One idea is to go warrior - settler and settle on the plains hill 3S1E of the capital. This shares a nice assortment of tiles, claims the grass cow and a (hard to see) plains forest riverside lumbermill 2E of the cow.
Tech goes hunting-agri-wheel-AH, and the worker is constantly busy building first the camp, then the rice farm, then two roads to connect the second city and speed up settling by a turn. City is planted t15, capital grows to size 3 same turn, second city can immediately work the rice and grow in 3t, then add the lumbermill. AH comes in as the second road finishes and the worker can then head to the pigs. Capital probably builds a second worker at size 3. Cows are improved soon.
Agriculture next seems solid anyway so I will probably start like this although the settling spot is still up in the air.
Scooter: Willem (CRE, FIN) of Vikings (Fishing, Hunting)
Very similar to my pairing (FIN/ORG + CRE + Fishing), and I like my leader better but his civ better... but I could eat my words on both counts.
Pindicator: Montezuma (AGG, SPI) of Japan (Fishing, Wheel)
Couple of syergies here:
* Observatory + Temple is 2 specialist slots so he could go for an early great person but whether it's a GS or GP will be random.
* SPI's Temple + Fishing gets the Whale going a turn sooner.
* AGG's bonus applies to his UU.
I didn't think the free 25% science in the capital was worth taking AGG or CHA (nor did anyone else, apparently) but Pindicator is at least giving it a shot, and he's good so I'm curious how it will play out.
Me: Zara Yaqob (CRE, ORG) of Rome (Fishing, Mining)
I'm feeling good about this. Seems pretty strong and both traits are new for me.
Yuri: Elizabeth (FIN, PHI) of Greece (Fishing, Hunting)
I would not have picked Elizabeth as FIN + PHI don't synergize. But PHI Greece is nifty. Gonna have to watch out for artist bombs coming from his direction.
Dazedroyalty: Darius (FIN, ORG) of Sumeria (Agriculture, Wheel)
I wanted Darius, and I think he will be great on this map. Sumeria's fine but I would have picked HRE instead. He's the only one who took Agriculture (and everyone took either that or Fishing) so we shall see how that compares.
Statistics:
We have 3 FIN, 2 ORG, 2 CRE, and 1 each of AGG, SPI, PHI.
None of EXP, IND, IMP, CHA, PRO.
We have 4 Fishing, 2 Hunting, 2 Wheel, 1 Agriculture, 1 Mining.
No one chose Mysticism.
I think at least EXP and Mysticism were underrated by our picks. EXP is still strong and if I hadn't already claimed CRE I would be fine taking a Mysticism civ (it seems a lot of the civs with strong UUs/UBs have it).
How about wonders? Well Pindicator and I are the only two who aren't locked into cottages by FIN, so we are most likely to build Pyramids. I suspect stone will be pretty remote and so the Mids will fall pretty late to whoever claims it first.
Stonehenge will go to one of the non-CRE civs I'm sure, which is Dazed, Yuri, or Pindicator. Pindicator is most likely to get an early religion but I'm not sure whether that increases or decreases his Henge odds.
Oracle could go to anyone, probably Dazed/Yuri/Pin though as it requires some lame techs for CRE players. Oracle to Metal Casting benefits FIN players the most so Yuri and Dazed are the top choices. Maybe Yuri's PHI puts him as sole most likely Oracle builder. But Pindicator (with SPI) could easily want to Oracle Code of Laws, and both main Oracle techs are on the way to Samurai.
GLH? Anyone. But less likely the FIN players, so me or Pin perhaps. And I get cheap lighthouses.
Then there's GL and MoM, which will go to fast techers who go to the top of the tree. I bet Yuri wants GL.
Forgot to mention my warrior then settler at size 2 plan was based on misremembering the start - I forgot about the hammer on the whales. So actually I'm building 2 warriors and growing to 3, and getting the settler done at the same time.
Scooter's scout found me last turn; I moved my warrior so that if he wants to get vision of my capital he will die. I wish I could have ambushed him (winning would get me to 5xp for woody 2) but unfortunately he saw my warrior when he moved the scout last turn.
No one's missing anything, I'm just moving explorers and hitting enter.
