Hammurabi - Immortal Cookbook

[kossin]

wow that was quick.
May I ask why we spoiler pre-play discussion? Spoilered should be reports from people who already played and non spoilered our discussion.

Simple, so that does that don't want to read them don't have to while still be able to look through the normal comments.
As I understand it most players are reading them anyway but some aren't.

Is it so much more work to left-click the Spoiler?

@Kossin I never thought about looking at a square next to water to see if it's fresh water or sea, still so much to learn for me .

It's not that important but it helps with settling... but there are a ton of tricks yielding information that just aren't well known.

@Nothingontv

Last cookbook some of participants including myself mentioned that
That raised idea of having discussion on main aspects of the turn before playing it. That way we will have less trouble adaptation to winning save.

Of cause it's up to you if wait for consensus or not. It can take long if ever.

Personally I'm going to play in the way supported by majority of participants even if I disagree, means yes I will count votes and play as been proposed by most.

I don't mind if people want to vote on where to settle, move the warrior and then discuss. It's a very good way to learn position evaluation - which is the key to a SG-base game (the cookbook is in a way a succession game) which ends up being a good way to reassess your own playing by evaluating where you are, rather than blindly pushing forward.

However, not everyone wants to do it this way so keep stuff that you can't know from t0 inside spoilers please

Bear with me as I'm no normal speed player but how many turns can you waste looking for a spot? I don't mind using a few turns determining my spot on marathon but this is obviously a different ballpark.

On Vanilla I remember people moving for ~10 turns to block land. You can move as much as you want as long as the benefits outweigh the losses
Granted it's hard to tell when that is the case... Usually you can say that settling a PH can take about 5 turns as you gain 3 on a worker and then the snowball effect from that extra hammer catches up.

Analyzing so much early would give me a headache
I would consider it much more fun if peeps just play how they think it is good, and post saves to compare, without thinking to much about if the micro management was 100% perfect.
Civ tends to be a game for me where the excitement fades the longer a game runs, or in this case the longer the whole thing is dragged along.

I totally agree.
However it isn't as clear for everyone and they are trying to learn how to do it. Hope you'll keep tagging along even though it's only one round per week

 

[vranasm]

Is it so much more work to left-click the Spoiler?

actually it's not making them that bothers me... when I arrived to this thread you had already 2 pages worth of discussion behind and clicking something like 20 posts each spoiler tag is much much more work...
but since it's your thread I will not derail it and will adjust accordingely.

 

[kossin]

Oh no, I meant clicking on it to read. Spoiler or no, it takes a while to read through 20 posts of discussion... What's a minute more

And it's not my thread... I just started it. Consider it the people's thread

 

[Yoshi1]

@ Fleme

Spoiler :

I would go to war every time in this situation, be it ZY or Justi, yep

 

[sadmachines]

Since it's in the merit of comparison and discussion (of the first 50 turns), I've decided to settle 2N1W to see where it goes - for better or for worse. Will download the game now and post my first segment shortly.

I went for this spot too. It looked like going for the blue circle would give up a greater amount of forest and I like having lots of trees to chop.

Spoiler :

0:Settler sent as detailed above. Warrior SE
1:Settled Babylon, not bad! Went worker and animal husbandry. Lots of desert uncovered by the warrior.

Spoiler :

2:Met Alex from the East, warrior goes that way to investigate his land.
5:Met Justin.
6:Met Zara.
8:Met Darius.
9:Spot a worker on the border of Alex's city. I read on these forums that some people advocate stealing these early but I have yet to try this out. I will not be testing this method today.

Spoiler :

12:Archer now guards the worker, glad I didn't steal it now as it would have killed me before I could make an escape.

Spoiler :

13:Worker finished, start warrior.
14:AH finished, Mining then bronze after.
20:Babylon size 2, warrior finished build another worker
26:Worker is ready, build barracks.
30:Start settler, it will be ready one turn after bronze so I can see if there is any copper nearby. If no copper then I will settle by the gold near Alex. At some point I started making a road to go this way, can't remember when.
31:Met Peter.
36:BW done. Copper is on the same route I was building towards gold, great! Start fishing. Maybe I should have got this earlier to make use of the seafood tile. But the point of moving the settler had more to do with putting a city on the hill than near seafood. So I don't mind too much.
38:Start Chariot and another on turn 40.
41:Founded Akkad
Can't remember the exact order but basically I build more chariots and an axe and finally a workboat. Also a barracks in Akkad.

