Chairmen NobleHelium and Gaspar Demand Your Presence in the Collective

[Gaspar]

I'd still prefer a city site closer to the capital for #2, but given what we know that site is the best combination of quality and leaving us options.

I intend to play through a few rounds in the sandbox tomorrow just to test where alternate tech/micro paths lead us. But I fully expect the above to be what we settle on.

Since NH is terse as usual, in that picture we have Mining, BW and Pottery in and are near done with Hunting.

(Anticipates question)

Why hunting you ask? Well in addition to the discount on AH, it open up Archery, which leaves us options should someone show up. Forget Bowmen (though I won't) if you're Protective and using garrison other than Archery units, you're foolish (obviously with spears sprinkled in.)

Certainly open to discussion there - particularly if someone thinks beelining Sailing -> Masonry for GLH/Getting that island site settled is wise.

[oledavy]

What time frame are we looking at for stonehenge?

How fast can USSR get up and running? My impulse is that a city to the south to pick up ivory and share cows with the capital would be best for getting expansion going quickly? However, I haven't played with the sandbox.

[ironstar]

from an idealogical viewpoint I vote 1N of ivory. That way you can share both corn and cows. Equal distribution of the goods.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 4 with Gaspar. Not much revealed in terms of useful terrain, but there is definitely something intriguing found...



Ice is unusual indeed. We conjecture that Commodore is trying to block us off from something there, stopping us from jumping over ocean tiles via culture. We don't really see enough of the area yet to be certain though.

Getting the ivory would obviously be good, but we don't really have enough tech to improve enough tiles for a site in the south. Either we skip Pottery in favor of Animal Husbandry, in which case we can't cottage the capital or build a granary, or we plant to share cows except we can't actually improve the cows yet. The normal move is to share the corn, but it doesn't feel like it really helps in this situation because then the capital wouldn't have anything else to work. Possible ivory locations to be used for the second city are also bad long-term sites.

By all means though, use the sandbox and come up with a master plan for us.

[NobleHelium]

Oh by the way for the corn site, after we farm the corn we'd go finish the mine, and it would work those tiles to finish the granary (relatively) quickly. I think we'll want to pump more workers out after that though.

[NobleHelium]

Sorry, forgot to post the demographics.



Oh and I fixed up the sandbox. There was an error at the corn site and it's been updated with the new terrain.

[Serdoa]

Um, NH, I think that was T4 (so actually 5 played turns as the first one is T0) wasn't it?

[Serdoa]

Oh, and for C&D:

- mackoti got Hunting last turn (you should see an increase avg. soldier to 5333 next turn)
- Lew is researching TW
- No7 are researching Agri (or TW, but Agri is definitely the only logical choice)

You probably all have mirrored starts and if so, mackoti settled the PH in the south. Makes sense as one has one less land-tile in his BFC (the lake) and researching Hunting makes only sense for him if he settled there to get the Ivory right away online (well, after the corn of course).

As for your question regarding the Ivory-site: Imo it makes no sense to settle it now. I could see you settling the PH to the left (with the crabs 1N) and then 1S of the lake to get both corns and the Ivory in the city center. But both are only viable with Myst (and possible SH). Question is, do you guys really want SH? If you want it, I think you should forget going for Pottery right now, as you need BW (for chops) and Fishing and Sailing and another worker and then 2 settlers and a galley and a work boat - and best all of it till T25... just saying.

edit: C&D-table in spoilers

[Mardoc]

That desert hill site is indeed beautiful. I'm afraid it might be too beautiful, though. You're thinking of it as our third or fourth city, right? And it has 2 tiles worth working pre-border pop, but at least 6 worth working post-pop. Meanwhile, we're looking at a happy cap of what, 5 with Ivory? And we'll want the city to be whipped often, so average size would be ~3, I think.

Maybe we should split the site in two (or more)? Just a first stab, but something like the plains hill to the north, the plains hill 3E of the Ivory, and a third city to the east of the explored area seems like a way to actually use all that food in the early days.

On wonders - I think I'm in the same boat as Serdoa - your stated desire for them is incompatible with your current plans. You either need to adjust your plans to get the wonders built, or acknowledge that you won't have them and just build the "worker/settler ball".

[NobleHelium]

Sorry, yeah, that was turn 4. I'm doing a lot of simulating right now, and hopefully Gaspar'll get off his ass and do some.