[BTS] Shadow Game: Tokugawa

[Fippy]

Agree with Pottery first, wheat city will also be happy with the granary start instead of something rather useless like warrior or barracks.
Then AH before writing imo (20% bonus).

Good idea on worker next from Kyoto
First one will be busy at wheat city, will be lots to do even for 2.

@krikav i was considering the green hill mine too, but wine hill was in range and well..
no difference on settlers & workers, when not building those maybe we prefer a cottage (or farm) anyways since whipping will come into play most likely after sheep were changed.

 

[krikav]

Feedback for T35:

This might feel abit paradoxical, but my opinion is that in these situations where you are abit starved for food. Granaries are LESS important, not more.
A granary coupled with whipping effectively doubles the amount of food you harvest in that city. If you are yielding 10F/turn in a city thats huge, but if you are trying to grow a meager city with +2F or +3F you get much less return on that 60H investment.
That being said, pottery next is probably the best choice, need granaries in other cities and you have to get to writing somehow, looks like cottages will play a big part in the economy here too.

All river tiles that the crab site can reach should have cottages eventually, other then that I'm less certain... Maybe farms are the way to go.

After the first settler is done. You have a good opportunity to revolt (Good to do that while settler is in transit, habit to cultivate).
I would absolutely go worker straight after settler, one worker will go upp and improve wheat and then start chopping there, you need to chop the capital and for the crab site too.

After worker, then settler for crab site, try to time things so that chops are ready for the workboat as soon as posible.

 

[pi-r8]

Looks like a tough map. Very little food, and so far no good targets to attack.

 

[Arcanior]

Alright, I've played up to T48. Pottery has been researched, and I've made a start on Animal Husbandry:

Spoiler :

Barbarians are actually starting to appear now; my warrior in the west killed one while defending. Only warriors for the moment, but the lack of AIs means I don't have enough troops to effectively fogbust the entire south and west, let alone the north. I'm thinking I should get at least a warrior or something in Osaka.

I settled Osaka, going into slavery while my settler was in transit. Theoretically, I know that's always a good moment for revolt, but I don't always think of it myself - thanks for reminding me, krikav. I've chopped into the granary in Osaka, and my new worker got a chop into the second settler in Kyoto. This worker will now start chopping for a workboat in the new city; if I calculated everything, he'll be one turn early, so there will be one turn of idling in the forest before the city actually gets founded. It's not elegant, but I think at this point it's the most efficient way of getting city 3 started as quickly as possible.

Production-wise, I think it would probably be a good idea to whip the granary now in Osaka. As I understand it, it's generally good play to put overflow into workers/settlers, but I'm not sure if that's what I should be doing in Osaka at the moment - I think barbarian defense is something I should be worried about as well. Kyoto can finish its settler, but I'm not sure what I should build afterward. Probably another worker or settler, but which one first? A worker would be nice if I'm going to start cottaging Kyoto. Furthermore, I think I need another worker to immediately begin improving new cities once they get settled.

Speaking of which, I find it hard to determine the next spot for settling. My scout has been scouting up north, but there is literally no food to be found there:

Spoiler :

There's a lot of wine, though, and copper to the far north. In any case, I think my best site for now is on the western coast, near the wheat there. I'm still unsure of where exactly to settle there, though; go for a coastal city, or grab at least a few inland tiles? Those inland tiles are pretty poor, though... Alternatively, I could settle near one of the deer in the south, but those seem like pretty poor sites, even with the river. I'm also thinking of a city 1SE of the western wheat, which would have deer in the second ring and be coastal... But for some reason that doesn't strike me as optimal play.

In any case, I'm really hoping to meet an AI sometime soon as well. And I really don't know what to do with all that poor land up north...

 

[krikav]

Looks like you might be in ISO.
Not sure how iso works on monarch, but normal is to settle abit fewer cities and settle them later, to reduce upkeep. There is also less competition for the land.

One way to get the wine working would be to settle a city 2N1W of the wheat, that would be able to grow by borrowing the wheat, and then work the wines, but that require a borderpop... Not ideal.
But settling a city with no food at all is usually a bad idea, takes forever to grow.

Have you scouted the sea east of your capital yet...? Might be more seafood there, would be awesome with a city out there to help capital mature even more cottages.


I will dive abit deeper into this comment, because this is a very important nuance imho.
"As I understand it, it's generally good play to put overflow into workers/settlers"

Its true or false and which it is depends on the citys needs.
You can build settlers/workers with either hammers or food, so the building of settlers/workers is one of the few tools at your disposal to redirect your produciton in either way.

If you find yourself in a food rich and hammer poor enviroment, it would be probably be a great sin to put valuable hammer overflow into workers/settlers 9 out of 10 times.
But if you find yourself in a food deprived enviroment, rich in hammers, if you whip (which you likely shouldn't do, but say, forest hammers instead.) should absolutely go straight into workers/settlers, because every single food you can get your hands on, should go into the citys food bar, and grow the population.

Make sure you understand the reasoning here, I think this insight is something that is crucial to go from "Slavery and chops are good! I do it all the time!" (which is most often right btw.) and to instead see them as powerful tools at your disposal, and why they are so powerful.

 

[Fippy]

Wow, probably Iso with Toku and no happy resis other than wine or calendar..would never get that if wanted
Super annoying seafood south hmm..not sure yet if a city makes sense there.
(this map would be horror on deity, no city spots but tons of barbs)

On Monarch i think we should set our eyes on stone soon, Rep helps with beakers in Iso and we could skip teching Monarchy (wine spot no food too, not even fresh water ~~).
Osaka would have lots of forests for Pyras chopping, with a border pop.
Stone city settling on it makes sense, no food but at least green tiles with irrigation later.

I guess you can use some more warriors who take forest positions against barbs soon,
so i would whip the Osaka granary into that warrior & start another while waiting for writing.
Not a big fan of workers or settlers from small cities.