[SPOILERS] scooter tries again: back to school! (Willem of Vikings)

[scooter]

Oh, and Commodore, if you're reading this which I'm guessing you are... sorry, I'll get back to the duel tomorrow. Was busy for 90% of today, and then tonight I needed to take a break to think through this and PB5 for awhile. Plus I'm annoyed at your awesome bulbing and upgrading so much that I haven't even opened the save yet because I don't want to be depressed.

[Commodore]

Oh, and Commodore, if you're reading this which I'm guessing you are... sorry, I'll get back to the duel tomorrow. Was busy for 90% of today, and then tonight I needed to take a break to think through this and PB5 for awhile. Plus I'm annoyed at your awesome bulbing and upgrading so much that I haven't even opened the save yet because I don't want to be depressed.

Hah, to upgrade, one must have money. Try "abusing whip overflow to get 40+ hammers into a spear which completes as a pike". But no worries.

Metagame plans/map thoughts?

[NobleHelium]

So when were you originally going to revolt to Slavery?

[scooter]

Metagame plans/map thoughts?

I'm planning a post on this soon. I'm still mulling over a couple things, but I've been studying the map and trying to work out what it means for me and settling/wonder strategy. I do think the different avenues of settling are less clear-cut than 32... Although I say that and looking back, we all went different directions, but I feel less strongly drawn towards one or the other. One priority for me is getting on the water, so I expect that to be part of my plans. GLH is attractive in that sense, but much fewer of my early cities are coastal so it's less attractive that way. So we'll see.

So when were you originally going to revolt to Slavery?

When the second settler was on the move I believe.

[scooter]

t24-25 revolts

Revolted on T24:



T25 I started pillaging the town:



Now, I've honestly done a really shabby job of scouting so far. I haven't been putting the thought into it that I ought to be doing, and it's resulted in me scouting the "same" places several times and not scouting a few places yet. For example, I just saw this for the first time:



Elephants! Though honestly, I'm much less "aghghgh gotta get that nowww!" since there's no Cataphracts to screw with me here. So there's that. However, IC routes are still very much awesome. Hard part is, I'm not 100% sure what this connects to and/or how big this island is. The surrounding land is fairly sucky. Is it connected to this?



Probably yes. The question then becomes - how badly do I rush for these islands? Can I claim 3? In theory yes because, duh, Vikings. However, I do have the same concern as last time - is this elephant lake big enough to support galleys? (also, 3 is only useful if you and GLH and increase your trade routes) It wasn't last time. From the above picture though, it certainly looks like the answer is yes. One of the few lessons I learned early and leveraged quite well in the last game was the value of getting onto the water early and controlling it. So I've been trying to mull that over and apply it to this game. I've concluded that I do indeed need to hurry for settling here:



Settle this coastal spot next, and then control the water and settle that island early. I could potentially move the coastal spot 1N. I haven't decided. 1N loses the ability to work crabs, which would be a bummer, but I'd probably want to work that crabs somewhere else anyways so it's not a HUGE deal.

Also, how does settling these spots coincide with wonder/tech plans? Honestly, this just screams Colossus so badly (and therefore Oracle). There's nothing stopping me from teching IW and then Masonry next (I can even fuel it with pillage gold!), so I'm strongly leaning towards that right now. I think it's the right play for me. I don't buy the whole deal where Colossus is weaker for FIN civs. Yeah I know it's a lesser percentage bonus, but frankly, who cares. It's still +1C on water tiles, and as FIN, you're even MORE motivated to work the water tiles as-is.

What other techs do I want? I do believe Hereditary Rule is quite strong here. I'm FIN and it's a lush map which we already knew, and it's slightly better for cottages than the last game was. Given Prince/Toroidal, it's probably slightly better to have a more balanced expansion pace but massive core cities. Early Monarchy is a great way to do that. To add to that, I could potentially Oracle HR and then slow-tech MC. After all, I am FIN and there's no IND civs, so a straight race to tech MC is something I might be able to win. The downside there is I do have Pindicator with an Observatory in his capital, so his tech pace may very likely be better than mine. Hmm. A lot to think about here.

Either way, I think settling towards the islands and Oracling something or other is a strong play for me. Oracle is 100h on Quick, 50h once Marble is hooked. If I can overflow in 20 or so hammers via whip, I can 1T it with 2 forest chops. Law or History can easily provide those chops. History is probably the best bet, as it's easier there to overflow in whip + high amount of normal hammers with the mine/elephant/hills/etc.

