NC LVI: Willem of the Netherlands

[Amao]

@vranasm

Spoiler :

I'm flattered. I made decision around turn 50 that GLH was worth building at the price of REX. And I got lucky. Also, the 2nd city was also a factor as you can see that there were fish+copper+sheep (5+6+5 outputs), so it could take some burden for the continuous need of getting more cities early on.

btw, my 4th and 5th city were offshore. i think you meant the 6th city. that was just to make sure Khan is not expanding further south. Before i get into the war preparation mode.

@yanner39

Spoiler :

I don't value the North tech line very high in my recent exercises. The point is the Civil Service is so much more important. With a cottaged up capital (in this game, many coastal water also works), it's can support more cities before you get currency. And in this game, you have GLH. So, i never even bother the idea of building cash to hold my economy up. And after Bureau, with eco flying, a war to kill a neighbor or two will be beneficial, hence goes the Construction. Then more military techs...

Since Monarchy (HR) works so well with Bureau, I'd want priesthood anyway. However, oracle is really situational. I found it was easy on this map, hard on some of the other Monarch level games. If i don't think i have a shot for oracle, i might go for Monarchy first, and research CoL next.

Of course, my tech order fit into self-researching everything myself best. And it also fits into this map as early exploration told us we are separated from other until optics except for one neighbor.

 

[vranasm]

@vranasm

Spoiler :

I'm flattered. I made decision around turn 50 that GLH was worth building at the price of REX. And I got lucky. Also, the 2nd city was also a factor as you can see that there were fish+copper+sheep (5+6+5 outputs), so it could take some burden for the continuous need of getting more cities early on.

btw, my 4th and 5th city were offshore. i think you meant the 6th city. that was just to make sure Khan is not expanding further south. Before i get into the war preparation mode.

Spoiler :

I don't know if we understand each other... in no way i want to indicate that you did something wrong, otherwise! I very much respect what you did and already did at least 5 tries to mimic you! my best time now is 250BC CS. I miss you in GLH and Oracle both by 2 turns (probably misstimed worker turns), the CS is a bit later, probably mistake with not changing to HR immedietaly and not allow growth.
4th i meant 4th on the initial island...i just don't know the order in which you did cities (well I could guess...but I thought that city on island...)

That fish+sheep+copper with prepasturing is key... I used it for building almost everything since cap worked on lighthouse+GLH, I even built Oracle in fish+sheep city.

 

[bhavv]

I decided to play on Noble for a nice easy go at this:

Spoiler :

Settled in place because I saw the edge of the island to the right that can claim the fish resource later. I spotted Genghis and Elephants to the north, so my first city was placed to grab the Elephants and block Genghis from expanding.

I placed two cities then went straight for GLH + Oracle, I completed the latter on the same turn that I finished researching CoL, so picked up Metal Casting:

1920x1200 res screenies:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Next I teched for war elephants / theology / feudalism, and picked up Christianity too:



Elephants VS Archers

And heres my city layout:

Spoiler :

 

[yanner39]

@yanner39

Spoiler :

I don't value the North tech line very high in my recent exercises. The point is the Civil Service is so much more important. With a cottaged up capital (in this game, many coastal water also works), it's can support more cities before you get currency. And in this game, you have GLH. So, i never even bother the idea of building cash to hold my economy up. And after Bureau, with eco flying, a war to kill a neighbor or two will be beneficial, hence goes the Construction. Then more military techs...

Since Monarchy (HR) works so well with Bureau, I'd want priesthood anyway. However, oracle is really situational. I found it was easy on this map, hard on some of the other Monarch level games. If i don't think i have a shot for oracle, i might go for Monarchy first, and research CoL next.

Of course, my tech order fit into self-researching everything myself best. And it also fits into this map as early exploration told us we are separated from other until optics except for one neighbor.

Spoiler :

Thanks again Amao. Certainly a different path that I usually take but makes sense. So essentially, it's always situational in that, your capital's commerce from trade routes and cottages would provide your empire with more of a return with buro than either bilding Wealth/Research. In your opinion, would your tech path had changed if you didn't build the Great Lighthouse? Would your cottages have matured enough by the time you made it to Civil Service to make it worth switching to buro?

I know you mention you've been ignoring the North part of the tech tree but I assume you don't get to build the Great Lighthouse every game.

