@Yoshi1
- You have both strategic Resources hooked up and have started to build a mixed military--that's great.
- You also have some reasonable infrastructure set up, with a Monument for our second City and Barracks for both of our Cities.
- You have a pretty good number of Workers (three).
- You have a Warrior defender for each of our Cities, so that when you move our army out to attack someone, we won't have unhappiness issues from missing Military Police units.
- Good use of Forest-chopping to get the empire going.
- You could do with more exploration of your surroundings. For example, there is a Chariot sitting in our second City that could be doing some more exploring and/or Barb-unit destroying. Since your plan is to go after Zara Yaqob, it would certainly help your cause to explore the land surrounding his Cultural borders as much as possible.
- Tied into the lack of exploration is the fact that you've only met four of the six neighbours.
- Your second City will grow soon but you don't have another improved square for it to work on.
@Fleme
- Good strategic decisions back up your City settling--fast Copper and claiming Justinian's Horse Resource.
- Nice job on building Roads to connect up our Cities, even the far-away one.
- Your units have definitely been seeing a lot of combat with the Barbs.
- Good use of mixed forces (an Axeman and a Chariot to defend our border City)
- You have three Cities that are each working one unimproved square. Certainly, building another Worker or two soon could be seen as a bit of a priority, perhaps even building another one in your capital before building your next Axeman.
- It is certainly a bit intriguing that you went for a Coastal capital while ignoring Fishing, thus being unable to build a Work Boat. I would think that if you weren't going to hope for Seafood (that could actually be worked by our capital by way of Researching Fishing) that you wouldn't move to the Coast. But what do I know?
Questions for you:
Where would you have settled the Copper City if Copper wasn't located to the SE of our capital? I mean, would you have tried to settle wherever the Copper was or would you have still tried to settle a City close to our capital?
If both of the Coastal Plains Hills squares were not Hills but were just Plains squares, would you have stuck with settling in-place?
@sadmachines
- Nice work in ensuring that all of your citizens are working improved squares!
- Really nice exploring and use of your Chariots for fog-busting.
- The tech path of skipping Mysticism and Pottery works simply because you have focused on working production squares in your capital, while not expanding that much, meaning that you don't need to work Cottages just yet and can build a Library quickly.
- Your second City, once it finally grows to Size 2, is going to be stuck at that City Size for a while (due to not being able to build a Monument to grab the Cow Resource), but since you're planning on going to war, that fact shouldn't hurt you too badly. It is good that you are preparing a GHRiv Mine to be worked by that City.
- I might suggest stopping your Military-unit-pumping to build another Worker or two, if for no other reason than to build a Road towards your planned target. Doing so can equal the production power of getting a larger army built, since your later troops will be able to quickly catch up with the main army and thus your on-the-frontlines army could be bigger that much sooner.
- While I agree with your choice of working Plains Hills squares in the capital for production, you are essentially "wasting" two Food-based Resources (at least for as long as we're stuck at a Happiness cap of 5). I'm not sure what to suggest to do about it, other than perhaps to plop another City down on our Plains Wine River square, to be able to share some of the capital's Food-based squares.
@Fierabras
- Great job in making the war a reality by capturing a City from Justinian!
- I also like how you have a defender (the Warrior) for your newly-captured City, so that all of the Chariots can leave the City and go on the offensive, whenever they are ready to do so.
- Obviously, it is nice that you picked up Stonehenge. It's good that we can start on generating Great People Points this early.
- I like how you pulled off the Worker-steal. There was a very low risk of being attacked (an Archer would have had to have been on the Road outside of its capital on just the right square to have been able to counter-attack you).
- While it is nice that you are building a Road towards the Copper, I wonder if you could divert a Worker to Road a couple of your Health Resources, to address our Unhealthiness issue.
- I am glad that you are building a Worker for your captured City in the captured City. That said, if you don't plan to push the attack (and pushing against a capital with just 6 Chariots is a pretty risky move--unless you plan to abuse Cease Fires), then I'd suggest sending out a Chariot escort to bring a Worker over to your captured second City. Either that, or just plan to keep chopping Forests and chop out a couple of Workers in your next City, so that you'll have enough Workers to build a Road to the west.
