New Sandbox & Screenshots for Dotmapping - T43

[YossarianLives]

I was thinking we could use this thread to propose dotmaps for our third city and beyond, as well as micro plans for the upcoming turns, especially post-T50. Here are some pictures.

Overview of our lands for dot-mapping:

Spoiler :

Overview of the lands near RB (note that I don't know how to move around the AI capitals in Worldbuilder, so they're not actually there in the test game):

Spoiler :

Overview of all known lands:

Spoiler :

And the save is attached.

 

[YossarianLives]

Here's one possible dotmap. I'll see if I can test this out later today.

Spoiler :

 

[YossarianLives]

Ok, here's a test game with that dotmap up to T61. Basically, I roaded up to the Gold city site while three Warriors built from Terasvin streamed up keeping an eye on the workers. City is connected the turn it is settled, and the Gold is connected to allow Indira to grow to Size 6 timed the turn after it is settled. I moved it one tile closer to get the Cows in the initial 9 tiles, and pastured that after mining the gold. A new worker comes out of Terasvin in time to help pasture those Cows down there. The tech path I followed was Poly for about 5 turns, then switched over to AH because I do feel we might have some competition there. After AH I finished Poly and Masonry quick, and you can see I'm on my way to Mono. The workers all go help road to city 4, then are in place to pasture the sheep the same turn the city is founded (T61). Our 8th Warrior is in position to watch the pass between us and RB by T61. There are 2 warriors exploring east, and garrisons for all cities.

Spoiler :

 

[talonschild]

Hey, not bad! I could live with that situation in 20 turns.

 

[YossarianLives]

Definitely room to tighten up the micro a little bit, but I think that would be a pretty decent situation for us on T61. I'm going to try to test out some other dotmap possibilities to show us where we could be with different options.

One thing I realized when I was playing is that Polytheism should finish by T50, but our third city won't be settled until T52 (or maybe T51). Unless we purposely delay Hinduism, Terasvin is guaranteed to be the Holy City.

 

[classical_hero]

Definitely the first city we need to build is the copper city, but what we need is to see what is available above the gold city, since there could be room to move a few of the cities around to get a better locations. It might even be worth building the copper city on the copper.

 

[2metraninja]

Wb, CH

 

[YossarianLives]

It might even be worth building the copper city on the copper.

That's a really good location that I had not considered. A city settled on top of the Copper can work two of Indira's cottages, letting Indira work higher-yield tiles while building workers and settlers, without losing any commerce.

We do need to reveal a few more tiles north of the Gold in order to get a really solid idea about the best dot map. I was thinking we should send Padma East to look for our neighbor, but maybe taking a slight detour to uncover some of those northern tiles is called for.

 

[YossarianLives]

Alright, this time around, I settled NE of the Gold to get more FP for City 3, and on top of the Copper for city 4. I had also started a game where I settled the PH next to the Gold, but didn't really like how that played out, especially with a later AH. I give us Hinduism this time around, since I think we might actually pull it off. It autospread to Indira around T58, which I kept since it's not too unlikely to actually happen. I chopped a forest into the settler for city 4, which shaved off one turn but caused an extra sick face in Indira, so probably we should leave it there. Indira went back to full health with the Cow next to Terasvin connected. Here's an overview shot at T61:

Spoiler :

I named the new cities incorrectly. They're 3 and 4, not 4 and 5.

City 3 was connected by road the turn it was founded, and the Gold was mined the following turn. Chopped a monument and cottaged the FP. Here's a picture.

Spoiler :

8 Warriors, 4 Workers, Writing after AH, so now I'm starting to build infrastructure like Granaries and a library for our capital. Definitely room for improvement in worker micro, so I'll try to post the plan I've been using on the spreadsheet for comments and revisions. We need to figure out what we're going to do soon, since we're coming to the end of our current micro plan.

Here's the save.

 

[Aivoturso]

This latest plan has 3 financial cities and one production (Terasvin). Can we build convincing enough a defence with that to deter any early warmongers? Or should the copper city be placed on a more producion oriented location e.g. 1W from the silk?

 

[2metraninja]

I have to try the sandbox myself, but generally I dont like settling cities so much distant.

