The Antisocial Team

[Mist]

Won't do any moves before Ichabod comes on. We had this little chat not long ago ( he's in red as a proper evil guy on the team should be )

So, after all that discussion and Mack's input, what's the plan?

Hey Mist. I think we have to wait for the map, but my main idea is get a religion -> early HR and Org Rel for infrastructure + growing cottages where they matter. Try for a very early Civil Service, possibly detouring for MoM or TGL, especially if we have close marble. And get to Guilds to roll over someone.

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]OK, I'll do a series of questions and then post the lot in for lurkers in the thread
Stonehenge?
Early Maths?
Spies ( Great Wall ) ?
Great People ( if yes, which and what for )?
Why HR?
Do we crash tech rate ( drop under 40% ) or do we try to keep teching at all times?[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Red"]Stonehenge - no, we get early religion for that... or better, maybe, if the map/opportunity arrives.
Early Maths - I have to think - is it better to get a fast HR or fast currency through maths - probably depends on availability of happy resources.
Spies - probably ignore, waiting for a GSpy from Great Wall is not worth delaying an early academy.
GPeople - Early academy -> Golden Age after MoM (to speed up Phracts) -> Scientist bulbs, most likely.
HR - To grow our cottage cities. This is map dependent, especially regarding availability of happy resources and existence of cottage city sites.
Tech rate - I want to get to Phracts in a decent time frame, so going broke is probably not a good idea -> see Lewwyn in PBEM 29, he got broke and never recovered.[/COLOR]

Okay, I guess I agree with most of this. What I'd like to put on the table is possibility of going MC before currency if we have gold and/or gems. That would make forges give happy in addition to production. I understand that if there's a decent amount of coast we'll go all in for either TGL or Colossus? Which one do we want more if we can choose?

I'll have to think about it for a bit. But I got to go now.

But given what I see here :
-We probably need to move, we want a strong Bureaucracy capital, and that's either 4 of the wheat or even 4-1 of the wheat to get those floodplains and escape the brownish looking coast.
-SIP is a bad option anyhow.
-Novice said there is no islands on the map, which probably makes TGL much less appealing, but we definitely could try to chop out colossus on the coast if we want it, there's enough food to whip the forge too.

[Mist]

And some stuff from settings and playing with a flying camera -

Prince
Toroidal wrap
Map is HUGE - 86 tiles wide, 52 tiles high
But on the flipside - sealevel is high, so there's not that much land.
Score list shows 802 tiles.

So concluding - about 150 tiles per player, with not that high maintenance despite toroid, because of the map size.

[Ichabod]

Well, warrior 1NW and settler 2W (or 1SW1W) seems pretty straightforward. No way we can settle in place. We need at least the fps to the west, hopefully something more. Bah, lousy land...

1SW1W for the settler would make it possible to settle on that tile on turn 2, if we want to (probably not). It'd get the fps, but only 1 hill and a lot of plains. It'd make the clams unusable. I think the only benefit would be improving the wheat in the first worker turn. But that's too little compared to the bad things.

So, 2W seems better for the settler. But I think we should move 1NW first, because there's a possibility for a resource in the tile 2N of the settler. Than maybe we want to move to the forest 1S of the mountain, so as to get both resources in the capital + riverside. The clams (only possible place to settle them would be the hill where the warrior is on - not a bad thing, since it shares the wheat and can help with cottages) and fps would have to go to other cities, than.

So, I'd do:

1. Warrior 1NW - reevaluate

2. Settler 1NW - reevaluate

3. Finish settler movement according to what we see.

[Mist]

Works for me, not to slow things down then :



Ivory is a rather underwhelming tile, we'd like to preferably cottage anything in sight.

Options :
On the ivory - pros: +1happy as soon as we get hunting, cons : misses out on a grass hill, floodplain in the fog, peak in BFC
1S of ivory - pros: 3 floodplains, both grass hills, no peaks in bfc, cons: have to camp ivory, two desert hills
Something on this side of the river - not good enough for capital in my opinion.

