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pindicator · January 16th, 2012, 05:49

anti spoiler stuff to go here

anti anti spoiler stuff to follow

Mist · January 16th, 2012, 09:40

Your start

pindicator

Okay, so there's no metal right? That's why the leader combo isn't half bad and the land is two corn: because there's some awful surprise waiting me later on?

Edit: Civilization password is 4score

Edit #2: Naming Scheme reference link

pindicator · January 16th, 2012, 12:57

[SIZE="3"]Leader & Civ[/SIZE]

I have to admit, I'm not too upset with my leader and civ combination. I'm glad I didn't get one of the uber-alls combinations, but I kind of wish I had something less all-around decent. I'm just not feeling the synnergy off of Lincoln. I guess I could see the potential for a cultural victory, using Phi to pop out great artists and the Chinese UB to get more culture... except the game format is going to absolutely murder any cultural attempt. Forget culture. The only way someone wins is by tech or land.

The second idea I had was using Lincoln's Phi trait to get some quicker-than-usual Cho-Ko-Nus. We grab Metal Casting somewhat early: maybe right after Currency? Earlier if we feel nuts or if our commerce is good. Get a forge up ASAP and then start running the Engineer specialist. 17 turns later we'll have a Great Engineer. We'll have those 17 turns to research Iron Working. Then we pray we have iron nearby.

After that we'll probably want to bulb as many great people as possible. Ideally we'll use a Great Scientist on .... Wait, I just remembered. There's a way to bulb Machinery with a Great Scientist. How exactly is that?

Okay, I would need to have Math, Alphabet, Aesthetics, Iron Working, Metal Casting, and Masonry and cannot have Fishing, Meditation, Civil Service, or Theology researched. So it would basically look like this (although I circled some worker techs that you don't technically "need"):

[Image: pb7-turn000-bulbmachineryplan1.jpg]

[Image: pb7-turn000-bulbmachineryplan1.jpg]

Which is better for a quick Machinery? In the Scientist version you don't get Sailing (less trade), and you have to research Alphabet, Aesthetics, & Iron Working in addition to the Engineer plan. But you can have your Scientist ready to bulb as soon as you finish Metal Casting rather than needing to build a forge and hire the engineer. The Engineer plan means you have to wait at least 19 turns (2 turns for forge and then 17 turns for the great engineer to be born).

So if I can research Alphabet, Aesthetics, & Iron Working in under 19 turns combined, then bulbing via scientist will be faster.

More crazy bulbing strategies to come.

The Other Trait

Charismatic... I don't know what to do with you. You are nice enough to look at: see how that +1 happiness glistens from afar? And that 25% reduced experience for war: very attractive. But what do you go with? Where's your pairing? I could try to find you a nice civic or two that boosts experience on units; would you like that? Maybe build you a Stables or two? I'll probably build you a monument to your all-around usefulness. Maybe I'll build 3 and then build a Statue to Zeus. Now we're talking; there's the synnergy!

pindicator · January 16th, 2012, 13:52

Hmmm.... if I did go the Great Scientist route, I could potentially use a 2nd GS to bulb engineering. I don't know if that would be a good play, but it would certainly be different!

I'm going to copy in the Great People preference lists here just to have them around as reference:

Great Prophet

Great Scientist

Great Artist

Great Merchant

Great Engineer

pindicator · January 16th, 2012, 16:46

[SIZE="3"]The Land[/SIZE]

If i were to name the top two technologies i would like to have for this start they would be Agriculture and Mining. Well, today must be my lucky day because those are the two technologies China starts with! I think my only gripe is that the corn is dry, and that really isn't much of a complaint.

The best advice I've always heard about playing civ is to "play the land" and not the civ. (Don't worry! I'm not about to throw out all those crazy bulbing ideas i've already put out. In fact, not having an seafood only makes it more likely i avoid fishing and bulb something different. But for this post i'm just going to talk about the land and map settings in general and how that may influence any strategy). So what do we see here? Two corn, plains hills, two wine, lots of trees, and a river runs through it. That's telling me Bronze Working, Pottery, and Monarchy are going to be technologies i will want to highlight. BW and Pottery are already highlighted in our bulbing strategy, so the first big decision will be how to fit Monarchy into our tech path. There will be more choices and decisions as we explore more about the map around us.

