TH2 high seas archipeliago tropics emperor

Scout: Arr, we be startin' this game.
Settler: Arr?
Scout: We be renamin' this to a more fittin' name, so pirates we be.
Settler: Uhm....
Scout: We be not namin' this game somethin' borin' no?
Settler: Off course not, but we're most definately not pirates?
Scout: Arr?
Settler: First of all, we're Ethiopians, not Somalians. Second: Pirates on an archipelago? Come on, we can do better than that. And last of all, you have a horrible pirate pronouncement.
Scout: Arr, Arr?
Settler: We want a more sophisticated name for our (soon to be) empire.
Scout: ...
Settler: We are naming ourselves the Pro-active Intelligent Rational Astonishing Terrifying Ethiopians of the Seas.
Scout: Arrrrr!

Turn 0:
Settle in place. Go Worker first, Agri in 13 turns

Turn 6:
Spoiler :

How nice of them. Start researching AH.


Turn 7:
We are not isolated this time:
Spoiler :

As you can see, the settler and the scout hadn't decided on a name yet ;)


Turn 12:
Finished scouting:
Spoiler :


Turn 18:
Worker done, start Warrior.

Turn 22:
AH comes in, start Fishing.
There are horses on our island.
Spoiler :


Turn 25:
Hinduism FIDL


Turn 26:
Maybe not so distant:
Spoiler :
Screenie failed, but Asoka converts to Hinduism


Turn 28:
Aksum finishes Warrior. Build another Warrior growing to size 3, then get a settler out.

Turn 32:
Fishing comes in, select Sailing. Stop here.
Scout and warrior are fogbusting. Can't quite get the whole island cleared with 2 units and a city.
Next warrior finishes the same turn as growth (pasture will finish in time), worker can start on the silver mines next. We can get a settler out first, or a WB for exploring so we grow to size 4, or another warrior.

Besides Asoka's island and the two visible islands in the south, there is also coast visible west of Aksum.

Dotmap:
Spoiler :


Red dot is a marginal town and can't get both fishes. Can wait a long time.
Yellow dot and Cyan dot are quite strong. Open to suggestions though.
 

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At least starting next to ice we can not call ourselves Pirates of the Carribean :lol:.

I see I'm next so got it for tonight or more probably tomorrow morning.

Wouldn't cyan dot 1S be better to pick up the fish? It would even leave a rather theoretical possibility of squeezing in another mediocre city between yellow and cyan.
I guess yellow dot first, to fend off asap Indian culture, it's good to be creative!

Marble and horses, that makes me think of a Loki-style Horse Archer rush getting HBR from Oracle :mischief:. We would obviously need boats though.

Maybe I'd build a WB first (for exploration and eventually hooking up a fish) and grow to size 4 before building a settler. Working both silver mines, corn and sheep will be great while spitting out a settler or even 2, and maybe another worker. We'll have to decide about TGLH though.
 
I'd rather get a galley out than a workboat at this point. Maybe Cornmarblefish can do one after a worker.

I bet we have at least three offshore cities before we get around to Icefish.

The cap will grow pretty fast at low populations so maybe should 2 pop whip something just prior starting the Great Lighthouse. Hmm, a lighthouse maybe?
 
The position of Cyan dot leaves the fish for a city on the other island (though may be changed upon scouting the island). I would rather have two good cities then a mediocre city without decent resources if I can help it. From the looks of it we have enough islands in sight for decent rexing, including Asoka's island :hammer:, so I'd rather not settle crap towns.

The point of a workboat instead of a galley is that we can build a WB now, it is cheaper and we can use it for a fish resource.

For the 2pop-whip we would need BW first, which we haven't researched yet. Also we have silver for an extra happy.
 
Ok, I see your logic with Cyan. All the more reason to get out a WB quickly to scout the islands in the south and who knows what more. I guess I won't get to settling two cities in my turnset anyway so we can discuss Cyan after my set when we know more about the vicinity.

EDIT: I'm slightly worried about Yellow Dot in the sense that Asoka's capital might culturally eat away the corn, now that he has the hindu holy city in his capital (suppose he didn't have a 2nd city yet when founding hinduism). With the 5 extra culture a next border pop won't be far away. I'm not totally sure how culture works when crossing sea tiles but despite our 2 culture being creative we may have a hard time gaining control of the corn. Well, marble and fish should make yellow dot worthwile still, but maybe we have to consider some agression relatively short term to rid ourselves of any interfering indian culture. Any thoughts?
 
Hmm I see GLH as more important than usual on archi (if that is possible) because Asoka is on another continent, and is a foreign civ with a Hindu holy city, in other words, super extra juicy trade routes :D

I personally would have skipped AH for awhile and mined the sheep but not that big a difference in the long run, so now I would vote build lighthouse, research masonry, then GLH and cyan definitely should go 1S for the fish, I am not worried about losing the corn to Asoka as culture is diluted even more over water, and it would require 2 border pops for him to even start to fight our culture and it would be super diluted being over water and fourth ring, so I am not overly worried.

