Dotmapping - August 2012 Edition

[Sareln]

Note: I've already played this game into the midgame. So this is purely academic. If anyone wants to play this game out, I can post the save as well. It's only Monarch Difficulty / Quick Speed (my comfort zone), so I imagine it wouldn't be that challenging for most here. And yes, I know that capital should be 1S




You are the Khemer (CRE/EXP) with Ethiopia (CRE/ORG) to your south and Inca (IND/FIN) to your [strike]east[/strike] west. It is turn 25 and your settler has just finished. Where do you send him? Why? What would be your plan for this game? Tech trading is off and you've already met another AI, Stalin who is somewhere in the fog (land based). The Great Wall has already been built.

EDIT: You've teched The Wheel, Pottery, Agriculture, Hunting, Mining, Bronzeworking, and are about half way to Animal Husbandry

[Serdoa]

What have you teched till now?

As for settling: Probably near the marble, trying to get Inca cut off (they'll probably not settle in the jungle early). There are several forests and together with those at the capital + some whips it should be feasible to take out Ethopia. The Ethopian capital together, the capital itself and that 2nd city (which is a commerce-city after the forests are gone) should certainly speed research to Iron Working. After that one can build several cities in the jungle and one on the islands (if they are islands).

[NobleHelium]

I would get east and west correct first.

Probably 1n of the cow near the marble. Decent starter offshore site that can share the clam there and catch an FP.

[T-hawk]

I would aim my first settler for the spot 1SW of the corn. Grab those two dyes and gems before any risk of losing them to AI settling. Leverage that Creative trait. Marble/cow can come next, probably 1S of the marble for the most river tiles. Then rice/cow on the eastern shore, probably 1S of the cow. Then get the banana; 1S of the banana if the southern cow is still available. Then look to the northeast island.

Longer term, on Monarch difficulty you're probably looking at conquering sometime in the cavalry/cannon/drafted rifleman era. If you're not comfortable above Monarch, an axe rush might not be the way to go, especially on Quick speed.

[Ichabod]

I'd settle 1SE of the grassland cows near the marble, giving the city cows in the first ring, corn in the second and shareable gold with the capital. I don't know if you can road in tha direction before settling the city, but that'd be helpful, due to instant trade routes.

Later I'd settle another city for the marble + shared corn with second city. It'd likely be 2S of the marble. Maybe the third city could be getting the gems and dyes with the shared corn, if they are still avaiable. Then settling the second city to get the marble too could work.

I can tackle most Immortal maps and I'm getting better at deity (my current game is a likely domination win with Gilgamesh on deity - there's a stubborn Sitting Bull that is not helping me, though, by not anting to capitulate). So my Monarch senses may be a bit off, especially in a no tech trade game (my default settings are No tribal villages and No random events - normal speed/fractal).

You have enough land for 6 very good cities without rushing someone. If you share a lot of tiles, you can easily get 9/10 decent cities. And that's without the island, which looks juicy with FPs already (which means gold is likely there). The southern island is worth investigating too. With that in mind, you can win pretty much the way you want. That's enough land for science, culture or diplomacy (huyana and zara are pretty easy to friendly AIs, hopefully they share a religion, though). If you want domination, you can attack either with cannons + muskets/whatever or cavalry/curraisiers (without siege support, if you can do it quick enough - i.e. only attack longbows), rifle + trebs would also work. My favorite for Immortal and lower is cuirassier/cavalry, because cannons are too slow.

From the above you can see that I like top attack in the Reinaissance era. I'm not a fan of rushes, only with UUs or very close AI capitals (which is not the case here, IMO). Civfanatics developed a very big culture of doing catapults + elephants (no ivory here, though) to get some good land early or even HAs. I don't have practice with this, though.

Regarding economy, I'd cottage the cities that I could get along that river and farm/mine/specialists/grow into coast on the rest. My recent games have seen a lot less cottages then when I strated playing, which makes the tech rate drop after reinaissence/liberalism, so you'd need to get some land by war than. I'd also change the capital to the dyes, corn, gems city, if you can get that, but only to enable a bureaucracy powerhouse (so not worth doing it very late). I wouldn't cottage your capital, it seems more of a production city, a good place to get TGLibrary, Taj Mahal, MoM or maybe even TGLighthouse, depending on what you want to make a priority. Academy would go into the dyes city too, not the capital.

[NobleHelium]

And we can immediately see the MP and SP difference, as the SP-oriented thinking immediately points to a much further site.

Actually I'd probably go for 1S of the cow. Not sure why I didn't see that before.

[Ichabod]

I would aim my first settler for the spot 1SW of the corn. Grab those two dyes and gems before any risk of losing them to AI settling. Leverage that Creative trait. Marble/cow can come next, probably 1S of the marble for the most river tiles. Then rice/cow on the eastern shore, probably 1S of the cow. Then get the banana; 1S of the banana if the southern cow is still available. Then look to the northeast island.

This is better than what I suggested, I must admit. With the second city as T-Hawk proposed you get corn in first ring and enough tiles to make it a viable city early, even with all the jungle. But the blocking value of the city is way higher than the close one I suggested.

[Krill]

Basically you want to plant with the corn between your city and the capital. Beyond that it comes down to tech strategy.

[scooter]

You have copper and fairly average lands with a south neighbor. I'd say settle 1S of the cow which gives you two food, marble, and SEVEN forests. Deforest it for a truckload of axes and just go kill the green AI capital down there. Should be pretty easy on Monarch. Well, the main problem is quick speed which makes it a lot harder, but it's still doable. Use capture gold to fund IW (and eventually Calendar) teching and de-jungle the area and cottage spam all that fertile land. That should get you into the mid-game in a place where you'll straggle a bit in tech at first but you'll have the most land. That's usually a winning formula against Monarch AIs.

[Ichabod]

I don't see a need for a rush here. There's enough good land without doing it. The land you'd get from Zara won't compensate for the time and resources you'll spend while doing it. By the time you manage to make that profitable, you'd be in a position to just stomp the AI with Cavalry/Cuir.

Experience shows me that for difficulties lower than Deity, going for a 6 or more cities empire into Cuir/Cavalry stomp is the quickest/safest way to victory most of the time. That being said, in a no-tech trading game, I would expect that it's possible to start attacking early and never stop without risking much.

But I'm far from an accomplished SP player.