Spl01 - Noobish Players Try the Concurrent Format

Dotmap discussion:

Spoiler :

I don't, but they seemed the best for what we had.

Pholkhero's map goes much further south, and the plains look promising. What might it be like if we use my green dot and move pholk's south to the stone? Too far from the capital for early era?

Man, tilted_axis screws with your brain.

North country looks good too. (Nice map, Splime.) Sailing is a priority. Splime's save is good for that, though we might find ourselves wishing we had archers long before we can make them. (Though his two warriors can probably hang tough with barbs for a few years yet. I'm more worried about Monte/Kahn next door.)

 

My dotmap:

Spoiler :

Takes your dotmaps and add the two orange spots. The bottom orange spot seems good for silver, furs, AND deer. Top one adds more cows and some crabs. Red dots -- I like the left dot. The yellow dot needs all the land tiles it can get.

 

Spoiler :

Barr in less--starting on that pl hill is so nice! (can dbl check tonight), plus the plan was to go settler at pop3 anyway just to give thebes more time to develop 2 cottages, 2 farms, a mine or two...

since we already startied w/agr and we were right on the river here ~ that why i went pottery...get some cottages down early and often and being isolated won't be such a drain on our tech pace (plus we have that site SE near THAT delta ~ i think that should be city 2!), we might've been able to avoid husbandry totally (since there's neither horses nor enemies) ah well...my plan was to use our War Chariots to conquer the nearest Religion founder...we all know what happened to that idea!

also, i think it would be better if it were all warmongers on their own continent somewhere, warring the centuries away....

we certainly could go religion now ~ i think we'd at least get Judaism, and maybe 1 more...i wonder what's beyond that mt up north...we very well may have enough land for 9 cities to aim for cultural...

all in all, i'm not unhappy w/any of our starts, to be honest...i REALLY like the idea of having pottery already AND having two floodplains cities that can be REAL comm. powerhouses in the early game...another turn set or two and they'll be hamlets...

i'm not worried about barbs in the least...warrior will be more than adequate I think...esp. if we strategically use them to have no fog on our island...

 

Spoiler :

we could prob get a city in your ? area, one south of the green dot, and one more on the blocked peninsula...that's 10 so far...w/o looking at nearby islands...Egypt will be unstoppable...

 

Spoiler :

If the two red dots means that you're not sure which to use, I'd go with the southwestern of the two. Both fish and coastal. Though the desert's so bleak...sigh.

 

by the way, I updated my prev. post.

Spoiler :

About barbs -- we better have BW before they come in with axes. Everyone has a better worker start so far. Next time, I'm not producing warrior #2 so early. Rex is on his way to hooking up cattle, and pholk has a cottage, and is farming. I'm just farming. Also, Rex and I have fishing and AH -- the resource gathering techs. Meanwhile, you have pottery, an all around improvment tech, which is better for the long run. However, if we take pholkhero's save, we should continue with AH -- I read somewhere that beakers invested in techs can fade away. Won't be much if we go through with mining, but still... If we want to keep Fishing and AH, then we have to decide whether to go for sailing or Hunting. Hunting might be best for barb wars -- it's a prereq for archery. However, for meeting people, sailing would be best. Also, if we want a city soon, Rex's save leads. If we want more growth first, then pholkhero has it. My start kinda balances the two. The problem here with voting is that the only things that were different were the play styles, thus naturally biasing all of our votes. Unless autocon gets a great situation, we're gonna have a tough time voting...

 

Spoiler :

My city placements generally suck. Probably my weakest area of the game, so I'll gladly defer to anyone who feels strongly about it.

To be clear, it's not barbs I'm woried about. I'm afraid an aggressive civ is just south of us. That's why I want archery. You want to fight Quechas or Jaguars with warriors?

The cultural victory might be very practical. We can wall off south and east with troops and build a defensive navy. We'd be left in peace to have our way with building. (stone in the south would be huge).

Obviously, we're not going early war without horses or many trees near the capital, though we might be in good shape for a late classical/early medieval conquerin' spree.

I'd like to cottage all the flood plains, unless we decide to go GP factory with Thebes. I only put a farm up in mine because I didn't have pottery.

Moving forward, I think the priority list is as follows:

1) settle city in southeast (Splime's green dot?)
2) exploration to the south. Have we a neighbor via land route?
3) Sailing and northern exploration
4) settle Splime's yellow dot
5) settle splime's orange dot

After sailing, I think we should swing back to masonry for stone and prerequisite to Judaism.

Does anyone see any great advantage in any of our starts?

 

Victory Discussion:

Spoiler :

Again, assuming autocon gets a similar situation, here's where we stand for victory:

Culture: As pholkhero said, we have enough room for culture, however, that's looking bleak unless we can get a religion fast.
Conquest/Domination: We'd need to get sailing up fast and develop a navy.
Diplomatic: Isolation can help with this, but I don't know.
Space Ship: If all else fails... We have the commerce for science, not sure about the production... however, everyone's equally given the shaft in that respect.
Time: If even the SS fails...

 

Spoiler :

Which of you can claim that "Bob the Magnificent" is merely a difference of style? Or that Pantload, the capital of Egypt, isn't leaps above Kyoto, Timbuktu, and Moscow?

 

Spoiler :

There's really no huge advantages in our starts. For Judaism though, we need Mysticism -> Polytheism (If Hinduism isn't founded yet, otherwise, Masonry) -> Masonry (If not already done, otherwise, Polytheism) -> Monotheism.

 

Spoiler :

I think we need to prepare for barb busting. The south is still uncharted. (Pholkhero and I have warriors down there.)

 

I like the left red dot too, for the coast as well.

Agreed on the victory conditions.

Maybe we shouldn't vote for ourselves.

 

We still need to give Autocon till thursday night. I really hope he's still in. Also not too late for other comers.

 

Spoiler :

Oh, just by the lay of the land down south, i think we may be alone here. Don't you think we would've met someone else from now.

 

Spoiler :

If we are alone, we're in deep pudu. We'd find ourselves behind in tech pretty quickly unless we went into merchant of venice mode. In which case, we'd need sailing a lot more than religion.

 

Spoiler :

good point. Barbarians like military production and research however, so barbs still pose a threat.

 

Spoiler :

i don't think that it's all that bad for us. We have two cities that can become commerce powerhouses if we needed them to be. We'll be founding cities on the coast, so perhaps Colossus would be good for us. Sailing, i think, would be good to grab, too, w/religions. Also, even if we're a little behind in some techs (not the BIG ones obviously), it own't matter too much. if we're going to go for cultural, i shut off my research after I get Factories and Mass Media. but, if we go cultural, we better decide before the next turnset, or the one after at the latest.

However, all this could be moot if Autocon does better than all of us.

EDIT: UNSPOILED!!

 

City Founding Order:

Spoiler :

In my opinion, the red dot should be founded first. (The left one)We should get the coastline filled in, so that if the rival civs are on a continent conected to ours by coast, they can grab that land. If we set up a coastal wall of cities, they can't settle on our land. This also makes the south important.

 

Spoiler :

I think the city order may depend on whose save we end up using, though, e.g., if we use mine, a southern city on the river down there would be great ~ get more cottages down early and they'll become towns that much faster! if we use either of your two, I think left red is best. If we use Autocon's, well ???

 

Spoiler :

Good Observation. I notice that rex and I are more suited towards expansion, you more towards infastructure and city growth. However, I think AH is pretty important, which makes me think a bit. At this stage, there haven't really been enough results to make this decision easy. However, I'm likng my save the most (biased, I know) due to the fact that we've got considerable research in to sailing, which will be important here.