Low Sea Zara (Deity Isolation)

[krikav]

Copying this game here from the deity isolation workshop thread.

Spoiler Starting Screenshot :

 

[krikav]

I'm abit puzzled by initial tech order...
AH first lines up almost perfect with worker and piggies.
But it leaves us abit stranded in case we want to go BW afterwards....
Fishing... Is there a place for fishing? The food isn't needed, but the commerce might be?

Is it horribly mad to go agri->AH and farm a floodplain before making a pasture for the piges? Probably... the food isn't needed. :|

AH->Fish->TW->Pot? The worker will be busy making some useless roads I think, but getting those cottages down early is nice...
And archery, when to squeeze in archery... Or is someone brave enought o fight it out with warriors?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I can see Fishing -> Bronze as a workaround AH first and its timing issues.
AH first gives 6 yield tiles but the mined pigs aren't entirely horrible if a Wonder is in the works.
I'd rather skip Agri than Fishing. Scout will tell.
I'd rather not road 20 tiles when we have what looks like a godlike river network.

I agree this is an interesting start, tech wise.


AH -> Bronze seems doable.
Southern pigs are in the capital's culture T25. I believe only 2 worker turns are wasted.
Settler at size 2 is produced like T...28 or something.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

And archery, when to squeeze in archery...

First we Oracle Monarchy, then we research Archery, don't get your priorities wrong, Krikav

Tentative Oracle plan :

Spoiler :

Aksum does city 2 at size 2 --> Grows to 6. 2 turns into Worker (max overflow). 1 turn into settler + chop (max overflow).
Tech path AH, Bronze, Myst, Meditation, Priesthood.
Whip worker, whip settler, get Priesthood, triple chop = 1 turn Oracle.

To me, that seems very close to a pre-2000 BC Oracle, if it doesn't get built IAFAL. Research is bottleneck.

City 2 needs to contribute the second worker, which it can do at size 2, then it can do some other stuff.

 

[5tephen]

One of the things I like about this game is how what looks like an amazing start could turn out to be a hard map.

Knowing that we’re isolated with low sea level and with creative trait, I'd consider settling the capital 2S2E to fogbust in the short term and make a killer bureau capital long-term but I'm far from being able to play hard deity maps! Doesn’t help the tech question apart from no fishing obviously…

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Well, if you're really concerned about an early death, you should play it safe, 5tephen.
I've played 29 turns, I'm still alive

Early exploration reveals

Spoiler :

Impassable Mountain Peaks !
Which are known to be kinda great at fogbusting.
Also some good, some bad.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler T70 :

Thanks @krikav for an interesting map!

I agree with @BornInCantaloup --> Fishing + Bronze Working is the way to go. Reason: T5 Deciding that dry wheat isn't worth early agriculture.

T12: A tentative plan for fog-busting.

T30: Sending out warriors pairwise to take spots - if one dies on a forest, the second can likely kill the archer and take the promo as replacement. Also always taking hits from warriors when I can to gain xp. Choosing The Wheel- --> Pottery as 3rd and 4th techs

T38: Gondar settled with instant trade route thanks to river. Skipping agriculture altogether since there's only 2 dry wheat on the whole map, and I need Writing + Monarchy. Not gambling on Oracle as there really is no time.

I'm safe on the left side, and plan to settle downwards for copper/pig/future wheat. At this point, I have at least 8 turns of warning before a barbarian can hit a city. - another pair of warriors trudge out to try the right side.

T57: Sentries up, Writing in. There's an archer lurking still between the scout sentry and the SE warrior sentry, so if it goes towards the capital, I'll let the scout step aside and defend on the forest hill. Pre-roaded the copper since I'm not entirely sure how much more land is to the east - a bit annoying as I'll have to send an axe or 2 to safely uncover it at this point, but I'll have to pillage the mine later to build warriors since there are few happiness resources really.

T70: Primary commerce cities up. 13 turns to Great Scientist in Gondar and Lalibela right behind at 14 turns. - trying to guess how much money I need stashed to go straight to Monarchy/leverage an Academy on the way. Will probably build Settlers/Workers while population is capped? Not really sure how to estimate this. I'm guessing at least 275-350 gold, depending on how many Settlers fold out.

Edit: Statistics page:

 

[krikav]

One of the things I like about this game is how what looks like an amazing start could turn out to be a hard map.
Knowing that we’re isolated with low sea level and with creative trait, I'd consider settling the capital 2S2E to fogbust in the short term and make a killer bureau capital long-term but I'm far from being able to play hard deity maps! Doesn’t help the tech question apart from no fishing obviously…

Since I know that low sea iso is very hard, I did roll for a very strong start.
Moving inland for more fogbusting is a very nice idea, passive fogbusting from palace culture helps a ton on many iso maps.
But... moving away from coastal fish? I can't do that.

