[BTS] Let's Play - Immortal Hammy

[Jarno]

T9-T14

Continued to play until worker is ready. NE Warrior returns following the borders of Aksum, no worker in sight. SW Warrior has some animal trouble, and needs to run from a combined lion/bear threat.

Spoiler Animal crackers :

 

[sampsa]

Given the tiles in capital are weak, settler @size2 feels much better than @size3. Probably no 1-pop whip because you must pay 1 turn for the ability to whip (anarchy), but I'd look into it, too. I think the location of copper might have a big say in the location of 2nd city. If you don't have accessible copper, I guess you can go towards AH+HBR. I mean, taking the route you did on T0 to move to the stone (which was also my preferred choice) I think it's best to fast play your hand.

Btw I'm pretty sure copper can naturally be only on plains hills (and grass/plains flat land). Any poppaple resource can pop on any worked mine though.

 

[Jarno]

Ok I couldn't resist and also did the calculations for Settler@size2. Interesting results:

Compared to settler@size1

• Gold only delayed by 2 turns, even though settler is delayed by 4 turns. Due to the fact that the road towards city site 2 is ready by the time the settler is finished.
• Trade routes up 4 turns earlier (roughly making up for 1 turn of gold)
• Babylon to size 4 one turn earlier
• About 10 more accumulated by T40
• Additional warrior 13 turns earlier

Compared to settler@size3

• Gold online 4 turns earlier
• Trade routes up about 2 turns earlier. Assuming I road to city site #2 instead of chopping the PH in the s@3 scenario. Although chopping gives me an earlier granary in Babylon...
• Babylon to size 4 three turns later
• About 25 more accumulated by T40
• One warrior less
• Spares one forest at the grass hill

Spoiler Calculation details for settler @ size 2 :

T14: Warrior in queue. Worker start farming FP 1N.
T19: Warrior completed
T20: Farming FP completed;
T21: Grow to size 2; start production of Settler
T26: Worker chops forest into settler.
T27-T30: Worker builds road to city site #2
T31: Settler completed; moves to PH; worker moves to gold
T32: Akkad settled
T35: Gold online
T37: Babylon grows to size 3
T41: Babylone grows to size 4

 

[Jarno]

Turnset T14-T22

Weighing in all observations made in the comparison between the different scenario's I decided to opt for the Settler@Size2 play. Economically there is little difference between that and the S@S1 scenario, however Babylon comes out in better shape and the additional Warrior is available much sooner. So here we go...

At turn 16 I meet Isabella. Easy to befriend if I can adopt the same religion, and she happens to have founded Buddhism.

Spoiler Isabella :

At turn 17, I do a little dance with a bear. Around Aksum I still can't locate the worker, but i see that he's been busy mining a sheep (interesting Zara!). Qin was the first to settle his second city.

Spoiler Aksum :

In between, I happen to land my 1.8HP warrior on a forested hill next to a hungry bear... He survives! I honer this heroic act by renaming him Hugh Glass. I continue to follow my turn-by-turn plan and start the settler at T21. Meanwhile, the first floodplain is farmed thus I will be putting 8 hammers/turn into the settler.

Spoiler Settler production :

The Celts are the founders of Hinduism. So I guess he and Isa won't be friends any time soon.
The warrior encircling Aksum is on its way back when finally... worker steal target localized!!

Spoiler Ethiopian slave :

I see no archers around, so it's very tempting to steal this guy. Will speed up the gold even more, and slow Zara substantially. With a peace weight of +6, Zara is willing to negotiate quite quickly(?). Maybe I can snipe one of his scouts to increase the war success. Will contemplate my next move...

 

[Jarno]

Went ahead and captured the worker! Next turn Bronze Working is finished and yes, there is lots of copper around, including on the grass hill (as @NineOneSix predicted).

