[SPOILERS] Giraflorens and Naufragar [UNCONFINED]

[giraflorens]

   

T55.  1 turn for the settler, and in 3 turns Equuspolis is born. Pottery in 2 turns. Buddism has been founded, so I guess someone is already running for the Oracle.  And GeneralKill stats are going up on power.

That makes difficult getting the Oracle. Nevertheless he should go for pottery to get Iron Working with the Oracle, he needs some turns yet.  I think I made a mistake going for pottery before than Meditation.  I know that for Oracle usually works fine Meditation-Priest-Pottery, and while pottery the Oracle can be built. 
So this makes me rethink my Tech strategy after pottery:
writing-horse riding vs writing-masonry vs sailing-writing-masonry?
I m not going to build the library, neither quarry before the next settler, so sailing could be a good election, and I will profit all the water tiles of this Gruyere Cheese Map.

[Cornflakes]

Cities can only build ships if they have a direct connection to sea (lake isn't sufficient, even if you could build a fort later). From your screenshot a couple posts ago it looks like there is a fish 2S1W of elephant that can only be worked by a city founded on the elephant.

[giraflorens]

Cities can only build ships if they have a direct connection to sea (lake isn't sufficient, even if you could build a fort later). From your screenshot a couple posts ago it looks like there is a fish 2S1W of elephant that can only be worked by a city founded on the elephant.

Humm, I was wrong then.   What would you suggest for the city placing?

[naufragar]

Cities can only build ships if they have a direct connection to sea (lake isn't sufficient, even if you could build a fort later). From your screenshot a couple posts ago it looks like there is a fish 2S1W of elephant that can only be worked by a city founded on the elephant.

Humm, I was wrong then.   What would you suggest for the city placing?

If Cornflakes is suggesting placing a city directly on the elephant so that you don't lose the fish, that seems like a better city spot than what I had suggested.

[giraflorens]

Yes it is, but It has only 2 hills and the copper shared with Girapolis.
Besides that I want to share with you the strategy that I am thinking now: Inmortals War. I am thinking about going with inmortals and future Horses Riders against Luzbauq. In few turns I can start produccing lots of Inmortals and some axes. With that I could rush him. At least I could try to. Also I can start research of HRiding and with the stables I can try my opportunity in this game: using the inmortals and riders. Beyond that the game depends on long term managing which it is not good for me, cause I am not Financial neither an expert on long term strategies.

What do you think?

[naufragar]

Sorry for the late response. If you have Lazteq's graphs, could you post a pic of the power graph? How many cities does he have?

The thing to remember about ancient era warfare is that the defender has a big advantage: on average, it takes 3 immortals to kill 1 spear just standing on flat land. 1 spear in a flat city with the 25% fortification bonus needs to be attacked with 4 immortals. Even assuming good luck (3 immortals killing a spear in a city), you spend 90h on units while your opponent spends 35h. The second advantage that the defender has is time. It takes a lot longer for us to bring attackers to the front than it does to whip in defenders.

I don't mean to say that ancient era warfare is impossible. You just need to prepare. What would you like to accomplish with your attack? Take a city? Wipe out an empire? Immortals can be decent pillagers because of their defensive bonus, but that probably doesn't repay the cost of building them.

[Suite]

Yes it is, but It has only 2 hills and the copper shared with Girapolis.

That is fully sufficient until the late game in my opinion, because you get a bonus hammer from the city tile, another from the wheat and three more at the horses. This city can work up to three lighthoused lakes and has two strong food resources.

Naufragar is right in that you have to anticipate a lot earlier if you want to be aggressive. The distance here is enormous, you already spent many hammers on Stonehenge, I don't see how a small stack of immortals in ~ 20-25 turns could be effective. Instead - the "boring", easy way! - there is so much land to settle. The spot right east of your capital deserves a dot - two strong food resources in the inner ring plus copper in the outer (you have Stonehenge!) or, arguably even better: the plains hill Persepolis 6-6-6 for extremely fast growth (Persepolis can deal with giving up one food).

[giraflorens]

   

           

T57.  Barbars!!   Equuspolis is founded going for a Granary. I start Writting. Girapolis has an Axe at 1 turn, so I put Barracks. Persepolis has a Barbar on the Mined-Hill. An Archer is coming and in the meantime the city go to 5pop. Also near Girapolis threre comes another barbar and I placed the Archer in the woods.  Lets hope to have an ascended defender in next turn.

Ohhh.  I read your messages after playing the turn and I found Equuspolis in my first though.  I'm not used to place cities so close.  I have to learn.  I didn't think about the city on the est of Persepolis as Suite suggest. I was thinking about farder west to reach Stone (in 2nd ring).  Also I was thinking about a city in the northwest of Persepolis that can have 3 furs, it can help the economy.

Yesterday I was doing some simulations with the Inmortals and I realized how difficult can be to beat spearmans an archers in a hill city.  So I will use them to scout and to keep barbars away.  So lets forget about early wars.  By the moment.

[Raskolnikov]

The spot right east of your capital deserves a dot - two strong food resources in the inner ring plus copper in the outer (you have Stonehenge!) or, arguably even better: the plains hill Persepolis 6-6-6 for extremely fast growth (Persepolis can deal with giving up one food).

Opening the thread, I was shocked it wasn't settled to grab copper (copper in first ring in that case).

@Giraflorens: you should really think more in term of dynamic rather than what a city will look like in 1800 ad. Asking yourself what the city can give you in the next 20 turns will help you selecting better (imo) city sites. Optimize early turns of each city, ie. food in first ring, ideally workers improving food the turn it's settled, ideally already connected to trade network, and another worker chopping the granary! Most of the time, this isn't possible, but it should be your goal to make it happen.

Also, don't be afraid of tile sharing. Even more true with power tile (ie 5+ food tile). Not only a city won't ever need to have +20food per turn, but it will help manage early maintenance cost AND happy cap.

I am by no mean an expert, so don't take this as criticism, just ideas for improvement/discussion. Keep going!

Cheers

[giraflorens]

Thx for your comments, they are really needed.  I see I have to change very much the way of playing with the IA. I will follow your comments about the next city founding.

By the way, what does " plains hill Persepolis 6-6-6" means?  I don't understand the 6-6-6