Yeah, anything before turn 30 is really early for a religion.
I love the gems/cow/fish spot for a city, but it's too far away for a second city.
May want to move the scout 2 tiles SW onto the plains hill and go a little wider out for the first sweep. That and the hill just offers more vision; i think it's worth the delay for that much more information.
(April 8th, 2020, 20:17)pindicator Wrote: Yeah, anything before turn 30 is really early for a religion.
I love the gems/cow/fish spot for a city, but it's too far away for a second city.
May want to move the scout 2 tiles SW onto the plains hill and go a little wider out for the first sweep. That and the hill just offers more vision; i think it's worth the delay for that much more information.
I still think the gems/cow is our dangling carrot meant to make us build a galley.
I did move the scout onto the hill, we can turn back onto the northern path next turn, with one turn delay, which should be totally ok:
South might be a good option for third city, with the wheat. I still think we very probably want to share the capital fish for the second city, and a city on the sugar is also looking better now. The FP area is interesting, possibly already contested with someone, if the map is as tight as I assumed
I'm a bit concerned by the lack of forests though. Wanna chop my IMP settlers and cheap granaries. Also if we're roughly at the equator climate-wise, does that make us piggy in the middle?
(April 9th, 2020, 10:58)AdrienIer Wrote: Most likely this is the eastern side of the continent.
I'm not so sure, the land seems to bend to the east in the south. But yes, with the coast we should have at least one are direction for now. But that might disappear with astro, while being on the northern/ southern edge always leaves you a safe backline. Now, I assume RefSteel balanced neighbours carefully, but maybe that balance is "asymmetrical" as well (say, we get access to the flood plains valley, but are more exposed than others). Wild speculation at this point of course, but there's not much else to do at this stage of the game
We've reached turn 5 already, and scouting and the cultural expansion brought big news!
Here's the big picture:
That's MrCairo, and our capitals can see each other! I was planning to do opponent analysis during the early turns, so this looks like the perfect time to start:
MrCairo as Mehmed (ORG/EXP) of Persia (Hunting/Agriculture. UB: Market replacement: Satrap Court. -25% city maintenance. UU: Chariot replacement. Immortal. +15% withdraw. 1 Free strike. Starts with March)
Seems like a strong pick. EXP gives considerable power from the start and well into the middle game, ORG shines for large empires from middle to endgame. I think ORG is still one of the strongest traits, but gets picked seldomly as it doesn't offer anything exciting, just a lot of cost reduction. I am not quite sure though whether it is a very good choice on a map with relatvely little room and Monarch difficulty. Together with the (cheap) UB, MrC seems to want to really get his costs down. As said, while generally a good idea, this gam emight not be the right one for that. The Immortal is revamped in this version of RtR. They still should be controllable with spears, but we definitely have to bring those. pindi can tell how useful (or not?) the March promotion is.
My impression of MrCairo is of a good builder, who often makes grandiose attack plans which he ends up not executing because the perfect moment never arises. We can hope this tendency holds, but it might also be that he is aware of it and tries to push himself towards some early action by picking Immortals. He's having a very decent shot at winning PB43 (don't think that's a spoiler) with a similar field, which I haven't lurked much so don't know how he got there, but he should definitely not be counted out
Note that his capital is not on the western coast of his peninsula, so that might give us a little bit of respite, but I don't think it's landlocked, because else the clams would be weird. So his galleys can still unload troops from his capital next to ours within 2 turns (and vice versa of course ). Feels crazy. Looks like we're supposed to fight over the cow/gems island? I also feel jealous that we got jungle and he forests, but what do I know what else he's got there?
Now, if you take a close look, you can see a hint of a brownish border to the SE. Zoomed in it looks like this:
I think these are Ruff's Native Americans and not Raskolnikov of Carthage. I'll do an analysis of Ruff's pick the next time I get the chance. Seeing his border makes me think that we're 4 civilizations grouped around this lake, with the island in the middle to fight over.