 

[Amao]

Spoiler :

I don't know if we understand each other... in no way i want to indicate that you did something wrong, otherwise! I very much respect what you did and already did at least 5 tries to mimic you! my best time now is 250BC CS. I miss you in GLH and Oracle both by 2 turns (probably misstimed worker turns), the CS is a bit later, probably mistake with not changing to HR immedietaly and not allow growth.
4th i meant 4th on the initial island...i just don't know the order in which you did cities (well I could guess...but I thought that city on island...)

That fish+sheep+copper with prepasturing is key... I used it for building almost everything since cap worked on lighthouse+GLH, I even built Oracle in fish+sheep city.

@vranasm

Spoiler :

I think in this game, you might have a chance to slingshot to Civil Service using Oracle since AIs are very bad at building Wonders. That might save you a few more turns.

Spoiler :

Thanks again Amao. Certainly a different path that I usually take but makes sense. So essentially, it's always situational in that, your capital's commerce from trade routes and cottages would provide your empire with more of a return with buro than either bilding Wealth/Research. In your opinion, would your tech path had changed if you didn't build the Great Lighthouse? Would your cottages have matured enough by the time you made it to Civil Service to make it worth switching to buro?

I know you mention you've been ignoring the North part of the tech tree but I assume you don't get to build the Great Lighthouse every game.

@yanner39

Spoiler :

Yes, GLH is a special case in this game. Otherwise, I'd rather have more settlers and workers out first. I would have 4-5 cities before pushing for the Civil Service, and build more after. GLH certainly help the economy a lot in this game especially after you build a few offshare cities to make every coastal city with instant trade routes outputs.

Of course, the earlier you have switched to Civil Service, the merrier. Take a look at the first game I stepped upon this approach, in game XLVI, there was no GLH consideration. It was simply building up a nicely cottaged capital. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9064569&postcount=49

My ideal settling scenario is: 2nd city, quick lib, quick 1st GS; 3rd city/4th city, prod, military, settler, worker.

 

[Amao]

Monarch/Normal

1400AD (200 Turns)

Spoiler :

Finally reached this reporting site before the weekend ended. Sunday was a lot busier than I had expected so there was only scattered time for playing. Anyway, here is the brief report since 1000AD.

Monty was very tame in this game. I invaded his continent on 1070AD, after having got Astro by 1030AD, only to found he's willing to capitulate at 1100AD. I was not ready for that, but never mind. Just need to pick the next target, right?

Wang was winning against Ragnar in my game, to my surprise. I had some thought for negotiate peace for Ragnar, but the price was a little too pricy. So, I ended up let Wang vesselled Ragnar. I'll just deal the 2 at the end.

Then, I was picking between Suleiman and Shaka. Shaka was closer and Suleiman had a super nice capital, but a lot farther. So, I ended up invading the Shaka after I lib the steel. However, it was certainly not as easy as against Monty. Shaka simply won't surrending with city after city falling every other turn, and that eventually costed me to raise up my culture slider for a couple of turns until I captured his capital where the Zeus was built.

Fortunately, he did capitulated a couple of turns before 1400AD, and I also have researched Communism before my 3rd GA ended. So, I switched and Bio is only a few more turns away. Talking about GA, I burned a Great Merchant for my first GA before 1000AD, then, after I acquired Aesthetics from Monty after the peace treaty, I figured nobody had Music yet and I could research it in 2 turns. (1 turn for Lit, and 1 turn for Music with all the beaker overflows.) so I shot for it and got it. Then I only found I've already sent the resting GM to Monty for some cash earlier... So I waited a few more turns for another GP to pop out and triggered the 2nd 12 turn GA, and during that time, I got Nat and started building Taj for the 3rd one. And here I am at the end of the 3rd GA and with a extra Great Spy in my capital, and I just popped the idea that if I'd go for economy and physics, I'd have another GA available! So, should I go for Bio first? There isn't much to farm on the islands map. It's a question.

Next target is Suleiman, I've sending my boats out. Then perhaps invading Wang's land from Ragnar's side first. If I could wipe out Ragnar first, Wang should be capitulate quicker in theory. I'm also building a frigate fleet so that I could bomb done the city defense before my land army reached the city.

screenies

Spoiler :

200 Turn report

Civics

Global view of my empire. Note that the SP instantly improve my science rate to over 1K.

My military units, too few workers for 25 cities? maybe, I'm building more now. But the main continent is mostly developed. Note, I also started to colonize the western islands fighting through the barbs, mainly for happy resources.

Talking about how bad AI performs in building wonders in this game, it's 1400AD, the Mids is not built yet.

