Low Sea Zara (Deity Isolation)

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler T118 :

I had enough money that it wasn't worth delaying Monarchy any longer, despite only ~12 turns away from Academy. Afterwards, direct tech to Optics. Meanwhile....

Me: trying to failgold Colossus, knowing Astronomy is around the corner.

Game:

Estimates: Optics ~200-225 AD. Astro ~ 450-475 AD - when 2 Great Scientists become available. Game should be okay - great generals are being born in a far away land.

Cities thus far: 8, going for a 9th - may take a 10th from barbarians. Still no agriculture.

 

[Implo]

Fun setup!

Was thinking about the NC304 Charly game. Which also had doble hill pigs and floodplains.
How about just mining the pigs growing to size 2 and work 2 duble mined pigs at turn 20? Thats 10 h towards settlers i recon?. And chop settlers and workers.
Will give time and hammers to secure iceland and to get the right techs.

Tech BW.. fishing.. TW (maybe squeeze in AGG). pottery.. AH or writing
Hopefully skip archery altogether since early fogbusters

 

[krikav]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

Nice with GGenerals! I saw one around T97 in my game before stopping for the day too, always nice to see that.

I _think_ colossus is safe to failgold with even if you get astro, you get the failgold hammers anyway.
But the timing is ofcourse off... you want that gold for the optics run. But what can you do, the AI does throw wrenches in the gears. Nice call with the copper and all, capital can easily afford the forge whip and natural hammers are plenty.
Depending on the settling pattern and astro timeline, it might even make sense to finish it. The passive GMerchant points doesn't go away.


Impressive collection of cities, no clue how you manage that economically and still tech... Is that the ORG trait working perhaps? My general guideline is to go for 5, 6 if they are close/good and only go 7 if you find some super stellar spot. Else teching power is hurt too much.

You will be in a good position with production set up early with that play, and that might be needed... There might be some giants to tangle with abroad!

 

[krikav]

Fun setup!

Was thinking about the NC304 Charly game. Which also had doble hill pigs and floodplains.
How about just mining the pigs growing to size 2 and work 2 duble mined pigs at turn 20? Thats 10 h towards settlers i recon?. And chop settlers and workers.
Will give time and hammers to secure iceland and to get the right techs.

Tech BW.. fishing.. TW (maybe squeeze in AGG). pottery.. AH or writing
Hopefully skip archery altogether since early fogbusters

I think if you go for 2 piggy-mines, you have so many natural hammers that a quick workboat isn't a hurdle at all, so if you go that route, fishing is so cheap and makes so much sense.
But had I done exacly that plan, I would have gotten out a few warriors earlier, especially with BW. And I might have gotten forward positions earlier.
I was stuck in a defensive game against the barbs for quite some time.
Try it out and post about the progress!

Have only played the map once so I have no clear idea at all whats the "solution" yet.

 

[soundjata]

So much hype. I'm glad I'm stopped at T5

Like @Implo i was toying with the idea of BW as a first tech. Rules out worker techs for a while
Then why not settler at size 1?

 

[Implo]

Spoiler t40 :

@krikav I figure you are right about the fishing first.. but then again I got a pretty nice timing on my chop for the 1 workboat. and got 2 warriors out early instead.

Ended up needing archery (sigh..) and I have just spotted my first spear so I'm glad I went for it the route.I guess i have fogbusted 60-70 % of the iceland right now.

Not exactly happy about the 2nd city. but it can share mined pig.. grow on Floodplain while I wait for the clams. It will probably whip a worker from size 3 -> 2 and build a second worker after that.

Tech situation is poor. I actually prioritize a road on the hill to hopefully connect I also have 2 turns into a mine there. Will slowbuild moste settlers. Needs Sailing, writing.. pottery and AH.. and then start to figure out how to play this map.

Spoiler t69 update :

Happy about archery! Killed 17 barb units and 3 spears. Won a couple 70 % fights so i guess im lucky! Overall feel the timing of the game is good. Soon fogbusted the iceland. Great land. weird tech patch. But prioritzing early cottages is going to forgive Pottery, Writing and, AH before AGG, Loste 20 % Research on all these techs because I "rushed" for the earlier benefit.

Now starts the hard part of the game for me. I guess I will stop at 5 cities and plan the rest.

The wonders are going late in my game.. Maybe Its possible to squeeze in TGLH? The capitol can probably whip from 8 pop and it still have some forrest.

Monarchy is a must. CoL seems redundant with creative and cheap libraries

 

[soundjata]

Monarchy is a must.

There are elephants...
Can't we share tiles and stay small?

Edit: love your Gondar placement

 

[soundjata]

T42

Spoiler :

Bronze first, size one settler.
Chop a couple of forests, build a couple of mine and a farm (Agriculture second tech) Gondar has wheat
Then Wheel + Pottery.
Build 5 warriors and eliminate threat from the South East.
Barb invasion incoming...
Might need to delay city 3 instead of chancing a dicey fight.
I don't fear pillaging of my improvements at least

Skip both AH and Fishing ?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^ Where is that lake when you need one ?
T39, this is getting a little tense :

Spoiler :

So, the question is : is it worth delaying improvements in order to get 2000 BC Hereditary Rule ?
I could go Fishing/Wheel into Pottery while rushing to 4 cities but, then, I would never really know the answer, or would I ?
Therefore, T29 I revolt into Slavery and set research to Mysticism. RNG, please be kind with me

Honestly, I think the commerce from the Fish is pretty nice but I'm kinda amazed that none of you went Animal Husbandry first. Like... we have 3 pigs

Spoiler :

Gondar settled on T30 raises our Empire upkeep to 1gpt Later will grow to 2gpt due to pop growth.
It is also an instant +4 commerce. At this point, the goal is to grow on food positive, commerce positive tiles (also known as floodplains) so as to increase the research rate.
But first :



We have some chops to prepare, so Gondar does not grow to 4 asap. Rather, it makes this short stop at size 2.



