RK14 - Artist's Block

[Glare Seethe]

So we are aiming for GLH then, right? If so AH > Sailing > Masonry sounds good to me, although if we don't have horses we may have to make a detour to Archery if we can't spawnbust our land in time.

I think I'll quickly whip two workboats, one for the fish and one to scout east (towards the marble), then build warriors growing back, and a settler after we grow a little. Depends also on what AH reveals I guess.

I'll try to play tonight.

 

[Lansky]

With the low capital production using all possible whip overflow into the wonder will help a lot. It's not do or die but Great Lighthouse and coastal cities would help counteract our commerce lacking start. Taking a second look at the map we can lock out land barb (ignoring isthmus) I believe with 3 additional warriors (NE, N, W) and the fish cannot be pillaged by galleys anyway.

Additionally I share the enthusiasm over the potential GALLEYS FULL OF REDCOATS! Maybe not entirely logical, but if we end up with a large tech lead on someone this would be one of the funniest things I can think of doing with the map outside of amphibious jumbos of course.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Played a really short set until the end of AH. Short report, as well - I'm tired. Sorry for that, the turn-by-turn micro report is probably most important in the opening sets. :\

Revolt to Slavery and whip two workboats, slow-growing back with a warrior. One goes to work the fish, the other is sent eastwards. We meet Gilgamesh at 2850BC.

We meet Pericles, founder of Judaism, in 2700BC. His scout's running around on the same landmass as the marble:

At this point we had a warrior heading out north-east to spawnbust and the worker had already mined the desert hill and started pre-chopping the grassland hill forest, waiting for AH to come in. Unfortunately I forgot to cancel the worker action so the pre-chop became a full-fledged chop and was directed into a settler.

AH is in and there are no horses anywhere so I stopped. We have a settler ready. A barb archer just killed our warrior who was spawnbusting in the east. Another warrior will be ready next turn.

I've put one turn into Sailing already but I should've really stopped last turn in case we want to head towards Archery first. Gilga's borders are just barely visible on that eastern landmass. Our workboat should come across that city soon. I put three signs for where I think our spawnbusting warriors should be located but if anyone is more familiar with the spawnbust rules, please adjust accordingly.

On second thought I maybe should have sent the workboat to scout around the marble rather than further south-east, but at least we might get some trade routes to Gilgamesh?

 

[Lansky]

Well poopsticks.

The marble looks to be part of Gilgamesh's isthmus. So we could beat him to it, but it would also make us his one and only land target that shares borders. Could be worth it for the Dye/Theater/Draft combo, but we'd have to hold the city long enough to use it. Starting to look like any possible islands would have to be off the southern area of our hub.

Scouting SE with the boat was probably the better idea. Foreign trade routes would be nice and my guess is going NW with the boat would have only resulted in a scouting dead end.

I would really hate having archery as one of the first 5 techs we need
In an ideal world Sailing/Myst > Masonry would be great. May want Myst first depending where the first settler heads off to. The NE Gems/Cow/Clam would require zero border pops to work the special tiles, but that's where the evil archer is lurking.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Here's a preliminary dotmap to start some discussion on city sites:

Or an alternative location for magenta:

This one would be much better but won't be coastal to take advantage of GLH. And we can move blue 1S as well to get rid of the ice and share the ivory. Of course we still need to scout west and that could change things.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Hun > Arch would definitely be a bit of a shame on such a small peninsula, so maybe we should focus on producing warriors while teching Sailing, sending them out in groups of two or so to spawnbust. Once Sailing is in, whip out a lighthouse and then proceed towards GLH.

As for city sites, with London busy with the GLH and no urgent need to claim a strategic resource it'd be nice to have a second city that can contribute workers and settlers. I think cyan could actually work well with the cows and clams, even without Mysticism because London's next border pop will grab the clam and a riverside grassland.

It'd be safer to go Archery first of course but then we have a very good chance of losing GLH.

 

[Lansky]

I like the first dot map - the order to settle them I have not given any thought though. Cyan first does look good. We have no need to go block off stuff aggressively, will cost no maintenance, and we can either use it to keep up on settlers/workers or even build The Great Lighthouse stealing London's hills and using all the lovely forests after whipping in a lighthouse and letting a size 4/5 London work the pig/FP farm/fish/corn

Magenta will be settled after we build/lose said wonder anyway. If we get it coastal, if we don't then more riverside would certainly be the better city site.

Red will need MS to be useful beyond some whipping here and there, but with only a hill that's a long ways off with only whip overflow, no stone, not industrious, etc.

Blue 1S would probably work better. Can any resource other than iron appear on ice at this point? Good for nothing tile already does not have copper.

When playing alone I prefer to lose to teching archery this early. However, if we do not get archery at least after the wonder techs then axes/spears seem quite likely to come down from no mans land to say hi

 

[Meatbuster]

Remember this?

It's not a shame. This is actually almost the same situation as when this screenshot was taken... a small peninsula, a land bridge and land that barbs can spawn. And that time, we didn't have easy access to the bronze AND no horses are available.

Hunting unlocks the Ivory as a resource for happiness, and Protective Archery simply means we don't have to gamble with IW, which I think is more expensive than Hunting and AH combined.

As for city settling sites, I vote for Blue 1S. Magenta dot can be 1E of the sheep north of the spawnbust sign. I agree with Cyan site to be City 2.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Hah, fair enough. How about Sailing > Masonry > Hunting > Archery then?

 

[Lansky]

That's what I was thinking. We need archery. Only question is before or after the lighthouse techs.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Voting after. I think we have time before axes start showing up, and a group of warriors can take down an archer if the barbs get frisky. We just need to spam some warriors waiting for Sailing to get in.

