The Non-Midas Touch, Deity Variant, 1.21PTW

[Nad]

good stuff Krys, no problem about the granary thing, it's one of those tiny MM tricks that is useful but not game-breaking.

In PTW 1.21, if you found a city on a hill, that hill acts as "irrigated" for the purposes of irrigating the square next to it, so we CAN use the southern river for irrigation by founding a city on a hill.


I can see there are loads of gooty huts we've left untouched. If I find a hut far away from our civ, I normally go ahead and pop it, but I don't if it's close to any of our cities. The next player, Aggie, might want to test our luck

Good news about 2 other civs around - gives us trading partners and means we won't be hopelessly backward in tech....now we have to go on a settling spree.

I'm going to download your map and see if I can do some sort of dotmap.

 

[Aggie]

I got it. Again I had a terrible day at work I need a bit of rest but maybe I can squeeze this game in my lazy schedule tonight. Otherwise: tomorrow.

 

[Nad]

Jeez, there is a distinct lack of bonus food anywhere near us.

This is my 2 cents for city planning:

Green dot: where the current settler is headed.

Red dot: next settler we produce: get that game into play, chop + mine (no water to irrigate), can help produce some settlers.

Then, in rough order of priority:

yellow: we can irrigate through this city (if the hill is next to a river; I think it is, not 100% sure though, need to look at the save. If not, build 1 square north-east) - we need to get a line of irrigation going ASAP, and can't start til this city is founded.

brown: sure, it's far away, but it gets us incense and another city on a river; we're gonna need all the resources we can get

orange: decent number of grasslands

maroon: more grasslands.

pink: grasslands + fishing

pale blue: decent city site, no overlap at all

black: fill in city, plains game after border expansion

purple: blocks off our peninsula, but no disaster if we don't get it.

grey: fishing village

white: half-city fishing village

We may not be able to get all these sites, of course, and if we get hold of iron-working or the wheel, we may need to adjust priority according to resources.

Does anyone have any comments or adjustments for the dotmap?

EDIT: also, where to put the FP?

 

[kryszcztov]

OK, a few comments cause I have a few.

About your dotmap, Nad : It seems good, but I'm not sure we have to space our cities as much, because of lack of food (desert, hills, mountains). Maybe we could do more overlap here and there because some cities won't hit 12 pop (maybe 6 for some ?).

About the English scout : he came from the south and headed for the west, a few turns ago, when our warrior in the south-east was 3 or 4 tiles to the north. So the English might be in the south-east, so continue to explore the area. We must find them and meet them ! I think I could have met the scout during my turn but made the wrong move. Don't the English care about us ?

About the irrigating hills : Coooool ! If it turns to be correct, we must have one of those cities as soon as the red dot is settled. Mmmh, I would settle one tile south-west of red dot actually, on the tribe : it would require 2 warriors, but we might gain no overlap with Athens and more food (we'd settle on a desert instead of a forest).

About huts : I did not pop them cause we have no military, we are late in settling, and this is Deity. But I reckon that I could have pop huts south of the mountains...

EDIT : I forgot to talk about the 2 land masses that peek from the fog. We should go exploring them as soon as we get Map Making, and maybe send some settlers. Maybe the land will be a lot better than here so that we could build the FP overseas. Because fighting against English and Babylonians will be difficult.

 

[Nad]

Krys: I accept your point that some of our cities may not reach maximum size, so some of them could be more compressed, eg, another city around yellow and brown dot. On the other hand, this is a 60% water map, so there's no shortage of land. Also, we are anticipating a modern age game (we're going for space race) so we want as many cities as possible to get to size 20, therefore we should not constrict such cities.

If you were to settle red dot 1 southwest, on the tribe, that wastes a bonus grassland (NW of the fur tile) and with our lands so poor, we don't really want to waste bgs.

I would rather build the FP close to our palace, and then think about a later palace move; building the FP overseas would take forever and we want to get the benefits of a 2nd palace ASAP.
I would be tempted to go for speed rather than the perfect location for the FP. Perhaps orange dot should start the FP ASAP so as to get it built in BC times - that would be a huge boost, and then later, we could move our palace to a new core if needs be. For the most part, however, we'll probably be playing peacefully.

 

[kryszcztov]

I agree that orange dot could go on FP quite quickly ; such an irony that there is no commerce in its radius !!! And yes, we could one day move the palace overseas. I really want to settle on other islands, all the more as there is so much land to grab.

About red dot, oops ! I just wanted to do no overlap with Athens without losing any land tile (and gaining a forest), but I actually did not see this BG flying away. So red dot is fine... I think one of the 4 cities to be built on the north coast (including Athens) should build a few galleys to explore and transport settlers with warriors.

 

[Nad]

why this fixation with other islands? Let's settle our own lands first! Overseas cities will be further away, more corrupt, harder to supply, harder to develop and so on. If we manage to get our own lands settled first, and then can produce enough surplus settlers, then yes, we can go abroad, but we've got our hands full at the moment with our own lands...it takes Athens 10 turns to grow 2 sizes with its granary....that is pretty slow settler pace, so we must use our settlers wisely.