So let's have a look at our land. We've got stone and marble, and I'll discuss wonders and Moai further down. Masonry would be on the way towards Monotheism and OR, but there might be more pressing issues first. The jungle is very annoying. It feels like we have to jump past that to get to the goodies of forests and the floodplains valley. But we also have to see how we get it cut down soon enough. After that the land's going to be beautiful, but that's a long way ahead.
I had a first shot at a dotmap:
I don't see a better spot than orange for the second city, although it doesn't feel great. It would share most of the best capital tiles, but would bring in only two flood plains and the stone, after a culture pop (which I'm hopeful we can do easily by making it the Hindu holy city). Long term it can be a pretty nice cottage city, but that requires cutting down jungle, and on this tight map that's pretty far away
light red or red (with border pop) could be an alternative as second city, if we decide the jungle's just too much. Both don't share anything, so would require a lot of early worker attention, especially if we want to make something out of the floodplains (I don't think that's what you want to do with a second city, but rather a fourth or so, but the options seem pretty limited)
the blue dots would be third or fourth city options after orange, claiming the flood plains valley.
light or dark grey are also third city options, which would at least get some forests within reach. Light grey has more food, but only after cutting jungle, while dark grey gets the three animals, but will be pretty starved at least before calendar, and is also a pretty far reach which mihgt cause conflict with western civilizations.
I like pink as a border city towards MrCairo, with the rivers giving it a good defense, and the capital fish and the clams for a fast start. Have to see if there's anything besides jungle in that FC
finally yellow is the only really enticing spot I see, but of course it's over the sea, and will be very contested. Now the question is whether we want it to better control the sea or we cede it to another player to put the target on their back. I think only the first is a winning strategy. Having anybody but ourselves owning that island would be a nightmare for our capital (but the same might be said of Cairo's, and probably Ruff's, and whoever is to the straight east). Maybe it should be 1W to have it closer to home and less exposed, but for the same reason I like the hill. If we can hold it, it's probably the best Moai spot we'll find (still, capital may be better because faster?)
Final picture is demos:
My takeaways: We have the most seaborne capital by a significant amount. Power is due to some people starting with / researching wheel and hunting (you can see from the green numbers on the scoreboard that Cornflakes, Ruff, FT and Commodore all got new techs this turn). Some people are using FPHs as we do, others FPs or oasis probably. Anything else I'm missing? I don't feel like doing a daily analysis/tracking of this scree, but I'll try to make a screenshot every turn and if you're interested I'll post them.
With all my complaints about the land I think we have to talk about big picture plans after founding the second city:
My imagined gameplan in the beginning was something along the lines of getting a religion and then towards currency while chopping out IMP settlers, cheap granaries and missionaries and financing ourselves with cottages. Slot in Sailing for an overseas city and maybe Monotheism. After seeing the marble (and before seeing how close everybody else is), I was making grandiose plans of oracling Code of Laws to then get a Great Merchant and bulb Currency. Not sure if that's still possible, if it ever was .
Now, the game has presented us with some pressing needs:
Sailing: we need galleys in the water to avoid getting our capital sniped (well, we will still need some capital garrison, as Cairo's galleys can just sail behind ours, but it will still be vital to have some eyes in the sea, and also essential for offensive options). We also really want the island city, I think at least as fourth or fifth.
Iron Working: I hate it, but I feel like if we don't manage to cultivate this jungle area soon enough, we'll run out of options. Now we haven't scouted the south yet, so maybe there's enough room and resources to focus there first, but still. Pity we didn't get Rome, that would have made the choice easier. We could oracle it, but I feel like if we do build that we really want Triremes. Also, the tech itself isn't enough, cutting jungle also needs an absurd lot of worker turns. Have I said I hate it?
Metal Casting: If MrCairo is there significantly before us, we'll have a hard time defending our capital.
If we went oracle, do we want to hook the marble first. I know common wisdom is that the limiting factor is tech, not hammers, but no forests, no choppy...
