That’s a much better turnset.
Your cities are growing and working improved tiles (with one exception that will be remedied very shortly), and the mids are built. Well done!
All that said, I think VoU has hit on a key point: what is YOUR plan at this stage? It seems from your fab write-up that you want to go the conquest route, at least early to get more land. You seem to be thinking too that nabbing copper will help in that regard. Does this mean that you’re thinking of going catas / axes? If so, what does this imply for your tech path? Or is the copper just for barb protection? If getting copper is just for barb protection, chariots are also very effective at dealing with barbs – with the exception of barb spears of course. Maybe iron will be around though to enable you to build axes if you want them.
Talking of plans, can I ask just two more questions to help me understand yours a little better.
The first is why did you build the mids? Sounds an obvious question I know, but the answer determines which civic you head into now that they’ve been built. If it was to boost the happy cap, monarchy or representation are available. IMHO, the latter is preferable at this stage because it’ll provide all your cites with an instant 3
boost – which will enable Madrid to work more tiles and /or run scientists, and enable Seville to grow onto all its floodplains. HR may well yet be needed later on (into which SPI Izzy can switch without a turn of anarchy), depending on if you plan to grow your cities beyond the happy cap boost that representation provides – and if you can settle and / or aquire additional sources of happiness. If you do go HR, remember that garrison warriors cost maintenance.
On the other hand, did you build the mids primarily because you wanted to benefit from the extra beakers provided by specialists? If so, then representation obviously becomes the civic of choice. In that event, where are you planning on building one or more libraries and running your science specialists? There are a number of options, most likely to succeed, but again, it comes down to what you plan to do.
My second question is why did you tech IW at this stage? Was there a reason you elected not to go to alphabet and trade for it? Doing both is viable – I’m just trying to deduce your reasoning.
In other points, I agree with VoU that Seville would’ve been better off 1NW. I understand why you went for blue circle – it has more hammers readily available. However, for future reference, consider that 1NW would give you 6 hammers in its BFC from the grassland cow, grassland mine and home tiles. You could even periodically work a forested plains tile for extra hammers to give you 8 production in the city. That means you could invest 8 turns into a forge (for 64 hammers) and 2 pop whip a forge to give you 10 (+25%) hammers in the city. That’ll be more than adequate, given that a commerce site really only NEEDS to build a few buildings during a game – many of which you’d be able to 2 pop whip. Settling 1NW would also have given you a great potential Oxford site allied with your capital (which might be a potential HE site), for two very strong city sites.
Re: happiness. I’d suggest that Izzy wants to reconsider declining Pacal’s request to OB. It looks as though he has an early religion which could provide you with more happiness if it spreads.
Re: granaries. They are 1 (not 2) pop whips for Izzy.
Re: your future city sites. I like the rice copper site. Although it’s one off the coast, the rice can feed the copper, and the city can work a grassland mine and capital’s riverside grassland. To be sure though, I’d probably want to know whether there’s (i) any seafood 4S of the rice and (ii) any food south of all that ivory, which would be able to feed the copper and ivory resources. Perhaps more controversially, I’d be inclined to skip the gems site. The reason? I think that city is much better placed 1E of the gems so that it grabs the corn (in Gandhi’s borders) to feed the mine.
Re: scouting. I think exploration and dealing with barbs are the areas most needing attention at the mo – as you’ve highlighted in your text. As you’ve noticed, barbs can derail scouting on monarch more than on noble...so it becomes worthwhile thinking about how to deal with them. Sometimes TGW is an option to prevent them entering your borders, at other times, the answer is spawnbusting. In either case, you’re going to want a unit to explore if you possibly can – maybe a chariot might help – so that you meet the other civs and get research discounts for having done so.
This is why I think the real story here is not so much the decision to build the mids (which I can understand reasons for building), but rather Stonehenge...the hammers into which could’ve gone into units instead. Don’t get me wrong, Stonehenge has its uses – such as on maps in which resources seem to lie in the 2nd ring of desirable BFCs, or perhaps culture victories – but I’m not sure if it was advisable here. That said, it will likely provide you with a GP shortly – and finishing with the theme of this post – what do you plan to do with it and how does it influence your choice of civics from the mids?
One last point. Going forward, discerning the answers to some of these questions – in particular the question I asked re: teching IW - will sometimes prove easier if you (and the peanut gallery
) can see the demographics screen in future posts. At the very least, it will provide you and us with an idea of how you’re faring against your rivals / neighbours...and now that you’ve moved up to monarch, it becomes more important IMHO to start looking at your performance in relative, as well as absolute, terms.
Two quick edits:
(i) Re: 1NW of Seville. For future reference, a lack of production can also be overcome by settling a hammer based specialist there, such as a GE from the mids.
(ii) Having looked at the save again, I noticed that the gems are grassland – when I originally thought they were plains hill, d'oh!
That means you're likely right to want to settle a city 2W of them that takes the corn from the capital to feed the gems. Note however that this would render settling the copper / rice site impossible (owing to the two tile rule).
As it happens, this point (ii) dilemma is a great illustration of the opportunity cost of early wonders: units that can scout for you to identify future city sites. This is because, if you knew whether there was any food south of the jumbos and 4S of the rice, you’d be in a position to evaluate a dotmap of three cities: (i) 2W of the gems (ii) copper / jumbos / possible food currently hidden in the fog and (iii) rice / possible seafood currently hidden in the fog. IMHO, having that information would be priceless here – the lesson (since this thread is about learning too
) being that the value of having that information often gets overlooked in the pursuit of early wonders.
tile. I'm counting 12
and no spare food @ pop4 (Farmed FP, Horse, plains hill, green hill)
bonus from settling come at a good time to prop up a floundering economy?
.
compared to 1
