[MH2] - Monarchs take on Deity

[shyuhe]

Lurker comment: Setting the gold city with no food as your second city is not a good idea. Your second city ideally has 1-2 food sources and 2-3 hills so that it can pump workers/settlers when your capital starts a library. 3S of Cuzco would be far better than gold since it can share the FP cottages with Cuzco and work the ivory tiles. Eventually it will work the corn + 3 ivory tiles at size 4 to build workers/settlers.

I'm not a big fan of the scouting pattern so far - you don't know the land near your capital (i.e., where you're likely to put your second city).

 

[Mikehendi]

Your second city ideally has 1-2 food sources and 2-3 hills so that it can pump workers/settlers when your capital starts a library. 3S of Cuzco would be far better than gold since it can share the FP cottages with Cuzco and work the ivory tiles. Eventually it will work the corn + 3 ivory tiles at size 4 to build workers/settlers.

I'm not a big fan of the scouting pattern so far - you don't know the land near your capital (i.e., where you're likely to put your second city).

Gold city has 1-2 food sources and 2-3 hills. Or do you mean instantly accessible (before border pop). Oh damn, I gotta STOP asking questions, please don't answer this . It's against the rules of the variant:

Deity players, please don't offer advice for the upcoming turnsets!

I'm afraid we'll have do it on our own strength. We're a few Quecha's facing an army of Praets, or so it feels at least )

So to clarity, THIS part is ok, since it's to late to "first scout around capital":

I'm not a big fan of the scouting pattern so far - you don't know the land near your capital (i.e., where you're likely to put your second city)

And this part not (not until we have settled our second city):

Your second city ideally has 1-2 food sources and 2-3 hills so that it can pump workers/settlers when your capital starts a library. 3S of Cuzco would be far better than gold since it can share the FP cottages with Cuzco and work the ivory tiles. Eventually it will work the corn + 3 ivory tiles at size 4 to build workers/settlers.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be arrogant, or an "I-know-better-then-respected-deity-players", and in any other game I'd greatly appreciate advice on what to do, It's just against the spirit of this challenge

 

[shyuhe]

It's tough lurking without trying to help! Maybe I'll just go play this map myself so that I can compare notes with your game as you guys play on.

 

[babybluepants]

Lurker:
I'm doing that. We can compare all 3: monarchs / immortal player / deity player.

 

[Mikehendi]

It's tough lurking without trying to help! Maybe I'll just go play this map myself so that I can compare notes with your game as you guys play on.

Lurker:
I'm doing that. We can compare all 3: monarchs / immortal player / deity player.

Cool! Would you like to post your notes / reports when we're done? (or checkpoint-wise) I'm very curious to see the differences between our games!

 

[Stochastic]

And damn, there's no food near the gold . We need to discuss more city sites, here's a proposal (same image twice, one with recourses off, as they were blocking signs:

Spoiler :

[/IMG]

On the Gold spot:

Spoiler :

Did we agree to settle the gold city first? I think we should. If we settle the gold city at spot B, we have a very good and versatile early production city:
- 13 hammers @ size 4 (pig, PH, PH, Gold).
- We can also use this city to generate our first Great Scientist (instead of 2 x PH --> 2x sci-spec), who can then build an academy in our heavily cottaged cap.
- It is probably the first city sury will attack, and the city is now convieniently located on a hill.
- Blocks off land a lot better.

On the Ivory spot:

Spoiler :

I also prefer spot B (on the ivory):
- I don't think we need it to help the capital grow (more then 2) cottages, since the cap will grow fast and can grow them on it's own.
- Floodplains unhealth; The B spot has 0 , the A spot has 2 , quite a big difference, from which we're sure to suffer since our happy cap is high.

On the Horse spot:

Spoiler :

- Let's check if there's more food around, since it can't use the pigs if we settle the gold city @ B. The land near the horsies looks very brown unfortunately, if there's no food near it will be a bad city and we'll need to rethink settle plans.

On the Capital:
I think we should switch to working the 3h tile instead of the unimproved FP, to pump out more quecha's before growing to size 4. worker improves hill first. I suggest we time growing to size 4 with the finishing of our 4th or so quecha (total), then start on a settler. We don't need a big escort, if we position 3 quecha's in the way below (before the settler is out!), we have total visibility and the settler can move freely @ 2 steps per turn. The most southern quecha fogbuster can then guard the city while it builds its terrace.:

My understanding was that the gold and horse spots were still tentative, when we start getting spawnbusting Quechas we will start to reveal the land to the East and that could easily make us rethink all the settling plans. Generally I think it is still too soon to set plans in stone. It is good to have a plan, but also important to be willing to change when new data comes up.

