[SPOILERS] Serdoa, Ichabod and Ex-Girlfriends - co-starring NH,Bigger and Lewwyn

[BRickAstley]

Are you accepting names of lurker's ex-girlfriends for city names too?

[Ichabod]

Are you accepting names of lurker's ex-girlfriends for city names too?

Hopefully we'll expand so much that will have to find some new girlfriends for more city names. Or we can use help from the lurkers too.

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Have you tried a variation settling in place, Serdoa? Maybe going BW -> Fishing -> Pottery? I'll try that if you haven't consider it, since I doubt I can improve on things you've already tried.

[Serdoa]

No I haven't tried it, please feel free to go ahead with it. Targets as of now:

1) Settler at around T33. Sooner is better, everything after T39 is probably too bad.
2) 2 workers out. Though with Fishing of course the workboat makes partly up for that.
3) 1-2 warriors. I doubt anyone will not start with Worker / wb first, but even if, they probably go full growth, not full production, so no warrior should be finished before ~T10 and I'd expect at least 12-15 turns travel time. Also keep in mind, partially produced units should keep their hammers on normal speed for 10 turns, so that can be used to have some security by partially building warriors while growing
4) Techs: Mining, BW, Pottery, Fishing (placeholder) and 35 in Myst
5) 3 forests chopped, one 2-pop whip, 5 improved tiles (corn farm, FP farm, PH-mine, GH-mine, Grassland farm)

I think that especially via chopping more forests their could be an improvement possible, but I also consider keeping them for SH. If it is available. If not they might be nice for MoM.

[Serdoa]

Are you accepting names of lurker's ex-girlfriends for city names too?

Hopefully we'll expand so much that will have to find some new girlfriends for more city names. Or we can use help from the lurkers too.

I think my wife would not agree with new girlfriends So yes, if we expand enough, we sure will accept the help from lurkers.

Oh, btw, as disclaimer: I use the term "girlfriend" very loosely because before I got together with my wife my longest relationship had lasted for a total of 6 weeks.

[Serdoa]

Pick analysis:

Nakor+CFCJesterFool (NaFool?): Pericles / Egpyt

Having 9th and 12th pick they took Pericles of Egypt. CRE/PHI I talked before about the possibility of a quick Academy. With Egypt of course the plan might instead be a quick prophet. Or a quick mass of GP as with Library and Monument they can have 2 GPs within 13 turns. Or 3 in 25 turns. But hiring 4 specialists does need some food surplus as well + a happy resource. Not sure really. Bulbing with a GProphet doesn't seem all that good either, you need to get all the religious techs, except Divine Right, before you even start bulbing the good stuff. At least if you get Writing, otherwise you could potentially bulb Monarchy. But for that you still need to research so much techs upfront that you could as well not research them and get it directly without bulb. Getting a shrine is of course a possibility as well, but if they want that, they want a religion. And at that point, they can as well get the Oracle imo.

So, in that case, I doubt it is the UB why they choose Egypt. And as there were still better Wheel/Agri civs available logic dictates that they took it for the War Chariot. A scary unit - till you get a spear, because spears still kill them pretty convincingly. Sure it's better than a standard chariot, but if you face chariots you need spears anyhow, at least if you don't want to get pillaged to the ground. Otherwise you can do with Archers most likely.

Conclusion: If we start near this guys, we will have to incorporate Hunting sooner than later into our research schedule, as much as it might hurt. But if that is tundra down south we might have some deer-resources or fur down there as well and might want that anyhow.

[Ichabod]

After some tries, it's obvious that the coastal settle is definetely slower. Whatever benefits we get from it compared to the ph settle will be difficult to quantify on a sandbox. I think the coastal settle is a bit better in the midgame, a bit before we likely switch the Palace location (it has easier commerce through coast + lakes, which can be useful, if we are not worried about growing cottages that much).

I had a run that got a turn 33 settler (if I remember correctly) + 1 worker + 1 already improved fish at turn 40. It was also ready to whip a worker into a granary at turn 40. Problem is, only 1 warrior that was built after the settler.

I think it's worth taking a look, at least. I started growing the city on a WB, after first worker was done (and after putting hammers on a settler while the corn was unimproved). I think I stopped growing at size 3, with Fish, plains hill mine and corn to finish the settler, but I could see the city growing until size 4 too.

I'll test some more.

[Serdoa]

I'll run it through my excel-sheets now and see what I can get with it.

edit: is that fish actually a 3/0/2 tile unimproved or 2/0/2?

edit2: 2/0/3

[Ichabod]

I'll run it through my excel-sheets now and see what I can get with it.

edit: is that fish actually a 3/0/2 tile unimproved or 2/0/2?

edit2: 2/0/3

2/0/1 unimproved . Lake is 2/0/3, though, so you can use that.

[Serdoa]

Well, so far I have:

EOT6: Fishing
EOT14: Mining
EOT14: 1st Worker
EOT25: 1st Workboat
EOT29: BW
EOT30: 1st Warrior
EOT34: 1st Settler
EOT37: 2nd Worker
EOT38: Pottery
EOT42: Granary

Improvements: 2x PH-Mine, 1x Farmed Corn, 1x Netted Fish, 2 Forests chopped.

At that point I have 9/24 in the food-box (size 2), 6 overflow, 3 in a pre-produced warrior. The 2nd Worker is kinda wonky because I do finish him with a chop, though that means that the settler is 3 turns without any help. No roads etc. meaning also no trade-routes between the cities. I don't think that micro will hold contact with "reality". Anyhow, totals produced:

372 Food, 141 Hammers (without whips), 481 raw commerce

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In comparison PH-start:

EOT8: Mining
EOT12: 1st Worker
EOT23: BW
EOT25: 2nd Worker
EOT27: 1st Warrior (EOT26 if it gets finished via overflow while in Anarchy)
EOT32: 2nd Warrior
EOT34: Pottery
EOT35: 1st Settler
EOT37: Granary
EOT40: Fishing
EOT42: 3rd Warrior

At that point food-box is at 30/28, no overflow, no hammers in pre-builds. Again chances are that this doesn't hold up to reality. Also there is some dumb stuff in it - like I grow to 4 and delay my chops, just so that I can 2-pop-whip the settler. I don't think that is worth it before the Granary is in place. Probably better to stay at 2, produce it with chops etc.

Anyhow, totals in comparison

	Fish-start	PH-start
Food	372	410 (w. Granary)
Production	141	162
Commerce	481	450

So yeah, surprisingly competitive. At least for me, I was sure the fish-start would just fall flat on its face. The additional commerce will just go up higher of course. And the production is pretty much equal due to the whips. Food is a little bit better on the PH-start, mainly due to the earlier finished Granary. 2nd settler is also around 4 turns earlier on the PH-start, EOT45 instead of EOT49.

I think the differences in total though are marginal enough that the question about where to settle has gotten much tougher. I'm really uncertain . I guess the first scout-move will actually be needed to decide (and hopefully show something to help with the decision).

[Ichabod]

Pretty nice analysis. I always have trouble comparing different openings, when one is not obviously better than the other. I guess it'll come down to our analysis of the start potential in the long run (barring something in the fog that changes the whole picture), since they are pretty close in terms of early development.

I hate these situations where making an informed decision is impossible. There's no way we can reveal all the tiles we need to make the best settling decision, so we'll need to take a leap of faith about it. Same thing about my start in PBEM 38.