Paradigm Shift

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah. I need to get the stone with my 2nd settler I think, Mansa will probably be heading that way. I probably want the high food site with the horses first though. I'm open to suggestions however.

EDIT: Next round will be in 2 days, since there is alot to discuss.

 

[Zanttu]

I could settle 1S of stone, to get bananas and cows as well as being able to work the quarry for extra hammers, but it's one tile from the coast. Settling on the stone looks better than this option.

Techically, the stone is also 1 tile off the coast. And 1S of the stone only has 1 coast square in it's BFC, so I don't really see the difference. 1S has more grassland squares, so I would go for it. But it doesn't really matter, as I said the difference is minimal.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Whoops, I guess people will want the save as well... Remember, I am using the HOF mod 3.13.

 

[pigswill]

Quick dotmap:


I'd settle on the stone; saves you building a quarry, its a pretty low yield tile and cuts down on waste tiles between BFCs.
First I'd grab the south west copper spot, then I'd grab the north west gold crab spot and I'd make stone city third. Sury would probably grab the marble spot but if you keep him hemmed in then you can polish him off at your leisure.

Make use of imperailistic to chop out settlers quickly. Maybe warrior/ settler/ warrior/ settler/ warrior/ settler. You'll nerf your economy short term but a gold mine will help and you'll be off to a solid start.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I was thinking more put the flood plain city on the coast (on the grassland east of the river, south of the delta) so I get the clams, the horse, a hill, and all of the flood plains. Settling on a flood plain loses the food bonus (and still would have a -2 health penalty, which is cancelled by the fresh water bonus). EDIT: I can build a harbour then too, the more health the better, this will be my GP farm for at least the early part of the game. EDIT2: And the city can build its own workboat, and build a lighthouse.

I could also do with settling 2 cities near the stone to aggressively block Mansa from expanding into Russian land.

I think I might go for horses first instead of bronze and rush Sury quickly with chariots.

 

[grandad1982]

[/IMG]

Black first then one of the reds to capture stone. Yellow third. Blues when you can.

The arrows indicate alternate sites for cities - obvious I guess.
Alternate yellow gains an extra coast tile - 9 in total - so could be a good Maori site.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Grandad1982 is more on my wavelength with his dotmap.

I still think it might be wise to settle both reds before the bronze, blocking Mansa seems like a good plan.

 

[grandad1982]

If you settle the most southern red - my preference - then moving the second red dot is a great idea as you pick up sme extra grassland.

How come on the culture map you can see culture where the tiles aren't visible?

 

[Groogaroo]

If the plan is to rush sury I would be in favour of settling the mali blocking cities first. I've never tried rushing with chariots, sury is creative so I guess he will get cultural defenses very quickly in his capital, you could be up against 40% defense.

Then again, my rushes always seem to fall flat, cultural defense or not.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Creative means I'll know exactly when his orders will pop again for 40%, it will be the same time as mine do. It depends if his capital is on a hill. I expect 40% defence when I attack though, so I'll need quite a few chariots, some with withdrawal, so I'll want a barracks. I will chop some settlers (from mining a forested hill, later, buidling riverside grassland cottages), whip a baracks, use the overflow for a chariot, they are cheap anyway. Have 2 cities go all out for chariots.

The barbs can help me get some xp as well.

 

[Xurr]

My first city would be 1N1E of the copper to the south. It will grab cows, rice, spices and the copper. Not to mention the oasis too.

 

[Deriem]

My straetgy would be to settle the clam/horse/FP city in the NE first, and then chariot rush Sury. If his capital is high commerce (3 grasssland gems would be nice...) then you can use it to fuel some REX. If not, one of the other cities I would place would be at the stone to move towards Mansa. Since he has some jungle going on, you can probably assume that he'll have one more AI to his south (if not he may have some massive land).

Techwise, I'd go Wheel -> Pottery, because after the horses we'll need some commerce and cottages are good at that.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah, that's pretty much my plan as well. It could change if Sury's capital is on a hill.

I'm thinking of buddying up to Mansa while putting max espionage towards him. You know why Blocking him off from expanding toward me.

Here's my plan for improvements to the capital...



C = cottage
F = Farm, arrows show direction of chain irrigation after civil service. The trees to the south might get some cottages instead though.
M = mine
W = winery
x = I'll probably save these trees for the health bonus

 

[StrategeryBush]

When I saw all the Fs and Cs and Ms and Xs I thought someone had graffitied your map. I was trying to work out what 4-letter words were being used.

Do you really work all of that out this early? Do you do plan the worker improvements for each city in this detail? How do you decide how many trees to keep for health?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Not usually this thorough, that's what waiting 48hrs before playing some more on this game does

It's good to plan improvements so that you don't block irrigation after civil sevice though, you don't want to demolish a cottage to have to build a farm. You should also plan for a food surplus if you want to run some specialists.

