Learning Capria FFH SG

[Hart]

Hart, you up to doing a first dotmap of the south?

Sure am. I really hope we get FoT...

[kjn]

One that that is missing on my map of the south is that 2SW of the sugar, there is another fish resource, which only is usable for a city 1S of the sugar. Not sure if that is worth it, though.

[haphazard1]

There has been no mention that I've seen that Rantine has been built. Jonas has had a few power graph dips and rises, so he has been doing a bit of fighting.

Which brings the question back to who is he fighting? How many AIs exist, met and unmet?

Well, there is a lot of marsh there too (including Yggdrasil), but yes, there are plenty of resources that we want. Gems will give +2 happiness with ToKs, FoY is +1 happy/+2 health, and with both pig and cow down south smokehouses become quite nice buildings. Potentially, we can add 6 health and 5 happiness (with appropriate buildings) from the resources there, and the exploration isn't finished yet.

Yes, definitely some very tasty resources in the region. And even a mana node, which could be useful down the line.

Doesn't really matter how long it's going to last. We are teching faster then the Ljosalfar, have access to military resources (copper and horses), we have a much higher production capacity, and we have much more land to expand into. We need to keep a good reserve around Oxford and Coimbra, but Amelanchier cannot do anything without us noticing it via hawk scouting.

Just have to keep the defenses strong. The AI will inevitably pick the most inconvenient time to attack.

[kjn]

Which brings the question back to who is he fighting? How many AIs exist, met and unmet?

There are still six AIs in play, so there is one we haven't met yet.

[Brian Shanahan]

How's the game going?

[Hart]

Oh good grief. Can I just say I hate this forum software?
I get one email notification that someone has replied, and nothing else. So when I forget about the game for a bit things go pear shaped.

I actually wanted to do some more discussion before I played (it IS my turn, right?), which will probably be this time tomorrow. I seriously CANNOT think straight today! Dotmap incoming.

[kjn]

I actually wanted to do some more discussion before I played (it IS my turn, right?), which will probably be this time tomorrow. I seriously CANNOT think straight today! Dotmap incoming.

Great!

I've looked at the save, and I think we need to expand our economy a lot.

1. Peace with Amelanchier, so we can settle rice city, and
2. Take Tellesberg ASAP

Then we can shift forces northward, towards Spilan (but we can and should still keep a sizable force down south).

Then we need to get our economy even greater.

A city on that probable island to the northwest would add +1 commerce to all our other cities (overseas trade route), so I think Sailing should be a priority. Code of Laws would trade food for more commerce (and slightly lower costs). So the long-term tech goal right now should be Trade, I think.

How about Code of Laws (Aristofarms) - Sailing - Writing - Trade?

As soon as Sailing is is, we should be ready to build galleys in Salamanca and White (probably via chops in White), and a worker, a bear, and a garrison to go on it (we can use the skeleton crew ability or the expanded hull promotion).

And where to use the bears we can capture off Spilan? Rice, Oxford, and Coimbra need one each for culture battles. Bologna should get one, as should Paris. Then one for Gold and one for the island city. Hmmm... now that I think of it, we need to make sure that the bears don't kill off wounded units and run rampant when we take Spilan, ie the city will probably need two thanes (one for culture, and one for spreading RoK) unless we decide to destroy the bear den.

[Hart]

So in producing this map, settling priorities were as follows:
1. Secure Luxuries for happiness.
2. Secure NEW health bonuses.
3. Reduce wasted or poor tiles by settling on Marsh, where feasible.

This had some mixed success. Below I've shaded in all the marsh tiles with red. The yellow squares are marsh tiles that are next to a river, so they can still carry a reasonable commerce bonus even with just 1 food.


I came up with two general rules for this map. The first was to prioritise coastal sites, and settling on marsh where I could.

The justification is that we are in a position to research Trade soon - it's on the path to Empyrean, which we'd need to build Chalid (which we should definitely do). Trade instantly grants +1 trade routes to all cities, and opens up the Foreign Trade civic, which also grants +1 trade routes and anextra trade route to all coastal cities. We could also research Sailing, enabling us to build Lighthouses, which provide an extra trade route again. That's basically +5 commerce/turn, for any new coastal site at its founding.

Obviously, settling on marshland turns a 1F tile into a 2/1/1 tile. The trick is avoiding making a city hard to feed.

Le Map:

The two most important site in this map is Green. Green can instantly start growing, and the marsh tiles will still produce 1/0/5. Cyan isn't particularly ideal, but it can borrow Yggdrsail in a pinch, and also easily secures the mana with a monument.

Magenta would make an excellent commerce site, with the fish and cows. Yellow seems like an obvious location given where existing improvements are (Os-G must have been planning on putting a city near there).

Blue, Red and Dark Green were extremely confusing to place. (EDIT: Images updated.) Red at least catches a a resonable number of tiles; Blue is an excuse to build trade routes...

The next rule was to just grab resources with a city and worry about the coast and the marshes later.

Le Map #2:


As a result these cities would have extentive overflow between them, much like our core. Green would become a veritable megacity. Cyan would be able to pinch the Cows and Gems if Green needed to work cottages. I also considered 1E of Cyan's present location, but then it misses the gems.

Yellow and Magenta seem like the most logical spots for the resources and terrain present there. Orange I am not sure on but it could cover tiles from Prague and the soon-to-be-renamed Tongurstad. The Pale Green is a better position for those resources full-stop. EDIT: I took Blue out because it's a waste of hammers to get a resource we'll surely already have (next to Evermore!). Perhaps a repositioning of Red to NW of the Copper?

Naturally I'd need to see more of the SW corner of the peninsula to see where to fill the rest of the map, but its still solid.

Gonna re-upload images with some updates in a bit.

Next post: the upcoming turn. Just saw kjn's post and will ask some more questions. I wanted to discuss a bit more on the weekend, but then I got wind of a gig in town, and my weekend vanished.

[Hart]

HERP A DERP, DOUBLE POST

[kjn]

That's a lot of cities!

Yes, we need to get our hunter-hawk expedition to scout out the rest of the southwest before we fix our long-term dotmap (this will be longterm).

As for settling, with all these new resources added to our old, we can get size 13+ cities easily. Thus I think we should focus on large, long-term cities here, with relatively little overlap. Lighthouses are also extremely expensive in FFH, at 180 hammers. So maybe fewer but more valuable trade routes (city size is very important in trade income).

So I'm thinking we should do a push west towards Green before we settle the south. Yellow fits well with Rice and Prague. I think I like Cyan 1NW of the mana better (it avoids tile wastage between Yellow, Cyan, and Magenta). For Green I think either go with 1SW of Yggdrasil, or make it proper inland at 2S of Yggdrasil. Or merge Green and Cyan into one super-city, 1E or 1SE of Yggdrasil.

To the southeast I'm not sure we should place too many cities. Orange is a decent filler, and it can also be placed 1S without wasting decent tiles (1SW is also a possibility). Red can be placed between the Pig and the Copper. Blue will be a fishing village, but it will also claim the sugar, and can run a few specialists.

We should also look at getting a city on clam-fish island, after we get Golden going.

Ah well, we're looking at a 50-turn settlement plan here, methinks.