[SPOILERS] Donovan Zoi: Ikhanda-Making Mehmed (with AdrienIer)

[Donovan Zoi]

Opening Moves - Re-Evaluated

Build Queue
OK so looking at my opening position again, it's pretty apparent that my city will not grow so quickly for the first 5 turns as all the goodies will be out of reach til the borders pop. For this reason, and due to Expansive's effect on my workforce, I will be opening with Worker > Work Boat.

Research
You probably figured it out, but I'll need to lead with Fishing to get that Work Boat. After that, I will go with Mining to dig into those 5 additional hills in my capital's radius. From there, I will need to determine if slaving, chopping and Impi's (BW) are more important than Granaries and Cottages (Wheel > Pottery). In my usual games that answer has always been yes, and the Granary can be my second chop (after Ikhanda or Settler).

AdrienIer had mentioned my beelining to Calendar to take advantage of my two plantation resources. That actually appears to synergize nicely with a move to Code of Laws to bag Confucianism if possible. But I'll need to get BW first. Then the Wheel and Pottery are part of the Calendar path. I may still look for a cheap sprint to Monarchy or Archery after I get Pottery, but more on that when the time comes.

Scout
Still planning on heading 2NW, though I would like to know what is past those rivers to the near NE.

[AdrienIer]

Mehmet is definitely a good choice, no doubt you'll do better with him than REM and I are doing in PB22. I've seen there that with those enormous maps maintenance is not an issue until very late : (PB22 spoiler)

no one I have graphs on has built a single courthouse, and we're turn 145.

Anyway I've made a sandbox, the Dutch would have been a better civ for initial optimization but I'll try to work out a sim or two (I usually sim to the first settler and then stop out of laziness).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e2sxra7eb6vn1...oVQga?dl=0

Edit : I tested going BW first or wheel pottery first, in both cases the settler is out t32, in the first case you lose 2 worker turns




So I actually prefer the wheel first strategy, it gives you the possibility of building a granary right after the settler.




I made a few weird choices to get there, growing to size 4 is IMO the best choice but it means using strange tiles sometimes. If you want a detailed analysis of how I got there I'll do it right away.

[Donovan Zoi]

Thanks for the file, Adrien! This is certainly a big help.

I just did a pass through and was not able to match this start, so anything you could post would be great. No rush though.

You have me convinced that Fishing > Mining > Wheel is the way to go, because of the the road network. Also, with roads, the wasted turns can be used to get units out of town faster. I still want to see if getting BW before Pottery will help us with production and to get us a few Impis out while waiting for Granary to become available. I only suggest this because the city will be maxed at 4 or 5 anyway. Let me know what you think.

[AdrienIer]

I suppose you noticed in the first screen that BW first allows a chop into a worker the turn the settler is out, which means a faster second worker. Now building impis while waiting for the granary is dependent on finding copper at the second city location which is not certain (or having copper at the cap of course). The happiness limit would be reached immediately but I guess the cap would be whipped as soon as BW comes.

Now for the wheel->pottery play here's how it comes out :
t0 : size 1 0/22 food 0/60,+6h worker fishing (7)
t1 : size 1 0/22 food 6/60,+6h worker fishing (6)
t2 : size 1 0/22 food 12/60,+6h worker fishing (5)
t3 : size 1 0/22 food 18/60,+6h worker fishing (4)
t4 : size 1 0/22 food 24/60,+6h worker fishing (3)
t5 : size 1 0/22 food 30/60,+6h worker fishing (2)
t6 : size 1 0/22 food 36/60,+6h worker fishing (1)
t7 : size 1 0/22 food 42/60,+6h worker mining (9)
t8 : size 1 0/22 food 48/60,+6h worker mining (8)
t9 : size 1 0/22 food 54/60,+6h worker mining (7)
t10 : size 1 0/22,+2f 0/30,+4h WB mining (6) worker goes towards the rice
t11 : size 1 2/22,+2f 4/30,+4h WB mining (5) worker starts improving rice (5)
t12 : size 1 4/22,+2f 8/30,+4h WB mining (4) worker farms (4)
t13 : size 1 6/22,+2f 12/30,+4h WB mining (3) worker farms (3)
t14 : size 1 8/22,+2f 16/30,+4h WB mining (2) worker farms (2)
t15 : size 1 10/22,+5f 20/30,+2h WB mining (1) farm done cap works the rice
t16 : size 1 15/22,+5f 22/30,+2h WB wheel (9) worker moves S on the hill
t17 : size 1 20/22,+5f 24/30,+2h WB wheel (8) worker mines (4)
t18 : size 2 3/24,+5f 26/30,+4h WB wheel (7) worker mines (3) cap works the rice and the 2/1/0 tile
t19 : size 2 8/24,+6f 0/15,+2h Warrior wheel (6) worker mines (2) cap works rice and banana, WB goes to fish
t20 : size 2 14/24,+8f 2/15,+2h Warrior wheel (4) worker finishes mine, cap works rice and fish
t21 : size 2 22/24,+8f 4/15,+2h Warrior wheel (3) worker moves NE to the other hill
t22 : size 3 6/26,+9f 6/15,+2h Warrior wheel (2) worker mines (4) cap works rice fish and banana
t23 : size 3 15/26,+7f 8/15,+5h Warrior wheel (1) worker mines (3) cap works rice fish and mine
t24 : size 3 22/26,+7f 13/15,+5h Warrior pottery (8) worker mines (2)
t25 : size 4 3/28 3/100,+14h Settler pottery (6) worker finishes mine, cap works rice fish and both mines

