Any civ including India and even Egypt can build an eot25 settler at size 2. Egypt might actually get the new city the fastest thanks to one road that can be built before AH.
Otoh it has the latest BW at t38 or so?
The difference of this start to the CFPB90 starvation is staggering.
The assorted sandboxes are attached. I'm not really much clearer now regarding what to pick.
I feel like staying at size two breaks the maxim of always work all resources, considering the second pasture comes in on turn 25, does the lost yields of 5 turns of new city make up for the lost yields of not working the capital’s tiles? I suppose the answer might depend on what we find.
Or did you mean size two because you just whipped? I’ll have a look at the saves and see.
Maybe this is a personal blindspot, but as a rule, I’m not terribly impressed by whipping before granaries, seems like 4-2 is a 6/5 favorable ratio over slowbuilding, which might not make up for the lost turns working the tiles. The benefit is frontloading the production of the new city, but then again, given tech constraints on a blazing start, I’m not sure that’s entirely necessary.
I looked over the files, the Egyptian save seems worse than the very first one I ran with Vikings (t30 settler with first worker ready t30 and worker in 3 from capital), the no hunting delay is too significant.
It's not letting me attach the files, I guess I need to zip them, but I'm lazy so here is a screen shot.
Food bar is 0 and settler finishes t27 with 0 overflow.
Seems strictly superior to the Indian save, but the worker has a big case of nothing to do (mine riverside plains hill in anticipation of growth?). So maybe a call for Germany (chop) or Mongols (road)?
(July 5th, 2022, 17:18)Krill Wrote: I take it there is too much choice with the start, given the simulations run?
I'm new so this statement has me curious, is that a problem that a start has too much choice? Isn't it good that there isn't immediately one right option and you have tradeoffs?
Anyhow I think that hunting is mandatory, but the second tech choice is debatable and I like that. It's a fun puzzle trying to pick the piece that fits
Lots of choice regarding civs, that's good. The early tech path is mandatory hunting->AH; not sure if that's ideal from the mapmaker point of view, but as we see there are different ways to approach that tech path, so maybe it's working as intended.
Ginger, I see that you went for pig first, which is something I haven't tried, and I'd like to tonight for the other civs. Your HRE run is of course superior in terms of hammers, but as you've said yourself maybe sheep first is better if we're constrained by commerce.
Which of HRE, Germany, Mongolia, India, Egypt do you like / hate / can see somehow, if I can come up with a compelling sim? I would throw out those that you mark as hate
I like all except Mongolia, which has almost as good techs as Germany, but the uniques seem pretty incompatible to our leader, and also I want to keep the option of not running a knight rush for once. Well the Ger also works with cuirassiers, but I'm still not convinced (now, Spi lets us swap easily into Theo/Vassalage, and with Ger and Barracks those are 11XP knights/cuirassiers/cavalry. Maybe I can warm up to it).
I still like the size 2 settler, would like to see if I can push that down to eot24.
Egypt also gets a eot25 settler in my sim from last night, which is much better than eot31 at size 4. If Egypt gives us instant trade routes to city 2 the 2 turns delay on AH could be better justified. We could also farm the floodplains, although hopefully there'll be better options first for city #2.
Germany also lets us see copper before settling city #2. I take your point on early whipping not being overly effective, although I'd argue that the fun starts not with granaries but once you can share food between cities, and also instant slavery is the one thing that Spi has early on. I can follow you in that the first settler should likely be slow built on size 2 or 3, and not whipped.
I don’t want to sound dismissive but I’m highly skeptical of any delay in pasturing to accommodate non-Hunting starting techs. Egyptian and Indian uniques are not good enough to stunt the snowball for, in the latter case it defeats almost the whole purpose. Not entirely sure what is RB’s obsession with size 2 settlers when the capital has resources left to improve. If it does something useful with worker turns, maybe? Idk I really don’t get it. Feel like size 3 cap catches up quick since it can go straight onto the next civilian unit. Like if we extend the sim what’s the time for second worker and time until second settler?
As far as Civ uniques and leader synergy goes— Asoka wants CoL badly, and Civil Service is a natural progression given the ridiculous wealth at the cap. From then on the best toys for SPI are probably Philosophy->Nationalism? Mongols are generically good worth Spiritual as you’ve noticed, can do whip cycles in XP civics. Maybe it puts some psychological pressure in the early game too, though Spiritual is a bit of a dead trait for Horcher action (it has India’s terrain trickery/indifference as well). HRE has obvious synergy with Caste and better Courts.
So where does that leave Germany? I fear we’ll never see their uniques pay off. I think having everything inched up further in the tech tree in Industrial is a very cool concept for a Civ but unless we end up in a space race with Tarvac or Piccalemo, will it matter? Will it matter more than the rauthaus? Is there a real timing window to use the Risengarde in? With cannons?
What if I narrowed the choice to Germany or HRE? Which would you prefer or neither. Do the thing where you flip a coin and how do you feel after the result?
I’ve pretty much made up my mind that when we look at Asoka and the tech path that suits him, HRE shines super brightly. In my head it’s just a question of whether Mining helps the start enough or if you want to send a message by picking Germany
