Sengir02 - The long view on cottage cheese

[Norvin_Green]

I'm not advocating it if we build on the coast it would boost our early commerce. BTW, I did check for the blue circles in the starting save and there weren't any headed east. If I had to vote I would go east - my reasoning such as it is would be that way I'd have two cities across. If that makes any sense.

 

[Whosit]

Wherever we go, we should stay on the river for the +2 health bonus.

 

[Meiz]

Turn 1

I present you our capital. It could be a lot better, but at least we got some nice amount of green tiles. Growth might be a bit of a problem, though...

We begin to build a warrior and research is naturally set towards the Wheel, as we already know Fishing and Agriculture.

There's a hut NE of the capital, but I'll continue to scout towards south. Hope it's not a mistake...

Turn 4

Oh looky, a hut!

Spoiler :

No AH, but still!

Pottery is now coming in 13 turns, so we change our warrior to a worker, coming in 23 turns.

Turn 5

Capital pops borders, but doesn't reveal anything exciting.

Turn 14

We pop 61 gold from a hut.

Turn 17

Pottery in and the beeline begins!

Our tech tree (huge picture): http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee37/Meiz-/Sengir02/techtree-2.jpg

First up, Sailing.

Turn 19

I'll invest one turn of production towards the warrior in queue, so the hammers don't start to decay.

Turn 21

Buddhism fidl.

Another hut nets 60 more gold.

Turn 28

Worker completed and set him to build a cottage on one of the grasslands. Capital continues to build the warrior.

Turn 30

Hinduism fidl.

Turn 33

Cottage done and I start to work it. Sailing drops by one turn.

Turn 34

Another turn, another cottage being built.

Warrior survives an attack from lion, but now he has to run away from another.

Turn 35

Sailing -> Writing.

Here is our glorious capital. We will pop our borders in 4 turns, and that's how we also pop the hut in NE. Feeling lucky for AH?

Spoiler :

Map of our region. Sorry about the black spots, I was merely dodging those nasty animals and never got around to go back. At least we reveal the hidden tiles in south once the borders pop.

Big picture

Spoiler :

That's a lot of resources we won't be using for a while (or never!). This might get tricky...

So what's the gameplan? I think we could use about 4 warriors for effective fogbusting. But what has the highest priority, granary, library or settler?

Our next techs will be: Writing -> Mathematics -> Calendar -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Metal Casting -> Machinery -> Iron Working

And nocho is up!

 

[Whosit]

We're definitely going to need a Granary to mitigate the fact that we will never have more than a +2 food surplus for a long, long time. The good news is that we'll have Calendar relatively soon, and Iron Working . . . eventually. So we can get the banana plantation here and there. Actually, this isn't too bad considering our sick variant. We have a ton of bananas available which we can eventually make use of and the dyes will provide a nice quick income boost (and happiness) once we get the Calendar/Iron Working combo.

Unfortunately, settling that jungle before we get Iron Working is not terribly economical, but then we risk losing it (though we haven't met anyone yet). There are lots of rivers there, which is nice. Those flood plains way south are tempting. Too bad there isn't a natural choke-point, otherwise I'd advocating a long-distance city to seal up our land. We'll want to scout north, too, just to see what's up there.

A Library is also high-priority. I think we need . . . Warrior to scout north, another Granary, a Warrior for Capital defense, a Library to enhance research, then a couple more warriors for whatever needs doing (our scouts will surely be dead by then). Maybe a settler then.

If possible, I'd like our scouting warrior to head east when he's healthy/safe to see if there's any way to bottle-neck that way.

I think I decent second city would be 1S of the bananas just outside our current borders. If I'm seeing that right, it would also pick up the second bananas later. If we're really lucky, hidden seafood. But I think that two bananas (net of 8 surplus food) should make a decent GP farm for our purposes, and still plenty of riverside grasslands to cottage.

I'll try my hand at a preliminary dotmap later today, though I we still need to see what's up north. But those rivers make the land tempting. Normally I'd say settle it and clear it out later, but any hit to our research rate is gonna hurt because we can't make necessary techs like Iron Working a priority and it comes after two expensive techs (Metal Casting and Machinery).

 

[nocho]

Interestingly we haven't met anybody. Maybe we're alone on a (huge) island/continent. That might actually be huge advantage, as it's no tech trading anyway. So we'll only be bothered by barbarians in these early stages.
Also, if we are alone, we need not hurry too much settling. Because hurry we can't anyway! It maybe advantageous to just let our capital grow and once BW is in, start chopping settlers. Well, maybe we get one out before that, but seeing we're still at size 1, well...

I made a quick and very provisional dotmap of our immediate south.

Red would be the GP farm. Yellow rahter versatile, if you can speak of that with only cottages. Cyan should maybe go 1 north to be riverside. Although we'll have enough health resources to counter that eventually. The plains in the middle of the dots could be settled as well, although it has lots of overlap with the others.

