Racing Deity to Space

[Bucephalus]

To save time, do you think it might be worth saving, then exploring about a bit to see the lay of the land?

Mapfinder crashes my pc so often that I'm probably better off doing it the old-fashioned way too.

 

[Andronicus]

Some more ... esp no 4

 

[Andronicus]

And for the free steak knives to go with that beef ... look to no 8

I think I might have a go at 20 turns with no 8 ... if anyone wants to try a start with one of the others let me know and I'll post the save.

 

[Andronicus]

4000BC
Settle in place, reveals a 4th BG in BFC
Worker W to irrigate
research writing on max, building warrior

3950BC
zzz

3900BC
zzz

3850BC
zzz

3800BC
zzz

3750BC
warrior completes -> explores north, Build another; irrigation complete -> road

3700BC
size 2 5fpt, lux to 20%

3650BC
warrior cont north

3600BC
warrior (mp) -> worker; lux> zero

3550BC
worker south reveals another cattle for next city, start roading to next site.
Warrior follows river north (there are 4 rivers diverging from Athens)

3500BC
Expansion reveals a 4th cattle south of Athens
warrior finds gems 7 tiles to north of Athens
lux to 10% as size 3

3450BC
worker produced -> settler -> 2nd cow
lux back to zero

3400BC
Our first contact, Babylon. They will settle gems next turn. Up CB, down alpha - hold trade for now.

3350BC
Warrior moves around Babylon to west

3300BC
more exploring
Babs have WC
Size 3 -> lux to 10%

3250BC
Warrior finds Babs are blessed with incense

3200BC
More exploring

3150BC
Same again
writing finally down to less than the 50 turns

3100BC
Babalon settlers streaming south towards us
Lux to 20% as hit size 4

3050BC
Settler -> settler (we have 2 cow spots), but option of another explorere to increase contacts.
Lux back down to zero

3000BC
Settler in position (I think thats game 2SW of current pos as well)
Babs now have masonary as well as CB and WC, we are still up alpha and I have hung off making trades hoping for more contacts.
Next settler planned for coast 3SE of Athens (curragh for quicker contacts ?). Unfortunately wont get the cow till we build to the south.
edit I see I didnt plan ahead enough, I should have irrigated the cow that will soon be worked by town 2 before commencing mining the BG, sorry.

 

[Spoonwood]

I agree about the luxes and the early commerce. I guess I just don't usually get greedy with starts like that, but getting a start like that definitely seems worth it. If we manage the Republic slingshot, I don't think we'll need the Great Library. With some luck there also, we might just trade for some or all of the first level techs via Republic. We will see. I like the third start the best so far. You have the settings on least aggressive, right?

My thoughts on war: I do like the idea of having more territory for science farms/regular cities. With this sort of game though, the problems as I see it come as

1. Keeping the best AI(s) out of the war. We don't want to slow down our partner's research by having them switch to Fascism or Monarchy or them getting war weariness

2. So, no military alliances. Thus, we'll have to war almost all ourselves against a Deity level AI (even the weak ones will have units).

3. We need to get libraries, markets, and unis. up fast, and later hospitals (once you water and rail everywhere, you can get cities with a lot of improved cities with specialists), so getting out units doesn't come as so easy. Some cities might use courthouses police stations also. An early GA via Greece can help here.

4. We want 0 or really close to 0 war weariness, as that will throw commerce for a run either now or later.

5. We don't want to elimiate anyone as already mentioned... and we have a pangea map. If we have say the Ottos as the best researchers and we pulverize Germany down to 5 cities, then 4, then 3 and so on... does that make the Ottos more likely to join in the war against Germany on their own accord? I'd think so, but I don't know. Again, I don't see how the best AIs warring at all will help us.

6. Of course, if we can't trade for or have native uranium, aluminum, and rubber at the right time, we'll have to war then. But, in such a case we probably won't have a super-fast finish.