Spoiler Copper :

As for now, I'm not quite sure where to settle. Location 1W of gold is still attractive, but it requires another city to get access to the copper (or wait until T51 and Babylons borders will pop). Thought about a helper city in the west (can farm one FP 1S and help working the cottages). City NW can grab sheep and copper. Have to check out what's further N and SE.

 

[Pangaea]

Haven't played this game in an absolute age (I see somebody barfed blue-ish guck all over the forum... ), almost a year going by last savegames, but having a crack at this instead of a self-made game. As others, I had to use the WB file to load the game, but it's up and running now. Also on Linux, so had to fix case sensitivity to get the other file to even show up. But no matter.

Way too tempting to settle on 3 stone, so that's what I did.

Still T1, so early thoughts:

Spoiler :

Hardly a great city, apart from 3H city tile, but it is what it is. Can always farm two floodplaines, which is only one worse than dry corn, and still have 3 FPs to cottage. Will be a little slow for whipping, but overall food won't be too bad when the city grows a tad. Hammers won't be great, despite the city tile, but there is also food-neutral wine, which is quite handy.

With corn north, that might be a fine spot for city #2, unless something else cracking pops up from the shadows. Think I'll do something unusual and build a warrior first (in only 3 turns), and send them in opposite directions, hoping to steal a worker or two instead of dying to animals. Then probably build a worker after the warrior, just in case I'm not lucky with steals.

Not 100% decided on techs, always a tricky call, but probably Mining first. BW doesn't look strong due to lack of food and trees (7 isn't bad, mind you), so maybe Mining -> AH -> Writing -> Alpha?. Depends what barbs do as well. They can be a real PITA.

 

[Pangaea]

Ah yes, how I missed thee....

If you're gonna get pumped by the RNG, it's better it happens early when it has absolutely colossal consequences. Right?

 

[Jarno]

Ah yes, how I missed thee....
If you're gonna get pumped by the RNG, it's better it happens early when it has absolutely colossal consequences. Right?

Hi Pangaea! Nice to see you trying out my game with the same opening tactics. Not very surprising though that poofy warriors get shanked by panthers. Must be a username-rng-modifier hidden in the xml's somewhere...

As for my game, I created a revised worker action plan with my newly acquired workforce. Glad to see the cooperation making it possible to settle 1T earlier and getting gold online 2T earlier! Assuming I still want to settle 1W of gold...

Spoiler Workplan :

 

[Jarno]

About the city placement: I could choose to settle aggressively towards Zara by picking the Cow/Gold spot (white). That would leave the corn available for red: corn/copper worker/settler pump. That city could also be settled first, then building an axeman to harass Zara a bit further and secure the white spot for future settling.
Green spot depends on what's in the fog SE. West of Babylon there is room for a city helping to grow some cottages.

What do you think?

Spoiler City placement :

 

[Pangaea]

Some thoughts on your position, for what it's worth:

Spoiler :

Haven't read many posts in this thread, due to fear of spoilers, so not sure when you stole workers and such. But from the above post, I suppose you have planned quite meticulously, much more than I did, with tight worker micro and so on. Thankfully I have BW myself now, so the picture above didn't spoil anything for me, but we did things differently in that regard. That said, I too ended up settling city #2 1W of Gold. Did think about being more aggressive and settling towards Zara. However, we weren't on the best of terms, and he's Creative, and it's his capital over there, so placing a city that close, on flatland, could pose problems.

Despite grabbing two desert plots, 1W of gold really isn't too shabby. It has fresh water, 2 city tile, and can grab the corn once the capital expands borders (100 ). Gold obviously gives you happiness on top of great . It's also on the path to Zara, so if you have some worker turns to spare, you could build roads towards him and thereby gain better trade routes once you have Writing and can open borders with him (relations permitting, ofc).

