel the current worker action, we should able to 1pop whip a settler from size 3 (borrowing rice) at Turn 53, or 1pop whip from size 2 on Turn 49-50 (depending on rice). I think - haven't been super careful with calculations. It would take 8t to settle from Copper Fish - so T57 at the earliest.

 

[shyuhe]

I don't think we need to worry about the exact location of city #3 yet - it'll be in the general vicinity of the gems and we need a long road to it.

Whipping the second worker sounds fine, although I'd try to max the overflow into a vulture just to be safe.

 

[babybluepants]

We'll need to decide on the exact location soon. Even being creative, I tend to prefer pig in immediate radius, in case Chalc settles right next to pig.

Your proposed builds seem perfect to me, except that we'll want MP in Uruk relatively soon. May need to slip a warrior in at some point. The next warrior should fog-bust gems, but we also really need to explore S of that barb city, IMHO.

Mid-term worker plan could be something like this...

Spoiler :

Worker 1:
T+01 Cancel action; move to copper
T+03 Road copper
T+05 Mine copper
T+09 Move to grass 1SE of second city
T+10 Farm
T+15 Move to PH 2W of Uruk
T+16 Mine PH
T+20 Move to southern gems
T+23 Road
T+25 Move to 1NE of southern gems
T+26 Road
T+28 Move to gems 2S of pig
T+29 Chop/mine gems
T+35 Move to gems 1S
T+36 Chop/mine gems
T+40 Mine complete

Worker 2:
T+09 Built; move to GH
T+10 Complete mine
T+12 Move to PH 1NE
T+13 Road PH
T+15 Road 1NE
T+17 Road 1N
T+19 Move 1NE
T+20 Road
T+22 Move towards pig
T+27 City founded; pasture pig
T+31 Move to gems 2S of pig
T+33 Chop/mine gems
T+35 Move to gems 1S
T+36 Chop/mine gems
T+40 Mine complete

That gives us 3 mines and grass farm in Uruk/Fish, road to gems, pig pasture and both gem mines by T70 (1200 BC), or some 13-14t after IW, and the timing is almost perfect at every step. I'd probably build another worker in Bronze Fish circa T+30, after regrowing to 2 or 3 post-Settler.

If this were an SGOTM, I'd heavily test IW vs Writing here. IW does seem stronger, though. One thing I can think of is that it also potentially stands to suffer more from a pre-1000 BC Chalc DOW.

 

[shyuhe]

That worker schedule seems fine.

 

[kossin]

Sorry, busy day will chime in tomorrow!

 

[kossin]

IW vs Writing
Agree this would require more testing to be certain. IW is probably safer now though as it will allow to start settling the stupid jungle (and grab gems) so I'm fine with IW right now.

Another option for getting out the 2nd worker faster is revolt to BW in 2 turns then 1-pop whip settler for 29 (?) overflow, making worker #2 a 4-turns build.
Re-growth should be about 4 turns and we'll have unimproved tiles anyway.

About pig city: I don't like 1S too much, it wastes 1 forest and there's really no guarantee we can keep the spice by settling there (plus it will probably add border tiles earlier). 1SW grabs the gold instead which could be useful for early happy if we can't spare a settler for that area.

 

[shyuhe]

So I think everyone who's chimed in so far is for IW over AH/pottery/writing.

Kossin's slaving proposal is fine by me. It'll get the settler out at the same time as a slow build and the unhappiness will wear away before we hit the cap.

 

[babybluepants]

IW seems like the winner.

@kossin,
That sounds good. I may try to think about another solution later, or just go with that. Whatever gets us our first vulture fastest is probably best. We may be cutting it a little close with barb defence.

1SW was what I initially thought, so I'm ok with that.

What would you guys do with the north warrior now? We could use scouting the west coasts, in case there's an awesome early city spot there, and bring it back to fogbust north of Uruk. Or just go fogbust gems? There could be a barb city spawning already, and our next warrior might get busy near the core.

 

[shyuhe]

I'd prefer to fogbust gems. It'd be a pity to lose it to a barb city (although vulture are great at taking on barb archers).

 

[babybluepants]

Ok. I'll give mysty some time to object, and play the set later today.

 

[mystyfly]

^^ Stop it bbp or ppl start thinking that's some sort of habit of mine

Well I thought a bit too general. This is an unusual capital and unusual situation overall with land, settings, etc. I'm fine with going IW first... The city is still going to require lots and lots of worker turns we might be spending otherwise altough there aren't many forests to chop around uruk anyway... go ahead bbp

 

[babybluepants]

Played 13t. Save's attached.

