[BTS] NZ's Shadow Game - Immortal Zulu

[pigswill]

For that matter you could put another city 3E of crab city, on PH, to give you a couple of fishing villages for GS production.

 

[drewisfat]

I think it works kind of poorly now. What good is a faster start if you have no good spots to claim.

I never found the extra base hammer very compelling, because we have so many forests to chop. Mostly you were arguing that we needed to save all the food we can, which looks a lot wiser seeing that our second city brings literally 0 natural food. It also means those opening worker turns farming floodplains are absolutely necessary instead of busywork that would soon be paved over with cottages. Granted we could be getting ahead of ourselves and still lose that spot, and then you go back to looking silly again

 

[sampsa]

I never found the extra base hammer very compelling, because we have so many forests to chop. Mostly you were arguing that we needed to save all the food we can, which looks a lot wiser seeing that our second city brings literally 0 natural food.

Maybe there was a miscommunication then. For me the main point of extra base has always been the speed of development and I'm sometimes ready to even sacrifice a gold tile to get it. True, low makes sacrificing a -2-tile even more enticing. Lots of chops is great yes, but comes later.

It's not deity, it's immortal. You can just spread your empire relatively safely, it's so much better now than later.

 

[sampsa]

First, I'll point out that the commerce comparison can be skewed (it sure is nice to have trade routes, though), because Ulundi can also grow on commerce tiles and those do not require 100H to work, nor do they incur maintenance hits. This is not the main point, though.

Yes it's kind of minor, but also let's not bury the facts with words, trying to make it somehow unclear. Maintenance is -2 upon settling 2nd, +2 from , +1 from cc and +1 if working a farmed fp. +2 total. Growing a size in capital is +1. So here, -wise having capital at size 3 and having two cities at size 1 is equal. It's crystal clear and there is nothing skewing the comparison.

cap size 3 working cow, farmed fp, unimproved fp generates 65 per turn. Once 2nd fp is farmed (T32 or so?) it goes up to 75pt.

cities sized 1 + 1 working cow and farmed fp generate 77pt.

If I understand your argument correctly, it is that 77pt is not better than 65pt because they are divided to two cities. And yes, I do realize that before size 1 settler actually settles 2nd city, a growing capital is generating more while at size 2.

To me, the question is rather : when will this new city have contributed a relevant item ? And by that I mean a worker or a settler.
It's all good to have +2H but it doesn't mean a damn thing until the item in production has been completed. I think this is very important.

Fair, so may I suggest building a relevant item then? The city has no great tiles to grow into so just stagnate it then. It does contribute! I'm also not totally sold on warriors not being relevant. You'll need some, even on immortal.

So, wer'e looking at a time frame whereboth of those cities are size 1, we have 1 worker, 1 improved pasture, a farm and we are closing in on Bronze Working (due circaT30).
The risk, here, very real, is that we are not ready to take advantage of Bronze because we have not set up a proper pump city yet. Alternatively, we could still try to push production from size 1 cities (chopping more workers and settlers) and never actually set up our commerce base.

You are underestimating size 1 cities I guess. I have no idea what "never actually set up commerce base" is and unfortunately your comments for the rest of the post seem more emotional than factual. I understand that you took a lot of time to write it and of course I appreciate that.

Now, let's look a little more closely at how Settler at size 1 works, because it will help make the comparison with size 3 Ulundi.
The worker improves the cows (5T) and then the eastern floodplains (9T). The settler takes 14T to complete and we can plant city 2 after 2 travel turns.
So : city 2 is settled on T27 (remember, Bronze due circa T30). On that same T27 : settler is out T25, so Ulundi has 2 more turns of doing stuff. Worker also has 3 more turns of doing stuff after completing the farm.
This is our situation and we are not close to completing another item.

If we go back to Ulundi size 3 : Ulundi hits size 3 after 12 turns of growth. That would be T23.
And it takes it 8 turns to build a settler. Put otherwise, this is a 6 turns delay towards city 2compared with settler at size 1. Settler out on T31.
At this point, Bronze is done or looming and we can use the very capable size 3 Ulundi that I describedat the beginning of this post. +7F, +5H.
Ulundi can build a worker in 5T, evenwithout a chop. With double chops, it can build a settler in 5T. We have a lot of forests and want to clear riverside to cottage. A very capable city.

Now, remember our 2 miserable cities from T27 ? What are they set up to do 4 turns later ?
None of them has reached size 2, they're kind of halfway there. Maybe one has started on a second worker ?
Let's say we task Ulundi to go settler, worker to make use of the cows and prepare for Bronze. After having stagnated for 14 turns on a settler, it can now keep stagnating foranother 7 turns to provide another worker. It will now have stagnated a grand total of 21 turns to produce a whopping 2 items !
So, this is the miserable timeframe where none of our cities are properly equipped to do anything, or complete any item, or keep up with the requisites of our tech discoveries.

