The Paladins

[Ad Hoc]

i think original starting position as well, two food resources for the capital and settler first.

Tech wise if we're going settler first is Mining-BW the best way to go, i'd think about starting archery for prot archers, then Agri - AH for growth.

 

[pigswill]

We seem to have reached some kind of consensus. Settle on original spot, build settler, research BW, explore.

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

i think original starting position as well, two food resources for the capital and settler first.

Tech wise if we're going settler first is Mining-BW the best way to go, i'd think about starting archery for prot archers, then Agri - AH for growth.

I'm not sure whether we should delay Masonry so far.. As we want to get the GW (and if you'd ask me I'd go for it straight after the settler, a warrior and a worker in Aachen as it's likly to fall quite early..

 

[pigswill]

And we eventually start the game.

Settle on starting point. Start settler while working plains forest Start learning mining. Borders pop a hut for 51 gold.

Scout pops a hut:

And another hut:

We learn mining and start on BW. Borders pop and we work forested plains hills for 6hpt for settler.
Scout survives a wolf. Pops a hut for a map. Survives a lion.

Shaka's scout turns up from the west on T11.

Scout doesn't survive a panther.

Terra Cognito:

Settler finishes in 8. Doesn't have an escort. Warrior will take 6 turns. BW still 17 turns away.

Seems a good point to stop and ponder the options.

 

[Meatbuster]

I would only probably risk going to the Blue X without an escort. (Depending on where that panther was.)
Come to think of it, 1W of the Blue X may work too.
I'd like the upper yellow X but I'd wait for a warrior before going that far.
Red X is a decent city site that's already connected to the capital via river. But we aren't creative so it might take a while to get that food.

 

[pigswill]

Meastbuster: thanks for the nice screenshot and dotmap. btw You're UP.

Roster:
Meatbuster:UP
Ad Hoc on deck
Cripp7
Thy Spellcraft
Sirloin

I'm beginning to wonder if settler first is actually stronger than worker first. Guess we'll find out.

 

[Meatbuster]

Oh, I thought you were going to ponder the options and you had more turns. Playing now.

 

[Pindrus]

Lurker: I'm glad you ended up settling in place. For some reason I get a warm fuzzy feeling when the BFC cleanly covers all the land up to a coast (whose seafood can be had by different cities!). So beautiful...

 

[Meatbuster]

Played 20 uneventful turns to 3000 BC.

Turn 27 - Meet Alex, who seems to be coming from the east. Seeing that panther next to Alex's scout made me feel more secure about guiding the settler through the fog and into their final destination.

Turn 28 - Hinduism founded by Shaka.
Aachen: Settler -> Archer
I know what they said about working unimproved tiles but I'll just grow before going for a worker. Select flood plains to grow.
Yes, I risk it as per my dot map.

Turn 31 - OK, Prague is founded 1W of the Red X. I go archer first because there are barbs. Good build next is monument and worker.

turn 36 - Bronze Working is in. I'd wait until our workers our out before revolting to Slavery. Check out the map. DUDE, WHERE'S MY BRONZE!?

I go ahead research Animal Husbandry to check for horses.

turn 40 - I finish up here after pressing Enter a lot of times.
When we build a settler, I would go for the top yellow X on my dotmap (clams site) next. Hopefully we'll have an escort by then to guide the settler through the treacherous woods.

Of course I build archers instead of warriors. They're slower, but they grow the cities just fine, plus they put our Protective trait to good use.

Here's a public service message from the pope: Dude, we did not revolt to slavery yet. This is to save maintenance costs. And we don't have workers yet to put our anarchy time to good use.

 

[pigswill]

Maybe we should be thinking about masonry for great wall. Once cities get to pop2 then swop to workers and whip asap coz its only 3000bc and barbs shouldn't be crossing borders for another thouand years or so.

 

[Meatbuster]

There's just something I don't like about Great Wall... if we build it we're gonna be spying for the entire game. Is that what we're going to do?

 

[pigswill]

Espionage is not compulsory. Couple of options:

i) If we get GSpy first we can use him/her as an explorer/spy who wanders around the map ignoring trivia such as barbarians and open borders until such time as we're ready for a Golden Age.

ii) If we get writing reasonably early we can build a library and run a couple of scientists in another city to pop a GS before Gwall generates a spy. Gwall only generates 2gppt so there's a bit of leeway.

