RLC#1. Suryavarman of Khmer.

[pigswill]

Seeing a second food source more or less settled the decision to settle in place (SIP):

Well, three food sources including irrigated corn. Not too shabby at all. It makes me wonder if mysterious forest clearing does hold a resource, with 3 food and lots of forest its not a certainty but I guess we'll find out.

I went worker first out of habit but no hammers invested (its still turn 0 after all ).

Doing a bit of counting we've got corn, wheat, cow, 1PH, 2GH, 9 grass (inc mysterious clearing), 2 plains, lake and 2 coast. 13 of the tiles are covered in forest whch will therefore need BW. Looks like we'll be ahead on food. Overall not too bad at all except for the complete absence of commerce tiles.

Research path. Some advocates for BW first for early chopping. Some advocates for Ag>AH for early food. Haven't done any number crunching yet. Views are always welcome.

 

[vranasm]

I already run this up to 1AD and a bit beyond, so I won't comment much and I don't remember exactly the timing of techs...

I have a question though a bit...since I think it was a bit of mistake and will be interesting how pigs solves the early game mystery ;-)

starting with worker was very obvious and agriculture.
Seeing the starting area with 3 food sources and Sury being creative, Writing came immediately in the mind, bigger prio over BW even (at least for me and the game being Monarch) as commerce source, since the start is a bit commerce poor (this all were T0 thoughts!)

I remember me delaying BW ton...actually after first source of commerce (which I won't reveal yet)

The biggest decision was on worker turns... I actually started with improving wheat before corn, which is a bit weak play, but I had my reason...
improving wheat is T0 from worker, corn is behind forest and I would have to move worker back and forth meaning I would lose ton of turns on worker moving.

another point is that it felt natural that the expansion leads towards east due to food overlap and thus improving resources east later seemed natural due to the forests blocking the way.

anyway...I hoped you will start on Emperor pigs...I know you well now and you should have. You're good player.

 

[pigswill]

Still crunching numbers but I noticed something slightly odd regarding research times. We start with base 10bpt (1 for city + 8 for palace + 1 invisible (to avoid dividing by 0 errors)). That works fine for first tier techs (agric 89 beakers takes 9 turns, fshing 59 takes 6 etc) however when I looked at second tier techs it got a bit strange. AH is 149 beakers but takes 13 turns for average 12bpt, BW is 179 beakers but takes 15 turns for average 12bpt. I know we've got 1 pre-req for both, does that add 20%? In that case would 2 pre-reqs add 40% i.e. 14bpt for AH with hunting and agric?

@vranasm. In terms of general difficulty I'd be pretty confident about winning on emperor particularly in an open forum game so that wouldn't be particularly challenging on a personal level but emperor might well deter people from posting their thoughts. I'm already thinking that my challenge for this game will be early spaceship (early 19th, maybe even late 18th would be challenging enough) but that of course depends on the map which is a mystery to me (and one I'd prefer unspoiled).

 

[vranasm]

yep each prereq gets you multiplier of base research rate.

btw there is 1 innate bpt regardless of slider which especially this early can have some function

 

[Shaandore]

Research path. Some advocates for BW first for early chopping. Some advocates for Ag>AH for early food. Haven't done any number crunching yet. Views are always welcome.

Food is not very useful without the whip. BW gives you immediate production from those forests, so you can go for an early settler and settle a commerce site (the river on the east looks promising).

EDIT: While writing this post I had Agriculture -> BW in mind. From your analysis below, I see that BW first could have benefits, but since it's only Monarch, getting boxed in is not a real threat, so settler can come later.

 

[pigswill]

Some early number crunching.

Start with worker first. It takes 13 turns to build the worker. 5 turns at 4hpt working forest grassland(3+1), border pops T5 and can then work plains forest hill which generates 5hpt (1+3=4 *1.25 for expansive). 5*4=20, 8*5=40. Voila, first worker (and already the synergy of creative and expansive gives a saving of 2 turns on the worker).

