[Eitb spoilers] Miguelito's fortune hangs on a thread

[Tarkeel]

A1 is going to claim a lot of peaks, but that might not be an issue as it will still have loads of what I presume are good tiles in FFH. Having both of the strongest tiles inner ring is also a big bonus, and this is the only site that will put second ring culture on the pass for extra vision and security. It also opens up a fishing village 3W if that's of any value at all.

For the B sites, I think it matters where you intend to settle other cities in that area. B4 is the only site that allows you settle the desert hill N of the oasis, but I do like your "2" marker S of the oasis. I think this is down to B1 vs B4, but I don't have a feel for how useful that coast is or how badly copper will be needed. Leaning towards B4 though.

[DaveV]

I like B1 the best; you said you could use the happiness from the wine, and it has three good tiles to work (assuming stolen sheep), four after Calendar (I do consider a 0/1/6 desert hill incense tile to be good, because commerce is at such a premium). Plus it claims copper, which could be important. The argument of probably building toward other players instead of in your back lines is also a strong one for me.

Of the options at A, I like A1. I try to avoid building monuments; my tendency to build them automatically was one of the big hurdles I had to overcome in my early MP games.

[Miguelito]

The settler is in position to settle B1, our capital warrior won a 50/50 against a nasty goblin for 6XP and AH came in - so now we have to select a new tech, and I'm pretty unprepared and -decided
Techs which make some sense to me:

1. Calendar - enable plantations and Agrarianism civic (+1f -1h on farms), 160b
   
2. Education - enable cottages and Apprenticeship civic (+2XP on new units, -10% military unit production), 280b
   
3. Knowledge of the Ether - enable Mage Guilds (incl. additional sage slot) and Adepts, 360b
   
4. Bronze Working - enable Swordsmen, bronze weapons (which warriors can't use) and jungle clearing, 400b
   

1. - we'll have just one plantation between our first four cities (I'm assuming A1) which also only gives happy with Cave of Ancestors and apparently only with Philosophy tech? And then 3 farm ressources, one of which would lose a hamme. I can see 4f1c grassland farms making some sense. BUt I wouldn't revolt for Agri alone, so either together with Apprenticeship or when leaving Pacifism, which we'll need a few dozen turns yet

2. - starting cottages early sounds good, but it does nothing for security. Well we'd get promotable Warriors, but again I don't want to revolt for just one civic

3. - second sage slot is pretty good, and our Adepts are a decent upgrade from Warriors for the barb defense as they have mobility and accumulate XP. Their spells are Haste - excellent mobility, but no additional combat strength; Floating Eye - excellent scouting, so we won't get surprised by barbs easily and also might find some players for KTB and more; Fire 1 - we could start incensing that jungle down south but it's not very relevant. Of course the earlier and more we get Adepts out the broader we'll be grinning once we have Sorcery (I haven't written the magic primer yet; in short - at Sorcery we get powerful Wizard units which have to be upgraded from adepts with at least 10XP. Our Arcane trait lets Adepts accumulate XP passively over time, but of course the earlier you start the better. Also barb defense would yield strong adepts)

4. - strentgh 5 units are probably the strongest choice for defense right now, but the tech only marginally boosts economy (enables the gems which is a plausible 5th or 6th city plant) and doesn't help our long term potential like Edu and KotE would

--> of these Edu and KotE sound best to me. BW is very expensive for the limited benefit it provides, although I'd probably still want it after those two. Calendar is cheap but the benefit also seems quite limited atm. The question is, do we want the pure economical benefit of Edu or the moderate security increase and moderate economy help from KotE. Mostly, can we get away with just warriors for a while longer? I guess we'll need some economy boost to get through the pre-Sorcery techs of Writing (380b) and Necromancy/Divination/Alteration/Elementalism (640b), which cottages would provide.

Quick answers welcome, I'm holding the turn already (no problem for the next few hours, but should send it then)

[Tarkeel]

Early cottages is the best way to get to the next tech-choice, right? But then, how much pop do you have to actually work cottages? I have no feel for the security part of your question though.

[DaveV]

Hurray for horses in capital third ring, where the second city will be able to work them eventually.

My inclination, without any simming, would be to go after KotE for the next tech. The sooner you can start building adepts, the more XP they can stack up. You can even promote one or two along the combat line to make them into decent fighters. That also lets you double your great sage GPP sooner.

[Miguelito]

I typed up a post justifying why I went for KotE in the end and also hooray for horses, but apparently didn't send it properly. But good thing that we're on the same page . And yes combat adepts don't sound bad, it also makes their fireballs and summons stronger later on right? Although straight combat line means difficulty to get spell extension which seems important?

[mackoti]

I find interisting you didnt considered hunting. My opinion on the way amurite is played is that peole are going too fast and invest too much for later stuff and get nothing going for  midle game and even when they get to mages those are comming slow and have no back up.