- It seems that you have stopped Chariot-production, but we only have 6 Chariots--that amount probably won't be sufficient to push harder at Justinian's capital anytime soon. I guess that's the cost of getting Stonehenge.
@Grashopa
- That's a nice Chariot army which is gathering to strike Justinian.
- Good job in getting a bit of Road built in the right direction, to speed up your Chariots in getting to the front lines by 1 turn.
- Good call in focusing your Espionage Points right from the get-go. That's a technique that I patented, although I forgot to employ it in this game in all of the excitement of meeting multiple AIs within a turn or two of each other.
- Nice work in doing some Forest-chopping in order to speed up your early-game Chariot production.
- It is also nice that you have a Warrior to "come in from behind" Justinian--it's just too bad that it is busy healing right now and probably will arrive too late to help out much with the coming war.
- Do you think that it is wise to stop Chariot production and build a Settler now? Wouldn't it make sense to keep pumping Chariots until Justinian is begging for his life? I mean, if you're going to capture Justinian's Cities, what do you need to settle yet another City for? Taking a break from Chariot production to build a Worker, I might better understand.
- I am a bit disappointed that you have a Worker chopping Grassland River Forests instead of one of the Forests on a Hills River square within our capital's fat cross. For all of your bluster about wanting guaranteed Hills squares for the capital's fat cross, you have yet to improve a single one of them!
@oppy
- Good job in using Warriors to help spawn-bust for Barbarians.
- You have a nice Chariot army prepared. It is time to go use it, since it is costing us several Gold per Turn to maintain. I guess that you didn't pick a target so that other players would have the flexiblity of who to attack?
- Good work on starting to build a Cottage for the capital.
- I like that you have started to build a Road towards Alex. The Road just calls to us, saying: "ride on me! You know that you want to! Go attack Alex!"
- I'd suggest building another Worker before that Settler that you are about to start on. You'll want a Worker soon anyway, and it might be good to have one ready to start improving City #2 as soon as City #2 is built, while still having a Worker available to keep Chopping Forests for you.
@GKey
- Nice use of the production-based squares around your capital.
- Already having a Monument in City #2 and a Barracks in each of your two Cities will definitely help you out.
- It is good to see that all of your citizens are working improved squares.
- Nice work in scouting and Fog-busting with your Chariots.
- Good job in having 3 Workers (even if you did get one of them as a Greek immigrant)
- I wonder if you could have built a couple of less Roads and done something else with your Workers for those Worker-turns, such as Forest-chopping. For example, do you really need a Road on BOTH the Grassland NE of your capital AND on the Plains Hills Mine to the NE + E of your capital, or could you have gotten away with just having one of those Roads?
@CivConVict
- Nice work in capturing Athens.
- It appears that you have had a single-minded focus of chopping out a Chariot army, which has worked out so far.
- Since Athens has a number of improved squares, my recommendation would be to use the Worker that you captured there to build a Road back to your capital.
- Good call on using the timing of a non-Religion-founding, non-Cultural Civ's capital border expansion to your advantage in your attack.
- Could your Worker afford to build your capital a Mine by chopping one of the Forested Hills squares, so that it doesn't have to work an unimproved square?
- Your capital will also soon need a Military Police unit for its 5th population point. What is your plan there--garrison a Chariot? Build a Warrior to act as the City garrison?
@Nothingontv
- Nice short-term-benefiting choice for your second City, so that it could grow quickly.
- Although you are working on an unimproved square in your capital, it is nice to see that you have efficiently prioritized your Worker actions, doing the most important things first, such as improving your Resources and then setting up your inter-City Road.
- You definitely need more Workers, so that City 2 can start to build some Mines. In time, these Workers will pay for themselves due to the increased production that they will bring to you.
