[49 spoilers] Miguelito, pindicator and Adrien take Shiva by the hands

[pindicator]

First off, the other players better have similar jungle that we can't see otherwise that's a huge oversight by the mapmaker. I mean it's covering almost every single 2nd-ring resource.

With 9 players I'm guessing that this is somewhat symmetrical start with 3 groups of 3 players round similar lakes and gem islands. Ideally we want to try and get a religion in a border city to stake out our one side, and then get what we can on the other. With religion though that means you would need to get that as your second city but that may not be the safest option - any second city that extends out may be difficult to defend. So I would really consider pink dot as a second city for this reason. The borders from pink dot would control a lot of territory up north. The trick is not being rushed. Pink dot would be 5 from our capital and 7 from Persia's

The problem with orange dot is that there's no new resources for you to be able to hook up until after you get Iron Working. So any city there really isn't helping your growth curve. Early cities want to claim bonus resources - in fact, you really don't want to work tiles that aren't bonus resources for as long as you can help it. Early cottages are a notable exception but I really do not like orange dot because it just doesn't add anything but it does subtract from the capital's growth. Because of this I would not go for a fast settler if you're set on orange; I would do a worker first and maybe even try to develop the capital / delay the initla settler to go with a religion. But if you want to go for a fast settler I'd look at pink dot. Or maybe even red. There just aren't a lot of good spots that you can improve without lots of tech.

Wait, just realized that's jungle on the gems and not forest. WTF. Still, religion in pink dot would give you access to wheat and clams 2nd ring.

Also, for these first cities pay more attention to the first ring until we have a way to actually pop borders. Monuments are bad for popping borders; they're what you use when you don't have any other option. Since early religion is part of our plan we should try to get our border pops through that.

With closer neighbors we may be better served by waiting for copper to be revealed before we make a decision. Getting that early metal hooked up is going to be vital for defense.

[pindicator]

Honestly, I'd consider even looking south for a better second city site. If there is another bonus resource or two in the fog south of the wheat that may be the best spot for getting your growth curve going.

[Miguelito]

First off, the other players better have similar jungle that we can't see otherwise that's a huge oversight by the mapmaker.  I mean it's covering almost every single 2nd-ring resource.

ugh, I fear you're not going to love the latest scouting news:


that's the second city site I wish we had. Shares food with capital, brings in new food and some forests, even an early lux, and the only tough decision is whether you want to lose a forest by settling on it (I think you do, but haven't seen it all). And then there are beautiful follow up cities for Cairo. If we let him have the wheat, he can reasonably settle for triple food on a riverside hill with his third city. And we haven't seen the east yet. (granted, we haven't seen much of our south yet either, but what we've seen certainly doesn't compare to this)

With 9 players I'm guessing that this is somewhat symmetrical start with 3 groups of 3 players round similar lakes and gem islands.

Take note that the 9th player was edited in late during the mapmaking process. I feel like our lake looks more like it has four people round it (us being W, Cairo N, Ruff S, somebody E). Since Ref saw the option to edit in a ninth and even tenth start, it might not be symmetrical at all.

Thanks for the input on second city options, I was kind of locking myself into orange dot, which probably shows too little flexibility to deviate from a path once taken. I am aware of all the drawbacks you listed, but I was convincing myself that it was the best of the bad options. Hadn't actually thought about pink dot for 2nd, but it makes some sense. Let's see the options:

1. Orange dot. Claims no new tiles but to flood plains and a stone we won't have the tech for for a long time still, but shares capital fish and two early cottages. Also gets 2 forests from the cap. My plan was to get the early granary, then use the still considerable food surplus there and in the cap to extend our reach to the northern/north-western edge of the jungle (pink and grey dots) and into the flood plains valley. This may not work so well in practice. Would go with fast setller, if Ruff's or someone else's warrior happens to just walk by it's a problem or catastrophe.
   
