[SPOILERS] Serdoa, Ichabod and Ex-Girlfriends - co-starring NH,Bigger and Lewwyn

[NobleHelium]

As long as we explore that coast west of the ivory before we need to decide where to settle I'm happy.

[Serdoa]

Ok, so a few points I'd really like your input guys:

1.) Should the scout head on north and east or should he come back to the cap to explore south? We will have a warrior by T20 which can explore to the south but the scout could swing back and explore it at around T15-T16 already.

Pros are that we have the scouting done earlier and can plan better and also that we will scout more and get in general a better idea of our surrounding land, cons obviously that we might miss out on meeting neighbours in the north and that we will have to scout in that direction later on again, doubling the unnecessary movement.

2.) I am toying with the idea to abandon SH / delaying it. Mostly for the reasons named already, being that we have spots to expand to that do not need a border pop necessarily right away. Though that leads already into the next question:

3.) Looking at the map, I do see the two next expansion spots (not considering what might be south) to be 1N of Stone and 3N of cap. Though imo those spots need cottages and AH to work. What they do not need is BW. The capital on the other hand would need Hunting to get up to 14fh/turn with 4 pop. There are several options:

Mining -> Hunting -> AH -> Pottery
Mining -> Hunting -> BW -> Pottery
Mining -> BW -> Pottery

The last one obviously not yielding the camps for us to work, but Pottery at basically the same date (EOT34 instead of EOT33). Middle one gets Pottery at around EOT39. Middle and last with revolt to Slavery.

Now, in theory the last one would work but quite honestly, I don't know what the capital is going to work. Actually that's my issue with nearly all the plans right now, what is the capital going to work? The corn is desired by both the capital and the newly founded city and the FP is depending on the micro-plan not even improved. I think NH also mentioned it taking 7turns to farm it, not 6, so it is really hard to work it into a worthwhile micro-plan (you can camp both ivories in nearly the same time).

Settler would be delayed from EOT30 (size 2) to EOT33 (size 4), still two warriors before settler. Though if we did just one warrior before we could get it EOT31 (size 3). Roads can be in place either way. We could even settle the Stone-spot first, improve the pigs right after settling, working the FP for that time (as capital doesn't need them with that plan). FP could be a farm but that would mean that the road to the city only finishes a turn late (or two if roads in desert need 3t, can't remember).

And yes, no chops and no whips is slower. Not necessarily in settler timing but the second worker is considerably later (which means around 3-4 turns). Saves two forests though and doesn't need a two-pop whip and gets more commerce. Tbh, I like that plan more. Not necessarily because it is a better plan but because the other one feels like rushing for a settler just to not know what to do with afterwards.

Oh, and to make this more akward: We need a decision till the next turn as we finish Mining this turn. Worker does need 4 more turns after the current one.

[Ichabod]

This start makes my head hurt... Most cities to be settled suck, we need a thousand and one techs to come online... Heck, we need AH, but only have one resource that uses it.

Of course, the second guessing about that capital fish doesn't help things at all.

I'm not really sure about what to do. What are our pros and cons? We have 2 early happiness resources, but not that much food to grow our cities. We have stone, but we need so much tech to start improving the land that we can't really afford to get wonders.

Will think about it some more later.

[NobleHelium]

Well I think the scout is too far gone to be coming back south to scout. We should scout west of the ivories with the warrior and then go south. Nobody is going to come from the north because our scout would run into them first.

I think the choices are either BW -> Henge plan or Hunting -> AH -> BW -> conservative plan with Henge later if it's still available by the time we get Myst and Masonry. Pottery after BW (as opposed to before) may make sense, I'm not sure. We could always build the Mids if Henge is gone, and/or GWall for easy GPP. Plus Commodore isn't in the game to barrel into us for OMGTHEYBUILTMIDS.

[Bigger]

yeah, I like the scout going further north as well.

[Serdoa]

Scout moved further east / north. Revealed yet another fish and also another stone. I think we really should have started with Fishing but who could have known that at the start. *sigh* Anyhow. I also followed the BW-path, simply because even though I still don't know what to do with the cities I also don't see much point in getting BW only at T50+. We might actually do a worker -> warrior -> warrior -> worker whip at 29 -> settler -> worker or something like that, get Hunting first and go for Myst -> Masonry afterwards. If we miss out on SH so be it, we want to go towards PH anyhow and maybe we do with that start actually go for Oracle into MC for Colossus.