 

[yanner39]

@yanner39

Spoiler :

Yes, GLH is a special case in this game. Otherwise, I'd rather have more settlers and workers out first. I would have 4-5 cities before pushing for the Civil Service, and build more after. GLH certainly help the economy a lot in this game especially after you build a few offshare cities to make every coastal city with instant trade routes outputs.

Of course, the earlier you have switched to Civil Service, the merrier. Take a look at the first game I stepped upon this approach, in game XLVI, there was no GLH consideration. It was simply building up a nicely cottaged capital. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9064569&postcount=49

My ideal settling scenario is: 2nd city, quick lib, quick 1st GS; 3rd city/4th city, prod, military, settler, worker.

Spoiler :

Very nice example. I will definately try this. I mean, your beaker rate per turn is pretty nice @ 133/turn. Both Gems do help, but still.

One last thing (Sorry for doing this in this thread). You seem to completely ignore Slavery, which some say is one of the strongest civics in the game. In your Isabella game, the corn/gems site for example seems pretty low on production so it must take long to build your infra? I understand you woudn't want to whip away the Gems tiles, but if the city grew in unhappyness, wouldn't whipping help? Or how about whipping in Universities once Educ is in to get Oxford as quickly as possible?

Do you make the switch to Caste simply to run scientists to get the academy quicker and run Merchants to fund your Expansion AND then switch back to slavery to whip infrastructure?

 

[Amao]

Monarch/Normal 1525AD Conquest Win

Spoiler :

Conquering Suleiman turned out to be easy, 3 cities down and the surrender. Then I sailed for Wang's puppy, Ragnar. I made some mistake by not concentrating all my landing force to the capital first, but still manage to take all his 5 cities pretty quick. At the meantime, I asked Suleiman to take over Wang's city on his continent and Shaka to do the same. Suleiman did capture one city but failed in capture another. All Shaka did was paving the road for me to pick on a red Longbow and I took it with pleasure. On, Wang's homeland, after taking a lightly guarded coastal city, my mounted force clashed with Wang's SoD and annihilated it with the flanking ability. That was the final draw, and Wang rolled over and surrendered. Fastest ever for a Monarch win for myself. And close to 200k score was nice.

Spoiler :

@dalamb: fun game, thanks!

 

[Amao]

Question re GLH for those who've explored the whole initial land mass:

Spoiler :

With only one AI on the same continent, and that AI likely to be conquered, is it really a win to go for the GLH? I'd just be trading with myself until Astronomy, and suspect for a FIN leader that the space between Astronomy and Economics isn't that long -- especially considering the period when AIs have Banking and some decide to go for Mercantilism.

Edit: I notice I spent twice as long writing this up as I did playing!

Spoiler :

The quick answer is yes! Because you have an island which can host 2 cities. And you won't have a single city settling off coast on the starting land mass.

As for tech, you should be self-teching on this map with this level anyway. So set up your economy right is more important than beeline optics and/or astro to my opinion. And sorry, I got communism before Banking, and stayed in the SP ever since, so I can't answer your question.

 

[dalamb]

Prince, Epic, to 2350 BC

Nearing Optics, but had a question (separate, after the summary)

Spoiler summary :

Basically I conquered most of Mongolia, but took a breather in 980 AD; he had one island city and I had no galleys yet, and I could extort:

I finished the GLH in Amsterdam in 1025 BC and the Oracle in Utrecht in 875 BC:

As of 335 BC I was more "advanced" than I thought, given I was effectively isolated (Ghengis never traded anything useful).

One element in my past and future plans is that I got the Elite Swordsmen event:

This gives CR I to all swordsmen as the main choice (Drill I to all melee as an alternative, if you are running HR). So I built my 8 swords, not promoting them right away (barracks), and got 8 CR II swords in 400 AD. Unfortunately by not axe rushing right after copper, I'd let Ghengis get fairly strong, so needed time for catapults and even more swordsmen. I tech'd theology before any cats, so they'd start with CR I and Accuracy (or CR II after I had enough to knock down defenses fast). I plan to make more CR III swordsmen in Utrecht, the Heroic Epic city, and eventually upgrade them to better attackers (once my economy recovers enough to genereate cash).

I may have made a mistake keeping New Sarai; I saw that I could contact an AI once its borders popped:

but forgot that light green mean crazy Monty. It'll be a pretty weak city with next to no production, and will have to steal food from Beshbalik to grow enough to whip any infrastructure.

