SGOTM 01 - Smurkz

[Niklas]

Right, a roster! Since I have no indications of preferences (except my own), I'll use the sign-in order of this thread. That gives us the following roster:

• Methos
• zyxy
• dojoboy
• McLMan
• Marc Aurel
• Niklas

I put myself last to give me the most time to learn before playing (and to go get it in the first place). If you have any wishes let me know and I'll accomodate them, as long as there are no contradictions.

Regarding the first town, what about Thebez? (After all there are only so many ways to incorporate the word Smurkz... not that I think we're near the limit, no way ) Other town names could be Alekzandria, Memphiz, Lukzor... But I'll leave the final decision to the starting player.

I'll leave the starting sequence to those with more experience. I don't have any tools for CIV, and I don't know the tile yields, build costs etc. well enough to think I could possibly do it by hand. I might write up a spread sheet once I've learnt the basics though, could come in handy for the next game.

 

[Methos]

I’d like to suggest my first move. I was thinking about moving the settler SW onto the plains hill and than saving and stopping, and posting a screenshot of what the settler sees. This way we can all take a look at some of those fogged out tiles before making our final decision on where to settle. Is this okay with everyone? It will cause us to lose one turn.

Would it be wiser to instead move S, SW to the grass hill? It could open up more tiles.

Thebez sounds good to me. Keeps it with the Egyptian style, but adding a little Smurkz twist.

 

[dojoboy]

Hi , Marc Aurel checking in.
And another special hearty welcome to dojoboy - the new Smurkz on the block.

Thanks Marc Aurel. I must say, even being a vet here at CFC, I'm somewhat intimidated by the breadth of knowledge and skill you gentlemen display. Math is not my strong point. I tend to play fast, which hurts me in regards to missing "things" that provide exponential advantages

So I am not interested early on in cities that don’t give me a special thing I need for civilisation growth. The way I try to claim a huge part of the land is to block other civs out early. Our special creative ability is very useful for this by earl pushing our borders to distance 2 from city center. If we do not sign any “open borders” treaty we will keep also galleys out of our “to be settled territory” in the future, since they cannot navigate on the oceans. If we block the shore and the shallow water tiles the enemy ships are banned.

Interesting point referring blocking the shoreline, never thought of blocking the infamous galley/settler through denying open borders. By land sure, but not by sea.

What is the teams feeling about civics, which will not be an issue for some time into the game? But, does Smurkz find a specific setting more powerful over the long haul, or that adjusting per the situation to be more important. I've not enough experience w/ Civ4 yet to determine how important the limited anarchy turns in Civ4 are, in comparison to 6-9 turns of anarchy in C3C. Right now, I find the shortcomings of 1 turn anarchy in Civ4 to minimal.

 

[Marc Aurel]

I’d like to suggest my first move. I was thinking about moving the settler SW onto the plains hill and than saving and stopping, and posting a screenshot of what the settler sees. This way we can all take a look at some of those fogged out tiles before making our final decision on where to settle. Is this okay with everyone? It will cause us to lose one turn.

Very good idea, Methos! Go on with it!

Would it be wiser to instead move S, SW to the grass hill? It could open up more tiles.

I don't think so. The plain gives us an additional hammer. The center tile alway has at least two food. So settling a grass hill gives no additional ressource. The center stays at 2fd/1hammer/1gold. Settling on the plains hill directly SW from the start gives 2fd/2hammers/1gold and that is an early boost.
I have played some test games, in which I have tested some build sequences and starting locations. Regrettably I don’t have such a comfortable spread sheet like Niklas for Civ3. I am currently working on it, but that will take some time. I’ve played them to 2290 BC, when I had finished 2 workers and one settler in the first variant and compared that result with other variants. It has turned out, that zyxys green circle is by far the best location. That is mainly because of the second hammer on the city center tile. That saves us 5 turns per worker (18 compared to 23 turns) and so on also for the settler. However I figured out the settler should come Second and be sent to the place where the warrior already waits for him to protect him after reconnaissance for the second city.

I should remark here, that I have a strong tendency to prefer gold resources or gems to be in the vicinity of our second city, since they give a huge commerce bonus early on, boosting science , if they are available.

On science it has turned out, that the only two forests, we can chop for sure (60 hammers, 20 each forest *1.5 for epic speed) would not justify postponing animal husbandry. We would lose 28 turns working the cow, what would mean 84 hammers by a loss of 3 hammers per turn (hpt) working the floodplain instead. Since we build only workers and a settler in this time this plain reduces the losses by not working the cow to 2 hpt.

