[BTS] Pacal Monarch- Getting over the hump

[M60A3TTS]

BTS 3.19
Large Pangea, high sea level.
Random civs
Normal speed
Buffy Mod

No vassals, tribal villages, random events, espionage

I've started up this game as Mayans (expansive, financial) and would welcome any help from the casual viewership.

Starting position


Settle in place or moving settler to the corn and then see if a move to the plains hill to the east for the extra hammer makes sense. Does it?

Moving the warrior northwest and get circling around would be the plan.

We start with mining and mysticism. First tech BW or agriculture perhaps? Worker build to start?

Incense and silks are ok, but no help until calendar.

Seems like there are river tiles just about everywhere but the south.

 

[sampsa]

I'd just go for the plains hill 1N2E, the extra is kinda big deal. Doesn't waste forests by settling on them and keeps all but one unseen tiles. 2S of the ph should be flood plains. Agri-BW and worker first seem like an obvious choices.

 

[krikav]

"Settle in place or moving settler to the corn and then see if a move to the plains hill to the east for the extra hammer makes sense. Does it?"
Yes, that makes a whole lot of sense.
Taking advantage of the settlers two moves to maximize available information before commiting.
But in 99.9% likelihood, it's that PH 1E of the corn which is the target!
PH+Exp, crazy fast worker!

 

[M60A3TTS]

Ok, if the move to the PH was the decision, it would take the potential hammers per turn down a fair amount. Three mined GH tiles plus what would be another mined PH tile would be 10 less hammers per turn if no other hill tiles were in the BFC of the new location. Right now it would be 26 base hammers per turn if all seven hills were mined and worked (plus capital), making an excellent production city. Dropping that potentially down to 14 hammers per turn would make it a reasonably good production city, but we get faster workers out. Knowing this and taking into account we may find more hill tiles in the PH location, would this still be the better move? Maybe I'm thinking too long term and also that this location might not be the long term location of the capital since being hammer rich it would be cottage poor. But the long term potential of having a 30 hammer per turn city with a forge and the potential Heroic Epic here is at least in my thinking, right or wrong.

.

 

[sampsa]

Once you have access to whipping with a granary (and to chopping), mines become rather marginal tiles and the amount of green hills in capital BFC doesn't matter a lot. Well, wonders can't be whipped, but they can be chopped. HE is a decent thing to build under some circumstances, but it will never change the course of the game.

So with +10 years of deity experience, I would take passive +1 per turn which leads to a faster start from the get-go rather than unlimited green hills.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Once you have access to whipping with a granary (and to chopping), mines become rather marginal tiles and the amount of green hills in capital BFC doesn't matter a lot. Well, wonders can't be whipped, but they can be chopped. HE is a decent thing to build under some circumstances, but it will never change the course of the game.

So with +10 years of deity experience, I would take passive +1 per turn which leads to a faster start from the get-go rather than unlimited green hills.

Well I've seen 10+ years worth of sage advice like you always SIP unless there is a compelling reason not to, and one of the first few cities you need should include a production city, which this seems tailor made for. These are the sort of mental hurdles I am trying to overcome. Maybe these tidbits work fine at noble and below, but are less relevant at the higher difficulty levels.

It may be that is where I have been going astray as many of my monarch attempts often find me badly trailing the AI in mid game and suffering the inevitable consequences that follow. I do understand the argument of food vs. hammers in the early game where whip early, whip often is the mantra for many a skilled player. So my key takeaway here is that in going to the PH I should be looking for the best way to race out of the starting gate and not focus on opportunities that may come too late to be of use.

 

[soundjata]

Yes settling on that plain hill completely changes the early game (in a strictly positive way)

@M60A3TTS if you'd like to convince yourself, just play 40~50 turns with SIP vs Settling on Plains Hill and compare.
You'll see that everything you are going to produce will come sooner if you settle on the hill, including your first worker, your first warrior, etc...

Also, statistically, there is no reason to believe that the tiles you are going to get while moving (unknown) are much worse than the one you will 'lose', which are just above average (bunch of riverside green stuff)

 

[sampsa]

Well I've seen 10+ years worth of sage advice like you always SIP unless there is a compelling reason not to, and one of the first few cities you need should include a production city, which this seems tailor made for.

I think "SIP if you don't know what the hell you are doing" is decent advice for starters, but it's better to learn to understand how you can improve on that. A production city doesn't necessarily need any mines. It might be just a city that is able to whip.