Got it, will play tomorrow morning already, as Sunday I'll be off for the holidays...

 

[Meiz]

Another option:

- Cyan 1N, loses banana but gains two riverside grasslands which would be otherwise wasted

- Yellow 1NW, gets two green tiles which would be wasted

- New city spot on forested plain hills (SE of the dyes, 1SW of the banana). Gets the banana and dyes originally meant for cyan and yellow cities + two extra dyes from south

- Red looks very nice GP farm

- Green 1S

Spoiler :

 

[nocho]

You mean this I think...

Looks better indeed!

 

[Whosit]

Argh, beat me to the punch. Well, I guess that's what happens when I'm working on another SG. The most recent map looks pretty good though. And I can only hope that we're alone out here. But I dare not speak it aloud. The only flaw with the map is that magenta is neither coastal nor riverside, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Red is a good GP spot, I should have seen that. That's . . . about +15 surplus food if I'm counting things right. It may also be the closest thing we'll get to a settler factory, so perhaps it should be our #2 or #3? Maybe Cyan first to help with fog busting?

 

[sturick]

Red will indeed be a much better than expected GP farm given our variants.

By my counts we will be able run 7 specialists once we grow into them.

Fish=+4 food
Clams=+3 food
Rice=+3 food
Banana+3 food
Lake=+1 food
+14 food

Dotmaps are nice but I will wait to figure everything else out until the rest of our fog has been busted.

Red GP farm dot is the only one locked in place.

Note that there are two bare hills surrounded by forest...just keep an eye on it for learning purposes.

Fingers crossed for an AH hut pop and for a continent to ourselves!

 

[nocho]

T36 Fire rages through the woods near Amsterdam. Pay 10 gold to maintain it, figuring it will be worthwile hammers we shouldn't lose.

T39 Amsterdam's borders pop and the hut gives 63 gold.

T40 We're not alone. Guess who we meet, coming from the NW. Really, guess just once, I'm sure you'll be right.

Spoiler :

But not all is bad, as we pop a hut and get...

Spoiler :

T44 Our healing warrior in the far south gets a small but nice event.

Spoiler :

T47 A new warrior scouting the NE pops a hut to find villains all around, he dies next.

T51 We're told we're the least powerful civ in the world, yay, what a surprise.

T53 Writing -> maths.

T55 Our warrior in the far south, heading east, finds ths guy who could use some sleep.

Spoiler :

T63 Hand it off here as Amsterdam has finished another warrior. Our army now consists of 3 warriors. Amsterdam is size 3 and we should discuss what to build next. Very tentatively set to settler. We can build one in 25 turns with math due in 32, or settler due in 50, with math in 16. These are the two extremes. The quicker we research the sooner we reach BW for math-enhanced chopping. Monty and Churchill are very far away it seems, at least we haven't found their borders yet, so settling is no urgency. On the other hand, if we can settle red dot with the two sea food sources, that place can start relatively quickly on settlers and workers. Obviously the sooner the better.
Alternatively a library, granary or more warriors.

By the way, the worker has been cottaging and roading a bit, he's quicker building than our growth rate...

 

[Meiz]

Montezuma! (you're good at guessing, nocho). At least we got hunting from a hut which is always good.

The problem with red dot is that it needs two workboats before actually contributing anything. So maybe we should settle it only when were closer to slavery... I'd say we concentrate on growth while working the cottages, and build additional warriors so we can do some proper fog busting.

Roster
Meiz
nocho - just played
Norvin Green - up
sturick - on deck
Whosit
Sengir

 

[Whosit]

Popped open the save, here are my thoughts:

Let's work all the riverside cottages for now and build non-settlers/workers. I'd still really like to get a granary, but I suppose we do need a few more warriors for fog busting like Meiz said. We should have our worker cottage that wine tile, though. It's a long time until we pick up Monarchy.

We can probably invest in more hammer-intensive buildings like granaries and libraries when we get Bronze Working for the whip and chops.

Also, some ideas for the northwest:

Spoiler :

Blue has some food, I think enough to work everything eventually, some river tiles for commerce. Mainly, it's on the plains hill for that desperately needed extra hammer. And +13 hammers when we eventually can build dikes in like a million turns. I think it would have 12 natural hammers. Wow. If everything worked out, that would make a 25 hammer town a super production spot for our sorry civilization!

Oh, yeah, and let's open borders with Monty as soon as we are able to and hope we get Buddhism. Actually, we should do that now. If nothing else, we might get the "Open Borders" diplo bonus before he decides to kill us. Then we just hope that he doesn't decide to go through us to get at England.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Got it and will post some thoughts tomorrow and play Tuesday night unless someone wants to swap with me.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Sorry for the heavy spolier usage but almost all pics needed the entire shot for context.

Turn 0 2425 bc

Our warriors continue their exploration. What an odd shaped map. Change the settler in queue to another warrior. Send the completed warrior NW to fogbust.

