How to play this start ? (seafood galore)

[vicawoo]

Mehmed's tricky when you have fish.

This is BTS, so you won't get a worker bonus until 4? Too bad.

You have 5 happiness, so you only need at most 2 food sources early (unless you want to use it to pump settlers). Pigs don't give commerce, so no need for animal husbandry, so you can go straight for pottery (one pop granaries for expansive!)

Go fishing first, then bronze working, but build a worker until you research it, so you don't waste hammers (you don't even have a 3 food at the beginning). You're going to grow fast when you have seafood. Then 1 worker (or settler if you're going to steal one). Going for the clam versus fish has tradeoffs, fish has more food, but clam has an extra commerce and you save a turn since you can build it immediately.

Pottery is a good choice after bronze working, but you could do a peaceful wonder builder strat (masonry or priesthood), though you're lacking in steady production for that. I'd prefer quick writing, whip a library, and try to get alphabet from the scientists, or rapid expand (maybe even boat settler), grab a good production site, and wonder build/axe rush from there.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Awesome startlocation for a GP farm.

You could try the Oracle->MC->engineer specialist->GE slingshot, meaning:

Chop the Oracle in the capital, city no. 2 should be a production powerhouse and gets an early forge with an engineer specialist -> GE, with whom you can build the necessary Wonders in your GP farm - GL etc. You'll probably get a GP first though - save him for a future shrine.

Don't build the Moai Statues in you GP farm - you are gonna need those 2 National Wonder spots for better Wonders.

Of course, this strategy is not as effective with a non-philo leader...

If your second city doesn't have strategic resources, your third city must get them asap. An AI capital 10 tiles away means early war and you are going to need axes/swords soon.

 

[Carnage04]

If it's a powerhouse, it probably doesn't need Moai. It would make the powerhouse slightly better, but personally, I prefer to have it in a hammer poor city. The average powerhouse city doesn't have all that many water tiles anyways (which is why it's a powerhouse), so you can give a couple extra hammers to a city that already has a whole lot, or you can make a city with weak production become more productive member of your civ and not have to sacrifice quite so much population on your whips.

I'd finish the warrior first and then build the workboat. You're not really going to need the guy for defense that early, but it helps to have double the number of guys out scouting the terrain for the next cities and fighting animals to get the woodsman promotions before the barbarian archers start showing up.

For research order, I'd go fishing - bronze working - animal husbandry.

It is a tough decision regarding the Maoi statues. If you don't build them, production is going to be so poor that it will take forever to get needed buildings like the University and Oxford online. If you do build them however, you end up somewhat tainting your perfect little SSC/GP Farm but having to decide between National Epic or Oxford (Well....it's not really a tough decision but it does take the Epic out of the picture.) It would be allright if he was playing a Philosophical leader...

 

[Agent Cooper]

The suggestion to move 1 tile NE and settle might not be such a bad idea. You lose a fish and piggie resource = 6 extra food with pasture and workboat . that's 3 specialists. On the other hand you get inland hammers - tough one...

Considering you've got an AI capital nearby, I would probably go for the hammers, meaning moving to the NE tile. Your capital will be able to produce military units quickly early on, before it is 'transformed' to a GP farm bigtime.

Of course this is pure speculation at this point since he already settled.

 

[Percy]

Oh yeah, the game's over, but that doesn't mean it's not helpful !

Those starts do happen rather often, after all, so discussion about those is good, thanks all =)

 

[FrancisMarion]

I would have settled 1 NE. Sure it'll be a perfect GP farm later, but I'm more concerned about the here and now, and a capital without production next to Shaka... bad bad idea. Even without knowing my neighbor is Shaka, which you wouldn't at this point, I play Aggressive AI, so early production is very important.

Sure you might be able to use whipping to compensate for low production, but with low happiness you can only whip so much.