RR17 -Team B

[nocho]

Okay, so rest of T0 plan would be:

1) Move 2 settlers to turquoise and 1 to red (it'll go NE, with the idea NNW next turn and settle red subsequent; however, if we find something even more magnificent up north we'd have more flexibility than moving it NW now)

2) Workers; haven't talked about them yet. I'd be inclined to move the western one SE and pasture turqoise pig (EDIT) cow next turn. Maybe move eastern one 2NW on the forest and start chopping, red would be settled on time to receive the chop (even with serfdom which I suppose means a 2 turn chop) which goes to worker.

3) Civics: for sure rep, bureau, serfdom, merc. To leave or not to leave OR is the question...

My main doubt is whether to make red the capital or not. I think it's definitely a better bureau capital than turquoise. If we do take the 2-turn anarchy now, we "gain" the flexibility of not having to settle turquoise next turn as a city in anarchy doesn't yield anything anyway. And then red can be the capital just when we're out of anarchy with a full set of civics. Btw, if turquoise is postponed a turn, first worker can do chopping before pasturing.

And also, what about FR instead of OR? OR obviously is near useless without a religion, but do we really want a religion with all our adversaries in different religions? Is 25% building bonus worth it for an extra turn of anarchy (from converting to religion), waiting for religion spreads (or spending hammers on missionaries) and annoyed neighbours, when we already get 4 building upon founding a city? Open question, I'm undecided, really.

 

[lymond]

Bureau cap is not a big deal to me. The benefit will be short as we likely switch to Nationalism soon, so I'd rather get the cities up asap.

I'd rather both workers beginning chopping immediately to get out 4 more workers, then we slam out the improvements and roads.

I like OR early. The production boost will be immediate. Mishes will come out quickly...you have pretty strong production on IND starts. Theo will be good later and we can switch to Nat and Theo at the same time. I don't care what the AIs think of us. Some may not switch to a religion or we have a fave civic bonus. Remember this one is all about war.

I'm for a 2t civic switch with OR. We don't lose much at all with settlers moving. It's a pretty standard play on late era starts.

Nocho, I'm starting to question Steam Power. Odds are that we get a GE first. We can use it to part bulb Steam Power and instead go for Steel for cannons. Of course, we need iron, but I expect we will find it somewhere. Gren, Rifles and cannons will win the game.

 

[astre]

we have to wait until turn 50 before attacking.
We will get steel in the meantime.
the production bonus is more important IMHO.
the GE could be use for statue of liberty


worker should prechop and we should do a 2 turn civic change a revolution later will be more painfull that here where we will get only 1 city.

EDIT: checked if growth of cottage is faster in industrial start.
It is only 7 turns in industrial while it is 10 turns in ancien start.

 

[strijder20]

I completely agree with city settlement (as said, levees are only one tech away).

For improvements, I also suggest the watermill-workshop combo, because we already have Replaceable Parts and Chemistry, and Communism isn't far away either.

I think there is a promising city site near the horses and dyes, if there is food there it can be a prime commerce spot.

 

[nocho]

Okay, finished T0 and moved exploring units a bit on T1 to see some more of the surroundings.

Full civics switch:

Land:

Extensive FP area might be best shot for city 3. Red settler moved, turquoise ones still to move, just as the workers, who are on forrests so I'd let them chop. Anyway, main question is where to move settler 3. Oh, being in anarchy I still favour settling turquoise next turn instead of now, so red becomes cap. Not a big deal indeed, but slightly better for the time being, while nothing is gained by settling turquoise now.

Steel or steam both work for me, no real preference here. What do pigswill and strijder think of it?

BTW, how much time do we have before barbs show up, regarding moving settlers freely about?

 

[pigswill]

I'd go steam first.

We're going to need iron.

 

[astre]

arg the north seems very good with all those flood plains :/
I didn't tought that was that big area of flood plains...

we should have sent the last settler in the north instead that in the south.
However, in 3 turns he can go there (somewhere near the rifleman).

for barbarian, no idea.

