[Spoilers] Ceterum Peter censet Carthaginem fore triumphatrix - Adrien + Miguelito

[Miguelito]

One of the important part of cre is not having to worry about first ring resources, not only cultural control and cheap libraries, freeing us from the nécessity of religion or monuments

Edit : Mehmed is gone so that solves one of our problems

Yeah of course Cre border popping helps a lot for expansion. I just wanted to point out that one of its benefits may be less relevant here. I imagine Cre especially helpful for when we start settling cities on the central island.

But, for a little comparison, if we agree that every city wants a fast granary, a city that needs a fast border pop needs 20h granary + 20h monument, while with Cre we need a 40h granary. So hammer-wise it's equal. Of course, with Exp we have to research Myst and the monument culture comes in later and slower. So Cre accomplishes the task very well, what I don't like is that its power goes undirected, wheter you need it in a particular city or not.
But with the right dotmap (and a little luck) we should be able to delay border pops in most cities, getting the expansion we need from the capital and an occasional library (I do hate to build monuments and if we don't research myst at all, awesome). Of course there may be that indispensable seafood off the coast where we really need the pop, and then Cre would be great to have.


Some wild speculations for after the starting phase
Since you mentioned religion, my current thought for after writing is math>currency, and then we could grab CoL and hopefully Confucianism. My hope is that our early research is good enough thanks to early academy. If we fail CoL there's also the option of bulbing Philosophy for Tao. We probably have to fit in sailing on the way, and possibly even metal casting (I think one way to lose this game early on is to get surprised by triremes with no defense).

We could also debate wonders. If we are Phi, I think that yells for Pyramids and representation. I doubt that there will be stone and marble on this map (hasn't been mentioned in the settings afaik), so it's potentially a huge investment. If we get a city with more woods than our capital, we could design a plan to build them.
Colossus seems really strong for this map, plus copper is almost guaranteed. I suspect however that we will lose it to whoever builds the oracle. Also, if we are going Phi, working coast is in conflict with working specialist. Plus I'm not sure if I want a wonder that makes us delay Astronomy.
The great library also suits Phi, but is a secondary priority I guess.
Your thoughts?

[Miguelito]

Oh and about Mehmed you didn't seem very enthusiastic about him ? I was fully expecting that if we didn't pick him at the first opportunity, he'd be gone. I didn't like the idea of picking him either, it was like well, he's probably the strongest choice, but boring. So I think we still got all the options we care for.

[AdrienIer]

I didn't really want Mehmed but you considered him an option.
Going straight for Currency is never bad, of course confucianism can fall to the oracle depending on what they need the most (but yeah Colossus is so tempting I doubt the oracle will be used on anything other than MC). I like the great library except it's not as strong if you don't have marble. I think our strategy will also depend on how many myst civs there are, with 4 players there's always the possibility that one of the early religions will be available for a long time.
The SoZ isn't banned right ? That would be a good objective, and on the way to the GLibrary. Also we're probably aiming at having more GAs than the others so the MoM will help us more.

If the oracle is used on CoL it opens up the aesthetics road to Taoism, or (less orthodox I think) to music to bulb theology. Complicated but feasible.

But this is getting too far away from the big advantage we should be using, we're Carthage we should be talking about how fast we can get to Compass If the CoL plan works, it could be right after that, if we have marble the library is probably more valuable first though.

[AdrienIer]

Oh and while I've been tempted by Cre civs for a long while of course it's not necessarily the trait we'd want to have for this game.

[AdrienIer]

After a few runs doing logical stuff and ending at a t23 or 24 settler I found this opening with Agri->BW and worker worker settler. Workers chop the settler out, one then leaves for the second site to prepare and the second one can either chop or prechop or mine waiting for AH.




Will try other weird ones.

Edit : This is Peter BTW

[AdrienIer]

This one is Peter, Agri->BW Worker, worker until the corn is hooked, warrior to size 2, worker (chopped), settler (chopped).

[AdrienIer]

I've found the one I like best. It's complicated so here's the long explanation.

First off, worker-agri. Work the 1/2/0 tile for the exp bonus.
Turn 6 agri is done so AH. Worker done T7, he goes west to the corn and the cap puts the 1 overflow into a worker then builds a warrior for 2 turns on the floodplain. That's because we're 2 beakers short of AH on turn 13 if not. Then back to worker on the 1/2/0 tile. Turn 12 the farm is done so cap changes to the corn and the warrior build to grow to size 2, worker goes to the sheep because we're getting exactly the right number of beakers for AH that turn. T13 sheep starts being pastured, cap works corn and 1/2/0 tile on the worker (or if you want the warrior for cheap MP later you can use a turn finishing it). Tech is now on BW. T15 the sheep is pastured (and used by the cap) T16 we have a new worker. Worker go to the hills 1S2W and 1S2E of the cap to mine them (can't find a better thing for them to do), while the cap starts the settler. When the tooltip says 3t to BW change the corn to the floodplain to gain a turn on BW, that way the workers can start chopping the forests W and SE of the cap on the turn we get BW (T21). That turn revolt to slavery with 46/65h on the settler. T22 we can either whip him or not whip him. Here's the outcome I get not whipping.




A second settler turn 28. I don't know how much room there'll be on the island so it may be useless to have the second settler out so soon. If you don't understand what I did I can explain it better, or even make a spreadsheet.

[Miguelito]

Great work, thanks. Fast second settler is nice.
I also like that we get AH jsut on the right turn. With BW after Agri I always had one turn with nothing to do for the worker after farming. That's why I went to the forests next to the wine hill. If we start mining, I think we really should do the wine hill. It's a five yield tile, and with two food resources online I'd like us to mine a plains hill for max hammers.

I'm debating if it's better to grow on a workboat instead of the warrior. We'll have no neighbours to defend against, and the workboat could e helpful for the second city or as a very early scout. If barbs are on (don't know yet) we'll probably need a warrior for fogbusting duties, and of course garrison.

You haven't commented on my sims so far. With single worker and chops we get the settler on T19 already, without whipping. I would like your opinion if you value the second worker higher than the early settler. I actually think one worker could be enough pre-pottery, particularly if the sheep or corn is shared by the second city.

-Single worker:
settler on T19, one worker, one worker halfway done on T22 (whippable, don't think it would be a good idea though), size 2 capital
Agri BW and AH are finished on T22 and we either have revolted or have 12 b in Wheel (revolt would be good before founding second city?) Kind of synergizes with worker movement also.
corn farmed, wine hill mined, just 1 chop.
The downside is we would have to work 1 3foodhamer/1commerce tile for quite some time, and the new city would have to start with the sheep unpastured till turn 24 or steal the corn (depends a lot on scouting)

I really liked your idea to go AH first, will have a try at simming after sports (in 2 hours or so)

[AdrienIer]

You're right that mining the wine is better but unfortunately it's not possible pre-BW without losing a turn going through the forest.

The advantage of a single worker is that we'll be behind in worker techs for the first 40 turns so he'll lose less turns I think. But he does less work in the meantime obviously. The tech path after AH/BW should be wheel pottery writing, to get some cottages.

I can't find where you mentioned it but as exp I tend to favor whipping workers, I don't know if it's really a good idea especially on quick speed but if you have the food to regrow fast it's probably more efficient.

[AdrienIer]

I'll take Bismarck (Exp/Ind) of Sumeria.

Well now we know who's going to get the oracle