[SPOILERS] Team EggHeads: DMOC and TeddyKGB (Now Lurker-Friendly!)

[DMOC]

Complete Early-Game Micromanagement Plan (To ~Turn 33)

Here's our complete early-game planned. Huge thanks to TeddyKGB for helping out with this. To whoever is playing the turns -- please make sure you adhere to this plan, and when in doubt, ask the other team members on this thread. If I don't mention anything about tiles worked, assume that whatever we work is the same as the previous turn, and the same for the capital's build and technology research. This plan will obviously not account for scouting moves, which must be made on a turn-by-turn basis.

Turns 0-6: These are the easiest turns. We're researching Hunting, building a Worker, and working the 3H tile to get the expansive bonus.

Turn 7: Hunting finished, start research on Animal Husbandry.

Turn 12: Worker finished, and starts to camp the deer. Capital starts a warrior and switches to 3F pigs tile.



Turn 15: Camp finishes, and capital works the 4F 1H 1C tile.

Turn 16: Worker goes onto the hill 4-4 of the capital, as highlighted in the screenshot. Note: there's an extra forest there that shouldn't be there -- I think it was from growth, so I deleted it for this simulation.



Turn 17: Worker starts road.

Turn 18: Worker finishes road.

Turn 19: Worker pre-roads the pigs tile. Capital grows to size 2 and works the pigs tile in addition to the deer.

Turn 20: Animal Husbandry finished, research Mining. Worker starts pasture. Note here that the capital has switched production to a settler. This step is important --- thanks to TeddyKGB for figuring out this!



Turn 23: Pasture on pigs is finished, and the capital switches production to a warrior to grow in 2 turns (with no food overflow).



Turn 24: Capital finishes warrior, who ideally goes to the site of the second city. The capital starts production on another warrior, but this is temporary. Worker finishes the roads on the pigs.

Turn 25: Capital grows to size 3 with no overflow and starts on a settler. It works the pigs, deer, and any other tile that gives 3 total food and production. The worker pre-roads the tile indicated in the screenshot. Since it's turn 25, and we're playing on Normal/Monarch, barbarian humans will not start spawning until after the turn 25 flips over to the turn 26 (thanks to DanF5771) so the worker should be safe.



Turn 26: The worker moves on top of the hill indicated in the screenshot for turn 28.

Turn 27: Mining is finished, the worker starts his mine. Research starts on Fishing.

Here's the turn 28 screenshot, for reference. The worker has 3 turns left on his mine.



Turn 30: The worker finishes the mine, speeding up the settler by one turn since the capital will be working that tile.

Turn 31: The worker finishes the grassland road.



Turn 32: Settler finished, capital resumes production on a warrior. Note that because we don't know where the second city will be located, I will just leave the settler in the capital.



Turn 33: Fishing finished, research is set onto Bronze Working, but this is tentative and can be changed to Agriculture if we really need that wheat we just found on turn 1. I would really caution against delaying BW and slavery, though... The worker continues to mine his tile, the settler ideally will be settled or moving towards our city. The capital switches production to a workboat while using maximum hammers. As you can see, our warrior has 7/15 hammers invested, so we can produce it in 1 turn in an emergency.



---

Thoughts: the worker roading the tile 4-4-4 of the capital is something that may change in our plans, based on if we're going to instead be settling to the south or the north, rather than west. Still, everything else should be roughly the same. Let me know if there are errors or ways to improve this.

[TeddyKGB]

1. By all means, continue your (excellent!) early-game planning. I'll be posting a detailed plan based on your T32 settler, and you can revise it if needed.

Thank you, hope it'll help a bit and not be just total waste of time. You already post plan earlier and there is some pictures even. As I see it, our tech path set till T20 and city managment till T12. We have few more turns to decide is it worth to change it further.

2. Going worker -> scout is not a bad choice, but the reason why I would be against it is in case we end up with some issues with barbarians. Even though this is monarch, we have to remember that there's probably more land than usual compared to a single player game, and humans don't start off the game with "bonus" units like the high-level AIs do. Thus, to be safe, we should assume that barbarians will be like they are in emperor-difficulty. According to this post, barbarian animals will spawn starting after turn 5, and up to turn 25. Thus, from turn 26 and onwards, barbarian humans will spawn

I didn't check on mechanic info before, just open yours T45 sim file in WB and saw animals only around the map, so start to think about Wo>Scout.
I can't explain why there is only animals, except maybe map size or donut script modify T26 into a bigger number. Any thoughts?

3. Related to the previous point, I mentioned that since we can expect there to be a large ocean, we should seriously consider building a workboat that can help explore the coast, perhaps in the separate direction as the scout so we can get circumnavigation. If we don't do that, then yes consider building an early scout. But if we have horses, chariots would be a better bet.

