RR15 - Mills for D. Quixote

[r_rolo1]

Ok, time to put a plan in the table right ?

First of all, I think that we all agree that the best thing to do now is to SIP and tech agri while making a worker. That alone will be enough for the first set ...

On bigger plans, I have heard various suggestions of wonders and bulbs and it will be problematic to get them all running. Oracling MC is all fine and dandy, but, even if we can make the Oracle, the Oracle will give very unwanted GP GPP and if we get a GP instead of GS , the plan for bulbing Machinery with it goes down the drain. There was also talk about the Mids, that share the same shortcomings: heavy hammer load and wrong GPP ( in spite of that GEs can still bulb machinery ) ...

Anyway the GS bulb is completely dependent of a crucial neglect of Fishing ... ok, we don't need fishing for our cap ( well, that lake would help ), but who knows about the surroundings ? We might need it ( remember, no farm spam ... it means that seafood might be our salvation ). Not sure if it is wise to proposedly neglect seafood for a bulb in this situation ...

So in the end I've seen basically 3 medium-long proposals:

- Go to writing and run sci specs while trailing to Machinery. Bulb Machinery with a GS

- Oracle MC . Trail to writing in between, like in the previous plan. Also bulb machinery if we get a GS

- Go to Mids. Run Rep, go to writing. Bulb Machinery with either a GE or a GS

All of this plans have shortcomings ...

On more closer issues, I'm still quite skeptic on going AH after Agri. It is quite unlikely that the starting BFC has AH food ( 2 corns + banana give a quite high food count for the beautifier ) and I would not gamble too much on horses either ( jungle area start ). OTOH BW, even if we don't have copper, will allow slavery. I know , we might not want to whip much, but the cap is a very decent whip center and we will surely want to whip some stuff from there.

P.S. timmy, you are in the team since Immy has resigned. Welcome

 

[nocho]

There are too many unknowns to make any kind of decision on wonders and strategies. So maybe just go ahead and play until agri. Maybe we see stone, marble, incredible amounts of seafood or a rushable neighbour to help with our decision making process.

 

[r_rolo1]

Fair enough. This was more to put the various ideas that were floating around in condensed form and try to put their plus and minus showing.

Will play and post tomorrow.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, I played only 8 turns , but they will be far more than enough for heavy discussion

Ok, first thing was to settle in place:

Spoiler :

The hut that we had 1W of the settler gave us a map, that revealed ... don't be lazy and open the spoiler

We start 3S of the coast and we have fish there. Only one, though...

Some more exploring, a hut that gave us some gold and contact ...

Spoiler :

Oh, nice, Toku in the backyard And quite close , I must add ( you can see his cap BFC and ours in the screen above.

And if Toku wasn't enough ...

Spoiler :

QSH archer comes from the south ( you can see him on the pic ). Two Pro civs nearby, one of them being Mr will not trade ...

Anyway, research in Agri is done ...

Spoiler :

BW was slottled as a place holder.

And the revealed map so far:

Spoiler :

I can see a very strong site nearby Toku cap, 1 W of the southern dye. 2 dyes , one phant , one corn and one cow in BFC , a good bunch of riverside tiles. Even with our restrictions, it is a very strong early city site, even if a little jungle infested. I strongly suggest that we make all efforts to settle it before toku.

Anyway I think that the cows and fish around plus the neighbourhood already gives us much to discuss

Nocho is up, lymond is on deck

Save here​

 

[nocho]

Got it.

Finish worker, continue with a couple of warriors, farm corns, tech until BW, hand over.

End of discussion.

 

[r_rolo1]

Also:

Try to outrun the chinese archer for that hut east of our cap

 

[nocho]

Cow and phants won't go in same city btw. Still like 1W of southern dye, cow for other city. In any case, early settler with double corn and chopped wood looks like a good idea to me.

