Level up: Emperor & Immortal with 4 games

[Gasp]

You want to be quite efficient with early REXing on this map.

I'll need to be more careful with barbs this time. I imagine to see some more than on Emperor.

AG > Mining > BW seems good to me. But my 1st worker will have to wait a few turns before chops are available. I'm wondering if Pottery prior to BW can be a good early option for these FP.

@Fippy
I'm usually not for delaying. We should consider the possibility to settle on that PH but isn't it wrong to run from that forest

 

[Fippy]

You are not actually delaying with a move on ph (worker not slower) ~~

Forests are good, but those left behind would still be there for another city that will surely come.
Giving up all forests would be bad, but not the case.

A more central position also helps with maintenance later (something that becomes more important as diff increases), if i see that right we start on the map edge.

 

[Gasp]

Spoiler T1 After moving Warrior SE :

PH seems to be around other plains. Won't get more riverside tiles (unless there's one hidden by these mountains). Settle where we are ?

A more central position also helps with maintenance later (something that becomes more important as diff increases), if i see that right we start on the map edge.

Yes you see right. Not sure that PH will make a good long term capitol though
I noticed that copper tends to be north on Inland-sea, let's hope we'll have some.

 

[Fippy]

It's a matter of personal preference at this point
I would still use the ph, and be satisfied with the (imo enuf) useful tiles there, peaks i.e. are not bothering me at all.
But i can see why peoples would settle in place now, just giving my thoughts.

 

[elitetroops]

I can see the benefit of going to 1S of corn here. Faster start and only 1 less good cottage tile than current location. More towards center of map is good for landgrab. You know you won't lose any resources but spices, but there's a good chance you pick up something else.

 

[elitetroops]

Edited: Yay tapatalk! Nice double post..

 

[Gasp]

I see you won't find any reason to discard one or the other possibility
So I'm going to think about it in a logical way and see what gives me a faster start. But first let's have dinner!

 

[lymond]

that emperor start looked pretty bad actually

 

[Gasp]

To decide where to settle I wanted to know how I can start a bit faster and it's not easy for me. This mainly because my 1st worker is going to remain lazy or do roads for some turns until I can reach BW. So I see that PH has many advantages over settling north of Corn: being more central and 1 extra seem really good in this case for a faster expansion.
I fear that with a worker first I won't know how to use it. I was thinking about Pottery before Mining but this doesn't solve our worker problem and may even slow us by delaying chops. Building a Warrior first came to my mind as a good solution. That's 8T only on the PH and enough for my city to grow size 2. But I'm really not sure that's better apart from getting a 2nd warrior to explore better.

So I'm going to take Fippy's option this time and have a classic worker>warrior start. I'll farm Corn + FP first.

Spoiler T2 settling reveals Pig :

Pigs are nice and will hopefully be easy to share with a future city. I'm wondering what is the best way to take advantage of them before I get AH. Would you farm or cottage them?
With this start I want to research Pottery soon. We'll see how it goes but it can be after BW unless AH is needed.

 

[Gumbolt]

I pretty much always go worker first on most starts. When is warrior first ever optimal unless you plan to worker steal. So agriculture here first and then AH? You want the 5f/6f resource up asap to help settler production. You will want that sheep later?

Sometimes on higher level spotting techs you can skip is always a nice strategy. Of course scouting out nearby land can help you decide which techs you really need.

Some nice flood plains to cottage here.

Worker can always road towards new cities pending on what it has to do.

 

[Fippy]

lol that's almost too good now, you will think i knew
But nopes i had no idea, fog can always reveal something lucky thou so it's also part of considering moves imo.
On the other spot all tiles were already revealed, which can be slightly negative for those considerations. Even without pigs, you would have gained 2 more river tiles.

 

[Pedro78]

Would you farm or cottage them?

Probably neither, you will get AH pretty soon anyway.

Definitely BW first here (after Ag ofc). Then depending on the available land either AH or Pottery. Pottery before AH would be really nice with that capital if you find some happiness resources around: very strong whip potential with an early granary. Some nice tiles to cottage aswell.

