[Spoilers] Victoria of Korea - Mardoc and SevenSpirits

[SevenSpirits]

Crap, forgot to take the screenshots.

Well, I founded Doubleton (feel free to rename) and started the aqueduct. Researched Meditation. Contract, having just grown, grew again. Ah, granaries! Blackwood finished a worker and should grab its wheat back now. I also hired a scientist for a turn in Contract. If we hire 2 scientists for only 11 more turns, we get an academy! Not sure if we should do that now (might be a bit more important to grow and make settlers) but that sure would be nice.

Once Alert finishes its library I am thinking Monastery. I put Blackwood down to start on a Barracks next.

[SevenSpirits]

Played the turn (49) and took screenshots after ending it. Blackwood and Contract are both growing right now; I prioritized Blackwood's growth over Contract's, as it has more important stuff (mines and scientists) to grow into - contract is just growing to get double whipped.



We have two workers chopping or about to start chopping next to Blackwood. One worker just finished the silver mine for extra happiness, and will head over to Alert to put up two more cottages. One is up by contract making another farm. And the fifth is over by Doubleton, mining the copper. Close-ups of our cities right now:


Sadly, working a forest right now, as there aren't enough cottages. But it's not terrible. Once Alert grows one more, we'll double whip it again, and by the time it grows back after that there will be cottages.


Blackwood is going to grow to size 5 and then manually build a settler or worker (with chop assistance) while running scientists and perhaps starving a bit. Then grow more, and work farms and mines.


Contract is going to grow to size 4, then whip out a settler or worker. Probably should have started a monument rather than a library here, dangit.


Doubleton is going to grow its second population point the expensive way.


Tied for first in crop yield and doing well in production and GNP (we will be much higher when running research). Yay!

[Mardoc]

Looks good to me! If Hinduism had spread to Contract, we'd have been very happy to skip the monument regardless, so it's hard to argue with the move. We just haven't had a random spread pay off for us yet. I assume that's part of why Alert's on a missionary?

For our next cities - I'm inclined to the clams site (Entry), then the western wheat/dyes/fish (Finesse), then the corn/sheep/gold(um...Game?). Does that make sense to you? Most of the rest of the first tier sites are equally strong if we can send a missionary along with, but those are pretty much the only ones with first ring food, and I'm not confident we have the extra production to guarantee they come with missionaries just yet.

[SevenSpirits]

Alert's on a Monastery (partly because the 10% science in that city will be pretty sweet, and partly for missionaries), but yeah.

Played t50. Someone (not Tatan) got Judaism, I don't care enough to figure it out. Blackwood grows and should start a worker next turn. After that worker we are on settlers until the HG comes in. Blackwood also needs to hire its second scientist. That will give us a great scientist 10 turns later.

[Mardoc]

Alert's on a Monastery (partly because the 10% science in that city will be pretty sweet, and partly for missionaries), but yeah.

Ah, of course we need a monastery before the missionaries. Don't know what I was thinking - even if I couldn't see it properly, I should have known it couldn't be a missionary. And yeah, we ought to end up with a lot of commerce in Alert

Played t50. Someone (not Tatan) got Judaism, I don't care enough to figure it out. Blackwood grows and should start a worker next turn. After that worker we are on settlers until the HG comes in. Blackwood also needs to hire its second scientist. That will give us a great scientist 10 turns later.

Huh. After going to the trouble to reassure Tatan, too. Kinda odd. But yes, it ought to be fairly clear who got it in a very few turns, unless it was plako.

I do look forward to having more cities, and you're right that getting them in before the HG finishes is the profitable way to do it. Non-disagreement with my thoughts on founding order - does that mean you agree, or just are too busy at the moment to worry about it when we still have time to decide?

[SevenSpirits]

I do look forward to having more cities, and you're right that getting them in before the HG finishes is the profitable way to do it. Non-disagreement with my thoughts on founding order - does that mean you agree, or just are too busy at the moment to worry about it when we still have time to decide?

Oh right, cities.

I like the clams site and corn/sheep/gold. But ahead of wheat/dye/fish I would prefer the flood plains city, which does have 3 FP in its first ring. I think corn/sheep/gold is the most important one to do first, since it benefits hugely from a border pop (and has the best resource pre-pop too).

[Mardoc]

Ok, the floodplains site nearly made it to my top three list as well, and as long as we found something on the west coast at a similar time, we'll be able to get it workboats for the crabs by the time it needs to work them. I'm fine with moving it up a notch.

We're not too far away from being able to open borders with people, right? Especially once Currency comes in, that could be worth a good deal - which was my secondary reason for the wheat city, that it gets us connected to the global network.

My basically only reason for the clam site first was that it's naturally connected to the capital, so a natural Hindu spread is more likely there. On the other hand, the corn/sheep/gold site isn't far from other cities, so connecting it is still pretty easy. My biggest concern was just that I don't trust any borders to pop just yet, but I agree it's the best site overall of those remaining.

Still, all in all I'm ok with either order. And at this point we ought to be pumping out cities fast enough that order doesn't matter that much for us anyway.

[SevenSpirits]

Turn played, nothing of note.

Adlain was the one who got Monotheism first; he revolted to Organized Religion and will presumably revolt to Judaism next turn.

[NobleHelium]

Read parts of the thread...mostly some of the beginning and then the latest parts. How did you go from "ZOMG WE MUST SETTLE THE RAILROAD" to not having your first four cities anywhere near it?

[Mardoc]

Read parts of the thread...mostly some of the beginning and then the latest parts. How did you go from "ZOMG WE MUST SETTLE THE RAILROAD" to not having your first four cities anywhere near it?

Well, basically I think it's a short term/long term distinction. We want to claim as much of the rails as possible for commerce in the long term, but those sites are generally food poor and hammer-mediocre, so they won't help us expand now. With a relatively compact, toroidal map, maintenance is a killer if we spread out too far, in addition.

Maintenance also helps on the strategic end of 'must settle rails' - it means that there's basically no risk (or at least we're acting as though there were no risk) of an early rush; capturing an enemy's platform is of very little value right now, and as best we can tell, this is a consensus of everyone. Taking out an enemy slows your own filling of the platform, and there's no way to actually stake a claim to a platform since everyone has easy access to it - you might kill a civ and benefit everyone else but you in the process. Later on, it'll matter, but not right now.

I expect the focus to shift back to the rails in the medium term, though, as we get the platform filled and start seriously jockeying for position. But this map leaves little choice but a builder approach for the moment.

Plus, well, Seven was never as sold on the rails as I was. So part of the shift has been him convincing me of the above.

If you've missed the middle, one of the more interesting parts was our debate on the map shape, culminating in Seven figuring it out here: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....tcount=122