[SPOILERS] SevenSpirits goes on a mysterious adventure

[SevenSpirits]

So that posting style is extra work, probably makes the thread harder to understand, and doesn't really seem supported by any dedlurkers. It had some potential, but barring major objections, I'm going to switch to normal reporting. However I will keep the central conceit, which is that if anyone has questions about anything, I'll report about that on the very next turn.

I'll give my thoughts on the rest of the pick once it's finished. But I think it's obvious to anyone who's watched so far that being earlier in the picking order was an advantage.

[SevenSpirits]

OK, let's try this again.

First of all, here's the view from t0.

[SevenSpirits]

Pre-game Thoughts

Organized is nothing special on Noble with a non-water start. Expansive and Creative are both improved by it. Along with Financial I believe they make a clear top three. I believe that the three leaders that combine those traits are the 3rd-5th best picks, with India and Inca being the 1st and 2nd best respectively.

Looking within those traits, Expansive is a bit nerfed by the lack of 4h start, and to add insult to injury they will even get lowered overflow out of the first worker because everyone has 3f+3h to start, which comes to 42fh in 7t, and the 2h overflow gets rounded down to 1 with the Expansive bonus divided out.

Meanwhile, I believe Financial to be a bit improved, and here's why: this capital is not an amazing bureaucracy city. It doesn't have many riverside tiles. So without being able to rely on a single super-strong city as your empire's beaker source, you will need at least a couple commerce cities, and that's what Financial was going to do already. The combination of this fact, with the starting worker impotence of Expansive, makes me prefer Financial to Expansive here. Between Expansive and Creative I'm less sure. I think borders will be quite close with two neighbors and that helps Creative's cause a lot, and potentially makes it better than Expansive.

But anyway, I didn't have to make that choice. When the pick reached me, the two good civs plus Pacal were gone. Between Sury and Willem it was a close call, but I went with Willem for the reasons mentioned above. Gaspar et al, picking 5th, chose Huayna over Sury, which I wouldn't have done but which I can't really criticize either. They paired it with Mali, a strong civ with dangerous early game units. The forge UB signals oracle, which probably means they will get it because who wants to get into a race like that?

On the way back I had a much more ambiguous choice: which civ to pair with Willem? Before I get into that, let me talk about the start:


Noble, Standard, Map dimensions are 60x32

First of all, you're pretty much forced to settle in place. It's the only way to get all three resources, plus you get bonus food from the sugar plant. And the warrior can't explore any tiles on t0 that would warrant a move. The area to the southwest looks pretty nice, and seems to have at least one FP, so that's the direction you would move if you did... but the warrior is (intentionally I assume) in the opposite direction from that, and so unable to elucidate the situation. So OK, everyone settles in place. This makes it important to plan out your opening turns before picking stuff. (And that's how I knew the capital wouldn't have a lot of riverside tiles, which made me lean towards Financial.)

From the map dimensions and the the fact that we all have the same start, I'm assuming a Hall of Mirrors-ish layout, basically 5 copies of a 12x32 vertical strip, arrayed horizontally. In support of this:
1) 60 is divisible by 5. 32 is not. So a fully symmetric map has to have this layout.
2) For Hall of Mirrors, 60x32 is pretty much the default size for a "Small" map, which this one originally was.

So basically, it looks like our capitals are 12 tiles apart. Which is freaking close. Everyone's warrior is 1NE of their capital, so it takes 11 moves to hit another player's cap. Luckily, workers will only take 7 turns to complete, which leaves the minimum 3t to build a warrior even if you are later in turn order than the invading opponent. (And remember you have 2 overflow from the worker, 1 if Expansive, so 3h/t is barely enough!) So you can freely roam with your starting warrior, but you really want to plan on a hammer-heavy configuration post-worker. The conservative plan for the starting warrior will be to circle around and come back near t12 so you can double-team an enemy warrior/quechua if necessary.

Of course, it's possible that large bodies of water, or mountain ranges, will block the warriors from reaching other players so quickly. We need to consider that possibility, but it's not worth gambling on. Also, it's possible my neighbors won't send warriors in my direction. This is actually fairly likely... but again, not worth gambling on!

Looking at tech costs on Noble/Standard, AH will take 8 turns if you have just one of the prereqs (and hunting seems awful since you miss out on a starting warrior, so screw that). The worker is 7t, so that means that you can improve the sheep hill first without wasting any time (worker moves onto the sheep while AH finishes). I think this is they way to go: after the worker is out, you work deer/deer/FP/Pasture getting 14 food exactly, and putting 12h into a warrior. (Importantly, you have 8h in the warrior after 2t of working deer, so can finish it next turn if it's an emergency.) 2h overflow out of the warrior and then you're doing 9fh/t into a worker or settler. If it's a settler, it will be done in 7t (9 * 7 is 63, +2 overflow is 65). Then you can do a second worker in 4t more (11t after growth). Alternately, you can go worker-settler after growing to 2, and get the worker 5t after growth and the settler 11t after growth. Obviously, which one is better will depend on the surrounding terrain.