2. Pink dot. You brought this up and it actually makes a lot of sense. With Hinduism it establishes a favorable frontier with Cairo. He may regard it as aggressive though, if he feels it's locking him out of western expansion. Claims dry plains wheat and clam, and 2 forests. The clam WB can nicely be provided from the cap. If founded by the early settler, it has a warrior whippable 5 6 turns after founding (correction: flood plains get erased by founding ).
   Would MrCairo see the borders from his capital right after founding? If he doesn't have his warrior in our direction when founding already we should make it. He might not have a warrior at all; his worker is out now and he is probably starting a work boat next for his clam. This city will need an axe soon, and a spear before too long. It's a pretty large risk, but offers a lot of payoff.
   
3. Pale red dot, or another city to the south. Requires more scouting, and definitely a worker, so it would require the later settler variant. Looking at Cairo's land, it's actually plausible that there are more resources south of the wheat*. I still feel that a second city that shares nothing with the capital and probably won't have chops available will be very slow.
   

*foggazing indicates a desert though:

You also touched on the question where copper is. I see these possibilities:

1. at the cap, easy. Probably on the fph north?
   
2. somewhere near the red dots - I think the other mountain range is rather full with stone and marble already
   
3. under the jungle, like everything else  
   

So... I think it's clear by now we have a difficult start, also compared to the competition, so it makes sense to take a risk, ie go for pink dot, with the early settler. It can go horribly wrong if Cairo just happens to have his warrior around (we should at least have his graphs by then), but otherwise it's the best option. This means I have to start the settler the upcoming turn (probably still tonight). This also kind of really hopes for capital copper. We would not know until the turn before the settler's out.
Ok, I can still be convinced to go 2nd workboat + warrior + worker before the settler. Actually I'll sim it .

Also, for these first cities pay more attention to the first ring until we have a way to actually pop borders. Monuments are bad for popping borders; they're what you use when you don't have any other option. Since early religion is part of our plan we should try to get our border pops through that.

I'm on board with all of that. Trouble is just, there aren't a lot of food resources to settle first ring. Which of my dots would you say violate that principle and should be moved (genuine question, trying to learn after all)?
Pink dot does, but was chosen for the defensive value (settling either of the foods first ring would be suicide). As you said, we can salvage that with religion hopefully.
For red and grey, there are variants that grab more food first ring versus more late game strength, depending on when we found them. Am I missing something else?

[pindicator]

I was kind of locking myself into orange dot, which probably shows too little flexibility to deviate from a path once taken.

I am still guilty of this though I'm better than I used to be. Used to fall in love with my own micro and stop taking additional input in. In some ways I've found doing less micro has been a help for my level of play.

Feel like I should say something about the flood plains as I have a feeling that the flood plains are supposed to be our "good settling" compared to the grass and sheep that you just scouted. The flood plains are going to be insane later on, but for a 2nd city they aren't great. You want production and food early (unless you can land a grass fur or metal luxury for commerce). It could be that is our 3rd or 4th city - once we get pottery done - that we start that city.

I'd consider moving orange dot 1 tile west and just not settling it until we have Iron Working. But I suspect we're going to redo the whole dotmap once BW comes in.

[Miguelito]

Feel like I should say something about the flood plains as I have a feeling that the flood plains are supposed to be our "good settling" compared to the grass and sheep that you just scouted.  The flood plains are going to be insane later on, but for a 2nd city they aren't great.  You want production and food early (unless you can land a grass fur or metal luxury for commerce).  It could be that is our 3rd or 4th city - once we get pottery done - that we start that city.

I'd consider moving orange dot 1 tile west and just not settling it until we have Iron Working.  But I suspect we're going to redo the whole dotmap once BW comes in.

What irks me about the flood plains is that developing them costs a lot of worker turns (as does cutting jungle, yeah, I've said that before ), and with no food close they don't grow exactly fast either. Sure, this valley full of mature cottages will be huge, and we have to secure at least our half of it, but actually I see it more as a 5th-6th city (right now I'm thinking roughly pink -> some grey -> yellow -> pale red -> blue, but this will change as the game developes-as you said, starting with the copper location).

also agree that orange, if not founded very early, is out and can be moved and delayed for IW. The whole point I still see in it is the access to capital tiles.