Knowing BW so early means you can plan to grab copper early. In that case, placing city #3 on red is a fine option. Though I'd also consider a city to grab sheep, for instance between sheep and copper. 3000BC is early, and I see you have stolen a worker from Zara, so exploration is limited, but you may want to check out your north, as it can impact on where you place cities. Obviously there are some civs to the south, but you can also already see some jungle, so it's not the best direction for expansion in that sense. I hate jungle. Let the AI chop it down, and then steal their stuff

Moving forward, you should probably start thinking about potential friends as well, or more generally, diplomatic relations. Some of these AIs, particularly Brennus, can be a real pain to deal with if they suddenly stab a spear in your back. However, if you can get on Brennus' good side (Organized Religion!!) and use him as a meatshield against the others, then that can be good play.

I'm sure you have thought about much of that already, but hope it was of some help anyway. Good luck

 

[Pangaea]

As for my attempt so far, I've played to Turn 63 (1480BC), so only check out the post if you are willing to accept spoilers (I'll put the map picture in its own spoiler though).

Will preface by saying I'm pretty messed up by the flu, so I'll blame errors on a vicious headache (and sinus infection is a real ARSE!).

Spoiler :

Pretty much did what I wrote in Turn 1. Went for Mining-> AH, and then hauled ass towards Alpha, which we got in 1760BC. That allowed some backfilling, and I was finally able to get BW, Masonry, Pottery and some more. Haven't got the religious stuff yet, so although it's a bit late with a certain woman in the world, I'm sure she must be working on the Oracle by now, so no real chance to steal that under someone's nose.

Settled city #2 1W of gold, as it seemed like a fine enough spot, and not too far from my capital. By then I had also stolen two workers. One from Zara pretty early on (he thankfully settled for cease fire early on), and another from Qin later. That could easily have ended my game, actually. It was impossible to gain peace with him, and then he got horses and chariots.... Thankfully managed to take out his lone chariot near my land without losing too many warriors, but it was a tough one. Attacked him (wounded from another loss) at 56%, and won, so despite narrow odds in my favour, maybe consider that payback for the 1% panther win early on. Consequence could have been very dire.

But that wasn't enough. And then I see two chariots and an archer coming towards me. Not good. Not good at all. Alpha to the rescue! hew:. I give him Writing and that was enough for him to settle the feud. With warriors defending cities, we would have been boned.

If you check it out, you can see from the picture where I placed the cities, and some of the resources nearby. Placed city 3 further north, and this very turn placed city 4 to grab sheep (and the recently revealed copper). Not sure where to place the next cities, but I have a "work-in-process" city-spot tagged in the south-east. Should pop one down west of the capital too. Not a great area, but at least it can pick up another floodplain.

With 3 workers fairly early on (and no ability to chop), I farmed four FP (two of them turned into cottages now), and built much more roads than is normal so early, including connecting paths to both Zara and Hatty. That was kind of a mistake though, because I didn't have fishing, which meant no 2 trade routes. D'OH! But they're online now, so the profit comes, albeit much later.

Hopefully will get some good trades out of alpha soon, I'd like the religious techs (OR), and maybe monarchy if possible (for wine). Next self-teching goal is Currency, for yet better trade routes and improved economy, to bear the brunt of more cities. Having ORG helps a little, but soon enough the economic hit from founding more cities will be hard. Immortal and Deity is pretty rough in that regard.

I'd prefer Brennus' religion to spread to me, and hopefully it does. But Hatty has founded Judaism now, so she may start pumping missionaries. OR + religion should bring me and Brennus on pretty good terms. Most of the others hate his guts, so will only be a matter of time before he goes to war against somebody - and I'd prefer that to NOT be me

Putting Espionage on Wang has turned out to be a somewhat bad deal. But Zara was pumping points into me after the worker capture, and at that point Wang was on top of the scoreboard. Guess he has lousy land somewhere in the margins.

After that long intro, here is the map in T63, with my four cities.

Spoiler :

 

[Pangaea]

Played a little further, to 800BC.

