UNGY5 Let's keep it simple!

[Rusten]

Started off with some really bad luck but things are looking good overall. I decided to send our northern warrior 1 NW to finish the scouting and look for more seafood. The barb archer was at 1.7 strength so it shouldn't pose a threat when we're in the forest, but that <insert insult> Ramesses sent a scout to the open tile next to us and as a result a barbarian warrior joined the archer after killing the scout. We lost our fortified warrior the next turn.

Finished BW and we indeed have copper on our open grassland tile!

We can see Izzy's culture if we look carefully.

We found riverside corn north of the gold which is huge. Unfortunately a barbarian city got settled on my last turn, but it isn't blocking us that much (it might even end up being a good thing). I made a settler instead of a worker after growing to size 5 -- change of heart after seeing that corn.

General

I want to settle our city 1N of the banana because:
a) 2200 BC is when barbarian are starting to pose a problem on immortal normal speed. This spot is easy to defend and it's going to take some turns before our first axeman is out.
b) It's got an awful lot of resources -- it's basically a 2nd capital.
c) If we move closer to Izzy we'll have to wait for an axe transport and there's a lot of jungle there making things hard.
d) By placing the city 1N of the banana we can take out the barbarian city with culture. If we go for CoL confucianism is going to be founded in this city unless we do something strange to prevent it (which would be silly). When confucianism is founded we will reach 100 culture (which is what we need to take the barbarian city) very fast.

We can choose to settle a more aggressive city with the 2nd city -- I feel it's too risky to move far without proper defenders. Seeing as we got bronze I don't want to whip anything at all -- we have 5 "über" tiles.

Our research is very good and once we settle our second city (if we choose the spot I suggest) we'll be looking at an extra 5 per turn until our gold runs out. The main obstacle regarding the Oracle is production. I don't think it's worth it considering the start. On a more barren map with less commerce it might've been essential, but it's going to be easy to just self-research it here. I'm in favour of expansion. I like getting the Pyramids though, as there's a bigger time window, but I wouldn't rush it. If we lose it then so be it, if Ramesses gets it we can just take it by force -- IIRC he is one of the AI that produces the least troops.

We should sign OB with Izzy once either one of us gets writing. This will allow her to send missionaries and increase our happiness + relations. It might upset Ramesses, but I don't see him going to war either way -- Izzy is the one to befriend here IMO.

Should I play more or hand it over to the next player? (14 turns)

 

[ungy]

Good going Rusten!
I like your settling plan.
I'm also with you on skipping oracle. We have a very good start here IMHO and don't think we need the gamble. It's hard to imagine that we won't lose a city site by sinking the hammers into oracle and we're looking at completion around 1520 or 1560 by my guess so we could easily lose it. Like you say, we have uber commerce here and we're short hammers so it's not the right gamble.

Go ahead and keep playing if you want.

 

[pigswill]

Only problem with this plan is that Rusten City and Barb City would overlap both the corn and bananas which Barb City could use to work the gold and grow at the same time.

Would it be an option to go for a stonefish city to the southwest and build axes to capture barb city conventionally? If its likely to autoraze then we'd need a settler close by to claim the site.

 

[Rusten]

They can share food or we can keep the gold city low size until watermills/leevee starts doing its thing and focus on the northern city. The southern one would easily pay for itself working just a couple of riverside farms, on/off surplus food resource and the gold.

Problem with going for Barb City with axemen is future dotmapping, the fact that it's a "slow starter" and that it's a major commitment to get those axes early. That's a lot of hammers and I don't think we can afford it. Our axes won't get cover so we'll have pretty bad battle odds (~55-60%) meaning that we'll lose a lot of axes attacking. That's also assuming we'll get a barracks which is another 50 hammers. Furthermore IMP settlers are cheaper (although ours are more food-based than usual) so getting a settler costs less even without battle casualties. I really don't like going for it with military this early.

