RLC#3. Genghis Khan.

[pigswill]

@ABigCivFan. You are no doubt right. I'm not familiar with immortal and I wasn't sure how much leeway I had on Glight so I went for the 'safer' option of Glight before galley.

So it sounds like settling the island next is a jolly good idea. Growing other cities might also be useful because iirc higher pop = richer trade routes (pop4 then pop10?).

 

[BornInCantaloup]

ABCF is not considering the (long!) travel time to settle the island.
Settling earlier is arguably > settling a stronger city, especially if the earlier city can contribute to tech pace/expansion.

I doubt this particular map calls for an offshore 2nd city. 3rd or 4th: maybe. Did settle the 4th on the island myself.
Building the Galley in Karakorum is also a serious delay on the GLH, which is already a difficult build.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Here are the reasons I went for the island first.

1. I needed commerce and needed to focus on GLH, so i wanted only built 1 settler before GLH. The best 2nd spot to get commerce is the gold hill but the island 4 seafood city had better long-term potential as a GP farm than any gold city. So I wanted to get the island city settled ASAP. It does give extra TR commerce.

2. The island city had a coastal fish (the best workable tile on the map at the time) within first ring and my exploring fish boat can work it immediately

3. did not want to risk it get settled by a barb city

4. it can help settle the 2nd island city faster which helps more with commerce

5. an earlier galley helped scouting and open up foreign trade routes, after it drops off the settler/warrior

6. Wasnt concerned about settling any inland cities as we are seperated by jungle and imperial. Got my GLH in 1440BC.

 

[cseanny]

Settling earlier is arguably > settling a stronger city, especially if the earlier city can contribute to tech pace/expansion.

I doubt this particular map calls for an offshore 2nd city. 3rd or 4th: maybe. Did settle the 4th on the island myself.

Agreed in a big way. Sticking with the Corn/Gold is by far the best 2nd city placement possible.

 

[pigswill]

What's done is done.

A mini-plan for a mini-set (6 turns).

Finish BW in 6, revolt to slavery

Karakorum goes settler (4t)>settler. First settler moves to Beshablik.

Beshbalik continues galley, grows to pop 2 in 5, whips galley asap.

Turfan stops settler, builds warrior (3t) >WB. Grows to pop3 in 6.

 

[ABigCivFan]

@pigswill

The fish/cow/clam site to the south west is a great prod city, i recommend to settle there right after the island city.

In my game, due to the lack of horse and copper early on, i got Archery to ensure the safety of the empire and safely setting the south west spot.

you want to find AI's cities asap either via land or sea to open up the trade routes. some AIs got writing early and you can get OB with them. That will be immediate commerce boost.

Aesth for trade seems ok if they got alpha early.

 

[pigswill]

Ask 10 immortal dieties for advice and you get twelve opinions .

But seriously, thanks to everyone who's been taking time to look at the game and give their advice . As usual whatever happens I have no-one to blame but myself.

As for the game I'd already played up to BW so I knew we had no copper before ABCF posted above.

Our intrepid workboat has explored the west coast, rounded the cape of faint hope and been blocked by SB's closed borders. No big deal, the western barb city blocks coastal trade anyway. Jules seems to be going south too.

Shaka and Cyrus have writing for open borders already. Maybe I should open borders with Shaka, will improve relations ever so slightly and may (or may not) encourage the spread of Buddhism.

Karakorum has built one and a half settlers, first settler is on the west coast. After reflection (and helpful forum comments) I'll interupt the second settler to knock out a WB to explore the east coast.

Turfan has built a warrior to keep the settler company and is building a WB for island city.

Beshbalik grew to pop2 just before BW. I swopped to slavery immediately, galley has been whipped and will appear next turn.

I think I will indeed go archery next, maybe build some (cheap) barracks somewhere but I still want more settlers.

So little time, so much to do.

 

[pigswill]

Ha ha, made a mistake. Shaka doesn't have writing yet (but Jules and Cyrus do). Not a waste of time, exploring WB revealed Shaka's borders were much further than I had anticipated.

There's even space for a nice coastal city, doesn't get good before a border pop but its worth considering. It seems that barbs have been busy settling to our south west. Haven't seen a wandering barbarian for ages (hopefully I won't regret posting this...).

