[SPOILERS] William discovers a source of horse. FDR of Mongolia

[Commodore]

I care about my economy every game. Nobody seemed to notice or care that I was first to research a fair few techs there. But yes, upshot is that happy is still the primary constraint and two-pop-whips are better for that.

...it's why drafting sucks, too, but that's an essay for another time...

[WilliamLP]

Slow reporting because I'm not near another interesting decision yet.

Turn 11:




Buddhism fell EOT 9, and I'm too lazy to reason about who got it from score increases and who started with Myst.

The next scout move is probably NW-W. It trades off more immediate vision for less overall movement progress and chances of dying to an animal of NW-NW. It would be more tempting to look at SW and the surrounding if it didn't set scouting back so many turns and if there were a more appealing early city site there.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 12:




Interesting, there's a west coast! So I'm not going to be locked in a hexagonal grid pattern with 6 neighbors in a pangea setup at least.

It turns out the plains hill 1E of the scout would have been a viable capital with wet wheat and I'd have the first worker next turn. But the one I've got should be stronger eventually, and has a nicer central location for distance maintenance.

I'd like to know if the SW is a corner surrounded by water or a land bridge, but I think sweeping around to the north is a higher priority.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 14, what the west looks like:




The third hut was the high gold roll, and I have no complaints. The scout looked at the coast rather than ending turn on flat land next to a potential animal.

In the big picture, things look good! I may be tucked into a corner, and the good stuff is towards the center where I'd want to expand first strategically anyway. And there's no sign that I need to start worrying about the ancient axe / spear / chariot triangle relationship before turn 40.

Provided that copper is taken care of, I'm going to need to prioritize happiness here, which means the ivory out of the way and the whale. A happy cap of 4 or 3 with whip anger doesn't give much to work with.

Both Buddhism and Hinduism have fallen so odds are that at least someone got screwed trying for one or the other. The Stonehenge turn will also be interesting. I would not be a bit surprised to see someone build it before their first settler.

[MindyMcCready]

Amazing land.

So are you scouting south next to confirm the corner advantage? Or north in search of goodies?

[MindyMcCready]

Since you seems to be a Mackoti-disciple are you giving any serious thought to the Pyramids? A massive gamble, but with all this food representation's extra happy plus specialists could be game breaking.

[WilliamLP]

Amazing land.

So are you scouting south next to confirm the corner advantage? Or north in search of goodies?

I'm already committed to swinging around to the north now since if I wanted to explore the rest of the SW it would have been more efficient to diverge a couple turns earlier. I'll have to see if I can make time to check it with a warrior later I guess. (Or wait and see if a contact appears from that direction...)

It's really eerie to not have met anyone else yet! Surely the next few scout turns north will have to reveal someone and who it is could dramatically change how the game will play out.

Since you seems to be a Mackoti-disciple are you giving any serious thought to the Pyramids? A massive gamble, but with all this food representation's extra happy plus specialists could be game breaking.

I think Mackoti is some kind of Civ wizard with mysterious powers that I don't think I can duplicate. I'd love to try for a Pyramids run in some game but the way I see it in this one, to try for a major first-to bonus you need to be in the top 3-5% of rare circumstances for it with 33 others vying. E.g. someone could have already popped Masonry from a hut and have a great second or third city site available with Stone and a ton of forests. Whoever gets it will be someone making sacrifices and pushing the limits. (E.g. I think there was a turn 55 Pyramids in PB17?!)

Without Stone around it feels too high risk for the reward to me. 334 hammers before IND is a ton of hammers, the extra tech of Masonry is a big cost when there is nothing else around to use it for, and losing a close race and being down that much without anything to show for it would suck.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 15:




Even more food! The first settler will probably go to the marked spot since it has almost every feature you want in a second city. (Only 1 settler move to get there, capital tile bonus, auto trade connection, good production, 2 immediate food with only the first ring, the correct strategic direction to settle first.)

The third city will depend on where copper is. Ideally it claims the ivory at the time when AH finishes since happiness is a major concern. But I think I need copper available with city number three so it could change. Fortunately there's food in every direction.

I'm putting some research into bronze now, but will finish Agri first. This is because since Bronze gets a 20% bonus ideally you research it with your beakers as a multiple of 5 or just over, and we're getting 11 beakers per turn now. I'll try to put points into Agri at +13 to +14 and then finish bronze at +15. It might be possible to save like 3 beakers this way over the course of the game, through the magic of discrete mathematics!

[MindyMcCready]

I presume that this toggle between Agri & BW won't delay your wet wheat? I'm sure that you've got that all figured with the 3 animal resources,...

Ok, this map is just ridiculous. You've got more food resources in one BFC than I've had on an entire small continent/large island in many SP games. Good ridiculous though, especially if it's not completely balanced.

I'd guess that this game is largely decided by how quickly you get to HR (and by how many cheap warriors you have on hand). If you've teched Hunting already (I haven't really been paying attention so far) then you might want to think twice about landing BW in such a hurry since you'll lose the cheap MP option. RBmod really kills the cheap MP strategy since hunting is so vital.

With those 2 religions falling so early it seems like people are (correctly?) throwing the long-bomb. You should consider doing the same, not necessarily for the Pyramids since you are off to a relatively slow start, but in general, more risk taking is probably in order.

More $0.02,....you want horses more than you want copper right now given that you're Mongolia. Seven also made barb busting look ridiculously easy with his chariots (+Impis). They also allow for more flexibility in punishing farmer's gambits. I know that you don't like war, but if there's someone to our SW (unlikely) an effective rush could save you a ton of Retep-style pain.

Also, I'd like to hear about your grand strategy. I haven't really been able to get into this game, largely because of time but also partly since you're advertising a passive strategy. I don't really want to be at odds with you the whole game and I do think that to have any chance at this game, you're going to have to initiate attack on somebody at some time. I haven't followed many/any of Mackoti's games (other than some parts of his PB13 thread) but I'm sure that he engages in initiated warefare.

I think you alluded to earlier that you were going to try to grow horizontal over the Mackoti vertical? To me that makes more sense if you're primarily interested in defensive warfare. The Mackoti vertical requires you to actively plan to take someone out and commit your economy to it. Vertical without the plan for committed war seems ineffective to me. Also, with this much food I'd guess its a no-brainer that working more high-yield tiles through horizontal growth would be better than growing up.

[MindyMcCready]

:LOL: Looking at the resources on this map I expect there to be at least 5 coppers in the area you've uncovered so far. And seven horses.