Speaking of the map, we don't have any word on the actual size of it, but we did see that each player is to have "120-150" tiles each. To put some perspective on this, 121 tiles is a 11x11 block of land. 12x12 is 144 tiles. So on average the capitals are going to be 11 or 12 tiles apart from each other. But this is also a scripted map, not a hand-made one. I could have another player 8 tiles away for all i know. Or 20.

I've also remembered hearing that the map generator "makes up" for sub-par starts by putting a lot of forests around them. And we have a lot of forests, but i don't see how two corn, a plains hill, and riverside grass is subpar. But since we have lots of forests we are going to want to have lots of chops. This means we need to emphasize Mathematics as well. Mathematics makes me think that i need to look at Hanging Gardens.

Hey, doesn't Hanging Gardens give Great Engineer points? More Synergy!!! twirl

Opening Moves

The only thing guaranteed is that the warrior is going to move NW onto the plains hill, and the scout will go SW-SE to check out the river. In all likeliness the settler will follow the warrior onto the hill and settle there one turn 1.

From there, i'm not sure. Initially i wanted to send out my starting warrior while building a second, and i think that is probably how i will go. But if i feel like i have better than average land, so shouldn't i focus more on getting it up and running as quickly as possible? And if we are looking at possibly picking up HG then we need to get the economy going as fast as possible.

I will need to think this over...

pindicator · January 16th, 2012, 23:08

Turn 000

I moved my warrior and scout as I thought I would. Warrior went NW onto the hill, and then the scout went SW before deciding SE was a better way. The results are:

[Image: pb7-turn000-startingland.jpg]

Some very good things here:

1) That looks like ocean to our west! If we have our backs against the ocean then defense is going to be a LOT easier.

2) More food! Looks like we'll want to get Hunting in sooner rather than later. Lots more to scout out, but I think my 2nd city may go right on top of the spices.

3) Hut! Let's see how our luck goes next turn.

I haven't moved the settler NW yet. Going to take my time and make sure I'm not missing anything before I log back in and do that.

Also, here's the game settings:

[Image: pb7-turn000-settings.jpg]

pindicator · January 18th, 2012, 11:49

Well, it took all of 24 hours to have our first turn spat. Nice to see we are upholding RB tradition here /sarcasm

It has given me some more time to think out how I want to start the game off. I'd say the beginning is the weakest part of my game, but especially so here with barbs and hostile players everywhere, balancing expansion, aggression, and development is going to be a little touch-and-go.

Right now I'm thinking warrior first, then a pair of workers, then a pair of warriors while growing to 4, whip settler and put the overflow + chop into a granary. Which seems okay except I'm sure somebody is going to come by and mess up my micro. I'll work on the micro a bit more and then take a look in game.

What I have done is thought up a naming theme.

pindicator · January 18th, 2012, 15:39

Turn 001

I feel I have an obligation to reach turn 100 alive now that I'm using 3 digits to show the turn count. Perhaps it's even optimism.

I decided to move the warrior SW, just to make sure nothing was just outside the capital. Nothing worth moving for, so I settled Goomba this turn. Next we popped the hut, hoping to luck out like ASM or slowcheetah with a tech. I would have taken gold, too. But no, I got a map:

[Image: pb7-turn001-hutgaveamap.jpg]

Actually, as far as maps go, I'm pretty happy with this one. Now I know I am bordered on 2 sides by water; how lucky is that? Also I'm seeing some good land, outside the tundra and another happiness! Not sure where city #2 is going to go, but we can plant a city 1S of the silk and have a nice GP farm down the line. The scout is aiming for the hut just east of the fur.

Also note the forested plains hill. Seeing this made me decide to gamble on worker first. When my capital's borders are expanded on turn 6 I'll put two turns (10h) into a warrior, and then continue with the worker. Meanwhile, the starting warrior is going to circle around to the NW. Yes, we're risking a double move. Oh well, gotta risk a little.

And here's the micro:

[Image: pb7-turn001-microinabox.jpg]

You know, just in case I'm lucky enough that nobody finds me for 45 turns.

pindicator

I just realized that southern wheat is tundra. Ewww
Edit: I double-checked when I realized this isn't a naturally occurring combination and in fact it is a plains.

Still, overall it's a nice piece of land to start with.

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