(SPOILERS) Donovan Zoi Fights in Honor of Japan's Bad Name

[Donovan Zoi]

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my thread for the CivForum PB 88 Game!  

And thanks to the hosts for reaching out to us here at RB.  I wasn't planning on playing any new games for awhile, but this one was too good to pass up.

--Modified Base BTS with all 52 leaders.
--Average of 4 original cities per civ, so things will be tight.
--Deity level was selected ovewhelmingly by popular vote, so I am expecting chaos at every turn.

PB88 Setup Thread (Almost 100% in German but you can right-click to translate, at least in Chrome)

I'm also gonna be held to posting on a regular basis, which may be weird for some.  Because I have Cornflakes on board as a dedlurker! 

Looking forward to talking through a challenging game, especially with Japan.  While not the best roll in terms of the entire game, I believe than this civ is setup nicely to survive, or even capitalize upon, the early-game elimination process you might expect in such tight quarters.  We have access to:

--Req techs for Pottery (for Cottages) if we want
--AGG = Cheap Barracks + C1 Melee = early Shock or Cover Axes
--The Wheel for early road net (offense or defense)
--the otherwise-maligned PRO benefits of base BTS to bunker down if needed.

Last night, I was able to join the game successfully and capture the first screenshot.  Reserved for next post, which I am racing to get out before I need to go over the hill and through the woods to...my sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving.

[Donovan Zoi]

OK, so here we go!

Already from the outset, we have some choices to make:

--SIP or move 1W?  That could be an isthmus to our north, which could put off netting the Clams indefinitely if we SIP.  We start with a Settler Warrior and PRO Ambush Archer (No, no early tanks -- Ambush promo is presumably for the game admins to distinguish this Archer from the rest since it needs to stay in the capital for the first hundred turns to dissuade random warrior-rush conquests that would throw off the game).
--If 1W, WB or Worker first?  We start with Fishing and the Wheel
--Pottery or Mining > BW after Agriculture

My thoughts at this point are:
--Move 1W and settle on T1.  We get a Plains Hill settlement and access to the Clams.  We can send the Warrior 1SE to make sure we aren't missing anything good in that last fogged tile.
--Still thinking Worker first. Better food yield. Plus if we settle 1W, we lose the tile that could get us the WB in 8 turns.
--I think we have to go Agi > Mining > BW to chop out and mine that Gold now.  We'd have Fishing to maximize coastal commerce to get these techs faster perhaps.

[El Grillo]

Interesting start, and good luck. So the initial Archer can't move at all?

[Charriu]

The archer is allowed to move, but as soon as you found your capitol it should stay there for the first 100 turns.

[Cornflakes]

Happy Thanksgiving! I just took a very quick look now, I won’t have time to take a closer look until tomorrow morning. 

- 1W worker first also looks best to me on quick look. The extra hammer city center will more than make up for the turn of moving by the time the worker is completed. And worker first since the ROI from netting clams isn’t great. 
- Mining > BW probably?

Any idea where in the world we landed based on few tiles we can see? (This is earth map, right?) maybe Colombia in northern South America?

[Donovan Zoi]

Interesting start, and good luck. So the initial Archer can't move at all?

Thanks!  And yes, it's just as Charriu has stated.  This is just one of the small details that has left me pretty impressed with the overall preparation of this game so far.

Happy Thanksgiving! I just took a very quick look now, I won’t have time to take a closer look until tomorrow morning. 

It's all good!  The first turn is open for 7 days, and then we are on a 48-hour cycle with a strict limit on pause requests.  Hope you had a great Thanksgiving as well.  

- 1W worker first also looks best to me on quick look. The extra hammer city center will more than make up for the turn of moving by the time the worker is completed. And worker first since the ROI from netting clams isn’t great. 
- Mining > BW probably?

If you are cool with it, I can move the Archer/Settler 1W on Friday and post a screenshot. I think we've both made a pretty good case for that site. 

What about the Warrior? I was thinking 1SE, but that mountain is going to do the first few turns of scouting down there as soon as we settle the capital.  Should we rather send him north to see if there's a worthwhile canal site waiting for us? 

I also think we can set Agriculture as our opening tech as well.  It's a good thing we have the Wheel because we can kill time by roading some hills as we wait for Mining and BW, so those tiles can be worked without delay once unlocked.

Any idea where in the world we landed based on few tiles we can see? (This is earth map, right?) maybe Colombia in northern South America?

Yep, this is an Earth map so my first thought was Colombia as well, and I can't really picture what else it could be.  On the real deal, there is also a river east of the isthmus that flows into the Caribbean Sea.

[mackoti]

You can move wariour SE(on the unforested hill) to see if there is a fish on the fog.If its not is very safe to say setlling on the plain hill is the right decision.

Does agg gave double speed on baracks in BTS?i dont remeber.

Oh and if the map is so small as you said (4 cities on average) i think AGG/pro is top 10 as value.I wouldnt change for org/ind for example because if you build 1 wonder you dead.

I will lurk this defenetly.

[Cornflakes]

You can move wariour SE(on the unforested hill) to see if there is a fish on the fog.If its not is very safe to say setlling on the plain hill is the right decision.

Would a fish make a difference in the decision? I guess WB first would solve some of the problem of the worker needing to kill time waiting for Bronze Working. Generally southward is probably best for the warrior anyway because I suspect our closest neighbors will be towards Brazil or Chile (with a further travel distance to California in the north)

Does agg gave double speed on baracks in BTS?i dont remeber.

Yes it does.

Oh and if the map is so small as you said (4 cities on average) i think AGG/pro is top 10 as value.I wouldnt change for org/ind for example because if you build 1 wonder you dead.

Very true, I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe our neighbor will be IND and build Stonehenge for us

[Cornflakes]

Can you record tech costs for the first two columns next time you log in?

[Cornflakes]

Expounding in the fish not making a difference ... the +1 hammer city center cancels out the +1 food from improved fish vs. clams.

We could still get an 8-turn workboat from 1W by working gold for 4H total. That would put us at 8F in the box, 4 turns to grow or clams would bring us to 6 food-hammers for a 10 turn worker (EOT18). If we build the worker before growing, Worker would improve the rice just in time to work the farmed rice (EOT22), then 4 turns to grow to size 3 and pick up the forested gold (EOT26), 4 turns to grow to 4 (EOT30) and worker could have the hill that we started on mined if Mining comes in time. Will BW completed in time to chop into Settler and 2-whip?

Compare that to worker first (EOT12), farm rice T17 and grow to 2 EOT19 with 14H accumulated if we work rice the whole time. If we then work Rice + Gold we complete the workboat in 4 turns (EOT23) with 16/24F in the box, swap to clam and grow to 3 (EOT25) with 6/26F overflow. 4 turns to grow to 4 (EOT29). Overall 1 turn faster + 6 worker turns for about 10 less commerce from delaying the clam. Worker first seems best since we have Wheel to make use of the worker turns.