Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[Kuro]

Personally, I would like the hill next to the Sheep. Camped Grassland Riverside Hill Furs should be a 1/1/5 tile w/ Financial, which is equal to a non-Financial Civ's Riverside Silver, AKA a huge early game commerce boost. Plus, you could go Hunting -> AH and then Farm/Camp/Pasture all three of your resources, and AH should come in when the Worker finishes, give or take.

[TheHumanHydra]

That settling decision was painful, I kept having nasty suspicions that we'd get screwed no matter what. In this situation (assuming omniscience), I think it would have been best by far to settle NW of the corn. We'd get a whopping 4 food resources, giving us an excellent capital both long-term (high population) and short-term (lots of food tiles to share with expansions, excellent early growth rates, massive whipping potential). I do think 1S of current capital location would also have been better, but no way to know that. Shit happens.

I know I didn't follow your advice about scouting, Catwalk, which would have revealed that spot NW of the Corn, though I think I had a good reason and that my Scout movement was sound. There was no way to know about the Pigs without moving the Scout sub-optimally. I think I can stand by what I did here, even if I am disappointed.

I'll comment on micro later.

[Merovech]

Commenting on the rest a bit later, heading out. Merovech, are you my dedlurkerlurker?

I'm actually generally lurking this game.

THH Why didn't you settle 1S of where you ended up settling? Obviously, you couldn't know about the pigs, but you could tell that it was just water to the North, but you're basically giving up the fur for no gain.

Fake Edit: I now realize you moved the settler 1 tile first, so you would have had to burn a turn. I guess in that case, you made the right decision with the information available. I tend not to move the settler until I decide when to settle, but that's probably more of a weakness than a good strategy, even if it would have turned out better in this case to have settled in place or 1W.

Also, I didn't actually know that the script was naturally fantasy, but I tend just to assume that unnatural arrangements are to be expected here at RB.

[TheHumanHydra]

THH Why didn't you settle 1S of where you ended up settling? Obviously, you couldn't know about the pigs, but you could tell that it was just water to the North, but you're basically giving up the fur for no gain.

Fake Edit: I now realize you moved the settler 1 tile first, so you would have had to burn a turn. I guess in that case, you made the right decision with the information available. I tend not to move the settler until I decide when to settle, but that's probably more of a weakness than a good strategy, even if it would have turned out better in this case to have settled in place or 1W.

Thanks for the question; I appreciate interaction (my PBEM 45 thread gets no love ...). I settled where I did so the Wheat would be first-ring, and yes, so that I wouldn't have to burn a turn. Having been informed that the Furs tile was unimportant, there was nothing to suggest 1S would have been a better location, while there could have been any manner of resources in the fog north of where I settled.

If this were single-player, I believe I would have scouted as I did and then settled in place. In these multi-player games, knowing I'm a newb, I generally defer to the advice I'm given, which was to ignore the Furs and move 1NE next to the Wheat. I don't regret following that advice, even if I am disappointed with the (difficult-to-impossible to foresee) outcome. I wish I could have posted each move and then gotten advice on the next one, but I didn't want to/couldn't just hold up BRick and the rest of the game to do so. Oh well, we'll just have to make the best of it!

I think the forum time problem is messing up the order of my posts again; I've made three replies (one to each of Catwalk, Kuro, and Merovech's posts) if you want to go back and see them (I don't know how to quote multiple people in the same reply. Sorry about that).

Anyway, yeah, I'm a little down about this opening, but I stand by my decision to follow the advice of my betters; that has to be the best policy! And I don't think it was bad advice; the only thing I'm still confused about is the value of the Furs tile, which I guess was actually the deciding factor in our decision-making here today. Anyway, I've rambled enough; I'm going to hit "post" now.

[Kuro]

Personally, I think the Furs are a pretty amazing tile and that it was worth a turn wasting it, but considering everything the current spot is fine, though it does basically have 3 useless tiles.