We have a +4 food surplus, the 3 mines bring that down to food neutral. Wineries are food neutral tiles too. So I can afford to build cottages on all my riverside grassland tiles. If I want to run a scientist or 2, I need some farms as well, they are better next to the lake rather than the river (cottages are better there for +1 commerce). If the lake wasn't there and I wanterd to run some specialists I'd have to farm some riverside tiles, but I don't need to do that here.

The trees I have marked to keep are neither next to a river nor important to spread irrigation. I may as well save them for last for the health bonus.

Note that I want a farm next to the rice so a city built later gets the rice irrigated which is +1 food.

EDIT: The riverside plains tile I marked for a cottage is a tile I can work to slow growth in the capital. The mines can provide the same function.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

It's also worth thinking about city specialisation via national wonders this early on as well (i.e. dotmap time, considering where to settle your next cities).

Oxford University is the big one, I could either put this in the capital (which gets a +8 commerce boost from the palace) or the flood plained GP farm to be. The capital is in a nice central location on this map, so I won't move the capital at a later date, plus this is looking the best cottage site. I'll probably build the Great Library here (good early game production with the mines, and all the trees for chopping) rather than the GP farm. Pyramids in the capital as well. So Oxford in the capital I think. With the mids it will be a secondary GP farm (early on it will pop the first couple of Great People though), producing engineers or scientists.

I'm unlikely to run caste system until I have REXed enough and built courthouses with slavery in my cities, so the GP farm is likely to be a mixed bag GP farm until caste system (so it will run scientists with a library, merchants with a market, an engineer with a forge, if I get a religion spread I can build a temple for a priest as well). National Epic seems obvious there.

Copper city looks ideal for the Moai statues.

Tempted to build the Heroic Epic in the capital as the 2nd national wonder, it will be the early game military production city. Copper city is also a contender for this.

I'm also fairly tempted to build the Globe Theatre in the GP farm, building it with whip overflow from units. If I run hereditary rule for a while (lose representation bonus to specialists if I get pyramids) I can whip huge amounts of troops there (each unit cancels the whip unhappiness, as long as they stay in the city). Then when the globe theatre is done they can all move out of the city I'll have to weigh that up against representation though (huge army vs. science boost).

 

[Mistfit]

are you trying to show a HoF style game or just a normal "fun" game?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Fun game. I'll probably be a bit more conservative with my tactics since everyone is looking

I play most of my HOF games for fun anyway (so barbs on, random opponents).

I think the one aspect that is similar to the HOF is that in a HOF gauntlet game you are told the winning condition before you start the game.

EDIT: It's mainly about making a plan and seeing it through effectively which is important for levels above noble.

 

[Diamondeye]

No nead to, he's a Dane, I'm a Norse(wo)man, and the danes had us in slavery for 400 years, so just kill him , even though nowadays we're "best of friends".
Ragnar is not to be trusted anyways, he's even been known to attack at friendly. I'm constantly at war with the guy, only in my last game I managed to stay on his friendly side all through the game, might have been connected to the fact that my army was far superior, and that I killed off his worst enemy for him, and gifted him all that enemies cities (that were too far away from me to be able to keep, anyway).

Heey! Don't be a hater
Thought we scandinaves had to stick together, not?

Hmm, OK, that means the reference sheet is wrong then.

O RLY? (sry, couldn't resist)

Fun game. I'll probably be a bit more conservative with my tactics since everyone is looking

I play most of my HOF games for fun anyway (so barbs on, random opponents).

I think the one aspect that is similar to the HOF is that in a HOF gauntlet game you are told the winning condition before you start the game.

EDIT: It's mainly about making a plan and seeing it through effectively which is important for levels above noble.

Yes, well I think plan here is domination, so you want Sury out asap, and he's creative, so it's going to be a good struggle. I suggest a dotmap something like this (8 cities); essentially blocking Sury off, and eventually establishing a southern border aswell. Some of the city sites might be sub-optimal considering the ressources, but none of them are decidedly bad:

...Red being necessary for a front against Suryavarman, blue for southern front and yellow for "backfill". This map with Cathy calls for a chopREX. Also, VoU makes some very good points.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I know, VoiceOfUnreason is far better than I am, I had already played this round out when he posted.

I'm not keen on your gold and horse city placements, it relegates the seafood to filler cities. I'd rather go for max food with the floodplains and whip some chariots.

If Sury is on a hill (I'll need to scout him better ASAP), the copper site becomes much higher priority. But then again I can always post some chariots aroud there and DoW if I see an escorted settler headed in that direction, killing the escorts with the chariots and nabbing a free worker.