I'm less happy about how we can't share corn or fish and the clam only has 1 tile available, but still enthusiastic about the start of course. Wouldn't normally be too big of a deal, but when you add in the flood plains it will require thought to use efficiently with happy/health caps. We simply have way too much food for 1 city alone. Hopefully we can get a food resource+river cottage city going to the east. I could see our capital being a GPP city while we outsource the commerce to a city on the river. Running cottages on +15 food is not a thing. Glad we're not planning on an early academy. At some point in the game we can run 6 specialists with a size 9 capital on breakeven. More likely is 7 or 8 with a deficit. Either way, PHI looking great.
This start does point towards Peter over Alex at first glance, he's even preselected by Commodore, but I obviously didn't run any sims yet. I'll be sad to give up the amphibious dream, but with Japan we can at least reliably reach 10XP later on in the game.
With the usual caveat of "Please let us get our snake pick first choices. " Here's the moment my Alex founds city #2:
There are 10h overflow + 2h base going into cap's granary.
Spoilers for more description.
I kind of love this opening. We go Mining-BW before Agriculture-Pottery! The build order goes Work boat-worker-worker-warrior-work boat-warrior (stopped at growth)-settler-warrior (finished). Not a single worker turn has gone into that corn! Here's turn 30 on which decisions about the corn were made:
I'm pretty sure chopping those forests is better than improving the corn. After the forests are chopped, we whip down to pop one and work the fish, so it doesn't make sense to improve the corn then. Instead, the workers go north, and one puts a turn into a road (too early to cottage). They finish the road since we've got time before the cottage needs to get done. This road speeds up travel time to the (purely imaginary) city spot by one turn.
Sure, maybe it's crazy, but it's not everyday you think about opening Mining with Japan and not improving your 1 tile away grain resource.
Edit: Rusten, I hadn't noticed your PM and now I feel like a fool! Beat me by 4 turns!
I know I mentioned possibly chopping a 2nd wb in the PM, but I can tell you now that it's 100% not worth and you should look for other options. Maybe you could justify it if we're EXP, but it's 30 early hammers for a tile that's only 1F1C stronger than an unimproved flood plain, and only has commerce benefit over hill mine. Ignore that clam until much later and get fp cottages. Maybe we improve it after the first settler if we settle 3N, but that's the only scenario where I can see it being worth it early.
I don't think we need a warrior before our 2nd city, especially with the animal nerf. Our scout will be alive, and most likely we can settle the same turn we pop out of fog or be safe in some other way.
I have 1 variation which only chops forests and gets a city settled in your spot T30, and a second variation that settles on T31, but chops 1 less forest and immediately improves corn when 2nd worker finishes. Both variations have only the 2 workers and fish improved (no warrior). Slavery has been adopted, but not used, so I think there might be a whip settler 3 --> 2 variation in there. It only takes 4 turns to grow from size 2 --> 3. That 4 turn window could be used to get our warrior (complete with chop overflow the same turn we grow to size 3).
Overall the opening is very flexible and can respond to whatever we find after completing the 2nd worker. I like it very much.
(July 14th, 2019, 19:15)Rusten Wrote: Overall the opening is very flexible and can respond to whatever we find after completing the 2nd worker. I like it very much.
I whipped worker 2, so needed the warrior + work boat so I'd have time to grow back to size two. I'll play around with not whipping. So do I take it we're feeling happy with Alex, or more testing required?
Yeah, if it was up to me I'd just be happy with the strength and flexibility of the size 2 wb --> 2x worker opening and save energy for when more of the map is discovered. But if you have an insatiable hunger to continue I won't stop you.
Whipping from size 2 --> 1 should not be considered in general I think as it will take longer to regrow from size 1 to 2 than growing from size 2 to 3. Better to just chop the 2nd worker. You can test a 3 --> 2 worker though. That has potential. Grow to 3 while building warrior then put 1 turn of chop+production into it and then whip it for 1. Only issue is I guess the 1 turn of production will be 1 hammer short.
I think the T31 city is better long term. If you want to quickly run through what I imagine will be a strong start the details are:
-1st worker chops hill 2S of capital, then puts 1 turn into a mine while agriculture completes.
-both workers improve corn T23 [revolt to slavery*]
-split up and chop 1E of 1S of corn. First available worker chops 1S, 2nd worker 1E.
-first worker moves to hill to complete mine, settler finishes and 2nd worker is free to follow settler and improve revealed food resource. If it's super strong we can also send both workers.
Capital starts on warrior while growing to size 3 (takes only 3 turns). And what's where I stopped as it all depends on scouting. Growing from 3 to 4 is very quick too and worth considering. Depends on chop timings -- we will want to whip the next settler.
*It may seem counter-intuitive to adopt slavery before settler if it's not whipped, but given that we're improving a tile it doesn't lose a turn, it just makes less overflow.
I must've had a long day. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't follow your plan; I kept coming up one turn short. Turns out I wasn't switching off the floodplains early enough before growing to size two, so I was overflowing food when I needed hammers.
Given that's where my brain's at, I don't think I'll be useful for micro right now. I think I discovered your settler out by turn 29 plan. In this we don't revolt and we just keep chopping instead of improving the corn. Because the workers have to improve the corn later, they can't be around to support city #2 when it gets founded, so I think you're right that finishing the settler EoT 29 and having it out by 30 is better.
Yeah, but you *are* supposed to overflow food when growing for the extra 1 commerce (2 turns of -1 starvation at 7 hammer per turn afterwards).
Correct on the EoT 29 play I think, although I don't have civ in front of me right now. Earlier settler but worse long term prospects. We don't want to fall victim to the horizon effect.
It might be better to swap the worker actions after the farmed corn compared to what I wrote earlier. If the first worker chops and the 2nd finishes mine we can finish our warrior the same turn we grow to size 3 IIRC. It should be a perfect 15 hammer overflow with nothing wasted, but we can sort that out later, as mentioned it depends on a lot of things. [edit: No. What am I on about?! There's 0 overflow from the settler and 3 turns to grow, so there should only be 11 overflow hammers. Anyway, the point stands on chopping the forest to sync up with growing.]
Do you think Alex will be a contested pick? We're the only ones crazy enough to want him I think. Even if someone takes Rome they will surely pick some other AGG leader. Like a Shaka for instance. We should be safe taking Japan first.
(July 16th, 2019, 19:42)Rusten Wrote: Do you think Alex will be a contested pick? We're the only ones crazy enough to want him I think. Even if someone takes Rome they will surely pick some other AGG leader. Like a Shaka for instance. We should be safe taking Japan first.
Our beautiful samurai plan doesn't work without Japan, but it may work with Peter, Suleiman, or whoever. We should definitely take Japan first. My read on this player group is few Philosophical and few Spiritual leaders. I'm expecting a lot of Solid Economic Trait (Exp, Pro, etc) + Strategic/Fun/Interesting Trait.
" Here's the moment my Alex founds city #2:
I whipped worker 2, so needed the warrior + work boat so I'd have time to grow back to size two. I'll play around with not whipping. So do I take it we're feeling happy with Alex, or more testing required? 