- Since you have just 1 Worker, and thus Worker actions are at a premium, you could have skipped building the Road to the Horse, since the Horse is on a River and you'd have had access to it even without the Road. You don't see that situation happen often in games (a Horse Resource on a River), so one has to wonder if kossin doctored the map a little bit.
- While you explained how you lost your first Warrior and he did some good exploration before he died, perhaps you could afford to scout with a Chariot or two, now that you have a few of them built.
@drlake
- Excellent exploration of the map.
- Great placement of your eastern and southern spawn-busters!
- Good job in connecting your two Cities two each other and in building a Road towards what I am guessing will be the location for your 3rd City, for the Settler that is almost complete.
- Good job in getting a second square ready for your second City to be able to work as soon as it reaches Size 2.
- Since you said that you weren't sure what to do with the Settler next, it would probably be a good idea to head to the north-east, to get a City location that is close to the capital, picks up the "Fail Fish" that many other players will miss out on, and is an area that is going to be 100% Barb-free thanks to your great spawn-busting.
- Holy awesomeness, Batman! In your saved game,
Alex has popped a Grassland Hills Gold in his capital! What a sweet prize that City will be to capture!
- I would have suggested building or chopping a Work Boat before starting on the Settler that you are currently building, as working a netted Fish is a lot stronger than working a Grassland Forest when building a Settler. Certainly, you should try to do so after this Settler is built if you plan to continue with peaceful expansion for a while.
- As for your planned City locations, I would ditch the Whale City and instead try to use the Grassland Cow and some of the Hills squares to the south of there. Whale, even with Optics, is a weak square to support a City. There also aren't any other good squares to work there, not even a Hills-based square, since you'd end up settling on the only Hills square in the area just to be able to get the Whale in your fat cross.
@Lymond
- You've got a good number of Workers (three).
- You have some nice anti-Barb spawn-busters in place. It seems that you have a couple of units with 3 Experience points and no Barracks yet, so your troops have definitely been through a few battles with the Barbs.
- Nice work in prioritizing Roads to connect-up your Cities to your Trade Network.
- You have a good plan of sharing the capital's Plains Cow with a different City. I wonder if it might be worth it to settle on the Wine, instead of 1S of the Wine, so that you can also share the capital's Wheat and Flood Plains square, since the capital will shortly have to stop working Food-based squares or will be best off using the extra surplus for spamming yet more Settlers and Workers. Certainly, having more Workers would help to chop out your Forests, of which you do not appear to have chopped very many. Also, if you settle on the Wine, it leaves more space for yet another City to the south, by the Grassland Cow there.
- Unless you plan to grow the capital and whip it or else plan to switch to building Settlers or Workers before it grows to Size 6, I'd suggest that you immediately start working the Plains Hills River Mine square in place of a Food-based square on this turn (the turn that the Worker completed the improve), instead of waiting until the next turn (the turn on which the Worker "become active again").
@Edzako
- Okay, it's great that you have been whipping in your capital sinec you don't have that many improved squares to work, so whipping population points in favour of working unimproved squares with citizens is a good choice.
- You clearly had a goal in mind of working the Gold and you did exactly that with your second City.
- Chopping out another Worker is a great idea. It would be wonderful if you could start to get your Cities connected via a Road and that extra Worker will definitely help you out.
- Actually, it is great that both Cities are building Workers--if you're going to peacefully expand, you definitely want to build a lot of Workers.
- Nice idea to Irrigate the Wine. I haven't seen anyone else come up with this idea yet.
- I am not convinced that it is vitally important to be so aggressive in your settling in two different directions--not only will it take you longer to set up your Trade Network (aka Trade Routes via Roads) this way, but Maintenance Costs will start to hurt with two far-flung Cities. Still, you're at least producing the necessary Workers to make this approach a viable one, so there is potential in this plan.
- Your Workers are going to be quite busy for the next little while, though, so I'd suggest not stopping to build them and pump out another 2 more after the current 2 that you are building, since you will be in a Worker-action deficit situation for quite some time to come--Mines around the capital need to be mined, City #3 (once the Settler sits down) will need to have squares improved for it very shortly, and you'll need to build more than zero Roads shortly. That is, unless you are playing a "no Roads" variant of the game.
