What would you do here?

[Framesticker]

In a situation like this I would generally cottage all the flood plains as well - they still give +1 food do they not? Can someone explain to me why this would be a bad idea? Cottaged flood plains + bureaucracy seems like a great idea for a commerce rich capital, but everyone seems to agree on farming at least a couple of them.

Early on, growing on +1 food tiles is slow and bad. It's very unlikely that he's going to have a lot of population or time to develop cottages in the early game (especially if he's going for the Oracle and etc.) so farming the FPs into half-assed 4F resources is pretty much the only option for now. After he grows, establishes and can make his capital lean on other cities for Worker/Settler/Military production, he can turn it into a fantastic Bureaucracy capital - but cottaging so early in the game is sacrificing early growth of both the city and the empire.

 

[Gwynnja]

Ok new developments: I met Ham and Roose, two fairly peaceful, easy to get along with neighbors. Ham is close; I should be able to block him with Pig/Fish/Gold/Spice city to the northeast. I still don't know where Willem or Roose are. Ham is Jewish so that puts a new spin on chasing Oracle. I'm thinking I'm going to Rex a bit more and skip the Oracle and head up the Aesthetics/Literature line and build the Great Library before math/CoL/CS. However, I would like alphabet and IW too, but have no way of knowing when I'll be able to trade for them. I'll play the next round tonight or tomorrow. Thoughts?

 

[DaveMcW]

In a situation like this I would generally cottage all the flood plains as well - they still give +1 food do they not? Can someone explain to me why this would be a bad idea? Cottaged flood plains + bureaucracy seems like a great idea for a commerce rich capital, but everyone seems to agree on farming at least a couple of them.

You need to farm if you want to work the gold before size 6.

Once every other floodplain cottage is being worked, you can convert your farms to cottages.

 

[Gwynnja]

You need to farm if you want to work the gold before size 6.

Once every other floodplain cottage is being worked, you can convert your farms to cottages.

I'm a little confused. Farm the flood plains, then work the farms and grow to size six, then cottage over the farms?

 

[vranasm]

I think settling the second city like you did was a bit mistake...didnt bring you anything of worth.
I dunno if you knew about hammy before settling it, but clearly it should go block east or west, both directions would be better.
You have a lot of forests on river near cap and didnt chop 2nd worker, thats mistake.

Now you feel pressure in race for spots and that is not good, makes you make suboptimal choices.

But since damage is already done... you should hurry to that spot with settler, I would stop cottaging southern city and immedietaly go with worker chop some forests and chop settler, worker, worker at least.

just out of curiosity...you work at cap oasis instead of farm (4 food yield against 3 food, 2 surplus against 1), i didnt do math so dunno if it costs you turn on settler building but I wouldnt trade 1f for 1c in this situation.

the techs... i see you want to use the marble to your advantage, that probably is right, sailing you take for the roading without effort?
You dont have strategics yet... maybe it would be worth the check IW...but since there is not much jungle around...

hmm i maybe try some turns...

 

[Gwynnja]

I think settling the second city like you did was a bit mistake...didnt bring you anything of worth.
I dunno if you knew about hammy before settling it, but clearly it should go block east or west, both directions would be better.
You have a lot of forests on river near cap and didnt chop 2nd worker, thats mistake.

Now you feel pressure in race for spots and that is not good, makes you make suboptimal choices.

But since damage is already done... you should hurry to that spot with settler, I would stop cottaging southern city and immedietaly go with worker chop some forests and chop settler, worker, worker at least.

just out of curiosity...you work at cap oasis instead of farm (4 food yield against 3 food, 2 surplus against 1), i didnt do math so dunno if it costs you turn on settler building but I wouldnt trade 1f for 1c in this situation.

the techs... i see you want to use the marble to your advantage, that probably is right, sailing you take for the roading without effort?
You dont have strategics yet... maybe it would be worth the check IW...but since there is not much jungle around...

hmm i maybe try some turns...

The southern city will quickly help my tech rate. I doubt hammy will beat me to the blocking position city. I'm hesitant to chop the capital; I want some trees for the Great Library. The AI doesn't rex too quickly on monarch. I didn't do the math on the oasis either, but without chopping the settler would finish on the same turn as if I worked the flood plain so I opted for the extra commerce. I'm researching sailing so I can whip a lighthouse in southern city and then whip a library and start feeding some scientists. I'm a bit concerned about the lack of strategics as well, but I haven't decided if I'm going to
A. Research Alphabet and trade for IW
B. Research IW or
C. beeline the great library and then backfill. I teched archery so the barbs won't be an issue and none of the rivals I've met are psycho warmongers. As of now, I'm leaning towards C.

 

[DaveMcW]

I'm a little confused. Farm the flood plains, then work the farms and grow to size six, then cottage over the farms?

"farming at least a couple of them."

 

[vranasm]

I clicked it a bit until 500BC. will put screens in spoilers so if you dont want to know too much dont look.

Getting that eastern city wasnt big problem. Getting western city without problems too.
I did what i said, chop out settler+some workers (I think i chopped 4 of them immedietaly). I followed your tech order, but with nearing literature in big surprise realised there was no library (my fault...should have thought about it), so it delayed Great Library for few turns (something like 4-5 wasted turns).

I teched monarchy, iw (to check iron) after lit, started alpha when some of those AIs got it, so i can trade for it.

I have 5th settler in settling position and that will be a bit important city I would expect. expansion to the south-western peninsula is a bit question (but would be really worth it...). And i didnt pay much attention to improving that wine, so the happy cap should be a bit higher.

I dont think I did the best, but it should prove that everything is alright and you should get what you want ;-).

Spoiler :

hmm as it seems i didnt made the save...well whatever... it wasnt the best round in the earth, you should do better.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Like vra says, agri--AH and farm at least one FP. Probably two.

If you're going to build the oracle, you probably won't have the worker turns to hook up the marble in time.

You mean research turns, right?

The reason marble for oracle is hard is usually some combination of "you have to divert to masonry before heading to oracle" and "you need a road to hook up marble", and that can lose time. However, in this case merely dropping a quarry on the marble tile (which isn't a bad tile to work mind you) would suffice to hook up marble. This isn't deity so I don't see how oracle would go by that point.

Anyway I agree AG---->AH as opening techs. From there is going to depend partially on what you encounter.

 

[Gumbolt]

You settled the southern city first??

Yes it has gold and lots of flood plains but the blocker city near Hammy at least secured you land space. It also had a 6f pig to be worked and gold too.

The AI was never going to take the southern city before you. Building a workboat early on is never best build either. It really only gave you 1f more than a flood plain for all the hammers invested in it. You would of been better with a worker instead.

It is a bit frustrating you have a fast worker and you are building a cottage when you should be chopping out workers/settler. 1 worker by 2000bc is really poor. Especially for the Indians. You need 2-3 more workers and a settler quickly. 1.5 workers per city is a good guide.

The Indians UU makes an early rush or expansion so easy. Expanding quickly means you could of worked 3-4 gold resources. Overall this map should be quite easy once you start rexxing properly and chopping the forest. I wouldn't be save forest for the Great lib. With marble this will be built quite fast anyway.

I might beeline Aesthetics tech line as it is very tradeable. IW and alphabet are always teched by the AI.