The world as I know it:

Amsterdam has the Great Library, the Colossos, the aforementioned GLH, and is building the Mausoleum; I have the Music Great Artist for a golden age. I'm currently building the AP in Rotterdam, my city next to the iron, for the extra ; I don't plan on an AP win, though. After that I may try the Hanging Gardens there, since that hasn't gone yet. Neither have the 'mids, but I don't expect to get that at this late date.

Question re a city location choice:

Spoiler :

I'm finally expanding into the low-value western territory, in which there is one small region with stone and horses:

The barbarian settled on the stone; he'll be trivial to conquer with my veterans. I could keep that city and settle near the horses, but the horse city would have next to no food until Biology (or Sid Sushi). Alternatively I could destroy the barbarian city and put something at Red, which would get all the resources; it would have some food from the floodplains and possibly from some riverside farms. Any comments?

 

[MesSer]

Monarch/Normal 1000BC

Up to 1000 BC

Spoiler :

Decided to move settler 1 SE onto the wine before settling.
Techwise: I went AH, Mining, BW, (popped mysticism from hut), sailing and masonry
Build Order: WB, worker, warrior x 2, WB, settler, worker

After that I got pottery and writing and built GLH in capital while chopping a lot of trees.

Regarding scouting, my first troop ended up scouting towards SW and onto the stupid crap island. When I saw that room and that no one occupied it I thought to myself Sid's Sushi & mining inc while supporting them with dikes GLH & colossus.

Since the land sucks, I think that you have to rely on your water tiles doing the work. Hence I'm gonna get all water improvements I can.

I early found an awesome spot for a blocking city, so I settled there and I will move my capital there shortly.

Picture of the world 1000BC and city placements

Spoiler :

Picture of Cap (GP-farm)

Spoiler :

Idea is to move capital to the northern city since that one is filled with land suitable for cottages.

 

[MesSer]

1000BC to 500 AD

Spoiler :

Started with settling my 4th city, first production city claiming flood plains, copper and fish and of course, a lot of hills. (800 BC)

Got metal casting and had a terrible mistiming since the city I wanted to build it in (city up north which is going to become the new capitol) wasn't nowhere near ready to create a wonder. Had to build infrastructure, lighthouse first followed by forge and then Colossus while at the same time waiting for the city to grow. (600 BC)

While waiting for that infrastructure and work to be complete, I started teching towards Monarchy and on it's way I noticed that the oracle hadn't been built yet so started building that in capitol. (425 BC)

Tried to catch a religion and teched CoL, got beaten to it by an unknown civilization. Around the same turn I finished the Oracle and was to decide between Philosophy and Feudalism as my free tech. Since I hadn't built any troops at all due to the wonder spam I decided to go for feudalism (had 0.5 power rating compared to djingis), it is a pre-req for CS anyway (225 BC).

Teched compass and decided to go the Great Lib-way and run an insane economy since we are "semi isolated". Still haven't picked up Alphabet and djingis has nothing to trade to me and doesn't have alphabet either.

175 AD: on my way to Literature I found out that temple of artemis hadn't been built, since I have never used this wonder I decided to build it (since I am building every other wonder in the game I might as well build this one)

225 AD: got a GP and since I missed out on Confucianism I decided to pick up christianity, and it was built in my biggest comm city, I sincerly consider spamming this one for an über income.

375 AD: Got literature, building GL in my (Cap/GP-farm) and teching towards CS while beginning to move my palace to the border city close to djingis khan with lots of cottage spammable land.

<hr>
The idea now is to Finish GL, get philosophy and build Angkor Wat while spreading christianity. Revolt to christianity and change civics to HR, Beuru, Org Rel and maybe caste&merc. Gonna settle 2 more cities, 1 east of empire on the mini island and 1 filler city to the west claiming fish and iron resource.

And maybe build 2-5 more cities on the half island to the west which contains no resources and is filled with bad land.

I probably wont kill djingis for yet some time. Either I'll change plan and go rifles + cannons (and then kill him) after lib and use galleons to move them around. However since I've powered this entire game only to rush into rifles it would feel like I seriously misplayed this game. Due to this buildup I might as well continue teching and move on to sid's sushi & kremlin and some other corporations and either win space race, culturally or by going marine + ships + flight. Due to my possibly bad production I fear that I have to find some sort of land that has production and expand there prior to going towards end game.

