ownedbyakorat
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2006
- Messages
- 242
So yesterday I rolled a random game, Monarch, epic, standard size, fractal, random civs, and drew Tokugawa (Agg/Org, starts with Agriculture and The Wheel). The starting location was inland, on a pretty nice piece of land with gold, corn, and about 10 flood plains tiles.
Well, when I see flood plains I think "cottage that right up". Now while I had gold, it's hard to get to work that tile very early without a food surplus... thus I knew I needed either to farm the corn or to work at least 2 flood plain tiles to effectively work the gold. I chose to cottage the flood plains first, rather than farm the corn, because early in the game, research is a higher priority than growth (as growth is quite limited early in the game).
So, ignoring all other considerations, I clicked on Pottery as my first research, queued up a worker as my first unit, and started exploring... I found Julius Caesar to my northeast, ocean to the east and south, Monty to the west, Mao to the southwest, and Catherine to the northwest. It didn't take me long to figure out that Caesar was on a peninsula and I was in between him and the rest of the map...
After Pottery, I researched mining to pop open the gold hill, then BW, only the find no copper in any convenient place. My second build in my capital was - get this - a granary... because I planned to take advantage of slavery to pop rush some sort of military presence. While the granary was completing, I picked out a second city site just north of the capital, which had ivory (I was aiming for happiness resources, as you need them more and more the higher level you play). Archery was cheap (5 turns) after that, so I completed the granary, pumped out 2 archers (one for home base and the other for the new city site), and set to work on the settler. JC very nearly beat me to the 2nd city site with his 4th(!) city - he was beelining for me, he had no choice given his location - but luckily he chose to put his city 3 tiles east of my chosen spot rather than closer.
I established my second city there, set it to produce a worker, and pumped a couple more archers out of the capital, while I pondered what to do about JC. I had just finished researching AH, finding no horses under my cities, and I found that Iron Working was all of 11 turns away. I got IW before JC did, found iron next to my capital, pop rushed a barracks and a couple of swords, and proceeded to clean him up (just in time, as he had both horses AND iron... he had mined the iron but not yet made a road when my swords appeared next to his 2nd city).
While I was cleaning up JC's mess (aka his civ), I researched writing and put a library in my capital. Now I could research Mysticism and Priesthood in 4 turns each... which then put me 19 turns away from researching Code of Laws outright. Which I did, and founded Confucianism. Inexplicably, the Oracle had not yet been built... so I built it in my capital, taking Civil Service as my free tech. Along the way I built a 3rd city to my south to grab fur and stake out a claim to a winery. So there I was, still quite early in the game with much unclaimed land to my west, and all I needed to do was research Metal Casting (11 turns) and Machinery to be able to pump out Samurai, before AD 0! Which I did, and rolled up Mao and started to kill off Monty when I went to sleep.
The point of this story was to ask if anyone has had any similar experiences, going for pottery first on a flood plain start and capitalizing on that to gain other techs much faster. I realize the gold resource had a significant impact on the research, but I have had that resource before without having such great success in climbing the tech tree so much faster than usual. Without making the calculations, I believe that by the time I hit Animal Husbandry I had made up the initial 14 turns researching Pottery and was ahead of where I would have been had I not researched Pottery until after AH - my cottages were villages already, making each flood plains tile 3F 4C.
The odd thing about this is that it is a major departure from my usual style, which is to pump out a few warriors to explore and secure the immediate area, then immediately seek to establish a second city rather than build up the capital first. It worked so well in this instance that I have to ask: has anyone else tried this approach, and what results have you had doing it?
Well, when I see flood plains I think "cottage that right up". Now while I had gold, it's hard to get to work that tile very early without a food surplus... thus I knew I needed either to farm the corn or to work at least 2 flood plain tiles to effectively work the gold. I chose to cottage the flood plains first, rather than farm the corn, because early in the game, research is a higher priority than growth (as growth is quite limited early in the game).
So, ignoring all other considerations, I clicked on Pottery as my first research, queued up a worker as my first unit, and started exploring... I found Julius Caesar to my northeast, ocean to the east and south, Monty to the west, Mao to the southwest, and Catherine to the northwest. It didn't take me long to figure out that Caesar was on a peninsula and I was in between him and the rest of the map...
After Pottery, I researched mining to pop open the gold hill, then BW, only the find no copper in any convenient place. My second build in my capital was - get this - a granary... because I planned to take advantage of slavery to pop rush some sort of military presence. While the granary was completing, I picked out a second city site just north of the capital, which had ivory (I was aiming for happiness resources, as you need them more and more the higher level you play). Archery was cheap (5 turns) after that, so I completed the granary, pumped out 2 archers (one for home base and the other for the new city site), and set to work on the settler. JC very nearly beat me to the 2nd city site with his 4th(!) city - he was beelining for me, he had no choice given his location - but luckily he chose to put his city 3 tiles east of my chosen spot rather than closer.
I established my second city there, set it to produce a worker, and pumped a couple more archers out of the capital, while I pondered what to do about JC. I had just finished researching AH, finding no horses under my cities, and I found that Iron Working was all of 11 turns away. I got IW before JC did, found iron next to my capital, pop rushed a barracks and a couple of swords, and proceeded to clean him up (just in time, as he had both horses AND iron... he had mined the iron but not yet made a road when my swords appeared next to his 2nd city).
While I was cleaning up JC's mess (aka his civ), I researched writing and put a library in my capital. Now I could research Mysticism and Priesthood in 4 turns each... which then put me 19 turns away from researching Code of Laws outright. Which I did, and founded Confucianism. Inexplicably, the Oracle had not yet been built... so I built it in my capital, taking Civil Service as my free tech. Along the way I built a 3rd city to my south to grab fur and stake out a claim to a winery. So there I was, still quite early in the game with much unclaimed land to my west, and all I needed to do was research Metal Casting (11 turns) and Machinery to be able to pump out Samurai, before AD 0! Which I did, and rolled up Mao and started to kill off Monty when I went to sleep.
The point of this story was to ask if anyone has had any similar experiences, going for pottery first on a flood plain start and capitalizing on that to gain other techs much faster. I realize the gold resource had a significant impact on the research, but I have had that resource before without having such great success in climbing the tech tree so much faster than usual. Without making the calculations, I believe that by the time I hit Animal Husbandry I had made up the initial 14 turns researching Pottery and was ahead of where I would have been had I not researched Pottery until after AH - my cottages were villages already, making each flood plains tile 3F 4C.
The odd thing about this is that it is a major departure from my usual style, which is to pump out a few warriors to explore and secure the immediate area, then immediately seek to establish a second city rather than build up the capital first. It worked so well in this instance that I have to ask: has anyone else tried this approach, and what results have you had doing it?