[BTS] Immortal Stalin shadow

[sampsa]

Need to be quick to grab it, I think I can see Pacal's borders very close

On immortal you can't count on beating AI's 2nd city, so that spot could indeed be gone.

 

[crashmon]

would this mean getting a 2nd settler out after worker => warrior?

 

[sampsa]

I think even if you start the settler size2, you are likely to lose to Wang's 2nd city. So it doesn't really matter whether you try to get the settler out fast, it's not fast enough anyway. On emperor I think you can be the first one to two cities.

 

[jnebbe]

T11-27

Spoiler :

Scout checks pacal and his capital is indeed on flatland.

Worker finished, send to the south corn as the extra food from being wet vs dry leads to more food in just a few turns

Moscow grew to size 3 and started a 9-turn settler

Worker mines pig instead of going straight to the other corn, not too sure about this but I hate wasting 1 turn going from S to N corn and waste a 2nd turn to go onto the pig hill

BW finished, 2 coppers revealed
What's the reasoning behind TW->AH->pottery? I'd rather go for AH next and start whipping like crazy, and the worker has lots of forests to keep him busy.

 

[krikav]

If you go for the gold city, you don't need to go TW first.
The reason you need TW is to not tank the economy completely before going both expensive techs (BW+AH).

 

[sampsa]

What's the reasoning behind TW->AH->pottery? I'd rather go for AH next and start whipping like crazy, and the worker has lots of forests to keep him busy.

Well... You really can't/shouldn't whip like crazy. Whipping is not that great without a granary. -cap is very low, even getting the gold is not guaranteed. When you have gold+ivory and granaries, whipping is pretty good indeed, but that's already past initial expansion. I'd be interested in the wheat/ivory-area in the north. This looks like a catapult-game to me.

 

[krikav]

Oh, the pig-mine before the corn, that was probably good now that you went settler at pop3.
But going for the corn first could have worked out if you rather continued to grow and planned to whip out the settler.
I would probably have done the worker micro just as you did here.

Early rush is off the table I think. Pacal has copper and you don't.

 

[Anysense]

I think 1 warrior before settler with that much land for barbs to spawn is downright gambling. Also very bad location for a scout - he should be out there spawnbusting or scouting.

 

[sampsa]

North is pretty secure though with so many AI units around. Agree on the scout though, north would be even more secure with better use of the scout.

 

[Fippy]

1 warrior is okay imo, gold city (between Oasis and gold) looks very safe.
It's not deity

 

[Anysense]

I'd be more worried about corn and pigs, but of course, there is still time because Immortal AI is very slow with expansion. Third city probably borrowing food from Moscow, also safe enough.

 

[Fish Man]

Got the t0 save?

 

[jnebbe]

T27-46

Spoiler :

Hi shaka

Going for gold city, I see ivory+small amount of good land nearby and think of elepult, if I have a successful elepult attack because of that gold, then the 2nd city being pretty bad long term is irrelevant

Going tw->pottery->ah
Pretty tricky opening land+techs, lots of valid paths to choose but not obvious which is the best

1st worker goes to gold, chopped out 2nd worker to improve capital a bit then work on 3rd city

3rd city founded, shares corn+lots of river grassland tiles, also grabs ivory with a monument or even if isabella spreads budhsm.
Moscow building a barracks, faster with agg and don't need 3 cities making warriors, also lets moscow grow a bit more

Economy is a little worse than I thought it would be but I'm about to get a couple trade routes and start working cottages in novograd so it will be fine.

As far as city spots go, I like 1SE of wheat, not great as a 4th city but it's a nice spot I don't want pacal to take.
It just feels so wrong to go so long without using the animals

Gems are covered in forest, not a huge deal because of gold+ivory and there's also a silver far south.

 

[sampsa]

Looking good so far. Have you thought about grand strategy yet? Any particular reason why southern city not 1E for the plains hill bonus?

 

[krikav]

A small thing about Moscow.
You are working the grassland hill building a barracks.
I think thats wrong.

I would rather prefer to work a forested grassland instead. That brings food to Moscow instead and bumps up population faster.
Or unimproved riverside for 1 more commerce, that might have gotten you pottery a turn sooner?

The only advantage the mine has, is that it finishes the barracks sooner. And there is no hurry with that.

Don't feel obliged to work improved tiles just because you have improved them. Try to keep in mind what the current needs are and use the tiles best suited for that need at all times.

 

[jnebbe]

T46-68, many mistakes

Spoiler :

Pottery just finished, put some turns into a granary in moscow and then started settler once it grew to size 4.
Granary completed the turn after settler was whipped, then barracks the turn after that.

Rostov settled, not a big fan of this city in hindsight, probably better to build by the sheep+pig especially since AH just finished. For some reason I was so afraid of pacal getting that spot before me.

AH finished and reveals some horses, a couple chariots might be useful for clearing out the southern land.

Now have 4 cities+2 workers, slowbuilding a worker in moscow and will 2-pop another in novograd

Rostov working the oasis while wheat is farmed, gold city is working a forest-hill to get out a barracks.

Bella settles next to me, I think a very big mistake is that I whipped the novograd worker out instead of another settler to settle 3S of her city.

I start a settler in size-2 moscow, another big mistake is only sending 1 worker to chop towards moscow but sending the other to the horses

Writing finished, I'm somehow first to get it and open borders with everyone, begin the slow push towards math.

:| ruins both city spots and is now annoyed with me cause of border tension

Pacal's land, he's actually getting boxed in as well, augustus on the west and roosevelt's borders barely visible to the north

Scouted hardly any of Bella's land since my scout got killed by a barb archer in her borders


Honestly thinking more towards HA attack against Bella, all 3 of her visible cities are on flatland, she doesn't have copper yet, and I don't really have any good city spots left.

(if Toledo gets a border pop, I will still keep those horses right?)

@sampsa Perhaps, I tend to not think of PH bonus outside of capital and was thinking I'd rather have a mine there. I figure I'd only notice the extra hammer when building warrior since they're cheap enough that the extra hammer halves their build time, but that's not needed since the gold city is building warriors nonstop (since there's no point building a granary there)

@krikav Very good point, some of my micro decisions are still not optimal

 

[sampsa]

Plains hill mines are just bad, you don't want to have them. 1 extra is not much, but it's still 50 in 50T. Also, not settling on a forest wins 20 or 30 .

 

[Anysense]

I doubt you can keep horses for much longer, unless you take Toledo. Izzy will soon get a monument and religion there. Tricky situation.

 

[Fippy]

Are you spamming warriors? -18gpt is waaay too much with 4 cities on Immortal (2 of them very close).

 

[krikav]

I think I would chop out 8-10 chariots and take those two cities (and maybe more).

Didn't see what Fippy wrote. Might be good with just 4-6 chariots since both cities would be accessable T0 and suicide warriors.

If not, it might make sense to mass all excess warriors together and gift them to Isabella T0 of the war just prior to declaration, then slaughter them with chariots to gain some XP and war success for easier ceasefire later on.
Can't make much progress with chariots if/when she gets metal, but might be able to resolve the two nearby cities and set her back enough that she becomes a good target later on.