Math02: 100K with limited cities

[Methos]

Sleep for 8 hours and look what I miss!

As someone mentioned earlier our GA is definitely going to be early and possibly wasted, so we can't really count on that.

I haven't really looked at the wonders and their traits yet so don't have a preference on the civ or its traits.

Edit: Apparently I need to wake up more, just noticed Spain was already chosen.

 

[Mathias]

Start options. None of them really stand out like the first one I had for Math01. My first choice would be #2, with the spices.

 

[pindicator]

Looks like we get some decent choices. I'm a little torn between #4 and #5 -- food bonus starts are always nice, but a grape on a hill is one of my favorite luxuries to get.

 

[Obormot]

#4 looks best to me: food bonus and the river splits into two, which means more commerce. The one with wines is also good.

 

[MeteorPunch]

1 & 2 are average. 3 has marsh. 5 is stuck on a little penninsula thing.

I think 4 is clearly the best because the cow and the land surrounds the capitol. I would even consider moving the settler west to give the capitol a more central location.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Was away for the weekend, missed this one and it's already full...
If you care for a lurker's opinion, 8 cities at monarch at least will be the most fun... In an SG we can sometimes do much more than we believe, so the goals must be high... And I don't really see what does the difficulty level changes, except the number of wonders the AI will steal... You can overcome that.

 

[Mathias]

I'm wary of the jungle in #4, but jungle may have coal and the double river is definitely nice. Moving west is out of the question: away from the cattle and away from the coast? I'd move NE to have the cattle right away.


Colossus + Oracle = Golden Age

We can get to Republic a little bit quicker than Monarchy, so we might want to go that route and pick up Monarchy afterward. I'll play start #4 as soon as we have a vote on slingshot target.

 

[MeteorPunch]

@Mathias: I can't tell the difference between forests and jungle on the standard terrain. Moving NE towards cow (if we use #4 seems good).

If we start with alphabet, build curraghs and get contacts/trades. Start research at minimum towards writing.

 

[Methos]

#1 isn’t bad, eventually have good grassland with a couple bg’s.

#2 is very nice with 3 bg’s and the spice plus what appears to be a lot of grass around. Is the settler standing on a fourth bg?

#3 has plains to the north and northwest plus marsh to the east. This doesn’t look very promising for our core.

#4 stands out a lot due to the rivers. With only a select number of cities all the fresh water is very appealing. The cow is a nice bonus.

#5 does have the wine but I don’t believe I like this one as it’s obviously a peninsula. This will make a sucky core as we won’t be able to build in a semi-circular pattern.

I guess I’d have to go with #4 first and #2 as my second choice.

Hehe, looks like a join the conversation once again after the decisions are made. Lol!

I tend to stay away from Monarchy, but than I’m not much of a warmonger.

Did we ever decide what difficultly level we are playing?

Edit: Just checked the first post; Monarch.

In an SG we can sometimes do much more than we believe, so the goals must be high...

This is very true. In a solo game I stick with Regent but I don't mind jumping into a Monarch or Emperor SG.

 

[Mathias]

In #3, that is actually desert/flood plains to the north and northwest. The jpg compression blurs it a bit, but from the original screenshot I can tell you it is certainly not plains. Also, #5 is not necessarily a peninsula. If you look close, you can see white on the tip of the wine hill, which means the next tile east is tundra. If there is more land beyond that, the coast NE of the wines may be fresh water. But enough about the starts that we aren't playing...

As Spain, we start with Alphabet and Ceremonial burial. Republic slingshot is probably best, so we'll start research on writing at maximum. Why should we spend 50 turns on writing when we can get writing, code, and philo in less than 60?

Early curraghs will explore the coastline and find our neighbors, while a few warriors will scout the surrounding terrain for the best city locations.

More pre-game comments are welcome. I will start playing in 4 to 5 hours, and will of course check this thread again before I begin.

 

[Methos]

More pre-game comments are welcome. I will start playing in 4 to 5 hours, and will of course check this thread again before I begin.

Remember the site is going down tonight so that they can switch servers, so you might as well start playing. I'm not for sure when they'll back up the board so hate to make much of a post.

Seen it before, switch servers and lose a lot of posts. Good luck!

 

[Mathias]

Just finished playing. No time to put everything together before scheduled server move, so I'll just post screenshot. I'll have everything ready tonight, and will post if server is ready before I go to bed, otherwise first thing in the morning.

 

[Mathias]

4000 BC (0)
Settler and worker move NE

3950 BC (1)
Madrid founded >> Warrior
Science 100% Writing, queue techs up to Republic
Worker east to cattle

3900 BC (2)
Worker irrigate

3850 BC (3)
zzz...

3800 BC (4)
zzz...

3750 BC (5)
zzz...
IT: Madrid Warrior >> Curragh

3700 BC (6)
Warrior west
Worker road
IT: Madrid grows

3650 BC (7)
Warrior west

3600 BC (8)
Warrior southwest

3550 BC (9)
Worker west, south
Warrior west

3500 BC (10)
Worker mine
Warrior north
IT: Madrid Curragh >> Warrior

3450 BC (11)
Curragh sets of to follow coast northeast
Warrior north
IT: Madrid grows

3400 BC (12)
Lux 10%
Warrior northeast
IT: Madrid Warrior >> Curragh

3350 BC (13)
New warrior MP, science back to 100%
Warrior north
Curragh spots gems in jungle

3300 BC (14)
Warrior north

3250 BC (15)
Warrior east
IT: Madrid Curragh >> Settler

3200 BC (16)
Worker road
New curragh heads south
Warrior north

3150 BC (17)
Warrior north
IT: Madrid grows

3100 BC (18)
Lux 10%
Warrior northeast, sees purple border

3050 BC (19)
Worker north, northwest
Warrior north
Curragh #1 sees American scout. They are up BW, Masonry, Pottery; down Alphabet, CB.

