[BTS] What would you do with this start? Viking Immortal start. Huge map.

Gumbolt

Phoenix Rising
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Really not sure about this start. What is best way forward. I am trying to perfect the start.
It's a huge map so teching is much slower and your starting on an island as viking. This was intended as playing Vikings. Big and small script so AI are reachable.

You can settle on marble but it's not great as BW takes too long.
You can settle in place but again you lose out on a decent fish resources to the east.
My gut was settle 2E.Even then you have some tech choices such as skipping agriculture to get gold sooner. Also workboat vs worker. Timings just don't work perfectly.

Seems like a GLH start albeit you want an early exploring workboat.
 

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AH - mining seems like an easy call.
Fish would be playing with map knowledge, not visible?
SIP looks best if playing blind, mine on marble for a 3rd good tile after pigs and gold.

I don't like exploring workboats much on standard maps, just in sgotm ;)
Waste of early hammers, ofc it's fine once warriors have secured your land.
 
Settling on marble would ofcourse be nice, +2 hammers in the city center, but I too think to many things speak for SiP.
The riverside gold is a really nice tile with a fin leader, so the city is likely to work that gold pretty much non-stop. So for alot of purposes we could consider the city powered by a dry rice more or less.
And depriving the city of the floodplains would then hurt more then it would, had the gold not been present.
Also, with no grains, and only a pig for health visible now, the freshwater is not to be ignored completely imho.

Big&Small is alot of different continents, no? GLH would be good in that case, but annoying to sink hammers into a LH for a city w/o seafood.
Hmm.. marble gives +2 coins, no? Would be 3 with fin in that case, also a pretty nice tile.
Not sure I would spend the turns mining it prior to quarry, in case one goes for GLH.

"Skip agriculture to get gold sooner"? Is there some hidden grain? If not, going agriculture here seems wrong.
 
I have map knowledge. If you settle in place it means settling 4E for fish. Settling 2E gives wheat, pigs, gold and fish.

AH takes 15 turns. Mining 8-9t or so. Leaving 3-4 dead worker turns.
 
I wouldn't seriously consider SIP (or 2E without map knowledge). Either on marble or *gasp* on gold.

edit: if on marble, you can go mining-BW and stagnate at size 1 working gold. Should lead to a fast expansion.
 
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Hmm.. marble gives +2 coins, no?
Pretty sure non-river marble quarry is 1:commerce:. It is 2:commerce:, so for a FIN leader 4:hammers:3:commerce:. That's very nice
Spoiler :
for me to settle on.
 
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T50 settling on marble
Spoiler :
So, improved gold first and been working it non-stop ever since. De-toured to archery just because so much :commerce: and safety might be an issue some day. Haven't seen a single barbarian unit, are they on even? Forgot to turn tech back on :lol: so delayed sailing for 1T (loses 2:commerce:). Have switched to slavery. Starting lh-glh next in capital.

Civ4ScreenShot0300.JPG
 
I'm on the way to
Spoiler :
T72 GLH with 4 cities. Maybe it's not guaranteed at that date so should've sacrificed some expansion.
 
Sacrificing a decent capital for 3H marble start was better play. Expansion was just too slow. Science push is nice. Ignore food and focus on hammers. The game design has vikings in mind.
 
T100
Spoiler :
Was able to squeeze out T71 GLH, even got some decent amount of :hammers: into Oracle, fail gold from that and ToA helped to fuel research. Wanted to win Confu but didn't (have CoL though), no biggie. Met neighbors late, should've immediately gone alpha to gift (myst/poly etc) for OB. Now on the way to bulb philo and I guess to win lib. Should be easy to take much more land with cuirs for example.

Capital certainly isn't great, but it's not horrible either. That's the price I'm willing to pay for fast expansion.

Civ4ScreenShot0301.JPG
 
Settle in place, make a worker while working flood plain should give 13~ turn AH and no idle worker turns, river with financial leader very good, moving into plains / desert = bad.

Save 3-4 forests for GLH and build that easily while working mines. Could even build temple of artemis with the marble since its IMM, pretty crazy in GLH capital, and later on great library.
 
