Pacal of the Indians: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Fast Worker

[oledavy]

Hey Shoot, is there any chance you could pump out a missionary to spread Hinduism to May, 1940 by t123?

[Shoot the Moon]

Ok, so with two more settlers coming out (one just came out of my capital and one will be whipped out of my second city Wee-Bay next turn, t120), it's time again to decide where to settle. I will likely stop doing these kind of posts soon, but I think this one deserves some input because where I settle will determine how quickly/whether I come into conflict with Luddite.

Here are the spots to consider:





There's also that back line spot by WK with horse and crabs, but I think that one should wait.

Anyway, my current thoughts are to settle 3S of Hangzhou with the settler from the capital and 1S of the spices with the second settler. I would have 2HAs and a longbow to protect the city within 3t of settling it, a missionary to get its borders popped, and would probably also get out a theater pretty quickly. Obviously, however, such a plant would put me in pretty direct conflict with luddite (not that with guilds coming up I don't think I can't handle it, but it does mean I would need to invest more in military). Thoughts?

[oledavy]

I agree with both of those spots. Though, if you have enough workers on hand I favor that jungled spot northeast of Brother Mouzone. Three food bonuses is nothing to sneeze at.

By all means, settle in Luddite's face. With five lake tiles, rice and a freshwater crab. Hangzhou is a dynamite city site. It's very defensible and sits aside a choke point on one of the main north-south routes. I would like to see it under our control as soon as possible.

[WarriorKnight]

Anyway, my current thoughts are to settle 3S of Hangzhou with the settler from the capital and 1S of the spices with the second settler. I would have 2HAs and a longbow to protect the city within 3t of settling it, a missionary to get its borders popped, and would probably also get out a theater pretty quickly. Obviously, however, such a plant would put me in pretty direct conflict with luddite (not that with guilds coming up I don't think I can't handle it, but it does mean I would need to invest more in military). Thoughts?

I agree. Forget about playing peaceful, you may be the most peaceful civ out of the 3 of us, but we're in a AW game. The sooner you settle up on luddite, the better.

I agree that claiming Hangzhou would be superb, although we must make sure not to lose our head just because we set our sites on that city. See if we have any option of attacking with Knights, if Team 2 lacks Engineering and Feudalism then we may be able to attack with them. If not then staying at your chokepoint would be best for now.

[oledavy]

How are you still able to produce archers and warriors?

[Shoot the Moon]

I purposefully haven't hooked up my iron or copper yet so I can keep building those cheap HR units. That does remind me though that I should probably hook up the iron to be safe and then gift it to you or WK until I need it.

[oledavy]

@Shoot, you of course make the final decision as it is your front, but I'd like to suggest we not go after Hangzhou.

It is a beautiful city site and a natural choke point. However, I don't think we should give Team #2 any reason to come after us. I feel like they are all just putting minimal effort into the game at this point. If we leave them alone, they'll just tech and build in peace. They built that city to secure the border with us. If we take it, you can bet Luddite is going to dedicate everything to retaking it when we'd rather focus on stopping Team #1. It's not like we're going to be in any danger in the near future with knights coming online. If anything, they'll expect an attack from us and hunker down in the city.

I don't think they want to fight us any more than we do them, just due to our distance from each other and mutual position in this game as underdogs. If left to their own devices, I feel like they'll leave the border peaceful and go after the nearer Team #4 or the runaway Team #1.

I realize this is a lot of conjecture based on a fact I can't confirm, however, I feel reasonably confident in this hunch.

Let's extend the olive branch to our neighbors to the north, let them keep their city, and hope they reciprocate.

EDIT: Hangzhou, not Guangzhou

[oledavy]

Think of it as the Czech's getting the Sudetenland at Versailles so they could have a secure border with Germany. To Luddite, Guangzhou was a defensive plant get a defensible front line city and secure backline locations for settling.

[Shoot the Moon]

@Shoot, you of course make the final decision as it is your front, but I'd like to suggest we not go after Guangzhou.

It is a beautiful city site and a natural choke point. However, I don't think we should give Team #2 any reason to come after us. I feel like they are all just putting minimal effort into the game at this point. If we leave them alone, they'll just tech and build in peace. They built that city to secure the border with us. If we take it, you can bet Luddite is going to dedicate everything to retaking it when we'd rather focus on stopping Team #1. It's not like we're going to be in any danger in the near future with knights coming online. If anything, they'll expect an attack from us an hunker down in the city.

I don't think they want to fight us any more than we do them, just due to our distance from each other and mutual position in this game as underdogs. If left to their own devices, I feel like they'll leave the border peaceful and go after the nearer Team #4 or the runaway Team #1.

I realize this is a lot of conjecture based on a fact I can't confirm, however, I feel reasonably confident in this hunch.

Let's extend the olive branch to our neighbors to the north, let them keep their city, and hope they reciprocate.

Dave, I think that is way too meta-gamey. Honestly, the way we catch up to team 1's tech rate is to get more land than them and catch up in the long term. Thus, passing up a potentially easy opportunity for land is definitely not helping us. Remember also that Team 2 doesn't even border Team 1, so it's not like they will be sending their military at them. I'm not planning some huge attack on Hangzhou at this point, but I am at least going to see what is in the city (and whether they ever get anything capable of stopping knights).

[NobleHelium]

How are you not losing money at 100% research?