[Spoilers] luddite tries to remember how this game works

[luddite]

Scouting has revealed a crab to the NW. That will slightly help out the NW city site. I wonder if that pushes it above the SW site for the 3rd city?

Unfortunately it also revealed... a big fat desert. With fresh water, no flood plains so maybe an oasis above that.

[luddite]

Scouting: Northwest followed by northeast seems good. We should build a scout after the worker to see how far it is to any neighbors as that matters a lot to us.

I agree that we should re-evalute after bw and the second worker.

I see Stonehenge as a way to dump excess early production into something useful. There are no barbs here and our production outstrips tech. It will however slow down our growth curve. I think we can dump some production into it as we grow but look to finish it after city 3. There are other useful things as well but we need some border pops eventually. Scooter can build it cheaply if he goes for mysticism and masonry to get the stone multiplier early. That seems unlikely though. Yuris starts with mysticism so is a possible contender.

Forest growth in the south yes. On the plains hill towards city 3. Costs an extra worker turn but enables us to chop the work boat.

Whipping away good tiles is ok if it speeds up other things. Especially if you can move the tiles to other cities. In my sims I switched the pigs and deer between city 1 and 2 a lot. I avoided 1 pop whips in the capital due to low happy cap but it could be done to speed up to city 2 maybe. Whipping a work boat in city 2 at pop 2 is also a good move when you can not chop.

I like the idea of building a scout! We can use the warrior to scout the initial area, but then send the scout out in a line to look for neighbors and scout their territory.

I still think Stonehenge is just too expensive for it's value. From what I've seen from the starting screenshot, none of our cities even benefits that much from border pops. We could just build 2 extra settlers for the same price. (or a settler + worker).

Be careful of relying too much on forest growths in a sim. We'll probably get a forest growth *somewhere*, but it's unlikely to happen in the south. Maybe it would be worth it to use the southern city just to work the silver? It'll be size 1 for a long time, but at least that gives a nice commerce boost for the early game. Otherwise it has to build it from a mine, or have city 2 build it and send it the long way round. I'm not scouting the south coast though... possibly there's more seafood down there that we can't see. (ha, SEE food...)

The way I see it, it takes the capital about 3 turns to regrow from size 2 to 3, and another 4 to grow from size 3 to 4 (assuming it's working the two deer and has a little extra food already. That's 6 turns of lost production while it's regrowing. 3 when it loses two bonus tiles at +4 food-hammers each, and another 4 for just one. so 3 * 4 * 2 + 4*4 = 40 lost production. Which I guess is still less than the 60 we gain from whipping. But it also can't produce a worker or a settler, so it's just dumping hammers into a warrior whatever. Granted, it rushes out the settler faster, but none of the initial city sites are really that great, except maybe the pigs site. 1 pop whipping, or whipping the pigs site and regrowing it on deer seems like a much better value.

edited to fix some math errors

[luddite]

Turn pace is moving fast, we're up to Turn 7 already. I know a bit more about the map now thanks to scouting + border pop. Here's the overview. Crab in the southeast (and a hint of offshore islands), plains cow and wines in the north. All in kind of an awkward spot.

Maybe with the wines, it's better to go for monarchy? That's certainly faster than calendar. But it doesn't give me sailing or math along the way. It does potentially lead to a religion, but on a small map like this religious spread can be slow and random.

[Tarkeel]

If you want to take wide-angle shots of your empire, you can use the POV slider in the top left corner. I usually play with it set around 60.

[luddite]

Thanks Tarkeel, that's a good suggestion.

@Chumchi, I've updated the sim with what I've found from exploration. This makes for some tricky decisions on where to settle! That big desert/plains blob to the north will be tough, with very little food visible. We could found a city NW of wheat and also get a crabs there, but it would block a potential wine city from getting crabs.

[chumchu]

I'm away travelling now so I won't be able to sim more until the 21st. Very nice turnpace.

I like the two crabs we have found. It suggests a tight core with four coastal cities around our capital before moving into the dry zone. I would crab/wheat city north of the wheat so that it gets the lake and incense. That means it needs a fast border pop which means it is still a later city. You can go for both resources in first ring with an earlier city of you also take agriculture before pottery. Just remember that that city also pays more distance upkeep. I like that our current city 3 gives us silver for those happy and commerce.

Great Lighthouse is an enticing possibility as it is a simple way to generate commerce and very strong if we can get an island city. We have to detour to masonry in that case which pushes us slightly towards org rel. I think it will be more contested than Stonehenge though since it is stronger. Colossus would also be great but I think others will be much faster to metal casting.

[luddite]

Sure, no worries about the sim.

I'm still thinking of "plan A" as a big rush with artillery/AT. "Tight core with coastal cities" works well for that, and the desert might actually work in our favor if it hides me from opponents for a little while. Of course, if I do that, I have to really commit to it- no messing around with wonders, not too many cities, and I might not even make any monuments. I'd like to hit before others get war elephants/macemen/longbows, and before they get too much economic advantage.

Alternatively, I don't *have* to rush. I've still got Financial/Imperialist/India, and that's one hell of a combination. Not many rivers here, but I can still just spam out cities and cottages. In that case, going for a wonder makes sense. But I doubt I could get Great Lighthouse- everyone else will be gunning for it too, and some of them have coastal capitals, plus a better start. Same with the Colossus. I guess I could rush for the oracle and take metal casting, but that seems suboptimal. I think I'd still rather just keep pushing out settlers/workers, and *maybe* stonehenge. It's OK to fall behind in tech since my military won't ever obsolete, I can play for the very long term.

Bear in mind I'll get incense within border on turn 50 just from the 3rd ring capital culture. I can't *work* it but incense isn't such a great tile anyway, even with a plantation.

[luddite]

the great lighthouse is going to be huge for whoever gets it.

I'm thinking of swinging the scouting warrior back down the east coast to explore all the little gaps I missed. If I build a scout that can get out to the boundary soon enough.

[luddite]

Grow to size 2 and work the camps seems a no-brainer
Continue growing to size 3: it works out perfectly with the food, and also lets me finish a scout.
Unfortunately it will grow to 3 faster than the first worker can finish the pig-mine. I think it makes sense to revolt to slavery here, let the worker catch up a little.
Then start a 2nd worker- it will pay off quick
improve the copper (if it exists...) ASAP, it's ridiculously strong for an IMP leader making a settler
don't whip yet, it would be whipping away bonus tiles and also there's nothing good to overflow production into while
first settler goes east, where it can work pigs immediately then very quickly chop a workboat
stay at size 3 for a while. It can copper and 1 deer, while alternating between the other deer and the pigs mine
second settler goes *SE*. there it can also work pigs and chop a quick work boat.
-Then tech agriculture before pottery and settle the wheat site in the NW. I can get it set up quickly with workers, and it has some more forests for chopping.
-Go for the SW silver site *last*. It gets set up much faster when other cities can pre-build work boats for it, and it can't work the fish until the capital pops borders on turn 51.
-whip work boats/granaries from the fishing boat cities. wait to whip the capital until it can regrow on a granary

This seems to work pretty well, with 5 cities by turn 50. Not many warriors though (Bombay in the east is unhappy because it doesn't have any garrison). But as long as I don't get attacked, I should be fine with no warriors until I'm ready to grow.

[luddite]

Ah, is there anything more thrilling in this game than the feeling of your first worker being completed? Yes, probably... but it's still quite the feeling.