But after that the mining – BW route is quite effective, since we get to BW short before the settler and can support the 2. worker by chopping and hopefully there are some more forests at distance two from the capital and the second city somewhere in the west might also feature some forests in the surroundings. If anybody also calculates the start for comparison, what I would appreciate here are my stats from 2290BC:

Points: 120
2cities at size 2
2workers
1warrior
Improved: 3 plains, 1 cow, 1mined hill

 

[zyxy]

Nice work MA! I'll try to run some tests tomorrow to compare. Do you know how many turns it is to 2290BC?

@Methos: I like your idea. I guess it's clear that I would move to the hill SW...

 

[Marc Aurel]

It's 57 turns to 2290BC - close to the end of dojoboys turnset as long as we play 20 turns each for the first time and later on 10 turns each, as we did in team Bede in SGOTM9. Personnally I think that's a good idea, since during the first turns not much happens but later on 10 turns consume an evening if you are on your guard and doublecheck everything and later on write a summary of them in the thread including some screenies. What do you think about the length of the turnsets?

Ah, I forgot - the saves are ready!

@dojoboy: Hi - please don’t feel intimidated, it’s just an automatism for many people when they play in teams. IT’s another quality of competition that makes the fun. Everybody tries to participate with some good ideas in the team success. So automatically they start to do some math and optimisations. And in CIV there is quite a lot to do in this matter – enough room for you to find your special idea.

 

[Niklas]

@dojoboy: That's what's so fun about these SGOTM's - for a solo game you seldom have time to stop and think about actual numbers, though you may have some intuitive idea about "good" and "bad" numbers. In this game we're doing 10 turns at a time, sometimes even less if something important comes up, so we have plenty of time to analyze and find optimal solutions.

@MA: Nice analysis! I agree that we should go with the 20 turns followed by 10 from Civ3 SGOTMs, if it doesn't work out we can change it later on.

Alright, I'll try to summarize what our thoughts are, for my own sake as much as for the discussion.

Early moves
zyxy, Methos and Marc Aurel all seem to think that settling the Green Dot, i.e. 1SW of the starting location, is the best start. Everyone thinks that the coastal area would make a good commerce town, or GP farm, but in any case a useful location to settle. McLMan points out that settling Green Dot will lead to a 2-3 tile overlap, something we would like to avoid, and suggests Blue Dot north of the lake as a better location for the capitol.

I feel that I miss some finer points here. I can see why ICS is dead since maintenance is based on number of towns. Still, 2-3 tiles of overlap doesn't seem very crippling, in particular if that overlap is not felt until the later stages of the game. But that might just be my Civ3 mindset not fully grasping the implications. So, here's a set of newbie questions:

1. How fast do you think we can grow to the size where the overlap is getting felt, citizen-wise?
2. Are there any other implications of an overlap that I am not aware of, i.e. other than the obvious citizen assignments and maxing out at a lower size?
3. As a related questions, are there any CIV equivalents to Civ3 aqueducts and hospitals, i.e. buildings that limit the size of a town?
4. While I'm at it, how fast do cultural border expansion happen? Or is it still tied to culture? We are creative and thus get +2 culture per town, is that +2 culture per turn?

Research
There seems to be no doubt that we should go for Animal Husbandry right away. We need it to make proper use of the cow, to find out where the horses are, and it will lead further towards Writing and Alphabet that we can probably use to trade for whatever else we need.
Marc suggests a going for Mining and BW after AH in order to get access to mines and forest chops. I would think it would be better to be able to trade for these techs, but I'm not sure how viable that would be. I understand that we need Alphabet for tech trading, so if we want to trade then we should head straight for that. This seems a bit long to me to go without mines and chops, but again I don't feel I can fully assess the implications.
zyxy also suggests going for Pottery for cottages. This would surely be beneficial, and would also slightly increase our research yields towards Writing, having two of the three optionals.

To summarize, AH right away is not in question. It has a base cost of 60 according to this page, how is that modified by speed, map size and difficulty? Will we get AH in 20 turns, or can we postpone the decision on the next tech until the next turnset?

 

[dojoboy]

@dojoboy: That's what's so fun about these SGOTM's - for a solo game you seldom have time to stop and think about actual numbers, though you may have some intuitive idea about "good" and "bad" numbers. In this game we're doing 10 turns at a time, sometimes even less if something important comes up, so we have plenty of time to analyze and find optimal solutions.