@BornInCantaloup mentioned fishing first, worker first and mining the pigs... I think that can be a pretty strong option.
But I think I would want to pair that with early pottery somehow, rather than a oracle gambit.

 

[krikav]

Thanks for the company @CarpoolKaraoke !
Have only checked your first few screenshots so far, but I think it looks good.
I'm not entierly sold on the warrior fogbusting idea... such ventures can quickly cost a fortune and biting the bullet and go archery early can sometimes be more cost effective.
WIll jump in and play myself now too.

99% sure I'll go fish->TW->Pot.
Bbut then I think archery...

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I agree with @BornInCantaloup --> Fishing + Bronze Working is the way to go.

@BornInCantaloup mentioned fishing first, worker first and mining the pigs...

Thank you for the kind mentions. For the record, I went Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working
I guess this is why shadow games are so enjoyable. Everybody can go their own merry way !

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Thanks for the company @CarpoolKaraoke !
Have only checked your first few screenshots so far, but I think it looks good.
I'm not entierly sold on the warrior fogbusting idea... such ventures can quickly cost a fortune and biting the bullet and go archery early can sometimes be more cost effective.
WIll jump in and play myself now too.

99% sure I'll go fish->TW->Pot.
Bbut then I think archery...

For this size map, do you intend to keep archers at home? Otherwise, I think 2 warriors cost about the same hammers an archer going out. If one dies in the process of clearing land, no maintenance cost paid. If they don't die, more land is fogbusted.

 

[soundjata]

jumping aboard the zara train

Played 5 turns. I'm thinking about GLH... but it's many techs away... Maybe not

So the debate is about early Cottages vs early Pastures I guess.
Let's theory craft a little bit. (numbers are free)
3 pastures for 15 turns : 3x3x15 = 150 . Roughly...
3 cottages for 15 turns : 3x1x15 = 50 . Roughly still...

Except if we don't have use for hammers early game, I think Pasture wins clearly doesn't it?
We can probably work more cottages sooner if we expand quicker.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

It's a triangle. Bronze, Pottery, AH.

AH + Pottery is certainly enough to support expansion but leaves you with little natural hammers (what Krikav wants to do). I see this as the max commerce line.
Fishing + Bronze leaves options open and loses some natural production towards settlers/workers (mined pigs - but then chops). As a follow up, it's possible to entirely skip AH and go Pottery, or backfill AH and have the extra commerce from the fish, which does add quickly (what CPK did).
AH + Bronze is the low commerce line, high prod, also saves up on 1 time investment workboats (what I did). There is that 3rd pig to justify it (otherwise a no go). Cottages surely will be delayed.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

It's a triangle. Bronze, Pottery, AH.

AH + Pottery is certainly enough to support expansion but leaves you with little natural hammers (what Krikav wants to do). I see this as the max commerce line.
Fishing + Bronze leaves options open and loses some natural production towards settlers/workers (mined pigs - but then chops). As a follow up, it's possible to entirely skip AH and go Pottery, or backfill AH and have the extra commerce from the fish, which does add quickly (what CPK did).
AH + Bronze is the low commerce line, high prod, also saves up on 1 time investment workboats (what I did). There is that 3rd pig to justify it (otherwise a no go). Cottages surely will be delayed.

Going to add a small addendum in that you'll need either fishing or agriculture to get to Pottery, which makes AH+Pottery a Fishing inclusive detour or a potentially expensive Agriculture buy-in.

 

[krikav]

Well... you want to push out ofcourse, also with archers. But no matter if you go warriors or archers, you can easily end up in a situation where you are defending only.
If you go early BW and focus on forward warriors early on... Maybe you have better luck than I do.

Spoiler :

Once worker was out, I worked the piggy (2F1H1C) one turn, and a forested hill 1F2H two turns, netting a total of 15 hammers, then the mined piggy finish the boat in 3 turns.

After workboat and 2 warriors, capital is ready to get the first settler out. Worker has started to lay cottages but finishes the road SE of the capital to ensure 1 turn traveltime for the settler.

Barbs came early I think... Lost one warrior who defended gondar in this first attack.

