Need some help playing philosophical leader

[jorissimo]

Should I do settler first even without imperialistic? Here I rolled a map with one flood plain and a plains cow but I'm on a PH. Elizabeth, pangea, immortal. I think if I go worker first I would farm the flood plain, build a mine and chop, which is not that attractive.

That's actually not an easy start. I don't know how comfortable you are on immortal, but I wouldn't make my life difficult like that.

 

[Chalybion]

That's actually not an easy start. I don't know how comfortable you are on immortal, but I wouldn't make my life difficult like that.

For sure not an easy start, since the capital isn't super useful without a granary and lots of worker turns. But it could be a good practice for conquering better land since the start is rubbish.

 

[pokeii]

That's actually not an easy start. I don't know how comfortable you are on immortal, but I wouldn't make my life difficult like that.

I haven't won a single game on immortal. I don't think this will leads to my first win but I want to know what to do about starts that seem bad but common.

 

[jorissimo]

I haven't won a single game on immortal. I don't think this will leads to my first win but I want to know what to do about starts that seem bad but common.

I don't think it's very common to have a plains cow as your only food source. You can always try to beat these starts once you've won a few games under more favorable circumstances. In your position, I'd try to roll a start with a nice green river and some wet corn.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I know that you guys just looove those PH capitals, but in this case, wouldn't it better to settle 1N instead?
It kills a forest and foregoes the PH city tile, but considering the food situation, grabbing an extra FP seems worthwhile... (plus, it gets more river tiles, always a good thing for a Financial capital).

 

[pmarc]

It's a very awkward start. After seeing the warrior movement result, I think I would have settled north on the forest to be able to work both floodplains and the cow, and just start with Animal Husbandry. The ideal case for early bronze working is a lot of food and not much production outside chopping forests. Here it's somewhat the opposite because of the plains cow and the ability to mine green hills.

After AH, maybe Agriculture if you find good resources using it, but also you could go The Wheel -> Pottery and just start on the FIN cottage spam.

Honestly it looks like an interesting challenge for a start, I would like to try it if you have a T0 save.

EDIT: Maybe it's better to go Agriculture before AH even if it's more expensive than the Hunting route unless you see some resources around that can be improved with Hunting.

 

[pokeii]

@pmarc here is the save. I play with the buffy mod.

 

[pmarc]

Here's what I did for the opening up to ~turn 60.

Spoiler :

Start with Agriculture, then Animal Husbandry. The worker gets out of turn 15 and has time to farm one floodplain before going to improve cow. Then he mines a grass hill. Meanwhile, London produces a warrior before starting a settler at size 3 (farmed floodplain + cow + grass hill). I researched the Wheel after Animal Husbandry so the worker can start making a road to city 2 after improving those 3 tiles.

East of the capital doesn't have much, but the west side has a few good spots for cities. I decide on the next one being SE of wheat to get both furs and also share cow later when capital works mostly cottages. The furs are a lot of initial commerce + one extra happiness in all cities. Therefore I decide on going Hunting after the Wheel, then Bronze Working because with so much commerce from the furs we don't need Pottery as urgently.

The wheat / fur city can make warriors, which is helpful because there will be some barbarians coming from west and southwest, while the capital stays at size 3 until Pottery, alternating between workers and settlers. (Chopping the few trees there after bronze working will make things go a bit faster.)

The 3rd city I would place on the nearest wine in the floodplains to the west; the wine results in a 3 commerce city center and we can't improve wine for a while anyway. I placed it there on turn 51. After the 3rd worker I started putting all my workers on cottaging (2 in capital, 1 in wine/floodplain city) and eventually passed the cow to the wheat/fur city so that one can produce workers or settlers now. I got to Writing on turn 61, which is reasonable with that start.

This said with the relatively poor land, with horse available and no metal, maybe Writing is not the way to go after Pottery... maybe you would rather go for Horseback Riding to build a horse archer army and take land from your northern neighbor.

 

[Henrik75]

with philosophical take advantage of the very fast GS to either use it for a math bulb on a horse archer rush or construction attack if playing aggressively,
OR,
A super early academy when playing peacefully to get to stuff like currency/civil service a few turns faster.

continue running more scientists to then get a philosophy bulb in the bcs even if its your second GS.

and if its that kinda of game, sit around in caste pacifism for a bit and get a ton of merchants for that cuirassier or cannon attack later.
and/or take advantage of cheap universities for a quick oxford.
Getting that first guy out early is the big difference tho imo.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Don't even bother with the specialist economy, it's something from the past, it's been refuted since. Specialists should never be the main driver of your economy, they serve mostly for getting great people during golden ages in some food-rich cities.

Once you reach the happy cap. But always prioritize working cottages over running scientists.

Sometimes you have lots of food resource tiles, but no grassland and floodplains. You need to rely on specialists until you can conquer better land.

 

[sampsa]

Sometimes you have lots of food resource tiles, but no grassland and floodplains. You need to rely on specialists until you can conquer better land.

It's very rare to have conditions where most of your cities should be running specialists. Often you want to grow and not to stagnate. Specialists that don't lead to the generation of a are weak tiles, though less so with representation.

What I mean that under the described conditions you should have some cottages (even non-riverside) and a "SE" described in some old guides is simply a bad way to play. Of course you can still win games playing like that.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

It's very rare to have conditions where most of your cities should be running specialists. Often you want to grow and not to stagnate. Specialists that don't lead to the generation of a are weak tiles, though less so with representation.

What I mean that under the described conditions you should have some cottages (even non-riverside) and a "SE" described in some old guides is simply a bad way to play. Of course you can still win games playing like that.

I see a spectrum.

1/ Pure specialists.

2/ Cottages in the capital.

3/ Cottages in six cities.

4/ Smaller cities run one or two cottages.

5/ Cottage every floodplain, riverside grassland, some grassland, and plains tiles that are shared between 3 cities.

6/ Cottage everything

@sampsa
What do you do with large areas of undeveloped rainforests? Farms, cottages, or workshops?