out of the loop Q vs OldLion

[Bobchillingworth]

Mysticism directly after calendar is an interesting idea. I'm thinking though if the calendar tech immediately is worth it. I guess the net benefit of calendar is greater than mysticism at its outset.

Yeah, I didn't sim it out or anything, but I did consider Myst before Calendar. The issue (unless I'm missing something) is that a Godking plains forests (presumably what you'll be working, besides that forested plains hill, which in turn is countered by the FP) is essentially equivalent in yield to an Agrarianism riverside grassland tile when producing a settler, except down 1 gold. So it's really only more useful if you think the bonus hammer in the capital's city tile and ability to produce warriors more quickly very early on outweighs what looks to be about 3 commerce, assuming founding 1N.

[Old_Lion]

Hey guys

thanks for the ideas.

For some reason I did not have the notification of you posting, so I felt dejected and disheartened, playing a mere 10 turns a day on my other games.
Now, I'm warm inside again. I'll post the requested picture below, but I'll go for the 1 N.

the building suggestion is worker/desert shrine/warrior ?
research Agri first, right.

as for strategy :
I see no other way on duel map than conquest.
religious apparently is kind of unbalanced, culture is hard to achieve here, and tower is also difficult with little available mana nodes.

first target : build as many cities as possible in a sustainable way.



I have a hard time deciding already my ntermedite target.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, conquest is the way to go for duels. Religion is probably easier, but honestly should be turned off (my bad for forgetting to do that for our duel, btw).

[Kragroth]

In my opinion agriculture to calendar to mysticism to crafting to mining to Runes of kilmorph and then re evaluate from there. Creative makes it so you don't needs monuments and gold from Rok makes you able to city spam better due to more gold. City spam is encouraged because of your worldspell which grants 1 priest per city with your state religion (available at priesthood).

[Bobchillingworth]

Also, it's a bit in the future (and not cheap beaker-wise), but the Runes leads to Arete, which both provides a nice production boost from mines and allows you to build Bambur, who is quite capable of slaughtering city defenders and, more importantly, will give all of your melee units +20% strength via enchanted blades. Bambur + a good-sized pile of swords / warriors is nothing to sneer at.


Speaking of religion, one neat mid-game trick for the Malakim is to briefly hop into Octopus Overlords, before popping your worldspell- you aren't likely to need very many cultists at any point in a game, so the WS will allow you to get all you'll ever need for free. Looks like this map might not have enough water for that to matter though.


My favorite religion is the Ashen Veil, particularly for the Ritualists. The Veil also happens to be fairly easy to bulb- if you have mining and myst your first prophet will take the Runes instead, but IIRC if you have myst, ancient chants and philo a prophet will bulb the Veil, provided you don't have fishing to unlock OO (and without seafood resources, why would you). Any subsequent prophets can bulb the Infernal Pact, should you need to unlock any of its goodies. Beasts of Agares will mess anyone up, and you needn't worry about them throwing your cities into revolt- one mini culture burst from a discpline will restore them to normal.

[Old_Lion]

Hello,

for some reasons it is only turn 9.

I just got my worker, who started on the corn.
I'm building a warrioe.

my lightbringer was able to explore the south before popping hostile villagers.

What is the consensus after that ?
built a second worker ? build a settler asap ?

and where should I settle anyway . close by and grabing local ressources or further away for good spots ?
I'm tempted to expand south to build a flood plains rich village, but should I ?

thanks for your feedback.

[Mardoc]

Good choice on the warrior while farming your corn. I would do the same.

Generally you build the second worker as soon as you would otherwise grow onto an unimproved tile. (edit: unless you're going for a fast second city, in which case you build a settler instead. That's more a BtS thing than a FFH one, though). It depends on the details of your start, how fast you grow vs. how fast the worker gets tiles improved. Also depends a little on your tech situation, there's no point in having workers who can't do anything, but you have lots of possible farms, so I wouldn't worry about that much right now.

I'm not really sure what I'd suggest for your second city. You're right that the floodplains area is the best terrain to expand into, especially as the Malakim. But at the moment you can't really support that. In the early game, you want cities close to allow them to share workers and improved tiles and defenses. You want lots of cities down south, but you want to support them too. So my next thought would be to settle a city to leapfrog toward the floodplains...except there's all that jungle in the way. Once you can chop jungle, the sugars and corn will make a nice city, but not yet.

I guess, all in all, I'd suggest picking up the gold next. Something like 1E of the gold tile would have three grasslands that can be farmed, plus the gold mine and another mine. That's enough - you can't really do better than that with a size 5 city - and this early, you can't be any bigger than size 5. It'll never be a great city, with all that tundra, but at size 5 it has enough good tiles.

The commerce boost from the gold will help you get to Bronze sooner, which in turn will let you go south where all the good stuff seems to be. Normally you want your second city to get started fast and help grab the rest of the land; it doesn't matter too much if it's sad in the end if your empire grows fast enough.

For a third city, it depends on how fast tech comes compared to settlers. If you can make it to Bronze by then (or almost), head south, probably right between the sugars and corn. If not, the next best site I see is the plains 3E of the capital. Riverside grass farms for food and a little commerce; basically nothing else, but early cities want to be on settlers/workers anyway, so that's not too bad. In the midgame you'll want lots of workers anyway, because jungle and floodplains both slow them down.

Also, speaking of tech, it looks like you're skipping Calendar? I think you really want Agrarianism, especially if you follow my advice on cities, because all your food would be coming from farms. It's almost impossible to have too much food, you can always use more workers or settlers. After Calendar, yes, Mining and Bronze are probably your next most important techs.

[Old_Lion]

Here is the situation.

I just got mining.
I build a second city

But I had the following difficulties :
Q showed up with 2 spearmens he probably got in a lair. (while I'm not exploring for I lost my lightbringer to barbs from the second village he visited.)

He kept them in the area for a while, delaying the second city and preventing workers to work.
also, there are a lot of barbs. no loss, but some pillage and some additional delays in workers activity.

I got a 4 warriors in golden leane because of threats.
I'm going for a third settler.




also, this guy will show up somewhere soon.



any thought ?

[Mardoc]

Is there any copper? It would make it a lot easier to keep control of your territory. You probably want bronze working soon anyway because of the jungle.

Although first I would probably pick up Exploration. Roads should make it a lot easier to defend your territory, plus give you trade and push away Q's lizardmen.

How are you doing on workers? You need to get a couple mines up and running, especially the gold mine, as a higher priority than a third city - and also roads. I'm not sure where you should plant a third city yet.

[Aurorarcher]

By a quick look I'd probably settle 3rd city on the hill 4W from capital. Can use 4 floodplains after borders pop + that forested plains hill is a decent tile even unimproved + that hill defense won't hurt either. That city even without improving any tiles could be profitable with those 3f2c floodplains.

You seem to need commerce badly, so those floodplains that are +2c to start with should help some. Mining the gold should definitely be high on your to-do-list as well. Also roads, roads, a lot more roads - you need them. That also means more workers. How many you have at the moment? It's pain in the ass to deal with Q's Lizzardmen especially if it has any combat promotions - it has odds against any of your units on flatland most likely. And the mobility is hard to deal with early on. Maybe try to train a well-promoted warrior off those barbarians. Remember that attacking gives you a lot more xp than defending so it's sometimes worth a risk to attack out even when the odds are not quite the best possible.