KA01B - A Simple Deity Space Race - PtW Roster

[bed_head7]

I am fine with moving one more northeast to settle, but I don't really see the need to move farther as long as we can do 4 turn settler in the capital. But I have a couple questions for mad-bax. Why mine the grass cow when irrigating it gets us the 5 fpt without using the floodplains? That would be fewer worker turns overall, wouldn't it? Overall, figuring out the food/shield situation and worker turns in detail isn't really something I enjoy or even get satisfaction out of doing, so I generally don't.

As far as tech progression goes, what mad-bax says sound good to me. Although something else has occured to me. Our capital is our commerce center. Do we let it get to 5 and do a 5-7 factory for the extra overall commerce though it means higher luxury? We should have incense pretty quickly and I suppose we could build a cheap temple while getting it up to size. I guess I should have started by asking how important commerce will even be to us in the early game.

 

[ainwood]

I think commerce is failry important - aside from the writing gambit (which I'm all in favour of), I think we'll be buying more than researching.

Does someone want to crunch the numbers on the settler factory / two settler factory options?

 

[Northern Pike]

To return to a point raised by Bed Head, how concerned are we about the risk of disease from flood plains? I believe, with BH (though I encourage the rest of you to check this too), that we can get to +5 food without working any flood plains, by irrigating both cows; and if we're going to do it this way, we should probably move the settler one more tile northeast before founding our capital.

On the other hand, if we're going to accept the risk of working flood plains early in the game, we might as well found where we are, so that our capital can get the benefit of the FP wheat. The danger aside, this would certainly be a remarkable site--+5 food before any irrigation.

 

[ainwood]

I'd be happier to accept the risk of disease in a second city, or a worker factory. If going one further north-east provides us with this confidence, then perhaps we should - there is also more floodplains poking out from the north-east fog, and we may be able to do something really cunning like share a cow for a factory up there as well.

In short - I agree with moving north-east.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Moving NE certainly won't hurt our start position, so I vote for doing it as well.

 

[bed_head7]

I hope I haven't horribly erred by playing already, not to mention playing some unknown number of turns. Screenshot in next post, and I was planning to discuss where to put the next settler.

4000 BC (1) - You all already know what happened.

3950 BC (2) - Spot BG across the lake, so I will move one more NE to make sure we have at least two.

3900 BC (3) - Make the move, and now our first nine tiles include three BG, three Grass, Plains cow, Grass Cow and center tile. On expansion we pick up a BG and gold mountain. Yum! Worker is roading cow first.

3850 BC (4) - After a longer than planned hike, Madrid is founded. Warrior started. Writing at min gives 2 gpt.

3800 BC (5) - Eh?

3750 BC (6) - Realized I made a bit of a mistake that wastes either two food or two commerce, and I was trying not to do that. Naturally I waste the commerce.

3700 BC (7) - Ah.

3650 BC (8) - Warrior finishes, and I start another. I realize we didn't really discuss early production other than settler before granary. So I look more closely at food/shields, and I start a settler. It seems like it will work with a waste of a couple of shields. Either two or three. But like I said I am not very good at this part of the game. Oh yeah, warrior is headed for the mountain to see what the writing to the northeast is.

3600 BC (9) - Andalusia? I guess that is what someone meant by province names. There is a Plains Cow to the west, and a river to the north.

3550 BC (10) - Oops, did I screw up my counting somewhere? Shouldn't 3500 BC be turn 10? No VSS to check in PTW. Irrigation finishes on Plains Cow.

3500 BC (11) - Still not sure what happened with the counting. Irrigation Grass Cow first to make sure shield box doesn't fill first.

3450 BC (12) - At this point I realize I probably should have explored south. But I just like mountains so much...anyway we do at least know there is incense to the south

3400 BC (13) - Still exploring.

3350 BC (14) - Wow! So many bonus foods! To the north and east we can now see two wheats, a game, and a cow, and the first three are all near fresh water.

3300 BC (15) - As it turns out, irrigating first was the wrong move. Roading first would have meant extra commerce and the settler and growth still happen on the same turn, though wasting three shields.

