[BTS] Need Help on Monarch

[krikav]

The production burst from BW isn't desperatly needed right away either. (No AIs competing for spots, and not multiple spots that give a huge return right away).
And there is some merit in postponing some of it abit, as more forest will be chopped with math in that case.

So I would go myst->med->PH while just trying to grow capital tall and nice. Would try to slow-build a settler prior to PH finishing so capital can start slowbuilding oracle right away.
Through meditation as it's required for SwedagonPaya which I imagine would be super for failgolding here later on.

 

[crashmon]

These are interesting thoughts.... I generally only attempt Oracle if I have marble, but with so many forests could chop it out pretty quickly... I might think on this for a few hours, oracle is tempting here, but I think the BW / worker / settler path might be benificial. But I'll ponder a bit on which to do (might go one path, and try the 2nd path in a later attempt)

There should be at least one more civ on my continent, this should not be isolation, but it does not look like he is very close or maybe he is having barb issues

 

[krikav]

The pressence of early commerce (gold/gems/etc) and IND is way more important for oracle than marble imho. A marble-assisted oracle is almost always too late.
I think it's the best option given the situation, but others might think differently.
And certainly, it's probably not the most educational path forward, as it's a rare opportunity and not the standard path.

 

[crashmon]

so I have gone with my head and decided as this game is about me improving my game by mastering the basics correctly, I've gone down the path of building the 2nd worker and going for BW.

I am intrigued by @krikav's idea of oracle, so once this shadow game is over will probably replay but go for oracle instead and post what happens and ask for advice (not a full shadow game but one with noble club type updates)... but that is future and this is now

so.. turn 25

Spoiler Warrior built :

• have finshed the warrior and started on worker number 2
• my first warrior survived the attack by the Lion so is fogbusting to the west
• we are a good way into bronzeworking
• decided to go for the cow next then for the Gold
• Am improving the cow

City is size 3

Plan now is to explore east with 2nd warrior past the horses, and also a little north to see if we have any silver or deer in the tundra

 

[krikav]

Working the unimproved gold doesn't look right.
Trading a hammer/food toward worker for 2 coins is probably not right.

Ideally, the second worker should be out the turn before BW is in, so it can enter a forest.
Working unimproved forest instead of the gold would give you a 7T worker and a 8T BW, right?

First worker will be busy with cows+gold before BW, and it could probably road the gold to set up connection with a city there, if it has time.

 

[crashmon]

Working the unimproved gold doesn't look right.
Trading a hammer/food toward worker for 2 coins is probably not right.

Ideally, the second worker should be out the turn before BW is in, so it can enter a forest.
Working unimproved forest instead of the gold would give you a 7T worker and a 8T BW, right?

First worker will be busy with cows+gold before BW, and it could probably road the gold to set up connection with a city there, if it has time.

This is why I posted the city screen shot I was debating if to work the unimproved forest or the unimproved gold. You are correct in the 7T worker and 8T BW if I switch to forest, but I was not sure what extra I would get after pasturing the cow (this should happen in next 1-2 turns). So I posted the screenshot of the city to ask for best play

 

[coanda]

I'd take the warrior you have on the forest to the south and move him NW onto the desert hill, then if you don't see any barb animals around move him N and then NE onto the other desert hill to peek at the vicinity of the crabs. Then he can move back to where he is now - that's a good spot for him long-term, but it'd be nice to get a look at the vicinity of the crabs since there's a small chance it affects where you put your second city. The warrior who just finished should immediately head out towards the horses. You already see horses and a lot of green land, there's the possibility of a crazy-good city site out there. Plus long-term he's probably gonna want to be in that vicinity to keep barbarians from spawning out there. Try to be as cautious as you can with his movement while making sure you do explore that territory before the settler finishes in about 10-11 turns.

@krikav is right that more often than not, losing 1 food or hammer in exchange for 2 commerce early-game isn't worth it. On taking a look at the save, this might be an unusual case, because your pasture is finishing next turn. Which means if you stay on gold, your worker finishes in 6 turns and BW finishes in 7, perfect. Switching off gold until the gold mine finishes, then switching back, might cost you a turn on BW; I'm not sure. If you were trying to really optimize the heck out of this game you might try to figure out exactly how many turns you could not work gold while still finishing BW in 7 turns and get some extra overflow hammers out of the worker onto the settler. But just staying on gold is fine, and staying off gold might not be fine (I'm not sure).

Turn 25 without meeting any AIs is fairly late, I'm starting to wonder if you might be in isolation this game. Does this map script do isolated starts (no other players on the same landmass)?

I think the next set of moves is pretty clear here. Do a bit of scouting with your warriors, get the gold mine up. Build the worker, move it onto a forest (I'd probably go with the one SW or NW of the city). Finish researching bronze working. That'd be a good pausing point, as soon as you know where any nearby copper is and are about to chop out your settler.