Othen than that island city has been settled:

A settler is en route for cowclamhammer city (arrives in 2 turns), worker still 5 turns away.

Karakorum pops another settler next turn and may knock out some archers while growing on fp and lake.

Beshbalik and Turfan are finishing their barracks ready to grow on archers for a few turns.

On the other hand the economy is suffering and Glight isn't a universal panacea:

I'm thinking about going straight for writing and missing out on mystical monuments and potty grannies.

 

[vranasm]

when you don't post enough SS's you have to post save...or reverse... it is very tough to comment based on 2 not very good SS's

 

[pigswill]

Fair point well made.

Added a couple more screenshots to the last report.

 

[vranasm]

just based on the SS... you can split the fish, clams, cow city into 2 cities... one would be gems, 2x dye, fish, the other clams, cow.

not sure what would be better, but since you have GLH horizontal expansion is very strong.

 

[pigswill]

I'm finding this quite difficult to dotmap. Here's my latest attempt:

Including a couple more island cities and wheatfish north of Karakorum we're looking at 11+ cities depending on rapidly the AI expand.

Most of them are coastal which obviously benefit from Glight but there are a couple of resource rich inland sites which will be useful after IW and even better after calendar. Before IW they'll be a drain on the economy but its much easier to get the site first than to let an AI claim it and try to prise it from their cold dead hands.

The reason I'm thinking of going straight to writing is to hopefully be able to research with scientists while all the cashola is going towards maintenance costs.

I'm still trying to work out the balance between expansion and research at this stage. Is it true that settlers don't incur unit maintenance costs? If so I could carry on knocking out settlers and get them in place but not settle much before writing is safely in. Obviously on the edges of the busted territory they'll need archer guardians.

Edit: this still ain't right. There's a banana resource to the north of the screenshot that won't be inside a bfc. If anyone's in the mood and has the time to load the save (post #70) and practice their dotmapping I'd be grateful .

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Ask 10 immortal dieties for advice and you get twelve opinions .

That's the way it is
Even though what's done is done, it's probably worth mentioning that ABCF, Cseanny and I all settled Karakorum on a different spot. And our early tech path probably wasn't the same.
I did SIP to get the earlier worker and started research with Agriculture to farm the floodplains. Also got a 2nd worker before starting on the 1st settler. And probably researched The Wheel before starting on Fishing.
In such conditions, it was a no-brainer to settle city 2 by the corn/gold.

I think that ABCF's points 3 and 5 are quite valid, in defence of an offshore city2 (barb city spawning; opening the trade routes).



As for what comes next.
Expanding along the eastern and western coasts should take priority, before closing in your cultural borders with inland cities. Settling a 2nd offshore city is also quite high priority.
You'll soon want to hire scientists in Karakorum.
It would make sense to settle near non-jungled resources, so your new cities are productive.

You'll need at least 2 on the western coast.
In the East, the rice tile is a nice target but I'd be reluctant to stretch that far with your next city, since it's all jungled. Instead, I'd be tempted to settle 3S1E of Karakorum, work the cow tile and start on a 13 turns settler (9 turns if you chop the forest 1S of Karakorum).
[Karakorum needs to grow, by the way: you should focus it on food as soon as its settler is complete. Farming the floodplains would be welcome as well]
Next targets in the SE could be the rice or the cows. If you're going 2x settlers in Karakorum, you might settle 1W of the rice, first, and then backfill 1SE of the cows. Maybe claiming the land is more secure that way.
Not sure about going all the way down to the gems/gold spot. Seems very far away.

Inland, a city 1W of the rice fits nicely (banana, 2x ivory, 5 hills - might even be an Heroic Epic spot) but it is far from a priority. Hard to tell exactly where another city could fit: maybe 1S of dyes or 2S1W of them (claims cows with border pop).
South-west, Gems are hard to work with your current dotmap (no food). Settling Fish/Cows 1N will claim the gems easily. Your current spot would make for a fine National Epic but I believe you have some leeway on that matter.


As soon as you get a spare worker, you should try to road NW-SE (from Beshbalik) or NE-SW (from Karakorum) to ease movement accross the jungle.
You don't need a whole lot of workers to develop coastal cities but you should still make sure you have enough to help new cities develop and ease logistics.
You will need, however, a worker burst by the time you reach Iron Working.


