Van01 - A Newbie Hope

[glenmetz]

YEAH, I'm up!!! What shall I be working on? I have a few ideas:
-Cottage up the Flood Plains?
-Get that mine built on that hill?
-Chop a few of those grass tiles next to the river and build farms or cottages?
-After Great Wall start on a settler?

 

[dawn]

We're going to need to start some city expansion. Maybe insert a settler as a chop is completing?
Something for discussion:

We really need to get the copper hooked up. This location give us access to the copper after the first border pop. The 2 northern plains would have to be farmed to supply enough food, with the grassland irrigated after CS. We pick up the beavers, one for use and one for trade, as luxury and commerce tiles.

FloodPlains City would grow like mad. Downside is loss of tiles to the mountains, but does give us another corn for trade.

PigSilver gives us two more resources and some decent production.

SheepOcean gives us one more food resource (eventually adding the 2nd sheep after border pops) and access to the big pond.

 

[Vanor]

I like the dotmap Dawn. I'd say go to the copper/beaver spot next. I think I'd like to see a second city prior to the GW being finished.

 

[Splime]

Actually, I'm pretty sure SheepOcean doesn't have any sheep in its fat cross...

Also, CopperBeaver doesn't seem like a very good city, beyond getting us beavers and copper.

The other cities look nice, though for the copper, I'd recommend placing a city one tile to the west of the silver. It'll give us pigs, silver, AND copper. Though, unfortunately, it'll make any beaver city even crappier.

 

[pigswill]

I'm afraid to say that I disagree with settler before GW. The reasons for this is that without GW a city is vulnerable to barbs and will need units to protect the city and any workers improving it.
If we get GW first then our cities only need one unit to prevent unhappiness and no protection for workers at all.
Also if we grow capital up to maximum while building GW we can work 7 tiles (3 cottage plains, 3 grass hills, corn); this gives us 5 spare food and 10 hammers to knock out workers and settlers quickly without having to whip or chop at all. We do fall behind on expansion at the start but we'll be able to catch up and overtake the AI by 1ad.

In terms of the dotmap it would be useful to explore all the tiles down south before getting too specific. If we found some seafood resources (likely tho not guaranteed) then we might have to redraw the map.

 

[dawn]

@splime - yep I hit that "sweet spot" with the sheep and missed them both!

@pigswill - definately need some more exploration along the coastline. Too many times a seafood if just out sight unless the exploring unit actually stands on the coastline.

If we hold off on getting more cities set up, then we will really have to expand after the GW is built. Maybe insert another warrior while GW is being built to explore some of those hidden places?

 

[Vanor]

Yeah Pigswill makes sense. Putting up the GW first will allow us to expand quickly without need of the normal amount of military support. So in the long run we'll be able to build more cities quicker that way then if we make one now.

 

[glenmetz]

Alright, I'll try and play this tonight. Will finish up the GW and then start a Settler. What about research, what should I go for next?

 

[Vanor]

What about research, what should I go for next?

We should go for Animal husbandry next I think. We'll need that to get the cows and see horses.

 

[glenmetz]

Agreed on Animal Husbandry, didn't play last night, will tonight. I have to drop off some paperwork at the car dealership so I can pick up my new wheels on Wednesday. Should be home later in the evening and should be able to post up my set around 9PM EST or so.

 

[pigswill]

Techwise Hunting>AH, maybe archery but we can discuss further after the next set.. We don't actually need copper that soon, we're unlikely to see barb axes much before 500bc, probably later, and no-one is close enough to make a rush essential.
Be nice to reveal the unexplored tiles near our capital to check out resources for city locations. Probably won't find much but we don't know till we look.

 

[glenmetz]

Everything looks good, hit enter and go..........

2225BC (1)
zzz

2220BC (2)
Carthage Grows, move the extra citizens onto a forested plain for the hammers

2175BC (3)
zzz

2150BC (4)
Move worker to Forested Grassland 1S of Carthage for Chop

2125BC (5)
Worker starts Chop

2100BC (6)
Hunting in, research to Animal Husbandry, due in 14
Woodstock meets a Lion and Fortifies in the jungle

2075BC (7)
Woodstock defends against the Lion and needs to heal (he is at .1)

2050BC (8)
Chop adds some hammers to Carthage

2025BC (9)
Move worker to Frosted Grassland 1N of Carthage for Chop

2000BC (10)
Worker starts chop

1975BC (11)
zzz

1950-1925BC (12,13)
zzz

1900BC (14)
Judaism is founded in a Distant Land and......................
Of all freaking things, the Great Wall is built somewhere as well.