For example, shyuth's comment about the elephant site prompted me to reconsider it and realise that there is another thing going for it, the earlier happy reasourse that will (I think) auto connect through the river as soon as we have hunting letting our cap grow one larger. While I still think that, barring any revelations to the East, the horse Pigs site should go down soon for blocking and the Horse for anti barb duties, maybe the ivory could come before the gold.

I think having the Quecha swing East now is a good call, it would be nice to see what is out by the horse, if there is nothing else I would consider settling so that it is next to both the Pigs and Horse for faster growth options, in that spot it would be a better blocker too. If that happens maybe the gold could go on the coast to be a decent commerce (from FIN coast) center.

BTW, the scouting wasn't as efficient as it could be because of the barb lion and archer. I ended up going over previously scouted ground a couple of times because the barbs were where I would have moved.

That was absolutely the best choice IMO, far better to have a bit less scouting but keep some vision than to suicide for very little gain.

Summary
Over all I think things are getting a bit more interesting, but that the main discussion should still be on the Tech path as our spawnbusting Quechas might quickly change our mind by revealing interesting resources to the East. I'm for going to pottery next as stated earlier. Once we've got a decision on that someone (happyturtle only played 8 turns...) could then get to another sensible break point (eg the wheel or a few Quechas out) where we have more info to digest.

It's tough lurking without trying to help! Maybe I'll just go play this map myself so that I can compare notes with your game as you guys play on.

Lurker:
I'm doing that. We can compare all 3: monarchs / immortal player / deity player.

That would be really neat, it is nice seeing others are watching our adventures and blunders!

 

[Mikehendi]

I'm sorry, you're right about the setting in stone thing . So yeah, let's first see some more nearby land then. We don't have a clue on how far away the other AI's are, the only info we have is how early we met the AI's. BTW that cow near the other river might also be interesting.

I agree on that the scouting is bad, I looked back at my report to see how I wandered so far off. There was a 1-tile path of defensive terrain which I followed (as discussed), then I saw the gold and took a look around there (even further away from cap). Maybe we've been too careful, but I don't think we we're too careful. Losing your starting unit early sucks bad.

Once we have a few more quecha's, we can scout regardless of terrain (we have good odds even on flatland against anything we'll encounter, except bears), since our exploration won't take as big of a hit if we lose one of them.

I'm planning way too far ahead each time, sorry for that I kind of can't help myself. So, short term plans:

a- Tech --> Wheel-Pottery?
b- Tiles --> work pig + 3h tile now?
c- Worker --> mine the grass hill first, before finishing the FP farm?
d- Builds --> Work pig + hammer tiles to pump a 3-5 quecha's while slowly growing to size 4, then settler? Remember that from the 5th unit on, every additional unit will cost us 1 GPT! (= about 7% of our total research capacity!) (I'd prefer not to go there this early)
e- Scouting --> quecha goes towards horse? next quecha('s) scout some land to the east?
f- Anti-barb --> put a fogbuster on the plains hill 1w of pig? this clears quite a bit of barb-spawning

Let's shift the settling issue to when we start the settler then (indeed no point in discussing now if just w of the cap is a 3 gems site ). There should still be enough time then to move the quecha's to fogbust the way to any spot we choose.

 

[happyturtle]

I'm also for pottery, and for sending the Quechua east to horsey site.

And I can play more turns if the team wants, or consider my turnset complete and wait till it comes around again. Either way is fine.

 

[Mikehendi]

Roster:

Mike Hendi
Happyturtle - Just played, or played halfway through his set
Asaf -
Ichabod
Stochastic

Happyturtle, if you feel your turnset was too short (though we agreed on shorter turnsets then usual, being this early, it was on the short side), please post a message soon, else Asaf is up.

If Happyturtle says she's finished, and Asaf doesn't post a "got it" within 24 hours (He asked for a skip in his other SG due to being sick (28 july, hasn't posted since)), Ichabod can take it.

 

[Mikehendi]

O, crosspost.

It's your choice.

 

[happyturtle]

Happyturtle is a she.

And I'm finished.