 

[Sirloin]

Yeah I think we should get going on GWall sooner rather than later w/o Stone or Ind. I'm glad we made it safely to our city site. I played a test game with settler first and it worked out very well, although it ended up being pretty optimal conditions: I found an excellent city site very near my starting area and kept my scout alive to escort. It seemed like an eternity before my capital got a worker out, given settler->grow->worker compared to my usual worker-first build.

The strategy seems reliant on having some decent unimproved tiles to work (and realizing that a border pop won't be coming soon). For that reason, I was going to recommend settling directly on the blue X to get the plainshill capital bonus plus cow right off that bat (downside is a few overlap tiles to the capital), but too late now. This city won't be doing much of anything until its borders pop, and thats going to be 30+ turns away. I would recommend doing worker-first instead of archer first; as pigs noted, barbs won't be a problem for a while and we really could use workers.

No copper is a pain, but if we just get the GWall up it will buy us some time while we cross our fingers for Iron. Northern yellow X should be our 3rd city. My recommendation for a build would be
Capital: Growth to 2, build worker, build GWall
Prague: Worker, Growth, Settler. Maybe chop a monument somewhere in there, since this site is very weak w/o a border pop.

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Ok, one think first meat:

I won't complain on the builds you did nor do I about the techpatch.. But I DO complain about the fact that you just played and founded our second city without giving anybody a descent chance to give you a go on you dotmap! I'm not used to emperor SG but I'm sure decisions like city placements and techpatch should still be team decision! So next time a bit more discussion would be really nice! (at least the time for it )

Nonetheless I too would head towards GW as fast as possible. And I would go for the Gspys! I did the spy econ once and it worked really good! And as we're heavyly going for war-related techs this would be an excellent way to fill up the left behind techs.. (or even the monopol once to trade them away like mad)

About builds and third city: The idea of getting another settler out of prag pretty soon to settle the yellow dot north of the gems while choping(I'm not sure when the AI normally finishes GW on emperor) out the GW in Aachen seems to be the best one.

 

[pigswill]

There wasn't a lot of time for discussion between sets. On the other hand there wasn't a lot of discussion in the time available.

On the one hand SGs are about team discussion between sets coz that's how we learn. On the other hand SGs can also tend to drag out interminably at times. 24 hours got it/48 hours play is the implicit schedule and maybe Meatbuster played within 24 hours of the last set being posted.
I'd prefer someone to play within 24 hours than not play for four or five days but somewhere in between is the ideal.

I'm not sure about espionage economy for two reasons. The first is that I'm not sure how fast the AIs are going to be researching. The second is that it doesn't seem to match the 'flavour' of the game.

Some interesting micro-management decisions about build and research sequence coming up I reckon.

Ad Hoc is UP
cripp7 is on deck.

 

[Ad Hoc]

Got it but most probably won't play until tomorrow morning (Saturday)

plan at the moment is...

Change AH to Masonry (for GW) and then AH afterwards

Aachen: finish archer, start worker, wait until masonry finishes, revolt to BW, whip worker and start GW. Archer to head up to yellow and fog bust a few squares while he's there. Worker will farm wheat and then start chopping GW

Prague: finish archer, start worker, whip when we can after we revolt to BW and start settler which will be chopped, archer to escort settler to yellow.

Green looks reasonable when IW is researched, but we need to do a bit more scouting

 

[Meatbuster]

Sorry Spellcraft, for I sort of have ADHD and am an impatient man. Reasons why I never win by myself at Emperor difficulty.


All right, next time if there is a major decision (including city placement) I would wait for input after 48.

 

[Ad Hoc]

a quiet set of 20 turns following my plan, switched to masonry straight away

Look who showed up

and another neighbour

exploring archer found monty's lands to the west of Prague

the worker in prague has just been whipped, suggest settler next for clams spot, the worker in Aachen will soo be able to be whipped ans then start GW

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Sorry Spellcraft, for I sort of have ADHD and am an impatient man. Reasons why I never win by myself at Emperor difficulty.


All right, next time if there is a major decision (including city placement) I would wait for input after 48.

Thx!

About your ideas ad hoc: Do we agree on settling yellow dot first? And what to resurch next after masonry came in? I'd vote for finishing AH to get to writing as fast as possible.

 

[pigswill]

Prague really needs some culture to grab its value tiles, maybe its worker could chop a monument before helping out with Gwall.

Techwise wheel after finishing AH would be good to connect cities for traderoutes, connecting resources is less of a priority until we start hitting healthcap.

Prague will need to grow a bit before next settler, maybe monument followed by another archer before settler at pop2. We should also get a 50%hammer bonus if we whip a settler.

cripp7 is UP.

edit: 20 turns per set feels about right for the first round.