Mbuna120's first RB report

[mbuna120]

Here we go... This is the link to the site, which is set up for other links, but I haven't finished the reports yet! Or you can just jump to the report here I hope you enjoy it

[mostly_harmless]

I think that lucky galley captain ealry on might have saved your game. :-)
Nice report and congrats on winning your first epic.

[mbuna120]

In hindsight, it was fortunate, but I don't think essential. There were no other units that arrived, and I think my elephants could have saved me, but I would have been pillaged by the horses first probably. I was REALLY nervous at that point Yeah... I guess it WAS pretty important

[Snaproll]

Great game Mbuna120. That was a quite lucky galley, but your game certainly didn't hinge on it - you had elephants and they would've mopped up the horse archers even if you didn't sink that ship.

To answer your question, the reason Corinth didn't flip to the Greeks after all those results is because a captured city cannot flip back to its original civilization - only to a third party. I think I'm right about this but one of the real vets probably knows for sure.

That was quite an exciting finish, fighting Alex with inferior troops and even having him take a city back right before you triggered domination - I bet that was nerve-wracking!

[darrelljs]

Nice game, I can tell you really enjoyed it .

A couple of comments/questions:

Generally it is better to build the Workers and Settlers at cities that are already built up a bit. You seemed to build Worker first when you founded new cities a couple of times, whereas you are better off using existing cities to help new cities ramp up quickly.

There is nothing wrong with using Workboats to scout, you can see a lot of players did that this game (stop calling yourself a noob, you just won an Immortal variant!).

Improve food resources first. I noticed you had mined the Silver before building the pasture on the Pigs. You are much better off focusing on food, since population = power as T-hawk says. Hit the happiness cap as quickly as possible, then re-jigger your tiles to gain commerce or hammers (depending on what the city is good for). Note that if you built the mine first because you didn't have Animal Husbandry, then another good move generally is to make sure you research the Worker techs needed to unlock your special resource tiles in time for you to be able to use them.

Your opening:

Research Path: Mysticism -> Polytheism -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery
Build Queue: Worker -> Warrior -> Stonehenge (partial) -> Settler -> Stonehenge
Second City: SW of Pigs, 2020 B.C.

Darrell

[Speaker]

Congrats on the victory!

[mbuna120]

Generally it is better to build the Workers and Settlers at cities that are already built up a bit

Yes, I always feel that this isn't right to start a city with, but I have trouble getting enough workers sometimes. For instance, in personal games, I find myself doing this a lot, because I have founded new cities fairly far from the capital (to grab land/resources) and I don't want to send my first worker off right away when there's forrests to chop for early wonders... I'm always worried that I'll get beat out of early wonders. When building a settler, do you usually follow up with a worker to send out after him? Thanks for the tips! I appreciate it.

[T-hawk]

When building a settler, do you usually follow up with a worker to send out after him?

I do, yes. In particular, the first worker usually goes along with the settler for the second city. By that time, the first worker has improved all the tiles that the capital is working, and the capital won't grow more until the happy cap is raised. So the capital has a pause in its need for worker labor, exactly at the time the second city needs worker labor the most. Overall, usually about half of my cities receive workers trained at the capital (especially if in Bureaucracy via slingshot).

I rarely chop forests for early wonders. The Oracle usually wants to wait until you finish Code of Laws research, so you have plenty of time to just build the hammers. The Pyramids are too expensive for a chop or two to matter; a higher priority is settling and quarrying Stone. Stonehenge is the only one for which chops make a huge difference, since it comes so early before you can find stone, and it's so cheap that a single chop is worth a quarter of the wonder.

[Dreylin]

Congrats on your first win, and I really enjoyed reading your report!

I noticed that your screenshot from 865BC(?) (Oracle BIDAL) showed that Thebes had zero mines and that the Fish had not been Workboated! I'm afraid that's some serious right there, and it's no wonder you had to chop all your forests to get Stonehenge!

A mine (or two) after farming the Wheat would have accelerated Thebes' builds greatly. The Fish is also a monster resource for Settler/Worker production as it provides a +3 surplus. If you look at (for example) Blake's start; by 2140BC he has Thebes at size4 working four improved tiles (Wheat, Fish and two Mines) to accelerate his first Settler.

A well-earned victory though!

[mbuna120]

I'm afraid that's some serious right there

Wow, you're right about my sad little founding city. My workers must have been mighty lazy or something... I kept sending them to each new city I think. I believe the caption that you're referring to was when I had just recently finished a worker in city two, and was sending back worker 1 to Thebes. I had spent time building a cottage and farm earlier that I guess I should have been building mines instead...

Anyway, I was wondering, after seeing how so many others finished the game drastically faster than I, why did I achieve such a high score in the end?

Edit: A high score for me, anyway... 8)

Edit(again): Not just numerically, but by great person also. Because sometimes I finish a game compared to Warren G Harding.

I didn't blow away the wonders, or have a high-tech army... what accounts for score, really?

I have been taking note of how others planned their early moves and trying to compare, but it won't help epic 8 for me, as I finished that one like 2 days after it came out. For the next challenge I undertake at the RB I will implement some better strategies, though.