 

[r_rolo1]

You are right

Anyway either 1W or 1SW of the southern dyes are both very decent spots. And IMHO a chopped/whipped settler is the way to go here , even if to box Mr no OB out

 

[LKendter]

Toko and War Elephants???? GAG+++

 

[vranasm]

lurker:

you will compete for ivory with toku's capital though...

you could split the area there for 2 cities... 1 NE of ivory and something for the corn+plain cows... better check the coast north east from ivory and it could be something between dyes and sugar (except for jungle...jungle there will be a lot of course)

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

We're going to need to kill Toku, and quickly too. That's a given, I think. BW and early copper sounds like a good way to do that. And we definitely want to settle as close as possible, as fast as possible. So yeah, chop-whipped settler.

 

[r_rolo1]

@vranasm

True, we will need to compete culturally with toku for it, but remember that we have a Cre leader and that the phant is on their 3rd ring ... I think we have decent chances of holding it even without considering the Ethiopian UB or religion.

In any case we can make a even more aggressive settling and get one 1SE of the phants. That will surely hold...

 

[LKendter]

I think settle ivory is the KEY short-term goal. Can't let that whacko have WE and us not. WE are so strong even the AI can use them decently.

 

[lymond]

Wow...lot's of panic about Toke-up on Monarch. We can easily be friends with him (gift him a crap city) or take him out early. He's hard to be friends with but he's not exactly a wacko. The easiest way is horses though, if we want to take him out. I recommended AH early anyway.

Trying to settle to get the ivory the seems silly to me.

 

[timmy827]

Doesn't ivory tend to clump? Given what we see now I think it's quite likely there are more in Toku's BFC or his backyard so denying him may well not be possible.

I like a different location, 1SE of the ivory. By making it 1st ring it should assure cultural control vs Toku's capital. And it blocks off everything with just one city which is big.

Think my vote is BW 1st AH 2nd, more for getting that settler out as opposed to committing to a rush on Toku.

Oh, and happy to be on board.

 

[nocho]

The good news is that we have bronze and that we popped 2 huts for gold. Decided to run with our half wounded scout to get that hut next to our cap before anybody else would. BW came in too soon to even produce a single warrior!

AH is queued. Should get that and wheel next imo.

 

[r_rolo1]

That was a very nice set and we have a very nice cap for our variant . Good job.

Techwise ... well, with BW and copper in starting BFC I don't see much of point of going AH ASAP. Probably the Wheel ( linking copper to cap ) and Pottery ( granary + prereq for writing ) are more important for us than AH, with only a cow in sight ( and jungle areas do not mix much with horses )

Other thing to discuss if what plan are we going to apply in here ... Oracle or mids seem iffy and we have some ( not much, I reckon ) seafood in sight ...

Anyway lymond is up, LK is on deck.

 

[nocho]

Maybe we don't want to connect bronze too soon so we can keep building warriors... We have hunting already of course.

 

[r_rolo1]

Not sure if we we need much of them. Both QSH and Toku are close , so the fogbusting will be surely easier and we are still too far away of Monarchy or the Mids to think on HR

 

[lymond]

I like the Wheel next. Not sure about Pot vs. AH though. Granaries will be good, ofc, but we still have some land to scout and horse reveal would be nice. Plus, we can't build cottages.

Interesting question is where to settle first. I really don't like settling that far away just to try and grab ivory. I think the question/answer should factor the variant. What cities can be somewhat productive given the limitations.

Clam/ivory is interesting, but requires fishing which I think we want to avoid for now. We can backfill those seafood spots later.

A city on top of the sugar will be nice long term with windmills/watermills/shops and can share corn early, but will have issues with the jungles. Still it is a spot I think we must get. We can try settling in a southeastern pattern towards the cows to block Toku from the East.

Anyway, I would tech wheel. Build a couple of warriors and start a settler once the copper is in place. I'll preroad the copper so we can continue building warriors for now.

The south is looking pretty sparse in resources at present. Hopefully we will spot some in the fog.