The Hall of Players

Hmm... not sure it's even a marginal upgrade. What worries me the most is the downgrade from 10 or 11 forests to 5. That's a big difference if you go HA rushing. Also less good cottageable tiles. But it's a tricky start when SIP also has it's downsides.

When it comes to worker stealing, there's two kinds of games. Those that I decide to worker steal in advance (usually anything where I plan very early rushes) and those where I don't. If the decision is to worker steal, I'll go for it and roll a new map if it fails. In games where I haven't made a strict decisions to worker steal I might still go for it if it's a marginal start and I don't mind throwing it away when it fails. But if it's a really good start I play it safe.

 

That makes sense. That's the benefit with HoF maps. If it goes badly, you just try another one. Don't have MapFinder installed now, though, so getting a new "worthy" one is a little boring.
(It's hard to set up on Linux, and I don't recall what I did last time -- think it was something with registry settings causing an issue)

On forests, I didn't think much about that at the time, but I do now while playing, and you are totally right. I lost a lot of forests by moving, and after a chop I'm already looking at unhealth at size 5 or 6. No chance to use HAs early here as in the other game, but may be able to get Axes against my neighbour, as he is a little close...

Spoiler :

This is an interesting situation, though. I stole a worker from him there, which was risky, but I banked on there not being an archer that would be able to attack. They didn't. But he refuses to peace out. What can cause that, when you don't lose any units to him?

One thing is that he got Writing early from huts (but not BW>Slavery), and we could open borders in turn 22 or so. Or is it because our borders touch?

De Gaulle is actually on the other side of me. This was probably overly risky too. Saw he had a horse pasture, but because it was so early I banked on him not having a chariot out yet, and stole a worker that was roading between his cities. A chariot could have sniped me (4 roaded tiles from him capital, no rivers). It went fine, then we peaced out. 1-2 turns after a chariot exits his capital. But despite being able to build chariots and having AH, he still peaced out. I know de Gaulle is an easier case since he does that quite willingly, but still. It makes me wonder why Peter refuses here. He only has archers (capital is all forests, impossible with a strategic there). Doesn't have BW yet either. So I'm left with the possible explanations of Writing from a hut or that our borders touch, which may make him less likely to peace out after a lost worker. He refuses even though I have teched both AH and BW. Think both add to our power, at least BW does.

It's "only" Immortal, where the AIs tend to peace out pretty quickly. Naturally this is different on Deity, where it would almost be suicide to steal workers this early.

 

With Aggressive AI they take peace very quickly as long as you are threatening one of their cities. Without it it can take longer, except De Gaulle is always a wimp. Not sure exactly how it works. Usually it's still fairly quick, but I also had a game where Peter took forever.

 

Strange stuff. Played and played but Peter still refused peace. Eventually I swapped into Slavery, still no go. Killed a scout that got close. Still no peace. But the moment I settle the 2nd city, he is all for it.

Can't recall this happening before, taking so long to get peace, at least on Immortal. Maybe it had to do with borders touching. I don't know. Weird.

 

Pretty sure the opening has been slower than in the other game, because HA-rushing wasn't an option here. But just declared on Mids-holder Roosevelt, with Axes and catas this time, and will add in some elephants. Think everybody have metals anyway (hard to avoid it tbh), so HAs would have had a rough time. Could have DOWed earlier given the force, but I wanted catas in the stack as Atlanta has 60% culture from Stonehenge+Mids. No use wasting half the army just to take the city 5 turns earlier or whatever.

Since this is for G-Major 172 and from what I understand we can get two counting games for it, maybe I'll have time to play out both starts. The other is around turn 150 (Epic speed).

Spoiler :

Any idea at how many cities the 1-civic switch anarchy changes from 1 turn to 2 turns?

 

Oh God. I rolled so many starts. The log has 11 "Berlin founded" lines. Need to figure out how to get MapFinder up and running again. Then get this start after moving 1N (maybe should have stayed, but hoped for more green riverside, or food in the empty tiles).

Spoiler :

Nearby hut. Interesting.

Spoiler :

OMG OMG OMG!!! Please don't ruin this

 

Sweet start AND BW from hut? If that ever happens there's a 99% chance you start in the corner with a mountain range blocking one direction and Mansa very close in the other.

 

I recently had this lucky start:

Spoiler :

Not a bad start for a space colony game. However, upon discovering Steam Power @1130AD, I found out that there wasn't a single source of coal on the entire map (Small Boreal mapscript)! No Ironworks, no railroads, no coal plants, so went Diplo as an alternative.

 

Wow, that's incredible. Very unfortunate about lacking coal though

Actually got Agriculture from a hut as well in that BW game, but at that point I was only 2 turns from completing it myself, so it didn't mean much. Will look bonkers from the log though. Despite free BW, the start isn't as good as in the game that got ruined from DLL muck-ups. Had my eyes set on Axe-rushing Darius right next door, but then he got horses, and metal and many cities. Had to eventually re-evaluate before tunnel vision set in too heavily. Will DOW de Gaulle soon, he got Mids, but unusual for him in these games, he's one of the strongest AIs, and is in Police State due to unfortunate timing with a bribe and completing Mids. But I have catas now, so that should help, as long as I can re-supply them from the only 5 (+1 new) cities (all forests gone). Definitely makes for a slower start when you can't properly rush somebody, nor workersteal. Think I'm ahead on techs compared with the other games, though, and an earlier Academy, so maybe it can turn out very well after all.

Am I right in thinking that there is a great deal of iron/strategic resources on Lakes maps? Across several maps, practically all AIs have got metal pretty early, and that's with max AIs.