World as of 500AD

Spoiler :

 

[Amao]

@dalamb:

Spoiler :

i destroyed New Sarai. it's of no use. also, i took the stone barb city as it was. and i got horse from conquering monty. a question: what does theology as anything to do with accuracy? or what does 600 hammer serve in your conquering Khan? and you got Khan settled on the island off your capital instead of doing it yourself? that's a huge waste of economy.

 

[Amao]

Spoiler :

Very nice example. I will definately try this. I mean, your beaker rate per turn is pretty nice @ 133/turn. Both Gems do help, but still.

One last thing (Sorry for doing this in this thread). You seem to completely ignore Slavery, which some say is one of the strongest civics in the game. In your Isabella game, the corn/gems site for example seems pretty low on production so it must take long to build your infra? I understand you woudn't want to whip away the Gems tiles, but if the city grew in unhappyness, wouldn't whipping help? Or how about whipping in Universities once Educ is in to get Oxford as quickly as possible?

Do you make the switch to Caste simply to run scientists to get the academy quicker and run Merchants to fund your Expansion AND then switch back to slavery to whip infrastructure?

Spoiler :

There are 2 goals for Caste:

1. To get as much as GMs as I could. At these stages, GMs can yield 900-1300 cashes, not very impressive. However, the current cash loss per turn vs. beaker output at 100% science is about 1:4. So, that means about 4k science on average. And since it's cash, you can use it for a mess military upgrade if you want to.

2. Which comes a bit later, is that you get +1 hammer bonus for workshops. And once you have Chemistry (prereq for Steel (Cannon)), and then lib the Steel. You'll have production city in virtually every city where you have either food or enough grasslands. oh, you'll back fill the Guilds for sure and you want to shoot for Communism if you are expecting there is still resistance by then. I did get Communism in this NC, but not in the Izzy one where I united the world by 1340AD.

I'm not very good at rushing Oxford yet. There was simply no need in the current levels. Or maybe I could do when I have all the workshops up if I were not in the total military conquest mood.

Anyway, with Random Events on, Slavery is hardly in my consideration recently.

 

[MesSer]

Cultural victory

Turn overview

Spoiler :

Starting from 500AD I decided to go for a cultural victory, this since I didn't really have good production cities (unless I got dikes) and since I allready had been spamming wonders in mostly 3 cities. And most of all since I had never done a cultural victory prior to this game.

Changed civics, ending up in HR, beuru, CS and OR and switching into Christianity. Spammed a few missionaries.

Since I allready had most techs in this era, I decided to go Drama and Music and directly after that I grabbed philosophy and divine right netting me the religions + angkor wat. Since I was going to run some specialists I decided to build spiral minaret as well.

Constructed the church of nativity at 1010AD and shortly after I founded Islam. Teched constitution, liberalism and took democracy as the free tech. Built taj mahal and statue of liberty and after that it was a long end turn-fest until 1845 AD only making sure that I got all 3 cities to legendary status at about the same time. Ending up with differing with 1 turn between the 3 cities.

Pictures

Spoiler :

End game screens:
----

Post game analysis:

Spoiler :

I should probably have started the race towards cultural victory earlier (than 500AD), especially when I noticed that I wouldn't be able to produce a lot of troops due to land and that I'd have a pretty strong economy but not über strong. That way I could have focused more on snatching religion/culture tech & buildings and getting them in place earlier. And could have spread religion a bit more aggresivly.

I, for some reason decided to tech to combustion and steel prior to switching to 100% culture. Something that probably cost me 15-20 turns on the victory or similar.

The funny thing was that I had all top 5 cities in the world. Something I have never experienced prior to this game

Judging from the end game results and all, I could probably have gone for any sort of victory since I had best prod, best food and best tech out of every nation. Means I made the switch towards culture way too late and probably didn't have much use for Dikes

 

[Amao]

Spoiler :

Very nice example. I will definately try this. I mean, your beaker rate per turn is pretty nice @ 133/turn. Both Gems do help, but still.

One last thing (Sorry for doing this in this thread). You seem to completely ignore Slavery, which some say is one of the strongest civics in the game. In your Isabella game, the corn/gems site for example seems pretty low on production so it must take long to build your infra? I understand you woudn't want to whip away the Gems tiles, but if the city grew in unhappyness, wouldn't whipping help? Or how about whipping in Universities once Educ is in to get Oxford as quickly as possible?

Do you make the switch to Caste simply to run scientists to get the academy quicker and run Merchants to fund your Expansion AND then switch back to slavery to whip infrastructure?

A critical revision of my previous statement for the other game afore mentioned.