Anyways, sorry for the stream-of-consciousness style. I know it's not a particularly good writing style, but it's just a necessity for me when trying to walk through the big picture. Lots of interesting choices here for sure.

[Merovech]

t24-25 revolts


Also, how does settling these spots coincide with wonder/tech plans? Honestly, this just screams Colossus so badly (and therefore Oracle). There's nothing stopping me from teching IW and then Masonry next (I can even fuel it with pillage gold!), so I'm strongly leaning towards that right now. I think it's the right play for me. I don't buy the whole deal where Colossus is weaker for FIN civs. Yeah I know it's a lesser percentage bonus, but frankly, who cares. It's still +1C on water tiles, and as FIN, you're even MORE motivated to work the water tiles as-is.

What other techs do I want? I do believe Hereditary Rule is quite strong here.

I firmly believe the Colossus is just as good, if not better, for financial civs. Not only are you already more likely to be working coastal tiles, it turn ocean tiles into 3c tiles, whic blows percentage based arguements out of the water, not that I think there will be much ocean on this map.

HR will of course be awesome, but is getting it earlier worth risking losing the colossus? My guess, witj this lush land, is yes, but I am not sure.

[scooter]

I firmly believe the Colossus is just as good, if not better, for financial civs. Not only are you already more likely to be working coastal tiles, it turn ocean tiles into 3c tiles, whic blows percentage based arguements out of the water, not that I think there will be much ocean on this map.

HR will of course be awesome, but is getting it earlier worth risking losing the colossus? My guess, witj this lush land, is yes, but I am not sure.

I agree with you on Colossus. I do think there's 0 ocean on this map - all coast - but yeah, I think the percentage argument is kind of silly and misleading.

As for Oracle - at the moment I still lean towards MC. My thinking is that, Colossus racing aside, the commerce gained by earlier Colossus probably offsets the commerce gained by somewhat earlier HR. Besides, we do have whale + ivory (+ forest preserve in cap) early on to get us through the early stages, so it's quite likely we finish Oracle and aren't pressed for happy just yet. So yeah, I'm actually leaning towards MC before Monarchy, which is probably the more traditional play anyways. The commerce gained from Colossus will almost certainly be higher than the HR commerce (in that window), and that's not to mention the extra benefits such as getting the Colossus Merchant earlier and all that.

[Merovech]

As for Oracle - at the moment I still lean towards MC. My thinking is that, Colossus racing aside, the commerce gained by earlier Colossus probably offsets the commerce gained by somewhat earlier HR. Besides, we do have whale + ivory (+ forest preserve in cap) early on to get us through the early stages, so it's quite likely we finish Oracle and aren't pressed for happy just yet. So yeah, I'm actually leaning towards MC before Monarchy, which is probably the more traditional play anyways. The commerce gained from Colossus will almost certainly be higher than the HR commerce (in that window), and that's not to mention the extra benefits such as getting the Colossus Merchant earlier and all that.

Hmm, I forgot forest preserves give happiness, for one, and frankly, I think I got caught up in the fact that the last five or so maps I've played have been food-high and luxury-low, and not every map has happy issues immediately

[scooter]

T26 desires speedy granaries

Because chop overflow is fun ya'll:



It results in cool things like this:



25 hammers of overflow and a reasonably high level of base production makes for a quick granary. Then we can do some growing. Might do one double-whip for a settler or something but then I'd like to grow. Scouting:



Well hello to you too. Demos:



I've seen worse. I finally got Seven's graphs, so here's the food/mfg graphs:





These don't mean a ton since they're largely tied to our growing patterns, but worth noting. Do keep in mind he's got a supermarket helping him out, so it could certainly be worse. Actually, tied for top food is pretty solid since half of my competitors have had the supermarket, which isn't just +1F, but it's faster growth. I'd use the snowball cliche, but seriously I'm about to get off work and step into 90 degree weather and drive home in my car where my AC doesn't work so I'm not real keen on the whole snowball metaphor right now.

[scooter]

Hmm, I forgot forest preserves give happiness, for one, and frankly, I think I got caught up in the fact that the last five or so maps I've played have been food-high and luxury-low, and not every map has happy issues immediately

I think it's probably safe to say you haven't played too many games with a forest preserve in your capital starting on T0, so that's a pretty understandable one to forget.