[SPOILER ALERT] Grimace hopes this one doesn't BSOD.

[TheWannabe]

Early religion = prayers answered? Your red dot is a dream. Two wet corns should make it a great whipping city, with forests to back it up, and gems to boot!

Ugh I really do hate cramped dotmaps, and wish you could move blue 1W or yellow 1SE, but that's clearly a bad idea, since it would mean giving up the shared food/first ring seafood that will get those cities going quickly. I have to keep reminding myself isn't one of my leisurely SP games, but a tightly packed MP against dangerous opponents.

When are your capital's borders going to pop again? Before or after you'll get around to settling the white dot west of your cap? If before, then you could potentially move it 1NW without losing the effect of having first ring cows. That depends on what scouting reveals in that direction, of course - no point moving claim more peaks.

What's the current research/build order and plan not to get eaten by Commotay?

[Grimace]

Early religion = prayers answered? Your red dot is a dream. Two wet corns should make it a great whipping city, with forests to back it up, and gems to boot!

I agree, it's a great city location! Plus the river for fresh water and lots of cottages! Unfortunately the capital will probably need the corn most of the time since the Yellow city will likely often be using the sheep. Though it will also probably build workers and settlers early on as well.

Ugh I really do hate cramped dotmaps, and wish you could move blue 1W or yellow 1SE, but that's clearly a bad idea, since it would mean giving up the shared food/first ring seafood that will get those cities going quickly. I have to keep reminding myself isn't one of my leisurely SP games, but a tightly packed MP against dangerous opponents.

I have the same problem, still. I've only been playing MP a relatively short time (this is my third game, and second with me starting it -- my first one I took over from someone after they'd built their empire) and it still goes against my gut instinct to cramp so much, but with MP more cities > slightly better cities.

To be honest, though, I'm still torn about Yellow. By putting it there we orphan those two grassland tiles at the south part of this land mass. There's no other city that can grab them, and I hate wasting land, too. I know that spot is the better location, it just rubs me the wrong way to miss out on some juicy cottage land.

When are your capital's borders going to pop again? Before or after you'll get around to settling the white dot west of your cap? If before, then you could potentially move it 1NW without losing the effect of having first ring cows. That depends on what scouting reveals in that direction, of course - no point moving claim more peaks.

Definitely before. I don't recall how soon it will happen, but the borders will pop again before the three colored dots are all filled in. The +5 culture from the religion is really helping out in that respect. I didn't think about that, but you're right...that would grab the cows and elephants even in the second ring and it would get the spices in the border and mean I can use the sugar (which is not a bad tile) instead of settling on it. Thanks for catching that.

What's the current research/build order and plan not to get eaten by Commotay?

I'm on Mining right now, which will be followed by Bronze Working. I haven't decided what to do after that because it's going to depend on where bronze is. If it's in one of the colored cities, I will probably grab Fishing next. If it's not, Animal Husbandry and hope for horses in one of them. And the general idea is to always have 1/4 - 1/3 of my cities building units at any given time to try to keep the army size up.

I'm open to ideas on tech path, though. There are a lot of options, and it's not always easy to figure out the optimum path. I don't want to wait too long on Sailing, for example, because I need to get onto that land mass to the E in order to access the stone, and a lighthouse would definitely be worthwhile in almost all the core cities.

[TheWannabe]

I agree, it's a great city location! Plus the river for fresh water and lots of cottages! Unfortunately the capital will probably need the corn most of the time since the Yellow city will likely often be using the sheep. Though it will also probably build workers and settlers early on as well.


I'm on Mining right now, which will be followed by Bronze Working. I haven't decided what to do after that because it's going to depend on where bronze is. If it's in one of the colored cities, I will probably grab Fishing next. If it's not, Animal Husbandry and hope for horses in one of them. And the general idea is to always have 1/4 - 1/3 of my cities building units at any given time to try to keep the army size up.

I'm open to ideas on tech path, though. There are a lot of options, and it's not always easy to figure out the optimum path. I don't want to wait too long on Sailing, for example, because I need to get onto that land mass to the E in order to access the stone, and a lighthouse would definitely be worthwhile in almost all the core cities.

One yellow has a lighthouse and has grown a bit, it probably won't really need the sheep unless you're whipping really hard. Also, if you give it the crabs permanently, then you can avoid wasting hammers on a lighthouse in the capital.

As for tech path, you've already committed to a religious gambit, so try to leverage that early? As long as you have enough just troops to avoid being anyone's snack, that early investment in Buddhism is going to take a bit more work to start generating returns. Of course, there's more than one way to get a great prophet...

[Grimace]

Turns 21 - 23

Mining came down T23 and I started on BW -- 13 turns to completion. Since I can't chop, I have to let the settler build the natural way. So the worker will farm the second corn, and the settler will be produced on T30, with a 2nd city built on T32. I probably won't be first, but I think my 2nd city will get better faster this way.




Wannabe, good point about letting yellow have the lighthouse and crabs...eventually MC will need one (when I want to grow really big), but it's not too important in the early game (unless I want to go for the GLH).

[Grimace]

Also, for the next tech I'm think the Wheel might be the best. That way I can hook up the gems to both my cities and get the extra happy, plus give the trade route that would likely let Buddhism spread to city #2.

[Grimace]

Turns 24 - 27

Well, I explored the arm of land NE of my capital and found a very nice city spot. A little more spread out, but I can't think of a way to put more than one city there without making both of them considerably worse.



3 turns until the settler, 9 turns until BW. We should start seeing 2nd cities getting build pretty soon, but there haven't been any yet. I decided to check out the demos this turn:



GNP is #1 I think largely from the culture from Buddhism. I'm surprised my CY is low, but it looks like most of my competitors have let their capitals grow a bit more -- my sims showed a settler at size 2 would come out faster than waiting for size 3. Maybe I will be one of the first to a 2nd city at this rate.

Anyway, if anyone has better ideas for the NE city I'm open...I just don't see a better option than the one I have flagged.

[Grimace]

Turns 28 - 30

Looks like HAK was the first one to get a 2nd city, planting his this turn (T30). I'm really surprised it wasn't one of the IMP leaders, but probably getting the worker out a few turns earlier thanks to EXP helped.

In fact, my settler completed this turn and started moving to the new spot. He'll arrive next turn and build on T32. New build order for Motley Crue is Warrior (to grow to size 3) -> Worker -> Settler.

[Grimace]

Doh! I just made a huge accidental mistake. My scout started the turn on a hill and saw a barb bear next to our next city site. I then clicked the warrior/settler stack and intended to move the warrior there to protect the settler, but accident moved the settler instead! So if a reload is not ok'd, I'll almost certainly lose my first settler, setting me back considerably.

[Grimace]

Well, that sucked. I did a reload, but had the same goddamn thing happen again because I can't seem to use my mouse today. This time while intending to move the settler onto the hill with the warrior, I sent him onto the jungle square again. *sigh* And more than one reload isn't really fair, so I guess I'll just suck up whatever happens. Who knows, maybe the bear will leave it alone.

[Old Harry]

You've done so many reloads for the rest of us that I don't think a couple of bouts of mouse-incompetence means you should ruin your game... moar reload!