 

[krikav]

Hmm.. yes you are correct that perhaps the improved cow would get the worker done sooner, but still I think I would favour production all the way. If the worker finishes too soon, it can always road a forest somewhere, or perhaps help out with the gold, or get started with the PH-mine.

It _could_ be that working unimproved gold for 1-2 turn is better, but the burden of proof is on that option as it goes against the norm.

 

[crashmon]

This script does not do isolated starts, but I've found it generates additonal land when it creates a third or 4th continent, and it tries to have similar amount of civs on the continents (ie you won't get 5 civs on one land mass, and 1 on another).

I'm betting we probably have one other civ on our continent (please not protective), and the others spread out around continents 2 and 3 (even possibly a 4th with the amount of land tiles)

 

[crashmon]

Ok played until turn 28, was going to play until turn 30 before posting again but......

Spoiler phew we are not a member of the Lonely hearts club :

We have met Eithopia

So now thinking of settling 2nd city 1E of wet corn, and third city near horses (as we might need those chariots now. Need to move 2nd warrior one most east onto forest to see what we have, first warrior will head back but explore clams before going back to forest to FB

 

[coanda]

Might as well play the next three or four turns, no important decisions to make in those and knowing where copper is will give important information for thinking about city locations.

 

[crashmon]

ok as requested turn 32
and

Spoiler we have copper :

so based on this my thinking is (want advice on)

• 2nd city spot , right now with the copper I am thinking 1E of wet corn (will get corn, share pig, share bronze and has loads of fp's as well)
• 3rd city spot three options
  • maybe 1S of east horses (but only if no seafood in the coast 1S of East Pig and depends what is 1NE of horse)
  • on the desert (1NW of fish, 1SE of gold)
  • or forward settle eithopia and go near clams to the west (not sure which tile)

For the workers,

• One worker chops out settler / 2nd worker mines copper OR
• Both chop out settler, then both mines copper, OR
• something else which is better then above

Also for next build

• In Cap, really tempted to build another settler to quickly get third city
• In 2nd city probably need warrior before another worker while it grows.

Again love advice on the choices we have on what would be best next steps.

 

[krikav]

One way to expand toward the west is first 1E of corn (share pigs+copper).
Then a city 2W of corn (on a floodplain, but what can you do).
Then a city can be placed SW of crabs, which can work a floodplain-cottage for 8 turns before 1pop whipping it's workboat.

There is no rush mining the copper. Maybe you want an axe for safety, but the tile itself will be pretty useless for some time.
Second city will want to grow, and work it's corn once that is improved.
And capital can't work copper+gold+cow, it will starve.
So the copper tile doesn't need to be improved until city#2 reaches pop2.

Perhaps fishing could unlock the lake, and enable speedy growth on lake+pigs+cow for the capital once settler is out?

If you go for a second settler w/o growing capital, then you should do it with cows+gold+unimproved tile and chop-assisted, and let city#2 have monopoly on pigs so that it can grow.
In any case, I would want to do another warrior as next build for capital after the settler. That warrior can map out the southern coast so that can be dotmapped.

 

[crashmon]

Also I did not mention but we could switch to slavery with no anarchy (am Spi), question is do we want to do this right now? Usually I swtich as soon as I hit BW, but I've seen some you tube vids / forum follow throughs where people have delayed switching... I think switching is correct here as we have a lot of food and we are SPI, but again what do people think here?

Next tech?

• Fishing :- but not likely to settle 2nd or 3rd city near seafood now I don't think so maybe less important
• Writing :- moves us to alpha / maths, also lets us have Open borders with Eithopia for relations
• Pottery :- Cottages / Granaries (but our workers have a lot to do prior to building these)

I'm thinking writing right now but again is this correct path

 

[sampsa]

I think switching is correct here as we have a lot of food and we are SPI, but again what do people think here?

With SPI, you should switch to it on the turn you are whipping the first time. Without SPI, you should often switch to it right after building a settler (maybe for 2nd city, but sometimes 3rd/4th).

 

[coanda]

This is probably going to be a point to pause for a full day and get plenty of feedback; now you've got all the information to do a lot of thinking and planning.

Some quick thoughts on city placement...

You're absolutely right, 1E of corn is the 2nd city. It's close, it's strong, it'll start contributing fast.

Crabs in the west are very slow, because there's literally nothing useful within 2 tiles of them. SW of the crabs is the best of the spots, but it's not great particularly early. It'd take 10 turns to build the work boat (and there's no way to chop it out faster or pre-build it from another coastal city). Then it needs to be able to work those floodplains in the south or the horses in the west, which means either some other city caught the tiles with its culture or you're waiting 7 more turns to whip-build a monument and 10 more turns after that for the border pop. Literally 27 turns after the city is settled before it becomes a real contributor if settled too early. It's a site you'll probably want to take eventually, but it's way down the priority list.

