RSG5 Emperor 20K

[Raliuven]

Well it looks like France is out - LKendter let us know how Joan does. I can't image it will be too hard - all of us already love her!

Okay, I went back and forth on this because the top two are Korea and the Mayans. CKS makes a strong case for Korea and I like the Mayans because I have never played them before (yep, that's right NEVER).

In the end I decide for the Koreans. I hope that doesn't put you off the game, Cyc.

Map Stats:
C3C
Standard
Continents
60% Water (least water setting)
Barbs: Roaming
Climate: Normal
Temperature: Temperate
Age: 4 Billion Years

Civ: Korea (Commercial/Scientific) UU: Hwach’a (replaces cannon: 0(8)/0/1 ROF:1 Shields: 40 *Terrain Restriction*)
8 Random Civs
Victories: All Allowed (except wonder), not culturally linked, preserve random seed, cultural conversions and scientific leaders allowed.
Aggression: Normal
Difficulty: Emperor

I generated starts and came up with four possibility starts that looked promising. None of them net everything on the wish list.

Start 1


Start 2


Start 3


Start 4

 

[Toxicman007]

I'd prefer the coastal start because, well coastal start. Also incense. It just means it'd be difficult to grow until we get a harbour.

 

[LKendter]

If you are going to make the capitol 20K you really need a food source.
If city #2 is 20K, capitol needs food for several workers to get city #2 large fast.

Coastal site sucks IMO.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

In start 2, does the incense hill 1 tile NW count as a coast? That would give fresh water, 2 or 3 BG's, a lux, a defensive bonus and choppable forests.

 

[CKS]

A cow beats incense any day. I vote against start 2. If the lux were wines or ivory (SoZ), then it would be iffier, but food is king in the beginning.

If we were thinking about 20k in the capital, I'd vote for start 4, settling 1 south. I think we've agreed on 20k in the 2nd city, though.

I still am leaning toward start 4. It has more river tiles, more BG, and more hills. I'd probably settle in place, looking to put the 2nd city to north east of the cow somewhere. If we get nothing in the fog, we can still put city 2 by the cow and disband the capital later to give city 2 the BG. If we move the worker to the cow first, we can see at least 3 of the fogged tiles, letting us know whether it would be worth moving the capital south to give city 2 better tiles.

Settling S or SW of the starting spot gives us a coastal capital, but then we don't have the cow for 10 turns. A coastal capital lets us put out a curragh to make contacts more quickly, but we have 2-move curraghs, so it isn't as big a deal as if we were seafaring.

Start 1 likely has a reasonable spot for a coastal 20k city. The advantages of coastal are: Colossus (cheap, early culture and lots of tourist income), Great Lighthouse (not great for culture, given the other choices at the time), Magellan's Voyage (usually coming at a time when wonders are getting rarer, and a nice fill-in-the-gap build as we research through the industrial age). The disadvantage is that after Shakespeare's Theater, you grow to fewer shield-producing tiles. If you don't have at least 12 land tiles to work, it probably isn't worth going coastal.

Start 3 doesn't look so great from the visible tiles, and I don't like nearby volcanoes early on.

 

[Cyc]

I don't like any of them. I bet you threw the best one away, huh Raliuven.

I would have to move the Settler in all of them but the second (maybe even that one), and the second has no Cattle that we can see. No sense planting a capital city one tile away from a body of water. It's a waste. I think you should roll again and see what comes up.

I agree pretty much with CKS on #4, but I'd still move it away from the Cattle to the SW. Not a game breaker, just typical of all the choices you've posted above. With #4, NE of the Cow looks good in the fog.

I would say the answer to splunge the 2nd's question is yes. But I fear #2 would give us the worst options.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I guess I keep thinking OCC! If we build a several city core, we can hook up luxes later. I defer to the better players. My openning turns and site selection aren't my strongest.

 

[Raliuven]

I am willing to roll up more starts if the team wants. I posted the best of something like 300 starts. My absolute criteria was a coast start (coast in view, obviously not necessarily with the settler on the coast) on a river with at least a luxury or bonus food within the visible tiles.