Settling 'StoneFish' city is worth discussing as I doubt we'll lose our city 1N banana in the meantime. Main problem with that is that we'll have to wait for a proper defender after the settler (just 1t probably as I started some chopping) and move just 1 tile at a time as there's jungle blocking and a slow axe defending. This is one of those situations where normal speed proves much harder than epic, there's a very long travel and we can't tell if the spot is still open when we get there. If the spot is taken by the time we get there we've lost a lot of momentum as the other cities are horsehockey pre-IW. Settling '1N Banana' unlocks trade routes as well. I am open to settling 'StoneFish', but I'm a little worried about moving that far without knowing whether Charlemagne is headed there already. If we settle '1N Banana' we can scout 'StoneFish' by sending an axeman down there while getting settler #2.

I will play some more turns later then.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm not a big fan of settling 1N of bananas. It won't have any decent tiles until IW and calendar except corn. Since the settler is nearly ready I'd settle somewhere towards izzy or charly and get some protection from AI fogbusting cities and take that barb city soon with axes. Skipping oracle is fine by me.

 

[Rusten]

I'm not a big fan of settling 1N of bananas. It won't have any decent tiles until IW and calendar except corn.

We don't have to agree about everything, that's to be expected, but I don't understand the reasoning

It has riverside dye in it's first ring 3/0/2, the riverside corn is the best or second best tile in the game, a grassland hill and the possibility of working cottages for our capital or another riverside farm (outside of capital BFC even).

 

[mystyfly]

I don't like settling in the jungle with few decent tiles. BTW I crossposted with you last post...

What about settling 1NE of bananas? It has 2 grassland hills, corn, 2 dyes and 5 forests. The other two dyes can be worked by another city.

Another option could be to settle 2E of corn (where the barb archer is atm) which gets a city with a 3 hills, corn and later 2 sugar and gems. It would be a bit harder to defend and flipping the barb city will be kinda hard tough...

 

[SnowlyWhite]

1n banana would be a great helper for capitol(beside it's excellent tiles, but those are for later use:

- can work two cottages for the capitol, at least till calendar, the 1se and 1se 1e of the capitol;
- can enjoy, like the capitol, a +1 health, by keeping only 2 forests(eventually the one 2s and the one 2s1e from the capitol; only one of those forests is riversided, so not much loss;
- a grassland lost for settling is better then losing a grassland hill imho; especially since the grassland hill doesn't give +1 hammer.
- it has 6 valid tiles before iw by chopping forests(while saving those to for +1 health for it and capitol) which should be more or less enough pre iw.7 if you count the unjungled dye, but I wouldn't cottage that one - wasted time in raising a cottage only to be leveled later

 

[ungy]

On balance I like settling 1N of the banana. That'll make good use of tiles, get us good commerce quickly with the trade routes, easy defence. Once the copper is mined we are 5 turns for a settler so we can get them out quickly.
I'm not too optimistic about the barb city.
Are we sure if we get conf that we'll found it in that city?--we'll have a couplel of more cities by then. Most likely Ramesses will claim the gold and we can't win any culture wars.

The downside as I see it is that we don't claim any contested territory.

I think I would build settler-axe, axe--keep one to defend cap and new city and send the other SE looking for another site there. If noplace good, then claim the stone/fish/horse site to the NE.

 

[Rusten]

We are spiritual headed towards caste system so we can win the early game culture wars by running artists and reaching the culture rings sooner. By the time culture buildings catch up we can just go to war.

I can't remember the exactly how religions are founded now, but the main theme is that it's a major disadvantage for the capital and that (IIRC) city size is the main thing. 1N Banana has a lot of food and thus is bound to be our largest city by far (after capital). However, even if we don't found confucianism we could just run some artists to take out the city. It's not a great location anyway, I wouldn't be awfully sad if we miss it.

I'm with you on settler-axe-axe. I'll play my last turns tonight.

