SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

[Niklas]

Saves are now up, here!

Couldn't help stealing a look at it.
The water to the south is salt, to the north fresh. And there are 11 rivals : Indians, Mongols, Carthage, Ottomans, Celts, Americans, Spanish, Germans, Koreans, Zulu, Greeks.
That's about as much I could check without doing something. Oh, the temptation...

WarDance, go get that screen shot!

 

[AlanH]

Please hold until Gyathaar checks your save. The number of opponents seems to have multiplied!

 

[WarDance]

I'm ready... but the game is not. Good catch there, Niklas, with the 11 rivals in F10.

In the meantime we have a VERY important decision to make. Will Ragnurkz first town be called Trondherkz? Smurkzheim? A difficult decision, I know.

 

[WarDance]

And Team Klarius is ready to rock!

 

[ControlFreak]

...there are 11 rivals

What did you tell them for? We could have lowered the tech cost for India to 10/11!

I'm glad I didn't wait up for the save last night. I'm beat.

I'd prefer Smurkzheim.

 

[Methos]

Wow, Team Klarius is fast! I've only played in one SGOTM but I have to agree that are slow deliberation between each turnset was a definite plus.

I'm curious about the save too. Oh well, have to wait until I wake up. Maybe it'll be fixed by then.

 

[AlanH]

Your fixed save is now on the server. Sorry for the hiccup. Have fun

 

[WarDance]

Got it! Starting it up...

 

[WarDance]

So here we go!

Our rivals are: India (of course), Mongols, Carthage, Ottomans, Celts, Americans, and the Spanish.

Wouldn't it be interesting if F10 could be disabled or if it would only show the rivals you have contact with? But then again, Niklas would never have discovered that we had too many...

 

[CommandoBob]

(Sneaking a peek at work.)

Hmm. Maybe we should rename our settler to 'Three Turns Walking'.

I like Smurkzheim, but my eyes tend to read Smurfsheim.

It looks to me like the best place for our captial is still SE of the cow; which has three BGs and forests to chop. Unless we want to waste the BG to the east in order to gain fresh water and ocean access, which I think is too high a price to pay.

 

[ControlFreak]

I think agree with CommandoBob, but I still want to play devils advocate.

• We won't be using the BG until we're size three, with the free aqueduct, we get the extra shield at size 7 and above.
• Not that its much of a lake but settling on the BG would make the plain's city sites to the NE of the lake able to build boats and ship them out to the ocean.
• Settling SE of the cow gives up the mountain's sheilds until railroads (not enough food to work the hills and mountains from anywhere but the BG citysite.
• We're going to lose 6f and 4 s by walking the extra two turns.
• Based on the minimap, we'd be walking away from the other civs, delaying contact/conquest.
• We lose the free aquaduct.
• Two turns of research (if we're going to start out researching)

Are those enough reasons to waste the BG? I say YES (maybe). Either way you go WarDance, I won't complain.

Techs
The civs provide a pretty even distribution of techs, with only the Wheel not available from the start. Three civs including India have CB so I think we should still pursue the Writing path at first. Three civs also have Alphabet including India also so I still contend we should start at 0% and turn it on full when we can buy Alphabet. Another alternative would be to try to research the Wheel first but I'm guessing that will be India's first research path with all the gold he's going to be making.

City Spacing
What's your preferences to city spacing (getting ahead of myself). I tend to shoot for RCP3 or RCP4. If the pennisula is going to have a town then it's going to be at RCP3 whether we settle on the BG or SE of the cow.

Lately, I've been making RCP around my FP cite and jumping/moving my Palace to some other core. Sound's like that's legal if we develop a core around the new palace. That would be my approach here because with the capitol on the coast, near india, there isn't much room for a full ring around our first settle site.

 

[ControlFreak]

Unless we want to waste the BG to the east in order to gain fresh water and ocean access

Doesn't SE of Cow have Ocean access also?

 

[Niklas]

Glad to see we got rid of Germany, Zulu and Greece, though I'd have switched Korea for Mongols any day . Too bad we lost three scientific civs though, leaving only the Ottos around. Otherwise three industrious, and two each of expansionistic, militaristic, religious and commercial. That's not counting India from which we'll get no trades anyway.

With no more food sources, I see three reasonable locations to settle in. The third BG is really beneficial, and getting all three plus the cow in range will allow a very powerful 6 turn combo-factory for units up to 30 shields (that means we can build a unit for 30 in three turns, then a settler for another 30 in the next three). This factory is certainly powerful enough to warrant three turns of movement early on.