I shall have my thinking cap on.

Early moves
Still, 2-3 tiles of overlap doesn't seem very crippling, in particular if that overlap is not felt until the later stages of the game. But that might just be my Civ3 mindset not fully grasping the implications. So, here's a set of newbie questions:

1. Are there any other implications of an overlap that I am not aware of, i.e. other than the obvious citizen assignments and maxing out at a lower size?

1. 
   
   The advantage here would be turning citizens into specialists, as a result of the overlap. Perhaps that could focus city in question toward a specific role. But, what do we want produced from these two cities? Will the overlap prevent it?
   
   

   Research
   There seems to be no doubt that we should go for Animal Husbandry right away. We need it to make proper use of the cow, to find out where the horses are, and it will lead further towards Writing and Alphabet that we can probably use to trade for whatever else we need. Marc suggests a going for Mining and BW after AH in order to get access to mines and forest chops. I would think it would be better to be able to trade for these techs, but I'm not sure how viable that would be. I understand that we need Alphabet for tech trading, so if we want to trade then we should head straight for that.

   
   I personally don't find the Civ4 AI agreeable to trading techs very often. And, never having played above Noble yet, how likely will we have techs to trade? I've also never met a civ who would outright sell me a tech either.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Early moves[/b]
zyxy also suggests going for Pottery for cottages. This would surely be beneficial, and would also slightly increase our research yields towards Writing, having two of the three optionals.

I think he means also the health benefit of granaries, since the floodplains give a lot of illness amongst our people and making full use of the effective plains would be a good idea. The quest on the cottages is something to discuss after scouting the surroundings. If we can get some gold, silver and gems, working these is much more effective (5-7 gold per tile) in the critical early stage after city 4. But in our case the floodies around make granaries very useful.

The alphabet really comes too late for chopping. The great advantage of the chopping is in the early phase. These are ressources you only can get once. Later on they loose their effectiveness on the overall game. But getting your first two settlers and 3 workers by that, has been an unbeatable strategy up to version 1.52! The masters called it CET (chop every tree). The effect was getting 30hammers in 4 turns. Since the settler is 60, that is one chop and couple of turns working your center and second tile and you have a settler. That has been cut down a little by the programmers in version 1.61, cause it was too powerful. But still it is effective, even if you now must calculate the effect in detail. What I wanted to point out is, that we get our #1 settler and an additional worker by chopping as usual, but the loss of the cow for that would be too much. But after that the normal start out strategy works.
There is a number of cities you can have without maintenance penalty and this number we need to get asap. After that our growth is limited and we can do the other things. The number is generally 4, but sometimes 5 and seldom 6, if we have i.e. gold ressources, which would each pay the maintenance for one city. (-7)
@Niklas: to your questions:

-4: yes our advantage in the game is fast expanding culture borders. your idea of 2cpt is correct. We need no stonehange and obelisks for that.

-3: No, however your growth is limited. But it is by unhappiness - luxuries and buildings help! and illness - health ressources - all foods inclusive cows and granaries help.

- 1&2 the general problem of overlapping is that you have for a long time (after your initial 4 towns) much room but cannot settle due to the maintenance issue. You see the carrot and can't get it! That is torture!!! So every overlapping tile is simply one thing - a terrible waste!!!!!

 

[Methos]

As a related questions, are there any CIV equivalents to Civ3 aqueducts and hospitals, i.e. buildings that limit the size of a town?

No, the only thing that limits city size is food, happiness, and health. There are buildings that increase the limits of both happiness and health, but not food. Temples grant a +1 per temple, while markets grant a +1 per several specific resources. Aqueducts grant +2 and grocers grant +1 per specific resources. Also resources themselves grant bonus health or happiness points.

While I'm at it, how fast do cultural border expansion happen? Or is it still tied to culture? We are creative and thus get +2 culture per town, is that +2 culture per turn?

The bonus from our creative trait is for each city each turn. In other words, every city we have earns +2 per turn. I’m not sure what is required for each cultural expansion. I typically play Marathon speed, and not Epic. Taking a guess, I’d say at 15, 150, 1500, 7500, and 75000. That’s a guess, so please someone correct me if I’m wrong.

zyxy also suggests going for Pottery for cottages. This would surely be beneficial, and would also slightly increase our research yields towards Writing, having two of the three optionals.

