HUI Game # 3 - Suleiman

[Shafi]

Ok, here's the deal guys, since joining the forum i have quickly gone from Warlord to Monarch, and since starting the HUI series have now moved up to Emperor, i started this series of games to help me improve as well as to provide a learning platform for others. I will probably be playing shorter turn sets than maybe the ALC's for example as i would want more advice, specially in the early game. Writing up the updates and posting the pictures etc might also make it a bit more interesting to keep playing the game.

You can find links to all HUI series games here

Please follow the same protocol as the ALC series, in terms of shadowing etc.

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and to make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible. Without further a due on to game,

Round 1 - "Getting our Bearings" - 4000BC to 2680BC
Round 2 - "Expansion of the Ottoman empire" - 2680BC to 1 AD
Round 3 - "The Race to Lib" - 1 AD to 1170 AD
Round 4 - "Cannons Rock" - 1170 AD to 1804 AD

Our game settings for the 3rd game of the series -

Spoiler :

Standard / Fractal map, Game speed back to Normal as Epic i think was a bit too slow for me and another reason for me to kind of get bogged down in the Boudica game. And on to our Glorius leader Suleiman of the Ottomans ...

Spoiler :

He's Philosophical & Imperialistic, a nice combination of traits . A pretty solid leader i would say and our starting techs are Agriculture & The wheel - I'll take that

A quick peak at the UU & the UB,

Spoiler :

Well that definitely looks good, with my new found love for Muskets i should have some fun if we can last that long lately it's been a lot Muskets + Cannons for me ...
And the UB looks pretty decent too, some extra happy to go with the usual health that comes from the generic buiding.

Finally on to the starting location

Spoiler :

Well? Whats the verdict then? I'm thinking settle 1 SW where the warrior is standing and tech path AH > Mining > BW ...

BTW - I have already moved the warrior.

Save of the start attached.

 

[learner gamer]

Emperor Shafi eh? Has a nice ring to it. Congrats BTW on your first emperor win in another thread. Look forward to seeing the Boudica game finished when you get the chance.

Re: settling. Both the pic and zooming in when I looked at the save suggest a couple of things: (a) there are even more FPs to the south (b) the area is largely devoid of hills and therefore early production and (c) the tiles 1S and 2S of the sheep look like some sort of hills.

As a result: (i) I'd be inclined not to settle on the hill and instead have that available for production and (ii) I'd be looking instead at the tile 1S of your warrior as the site to settle. That keeps the sheep and nabs plenty of FPs to feed what I think will be three hills (one on your planned city site and the two S of the sheep) for early production.

Tech path looks fine.

BTW: the UB is actually far better than pretty decent IMHO. As I discovered in a recent game, the extra can rock and means that maths (rather than alphabet) can be a more than worthwhile way of getting to currency and CoL.

Look forward to seeing how you go as always.

 

[UWHabs]

You can also faintly make out a FP ENE of your cap, so moving loses that.

The lack of resources so far in your BFC means you have more, either food or military. I'd probably settle in place and save the wheat/FP as a monster second city.

 

[kossin]

1SW loses production. If you want to move, try 2S 1W instead, same amount of time, 3 more fps, 2 more hills, 2 less grasslands. It has a lot of brown tiles unfortunately though.
By my count and without seeing all the fog, you'll need 1~2 farm to grow to 20 from there.
1SW would need 4~5 farms for the same feat.

If you want to move, I'd send the settler 1S (and next turn SW to settle on turn 1 or east if there's anything) so you can see what's east in case you want to change your mind.

Since we only see sheep in the BFC, there should be 2 more resources.
In the fog, there's clearly a lot of forests. That leaves 6 tiles for extra resource, 4 of them we know that aren't food, which means 2N1E of settler on the plains or 2E on what looks like another plains has a resource. You can always make a city there later but I'm just pointing out.

 

[learner gamer]

As usual UWHabs, you’ve perfectly illustrated the key point. Settling in place keeps any potential resources in the fog to the N (which includes the FP). Moving 1S of the warrior loses the FP and those potential resources but grabs wheat and 5 FPs. In my case, the certainty that I can get all that food is enough to make me move (so I agree with kossin on 1S of the warrior). However, the map generator could well have left food to the N as you point out. (As Shakespeare might have said: to trust the map generator or not, that is the question. ) The key point however is that I think either of those two sites looks better than the hill the warrior is currently standing on.

 

[UWHabs]

And the other important point is that even moving to the south, you can always come back and build a city to the north again. Both good spots.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I would settle in place. I believe I can see some FP to the east.

