[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

I played through a couple of different variations to get a feel for where and in what order we should be settling. I thought that settling city three closer to Alfie could save some cash in costs, but it doesn't. I built two workers, then two settlers, then another worker and that seemed to get tiles up and running quickly. I thought about fishing or AH before pottery, but think getting cottages going earlier works better.

Then I wondered about settling a city to share the capital's pigs and grow cottages for it earlier than you did, but pottery still comes in quite late, and settling for the gems is obviously stronger, so the pig-sharing city should be no. 5 or 6, depending on what else we uncover to the north.

That gives a new problem: What should our dotmap look like after those first three cities?

V1 gives a lot of coastal tiles and allows purple to share five cottages (purple could go 1N for an extra hammer)



V2 fits in a city less and doesn't give a great moai site



V3 uses up a desert tile nicely



All these sites should take a back seat to settling NW of the gems city once we've uncovered that land, but I like V1 and V3 because more cities is better .

I wonder if the stone is going to be contested with a neighbour?

[Fintourist]

Hey awesome, thanks for illustration. I have a fairly hectic day today so it will be still ~8 hours, before I can open civ and really comment on your post.. But quickly:

I built two workers, then two settlers, then another worker and that seemed to get tiles up and running quickly.

Do you have any saves from this approach? (it does not matter if they are unoptimized etc.) I think I have tried this particular order only once (max twice) and in most variations squeezed a 3rd worker before the 2nd settler. I would be interested to see how much faster you got the 3rd city up and running and compare openings. I haven't simmed anything for a while and I have somewhat limited time this week so fresh ideas are very welcome.

[Fintourist]

Turns 19-21




Scout is finally going to reveal new tiles.. So where next?

[Old Harry]

Turn 22

I jumped in as Young Harry was asleep and I was getting withdrawal symptoms . Yesterday we chatted about moving the scout NW or NE and having moved him NW I'm glad I did - we dodged Simba! Next turn he could move to the pigs to see if there is any seafood or the tiles W or SW of them, to check out our expansion prospects over there.


As you can see from the scoreboard we're third last. This just isn't good enough Fintourist. I expect some improvement soon please.

[Fintourist]

Ha! Let's hope that Simba starts moving somewhere, we don't want that our settler gets eaten in 10 turns... I think I like pigs tile for the next move, 25 % defense bonus must be enough, right?

[Old Harry]

Okay, I ran through a couple of scenarios:

1. Worker-Worker-Settler-Settler-Settler (save stack)
Has only two workers but gets the third city down much quicker and the fourth city down a couple of turns sooner (pigs ready t52). All the resource tiles are improved but the capital works forest tiles quite a lot.


2. Worker-Worker-Settler-Worker-Settler-Worker(from 2nd city)-Settler (save stack)
Will build city four on t51, but the pigs will be ready by t52, so it's comparable to v1. Its also much better linked together. City three is much worse developed though, but yeah, I prefer this one and I'm sure it can be improved further as this is my second run-through.

[Commodore]

Finding yourself with a ton of free time, OH? 'twas my experience.

[Fintourist]

Ha, awesome, thanks! My earlier version (and the version I benchmark my tries) used the same path as your version two:




It seems to be some food behind in the 2nd city, but 1 pop ahead in the 3rd city. 4th city is one turn earlier up, but pigs will be improved later (I think I shared the corn from 2nd city pretty soon).

Here is the save stack if you want to take a look!

I will check your versions now and possibly try something new!

EDIT: One difference that is not evident from my saves, you complete the first warrior earlier while I do it after the 2nd worker is born. This leads to getting the 2nd worker out one turn earlier and thus settler will be chopped nicely when 2 chops come in simultaneously on T31

[Old Harry]

Finding yourself with a ton of free time, OH? 'twas my experience.

Sort of, but on a very unpredictable schedule... YH spent one of these run-through's sleeping on my lap - gotta start them young!

Fintourist - for the scout move next turn I prefer the forest hill - I think the first Warrior out will wander up, kill Simba and get sight over that water long before we settle city two, and there are probably bears around now, so bare hills are risky. I'll have a look at your save stack and see if your first warrior can do the same, but you're the turnplayer so final decision is yours...

(Also I should make it clear that the fourth worker came out of city two, not the capital.)

[Commodore]

Finding yourself with a ton of free time, OH? 'twas my experience.

Sort of, but on a very unpredictable schedule... YH spent one of these run-through's sleeping on my lap - gotta start them young!

*nods* That's it exactly. Sleep time goes away, but a newborn isn't picky about being held whilst playing civ. Congrats, by the way.

...I'll be testing if that changes with two of them in August...