 

[2metraninja]

The last week or two I wasnt much around, but I want to say I dont like the plan for Polytheism too. We are teching Poly right now, but we will have to stop at some point to give our third city a chance to become the Holy City? How is this good?

 

[YossarianLives]

Ok, based on the feedback, I have come up with a third option, where we settle for the Deer as city 3. I played out a perfect scenario, where we put off Poly for 2 turns, discovering it the turn after city 3 is settled and making that the Holy City. This puts the Gold in range 3 turns after settling the city, with the +5 Culture. Might not be so likely, and would really suck if we lost Hinduism because we delayed Poly, but the results are very nice:

Spoiler :

Lots of Granary builds just because I couldn't think what else to build. We could go Barracks in Terasvin, Library in Indira, units in other cities, if we prefer.

City 3 is founded on T51, Hinduism founded T52, Hunting discovered T53 (having already put 2 turns research into it), Deer camped by T55, Gold mined by T56 and worked by T57, Copper city founded T58 (though I think 1E of the current location is probably better), outer Gold city founded T65, growing on the Pigs and ready to take over the Gold at size 2 so the Deer city can focus on Mfg. Tech path was Poly until 1 away from completion, 2 turns of hunting, finish Poly, finish Hunting, 5-turn AH iirc, 3 or 4-turn Writing, and 3-turn Masonry just finishing up.

If we don't actually get Hinduism, or if Terasvin becomes the Holy City, then we chop out a monument in city 3, which definitely delays when we can work the gold, so this plan is high risk - high reward.

Here's the save.

 

[talonschild]

Or we could settle NE of gold and put in a few turns into gold or a different tech. It all depends on if we think the Germans are a) going for Hinduism and b) gonna beat us to it unless we shave off a turn or two.

 

[2metraninja]

I like this one (Yossa's option 3 ) much much better.

As for the granaries, we need chops for granaries almost immediately in newly found cities (only half full food bin is the best case delay). In Indira library is great to have at the earliest possible date instead of granary, as we wont whip Indira normally.

Copper city isnt necessary to go on the copper. What is the reason to plant it directly on the resource other than getting copper 2-3 turns earlier and being able to work 1 more cottage for the capitol before library/academy?

Other things I was wondering is why dont we chop Stonehenge in some of our cities? We have forests and even if we get lucky with early religion, you know - religion still needs to be spread, which is not the easiest thing and wont happen when and where we need it most of the time.

Anything for The Great Wall? Can save us 100's of hammers on barb-fending/defending units. Also, a Great Spy can be worth more than 3-4 Oracles...

As for settling, isnt a good plan to plant city/es with chops in mind to allow us to chop workers which will chop settlers, which settlers we will settle with chops in mind to chop other workers/settlers, then we build cottages on the de-forested green land (we are FIN, remember) and repeat till we fill all the available land or at least when we are close to as low as 20-30% science slider (magic number for me at lest)?

 

[2metraninja]

Someone who knows the mechanics in depth can tell us where the maintenance curve starts to get too steep to be worth planting the next city at emperor. I can make a wild guess that if we have the workers to support our REX we can have some good 8-10 cities before we need to stop to get a breath of air.

 

[2metraninja]

We have advantage in chopping forests - we have the fast workers, so we must be the fastest choppers in the game, which is not an advantage to be underestimated. In my opinion when you have good land to settle and work, chopping before math is good and will far compensate for the lost 10 hammers per chop with the snowball effect of having cities and working improved tiles earlier.

 

[YossarianLives]

Alright, I'm going to give it another shot with more focus towards chops / settlers / workers, and I will chop a Wonder. Do we prefer the Great Wall or Stonehenge? Might not be ready until tomorrow though, so maybe 2metra can get his out first.

 

[talonschild]

I personally like Option 2.

 

[2metraninja]

Option 2 is a no-no-no. It is just wrong to walk by so much food to plant a city on the other side of a gold Not to mention it will take more walking to get there (at least 1 turn more) and it is practically unable to defend if danger arises.

Going to the bed, will try sandbox (totally new term for me, never heard it before this ISDG, which may shows only how bad I am at planning micromanagement ) tomorrow morning and will post draft to the short "Greetings" message to WPC based on comments.