[SPOILERS] Back to Basic - Mardoc plays Augustus of China

[HidingKneel]

Not worth grabbing the cow? What if you moved that ice city NEE? (Or are coastal cities worth more than I think they are?)

[Mardoc]

Not worth grabbing the cow? What if you moved that ice city NEE? (Or are coastal cities worth more than I think they are?)

The cow's only a 3/3/0 tile. It'd be nice to have, but this city is destined to be nearly worthless no matter what we do, except for grabbing the furs for happiness and possibly horses for military. I'm looking to make it coastal mainly because coast tiles are the only ones we're likely to break even on food with, so that could let a city be eventually size 10 or so. With a side order of planning to build the Colossus, which will add one commerce to each coastal tile in the empire.

I dunno. Maybe with cheap settlers it'll be worth packing in three low-value cities instead of two, put the coastal one on the far south tundra and a cow/horse/fur city on the plains hill. Cow/horse/fur would cap at size 4, 10 hammers/turn or so, that's probably worth a settler.

[Merovech]

Since you're not financial or organized, coastal tiles really aren't that great even with a lighthouse, until you get the Colossus (or Moai, or are in a Golden Age), due to maintenance costs. I mean, they'll be positive, but a 3/3/0 cow is actually a really good tile, if much maligned because the start generator thinks it's equally as good a food as a 6/0/1 corn.

[Mardoc]

Yeah, the main problem with the West isn't the plains cow or the Fish, it's the everything else. That makes all of three tiles with 2+ food base, along with a bunch that can make it to 2 food with significant investment. No surplus for darn near anything. Plains cow would be awfully nice if I had mainly grassland or even irrigated plains to fill out the rest of a city. It's the dry plains and tundra that makes this area sorta meh.

I dunno. On the other hand, a city unable to grow past size 4 might not be too bad early, when my happy cap is only 5-6ish. And that city would have a lot of hammers, it would be a nice military pump or settler pump.

And on the third hand, I am currently aiming for Colossus, which would make fishing villages quite nice too, even if they have no food. Maybe I should consider adding Great Lighthouse to my wishlist, given the number of coastal cities already in my dotmap.

[Commodore]

Gripping hand! Come on, you were reminding me of Niven yesterday!

[Mardoc]

Gripping hand! Come on, you were reminding me of Niven yesterday!

It's only the gripping hand if it ends the argument! I'm still debating this one with myself....

[Commodore]

*shrug* Settle the good food stuff first, stone, etc...west is backfil in the end.

[Mardoc]

Well, Pottery's in, and I decided to go straight for Priesthood next. I'm gambling too much on getting Metal Casting to want to delay the Oracle any further. This may turn out to be excessive paranoia - but it ought to make or break our game, so I'm aiming for 'make'. Four turns for Priesthood, and should be less than ten to build the wonder - depends on how many chops I can line up, I suppose - ought to mean that it's ours. Buddhism hasn't fallen yet, after all, so probably we've got a head start in addition to Industrious.

City 3 is almost ready - 2 more turns on the settler. That'll be enough cities for the moment, we've got granaries and cottages and a Wonder to build. As soon as I catch up on those fronts, we'll aim to expand again; I think the Silver city next. We ought to have the ability to build Forges by then, so Silver will be very welcome.

For research next: I'm thinking Fishing -> Sailing -> Masonry probably. We've a lot of coastal cities, we'll hopefully have a Colossus, those add up to wanting to work the water. Plus that lets us consider grabbing yet another wonder - or at least a Moai.

[Mardoc]

Gold mine is good for the demos:



Not quite up to snuff on my worker micro just yet, but at least I'm not working unimproved tiles and should get the road done by the time the settler's ready to plop down. Rather confused by a floodplains road requiring three turns instead of two, though.

Also...what the heck is with the barbs? That barb warrior moved south, I think, not directly toward me like I'm used to in FFH. I guess I don't mind having a little more time before I need axes, but...huh?

[Mardoc]

We've not alone:





I went back and forth on finishing the Granary before or after starting the Oracle, and ended up deciding to play it this way: get the Granary nearly done, then whip it for lots of overflow into the Oracle. Should only delay Oracle a turn or two compared to starting it immediately, give us more infra and probably similar population.

Might still change my mind on this one next turn.

This also gives time for the workers to finish the corn farm and gold road before chopping into the Oracle, though.