 

Not quite, but close.

Spoiler :

Barely scratched the twit too. That is was my first and only super-medic, and the next one is quite some way off. Hurts a ton.

Progress has unfortunately not been going well, war on de Gaulle is a quagmire and he keeps winning battles he should definitely lose, and 2 turns after Washington gets Feudalism, half the map has it because they all love each other. Based on these three games, seems like that is going to happen around turn 150 no matter what, so it would have been better to be able to rush early and get 15 cities by then, like happened in the ruined game.

 

Bit random comment, but don't think I've seen an AI gift away a city before (to another AI). Got liberation bonus too.

Also, it sucks when the one AI with Nationalism happens to get an unlucky (for me) GE and then pops Taj Mahal I gifted away Divine Right and crossed my fingers, but it wasn't to be. "Losing" a GA is a pretty big deal.

 

Had forgotten that executives could fail. What is the chance for that again, when you only have one corporation in the city?

So far it seems fairly common that about 1 of 5 executives fail per turn. So maybe around 20%?

 

This looks decent?

Spoiler :

Not enough food obviously, but hard to look away from those shinies

 

Hate starts like that! You'd think they are awesome, then you realize that there's nothing to chop and you don't want to whip because you can only whip out good tiles and grow back too slow.

Personally I much prefer starts that look something like this:

Spoiler :

Only missing PH under settler.

My map finder rules usually include a requirement for at least 5-6 visible forest to avoid saving those gold+FP starts with nothing to chop.

 

Good point. Thought more about the lack of food, but lack of forests could be annoying too. But, but, but... look at those golds!!

I find starts like this frustrating.

Spoiler :

And it happens so often with the lake. Probably normalisation. Would have been sooooooo much better with the river one tile north instead of that stupid lake. Because I want to go to space, and in my view a levee is crucial in the capital.

Well, time to actually try out some of these nuggets Intrigued to see whether Julius is nice for space. @Anysense did so well with him, I haven't played him yet (EQM), so wanted to try him out. Hopefully I don't ruin all the maps

I have more specific rules, but I got fed up of watching potentially good starts not get saved, so set a rule that all maps with one gold gets saved, no matter what. Prefer to see them myself, and have the option of playing them. Most likely none or few will be good, but you never know. Food can pop up in the shadows, or you can move one tile and settle more rivers and gain more forests. Sometimes lax rules can be nice.

 

I have 17 AI play out a map between themselves to see how they behave with certain settings. Never would I have expected to see this:

Spoiler :

Lib Engineering btw. He doesn't even have Feudalism yet.

I usually have multiple groups. One of them used to almost always be two mining resources, no other requirements, but over time I came to realize that those starts for the most part are useless if they don't have anything else going for them. Nowadays they usually have an additional requirement of at least some river tiles and a few forests. Depends also on how long I plan to leave it running and of course what kind of game I plan to play. For conquest/domination games I might not use map finder at all.

That old Cathy start I posted above was way better than I even remembered. Settled 1SE to also pick up pigs, rice and dye + every single tile in the BFC was riverside. That's a levee space capital for you.

 

Haha, Toku is crazy.

Wow, what a start then. Did you move the scout there first? Looks like a fine SIP place really, but pigs+rice is even better. Won't starve!

Been trying the 3gold map now. Nothing more visible on settling, so only 4 forests and no more food. No copper or horses nearby either, and sadly Peter+de Gaulle far away, but I'll try it a bit more anyway. It does look nice, and I stole 2 workers. Close call on the 2nd one, an archer invaded, but then parked himself instead of assaulting two warriors. Second city meant I got peace (been like this several times, oddly enough), so at least we're alive, haha. Looks too crowded to REX much, but thinking about going early Writing for a Library->Academy and playing for the long game instead of the usual early rush. So many games must be thrown out if that rush isn't on or doesn't succeed, but it seems like a waste to just throw away a nice 3-gold start, even if it is short on food and forests. Other cities can work some golds for a while.

Looked at the Global Highlands map. It's surprisingly huge, even on the smaller sizes, but there seem to be a lot of hills, so early warfare will probably be nasty. So I reverted back to Lakes. May as well get a second go with those. Need two slots in the (E)QM thing anyway. And since I mostly play Immortal "off-site", may as well start working more on Immortal EQM instead of a game here and there on lower difficulties. In 10 years, maybe I'm close!

 

Agree. Most of my games have been started with manual regeneration until something nice comes up, and requirements aren't that high. Especially for more 'random' games like conquest/domination. For space I'm more specific, though, and it did get tiring to keep hitting Alt-G before, so glad I got Map Finder working again. Saved me some time, and it's easier to get good-looking starts too. It's a great program.

Have several groups of rules as well, and noticed that a couple also look for furs. Nice commerce really, but it means you're in or close to tundra/ice, so in reality they're never worth playing. Was a nice thought, tho.

 

I once played a Global Highlands space game. It was also my first time playing a longer game on quick speed, hard to tell how much of the inefficiencies are to be blamed on the map and how much on my noobiness with quick. Early warfare would be nasty, but the map is so big that you probably can expand quite a bit and only go to war later with trebs or cannons. Late game economy is another question. Not much flatland for SP workshops. I actually went Environmentalism and windmill spam. I think that was the reason I chose the map script in the first place, wanted to try that out. It was kind of ok, I guess.. I was far from the domination limit, could have been much better.

That Cathy start is a few years old. Just picked a suitable example from my archives. Probably moved scout (which wouldn't have revealed pig yet), then moved for rice and dye, but mainly for more green riverside tiles.