Spoiler :

Currency online this turn, which is always good news. Still missing some backfill, but espionage on Wang isn't a total loss, as he's doing some useful techs, like Math+Calendar (please hold off on MoM though!).

The downside is I'm lacking key strategic resources, like horse and iron. Zara took forever to grab that cow spot, so I hoped to steal it, but he finally settled there. I have two settlers in the pipelines, so am thinking about sending them way south-east to hopefully grab the iron there. The other spot, way SE, will be very expensive, but may as well grab it if Brennus doesn't. Of course, such settling may mean war with the friendly, hairy fella, so it's risky. But then he hates plenty of others.

Not got up a library yet, so no progress on great people, but I have 6 cities, enough for national wonders (HE and NE), and two more cities by 1AD would be nice. Unfortunately it's impossible to settle a crap city by the western iron due to where the cities are placed, and Creative Hathy will have it well under control.

Would love to get Math from Wang and CoL (Oracle) from Zara, but they are monopoly techs so none are trading -- yet.

Actually haven't located Wang and Isabella yet. They must be in the far east.

 

[Jarno]

AH is the obvious next tech. Growing city 2 to size 2 should probably take priority over working the gold. Working 3F cows over improved gold is debattable but the city needs to grow at some point. Getting at least 6F from unimproved cows kinda makes sense : remains 16F = 4 turns with improved cows. It would take the same 6 turns anyway to grow from improved cows with 22F needed.

Problem is that I can settle Akkad on T32, however AH won't be in until T35/36 (will have to check this), so the cows will be pastured at T37/38 earliest. I can work the cow first turn, then improved gold to speed up AH, and then back to the cow.

 

[Jarno]

Turnset T24-T28.

T24. Start researching AH: some hidden modifiers turn my 11 into 14 researchprogresspoints (or whatever you should call them), so it will be finished at least at T35. Smashing the cottage gives me 11, muchos gracias señor Zara! Hugh Glass starts scouting the Northern area.
T26: In between turns I meet Wang Kon. Protective little research whore. Aksum has three archers sitting inside doing nothing. The city is at size 5 for quite a while, so it is either building a settler or a worker. I'll annoy him further with my warriors.

Spoiler Aksum :

T28: I smash the sheep mine, giving me +17. Turns out Zara was building a new worker, it is now standing on the PH 1 SE of Aksum (no picture). Zara will not take peace yet.

Spoiler Wheat in the north! :

Spoiler Hatty in the south-west :

As you can see, Zara's borders also expanded, making the cow-gold city already a culture-contested area. Would like to build a quick settler in Babylon when it hits size 4, and whip/chop it so I can claim the copper. An axeman or two will make Zara's life pretty miserable.

 

[Pangaea]

I've played to almost 1AD. Unsure about what to do next, but maybe go on the offense.

Spoiler :

Things were progressing nicely enough, and I captured the iron in the south-east. The spot yet further south was taken by Brennus, which was probably for the best. With another settler with nothing to do, I planted him on top of the marble in the very north, in the only square free of Ethiopian culture. Crap, but it does give us marble

Noticed Qin marching a stack towards me, so I had to prepare. And with two cities as likely targets, it was hard to know where he would hit, so I made preparations in both. He declares. Okay. But oh-oh... same turn Zara declares too. Two-front war. Not cool. Soon later more civs have magically learnt about currency, and is at war (only Isabella isn't).

I get a GS and as there isn't anything useful to bulb, he builds an Academy in the capital. Then we power through to Machinery, something I barely ever research myself, but that gives access to crossbowmen, which isn't too bad.

With a little help from Hatty, Qin has been calmed down, and Zara hasn't done jack yet, not even taken the warrior-defended marble city next to his capital. The AI can be so weird at times... Don't particularly like to tech stuff others have already, but I've started on Construction with HBR in mind, because we're getting ivory from Korea. Longbows are about to pop up, so maybe it's a horrible decision, but it's tempting to go on the offensive and try to grab Zara's good land -- I've no idea why he has expanded so poorly.