I won my first fight with the warrior in the SW forest, this is extremely nice Scout is fogbusting straight south. Worker 1 has pre-chopped the hill it's on and that will go into Gondar's warrior. It's possible I suffer some casualties but the city will hold with 4 warriors.
Aksum is size 6 next turn (t40 !) and will start preparing 2pop whips with max overflow (need like 5 turns for the settler whip). Meanwhile, Gondar will borrow the second pig to grow to 4 and work on its own settler/worker.

 

[krikav]

@BornInCantaloup I was inclined to go AH first before you talked me into fish.
Problem with Ah first is imho that you pretty much are forced to go BW after that. There are no other hills to mine!! And since commerce is so crucial in iso, i was not willing to delay pottery that much.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Yes, cottages are a good reason to do what you did.

I mentionned both lines (AH or Fishing) in the same post, I will contend you made your own decision
You're absolutely right that AH locks you into BW next (at least, I agree).

edit @t40 :
Should I take the hint from Master of Ideas ?

Spoiler :

And whip my warrior to 49H/15 ?
Probably, uh ? This is 34 gold we're looking at, which will speed me up both to Priesthood and further techs such as The Wheel/Fishing/Pottery. A full 10 turns at 100% research.
This actually seems like a very good move to me. No wonder players like Cereal or Kaitzilla were fond of the feature.

 

[soundjata]

Frankly there are only barbs in this game - such fun

 

[krikav]

Im not at all familiar with the whip warrior for gold feature, i thought overflow was simply lost.

And barbs where completely brutal in my game... I expected so much with deity iso lost sea level though.

 

[Qactus]

Pretty sure you'd need the BUFFY mod (HoF/BOTM) for the excess overflow into gold thing to work.
edit: never mind, this is a BUFFY save.

 

[Implo]

There are elephants...
Can't we share tiles and stay small?

Edit: love your Gondar placement

On the need of monarcy:
It's a valid question.. but I would think you would get your beakers back in time and then some with maybe a academy in Cap and this glorious land. You would also develop the land better so when you meet everyone you would be able to keep up the tech pace easier.

Non Monarch gives the cities 2 tiles (food tiles) and 2-3 cottages/GSs.
With monarchy you can grow into health cap and work and mature 4-6 river cottages + GSs. and you could slow build warriors all day.

But then again.. what do I know.. maybe optics rush is the best possible play here!

yeah.. after your comment i really started to like Gondar placement aswell.. it got a lot of things going for (cottages, happiness, 3x food, share tiles, fogbuster etc.) it and lategame it will be a great city

@BornInCantaloup I really like your crazy scheeemes ! Which i had the guts and creativity to try something like that. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@Overflow into gold :
I think BUG gives you the option, you can toggle it on or off.
iirc, it was patched out of Vanilla.

Spoiler :

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@BornInCantaloup I really like your crazy scheeemes ! Which i had the guts and creativity to try something like that. I wish you the best of luck!

Thank you, I used to be addicted to Oracle -> CoL. The main trouble is it slows down expansion. It's crucial to prepare settlers while building it. Also, speed.
Can I illustrate ? Hum... I wonder... This is T50ish :

Spoiler :

Does this work out ? Is this safe ? Does it seem good ? And how does it feel ?
This is all I want to do. GG, wp, the game is in the bag, I declare Victory !

Spoiler :

Gondar held exceptionally well and I did not suffer a casualty. Wounded Warriors are now moving out, passing through barbs to try and fogbust again. I'm paying 5gpt on units at T48 but that will improve as cities are settled.

Heat :

Spoiler :

Yes, I know I'm going backwards. Please, indulge me. You can read from bottom to top if you prefer.

 

[krikav]

Thats nice @BornInCantaloup
Do you have a plan for a possible GProphet, or do you plan on letting other cities speed ahead?
I got confu pretty late in my game, perhaps you can do the same? Not sure how many cities you can cram into this island, but it could be that a shrine is ok.

Someone mentioned CoL being redundant with creative.
I don't really agree with that, having CoL can be very nice since you can run much more specialists and getting the great persons easier.
Also.. with ORG, maybe half price courthouses can be OK, especially if you go for a larger empire.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

It did feel good, Krikav !
I like CoL, here. It isn't just border pops, it's cheap Courthouses on a large island and unlimited specs. Setting up infra early is valuable to the long game.
I do not plan for a Prophet, no. I'd much prefer an Academy. Need Writing fast, now and a Library in Gondar, for example (anywhere, really). Trouble is I'm paying maintenance, now, maybe I'll whip+chop another warrior
Also, I went through Meditation for speed, so I've fully opened the Philo bulb. Can't escape that one but Philo makes sense to me if I consider CoL in the first place.
I kinda think that Bureaucracy is a real option, too, with a potential size 20 capital I don't know if that would be overdoing it. Lib -> Astro, that is.

 

[krikav]

Hard to tell... CS and a quick lib->astro I remember having done some time but I think that was in semi-iso. But with an exceptional capital like this, it could very well be an option.
Last thing I remember before saving the game yesterday was that I regret chopping all of the capitals forests because health was quickly becomming an issue.
But with such massive food surplus, ironing through the unhealth for quite some time is certainly doable too.