3250 BC (16) - Furs spotted near wheat! Settler next turn. I actually used the gold mountain, since we only needed two food and one shield to fill their boxes. Which means the settler definitely could have been finished last turn if I had irrigated Plains first and then roaded, and we could have gotten extra commerce by roading Grass Cow first and then irrigating. The AI pretty much would have done the same thing as me, but I suppose since I was actually paying attention to this all for the first time it could improve my game in the future. Or something.

 

[bed_head7]

 

[ainwood]

Looks like a fairly good start.

One thing I've realised is a slight advantage that we'll have over Kemal - RCP!

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Looking at this closer now, we can make a 4-turn warrior/settler factory happen here. I've attached an image of how I think it will work. If we get it set up, we'll have nice escorts for our settlers and garrisons for our cities.

The tiles with blue numbers are the ones we'd work at size 5, and the pink one is jsut a filler for size 6.

 

[Northern Pike]

Nice start, Bed Head.

My first thought about the new settler is that we should move it three tiles southwest and one south (the actual route taken would use the road, of course), and found a city on the FP directly west of the FP wheat, thus getting the benefit of the wheat without needing a cultural expansion. This would commit us to a first ring at RCP distance 4.5 (or 4, since the 4.5 rounds down) from Madrid, which looks like a good choice to me. We should be able to found at least three cities on water, and possibly as many as five, at this distance, in addition to one city which wouldn't have water but would have the eastern cow in its first ring.

As for all the exciting resources to the north, I think we should claim them with second-ring cities. It seems to me that building first-ring cities up there, though tempting, would leave us with too loose a settlement pattern for a serious game.

 

[a space oddity]

I agree, my feeling is that money is going to be mighty important to us this game so we should grab as many of the river tiles as possible. RCP will help us here too.

 

[ainwood]

Sounds good to me. Any thoughts on the next builds? We don't want to stop our writing gambit, so we need to find an expansionist civ to get pottery ASAP, so how about a couple more warriors? Another worker would be nice too (another side-effect of lots of cash is that we might be able to buy one).

 

[a space oddity]

... once we're out of despotism.

edit: Never mind, you meant buying it from the AI of course...

 

[Northern Pike]

Perhaps our second worker should be our second city's first build? I'd like to reserve Madrid's population surpluses for settlers, especially since we don't know when we're going to get a granary.

Kaiser Berger, I may well be missing a nuance here; but wouldn't your proposed production cycle above let Madrid reach size seven, causing the food box to empty?

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Indeed, it would only reach size 7 for an instant though, right as the settler completes. It'll zip back down to size five before the granary has a chance to emptied

I agree that another few warriors would be good, then either a worker or a settler, depeding on how large our pop is getting.

 

[Northern Pike]

Indeed, it would only reach size 7 for an instant though, right as the settler completes. It'll zip back down to size five before the granary has a chance to emptied

So the granary empties not at the moment the town reaches size seven, but later in the interturn, after production? Odd, but useful.

 

[ainwood]

So the granary empties not at the moment the town reaches size seven, but later in the interturn, after production? Odd, but useful.

Yes. The exact turn mechanics are posted somewhere - I'll see if I can find them. I think its something like:

1. Add food.
2. Check for pop growth. If grow, add a citizen.
3. Add shields (seeing as this is later in the cycle than the added citizen, the shields for the added citizen are also added).
4. Check for production completion. If unit complete has a pop cost, remove those citizens.
5. ....
6. Check food box. If grow to size 7, then empty box, granary and all.

 

[Northern Pike]

Thank you. I'd known most of that, but I took it for granted that the granary would empty at the moment the population reached seven.

 

[bed_head7]

Should I finish up and hand it off at the typical spot, or will the next player take it? And it is a warrior next up on the queue to explore?

 

[Northern Pike]

I'd suggest that you complete your twenty turns if you can do so in the next couple of hours, or just post your progress so far if you can't.

Yes on the warrior, though it'll presumably have to garrison our second city rather than exploring.