 

[lymond]

We didn't lose any turns on the 3rd settler by moving him south and giving him the flexibility of direction. Right now, I'd say settle on the desert hill above the copper, but adjust depending what the Rifle sees next turn.

Personally, I don't see a huge production/commerce difference between Turq and Red cities to wait an turn on settling, but I will go with what the team decides. Again, Bureau is not that big a deal here. Turq has two commerce resources that are better than the gold. These cities won't be cottaged.

As for techs, keep in mind that teching will be brutally slow at first. Cannons will be huge and steam we can part bulb. We can go Gren/Rifles draft + Trebs at first and then upgrade them to cannons...bam.

I'm going to do a little testing on this.

 

[strijder20]

Steel or steam both work for me, no real preference here. What do pigswill and strijder think of it?

Definitely steam first, let's get some production up before going for war.

I've had some experience with later-era starts and a good strategy seems to be REXing, as the AI is a bit slow at expansion. Don't forget that we get three trade routes per new city and some free buildings too (granaries?).

I don't get why we would want to get steel this early if we can't declare before turn 50. I think we can get steel in less than 50 turns (research usually skyrockets). What's the tech cost of SP and Steel, by the way?

 

[astre]

If i could trust my experiment in marathon (no bulb), we could expect to get industrialism before turn 50 (or anything that cost the same amount of research)

 

[lymond]

Steel is more expensive and a better trade chip, but I agree that the 50 turns peace makes Steam worthwhile first. I did not think about that at the time. Steel would definitely be the tech if we could war from the beginning.

Each chop completes a worker, so we definitely want to chop out at least 4 or 5 workers first thing before improving.

Not sure about rexxing. Maybe one city, but as soon as we get up some basic infra, we want to start pumping units. We will be conquering more cities. Later, when production is high, we can start filling in cities, but settlers are brutally expensive at first.

I would not say research skyrockets at all. Steam and Steel will be pushing very close to 50 turns or more depending on how we focus things early. Astre - Industrialism?

 

[nocho]

Played another turn, founded Washington at cow, New York at gold. We got to meet Washington from Portugal on the IBT. His explorer is on the gold hill, so he must be pretty close to the north. Maybe this means we want to settle city 3 in such a manner that we claim as much land as possible. Explorer south seems to hit more coast.

Chops already came in (hurray for serfdom!) so next turn the workforce is doubled. Note NY can pop borders in 1 turn by building culture, might be worth it as the better resources are all 2nd ring. By lymond's plan another 2 workers first would be good though (1 from each city).

Queued steam as it seems we agreed on that. Main thing, again, is where to settle last city. Also, what to build after workers? We get granary, forge, aquaduct and market for free. Barracks and libraries come to mind for now. We might need settlers for horses and (yet to be found) iron.

 

[lymond]

Hmmm...I'm wondering if we should go full blown FPs on city 3. With a levee and SP, it will be pretty nice. We could settle a city for copper/rice later. Settle 1N of the Peak. (maybe they'll be another resource up there.

Yep, definitely think we should get the workers out first - at least 2 more for 6 total. That is the most important thing, then we can improve and road.

Keep scouting for Iron. We really want that for canons. After getting about 4 resources up in Washington, we can maybe chop out a 4th settler in reserve to possible settle iron if we find it.

 

[astre]

I my game, i only made a science focus at the begining and went steam industrialism.
There is no reason we could not produce that mutch research (or more).

for settler 1N, i agree, we need to put a frontier as further as possible

for buidings, culture for new york is ok
after that enought workers (number to be set) and library first

 

[nocho]

Tonight or tomorrow morning I'll play 5 to 10 turns more and hand over.

I'll settle 3rd city 1N of the mountain (5E1N of NY) or thereabouts, depending if there's some resource nearby. How many FPs can we sustain healthwise?

