kjn's Ryde (spoilers!)

[kjn]

The Holkan is better than a normal spearman against any unit without first strike immunity and identical as a normal spearman, not worse, against any unit with first strike immunity.

*checks*

That's what I get for relying on the PDF reference guide a lot. But the holkan is hardly better than a regular spearman. First strike immunity is a small bonus, and being resource-less is nice but once built it's no better than a regular spearman.

[Merovech]

Wait, actually, my comparisons were wrong; it's only better against units with first strikes (which is much lamer). For some reason, I thought it had a first strike. So, yeah, my memory is just as bad as the PDF.

[kjn]

i like the idea of Ramses of Mail - here is where being 4th will help you a lot. In a 4-person game, I think that double pick will definitely be a good spot to be in.

Glad you like it! It kinda stuck at me from the beginning when thinking about the game.

We wouldn't have a quick farm or camp or fish available with Mali's Mining/Wheel start. Are you thinking of creating a sandbox for the start before picking? It might be good to get at least 1 of Agriculture/Hunting/Fishing so our first worker has something to do.

The start isn't that complex, but I might look into making a sandbox. Not sure I'm up to creating one from scratch, though.

The worker costs 40H. Agriculture should cost 80 (or 79). Hunting and Fishing 53 (or 52). 8t for Agriculture, 6t for Hunting and Fishing.

Normal start will take 8t to build the worker

5 foodhammers @ 3t + 6 foodhammers @ 5t = 45

EXP start will take 7t to build the worker

6 foodhammers @ 3t + 7 foodhammers @ 4t = 46

CRE start will take 7t to build the worker

5 foodhammers @ 2t + 6 foodhammers @ 5t = 40

Sury will take 6t to build the worker

6 foodhammers @ 2t + 7 foodhammers @ 4t = 40

So Louis will be faux-EXP here and might be an option.

So we will have Agri the same turn the worker reaches the rice no matter what, except for with Sury (who I have no intention to take). Hmmm... what about going worker first, researching Fishing, mining the hill, and building a work boat? Might be worth looking at. May have to create a sandbox after all... *grumble*

[kjn]

A note on my tile management philosophy

A lot of players swear by not wasting worker-turns, but I have a slightly different tile management philosophy. My goal is to have the largest amount of quality tiles available and worked the quickest. There is a slight difference here, which may or not become apparent during this game.

Fishing - Agriculture

I was thinking of disregarding the clam at the beginning, but the idea of Fishing - Agriculture intrigued me. So, assuming we will get non-EXP non-CRE Mali, we can have a worker in 8t with 5 overflow. We will get Fishing in 6t with 7 or 8 overflow.

T0-T2: 15H into worker
T3-T7: 30H into worker
T6: Fishing done, start Agriculture
T8: Worker done, move to hill, start work boat
T9-11: Worker mines
T8-11: 5 + 4 * 4 = 21H (or 22H) into work boat
T12: move work boat to clams
T13: clams netted
T12-13: worker roads

Hmmm... can we get Agri on T13 instead of T14? Maybe, if the tech costs are 52/79 instead of 53/80, and if we work the mine on T11-12. Seems like I have to create a sandbox after all...

[kjn]

Ok. Sandbox made. Attached the worldbuilder and the starting savegame.

I really hope I managed to get difficulty and map dimensions right - I created a duel mirrorland, but had to hack away quite a bit of it in NotePad At least it loads

[kjn]

Tentative sandbox game loaded. Realised I had put in normal tech costs with quick build times in my above post And the sandbox is missing the Mayan settler - I think there are two of one other civ...

So, for the visible resources we will need Agriculture, Hunting, AH, Fishing, and Mining. Mining is of the lowest priority, since I see no reason to not settle in place.

As for the qualities of the resource tiles, they go Clam > Rice > Sheep > Elephants. But the metric I'm going to use will be the most worked quality tiles the fastest. Ie, the fastest way to have all five resource tiles (ie including the silver) improved and worked.

I'm going to pencil in a tentative city location 1SE of the silver. It can grab the clam for food, and share the elephants with Ryd.

First run, mostly using auto tile management

Tech: Fishing (T4) -> Agri (T9) -> Hunting -> AH -> BW (T24)

Ryd: Worker (T8) -> WB (T12) -> Warrior (T17) -> Warrior (T17) -> Warrior -> Settler (T23) -> Warrior (T24) -> Worker (T27 est.)

Tiles:
T0-T2: grass forest
T3-T11: elephant
T12: Rice
T13: Clam
T14-15: Clam+Rice
T16: Clam+Rice+elephant
T17-19: Clam+Rice+Elephant
T20-23: Clam+Rice+Elephant+grass forest
T24: Rice+Elephant+2*grass forest

Bredaryd: Warrior

Tiles:
T24: Clam

Workers:

Alfred: pre-road 1NW (T8) -> farm rice (T12) -> move elephant (T14) -> camp elephant (T17) -> Road (T18-22) -> silver (T23-27/29)

Settler: SW (T23) -> move and settle 1SW of silver (T24)

Maintenance goes up with 4 once the second city is settled... The sheep will be improved T30. At least I have a baseline for the development now.

[kjn]

Horror! I'm losing the postcount competition!

[Commodore]

Curious, what's the theme there? I was about to ask why you were ignoring considerations of horse/copper but hey, Mali.

[waterbat]

the 27/29 in the silver worker action - 27 is finish the mine, 29 is finish the road to it?

definitely like the quick grab of the silver - we have to believe that there is another food resource down there to help out the growth of that city, right?

also - can we even build a workboat on that lake?

[kjn]

Småland

Well, I may have to move up AH or BW or Archery depending on how things goes, this is mostly to get a feel for the development needs here.