Zalson Plays One Turn At A Time (DEITY: Loss)

[Zalson]

I find it difficult to believe that three cities with one worker would have been correct. You've got to get decent tiles up and running to try and get some sort of snowball going.I have a nasty feeling that every choice is going to feel costly here on deity.

And yes, let's not immitate the AI with the classic "settler in second city" just yet  .

I feel I should clarify that I would not have gone settler right away. Would have grown until at least size 2, if not more. That's in the past now.

I confirmed that the worker movement I want won't eat a worker turn (unnecessarily; they've got a lot of ground to cover); I've got to move them north anyway.

Ref, I think you're right that the big misplay was moving the settler where I did. Definitely did not think through the early moves; got too excited to play.

One of the reasons I chose the tech path that I did was the need for commerce right away. Pottery was accessible and benefited both spots with grassland river cottages -- and I think it led to overall more output at the beginning of the game. It's not like a plains cow is too terribly valuable. Also I would have been limping to animal husbandry.

Mining-BW was too long to delay pottery and AH, I felt, not knowing the hut results. Obviously, had I know I'd have 150+ gold to burn, that would have changed the path.

I did sim several approaches and pottery came out with the largest overall yield, including food and hammers, along with the earliest settler.

Thanks for diagnosing the errors, Ref and shallow_thought (even those I never really thought about ). Scouting was definitely the big one -- I could have a rice+gold+oasis 2nd city Or at least more land visibility.

Oh -- and moving the settler to the plains hill would have also been good -- but then this would be a different game

(also, that plains hill has copper. It's hard not to see that when you are worldbuildering the save -- and that probably does mean that I should have gone BW first. But I wouldn't have techs done for a LONG time that way).

[Zalson]

T19: Finished the plains hill mine on the future copper. Roading it next turn, then moving up to Sparta to connect the cows. AH in 5 because I dropped a cottage.

Settler is due in 9T, at 11hpt.

Please attack me in the forest and don't go toward my capital.

[Zalson]

t20: the archer moves away down south and ... dammit.



Frickin' barbs, man.

[haphazard1]

That last barb is unfortunate RNG, that close to Pacal's borders.

[Zalson]

Thank you for sparing my feelings, haphazard1. It is a little bit of bad RNG but also a case of stupid movement on my part...

[Zalson]

So: short-term goal is to found the city by the gold and the rice. Grow that city to size 3 ASAP and don't let it fall below size 3.

I don't have enough forests for the Oracle -- and frankly I'm not sure what I'd do if I got it. Pyramids might be more valuable -- and there's a nice synergy with that and philosophical.

Medium-term goal needs to be a balance between iron-working, calendar and bureaucracy, while settling the core.

Tech choices go:
AH
BW
then... writing? or something on the religious path? Not sure.

Turn is coming soon...

[Zalson]

I do definitely have enough forests for oracle. 8 in the BFC. But that's also enough for a very fast Pyramids...



T21: Barb Warrior eats my scout. Workers move to the trees south of Sparta to road it (mostly because I'm going to lose the movement anyways and might as well make the worker turn a noble sacrifice? Right?)

T22
Gilgamesh gets slavery. And our archer in the forest has a friend stop by...



T23
Are you kidding me

[haphazard1]

Ouchie on the barb city!

What determines when barb cities start showing up? Turn 23 seems pretty early, even if this is deity.

[shallow_thought]

That is a painful piece of luck. Deep breath and re-plan I guess.

[T-hawk]

IIRC, barb cities appear when the total number of player cities >= 3N + 1 where N is the number of players. Deity AIs reach that quickly of course.