Ghandi and his many hordes (Let's play!)

[TheCox]

Ok, so I changed some settings based on some feedback from my other thread. I rerolled the game, got Ghandi, settings are as follow:

Settings: Pangea
Normal settings (I believe)
Huts off
Espionage turned back on
Noble Difficulty
Bat mod used

Not a very good start from what I can tell, no food, no real good starting resources.. but I want to work with what I was given, so I'm thinking of moving scout 1NE and see what we can find there. I see what looks to be some sort of lake or fresh water source to the north.

Thoughts?

 

[SpK]

I would move first, like you said, see if anything better pops up.
Odds are you have some more resources in the 2nd ring from where your settler is, but if that wine is riverside it might be your best spot to settle, because it gives you 2 instead if the typical 1, while still keeping the FP in your city radius

 

[TheCox]

So If I settled on the wine spot, when I research winery or grocery, it will give me the +2 to commerce? I guess I'm still a little confused on how to go about settling ON resources.

Also, FP is forbidden palace right?

EDIT: Moved 1 spot NE to the other circle and nothing, but I do have a rice field right there with grassland and fresh water that I could probably settle on or near right?

 

[ikotomi]

When you settle, the city tile always has at least two food, one hammer, and one commerce. If the tile naturally has more than this, it keeps the tiles value for the resource that is higher.

In this case, the wine tile on the river had two commerce, one for having wine, and one for being on the river (all with river have one extra commerce. Because this is higher than the starting commerce of the city tile, it keeps two commerce when you settle.

In the future, when you get Monarchy to improve wine tiles, you don't get to improve the tile you settled on. You do get the happiness bonus for it being in your trade network and can trade it like any other luxury.

It's not quite as strong later, but in the early game, that one extra commerce without having to work the tile pays huge dividends.

That being said, I would probably have moved to the hill your warrior settle on to get the rice. The blue circles are usually a trick, since it tends to just mean it's on the coast, not near any other resource.

 

[SpK]

FP is also Flood Plain, which is what I was referring to here.

it looks like you have an ok, not great start, hopefully you have a lot of other resources nearby

The tile yield exceeding the city norm is also why settling on a PH (plain hill) is often a good idea, you get an extra and a little extra defense.

So, if the wine is on a river too, it is a good early settling spot, but once you have Calendar and can build a plantation, it gets more value building a winery. I can't tell if the wine is on a river in the screenshot, as I am on my phone atm.

just SIP (settle in place) is also ok on Noble, because you have the 3 FP within your BFC (big fat cross/city boundaries)- odds are you will get 1 or 2 more resources (eventually) if you SIP, it is just they are sometimes aluminum or oil, which are not useful for a very long time ;-)

 

[TheCox]

Normally I wouldn't reload back to turn 0 as I feel that is cheating myself, but I did it in this since, just because I'm still learning how to go about getting things set up. In the future I will not do this and if I mess up turn 1, well then tough luck.

So I reloaded and settled on the hill like you suggested, moving the warrior down to the SE revealed cows(not on water ) and ivory. to my NW is also the gold and the rice. I started researching Agriculture and a worker as well so I can get that rice going.

 

[TheCox]

Turn 16 gave me a little bit more to work with as I can see I have marble to the north of the gold tile. I believe my next move should be a settler after my worker so that I can rapid expand and get the gold set up to mine and get the marble in my BFC.

I researched Agriculture and started on BW so that I can chop/whip if need be. Seems like I should chop/whip no matter what from what I have read.

Andddd I have Shaka somewhere to my south.. I do not like this man.. he reminds me of Mr.Eko from Lost...I should probably deal with him quickly if I can.

 

[Pangaea]

EDIT: Moved 1 spot NE to the other circle and nothing

Oh dear. You moved where the game drew a circle? With few exceptions aside, this is usually a good indication of what NOT to do.

 

[Pangaea]

Turn 16 gave me a little bit more to work with as I can see I have marble to the north of the gold tile. I believe my next move should be a settler after my worker so that I can rapid expand and get the gold set up to mine and get the marble in my BFC.

I researched Agriculture and started on BW so that I can chop/whip if need be. Seems like I should chop/whip no matter what from what I have read.

Andddd I have Shaka somewhere to my south.. I do not like this man.. he reminds me of Mr.Eko from Lost...I should probably deal with him quickly if I can.

The city you have plopped down is... not good. It lacks food, which is the overwhelmingly most important factor to consider when deciding where to place cities. You need to explore more first, but pig and wheat look like better locations, or by the north coast (to grab marble), if there is seafood.

It's too early to build a settler too. Grow to for instance size 3 first, while building warriors.

Winery is unlocked by Monarchy btw, not Calendar. Lots of resources can be improved with calendar, but not wine.

 

[lymond]

ugh..I forgot to mention something in my recommendation to you yesterday. while learning, I recommend rolling a start with at least one good visible food resource...i.e., wet corn or grass pigs. You do yourself no favors otherwise. By visible, I mean clearly seen at the start or after moving scout/warrior. Don't move settlers to blue circles. In most cases you should be able to SIP or at minimum only lose 1t of settler movement.