I absolutely guarentee I did NOT through away the best start. It was a pain in the butt to get these four. Who knew a good start location was so hard to find? I finally put up these four not because I was necessarily in love with them but because they were the best within the criteria and I didn't want to keep the team waiting. I didn't even notice the darn volcano in start #3!

I will keep fishing if the team wants.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Do you have MapFinder? Makes things alot easier.

 

[Cyc]

Yeah, with MapFinder you can use the filter of "on a river, at least 3 BGs, and TWO Cows". 'Course you'll probably only come up with one or two....

Don't worry about the coast. And I was just kidding about throwin' the best away. Good job getting the first four!

If you want some help, I can look for some also.

 

[LKendter]

It took multiple tries to get my 20K France game going. 20K is really tough without food around. The 20K city needs a LOT of worker action.

 

[Raliuven]

I don't have Map Finder or Civ Assit. But I do have time to roll a few new starts. If anyone else finds a good map, that'll work to. I'll see if I can post a few more for consideration.

It took multiple tries to get my 20K France game going. 20K is really tough without food around. The 20K city needs a LOT of worker action.

And that even being industrious! But we Koreans are very inventive. I'm sure we can beat the French!

 

[CKS]

20k with no food is hard, but all of these starts have reasonable food. We can likely win with any of them. 20k just isn't that hard. You have to play for it from the beginning, and you have to make trade-offs, but it isn't difficult to win. (Winning very quickly is a different story.)

We can hunt around for the perfect start, or we can pick one and just play.

 

[Raliuven]

Okay, three more after an hour of searching.

Start 5


Start 6


Start 7


I thought Start 7 was interesting but I don't know that it has enough shield tiles.

 

[Elephantium]

Say, do you mind if I join this? A 20k game sounds fun.

 

[CKS]

I still like 4 best. All of these are short of shields.

7 is interesting, but not a good choice for 20k.

 

[Cyc]

Try these on. See if they fit...

#1 2 Cows on the equator, with hills, Mountains and desert?


#2 Cow, Spice, Hill at the southern tip of the Jungle


#3 The Equator again, with Wheat on a Flood Plain (4/0/1). Road and irrigate that, it becomes a 5/0/2 tile.


#4 Cow and sugar on the Plains


#5 Another Wheat on the Flood Plains with lots of hills and Mountains


#6 Settler on a Cow, with lots of high terrain


#7 Ditto.


#8 Wheat on a Flood Plain, High terrain, and a Village.

 

[Elephantium]

Cyc, your first start looks promising - I'd move the Settler 1SW.
The third start looks decent. I'd want to settle in place and see what else is in the

BFC before committing to that, though.
None of the other starts really appeal to me.

 

[Raliuven]

Say, do you mind if I join this? A 20k game sounds fun.

I'm asking the team on this. We also have TheOverseer that offered to jump in if needed as well - Overseer, did you want to join or just lurk and jump in if their is a skip request?

Our current Roster stands at:

Roster
Raliuven
Cyc
Toxicman007
CKS
splunge the 2nd
TheOverseer???
Elephantium???

Not sure how everyone feels about this. I tend to think the more the merrier because we end up with some skips anyway, but I want to test the waters with everyone else.

I'm okay with any start. I say we vote from those that are currently offered and I'll start the game, but I'll ask for some guidance form the more 20k experienced players for how to handle the first 20 turns, which seem to me will be more important than your typical game [yes, all starts are important, but this seems to call for a specific sequence of events that will be less forgiving, even on Emperor].

The only problem I see with the ones Cyc posted is our lack of sight of the coast. I don't know how important that is. I kind of like start 5 - game and a wheat, on the coast and plenty of forest to chop.

I don't particularly like seeing a lot of desert, marsh or jungle in the opening position. Start #7 I though was interesting food-wise, but would be very shield poor. It could serve as a worker pump but we'd need to find a new place to put our 20k city.

The last posting of Cyc is also interesting and is towards the edge of the map so we might have a 2nd city 20k site close by.

 

[Toxicman007]

Could I go after CKS please? I'm completely new to 20K and almost entirely new to Emperor, so I'd like some more experienced players to go first.