RLC#3. Genghis Khan.

[pigswill]

A mere 5 turns have been played and fishing is in. Hinduism got founded T23 (3080bc) which is slighty late but not adopted by our known neighbours.

Cows have been improved, worker mining Ghill.

Pop 4 working pigs,cows, lake (2f,2c before lighthouse) and FP.

Next techs are masonry (130b), sailing (162b) and BW(195b). By the magic of 1 virtual beaker and 20% prereq discount we can research sailing in 12 turns, masonry in 10 and BW in 15 at 10bpt.

Reflecting on this has led me to be worryingly obessional about early research. If you get 2 bonus beakers from 10bpt for the 20% prereq then would you get 2 bonus beakers from 14 bpt but 3 bonus from 15bpt; in this context its the balance between hammers from grassland hills and beakers from coastal waters. Is it worth obsessing about? Who knows .

I'll include a save just for the sake of it:

 

[Smilingrogue]

I am not a great player, so please take my suggestions with caution.

I am not sure sailing, Masonry and BW are worth it right away. Sailing doesn't gain anything as you don't have any sea-food that can use a lighthouse and don't have open borders for trade. Masonry is expensive and does nothing right now. BW, isn't a bad choice, but I feel Pottery is a better tech to pursue right now. Your biggest bottleneck here is going to be commerce and being able to throw a couple of cottages down around the cap to sustain early research can't be bad.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Thanks for the advice. Seems like the route to take is not to go for early settler but grow capital while knocking out some fogbusting warriors while awaiting sailing for LH with the aim of building Glight.

I didn't read the whole thread but stumbled upon this.
Planning to build the GLH is actually an argument in favour of early settler(s): Once your capital switches to building a Lighthouse and then the GLH... it won't contribute to your expansion. So it must contribute before. At least 1 settler. Depending on the setup (and Genghis being IMP), that might be 2.

The techs for the GLH are very expensive. So, even though you lack Agriculture, I'd settle city 2 between the gold and the corn. Requires to move pigs/ivory city 1E.

Not sure switching the floodplains to the lake tile is totally worth it. You won't grow faster to size 4 but the food remains stored and you'll soon want to:
- work mines;
- grow further.

Not sure why you consider researching Masonry before Sailing. Lighthouse must be built before Masonry becomes relevant.

 

[cseanny]

Thanks for the advice. Seems like the route to take is not to go for early settler but grow capital while knocking out some fogbusting warriors while awaiting sailing for LH with the aim of building Glight.

When talking about early settler.....personally I meant it in regards of growing to happy cap while first pursuing economic techs. And where I settled I was able to quickly grow to 5 and then push a settler out and grow to 6 with the ivory (3rd border pop) (delayed 7 with gold) and settled the corn/gold city followed by 2 more cities before starting TGL.

So early growth > economic techs > luxury and more Capital growth with potential cottage sharing > pump out some quick settlers > TGL > and then really push expansion and some mass workers (I had 18 before 1AD).

 

[pigswill]

Played 13 turns taking me up to 2360bc (T41). Researched sailing while building 3 fogbusting warriors, explorer workboat and a settler.

Barbs not a major hassle so far, only 1 archer but plenty of time yet.

Only significant event is Shaka founding Buddhism in 2720bc. Its a reasonable guess we don't have any of the religious civs on the map.

I'm debating sending settler and worker to gold corn site, at the moment we can only improve gold but the extra commerce while building a second worker should offset distance maintenance with a small profit (and a happy face). Sailing saves some turns on building roads.

I'm thinking about going straight to masonry (11t) while building LH (4t), settler (4t), warrior/WB. These calcs are not completely right because once gold is mined (7 turns)research time goes down, once gold is roaded I should probably grow capital to pop 6 probably working lake instead of PH mine. I might end up building warriors while growing capital which would put westgold city on worker production. Losing fogbusters would also upset the apple cart.

I'll send WB west to check out the island/continent.

I'd like to get Glight asap of course so I want masonry sooner rather than later. Tech choices after masonry are more fluid, options include agric, pottery, BW or maybe archery.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am not a great player, so please take my suggestions with caution.

I am not sure sailing, Masonry and BW are worth it right away. Sailing doesn't gain anything as you don't have any sea-food that can use a lighthouse and don't have open borders for trade. Masonry is expensive and does nothing right now. BW, isn't a bad choice, but I feel Pottery is a better tech to pursue right now. Your biggest bottleneck here is going to be commerce and being able to throw a couple of cottages down around the cap to sustain early research can't be bad.

You can almost read "GLH pursuit" when you hear "sailing, masonry, BW". It's a small gamble for the wonder, but it's easily a top 2 wonder and on some maps an uncontested #1 as long as you have a few coastal sites to settle.

This start has solid hammers and bad commerce. That will push one to a wonder that accelerates early tech, likely either GLH or Oracle.

 

[vranasm]

You can almost read "GLH pursuit" when you hear "sailing, masonry, BW". It's a small gamble for the wonder, but it's easily a top 2 wonder and on some maps an uncontested #1 as long as you have a few coastal sites to settle.

This start has solid hammers and bad commerce. That will push one to a wonder that accelerates early tech, likely either GLH or Oracle.

except for rainforest, inland sea, oasis and similar map types, GLH is top 1 and even sometimes on Pangea if you don't start landlocked with solid borders.

this game is clear #1...there is even visible bigger island west form starting continent... if he lands it, he should be able to run 10 cities in BC era easily.

