Commodore David the Fifth of the horsie dudes.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

...Is that fallout 2S of your settler?

[Commodore]

...Is that fallout 2S of your settler?

Yeah, it is. It wouldn't be a mist-map if it wasn't odd. It had a little hitch in my get-along when I simmed things out (rest of map was random, but whatever). The craft-first makes sense and it's nice to have a 3/0/5 and 3/0/3 tile at size 2 starting off. Sadly, though, mining is too much of a temptation, I think. It's hard not to work a 1/2/9 tile even though that slows growth down tremendously.



It's a hard choice, researching Calendar would get a fast growth to 6 on 4/0/1 farms, and then the plains hill can get mined along with the gold next for nice stagnated production. One thing is clear, I want to share out that gold tile and that fur tile quickly.

[HidingKneel]

I haven't done the math, but your analysis is consistent with my gut feeling.
For the first city, I think priority #1 should be getting enough food to grow quickly to the happy cap. Then commerce, then production.

Looks like shadowriders are national units. But still quite tasty. If you switch to Esus at Warhorses, you unlock two top-tier units at the same time, plus Magnadine. Worth considering if/when the time comes, but I think we'll do better with Order, Veil, or Empyrean in the mid-game.

[Commodore]

Yeah, so right now I'm thinking Crafting -> Calendar -> Mining -> Exploration -> Hunting. Although spamming infinite warriors to try a blind rush of Jkaen is looking more and more attractive the longer he delays. He's probably intensely debating settling in place or moving to the coast if Mist gave us similar starts, but my word man, just make a choice and go for it.

[Commodore]

...and that was...eerie?

[Commodore]

...and we're off! Hippus in the lead, baby. At least until someone later in turn order settles. Not seeing anything earth-shattering, I opted to settle in place, starting with a warrior that will complete perfectly the same moment the capital grows. (And is then probably river-of-blooded, but meh)



The capital is Kharak, referencing the first mission in the best computer game ever. Nothing too thrilling to note yet, but it'll be a nice place once I complete the millions of techs needed to improve it. Aristofarms anyone?



So this is what Mist meant about the early rushes being non-feasible. Ever player must have one of these ugly buggers protecting the passes. Enhancement and water mana tempt us to go beyond the shelter. The three hills can be seen on the minimap.



Victory screen shows nothing too surprising, looks like only that dungeon will be tempting us this early. Dave, what were the chances of bad stuff again? And any chance that popped evil things would head north to suicide on the vines?



Looks like Jkaen is coastal and researching the prereq'd fishing right off the bat. More interesting demos will show up next turn.



Exciting, ought to be fun. Here we go!

[HidingKneel]

Looks like we are not, in fact, going to be harassing anyone during the early stages of the game.

I guess we need some kind of medium-term plan for how we're going to get past that vine. Ritualists? Catapults? Swarms of horsemen? All of the above?

As far as the short term tech plan: hunting seems like an expensive place to go so early in the game. With all the commerce that the capital will be generating, it'd be good to get an academy in there soonish; you might consider chants/mysticism after mining.

[Commodore]

Looks like we are not, in fact, going to be harassing anyone during the early stages of the game.

I guess we need some kind of medium-term plan for how we're going to get past that vine. Ritualists? Catapults? Swarms of horsemen? All of the above?

Well, anything static is going to go down eventually. I'd think that some nice Flanking III horse archers would do quite nicely over time, just send them in repeatedly. Ritualists would also take care of that pretty quickly. The general medium-term solution is to just make sure that anything venturing beyond the vines gets hammered.

How's Maelstrom as collateral, in general? Enchantment node means that spellstaff mages are possible, correct?

As far as the short term tech plan: hunting seems like an expensive place to go so early in the game. With all the commerce that the capital will be generating, it'd be good to get an academy in there soonish; you might consider chants/mysticism after mining.

Hrm. That seems like a bit of a contradiction to the grow-grow-grow mindset. Although I guess a fast Exp second city with an elder council could work nicely. This capital does make God-King very attractive.

Any thoughts, DaveV?

[DaveV]

Any thoughts, DaveV?

Sorry for my lack of input; travel has put me way behind on my usual weekend tasks.

I took a quick look at the save. The map looks as though it's 50x40, horizontal wrap, but no vertical wrap. I'll try to set up a sim tomorrow. I'm guessing Charlie Hill is overseas, probably requiring Optics.

At Prince difficulty, teching is going to be relatively quick, and maintenance is going to be pretty low. Spamming out cities will be a good strategy.

Normally I'm not a fan of early hunting for non-elven civs, but with the low difficulty and lots of cities, it could pay off. Animal capturing can be a nice boost for happiness and culture. Hawks are awfully useful, too.

Since we're fin/exp, we're ideally situated to build lots of settlers and make the cities pay off. I think we should abuse those traits to the maximum extent we can. I think I agree with crafting->mining, since our hammers are doubled when building settlers. Unlike most civs that build their settlers with food, we can do it with a mix of farms and mines. Next, our choices seem to be hunting vs. code of laws vs. bronze working. I'd like to see more of the map before we map out our whole tech tree.

[Commodore]

You're fine, Dave, I figured you were busy. Glad to have your insight, and yours too Kneel.

By Crafting-> Mining, you mean Crafting -> Calendar -> Mining, right? Otherwise, we'll be trying to grow onto mines with 3-food tiles at best, and with irritating Vampires looking to RoB us of population at the worst time.