5. worries me the most. Maybe I'm just too worried overall, but maybe not.

 

[Spoonwood]

I like the looks of that latest start. I say we go with it for now. Ignas, we want to delay trading Writing for the Republic slingshot. Should we delay trading Alphabet? Here's a roster for us (if someone needs a skip, o.k.)

Bucephalus-up
Ignas-on deck
Spoonwood-warming up
Andronicus-in the hole

 

[ignas]

Start looks really good:many rivers and plenty of food.

Trade Alphabet when more AI's are met to get good deal or AI nearly researched it (you can check in diplo screen when AI is offering less and less for tech it means they are researching it themselves).

 

[Bucephalus]

Start looks really good:many rivers and plenty of food.

Trade Alphabet when more AI's are met to get good deal or AI nearly researched it (you can check in diplo screen when AI is offering less and less for tech it means they are researching it themselves).

Are we not in danger of losing the opportunity altogether by waiting? I'm assuming Korea and Byzantines are in the game, and that it's a Pangea?

I agree it's as good a start as we might expect - I'll put a dotmap up for consideration this evening.

I assume we are watering all the food bonuses?

 

[Spoonwood]

The F10 screen says the Babylonians, Sumerians, Ottomans, Persians, Germans, and The French. The French might mess up The Republic slinshot. They might have gpt for a game like this, but I don't see them doing as good of research as scientific tribes, since their libraries and universities take longer.

For a start like this, we could mine one cow and have a 4 turn warrior-settler factory, or 2 turn warrior-worker factory up at some point, either for MPs or to help production in more corrupt towns. Irrigating and sharing food works as another possibility. I don't know which works as better overall.

 

[Bucephalus]

The F10 screen says the Babylonians, Sumerians, Ottomans, Persians, Germans, and The French. The French might mess up The Republic slinshot. They might have gpt for a game like this, but I don't see them doing as good of research as scientific tribes, since their libraries and universities take longer.

So Alphabet is out there, then, but only one civ. That makes it a little less likely the Babs will get it any time soon, I guess.

For a start like this, we could mine one cow and have a 4 turn warrior-settler factory, or 2 turn warrior-worker factory up at some point, either for MPs or to help production in more corrupt towns. Irrigating and sharing food works as another possibility. I don't know which works as better overall.

Maths is not my forte - maybe someone could crunch the numbers?

 

[Bucephalus]

OK, DM as promised.

I feel that the gap between black and blue is a little loose, and in an ideal world I would probably bring black in 1SW, but I'm loathe to settle on a BG.

White is largely based on guesswork, being under the fog, and is therefore a tentative suggestion.

 

[Andronicus]

Sorry, did not give settings, forgot France start with alpha.
Wet, warm 4 mill, no barbs, least aggression
Left out Korea and Byz, but included the rest of scientifics plus France

No dispute re dot map but we need to bust some fog before finalising.
2 mines complete soon giving us enough shields in Athens for slipping in some exploring warriors between settler builds. Hoping we get pots soon so can get 4 turner up and running. The 2nd and 3rd towns should be able to provide workers with their cattle irrigated but pink dot needs white dot (or similar) to be able to access the cattle.

 

[Andronicus]

I feel that the gap between black and blue is a little loose, and in an ideal world I would probably bring black in 1SW, but I'm loathe to settle on a BG.

blue could go 1 NE, leaving room for one more first ring in the fog between blue and red

Athens can work as size 4-5 4 turner (once it has a granary) working i cow, m cow, m BG and roaded BG at size 4, adding roaded BG at size 5. Once more mines complete it could do 4 turn warrior - settler combo size 5-6 once 3 BGs are mined (ie 2 more).

