RBP7 [SPOILERS] - The Chronicles of Nyania

[Lord Parkin]

If we go worker first, we need to be careful of having it sniped by the other players whom might decide to go warrior first.

Yeah, that's true. At least our food resources are immediately next to our capital, which will give them a little more protection and give us a little more warning. When we start chopping, we can go for the safest ones closest to our capital first, then move outwards once we have some defenders.

Hmm, we're probably going to need The Wheel fairly early on if it turns out we have Copper or Horses on that tile next to our capital. In fact, we'll probably need it even more if it turns out we don't, since we'll need to get a strategic resource city up and running with a trade link ASAP.

Also: Must not forget that there are barbarians, so even if no-one comes after us early on, we still need a healthy amount of defence around.

[nabaxo]

Note to self: Ivory seems to usually crop up in about 6-9 separate batches on a map like this. Out of 18 players, approximately 5-11 will have Ivory potentially obtainable within their sphere of influence (easily available for at least 5). Of course, some players will likely be wiped off the map early on, leaving more room for others to claim Ivory. If one of those isn't the Khmer, it seems there's something like a 30-60% chance of seeing Khmer Ballista Elephants. Yikes. Hopefully if they turn up, they're as far from us as possible.

Better go for gunpowder quick then! Or rush 'em before they get HBR and Construction...

[Lord Parkin]

Better go for gunpowder quick then! Or rush 'em before they get HBR and Construction...

Yeah. Though even if they get Ivory, chances are still relatively low that they'll be one of our neighbours. Hopefully someone else gets that pleasure.

[nabaxo]

I hope those "pleasured" will decide to rush them themselves, since those elephants can rofl-stomp the map for quite a period.

[Lord Parkin]

I hope those "pleasured" will decide to rush them themselves, since those elephants can rofl-stomp the map for quite a period.

Indeed, let's hope so.

Other scary units to look out for:

- War Chariots... in the hands of Sunrise. Uh-oh. This does not bode well. (He tends to spam them.)
- Skirmishers... can't really attack, but can choke you to hell if you're not careful.
- Praetorians... obviously. No particular desire to engage with them if we can avoid it.
- Keshiks... could be quite deadly on this rocky, mountainous map type. Watch out for stealth Worker and Settler snipes.
- Hwachas... combined with Boudica and a guy who's calling himself "team bounty hunter". Would be tricky to deal with in the early game for sure.

[Lord Parkin]

Hmm, just ran a mock-up test on a Huge map with Monarch difficulty. Looks like it's going to be a pretty slow start... or maybe it's just normal and we're usually spoiled by the mapmakers here. Getting a strategic resource hooked up (if we even have one) is going to take the better part of 50 turns (minimum), assuming we don't get lucky with any techs from huts.

Assuming we settle in place, go Worker first, and the tech order is Agri -> AH -> BW:

T0: [Working Rice] Worker 1 starts, Agri starts
T10: Agriculture finishes -> AH starts
T15: Worker 1 finishes -> Warrior 2 starts
T19: {Rice improved}
T21: [Growth to size 2, Working Rice + Pigs] Animal Husbandry finishes -> BW starts
T25: {Pigs improved}
T26: [Growth to size 3, Working Rice + Pigs + Grass-forest] Warrior 2 finishes -> Build queue diverges from here; either Warrior 3 (3 turns) or Worker 2 (6 turns) or Settler 1 (9 turns)
T37: Bronze Working finishes -> The Wheel starts (?)
T46/47: The Wheel finishes (if started T37)

If we went AH -> BW instead: AH would finish T14, BW ~T30, and we'd still need ~10 turns for Agriculture later - i.e. we'd lose 3 turns of research and 2 food per turn for ~25+ turns to get Bronze Working 7 turns sooner (equating to ~40 hammers brought forward in time from where they'd otherwise be spent). So 3 turns research + 50 food, versus 40 hammers which we only get 7 turns earlier (they're all still available later). I think Agri first wins there.

Still all very slow though. The only way we can get more commerce is by working the lake, but we can't do that without Fishing. And it's not worth the investment in Fishing early on unless we have seafood - it just slows down Bronze Working. So I think Agri -> AH -> BW -> The Wheel (maybe) looks best. We just have to hope that we get one or more of those techs for free from a hut (how awesome would that be?).

EDIT: An awesome second city site (Gold/Silver/Gems?) would work too... we could potentially found our second city pre-T40 without much of an issue.

[nabaxo]

I see on civ-stats than you already played the turn. Can I see a screenshot? Also, for future use, can I have the password?

[Lord Parkin]

And here we go...



Well, we've got a hut nearby, so that's something at least. 1/7 chance of a tech on Monarch, so let's hope we're lucky.

Full list for Monarch huts:
25% chance of barbarians (of which 10% = powerful barbarians)
25% chance of gold (of which 5% = lots of gold)
15% chance of a free unit (10% Warrior, 5% Scout)
10% chance of a free 5 XP
10% chance of a map
10% chance of a tech
5% chance of healing

Healing will not occur for a full health unit, and barbarians will not occur within Legendary + 1 radius of the start position (regardless of what explores the hut). So 10% out of 70% remaining is 1/7. Theoretically the same odds as getting a map, although from my biased perspective it always seems I get maps more often than techs. We'll see anyway.

[Lord Parkin]

I see on civ-stats than you already played the turn. Can I see a screenshot? Also, for future use, can I have the password?

Sure, sent it to you. Just be careful not to move or change anything whenever you log in... I'm a bit of a control freak.

[Lord Parkin]

So, no seafood in the fog... sucks a bit but never mind. Looks like there's a second break in the trees as well, so perhaps we've got another strategic resource hidden. Both Copper and Horses in the BFC would be insanely good... probably pretty unlikely though. Hopefully we'll get at least one though.

Either way, a 5f/1h Pig and 5f/1c Rice tile isn't too bad, and with 9 forests in the BFC, that's 180 free pre-Maths hammers if we want them. So while our BFC likely isn't amongst the best, we could probably do worse.