The Antisocial Team

[Ichabod]

The way I compare sandboxes is to play out to a specific turn sometime a while in the future (usually T30-50 at the start), and compare all the sandboxes at the exact same turn (e.g. T50). See how your growth, production and research compares between the sandboxes, and generally the best one overall wins. If you want you could use a rule of thumb something like 1 food ~= 2 hammers ~= 3 beakers, or revalue some items depending on your goals in the game.

Maybe you're already aware of all this though, and it's just a genuinely tricky decision between the different options.

What's the "WOW" sign for? Doesn't look particularly like a "wow" spot. Or was that put down earlier?

Thanks, LP. That's really helpful. I'll try to get some results soon for comparasion, since we are reaching a point in the actual game that we'll have to make some non-obvious decisions. My other problem with sandboxes is not realizing different ways of playing after finding one that I found to be nice.

The WOW spot is a FfH slip by Mist.

I'm liking the corn/2 cows/crab city as number 2 (obviously) and the clam city or the northern cow city as number 2.

[Ichabod]

So, yeah, here's the first big micro decision to be made.

Yup, settler until we get farmed wheat, when I change it to a warrior until size 2, than back to settler.

Going straight warrior would mean a lot of time working an unimproved tile at size 2 (even this way I'll work one turn of a non-improved tile before finishing the ivory), so I think this is best. The plains hill gives us 6 production on the settler, after all, and that's really nice.

Worker went 1NE, 1t road and cancel. Farm started next turn.

A second worker before settler would meant a lot of improved tiles not being worked and I didn't like that option. The capital doesn't have a lot of good workable tiles to grow into, so it wasn't worth growing either.

Exploration reveals a very resource poor area. I'll send the warrior to explore the north of the capital now. The western cast will be explored by a work boat later. No loss there, because I don't see us settling in that direction so soon.

A quick look inside First Touch:

[mackoti]

Excelent choise.

About the start, i change my opinion this a great strt you have agreat capitol for burocracy and second city at size 4-5(depends how fish its conected),perfetc city for a imperilalist leader.

I would go after Ah for potery,and just afte Bw.Its a waste to have 2 floodplains staying for nothing.

[Ichabod]

Excelent choise.

About the start, i change my opinion this a great strt you have agreat capitol for burocracy and second city at size 4-5(depends how fish its conected),perfetc city for a imperilalist leader.

I would go after Ah for potery,and just afte Bw.Its a waste to have 2 floodplains staying for nothing.

In my simulations I was actually farming both the floodplains, because the food surplus in the capital seemed low with just the wheat. So I was actually delaying pottery for quite a bit. My tech order was something like:

AH (to pasture the cows for second city and horses) -> fishing -> Polytheism (trying to found Hinduism in the second city) -> Mining/BW -> Pottery

The tech rate with the Ivory is very fast. Doing this, I could start cottaging after improving the second city and the cows for the city north of the capital (planned to be 3rd or 4th city - I can place the third by the clam, using the wheat to grow and a mine). I'll try a variant with pottery after fishing, cottaging the second flood plain (the one shareable between cities has to be a farm, I think).

The second city is crazy for a Imperialist leader. At size 5 working corn, crab, 2 cows and a ph mine, it'll have 25 hammers per turn into a settler. 3t settlers with overflow!

And the capital will be a monster with bureaucracy. I'll have 3 cities helping grow cottages and I plan to do a very fast academy.

[Ichabod]

Worker farming:

Warrior exploring (forgot control-R, but the map revealed didn't have any resources):

Any questions?

[Ichabod]

Exploring the north reveals pretty good land up there:

I suppose the corn could go to the north city, but it could also be used for a city further south (if I find more food near the cows). I don't like having to build a monument to get the city best tiles, especially if I have a religion.

The big decision to be made right now is to go pottery -> religion or religion -> pottery. I think I'll do a small C&D job tomorrow to see what my opponents did (I think Gaspar opened with BW/AH, Commodore with AH, not sure about the others).

I tested the option of pottery quicker to cottage the second fp, not farm it. I liked it, especially because I could build granaries instead of warriors while growing cities. But a religion would be a very good thing and give a big boost (I hate monuments!). Good thing about my planned city placement, though, is that they can live without culture for a loooong time (the capital border expansions really help).

Regarding city management, I started growing the city, since the wheat was ready. Next turn the worker will finish the road and then Ivory. Ah, end of next turn also reveals horses. I think there's a strat resource in the starting capital BFC (before I moved), but it could be on the north, not in range of my current capital.

[Ichabod]

Anything I could talk about to make this more interesting? You want to see my simulation results or other things?

[Ichabod]

My C&D fu (extremely lacking) says the following:

Gaspar/Noble: Agri, Mining, BW

Commodore: Myst, Hunting, AH, fishing

Oledavy: Agri, Wheel, Mining, BW

Yuris: Agri, Wheel, Hunting, AH, Fishing

Probably can't keep track after that, because I'm a very disorganized man...

[Ichabod]

City micro with ivory + wheat improved. Settler ready in 2 more turns:

We found marble to the north. Not feasible to settle it for Oracle, but it could be done for the MoM and Great Library. Problem with going Calendar is the lack of resources that use it... Well, there's incense and silk, so maybe I'm just imagining things...

By the way, Incense gives a happy without any buildings in BTS, right?

We just finished fishing, so we have:

The Wheel, Myst, Agri, Hunting, AH, fishing

I found a micro plan that allows us to go Polytheism next and still get pottery done in time to cottage the second foodplain and grow building granaries. I liked the plan and I'll try to sharpen it. It involves growing to size 3 in the capital more quickly than I was going to do before and working an unimproved crab tile for one turn (getting the 3 commerce).

I like it though and I'll try to sharpen it even more. I think we really want a religion, especially to be founded in the second city. Hopefully we'll get there in time. I'm going for polytheism because it opens up Monotheism for Org Religion and I think the other civs would rather go Meditation for a shot at the Oracle. Hopefully we can get it (don't forget we have the turn order advantage ).

[Mist]

What do you think about pink-dotting that insane floodplain/marble/oasis/wet corn location? As a heavy duty whip city perhaps?