 

[Fleme]

Yep, there are 2 FP to the east but then again there's 5 to the south so I'd go ahead and settle 1W 2S for a great Bureaucracy capital and to begin with, a capital that has atleast some food guaranteed (plainshillsheep is the worst "food" source" in game.)

 

[Shafi]

So then here we go, the first HUI series game on Emperor. Wish me luck then …
Interesting situation. In place seems to have lots of forests for chopping + potentially almost a certain strategic resource. However a serious lack of food in my opinion. So I decide to move. 2S,1W as suggested almost unanimously by all of you.

Spoiler :

Gold in the BFC!

We begin building a worker first and start researching AH. Meanwhile this funny looking dude turns up from the South East … hmmm strange fellow almost looks like me from a past life

Spoiler :

We finish researching AH and begin on Mining, meanwhile the worker is completed and we start on a warrior. We finish Mining and start on BW. Finish Warrior and start on Settler. Our 2nd neighbor shows up …

Spoiler :

Meanwhile we finish BW and begin researching Pottery. We also pop a warrior from a hut … Cool. Well that brings us to the end of this round then, we are three turns from completing the settler, suggested tech path from here on? Also where do we put the next city? Dot map suggestions?

Spoiler :

So do we grab that stone and have a go at the GW? Also definitely thinking the “Mids” is on here given that we are Philosophical and all …
I am definitely thinking 2nd city on the west coast but can’t figure out where exactly to put it.

 

[vicawoo]

I would have settled in place and hoped the map generator had some nice hidden resources to the north, but it looks like you lucked out.

If the AI are all the the south and not the north, you're much better off settling toward them and blocking it off, fogbusting top and fill it in when you can afford it. Great wall and pyramids aren't that important compared to blocking. I would get the western cow/wheat/stone on plain hills site for quick barb protection with the second and 3rd city, and get at least 3 cities to the south.

 

[Nothingontv]

Since we only see sheep in the BFC, there should be 2 more resources.

Are you saying there are always 3 resources in the BFC? And if there are, will they always be visible or does that include resources like coal?

I have only been playing since july but i never noticed/realized this.

 

[Shafi]

I would have settled in place and hoped the map generator had some nice hidden resources to the north, but it looks like you lucked out.

Yup definitey lucked out , i did'nt expect any food to the north so i moved, after thinking about it for a while.

If the AI are all the the south and not the north, you're much better off settling toward them and blocking it off, fogbusting top and fill it in when you can afford it. Great wall and pyramids aren't that important compared to blocking.

Yeah i think they are all to the south somewhere, i will send my warrior down south east to explore, we still can have a go at the "Mids" though can we?

I would get the western cow/wheat/stone on plain hills site for quick barb protection with the second and 3rd city, and get at least 3 cities to the south.

I think you mean the western Pig/Stone/Horse/Wheat site correct? yeah plains hill seems the ideal location.

 

[learner gamer]

Wow! That gold makes the starting location rock – and is a huge (albeit unexpected) bonus! If your luck is that good my friend, I’d strongly advocate buying a lottery ticket ASAP while it holds.

On the subject of the starting location, I note you mention this:

i did'nt expect any food to the north so i moved

Out of curio, why did you not expect food resources N of the settler’s original location? After all, even though I advocated moving, I confess I didn’t have a clue what resources were in the fog (I instead opted for the certainty of the food resources to the south versus the uncertainty of what was in the fog). Is there something in the code that limited the likelihood of food to the N given how much was available around the S where you eventually settled?

On another note, you’ve put in some seriously good scouting there. Another gold to the NE, gems, spices, silk, incense and whale are nice resources.

I agree that the 2nd city is the wheat / horse / pig / stone site....the only issue is that all the warriors are on the other coast; so maybe switch to a warrior in Istanbul for escort and chop in the settler is the way to go? The other (inferior IMHO) option is to build a city right where the lion sits to Istanbul’s north. For completion BTW, I’ve attached a VERY early dotmap.

Whilst the mids are of course attractive given the stone, I wonder if efforts to get them might be hindered by the fact that (i) you’ll need to pop borders to get the stone and (ii) the lack of forests for chopping. The other points I’d note are that, at this early stage, the land seems to lack the food to run vast numbers of specialists and that early happiness can easily be met by grabbing the resources IMHO. As a result, I’d be more inclined to consider the hanging gardens if you’re really interested in an early(ish) wonder since you need maths anyway for the UB and calendar. Elsewhere, marble of course opens up the possibility of the GL.

Talking of chopping forests BTW, I’d be more inclined to agree with vicawoo and use them to chop out settlers and leverage imperialistic to grab the land for blocking.

