Mighty Suryavarman II

[vranasm]

V - Gold city is Spot B...this is what I was referring to...

I would settle gold city next

I guess 1SW of A is fine....better production...but it does leave gaps between cities. I guess we could settle another city at some point later. It is not what I would do though

oh sorry I would prefer to settle pigs city before gold probably since if we are for building cottages it's better to start them up soon, thus I just didn't look correctly at the image.

But I guess going gold before pigs isn't bad option too. That gold could pay paycheck before pigs starts to contribute.

then the roading makes good sense of course ;-)

 

[lymond]

I'm been kinda waitin' for feedback from the master (Rusten) before proceeding.

I am concerned about settling that far out and close to Sal. In my view, that may push his next settle spot further out towards the pigs. I agree that it might have more production, but it does leave and unwelcome gap and distance between our gap. The original spot will still be pretty good.

I like gold as I'm afraid Wang will settle in a funky way that ruins the site, but I can see Pigs next. I still prefer a gold spot before cottages.

 

[Rusten]

Gold for sure. So A-B-C.
I too think 1SW of A is better.

That said B and C should both be settled and improved ASAP as they are both very good. But don't settle them without the necessary worker turns, that's useless.

Always MM to have at least 1 worker available to start improving resources when the city is settled.

 

[lymond]

Well, looks like 1SW it is (I still disagree though) and then Gold city. I will play today.

Worker turns are going to be a bit tricky early

 

[lymond]

ok..played:

1) AH and POT are in -> started Writing

2) First city settled and improved corn and sheep, started copper which is pre-roaded

3) Second City settled -> improved deer

4) Another settler started - we can whip this turn or just build it. I know Sal has a settler on the move somewhere

5) Looks like barbs are making their move on civilization this turn. We may lose sheep. I have to warriors near sheep though so we may get lucky OR he could move on the cap instead.

6) Started another worker in copper city which we might whip into a granary. Worker near cap has moved to position to start road to pig city.

7) Met Pacal. Great Mansa and Pacal...should be interesting

8) Lost warrior in the SE to a barb archer as I was trying to bring him back

9) There is an injured Barb Archer (1.0 health) around Sal's east border. I tried to kill him but he kept moving away and would not attack me.

Overall it does not appear Sal has much land to the west, so I expect he will aggressively settle in our direction. Land is kinda sketchy down south, but we could make a play for horse/cows/dyes down there and horse/pig in the east

Land:

Spoiler :

 

[vranasm]

as I see it we should whip the settler for the pigs spot, crash a bit economy, but lay down cottages and the gold should be soon enough up.

Overall I would probably aim towards cats+axes 4-city break out?

This is pretty annoying phase with barbs being attack happy.

 

[nocho]

Overall I would probably aim towards cats+axes 4-city break out?.

Will cats be needed?

First target is clear: Mecca. It has the coveted elephants, on flat land and we could still reach it the turn after DoW. I know this is immortal and all, but can't we just chop out a bunch of axes and catch Sal with his pants down, capturing the Arab capital? Must be a huge addition to our empire.

Rusten is up?

 

[Rusten]

I like where this is going.

Got it. I will see if I can write up a PPP tonight.

 

[vranasm]

Will cats be needed?

First target is clear: Mecca. It has the coveted elephants, on flat land and we could still reach it the turn after DoW. I know this is immortal and all, but can't we just chop out a bunch of axes and catch Sal with his pants down, capturing the Arab capital? Must be a huge addition to our empire.

Rusten is up?

well after second thought I have even doubts if this is right way to go for us!

We need to bulb Philo, so we need meditation and either of CoL or drama.

You know I am warmonger by heart, but if we don't get Tao first, we lose the game.

yeah Rusten should be ;-) as he already admitted.

 

[Rusten]

Given the variant, marble and Mansa presence I think it's better to wait for cats, or at least postpone the attack.