I did look at the scoreboard this turn. Pindicator has 2 cities, size 2 and 1, to my 3-pop capital, and 5 techs like me. Everyone else has a single 4-pop city; Scooter has 5 techs, Yuri has 4, Dazed has 3.
I had to think a little bit last turn as the settler was done. I ended up starting my second worker. Had to think even more this turn as my plan ran out.
Here's the situation (I settled Trading Post this turn):
As you can see I decided to go with Bronze Working. After that I plan to get Pottery. Why these? I have insane food and insane happy. Regarding happiness: I have +1 happy from whale! Didn't expect that honestly. I thought I had to research Optics before it was worth anything more than 1h2c. I also have one from the forest preserve and will have one more as soon as I road the ivory, for a total of 8 in the capital right now. 8! That's nuts. And with rice, pigs, and whale being worked, my base food surplus is 11 (not forgetting the supermarket). So I pretty clearly need to 3-whip me some settlers, which means slavery sooner rather than later and a granary pretty fast. After much consternation I decided that I could afford to delay cottages and granaries a few turns, and would rather get chopping and revolting capabilities up quickly, not to mention vision of copper. As you can see, horses appeared under the fort, which means the desert mine which I though might be copper, might actually be iron instead.
OK, so Bronze first, then Pottery. What else do I need soon? Honestly, I may head directly to Writing-Math after that. Other potentially decent techs are Iron Working (not 'til later IMO), Sailing (could be quite strong soon), Masonry (don't think I care before Math), and Archery (I want chariots first anyway, and probably spears otherwise).
Wonder plans? Well, check out my exploration so far:
I will purchase and consume a hat if that fogged desert jungle I can see two copies of doesn't contain stone. So Pyramids are an option. I think I will decline it though. I've built it in all three of the last games I played (which also I would say are the first three high quality games I played), and in the latter two it was pretty much forced by circumstances. Well circumstances don't care this time! I think I'll try skipping them for a change. But! Stone can still be nice for Hanging Gardens, Moai, and more, so I will certainly keep an eye on it.
GLH is looking decent but not broken. I do get the lighthouse discount, which favors it not just for building it faster but also because it encourages more coastal cities. I need to determine though how many island cities I can get. It's not worth as much if I can't get four. There looks to be a reasonably large island, but I'm not completely sure it is one, so I will continue exploration.
Relatedly, dotmapping this is confounding me to no end in terms of balancing resource grabs with efficient land use, so if anyone has any suggestions... I think I want to settle horses next, and that's about it.
SevenSpirits Wrote:Relatedly, dotmapping this is confounding me to no end in terms of balancing resource grabs with efficient land use, so if anyone has any suggestions... I think I want to settle horses next, and that's about it.
I have a few tenative suggestions, in no particular order: On the plains hill 2E of the ivory, 1W of the banana, on the plains hill 1S of the sheep, on the tundra 1NW (or the grass 1NE) of the "small sea" sign, on the plains between the cow and the incense, and on the tundra 1W of the silver. I'm not sure how defensible the non-hill cities would be, however.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
So I did a bit more in-depth planning this turn. I can get the capital's granary finished the same turn I get pottery. Just need to grow to size 4, put a couple turns into a worker, revolt to slavery, whip the worker and complete a chop in any of 3 turns: the turn I revolt or whip, or the turn after. I will get 40h exactly. Cool huh? After that I will simply grow a size every turn for the next 5 turns until I reach my happy cap (8) at the same time the whip anger disappears.
At least this is the way to make Mackoti happy, as he doesn't believe in whipping the capital for other cities' benefit. I will have to check out some options to decide if I agree with that. Problem is I will be delaying the third city for quite a while as Trading Post will really only have access to hammer tiles and the town, so it would really only be able to complete a settler t29 at size 2 (ouch) or t33 after building a granary and whipping 6->3 (much nicer).
Anyway this is what the 2-cities-for-a-while plan gets me: t29 I grow to size 8 / size 4, am working all good tiles, have 2 granaries, 4 workers, and quite a lot of tech. And TP can grow in 2t and then 3whip a settler for horse/fish. And I get lots and lots of commerce.
However I'm going to consider the possibility of whipping out just one settler from King's Court before I focus it on being a beautiful capital. Granary plan seems great either way so I can just follow that for now.
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