I typically head for Potter very early, as the earlier you can build cottages the quicker they grow. Remember that cottages grow as they are being worked, thereby producing extra commerce. A cottage produces one each turn, a hamlet earns two , etc., etc.. So the earlier we can get those cottages up the quicker they become towns. Bee lining for Writing by way of Pottery might be a good idea, especially since we have all those floodplain tiles. Floodplain cottages are very sweet.

All factors (I believe) are modified by 1.5 in cost due to epic speed. Culture acquired is not, but the amount of culture needed for expansion is.

 

[Methos]

Well, as I suggested (and no one opposed it), I started the game up and moved the settler one SW. Rather than upload it I've attached it, so I apologize for the small pic. Anyways...

View attachment 126433

As you can see not a whole lot opened up, but it does look promising. This will definitely be a nice city site. I just wish we could see what's to the west of those hills. It also looks like the tile W of the cow is a grass hill. I definitely agree with zyxy's suggestion of this site.

Edit: Okay, this is what our city will look like using our current view.

CC: 2f, 2h
Cow: 3f, 3h, 1c
Flood Plains (x6) [cottages]: 3f, commerce varies
Grass Hill [mined]: 1f, 3h
Plains Hill [mined]: 4h
Grass, fresh water [chopped]: 2f, 1c
Grass (x3) [chopped]: 2f
Fresh Water Lake: 2f, 2c
Plains: 1f, 1h

If we keep the forests than we gain three hammers and lose one coin.

Using the above tiles (all forests chopped) would give us [at size 15] +5 f, 13h, and a varied amount of commerce. With the forests we’d have an additional 3 hammers. Also note I counted the plains tile as unimproved, as I differ on how I improve it compared to what I need.

Also note that the above is based off what we can see. I’m guessing there’s a grass hill west of the cow, and a plains hill northwest-west of the settler. West-west of the settler looks like a plains forest tile, and south of that looks like jungle. South-southwest of the settler is possibly a grass tile.

FYI, Animal Husbandry costs 223 beakers and Pottery cost 178 beakers.

Sorry for the jumbled write-up. I'm off to bed.

 

[zyxy]

Allright, the game is on!

There seem to be at least 4 forests in range of this location, maybe 5. Good for health or chops early on, in fact 4 forests allows a healthy city up to the happiness limit of 5 citizens.
Question: occasionaly I have had new forests grow near my capital in my test game. How is this triggered? Only on unimproved tiles? Only next to existing forests?

Btw, if we desperately want to avoid overlap then we could mobve the settler one more tile SW. It's a bit of a shot in the dark though, and it moves us away from the river, so I think I am not in favor.

1. How fast do you think we can grow to the size where the overlap is getting felt, citizen-wise?
2. Are there any other implications of an overlap that I am not aware of, i.e. other than the obvious citizen assignments and maxing out at a lower size?
3. As a related questions, are there any CIV equivalents to Civ3 aqueducts and hospitals, i.e. buildings that limit the size of a town?
4. While I'm at it, how fast do cultural border expansion happen? Or is it still tied to culture? We are creative and thus get +2 culture per town, is that +2 culture per turn?

Although you've already had some answers, here's my two cents:
1. not so fast I think. Also, if we settle the capital where we are now, then a town E of the warrior still has access to 6 unshared FP's, supporting 12 citizens if farmed, with another one fed from the CC. That's 7 specialists, quite a lot by my standards. You need buildings before you can hire specialists: for example, a lib gives the ability to hire 1 (or 2?) scientist.

2. You cannot abandon cities. And Tile allocation is terribly implemented with overlaps, you cannot easily see which tiles are worked by another city.

3. As said, townsizes are limited by healthyness and happiness. Various buildings, wonders and resources change these variables.

4. +2 cpt for palace, +2 cpt per town. First expansion at 15.

There seems to be no doubt that we should go for Animal Husbandry right away. We need it to make proper use of the cow, to find out where the horses are, and it will lead further towards Writing and Alphabet that we can probably use to trade for whatever else we need.
Marc suggests a going for Mining and BW after AH in order to get access to mines and forest chops. I would think it would be better to be able to trade for these techs, but I'm not sure how viable that would be. I understand that we need Alphabet for tech trading, so if we want to trade then we should head straight for that. This seems a bit long to me to go without mines and chops, but again I don't feel I can fully assess the implications.
zyxy also suggests going for Pottery for cottages. This would surely be beneficial, and would also slightly increase our research yields towards Writing, having two of the three optionals.

