GOMAW 28 AWM wheel

[Bezhukov]

In my experience, a strong start requires:

(1) Forests for chopping
(2) A river for free commerce
(3) A couple hills to boost production
(4) At least one, preferably two food bonuses
(5) At least one, preferably two luxes that can be developed with early tech (camps/mines) in the general vicinity

Minerals/Stone/Marble are also nice

 

[friskymike]

1) Consider a small map instead of standard. 2 less baddies makes a world of difference.

Lurker comment: Your other option is to play a ring map instead of wheel, that way you only have two choke points at a time and the AI's on the far side of the ring will take much longer to contact you without the central hub.

 

[romeothemonk]

Ring could be very nice.

Playing normal speed with difficulty on Monarch with a wheel map, I have been able to take 2 games past 1500.

A ring map would be better I think. The wheel allows the opponents to shift from choke to choke very quickly.

Although on my post mortem inspection of my games, I didn't micro/que right productions at the correct time, something a SG would fix quickly. I do believe that this is a truely winnable game.

 

[ThERat]

I actually started a wheel and saved the initial turn after moving the warrior and settler for 1 tile.

Do we want to start from there?

 

[Bezhukov]

The only beef I have with that start is desert hills, late game luxes, and animal food bonus. FP's are excellent all around tiles though, so its playable. We'll struggle a bit with hammers again tho.

 

[Greebley]

I think I would settle in place. If our warriors find we missed a good food spot then I would start a settler pretty early and also go for BW (not necessarily first, but early) so we can chop trees to build settlers/workers.

 

[angeleyes]

lurkers comment

You don't have Civil Service yet.
I would recomment to settle all the cokes early enough and preferebly next to a wood . Success with the new game, I'll be lurking ....

 

[Bezhukov]

Health is going to be a pain with all those FP's and no visible grains. Especially if we chop early.

 

[DementedAvenger]

Health is going to be a pain with all those FP's and no visible grains. Especially if we chop early.

I disagree with this. A floodplain is always better than a grassland in terms of food (as long as most floodplains are being worked).

5 flood plains will cause 2 unhealthiness, but they will also provide 5 food (as compared with grasslands), for a net gain of 3 food. You have that ugly green face, but you'll actually have more food than a city without that ugly green face.

 

[Bezhukov]

OK, so flood plains are .6 f/h better than regular tiles, rather than the full 1 f/h they appear to be, f/h means food+hammers. Forests as well produce 3 rather than the regular two, but since they can't be improved, they're inferior to FP's if you can handle the health.

 

[Greebley]

I also feel flood plains are better. You can build a cottage on them right away without needing to irrigate them. This is a big advantage as you can get to full size quickly and also build the cottages early which means you are ahead in science. As demented avenger mentions they are not a disadvantage due to health.

Some people irrigate flood plains which seems a bad idea to me. Growing to max size is fairly quick already with the FP. What isn't quick is the cottages growing to villages and towns.

For grasslands towns I think irrigating 1 or 2 grasslands to grow with the rest cottages is best.

The other advantage to cottages early is that you get your science quicker and can thus chop trees sooner and in general gain the essentials faster.

This is the best course for the capitol. Later we may want to have "whipping towns" as suggested by Bez for quick units.

 

[ThERat]

I agree that flood plains should be 'cottaged' as soon as possible.

Actually this start is food rich as there could be a second city with flood plains + hills in the north.

Question is, do we all agree that I should continue with settling on the spot and play 40 or we roll an entirely new start?

 

[Bezhukov]

Unless you move one west to get that grass hill, the start will be hurting for hammers, but its playable. If we're playing epic and no food bonus shows up under the fog, I'd like to irrigate at least one flood plain for quicker growth. We can always switch off it once we reach the happy limit. Beelining for pottery, even before bronze, may still be a good idea, as our river cottages get 3 commerce right away and we don't have a ton of forests to chop anyway.

 

[romeothemonk]

I agree with Bez.
I suggest irrigating one of the FP's right away and going for pottery than bronze.

Just an FYI, I have been playing several of these games on the side to pick up tricks and I have a whole handful.

Cho-ko-nu's are nice, but Longbows are better at city D and cheaper.

Epic is winnable with a small map and a 1 food bonus start. I couldn't win on normal with 3 bonus's and stone.

Early cottages are nearly unholy for how powerful they are.

 

[T_McC]

Agree on the move 1 W, since it won't cost us a turn. I think we start with Agriculture so the first tech should be Animal Husbandry. Since the Sheep tile is on a river it would be worth 3 trade to us when Pastured. That's the best tile we can work until we develop a Town, so we should try to improve that one first. Then we can head for Cottages.

We'll just have to use the capital for trade/population units and have the 2nd (and probably 3rd) cities building military.

 

[ThERat]

ok, will play 40 turns then, but since I moved the settler east to check things out, we will loose 1 turn. Will still move west to settle and irrigate a flood plain before we have cottages anyway.

Research -> cottages, AH, BW

 

[T_McC]

Heh. I still think AH before the Cottage techs. Initial build Worker, by the time it completes we have AH so it can Pasture the Sheep (for a 4/1/3 tile), hopefully we research Wheel by the time the worker finishes the pasture (or soon after) and the worker irrigates an FP, and by the time that finishes we have Pottery. Thinking about it, the Worker will probably have to irrigate 2 FPs in the time to research Pottery.

If you go Wheel --> Pottery first, we won't work our best tile until ~40 turns into the game. The sheep have a hammer and two trade over an irrigated FP.

I think when we get BW we will want to build a Cottage on the Plains/Forest Spices. That tile will start at 4 cpt and we only need 1 Spice Plantation for our entire empire, although we may want to think about this. Plantationing the grass Spices make them into a high trade FP.

 

[ThERat]

T_McC, it would be interesting to see the difference bewteen both starts, but I will play according to what you wrote for 40 turns

for builds we go worker -> warrior -> warrior I assume

 

[romeothemonk]

I would use that build order.

I would then sink some shields into a Rax until we get BW and can chop a 2nd worker.

I like the Idea of the civil service slingshot. In my games, I go a combo of BW, Wheel, Pottery first, then go myst, medi, priest, then go for writing while the oracle finishes. I have not failed to get CoL first. I think this is a winning initial tech path.
Getting some LB's and a few maces out early in the ball game is just devestating to the AI.

 

[Bezhukov]

I thought we had agreed on Stonehenge - it makes a great hammer sink, not that we'll need to sink many with this hammer-poor start. I agree with T McC's tech path, as early cottages are quite powerful, but early citizens even more so, and citizens require food and hammers. Alternatively, you can acquire them via BW, but we don't have an abundance of forests. Maybe some will grow!