TJ01: Famous Five

[Northern Pike]

Site 1 has six mountains and a desert within its radius, but also five high-food tiles. A city here could be very productive eventually, but might require too many worker-turns before it became useful, so this is just a tentative suggestion.

Site 2 is a location for the northern city which would claim all three cows (which Ted's doesn't do) and provide a coastal town (which Space's doesn't do). I'm assuming that this would be a river city despite the way in which the river graphic curves away from the map grid; if I'm wrong, let me know.

Site 3 sacrifices a coastal location, on the assumption that site 2 will supply one, to claim more BG. (Do we want two coastal cities, given that this is a continental map? We need to discuss this.) But with no bonus resources beyond BG and no river, perhaps this area isn't good enough for one of our cities. We shouldn't rush to found here, anyway.

Site 4 is a location for our eastern city which keeps Ted's two additional BG and adds the gold mountain, without quite overlapping with First Famous.

 

[TedJackson]

I can't see a third Cow at site your site 2 but 1, 3 & 4 all look good.

Site 1 could perhaps be our last site settled unless something better turns up.

 

[a space oddity]

Ok, some thoughts about the sites I chose:

The site in the north (2-ish ) is placed to be on the river and will scrape together a lot of shields (which it will do less when it's on the coast).

The site in the east is on the coast, not on a river but is very foodrich and also will be able to have a good production. It's a bit further out to claim as much land as possible with only 5 cities. Tha AI won't try to settle inbetween before the cultural borders grow and by then it'll be too late.

The city in the southeast is on the river and again will be a good productive city.

I guess the underlaying decision is do we go for OCP or a bit wider?

 

[Northern Pike]

Ted, you certainly can't see the third cow from the screenshot. If you load up the save, about a rump steak's worth of it is visible under the fog.

Space, I take your point about spacing )) our cities so that we'll control culturally more tiles than we can actually work. My assumption is that we'll we very active militarily, and will just solve the problem of nearby enemy cities by destroying them, but I'm new to this kind of game and don't claim to be an authority.

 

[a space oddity]

NP: This is my first attempt in a game with a limited number of cities too. And playing those first truns made me realise I rely havily on early rapid expansion. One more reason to discuss these matters, if only to make the learning curve even steeper.

One thing I learned from reading articles is that resources are of the essence and those that don't need colonies are easier to defend, since claimed lands cannot be undone by (temporary ) settlement.

edit: fixed smiley

 

[Karasu]

Back from my neck of the woods... ...and got it.

I gave a little thinking to city placement, and I agree with NP's suggestions (trusting him on the three cows, and I too believe number 2 is on a river). The FP will go in the "most corrupt" of the four.
Btw, I would settle 2 next.

The doubt is how do we proceed with the building queues. I think we don't want to have all five cities building (or pre-building) wonders at the same time for long periods.

Just an idea (I'm not not really sure): I would get one (max two) more settlers our of First, then build the last two settlers in Second and start working on Pyramids as soon as possible. We'll need to squeeze some workers, units and a Temple from the other cities before they start building wonders too.

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by Karasu
The doubt is how do we proceed with the building queues. I think we don't want to have all five cities building (or pre-building) wonders at the same time for long periods.

Just an idea (I'm not not really sure): I would get one (max two) more settlers our of First, then build the last two settlers in Second and start working on Pyramids as soon as possible. We'll need to squeeze some workers, units and a Temple from the other cities before they start building wonders too.

This is where the fun & skill comes in

There are going to be some hard choices. Luckily we are Religious so Temples come a bit cheaper but for these early Wonders I think we're going to need a Temple and a full garrison to support a Wonder build in any city.

Add to that the need for Barracks in the not too distant future and it all starts looking complicated


Ted

 

[a space oddity]

Ted, there's a Rax in First already. And like me, Karasu, you need to raelise there'll be no FP for us....

 

[mad-bax]

It's not easy. I think we will need to generate leaders early and often. I don't think we can afford to build wonders in more han 1 city at a time. For this reason I think that builds should be temples then rax then units then libraries etc. I think that we should build more open than OCP, and this in turn will mean using fast units so we can defend ourselves (for instance RCP at 6 with no river crossing).

We are (I believe) going into an pseudo AW game in practical terms at least until the end of the Hanging Gardens, Sun Tzu, Sistine et al wonder run.

I think we need lots of units, and therefore I would prioritise sites for shields over food. We will compensate for low food by not building settlers (obviously) or many workers (we will need to get them from the AI IMO).

My worry would be getting colossus and lighthouse in the same city.

So I think that all 5 settlers should come out of the capital. We can build a couple of workers and a few garrison units and then pyramids in the second city. I don't think we can afford to build a wonder in the capital.

 

[a space oddity]

Originally posted by mad-bax
So I think that all 5 settlers should come out of the capital. We can build a couple of workers and a few garrison units and then pyramids in the second city. I don't think we can afford to build a wonder in the capital.

Yes, that's my fear also, one of the reasons to build a rax in the capital. We should only build vet units from now on. And what's more, I think the reg ones should be used as cannon fodder, if they're lucky they'll upgrade. Which I sincerely hope.