At turn 50 I have 3 turns until writing. I wasn't sure if I wanted Mysticism or Writing but decided on writing in the end. I think I might find Libraries more useful than Monuments.
I have 2 cities, 2 Barracks, 3 Chariots, 2 Workers, 2 Warriors, 1 Axe, plenty of trees to chop more units for a rush (or for libraries/settlers/wonders)
I think an early attack is on the cards. Three civs all close by. I would rather attack Justin or Zara than Alex because I think it would be an easier fight. But alex has marble and that could be handy to own. Justin has horses and Alex had horses near his borders at the time and probably has ownership of them now. I don't know about Zara's resources much yet.

Spoiler :

Nothing spectacular but I would be happy to continue from this point and believe I would have a successful early war to grab some land and beat one of the enemies down.

 

[Fleme]

@Yoshi

Spoiler :

Yeah, rushing is a nobrainer here because that's the only thing the terrain lends itself to. Justinians capital is 11 tiles away, which is manageable. Did you get intel on how many squares it is to ZY? Both are plausible and not very good at warring - cultural defenses are probably similar at both ends with the holy city at one end and creative at the other.

@sadmachines

Spoiler :

Screenies not working and I have not loaded the save as of yet but I'm with you on the strategy of rushing. There was gold due east? I leaned heavily on the western front but my exploration kind of halted when I met Justinian.

 

[sadmachines]

@Fleme

Spoiler :

@sadmachines

Spoiler :

Screenies not working and I have not loaded the save as of yet but I'm with you on the strategy of rushing. There was gold due east? I leaned heavily on the western front but my exploration kind of halted when I met Justinian.

Arghh, I couldn't work out how to hide the thumbnails from the bottom of the page. I thought I could just un-attach them and the images would stay uploaded. It worked on the preview.
I will up them to an image host within the next hour or so, or however long it takes to find a free one and repair the link.
Nothing really exciting, just a picture of the desert between us and Alex. The other two are of the other side of Alex's presumed capital. Showing a worker on the border and then an archer defending the worker a couple of turns later. Last pic is of turn 50, my 2 cities.
The gold was south and east. Not as close as the copper is but sometimes it is good to settle a city farther away to grab the land then settle in the space inbetween later. I think there was another resource near the gold but it was one that needs a later tech. (so banana or sugar or silk, can't remember)
I would probably struggle without a rush. The enemy is close is all directions, not much opportunity for peaceful expansion without border tensions.

Edit:I think the images work now.

 

[kossin]

Try Imageshack... it's so simple and unlimited bandwidth+storage. The uploader is handy as well.

 

[sadmachines]

Yeah, thats the one I went for.

 

[GKey]

While moving warrior 1N will possibly reveal much, it will not show if there is seafood. I want start playing and join discussion with guys who already decided.
According to posted opinions moving to hill is winning with 1 vote by now.

Coast __________SIP
drlake__________Yoshi1
ahcos 2NW______Vranasm
Gkey NNW______Nothingontv (nice nick )
_elf_planator____CivConVict
Fleme NNW
sadmachines NNW
Lymond NNW
Dhoomstriker 2NW

Dhoom seems to be hiding his villainous plan. Edit: not anymore.
Personally, I am going NNW for H2 if nothing changes. Further plans are uncertain, early rush or oracle with all these forests...
We will have lots to discuss after settling and scouting a bit.

Once again it's up to you if wait for discussion or not.

 

[lymond]

Count me in for the spot Fleme pointed out - not sure if it is the same coast spot as the others. I like it for the potential of the fog east of it (more land tiles I expect) and my natural innate aversion for the blue circles.

 

[vranasm]

well I would like to know how it plays out the first 50 turns in SIP, but as it seems people "voting" for SIP already played (most of them) and maybe are not that much to the discussion...

will have to think it through...

 

[kossin]

FWIW I settled ...

Spoiler :

ah! I'll tell you later. Not really fair anyway from having seen the map.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@Gkey--Strategy Talk

Spoiler :

According to posted opinions moving to hill is winning with 1 vote by now.

Okay, but which Plains Hills square? The one with a River (NW + NW) or the one without (NW + N)? Did everyone pick the same Plains Hills square or did you group all of the "settle on one or the other of the Plains Hills squares" stated plans into one single category?

Basically, I'm wondering if I can get my choice between Plains Hills squares without offending anybody, or if I need to go with a particular Plains Hills square.

Dhoom seems to be hiding his villainous plan.

