PB83: Pindicator builds a Trade Empire: Hannibal of Portugal

[Mjmd]

An archer in face makes me cautious (as do barbs although I'm glad they are so delayed). I realize the copper city is worse from a straight snow ball perspective. I would go chariot in capital after this settler in any case

4) Just a follow up on comment "want to get to that area ASAP". We have no clue what is west still. Its possible someone is over there close, or far, or not at all. Its possible north is our only land, but its possible its extreme backlines you can delay.

I don't hate the wheat cow city spot mind, but its just there are a lot of unknowns between what is Dreylin doing and what direction do you need to actually expand in. I was noodling about splitting off the cow for the gold later, but I think just 1S of the wheat is probably way to go for the gold. I like where your scout is for a silver city. Then a coastal city 1SW of the coastal sheep.

Edit: to Nobles comment if Dreylin invalidates the 1S of the pig spot there is always 1W. Honestly I still don't hate it even if it kills a kinda bad filler as its not as provocative. But if we don't have oodles of land will want that filler.

[pindicator]

If we're not all worn out over debating the city settle order, the next issue to debate is the tech after Math. Candidates as I see them:

Metal Casting: Not many hills in our empire (yet), so getting lumbermills down would be a nice source of production for our cities. Forges also will be a higher priority piece of infrastructure as we hook up the gold & silver spots. Also opens up Colossus as we have a fair amount of coastline.
Monarchy: Wines & HR make this a good growth choice. Leads on to longbows, which would help secure our border with Dreylin.
Currency: Staple economic technology, and we should have at least half a dozen cities by the time it comes in.
Alphabet: Open borders to get foreign trade routes with Dreylin's cities. Also slight chance at religion

Any others you'd want to see? I didn't list every option, just the ones I thought worked best with what we've seen so far.

[Mjmd]

Its your game. I just provide opinions and you can do what you want with them. Its a medium city on the way to better cities, but its not clear should be going that way. It is better from a snow ball perspective either way mind you even if it just ends up 4>2 whipping. Heck after its settled it could just be responsible for northern expansion if you decide future settlers should go west.

I like metal casting for forges mainly (I think currently lots of whipping should be occurring / should be growing onto then whipping off cottages but forges do make whipping better) or currency because currency. I don't think you are settling those wines until irrigation and even then that is probably a workshop city. Longbows would be nice, but maybe a bit later so can get key snowball techs. I don't think you have a coastal route to Dreylin unfogged so right now it would just benefit him (assuming he has unfogged). Could do via road, but since we don't know if he would accept seems like currency is better atm.

[pindicator]

And I hope you keep giving those opinions, even if I don't go with it this first time.

020

Dreylin whipped both his cities for 2 pop apiece. Our settler is moving on its way to the wheat-cow spot. And demos have us in a nice position leading in GNP and Food even after our triple-whip last turn:




I agree with Metal Casting. That's going to lend me towards wanting to go for religion too, because forge whips go so much stronger when they're backed with Organized Religion. Still, the devil is in the details.

[pindicator]

022

Lioneye's Fall is our 3rd city:




Ran a few scenarios and improving the cow first is better for growth. After Workers A&B finish the pasture they split up: one to chop a forest, the other to farm the wheat.

I'm still trusting to greed and going worker out of the capital. Chariot will come after, I promise. We triple-whipped Intuitive Leap this turn and will settle MightOfTheMeek south of the pig in 2 turns. Intuitive Leap is also going to overflow into a worker to put us at 5 workers for 4 cities.

With scouting, I found our mountain range to the was thin and the good land seems to continue. This southern scout will head south first while the northern scout will cross over in the tundra hills and then head south. Thought about scouting back to the east but decided that it was better for a later unit to pick that up.

Also, decided against our extra warrior out of IL scouting and instead it's going to the marked spot by the wine in order to fogbust the region. If we play this right we should have a narrow barbarian front.

[pindicator]

023

Dreylin planted his 3rd city down but we don't see any orange borders in the fog.  We will settle Pure Talent by the pig next turn, whether it's south or west of the pig.

Having a lot of thought about what we initially build in our cities.  Libraries get +70% production with our traits so I'll want those everywhere.  Pure Talent almost certainly goes for a library right after the granary to establish the border with Dreylin.  Lioneye's Fall I think will pump units while it grows to 4 (archer & chariot or archer & 2 warriors?), whip a worker, and then regrow on its library after the worker.


ALSO, some important details from the change logs concerning barbarians:

Barbs now never attack your unit stack if the stack includes a settler and a unit that is giving military happiness

All difficulty levels adjusted: Human barbarian units are created from turn 40, barb cities can be created beginning from turn 50

So does that mean as long as we send a warrior with our settler then all the barb axes will ignore them?  Seriously asking if lurkers or other players have tested this behavior yet, or if I need to test it myself to be sure of it.

[NobleHelium]

I don't think the warrior-covered settler having invulnerability to barbarians is all that powerful, assuming it works as written. The settler would have to move slowly so that the warrior can keep up, and as soon as the city is founded the barbarians can attack.

I try not to build any warriors other than for MP purposes after getting better units because they're just really weak compared to anything else. I'd rather have an archer than two warriors unless you want the numbers for MP. Of course if you only have time to complete a warrior compared to half an archer, a completed unit is better.

[pindicator]

024

Pure Talent is our 4th city. 




No sign of Dreylin until after I founded - it appears he's positioning his archer here as an advance scout.

Worker C is starting to improve the Pigs.  Worker D just came out of the capital and is going to help finish the pigs by t26, chop into the granary on t27, and honestly we can have Pure Talent at size 6 and ready to whip out a settler in 15 turns if we want.  With the Corn & Pig it will grow like a weed.

I messed up the micro again - this time at Lioneye's Fall.  I could have both workers move to chop next and then get the granary right as the city grows to 2...  which is obviously the worst time to get a granary in.  So now we're going to improve the wheat and then move to chop 1 forest, finishing the granary now as the city reaches midway on its growth to size 3.

Dreylin got a tech last turn, gaining 21 points.  Lets see what he got:




Oh that's not good at all.

First off, the visible horses are not connected.  Secondly, thank you Krill for nerfing Numids.  Although the free C1 is still going to be bad, at least they no longer get odds against spears.  Our next settler is out on t32 though that honestly feels late.  and if we really need to we can found on top of the copper, but otherwise I can have it hooked up by t34.

I can also look at speeding up that next settler out of the capital.  Will require chopping a forest and whipping at size 4.

[Mjmd]

I mean he could have another neighbor for reason he teched HBR..... But that forward archer means its probably you. Is another counter to numids still your own Horse archers in this mod? Not saying switch, but throwing it out as an option. Also, if he is doing that he may go construction, so maybe you need to to. I like the not teching in that screen shot.

Would put a safety turn into an archer and if you see power go up gran chop also should probably become an archer.

[pindicator]

Power has been flat - you can see we don't even register the soldier points from his tech yet because our ratio is still at 1.2

I don't think he has another neighbor, he still is putting 4 EPs into us each turn. 

Numids were changed by Krill and I would argue he's made them worse. If it was CtH or regular BtS then I'd agree with you about going for HBR. Instead they are now just +35% against all melee except for spears, and they've been returned to 6 strength. 

Carthage: Fishing/Mining. UB: Harbour replacement: Cothon. +1 trade route. UU: Horse Archer replacement. Numidian Cavalry. +35% against melee, -35% against spearmen.

So I think Spears are the way to go, and yes probably researching HBR ourselves.