Mehmed Oracle Question

[Scaphism]

I rolled up a new game this morning and got Mehmed. Funny that, just after the Mehmed ALC ended.
I got a beauty of a start, I actually started on Gold (blue circle on the gold hill) and the terrain looks fair enough, if a bit food poor.

On top of that, I popped Bronze Working from a hut, the turn after I finished AH and had selected BW to research. Thanks tribal villagers!

This screenshot is on the turn I popped BW, I just have my first worker coming out, the settler is a ways off still.




My question isn't so much about dotmapping - my first city is obvious, either S or SE of the copper. I'm favoring the SW spot, on the plains hill, and it picks up sheep and silk in the second ring. S of copper is okay, but without the sheep I don't think the spot is as good.

Mansa Musa is somewhere in the NW, he looks like he's kind of in the tundra.

I popped a hut with a warrior directly to my west and got angry barbarians, which killed my scouting warrior. However, my third city will probably claim those gold mines.

So that's the setup. My question is whether an Oracle push would be a smart play here. In Sisiutil's game the usefulness of going for the Oracle and picking CoL was questioned. In this game, I'm somewhat lacking in happiness as well - only Gold and Silk are visible. Oracle -> CoL for religion, temples and cheap courthouses is appealing, as is Oracle->Metal Casting for Forges.

The both seem like good plays to me, and with gold in the capital I know I can research all the needed techs in time.

The settings are: Monarch, Epic, Fractal. It doesn't look like there will be much early war and I may be stuck with Mansa and no one else nearby (a Mansa who won't trade?!) Happiness will be an issue, so if I do go for the Oracle, which would be a better path to pursue?

Here's a wild thought: Do you think I could grab Metal Casting from the Oracle and be the first to CoL by researching normally? There is a fair bit of gold around.

To do so I would obviously be putting off Mathematics for a bit longer, would nabbing Confucianism be worth it?

The other good news is that there is both Stone and Marble in my part of the map and so far no one else appears close enough to challenge me for those spots, so those could be fun for other wonders later.

 

[Jet]

I think it would be better to spam cities 3 and 4 to grab all 5 gold tiles than to build the Oracle. Then you wouldn't need any free tech . Between that and basic builds you should have your hands full.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Mansa will trade monopoly techs so he is probably the best partner for sharing a continent with.

I don't think metal casting helps you nearly as much as either COL or Monarchy will. +1 happiness from a forge doesn't compare much with getting a religion and courthouses or getting unlimited happiness from HR. For Metal Casting to help more you would want less gold and silver/gems instead to get more types of resources.

 

[Scaphism]

Thanks for your replies. Here's my thought process so far:
Priesthood costs 144 beakers and The Oracle costs 255 hammers. CoL costs 843 and Metal Casting 1084. That puts beakers saved at 699 for CoL and 940 for Metal Casting, if The Oracle is used for them. Settling those other gold mines won't actually end up making up the difference - they are 7 commerce each (not on a river), in an area with an uncertain dotmap and at a minimum requiring a border pop to work all three, as well as securing a good enough food source to work all of those mines. Even if I were able to miraculously work all three mines, starting from turn 1 in a city founded there, with no food problems, they would generate 21 commerce per turn, plus modifiers, minus maintenance fees. To make up the difference in Oracle beakers I would need to be working all three extra gold mines for over 33 turns (CoL) or 45 turns (Metal Casting). I will almost assuredly have another settler ready to found a city there within that window, and in the meantime my other good(best) cities will be benefitting from the Oracle tech.

Granted, the 255 hammers could be an additional settler (150 hammers) and worker (90 hammers) + a little extra. That extra settler would most likely go to settle the 2 gold hills in the East.

Here's the dotmap I've been working on. You can obviously see that I'm confused with what to do in that region. Blue and Red are no brainers, but if I do found a holy city then Blue would obviously be preferable.




A few things strike me immediately: Istanbul and the Western 2X Gold, Cow, Flood Plain city will be my best cities by far, productive with excellent commerce. The northern copper city will be a decent production city.

The rest of the map is a bit mediocre and difficult to dotmap. Not many rivers, a fair bit of tundra/desert/peaks, and most importantly, not a lot of food.

The initial 3 cities, plus however I settle the remaining gold, will be carrying most of the weight of the empire. I don't anticipate much early war, and there is good production and poor food. Forges will help leverage that. In many ways it similar to an isolated start - unless another civ shows up soon and introduces himself to me and to Mansa, there will be no tech trading for a long while. The Oracle's free beakers, forges, and religious happiness will go a long way towards catching up with the rest of the civs. In a food poor continent neither Slavery nor Caste System is particularly compelling, but I could see staying in Caste System to get early border pops.