I was just waiting for some kind of consensus.

If I were to have my way, it would be to spend the extra turn to see if we really have Seafood, and if not, to send the Settler to a great in-land location based on the bit of extra info that we will reveal by spending that extra turn exploring.

But, people seem to be in favour of settling in-place or "finessing a guess." Out of those two choices, I'd prefer to finesse a move to the Coast.


All that's left to me now is to find out if people care which PH others settle on, and if not, I'll pick the one with the River, mostly to see if our "farther" NW + NW finesse can pick up a Resource or two more than the "closer" NW + N finesse. There will definitely be enough Riverside squares to pick up the "possible Resource to the NE + N of the Settler" with a second City.

If people do care which Plains Hills square gets picked, then I'll go with the most popular choice.

Fishing + Work Boat at some point if there is a Seafood Resource in our fat cross, otherwise I probably won't bother with Researching Fishing until we get it in trade. It IS Immortal level difficulty, afterall--there is not much time for superfluous Research.

Further plans are uncertain, early rush or oracle with all these forests...

To me, it depends upon how many reasonable nearby City sites we can get. An AI's capital is usually a juicy prize, but I'll probably settle as many as 5 Cities (if there are good enough locations nearby) before seriously going into war mode. That is, again, if I have any sort of a say in the matter.

If people would rather have me rushing a Pangaea-neighbour after only building a couple of Cities, then I'll do that. I just have yet to hear a lot of strong opinions either way and it is admittedly hard to give an informed opinon without playing several turns and seeing the lay of the surrounding land.

 

[kossin]

Further plans are uncertain, early rush or oracle with all these forests...

Oracle without Mysticism and without a high commerce tile is very risky on Immortal. You have to research Mysticism+Meditation+Priesthood, Mining + Bronze Working to chop, and the required techs for improving your city. That's over 60 turns, more like 70... and then you have to chop it, say 5 turns. Very good odds Oracle is gone by then!

Check when Religions are founded... if there are Zealots and you don't have a high commerce tile, you should probably forget The Oracle and go for the 10-Axemen/Chariot/settlers+workers Wonders instead if applicable.

 

[GKey]

It seems main concern is if SIP or move to coast.
If you reveal something moving uphills you can either settle or waste 1 more turn - not a big deal IMO.
Its not too late to argue which hill is better. I've already posted why I prefer NNW, but choosing 2NW vs NNW is more like gamble.

Anyway I edited my previous post with NNW and 2NW details.

 

[GKey]

@kossin
This is exactly when I need an advise. What dates can be considered as relatively late/early for religions founded? What is early high commerce tile? Lake/oasis? And what is FWIW??

 

[Dhoomstriker]

It seems main concern is if SIP or move to coast.
I posted why I prefer NNW, but choosing 2NW vs NNW is more like gamble.

In a way NW + NW is a gamble, but mostly in the way that moving to either PH is a gamble. Without an extra Food Resource, we'll probably have an inferior location than in-place.


I'd personally rather not do much gambling at all and spend the extra turn. But, since we will be gambling, I think that grabbing 5 more hidden squares will make for a much funner gamble, especially since we can easily make another City near where the Warrior starts to pick up any good squares that we moved away from.

Anyway I edited my previous post with NNW and 2NW details.

Thanks.

Now I'll just wait to hear if anyone would care badly if I moved to the NW + NW Plains Hills square, and if they are a NW + N Plains Hills player that would care (i.e. they would feel that our games would be too different from each other), then I'll go with the masses of the "finessing crowd" in going NW + N.

 

[kossin]

@kossin this is exactly when I need an advise. What dates can be considered as relatively late/early for religions founded? What is early high commerce tile? Lake?

high commerce: gold/gems/silver maybe a large river system with your resources riverside
Oasis helps but not a good investment long term.

Early religions: t8/t10 usually iIrc.

Best way to learn this is to play a lot of games up to t100 or a bit less to get a feeling for Wonder dates and the likes.

 

[GKey]

^^
Interesting, I always considered lake/oasis as early high commerce. Gems/gold/silver will need some ~25 turns to become online, when you are already few turns from BW. Then they will double speed myst-med(poly)-priesthood, effectively saving you like hmm... 10 turns of research? 10 turns is a lot though... Edited: Yes and writing too! Certainly more then 10 turns.

Thanks!

@dhoomstriker Missing with gamble will cause wasting 1(2) turns - certainly not a game breaker. Let's give couple of hours to people who did not vote yet/changed their mind and start?