[54 Spoilers] Nothing to see here! Miguelito and Rusten's max score game

[Rusten]

For me the fish hill is better. I'll write some thoughts about it later today.

[Miguelito]

For me the fish hill is better. I'll write some thoughts about it later today.

Good,  I'm curious and will certainly listen.
What I'm wondering is,  what can this city do for us in the first 15t turns of its existence, as opposed to blue, which gets the deer more or less straight away.
Does your opinion change if blue gets copper?
We finish the mine next  turn and then have to decide if we build the road towards blue to have that option open at least, or build a road towards yellow, which doesn't speed up the settler,  but is needed for a trade route.

[Rusten]

I would've liked to sim it to get a complete idea, but generally speaking I'd settle fish because:

-Early access to horses gives a mobile barb-beating unit that can also keep our neighbours in check. Can stop them from settling towards us with only warriors. But you don't seem nearly as interested in early horses as I am.
-Having a 6F tile when settled compared to 4/1 makes a huge difference. We can whip the monument after 4 turns and then slow-build the work boat on horse. Horse tile will give 1 extra commerce and 1 extra hammer compared to a hill in deer city. The deer city would just be building a fairly useless warrior anyway. I'd much rather get a chariot slightly later. I don't see either city producing a settler/worker until size 4 anyway, and my guess is that fish city will not be far behind, even if we whip the monument. After the initial worker/settler it will regrow much quicker than deer. Big deal before granaries. You can get by with +5 or +6 food surplus with a granary, but without it that feels very slow.
-Keeps our dotmap flexible. It's a guaranteed city spot either way due to the fish location, whereas there might be a better way to use the tiles near the deer.

The biggest point for me is the access to horses, I think you're underselling this strategic asset. Yes we want copper too, but early on it's much better to have a mobile chariot roaming than a slow axe (which can also get obliterated by enemy chariots from fog). At least it feels that way to me on such a wide open map. If we had more chokepoints I might feel differently about it.

edit: Yes, if blue gets copper I'd probably change my mind.

[Miguelito]

See, that's why I'm asking, to get a new perspective It would not have occurred to me on my own to go for chariots first, but I'll entertain the idea.
But I have to ask, what do we do about spears, and worse, about an AGG axe/spear pair? Or am I just being over paranoid?
Also we'd need fishing, and that will delay pottery further, as we also need agri for purple and flood plains farms, but that should likely be ok.
A charming aspect of yellow is that it requires minimal worker engagement during the first 14 turns; pasture, road, and that's it. that's good if we go for the fast third city.
It also makes us far more likely to secure that island.

I should make a comparative sim, but I'm having trouble finding the time. I'll see tonight, should cut back on reporting/rambling maybe

[Rusten]

But I have to ask, what do we do about spears, and worse, about an AGG axe/spear pair? Or am I just being over paranoid?

What would you do about opponent chariots with just copper? Spears? Then how are you defending against the axes?

Point being, there are always problems. But if you have 2-moving chariots then an opponent can't attack you (right away) because you'd just raze his city in return. Ancient era MAD policy. And they can be everywhere and reinforce single bronze units. It's very cost-efficient compared to sending an axe+spear pair everywhere. We are still settling copper, but horses are an excellent stop-gap and then supplementary unit after.

Fishing makes pottery cheaper anyway so I'm not too concerned. We have enough (super-)early commerce to get pottery at a decent time anyway. The river helps a lot for these starting turns.

[Miguelito]

Not a lot to report on from t28. We seem to be 1-2 beakers short of finishing BW a turn earlier, but nothing we can do about it but to hope for another one of our dear neighbours to research it next turn and then maybe the KTB will be sufficient.

So, let'S move on with the blue vs. yellow dot 2nd city discussion.