I am very pleasantly surprised with our starting island, I thought it would be crap as I said in previous posts. After GLH I would push out two settlers and 2 workers to secure our mainland from Asoka and then rex up every remaining tile of both our neighboring islands and Asoka's island. Techwise since we do have Asoka and marble and production cap, I would advocate Masonry - BW:)whipped:) - Aesthethics - trade for Alpha, poly-lit-priest-trade for monarchy - COL

Build GL, GLH, maybe parthenon, I would say no to oracle, but if it is there after we research priest, stick some hammers in it for the cash and if we get it well...:goodjob:


Also we should go Hindu as soon as it spreads as Asoka does not declare at pleased and with him pleased we can restrict our military until Oromos/cannons to chariots and warriors for happy garrison
 
Asoka won't do us much good as a trading partner, as he's unwilling to trade monopoly techs (unless he's friendly. His fav civic is free religion, which will take a while to reach). So except for Alpha and Monarchy, we won't get anything from him (there are no other exceptions right?). Also, depending on Asoka's land, it might be better to not have OB with him, to prevent hum settling our backyard.

Killing Asoka early means we don't have to have much of a garrison either, and we can build HE much earlier then last time.
 
Before playing I'd like some more opinions on whether to get a settler first or not before starting TGLH. Dave said pre-game he'd like that, but Loki seems to want to build it asap (like in TH1). Sengir said something about a settler but didn't mention lighthouses so dunno... Personally I may be inclined to go settler first and get another city up and running. If we miss TGLH at least we'll have a more serious challenge on our hands... :lol:
 
I don't think we will lose the GLH if we get a settler out before it. The next city will be able to fend for itself, as it is a decent location. And as you say, without GLH we've got more of a challenge :)
 
I'd assumed bronze working was the next tech, forgetting that we need masonry.

Still not sold on the WB scout, though. We'll almost certainly settle the southern fish island anyway and can scout the other when we drop off a settler. I'd rather get the settler going. Granted, the WB will see use at Yellow dot, so as long as the scouting is kept short and the WB is in position.

We're currently 18 turns from Sailing, so there's a window to build something in Asoka other than a lighthouse. It should grow in 3 (nocho, you can make sure it does by working a 2 food tile for a turn) and complete the warrior in 3 as well. It'll have 4 surplus food, 5 hammers from the pasture + city tile, and either three hammers from the hill or 2 food, 1 hammer from a grass forest. That's 12 going into a settler (149 hammers), so 12 or 13 turns to build it, depending on the overflow from the warrior, which I didn't calculate. I can see why people screw around with micromanagement as it's sort of fun if you're not actually playing. Once we have a mine up and running (6 turns to build), it'll take a bit off research time. Currently 10 beakers/turn IIRC, so about 20 turns for Sailing, we must have about two into it already, in 9 turns we'll go to 15 beakers. Let's see, we'll have about 120 beakers to go and my math must be wrong because 120/15 is 8 and a quarter, which doesn't make much sense, getting the mine up seem to make 3/4 of a turn difference in how fast we get Sailing, which doesn't sound right. OK, so it's my first attempt at micromanagement, forget I said anything. I'll be back tomorrow with a series of spreadsheets and a Powerpoint presentation on why we should build a settler next, though.

As for moving cyan dot south, I'd just as soon save the fish for an island city. Scouting may be a better idea than I thought in that regard, maybe those islands have all the seafood I didn't generate in the starts.

Killing Asoka early sounds like a pain in the neck but I'll go along with it if you guys say so. I think we should just beat him to the land to the south and west. If we don't have OB with him I think we'll have to build a road from the capital to yellow dot and it'll miss out on the bonus trade routes, if we get them. Cornmarble.

I'm happy with a lit path as I'm a fan of the G. Library, it may do well in Askum, and we have marble. I'd like to see bronze after masonry, too.
 
Please don't switch the tiles in Aksum, the pasture will finish in time to make sure it grows and finishes the warrior on the same turn.

I'll be making my own spreadsheets to counter yours (or my own argument :D)

About Asoka... I like early wars, but we can at least wait a bit (to trade monarchy and alphabet with him, and give him time to build us a shrine :D )
 
Yeah, we should find a way to embed our spreadsheets in CFC for better discussions! :goodjob:

I'll make an attempt at a lame calculation as well, but still even haven't seen the save yet, so add a huge lump of salt to it :). I guess your 10 commerce per turn must be right (8 palace, 1 each from city square and sheep), if sailing takes 18 turns it must cost 180 (never now what the factor between normal and epic is, I thought it was 1.5 but Sailing on Normal is only 100 according to http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/techs/). So if it takes 8 turns to get the mine up (6 to build, 2 to finish pasture), it's 8*10 and then 6.25*16 (a silver mine is 6 right?) is 14.25 turns to Sailing. Why am I calculating this? I don't know either, you started it! :D Anyway, if you're right about the 12 turns for a settler it will be there when sailing comes in more or less.