 

[Spoonwood]

I like pink. I'd rather settle yellow eat on the bonus grassland and chop the forest, but it's not too big a deal. I think that works better with black also. Actually, I'd prefer black on the northeast hill also. I'd *definitely* prefer blue one spot south on top of the hill. Mining that hill would take time... we want workers for growth by add in sooner rather than later. It'll have more tiles with access to more food this way, so faster growth. We have more squares to plant a forest and chop it if we want more production there. More food also imples more commerce earlier, and perhaps a larger city size once we have railroads and hospitals. If we settled off the hill, we'd get 1 food from the hill, while if we settle on the hill, we'll have 4 food from a grassland eventually, which gives us an extra scientist in the modern age, if not industrial age also.

To give more detail to what Andronicus said, at size 5 Athens can work 1 irrigated cow for 1 shield, 1 mined cow for 2 shields, 3 bonus grasslands for 6 shields, and the center square for 1 shield, giving us 10 shields per turn. Turn 1-warrior, turn 2, 3, and 4 settler. We can road one of the regular grassland river tiles around Athens to use on turns 3 and 4 at turn 5 and 6 for a little extra commerce. We won't need or want to mine that tile, since we can use the worker elsewhere.

We might only have France with Alphabet, but they'll trade it. I seriuosly don't think we'll manage the slingshot, but we can give it a go. Do scientific tribes set their research sliders higher than regular tribes?

 

[Chamnix]

For a start like this, we could mine one cow and have a 4 turn warrior-settler factory, or 2 turn warrior-worker factory up at some point, either for MPs or to help production in more corrupt towns. Irrigating and sharing food works as another possibility. I don't know which works as better overall.

Irrigate and share .

Do scientific tribes set their research sliders higher than regular tribes?

All AI always seem to have 10 gold.

 

[Bucephalus]

OK, it seems further discussion is requited regarding city placement - Spoonwood, perhaps you can DM your thoughts, your directions are a little confusing (to me, at least).

@team: I will only get to settle one city, other than the one Andronicus set up, so can I have some input regarding which it should be?

 

[Andronicus]

@team: I will only get to settle one city, other than the one Andronicus set up, so can I have some input regarding which it should be?

pink dot gets my vote

it can build 2 curraghs to go each way around the continent for contacts

 

[Spoonwood]

Buecphalus-DM?

Team-

Pink: I like where it is.

Red: I like where it is.

White: I don't know yet.

Blue: One square south. This way we have more food overall. We'll get another scientist from the city eventually this way. Also, we probably have a greater selection of grassland tiles early on, so faster growth with more production perhaps. We can also road and work grassland tiles easier than hills, so our workers get done faster this way. We'll want to add them in sooner rather than later for more commerce.

Black: Northeast on the hill. Basically the same reasoning as blue.

Yellow: With black on the hill, it makes more sense to plop it one square east of its current spot than on the BG. Otherwise we'll have a CxC spacing.

Basic principle: Settle on hills to maximize easily workable tiles. Settle on hills to maximize food.

If the specifics confuse you, hopefully the basic principle informs you where I'd prefer to put blue and black, and how yellow changes accordingly.

 

[Bucephalus]

Spoonood - DotMap

Now, here's my confusion: 1S of Blue is a BG, not a hill; NE of Black is a plains...... and so on.

I'm think we must have a different way of viewing the compass points; the usual way is to have the bottom of the screen as South, the top as North, Right is East, left is West, and the diection of the grid gives us NE, NW, SE and SW.

Are you labelling it a different way?

 

[Andronicus]

I think Spoonwood is aligning north in what most of us call NE, thus he is suggesting moving black E to hill and blue SW to hill. I'd prefer black on the plains, to get the production of the hill in a core town. I admit I never consider scientists in core towns, I usually have plenty in the boondocks.

With the increased incoming production for Athens, we might want anohter warrior before the next settler for some more fog busting. It takes 8 turns to grow 2 pop in Athens without the granary and less than that for the 30 shields.

edit
we have 3 suggestions for blue dot, Buce's, SW's on the hill SW (to settle less grassland), and mine 1NE (for tighter spacing). Really we should wait for more terrain info before making a decision.