TR04 - Losers vs 5CC deity

[Bede]

Back by popular demand I see.

Mach's start looks good. If we are alone on the island a settler farm is mot essential but irrigate that cow in any case.

The biggest weakness of any XCC nation is commerce. We need to think commercially.

The strength is little corruption and waste so every town will be powerful.

City placement should fill the land so go wide.

Having The Colussus is almost, if not more, useful than the Great Library. Getting both will trigger a Goldn Age for Byzantium so timing on the second is important.

Let's have some fun...

@dman, for the flattery, but back at you. Hope you can do more than lurk.

 

[eldar]

Mach's start has no Cow. 2 Wheat though, and there might be something nice lurking under the fog west of the hill the Settler's going to...

We actually offset the river commerce by settling coastally - we get the seafaring commerce bonus Agree on the Colossus.

Obviously 2 choices:
1. Start it in the capital, as soon as the 1st Settler is out.
2. Start it right away in the 2nd city.

 

[Minute Man]

I like the idea of building the Colossus in our second city, which can be our potential 20K city, while the capital uses those food bonuses to build settlers and workers. If the mouth of that river isn't too close to the capital, that would probably be the ideal place for the second city.

 

[Mach]

Agree completely with Minute Man. Our capital can get out 4 settlers in a hurry, and getting up to 5 cities early is too good an advantage to give up by building a wonder. So our first priority must be exploration.

What shall we do about research? I have no idea yet...

 

[Minute Man]

Research. That's a good question. Since we start with Alpha, does it make sense to research Writing at max and try to get to Philo first? Is that even possible at Deity?

I think I'd be tempted to skip Pottery - we have a lot of food, and since we're not trying to set up a settler factory, an early granary isn't as helpful.

What government are we going to want to head toward? It sound like we're planning on spending a lot of time terrorizing the seas with our Dromons, which might make Republic impractical (not to mention that we won't have much unit support from five cities). On the other hand, we could really use the commerce bonus.

 

[eldar]

Research: Pottery @ Max. Writing @ Max. Then stop and think if we would rather go Phil @ Max with sling to Map Making, or go for the risky Republic slingshot.

 

[Mach]

My impression of Deity is forget the Rep slingshot, it's virtually impossible...but s-m-r-ter people than me (hi Bede!) might be able to tell us something there.

As far as pottery@max...I've been thinking about granaries, and I've come to the conclusion that our capital will be able to get 4 settlers out quicker if it doesn't wait for a granary. We might want one after that, to build workers, and to help growth...but by then I think we'll have pottery via trade. So I vote writing.

 

[Bede]

Boats above all. Writing at maximum. We can trade for pottery if we can find a prospect.

Ride the slingshot to Map Making.

 

[eldar]

Yep, I figured that - not enough shields for a Granary. However we will want Pottery for Map Making.

 

[Minute Man]

Yeah, I always forget that Map Making requires Pottery. But I still think we should do Writing, then Philo - if we can trade for Pottery, then we can take MM as our freebie; if not, then taking Literature wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.

 

[Mach]

Boats above all.

Above settlers? Forgive my simplemindedness. Also maybe one scouting warrior would be nice, to find city spots?

 

[Minute Man]

I think we want a warrior to explore that river and look for good city spots. My build order would be warrior, curragh, then either a settler or another curragh.

 

[eldar]

Well, just out of curiosity, I did a quick spreadsheet for the opening 20 turns. There may be random factors like tile assignment on growth (both population and cultural) but from what I can tell, it doesn't make any difference to when stuff gets finished, just to the overall waste.

Of course something nice over the hill will change things, so my first move would be Settler W, then stop to think! (Ignore what it says about research - I agree with Bede, we should be able to trade for Pottery before we finish Philo, and going Writing->Philo @ Max should be safe.)

Neil.

 

[Tubby Rower]

See that's the stuff that makes you good eldar. I was kind of lost at the beginning of CTOM11 since you didn't map it out for me

 

[Tubby Rower]

I have a question eldar.....

Settling on a hill doesn't give you 2 shields at the city center?

 

[Mach]

Eldar, that looks really good. But there's one thing I would have done differently. You want to irrigate both wheats, and then use the forest for early shields. That's good for the early on. But I would have mined the second wheat, so later the worker could road/mine a river grassland. That way (I _think_) we would end up with the same production (2 irrigated wheat + 1 forest = 1 irrigated wheat, 1 mined wheat, 1 mined grass), yet we would get extra gold by working the roaded river.

Really I don't have time to consider this too much, so I'm not sure of it. Mining the wheat would cost us 1spt or 1fpt for a few turns, while we are waiting for that river grass to get it's mine. But it gains us gold. I don't know which is better.

 

[Tubby Rower]

EDIT::: deleted for stupidity. I can now understand the chart

 

[Minute Man]

That looks very good, eldar. Of course, now that you've done all that work, we're going to find a cow or something on the other side of the hill.

Settling on a hill doesn't give you 2 shields at the city center?

It does eventually. But I think we might not get it until we reach size 7. Or possibly when we leave despotism. I'm not entirely sure.

On the second wheat: my first inclination is to mine it, on the grounds that +6 food doesn't help us. But irrigating it and working a forest (and eventually some mined hills) might in fact be the better plan. I haven't really thought it through either.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

idiot swordsman checking in. please put me at the aft end of the roster.

 

[eldar]

Hill won't give 2 shields 'til size 7 (I can confirm this from COTM11 where I settled on a hill).

Hmm... mine the other Wheat. It's open to question, and of course it won't be shared. Tell you what, shall I open the save and move the Settler to the hill and see what I see?