[SPOILER] Sareln and Spices

[Sareln]

Alright, so I have a choice here. 1 person has picked CIV and 3 people have picked leaders. If I pick my CIV now I get whatever I want (sans Spain) and I have to pass my leader pick through Hydra. The nice thing is that there are two 5 point leaders remaining with IND (paired with EXP and ORG; Bismark and FDR) so I can pick up IND with one a good trait or dive down to Rammy for SPI/IND and be in pretty good shape for a pyramids based game. So I could pick my CIV and then see what Hydra picks as his leader to inform whether or not to grab IND as one of my traits. I think that would actually be a very strong choice, so the question becomes what CIV should I take?

(Simply speaking, if I can be the only IND leader in the game, that would be awesome, and I'll have a decent trait to pair it with either way as long as I take a 0 pt. CIV).

Screw it, let's pick ROME! I can take Ragnar (AGG/FIN) to threaten rushes, or take Bismark (EXP/IND), FDR (ORG/IND) or Rammy (SPI/IND) depending upon how it all looks at the end of the pick.

Added benefit? Fear of Praetorians to let me build in peace.

[Sareln]

And I get to be an uncontested IND leader at the top of the turn order. Now to not screw it up!

[Sareln]

With leader (EXP/IND) and civilization (Fishing/Mining) in hand, let's figure out how to play this start best. Vets are probably going to be bored to tears reading this, but I'm going to try to think as out-loud as possible here.

Where to settle? As EXP we want to be able to get to 4HpT or better so that we can get our worker out earlier. Math-wise, workers are a 40FH build. The city tile gives either 2/1 (3) or 2/2 (4) + the yield from the one citizen. In our situation here we can work the forested plains-hill for a 3HpT tile. An EXP leader then gets an additional 1H for every 4H put into the worker, for 8FHpT and making the worker a 5 turn build. Non EXP leaders get the worker out a turn slower.

Beyond making sure to leverage our EXP bonus, we also want our Capital to have as much food as possible. If we settle on the fish-lake, we can get a workboat into it. If we don't, we'll need to found another city on that lake in order to get a workboat in. If we SIP we'll need that 2nd city. If we settle 1S we'll keep the sheep, but lose a forest and a turn. If we settle 1SE, we'll have FW, but be off the river, but we'll not sacrifice the turn in moving (since the settler could move and settle).

Based on what the scout sees, I think I'll be settling 1S. This'll give us greater freedom in where to place our 2nd city (either sharing the capital's corn, or the capital's fish), and will give us a capital that can work a ton of riverside cottages for when we hit bureaucracy. I know Comm. said don't fog-gaze, but by also having the capital be able to workboat the lake, a 2nd city could potentially be coastal and lighthouse the fish for itself once the capital doesn't need the food.

Incidentally, btw, if I can't workboat that fish by settling adjacent to the lake, now would be a good time to tell me .

[Sareln]

We just finished the 12th turn and normal speed is *killing me* .

Maybe an update if I can get all the pictures together.

[Sareln]

Umm, I just popped gold on one of my capital hills... time to take the money and run?

Note, this actually slows down my planned workboat by 1 turn due to the loss of a hammer for 7 extra commerce. Somehow I think I'll manage.

I was planning on settling my 2nd city relatively quickly to grab the gold that I had revealed, but perhaps now I should go somewhere else? Or double-down...

[Sareln]

Things learned so far from simulation:

Remember this is all at normal speed.

I can hit the oracle for metal-casting as early as T58, with an option for Monarchy or Code of Laws instead; typically at 3 cities and with 4/5 workers. I can then follow that with a Great Lighthouse on T63. At which point I should stop wondering.

Founding your 2nd city to share capital food is still a gigantic deal, so much so that founding on the pigs/fish/capital corn location (9-9-8-8) is a significantly better 2nd city than founding (2-2-2-3). The abundance of food let's me stack whips and pull out tons of workers.

With the heavy wondering, I can still land a 4th city at 2-2-2-1-1 of the capital by T72. This encompasses more forests and has a first ring corn, which is solid. I should try a SIM where this is my 3rd city instead of my fourth.

[Sareln]

Copper is 1S of the tile marked with a purple X. I think with the spaces between us governed by jungle movement, I can get away with founding that city 3rd and using a monument or library to pop borders. With BW finished, it's time to tech AH so I can improve the pigs at city #2 when it goes down. No-one has yet founded a religion, so oracle is still wide open.

[Sareln]

With BW down, tech goes AH (horses & improving pigs at city #2) -> Mysticism -> Buddhism -> Priesthood -> Sailing. I need to get a good sense of what the sea-lanes look like and see what I can get away with.

Worker action, put a 1 turn into a road on the forest hill located Northeast or "9" of the capital and then switched to chopping as BW came in, the capital grew to size 4, and I revolted into Slavery. Plan is to double-whip + chop the settler out and get it to the pigs location in a quick amount of time. Use any overflow into our already half-built granary, and work both high-food resources whilst the settler is in transit.

Further evaluation will happen from there.

Espionage-wise, I've got Viqsi's graphs (neighbor #1) and am now focusing on getting Fintourist's graphs (Neighbor #2). Azza appears to be dropping all his EPs on me, but neighbor-knowledge is more important right now IMO.

[Sareln]

Not paying as much attention to this game as I should be. Have got AH and BW both in and visibility on the key resources. No-one has popped a religion yet and I'm pulling down mysticism to start collecting my techs for oracle. 2nd city, named Dill, is planted a bit ahead of the worker. Is slow building a granary while it grows, plan to double-whip workers out of here for a bit as I aim to get more settlers and the oracle out of the capital.

Medium-term, the plan is the Oracle Metal-casting, whip forges in Cayenne and Dill, and then use the overflow to build the Great Lighthouse in Dill while keeping up expansion as much as possible. Follow that up into the Colossus, found a bunch of coastal cities; keep them safe with Triremes and Legions. Power hard and eat a Neighbor (Viqsi or Fintourist) at Knights, though keep an eye out for legion boat possibilities. If scouting reveals good overseas city sites, take those as well. Standard standard standard IMO.

[Sareln]

Made some mistakes in the opening, but I think I'm looking at a T52 oracle of Metalcasting - Fintourist war-dec'd Azza, here's to spoilt relationships elsewhere?