@Wafflecakes
- It's great that your capital's citizens are all working improved squares.
- You also have some decent spawn-busting going on.
- Your second City has a decent Anti-Barb unit (the Chariot), which can help out in case a Barb unit does manage to spawn anywhere near that City.
- While I like that you are building a Road towards your second City, I would think that improving a square at your second City should take priority when the Road itself needs to be so long. For a closer-built City, sure, you can consider building the Road first, but for that distance, your second City stays unproductive for a long time.
- Also, had you sent a Worker directly to City #2, you could have chopped out the Monument, allowing you to get access to the Rice (the best square within City #2's fat cross and the square that you will work the most with that City).
- You do indeed still have a lot of Hammer potential from the unchopped Forests. It would, of course, be better to have realized more of that potential earlier in the game for a map like this one where our capital has such an abundance of Forests. Yes, in a game where there were fewer Forests, being able to preserve them for longer would be beneficial. However, in this game, Forest regrowth chances are actually REDUCED because in many spots there is no room for a Forest to regrow, due to the Forests already being very densely-packed.
- I'm not sure that your Worker should be building a Farm if you're in Settler + Worker pumping mode, since you won't have time to grow the City in order to use that extra square. Instead, I'd rather see the Worker culling one of the excessive Forests, so that you'd complete your Settlers and Workers faster and could get back to growing the City that much sooner.
- Also, I would argue that if you DO want to grow your capital to Size 5 soon, that you'd be better off improving a Grassland Hills River square with a Mine, instead of a Grassland River square with a Farm, since we'd be at our Happiness cap and since 1 Food + 3 Hammers + 1 Commerce from the GHRiv Mine equals 4 Hammers + 1 Commerce when building a Settler or a Worker. In contrast, a GRiv Farm only nets you 3 Food + 1 Commerce, which equals only 3 Hammers + 1 Commerce when building a Settler or a Worker. It may be a minor point, but it's these minor points that can help to improve your game play.
@domi
- Okay, it's great that you have connected your second City to your capital, which nets you +2 Commerce per turn.
- I also like that you sent a Worker to your second City, so that it, too, can work improved squares.
- Nice job in spawn-busting the Road between your Cities, to help prevent Barbs from spawning on the Road and using it for their own malicious purposes (they will do so if you let them!
).
- Since the Gold Resource is so important in terms of gaining value for the second City, ideally, you probably should have chopped the Monument before Farming the Grassland River square, so that the Gold would be covered by your Culture that much sooner, allowing your Worker to improve the Gold that much sooner, allowing you to work the Gold that much sooner.
- The capital is working 2 unimproved squares, a situation which you should try to address soon, either by whipping away the population points and then improving said squares, or just by improving them directly.
- Now that you have time to explore before settling your next City, it would be worth exploring the Coast to the north-east before settling a City on the Coast. As it happens (as you'll see from other people's games), there is indeed a Fish Resource there that would likely convince you to change your planned City location by the Sheep + Horse.
- Indeed, it was a creative trick to work the Coast squares just to get yourself Mysticism faster. However, I would say that you could have settled the second City immediately, even if it meant researching Mysticism 1 turn later (maybe 2 turns later due to the far distance that you settled your 2nd City), and started to build whatever--another Worker, a Barracks--whatever. Again, consider the Forest-chopping of a Monument idea and you'll see that delaying Mysticism won't matter that much in such a case, as most of the Hammers for producing it will come from the Forest chop. This trick of delaying settlings your City might have been better used for a 4th or 5th City, which could indeed have had a big negative effect on your economy, but your 2nd City (even on Deity level) really should be settled without delaying it to save on the very minor Maintenance Costs incurred by having a 2nd City.
- The best time to research Archery? I would say right after Animal Husbandry (and Fishing, in your case, since you settled on the Coast). Then you'd build 2 Archers, send them at an AI, try to steal a Worker, and choke the AI's development by pillaging all of their improvements. The only other time that I would have suggested researching Archery on this map might have been after Animal Husbandry, Fishing, Mining, and Bronze Working had been researched and after there had been no sign of either Horse or Copper at a reasonable nearby settling location, forcing you to get Archery for a better-than-Warriors early-game Military Unit.