4.6 -> 5.0: CC, Cow(i), 3xBG(m) + F/Pl(m) on growth = +4f, +10 sh (10)
5.0 -> 5.3: CC, Cow(i), 3xBG(m), F/Pl(m) = +3f, +10 sh (20)
5.3 -> 5.6: CC, Cow(i), 3xBG(m), F/Pl(m) = +3f, +10 sh (30)
5.6 -> 6.0: CC, Cow(i), 3xBG(m), G(m)/Pl(i) + F/Pl(m) on growth = +3f, +10 sh (40)
6.0 -> 6.3: CC, Cow(i), 3xBG(m), G(m)/Pl(i), F/Pl(m) = +3f, +10 sh (50)
6.3 -> 6.6: CC, Cow(i), 3xBG(m), G(m)/Pl(i), F/Pl(m) = +3f, +10 sh (60)

So, the three places are SE or S of the Cow, or 2NE of it on the plains, all within 3 turns walking distance. Each location has its advantages and drawbacks:

1. Settling SE of the cow has the obvious advantage of getting the cow, as well as two BGs in range within the first 8. It's also on the coast, which could be a good thing, but not necessarily. Disadvantages are we won't be next to fresh water, and being close to the ocean in the W means it will be hard to get many towns in that direction in a nice RCP.
2. Settling S of the cow removes two BGs from the first 8 but retains the cow. No big deal, we'll probably want to work the cow exclusively anyway during the first 10. Advantages are more forests to chop, and the chance that zyxy's premonition about that forest tile with a possible furs holds. No fresh water, and no nice RCP.
3. Settling 2NE of the cow means no cow the first 10 turns, no forests, but fresh water and better chances for a good RCP setup. Running the factory, we'll have no use of the fresh water though, except we could then run the factory at 5.0->7.0 instead for more research.

None of these locations clearly stand out as better than the others. I think we should move the settler and worker one step E, and then move the scout again to get an even better look. There could be more food sources hidden in the fog, with chances for a 4- or 5-turn factory still.

 

[ControlFreak]

Niklas, good spotting on the 4.6->6.6 10spt! (I was wondering how we go from 6.0->6.6 in one turn but I see it's a typo.)

I agree this power out weighs anything we see in initial area. So much for my devil's advocate role.:suicide:

If we do happen to find a higher food spot nearby, that town can take over settler duties and Smurkzheim can run Barrack/worker then Archer/Worker indefinitely.

Let the hike begin!

 

[WarDance]

Where do you want the scout to go? If I were playing solo it would be a toss up for me to go either S and SE, or E and NE. Heck, even 2S or 2E.

 

[Niklas]

Since I'm occupied with other stuff, I find myself constantly answering posts when you've written more already.

Not that its much of a lake but settling on the BG would make the plain's city sites to the NE of the lake able to build boats and ship them out to the ocean.

I think you are wrong there, towns that are not on the coast can't build boats no matter what (and no boats can sail in lakes either). Not that it matters much to us.

What's your preferences to city spacing (getting ahead of myself). I tend to shoot for RCP3 or RCP4. If the pennisula is going to have a town then it's going to be at RCP3 whether we settle on the BG or SE of the cow.

Lately, I've been making RCP around my FP cite and jumping/moving my Palace to some other core. Sound's like that's legal if we develop a core around the new palace. That would be my approach here because with the capitol on the coast, near india, there isn't much room for a full ring around our first settle site.

There's really no need for an RCP around the FP site, because of how the rank corruption bug works. Since any town that is closer to the FP than what any town is to the palace will be considered rank 1, that means if we build a second core with a loose spacing, say RCP5, we can have a free mix of RCP 2,3,4,5 around the FP and all of them will be considered rank 1. So, tight RCP-3 around the capitol in the early game is the way I would go, and loose spacing around the FP. Much like in SGOTM8.


The 3-turn archer-worker factory is also nice, didn't even think of that.

I would move the scout first E, then S, (EDIT: or SE-S) to get as good a grip on the different places we're thinking about as possible. It would be nice to get another food source, though something tells me the SGOTM gods haven't blessed us with a 4-turner this time around.

EDIT: Oh, and I updated the typo in the post above.

 

[WarDance]

I would move the scout first E, then S, (EDIT: or SE-S) to get as good a grip on the different places we're thinking about as possible. It would be nice to get another food source, though something tells me the SGOTM gods haven't blessed us with a 4-turner this time around.

Any objections to SE and S?

 

[Niklas]

Oh, just move!
I want to see what's out there before going to bed.

 

[CommandoBob]

SE and S sound good to me.

Head 'em up! Move 'em out! as I hopelessly date myself.

 

[ControlFreak]

I would move the scout E-E. The settler is headed to the SE anyway, it seem's like wasted exploration time if the scout heads that way too. Also, it would be better to find out quickly if we should settle NE of the cow instead. (Its a four-turner if there's food to the NE within range.)

I also would prefer to head N rather than S because of where we are on the mini map.

If we've got to mine all those BG, I think we should build a worker before starting the granary, probably right after the scout/warrior first build. Otherwise, our initial worker is going to take 9 turns/tile but the city will grow every 5 turns. Having the extra worker will speed our granary.

So my extremely humble recommendations are:

• Scout E-E
• Settler SE of Cow unless scout spots something
• Worker Irrigate cow, road then mine/road BGs
• Build warrior to head over the incense hills
• Build worker to help improve
• Build another warrior, or just go for the Granary

EDIT: But I second Niklas. Just move, I want to see before I leave work!

EDIT: @CommandoBob - Rawhiiiiiiiiiide! (You only date yourself to those who old enough to understand )