I don't see us getting AH all that soon though, so basically I bank right now on finding Agri-resources in the south to expand there first instead. I'll think about what to do if there are none when we get to that point.

[Ichabod]

Sorry for not helping, Serdoa, but that's mostly because I don't know what to do.

I think a city 3N of the capital could be good if we don't go straight for Stonehenge. I'd stagnate the Capital at size 4 and use the corn to grow the second city. That's considering that AH would take a while longer.

Maybe settling a lot of cities and going fast for Currency is the best approach here. Don't get the religous techs, just chop settlers, workers and workboats.

How long before the Capital pop its borders again? If it doesn't take too long, you could get your warrior straight south. Besides, you don't need to explore the west of capital if we don't go for Stonehenge or the pig city. Better to look for a grain resource down there.

So, my take is:

*Take advantage of early BW for chops, Slavery isn't good on this capital (besides, no granaries yet).
*Stagnate capital at size 4 (fp, 2 ivories, plains hill?), while growing second city with corn (if second city 3N).
*Build lots of cities and workers on the way to Currency.
*Hanging Gardens?

[Serdoa]

Don't mind Ichabod, I don't know what to do either tbh. And I actually do like your ideas. I agree that Slavery isn't very good and I also have to admit that Krill and you were right and settling for the fish would have been better long-term most likely, because even though we do have nearly the same output-potential for both spots, the fish-spot would leave the FP for another city. But I try not to look back too much because there is no point in mourning about something we cannot change. Just wastes valuable time that we rather should use to find the best way to deal with the problem in front of us (yeah, that's what I tell my employees as well ).

Hanging Gardens most definitely would be a fine wonder for us IF we can settle enough cities quickly. Though I honestly think I can if I put some thought into it. I mean the spots we see are all not great long-term, but short-term we have several spots with a food-resource that don't need a border pop (for lack of good tiles overall...) and which can work coast-tiles / grassland cottages for commerce if nothing else. And with fur + gold + HR (remember we want PH soon for Ziggurats, especially in a REX-scenario) we should be able to afford quite a few cities, even without Currency.

Actually, that's an interesting idea. What techs do we really need?

AH -> pig, sheep
Fishing -> several fish, working coast-tiles
Hunting -> Furs
BW -> chops, mines on forested hills
Myst -> SH, opens religions
Masonry -> Stone
Medi / Poly / Mono -> religion + opening PH
PH -> Ziggurats, Oracle
Monarchy -> HR
Pottery -> Cottages, Granaries
Writing -> Libraries, opens Maths
Mathematic -> stronger chops, HG
Currency -> additional TR
MC -> Colossus (Forges for Engineer, though takes 33 turns)
Calendar -> MoM

So, that's quite a few techs, some which are less important right now (Calendar), some which are highly important. The question is how to order them best? For example Pottery would be good to have early for Granaries and Cottages especially as that lets us tech quicker to the other techs. Myst / a religion / Masonry is either needed early on or relatively late, depending on SH or not. Still torn on that one tbh, but I really hate to pop borders via monuments (half a worker each time... half a worker).

Maybe we do that SH thingy because that would be finished EOT40 around, which we could than follow with Pottery. But that really would need that we find down south something worthwhile. Otherwise we have to go Pottery after BW, as the second city can only work cottages (I mean look at that land, there really isn't anything else to do with those cities in the north which is bad in itself because you don't want your second city to be a commerce-city, you need production, commerce is best as 3rd city imo).

[NobleHelium]

Don't mind Ichabod, I don't know what to do either tbh. And I actually do like your ideas. I agree that Slavery isn't very good and I also have to admit that Krill and you were right and settling for the fish would have been better long-term most likely, because even though we do have nearly the same output-potential for both spots, the fish-spot would leave the FP for another city. But I try not to look back too much because there is no point in mourning about something we cannot change. Just wastes valuable time that we rather should use to find the best way to deal with the problem in front of us (yeah, that's what I tell my employees as well ).

Gaspar, I think this might be the best compliment you've ever gotten: being mistaken for Krill.

[Serdoa]

FWIW (and it doesn't mean much now) you should have done this before choosing CIV: starting with Fishing makes a big difference to the viability of Fish starts.

I took that as Krill telling me that I'm a dumb ass for not considering that Fishing and therefore settling for Fish would have been smarter. Just in a nice way

And btw, I could never mistaken Gaspar for Krill. He's too nice.