[SPOILERS] Team EggHeads: DMOC and TeddyKGB (Now Lurker-Friendly!)

[TeddyKGB]

@Dhalphir

What do you think about current discussion and how we should play our opening? What's the best way to play starting turns?

@dick76

It's very nice, that you posted on settling discussion. DMOC and me kinda spam the thread over that matter. And there is more spam from me follows .
It would be nice to have more input from you on current decisions. I know, you said that you prefer war to domestic planning, but to be sucsessful at war we had to have strong position when the time comes. And it'll be awail before we would have to go on offensive war, except one minor possibility, imo. (I'll post my unexperienced in MP warfare opinion later about this possibility)
So please post more what you think about current plans.

As I see it, our team is your and DMOC. I'm just an exited DedLurker spammer and Dhalphir not so much posting so far.
So important decisions (like one we discussing right now) is up to you and DMOC.
I think DMOC and me finalize analisys on our team opening soon and one of us post short overview of every possible way to proceed so you can vote which way team should go.

And AFAIK, it's a right thing to do about changing name in PB. While DMOC and TKGB looks similar, we are different players. I just liked DMOC's name on CivStats so tried to do mine looks simmetrical.

@DMOC. (Following wall of text completely for u, bro ):

I'm absolutely agree with your to do list. Good planning and organizing is so important.

As I see it, fist thing to decide is which way to go (settling and techs) and end turn after.
Don't want to be in the situation our team is the one holding next turn for other guys, but I think you agree that our starting move is one of the most important throu the game. So we can appologize if we hold the turn, but we cant change our first city location later, so lets take as much time as we need to make that decision.

Once we decide our opening, we can discuss scouting. That would be much faster than current decision.
I did a fog read, post ss and save file above. Is it accurate, in your opinion?
Since we CRE we get our borders pop on T25/T26. Depends on where we settle.
Easy way to plan scouting, imo, would be just pop capital borders on the sim to 3rd ring and see from there.

As for C&D and nice excel docs we have 6-7 turns to do that, as long as we make F8-F9 screenshots in game regulary we can backtrack.

For general strategy overview, it tied with our opening. So here we go to the main question right now, imo.

Our opening and early development:
We have 3 options now.

1. SIP and go Hunt>AH and Worker>War>Set(T32) at size3
   
2. PH and go Hunt>AH and Worker>War>War>Set(T32) at size3
   
3. SIP and go Fishing first.
   

First and second options were discussed enough already, so let me say something about 3rd one.

I did several sims so far and I messed up some screenshots and planing (as you can in post#100), so I thought we could get Settler on T35. We cant, but this opening isn't about fastest second city possible, imo.
We have to see all the angles and potetial of our future position. And minuses as well.

So right now I suggest we go option 3, so we can get:

• Wb first, after researching Fishing first obv
  
• T28: Wb, Worker, Warrior done. All 3 main resources improved. Capital at size3 and start settler
  
• T36: Settler done, city#2 on T36 on one of 4 tiles in capital's 3rd culture ring and share Pigs with capital (preroaded by worker first).
  

One of the micro plans set to complete settler with 10h overflow (I did move settler on fresh water PH, so no city#2 same turn on this ss, but we can do it). And (with center and deer +2hpt) 10h overflow will give us +3h bonus into worker#2. We need second worker asap, obv.

On T37 we could change queue(warrior) or tile(Pigs->PH) to start warrior or continue worker with EXP bonus while city#2 takes the Pigs.
Or just use 10h overflow on T36, if situation dictates, to build Warrior#2 on T37 (Pigs->PH), while city#2 take Pigs to grow faster. I have to do more simming to make it optimal, I guess.

You right,

fishing first will delay our first worker such that it appears after we have finished the food techs (and thus some wasted turns theoretically)

But this opening allow us to improve 3rd good resource (Pigs) just in time, on T28, when we grow to size3 and capital's output now equals 11 fpt / 2 hpt / 12 cpt. Most likely go in to settler. We can discuss your concerns once I do perfect micro for this opening. Guess our team need some more time to finish the turn.

For example, opening (2) at T28 contribute 8/3/10. And 7/4/10 on T30-31, when mine would be finished.
And we still had to invest 30h more into Wb.

Now lets get to the most important reason why the hell we want to go Fishing 1st:
Its for the beakers.
We start behind in tech tree and with 7 FIN civs its just awful. Our trait let us build chip Lib. Lets go for it as fast as possible, not forgeting about basic techs and security that will depend on exploring, contacts, diplomacy and C&D (to see if we are in danger some turns before 'friendly' 4*Chariots or 6*Axes on our borders).
If our research go Fish>Hunt>AH>Mining>BW (we can go ...>Mining>Pottery>BW in certain suitable situations as well) we'll get
BW on T43. I'm not sure we could shave a turn and get it on T42 but we can try with some micro.
And faster BW will give us hammers to expand, improve land and defence.
In my sim of PH start we can get BW on T42 or T41 maybe with crazy micro, but still need one more tech (Fish or Agri) before start Pottery.

There is some drawbacks to delay city#2 for 3-4 turns obv, but as I see it now, faster Pottery and eventually Writing is the right way for us to compete with 7 FIN civs on these settings.

Also, there are some changes could be made if we faced real danger.
Our timing on building queue wont be so perfect, but we can gamble with farmer gambit if you agreed.
I believe full diplo game is full of possibilites on that matter.

The reasons why we should, imo, plant city#2 in 3rd culture ring:

• Shared Pigs
  
• Settling on the turn Settler done (T36) with preroading by worker and get our city#2 just 3 turns later than in other two openings. You can say that we can plant city#2 in other openings on T32 as well, and you right - we can. We can discuss it later.
  
• More overlap is a GOOD THING for city#2. You can WB in your sim how that hard overlap will looks like on certain turns (T36, after slavery, after 1st cottage). Both city share Pigs, most valubale resource we aware of so far. There is some hills and flat grass to share, so once we start building cottages in the shared area it could be worked by any city, while the other one works mines to produce units or whatever.
  
• Planning city tiles till Industrial era nice, but our goal, as I see it, is different: we need strong economy by the time our UU will come. Strong production as well. And we simply will not have enough happiness to work many tiles in one city for a long time. Lets use hard overlap with city#2 and expand from there. In the long run, when expenses handled by economy, you always want your cities placed closer to profit from specialists, food corps or whatever. Just had to do some micro with tiles.
  
• But here one more reason, and its kinda important. If you place city#2 in the 3rd culture ring, you'll get Total expanses equals 1 not 2 on that map untill city#2 grows to size2. And it could be one turn faster BW or Pottery.
  

Please, just run some sims of Fishing 1st, DMOC, to see the potential of this opening.

I'm stoping this post now. It's not complete, but I'm kinda wanna break right now. Thank you, if you read it all till this character.

It would be nice to chat with you, DMOC, so we can discuss current turns decisions faster. It's hard to me post in forums, cause I'm kinda OCD about posts on forums. And not so much in the chat.



tl;dr: I'd like our opening will be SIP and go fish first.
DMOC, you should try it in sims. It has potential.