UF1 - The Deep End

[uberfish]

Small pangaea, 7 civs/14 CS feels quite close to civ 4 Standard to me so I've gone with that. I generated a start:

Well, this would be a good place for a second or third city... capital, not so much. Only a few plains to work with sandwiched between the tundra and what looks like desert to the north. The river is a stub. A bunch of useless resourceless sea tiles. But I see a longer river on the edge of our vision to the east. I'm tempted to move. I send the warrior to check it out.

Moving will cost us 3-4 turns but the terrain looks much more promising and we can get the cow in range which will let our city grow faster. In my view there are two options


1) Settle on the wines 1NW of the spawn location, and focus on early and quick expansion

2) Move to the forest/cow for faster growth and better long term potential in the capital

I prefer (2) intuitively but I think the decision isn't an obvious one, let the discussion begin!


Current Roster:

Uberfish (up, 25t)
TheRat
Darrell
Seven
Methos
Mutineer

 

[Mutineer]

I just settle IN place.

My current plan only requet capital to have as mach resources as possible. On pangea we can sell resources to each AI, steal worker from city state ( 1 declaration is free).
research to calendar and hunting ( or how it is called now).
sell resources to civ, but influence with city state with this money (Maritime for food and culture later). Expand to nearest resources location, research HB and start to win. simple.

 

[Mutineer]

Build order propoused, scout, worker -- monument.

I am in favor of liberty branch for start for cheap settle, subject good city cites near by.

 

[ThERat]

Connecting resources, selling them to the AI and gaining favor from city states is the way to go.

We can settle in place to not waste so many turns. Churn out a scout and a worker while heading for calendar

 

[uberfish]

1NW is better than settling in place if we don't move, it saves worker turns on the first plantation, saves more turns by getting the worker up faster (with sheep) and there might be more useful tiles in that direction

 

[SevenSpirits]

I wouldn't consider wasting 3 turns to move.

I also like 1NW. The 2 extra gpt from the start is not as good as a Civ4 plains hill plant but it's pretty darn good nonetheless. It also puts us next to the sheep hill which we might have to buy otherwise. (Great tile to have early.) Not sure what the benefits of settling in place, over 1NW, are.

 

[Mutineer]

May be I am just old time settle on coast. but we are on pangea so may be we could ignore that.

 

[Methos]

I hate to settle on the wine due to losing the additional gold we'd get. I can't recall if a plantation will give us any additional gold, but I'm pretty sure we'll lose some gold by settling on it. I tend to agree on settling in place.

 

[SevenSpirits]

I hate to settle on the wine due to losing the additional gold we'd get. I can't recall if a plantation will give us any additional gold, but I'm pretty sure we'll lose some gold by settling on it. I tend to agree on settling in place.

We GAIN gold by settling on it. Comparing Settle in place and work wine plantation with settle on wine and work trading post at in place spot:

1) City hex produces 3 gold, Trading Post produces 3 gold. Total 6.
2) City hex produces 1 gold, Wine Plantation produces 4 gold. Total 5.

Yes, that is all a plantation on wine gives: 1 gold.

This long term benefit is in addition to getting an extra 2 gold from settling on the wine, on every turn which we wouldn't have worked the wine tile! (Most of the early turns.) And also we don't even have to build a Trading Post on that river plains we vacate; we can build a farm there instead. And we get the wine hooked earlier.

 

[Methos]

So settling on a high yield gold tile doesn't reduce the gold amount? That's good to know. I was thinking it did.

 

[SevenSpirits]

Yes, it actually works just like Civ IV in this respect. The yields of the city tile are the larger of its original yields, and the default city yields. Though in Civ V the default city yields are 2/2/1 not 2/1/1, so settling on 2-hammer tiles does not help.

 

[darrelljs]

Well NW will get us 3 wine to sell really fast, so I think that's a fine move.

Definitely Scout first, then Worker. If memory serves will get Liberty about 4 turns into a Settler if we go Settler third. Hmm...actually it might be I got the +1 citizen hut event that game. I'm in favor of whatever the math says re: Settler or Monument third, I guess.

Darrell

 

[SevenSpirits]

Our insane golden ages (if nothing else, 50% longer) may impact which policy trees are best. I think expanding as fast as possible to use up our happiness isn't as critical since the happiness golden ages are 50%+ more effective. Also, the Great General in Honor, as well as either Piety or Rationalism, can give us golden ages. And Piety helps golden ages in general.

 

[uberfish]

Ok, we decided not to move to the cows, but I decided to move 1 tile northwest, revealing some wheat which makes the move even better. The computer has apparently compensated for the ugly terrain we're in by clumping resources here.

