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

[Zalson]

I think my concern is that none of the other spots are immediately productive as the fish spot. Once it gets a workboat (which it can get in 6 turns via the plains hill), it has a 5 food surplus at size 1, to 6 with the lighthouse. At size 4, it'll have 11 hammers and 2 food, which ain't bad for this stage in the game.

I think that I found that city and go kill Pacal. If you don't have particularly good land, that tends to be the solution. Right?

Instead of spending 200 hammers on the great lighthouse, I'll get 6 axemen from Sparta. That, combined with the output from the other cities, ought to give me the gold spot. I'll have my Moai spot (the southern fish) and that putrid sheep/stone city (on the coast).

Gilgamesh can't be rushed. At least not by this civ.

[haphazard1]

"Stack of axemen" is almost always a useful wonder for the early game.

The safe fish site would be productive pretty quickly. If you could find the worker turns for a mine before building it that would speed it up even more, but I am not sure if that could fit in your worker plans. Being close to the capital and getting some commerce from the fish tile should make it inexpensive.

The sheep/stone site is actually ok longer term: it would grow slowly (maybe farm the river grass tiles?) but will have some hammers and some commerce. And it will provide stone, which might be useful for a number of purposes.

[Zalson]

T39: Meet Isabella. She's founded Christianity. She hates Pacal. She also built the Oracle because she revolted to Hereditary Rule.

...

I seem to have forgotten the picture.

[haphazard1]

So Isabella is around to hate all the infidels. That should lead to some religious wars, which might offer some opportunities for alliances or vulturing. Any idea where she is located?

[Zalson]

Isabella is somewhere to the west or the north or both. :D

T40


I just want to say thank you to my other competitors for promoting these units.



Settler at Athens gets whipped next turn. Overflow will go into the barracks. And then it's troop time.  Overflow goes into a worker. Because I should be able to 2-turn it. If I were better that this game, I'd be chopping into it now.

Sparta and Corinth will grow to size 4 while working their granaries. Then'll I'll try to 2x whip workers out of each of them, with the overflow going into monuments for the border pop.



Then it is barracks and phalanx time. Although Corinth might put out a cheap scout to fogbust the south (need to get it some MP too)

[haphazard1]

I just want to say thank you to my other competitors for promoting these units.

The AI is very very bad about that. With Hun being on a hill, the AIs are not likely to take it for a while. It will keep them somewhat busy, which may help you.

[Zalson]

T41
Masonry comes in even though I'm not planning on going for the great lighthouse.

Now it's a question of Writing or Horseback -Writing- Riding. I think Writing for the economic benefits





\\

My daughter is helping me\ t\his post. I shall attend to this game at another time.

Only other news is I 2x whipped the settler at Athens. Gonna ty f
or a





worker I think.

[Zalson]

T42

Here's the overview. The settler is moving into position for the easy fish. The workers are going to chop into worker 3.



Gilgamesh has 3 cities, as do it.

I think, at Sparta, I'll end up 2x whipping in the next few turns into an axeman and a monument. Then regrow on barracks.

I'll likely do the same at Corinth: 2x whip an axe (for MP) into a monument. Regrow on barracks -- and park on a worker or settler if it is going to grow unhappy.

City 4 will go (I think) workboat out of the gate, working the forested plains until I can get the plains hill mine up and running.

This feels like such a slow start. No happy resources except the gold. Not a lot of food. So maybe I forgo writing and instead go for monarchy to raise the cap? I see writing vs Monarchy as my options... And even then, writing gives me another building but one that I don't really need? I mean, if my cities are stuck at size 3 running 2 scientists.

So i switched research to Poly on the way to Priesthood and Monarchy. plus that'll give me a bonus on writing, which i want.

Let me know what you think. The other advantage would be +4 commerce per turn from open borders..

[shallow_thought]

Happy cap of 6 (with gold) would normally keep you going for a while, cycling through the whips, wouldn't it?

I agree that it doesn't mesh well with growing the cap to try to make use of PHI though (side note - there was some recent discussion by Mackoti and TBS about how to make best use of PHI in "Flufball's thread" under civ general discussion; might be worth looking at). 

Open borders would be nice for better relations as well as the trade routes (assuming you're not planning on attacking any time soon). It's also en-route to Currency and CoL, both of which you're going to want, assuming you manage to keep expandind?As an alternative, Any chance of beelining some military tech that would let you grab that barb city? Iron working or construction?

Finding this really interesting - it's certainly a challenge, even with the additional starting units.

[RefSteel]

I think shallow_thought makes some good points. Here are some more random suggestions:

- From the screenshot, shouldn't you be claiming territory with that Settler instead of sending it to your back lines? Maintenance might be high for good forward sites, but I feel like getting boxed in by the AIs would be worse. Besides, the site toward which the Settler is moving looks to me like it shares one improved tile, zero cottages, zero resources, and one riverside tile (the same one that's already a farm) with the capital. I guess there's a seafood tile out there for it to work eventually (I can't tell with resource bubbles turned off) but I don't see it being a high priority. (When you do eventually plant it, you could have its workboat built in advance from another city anyway to get it up and running sooner after it's founded.)

- I don't think Monarchy before Writing is worthwhile in this case. That's a large number of beakers spent to get +1 happy face per city, not to mention a turn of anarchy. Of course it could be more than one, but my understanding is that building units just for Hereditary Rule happiness doesn't really pay on higher difficulties. If you're planning to expand, whether through Settlers or through military, you're going to need a lot of trade route income, which means Writing for Open Borders en route to Currency. You don't want to spam libraries everywhere of course - at least not early - but I don't think you can spare the research time for Monarchy, nor to tie up any more of your military than you have to on MP duty. And if you do manage to crash your economy by expanding decently, the option to build a library while saving gold is a good one to have.

- I should add that in general, I tend to avoid the post-Mysticism ~religious techs in the early going unless I have a Spi* leader, especially with no religion and no chance of founding one en route. With AH and Pottery already in hand, Priesthood's net bonus to Writing research is pretty small, and neither it nor Poly is getting anything for you directly. Writing on the other hand gives you your first chance to leverage your Phi trait by starting on a GS early. (For which you only need a library in one city.) Obviously you'd want a specific plan though, with fall-backs if necessary. Of course setting up a library and GS might be a little premature if you're still pushing expansion - but I'm guessing not if your best available option is really a mediocre back-fill city on T43.

* - Okay, maybe if you were Ind and/or had Marble for an Oracle gambit, but that is a gambit even if you land it; I think the Oracle is still the most over-rated Wonder in the game.

- A couple examples of ways to use an early GS if you get one:

You could plant for the Stone, tech Masonry, save all six capital forests, and start the Pyramids, timing everything so that once a GS is born in Sparta or Corinth, if the 'mids haven't fallen, you could bulb Mathematics, complete all six chops, and finish the Wonder, all on the same turn. Meanwhlie, you'd have been saving gold for your run to Currency (already with a big head start thanks to teching Writing and bulbing Math) instead of burning it all on the push to Monarchy, and you'd have access to Rep instead of just HR when you revolted, most likely at an earlier date (if it worked...). Or just go with the old-school standard of turning off tech after Writing while you build a library in the capital, run scientists there, and turn the first GS into an Academy, then turning on research with a +75% bonus in Athens.