Finally, you need to find Roman borders soonish

 

[pigswill]

I've got 1 settler built and en route, Karakorum finishes another next turn, Turfan's got one in the queue, awaiting a chop to push it along.

I'm thinking that I will go for clamfishcow after all, gems can be grabbed by an inland city that gets rice for food (if the site isn't taken first but I can't settle everywhere).

For the east coast I'm thinking 1W of rice (where the warrior is standing) which will get Ghill mine for hammers for LH and then work coast tiles to make it hopefully self sufficient until IW comes along.

Third city will go on island, its pretty naff but it automatically gives another 2gpt trade route to other cities and a fourth city will go on north west cows.That would take us up to 8 cities in total and the economy will be creaking badly by then.

I'll probably have to slip in another worker somewhere and a few archers to head down to the wild south.

Still pondering options however and not ready to play yet.

Its still possible that Shaka could decide I'm easy prey and that would change the game significantly. Hopefully not, that heathen Darius is his worst enemy at the moment, but who knows...

 

[ABigCivFan]

I like the Fish/Clam/Cow/4 Hills city now because a super production city will help in many ways early on i.e. workers, military, missionaries and etc. splitting into 2 takes longer and more drain on econ early until IW. Also you can not be sure whether you will beat the AI to both spots. It is less risky to take that sweet spot now. The second offshore city will be a commerce boost. The Rice city to the East is nice if it can work those 3 food inland coasts.

The rice/gem/dye city looks ok but you need IW, i would put a settler/archer there just to be safe to grab it and wait for IW.

No W2 warriors for fast jungle treading? find JC ASAP and he might OB with you if he has writing already.

On the Tech side, i think developing your cities are top priority i.e. pop borders (myth) and whip Granaries (pot) give you have 2 happy resources. Then writing. Check your unit count, if you are paying any maint. disband some warriors to save cash. every coin counts now. If you find JC's cities and he can not OB with you, then maybe you go writing before Pottery. There is a chance Darius will get Alphabet and you can trade these starter techs with him too lol.

once you get Myth, i would have the corn/gold/ivory city build work boats for your seafood cities.


Edit: Just looked at you save.

1. you are paying a lot of unit maint. and supply. you can delete the scout up north (saves you 2 gold/turn), and move the warrior next to dye south to find JC's cities, but move the other warrior near the corn/gold city to the dye spot.
2. sign OB with JC as he has writing and willing. you can research Myth in 3 turns and then start the monument in the seafood city and later the fish/clam/cow city.
3. what is the worker doing on jungle banana? he could be roading toward the fish/cow/clam and the rice/gem city
4. forget about the rice city south east of capital, it is all jungled up. You have enough good cities for warring. just make sure you can grab the rice/gem/dye spot. when near Calendar, a banana city 1S of the cow near capital will be a good whipping factory

 

[pigswill]

I'm reluctant to disband any jungle fogbusters at the moment because I like barbs to be far far away and annoying someone else.

Locating Jules and trying to find a trade route is worth doing once I've got archers heading south.

I'm still not sure about delaying writing>aesthetics>alphatrade and I'm not sure if pottery and mysticism will speed up aesthetics though I could easily be wrong on this, I certainly don't have figures to back up that assumption.

 

[pigswill]

Another twelve turns played in which Genghis got to showcase imperialistic's ability to catch up on cities after an early wonder.

This is the south in 950bc.....

and this is how it looks twelve turns later:

Debates about distance maintenance for east coast rice city have become slightly irrelevant. Gee thanks Shaka .

Instead we founded bic's city between the coast and the lake. Jules is fighting for waterskiing rights but that's how it goes. Coastal lake city does have a short term benefit of being able to build a lighthouse so lake tiles are worth 3f2c. In the longer term it also has bananas. Genghis likes bananas .

West coast cities have been founded, and like all the best westerns they have cowboys .

We have a settler in the middle of the jungle waiting to become Emerald City, however its going to take 10 turns for our workers to get a road network going so I'll leave her in place until roads are connected or an interloper heads north.

Sushi island has not been forgotten in the mad rush:

Ning Hsai has whipped a monument (I half followed ABCF's advice and researched mysticism before writing but ignored the bit about pottery) and pops its borders in 3 turns. Once it does the eastern fishes will be inside our borders and ready to work. Ning-hsai gets a WB in 4 turns, Beshbalik's WB comes out in 2 turns. There's a settler in Turfan waiting for the north east site so we're more or less on track. Tabriz has only just been founded but thanks to Glight its already producing 9 commerce from trade routes.

