Holy Warriors - Civilization 5 (BNW) Succession Game

[retep]

I have been playing a lot of BNW lately so this is going to be interesting

[yuris125]

I like settling in place unless the Warrior finds something useful. Having flood plains for early food in addition to luxuries and 5 adjacent forests is exactly what I would want for our capital

The question of policies is interesting. We obviously need Piety at some point, as Reformation is required to buy Industrial and later era units with faith. We can start with Piety for improved Shrines and Temples (opener gives +100% to their production, the first policy gives +1 faith). Or we can rely on our UA for faith production, and go for a more traditional Tradition (sorry) opening. Remember that Piety gives no economic benefits, no bonuses to commerce nor to happiness, so Tradition is a better set of policies for the early game. I think I prefer starting with Tradition, but can be convinced otherwise

For the tech, pretty sure it has to be Pottery first. Military techs in Archery and Animal Husbandry are useless this early, we don't really want Mining for forest chopping, and Pottery leads to Calendar we need for our luxuries as well as to Shrines

First build should be Monument if we go Piety as the first policy, Worker if Tradition (another reason for opening Tradition - we can skip Monument)

For turn sequence, I think it should be either 20-15-15-10-10-10-.. or 25-15-10-10-10-...

[Ichabod]

I agree with Yuris in basically everything. Tradition seems a better opening than straight Piety and that makes worker as a first build better than a monument. Pottery is a good research target, and we'll need mining to improve our luxuries too (both are forested).

I don't remember all the pantheon options, but with floodplains, desert folklore might end up being too good to pass up. I like the idea of investing on a pantheon that gives faith, rather than the ones that give culture or other bonuses. We'll need to pump up the faith production and there's really not that many ways to do it, at least that I remember...

Settling in place seems fine. I'd move the warrior E-NE to see if the hill vision reveals something. In place, we get the +2 faith even after chopping the dyes forest, which is nice. No food bonus tile, though, which is unfortunate.

In this case, what to do with the first citizen? Work the 2/0/0 or the 1/1/2 tile? If we are building a worker, does it change something? I can't help feeling that both are bad choices. I'd need to make some math, but my gut feel is that the 1/1/2 tile wouldn't edge out the food from the 2/0/0 tile, even getting the worker sooner.

[T-hawk]

Don't settle in place. Flood plans are great only in Civ 4, they're meh in Civ 5. We need to look for something better than 2 hard production.

I would move the settler at least 1 NW. Doing that cannot lose a food tile in second ring, since we can see every tile that that move would give up in second ring from the original spot. We might then settle there, or continue across the river. Settling on the dyes could actually be a good idea.

I've always liked 25-15-10 turn intervals for the start of succession games.

I think Tradition and Pottery, although I'm not up on changes to either in BNW.

[Rowain]

We need the faith starting to flow fast. Depending on our neighbours we can't wait to long to get our units (which require a religion to take). I don't know if the AI likes to take the Holy Warrior believe but our game would end right there if one takes it from us.

I would still build monument first but have no problem to take the tradition opener (it speeds up culture generation). We can later take the free monuments for the cities 2-4 and get a free amphi in the cap. But we should not delay piety for too long (halfprize shrines are good and temples that generate income are useful too).
The floodplains are great sites to settle Great Prophets on them.

Pottery-> calendar-> mining and using the woods on our luxuries to speed up a Hengebuild might be possible.

Moving 1NW loses the silk from 2nd ring.

[Ichabod]

I decided to move the warrior, so that we have more information to decide where to settle. Since no objected, I took that everyone agreed with my suggested move.




Settling where the warrior is is pretty good. Hill tile, starts working a deer from the get go (which goes to 4 food with granary and camp), has marble for the wonder bonus + another luxury (and a thrd one in 3rd ring). The Capital would need quite a bit culture expansions to get the river tiles for farming later, but going Tradition solves that (I think the borders would go -> marble -> grassriver tiles.

For those not used to BNW, there's no more gold bonus on river tiles, the only advantage of river is for irrigation, watermill, garden and some TR bonus that I don't know how it works/if it matters much or at all.

I wouldn't mind doing T-hawk suggested moves with the settler, either. 1NW with the settler + settling on dyes could work, but it's a bit of a gamble for a food resource in the fog. Otherwise, we lose the faith bonus and get nothing in return, other than a better city tile. Keep going N with the settler could also work (NW, NE gains marble and I really doubt there's no food up there -> famous last words).

Ah, holy warriors is a Follower belief, so if we lose it, we can still get units by adopting the religion of whoever took it. Not exactly sure about how to do that in practice, but we could.

[yuris125]

I think Watermill is a big enough bonus to consider settling in place anyway. Moving a Settler to the Warrior's hill + founding there is a 3 turn delay; I generally don't mind delays in settling the capital in Civ5, but I'm not sure that spot is better enough. Can be convinced otherwise, as usual

Flood plains have the same yield as riverside grassland, that's true, but they get better if we want to consider Desert Folklore - do we want to do that?

Like Rowain's policies plan (Tradition opener, then 2 policies into Piety for super-shrines)

[retep]

For those not used to BNW, there's no more gold bonus on river tiles, the only advantage of river is for irrigation, watermill, garden and some TR bonus that I don't know how it works/if it matters much or at all.

You get 25% more income from TR if the city where you start the trade route is next to a river. Alone is not much but if you pile market+bank+stock enchange then it can get pretty high later.

[Rowain]

I prefer settling in place. 1 NE from deer looks like a nice place for C 2( enough wood for additional faith.)

[T-hawk]

I THINK that on the dyes will still get the full faith bonus, the tile SW of the dyes looks to have forest on it and the tile W may also. We should be able to see the W tile after moving the settler 1 NW.

I also strongly think there is a food bonus in the fog that way, I think the start normalizer always makes sure you have one in the first two rings, and it has to be that direction.

There is almost nothing to lose by moving 1 NW, the only loss is bumping a second silks from second ring to third. And there could be big gains with resources or more desert for Folklore.

So I say move the settler 1 NW, settle there if we find food or if the dyes won't give the faith bonus, and move onto the dyes otherwise. The marble/deer area is nice but yeah takes a lot of movement and goes off the river; our second city can go there.