SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[Big Pig]

I will start in the next few hours and head towards a grow size 2>wkr>grow size 3>settler start (of course I will not do all of that in my turnset) if no-one persuades me differently.

I will endeavour to keep track of barb animal battles altho' it is completely frickin' useless information

 

[Big Pig]

Don't forget that bee-lining Pottery doubles our research capabilities...AND with our cheap granaries and low food, makes poprushing a workable idea.

....if we had BW.....

 

[LowtherCastle]

....if we had BW.....

We do have it...just in time. (Mining for free and BW cheaper...)

It's a gamble we're taking, because teams that focus on research will also gets lots of barbs, just not axes so early. If our axes don't do serious damage, we lose. Let's cross our fingers.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I will endeavour to keep track of barb animal battles altho' it is completely frickin' useless information

DOn't bother yourself too much about this, just a general notion, beacuse it's almost impossible to really know who killed them and how many get killed, they regenerate so fast. I'll do a careful job on teh human barbs.

 

[klarius]

If you want to judge lost animals, it's better IMO to not switch on show friendly moves. You anyway see no attack moves, but you see at least how you lose visibility for the last enemy moved into field of view, when the animals suicide.

 

[Big Pig]

I've paused after 8 turns to discuss whether we need to be aiming to get a settler out faster.

Mostly I have revealed jungle, more bananas and lots more dye on our island. However there is one choice site with a gold hill and (unjungled) rice (and 2 GHs that our city boundaries can pop) that we want to ensure we get before the barbs.

Currently I am following a grow2>wkr>grow3>settler approach - good for getting BW in early but less good for a very early settler (in my test I got a settler in 2260BC - but could probably make that sooner with 2 chops rather than 1). We could still change to a wkr>grow2>settler route - should get the settler ~8 turns earlier but subsequent production is slower (as will be at size 1 not size 2) and BW comes in ~2730BC - possibly a turn or two later than the human barbs

I've posted the save for you to look at.

Also of interest, there is a barb warrior wandering around - presumably the result of an unlucky GH pop by a Japanese archer.

Current scores: Saladin 1, Wolf 0

EDIT: It looks as if there is plenty of land around the map, not small islands. Good for barb axe generation

EDIT2: Early impressions are that Asoka, Toku and Cyrus (or Alex - not sure what shade of blue I can see at the edge of FOW) share a large land mass E of us. Saladin is possibly isolated SW of us, and Qin probably is on another landmass to Asoka et al to the NE of us. No-one will give us peace yet!

 

[klarius]

I would say we should move up the settler. We have at least one city site that will help our empire. So we should settle it as early as possible.

 

[klarius]

Oh well, seems Gyathaar messed around with the starting techs . We have only 2 beakers in fishing and none in mysticism, instead the full 8 in hunting.

Edit:
And why the hell are there goody huts .
We can pop them by culture. So one team might get maps and another IW (or save it for astronomy ).

 

[LowtherCastle]

That gold settlement will cost us a pretty penny. Doubt it's worth it as our 2nd city. Let's look for a city with lots of food (seafood?) to crank out more settlers. Unless that gold also has some seafood.

I don't like the idea of poprushing the settler before we reach our pop cap or have a granary or some food developed. Don't think it's worth it. Better to get the pigs mined and use those hammers to speed up the settler, sacrificing a bit of beakers.

 

[Big Pig]

That gold settlement will cost us a pretty penny. Doubt it's worth it as our 2nd city. It ought to pay for itself with the gold commerce - and it will allow MW to grow to size 5 w/o WW Let's look for a city with lots of food (seafood?) to crank out more settlers. Unless that gold also has some seafood. I will certainly look - I'm not convinced we are going to find a food-rich site tho'

I don't like the idea of poprushing the settler before we reach our pop cap or have a granary or some food developed. Don't think it's worth it. Better to get the pigs mined and use those hammers to speed up the settler, sacrificing a bit of beakers.

I think we will need to whip at least 1 pop

As LC and K have differing views I'll leave it there for tonight and resume tomorrow after a few more comments

PS. Grow2>settler will get us early BW and an early settler - just no means of improving any of our land for the foreseeable future.....

 

[klarius]

Well gold and rice (and I think that's forest to cut) is already pretty good, IMO. Even if we don't crank more settlers there that can get our commerce up quite a bit.

I think grow2>worker>settler (1 forest, 1 pop), is what I would chose. I don't see what 1 pop more in the capital does help compared to a pretty nice second city.
But we definitely need a worker.

 

[LowtherCastle]

How much maintencance will we pay at pop2? Anyone know how to calculate that?

I didn't realize that klarius and I disagreed. Just get BW early enough. Getting the worker sooner means getting the mine sooner. It's the best (only) resource tile we have based on our tech path. (until agri)

Chop a bit and that should be fine. If you're sure you're gonig to use the settler immediately and it's really a good site, then poprushing for 1 pop makes sense. The settler will need 7-8 turns to even get to the gold, so that also spares us of that commerce hit for a while, but don't forget:
We'll need a spare wkr to farm the rice, mine the gold, we'll need Sailing to get the happy bonus, and the gold isn't producing until pop2.

So do we settle on the canal tile (rice in fat cross)? I guess if we do, the gold is on line until we build a monument.

EDIT: Do we wait to pop those huts till we get the basic worker techs for free?

 

[klarius]

We for sure need to know the surrounding better, to know where to settle exactly. In any case we have still quite a few turns before we settle. I don't think we should base our decisions on the huts. We can take our maps or low gold anytime .
But we see already that there is a feasible site (that wasn't guaranteed), so we definitely shouldn't do the growth to 3 thing just to get BW 1 or 2 turns earlier, IMO.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Agreed. Our top priority is REX now (with BW a given).

 

[Big Pig]

Ok. I will grow to 2 and then start a worker. The next player (LC) can decide whether to then grow to 3 or start a settler immediately (the latter means 6 turns without the benefit of the pig-mine)

 

[Murky]

Sounds good to me BP.

 

[Erkon]

Grow to 2 => worker => settler still looks suitable.

PS: most other teams settled 4000 BC ...

 

[Erkon]

There is no maintenance at pop2. You need either another city, or lots of units (7+ or something).

There is a military advantage to settle a thin stretch of land to enable ships to pass through between oceans. I'm not advocating it in this case, just trying to show off my close-to-non-existing skills.

 

[LowtherCastle]

PS: most other teams settled 4000 BC ... Fools.

There is no maintenance at pop2. You need either another city, or lots of units (7+ or something). I'm talking about Gold city down S.

There is a military advantage to settle a thin stretch of land to enable ships to pass through between oceans.

Yes, in English, we call it a canal. Think of it as a fjord, but backwards...

 

[klarius]

Assume 2 gold maintenance. At size 1 it's around 1 gold every 5 tiles. Size 2 maybe 1 gold every 4.5 tiles. I don't think we settle further then 12 tiles, so that should still be in the 2g range.