 

[Aggie]

I don't have a lot of comments on the dot map. Good job Nad!.
The brown spot is important imho, to prevent the AI from settlingon our land.
I see that Babylon has a great starting position, so it will be very difficult to hold them off.

Yellow dot for the FP seems most logical to me. That's about the best spot we can get.

 

[Nad]

hmmm, Aggie, that's got me thinking. If we were to make brown and purple dots a priority, then 5 warriors could completely seal our peninsula between the 2 dots....building 5 warriors should not be any problem at all with Athens so shield rich, and we could probably get by with 3 doing a rolling blockade. What do you think?

Yellow dot for FP is good location, but as Krys has noted, yellow dot won't get above size 3 until rails, and then has a max size of around 10. It might even be worth squeezing another city between yellow and brown to redeem some hills and mountains....we could do this after we've settled the other sites, because that is a half-city site that the AI won't poach.

 

[Aggie]

Drawback of making both brown and purple a priority is that these cities will be corrupt. Our growth will suffer in the early game.

 

[Nad]

yes, you are right that our growth will suffer...I would definitely do green and red dots first; but if we then did brown and prurple and blockaded, that would effectively give us free reign to settle the rest of the peninsula, as it will still be a while before Babylon gets map making, and they might decide to settle other directions first

 

[Aggie]

IT: Furs connected.

Turn 1 (2110 BC) Athens builds warrior. Settler in 5.

Turn 2 (2070 BC) Sparta founded. Warrior in 5.

Turn 3 (2030 C) We know Joan and Catherine! They both know the English and a lot of techs. We don't have the money for it.

Turn 4 (1990 BC)

Turn 5 (1950 BC) I buy Masonry from Joan for 5 gpt and 5 gold. Research mathematics at min science and hope to get it before the AI ...

Turn 6 (1910 BC) Athens: settler->warrior.

Turn 7 (1870 BC) Sparta: warrior: worker. We meet the English ourselves.

Turn 8 (1830 BC) Athens: warrior->settler (in 6)

IT: India completes the Colossus in Dehli.

Turn 9 (1790 BC) Thermo founded. Starts warrior. The goody hut is empty.

Turn 10 (1750 BC) A yellow border appears on another island to the northeast. Egypt ?

Turn 11 (1725 BC) The English robbed all our goody huts...

Turn 12 (1700 BC) Sparta: worker->granary

Turn 13 (1675 BC) Athens: settler->settler. Settler goes to brown spot. Forest chop near Thermo started.

IT: France completes the Pyramids in Paris

Turn 14 (1650 BC) Thermo: warrior->worker

Turn 15 (1625 BC) I see a Babylonian settler/warrior go towards our brown spot

1625 BC save

 

[Aggie]

Our warrior on the left is on the brown spot. See how the Bab warrior/settler pair will probably steal it form us

Another civ in sight:

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

I see im up. Can anyone here make a dotmap (CURSE THIS DRY START!)

 

[Nad]

@ Stuck: I've already done a dotmap, above, with rough order of priorities as well.

@ Aggie: we're doing min science research on maths? What about the surplus gold? Remember, we can't go above 10!!! So if we have a surplus, eith plough it into lux expenditure or give iot away, or buy a tech for gpt so that we break even.

Stuck...UP NOW
Meli.....ON DECK

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

ohh... sorry... missed that. will most likely play today, but if its not up today, dont expect it tomorrow. expect it sunday, if its not up by today.

 

[Aggie]

@Nad: We have 12 gold and are doing -1 gpt at the moment. I understood that we shouldn't be too strict and I never went above +14. I made a gpt deal with France for Masonry, so we don't have a lot of income now.

 

[Nad]

okay Aggie, that's cool, as long as we're within the spirit of the rules

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

NMT1 Turns
T1: As expected, Babs beat us to Brown Dot. I move the hovering warrior out for protection. Settler goes to Yellow.
T2: Nada. We stableize a 11g. I gift Hammy 1g.
T3: ZZZ
T4: Thebes builds Oracle. Thermo builds worker. The city of Corinth is build on the yellow dot. It takes 20 to grow, so I start it on a Hoplite.
T5: Athens builds settler. Heads to Orange.
T6: Settler gets to orange spot. Will settle next turn.
T7: Delphi founded on Orange spot. Starts on worker.
T8: ZZZ
T9: Darn it! The game keeps increasing our GPT. Stupid auto slider... Mumble... groan...
T10: Water.. Need... Water... Liz complains about the traped warrior in her teritory. Hes almost out. Next turn he'll be out, but the English are heading N towards our grassland. That does it for me
PS- The treasury is 12g.
The save

 

[Nad]

well done Stuck, glad we're getting a few cities going now...let's just settle what we can and when the land runs out then we can decide if we've got enough or if we we're going to have to go to war at some point.

Meli....UP NOW
Skyfish.....ON DECK