So my key takeaway here is that in going to the PH I should be looking for the best way to race out of the starting gate and not focus on opportunities that may come too late to be of use.

Yes. In the first 50T or so, you should mostly be concerned about SPEED. What gets things done faster is often a lot better than something that is slower. This is even more true on lower levels, when you can totally run away with the game with strong play in the BCs.

 

[M60A3TTS]

I don't need as much convincing as you might suppose. This graph is from a previous game and is very typical of how most of my monarch level games go. In the early game I am always in the middle of the pack and whatever end state I am working towards never gives me enough to pull things in the upwards direction. It's like defeat was already established. At a difficulty level like noble or monarch I can often make these transitions effectively and rise to the top by mid-game. At this level, a different set of rules apply.

 

[sampsa]

This graph is from a previous game and is very typical of how most of my monarch level games go. In the early game I am always in the middle of the pack and whatever end state I am working towards never gives me enough to pull things in the upwards direction. It's like defeat was already established. At a difficulty level like noble or monarch I can often make these transitions effectively and rise to the top by mid-game. At this level, a different set of rules apply.

Once you learn to understand the game fundamentals better and unlearn some of the nonsense you've been told, monarch AI will have zero chance against you, I promise. Even immortal AI can most of the time be left to dust in the BCs, assuming decent land.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Plenty of un-learning to be done, I'm sure.

Here is the settler on the corn. Nothing of real significance although I was hoping the grass tile would contain another corn. No such luck. On the positive side, there seem to be a goodly number of river tiles on the PH.

 

[lymond]

Not a big deal for this game, but I recommend starting to get used to using espionage passively; thus, keeping it on. No espionage has a pretty significant and annoying impact to culture requirements. Also, recommend normal map size and opponents for now.

Great advice from sampsa and other so far. Keep at it! PH looks good to settle, and seems you will get back some FPs.

 

[sampsa]

No espionage has a pretty significant and annoying impact to culture requirements. Also, recommend normal map size and opponents for now.

This. No espionage is not a great setting and no vassal states makes it also more of a slog. Normal or even small maps would suit learning better, just to make the technical part faster, so you can better focus on what matters (early game!).

 

[drewisfat]

Going to respectfully disagree with everyone here, primarily because of traits. EXP's first worker is not a reason to move to the ph, it's a reason to SIP. We only gain 1 turn on the worker by moving to the ph instead of 2. Pacal is FIN. You're throwing away 4 river cottages including a floodplain to gamble on something at least comparable, while the opening glimpse you get over there is dryish. It's a bad gamble imo.

 

[sampsa]

EXP's first worker is not a reason to move to the ph, it's a reason to SIP. We only gain 1 turn on the worker by moving to the ph instead of 2. Pacal is FIN.

Yes, traits are slightly against moving to ph, but I'd still move especially on lower levels. There is corn, fp (I assume) and some green river.

 

[drewisfat]

The fp is visible once you commit to moving the settler to the corn, I don't think it's visible at start.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Not a big deal for this game, but I recommend starting to get used to using espionage passively; thus, keeping it on. No espionage has a pretty significant and annoying impact to culture requirements. Also, recommend normal map size and opponents for now.

Great advice from sampsa and other so far. Keep at it! PH looks good to settle, and seems you will get back some FPs.

I'll definitely keep this in mind for the future. Truth be told, I just find the whole espionage thing annoying so I've never tried to make it work in my favor. Remaining passive is what I pretty much did, not caring to adjust numbers when new civs came along.. I was unaware there was some cultural impact. As far as a standard map size goes, that did occur to me as well. It's a holdover from my Civ3 days and large maps. But here the larger map does make things run on longer as the AIs are bigger and therefore more of a challenge.

 

[krikav]

It's not only about faster worker though.
That extra hammer also makes it so much easier to get a pair of fogbusters out.
True, it's easy enough to chop them out here, or with a mine.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Here is where the fate of human civilization will be decided- Pacal II.



I can't complain about the grass river tiles. Maybe we caught a break here.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Going to respectfully disagree with everyone here, primarily because of traits. EXP's first worker is not a reason to move to the ph, it's a reason to SIP. We only gain 1 turn on the worker by moving to the ph instead of 2. Pacal is FIN. You're throwing away 4 river cottages including a floodplain to gamble on something at least comparable, while the opening glimpse you get over there is dryish. It's a bad gamble imo.

Feel free to disagree at any time. Getting differing viewpoints is a good thing for me.