 

[slaze]

I think you got your directions mixed up if you're calling the plains hill SW. That said, and looking at the map, I'll assume you got Mansa right when you said he was off in the NW, or what I'll call the upper left. If he is up there, the SPOT on this map, the one with the gold mines and flood plains that happens to fit perfectly in your empire, well... he might just go and take it if you don't first. But that will be ok. You see, copper is copper and copper rules. Build your plains hill (its one FP must be farmed) and build your axemen. If he settles there, wait til pop 2 and attack. If he doesn't, settle. But whatever gambit you try and pull off, it's the strength of your cities that backs it, and that city is strong.

EDIT: cross post. good luck

 

[slaze]

And i never liked dotmaps, they're too assuming. one city at a time. the circumstance is what matters most

 

[Jet]

Pink dot is not bad for specialists. It has food for 3 of them and the hammers to build the buildings. (I thought it actually had food for 4 specialists. Wouldn't have bothered posting this if I had counted correctly.)

 

[oyzar]

that white city should obviously be once square to the left and would make a decent production city that you can swich to produce science either from scientists and grassland farms or cottages on river. The orange spot is also fairly powerfull given that you farm most of the grassland for both production and commerce from another 3 goldmines. the brown city is crap. What would you want that for? Same for the light yellow one. What difficulty is this? If its any higher difficulty you should try to get herditary rule pretty much asap as that gold + floodplains + cow city realy need some heavy happiness. The teal city is kinda meh. Is it only for the marble? GL in the blue city would obviously be very good... If so building 2 n of the current teal spot would seem better as it allow you to fit in a city south of the silk in the current teal fatcross. Admitedly that would be a very slow city(though you can farm over the grassland forest for a while to get it to grow faster but eventually you can end up working 9 cottages + a couple windmills which is not too shabby. Post CS you can even irrigate some of the plains though just growing onto plain plains farms doesnt seem very good... Moving pink a spot down might be better if there is anything out there in the for and even if it isnt you'll likely use the spots for the other cities and if you do get collosus(built in pink eventually... ocean titles are better than nothing) This would also leave more room for the other new city.

Both white and red can be decent production cities. The capital obviously have nice production but it will together with the blue and the orange spot likely carry most of your research. Building the 2N of teal and 3S 1W of teal will give you a couple cities that will be able to put out a decent amount of beakers from cottages and some wintmills for a tiny bit of production. Pink or 1S of pink doesnt actually do much unless you get collosus and even then its not amazing though i supose its a halfdecent production city so you should prolly build it and then just fogbust yellow as it is quite crappy though yellow and brown might be varranted given that you get collosus in pink. Brown can steal a goldmine from orange or just work sevral plains cottages in adiation to the coast... It looks like there are at least some space for more cities to the west and hopefully you'll get at least some halfdecent cities over there. I see your building a worker in the capital and you say you have AH allready, if so i am wondering why the heck your not whipping it(or maybe you plan to) as this saves abotu half the time of it and will likely give you about as fast a settler with more workerturns.

I would likely settle Red and blue asap then get out some barb defence and then settling orange and white. The last 3 cities should come as your economy aford it. Timing the marble city(new teal) with GL might be benificial. Also pink should be built so it have a decent shot at collosus and hence making brown and yellow viable. You migth want to settle new teal before orange if you think it will help you with oracle though i think thats a too big load of hammers that is not used for workers/settlers/barbdef/fogbusting. Likely getting oracle here and benefitting from it is not doable on any level above monarch. I am realy curious about what is to the west as most cities there are likely better than yellow and brown and possibly better than white given that it is a bit far from your capital. As for researching col without oracle and still getting the religion is very doable however the problem with this is that you dont get monarchy asap which would be realy crucial with a setup like this(IMO, as you cant use the slider and you only have silk and gold anyways) since i would cottage over alot of the cities and 6 goldmines is just screaming commerce economy.

Doing oracle for metalcasting for engineer for GL might be doable though you can hook up marble by that time so it might be alot fixing around that could be better used elsewhere. Now i havent seen where mansa is but if he is to the north he would likely at least settle some of the cities. Try to beat him to orange and white(or w of white imo since you get an extra hill and freshwater to boot) as those are the best of whats left. Not sure if even mansa trades when your alone. If so you might want to get both monarchy and col before alphabet(and litterature for GL) putting math(and what comes from it) further back in line. worker techs + myst + pottery -> writing -> poly -> priesthood -> monarchy -> col(since you are working alot of goldmines you might grab the religion anyways and on any level below emproer i would be surprised if you didnt).