Luddite/Pindicator

[pindicator]

Yeah, i really want to get as much scouting info as possible early on. If we don't uncover an obvious second city site before the worker finishes, I think our options are:

1) Continue with the worker -> settler plan and pull the warrior back to scout the SE around the gold
2) Continue to send the first warrior southwest for scouting and build 2 warriors to scout: one to go SE to map out around the gold and another to fogbust.

#1 is probably the best. One benefit of a map like this is that barbs are going to be less of an issue - it will only take a handful of warriors to fogbust the immediate area. But I really would like more of the map revealed so we can find out where to settle city #2. I think if we had to pick a spot right now I would put the settler 3E of the capital, on the plains hill. Since we're going early pottery the floodplains can be shared: while one city builds workers/ settlers the other one grows onto the FPs and grows the cottages. My #2 spot would be NW of the cows. You would have cows, 3 hills, and 4 forests for early production, and plenty of tiles to put cottages down for when we start growing. But it's farther away and will need a road so it will take longer to get up and running.

So the questions are...
What looks good for a #2 city?
When do we pull the initial warrior back to scout around the gold?

[luddite]

I do think those will be good city sites eventually. My problem with both those places, though, is that they'll be expanding in the wrong direction, in land that should be safely ours instead of towards the other civs. (I was wrong in my last post- looks like there's no possible land connection in the northeast).

Unless of course we're on an island anyway...

I think the warrior should move to the southeast now, to scout around the gold. The scout can map out the western perimeter pretty fast, long before a settler finishes anyway. And I still think we're better off doing worker-settler.

[NobleHelium]

Commodore said that all players are on the same landmass in the organizing thread.

[luddite]

Nevermind, I should just stop doubting myself. I took a closer look at the map, and with the bleedthrough, it seems like the southeast is almost certainly closed off also. All the land is to the west. So I moved the warrior southwest again. The scout revealed something interesting in the north. This will be a great city location with a lighthouse, although just the corn is OK for the start. What do you think about settling on that plains hill, south of the corn?


Lots of resources in the southwest, but they're all covered by jungle. Looks like iron working will be a priority on this map.

[luddite]

Alternatively, since we seem to be walled in by jungle everywhere on the west, we could just settle in a place that would lead to quick tech (like the plains hill east for flood plains, or south for the gold) while we tech iron working.

[pindicator]

I think if we are walled in by jungle then the land grab idea is going to lose steam to developing the best tiles we have nearby. It'll be like being on an island, except instead of sailing we're gunning for iron working.

1S of the corn looks like the best bet so far. Only three tiles away, and since we're expansive we should be able to get that granary up fast. Let's have the scout map out the area around the corn well in case there's something better than settling on the plains hill. With scouting, keep in mind that our capital's borders will pop to 3rd ring in 10 turns -- a few turns before our first settler finishes. So we may not need to bring anybody back to scout the southeast at all.

[luddite]

Yeah we can move the scout west just in case there's anything there. But it seems to be a solid line of jungle.

You're right about the capital popping borders- I had just thought of that too.

Right now I'm thinking that settling north of the gold seems like the best bet. We could chop out a quick workboat for the fish, then mine the gold and we'll basically double our research speed towards iron working. Then we could settle southwest to get the banana and pigs and stone. Or, same thing, but settle on the grass 2W from the gold- that would be roughly in the right direction.

The jungle is annoying, but I'm actually glad it's there. Assuming everyone has to deal with jungle, having expansive will help a lot, and only one other team has an expansive leader.

[pindicator]

I was thinking about that spot for the gold, but I'm not sure it'll send our growth curve up as high as settling by the irrigated corn would. But maybe it'll play out better -- i'll make an updated sandbox for us to play around in after we get a bit more map info.

Save's in and I got it.

[pindicator]

Scouting in the north:



Scouting in the south:



That's going to be nice once we get Iron Working, Calendar and a ton of worker turns invested...

We had two civs increase score: Fierce and Novice both researched a tech at the end of their last turn. Global soldier points went up 4,000 so I'm willing to bet they both finished Hunting. Funny - Fierce settled a turn earlier but he didn't even beat everyone out for the first tech.

Edit: Fierce couldn't have researched Hunting; he started with it! Well, my math could be off but I have Mining as being a 52 beaker tech with our settings. Guess I should check if that matches what we see in the game. Nobody's size two so it has to be a tech.

[luddite]

mining would make more sense. That would explain the extra turn of research.

For the southwest... we could actually settle right on top of the ivory. That would give us a 2 hammer city, with a lot of food (eventually). Just a thought.