KA01B - A Simple Deity Space Race - PtW Roster

[Karasu]

This is the thread for the PtW roster of our GOTM20 replay, in which we endeavour to lead Spain to her fastest Spaceship victory.

After four pages of the original thread spent in discussions, I guess we only need a brief recap of the game conditions:

GOTM20 announcement page (why do the work twice if the first one is good already? )

Game settings:
Civilization: Spain (Spanish)
Difficulty: Deity
World size: 5000 tiles
Landmass: Continents, 55% Water
Geology: Mystery
Environment: Mystery
Barbarians: Mystery
Rivals: 10 Preset
Upgrade Swordsmen/Longbows: ON

GOAL: Space Race victory as close as possible to 1275 AD
(I mean, if you guys manage to beat it, it need not be that close...

Starting position:

--- THE SAVE ---
(I copied Alan's last edit from the other thread -if I messed up anything, please shout out loud).

Players
Bed head7
Kaiser Berger
Northern Pike
Ainwood
A Space Oddity
Mad Bax

The original idea of the game was to explore the deity level and a very focussed approach to the specific victory condition that we set as a goal: I suggest that game plans and options are discussed as frequently as deemed necessary, rather than rushing through the game.

Well, enough blablabla...
... off ye go!

And... err... would anyone here be so kind as to help me with setting up the roster and keeping track of things? Pretty Please?

 

[ainwood]

Lets set the roster as per the above list.

Because I'm the impatient type, shall we get on with the game discussion? It looks like the land to the east / north-east is grassland. We have lots of food available with the flood-plains (problem being the risk of disease - just the sort of rotten randomness luck that we don't need to handicap us), but we need shields. The hill would give us a good defensive position (IF we need one - I certainly hope we don't!), but I'd really like to see what's on the other side of that hill. Should we move the worker there to take a look? A bolder move might be to send the worker to the flood-plains to open-up another few tiles, but with a plan to irrigate. The settler could move to the hill with a plan to settle there, but the option to move again if something looks more promising. Do we have any fog gazers who want to rip this piccie apart?

 

[a space oddity]

I'm a bit spoilered for this one. It was my first Deity solo game and have played those first moves very carfully. Also, I did all wrong too, so the discussion afterwards was very interesting and something to remember. So I'll keep quiet for a bit, ok?

edit: Also I had the wrong resource file back then, then so things were different than they seemed...

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Checking in. The roster above looks good to me

I'm certainly no fog gazer, so I have no predicitions as to what we'll find, but I would advocate moving the worker to the hill, as it will expose a good amount of tiles. My gut feeling tells me that if there are going to be any cows near the start, the best chance of them will be NE along the river. Of course, I could be completely wrong

Nonetheless, I think worker to the hill is our best option.

 

[ainwood]

Reading the pre-game discussion from the original release looks interesting - fog gazers claimed to see wheat and incense to the south / south-west. Given that cracker tended to focus on giving players good starts in deity games, and given that he also encouraged players to explore a bit before settling, I think that the hill was probably purposely placed there to encourage players to move there.

Another note: We get "the Wheel" and 25 extra gold (goody-hut popping compensation), which means that the goody huts have been removed from the starting location. That used to drive me in these games to build a warrior for defence / happiness, and not bother exploring too much - save 10 shields and put them towards a granary, first settler or warrior escort for settlers. Any thoughts on that approach?

If we spot a luxury bonus, then I'd like to get it within the city radius. We're aiming for space-race here, so we should try and look for locations that maximise income / commerce - if not for our own research, then for trading. The capital gets bonus income, so if we can get it on a river, with a commerce resource then that will be a nice little boost for us.

 

[bed_head7]

Um, are we sure we want to send our weakest player out all alone into the cold world to start an empire? If we want to make things difficult for everyone else, sure, we could give it to him, but he hasn't played PTW except for in GOTM33 and 34 and is only getting comfortable on Emperor in Conquests.

Will reserve saying too much until pre-game discussion has been read, but finding silks sure would be nice!

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

I was thinking of a warrior or two for exploaration, as I think its very important, especially at this level, to acquire trading partners early on. Also I'd like to have an idea where we're sending our settlers. I agree on getting lux asap. If we manage to get a settler factory going fairly quickly, we should have no problem claiming any nearby sources.

Another question we have is that of research. We can either go for a gambit on writing, or try for a quick research of pottery. I'm leaning towards the 40 turn gambit on writing, as I think we'll probably be able to trade for pottery with one of our neighbors, seeing as at least one of them will likely be expansionist or the deity bonuses will allow them to research it quickly enough as it is.

EDIT @bed_head- I'm sure everyone here, myself included, has confidence in your ability to start us off, but if you'd like, I'd be willing to swap if you feel your PTW experience isn't honed enough yet at this point.

 

[ainwood]

Um, are we sure we want to send our weakest player out all alone into the cold world to start an empire? If we want to make things difficult for everyone else, sure, we could give it to him, but he hasn't played PTW except for in GOTM33 and 34 and is only getting comfortable on Emperor in Conquests.

