Lionised and Vilified

[Cam_H]

Thanks nocho ... you are forgiven. Nice scouting! Shame about the lack of Copper - but some good prospective sites otherwise.

Just to get the ball rolling ... I'm not precious about the below suggestion remotely (as I changed my mind about five times myself with this) however ...

1st: Gold-Stone-Floodplains

Nabbing that Stone is important, and this proposed site overall is stronger in terms of potential food than the Forest Grassland 1N of this proposed spot. The downside is it needs a border pop to get the Gold and the Stone, and we'll therefore need to chop out a Monument, which means Mysticism fairly soon. Will need to accommodate for an irrigation chain to deliver fresh water to the east. Working the Gold Mine will take the maintenance burden off this city.​

2nd: Horse-Cow-Rice

In order to get Chariots out quickly, I suggest this site is marginally less tricky than trying to get a good site with the Horses in the south east which are among a bunch of Plains and desert tiles ... although there's Cows and Fish near there but these could be used for other better-positioned cities. One of the main problems with Horse-Cow-Rice is the Rice is useless for a while in among 8 Jungle tiles. The up-side being that the Horses can be immediately worked without a border pop. If Chariots are considered 'high priority', this site might be the first rather than second one to be settled(?).​

3rd: Cow-Gold-Wheat

Despite the two food resources, this city is going to be tough to feed due to the rest of the terrain until Civil Service. Two dead sea tiles due to city placement one tile inland. Nonetheless, again working the Gold Mine will offset maintenance, for what could otherwise be a so-so production site. Border pop required for Wheat and Cows, but when hooked-up, the Wheat will deliver to -pressed Horse-Cow-Rice. Probably useful positioning in terms of AI encroachment.​

4th: Corn-Fur-Fur-Sheep

Strategically not terribly useful in terms of land-grabbing from the AI (other than Barb's!), but handy to pick up Fur for and Sheep and Corn for additional . Working the two Fur Camps again will provide sufficient commerce to keep maintenance in check. Only one Hill will make natural production pretty tough.​

 

[vranasm]

wow now that is some good land around! Cam you're really stellar with your hand .

Ok I like generally the order of the cities, but I don't like position of city 1 and 2.

City 1 should imo be 1N. Will have 3 FP's and 1 stone in 1st ring, which is plenty of improvable tiles before border pops and it retains a lot of those grassland hills in the north.
My initial thinking with this city was cottages, but with the amount of grassland hills, stone and gold I would be surprised if we don't farm it and mine it right away. This is our future military pump.
I counted 6 grassland hills, 1 stone, 1 gold and 4 flood plains to feed it.

City 2 should be imo on the river 1S, Retains horses in 1st ring, is on river and has spices in first ring for farming. The rice is dead end to us.

Totally agree with city 4, it's very strong spot, but in our backland so we have enough time to improve it.

I could agree with city 3, mostly because it will have the gold in 1st ring which gives enough production to build monument or library.

If we place cities "my way" we really don't need to hurry for myst (definitely not before masonry) because first 2 settled cities will retain all good tiles in 1st ring.

Who's up? Is it me?

edit:

oh and I forgot city 1 and city 2 placed my way should have instaconnection with capital due to river and touching culture.

 

[Cam_H]

'Yep' ... I can certainly go along with those two amendments.

(As noted - changed my mind a lot, but had both spots temporarily marked in at some point during the process myself).

Sengir's up, you're On-Deck.

 

[pigswill]

The down side of lots of space is lots of barbarians of course, need to be thinking about that just about now (Gwall or fogbust).

 

[nocho]

I agree with putting horse city on the river. My first thought was to put it 1S of horse, it will eventually pick up a silk and the rice and has splendid cottaging potential for a very good commerce city. However, it could also be placed 1SE of horse (1N of spice) which is by itself slightly weaker as a spot imo, but it'd leave space for another city 3W1S of it in the bend of the river on the coast to pick up the other rice and both silks.

In any case, I'd settle the horse city first. To my shame I must admit that on immortal barbs are usually my biggest problem and as pigswill points out there's a lot of space here for them to spawn, so i'd like to have a few chariots out asap.

Agree with moving "1st" 1N.

Can agree with 3 and 4, but I'd like to scout a bit more before deciding on subsequent cities. Especially interested in the area around the waters with the fishes in the east. It might be a lake if this is pangea, or to the east we have some kind of weird peninsula. Anyway, if we manage to settle towards the north and/or south of that water we'll secure a lot of space for backfilling later.

 

[Sengir]

Got it, will post a plan tonight, play tomorrow/thursday

 

[pigswill]

What about switching research to masonry (10T) and settling city2 on top of the stone, its food light with only 2 FP but catches 2 gold and gives us a half chance of chopping out Gwall.