If we went BW first then that takes us 15 turns. Worker has 1 turn to move to forest while waiting for BW and loses a turn. With unimproved tiles we get 3 hpt for worker at pop1. from t14. 3 chops generate 60 hammers and takes 11 turns, natural production has given 36 hammers by then so need an extra 2 turns to finish the settler. This brings us up to t28. Its true we'll have agric by this time but the worker won't have improved anything because they've been chopping.

If we go agric>BW then we've got 9 turns for agric, worker turns up 4 turns later, moves&improves wheat in 5 turns (t18) so far. Worker loses a turn moving to corn then improves corn in 5 turns which takes us to t24 and BW is in. Lose a turn swopping to anarchy while worker moves to forest.
Meanwhile after finishing worker on T13 city grows at 3 fpt(food per turn) for 4 turns then works plain wheat for 2 turns and gets to pop2 at T20. Working wheat+unimproved corn for 4 turns at 8hpt gets 32 hammers towards settler by T24. Lose T25 to anarchy then work improved corn and wheat for 10hpt. Worker chops first forest T28 for +20h by which time we've added another 30hammers for settler. By T28 got 82 hammers for settler so completes on T30 without whipping. Hmmm, in that case we don't need anarchy before the settler so it completes t29.

If this analysis is correct then BW first saves 1 turn but costs 2 more forests and pop1 city has no improvements. Going Ag>BW delays the settler by a turn but saves on 2 forests and pop2 city has 2 improved tiles.

Could someone check this out to make sure I haven't made some basic error(s) in my calcs.

I haven't checked going ag>AH>BW but I'd be surprised if it was more efficient in terms of producing first settler.

edit: Before someone else points it out there is a potentially fatal flaw in this situation which is that we'd have a settler but no unit to escort it. Yas will have completed its second border pop on t25 so if we were settling one outside the borders the settler may be able to nip out between beasties. Its even possible that our scout may have survived their initial exploration and be in position to escort the settler but knowing my luck with early explorers that does seem ridiculously optimistic. Maybe more work is required.

 

[barbertje]

Still crunching numbers but I noticed something slightly odd regarding research times. We start with base 10bpt (1 for city + 8 for palace + 1 invisible (to avoid dividing by 0 errors)). That works fine for first tier techs (agric 89 beakers takes 9 turns, fshing 59 takes 6 etc) however when I looked at second tier techs it got a bit strange. AH is 149 beakers but takes 13 turns for average 12bpt, BW is 179 beakers but takes 15 turns for average 12bpt. I know we've got 1 pre-req for both, does that add 20%? In that case would 2 pre-reqs add 40% i.e. 14bpt for AH with hunting and agric?

You will get 14 beakers per turn and research AH in 11 turns, but the tech advisor won't show this until you've researched all the prerequisites.

 

[i_imperator]

Played untill about 1000BC.

Spoiler :

Ok this is looking more and more like an early rush map, giggles to the north and brennus to the east. I think i'm going to chariot rush giggles, despite the fact that we have bronze in our cap. Reasons for this is that i just prefer chariots to axes. They're faster and can steamroll ai much more quickly and i think giggles is too far away for a axe rush. I think Giggles is the best choice to rush on this map, his lands look much nicer than brennus'. Also we have civ's bad boy Shaka nearby! Looks like a fun game. Wont be able to finish this till next week as i'm going away for a week, but i'll check up on progress if i get the chance to.

 

[pigswill]

Going back to the Ag>BW warrior conundrum it may not be too bad. In between finishing worker and growing to pop2 we'll have 7 spare turns which would give us 9hammers towards an escort, at pop 2 working wheat (4f,1h) and 1f/2h tile for one turn gives another 4 hammers so the warrior can be finished the following turn before starting settler so should get settler+escort by T31 which is probably good enough.

 

[learner gamer]

@Pigswill. Re: warrior. Funnily enough, I was going to ask that very question...I thought perhaps I was missing something, or perhaps that you were thinking it was a risk worth taking. EDIT: X-post with above.

