kjn's Ryde (spoilers!)

[kjn]

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

Correct.

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?

Yes, because there is a resource in it. We can't build galleys or other ships, however. And clams+silver is a decent city anyway - at least that's the best readily visible spot on the map.

[kjn]

Commodore, I gotta say that this start is trickier than it looks - there are four different techs required, and all of the bonus tiles are strong but not extremely strong (ie no 6-strength tiles). BW first gets into the problem of what you're going to chop into, and chopping isn't that powerful on quick.

From a pure development perspective, I think Fishing would be the key start tech here. Lets see if someone picks the Romans or Native Americans. Perhaps AT will go for the latter? CHM will turn the totem poles into cheap happiness buildings.

Also: barb mechanics. We have raging barbs, and real barb units will start to appear once we have settled 6 cities in total. I got my second city up T24, so I'd better be ready to get some better units than warriors no later than T30 or so.

So, for a guessing game, I think the pick will turn up to be like this:

Me - Ramses of Mali
AT - Hannibal of Native Americans
Stick&Brick - Willem of Maya
Catwalk - Pacal of India

[kjn]

So AutomatedTeller is Hannibal (FIN/CHM) of Egypt. Not the NAs as I had guessed, but another civ with a monument UB and an early UU.

It's a pretty good choice, I think. Egypt has excellent starting techs and a very good early UU (though the WC doesn't gain as much oompf compared to the chariot as the skirmisher does compared to the archer). The UB is more situational, but can be useful at times. Running specialists doesn't fit well with FIN, but the extra happiness from CHM will help.

The combo has however the drawback in that there is nothing at all to help production: no discounted buildings at all. In comparison, I have not only half-cost temples (nice, but no biggie) but half-cost forges (arguably the second most important building in the game, after granaries).

[kjn]

Away from Civ for the weekend, but as noted above I did some sims after Commodore posted the map.

One possibility for an alternate opening is to go warrior-work boat-worker. That will get the clams improved T9 if I get my spreadsheet sim correct, though at the cost of delaying the improvement of the rice tile. Having an extra warrior early will make it much more likely that I can scout aggressively from the beginning, and extra commerce from T9 will certainly be useful. I think I will need to explore that deeper. Or do you want to try your hand at it, Waterbat?

Another open question is if I should go for two workers before the settler. I guess that depends on how badly I want the sheep improved.

I should probably also look into doing the Oracle-MC play. That's 400 or so beakers for about 70-75 hammers, ie a difference of two chops to non-IND. And would it be possible and desirable to use an early forge engineer to get the pyramids?

Checking PBEM 23, the Oracle fell T37, using Louis of Byzantium and with circa 20% higher tech costs but lower maintenance with a pretty dedicated beeline. That gives a benchmark for a capital Oracle. The Pyramids fell on T53 in that game, helped with stone and insane micro. Generating a GE will need 23 specialist-turns, so circa T60 at the earliest. Probably competitive if there is no stone.

Note to self: settle ON marble or stone, if possible.

But the overriding question is really how much early action there will be, not counting the barbs. ATs Hannibal of Egypt certainly gives the option of early aggression, but it doesn't really fit with FIN. Catwalk's India I feel is a builder choice.

We will have a distance of about 11 tiles or so between our capitals - 7 once we remove the capital borders. We will have space for a close ring of cities around our capital, but not more than that without fighting for it. I think I need to get early skirmishers.

[waterbat]

I might have some time to play with sandbox tomorrow. Probably after your day is done though.

[waterbat]

I settled on stone and 1-turned the pyramids on t54 I think in PBEM37. No bulbing MC, just 5 chops and a worker-whip overflow. Not sure in this close game if that is a decent path. I like the forges though. the sooner the better.

[waterbat]

Math powered chops.

[kjn]

Yeah, but hopefully there won't be any more IND leaders in the game, and that I can deny the other players access to stone. Maybe I should look at the build dates in Mackoti's games? And will there be any stone/marble on the map?

Which again brings me back to the real strategic question in this game: how much early warring and action will there be?

The barbs will start to appear once we hit 6 cities in total, ie probably around T25. And how much early choking will there be? ATs Hannibal of Egypt doesn't strike me as that aggressive early game, but it certainly has capacity for it. India is a builder choice. Willem is the passive-aggressive choice - plant a city and take over your best tiles.

Compared to PBEM 34 we have, what, 44 more tiles per player? You started circa 8 tiles from each other, right? That's two more cities, and we'll be circa 10 tiles away from each other. 144 tiles is space for 7 cities, but some will be water.

That's one reason why I'd like to explore the warrior-WB-worker opening a bit - having three warriors from T4 will make it possible to send out a warrior from the start on a spoiling mission, and have two to secure the capital area.

[kjn]

Tentative micro-plan

I wasn't that happy with my first baseline micro plan. I couldn't get tech, builds, and growth to line up, and the sheep was undeveloped for quite some time, or I had to really delay the settlement of the second city.

This one is IMO much better. I delay the settler with two turns, but get my second worker much quicker, and get my tiles improved quicker too.

The solution here is quite simple: warrior first!

Tech: Fishing (T4) -> Agri (T9) -> Hunting (T13) -> AH (T17) -> Archery (T21) -> BW

Ryd (T0): Warrior (T4) -> WB (T8) -> Worker (T13) -> Worker (T17) -> Warrior (T21) -> Settler (T25) -> Worker (T28)

Tiles:
T0-T2: grass forest
T3-T6: ivory
T7: ivory, plains forest
T8: clam, ivory
T9-T16: Clam, ivory
T17-18: Clam, Rice
T19-20: Clam, Rice, ivory
T21-25: Clam, Rice, Sheep, Ivory
T26: Rice, Sheep, Ivory, grass forest

Bredaryd (T26): Skirmisher

Tiles:
T26-28: Clam
T29: Clam, Silver

Workers:

Alfred: pre-road 1NW (T13) -> farm rice (T17) -> move elephant (T19) -> camp elephant (T22) -> road (T24) -> move silver (T25) -> mine silver (T27)

B: move sheep (T17) -> pasture sheep (T20) -> move 1SE of Ryd (T22) -> road (T24) -> move silver (T25) -> mine silver (T27)

Settler: SW (T25) -> move and settle 1SW of silver (T26)

The tech path and the builds after the settler finishes are of course tentative. I might use only a single worker to mine the silver - it will finish on T29 with only a single worker, in time for Bredaryd to grow to 2, so there is little point in finishing the mine quicker.

What I'm most happy with are the build times: 9 turns to build 2 workers. 4 turns for a settler. 3 turns to build the third worker.

[kjn]

Based on this and my ISDG micro plan, I think I can start to set up my Civ development manifesto:

• A situationally useful tile is better than an improved tile!
  
• Worker turns are used to get situationally useful tiles!
  
• Settlers and workers should be built as quickly as possible!
  
• Large overflow from a settler or worker build is a sign of inefficiency!
  

From a worker turn standpoint, my micro plan is quite bad. I spend lots of turns just moving around. But the worker-turns are spent on just the tiles needed to develop the empire in the most efficient manner.