Spectral Sequences I: LeftAdjoint's Immortal Shadow

[LeftAdjoint]

Abandoned indefinitely due to horse archer ennui.

Hey everyone! LeftAdjoint here and I am fully determined to take advantage of the great community here for advice, and a profitable discussion on optimal play.

I'm an immortal-level player with a lot of holes in his play due to inexperience, so any pointers by stronger players would be just lovely. (starting with how to make Photobucket uploads look good when you're playing at 1080p) If you're at the same level, you might want to follow along to learn with me. If you're at a lower level, I can probably give you some pointers. (first one: whip more!)

And, since I've put a numeral in the subject, perhaps I'll do more in the future. Maybe one on marathon/huge/deity for a laugh.

Without any further delay, I'm starting a game on a fractal map with standard settings, huts and events off. Yes, not everybody likes fractal, but I appreciate the uncertainly—it keeps my brain on.

Our leader:

Our start:

Yes, I swear it's the first thing I rolled!

My thoughts:

Spoiler :

Settling SE seems like the only move here. 2-hammer city tile, four hills, solid food, and a very strong cow tile. It's riverside with 6 riverside grassland tiles available for cottaging(though one should probably be a farm to later irrigate the wheat) Great capital!

It doesn't really gain more information for the settler, but I'd like to move the warrior SE. That seems to be the open area—our NW looks like it might be a headland.

Probably tech order is Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working. I'm tempted to go Pottery instead of Bronze, but without chopping there is only one riverside grassland available.

Whether I will quickly cottage the capital or run all four mines early will depend on how excited I am about the land.

 

[MarigoldRan]

This is great! Go for it.

 

[Kid R]

Plains hill 1SE def looks pretty spiffy. If that's coast to the north you might also be freeing up space for a city which might now be blocked off. No brainer - might lose nothing, definitely gains a lot.

 

[Fragamemnon]

I really like this map.

Spoilers through 1600AD or so:

Spoiler :

The good news is that you have about four or five terrific city spots, a perfect number for Charismatic leader and you'll quickly grow to cap. The early gold is a godsend, make sure to get working it ASAP since the big problem with the trait set is crashing your econ when you have to land grab under pressure, which leads to...

The big early issue is that Stalin basically gets up in your grill super fast and will expand right in your face on the floodplain between you and him. Getting out there fast was pretty important. Since there was enough places for about five good cities, I went for some heavy cottaging into a construction rush and beat him silly in a classical war. I didn't get that far behind in tech in doing so. Sadly the AP stopped the war (I wasn't in a good position to defy) about one turn before i could get him to capitulate, and then of course he peace vassaled to Hatty the next turn. Obnoxious.

Meanwhile Joao just gets huge in my game, which is pretty normal for Joao on Immortal. He boxed in the Dutch seriously hard and as a result had about 11 cities around 100AD or so. This is always a pain. Hatty was also pretty large and was able to expand up her peninsula without too much interference (of course).

I won lib by about 10 turns, beelined rifles and cannons, and gobbled up Hatty's entire peninsula. I'm behind a couple of techs but have way more overall hammers and should be able to beat Joao to tanks/industrialization. If push comes to shove, I have Uranium and he doesn't, so I can always turn on the bright lights if I have to.

It should be fun. I'm interested to see if anyone was able to more peacefully manage this map-the early border pressure from Uncle Joe really put me on a path to war early. If someone got adventurous and was able to distract him in some with worker steal shenanigans, that might allow you to get big enough to box in him and get enough land to peacefully go through classical/medieval without a huge war.

 

[Grimith]

I follow the consensus on settling 1 SE, but I would first move the warrior 1 SW. You'll get sight onto some of the tiles you'd lose in your capital. Might change your mind.

I agree that you appear bordered on the north and west by coast; that water tile above the sheep could be more of the same or a fresh lake.

I like Animal Husbandry > Mining > Bronze Working, but I think it's too soon to confirm Pottery until you scout more.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

To 2800 BC:

Spoiler :

Grimith was quite right that I should move the warrior SW, but it revealed nothing, so I moved to the plains hill, founding Paris on the next turn. The next move of my warrior revealed fish and gold. Not too shabby.

One more step and I see that I can get I can get a decent production city with fish, gold, and stone, that can share mines with Paris:

Industrious with stone close by just screams for the pyramids, so that will be my plan unless something even more compelling comes along.

That's a pretty strong vote against early pottery, so next is mining.

My scouting is slowed a lot by nearly losing to a lion, but I meet my neighbors: Stalin, who seems to be close to the east, and Hatshepsut + William, who are perhaps far SE.

I build a warrior, and grow on another to population 3, so I can work my three best tiles. I will get horse with my capital's border pop on turn 51, which is later than ideal but it's a solid backup plan for barbarians.

