UNGY6 The health nuts

[mystyfly]

I would try for the mids by settling so that stone is in the first ring. We don't have the land around the stone properly mapped so it might actually make a decent city. Probabely NE of stone (tile looks like a plainshill); it would have decent production, share the clams with the capital and can be used for early military/worker/settler pump. With stone, I believe mids are doable in a reasonnable time while not hurting too much.

I wouldn't try for the GLH tbh. I don't really like it unless... I'm IMP and there are some islands in reach (for intercontinental TRs). While those sites look nice, we'll likely lose them if we build the GLH.

I agree with snowly, joao isn't easy to get along with. If we share a religion we can likely avoid a DOW. But I think; probabely in the medieval or renaissance era, he'll have to go. Let's find some phants!

About exploring: I wouldn't have travelled so far down there, as we likely won't settle that far. Now I'd continue coast-hugging until we find joao's cities, try to map out his land and then return home (safely?).

The shape of the continent and our starting position are quite bad for us. We likely won't find decent choking sites and will need several cities to seal off some land. I'm curious to see the full map of our continent...

I'm glad to see we have a game now where our variant hurts a bit

 

[Dirk1302]

Before we go thinking about any wonders we need to scout more. It's not clear where Joao is. Settling good land to the south always has priority unless it's 100% sure there's no competition for it. Even then we need to settle land in order to get going.

Mids is a bit better than usual since we're philo and will run more specialists in this variant.The bulbs are still much more important than the science from rep which is decorum compared to bulbs. We can always bulb to constitution soon if we're so inclined. GLH would be ok too but with no chopping it's all very expensive. If we miss the wonder we go for it's total headache.No chopping also hurts with building archers/settles so i think we should concentrate on building those.

I'm actually fine with the exploration to the south and i suggest we do settle there if we can. Land is great there especially if we allow jungle chop.

On jungle chop, it would make our task more difficult if we don't allow it but it would make later game more interesting with forest preserves (don't know by heart how much they'll help btw, almost never build them). Strictly speaking the variant allows chopping jungle, it doesn't worsen health. Maybe decide later when we know more of the layout of the game.

I actually like the start, could have been an ai halfway down to the south, now that would have been tricky.

 

[Gliese 581]

Lurker's comment: Great to see this series still going strong. I love reading these discussions!

 

[Dirk1302]

You're welcome to participate in the discussions .

Just had a good look at the save, situation is more difficult than i thought, there is no commerce tile whatsoever in sight and only a few cottageable river tiles. No happiness either. So we just lack funding for my initial plan to just settle the whole west coast soon.

It's a bit too soon to make definite statements as we urgently need to know what's in the east, also where Joao is. But if after more exploration the situation doesn't change much we will even have trouble reaching writing let alone other techs. While i almost never build the mids it would have synergy with this map providing the needed happiness and the ability to research the techs that are needed in the first place to setup a bulb situation.

So if we find Joao nearby we'll have 2 conflicting priorities, rex and block Joao
vs the need to fund rexing and get more happiness/techs.

Archery is a good tech for rexing, since we apparently popped wheel from a hut and there's a fair chance for copper on one of the hills we may consider BW. This tech is nerved a bit in the variant but slavery would be very welcome since we have only 4 good tiles. We could then research full speed to writing diverting to masonry first if we decide to go Mids. If we don't find copper we're in time for archery, its not deity so no barbs before ~2000 BC.

 

[Rusten]

I knew I forgot to mention something; that's right -- the hut that got popped by our capital's border expansion netted us the wheel.

And yeah, I think the Pyramids could be necessary here to do any research at all. If we go for the GLH and lose it we're in a really bad position.

BW is definitely needed to have any production at all. We need to whip settlers. The question is whether to go for BW or archery first. I'm leaning towards BW and hoping for copper on one of the hills (got wheel so we can hook it up with no extra techs).

 

[ungy]

Checking in from the road--glad you rerolled.

not much sensible to add--I agree that looks like the 'mids are better than usual here--so little commerce that HR is a long way off if we get any decent rex.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

ultimately we have coast till writing - ok, that's pretty ultimately, but saved me some times(didn't load the save, so I don't know much bar what I can distinguish from the screen shot - but yes, looking closer, seems we're short on commerce, so I up to 50% of my vote for mids ).

still it doesn't seem like too much happiness around(on what's revealed) so rep. will take us that far... We don't have a ball court, hammam, odeon or any other trump card - only maybe that dye at drama. Also, if we have sugar, dye, incense already - supposing we're alone with joao, I'd say tops another happy resource on the whole island.

