Zalson plays one turn at a time [COMPLETE]

[v8mark]

I think the medium term plan for you will be to try and make your core as productive as possible. The good news is that you have the resources to do that pretty easily.. you have gems and gold, which is +4 happy with forges, enough health to get by for now, and some Calendar resources to boot. So the key to reaching the mid-game in a good situation will be, I think, to have a core of size 10-11 cities (either four or five, looking at the land). Some will grow easily, some will struggle, at least to begin with (and until you can get the spices hooked up). You don't have to expend a significant amount of resources getting a super-early Monarchy or an Oracle/Pyramids rush, which is good because you'll need to build cottages over mines, you'll be working a lot of coast, and you'll need what few hammers you do have for settlers, workers and basic infrastructure.

So turtling until Guilds is probably right, but it won't really be much of a turtle because there isn't much in the way of an external threat. The only military you'll have to build is potentially for Hereditary Rule happiness, and that's a situation in which having no metal is actually an advantage, because you only have to spend 15 hammers on a warrior. The sole AI you've met is a) a considerable distance away across a desert and b) Ramesses, one of the greediest farmer's gambiteers in the game. So you're OK to put every hammer and coin into a growth spurt.

So with that in mind, the quicker you can get your first two cities into the mode they need to be in, the better. I would guess Mecca is a cottage capital and Medina will be a production city, albeit not a great one until Civil Service hits and you can farm the grassland. Cities 3 and 4 (and maybe 5) will be working mostly coast, but that's ok - they'll have libraries and enough food to perhaps run a pair of scientists. The key thing will be to have enough of a production base to switch to a war footing when the good land's all used up and the conflicts come about, which I'm guessing will be medieval era (Guilds!) on a map like this.

Before that though, with the core in place you can scout out potential outposts for future cities outside of the ring of desert and coastline, most of which I guess will be resource grabs. You'll have relatively little competition for them, so you can even afford to wait a little bit until it makes economic sense to settle them.

[Zalson]

Thanks for the post, v8mark.

Agreed on the medium turn goal: expand and grow. Not reason to try to rush Ramesses -- although we will be enemies from our different religions.

One of the things that is nice from a synergistic perspective is that I will need to get calendar very quickly; I'd really like to try my hand at putting out a 3x golden age using the Mausoleum. I've never done that before and would like to give it a try.

I am excited to pursue the midgame with the same level of micro-attention that people pursue the first couple terms. I tend to lose my edge after 20+ turns in a session. So playing one turn at time should help with that.

For example, I am pretty sure I should be able to grow Mecca to Size 4 in 1T or so, due to overflow. I think I need a +7 food surplus. That's the kind of thing I would miss playing multiple terms in a session.

[Zalson]

T51:

Poly moves from 4T to 2T @ 98/149 beakers. 18 beakers last turn which is interesting: -Maybe some strange rounding?- Got 1 less beaker this turn because I was working the floodplains in Medina this turn, instead of the cottage.

Mecca grew to size 3 and 16/24 food. There go all my calculations about growing in 1T with a farm; for some reason, I had thought Mecca would overflow to 17/24 food. I guess I hadn’t filled up the foodbox all the way (which is what I was expecting).

Medina continues to chug along at +5 FPT (11/24) and +2HPT. I will probably whip it in 6 turns -- that should grow it to size 4? I’d really rather it not be the holy city (it’ll definitely be a production city) -- which means I need to get City 3 to size 3 in about 9 turns. Considering that it doesn’t exist yet… I guess I will have a wonder pump? It’s probably too early to think about what this city will do -- besides have great production.

The workers should be able to plant a farm E of Mecca next turn, which feels like a better use of their labor than running them over to the floodplains right away. Medina will keep.

I think the current plan will be to chop one of the forests next to Mecca into a settler on turn 55, allowing a double whip to get City 3 on T57.

Meanwhile, Medina will grow to size 4 on T59, where it will put 1T into a worker, which will be double-whipped with enough overflow to nearly complete the granary -- which will allow me to grow to 50% food in the meantime. And I’ll have another worker.

No pictures this turn because, well, they're the same as everything else. Well, except for the South.

[Zalson]

While I'm waiting for RTR to download (I've joined NylesStandish's team in PB34 as a dedicated lurker and am successfully asking inane questions), I've written up a couple turns in this one.

T52
Workers start a farm next to Mecca. Overflow onto settler. Don’t need another warrior that much.

Poly in 1 (125/149) on 21 B/T.



T53
Monotheism in 7T but that will increase if I double whip things. Right? Right?

Medina to size 3 next turn.

Monotheism in 7@21b/t. 1 beaker overflow.

Workers finish farming, proving that I am bad at counting. I guess it is only 5 worker turns for a farm? Worker C runs over to the silks E-NE of Mecca. Mecca switches off the settler and drops some hammers into a warrior.




T54
Mono in 6. 1T growth in Mecca; switched Medina off cottage and onto silks forest for extra hammer -- maybe i can use that to double whip in 5 turns for the granary? (Answer no: i should have done this earlier… for a single pop with at size 3).