Clearly you've made up your mind that one city generating less must be better than two cities generating more. I guess you need to try the "two miserable cities"-strategy yourself to see. At BW it becomes largely irrelevant that the are split between two cities, you can direct them into whichever you want.

Oh and let's not forget the main thing - can you get the E city? For me it's an argument against size 1 settler, losing the race would hurt a lot. If size 3 settler, you'll see in time if you lose it or not I guess and can settle in the trailer park in the S or W.

Another very valid argument against size 1 settler is getting some warriors out to fog bust south(/west).

 

[soundjata]

The simple logical question to ask could be:
What do we want to have the sooner?
- a warrior? > build it.
- a settler? > build it.

In this game I don't feel the need for a warrior before T50

 

[valergrad]

The simple logical question to ask could be:
What do we want to have the sooner?
- a warrior? > build it.
- a settler? > build it.

In this game I don't feel the need for a warrior before T50

Hmm, but you can build warrior not because you want it, but because you want allow city to grow)
I believe it is a little bit more complicated than that)

 

[sampsa]

Hmm, but you can build warrior not because you want it, but because you want allow city to grow)
I believe it is a little bit more complicated than that)

Why do you want to allow the city to grow? To work more tiles. So it depends on the quality of the tiles you grow onto.

Why do you want to settle a 2nd city? To work more tiles and get a 2nd city center. So it depends on whether the 2nd city is -neutral or not, does it have extra umpf on the city center and what kind of tile can it work. Read my last post for details.

I'm not saying it's simple, but don't overcomplicate it, which I think was what soundjata was saying.

 

[pigswill]

We need NZ to play another turn so we can see if there are horses nearby (not guaranteed but certainly possible) which could alter plans. Pop3 delays city2 but you do get a couple of early warriors to compensate. Matter of priorities and trade-offs as usual.
edit: Pop 3 also lets you whip a second worker sooner.

 

[Fippy]

Did we consider worker stealing & choking Sury yet?
On Deity that's risky cos he's not exactly the perfect target..but on Immortal it's an option.
Building some warriors first while growing shines in a new light for that plan.

 

[sampsa]

Did we consider worker stealing & choking Sury yet?

Nope, busy arguing about stuff that hardly matters. Very good position for worker stealing if you can do it.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

We need NZ to play another turn so we can see if there are horses nearby

Unfortunately not, I've put one turn into the Ikhanda but can change if that's the consensus. I'm thinking Mining -> BW for our tech path.

 

[pigswill]

Ikhanda doesn't seem a priority at present. Time to decide if you're going for pop1 settler or grow on warriors with a possible side option of worker stealing.

 

[sampsa]

Ikhanda doesn't seem a priority at present. Time to decide if you're going for pop1 settler or grow on warriors with a possible side option of worker stealing.

Yeah. The way I see it the alternatives are

1. settler at size 1
2. warrior with max (probably intending to worker steal)
3. warrior(s) intending to grow to 3 asap, then settler

I think I like 2, worker steal is game breaking. There are two paths after warrior, either settler or warrior intending to grow to 3 (or to 2?).

 

[Fippy]

I could be wrong..but on your last pic it looks like you worked the forested hill on the Ikhanda turn.
One turn before i would have said 2 warriors until size 2, then settler (for a worker steal plan).
Which i think works with plains forest for 1t (1 food) and 7x3 food (soon cows) for 22 total.

 

[soundjata]

I mean... NZ
Did you read my question carefully?

-Jata- would you like a warrior or settler?
-NZ- I'll take a barracks, tyvm

Are you possibly considering warrior rushing Sury?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

-Jata- would you like a warrior or settler?

Sorry seemed to me if building warriors that a cheap barracks was a good bet, I think Marathon (my usual speed) threw me off as 6 turns seemed so quick but I guess that's 18 in Marathon lol.

I'm not convinced by a size 1 Settler so maybe switch to 2 warriors and see if we can worker steal?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

warrior with max (probably intending to worker steal)

Everybody happy with this??

 

[soundjata]

Sounds good to me

And I think the scout should come back in between you and Sury in order to fogbust the area and look for worker(s) to be stolen.

 

[Fippy]

How much currently..0?
Max means cows soon ofc, but there's no point in using a ph forest which are normally terrible tiles to work.
In fact my eyes bleed when i see that in cities that struggle with anyways

 

[sampsa]

I'm assuming reload the ikhanda . Working the eye bleed tile means 3T faster warrior, right? That can easily be the difference between stealing a worker or not. I'd just go for it, sacrificing some . Again the rationale is that cap has only one strong tile so growing is of less value than usually.