Oh yes, and I completed Pyramids this turn, so think it's time to finally pick a religion, which has to be Judaism as most cities have it. So that's a 2-turn revolt for Rep+OR, + Judaism. Brennus won't like it, but a common war will take some of the dislike off.

But it may be best to just sit back and tech up to maces, or yet further, and wipe the map then. Like just grab the horses from Zara soon, wait, and pummel the world with the usual Cuirs. Leaning towards fun now over profits later, mind you.

Spoiler :

Tech rate isn't great due to missing Buro and a good capital for it, but Rep will help.

Had to laugh when I finally got Archery and noticed the UU.... could probably used those earlier Too used to rejecting Archery in trade.

Been fun to play the game again, but I've spent way too much time on it. One more turn. Just one more. Poof, and I need to "get up" in 4 hours.

 

[Jarno]

Been fun to play the game again, but I've spent way too much time on it. One more turn. Just one more. Poof, and I need to "get up" in 4 hours.

Yeah I know that feeling. Although I notice that now with writing down my progress and arguing about the decision-making, I play in much smaller turnsets and the playtime doesn't get out of hand.

Speaking of turnsets... progress T28-T37:
T30: My warriors around Aksum try to avoid Zara's archers hunting them down, leaving the following situation by the end of T30

Spoiler Warriors in trouble? :

T31: Unfortunately, the SE warrior is defeated by an archer coming directly from Aksum. The S warrior heroically defeats his offender, keeping his fortified stand on the forested hill. In Babylon, one settler is finished, and as proposed by @BornInCantaloup I immediately start producing another one.
T32: As planned, I settle Akkad next to Zara's borders, and work the cows until the gold is improved next turn.
T33: Working the gold, I find that AH will finish next turn, so the workers can start pasturing the cow right away.
T34: A wounded Ethiopian archer (strength 1.9), the one that killed my warrior, is approaching Akkad. Hugh Glass was already on its way, and will arrive in time to defend the city.
T35: Cow pasture is finished, archer is coming closer. New warrior in Akkad will finish just in time, so the city is (read: should be) safe.

Spoiler Archer with an arrow in the knee approaching :

T37: Archer decides not to attach Akkad but to move on the cows. Workers are fleeing in panic. Will Hugh pull another one off?

Spoiler Battle for the cows :

...

...
Pref!

I forgot to take an overview snapshot, however not much has changed at the western part of my empire. According to my calculations I can get the new settler out at turn 43 (with one chop). Don't know yet whether I'm going to use him for the Corn/Copper or the Sheep/Copper site.

Spoiler Dotmap options :

 

[Jarno]

Continued:

T37: After killing Zara's archer, he takes peace. Warrior in the area gets teleported south, and will explore the territory south of Akkad.
T38: The workers continue farming the FP 2N of Babylon after putting one chop into the settler on the road (in order to lose no worker turns). After finishing the farm they will road towards city site #3, which will be between the sheep and copper. That city will provide further workers/settlers for my empire. Hugh Glass will keep the north barb-free. Exploring warrior in the SE end the turn on a forest next to a wounded barb warrior (1.5str).
T39: Warrior wins the battle, climbs a desert hill and finds a rice resource. That means a rice/copper city can be placed E of the lake.
T40: Pottery is in! Workers finish farming the FP, and one can start roading. Akkad will finish a warrior next turn, after that I think it will start on a worker.

Next research should be decided now. Game is pretty slow no the wonders (no SH yet), so I think I can take a pretty good shot at the Mids. Can go writing (for better trade routs) and maths then for the HG. Extra pop will be very nice in symbioses with the Mids -> Representation. Could I build the mids in Akkad (would be nice for the culture boost)? Only have one 20H forest right now and 4x16H. Too little food surplus to put some whipping overflow into it, and I do not want the city to shrink below pop2 because I want to keep working the gold. Could build it in Babylon, have 7 forests and +6/7/8 food surplus at size 2/3/4, so I think I could generate some nice whipping overflow.