I agree, we should consider scouting WB, and we will, but thats for later turns. Same with chariot.
I was checking into possibility to us get Mining or Fishing one turn faster and get a bigger bonus on later techs. And its a big gamble with Wo>Scout. We have time till T12 to decide on it, after we'll know more about the map.

4. I'm pretty sure we're not isolated.

We probably will know for certain on T12.

I don't think Wo>Scout is better, it could be just terrible in certain conditions, but its a possibility and we'll know more on T12 to decide. Just to keep this option in mind while move our scout till T12.

EDIT: crosspost. Great post about opening with pictures and turn actions, DMOC.
Just to mention, this plan could be not possible if forest will grow on both GH tiles.
And we should be willing abandon this plan if we in danger somehow.
Its not set in stone, but for now its what we want.

[DMOC]

TeddyKGB - I took a look at our general info spreadsheet, and while it looks good, I'm not sure if we want to spend that much time keeping track of all the demograhpics. Maybe if we had a team of 20, but definitely not for the size of our team now. I was thinking that we could just record for each entry the relevant stuff each team did, i.e. for turn 0 we would put down "Settled in place" for all teams other than Vicky/India, and for turn 1 we would have nothing there except for Vicky/India settling in place, then for turn 6/7 we put down if any team's score increased, etc. This might seem more feasible than keeping track of every single piece of the demographics.

Edit: Hm ...looks like it does take a while for barb warriors to appear. Still we do want a warrior out just in case a human player has some non-peaceful intentions.

[TeddyKGB]

Feel free to edit it as you want.

We should be definately look closer into C&D on starting turns, if we had time, cause it allow us to indicate the turn warriors build by other teams. And by that time we should know more about distance between capitals so react to it and change queue if needed.

[DMOC]

Why Sury II of Byzantium?

I figured it was high time I write a bit down as to why I suggested our team pick Sury (Exp/Cre) as our first pick, then Byzantium (Hippodrome, Cataphract, Myst/Wheel) as our second pick. As you all know, we had the sixth leader pick in the game, and the first five were possibly the best ones picked. Thus, I tried to explore other trait combinations that wouldn't force us to pair up Financial with a non-top tier secondary trait. Since Creative and Expansive are among the best other traits, it made sense for me to combine them together. Add in the fact that in this game (1) expansion and (2) economy will be the key, and I figured this was a straightforward leader selection. We have excellent traits for early and fast expansion, so the plan is to leverage that into working more commerce-heavy tiles and thus bolster our economy. I also have experience playing as Sury, and enjoy his traits.

Then, with the fifth civilization selection, I suggested Byzantium. If you'll recall, the Incans, the Indians, the Sumerians, and the Romans were all gone (in that order) by the time we were back up. Inca and India are by far my top two favorite civilizations, so there's a clear gap between them and the rest of the "top-tier" ones. Still, I think Byzantium is a solid pick here. The main benefit here is the strong Unique Unit. I'm hoping that there's going to be enough distance between capitals that teams will avoid ancient-era and classical-era warfare, which plays directly into the strengths of Byzantium! Once the civilizations get established, we can potentially beeline towards Guilds and wreak havoc on our neighbors with a buffed 2-move unit! In addition, we have a theatre replacement -- the Hippodrome -- which only costs 25 hammers for us (down from 50). While that's a modest savings, realize that the Hippodromes here are basically auto-builds in every city (one forest chop is enough!) and are going to be extremely important for Medieval era and Renaissance era warfare.

Of course, things don't come without costs. The major downside of Byzantium here is that we have weak starting techs -- Mysticism and The Wheel. For us, Mysticism is especially useless as we are Creative, but The Wheel is versatile, and means that we can get roads and trade routes up early, in some ways making up for our lack of Financial. And regardless, I've always wanted to play as Byzantium, but have never done so in single player as it meant that I would have to skip cataphracts.

So what can we do? Here's the general idea I have in mind:

1. We expand rapidly, making use of our traits to place cities in optimal locations and getting more workers out.
2. We consolidate during the late-Classical and early-Medieval era by growing our cities and possibly pre-building some units that upgrade to Cataphracts.
3. We beeline to Guilds and amass an army of Cataphracts, which ideally may help put us in a strong position in the Renaissance era.

For reference, here is the technology tree. Guilds requires both Feudalism and Machinery, so it will be a while before we get it, and if we do beeline it, we'll have to ignore the top of the tech tree (including Drama). But I don't view that as necessarily a downside; this actually gives us options. If we for some reason decide teams are going to mass-produce pikemen for some reason, then we have a Drama "beeline" to fall back on which will help us with a draft-based army. Furthermore, the way to Guilds isn't even a bad path. To get that, we'll need Monarchy and Metal Casting before we can start Feudalism and Machinery, respectively. Monarchy and Metal Casting are superb, obviously, and we'll want to run Hereditary Rule ASAP. A quick Feudalism beeline could also deter other teams from attacking us. In fact, I suspect other teams are thinking of ways to kick us down a notch so that Cataphracts don't dominate.