2W of corn is a good city site; no need for a border pop any time soon, it just grabs three floodplains it can start working from day one. It's got a forest you can chop, it can borrow the corn long enough to grow a size or two. If you're nervous about Ethiopia taking the land away, this would be the third city site to settle.

Rather than S of the horses to the east, I'd probably go SE of them (SW of the wine); that way you don't need a border pop in the city to grab the pigs. It doesn't share the cows, but horse + pigs + wine gives it plenty of good tiles itself. Plus, if you're already thinking about sharing pigs, copper, and gold with other cities the capital can definitely keep that cow tile busy all the time itself. An alternative option which is weaker directly but might work better for other cities is to consider settling it on the coast, 1W of pigs. Then you do need a border pop in that city, but as a trade-off you get the option of making a work boat there and sending it south to the fish so you can get fish/gold city up and running about 5 turns faster. Maybe even another workboat for a crabs city in the west if you're near the end of the continent and it wouldn't take too long to navigate around. If you're not nervous about Ethiopia (maybe you're willing to just 3-city chop a bunch of war chariots and kill him if necessary), I'd settle the horse city third.

And as you noted, you've still got the spot NW of the fish below your capital that you'll want to take at some point too. It's not as slow as the crabs city to the west, but probably not where I'd settle third.

 

[crashmon]

Before I play a few more turns, is Writing the correct tech here, I know its expensive (compared to say Hunting), but I think open borders with Eithopia would be useful (more for relations than actually exploring at this point), and it puts me on way to alpha and maths. I don't think I will need fishing immediately, and hopefully I can get a religion from Zara, as he is to the west

Also should I road to 2nd city once I have chopped the settler out, build another warrior in cap so we can grow to size 4, then switch and 2 pop whip a settler?. I'm also thinking that the 1SW tile of Cap will be one I chop first, as then would be in correct spot to start the road

 

[krikav]

fishing->pottery->writing is probably best. It is the path that gives the most discount. (If you go pottery with only agriculture, you get 120% beakers, if you go with both agri+fish you get 140% beakers).
So unless you have a specific reason to, you should probably not deviate from this "cheapest path".

You won't have traderoutes for a long while yet (unless you go sailing) and OB won't build relations that quick anyway. If you really care about relations a gift settler does that trick best.
Your cities are not out of things to build (can still build warriors) so there is no urgent need for a new hammer sink (granary+library).
And your workers won't have time to lay down any cottages right away, they are busy chopping and mining and farming.

The only tech that does give you a immediate benefit is fishing, as it unlocks the lake, which is a pretty nice tile now when growing.
So that is the way I would go.

I don't think I would whip much here, at least not untill the corn is ready. The gold holds these cities down, regrowth takes alot of time.
Post granary maybe.
Slavery here is for stuff like 1pop whips of monuments/workboats and possibly granaries in new cities.

 

[krikav]

Oh, and regarding road.

Do we want to beef up commerce, or do we want to boost production?
Laying down 2 roads would give 1commerce per turn in both cities, a rather sweet deal for about 6 workerturns.

But on the other hand... Commerce is secured. The gold mine has taken care of most urgent things and now we are in a situation where you don't really know what to tech. It's not "We dearly need agriculture now, and AH.. And BW." It's more a question of which luxery do we want now?
Perhaps just continuing to chop is the correct move, boosting production and growth abit instead?

I would want to grow capital to size4 sooner rather than later though as it could then hold all 4 powertiles (gold+cow+copper+pigs).
Could grow and chop a settler too.
The turns chops land the city can work gold+cows+pigs.
The turns chops is not landing the city can work cows+pigs+lake (or a forested grassland).

 

[crashmon]

Thanks for great post

1) Note to self one (do not forget lakes for fishing, its not only about coastal tiles)
2) Note to self two (some techs can speed up researching other techs, must check sevopedia more on this)

So will go fishing next, I forgot about the lakes, and go your route as considing the beaker savings makes a lot of sense

On the road, pretty much every Lain / AZ playthrough I watch they will build a road between cities usually as soon as they found them (unless linked by coast / river), this is what was driving my thinking here, I guess its done for commerce more than safety, also I want to irrigate the corn next to 2nd city, while 2nd city starts a worker, so would be moving one of my workers in that direction anyway.

After we chop settler, will start warrior in cap to grow to size 4. Question :- should I mine copper before more chops, and slow build warrior here, then possibly overflow into a settler (I understand the concept of overflow, but I never seem to be able to get it correct on correct time to chop / whip to get best overflow)