 

[mystyfly]

Abt where religions are founded:

IIRC, capitals have very low odds. For the other cities it's: The more pop and the fewer religions present the more likely it is for a religion to be founded.

 

[ungy]

We are spiritual headed towards caste system so we can win the early game culture wars by running artists and reaching the culture rings sooner.

dont' know why but I forgot about running artists

 

[Rusten]

Played up to finishing priesthood. Not much to say about the recent developements. In case you didn't notice Ramesses converted to Judaism in the last session so there's a lot of religious conflict. This is very good for us as it slows down teching speed.

Future intentions:

I was thinking we'd send the warrior down towards Charlemagne to stay up to date on his city settling. There is a Korean scout there fogbusting a little so we shouldn't run into barbarians. Barbarian activity decreases with that city as well.

The workers will finish chopping next turn and this will provide enough hammers to finish a part-made axeman. We could chop the settler to completion as well if we're feeling paranoid about settling. If there's enough overflow to finish the part-axe in 1 turn after chopping the settler that's probably best as we get our city up 1 turn sooner, but I didn't check (yet).

The axeman can scout to the east as there will be a new axeman coming out of Constantinople shortly and he can look after Thessa instead. The axeman headed east can protect our coming settler as well.

Map of the world as we know it:

You can see that there was another barbarian city formed, but it's not in an annoying spot. Izzy's border popped so I thought I'd be able to safely scout east with our warrior, but a barb archer popped up so I went back instead. That sugar/gem spot is going to be really bad without IW, but CoL will only take 20 turns at 100% slider so it's viable to settle there next.

Remember to open borders with Isabella when writing is in. The extra happiness is very good and we can get a cheap temple for size 7. Gems will provide 8, representation will provide 11 and calendar will bump us up to size 15. There's also the possibility of getting the gold for 16 and trading for even more. These cities will be huge, so we should farm a lot. City #2 can work cottages on the tiles belonging to the capital, but the other riverside tiles should be farmed.

Also remember that even if we're unhappy at size 6 it won't affect/penalize settler production, so feel free to grow when chopping the 2nd axeman. It also means we'll get to use the 6th citizen the moment Buddhism spreads to us rather than waiting a turn.

We can whip an axeman in Thessa after the monument. The capital has too much food atm so it's better to let it get workers/settlers. Thessa doesn't have a granary, but it's OK to whip 2 -> 1 -- having an extra axe adds a lot of safety. We could cottage a tile and let it grow as well though, but then we can't protect a settler headed SW if we decide to go there later.

IME AIs are slow at settling heavy jungle, so I'm positive we'll get the sugar/gem spot if we head for it next. Getting beat there would be strange.

 

[silverbullet]

looks promising.
I will be able to play on Tuesday or Wednesday, so if someone wants to swap and play a turn before that, feel free to do so.

What do you think about the A.Wat wonder? We could build up a nice production bonus with bureaucracy hammer bonus and settled great priests, although they are much weaker with no gold multipliers. With so many AIs to trade with GS bulbs are probably the best way to keep up in tech.

 

[Rusten]

Looked at the save again and to add to the jungle spot:

This is Izzy's power -- as you can see it jumps a little around 2000 BC:

It jumps in the same manner as ours did 2200-2300 BC and what happened then? Yeah, we got BW. Furthermore the event log shows that she adopted slavery at that time:

So the power increase was from finishing BW. This means that she shouldn't have IW and thus adds more safety to us getting to the heavy jungle before she does -- I can't imagine losing it now.

What do you think about the A.Wat wonder? We could build up a nice production bonus with bureaucracy hammer bonus and settled great priests, although they are much weaker with no gold multipliers. With so many AIs to trade with GS bulbs are probably the best way to keep up in tech.

Seeing as we have no way to boost our commerce / raw gold/science lightbulbing should be much better than settling. Either that or GAs.