 

[silverbullet]

I won't be able to play this until the next weekend. If anyone is available earlier I suggest we swap.

 

[ungy]

btw my thought on the variant was that we would chop jungle as:
1) it improves health
2) otherwise the tiles are totally unworkable

and welcome SnowlyWhite!

 

[Dirk1302]

I think i agree there. If the game's too easy we can always implement one of my earlier suggestions which imo are more fun than just looking at cities with impossible jungle tiles where there's only 1 config: the food tiles + specialists. Doubt it'll be necessary though, while not impossible the whole thing doesn't look too easy atm unless there are commerce tiles in the east and Joao is far away.

I don't know where you met the portugese scout on turn 7 Rusten? If it was near our capital Joao can't be much farther away than 14 tiles, probably closer.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Also, if we have sugar, dye, incense already - supposing we're alone with joao, I'd say tops another happy resource on the whole island.

I've never done that on immortal but perhaps bulbing calendar makes sense here... back to lurking

 

[Rusten]

I don't know where you met the portugese scout on turn 7 Rusten? If it was near our capital Joao can't be much farther away than 14 tiles, probably closer.

You can see a white dot on the minimap in the Joao greeting. That's where the scout was (Joao came from 1SE or something). Judging by where the scout is in the turn 9 screenshot we can pinpoint our scout to 1W of dye.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

bulbing calendar requires alpha/maths and not knowing iw I think(then I guess compass go ahead of calendar); that's from memories(bulbed maths a few times, never bulbed calendar).

 

[Dirk1302]

@Mystyfly, don't know when you can play? Might be a good idea if i play the next set, i have time until Sunday, schedule for me will be a bit more tight after.

 

[mystyfly]

I have one more week of holidays so I can play whenever I should.

Err... have I been up? I was on the bottom of the roster and there were only 2 "sets" so I didn't think of being up already... If I held up the SG, I'm sorry... Anyway I don't mind swapping, have a go Dirk

 

[Dirk1302]

silverbullet posted he couldn't play until next weekend so i assumed you were up. But i think i have misread his post thinking he meant next weekend after this weekend. He probably meant this weekend in which case it's better if the roster stands as it is for clarity.

It's not a big issue, i can probably find some time to play anyway when i'm up.

 

[silverbullet]

Turn 18 - start BW.

Our scout kills a lion and becomes a woodsman.

Turn 22 - We find Lisbon:

Turn 28 - Joao violates the health nuts rules. We might need to give the portugese people a better leader to take care of their healt

2640BC - BW done.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any bronze on this island. I think we need archery now, probably followed by masonry and pyramids.
The shape of our island and Joao's scout will probably make barbarians eaiser than usual with good fogbusting, so I think a quick settler to grab stone may be wise here. We don't need as many workers as a regular game since we don't chop.

 

[Dirk1302]

Looks tough, no commerce, no happiness and not much room to expand. If we only focus on Mids Joao will just take the juicy lower half of the island.We run a severe risk in that case of ending up with only 4 cities. But if we rex we'll be broke after the 4th city (maybe sooner).

Maybe a war against Joao is in order but we're in no position whatsoever now or in the near future to go this way. Maybe there's some good tiles on the island(s) in the west.

Best plan atm seems to combine mids with at least getting some spots settled. So build as much settlers as possible and a few archers until stone is connected and masonry in. We can't go wild on the whip since we need to have some production for mids. I'd at least whip whenever the capital reaches 5. Since we also found no copper we don't have much production in capital. So settlers ->overflow to mids -> grow to 5 -> settler overflow to -> mids might be the best way to achieve both goals. We don't really need a granary as we'll grow back to 5 quick enough (in time with the 10 turn unhappiness period) If we miss the mids btw we get money so we can at least settle some spots then.

Not all the cities have to be settled directly, we need to reach writing so after the third city or so we should just post settlers on good spots only building the city once the spot gets threatened. I think we'll be underdog in this game for a long time.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

looks very hard; no food for working the incense either unless there's a sea resource at the tip of that peninsula

 

[mystyfly]

We can settle sww of stone. With the fish the city shouldn't even be that bad... If we need that stone up earlier, we could settle sw of stone, tough I don't consider that a viable option...