[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[Maestro]

Thanks Gaspar!

Now for the quick reaction:

Bam! Irrigated wheat, flood plains, and a plains hill (+1 hammer) to settle on. We'll move to the warrior (maybe W?) but I'd need to see something amazing in the fog to not settle in place. I'll check in later with some more analysis, but my first impression is good!

[yuris125]

Yes, excellent start! I'll be on IM in an hour or so to discuss it in more details, but settling in place seems to be far ahead of other options right now

We're last in the turn order, and I will be afk all day tomorrow, so you may have to play the first turn(s), if it's ok with you

[Maestro]

That's no problem. I'm confident in my ability to not screw up the first turn.

[yuris125]

I've been staring at the start screenshot, trying to figure out what to do. Then decided to try to recreate it as closely as possible in Worldbuilder, and try a few possible openings

First, the tiles in the fog, especially the ones in the BFC, assuming we SIP. Looks like we have grassland - plains - plains to the south of the settler, and plains - plains hill to the east. Certainly a lot of plains around us

Next, the Sheep. Obviously, they suggest researching AH first; but AH is not on the way towards Oracle. My feeling was that we had to go for AH, and the tests confirm it. Teching AH doesn't delay the Oracle, and allows us to build an extra Settler before it. A 4/1/3 tile is huge. An unsurprising result, but good to be sure

The build order. I was thinking if we should open with one Worker, or with two.
* Worker-Worker-Warrior-Settler: The first Worker is built on T8, the second on T15, the warrior on T18, then we need to put 1T into something (e.g. Granary) and start building the Settler on T19, when the cap grows to size 2. Workers build a huge amount of cottages which won't be worked for a long time, and if we don't discover Pottery, they have nothing to do for a few turns, except maybe building roads around the city
* Worker-Warrior-Worker-Settler. Worker is built on T8 and goes to improve the Wheat, Warrior built on T13, growth to size 2 on the same turn. Wheat is farmed T12, the Worker moves to the Sheep. The 2nd Worker is completed on T18 - and if we go Mining-BW after AH, we discover BW on the same turn, so our 2 Workers can immediately start chopping a Settler
Looks like the 2nd option is better - I'm also not sure if delaying the Warrior until T18 is a good idea in MP

Tech. I think the best order is AH-Mining-BW-Pottery. Then, if we go for Oracle, Myst-Poly-Priesthood. If we build the first Settler at size 2, we don't need Pottery before BW: at size 2, we will work Wheat and Sheep, not cottages. If nobody founds Buddhism, we may want to go Meditation instead of Poly; I prefer Poly because it's on the way to Organised Religion, which we definitely want

Finally, the Oracle itself. I was consistently able to finish it between T35 and T40. Is it fast enough? I'm not sure. Anyway, I think we should research AH-Mining-BW-Pottery whatever route we choose, then we will know more about our surroundings and will be able to make a better decision

I'm attaching the save of my worldbuildered start, if you want to play around with it

[yuris125]

Maestro, if you will be playing the first turn, the capital is to be named Ultra. Warrior can live unnamed for a turn or two, I didn't choose a name for him yet

[Maestro]

I'm pretty satisfied with the opening plan. Worker->Warrior->Worker->Settler in combination with AH->Mining->BW syncs up so perfectly, it's hard to pass up.

There are a few small optimizations we can make with the workers that I'll need to chart out. For example, when the worker spawns in the capital, my reaction was "move to wheat!" and start farming the next turn. A better plan is to move NW, road for a turn, then move NE onto the wheat and start farming. Bam! Extra "free" turn of road work. Similarly, when the farm completes, instead of moving SW-SW onto sheep, move SW, road (this finishes the road), then on the next turn move SW and start pasturing. In this way we get a "free" road NW of the capital.

Similarly, we'll need to consider having workers work together to chop sequentially versus chopping in parallel. If 2 workers move into 2 different forest and start chopping, you get 2 forests in 4 turns. If they move together and start chopping, you get 1 forest on turn 3 (earlier) and one on turn 5 (later). Something else to keep in mind.

One variable we haven't considered is when to revolt to slavery. I don't know what the conventional wisdom is on this. Revolting immediately has the smallest absolute cost, but may affect the snowball. Revolting too late means we might not get optimum whip hammers in. Maybe revolt after the first settler pops?

Perhaps these things are common knowledge and I've just been too dense to notice, but I think it's clever and can give us a chance to get some free worker actions in!

[yuris125]

Slavery - yes, from what I read, the current science recommends to revolt when the first Settler is on the move. If we're building a Settler at size 2, usually we don't what to whip him, thus don't need Slavery, and don't want anarchy to delay the Settler. Once he's produced, there's no reason not to revolt, so we should

Great tip on worker management, this is one of my weak spots

[yuris125]

OK, I'm off, and won't be back until midnight my time at the earliest. If the save arrives, it's all yours. Good luck!

[Maestro]

Turn 0 screens:


Moved west as planned, and didn't see anything to keep us from settling in place. Note that the resource tags point down, so we're north of the equator. I'll scout west for a turn or two more then start circling south (counterclockwise) around the capital. It seems to me that we should try to find our second city site quickly.


I don't know if we'll do much C&D tracking stuff, but here are the demos just in case.

[yuris125]

Excellent - thanks!

I initially thought that rival best = 21 in GNP means that one of financial civs is working a 3-commerce tile, but I forgot that culture is included in the GNP, so 21 is most likely MNG, who works a 1-commerce tiles and has the 2-culture Creative bonus

Rival worst in Food is 3, so someone is working a 1-food tile. Trying to get a Warrior out quickly?

Rival best in MFG is 4, looks like Ranamar isn't getting the Expansive bonus on his first Worker, otherwise it would've been 5? Assuming he's building a Worker - I don't think we can figure it out from demos

I will try to figure out the demos in details tomorrow, to the best of my abilities I'm out again in the morning, but should be back online well before our slot start

Note that the resource tags point down, so we're north of the equator.

This is incorrect, it was the case in vanilla, but changed in expansions. In BtS resource tags always point down, I believe. However, the jungle tile to the south of our start could be a confirmation that we're indeed in the north, so we can assume it until we have more info

I think we should move the Warrior SW, and then SW again - looks like there is another hill there. Scouting counter-clockwise sounds good

Totally agree about the 2nd city quickly; that was the plan anyway We'll see if the situation changes by T18, when we planned to start building the first Settler