I hope it's clear to you if you have questions about what I did exactly or why I do certain things I can explain in more detail. After t25 the cap keeps building the settler and the worker can do as he likes. Most likely he starts roading to the next site or cottages one of the grassland river tiles.

[Donovan Zoi]

This is awesome, Adrien. I tried my best to beat it and could not. My T25 was pretty much the same, but with 1 food stored instead of 3. I may have had a few extra beakers into Pottery because I built the workboat earlier, but it remained at 6 turns.

Always second-guessing myself, I thought things would be so much more wonderful if I had started with Fishing and getting the Workboat on Turn 7. So I switched Hunting to Fishing in WorldBuilder and found that we could get the Settler at around Turn 30 (with capital at Size 3), but the surrounding land was nowhere near as developed as your plan.

So, the first 25 turns are settled. I understand the moves you made and why they were necessary. And it's pretty apparent that nothing beats getting a worker at Turn 10.

[Donovan Zoi]

I suppose you noticed in the first screen that BW first allows a chop into a worker the turn the settler is out, which means a faster second worker. Now building impis while waiting for the granary is dependent on finding copper at the second city location which is not certain (or having copper at the cap of course). The happiness limit would be reached immediately but I guess the cap would be whipped as soon as BW comes.

Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt on some of my comments but just so you know what you're dealing with, I'll tell you a bit more about my play style:

1. I will sometimes suggest things that are not possible, and become disappointed once I find out I can't achieve them (ie Let's just build some Impis with no Copper ).

2. I usually don't make decisions until an option is available to me.

3. I will sometimes forgo the big picture to focus on a short term gain.

So long story short, I think you are the perfect foil for my non-RB method of play. And I have never gotten past T30 with WorldBuilder projections either, but between the two of us I think we can keep the file updated.

With the first 25 turns nailed down, we can probably start talking about Pottery v. BW after Wheel. I won't be able to post again til tomorrow likely, but feel free to state your case for Pottery whenever you have time.

[AdrienIer]

Well I also thought about going WB at turn 7 and finish the worker later, IMO it's worse than worker first because while my first thought was "hey the worker only has one tile to improve so maybe it's not worth it at first" mining comes right in time to give him something to do.

Given that I'm new to MP in general (first duel last summer, first big game that didn't die early was PB22 here) I'll do my best to help you

Pottery lets you build the granary in the cap right after the settler. With such a huge map other players won't be a threat for a while, but barbs will, and one of the ways to avoid barbs is to use a sentry net of warriors to defog the surroundings. So no copper is actually better for defense. And the worker could cottage a grassland river or two.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 0 - 4000 BC

It begins......



Opening Moves

Fishing in 7, check
Worker in 10 check
Scout headed 2NW.....not so fast!

It appears that our scout has been tempted by an early hut to the southwest. We also uncovered more Rice, some Clams and SILVER! (sorry, I never get Silver this early). We will be able to have more viable city discussion when the border pops in a few turns, hopefully with even more resources.

Scout's Next Move

Obviously, the Scout will pop the hut next turn. I would usually send the scout in the same general direction but as my admitted shortsightedess will tell you, that is because I would then build two more Scouts (and possibly a Warrior) before getting my first Worker completed circa Turn 45 or so.

But not this time, since we won't have another Scout until at least T35. So I am thinking of ending the turn on the hill in the lower left corner. Then the Scout can head slightly NW to uncover what our western city options are. More of the east will be uncovered during the border pop and hopefully give us an idea of the coastline, and then the Warrior can explore there when built.

[AdrienIer]

Wow, 3 resources and a hut in the fog is a lot ! Let's hope for more resources around them.

[AdrienIer]

So what did the hut give you ?