 

[Meatbuster]

Agreed with "after".

Hmm... supposed to be White Dragon's turn now, I guess I'll pick this up later when I wake up (8-10hours) if he hasn't go it yet.

 

[White Dragon]

I have a really complicated question. Is the overlap proposed a result of the map or would you normally put cities this close together anyways? Is it because we can't work all the tiles in the BFC anyways as a result of the small cap? Is it because we are planning on keeping the city size small as a result of the whip and draft?

I would never in a million years put that many cities together in my SP games. Based on the land we have scouted so far this is what my normal dot map would look like.

I realize it skips out on the clams but in my opinion we lost that when we moved our capital.

Also, I have never been a fan of the GLH because it obsoletes so fast based on our anticipated research path plus it only seems to shine when there are overseas trade routes, which basically will be non existent based on this map script.

If you could give me an explanation to file in my data bank it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Meatbuster]

Here's what I think, but it's not exactly related to why cities are so close by in Glare's dotmap. More on why the second city has to suck in the long term...

We are currently strapped for space and we're making sure we can work the most tiles possible in anticipation of another city on the west, that's all I can think of.

If I learned anything in Paladins take-1, sometimes the second city just has to be productive right away. "Snowball effect" and all. Which is why I voted old map Cyan site to be the second city. It will enjoy low maintenance, immediately work the cow (and clams when capital's borders pop). It will be a good worker/settler pump

I could say the same about resources for your red site (yellow site on old map) but that may end up strapped for production with no forests or hills available.

Ok, so perhaps it's the way we play since Noble, we expect the first three cities we found to be the top cities ever. Perhaps it's not meant to be.

We can calculate the benefit of settling city 2 so close to the capital vs putting it on yellow and waiting for a border pop to get the fish before it becomes a decent worker/settler pump. But I hate math, it gives me a headache.

 

[Lansky]

As Meatbuster says its long term versus short term benefit.

Additionally our capital is an amazing GP farm. As such it will probably only work high food tiles unless it needs to build something. As such the mines will largely go unused later in the game. The cyan city however could be a very strong mid-late game production city in part to being the primary user of these mines.

On top of this we are food rich and commerce poor. As such the more trade routes and "food production" - i.e. whipping/drafting - potential we give ourselves the better we will be long term. The only cities you REALLY want to be maximized to work as many tiles as possible are ones you put the percentage national wonders into; Oxford, HE, IW, WS. These are unique multipliers you cannot get in another city. On the other hand working as many strong tiles as you can early in the game is better, even if that means later in the game the cities will stagnate a bit. However, even late in the game a few bio farms and a few workshops can turn a size 10 city into a strong producer.

For one further example your Cyan city WhiteDragon works the same tiles as putting a city 2N and 2S of the same position. However mid game when cities are still going to be 10-15 it leaves a lot of unused tiles and lacks the bonus trade income possible when coastal. In this case more cities is actually more of a benefit.

The final point - The Greatlighthosue Obsoletes with Corporations. We only "need" to obsolete it for Assembly Line and/or Wall Street (which is a wonder I rarely build). You can theoretically still have it active with Free Market, Airports, and the UN Currency motion giving coastal cities 7 trade routes. It can literally make up half your currency in some games and this map could be a contender for that.

 

[White Dragon]

So I take it we will most likely be moving the capital to take advantage of Bureaucracy since our now capital will be producing exactly nil in hammers and commerce? This is something I have never ever done as well so I am looking forward to see how this all plays out. My previous post was supposed to be an unofficial got it so hopefully you didn't play yet meat.

(No fancy title for this one yet)

Turn 54
Nothing to change but notice stacked whip anger in London so I will be slow building the settler.

Turn 55
London: Warrior -> Warrior. The workboat continues to explore.

Turn 56-57 Z

Turn 58
London grows to 4. Interrupt Warrior for Settler(12). Sailing in (12).

Turn 59 Z

Turn 60
Piggies completed. MM tiles so settler in (8). Send worker to mine grassland hill since GLH seems like a better use of chops.

Turn 61-63 Z

Turn 64
Islam FIDL.

Turn 65-66 Z

Turn 67
Mine completed. Since settler will be done next turn I send worker towards the Cyan cows.

Turn 68
Settler completed and off to cyan site. Warrior in queue to finish in (3), London will grow in (3) and only 1.

Turn 69 Z

Turn 70 And, action!
We have learned to sail the high seas. Set Masonry (10) per discussions.
York has been founded.

I set it to build a LH in anticipation that the WB will be constructed in London to wait out anger and set up LH whip with overflow to GLH. Worker starts pasturing the cows.

We meet Surry in Gigla's Land. He is founder of Buddhism.

Our work boat was able to make it all the way around Gilga's hub.

And finally, you can see the marble is on Gilga's land bridge so it looks like we can use it as a blocker and maybe more.

Note: 1S of the workboat looks like a good city site except that is misses the marble.

Two things to note are that London's borders will pop in 6 turns to claim the crab and we have 12 more turns of whip anger in London to wait out so that it doesn't stack, if anyone gives a flying rip.

 

[Glare Seethe]

I actually already had a settler waiting in London. My bad for sleeping him. :\

 

[Meatbuster]

Got this and will play after I post what I did at Noble's Club 33.
And this means: HELP ME LANSKY!!! I'm about to NOT win on Emperor difficulty in a public game!

 

[Lansky]

Haha I don't post long write ups when I lose - just say something like "XYZ civ sucks this game is unbalanced" and then maybe blame vassals for the hell of it. I'll take a look at the save either during my lunch break or this evening.

 

[Meatbuster]

Nah, I haven't lost yet. I'm just behind against Hannibal.

Playing RK14 now.