First off, I had missed that the forest 2S of the capital can also be chopped for yellow dot! That doesn't speed up the monument vs whipping it after growing on pigs, though. It can speed up the work boat, but otoh there is no real hurry with that because it has to wait for the monument border pop anyways. So, probably best to just use it for early settlers from the cap. After the border pop it gets 2 new forests that can be used for the granary or w/e.

But I have to ask, what do we do about spears, and worse, about an AGG axe/spear pair? Or am I just being over paranoid?

What would you do about opponent chariots with just copper? Spears? Then how are you defending against the axes?

Point being, there are always problems. But if you have 2-moving chariots then an opponent can't attack you (right away) because you'd just raze his city in return. Ancient era MAD policy. And they can be everywhere and reinforce single bronze units. It's very cost-efficient compared to sending an axe+spear pair everywhere. We are still settling copper, but horses are an excellent stop-gap and then supplementary unit after.

Specifically, my paranoia is about an axe/spear from Ciaro showing up in the mid 40s after we've founded red dot in the late 30s. He definitely is the guy to not bring an axe alone out of suspicion, although he is normally not the guy to move in at all.
With an axe/spear of our own on a hill (that can get a second axe easily), I think there is little an opponent can do, although you may not be able to act proactively. Granted, with chariots he can walk past a fortified position...
I'd just have a weird feeling knowing that a single spear could ruin everything.

Fishing makes pottery cheaper anyway so I'm not too concerned. We have enough (super-)early commerce to get pottery at a decent time anyway. The river helps a lot for these starting turns.

Yeah, it's ok. I'm not sure we'd want to build granaries at that point anyways yet. Although isn't that just what you should be doing on a low-food map? It may postpone the posisble Oracle date as well.



To be clear, you have me almost convinced on yellow dot (fish hill), as long as blue doesn't get copper first ring. It's true that blue does contribute very little as well for quite some time. Yellow grows way faster with the pigs than blue on the sheep, but basically has to sink its first 22 food and a whip counter for a monument that blue doesn't need. It having the pigs of course also means that the capital doesnt have those available constantly, making it slower to regrow.
I'm really tired, I hope I'm making sense.

Still no idea what to do with the worker next turn, but probably sheep road, just to keep that option open in case of copper.



Btw. Depending on copper, would we consider 2nd city at purple (possibly 1E of the dot) instead? With KTB we're getting agri in time.

[Rusten]

Btw. Depending on copper, would we consider 2nd city at purple (possibly 1E of the dot) instead? With KTB we're getting agri in time.

Possibly, we can talk about settling order again once BW is in. But we settle 3rd so quickly after 2nd that I'd probably lean towards fish first anyway.

[Miguelito]

sad shot:



we're literally 1 beaker short of getting BW a turn earlier. With far reaching consequences:

Rusten has convinced me that yellow dot is certainly better for 2nd city than blue, as long as blue doesn't have copper first ring. If it has, then my gut would tell me that it is a lot better, but Rusten has brought forward some good arguments.

Now, I have to decide next turn to which city I commit: Either the new worker roads the sheep t30, then the tile S t31+32, to found blue t33, OR the first worker moves onto the yellow dot hill to road t31+32, and the first worker spends t30 finishing the road S of the wines, so yellow can get founded t32.

Either way, if I change my mind, the 2nd city gets founded a turn later than with full road support.

Is one turn earlier founding worth spending 3 worker turns for that yellow dot hills road that will get consumed in the city square anyways?

But if we had BW next turn, we could make an informed decision which 2nd city spot we prefer, and not lose more than 1 worker turn (erstwhile, of course those roads will be needed at some point anyways). Does the free beaker show up in the UI eta?


fwiw I am planning to go with yellow now.

[NobleHelium]

The UI does not lie unless something changes while you are offline.

[Rusten]

Isn't roading the hill going to delay our 3rd city? The chop will be delayed? Can't see it being worth it if that's true.

Edit: Although it looks like it's already delayed due to more roads being made. Been a while since I played through the sim so IDK.