However, my gut feeling would be to first grow to size 4 before starting a settler. Don't know how many turns that will take though. But being able to work both silvers would be such a plus while building the settler. In the mean-time I'd finish the warrior, build a WB and either another WB or even barracks while waiting either to hit size 4 and start a settler or finish sailing and switch to lighthouse (and switch to settler when hitting 4 anyway).
In this scenario I might even consider going BW (with 2 silver mines) before masonry to be able to 1 pop whip the settler with overflow into the lighthouse (will cost 1 anarchy though). I'd research the wheel pretty soon afterwards by the way.
Well lots of options here, who can tell which is the most optimal one.... :crazyeye::confused:;)
 
Ok, I hope you guys don't mind I played 34 turns, but it was the most natural stopping point I encountered.

Not a whole lot happened in those turns, the most amazing event was a source of whale popping up west of Aksum, but in a unworkable square. Great. But we did a fine piece of scouting with our workboat. :D

I decided to go for the workboat first after the warrior was finished and then start the settler with Aksum at size 4. I think it paid of, at least we have found an interesting piece, or actually several pieces, of land to settle.

We have researched sailing, masonry and bronze working, which just came in (hence the natural stopping point). I didn't revolt to slavery yet. I selected the wheel next because we need to connect our resources. Silver for instance is not connected.

We also founded Gondar, that just has experienced its first border pop, thanks in part to Hinduism spreading to us. I didn't take that either (yet), although we are in no haste to take any religion.

After Aksum built the settler it built a lighthouse and already has 47 of 300 hammers invested in TGLH which at 11 hammers a turn will take 23 turns more, not counting chopping or growth (for which we should connect a happy resource).

Asoka is also busy scouting, I saw a fishing boat doing that job and I had a slight scare seeing a galley, thinking he might settle our island. But he seems to be just on recon mission, already being on our western part without having dropped off anything. My fear of cultural pressure was also unfounded, as his culture hasn't reached our land (yet).

At some moment Judaism was founded by the way.

But of course most interesting are our surroundings... The whole turnset can be pretty much summed up in one screenshot for a change. :)



Quite a bit more appealing than what we encountered last game with the Carthaginians, I dare say :D. Go REX Go!
 

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Arlborn's up next, so we may have a while for discussion. I suspect he had another hardware breakdown.

I'd like to see whoever plays next chop whatever he can into the GLighthouse.
You did notice he played the other one, right?

The worker is currently irrigating the corn of Gondar, due in 3. I agree that he should chop a bit.

I also would go slavery quickly and start whipping Gondar which has the fish and corn for fast growth. I'd suggest building another worker in Gondar rather soon after the workboat and after regrowth to size 2. In general we'll have to be careful whipping Aksum, it doesn't have that much food to boot. I think all (now forested) grasslands around it will eventually have to be farmed when we get CS.

EDIT: I noticed you have noticed by now :lol:.
 
You did notice he played the other one, right?

The worker is currently irrigating the corn of Gondar, due in 3. I agree that he should chop a bit.

I also would go slavery quickly and start whipping Gondar which has the fish and corn for fast growth. I'd suggest building another worker in Gondar rather soon after the workboat and after regrowth to size 2. In general we'll have to be careful whipping Aksum, it doesn't have that much food to boot. I think all (now forested) grasslands around it will eventually have to be farmed when we get CS.

EDIT: I noticed you have noticed by now :lol:.

Haha, yea, well, I plan to play this one today, but later! 19:00 here right now by the way.


All I have to say about our land: :eek:

Nice scouting! Let's REX! :goodjob:

Anybody wants to add suggestions? I will play it in a couple of hours or even less.

EDIT: Where to settle a third city would be a good suggestion. That is, if I go that far.
 
Dang, foiled in my stealthy editing. I need to learn not to respond when I'm in a hurry because I say dumb stuff.

Anybody want to have a whack at a dot map or flagging the save map? I'm thinking Goldfish (on the NW tile) would be a good city but probably not doable because no galley yet and Cornmarble will be blocked in by the Indians. So, cyan dot, Arlborn. I forget what nocho had building but Cornmarble could build a worker.

Now I'll check if what I just said was dumb-- huh, look at the time, I gotta go to work like right now.
 
I think next city should be cyan dot but definitely 1 south to pick up the fish. Gold island settlement in the future has clams for growth.

I guess our fourth city should probably go on the big western island, but it will depend a bit upon what Asoka does, if we meet somebody else and if we scout more lands...

As tech path I'd suggest wheel, pottery, writing and then maybe IW.

EDIT: Maybe we shouldn't hurry playing too much either. At least 12 but maybe even a minimum of 24 hours between turnsets could be wise, so everybody has a chance and time to react. Ok, I didn't quite follow this rule either, I admit. :) It seems we either hurry along or stall it a bit too much...
 
My evil tech plan involves trading Asoka for alpha and monarchy and does not rely on any tech trading with him other than that, however with his religion and if we play nice we can probably get him to friendly too, however this is not neccesary.

My evil short term tech plan
Wheel-Pottery-Writing-Aesthethics - trade for Alpha(have to research it a bit), poly-lit-priest-trade for monarchy(either research bit of monarchy and trade lit or trade lit + COL) - COL
 
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