Scout will move N-NE, then get some vision north of the gems, maybe climb a hill to look into Cairo's lands, and then turn south. What's positive btw is that we have good vision on both coasts, so if Ruff or Cairo go straight for our second city (which, if founded ultra early, is a little precarious for a couple of turns, we could avert that (scout should secure westwards then)
At best this means (at best) 7 cities before borders are settled : the race for contested land is on. Capitals 6 and 7 tiles away means galley invasions might actually work : coastal cities will need a garrison.
(April 10th, 2020, 18:54)AdrienIer Wrote: At best this means (at best) 7 cities before borders are settled: the race for contested land is on. Capitals 6 and 7 tiles away means galley invasions might actually work : coastal cities will need a garrison.
6-7 cities per player was about what Ref said during setup, so that's ok. The problem is, do we even have decent spots for those? And yeah, capital boating has a lot of potential here. We have to be very careful not to suffer that fate from MrC (Ruff is less of an issue, as I suspect he's landlocked, and the canal between the island and his side of the mainland can more easily be controlled). On the other hand, if we go for early sailing and IW, 2-3 sword galleys could be with a try. Another thing to take care of: not be catched pants down without spears (or worse, Hunting) by Immortals. Though I think MrCairo has little motivation to walk into our jungle, at least not before our borders touch, which shouldn't be before the third ring of cities.
Last turn I started opponent analysis with MrCairo, now to our other confirmed neighbour: Ruff_Hi as Montezuma (AGG/SPI) of Native America (Fishing/Agriculture. UB: Monument replacement: Totem Pole. +3XP to Archery units, +1XP to Gunpowder units. Obsoletes at Assembly Line. UU: scout replacement. Tracker. Starts with Woodsman 3, can create Totem Pole. Upgrades to Explorer and Musketman)
Ruff is obviously a player with a lot of experience, been around since forever, actually coded part of the BUG mod (which seems to be a significant part of his motivation to play here), and has played MP before. I only remember him from the massive PB18 game, where I think he built up some, afaik even got Hinduism, but was eventually invaded by Krill (?). He has recently played in PB47, which similarly to this game gave players very little space between each other (even less I think). He got cought early by superdeath's axe rush, then built archers until his eventual death. It didn't help SD to get into a winning position. His pick in that game was quite strange, PRO India (where the PRO bonus on granaries doesn't count. He was indifferent "only there to find bugs"). Now his new pick doesn't have as strong an antisynergy, but I don't really see a plan there either. It doesn't give an early bonus besides the cheap barracks for semi cheap border pops, unit-wise he boosts both melee and archer units, and his SPI his combined with a civ that doesn't want Mysticism (ok he might not have known that last one, I didn't, but he doesnt seem to care either way). NA btw strikes me as one of the most interesting civs in current RtR.
So yeah, I think he's probably the least threatening player in this game (besides myself maybe?), and we can be content to have him as neighbour. He will probably get invaded at some point, and then we need to be able to make some gains for our own, if we don't manage that, we're probably on the table as well. Now, early on of course AGG axes (or swords) are no fun to play against.
We also played two more turns and are now working our fish, while putting the 2 hpt from the capital into the next WB. This is what our scout found:
I'm truly intrigued what drawbacks MrCairo has to suffer to balance this forested green valley "asymmetrically" versus our jungle. Or maybe our recompense are the FP? In which case I'm not too happy with the trade. Or the green valley turns into tundra towards the east and MrCairo's first ring? We met his scout on turn 6, he's walking towards us. I'll move ours 2N of the gems, then turn back.
I'm considering, as an alternative the grey dots from last post, a city N of the cows. Lots of forests, 3 animals after border pop, and long term (with calendar) pretty strong. Also pretty reachy and not on a hill.
In general foreign news everybody has researched a 6point tech now but Carthage, who probably went straight for BW. FT has acted odd btw: he got his tech 1t before us, which means he worked a gold tile at least for 2t, in all likelihood an FP or Oasis. But he's EXP and should work his FPH?