 

[vranasm]

What about switching research to masonry (10T) and settling city2 on top of the stone, its food light with only 2 FP but catches 2 gold and gives us a half chance of chopping out Gwall.

I don't agree with this at all.

I can see people having fear of barbs and it's understandable, but if we change the order of cities and go with city 2 as 1st settle and send worker right away to pasture and road the horses, we should have enough time to get 2-3 chariots.

I admit I usually have problems with barbs too who doesn't?

And mostly with spears (so I am not happy about no copper :-(), but this panic is overreacting a bit.

We already know about 1 strategic in good location so no panic mode please.

edit:

oh btw quick settler expansion is another way of battling the barbs too, since they can's spawn close to your borders.

 

[Sengir]

Preliminary plan (I'm not quite happy with it yet, but as I haven't played a start in ages, I need some help )

Berlin:
Finish worker > Warrior > Warrior > Settler > Settler
Juggle tiles to finish second warrior on the same turn as growth. Alternatively we can switch to the floodplain instead of the Ivory, giving 1 warrior and growth on the same turn, but costing us 10 commerce in total. Worker can pre-chop settlers (riverside grass first).
Warriors can fogbust city sites. I'd settle horse-city first (I agree with vranasm adjustments to Cam_h's dotmap), followed by the stone site.

Tech:
Wheel > Pottery > Masonry (or Masonry > Pottery)?

 

[vranasm]

^looks very good

I suppose you won't play until both settlers will be finished though ;-)

 

[Cam_H]

Especially interested in the area around the waters with the fishes in the east. It might be a lake if this is pangea, or to the east we have some kind of weird peninsula. Anyway, if we manage to settle towards the north and/or south of that water we'll secure a lot of space for backfilling later.

You're not alone in taking a look at that area ... a city to grab the double-Fish + double-Floodplains could make a nice site. I just figured that I'd propose four near-by spots for kicking around ideas, but there's; the Marble up north, Gold to the south west, etc. that might figure in our thinking later on.

 

[pigswill]

Ok. So I'm spineless and neurotic but who needs walls when you can have some chariots and another city up sooner (and of course there's no guarantee at all of getting Gwall at this point).

 

[Sengir]

Played 20 turns
Wheel, Agri and Pottery in
Settled Hamburg near Horses, second settler is 3 turns from finishing
Left workers unmoved as we can decide to chop a forest into the settler finishing it next turn or do something else entirely.

Will edit in pictures later/tomorrow
EDIT: done



Turn 0:
Add in the dotmap; not completely sure whether it is better to settle 1S of the Horse or 1N of the Spice, but we'll take that bridge when we get there.

Turn 1:
Worker done, start warrior
New worker moves to prechop forest 1N of Berlin

Turn 2:
Bah, Barb warriors near the border already

Turn 3:
And gone again

Turn 4:
Berlin: warrior > warrior
stop the prechoppers and move them to the next tile (I've marked the prechopped tiles)

Turn 5:
Juggle tiles to have growth and warrior on the same turn

Spoiler :

Turn 6:
Nothing really

Turn 7:
Wheel in, set tech to Agri (we have no need for Masonry within 15t, so might as well pick up Agri first, can't research Pottery without it)
Berlin grows to size three, starts settler
2 chops come in, settler takes 6 more turns

Turn 8:
Build road so the settler can move quicker when it's done. There's a barb near the horse, so I can road that tile yet

Turn 9:
Vicky has three cities already

Turn 10:
Fogbusting warrior meets Barb warrior

Spoiler Border HRE :

Turn 11:
Fogbusting warrior arranges funeral for barb warrior. Our scout is running for barb warrior, but meets another on the way. I don't have much hope for him. Our other fogbusting warrior has a meet and greet as well, my hopes for him are pretty decent. (barb is wounded, our warrior is on defensive ground)

Turn 12:
Our scout died. Other barb decided not to engage

Turn 13:
Settler done, start another
Hmm, now I do have to decide where to put the city. Decide to go for the stronger city as it closes the gap on that side (with a borderpop that is).
CtD. Hmm nocho, you sure it was your laptop not the game?
Anyway, load the autosave and continue

Turn 14:
Agri in, set tech to Pottery. This way Masonry will come in 1 or 2 turns after we build the 3rd city, but otherwise we have Masonry but nothing much to do with it.
Hamburg settled, starts a warrior for fogbusting as we haven't hooked up the horses yet.

Turn 15
Nothing

Turn 16:
Pasture done

Turn 17:
Road done, we can now build chariots.

