Wild Raggy

[Pedro78]

Tonight I was casually rolling maps, playing the first ~50 turns and (rage)quitting. Then I rolled this:

A nice guy like Raggy does of course deserve a generous start

I immediately thought "eh! another FIN leader... I don't wanna play FIN leaders... Boring..." But I then realized that "oh wow there's a spices to settle on, that's a 3 city tile ". I took the bait.

One can realize that after playing 10 maps in a row and dropping them all before 1000BC, one can get bored... And what does Wild Raggy do when he gets bored? His neighbour's door goes knock knock

That's enough spoilers for now.. It just happens that I didn't drop this map -- wanna find out why? The save's right here

On a more serious note, the map is challenging but also very rewarding, so don't be scared to give it a go
I'll upload saves and write-up a bit later.


Save is under BUFFY .004b (unable to make a wb save because of lock modified assets)

 

[Anysense]

Turn 23 and I'm already at a loss what to research or even where to settle second city. Never been that hopeless that early.

 

[Pedro78]

I was in the same situation at Turn 23.. there is always hope

Hint (not really a spoiler):

Spoiler :

what would normally be your next tech after AH here?

 

[Anysense]

Spoiler don't open if you haven't played the map yet :

There is copper and its possible to axe-rush Zara. But he is a unit spammer, so its going to be costly. The nearest food is ~10 tiles away from the capital and you have to keep a stack of axes because Zara can DoW at any moment with a stack (or stacks) of swords and axes. And the icing on this cake of a map is that he can plot at pleased. Apparently peaceful coexistence is out of question. I can see what you meant by "challenging but rewarding", but its too challenging for me. Well, the more interesting it will be to watch some more experienced to crack that nut.

 

[Pedro78]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

Yup, axe-rush looks like the only viable option. Act like a true viking

Actually, it's easier than it looks like -- you have lots of production and can slowly grind Zara down. Takes time though as he won't take ceasefire after you take the first city (didn't play very efficiently though, as I didn't plan to make this a forum game)

You should try and give it a go though -- it's not all that different from IMM axe-rushes, you just build more units and progress slower, plus you can't know what it's like until you've tried

Sadly I didn't take any saves before 900BC, but at least I've got the 800BC & 900BC saves lol

Spoiler :

Didn't really tech anything (eariler sailing would have been really useful), but at this point I just wanted to see if I could break Zara. Kind of suboptimal micro, but from here the rest of the game is easy, esp with a FIN leader

 

[Anysense]

Spoiler looked at the 900BC save :

It's not semi-isolation! That changes everything.

 

[Pedro78]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

It's not semi-isolation! That changes everything.

Well technically, when Zara's out it becomes semi-isolation

Plus Peter cannot reach Zara, so he will never trade techs with us. The good thing is that we will get 3c trade routes with Peter (while he gets nothing, because he's not the one controlling the ocean strip that separates us)

 

[Pedro78]

I can't open your save, despite finding and installing the infamous Buffy 3.19.004b mod...

Must be something non-standard in your assets folder, most likely.. Opening LMA saves can be annoying.

Welp, anyway, it seems odd to me that you would settle on the coast when there isn't any seafood.
I'd probably settle somewhere south of those pigs. Possibly 1W.

Hmm.. to me it seems like an obvious 1N settle: this gives 12bpt from T0, the value of which is enhanced by Ragnar's questionnable starting techs.

Moving 1 tile inland doesn't justify wasting a turn imo. Moving 2 tiles inland could be good, but here it makes you lose the fresh water..

If you don't have anything to research after AH, then The Wheel is likely a contender.

Unless I'm missing something, I don't see any reason to tech anything else than Mining-BW right after AH -- all forest BFC & that suspicious grass hill

 

[Anysense]

^ I don't know about the techs, not having opened the save and all
Blindly : 1S of the pigs would be my preferred city location - was the main point.

I moved even further inland, it's a gamble, of course, but it pays off sometimes, and there isn't much to lose here. Regarding BW being obvious choice, it becomes obvious around t20.
Don't open spoilers if you want to play, they are rather spoiler-ish.

 

[Pedro78]

I moved even further inland, it's a gamble, of course, but it pays off sometimes, and there isn't much to lose here

Moving inland is a gamble that can make sense, but without map knowledge on T0 it's a strictly better move to settle on the 3 Spices. I don't like to move towards the coast but it's just too big an early boost to ignore.

 

[Anysense]

Moving inland is a gamble that can make sense, but without map knowledge on T0 it's a strictly better move to settle on the 3 Spices. I don't like to move towards the coast but it's just too big an early boost to ignore.

May be I detest coastal starts too much, would not settle on the coast just for +2.

Spoiler :

Why it's still semi-isolation? Is Peter alone on his continent? Should not be, its continents, not fractal.

 

[Pedro78]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

EPs show that Peter is most likely alone on his continent. Plus if there were someone else on his continent I would most likely have met him by now.

On a Continents map, there are 2 continents. The player repartition is usually 4-3, but it can be 5-2 or even 6-1 (rare). However it is not rare that one (or both) of the continents is split in two, leading to iso/semi-iso.