Since all three resources in my second city require a border pop, I get mysticism next. If I wait until after bronze working, it will come too late. Next I will mine the plains hill to hammer the monument as quickly as possible, and produce a second worker to make roads and further develop the capital.

I stopped at the next tech choice. My second city be founded in 5 turns, finish its monument in 6 turns, then get a border pop in 10 turns. It is essential to run the fish as soon as possible, and 21 turns is not a lot of leeway, so I may have to go fishing first.

My alternatives are pottery/fishing and masonry/fishing. The former wastes beakers by missing out on the pottery discount, and I don't urgently need either cottages or granaries. The latter is an interesting idea, as it gives me an early shot at The Great Wall before the stone is online. Bronze/fishing is too slow as it would finish in about 20 turns.

I want to settle the eastern floodplains as soon as possible, but it may not be urgent. I also have a city site or two that will be easy to take to my north. A Great Wall play could be a good choice for a leisurely opening, assuming that Stalin is not in a position to steal the flood plains. So I'm leaning towards masonry into fishing.

Incidentally, Stonehenge is an amazing deal if I can get it. With Industrious and the stone hooked up it only costs me 40 hammers, and charismatic monuments provide +1 happiness. No question that I will try for it when the stone goes online, though it may be gone by then.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hmm, I think you may be a little too gung ho on getting that stone. Between you and stone:

1) Build monument with city that can only get 2 hammers
2) Wait 10 turns
3) Build Quarry (assuming you pre-build roads)


At this point, you have a second city that can get a little bit of production by working the quarry, but is still size one. You also will need a workboat for that city to do anything, and no trees to chop for it, and can't build it in your capital. Oh, and you also spent valuable worker turns building mandatory road back to capital. Maybe a good investment anyway, but you are leaving yourself no other choice.

My play would be to settle city two near the gold/floodplain area, which is generally more serviceable. You've got a decent enough situation in your capital to chop out the Pyramids anyway, so a good growable city that won't NEED a monument sounds like an altogether safer goal.

Alternatively, skip mysticism entirely and settle 1 N of stone so you don't need the monument + 10 turns.

IN the end, I feel you are going to spend a lot of time just getting that +67% faster production.

 

[Grimith]

I agree with Zechnophobe: Settling the gold and floodplains would make for a stronger second city rather than the fish/gold/stone. There are too many junk tiles around your projected second city site to make it worth settling there now. If you really want the stone (which is tempting), you should settle 1N of it and let another city grab the gold. That way, you can immediately work the quarry, and you could use that city to generate an early wonder (if you feel so inclined) while your capital continues to build settlers and workers.

 

[cas]

3rd vote for fp/gold 2nd city rather than fish/stone/gold.

I would set up more for a HA rush than early pyramids.

cas

 

[Habitus]

Honestly I'd settle 1NW of Horses, 2 Hills, lots of forests, Horse + sharing Cows from cap, enough food + chops to produce alot of HA for a rush, and after rush its still a decent production site (Same as the Stone/Gold City if it borrows the Cows)

 

[LeftAdjoint]

3rd vote for fp/gold 2nd city rather than fish/stone/gold.

I would set up more for a HA rush than early pyramids.

cas

I'm curious, what makes you think of an HA rush? My mind tends to go there if I see someone I want dead immediately, and/or hate my land.

 

[cas]

I'm curious, what makes you think of an HA rush? My mind tends to go there if I see someone I want dead immediately, and/or hate my land.

I struggle on imm, so don't put a lot of weight in my opinion.

But you will have 2 good production cities (capital and city to the west by the horses/sheep). You've met 3 AI already and someone will settle towards you to box in.

In my experience, building ~3 cities while researching HA/archery/BW and then building an army is best. Let the AI build your 4th,5th,6th,etc cities for you.

cas

 

[Habitus]

Or just go Obs route and never build any settlers, just claim all your cities off the AI

 

[huerfanista]

Ahhh, the siren call of the shiney! Why not let Stalin build those wonders for you, while you build the 10 HA wonder? Also, I'd forget about that fish/stone city - it adds nothing for way too long. Grab those floodplains while you can - I'd probably go 1N2E of the gold, which give you connection to cap after first border pop.

 

[Grimith]

Habitus' site suggestion is good, as it has greater productive power right now than the gold/floodplain site (allowing you to build settlers/workers more quickly). However, your northwest is not under threat of being lost, and settling a city there wouldn't directly help you block land from the AI. True, if you plan on committing to a horse archer rush, then you won't need to worry so much about blocking land, but I'm a builder at heart and don't often engage in early wars, so my advice is skewed in a peaceful direction.