Washington: worker, worker, library, settler.
New York: worker, culture, worker, library.
Boston: culture (?), library. Or maybe start with yet another worker if border pop is not crucial. Depends on resources and proximity of Portugal.

1 more chop each in Washington and NY for 5th and 6th workers, then improve resources. NY corn worker after improving it will go to Boston. What do we do with the FPs, watermill them? After resources are up, build roads for trade network.

Keep on exploring. Maybe I'll retreat one or two of the rifles for zone defense of the realm, in case barbs show up. What kind of barbs can we expect? Maces, or do barbs also start with rifles?

 

[lymond]

Boston can go straight to culture. No worker there as there is no production and no forests. All the workers we need can come from chopping the first two cities.

Definitely watermill Boston, but we should take a look at the layout once it is settled to make sure we can fit in the most watermills. Watermills can't be built on river bends or on opposite sides, but they can go adjacentRest of them can be farmed/workshopped.


Yeah, retreat all Rifles back to the cities and just explore with the explorers. Well the NE Rifles can go a bit further.

If I recall, barbs take the normal progression, but a bit faster.

 

[nocho]

Played some more turns and hand it over.

Settled Boston north of the peak.

We met Cathy of HRE, Huayna of the Khmer and Asoka of the Persians. We right now have OB with Holy Roman Cathy and we exchanged maps with the Portuguese. Asoka will trade maps too, but didn't do this yet.

To the west we have a coveted iron.

And this is what the north and east looks like. To the south we have what looks like a jungly peninsula.

Judaism was founded in NY. After the worker it built culture for a turn to instapop borders as we needed that for our workers to do stuff. It produced yet another worker and is 2 turns away from library.

Washington went worker-worker-library which just finished. Queued a barracks as we're about to grow, but I guess we'll want to chop a settler asap for the iron. A chop wasn't needed for the last worker here, as the overflow from the other made it due in 2 while moving on a forest and then chop would cost more turns.

Boston grew to size 4 and was 2 unhealthy and that's why I decided to queue another worker here, as growing would be difficult anyway and the library would take long too. Now we have the corn connected which makes it healthy again (1 through corn, 1 through granary). The TR should go through Portugal with whom we don't have OB yet. Still don't know all details of network connections after all these years it seems. But I won't complain about it. Construction of a road between Washington and NY is underway, from which especially Boston will benefit through cow and rice. Also started the extra worker in Boston as watermilling FPs takes a good while, even with serfdom. It started out by culture btw to pop its borders.

The northern 2 rifles headed back to NY and Boston, we got enough info from the Portuguese map anyway. The 3rd one went west and could head home or alternatively stick around the iron. No barb activity detected yet.

 

[lymond]

Bit torn on where to settle around that iron. Obviously there 2 cities to be had around there and the food is not great, but we can farm up and BIO will rock things later. The issue is whether to settle right next to the iron going with the plains cow and sugar or possibly settling on that ivory tile and pull in iron and horse in one shot. The problem though is the dumbazz AI setting up in our grill and stealing the iron with their culture.

I'm inclined to play it safe and secure the iron definitely. Horse/cow could be a separate city and we should probably scout around the coast there to see if there is seafood too.

We should tally to long on the settler and it will take some hammer. I would get up another mine in Washington, grow to size 6 and the chop those forest like crazy to get out the settler.

Everything is looking good so far. Worker build in Boston is a bit questionable since we're getting no bonus at all and the city is not grow and starting building.

 

[astre]

I get the save and will continue according to the roster of rolo in page I.

I'm for going full throttle on settler in washington with chop obviously.
I think that waiting until size 6 will not improve the speed by mutch anyway but i may be wrong.
i'm open to discution

I've calculated a building time of 9 turns with 3 chopped forest (1 hammer missing for 8 turns grrrr) and 7 turns with 4.

settling place of new city will be decided when the settler is built.

 

[pigswill]

Blimey, settlers are expensive. What about settling 1NE of western iron, gets plain cows and a couple of sugar plantations.