And the big surprise is that even though we've doubled from four to eight cities the economy hasn't crashed:

I'm actually running that cool binary research thing so that's just for illustration.

There's still four cities to be built, I've already mentioned two of them, the other two sites are northern banana and the north east city (wheat, fish, hills etc) that would have been blocked if we'd settled in place . I'll leave the other two settlers unbuilt for now, with imperialistic they're pretty cheap to whip if necessary.

I've been a bit behind on exploration but hopefully I'll catch up. I've opened borders with everyone (Shaka not until I discovered writing in 725bc). WB to continue along the coast until it meets a barb galley. Archer can check out Zululand while the warrior checks out Rome and the Native Americans. More cities known means better trade routes .

Diplomacy and religion is quite frankly a mess. Confucianism got founded by an unknown civ (probably Mansa the virtual) in 975bc and got adopted by Rome in 775bc.
Christianity was founded by Cyrus in 950bc by virtue of an Oracle>theology sling but hasn't been adopted by anyone. Cyrus remains Hindu, Sitting Bull has also adopted Hinduism, Shaka remains Buddhist and Jules is Confucian.

No-one's going to be getting any bonusses for wisely chosen civics in the short term:

So the current situation looks something like this:

Techwise its unremarkable (except the early CoL) and no-one we've met has got to alphabet (they've probably gone maths>construction or HR>feudalism etc).

The game's not been too wonder-ful so far. SH went early, Jules nabbed Gwall, we nabbed Glight, Cyrus got Oracle 950bc (late at any level) and SB nabbed the mids. No ToA as yet, no Hanging Gardens. Guess the missing leaders aren't industrious.
Here's another save:

 

[ben-jammin]

Tried this again. TGLighthouse is the only way to go. At 1AD I had 10 cities (2 on the island) with only one not being coastal. And that one didn't even get settled until a handful of turns before calendar was in, settler was waiting at the spot but Rome never went for it. So it wasnt even a burden to claim all that jungle. There's room for 2 more cities, one being coastal, and all sites are relatively strong. Land is good, tech rate is excellent. The only problem is the whole continent being in a buddhist love-fest, but I think Rome is plotting on either Shaka or Sitting Bull, it would be nice if he declared soon.

Let the first great merchant pop with very little scientist dilution, so now im pondering where to go from here. I think I've decided to try for music, but if someone on the other continent already has it that would really suck (i'm betting against it, there have been a number of great generals born in a distant land). Should I go for optics and bring the GM overseas to the temple of artemis? Not sure how much good that would do without astronomy, as the trade mission yield is based on trade route income. Lib astronomy and then use the GM? Seems highly inefficient. Take what I can get with the trade mission and try to lib steel? I think the continent is big enough to win by domination without worrying about the other one. Nat->MT lib seems like a waste considering i'd have to trade for horses and might not even roll my continent up with just cav anyway.

 

[pigswill]

@ben-jammin. One of the standard bits of advice I see on the forums is that early gold is much better than more gold later. So a 900g trade mission enabling you to deficit research currency>Col>CS etc or even bulbing currency may be more useful than saving GM for a 1300g TM in a hundred turns or so.

In terms of my game the next bunch of turns is likely to be dull. Workers will be tied up building roads, island city to be settled, Emerald City only if necessary and plod towards aesthetics hoping for a reasonable alpha trade.

No-one has enough on their hands, hopefully Shaka won't do something crazy. A bit more exploration is likely the only interesting thing before we get to alpha and see if there's anything worth trading.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

A bit more exploration is likely the only interesting thing before we get to alpha and see if there's anything worth trading.

Aye, try and see if you can secure a strategic resource in the south-east
Maybe there's one in the 1st ring of one of those barb cities we can see... Gold from city capture would be very much welcome. And, otherwise, Rome/Zululand will take them all...

Meeting other AIs before you reach Aesthetics would be nice as well. They may be the ones with Alphabet.


@overall:
You were late to Writing. There's room for improvement in this matter, for your next game.
Need to time carefully the maintenance hits, so that certain techs (Writing!) aren't delayed too long.