Out of curio, have you also considered another opening like Agri>AH>TW? I haven’t run any maths on this opening but my hunch would be that you’ll be able to complete AH before the worker has farmed both the wheat and corn. However, researching BW after AH will likely leave spare worker turns...which you could remedy by researching TW instead and using the worker to build a road into city #2 whilst building a settler at size 3 or 4 (working forested plains hill at size 4). You could then insert BW into the opening after TW to access all those trees. Your 1st settler will be delayed a little but you’ll be working 3 very strong tiles, have a road into city #2 (handy since you don’t have early commerce in the BFC) and know if horses are around. Of course, if you really want to access all those tress earlier (which is what emperor and above would likely require), you could also go agri > BW > TW for similar reasons.

 

[vranasm]

^^ I think I went that route with pottery following... delayed the BW tons...

what I found in noncommerce starts is that too soon BW can ruin your game if you don't secure commerce soon enough.

you don't even have fishing to work the coast/lake to get some commerce.

 

[pigswill]

Haven't done precise calcs but it looks like going Ag>AH and building settler at pop 2 would get settler+escort T33. To compensate for the delay in settling we'd have corn, wheat and cows improved by the time city 2 was settled so city 2 could grow faster while capital builds a second worker. If we followed up with BW that would come in at T35. There may be a problem in that city#3 could be delayed by commerce rather than production but at the moment I'm kind of playing in the dark and its slightly pointless planning too far ahead without a bit more exploration.

In case no-one's noticed we're in the deep south with tundra below us so any ivory is likely to be up north. Border pops will do some of the exploration for us. South east is potentially interesting, if its a tasty island full of scrumptious resources then it may even be worth thinking about Glight. However there's no point speculating in a vacuum.

One thing that does seem pretty clear is that the starting point is going to be researching agric while starting a worker and I don't need to decide on AH or BW for a few more turns.

 

[learner gamer]

^^^Completely agree. IMHO, @kossin had it spot on with this earlier:

Grab Agriculture then re-evaluate the next tech.

Perhaps play until agri is in and then turn to the peanut gallery (tm)? Fingers crossed, a few more would be monarchs (and others of course) will follow @Timo33’s lead and chime in with their thoughts.

 

[pigswill]

Well for a short set that was interesting; "at the moment I'm kind of playing in the dark and its slightly pointless planning too far ahead without a bit more exploration".

Agriculture has been discovered. But that's not the only discovery in the first nine turns:

Scout heads west then north and quickly discovers that we have small peninsula for our backyard. Heading eastwards he makes another early discovery:

Buddhism gets founded in 3680, no surprise there.

Agriculture gets discovered in 3640, as do the borders of Celtia:

So, what next?

 

[kossin]

Rice+lake+fp's for commerce via cottages.
Turn capital into food+whip for settlers.

No need to fogbust the south, east will maybe yield 1~2 barbs, so send them north as you're on the south end of the map.

Techs:
AH is useful, but not overly much... unless you have horses. Can't say without getting it
BW is good to kick-start your second worker and settler and also opens up the hills.
TW gives you 2 early commerce (22% increase) and opens up Pottery.

My guess without fiddling numbers: TW>BW
Logic behind this: you will be more commerce-limited than production limited initially.

 

[klonoklown]

Because it isn't
When you do it that way, not every difficult modifier will be correctly adressed. I'm not sure, if the handicap will be adapted this way (i.e. maintenance costs) but I don't think so and as far as I know the starting units and techs won't be. So when you change the Monarch save this way to noble, the KI still will have archery from the beginning and start with two (?) extra archers. Here is a noble WB Save.

I thought that sounded too easy, thank u sir.

 

[cbucks]

Find horses, whip cheap library, run scientists, research horseback riding, bulb math, profit. Id think about moving Capitol to flood plain/rice city for bureau cap as well

 

[pigswill]

Hmmm. Not an elephant in sight .

Starting question for me is do we try to rush Brennus or try to block him. Don't know if he's on another peninsula or if the north east water is just a large lake.

 

[vranasm]

should be pretty easy to wall him off...

regarding the techs etc don't forget KISS

 

[Soirana]

Don't know if he's on another peninsula or if the north east water is just a large lake.

Does large lakes contain islands on this map script?