About diplomacy: there is already quite some hate around, as predicted Isa and Brennus can drink each others blood already, and Hatty isn't fond of him as well. Religion spread will decide how the other relations will develop, but it won't be a love fest for sure.

Spoiler Land overview and foreign advisor :

 

[sampsa]

Looks great, Jarno. Now come the big, game defining strategic choices. My first instinct would be to go with axes on Ethiopia, because

• Your decision on T0 gave you a boost, and that is best used when you still have that advantage
• Aggressive trait is a pretty bad one, but it shines on axe rush
• He is already weakened

I can see at least two arguments for not going for it

• Aksum is on a hill
• he is creative, which means the area is swamped by his culture and his secondary cities have also +20% culture defence bonus

Latter is not that important, getting Aksum would be enough of a reason to do it.

Anyway, that's not the only route I'd consider. We also have gold, which means we can maintain a tech advantage further on. Stone for failgolding SH/GW is also awesome! You can just setup a nice ~5 city empire and get more cities at construction for example.

You mention Mids. You will get them if you want them. I would not be chopping those forests into Mids without math though, it's not that far away. Akkad is imo way too weak for Mids, but if you move the wheat city 1 NW after border pop you have enough chops (needs a monument or a religion spread though). Capital is another obvious choice, but of course saving capital forest for bureau+forge+OR -bonuses makes some sense.

Ethiopia still has only one city, mainly because AI is super slow on coastal seafood starts (insists on building boats asap). Zara often goes for stonehenge for his UB, but I'm not sure if he's doing that here. Would be another good reason to go axes...

I guess you are planning to settle sheep+copper now? I don't think you need axes for protection or anything, so if you want a more peaceful strategy you can think about the alternatives. I wouldn't go masonry because of Mids at least (too far away from completion for now), but might go for it because of GW-failgold. That means kinda going away from axe-strategy though. What your empire needs imo is pottery+writing+math.

If you want to go peaceful, I'd be looking to settle the western city with floodplain + lots of grass river. I'd also consider settling it 2S of the current mark. Go pottery, work cottages, get to maths+masonry, chop Mids.

Sorry for the long, rambling post, I hope you got some ideas from this.

 

[Jarno]

@sampsa Thanks for your input! Really appreciate it when people take the time to feedback on other's games.

Regardless of whether I will axe Zara I went for masonry. Failgold from GW is a good means to finance my research, along with the gold mine and the cottages I'm about to set up. I settled Dur-Kurigalzu in between the sheep and copper, with the road completed just in time. Workers first pastured the sheep, and will mine the copper on their way back to Babylon. After that, they can cottage the FP's 2N-W and N-2W of the capital. D-K can start working on the GW to generate some failgold now that masonry is finished. Akkad will finish an additional worker in 4 turns from now. Babylon grows on a granary.

I don't know what Zara is smoking, but he still has only one city. Is it possible that he's working on SH before the first settler? He has access to horses, so I have to check whether he has been building chariots yet. Could be annoying if I decide to throw some axes at him. For this, I should be building/whipping axes straight away when the copper is online? Might need about 6-8 to get Aksum, assuming he has about 3 archers over there.

Spoiler T45 Overview :

Edit: barb city spawned to the SE. Will relocate the SE warrior to the forest 2W for emergency situations.

 

[Jarno]

Cities at turn 45. Noticed two errors already:

1) Forgot to switch into slavery. Will do this asap since every turn becomes more valuable.
2) Dur-Kur is not connected to the trade network, because Babylon is not connected to the river. Therefore has no access to Stone to speed up GW build. Will fix this after the copper mine is finished.

Spoiler Babylon :

Spoiler Akkad :

Spoiler Dur-Kur :