So which spot would need to be built first. The coastal one? Like MB points out, we need Colossus and the Lighthouse. i needs to grow rapidly too. So maybe we *should* make the cow site our coastal city and our second. Please feel free to shoot at this idea. We need the combined brainpower...

 

[Karasu]

Originally posted by a space oddity
And like me, Karasu, you need to raelise there'll be no FP for us....

Of course, I'll write in big red capital letters on the wall in front of me!

I think that using the capital just for units (and of course 'normal' culture buildings), at least for the time being, may be the way to go. This clearly means relying quite heavily on great leaders.

I also agree with having Temples and Barracks everywhere first.

Still, I think we will be able to build a wonder in the capital (with a possible parallel prebuild with the Palace in another city). Right now, I can't see the difference from building the wonder in another city (with the same Palace prebuild).
In fact, with all the wonders available in the first two Ages, we may need at least two cities busy with prebuilds at any given time. And rotate them.


We are not going to be able to pay for a very large army, however, and this may become a strong limitation for us. Incidentally, that's why I would prioritize the Pyramids: it's +5 gpt for us beside the faster growth. Not too much, but everything helps. Plus, we deny it to the AIs, which may be even more important.

 

[mad-bax]

I don't object to building a wonder in the capital per se. We could prbably get 3 leaders in the AA at a push, if we're lucky 1 or two more. We will need to build Pyramids, colossus and Oracle. The others we whould at least try to get with leaders.

At regent to be reasonably sure of Oracle you need to build it by around 800BC, pyramids - 600BC and colossus on a continents map say 300BC (YMMV). So I would start pyramids in town 2, because it will not take a pop hit in making settlers and allow it to catch up. Colossus in the coastal city and then maybe Oracle in the capital once it has a temple a rax and made 4 or 5 fast units.

The 4th and 5th city will still be building temples, raxes and a couple of workers at this time, so they have no chance of getting early wonders. Hopefully we'll get leaders for HG in one and GL in the other.

My point is that the shield cost of building wonders is far too high for us to build them. 10 horses is a better investment, and you could get a couple of leaders from them. We've just got to do it early.

 

[TedJackson]

Can I just add The Great Library to the list of Ancient Times' Wonders we will need.

That gives us:
Pyramids (Ind/Rel, 4cpt, 400 shields)
Colossus (Exp/Rel, 3cpt, 200 shields)
Oracle (Rel, 4cpt, 300 shields)
Great Library (Sci, 6cpt, 400 shields)

We could cascade to:
Hanging Gardens (Ind, 4cpt, 300 shields)
Lighthouse (Exp/Com, 2cpt, 300 shields)

We need to avoid:
The Great Wall (Mil/Ind, 2cpt, 200 shields). As this in conjunction with any Religious Wonder would trigger our GA too early.

The honeymoon's over. It's all graft from here on in


Ted

 

[Karasu]

Here I am. Sorry for the delay, I was caught in a meeting for the whole day yesterday...

Pre-turn
Not much to check actually...

How to proceed?
I decide to found on the wheats first, because:
- fast city growth with unimproved territory (might build workers),
- roading towards there will connect a luxury.


Turn 1 - 2950 BC
First: Settler - warrior.
I will let First grow back to size four before starting another settler. In eight turns we get two warriors and a settler, which is not too bad -even though there are some wasted shields and food; maybe someone very very fond of micromanaging will come up with a better idea...


Turn 3 - 2850 BC
First: Warrior - warrior


Turn 4 - 2800 BC
Worker finishes roading the cow. Moves W.


Turn 5 - 2750 BC
First: warrior - Settler
Second Famous founded: Worker


Turn 9 - 2590 BC
First: Settler - warrior
Worker roading towards Second.
Exploration to the east reveals no other civs nearby.
Since the risk of loosing our eastern city sites seems small, I will send the second settler to the north (cows).


Turn 10 - 2550 BC
Nothing much.
My idea was to build a couple of workers in Second, to improve a bit there and then carry on to Third. Another group of three workers could do the same towards the two eastern cities.

I have spotted coast south of Madrid. Looks like the Spanish are bottled on the edge of our continent. If there is noone else, we won't have many chances to trade techs and get leaders.

Screenshot:

And the save

 

[Yndy]

OK, got it and will play tonight.
Just to check, our third city will go where NP said and will build Worker, Temple, Colossus.

Last two cities go where NP said or where a space oddity suggested?

Edit: Our capital will continue building some warriors and then start on a temple and a wonder

 

[a space oddity]

Well done Karasu, hard when every decision has to be thought through, isn't it?

@Yndy: Let's see where the resources are before we make that decision. Getting IW should have the highest priority.

 

[TedJackson]

@Karasu
Nice, steady play. Good choice on the Wheats

@Yndy
NP's site 2 looks favourite as our next settlement then probably site 3 unless we discover something better.


Ted

 

[a space oddity]

You see, Yndy, I'm just being ignored here.

 

[TedJackson]

Sorry Space,

but unless you're hoping for Ironworks later I think it's fairly irrelevant as we can colonise Iron if need be.

Just my usual (random) thoughts


Ted

 

[a space oddity]

Well, now that you mention it, we seem to be very lucky in that department lately.