I dont know what othes are doing so, for example in your case seeing all this forest I would have went for way of the forest. getting hunters and the others dudes, as well culture and fake worker labor, i meant getting + 1 food on tiles is like improving that tile and later  even getting archey for getting a very good tile. And with hunters you can explore get experience maybe even getting some animal.  It makes you active on the game, going directly for mages, and others knowing  amurites ar strong there they might knock 10-12 turns you get the setup, and its takesa lot to get there and there you are a victim.

[Miguelito]

for reference, here's my unsent post from yesterday:

hm. With wine and before hopefully cotton the happy cap will be 6, 7 in cap. That leaves some citizens free to work cottages both in the cap and city 2 , but there's an issue in that I want city 2 to work 2 sages, (and 1-2 in the cap until the first GS is done) and actually should get started early on this. If I had the time I'd sim out the start to get a feeling for the bottlenecks, but I don't. Alas, if it turns out we generate sages faster than we can research, a third great sage to bulb Alteration solves the problem.
City 3 (planning for A1) has just one natural cottage tile. It can also do the hill possibly and a shared dry cottage also makes sense, but that isn't that great.
I set research to KotE. Getting started on the sages asap doesn't feel very wrong at least, and some added security doesn't either, considering we've had some serious barb troubles already and we'd like to actually explore - there's prizes to be had in lairs and barrows!
But you could still convince me to turn around to Edu next turn.

Also only just noted that we were lucky with horse . The capital claims its third ring in 2 turns, so that makes B1 an even better second city, and also makes a later clam city a good bit more appealing.

I find interisting you didnt considered hunting. My opinion on the way amurite is played is that peole are going too fast and invest too much for later stuff and get nothing going for  midle game and even when they get to mages those are comming slow and have no back up.

I dont know what othes are doing so, for example in your case seeing all this forest I would have went for way of the forest. getting hunters and the others dudes, as well culture and fake worker labor, i meant getting + 1 food on tiles is like improving that tile and later  even getting archey for getting a very good tile. And with hunters you can explore get experience maybe even getting some animal.  It makes you active on the game, going directly for mages, and others knowing  amurites ar strong there they might knock 10-12 turns you get the setup, and its takesa lot to get there and there you are a victim.

I did consider Hunting, it just doesn't give us a lot I feel. We now settled on the , so there's just the ivory, which is not nothing but also not awfully much.
FotL seems like a lot of investment, but I might be wrong. Keep in mind though that Sorcery is meant to be a double bulb, so FotL is a lot of beakers comapred to thewhole Sorcery path. Culture would be nice, but so far we're dotmapping without much need for it. There's also Ljosalfar who will certainly be competing for the first-tos. Finally my rough idea for after Sorcery is going Esus or OO for the magic heroes, although I'm just spitballing and have no real idea even of how Esus and Gibbon work.
Regarding safety and activity, after Education I do want to take BW. I like str 5 axes (with haste) better than hunters. And floating eyes do seem very helpful for safety.

[Tarkeel]

for reference, here's my unsent post from yesterday:

hm. With wine and before hopefully cotton the happy cap will be 6, 7 in cap. That leaves some citizens free to work cottages both in the cap and city 2 , but there's an issue in that I want city 2 to work 2 sages, (and 1-2 in the cap until the first GS is done) and actually should get started early on this. If I had the time I'd sim out the start to get a feeling for the bottlenecks, but I don't. Alas, if it turns out we generate sages faster than we can research, a third great sage to bulb Alteration solves the problem.
City 3 (planning for A1) has just one natural cottage tile. It can also do the hill possibly and a shared dry cottage also makes sense, but that isn't that great.
I set research to KotE. Getting started on the sages asap doesn't feel very wrong at least, and some added security doesn't either, considering we've had some serious barb troubles already and we'd like to actually explore - there's prizes to be had in lairs and barrows!
But you could still convince me to turn around to Edu next turn.

From that it sounds like KotE is the right choice. The allure of Pottery is that it both gives your cities granaries and your workers cottages, and if you don't need one you surely want the other.

[Miguelito]

From that it sounds like KotE is the right choice. The allure of Pottery is that it both gives your cities granaries and your workers cottages, and if you don't need one you surely want the other.

EitB Education gives just cottages, no granaries which are at Agriculture I believe, but they're bad (just 20% food saved and you don't run whip cycles)

turn report!



griffons don't enter borders do they ? 



 
nor do furry friends, or do they ? Need to figure out how to settle here without getting eaten. The C1 guerilla warrior should get odds on defense...?



We're working a goldmine and looking that terrible ?
Well at least God King is proving its worth. Did everybody take Agrarianism and spawned on a floodplains valley? Ok probably they're just not working forested plains hills as enthusiastically as we are.  Note that before settling Udenarat we were getting 10 food per turn which was looking really awful.
I believe we are second or third to settle second city, but haven't followed closely.