Re: tech path. This one’s tricky IMHO. The key question (and you’ll know the answer to this better than me having played on emperor) is this IMHO: can you wait 20+ turns until the horses are connected before you start seeing barb archers enter your borders? If not, then a detour to hunting > archery is necessary, maybe after pottery. If yes, then maybe pottery > mysticism > writing > masonry is the way to go? (Of course, this also depends on what else is in the fog and how that impacts city sites.) What do other emperors on the forum think?

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

So do we grab that stone and have a go at the GW?

Not worth it. You have horses and copper. Barbs won't be an issue.

I am definitely thinking 2nd city on the west coast but can’t figure out where exactly to put it.

Spoiler :

 

[learner gamer]

@Ignorant Teacher: Out of curio, why do you suggest putting the stone site in the desert with its 25% production handicap? Is it not worthwhile moving the city 1N onto the hill and, in addition to avoiding the handicap, means the city then only has to find 1 farm (pre-biology) IIRC to work all tiles? Is it because you want the pig in the 1st ring of the BFC for faster regrowth?

 

[Shafi]

@ IT - What do you think of the spot 1N of what you have suggested? It is also on the coast, it gives faster acess to Horsies and has a production bonus due to being on a plains hill. However it does result in a useless desert tile and also a peak ending up in the BFC.

My original thoughts were the location you suggested, but after vicawoo suggested the plains hill (1N) i am more inclined towards that for the faster Horsies.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

What handicap? The 25% refers to the speed workers take to build improvements on desert, not to city tiles. When you settle on a desert tile, it's as good as any.

The pig and the wheat can feed a couple of hills and after civil service you can have 4 farms, not 1. It's a very nice production site that can assist Istanbul in building settlers. And it grabs the stone, in case Shafi goes for the Mids, in which case I'd also settle a third city so that he can have two cities pumping settlers and workers while the capital builds the mids.

Edit: 1N is also good. I don't know why, but I had the impression it was a grassland hill. Plain hills are better and you get more green. The only problem is whipping the monument, but horses do the trick.

 

[learner gamer]

^^^^ Thank you very much - I'm learning all the time.

Edit: @Ignorant Teacher: I've noticed from numerous posts that you're playing on levels that I can only dream of at present. Do you have any thoughts about the tech path and the need for archery before the horses get connected?

 

[Shafi]

Wow! That gold makes the starting location rock – and is a huge (albeit unexpected) bonus! If your luck is that good my friend, I’d strongly advocate buying a lottery ticket ASAP while it holds.

maybe i should! And whats more the original setle in place location does not even have Horses or Copper i was certain one of the two might be there. Maybe theres probably iron somewhere there.

Out of curio, why did you not expect food resources N of the settler’s original location? After all, even though I advocated moving, I confess I didn’t have a clue what resources were in the fog (I instead opted for the certainty of the food resources to the south versus the uncertainty of what was in the fog). Is there something in the code that limited the likelihood of food to the N given how much was available around the S where you eventually settled?

Nope not that i know of, it was just my opinion i guess plains cow or wheat was a possibility, but i just had a feeling there was no food up there, cant really explain . Besides like you said, when the south had visibly food rich areas i was'nt willing to take a chance.

I agree that the 2nd city is the wheat / horse / pig / stone site....the only issue is that all the warriors are on the other coast; so maybe switch to a warrior in Istanbul for escort and chop in the settler is the way to go?

Not a bad idea, or since my luck is good , i might just try to get an unescorted settler out to that site, we might manage it if we move one tile at a time and dance around a little bit

For completion BTW, I’ve attached a VERY early dotmap.

Thank you mate , i should probably make a honorary mention of you and kossin in the introduction to every HUI game

Talking of chopping forests BTW, I’d be more inclined to agree with vicawoo and use them to chop out settlers and leverage imperialistic to grab the land for blocking.

Yeah you guys are probably right, but you know it's nice to build a wonder once in a while you know, i'll still see if i can sneak in the mids somehow .

Re: tech path. This one’s tricky IMHO. The key question (and you’ll know the answer to this better than me having played on emperor) is this IMHO: can you wait 20+ turns until the horses are connected before you start seeing barb archers enter your borders? If not, then a detour to hunting > archery is necessary, maybe after pottery. If yes, then maybe pottery > mysticism > writing > masonry is the way to go? (Of course, this also depends on what else is in the fog and how that impacts city sites.) What do other emperors on the forum think?

Well i think i can handle the barbs until the horses are online, if not well i guess i might be in a world of pain ... but like i said i'm feeling lucky

 

[learner gamer]

since my luck is good , i might just try to get an unescorted settler out to that site

Just be careful and make sure you save some luck for the lottery ticket. Look forward to seeing how you go.