In terms of game mechanics, the differences between game versions (especially at the start) are minimal. And who says your the weakest? - its a team effort, you'll be fine.

I was thinking of a warrior or two for exploaration, as I think its very important, especially at this level, to acquire trading partners early on. Also I'd like to have an idea where we're sending our settlers. I agree on getting lux asap. If we manage to get a settler factory going fairly quickly, we should have no problem claiming any nearby sources.

Depending on what we find under the fog, we may need to micromanage to balance the flood-plain food with actually getting enough shields to build a warrior! A bonus-grassland would be nice, seeing as it will take a few turns to get the flood-plains irrigated anyway. Regarding the specific point, I've got no problems with building a warrior or three - just wanted to flag that goody-hut finding may not be a worthwhile / achievable goal.

Another question we have is that of research. We can either go for a gambit on writing, or try for a quick research of pottery. I'm leaning towards the 40 turn gambit on writing, as I think we'll probably be able to trade for pottery with one of our neighbors, seeing as at least one of them will likely be expansionist or the deity bonuses will allow them to research it quickly enough as it is.

Well, given that we also have the wheel as a third starting tech, then I think this is a good option.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Indeed, goody huts are going to be mostly useless to us since we're not expansionist. At this level, we're liable to get mostly barbs. We might actually want to leave the huts for the AI, as it might fuel their research even further. A bit risky, but we are going all out for a fast tech pace after all.

 

[gozpel]

"mutter" How could I miss this? This game was my first submitted GOTM

I will lurk.

 

[bed_head7]

Pregame discussion suggests incense SW and wheat SE. There also looks like some grassland NE. Maybe just settling in place would be best.

Edit: Though I will still move worker to hill first to be sure.

 

[Northern Pike]

Good to be playing with you all.

Yes, of course the worker should go onto the hill as our first move. Bed Head, if what you see at that point presents difficult choices, feel free to post a screenshot and invite discussion.

I agree that we should avoid goody huts.

 

[ainwood]

Good to be playing with you all.

Yes, of course the worker should go onto the hill as our first move. Bed Head, if what you see at that point presents difficult choices, feel free to post a screenshot and invite discussion.

I agree that we should avoid goody huts.

Worker or settler?

My 'given' is that we should stay on the river.

I think we're a bit sheild-deficient to settle in position, so we will be moving anyway. Moving the settler to the hill means a defensively positioned city, and with non-industrious workers, I don't think we need to worry about losing a mineable hill. Given that the terrain that way looks grassland-ish and the terrain to the west looks plains-ish, I'd say that moving the settler that way is probably what we should be doing regardless of what the move uncovers. The worker could perhaps move to the floodplain (east or southeast), with a view to starting irrigation. Might save a worker turn.

But lets not let me go overboard - don't need death by analysis. Shall we start?

 

[bed_head7]

I suppose we could use our second city to claim the incense and wheat. Well, assuming that the fog gazers were correct and there is incense and wheat to the south. So I guess I'll play tomorrow and move the settler to the hill.

 

[bed_head7]

Moved the settler to the hill and this is what I found. No wonder space didn't say anything. This seems like it would be hard to forget. 8 surplus fpt with irrigation is pretty amazing.

 

[ainwood]

Blimmin Heck! Think we can get two settler factories working here!

 

[mad-bax]

Hi, just checking in. Glad I'm at the end of the roster BTW.

I kind of agree with ainwood. The difficulty will be in how economically we can work the land with regard to worker turns. I haven't calculated the food/shields situation properly, but from gut feel I think I would irrigate the cow on the plains, mine the other cow, mine the BG and then just irrigate the plains tiles when necessary. MAybe an FP irrigation may be necessary to get to +5F. A second city could take the wheat. I would be tempted to found the second city before a granary goes into the capital. Again, by gut feel it seems that getting the second city founded before the necessary land improvements go into the capital will allow us to expand quicker from about turn 60.

So.... what's the best way to maximise tech progression. I'm leaning towards allowing the AI to research for us early on, which means leaving our neighbours alone for a while. Keeping everyone peaceful would be a good thing I think. Once we have found where the best land is we can expand militaristically to take that land. Once we have the second core in place and have settled all our productive cities we can pause again while we build infra and then expand aggressively once we are self-researchig - maximising commerce. I don't think we will need to expand off our continent unless we are on a very small and unproductive landmass (seems unlikely), and so we should be prepared to find the other landmasses quickly and gift them to tech parity if they are behind.

Just my humble opinion of course... FWIW.

 

[Northern Pike]

I like the idea of producing at least one settler before we build a granary. With this much food available our capital will bounce back quickly.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

It is indeed a fantastic start. I did some calculation to see if we could pull off a 4 turn warrior/settler factory, but we end up falling a shield short, I think. Nonetheless, getting one factory up will be easy enough. There is potential for a second using the grassland cow and the Flood Plain, provided there is a decent supply of BG in that area.

 

[ainwood]

Well, the first question is are we happy to settle here? It lmost looks tempting to move a couple more squares - gets the cows immediately, still have flood-plain, possibility for more BGs, and frees-up the starting squares (floodplains) for a second city.