[spoilers] OT4E's crusade

[OT4E]

The start is fat, not much to say from the first view. I am going to sleep in mixed feelings. From one side it is what everyone can only dream of but OTOH everyone has it this game and my hopes for a nice medieval game are ruining because it will most likely scale into the later era without serious conflicts. In such a lushy start it is much easier to rise up GNP than production.

[OT4E]

So what do we have?

Superior cap with 3 uber food resources, gold, furs, silks, plenty of rivered tiles and enough decent hammer base.

Maps looks very green, not even a single plain tile revealed. It often looks like this if you use Donut script.

We see some land beyond the water accesible with galleys. Settling 1-2 islands would be nice.

I doubt colossus can be effective here because of rich landmass with many rivers. You need to build cottages to be competative late game, but not one time burst of commerce as like when you overexpand and do not have enough workers.

GL seems to be the best of early cheap wonders, I definitely want it, but no certain plan how to build it yet.

Map offers to push to Civil Service, grow cap to 15 and increase science output by academy and monasteries. But somehow I need to expand to release cap from building settlers as early as possible, so I need decent production in the first 2-3 cities.

[OT4E]

I doubt it is reasonable to move cap. In fact the only option is to go S, but then I lose acces to 1 forest, cooper and will have to spend 2 extra turns with w/b. So the cap will probably stay on place. 2 city's place depends on what I reveal on the T0.

I havent run any tests yet, but it looks like that the best start is to chop w/b. During 2 first turns of anarchy it is 1/2 done and it will be the fastest improvement I can do. Wheat farms take 5 turns to improve and need culture to popup which can bw achieved with 70% drama.

The priorities I see for tests:
 - getting CS as soon as possible
 - get the most workers/settlers
 - get the highest cap population counter by CS
 - get library/academy or even GL

[OT4E]

It took 33 turns to make GL from the first run. Got only 1 settler out by that time and 5 workers.

It was the best strategy on the revealed piece of map because of lack land to settle but probably there are some more rich spots to cover earlier.

2nd city I found on sugar, it gives much better output. In fact it must be ready to build worker by itself and 8 turns to grow to 2 are too much.

[OT4E]

Here is my start with some surroundings revealed:


The map seems to be very big for 6.

[OT4E]

[2metraninja]

Hello from me too. The most iconic duo from PB30 reunites :D.

Ot4e is very good with the details and is devoting enough time to this game, and we had some chats more about strategy, so I will not try to get in details and make suggestions about micromanagement, but more like grand picture.

By the look of the revealed map so far and knowing there are 6 players and 6 religions set in barbarian cities, I coulndt help myself but seeing 2 concentric hexagons. The scheme I drew shows the relative size of the map judging from the mini-map screen size and proportion. If I am right, this can give us some better base for making plans.

   

[OT4E]

Our neighbors are chumchu (from the North) and TBS (probably from South). TBS is growing his cap and making GM for Civil Service. This is very very good start for this map, because map is great and the number of food is huge.


I whipped 2 forges and 2 workers so far. Now I am working on Library.


2 barbarian cities revealed. Each city has levee and castle, also plenty of flood plains around and some hammered improvements. Also there is some more weird stuff in. Jerusalem is the pirate fortress:

[greenline]

I told the mapmaker to make those submarines but he didn't listen...

[OT4E]

TBS was first to Civil Service. My science shows 10 more turns to go and it is including that 2 turns has allready passed from the turn he has got it.

But I have forge and library so everything is not that grim. Interesting what is GJ doing. With Ghandi he could be first at bureau for sure.

2metra's understanding of the map was wrong. First of all there are only 4 holy cities. In my current view the landmass forms crescent. I was wrong too thinking that TBS is below me. It seems he is after chumchu. To the south there is ice bareer separating outter sea from inner where the pirates are.

And finally I must have a neighbor beyond the sea to the west. He must be close to be balancing just 1 land neighbor I currently have. Well hopefully I will not hear from him much before I reach Astronomy.