I suggest rerolling and posting new map here

(otherwise, I with the warrior revealing wet corn - ok food resource - I woulda just settled 1N on the wine on the first turn. you ruined a pretty good tile settling on the riverside grass hill to no real advantage)

 

[TalladegaKnight]

Lymond makes good points. I would play this out. Gandhi is good enough of a leader. Capital is not great but not terrible either. The marble gold city you have makes off will never grow to work those tiles. More exploration needed for 2nd city decision. Explore pig or wheat for 2nd city.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[ikotomi]

ugh..I forgot to mention something in my recommendation to you yesterday. while learning, I recommend rolling a start with at least one good visible food resource...i.e., wet corn or grass pigs. You do yourself no favors otherwise. By visible, I mean clearly seen at the start or after moving scout/warrior. Don't move settlers to blue circles. In most cases you should be able to SIP or at minimum only lose 1t of settler movement.

I suggest rerolling and posting new map here

(otherwise, I with the warrior revealing wet corn - ok food resource - I woulda just settled 1N on the wine on the first turn. you ruined a pretty good tile settling on the riverside grass hill to no real advantage)

Is the grasslands hill that much better than wine? I'm not sure how fast you hit happy cap, but production won't be too much worse with the Plains hill forest before chopping, and there's another grassland hill in the north that he can use. After he gets monarchy, the wine tile should be stronger for the rest of the game. I'm not sure the early advantage of the mined hill is a clearly better.

Looking now, it looks nicer because of the extra grassland and river tiles to the east, but I don't think those were visible at the start.

 

[TalladegaKnight]

Is the grasslands hill that much better than wine? I'm not sure how fast you hit happy cap, but production won't be too much worse with the Plains hill forest before chopping, and there's another grassland hill in the north that he can use. After he gets monarchy, the wine tile should be stronger for the rest of the game. I'm not sure the early advantage of the mined hill is a clearly better.

Looking now, it looks nicer because of the extra grassland and river tiles to the east, but I don't think those were visible at the start.

The problem is we lost a turn moving to the hill that gave no extra benefit for doing so. Settling on the wine tile would have captured the rice and given extra commerce right from the start (no monarchy needed) and not lost a settler turn.

 

[TheCox]

So, I played a few more *cough about a hundred cough* lol turns into it. Right now I am at turn 140, I have met all the other civs, shaka went to war with korea and egypt at some point. Saladin is good friends with me I believe. I have 5 cities going and trying to pump out some military units.. I wouldn't say I have a stack of doom now, but I will probably lay off the axe, spear and swordsman's in a little bit so that I can start researching more again.

I lost the copper to the NE of my mid city due to the fact that I didn't realize I had to build culture things like monuments. I know my southern most city is terrible and I really dont know why I am building horseback riding when I don't have horses anywhere near me at all.

I'm probably not doing good at all and like you said, should probably re-roll the map and start over.

 

[lymond]

Wine is a pretty bad tile. River grass hills a strong early tiles that can become nice windmills later if that is best for the city. You can also cottage them in bureau caps, although I don't see this city as one.

grass hill to N won't be workable for a very long time, although that is irrelevant. FPH might be used as offset hammers early after whips in lieu of mine but otherwise that forest will be chopped asap and the PH otherwise ignored.

Gold is something you want to try to take advantage of asap early. That city looks like crap and it is pure crap, but sometimes you just settle a city to work the gold for some time anyway. Sometimes you just settle a "resource" city. I'm not sure if that is the best option or placement though regardless as your second city without knowing a bit more about the map. Right now, the visible vicinity of Delhi that I see from the screenshot it pretty horrible, but there maybe better options to the S and SE that I don't see.

Anyway, you want your new cities to be as productive as possible immediately ..in some way. Generally that means food. Sometimes it means commerce from gold or gems, or a strat resource online quickly to get a rush going. BW could change the view of things quite a bit.

edit: to TK - well, it would not provide extra commerce, but looking at it as if it was still Turn 0, based on what I saw I would have settled that turn on the wine as it is simply the best city spot visible at the time. Not great, but certainly doable. Still would like to see these new guys roll themselves a bit better start for these types of games. This seems to always happen..ha I can't even count how many times guys come on here for advice posting a game with literally only a plains cow for food..basically starts that i myself would generally give no thought to.

This start is OK though with wet rice and flood plains, but unfortunate several turns were wasted unnecessarily moving the settler around only to then settle poorly in the end anyway. That's why I would recommend rerolling/restarting

 

[TalladegaKnight]

Why not reload and play this map? Also slow it down. Play 10-20 turn increments (or objective to objective) and wait for advice. You'll learn more that way.

 

[TalladegaKnight]

At this level it is even possible to pick your victory you want to shoot for from the start. This will help focus your strategy. Plus Gandhi is a very versatile leader that is good at a multitude of victories.

 

[TheCox]

Well Saladin was pleased with me, didn't upset him at all and he just turned around and declared war on me and wiped me out.. so, I'll restart the map, and try again with the advice you guys have given.

Thanks so far, even though I lost, still having fun

 

[TalladegaKnight]

@Lymond

Ahhh, not on the river. Still the spot to settle I feel like too.

 

[Gumbolt]

5 cities by 600ad is doing yourself no favours. A pretty weak start but no excuses for not expanding more. You want at least 6-8+ cities by 1ad. If not more.

Learn to expand more on the lower levels. Be more ruthless and take out neighbouting AI. You don't win games by allowing yourself to get boxed in with just 5 cities. Noble Ai are pretty slow to expand. Don't base your expansion by them.