Epic Thirteen - NETHERLANDS

[Ug the Barbarian]

A link to my report

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2497

Many thanks to our sponsor, Sulla

[Sam_Yeager]

My report is here

[darrelljs]

Nice space race victory...must have been hard resisting the urge to Dominate . I don't recall ever spreading the XPs from a Great General over a stack...but creating a bunch of CR3 Swords is something I'll have to tinker with in the future.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

My report is here

I think the workboat was a fine first build. Did you work the plains forest hill to complete it? Ignore the rest if you don't want some arm chair QBing .

With a start like that I would have done Workboat first then Worker when it completed. The capital is an obvious commerce monster, but from the screenshots it looks like you were late getting cottages up on the floodplains and getting the gold connected. Your first Settler was also a bit late, considering you didn't focus too much on the capital. For a start like this I would build:

Workboat -> Worker -> Warriors (enough to grow to size 3 and work the Gold/Cows) -> Settler -> Worker.

After that I would probably build a Library and whatever else you want until you hit the happy cap, then Settlers and Workers until you are out of land or your slider gets below 20% (which it shouldn't given all those floodplains and being Financial). For tech path I would suggest:

Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing.

I would settle towards Justinian first and take those floodplains sites, you are Financial and they are your friend. The west can wait a bit since no one is close to you. But really, you are Creative and Finanical with a lot of floodplains, so mad expansion is the order of the day.

Darrell

[Sam_Yeager]

I think the workboat was a fine first build. Did you work the plains forest hill to complete it? Ignore the rest if you don't want some arm chair QBing .

Looking at my early saves it seems that I was trying to grow the city so I was working the FPs. It also appears that I interrupted the WB build to build a worker to mine the gold which is why the WB took so long to build. Probably also why the cottages were slow in coming on stream.

For tech path I would suggest:

Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing.

My actual tech path was Mining -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Hunting -> Mysticism -> AH -> BW. I must admit that's not quite how I remembered it or even stated in my report. That'll teach me to take better notes next time or at least check the log first. I think Myst was when I was thinking about Stonehenge.

I would settle towards Justinian first and take those floodplains sites, you are Financial and they are your friend. The west can wait a bit since no one is close to you. But really, you are Creative and Finanical with a lot of floodplains, so mad expansion is the order of the day.

I think I was a bit concerned about the health implications of the FPs at the time.

Thanks very much for your comments. I obviously need to think things through better.

[blid]

Justinian, founder of Buddhism, was west of us; Pacal far to the east;

is also known to mess with the sense of orientjation

Nice there

[Qwack]

Kylearan, very impressive game, and very nice reporjt also! That was a pretty fast domination win for BtS, because as you said the AI does war better and in general it does take more time for the human to conduct succesful warfare and take cities.

[haphazard1]

Hopefully I am doing this threaded thing properly.

I was overtaken by other commitments, so I am reporting as unfinished (retired). My summary is here .

[Kylearan]

Hi Sam_Yeager,

I also think work boat first wasn't a bad option, not at all! I nearly did that too. In the end I think worker first is a bit better here, as it can start improving tiles earlier and the city can work improved tiles while next building the work boat, but the difference is only marginal.

The move in your opening was to delay Animal Husbandry for so long - cows are a fantastic tile, and you lost out a lot of hammers that way while growing the city!

For comparison purposes, here's my detailed opening, as far as I can remember:

I built a worker while researching Animal Husbandry->Mining->The Wheel->Pottery->Bronze Working. After the worker, I built a work boat while the worker improved the cattle, mined the gold and connected it to the capital. After that, Pottery was completed and so the worker could start to cottage the precious floodplains. After the workboat, I built a warrior, then a settler to claim the other floodplains. You don't want to delay founding a second city with such good terrain and a rival so close by!

EDIT: You wrote your tech path was Mining -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Hunting -> Mysticism -> AH -> BW. Why Hunting and Mysticism? While Hunting saves some beakers for the later AH, my philosophy is to get the worker something to do as fast as possible, and delaying AH even further is not worth the overall saved beakers here IMHO. The same goes for Mysticism, which you didn't need at all in that early game. As Sirian would have said: What can wait, should wait!

That uprising was really bad luck though, and Sitting Bull conquering Utrecht so far from home...ugh.

Thanks for reporting! I hope you don't mind the discussion about the opening game.

-Kylearan

[Sam_Yeager]

The move in your opening was to delay Animal Husbandry for so long - cows are a fantastic tile, and you lost out a lot of hammers that way while growing the city!

I was wondering how you managed to expand your civ so fast! This helps explain one of the factors in how you managed it.

EDIT: You wrote your tech path was Mining -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Hunting -> Mysticism -> AH -> BW. Why Hunting and Mysticism? While Hunting saves some beakers for the later AH, my philosophy is to get the worker something to do as fast as possible, and delaying AH even further is not worth the overall saved beakers here IMHO. The same goes for Mysticism, which you didn't need at all in that early game. As Sirian would have said: What can wait, should wait!

Hunting was for scouts after my early warrior was lost. I believe I mentioned that I got too carried away with trying to scout in my report. Mysticism was when I was thinking of Stonehenge/Great Wall.

Thanks for reporting! I hope you don't mind the discussion about the opening game.

-Kylearan

Not at all. Both you and Darrel have helped me realise that I really need to think more when choosing early techs in relation to the land around me.