Spoiler :

I switched to slavery early in Izzy's game. And used it to rush the monument in my 2nd city and 3rd city to get the border popped quickly. I'm not sure if i did the same for the Gem city, however. But CS arrived in time for border pop there. And since I need GMs more than pop rushing, I never switched back into slavery. So, I think I shouldn't have said never for slavery. It's still situational.

 

[Ergo Sum]

Spoiler :

Amao, I am astounded at your performance. I've been playing Monarch for a month or so, but you completely outclassed me in this game. 1350 bpt at 1525 sounds very good to me - I'd estimate I was around 800 bpt at that point. And a conquest victory without Rifling? Very impressive to me. I wasn't really able to scrounge up enough hammers for a proper invasion until Steam Power and Assembly Line. On the other hand, I feel that I played extremely slowly this game - ended with a Domination victory after eliminating Monte, Shaka, Wang, then Ragnar, who I finished off with Modern Armor in 1941. ~50k points. I got to all of the post-astro landmasses before the AI but they seemed to drag down my economy until I got State Property. This is really an embarassingly late finish for me - I don't really know what happened!

 

[dalamb]

original BC 4000 - 2350
original BC 2360 - AD 1120

Decided it was far better to start 1SE and modify my original strategy a lot. Now I have a question about my new dotmap. Warning: makes comments about what the map looks like post-IW and after fully exploring the initial territory. Edit: another warning: contains complex food and hammer yield calculations.

Spoiler summary :

Basically I took far too long to conquer Mongolia last time, and also decided settling 1SE (on the wine) as a GP farm was far superior -- I'd have got some critical GS a lot earlier that way. So this time I decided to axe rush. Given that, this was too great a temptation:

After this Ghengis was certain to go for archery so a warrior rush wasn't likely to work, so an axe rush became a priority. So I need to decide where to settle the bronze city:

The possibilities (from S to N) are yellow, magenta, and orange. I'd really appreciate someone checking the following analysis, since I could easily have goofed the calculations.

• Orange, the northernmost, is the game's suggestion (blue circle). It's not coastal, so I figure to reject it without further analysis.
• Yellow is where I settled last time. With the fish, a lighthouse, the sheep, and farming the two floodplains, it has +4+2+2+2=+10 , and can work its 4 plains hills (-2 each) and one grassland hill (-1), total 20 including city tile -- once it gets enough health and happiness for population 9. However, there's iron on a desert hill to the west, and a city there is pretty pitiful without the fish, reducing Yellow to +6 and working 3 PH, 13 (at size 6). Also, without the sheep, the light blue city has rather less food to grow with, though cottaging the floodplains does leave it able to work its one PH as a commerce city.
• Magenta, 1NW of last time. It still has the same issue with the fish; farming its 2 FP and using the oasis gives +5 (+4 more if fish are used), working 2PH, 1 GH. but having 2 for the city tile, total 13 -- same as Yellow without fish. With fish (+4 more) it can add only 2 desert hills, 3 each, total 19, slighly worse than Yellow with fish.

So it looks like, pre-biology, it's a tossup except for Magenta letting Light Blue get the sheep. Post-biology each farm gets +1 each but Yellow and Magenta each have 2 farms, so it's a wash. The big difference is electricity: Magenta is on a river so can build 3 gorges, and I think it's the only location on a river that has decent enough production to be able to do so.

So ISTM magenta is the best choice. Any opinions?

 

[vranasm]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

the yellow spot is perfect. Me and Amao both used it as worker+settler pump after 1st settler, since we both had to work in cap on TGL.
The spot has fish, you can prepasture that sheep in advance (and you should), copper in 1st ring, start building WB, at size 4 you start worker+settler pump (2 forrests you can chop). After monarchy, you have there plenty hills and 2 FPs (west+north) for farming, later you add workshops.
It's monster production ;-).

sorry if you asked something other, since here it's 0:49 and i am getting sleepy and too much math in your description after picture :-D

 

[dalamb]

@vranasm:

Spoiler :

Was hydro power an issue in your game, or did you win before it became relevant? The one big advantage I saw in moving to magenta was that it could build 3 Gorges Dam. One minor thing I noticed is that it also shortens travel around the island a bit, but that's one of those things that doesn't affect the decision unless the two places are very, very close in value -- but I thought my analysis showed that Magenta was slightly better already (unless, of course, I goofed the calculations, which is why I wanted somebody to comment).

I am settling sufficently early that Amsterdam's borders haven't expanded to cover the sheep yet, so prepasturing was never possible.