Turn 1 2400 bc

Where the heck are Monty and Winston hiding?

Turn 2 2375 bc

Still no borders found.

Turn 3 2350 bc

I gamble on a plains goody hut and we end up with a scout . . . can you say sweet?

Spoiler :

Normally in single player games I don’t pop flatland huts with warriors but being so far from home I crossed my fingers and did it. Let’s see if I can keep him alive for awhile! I move him 1NW and this is what I see:

Spoiler :

Not what you were thinking, huh?

Turn 4 2325 bc

What are the odds?

Spoiler :

Turn 5 2300 bc

Like my Dad used to say “He’s got two speeds – slow and DEAD”. Yeah, for our former scout. In the meanwhile our northern warrior finds some tundra north of the capital.

Spoiler :

Your friend and mine, Monty, stops by and we open borders.

Turn 6 2275 bc

More of nothing.

Turn 7 2250 bc

I’m sure we’ll be wishing at some point that our rivals were farther away but as of yet no sign of white or green culture.

Turn 8 2225 bc

Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Turn 9 2200 bc

The worker that I had sent to cottage the wine gets moved to the plains hill to cottage. As soon as I let go of the mouse I remember that you can’t cottage plains or desert hills. My bad.

Turn 10 2175 bc

Redirect the worker to cottage the riverside grassland hill.

Turn 11 2150 bc

ZZZZZZ!!

Turn 11 2125 bc

The excitement is starting to wear on me.

Turn 12 2100 bc

Is there anybody out there? Finally bump into one of Churchill’s crew.

Spoiler :

Turn 13 2075 bc

Without further adieu I give you Winston’s white border:

Spoiler :

Also our FB warrior cleanly takes out a barb warrior near home. Our cap has reached size 4 so I’m going to switch to get the warrior out a little quicker.

Turn 14 2050 bc

Our western warrior gets jammed up by a wolf but survives. We have completed teching Math and now the long haul to calendar. It looks a little worse as I stagnated Amsterdam for 2 turns to complete the warrior.

Spoiler :

Turn 15 2025 bc

Having found England I swing our Woody II back towards us to clean up some fog.

Turn 16 2000 bc

Warrior finished and start on another.

Roster:


Save attached


Roster
Meiz
nocho -
Norvin Green - just played
sturick - let's roll
Whosit - begins to stretch
Sengir - (hope the moving is going well!)

 

[Meiz]

I like the layout of the map, never seen it before

The worker that I had sent to cottage the wine gets moved to the plains hill to cottage. As soon as I let go of the mouse I remember that you can’t cottage plains or desert hills. My bad.

Really? . If that's the case, maybe we can build windmills on plains hills?

 

[Whosit]

Sounds like a good set Norvin, though shame about the Scout. The RNG giveth; the RNG taketh away.

I suppose it'll be true what you said, we'll certainly end up wishing our rivals were further away, but England really seems to be out there. I'll be more comfortable once we know where the Aztec are, though. The good news, at least, is that we should have room to REX with abandon.

 

[nocho]

Really? . If that's the case, maybe we can build windmills on plains hills?

Or a mine?

The good news, at least, is that we should have room to REX with abandon.

It will rather be a slow expansion, which acronym I won't write down so as not to get the wrath of the moderators upon me .

 

[sturick]

Alright I'm next so but I won't be able to play until Friday.
So let me know if that is gonna work for the team.

Should we start building a settler now???
And if so where should he go?
The settler is gonna take 50 turns so we had better get started imo.
My instincts say that we should set up the GP farm.
We can chop out a workboat and get that city to produce the rest of our settlers and workers.
Once IW arrives that city will blow up!

Otherwise I think that we have scouted enough for the time being.
All of our scouts should return closer to home to fogbust.

 

[Meiz]

Should we start building a settler now???
And if so where should he go?
The settler is gonna take 50 turns so we had better get started imo.
My instincts say that we should set up the GP farm.
We can chop out a workboat and get that city to produce the rest of our settlers and workers.

Probably a good idea, as we want to start to grow our GP farm before BW, and whip / chop workboat once slavery comes in.

50 turns... . Maybe a bit longer set next, or?

Edit: Does Whosit want to swap and play before friday? And for your information, I'll be mostly away from computer for the next weekend, so probably need a skip / swap.

 

[Whosit]

I can take a set before sturick. I think I can play in a few hours. Let me just download the save and confirm it . . . .

I was about to say "but we can chop the worker out" and then I remembered our silly variant.

So I doubt the settler will be done by the end of my set, but yeah, settling the GP farm is highest priority because only there will we get enough food to actually build settler and workers at a reasonable pace. The only good thing about our tech path is that we'll have Math before Bronze Working so all of our chops will be at max value. Still, I'd rather get less efficient chops earlier, but what you can do.

Actually, perhaps Meiz's suggestion I will take, and play a longer than 20-turn set so that sturick doesn't play the exact same thing I do! Umm, yeah, that's probably it.