 

[Stochastic]

I'm planning way too far ahead each time, sorry for that I kind of can't help myself. So, short term plans:

I don't think your plans are too far ahead, plotting the GLib using the marble or an elephant war would be too far ahead, but the settlement plans are all legit. I just wanted to make my state of indecision clear.

a- Tech --> Wheel-Pottery?
b- Tiles --> work pig + 3h tile now?
c- Worker --> mine the grass hill first, before finishing the FP farm?
d- Builds --> Work pig + hammer tiles to pump a 3-5 quecha's while slowly growing to size 4, then settler? Remember that from the 5th unit on, every additional unit will cost us 1 GPT! (= about 7% of our total research capacity!) (I'd prefer not to go there this early)

a) yes for me
b) I think working the FP is better, it gives us one extra commerce (which we wnat to get to BW asap) and grows sooner so that we can work more tiles for more yield.
c) I agree with that, then go over to finish another mine I think.
d) Good point about the advent of maintenance, that is in part why I want to grow faster rather than build units faster

 

[happyturtle]

I don't think your plans are too far ahead, plotting the GLib using the marble or an elephant war would be too far ahead, but the settlement plans are all legit. I just wanted to make my state of indecision clear.



a) yes for me
b) I think working the FP is better, it gives us one extra commerce (which we wnat to get to BW asap) and grows sooner so that we can work more tiles for more yield.
c) I agree with that, then go over to finish another mine I think.
d) Good point about the advent of maintenance, that is in part why I want to grow faster rather than build units faster

If we're working the FP first, when wouldn't we want to finish the farm first before the mine?

 

[Stochastic]

I think that in the short term the two are identical. We are 6 turns from having either a farm or a mine and will grow to size 3 in 3 turns. So when the improvement is finished we will be able to work either a farmed flood plain or a mined hill. If we farm the FP we will work the 3 tile, if we mine the hill we will work a non farmed FP, either way we will have 3 4 and 1 out of 2 tiles.

I think the advantage of the mine is that when we get closer to the happy cap we will want more mines than farms

 

[babybluepants]

Cool! Would you like to post your notes / reports when we're done? (or checkpoint-wise) I'm very curious to see the differences between our games!

I'm well ahead of you, ofc. Maybe 1 AD / 1000 AD spoilers? It's up to you if you want checkpoints. I'm just playing this quickly for fun, wouldn't wanna spoil anything about the map.

 

[kossin]

About second city:

Usually you want some food there and some hills as Shyuhe said. Having an easy trade route with the capital (rivers, short distance) is also a bonus - just like a 2H city tile (but you can't always get all you want!).

Commerce resources are nice but only if they meet some of the above 'requirements'.

That being said, back to lurking

 

[Mikehendi]

I think that in the short term the two are identical. We are 6 turns from having either a farm or a mine and will grow to size 3 in 3 turns. So when the improvement is finished we will be able to work either a farmed flood plain or a mined hill. If we farm the FP we will work the 3 tile, if we mine the hill we will work a non farmed FP, either way we will have 3 4 and 1 out of 2 tiles.

I think the advantage of the mine is that when we get closer to the happy cap we will want more mines than farms

I agree on improving both hills first, since those will bring us quecha's.

I'd rather get a settler out sooner then later (meaning not "throwing away" 30 food (which could be put into a settler) to grow to size 5 so we have 1 hammer per turn more to build a settler with) (throwing away = no BW yet), which means working hammer tiles for quecha's while growing somewhat slower to size 4.

Whatever tile we ultimately decide to improve first, whe should also work THAT tile then, else there's no point in improving it!

If you guys rather grow fast, a small advantage I found about growing to size 5, is that we then have 6 free units (no upkeep) instead of 5.

I haven't heard Ichabod in a while also. Would Ichabod and Asaf like to post something if they are still interested in this game? I'd like to keep it moving (albeit slowly)

 

[Ichabod]

I'm going to read the thread and post some comments later today, I've been kinda busy. If asaf can't play, I can get it.

 

[Stochastic]

I'd rather get a settler out sooner then later (meaning not "throwing away" 30 food (which could be put into a settler) to grow to size 5 so we have 1 hammer per turn more to build a settler with) (throwing away = no BW yet), which means working hammer tiles for quecha's while growing somewhat slower to size 4.

[snip]

If you guys rather grow fast, a small advantage I found about growing to size 5, is that we then have 6 free units (no upkeep) instead of 5.

Wow I never knew that! Sounds like good thing to keep in mind when each unit costs us 1gpt. Is there some sort of table that describes how unit cost scales with city size?

Also, that is an interesting point about getting a settler out before growing to size 5. I think the choice of when to build the settler will depend largely upon where we want to settle. If it is close I think we should go earlier (because we need less defense) while if we want to go far a field I think we will have to wait until size 5 to get enough Quechas out.

 

[babybluepants]

Wow I never knew that! Sounds like good thing to keep in mind when each unit costs us 1gpt. Is there some sort of table that describes how unit cost scales with city size

It's approximately 4pop per unit on Deity, beyond the first citizen. Without things like Vassalage and Pacifism, free units = 0.24 * Population + 5 (different number per difficulty level).

My source for this (it's old, maybe slightly different in BTS):
Unit Maintenance