Where to go next on this game

[beckdawg]

I've been trying to teach myself to play on monarch for awhile now. I've got some advice before but people wanted a game save. So I started a random leader game on pangea. I wasn't totally thrilled with my start location but I kept it and started playing.

Initial build was worker worker settler then either work boat or warrior(or vice versa). City two was founded at the copper site. I chop rushed a barracks and started pumping out axes in it(haven't stopped yet). After my capital built the warrior, I went ahead and made a second settler and founded the city up north. It was going to be around where persia founded west of my copper city but they beat me there so i went up north. I think next I built a library in my capital and next a granary. The city up north started on a library to get some culture going up there. In retrospect I probably should have gone worker but I kinda beelined for alphabet and didn't have many of the worker actions.

Once the granary was done in built two more settlers founding east of my capital first and finally south near the gems er I plan to 1 tile south of the west most gem. That way I get all 3 of those gems and the pigs further south.

As far as techs go, I went BW -> the wheel -> pottery -> writing -> alphabet. One of my goals was to get alphabet as early as possible because the sooner I can trade techs the bigger advantage I can leverage on some of the cpu.

I managed to explore most of the continent because I grabbed a scout from a goody hut.

Now my main questions are where do I go from here. Also a side question, in the past I traded for archery but considering most people are wanting writing for it, that seems kinda dumb to me. I mean granted I can get it free for a tech that they eventually are going to get but it might set them back some more without libraries.

I plan to make 2-3 more workers to cottage spam. I realize I could have ran a SE but I haven't yet to do that effectively.

Anyways, any advice would be helpful.

 

[beckdawg]

Oh and I went and traded sailing for AH, priesthood, meditation, and poly. And then I traded mysticism for hunting.

Edit: I've been playing the game some more and I'm thinking about going after Cyrus as soon as I get whatever tech gives vassal abilities. I probably should gun for him now but I need to get my economy up and running bad. It was down to 30% science on the slider but I've got it back up to 60%.

I also chopped the oracle and got CoL. So, I'm working on getting a bunch of courthouses going to help my economy. I may have to wait til cats though for this war. It's usually about this time where they start defending better. If I can get my economy back to 80% science I may go to war and take a city or two.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Initial build was worker worker settler then either work boat or warrior(or vice versa). City two was founded at the copper site. I chop rushed a barracks and started pumping out axes in it(haven't stopped yet). After my capital built the warrior, I went ahead and made a second settler and founded the city up north. It was going to be around where persia founded west of my copper city but they beat me there so i went up north. I think next I built a library in my capital and next a granary. The city up north started on a library to get some culture going up there. In retrospect I probably should have gone worker but I kinda beelined for alphabet and didn't have many of the worker actions.

Once the granary was done in built two more settlers founding east of my capital first and finally south near the gems er I plan to 1 tile south of the west most gem. That way I get all 3 of those gems and the pigs further south.

As far as techs go, I went BW -> the wheel -> pottery -> writing -> alphabet. One of my goals was to get alphabet as early as possible because the sooner I can trade techs the bigger advantage I can leverage on some of the cpu.

OK, my take on this is that your start is very slow, given your circumstances - not that you are in bad shape, necessarily, but it should be a lot better.

1) Having decided to go Bronzeworking with an immediate revolt to Slavery plus a worker build, it would be mildly better to start with a warrior or workboat before the worker, growing as fast as you can, then using the extra production to hurry the completion of the worker. Done correctly, the worker will arrive at the same turn (or maybe one turn late), and the food in the city is the same, but you also have a warrior (or a chunk of a workboat). See the Vocum for more details.

2) As a rule, if I'm playing a civ that starts with Fishing, and I have fish in the fat cross, I'll put a fishing boat into the water first unless I have a compelling reason to do otherwise. 5/0/3 is a yummy tile to be working when you are trying to tech your way out of the dark ages.

3) Worker Worker Settler doesn't leave your capital with much time to grow. Toss in some warriors, or a barracks, or something. Yes, you hate to waste the hammers when axemen are right around the corner, but if you get some commerce running you can upgrade the warriors when the time comes.

4) Libraries are a really expensive way to pop borders when you are in an expansion rush - the science slider is falling, so your cities are generating less than three :research: each, which means no bonus from the library. Also, because you are under developed, you don't have food to run scientists anyway. Mysticism?

5) You wouldn't need to be building a third worker now if you hadn't sent your first two on a fools errand into the jungle. You've still got pigs to pasture, corn to farm, trees to mow.

6) Hastings, in that location, was a horribly premature play. You can't do anything useful with that peninsula until you can clear cut the jungle.

Given your situation, it might have been wiser to prioritize Ironworking (for jungle clearing) over Alphabet.

 

[beckdawg]

Well I chop rushed the second worker as I recall. So it isn't as terrible as it seems. I agree about the fish thing. I probably should have went after it sooner.

As for worker worker settler, I find that it seems to work ok. I use some time after those to build it up. That why I went library granary. I find that early on having a large pop isn't a huge deal because after like 5 pop you start to get unrest anyways. And while you can whip them away I think the worker quick would help.

You're probably right on the libraries. I just thought it would be a good idea to them in as soon as possible. As far as the workers to the jungle, they were sent there to prebuild a road to where my next city would be. And at the time I didn't have the techs to build pastures/farms.

Hastings.... yeah you're probably right. I just didn't have any where else to go easy and was sorta boxed in. I may take your advice and start a new on a game. I played this one out last night and I managed to stay well up there in the tech race. Hastings probably hurt some but I had my science slider back to 100% thanks to the 3 gem city.