Animal husbandry costs 223 beakers and takes 18 turns to research (at 10 beakers per turn - you get some bonus apparently). Writing is slightly more expensive, while Alphabet is from the next age and costs a lot more at 600-700 I think. If we go AH -> Writing -> Alpha we are looking at 80-90 turns I guess. This may be too much, although I personally like it (the Civ3 person in me, no doubt). If we go for techs that are immediately useful, then mining, pottery and bronze working are all good choices. If we get coastal acces then fishing -> sailing might be useful, for work boats and trade routes.

The big advantage of beelining for alpha is that it makes it easier to be the tech king. The real problem is that every delay makes it less likely that you will get it in time - ideally you want to get alpha before the AI's all have writing, so that you can trade with writing and hold back alpha. It is quite surprising how long the AI's will grant you a monopoly on tech trading. I have been able to pull this off quite consistently on monarch level, but only if I go straight AH -> Writing -> Alpha. Even pottery causes a too long delay, despite the shorter research time of writing and the help of the occasional cottage.

I think all in all I am happy with any good research plan. I certainly don't feel I have nailed the optimal one. I think it very much depends on the start, and it looks like our current start will allow lots of directions. On higher levels than monarch the alpha gambit probably won't work so well. MA makes a good case for chops, maybe that's the way to go. In any case, we can start on AH, and explore with that warrior to learn more about our surroundings.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Just an add to my analysis. I've checked some more options and found something that is equal to what I've posted before. If we start (at the same location 1SW):

-building 2 warriors and letting Thebez grow to size 3 before the worker#1
-build worker and go exploring and switch to settler
-work the cow and go to the forest
-have one interturn screwing thumbs before we get BW after AH and mining
-chop the settler and send him to location#2
-start the 2. worker and chop him with the second forest

We are in 2290:
capitol : size 3
2. town : size 1
1 worker
3 warriors
worked one tile (the cow)

But we have already pottery! and have started on writing! giving us 126 points then.
Compared to my scenario A, we lack one worker (2 turns by chop ahead) and have the bigger capitol and the 1 point smaller second city and have two tiles less worked. In scenario A Thebez would grow in 5 turns. The rest is a bit depending on where the second city really is located. I am not able to judge what is better at the moment, but the scenario A is 3 turns back in research.

Letting the capitol grow to size 2 and start with the worker is weaker to both scenarios. I 've to finish the spread sheet. This is too much work calculating each scenario by hand.

 

[dojoboy]

Animal husbandry costs 223 beakers and takes 18 turns to research (at 10 beakers per turn - you get some bonus apparently).

Is 10 beakers / turn a fixed number? If not, what specifically changes this?

 

[Methos]

Is 10 beakers / turn a fixed number? If not, what specifically changes this?

Starting off the city center gives one commerce and the palace gives eight commerce, plus one commerce from a worked tile, getting us a total of ten commerce a turn. Since our slider is at 100% research than that ten commerce becomes ten beakers a turn. Let's say our citizen works the fresh water lake, which is two commerce. Than we would get one commerce from the city center, eight commerce from the palace, and two commerce from working the lake. For a total of eleven commerce. At 100% that eleven commerce would become twelve beakers.

Edit: Whoops, fixed an error.

Commerce is gained from tiles worked, and is used to figure out beakers, culture, and gold per turn. Commerce is what is taken into account when figuring our % slider. Please note that there is a big difference between commerce and gold. Gold is affected by buildings (such as a bank), but commerce is not. In fact I believe the only known thing that affects commerce is the Buearacracy civic.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Is 10 beakers / turn a fixed number? If not, what specifically changes this?

It is : 100% research consuming commerce of
8 c : permanetly only by the capitol
1 c for the center tile
1 c for working one of the flood plains which get the commerce since it is at a river.

Since all the tiles we will work early on are on that river, we will have 12 beakers, when the capital would be size 3 without any cottages so far.

 

[zyxy]

@MA: very impressive starts!

