My MM is better than your MM

[Krill]

The start is easy to figure out. Settle 1S, tech Hunting>Pottery>Mining>BW and work the sheep go worker first. Border pops eot T2, then work the deer. T13 move the worker to the deer, T14 camp, T18 move 8 and cottage, T22 road/cancel sheep, T24 irrigate the sugar. Build a warrior on T13, and work the sheep until T17, grow eot T19 to size 2 and work the sheep until T22 when move to the cottage. Grow to size 3 eot T24. Warrior finishes eot T20 then you have the decision to build another warrior or build into a granary which will be finished very quickly to facilitate double slaves, either via slaving or via chops. The warrior moves 9 then scouts the coast for sea food for a potential 4th city (first two cities will be planted to split off the deer and the rest of the river to work as cottages), the scout checks out the west then circles around to the south east looking for potential second city sites, and nearby copper sources and then runs off to meet people.

[Qgqqqqq]

Not sure if this was clear but I mailed it to the TEAM Gmail address.
I can update sandbox about once a day for the next week but after that RL will kick in and only once a week.
Sooo what do you guys expect from a sandbox?? Do you want updates with explored territory or just when land is being worked?
@Krill: though I didn't try myself, I suspect it is f***ing easy for a genius.

[Lewwyn]

The start is easy to figure out. Settle 1S, tech Hunting>Pottery>Mining>BW and work the sheep go worker first. Border pops eot T2, then work the deer. T13 move the worker to the deer, T14 camp, T18 move 8 and cottage, T22 road/cancel sheep, T24 irrigate the sugar. Build a warrior on T13, and work the sheep until T17, grow eot T19 to size 2 and work the sheep until T22 when move to the cottage. Grow to size 3 eot T24. Warrior finishes eot T20 then you have the decision to build another warrior or build into a granary which will be finished very quickly to facilitate double slaves, either via slaving or via chops. The warrior moves 9 then scouts the coast for sea food for a potential 4th city (first two cities will be planted to split off the deer and the rest of the river to work as cottages), the scout checks out the west then circles around to the south east looking for potential second city sites, and nearby copper sources and then runs off to meet people.

truf

Last night while I was lying awake in bed I put this start in my mind and started thinking about the variables to see if ANYTHING could be better than what Krill said above, since I saw it the same way he does, and there was nothing. Unless the warrior reveals something when it moves NE, and I'm not very optimistic, we settle 1S and start teching hunting. The start is boring. It couldn't even occupy my mind for more than 5 minutes.

[ironstar]

The captain has spoken.
I found these old stones tablets lying behind some random shrubbery, so I just used them to list the plan in easy bulletform style.

- Thou shallt settleth 1S.

- Thou shallt work the sheep.

- Thou shallt go worker first.

- Thou shallt tech hunting.

...And it just goes on and on.

[Krill]

Here is a sim.

Qggggg, you did a good job, but you made a few mistakes. You need to leave the four other players in the game with settlers and a tile to settle so that they can make cities and the sim keeps on working. You also didn't use the right size base map, which affects maintenance when we plant a second city. I've remade the sim using a Huge toroidal TBG map which is 52x52 in size (but then using a text editor to change it to a Standard map size for purposes of tech costs etc).

[Catwalk]

Thanks Krill and Qgqqqqq

[WilliamLP]

I'm not good at civ and just DedLurking this forum. I know it's almost always a noob move not to go worker first but maybe it would be educational for someone to explain how much worse it would be to settle 1N, then go fishing -> AH, WB first switching to hammers at size two, then worker -> sheep?

Are the advantages of that worth anything? I.e. more food, hills, forests in the blunt cross I think. (I know the answer is no, because people here are vastly better than me.)

[Catwalk]

Welcome to the team WilliamLP! Feel free to introduce yourself in the welcome thread and post your gmail address, if you have one.

Off the top of my newbie head, one reason why WB first is/can be supoptimal is that you can't take full advantage of being size 2 since that means you will be working another unimproved tile for quite a while (need to produce a worker first and then improve a tile). Worker first followed by WB is more interesting, since you will then have 2 improved tiles by the time you reach size 2.

[Krill]

WB is actually rarely that suboptimal - the problem is that you can't go WB first if you lack Fishing, which is why Gilette picked the Vikings.

[WilliamLP]

Playing with the sim I tried a few starts to T30. I assumed starting a settler at size 3 for all. Sorry for not taking the time to write out all the details - I'm sure people here can fill them in or do better.

1. Krill's start with deer -> cottage -> irrigate sugar.

On T30 it has 6F / 3H / 13C per turn. 43 hammers into the settler. Warrior + 15 hammers. 543 total beakers. Other: 3 more worker turns to start a mine or someting, plus the one turn into the sheep road. 8 turns of cottage growth.

2. Same start, but substitute AH + sheep for Pottery + cottage. We get 9F / 3H / 13C per turn. 69 hammers into the settler. Warrior + 12 hammers. 564 total beakers (due to discount on AH). Other: 3 extra worker turns, plus one turn of useless road moving from deer to sheep. No option for earlier granary.

Financial sheep on a river is a really good tile. Is an earlier cottage worth it?

3. Settle 1N, fishing -> AH -> mining -> bronze. Insane version where I forget hammers exist except for the WB. Start on barracks to not suffer unit hammer decay. Grow to 2, freeze growth for hammers until WB is done, no hammer overflow on WB. Finish worker T22, improve sheep, 1T irrigate sugar en route. Start settler T25. Sometimes add beakers by working coast instead of sugar and overflowing. After turn 30: 11F / 1 H / 16C per turn. 53 hammers into settler. Only the starting warrior for defense 3 hammers into warrior, 6 into barracks. 611 beakers.

It looks more reasonable on first glance than I thought, but a fishing civ does better. Probably too risky for little / no reward.

4. #3, but a less defenseless version. Start a warrior, and overflow hammers for WB, and spend one turn on hammers at size 2 before fish are hooked to finish the warrior. Finish worker T23, start settler T27. After turn 30: 10F / 1H / 16C per turn, with sugar farm finishing next turn. 33 hammers into settler. Warrior + 12 hammers. 585 beakers.

So I see that these fishing openings are probably weaker taking into account that the deer start more than catches up on all counts once the sheep are hooked up. I'd still like to see the rationale for Pottery first over AH here though.