Other Random Comments
To those who poo-pooed a Coastal start, to supposedly benefit by avoiding reasearch on Fishing, what is interesting to note is that on average, the cost of researching Fishing seems to have been made-up-for by getting the extra Commerce from being able to work a Coastal Fish.
Yes, it was dumb-luck (or blue circle voodoo, take your pick) that a Fish Resource was there (for all that moved to the Coast but drlake, who actually scouted for the Fish before moving to the Coast), but with the Fish being there, the extra Commerce from being able to work the Fish has, on average, paid for the cost of having to research Fishing.
Another interesting point is that only in my save and in drlake's save can we trade a Resource with any of the AIs. It is Justinian with whom we can trade, in both of our games.
It seems that no one besides me got a Religion spreading to them, and while I did not convert, converting to Buddhism in my game would increase our capital's Happiness cap by +1.
As for Dhoomstriker's game (that would be my game)...
What are you plans with Greece in your game? You are about to settle your 4th city and planning to take Athens as 5th city?
I tried to leave things pretty flexible. I like where the Settler for our 4th City is currently located, as it will pick up Cow, some nice Hills, some Grassland River Forests that our capital location missed, is close to our capital for City Distance Maintenance costs, and can be very quickly connected to our Trade Network.
However, someone has the freedom to send that Settler anywhere, if they so choose, such as to the Gold Resource.
I also left the Copper unhooked-up, so as to be able to build Warriors for Military Police (some Warrior are currently acting as spawn-busters but can be retired to City garrison duty later), but there is a Worker standing on the Copper now with his movement points remaining and only 1 turn left to go on the Road, so Copper can be connected immediately.
The capital will complete our 4th Worker in 1 turn, after which, since it already has a Barracks, it could feasibly start to build Axemen. It could also build another Settler (for either the Rice to the west or the Gold to the east, assuming that you settle City 4 where the Settler is currently located instead of by the Gold), or it could keep building a couple of more Workers, so that 5 or 6 Workers could be used to chop out an army from 4 different Cities.
We have a Monument in City #2 and are 1 turn away from completing a monument in City #3, so our Cities will soon have their fat crosses and will be nice little production powerhouses or Commerce powerhouses, based on whether you choose to chop and improve the Hills-based squares with Mines or the Grassland-River-based squares with Cottages.
City #2 managed to pick up the "Fail Fish" that people who settled on the NW + N Plains Hills square missed out on and will be able to net the second Fish in 10 turns (or is it 9 turns?), when our Cultural borders expand.
What's good with how this City placement worked out is that the Food Resources have been nicely split across multiple Cities, so we aren't "wasting" any of the Food-based Resources yet by not working them in favour of working Plains Hills squares. It also means that more Cities can share in the Grassland River Cottage squares--it's unlikely that we'll have Size 10 Cities anytime soon, so distributing the Cottages across Cities can be quite helpful.
We have Buddhism in our lands and Trade Routes between our Cities, so this Religion has the potential to spread quickly throughout our empire. To that end, I'd like to leave Justinian alone until he builds us a Buddhist Holy Shrine, so that we won't have to waste our first Great Person on building a Holy Shrine.
It is also nice to have the option of being able to have all Happy citizens at Size 6, should we choose to switch into Buddhism for that Happiness bonus. Without any Happiness Resources in sight, this boost is even better than in an average game. The same holds true for the Gold Resource that popped up in Alex's fat cross in drlake's game (not in my game--I pillaged the same Mine for 16 Gold in my game).
Justinian is one of the AIs that really favours a Shared Religion highly, and we've already begun trading a Resource with him, so until he builds us a Shrine, we can be really good friends with him, both to discourage him from attacking us and to potentially even get him up to Friendly status for monopoly-tech tech-trading deals, with a bit of a concerted effort.