[Miguelito]

settled for a micro plan of WB->WB->Warrior (grow to 4)->2pop whip settler eot 22->worker (can be whipped the turn pink dot is founded, leaving just the two fishes worked). Polytheism finishes the turn pink dot is founded.
It comes out a little worse than direct settler I think, but feels far less risky, and is more flexible to react to the copper location (we even have time to scout the south ) .

[Miguelito]

Turn 11


Cairo's capital:


I think it has an exit to the sea directly south, maybe also SE

Demos. SD, Rasko and we all grew a pop this turn, so they also should have started with a workboat. 10 fpt means they're building a worker with an FP.

[Miguelito]

Turns 12 & 13. little happened.




Ruff is coming over for a look:



Demos:

Don't know what to make of our lonely MFG lead. Everybody else is growing/using foodhammers?

[Miguelito]

Turns 14 & 15

News is that Cornflakes' scout appeared in the jungle, face pointing north, which is why I suspect he came through the flood plains valley. Screenshots didn't take apparently (I played the turn after extra hours at 3am), but you can see on the demos from t15 where I put the sign, SW of the proposed pink dot:

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Cornflakes is Napoleon (CHM/ORG) of Babylon (Agriculture/The Wheel. UB:  Granary replacement: Garden. Requires Agriculture, cost 45, +1 health, no bonus production from trait. UU: Archer replacement. Bowman. +50% against melee,  no free strike, starts with Drill 1 and 2.)

The leader's not exactly a fast starter, but if he gets into the midgame in good shape he certainly has his strengths. As I've said, I'm doubtful whether this map is the right one for ORG, but it's probably still good, and with CHM he can get his cities tall (or whip more heavily) and his units will tendentially be stronger than ours. Babylon looks like a choice to make up for the missing early game traits from the leader. It has been observed that the Bowman makes attacks even with macemen/samurai (and Urukku pikes ) generally a very unfavourable hammer trade, so if he is to be invaded before the Renaissance it has to be either with horchers/knights or with overwhelming strength. It has to be seen if the cheap early granary is enough to help him during the expansion phase. I wanted Babylon for my SPI game (before seeing the start), but with a plan it mind to delay Pottery in favour of religious techs. I don't see a similar plan with Nappy; but maybe he's thought of something. We have the same cost advantage for the granary (which gives us a happy face on top) and we're IMP, so if we're competing for that FP valley we *should* be able to get the bigger slice of that cake (now with all the problems we're facing with our start and having seen Cairo's land I can't tell).
I don't know much about Cornflakes, he's been around for long, and I assume plays a solid game?

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On t15 we moved the second workboat on the fish to net it next turn and went into full steam growth, to get to pop4 on the warrior, then whip the settler. Eot16 we finish BW and can see copper, then we may want to reassess our plans.

With nothing else to report I'd like to discuss tech a little. Items on our immediate to-do list are 

1. Polytheism, 133/1.2 = 111 base beakers, for the border pop at city 2; gotta get the religion early enough. Do you think we'd want Meditation instead? While I think that our cheap temples are good, I don't want them early, and monasteries less so.
   
2. Wheel, 52 beakers
   
3. Pottery, 103/{1.2 or 1.4} = 85 or 76 base beakers, depending on whether we slot in agri first. Gets us our cheap granary to get the whip production rolling, and we'll have at least one FP for early cottaging
   
4. Agriculture, 52 beakers, for the wheat at the second city (assuming it's pink or red dot). Pink dot can work the seas for a while though
   
5. Hunting, 52 beakers, to defend against Cairos Immortals. We mustn't be late to that one, even if we don't need pastures early (I'm sympathising with one of the grey dots for third city)
   