I'm thinking the best action here is to switch production to a Settler as the chop should finish it next turn? Is everyone agreed on this? Just want to get opinions and I can finish this up tonight.

Other then that, not much has really happened. Let me know folks.

 

[cabert]

that's what you get for not mining the hills
Now you're going to need loads of fogbusters.

May I suggest going for sentry chariots, to lower the cost?

 

[stuge]

I suggest settling a city 1W of the silver and getting the copper online ASAP. That was a pretty early date for the GW. Perhaps there's an isolated AI out there?

 

[Vanor]

I suggest settling a city 1W of the silver and getting the copper online ASAP.

I agree, lets get a settler out soon and settle there. We should have a fair amount of gold in the bank now due to losing the GW so we can do deficit research for a bit.

May I suggest going for sentry chariots, to lower the cost?

They work well for that, but that also assumes we have a source of horses somewhere that we can get a hold of.

 

[glenmetz]

1W of the silver, got it. That location will give us Silver right away, and Copper and Oinks on expansion. Might be able to hammer this out on lunch today at work.

 

[glenmetz]

Continuing turn 14
Switch Carthage to a Settler

1875BC (15)
We get 154 gold from the GW
Take a few citizens from Carthage off of Hammer tiles onto flood plains
Chop finishes, can't whip the Settler yet

1850BC (16)
Worker moves to FP 1 NE of Carthage and starts work on a cottage
Woodstock is healed but Fortifies as a Barb Warrior is nearby

1825BC (17)
zzz

1800BC (18)
AH is in, research to Archery at Full Blast
Whip the Settler
We have a source of horses inside of Carthages Fat Cross

1775BC (19)
Carthage Settler->Warrior
Send Settler off to East with Warrior

1750BC (20)
Warrior is done in Carthage, start on a fog busting scout
Settler is in place for 2nd city, warrior is close behind, and thats all folks.
Archery is due in 7, when the worker is done with the cottage, he should move over to the horse or the pig. The next build in Carthage should be another Worker IMO.

Heres the layout (not much has changed):

And the Save

 

[pigswill]

The game suddenly becomes a bit more interesting.

Our friend Pacal has built the Great Wall (I found this out by going F9 then clicking on wonders. or you can just scroll up and find the pretty graphic to our north).

We're going to be meeting quite a few barbs in the next few sets. Couple of options:we could fogbust extensively and prevent barbs from emerging or we could forego fogbusting, build a bunch of axes and let them amass CR promotions through bashing barbs and then attack Pacal with an army of veteran CR axes.
Techwise we've got some interesting choices coming up now we've got the basics. We could beeline CoL (needs writing, poly or med, priesthood, CoL); we could also go for Horseback Riding (Numidian Cavalry as super-barb bashers) and then go for monoetheism and use Great Prophet from SH to bulb Theology. We could also go for metal-casting and pursue Colossus though this ain't a great map for coastal cities.

 

[cabert]

xp farming sounds good.
but you have no copper by now whereas you have horses

 

[Vanor]

First off the updated roster.

1. Pigswill - On deck
2. Vanor
3. Splime
4. Dawn
5. glenmetz - Finished
6. stuge - Up

build a bunch of axes and let them amass CR promotions through bashing barbs and then attack Pacal with an army of veteran CR axes.

This sounds like the most interesting plan to me. If we do it quickly enough we can capture the GW from him and still get use out of it.

Techwise we've got some interesting choices coming up now we've got the basics.

What's everyones feeling about going for the Oracle? We'll have access to marble after the 2nd border pop if we settle 1w of the silver.

Horseback riding for cav sounds like it could be a good idea as well, we have horses and it wouldn't take long to get them hooked up and start making cav. Maybe a combined force of axe and cav?

To get either we'll need to settle and hook up copper, and/or hook up the horses and research HBR. I'm not sure which would be quicker to do, or if it will take about the same number of turns to do both. There's no reason I can see why we can't do both at the same time.

Both Numidian Cavalry and Axes have +50% vs melee so they could make quite a fearsome force for this early of a war. But on the other hand, I'm not sure if having a force of both axe and N. Cav would actually be all that more effective then just a group of either one.