[Lord Parkin]

Well Ichabod, you got me hooked.

1S of ivory - pros: 3 floodplains

Are you sure there are 3? It's hard for me to tell from the screenshot, but my reading of the tile bleeding is that there are grassland tiles to the west of both visible flood plains. Could be wrong though, these things tend to be easier to see inside the game.

[pros] no peaks in bfc

Actually, I'd view the reduced number of available tiles as irrelevant this early in the game. Having a peak in the right place in the BFC could even be a slight plus, due to the free visibility on potential opportunists.

cons: have to camp ivory

I wouldn't view this as a con, especially as the tile can be worked for a respectable 2f/2h/2c early on. Plus it'll be automatically connected to the capital by the river, so no road/Wheel required. If it weren't on the river I might agree with you, but as it is I think it may be more beneficial not to settle on it.

[cons] two desert hills

Sure about that? Looks like the one in the fog is a plains-hill... it has a forest anyway, which deserts generally don't. Unless you're talking about a different tile I've missed.

Something on this side of the river - not good enough for capital in my opinion.

You do have the option of 1E of the Ivory. Lose a flood plain, but gain 2 forests compared to both of the other positions. Not too shabby, potentially a faster start depending on tech path. There's a slight possibility of another resource in the fog too. Actually, with 1NE of the Ivory there are 5 tiles where another resource could potentially crop up... though you'd lose both flood plains and a forest then.

One con of settling on that side of the river is if you want to settle the Clam with a later city... 1NE of Ivory leaves only one possible spot, 1E completely blocks it off.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

[Mist]

Are you sure there are 3?

You got me to check that again, so I did some camerawork, and got another screenshot from a different angle to try to confirm



This is what I think we have in the fog. You're right about the forest hill, it's plains. There's a grassland directly south of it, but I *think* the tile south of that is a FP.

I wouldn't view this as a con, especially as the tile can be worked for a respectable 2f/2h/2c early on.

2/2/3 even with financial. Which is still essentially a windmill, solid, but nothing to write home about. There's probably a reason you don't usually see people throwing windmills around.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Which are appreciated, it's always good to hear what players better than you think

[mackoti]

Well this is not great start for imperialist,some riverside rivers without forest could have heen beter.But my opinion even you loose a turn ,setle in that way to get both floodplains.And ivory its good in my book(actualy riverside finacila icvory its very good), but the prblem its we need the tech to take advantage,and Bw too... so hard chioses.Aniway i dont like the start to few option.

[Lord Parkin]

If there is indeed a third flood plain where you suspect, then I'd say 1S of the Ivory probably wins out as my personal preference given the circumstances. And yeah, the improved Ivory tile is sort of like a windmill... that you get right at the start of the game. Pretty good in my books - and certainly better than not having it. Especially since you'd apparently lose a flood plain by settling on it too.

[Ichabod]

I have to think about on the ivory or 1S of it (or 1N for a risky gambit ), but I think these are our best choices. So let's move the settler 1SW and send the save to the other teams, before they get mad at us.

The only other possible movement for the settler would be 1W, on the forest, if we want to settle 1NE of the ivory next turn. But this start doesn't seem to be one for risky gambits, so I prefer to at least be sure we get the fps (maybe a resource to the west too, please!).

[Ichabod]

So, I've played the save, since it seems people are starting to get angry.

Did the exact same moves as Mist, with another one with the settler:

And sent the save to NobleGas.

I'll think about the start some more and give my input later. I think 1S of the city, even though is lackluster, is our best option right now (I'm betting there'll be fish we cannot get anymore to the south due to this placement). At least we'll have a good number of riverside tiles.

The ivory is a 4 production, 3 commerce tile while building a worker and 5 production, 3 commerce while building a settler, so it's not that bad (it's actually good).

What makes me a bit happy is that our starting place seems engineered, due to only having 2 hills (isn't 3 hills the minimum for the map generator). So, it leads me to believe that everyone will have sucky starts too.