[SPOILERS] 3 Players, 1 Civ, No Clues - Tatan, Nakor, and Serdoa are Darius of Rome

[Nakor]

There we go!

Moved the scout NE-NE to see this:



There's our first random item, a HUT!!!
If we have sea food at our starting location, I think we should settle in place.
Who wants to move the warrior?

PM-ed you our password...

[Nakor]

Oh, did I mention I'm practicing with a Spearmen defense against War Chariots in a PBEM? :neenernee
Could come in handy...

[Serdoa]

I... disagree.

Forums are pretty useless, but I really like Praets. They have an edge on axes (8 str vs 7.5 str unpromoted) and furthermore aren't vulnerable to chariots like axes are. Basically we shouldn't have to worry about any major attacks after we get them because everybody will be looking for an easier target. A nice potential strat would be to do an early raid with a handful of Praets to hurt/cripple someone, and in the mean time tech up to Construction for a massed cat/Praet invasion.

That edge is bought via the higher hammer cost of Praets. I think on quick it is 23 hammers for an Axe and 30 for a Praet? So pretty much 4 Axes vs. 3 Praets. And there goes your .5 more str. But anyhow, first lets have Iron before we discuss how to attack with Praets.

As for the movement: Warrior 1NW seems obvious to check for seafood. But 1SE might be better just because if there is no food I don't think we should move anyway, even if the cow is our only food. Is it possible to take a screenie which does show the tile-bleed better, so we can examine if those are all forested tiles in the SE? I think I see a non-forested one there but I am unsure.

In any case, right now my vote is to move the warrior 1SE.

[Serdoa]

Oh, did I mention I'm practicing with a Spearmen defense against War Chariots in a PBEM? :neenernee
Could come in handy...

For this particular PBEM I'd suggest you move your Spears out of your cities and give them to me (the cities that is, not the spears) :neenernee

[Nakor]

Doesn't sound like a solid defense to me.
Can either of you move the warrior SE? I'm at work untill 22:00...
Think we should not move our settler to much, there will be resources if we settle in place.

[Serdoa]

Our thread is too far at the bottom. Lets change that.

I have moved our warrior, that is a screenie of the land uncovered:



I've also played around with the flying camera, some shots. First shows the tile bleed only showing more jungle, the second shows some mountains.

Lastly, shot of the land with tile-bleed marked



So, I think settle in place is the way to go. Several reasons speak for that:

• 2 food resources with practically no option to find another good one anywhere nearby (and probably no seafood either :/)
  
• probably an island nearby which we could decide to settle early
  
• if it is an island then we would get intercontinental TR - GLH maybe?
  
• all surrounding land is jungle, except for the northwest which seems to be near the coast though and probably just 4 or 5 more tiles
  

Also which tech to research? I was thinking of BW at first (10 forests in the BFC) but we have a 6-yield and a 5-yield tile and not utilizing them in favor of chops seems not the best strategy. Also with all the jungle I fear that we won't find many good spots to settle nearby, at least not till IW so a quick first settler might actually not be that helpful.

Research: Agri -> AH -> BW
Builds: Worker -> Warrior -> Warrior; at size 4 worker, settler

But quite honestly, before we do not see more of the land, we can't really decide much. If it is bad, I think GLH and settling that island (and many more coastal cities) might be needed. If it is good (even if only after IW) then we certainly should try to grab as much as possible.

[Serdoa]

Just for my own convenience (though you guys can use it too :P)

Road: 2t
Chop: 3t
Mine: 4t
Camp: 4t
Cottage: 4t
Pasture: 4t
Farm: 5t
Plantation: 5t
Workshop: 6t
Fort: 10t

[Serdoa]

Just checked, going Agri -> AH means that our worker has nothing to do for several turns. And that already with several turns of working the spices to speed tech up. Tech costs are huge on this map...

BW: 207
AH: 172
Agri: 103

Being only used to quick-speed, small to standard map sizes that was not expected (at least I didn't expect it). I think this means that we have to start BW, making sure that our worker has something to do. What probably also means Worker -> Worker (chop it out) -> Warrior. I'll play that through in my excel-table.

[Serdoa]

Ok, quite frankly, I have no clue how to play this start if we do not have seafood in the fog (and I doubt that, due to grassland cow and irrigated rice). If we go Agri -> AH we will have several turns of nothing to do for our worker (well, technically he can farm one of the spices). If we go BW first, we can chop out a second one and after that a settler (because Agri only comes in 2 turns after we finished the second worker) with a warrior in between. Sounds great, except from all that I can see, we have north and west the ocean (there could be a small landbridge or just a lake, but again, I doubt that just because of how lucky I am always with starting areas), and east and south jungle. Even if that jungle has good long-term potential (and that is not sure) we can't use it at all for a second city.

Anyhow, I have to sleep about this. Especially if it might be worth to farm the spices (despite meaning that we "throw" 6 worker turns away, but we couldn't do anything else with them anyway) just because we need the commerce very badly in any case.

[Tatan]

Early game is a bit of a conundrum. Settling in place seems like the most sensible option... enough hills to be productive early and 4 riverside grassland spots for cottages.

As for the tech path, what about this: Agri -> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery

Agri first obviously let's us get some early food going. Then, during the "down-time" you speak of, we can use the worker to farm one of the spices, which gives us a second growth tile and lets us put off AH a bit. Then we can go straight for Pottery (with double pre-reqs) and immediately begin spamming cottages in between chops.