P.S If we can afford the worker turns it's very tempting to road towards Izzy's worker (getting a road). This will give 2 trade routes and allow Buddhism to spread to us. The sooner we can get Izzy to friendly the better.

 

[silverbullet]

Rusten, are you suggesting to settle sugar/gems as our 3rd city?
In that case, should we switch from writing to IW?
What about stone/fish/horse - would that be the 4th city?

 

[Rusten]

Rusten, are you suggesting to settle sugar/gems as our 3rd city?
In that case, should we switch from writing to IW?
What about stone/fish/horse - would that be the 4th city?

I like that spot, but there are a lot of options. Regardless of whether we settle the heavy jungle or not I wouldn't research IW. We have a lot of neighbours here so trading for it seems best. With just 2 neighbours it might've been risky waiting for an AI getting alphabet, but with 5 or 6 and one of them being WK it shouldn't take too long. I'm guessing he'll have alpha before we reach CoL or about the same time. We'll just have to tolerate the city being horsehockey for some turns and settle it to grab future land. I am very tempted to move there next as it holds the only source of gems we know of and that's going to bring in 2 as we're allowed to get forges.

We'll be able to look at the land east of it with our axe before settling as well. The other main site is down by Charlemagne, but as mentioned I don't like going down there without having a scout present. It has a lot of hills and good tiles, but it's important to note that it doesn't hold any resources we won't get/don't have already, we'll get fish and stone from the north as well.

I don't think the northern spot should be next, 4th might work, but I think it's a little soon to tell. However, we don't have to worry about the stone being in the 2nd ring as we'll have CoL before we have to start on the Pyramids. We can just run an artist for 3 turns to pop our borders so we don't have to rush there to start on a monument and as I see it that site is the least contested spot. That city of Iz isn't the capital AFAIK so she won't settle that far (beyond desert) this early.

 

[ungy]

I'm definately for the COL beeline. We're a favorite I think to be able to trade COL to Wang for alpha, then alpha to someone else for IW. Math most likely will have to wait.

I'm for claiming jungle and getting the stone/fish/horse city next. If we're going to take a run at the 'mids, that should be the right time plus we really don't want to lose that one. Most likely Charlie will be slow to cross the jungle and we can get a city or two that way.

Roster:
Ungy
Rusten--just played
Silverbullet --UP
Pigswill--on deck
Mystyfly
Vra

 

[silverbullet]

GOT IT.

So I built a library in the capital and our research is great.


Just kidding .
No library, so our research is not great, it will be a while before CoL, and our neighbours forcing us to grab spots may make it even harder.

I played a few turns and decided to stop for discussion.

Built a road to Isabella and found this:

Axe rush is an option, but I think it's too risky. She will have iron working soon and we have a lot of land to settle. In any case I thought it would be worth a discussion.

Explored land so far:

I played only 8 or 9 turns, so I would like to continue a bit more.
Please give your feedback on settling plans and/or war plans.

I think we should park the next settler at stone/fish/horse site (on top of silk) and settle after COL. Once specialists are available we would be able to afford more maintanence.

Note that I tried to park the settler in the jungle to delay the maintenance of the horsehockey jungle city, but the spanish queen sent her settler into the jungle so I had to settle.

 

[Rusten]

I think our research is great even without the library!

A look at Izzy's power shows that she's got IW now (and for some time). I guess she went for it right after BW. She might've gone towards our jungle spot anyway, but that might indicate that the open grassland hill has iron.

Skip the monument and queue up a granary instead. We'll be able to pop our border with an artist before the monument gets us to 10 culture. We don't need monuments at all now unless we want the culture, but even then it should be better to get the granary up first.

Thessa's border pops in 3 turns so send the worker down there to irrigate the corn after the cottage. Guessing that was your plan all along -- just making sure.

Barcelona has walls, so I don't think an axe rush is going to work out well. She might have walls in her other cities as well.

Settling plan sounds good.

Asoka is worst enemy of both Izzy and Ramesses so I'd avoid trading with him.