 

[Fippy]

For cottaging which tiles, you never want to cottage pigs
Just tiles where you will keep those cottages, they are strong only as village or town.

Can be something like sugar which gives +1 food (banana would be too good later, no 5 & 6 food tiles).
Dye can be okay, but it also depends on how much quality you have in your city. Here there are plenty river tiles and food, so there would be no need for special cottages.

Similar would be true for farming, on some starts it's reasonable to farm pigs for a temporary 4 food tile. Or cows & sheep.
If you are poor and want to avoid teching AH early, for example on deity.
Floodplains take a longer time, and as general rule you (almost) never want to farm them if you have something like wet corn, unless your worker can do nothing else. All those examples count as emergency food, while this start is very strong.

 

[Gasp]

Floodplains take a longer time, and as general rule you (almost) never want to farm them if you have something like wet corn, unless your worker can do nothing else. All those examples count as emergency food, while this start is very strong.

My worker won't do many early improvements but I don't really need emergency food. So in this case it's better to road to future city than to farm that FP?

 

[lymond]

My worker won't do many early improvements but I don't really need emergency food. So in this case it's better to road to future city than to farm that FP?

Yeah, My was just giving you examples. In your case, those FPs will be cottaged. That bad Emperor start would be more of an example of having to farm the FPs since you basically had no food.

As for road, not sure on that...depends where you settle and other priorities. Too early to say and you are on a river. Not enough scouting, but a food share with either corn or pigs looks like a possibility indeed.

POT seems desirable after BW here since you start with TW, but it is IMM so if no copper present then you might want horses sooner than later.

 

[Rusten]

Don't think in terms of flood plains or not. That doesn't matter. A farm is still +1 food and a cottage is still +1 commerce regardless of grassland or FP.

What you should consider is food surplus for the city. Dirk used to give a rule of thumb of least +6 FPT. If you have less than +6 food I'd almost always farm the fp.

 

[Pedro78]

@Rusten does the +6FPT correspond to some specific threshold? I seem to be doing fine with +5FPT in most cities except during whipping time. (unless you only meant that for the capital, in which case I understand)

 

[Rusten]

I know that Dirk ran some calculations (I have not), but it's not something set in stone. +5, +6, +7 are all ok -- there are always so many other factors.

Even +6 feels like an eternity if it's a jungle city who just got its BFC cleared. In such cases for instance you want more.
Which brings me to rule #2: Given infinite worker turns it's always better to farm every tile until you've reached the size cap and only then cottage them.

There's no such thing as infinite worker turns, but knowing this will help you make cottage vs farm decisions.

 

[Gasp]

I played some turns till T24
The FP won't be improved until I have Pottery because it takes too many turns. That's why I went to the Pig tile instead.
One settler will be out in 10T luckily just after BW is discovered let's hope we have some not far we can grab.

Spoiler To turn 24 :

T2
Settle Mecca on that PH
Warrior starts to circle clockwise around Mecca
T12
Pascal's scout arrives from the east
T13
Willem met and we see him close SW he just founded his 2nd city.
T14
Worker is out and improves the Corn
T22
Warrior is out
T24
Mecca reach size 3 I do a settler
Pigs are farmed.

Here I take a break. We are 8T away from BW.
My worker could road Pigs to city until T28. I think a road there is useful. I could then move/road in direction of my next city.
I haven't decided where to settle yet but these 2 Sheep spots north I could get and a city south of Pigs on the river can be nice even if Willem is going to be a problem.

Spoiler Land discovered :

Spoiler North side close up :

Spoiler South of Mecca :

 

[elitetroops]

Creative Willem that close is quite nasty. Is Pacal to the east?

I'm not at all sure where to send first settler here. I'd like to block of Willem with a city 2S1W of pig. Also both sheep need to be settled, but those can probably wait. Overall the lands are a bit poor on food. You'll have to get by largely on flood plains.

Since you are building a settler, mining the grass hill 1E of corn would have been better than farming pig. Faster to improve, you'll want to keep the improvement for later and just as efficient for settler production.