After some discussion in the Strategy meeting, we want to bring 40J's proposal to a vote.
"First, a peaceful gambit in which we max produce settlers as quickly as possible to settle as much territory as possible in the early game, while effective in SP, can be quite disastrous in MP play. All it takes is for an enemy to raze one of our newly established, and weakly defended cities in the early game and we're playing catch up for the remainder of the game.
Second, certain techs are going to be extremely hard to come by in this game as the generous AI is sitting this one out. For example, I doubt any nation will trade Iron Working, Literature, Map Making, or Monarchy in this game. At least, not while that nation is still in the Ancient Era. If we are to keep up in the tech race, or dare we dream it, take the tech lead in this game, we must maximize our research, which requires maximizing our commerce.
Shen Ling is ideally situated (thanks to our lovely river and forest) to become a production and commercial powerhouse, envied by all other nations. As of this moment, without any additional deforestation, and the addition of a few roads in the forest tiles along the river, this city is capable of yielding >10 spt and >10 cpt quite easily. Why, this city alone could become more productive than all of Gamecatcher's cities combined.
Because of the potential commerce in Shen Ling, I believe we should produce only warriors in Shen Ling until the discovery of Iron Working. Doing so should reduce the time needed to discover that tech and allow us to build up our military for the coming war with Gamecatcher.
Zhi Gang, on the other hand, does not have the same commerce potential and should be used to produce settlers until the discovery of Iron Working and beyond. However, we are producing a worker this turn to begin building roads east, and we should produce a warrior to escort those brave lads lest they fall prey to some barbarian hordes or worse. Thereafter, I believe we should build settlers in that city as often as possible.
Thirdly, in my admittedly limited MP experience, I have witnessed a few interesting strategies. However, one has stood decidedly above the rest as a powerful tool for early expansion: tight builds and mucho military. The tight city placement creates overlap between cities, but the production benefits in the early stages of the game are considerable: our workers aren't wasted building long roads between cities, effectively increasing commerce in tiles that won't be worked for eons. I have attached a graphic outlying my suggestions for city sites using a tight build strategy. Keep in mind that there is limited information at this time due to the unexplored areas to our north, and the optimal sites may need to change slightly, but I think this is a good start.
Furthermore, I've seen an MP game in which a player built 15 warriors prior to building his first settler! The result: his warriors were able to raze cities in just about every other nation in the very, very early game. This caused all the other players to slow down their expansion and concentrate on their own borders, while his workers and settlers were able to roam freely. By the Middle Ages, he had amassed almost as much territory as the rest of the players combined.
Lastly, we need to get our military machine going. As the only Militaristic civilization in the game, we need to use that to our advantage, and the best way to do that is to get a leader early on, build the Heroic Epic and start fishing for more and more leaders with which we can rush build wonders before our enemies can build them the hard way.
In closing, I implore everyone to not worry too much about building as many settlers as we can at this time. Let Shen Ling grow to a respectable size so that we can take advantage of the bountiful surrounding terrain. Then, after our military is ready for action, we can resume a more balanced production queue (10+ shields per turn = 1 settler in 3 turns...) in our capitol.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4...c-cityplan1.zip
(password: boogenhagen)"
"First, a peaceful gambit in which we max produce settlers as quickly as possible to settle as much territory as possible in the early game, while effective in SP, can be quite disastrous in MP play. All it takes is for an enemy to raze one of our newly established, and weakly defended cities in the early game and we're playing catch up for the remainder of the game.
Second, certain techs are going to be extremely hard to come by in this game as the generous AI is sitting this one out. For example, I doubt any nation will trade Iron Working, Literature, Map Making, or Monarchy in this game. At least, not while that nation is still in the Ancient Era. If we are to keep up in the tech race, or dare we dream it, take the tech lead in this game, we must maximize our research, which requires maximizing our commerce.
Shen Ling is ideally situated (thanks to our lovely river and forest) to become a production and commercial powerhouse, envied by all other nations. As of this moment, without any additional deforestation, and the addition of a few roads in the forest tiles along the river, this city is capable of yielding >10 spt and >10 cpt quite easily. Why, this city alone could become more productive than all of Gamecatcher's cities combined.
Because of the potential commerce in Shen Ling, I believe we should produce only warriors in Shen Ling until the discovery of Iron Working. Doing so should reduce the time needed to discover that tech and allow us to build up our military for the coming war with Gamecatcher.
Zhi Gang, on the other hand, does not have the same commerce potential and should be used to produce settlers until the discovery of Iron Working and beyond. However, we are producing a worker this turn to begin building roads east, and we should produce a warrior to escort those brave lads lest they fall prey to some barbarian hordes or worse. Thereafter, I believe we should build settlers in that city as often as possible.
Thirdly, in my admittedly limited MP experience, I have witnessed a few interesting strategies. However, one has stood decidedly above the rest as a powerful tool for early expansion: tight builds and mucho military. The tight city placement creates overlap between cities, but the production benefits in the early stages of the game are considerable: our workers aren't wasted building long roads between cities, effectively increasing commerce in tiles that won't be worked for eons. I have attached a graphic outlying my suggestions for city sites using a tight build strategy. Keep in mind that there is limited information at this time due to the unexplored areas to our north, and the optimal sites may need to change slightly, but I think this is a good start.
Furthermore, I've seen an MP game in which a player built 15 warriors prior to building his first settler! The result: his warriors were able to raze cities in just about every other nation in the very, very early game. This caused all the other players to slow down their expansion and concentrate on their own borders, while his workers and settlers were able to roam freely. By the Middle Ages, he had amassed almost as much territory as the rest of the players combined.
Lastly, we need to get our military machine going. As the only Militaristic civilization in the game, we need to use that to our advantage, and the best way to do that is to get a leader early on, build the Heroic Epic and start fishing for more and more leaders with which we can rush build wonders before our enemies can build them the hard way.
In closing, I implore everyone to not worry too much about building as many settlers as we can at this time. Let Shen Ling grow to a respectable size so that we can take advantage of the bountiful surrounding terrain. Then, after our military is ready for action, we can resume a more balanced production queue (10+ shields per turn = 1 settler in 3 turns...) in our capitol.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4...c-cityplan1.zip
(password: boogenhagen)"