I spot some Chinese borders in the distant south. No screenshot of the meeting because I don’t have enough information and I forgot to screenshot.

Worker C chops the forest. Worker B runs to that silks forest while worker A … is horrifically mismanaged and moves onto the cottage. I thought I could put in a road. Instead, I should have moved him to the plains forest for a chop or one of the other silks for a turn of chop. IDIOT!

T55
Chop completes. 6 turns to go on settler (5 left on Monotheism) (20/100, +31 this turn).



12 turns left on Medina’s granary. 26/60; 4t to grow.



I was going to see what might happen if I tried my previously mentioned plan of growing Medina to Size 4 and double-whipping down before Judaism came in (while growing City 3 to size 2). We’ll have to see if that’s possible. It probably isn’t but oh well, at least I’m trying things? Yeah?

[Zalson]

T56:

Workers A,B,C put 1 turn each into the floodplains farm. That means we'll complete that next turn, which means that Medina will have a +6 food surplus.

Double-whipped the settler at Mecca. Overflow of 11H will go into ... a barracks? A warrior? Not sure yet.

Medina can single whip next turn, but I'll keep it growing to size 4 for the double-whipped worker.

Monotheism in 4T still. Might sabotage that to regrow to size 3 at Mecca.

[Zalson]

T57:

I have decided not to sabotage monotheism. I know you were all in suspense.

Damascus is now founded. Not only am I unable to read, but I am bad at math. 7-2=5 which is the number food that damascus generates each turn with the FP farm borrowed from Mecca. That means it will take my 5 turns to grow to Size 2. Which is 2 more than 3 turns, which means I will found Judaism in Medina (probably).



Mecca:
Putting shields into a barracks because I have nothing else to build and would like grow to size 3 sometime soon. Otherwise the 22h overflow from the warrior would have gone to nothing. That was also an oversight, I should have overflowed into another settler and then grown this turn. I do not need a barracks that much. 10/15 on a warrior.



Medina:
Will chop the silks forest into the granary and will avoid my fruitless double-whip to size 2 strategy. Instead, I'll double-whip a settler. Or a worker.



Damascus:
Brand new. Starts on a granary. Will chop & whip that into a monument/granary if I don't get Judaism to found there.

All the lands:



The north:



Need to dotmap this and I won't do it in my downtime if I don't have it available online. I need to figure out if I want a terrible horses/sheep city or 2 less-terrible cities to split the sheep and the horses. Or if I want a terrible copper city. Protective Archers can beat war chariots. Right? Right?!

Next research target is going to be fishing, for Damascus's sake.

[The Black Sword]

You probably don't need fishing right away, unless the holy city spawns there. You could probably fit something else in first and still be ready to chop/whip the WB in time.

For settling, one idea might be to settle on that desert copper. Pro archers on a hill city will hold, it gets access to some dearly needed copper, it's a pretty decent city long term and seals off the floodplains for you. It's not very good for the snowball though, maybe it's possible to keep Egypt happy in diplomacy and settle somewhere better.

[Zalson]

Thanks, The Black Sword. That does make sense (deferring fishing path until I can figure out where Judaism lands.

I can get the monument out if it isn't a holy city and work on something else in the meantime. My choices would be:

Fishing
Writing
Archery
Meditation
Iron Working
Metal Casing

I need to do some thinking on the correct path but that will have to wait until tonight.

Founding on the copper seems like decent-ish plant, especially based on the land I've got. FP farms would get it to +4 food... It's never going to be a good city but It's an okay border plant. Also forces Ramesses south.

[Zalson]

T59:


Mecca grows to size 3 and Medina grows to size 4. Mecca grows onto the mine, but I've adjust it to grow in 2. Damascus will work the gems mine for a bit at least.

Really need to get those workers back down here. And improving Medina and Damascus, I suppose. I now realize the imperative of 2 workers per city. Definitely will double-whip the worker in Medina.

I've tentatively dotmapped the north. I think I'm going to immediately settle the copper east of Medina to ensure I have one metal immediately available. Probably not for another 10 turns or so.



T60:



Monotheism is founded as expected in Medina. Convert to Judaism and also convert to Organized Religion.

Start researching Archery and switch to 0% science for a turn. I'll need Archery to ensure I can hold the copper city.

Chop goes into the granary at Medina. I desperately need to come up with a worker plan to get Medina, Mecca, Damascus improved... whipping at Medina will certainly help solve that. Also going to chop the grassland forest E of Mecca into another worker next turn... I don't really need a barracks yet.

[Old Harry]

I'd settle 3 second, but move it 1w so it has 4 tiles to work before borders pop and so it'll be a strong commerce city later (presuming you cottage all the flood plains). It also shares more tiles with 2 - which I'd move 1n so you don't waste a floodplain (although the fresh water and trade connection for settling on the river mean your site isn't strictly worse). You could also settle nw of the western peak for a cottage helper city (it'll be a while before you can work all the flood plains otherwise). Would other people go for the 16-fp mega city or split them like I'm suggesting?

I'd probably try for the gold fairly early too, but assume that Egypt will beat you to it and have contingency plans in place.