I think we should first and foremost settle these 4 great cities and emphasise commerce for teching literature and reaching philosophy (GS) first. As long as we are the first to philosophy we shouldn't be facing competition for the AW. We can postpone actually building it until Sal is beaten down.

Once we have 1-2 axes we can make a play for cow+dye. If we don't get there in time we settle 1NE of the oasis with the settler. It will help mature cottages for future capital and brings in profit from t1.

So techpath would be something like Aesthetics -> myst -> poly -> literature -> med -> drama -> philo bulb. We pick up things along the way with aesthetics/drama of course.

For now cities get infrastructure (granary/library). As we're approaching philosophy we start working on the military. Good news to have Mansa here, that means trading for mathematics early on won't be an issue. It guarantees an easy path to construction.

 

[Rusten]

Assuming we agree -- some details.

Research: writing followed by 0% aesthetics

Settle pig+cottages with current settler.

Yaso: Whip settler -> granary -> worker/axe
Hari: worker (whip?) -> granary -> axe/worker
Angkor: warrior -> granary
Pigs: granary

Turns to play: around 10?

I must say it is very difficult to keep myself from attacking Sal with pure Axes. Mecca really is fantastic, but calm developing is the safer way, and not too far behind. I mean, we're not playing for fastest finish here are we? Besides, you never know when Mansa will get philosophy -- he may do some Oracle thing.

Speaking of; I considered going Oracle and taking aesthetics, but I think our research is too slow. We would've had to settle gold first for this I think. Better to go straight for aesthetics here.

 

[vranasm]

I was thinking about going Oracle, but I think we're already far behind the curve.

With already being T54 we should have switched around T40 for myst->ph to get it safely.

I saw tao even up to 300 BC, so not much time for us. First GS should be spared for Tao imo (and should be generated fairly soon, maybe we should think about building library in capital instead of granary? we have there 2x hammers). No risking there.

wouldn't be better to get at least 1-2 axes before granaries though? I have really bad experience with barbs on Imm... I regularly get pillaged :-D

Getting Mecca in BC's would be great! but not lose the game on some stupid AI getting Philo stupid early. We have 2 good techers nearby... MM+Pacal are both dangerous in this regard.

edit:
ha now I realized we don't have writing yet! ehm so just stick with granaries... just think about axes here and there.

 

[Rusten]

Was thinking I could 2-pop whip a couple of axes one the granaries are in.

 

[vranasm]

Was thinking I could 2-pop whip a couple of axes one the granaries are in.

it's up to you. You will see if the pillage danger is too much.

2-pop axes would be better into infra not? could be interesting variant how to quickly get up some libraries.

 

[Rusten]

2-pop axes into workers before writing.

 

[vranasm]

2-pop axes into workers before writing.

always good to learn something new ;-).

maybe wait for more comments from team before playing.

 

[Rusten]

That said it's usually better to whip the workers/settlers and make axes the regular way as 1F > 1H. You'll be transforming food into hammers in a 1:1 ratio +/- 2 turns less. With EXP it makes no/little difference as you will finish the worker immediately or the next turn anyway.

It fits in here as we need the axes quickly and don't have anything else useful to put the hammers into. I may build them slowly, it depends on how the MM works out and how many barbs I see.

2-pop whip axe into another axe is also possible as we want at least 2. I will decide this as I play.

And yes, I plan to wait for the others to agree.

Edit: In fact, with EXP it can be worthwhile to whip into the workers as you will only be building them for 1 turn and not 1 turn+the turn you whip.

 

[nocho]

I'm not really convinced that building 3 or 4 axes more than that we plan already now, is really going to jeopardize Tao, especially with that gold in Mecca... However, if we choose the safe route I'm fine with the plan ofc.

 

[Rusten]

We will need about 10 axes if we are to attack Mecca IMO.

One of his archers have CG2 already, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 3rd archer in there and it will also have CG2.

 

[vranasm]

sal is pro... you're too optimistic (nothing wrong being optimist) nocho.