My logic on the value of the Furs tile:

The Furs tile should be 1/1/5 as your Civ. A Grassland Riverside Cotage is 2/0/3, but it grows. However, it takes time to grow. It takes 19 turns to grow to a Village(Cottage -> Hamlet 6t -> Village 13t), whereupon it's commerce is equal to the Fur. It then takes 26 turns for it to surpass the Fur.

Therefor, by working the Fur during, say, a whipping cycle or growing, you get 2 more commerce than the cottage's first 6 turns and 1 more for the 13 next, with 26 more turns equal. So you get roughly 25 more commerce working the Fur for 19 turns than the Cottage, then can build the Cottages up when you have some more cities and can get the capital comfortably at, say, Size 4 or 6(Whereupon it can work many Cottages and grow them all). In short, I think it helps your snowball start faster. It also provides +1 happiness sooner. Finally, it also produces 19 hammers during that time, though it also works on 19 food: But you have two food resources which can do that for whipping anyway.

[Catwalk]

I probably messed up in sacrificing the fur tile for little gain, yeah. Given the knowledge we had, keeping the fur tile by moving E would have been better. Looking back on it, I'm honestly not sure why I didn't suggest that. It's nice to save a turn on the wheat farm, but that's far less valuable than the fur tile. I still maintain it's not great, but I probably blinded myself there. As Kuro points out, it also would have matched worker micro nicely as might end up wasting a turn or two with this plan.

I do appreciate you taking advice, but you should never hesitate to criticize the advice given. Whether we end up agreeing or not, debating can only help you improve. And don't sweat it, we're here to have fun

[Kuro]

If nothing else, it's good to point out alternatives even after the fact, because it'll help you see it in the future.

EDIT: On the plus side, you can still grab the Furs with another city, possibly early when it'll really help.

[Catwalk]

To multi-quote, click the button next to "Reply" for each post you wish to quote. Then use "Reply" for the last post you wish to quote. I think it'll then quote those posts in the order you clicked them, or maybe it's always in chronological order.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks, Catwalk. I'll try that next time. Now for my Turn 1 report, where as you'll see I took your advice to not always take your advice!

First, my scouting. I moved to the hill 2S of the Furs, diagonally so as to reveal any additional hills to the west (which I can now see from fog-gazing was impossible). My plan is to move 1SE, 1S, then 2W, then 1N, 1NW, then 2N and swing around northward. If you think I should head southeast instead, let me know.



As you'll see from that image, everyone but Azza settled on turn 0. I'm not really interested in getting into C&D at this point in my career, but here are the demographics in case anyone is interested:



Here is Cuzco:



Is there strong interest in me coming up with a naming scheme for my cities? If that is something readers will enjoy, I will happily do so; if they are indifferent, I will go with the theme of ancient Inca cities. I do not wish to name my units; I find that confusing and unproductive. The most I will do is call them "1st Division," "2nd Division," etc. (if I can figure out how to actually do so!), but probably not in the Ancient era.

Last, you have probably noticed that I selected Mining to research (to be followed, obviously, by Bronze Working). Here are the research times:



So Bronze Working will complete in time for me to chop immediately after farming the Wheat. There is still time for someone to convince me to switch to Animal Husbandry such that I would get it in time to pasture the Sheep after farming the Wheat instead. What is my rational? I think this will enable me to develop faster, and will avoid the wasted Worker turns that would ensue after pasturing the Sheep before discovering Bronze Working. That was my break with the advice I was given (actually, looking back I see that this is what Catwalk had talked himself into anyway - oh well, maybe it got you intrigued into reading my post. I'll try for something more dramatic next time). By the way, I'm currently favouring Worker-Quechua-Settler, with the Settler coming out really fast with chopping. We've got six forests to chop and a Furs tile to reclaim (thanks for your reasoning, by the way, Kuro); we might as well get started!

[Kuro]

Personally, I would go something like Worker -> Quechua -> Settler w/ BW and set the Worker to chop out the Settler OR, if you are feeling particularly daring, Worker -> Worker -> Chop out a Settler!

Naming scheme...how about naming it after LEGO Bricks? "Red Brick", "Red Peg" and so on. Since the guy who won't be playing for a long time is Lego, BRick playing the first turn, the name being Brick by Brick...