Oxy Hates Making Sandboxes

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Pretty much why I joined this game

[Catwalk]

Hey Oxy, I'd like to dedlurk you. I failed miserably last time I tried this map style, but I learned a lot in the process.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Sure, welcome aboard

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Starting screenshot:




Starting area:




Thoughts about the start:

-SIP seems like the best decision. The only other viable option I see is to move to settle for the horses-copper-stone-wheat-pigs city, but that start would be significantly slower that SIP with the 2 turns spent moving and the lack of a PH.

-Starting techs best for the start are Agriculture, Fishing and The Wheel. AGR is needed for worker first starts to tech AH, Fishing is important for the unpillagable food and The Wheel is required for pottery to cottage those flood plains. None of the AGR/Fishing civs appeal to me, so I'm aiming for a AGR/Wheel civ.

In order of preference:

1. Egypt
2. Sumeria
3. France

-If Egypt is still around when I pick, I think I'll take them first. Catwalk, what are your thoughts on traits?

[Catwalk]

Picks:
FIN and ORG are good. Upkeep costs are insane on this map, without either FIN or ORG your expansion will be severely challenged. Doing both is an option, but I think one of them will suffice. I'd much prefer FIN over ORG, ORG might be preferrable if you get Sumeria which I agree is a good pick. Getting Priesthood early is also desirable on this map.

CRE and IND are also good. With expansion being difficult and warfare always looming, culture is king. Planting junk wonders in front cities can be an excellent and cost efficient border strategy. I probably got a little too enamoured with religions (managed to snag both Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism as noone else was all that interested), but I think the culture focus was justified. It also gives you a good way to grab lands without having to settle them, getting to third ring culture in a hurry is very nice. CRE is definitely the safe choice here, +2 culture will mostly suffice for culture control.

Short list of ideas:

FIN/CRE
FIN/IND
FIN/ORG
ORG/CRE (Sumeria only)
ORG/IND (Sumeria only)

I'd delay the snake pick a little, it's a good time to think your whole game plan through. And with a game that gets underway as fast as this one, your game plan will make a heavy impact. In longer games, expansion plans and micro can often compensate for less of a long-term focus IMO. How about something ridiculous like AGG/CRE or AGG/IND of Zulu? We don't need Hunting, but it does give us a discount on Animal Husbandry. Cheap Ikhandas might be sufficient to keep us afloat, and help keep us in a military state of mind throughout. C1 Impis are excellent for early harrassment, if you're an aggressive player type. Still, I mostly believe in conventional wisdom about early warfare being doomed to fail in a MP game unless it's with 1v1 isolated starts. FIN/CRE Zulu would also be cute, but probably inferior to FIN/CRE Sumeria.

Where would you plant your first expansion? Also, what speed is this? Also, do you have more screenshots of the map, including the starting location of other players? So we can get a feel for where border skirmishes will happen.

[Catwalk]

Had another look and wrapped my head around the rotation. Opponents are here:
11E2S / 13W2S (sugar and stone are equi-distant)
11N2E / 13S2W (sugar and stone are equi-distant
13N9E / 13S9W (tile south of bottom left 1-tile lake as well as the area in between the nearby lakes are equi-distant)

If we expand to the mass-resource location to the south that you mention, third ring culture will let us intrude on our enemy's sphere of interest right away. It would be the equivalent of having the tile E of the west stone under enemy control. EDIT: Or how about

One thing that concerns me a lot here is the lack of early luxuries. Only thing I see available is ivory. I think Monarchy should be our first intermediate tech target, has the biggest economic value for us by far. Calendar is an alternative, but I'm not seeing silk and the sugar + spices are not in desirable locations. I also see gold and silver to the NW and SE without resource bubbles, too far for early expansions but definitely worth getting later. EDIT: Forgot spices which are easily grabbed. I think Monarchy + Calendar are two good early economy tech targets.