3000 BC (20)
Warrior north, meets Korea. They are up BW, Pottery; down CB. They apparently just gave alphabet and 10 gold to America to get Pottery.
Worker mine
Curragh #2 sees Ottoman warrior! They are up BW, Masonry; down Alphabet.

I didn't trade, but now is the time. We can get Masonry and 20g from America for CB, then probably BW and Pottery from Korea for Masonry and CB.

Several options for what to build after the settler is done. Another settler sounds good to me, as does a worker. First settler should build 3 tiles west of Madrid.

 

[MeteorPunch]

3000
Trade CB to America for Masonry and 20g.
Trade Masonry and CB to Korea for Pottery and Bronze Working.

IT
Madrid builds settler.

2950

2900

2850

2800
Barcelona founded.

2750

2710
Trade Alphabet to Ottoman for Warrior Code.

2670
Madrid builds settler.

2630

2590
Curragh meets Maya. We are up Alphabet.

2550

- At this point I think Madrid keeps building settlers, and the other towns build warrior, worker, temple.
- I guess we don't trade writing until Code of Law is discovered and Philosophy started researching.
- I made some dotmap attempts.

 

[Methos]

Just curious why new city #2 has been moved from the plains to the hills? From the hills we'd have several desert tiles within our radius. Are the two tiles by the river floodplain or desert?

Other than Madrid building settlers and continuing to explore, do we have any specific goals in mind? I heard temples, what about barracks? Would a barracks be better to build first in Barcelona? Then the next city begin culture since it'll be closer towards our neighbors?

Any other suggestions or goals I need to know about or that need discussed? Totally understand and agree on Republic, just unsure on desired builds.

Obviously I got it, but plan on waiting until possibly tonight to play. I don't want to start without having a better idea of what we desire.

 

[MeteorPunch]

@Methos: I made my dotmap before seeing Mathias already posted one.

At first I was confused about the first city being built 3 W, because the overlap tiles. This won't even matter though, after further thought because we don't get to use all tiles until the Industrial Age. There is zero culture buildings, and only a few wonders in the IA, so all the "culture action" will happen before then.

We need to discuss every city location, I think. I'm fine with moving the hill dot back to Mathias' position on the plain.

I don't think barracks are a good idea. We need wonders, culture buildings, workers, and more cities.

 

[Obormot]

We should build temples in each city ASAP to double culture from them faster. I think we should build barrax and military only if we have no culture buildings availavle to build. Monarch AI is slow and we'll be able to defend ourselves anyway. I'd go for worker->temple in each city. If there is time to fit warrior before worker then warrior->worker->temple. The capital should build a temple also and then continue with settlers. We should propably go for Literature after the slingshot, so that we can build libraries. I'm not sure how fast is the AI at building wonders on monarch, so i don't know when do we have to start the Colossus and other wonders.

And we didn't decide yet how many cities are we allowed to build (10 and 8 were mentioned). 7 would be even better since there were 7 wonders of the world, having 7 wonder cities would be beatifull. But that'll be quite difficult to do.

 

[pindicator]

Nice opening turns Mathias and Meteor. Nice bit of grassland we got there.

I assume turn order is same as the order of signup?

As far as temples go, I think it's probably better to keep the capital on settlers. Sure, we miss one temple building earlier, but we enable all our other cities' temples (and all other cultural buildings) to be built earlier as well. The rest can pump out workers and culture, and we may even choose to have one dedicated to millitary -- depends on the aggression level of our neighbors.

Still on temples, what do we think about pop-rushing them? I know we don't have much for food bonus', but is getting them out faster worth it? These population-vs.-production questions always get me.

Since we're going to have a settler coming out in the next turn set, I'll start where I think it should go next. My vote is for Meteor's dot on the hill in the north. The two desert tiles are moot -- by putting the city on the plains dot we have two overlap and therefore lose two tiles anyway. Plus, the hill square picks up the gold mountain.

@Methos -- every desert tile that is adjacent to a river is a floodplain tile.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I thought about poprushing, but I don't know. It's a little desperate and will cause unhappiness problems for awhile. We can just build temples, than start working on wonders. I guess it depends on how fast we can pop them, if it gains 1 doubling (+2 cpt), than that might be better than attempting a wonder.

@Pindicator: the two "deserts" my hill dotmapped are deserts, not floodplains.

 

[pindicator]

@Meteor -- Yeah, there are two desert tiles and by the river two floodplain tiles. I still think picking up those two desert tiles are better than overlapping with the other city.