[TeddyKGB]

Quick C&D note, if I read it right:

Max Rival GNP is 21 now so that means 2 possibilites, imo:

1. 1 of 8 non CRE rivals settled on commerce resource like Wine and working Oasis while researching AH or BW.
   Edit: Thats not accurate, I forgot about FIN bonus, so FIN teams no need to settled on the Wine, just had to work Oasis or Water tile if they have Fishing
   
   
2. Team M&M settled on normal tile and work riverside tile or settled on +1c resource and work non riverside tile while research AH.
   Edit: And M&M is also FIN so it possible they settled on +1c, work Oasis and research tech with no bonus.
   

Edit2: there is more more options with FIN teams, I guess. My first attempt to C&D wasnt so good. I'll get back to it later.

[TeddyKGB]

Here's the general idea I have in mind:

1. We expand rapidly, making use of our traits to place cities in optimal locations and getting more workers out.
2. We consolidate during the late-Classical and early-Medieval era by growing our cities and possibly pre-building some units that upgrade to Cataphracts.
3. We beeline to Guilds and amass an army of Cataphracts, which ideally may help put us in a strong position in the Renaissance era.

Thats a very good goals. Lets try to achive them all.
As you said, we should playing our leader traits with maximum value.
Just one more thing. I know its obvious, but just to mention it: we are CRE so get a discount on Library as well. Not sure Colosseums will be wise investmets, but it is an option too, after we will know more about the map.

[DMOC]

Quick C&D note, if I read it right:

Max Rival GNP is 21 now so that means 2 possibilites, imo:

1. 1 of 8 non CRE rivals settled on commerce resource like Wine and working Oasis while researching AH or BW.
   Edit: Thats not accurate, I forgot about FIN bonus, so FIN teams no need to settled on the Wine, just had to work Oasis.
   
   
2. Team M&M settled on normal tile and work riverside tile or settled on +1c resource and work non riverside tile while research AH.
   Edit: And M&M is also FIN so it possible they settled on +1c, work Oasis and research tech with no bonus.
   

Interesting ... looked ike some team switched their decisions on turn 0. My guess is Barteq/Geo as they were last to finish their turn. They are financial and they could be researching something like Bronze Working as they start with Fishing and Mining. I can't believe that there are oasis tiles by a start, since if there were I expect each start to have something like that as oasis have huge benefits early.

Here's the general idea I have in mind:

1. We expand rapidly, making use of our traits to place cities in optimal locations and getting more workers out.
2. We consolidate during the late-Classical and early-Medieval era by growing our cities and possibly pre-building some units that upgrade to Cataphracts.
3. We beeline to Guilds and amass an army of Cataphracts, which ideally may help put us in a strong position in the Renaissance era.

Thats a very good goals. Lets try to achive them all.
As you said, we should playing our leader traits with maximum value.
Just one more thing. I know its obvious, but just to mention it: we are CRE so get a discount on Library as well. Not sure Colosseums will be wise investmets, but it is an option too, after we will know more about the map.

One thing to potentially add: It seems like our team has possibly the least use of Construction as compared to other teams. For one, the Hippodrome will arguably make up for the Colloseums and are cheaper. Second, our civilization gears towards 2-movers, which can be difficult to coordinate with catapults.

[TeddyKGB]

As for C&D note, there a lot of possibilities with bonus tiles as I see it now. But to make it simpler, if I understand mechanic correct, to get 21GNP:
- if you CRE you had to put 13 beakers into tech after (commerce+1)*techbonus formula
- if you non CRE you had to put 15

About planning our research path for war, its too early. As you said our first goal should be

1. We expand rapidly, making use of our traits to place cities in optimal locations and getting more workers out.

[TeddyKGB]

What's our scout next move?

As much I like that riverside Wheat, not sure we want to plant our city#2 in that direction. There is tundra and water. And our timing on Agri just dont fit.
And it looks like there is noone else we could meet in South direction unless there is some kind of land bridge SW of Wheat.
And we want to check that fresh water signs to decide our city#2 location.

In general I would like our city#2 get us closer to flood plains tile East of the capital, so plant city#2 North seem like best option for me now, without knowledge about resources.
We will not abandon that Wheat for long ofc, we can plant city#3 or city#4 there depends on location of strategic resources.

So I suggest you consider moving scout 1-4 on a hill N of Deer and continue (4-?) or (8-7) next. What you think?

And I was thinking some more about Wo>Scout and as much as I'd like to have contact with maximum number of teams as fast as possible, I think its too much of a risk in MP game even with full diplo. We could be harassed by single scout and all our domestic plans go to hell.
You have expirience in MP full diplo, so you can decide is it worth the risk to go Wo>Scout.