I keep coming back to FIN/CRE with Sumeria as the safest combo to play. I'm guessing those two will be high on the lists of other players too, though. Do you feel up to whipping out a quick dotmap of our first 5 expansions? EDIT: Feeling hyper tonight, so here's a rough draft

Grey: Agree that there is no alternative to SIP
Red: Gets us both strategic resources as well as 2 good food resources. Putting it 1S to grab stone is an option, but that actually means a significant economic hit. If you sandbox it, I think you're likely to find upkeep going up by 1 gpt for going 1S. Add that you'll also have a trade connection established later and that actually costs you early on.
Yellow: Gets us a much needed early luxury, two (crappy) food resources and a flood plains. Also lets us share the cow. We could move it SE for lower upkeep and a PH city tile, the PH sheep is not that great anyway.
Blue: Great food here, you may even want to move it W to grab a grass deer as well.
Green: Pink dot material, equi-distant with the N/S player. You grab deer and sheep by settling W of the stone rather than on top of it, I think that's worth taking.
Black: Also pink dot, equi-distant with the E/W player. Gives you 1 food from sugar right away, grabs bananas. Maybe between sugar/rice or sugar/bananas instead (for our northern mirror of this site).

[Oxyphenbutazone]

I don't like FIN here, with a small map the FIN bonus will apply to a limited number of tiles. Frankly, on any map where FIN isn't clearly the best decision, I wouldn't want to take it. It's just so boring.

Here's my thoughts on the traits:

FIN: Already mentioned
EXP: Scales with map size, so not the best here when you only need to build 8-10 granaries and 10ish workers
CRE: Also scales with map size, but culture is at a premium in such a tight map. There are other ways to get culture.
SPI: Doesn't really scale with map size so pretty good here. It encourages going down the religious path, which is already better here on a cramped map
ORG: Pretty good with crushing maintenance and all
IND: Ok, but stone and marble are accessible and nat wonders are nerfed
CHA: You're right about the lack of early luxes being a big problem here, so the CHA happiness is pretty useful. Easier promotions isn't that bad either.
AGG: Alright here with the cramped map
PRO: Less garbage than usual, but still garbage
EDIT: Forgot to mention IMP, but I was never really considering it

So traits I like for this game: CRE, SPI, ORG, CHA

RE: Zulu, Having 2 of Agriculture, The Wheel and Fishing is important for simming this start. Not to mention everyone starting with 2 CG3 archers nerfs an impi rush to oblivion.

When I get to a computer I'll post my thoughts on cities.

[Catwalk]

If you find FIN boring then np. I disagree strongly with it not being strong, though. Upkeep costs will bite you fiercely and not let go, it will be a major obstacle to expansion unlike most other maps you've played. I think you pretty much need either FIN or ORG (preferrably with Sumeria), else you'll find yourself in a hole with nothing to do. I also applaud the ORG/Sumeria plan, and there are several good ORG leaders likely to be available.

I disagree with you that the usefulness of culture scales with map size, though. Or rather, it scales inversely with map size. On a small map you'll find culture playing a big role in the game much, much sooner than usual. I strongly recommend CRE/ORG with Sumeria if we can choose freely and won't have FIN.

CHA is somewhat useful, but as an econ pick it's far inferior to ORG.

AGG could work for fun, but unless we're Zulu we should only pick it for the fun factor. Don't mistake this map for a warfare map, it's an evil econ map where players are punished heavily for bad management and weak econ leaders. Impis would be used for pillaging improvements and denying expansion rather than attacking cities, so the archers don't really negate that. On that note, you need to be on the lookout for early hill chokes from opponents.

If we're the only IND player, we get an effective lock on early wonders. Stone and marble will take ages to hook up, they're so far away from the capital that upkeep costs will be crippling.

I agree with you about needing 2 of Agri, Wheel or Fishing for a proper start. I'm all for picking Sumeria with our first pick, and I'd follow it up with CRE/ORG.

[The Black Sword]

Speaking of traits that don't scale with map size ... you seem to have left one out .

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Don't know what you're talking about