We will soon have to decide whether we start building the settler on turn 11. I'm leaning yes. I don't see warriors coming our way by turn 20, and settling on the sugar (orange dot) seems like the best option to me:
shares fish
grows 2 cottages together with the cap (not necessarily for the cap, I think this is actually the stornger cottage town)
gets 2 capital forests to get the granary going. Since we have no forests, hammers will have to come from the whip. This city seems pretty well suited for that.
stepping stone for expansion in multiple directions (N for border with MrC, NW where the forests are, SW for the FP)
The only other remote option for 2nd city I see is on the elephant, but nah.
I'm getting increasingly jealous of Cairo's surroundings. I also decided to change the scouting plan in order to try and peek into MrCairo's capital, marked as C in the fog. The red numbers are the turn numbers for the scout on the respective tiles. It manages to return to orange dot in time and still has some time to heal.
Speaking of, the scout defeated his first lion, remaining with 89 HP. Next turn it takes on another one, which should get him a promotion (assuming he survives, but that should still be a sure thing?). I'm leaning towards promoting Combat I, in order to get a medic unit if sufficient animals appear, and turn him into a supermedic eventually (now that needs 17 xp, and considering he can't get more than 5 from animals, we'd probably still have to spend an entire general on him, right?). I know the established way is to pick Woody I, but scouting to the south later we don't even know if there will be any forests. thoughts?
Finally, I logged in again, and Cairo had just played. His scout is now sitting on the tile with the red 16. He'll probably have a look into our capital as well; nothing we can do about it and it may not be the worst thing: The scout will most likely be elsewhere when our early settler comes out eot17, and he has little motivation to have a warrior wandering around there at that time, as he'll already have scouted the area.
Next session we'll likely have to decide whether we go for the early settler. I say yes and found on orange dot (the sugar). Then research pottery, get granaries out in both cities and let loose the whip (did I mention that our granaries give us +1happy? That's extra nice if you have to rely on slaving). But I'm very interested in your opinions.
Demos (forgot t8)
Following up on the opponent analysis, after the neighbours I'll now follow the snake pick order, starting with Commodore as Boudicca (AGG/CHM) of Japan (Fishing/The Wheel. UB: Harbour replacement. Nanban Harbour. +2XP for land units. UU: Maceman replacement. Samurai. Requires only Machinery (Does not require Civil Service) Starts with Drill 2.)
Everybody loves Commodore the threadwriter, some are not too fond of having him close in a game though. pindicator can tell that story, but I think after having teamed up in a game it's become better now? He has a prominent ongoing feud with superdeath (going back to a settler SD sniped from him I think 2 years ago?), and considering we know two neighbours already, there's a good probability that we are lucky and both are neighbours. Ideally, they both fight each other till mutual death. Comm is probably still the better player, but if SD sees him close by I can imagine he'll take caution to be as much of a pain as possible.
Otherwise, Commodore was probably the strongest player in the field at least until Fintourist and his gang of dedlurkers signed up.
He chose Japan straight away. The only explanation I have is he wants to abuse the early Samurai somehow, which means a Machinery bulb, probably going in hand with oracling MC (though his pick is really slow for that). naufragar tried that in a recent game with PHI but didn't do too well. Again, Comm is a good player, but I see two issues with the strategy: 1-Everybody knows from t0 what you're up to and can prepare; 2-Samurai still cost as many hammers as a Maceman, so if you get them early, you might not be in a position to produce too many of them. If we find ourselves bordering Commodore somewhere to the west, I feel reasonably confident regarding that threat as we want Machinery relatively early as well on our way to Engineering and our UU, and Crossbows are the natural counter.
Now any units from Comm will be scary with these traits, he might end up doing just a horcher rush. In any case his start should be rather slow, so we have to try and establish ourselves before he comes around. If he doesn't manage an early conquest (I think Samurai might actually be too late), he's expected to fall behind economically, but will remain hard to swallow. I suspect the pick was a little trollish, with 46 being his "serious" game while he wants to have some fun here.
). Feels crazy. Looks like we're supposed to fight over the cow/gems island? I also feel jealous that we got jungle and he forests, but what do I know what else he's got there?
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