Speaking of warring (and therefore diplomacy): I don't know the exact diplomatic situation or where the AI are located on this map, but I believe Stalin and Willem are both predisposed to dislike Hatshepsut given each AI's natural peaceweights. Consequently, you may be able to take advantage of some early AI hatred to either build your cities peacefully or backstab one of them with a rush. Personally, I'm predisposed to killing Willem; Stalin's the most ruthless of the three, and he has the highest Unit Prob, but Willem techs much quicker than Stalin, and his culture can get obnoxious.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

OK, so today I learned that I have no sense of strategy.

One question: Given that I have realized the error of my ways, and now plan to settle the floodplains area at huerfanista's suggested site, what does that say about my tech order at this point? Bronze? Pottery? Writing? I can make compelling arguments for all three, but the game is highly suggesting that I choose one. (I suppose there are various ways to choose not to choose as well...)

And how I envision the future use of such a city? It's obviously cottageable (though to be honest I never know precisely how much and when to cottage) but it could also do a number of less specialized things, like run the gold, plains hill, three farms, and two specialists at its future happy cap of 7.

Maybe I am not attracted to shiny things so much as I don't yet understand non-shiny things very well.

 

[vranasm]

haha I wondered why I don't see any images... then checked without ad blocks and as it seems your nick "LeftAdJoint" in the path of images is considered as blacklisted!

 

[vranasm]

as to the situation

I generally agree that fish+stone+gold is crap. don't settle the area that way.

What I would do is settle towards gold+FP's and settle on stone (after you explore the land there more to be sure it's viable!). Make sure you get quickly city for the horses in west too.
Maybe completely forget mids and stone and stay on 3 strong cities and prepare HA rush .

Actually the sheep+horse city as city 2 would be actually very good and should be quickly up and can share another very strong tile (plains cow) from capital and capital can work grassland hill mined.

I would think about building 2nd worker very quickly then 2 more settlers, since you're already deeply into settler.

 

[Berkobob]

Interesting start.

I feel sometimes people sometimes get tunnel vision when FP's are available, so decided to try a different approach on this map, to leverage our traits of IND and CHA.

I did not consider pre-knowledge of the gold and stone game breaking because I found both of these by turn two with my warrior moves (i prefer moving onto hills where possible)

To 2760 BC (Should have been 2800 BC but I forgot to save at that date, lol)

Spoiler :

worker + AH first. Moved capital onto the plains hill same as OP. Next teched Mysticism --> Masonry.

capital builds worker --> warrior --> warrior --> worker (size 2) --> stonehenge --> settler (size 3)

Explored and found Stalins borders to SE. Improved the food tiles and started roading to the stone.

To 1280 BC:

Spoiler :

Finished Masonry the turn our settler came out. Then went Fishing --> BW --> Pottery --> Writing.

Debated building Gwall instead of stonehenge or in addition to stonehenge but decided against - my strategy relied on monuments for happy+borders (rules out GW) and getting floodplains + gold settled (ruled out time for GW).

Settled on stone, road to 2nd city finished a few turns before hand, built stonehenge in capital (2200 BC IIRC). Settled third city to claim as much floodplain as possible (I have free monument so should win the cultural battle, at least early on)

BTW - did I get good RNG to get my 3rd there??

Stalin put his 2nd city south of his capital, his third was the wheat city and his fourth the city to the north of his empire - in other games did he go on FP's second?

(PS if he had taken FPs with his second or third I would have claimed gold by way of a city using sheep + gold and still gotten some of the FP's to boot)

A bit late on getting chariots out so lost cows and sheep to pillagers. Delayed settling fourth city a bit also to keep maintenance down.

Gold now online and being worked, have +3 happy and three cities with good food surplus so should be able to get some good early research going. Have two more good sites to settle (horse/sheep behind capital and copper/fish/corn north of capital.

Research/tech pace weak ATM but started working the gold tile and building both Gwall and Mids for failure gold to get through writing.

Made some micro mistakes which slowed me down - sent worker to chop workboat but didnt have BW so ended up roading up there, and also forgot to switch from worker to fishing boat in 2nd city so lost 6 turns on the fish

I think the save is quite strong - I dont think ill go the standard Aesthetics route, rather get a fairly early MC for quickbuild forges and + happy and get my 6 cities up and running. Stalin techs pretty slow IME so I think the best war would be with curi's??

 

[ben-jammin]

If you snag stone and are industrious/charismatic, stonehenge seems like a no brainer and you should still have plenty of time to chop out the pyramids in the same city. Engineer points make up for the less useful priest points IMO, and once you reach CoL it becomes more or less irrelevant. Assuming you're able to build these in a city with better food tiles than the capital.