Settle in place, make a worker while working flood plain should give 13~ turn AH and no idle worker turns
Well, without map knowledge there are idle worker turns after improving pigs. Should be 4T before mining is in. As it is, it's not an issue.

T50 SIP
Spoiler :
AH-mining-BW-agri-archery-(sailing). Went archery because that's what I did in the 1st game, even if it's a bit pointless (fortifying an archer to the hill down south does have some value though). Having BFC horse helps SIP a ton, but it's still quite a bit slower than on marble. Here I do have almost 30:hammers: in a settler in capital, but in the other game 2nd city was 1T from finishing the settler. Here I do have an extra pop right now though. Of course in the future it's great to have capital BFC floodplains, but it's at the cost of being behind in expansion. GLH date should be roughly the same and it seems like smooth sailing from there. :)

Civ4ScreenShot0302.JPG


 
T50
Spoiler A 2-workers approach :


Tried to let the capital grow to pop5 where it got to stay for the rest of the playthrough.
2 workers before settlers, chopped heavily.
Forgot to revolt to slavery, and I was greedy and wanted to chop the forest SE of the wheat so settled north clam first. Probably not good.
Also forgot slider at 0% for too long.

Did check worldbuilder, and with map knowledge, I wonder if GLH even makes sense. Will take a while before we get domestic offshore islands, and the only AI thats reachable fast is not really that interested in trade.
Perhaps go for a really late try, mainly through whip overflows in that Fish+Wheat+Pigs city after granary is in place. Should ofcourse have saved the forest then though.
Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG


 
Yep, I think it's a good map for 2 worker start (assuming SIP), because there is so much to chop. I tend to always miss this possibility.
 
By no means a straight forward map. Downside here will be cost of colonial expansion. So heavy expansion with island cities could backfire. Maybe GLH is not right approach. Just focus on economy and meeting ai instead. Oracle could be possible if you settle on marble. That or just SIP. I originally wanted to play them trying to use uu. Whatever happens the ai will rex to 8-10+ cities. Maybe 1-2 more ai would of been better. Never easy trying to create a map for a certain game play.

I wonder if a 5-6 city strategy for beserkers would work?
 
Oh I'm definitely no GLH-fanboy, but it's really good here. All you need is alpha to get OB with a cranky neighbor (like I do in my T100 screenshot). You can get easily +10 cities on your landmass and if colonial maintenance is an issue, capitulate an existing AI or colonize a new one.

Oracle... what do you pick even, CoL I guess? It's a long game so GLH should be a lot better.

I wonder if a 5-6 city strategy for beserkers would work?
Yes, you can make it work, but it's not going to be great. Heavy losses, colonial maintenance and so on.
 
Berserkers are at thier best when they are promoted CR2 (3 if possible) and upgraded to grenadiers, attacking rifles in cities bombarded to 0%.
"I take that coastal city, and that one... and that one, all the coastal cities!"
 
Gold settle. No wonders.
REX + Currency.
I think Marble/GLH is better but wanted to try this out.

T50.

Spoiler :


Ag -> AH. Worker finished Wheat and Pigs, 1 lost turn.

Scout and 2 warriors in position to fogbust to NW and S. Only had to kill 1 lion.

Mining -> BW. Barb Archer spawned on the 1 tile I was going to fogbust with Worker while waiting for warrior, the turn before I could move him, lol. Worker farmed 1 FP, mined Marble then in position for chop/mines.

Grew to size 6 while teching Wheel. Settled near Clam as I don't want to make more warriors yet, have a good fogbust up and no neighbours. Start pumping workers and Settlers now.


T100

Spoiler :

T63: Met Toku on T63.
Our landmass is fogbusted, 4 cities and 4 workers now.
Pottery in, working on Sailing next, for trade routes.
Add a 5th worker then backfill the island, heading straight for Currency.

T93: Peaceful expansion continued, settled Tonsberg on the other landmass. Have some axes wandering around, finally found Toku's city.

T100 - Currency in. Myst/Masonry/Med. We need happy.
8 cities, 2 more settlers ready to settle next turn. GS standing in the Capital.
114BPT if we go at 100%, add another 19 for academy.
Been giving Toku clam for eventual relation bonus. Could gift Math and/or Currency if we felt inclined.

 

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