[Spoilers] Commodore as someone of something, or, an entertaining failure

[pindicator]

somebody told me a ded-lurker was needed round these parts?

My strategy thus far, such as I have one, has these in rough order of priority:
1. Build Pyramids.
2-34. Build Pyramids.
35. Don't die.
36. Research Agriculture (again!)
37. Get religion on the way up to The Oracle.
38. Oracle MC, get cheap forges online.
39. Bulb Theology for Theocracy and the AP
40. Priest economy on the way to Liberalism
41. ???
42. Win.

Truly, this is a foolproof plan.

I must say, i can find no fault. Unless the lands dictate otherwise One thought could be bumping Oracle up to #8 or so and potentially get an engineer specialist to finish pyramids for you. Even with Ind they are a hefty investment. If there is stone around then this could work, but if there is stone you could potentially see another civ beat you to it if you went with the eng specialist.

[Commodore]

I must say, i can find no fault. Unless the lands dictate otherwise One thought could be bumping Oracle up to #8 or so and potentially get an engineer specialist to finish pyramids for you. Even with Ind they are a hefty investment. If there is stone around then this could work, but if there is stone you could potentially see another civ beat you to it if you went with the eng specialist.

Welcome aboard. Still a little lacking in the theme, right now I think it'll be "go with the gut" for theme. Really, that's a priority list, not an order. If Oracle first will speed things up, I'm up for it, although without Phi the only way to generate an Engineer fast enough will be to pollute the pool a bit, perhaps by even running the engineer in the Oracle town.

Although...you know, Oracle->MC might put us on a good path to build them by hand, too. Normally, stone is the way to make them efficiently, or else wait for maths, but if we go up the religion tree we're near OR which we can swap into efficiently (Spiritual!). With OR, forge, and Ind...that's a stone-level bonus right there.

[pindicator]

Although...you know, Oracle->MC might put us on a good path to build them by hand, too. Normally, stone is the way to make them efficiently, or else wait for maths, but if we go up the religion tree we're near OR which we can swap into efficiently (Spiritual!). With OR, forge, and Ind...that's a stone-level bonus right there.

I really like this idea! At least in theory, it may not work out as well in practice. But why not take advantage of Spiritual along with Industrious to get a good bonus? That would probably mean going to Priesthood via Polytheism instead of Meditation, and could dovetail nicely with Masonry for Pyramids.

[Commodore]

I really like this idea! At least in theory, it may not work out as well in practice. But why not take advantage of Spiritual along with Industrious to get a good bonus? That would probably mean going to Priesthood via Polytheism instead of Meditation, and could dovetail nicely with Masonry for Pyramids.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm not sure if you read the duel I'm playing with Gaspar right now, but that's actually similar to what I did there, except of course being much slowed down by offensive operations, and lacking Ind I took Theology with the Oracle. A lot depends on how close we are to stone or marble. If what I've seen is an indication, Plako usually does put it on his maps, but often it requires a bit of a reach to snag. If Ceiliazul (Chm/Spi) finds stone I'm sure he'll grab it for a quick 'henge, wonderful as it is for Charismatic. But then, being Spiritual, and having the stone already online...

Yeah, the Pyramids race is going to be vital, assuming we're not all in PBEM 26 distances from one another (over land, obviously water is less dangerous early).

[Johann]

Permission to come aboard Commodore,

Thought I would stop by and say hi, just so you know that you won’t be shouting into an empty vacuum.

[Commodore]

Permission to come aboard Commodore,

Thought I would stop by and say hi, just so you know that you won’t be shouting into an empty vacuum.

Alo. Salut, sunt en, un haiduc.

Glad to have you online. We're probably going to subtitle this thread "learning the specialist economy under fire", so that ought to be fun.

Of course, a chariot rush might have us on a completely different path twenty turns in, but so it goes.

[plako]

Your starting area. In final editing something minor might change.

[Commodore]

Thanks plako!

Hrm, interesting start. For one thing, that dry rice is a bit of a trap, four food until civil service. If it weren't for the peaks north, I'd consider moving 1N for a three-food plant, but that's off. Maybe with fishing/mining, for the early slavery-whip worker gambit, but that's a wash here.

So, looking at things quickly, my gut is to SIP and grow to size two making a WB, then make a worker. Mining, BW, Hunting...then something. I'll have to sim this one out. Very nice start. One thing that does occur to me is that Kyan with his cheap lighthouse will love going for an early sailing with all these nice lighthouse lakes + fish, which might in turn make a GLH build early rather attractive. Not a ton of forests in the BFC, but nice enough hills.

[Commodore]

Well, here's my first-cut sim. I started by settling in place, building a work boat timed to complete the same turn we grow to size 2. Here we are turn 7, with everything cooking along for a worker in 5 turns. Importantly, we could either have 1 food or 1 hammer overflow, I opted for the hammer.



That oh-so-critical hammer is what enables us to finish the worker with one turn of working the lake instead of the rice/hill/deer/whatever. This in turn lets us swap to the lake tile the turn the worker finishes to speed up BW to 1 turn, and then the worker can move directly to the 2S forest, to start chopping.



You want nice endgame after that? How about the chop finishing the second worker the turn that hunting finishes up, letting us directly move to camping deer...



And so on. I used the start to make a quick settler, but things are fuzzier after that.



Thoughts?

[Commodore]

Welp, I spent a terrible few moments staring at the map in confusion before I remembered that the plan was mining first. Grain programming is fierce. SIP, without doing anything too daft.



Before settling, I checked the demos. Nothing too interesting, no obvious yet. A warrior + Wheel makes our power look pretty impressive. Did someone move to the rice? If so they aren't working max hammers.



Here's the settings, for posterity. Nothing earth-shattering, and of course with a map this custom nothing can be gleaned from the environmental settings.



Here's the world as we know it. Working rice until borders pop, then on to 3-hammer hill. Enclave of he Bear ring any bells from anyone?



Waitaminute...aw hell. Hide kids, wives, and husbands, because it's Kyan next door. Well, that'll be a known tech bonus on Hunting at least. Holy crap on a stick, that's close. I hope we're ice-choked entirely from one another.



And we're off! Pyramids or bust, folks, and then if 'mids, let's not lose them to Kyan. Oh boy.