We get 2/2/3 from the city tile, the city governor wants to work a tundra deer for 2f but I overrule him and work sheep. This will cost us a few science points in the short run due to delaying the city growth to size 2 but get our scout/worker out faster. Scout first is definitely worth it on pangaea, there's a lot of ground to cover.

Set research to pottery -> calendar. There's no big hurry to pasture the sheep seeing as we have wheat. Warrior goes east to look around, running into a mountain range, forcing him to work his way down the coast. Ruins for 60 gold. Meet Venice. The good news is they're everyone's favourite combination, Maritime/Friendly. The bad news is they're right next to China and likely to be attacked rather quickly.

Our scout heads out on a pretty wide spiral. Finds a ruin revealing barbarian camps not too far from home, I send the warrior back towards home. Scout finds two more ruins: 30 culture, advanced weapons. He's now an archer with the scout terrain ignoring ability, very useful.

In the meantime I buy the wheat tile for 50 gold when we get to size 2. We need several border expansions here so might as well buy one now and get the tile a few turns early, + there's a 50% chance of having to pay for it on turn 20 anyway if the culture border pop claims the wrong tile. Worker pops on turn 17 and immediately goes to farm it.

turn 24, Wheat farm is done. Calendar also finishes, connecting the wine Persepolis is sitting on. I've met 3 civs, none of them have 300 gold yet. Sell it to Rameses for 237gold + 2gpt. Research set to animal husbandry. In the meantime our warrior killed a couple of weakened barbarians that had been fighting AI units, and clears one of the camps for some XP and 25 gold.

turn 25 Monument is done. (I haven't picked a SP yet.) Everything feels so fast thanks to the sheep. Here's what's been scouted so far.

We have Rome to the NW, China to the east and Egypt's borders are just visible ingame north of Hanoi. The desert to the north of us is rather annoying... which way to expand?

TheRat is up followed by Darrell.

 

[ThERat]

Got it, will have a look at the save and wait for other people's input a well before playing 20 turns as stated by uberfish.

 

[Mutineer]

well, we are allmost at 500 gold - enoght to make 1 city state an allly, get Maritime one for start when we get this 500 gold.
there is a sugar near by, may be put city there?
WE can steal worker form hanoy for second city ( believe it is military CS?). Use scout or warrior. Declare take worker, move mil unit out of his borders (there are reason for that, I forgot which one) and make peace same turn.
one declaration is free ( no other city state declare on us and go into permanent war).

 

[ThERat]

I would go for IW to know where the iron is, build another warrior before a settler.

Ally Venice as suggested.

Any other opinions?

 

[Mutineer]

why we need iron? I am sure that even if we do not have any horses near by, we can get some form city states.

WE probably need mining for worker tech, but after that stright to hourse back riding.

The most efficient unit for money in Civ 5

 

[uberfish]

The flatlands north of us are good horse terrain. Iron isn't that important yet, and Rome has an advantage in infantry units anyway. I might be tempted to build a 2nd scout to explore the far reaches of the continent instead of warrior, and preserve our archer.

I guess both honour and liberty are reasonable SP choices here, I sometimes save the points for later ages but on this map we need a strong early presence as our nearby land is poor. If we expand north we will end up fighting Rome sooner rather than later and the legion's pretty strong

 

[SevenSpirits]

We can sell one-sided OB to China, who has Writing. She values it at 50, though only has 42 right now. We can also take a loan from Caesar if we want, 2gpt for 30 turns for 45 gold. So if we want we can get the city state alliance immediately. That is worth 4 food in the capital per turn, and 2 food in any other cities we settle!

Yes, we could wait a few turns instead. But think about how much money we have doing nothing. Buying the alliance is what we want to do with it anyway. It's probably better to put that money to work immediately.

For builds, we have 5 excess happiness even with no resources! We should get out a settler as soon as possible to take advantage of that. We need to defog a couple more tiles still but I think he should go north to the sugar and river.

We need to decide on our policies about now, any opinions? I think Liberty, Honor, Piety were our viable options for the first one. (We're past the usefulness of Tradition already anyway.) Piety is too far off IMO, though it can be strong later. Liberty takes 3 policies before it's actually good I think, and we could be taking Piety picks by then instead. Anyway I think we should take Honor. Pretty much every policy in that tree is useful. And not just for combat: the general (15 turns of golden age) can give a very big early boost, and garrisons for happiness is comparable to the Liberty tree one.

For techs, definitely head towards Horseback Riding as the important military tech, not Iron.

We need at least one more worker if not two. Our cities are going to grow fast with maritime food and we have almost no improved tiles.

Oh, diplomacy. IMO try to get a pact of cooperation with China and any possible pacts of secrecy vs Rome. Or something. Honestly I don't know if that's good advice but I do think we should do something to pick sides early rather than late. It might also be good to secure the cooperation pact with China before stealing her city state. Who freaking knows.