I went with: finish settler / grow, completing warrior / 2pop whip worker with enough overflow for 1t vulture. We had 1 archer and 2 warriors entering borders just before the vulture was complete, but they're dealt with now.

The northern warrior had to heal, then got attacked again and had to heal again, so I didn't get far with it. There's a barb city now @ pig/rice/gold. We'll have to adjust and probably settle 1S of the original spot, but I think that's ok. Just need to make sure we get these cities before Monty does.

Uruk is growing while building a warrior, and Eridu should start on a settler a.s.a. pop 2.

Spoiler :

Northern land - there's a pig/clam at the top of the desert, but it doesn't look too hot.

 

[shyuhe]

Well that barb city will save us a settler. We can settle 1W of the northern gems to share the pigs still.

What is the espionage situation with Monty? Is he still essentially dead even with us? If so, we are going to have to start thinking about planting some hill cities...

In terms of micro, will Uruk grow in 4 turns if it works the riverside farm? If so, I'd work that for the extra coin and give the rice to Eridu once it hits size 2. Once Eridu hits size 3, it can swap to fish+copper+plains hill for a settler.

Roster:
shyuhe
mystyfly
bbp
kossin - UP
soirana (on deck)
Silu (lurking)

 

[babybluepants]

EP is 116/108.

Uruk can grow in 4t with 2t rice + 2t grass farm, yes. We could do that.

Eridu can whip a settler in T+10, if it starts it at pop 2, or T+13 if it starts at pop 3. I'm for faster settler.

 

[babybluepants]

Well that barb city will save us a settler. We can settle 1W of the northern gems to share the pigs still.

Yeah. We could potentially also settle the hill 1E of that gems?

 

[shyuhe]

Doesn't an extra turn on the settler basically give us more time to road to gems? If so, I don't think it'll make a difference on what turn the settler arrives at the gems spot.

 

[babybluepants]

Sorry, it's 3 extra turns, I made a mistake initially (corrected now). The end result in Eridu should be about the same, I think. Since we're settling 2 tiles away now, popping borders for pigs sooner is better................

Except I only just realized that we don't actually have AH for the pig pasture now.

Edit: Ok, I think it'll be 4t of saving and about 17t of 100% research to finish IW and AH.

Edit2: If we do the settler from pop 2, the city 1W of northern gems would pop its borders T+22, so 1t after AH. I think that's good. We could probably improve both gems before pigs then.

 

[kossin]

Got it. Will take a look a little bit later tonight. I'll probably play to the end of IW.

Since we're not settling pigs in first ring I think we can still finish IW first and have gems ready 1 turn after the city is settled (if we pre-road and pre-chop the tile).

 

[kossin]

Alright, here's the big picture.

T0
Uruk stays on Rice
N warrior fogbusts gems city area
Vulture cuts along coast to check for seafood, a view of the barb city then further east
W warrior checks coast a bit north and then heads northeast (? or should he fogbust ?)

T1
Worker on PH mines
Worker on GH starts roading towards gems spot (we need 12 worker turns to hook up the city, plus 3 wasted turns climbing hills and moving in jungle + we want to remove the jungle ASAP). He will be helped by second worker once he is done with his duty.

T2
research to 0%
Uruk: Rice-> farmed grassland
Eridu: 2nd pop on Rice to hasten growth to size 3 (start settler at 3 and whip ASAP)

T3
research to 100%

T4
Worker on PH done, helps road
Uruk size 4, warrior done, starts worker [no whip imo]
Alternatively, start Barracks to 2-pop whip into a Vulture and do some more vultures. Depends on barb situation in cities (if chances of city falling mainly).

T5
... depends on timing of things above. Eridu should grow to size 3 in 4 turns after hitting size 2
Maybe swap rice between 2 cities this turn if it doesn't slow Eridu growth

T6
Eridu starts settler (takes back rice if it comes out faster)

T7
...

T8
...

T9
...

T10
IW should be done at latest on this turn I guess.

Can discuss techs (AH vs Pottery I guess, both have their merits)

 

[shyuhe]

Plan sounds fine to me. I'd pay attention to the EP situation - we need to figure out if we're in semi-isolation (alphabet = useless). In either event, I think we want to put the gems city on the hill to the east of the gems because it will make it harder for Monty to send units behind the city to pillage the gems.