[Spoilers] DZ'CH is apparently a catchy name

[greenline]

Best to hold it for Taj then.

Another option would to be to save two of them for Statue of Liberty. I don't think anyone but Dreylin (only other Phi player && spiritual) can get out a Great Engineer before us and if he rushes Taj then it would be better to save our GE for SoL, which is debatable if anyone will be able to naturally build it before we can pop out two GEs. Here's where scouting becomes important: determining the shape of the land to see if SoL is worth our first two great people, determining if Dreylin runs Pacifism to get out his GE's before us, and seeing how quickly (if at all) scooter gets to assembly line (Germany's Assembly Plant lets you hire four engineers instead of two so you can pop out GEs really quick especially with spiritual pacifism)

[Cheater Hater]

Well, I logged in, password is "indiawork". I moved the explorers, settled the city, went to change civics...then realized that changing all five civics meant a two turn anarchy. I'm assuming the one we don't need right away is Free Religion, but I want a bit of discussion on that. I'm also hoping settling the city didn't make it two turns of anarchy, but I don't think that's the case. Other than that, the only thing new is that one of the lakes has whaling boats on it (but no resource, at least at the moment--it's not going to be something stupid like that's where our oil is, is it?).

[BRickAstley]

I'm also hoping settling the city didn't make it two turns of anarchy, but I don't think that's the case.

No, it's just due to changing 5 at once.

[Cheater Hater]

I'm also hoping settling the city didn't make it two turns of anarchy, but I don't think that's the case.

No, it's just due to changing 5 at once.

Yeah, I knew changing five at once normally is the second turn of anarchy on normal speed, but I also know it's based on population--I don't normally get the chance to change all five civics before I place my first city, so I didn't know if that would get around it

[Cheater Hater]

Well, I noticed you logged in DZ--any thoughts?

[Donovan Zoi]

Yes, I took a peek but didn't get a chance to post anything til now.

Here's a look at our capital:


I checked all the builds, and it looks like all are at 20% cost (so Library is 72h, our FWs would be 48h etc). Keeping that in mind, I wonder if it would make more sense to start with Slavery/OR instead of Serfdom/Free Religion for several reasons:

1. We would be able to regulate city growth against available workers, especially in the beginning, and still get advantages from it. With Serfdom, we may find ourselves in a position of overworking a city, although we could always use extra time to complete a roadnet.
2. We'd get needed buildings, like Libraries, faster. As well as workers too.
3. Chops and whips would be worth 45h on buildings.
4. We can get religion (and culture!) to other cities without building a Monestary.

North Exploration


I'd like to see our northern Explorer go this route to see all that our first Iron city provides. I am also wondering what you would think of settling on the Hill 1W of the Iron so that we have 3 resources in the first ring. We'd lose the eastern sheep, but leave room for a coastal city that will hopefully yield another source of food.

Since we do not have to race to settle this game, it may be best to max out our cities to use as many of the 21 tiles as possible to grow them large for late game while also claiming more territory via culture. Plus we get the defense bonus from the hill.

South Exploration


For the southeast I like this site for the same reasons, with the Explorer exposing our sea tiles to see what else we can gain. It also gives us access to the southern channel, which will be great for exploration.

4th City


It looks like this site will also have access to our southern channel, and allows us to borrow the Pigs from Delhi. This zoning also meshes well with putting the northern city on the Hill.

Tech

Though all cities are not yet built, here are the approximate build times:

SciMeth: 121 turns
Steel: 163 turns
Steam: 184 turns

That said, I still like Steam Power first, with a possible switch to Serfdom then if merited.

Let me know what you think, or if I've missed anything.

[greenline]

I checked all the builds, and it looks like all are at 20% cost (so Library is 72h, our FWs would be 48h etc). Keeping that in mind, I wonder if it would make more sense to start with Slavery/OR instead of Serfdom/Free Religion for several reasons:

1. We would be able to regulate city growth against available workers, especially in the beginning, and still get advantages from it. With Serfdom, we may find ourselves in a position of overworking a city, although we could always use extra time to complete a roadnet.
2. We'd get needed buildings, like Libraries, faster. As well as workers too.
3. Chops and whips would be worth 45h on buildings.
4. We can get religion (and culture!) to other cities without building a Monestary.

My problems with this are:

1. There isn't much worth whipping after building libraries and workers
2. Overworking a city will be difficult early on when each city takes 3-4t to grow a size which is about the same amount of time per tile improvement
3. Swapping to a religion means another turn of anarchy
4. 10% beakers for rushing to Assembly Line is probably more useful atm

I'd like to see our northern Explorer go this route to see all that our first Iron city provides. I am also wondering what you would think of settling on the Hill 1W of the Iron so that we have 3 resources in the first ring. We'd lose the eastern sheep, but leave room for a coastal city that will hopefully yield another source of food.

It also means we can lighthouse the lake by the silks with another city

Since we do not have to race to settle this game, it may be best to max out our cities to use as many of the 21 tiles as possible to grow them large for late game while also claiming more territory via culture. Plus we get the defense bonus from the hill.

Maxing out our cities will be somewhat difficult if we go for factories first (which I would argue for but ehh) due to the giant unhealthy penalties. Plus a lot of the coastal 2/0/2 tiles aren't really worth working outside of the bureaucrac fueled capital. So some overlap here and there wouldn't be too bad.

[Cheater Hater]

First of all, remember we only get four civic changes unless you want to spend two turns in anarchy (not counting the religion swap), so OR certainly doesn't seem worth it now--maybe we go for early Taj and swap into the production-heavy build at the end of the GA? That's why I was suggesting not swapping into FR right away.

I'm not picky on the cities; we have some time to settle them (though make sure one's down before the religion spawns, at least). There's no reason we can't have a coastal city in the north with the originally planned spot, as it would be 3 tiles away (though with more overlap).

[Donovan Zoi]

OK greenline, I think I'm sold back on the original civics plan. I keep forgetting about the turn of anarchy for the religion. Also, as PHI we get a 100% discount for the Universities as well, so we should be covered culturally and research wise pretty early on. Oh, and we'll need 4 cities in order to get Oxford (and IronWorks) too.

Also, I am always for having the best toys re: Factories, so we will definitely have to include that in the discussion. Although bulbing Iron Works (via Steel) in a food-rich city would get us +3 Great Engineers to supercharge our PHI trait and get more Engineers quickly. We'd still need that 4th Forge city for this to happen though.

I really think a sandbox is necessary to determine two things:

1. Should we start with Steel or Steam Power? Steel could send our GE generation into overdrive and arm us to offset naval surprises, while Steam Power will advance our improvement infra quickly.

2. Could switching to Slavery/OR possibly overcome the lost turn of anarchy to get the religion and the extra 10% of research? I doubt it, but still worth checking out.

We'll need to see what our Explorers find for the other two sites first however...

[greenline]

Oh, and we'll need 4 cities in order to get Oxford (and IronWorks) too.

I thought it was 6 that were needed? The map size is standard, isn't it?