6. Sailing, 133/1.2 = 111 base beakers, for the very strong island city, ICTR, and to be able to defend against Cairo
   
7. Priesthood, 74/1.2 = 62 base beakers, for a potential Oracle play
   

If we start with Polytheism right after BW, we get it on the turn we can found pink dot (my current favourite, but we're still scouting). This should be absolutely secure to get us the religion, and we don't need the worker techs immediately (the first worker is just coming out then and can chop or, importantly, mine a copper). I see a drawback though: With the border pop, Cairo will see the culture from his capital, and realize that we just put a great culture factory there. If he feels like this cuts him off from his green valley (the sheep/rice spot) - well, it somehow does   - then he might decide to go for a quick raze. We will have no copper at that point and just one warrior in the city. Now Cairo is not one to attack easily, but it's still quite risky. We don't need the border pop there immediately either (the cap will build a work boat, but it will come a few turns after founding), so the cost of delaying Poly is only the risk of losing the religion. As long as we keep it below t30, I think that's still a sure thing. But if we go for pottery before, it's going to be eot34 maybe, which might be less secure (and also late for the border pop).
So I think it makes sense to go Wheel->Poly->Pottery->Hunting->Agri->Sailing

When would you expect Immortals at the earliest? He'll likely get an elephant at his second city, so has additional incentive to research AH. Possibly we'd have to take Hunting before pottery, which would hurt. Also note that he can't attack pink dot from two tiles away, as long as the forest is there, so it might even be possible to defend by attacking out with axes (Immortals don't get defensive bonuses any more). Now if he brings an axe that's different, but then he loses mobility and we're more likely to have a spear in time.

Priesthood is a luxury, not a necessity, but it's so cheap that we may justify slotting it in before Sailing, if we then have the hammers to build the Oracle (again, grey dot, or the cap). The prize would be Metal Casting, which would be huge for two reasons:

• early engineer. This is by now the commonly accepted go-to strategy for the Pyramids, which of course would be very nice for us. Now, the engineer takes 34 turns after the forge is built, and someone might just put the hammers down in that time, but then we'd have an engineer to buld us Machinery, or, if we don't need that right away (we don't seem to border Rome or Japan), Engineering later on, where our UU is
  
• triremes. We're very vulnerable by sea, and want to secure the island. They'd make us safe for a long time, and at least for a while we could dominate the sea, enabling offensive plays agains Cairo and maybe Ruff.
  

Colossus otoh can safely be dismissed I think. 


I'd appreciate some input especially re: the Poly date, delaying Pottery, and when to expect Immortals. The copper location will also be very important for the decision making.

[pindicator]

I really think the copper location will dictate everything else. With copper and hunting we have all the tech we need to defend against a rush in the early game. (I wouldn't worry about an immortal rush so much to change my plans yet; but if you later see the power starting to spike then it may be time to get some extra spears out.)

As far as the technologies you list out, Polytheism, Wheel, and Pottery are the 3 immediate needs in my opinion. The other ones are a second tier, and I'd add Animal Husbandry to that 2nd tier as well because finding horses is also very valuable information. As for Poly vs Meditation, I think Poly is the better tech overall for the tech tree, but I may be not remembering some of the ramifications of the more recent tech requirement changes done in RtR. Agriculture really isn't needed until we get a city that has a Wheat in it.

Wonders are a bit of a weak spot in my game; I've tended to just dismiss them in general because the safer play is usually not to go for them. That's what will have you place in the top half of these pitboss games. But the winning play is to risk it for the wonder. So I suppose it depends on your strategy for this game: risky play and be okay with getting rushed and losing, or play solid and go for the top half of things. I will add that I can't see where we'd build a wonder right now except in the capital - and then are you commiting your forests to the wonder or to chopping out settlers?

How I'd play this is to keep the pink dot + poly plan, then follow up with Wheel to connect cities and probably Pottery because cheap granaries are just nuts. But keep an eye out for copper and be ready to throw everything out the window and reassess when copper appears.