I remember me playing some Immortal game on archipelago sustaining like 16 cities before running out of steam....

 

[pigswill]

More turns played, I somehow managed to get masonry in 10 rather than 11 and Karakorum grows to pop 6 happy cap in 2 turns, both at the cost of hammers so I've only added LH in Karakorum, settler and one warrior. A dull turn log coming up:

T43 Stonehenge bidl (built in a distant land if you're not familiar with this acronym).

T44 Beshbalik founded between corn and gold, we don't have agriculture but worker starts on a goldmine, Beshbalik starts another worker.

T45. LH completed, start settler.

T48 Judaism fidl (founded etc etc). Goldmine done, worker starts on a road for some empire wide happiness (all 2 cities!).

T49. Settler built, start worker, fiddle tiles etc, warrior in 2, masonry in 2.

T50 Great Wall bidl.

T51. Turfan founded between pigs and ivory.
Masonry is in, start agriculture (no beakers).
Karakorum starts Great Lighthouse.

Our workboat has circumnavigated Sushi Island and is heading south:

Karakorum grows in 2 turns, will then worked forested PH and mined PH, food neutral:

I'm undecided between archery and agriculture. While barbs have been surprisingly quiet its probably not long before barb axes turn up, archers on strong tiles have a chance, warriors get massacred. On the other hand Beshbalik won't grow before agric. Or there's BW or pottery or mysticism.....

T51 is 1960bc if you weren't sure. Great Lighthouse is a long way from guaranteed though wonders haven't been going ridiculously early. Also I've only had contact with Jules and Shaka and no culture borders have been sighted.

 

[vranasm]

that island should allow 3 cities...I would most probably ignore the clams and settle NW corner, NE corner and SE corner that way you split a bit the food and get 3*3*2 commerce just from TR's and every city should be able to run libraries with specs.

 

[cseanny]

I settled the Island somewhat early and and picked up 3 fish and 1 clam for an amazing
GPF which produced 3 GM for 5100 gold + 1 more from economics. That would take 3 cities a long time to catch up lol.

 

[pigswill]

If we survive that long I'd probably settle 2 cities on Sushi Island, one to the east with 1 fish, other to the west for 2 fish and a clam.

Still debating archery before or after agric. There is of course BW but I wouldn't like to gamble defences at this stage. Most likely sequence would be archery>agric>BW>pots>writing.

 

[cseanny]

Pigs......

Don't bother on Archery. You're aggressive so a quick barracks and some promoted warriors will work for quite a long time. Doubtful you'll lose more than 1.

 

[Alchemind]

I can't wait to play this and abuse Keshik's only to rage-quit when I fall 15 tech's behind.

 

[pigswill]

First catch your horse .

 

[pigswill]

Played 12 turns. A long set indeed.

T53. Noob alert!! Karakorum 6 5 means 1 at pop 6. Can't work 5 hills without starving back to pop 5 in 3 turns. Juggle between lake and forest hill while waiting 6 turns for Turfan's pigs to be pasturised and roaded.

T57. Agric >BW. Who needs archers with aggressive warriors?

T58. Meet Sitting Bull's scout. Sitting Bull is agnostic.

T59 Beshbalik worker>galley (coz settlers can't swim).
Turfan pop2 warrior>settler.

T60. Buddhism spreads to Karakorum. Shaka's Buddhist, Jules remains agnostic.

T61. Meet Darius (don't know how). Darius is a top scoring Hindu.

T62. Noob alert!! . Don't leave cities undefended if you don't know how to fogbust...

T63. Who needs archers when you have aggressive warriors? Aggressive warrior vs wounded barb archer in the jungle? 16% odds? We laugh at your RNG .

Also, this:

"Its better to be lucky than good".

 

[pigswill]

So, as the bishop said to the actress, "what do we do now?"

We've got Great Lighthouse, a couple of small cities founded and a fair hunk of unclaimed land (not an AI border in sight). We're six turns from BW to discover if we have copper. On the other hand there's a lot of jungle out there and no rivers for free commerce or irrigation. Calendar is a long way off, IW is closer but almost certainly available in an aesthetics/alphabet trade.

The game doesn't look totally hopeless but it looks a long way from being won (hardly surprising at 1400c).

 

[a0161613]

I'm no great player but would it be fair to aim for three more cities by 1AD? If you tech Calendar then you get food and commerce. You would need a worker army to maul that jungle but the land beneath it should be workable. Given the distance of your enemies, a Keshik rush would be a killer and you could only keep capitals.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Rexing now is the obvious play. War Elephants are something worth aiming for down the line. Tech writing next?

 

[pigswill]

I'm aiming for more than three cities before 1ad, there's space (with overlap) for another 8-9 cities. Coastal cities will obviously be subsidised by Glight trade routes, particularly with island cities for overseas trade routes. If I leave the interior unsettled it will be grabbed by an AI, most likely either Shaka or Jules which would leave my cities horribly exposed. If I settle the interior any cities there will be a major drain on the economy at least until IW.

In terms of techs I'm debating if I need mysticism or pottery before going writing>aesthetics. If I don't have copper I probably should think about archery. I'm assuming I'll be able to pick up IW in trade.

 

[ABigCivFan]

I played this until 75AD, did not read any spoilers before playing.

@pigswill

When you see thick jungles down south and a nice seafood island to the West, you should have settled the island (a diff landmass giving more TR yields) before the GLH.

Spoiler :

Settled on the plain so that the capital is coastal and can work both pig and cow.

will edit more later...