Here's my attempt. This is calculated rather than simulated, so I hope I've understood the mechanics correctly.
I am settling on the SW hill (where we are now), and counting the settling turn as turn 1. On research I just assume AH first, after that it's free (i.e., I don't need any other techs, in particular, there's no chopping.)
Build order: worker (finishes on IT after turn 18), warrior (turn 29), settler (45), two more warriors (49,53).
Tile order: first citizen to fp, second to fp until cow is improved, then to cow, all following citizens to fp.
Worker actions: on turn 57 the worker has irrigated 4 fp's and herded the cow (no roads), in the order: fp, cow, fp (x3).
Capital status: we have 20 shields in the box, capital will grow to size 4 on the interturn. We have 592 gold collected (but need to subtract about 180 for AH).


@dojoboy: you get 8 gold from the palace, 1 from the city center, and 1 from the first tile you work. If you start building a worker, then the city will not grow, so the gold output does not change. (by coincidence the worker build also takes 18 turns .) This shows btw that it takes quite a while before you can double the economy - the palace is really a big boost early on.

EDIT: wow, crosspost-fest .

 

[Marc Aurel]

@zyxy: Yeah you got it! That is correct AFAIK.

one remark coming from strat about the warriors: I would take the 1 warrior out of your sequence. Why? I only use them for scouting but not for MP early on. The animals and barbs do not cross your borders. The same do the other AI's as long as you have peace and no open borders. So MP is no issue. Because of that I do not build a warrior before the second settler, cause the warrior I have from the start goes a little exploring. He has around 30 turns to do so. Has he found a good place he tries to cover the road the first settler has to go there and the second city can be founded. It is as safe as the capital now and my warrior moves on to city location 3 and the second settler is doing like the first. So far - so good! (Bad translation from German) The real problem that comes know is that at least location #3 is somewhere far away, since I now try to do the blocking, so depending on the map I may be in need of the warriors now to cover a large enemy rich distance through the wilderness to reach with the settler the next location. So don't take this too serious, but I start building only workers and settlers, warriors only if I want to grow the city, what might be the case this time.
In any case this hurry for cities ends as I said before after city 4,5, or 6 depending on our commerce for maintenance then. The chopping can significantly speed up this early city race. When we calcute the start until city 4, that should be clearly demonstrated - but we don't know about the other locations now, so we can't do so. The only thing we must decide now is whether we:

let grow the capital a bit:

warrior, warrior, worker, settler...?
or go straight on with the peaceful guys:
worker, settler, worker, settler,...?

What do you think?

 

[McLMan]

I typically play Marathon speed, and not Epic. Taking a guess, I’d say at 15, 150, 1500, 7500, and 75000. That’s a guess, so please someone correct me if I’m wrong.

I play almost exclusively at Epic. You are 100% correct with your guesses.

I typically head for Potter very early, as the earlier you can build cottages the quicker they grow. Remember that cottages grow as they are being worked, thereby producing extra commerce. A cottage produces one each turn, a hamlet earns two , etc., etc.. So the earlier we can get those cottages up the quicker they become towns. Bee lining for Writing by way of Pottery might be a good idea, especially since we have all those floodplain tiles. Floodplain cottages are very sweet.

This is one comment I truly hope doesn't get lost in this discussion. Especially in the early game. Irrigating floodplains gets you to your health/happiness limits quicker but that's about it. And when you're forced to stagnate your commerce is also stalled at 1g per floodplain worked. A cottage instantly turns a floodplain tile into 2 commerce, and it will take 15 turns before it turns into a Hamlet and produce 3 commerce. Irrigating for GP farms is nice but it should be secondary to commerce IMO. Pottery is also very helpful because it allows you to build a granary. Granaries provide an extra health in the city, but more importantly allow faster growth. They work the same as Civ III granaries in this aspect. A site with lots of floodplains has the potential to carry several towns once you begin taking cities off of the hands of your rivals.

 

[Methos]

Irrigating for GP farms is nice but it should be secondary to commerce IMO.

I really like cities with a lot of floodplain tiles, as they can be specialized into so many different types of cities [science/wealth/GP]. As McLMan mentioned, they make great commerce/science cities. Here lately I've been playing a lot of culture games, hence my immediate notice of possible GP farms!

What is everyone's preference on the warrior? Any preferred direction to explore?

What's everyone's opinions on our builds and tech research? Several great options have been brought up lately.

Unless we're still unsure of how to proceed, I'll probably play either Saturday night or sometime Sunday.

Edit: Wow! Looking at the progress page there are several teams that are already in the 2000 BC's!! VQ is already at 2500 BC! That's odd, look at Xteam. They already have a score of 40 at 3970 BC. Must have popped a hut or something. Everyone else is similar on the score table.