The reason I like improving the sheep first instead of the rice (the most obvious tile, since it makes 5f) is that sheep is just plain better if you stop at size 2. It's improved a turn sooner, and it gives +1c in addition to the 5fh. And the fact that it's improved a turn sooner means you can both grow and finish the warrior in 4t. Stopping at size 2 seems good because the tiles are so hard to improve in this setup - spread out, with none next to the city itself. So there will only be 2 improved tiles to work for a long time.

So if pasturing the sheep first is good, we have to start with agriculture. Like I said I wanted to avoid hunting. Fishing is useless, as is mysticism since I'm creative. That leaves mining and the wheel. Agriculture/Wheel civs are traditionally great, and all the good ones are still available. There is Egypt, which is a bit worse for me since I won't be using Obelisks as a Creative leader. There is Sumeria, but the Ziggurats are less valuable both because it's Noble, and because I'm Creative, so Priesthood will hopefully not be researched until late (probably later than, or at the earliest immediately prior to, Code of Laws). And there are Ottomans and France if I want that sort of thing. Were I to pick an Agriculture/Wheel civ, I think Sumeria or Egypt would be the better options due to the positions being so close, and therefore the early game mattering more. However, the one Agriculture/Mining civ, China, actually has a particular advantage with this start. I can open AH->BW and I will finish the latter before my settler is done, even if I go worker-warrior-settler straight up. This means I can revolt to slavery with the first settler walking, which is ideal, and I have full knowledge of copper and horses when choosing where to send him. These two seem quite nice to me. China's UU and UB are cute, and with Creative's theater discount I could see both of them being useful. And unlike Egypt, I've never played with China. So there we go, the die is cast.

[Krill]

What happens if you stop growth at size 3 instead of size 2?

[SevenSpirits]

Regardless of whether you improved sheep or rice, you can spend 3t more to grow to size 3 after size 2. However in both cases you barely can't finish 2 warriors. (Rice first can also grow in 1t less than this, but in that case you don't even finish a single warrior. Sheep first also has the option to take 1t longer (so 4t from 2 to 3) and build 2 warriors while doing so.)

It's not an overwhelmingly attractive option (the third pop works a FP to start and later the unimproved ivory) but it's worth keeping in mind, yeah. Lots will depend on the layout of the surrounding land. Improving sheep first looks better in all cases.

[SevenSpirits]

OooOOh.



Well that's a pretty second city. Doesn't even need a road connection. Of course, we still don't know where copper/horses are.

[T-hawk]

Well that's a pretty second city. Doesn't even need a road connection.

Doesn't it? I think your capital doesn't count as connected to the river, until you have a road on either 1W or 1SW of the capital. Whether the city tile is connected to the river tiles can be seen in-game, by zooming out to the cloud view and clicking the overlay to show trade groups.

As for the second city, would it be worthwhile to go 1SE instead, for coastal access and the sheep in first ring? Kills one flood plain, but partially makes up for it with a 3F lighthouse lake.

[SevenSpirits]

Yeah, you're right of course. I think I waited too long between taking the screenshot and writing the description of it.

Your idea about city placement is interesting. I think that deserves an update...

[SevenSpirits]

t10

I moved the warrior east in the hopes of finding another second city candidate that shares the rice. The combination of mountains and water visible to the south had led me to doubt the efficacy of scouting "my east" by going west to find someone else's east, plus I want the warrior over this way to guard my worker against invaders. At the end of the latest turn, that puts us here:


As you can see I just:
1) Met Serdoa. (Dammit, the guy who starts with C1 warriors and free culture.)
2) Uncovered my first mirrored tile - the highlighted desert hill is repeated 12 tiles to the west.
3) Per 2), basically confirmed my map suspicions.
4) Revealed that there is indeed an early warrior route between capitals. (The quechua can move NW-SW or NW-NW to enter my territory.)

So. What's the assessment of what we see so far?

There are a lot of lakes. The lakes are always separated by 1-2 tiles to allow for cumbersome fort chains for boats. So far the only saltwater we've seen is south of the sheep, 1SE of where T-Hawk suggested a city could go. With vision of all those lakes, putting the city there has become more interesting to me. I'm not sure though if interesting means "good" or "bad". Right now Fy first thought was favorable, but now I'm thinking it's bad. The reason is that this city would certainly be a commerce city. It probably won't have a lot of hammers for building boats, and it will be vulnerable to amphibious attack. Also, since we've confirmed that there is a quick path between starts (which we already knew were 12 apart), I would prefer not to give up the hill plant. Either way, good discussion point, and not something I'd have considered.

My immediate plan is to figure out where copper is before deciding where to settle. With current information I'm planning to continue teching BW, and start a settler next turn. (I think that's better than a worker or warrior.) Worker will of course be improving the rice, and will probably chop a forest into worker #2 immediately thereafter. Enter will be hit.

[Ceiliazul]

>print opponent analysis