Lost an archer here... Wanted to deter them from entering the precious floodplain river valley and run havoc on the cottages so an archer stod his ground on the hill, leaving his collegue alone with a barb n00b in Gondar.
The archer south of Gondar attacked first however, gibbing the defender of Gondar at 1.1% odds! Then the two other barbs tried to gang up on the archer on the hill, which won both attacks at 3% and then at 30%.

Granary is up in Gondar, Laibela will get a workboat chopped and then I have to get a settler for the ivory quick.. Happycap is crushing.

Spoiler T70 update :

Ivory will be improved T72, and then monarchy T78-T80, after that cities should start to flourish.
Think I'll settle helper 3E of capital next, probably research agriculture in it's honour.
The nasty barbs smashed the riverside piggies pasture.
Barbs just keep on comming, just finished another archer with library overflow in Gondar so if the current pair of mean guys are lucky I should be able to push forward in the south-east soon.
One archer managed to secure the south...

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^ That was some tough luck, Krikav. That 1% loss
Wait, did I just jebait the both of you into going Fishing first ? Sorry about that, it wasn't on purpose

This is T29 :

Spoiler :

Workboat costs 2 warriors, right ? I appreciate you didn't go overboard and build the 2nd one.
It doesn't factor in unlucky RNG but I think it matters.

I haven't looked too deep into it but I think I have some extra production if I follow as per T0 plan and go Oracle.
I could also pretend I am a reasonable person and go Fishing, now. I probably need some form of other tech, esp if I have workers chopping.

As advertised, by the way : settler out T28, 2 worker turns wasted. I don't always get my maths right, so, yeah !

For this size map, do you intend to keep archers at home? Otherwise, I think 2 warriors cost about the same hammers an archer going out. If one dies in the process of clearing land, no maintenance cost paid. If they don't die, more land is fogbusted.

I think this is good play. Losing 3 warriors in order to skip Archery seems acceptable to me, provided we have hammers.
Planning for Barb Axes/Spears is a different question, though. Archers are also likely to save on Maintenance, compared with warriors.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

^ That was some tough luck, Krikav. That 1% loss
Wait, did I just jebait the both of you into going Fishing first ? Sorry about that, it wasn't on purpose

This is T29 :

Spoiler :

Workboat costs 2 warriors, right ? I appreciate you didn't go overboard and build the 2nd one.
It doesn't factor in unlucky RNG but I think it matters.

I haven't looked too deep into it but I think I have some extra production if I follow as per T0 plan and go Oracle.
I could also pretend I am a reasonable person and go Fishing, now. I probably need some form of other tech, esp if I have workers chopping.

As advertised, by the way : settler out T28, 2 worker turns wasted. I don't always get my maths right, so, yeah !

I think this is good play. Losing 3 warriors in order to skip Archery seems acceptable to me, provided we have hammers.
Planning for Barb Axes/Spears is a different question, though. Archers are also likely to save on Maintenance, compared with warriors.

Do you know if barbarian invasions are triggered at 2 cities immediately, or on average strictly greater than 2 cities?

 

[krikav]

Well... it's not really the fish, it's the cottages that I was after.
Fishing is cheaper than agriculture... and you need _some_ food, skipping AH makes pottery that much faster.


I had abit of a weird game...

Spoiler T99 :

After monarchy I saved up cash a few turns and was going to wait for the academy guy before beelining optics, but then I realized confu wasn't founded so I took the gamble (6 turns to CoL at the time I decided).
Here when I make the academy I reach CoL in one turn.

After confu, I thought abit about the possibility to bulb philo and steal another religion, but that would mean revolding into CoL for a faster GSci to bulb in a reasonable timeline.
And I would also have to self-tech math+alpha+meditation, none of which really do much for me.
So no.. no philo bulb, at least not before optics.

Have stayed at 4 workers, or perhaps I built one more... I think I will continue to put breaks on expansion and focus on commerce, but if the workers run out of useful stuff to do, I should probably get some settlers out.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@CPK :
I think it's an average of 3 cities and turn 35. You're definitely not safe after T35.

Also, barb units have the same "orders" as AI units and I think they can only target cities from a certain range, otherwise they'll mostly patrol an area.
Might have to do some research on that last point, though. Barb galleys can "see" 7 tiles into the fog, I'm not really sure how it works on land.

When the rush happens (it happens), land barbs will target the most weakly defended cities on the continent. Distance is also a factor.

 

[krikav]

@CarpoolKaraoke I think it was when global average is above 3.
The player is likely at 2 at that point, which pulls the average down a tiny bit.
So the pulse happens when the second AI settles it's fourth city.

At least, thats how I remember it.

Nighttime for me now... Hope to get back to this map soon tomorrow!