Turn 18:
Nothing

Turn 19:
Stonehenge built far away
Hamburg: Warrior > Chariot

Spoiler Border Ottomans :

(look closely )

Turn 20:
Pottery in, start Masonry (6t)

Spoiler Border Ottomans :

(pretty crowded the two of them)

Stop here

Overview of the land:

Spoiler Overview :

Also, I've got no idea why I took this screenshot, but you shouldn't let that spoil the fun

Spoiler :

 

[vranasm]

Seems like great turnset Sengir!

got the save...

preliminary thoughts.

I would like to chop the chariot in north city and MM city to spice to grow in 4. At size 2 start worker

Capital finishes settler and grows on chariots to size 6?

Settler settles stone.

Workers... this gets tricky.

1 chops tree for north city (probably the PH 1S of their position).
Second one - i would like to farm the flood plain.

Both will after their respective work head towards stone city and improve and connect stone ASAP.

As for the techs Masonry->Writing. TS finishes with Writing home.

After Masonry I should put at least 1 hammer into Pyramids in capital.

 

[Sengir]

I agree with most of it, except for farming the floodplain as it takes quite a lot of turns. I'm not sure how many turns it is on this speed, but if it's > 6 then, I'd rather have the worker preroad/move to the stone site in advance so it will be able to hook up stone right away.

 

[vranasm]

I agree with most of it, except for farming the floodplain as it takes quite a lot of turns. I'm not sure how many turns it is on this speed, but if it's > 6 then, I'd rather have the worker preroad/move to the stone site in advance so it will be able to hook up stone right away.

well yep, it's something like 6 turns and I kind of agree with you that the turns are needed on the stone.

We should get instaconnection from river though.

I am not sold on it heavily, but capital could use the food surplus imo...

Maybe I could put some turns into the farm? the settler has still 3 turns to finish anyway.

 

[nocho]

Sounds good.

I haven't seen the save (nor screenshots ) yet, so I don't know where the workers are currently nor if there's barb activity, but I wonder, is there a real urge in chopping the chariot? If not maybe better farm the cap's FP (generally agree that we could use the food there) with both workers and have them both present for stone site (which will have more things to improve than only the stone).

 

[vranasm]

Sounds good.

I haven't seen the save (nor screenshots ) yet, so I don't know where the workers are currently nor if there's barb activity, but I wonder, is there a real urge in chopping the chariot? If not maybe better farm the cap's FP (generally agree that we could use the food there) with both workers and have them both present for stone site (which will have more things to improve than only the stone).

I start to feel the pressure.

There is barb warrior 2 tiles from our borders close to our stone fogbuster.
We already have 2 cities, it seems they soon could enter borders if we place improvements on borders.

So I think getting chariot in 4T from now and place it somewhere between our 2 cities would be something very wise (according to the panic about barbs earlier ;-)).

 

[Sengir]

@nocho: getting impatient? screenies are up.

Barbs haven't entered our borders yet, but they will soon.
I can live with partially farming the FP, also with moving both workers south.
Another options is to move both workers south and have Hamburg work the farmed spices. This will let it grow to size 2 in 4t, making us able to whip the city if necessary. If no threats are near, it can work the horses at that point and finish the chariot manually. Also, you can retreat the NW warrior back to our borders. There won't be much barbs from that side. Straight north, the whole south and most of the east are a bit more dangerous though

 

[vranasm]

The turnset was played.

Beginning with changing citizens allocation in north city.

Spoiler :

worker will chop the chariot, the other preimprove the FP.

Ottoman and Viking have close borders...

Spoiler :

Barb warrior goes against our spawnbuster, crossing fingers!!

Spoiler :

We won the battle! I promote the warrior into woodsman and heal him

Settler finished and will head towards city spot 3, worker is woken up and will go with him

Spoiler :

MM city 2 for growth and chariot in 1T...

Spoiler :

Capital starts on chariot

Next turn I place chariot inbetween our first 2 cities, north city starts on worker and worker heads towards the FP for improving it to farm.

T53 Masonry is home

Spoiler :

next will be Writing. Put 1T in Pyramids

Spoiler :

next turn I will return chariot

T54 and we settle next city

Spoiler :

City 3 starts on chariot for defense. I forgot to pull out worker from the FP farm 1T sooner :-(. Will delay the stone a bit

English are really close to Ottomans too

Spoiler :

I wonder how it happened that we got so much land here!
A little ol' MM … grow in 1 and better production for 1T

Spoiler :

First Barb city to be seen... the rush comes!!

Spoiler :

Steal or not to steal, that is the question!!

Spoiler :

Quarry home, chariot in city 3... all green here!

Spoiler :

The mids should be much quicker from this point

Spoiler :

I still opt for finishing chariot first... it will bring our army to 3 chariots!

Writing home

Spoiler :

I will send 1 worker to finally finish the farm and the other one I will leave for another player to decide

Overview of our cities

Capital

Spoiler :

City 2

Spoiler :

City 3

Spoiler :