Unfinished business - SG for improving at Civ 4 (sic)

[Brian Shanahan]

Save seemed to be interfering with my turn report so here it is.

[shallow_thought]

Save seemed to be interfering with my turn report so here it is.

I will definitely need to improve my reporting on my next set.

I like the 2nd city name - one of the classics. Apologies, BTW, for the pun in the cap name; I couldn't resist.

15 turns for next set is fine by me.

I would still look 1W for pink dot to avoid too many missed tiles. But I need to fire up my civ computer to check. It may be that the missed tiles are rubbish anyway.

Agree that we want to grab the land between us and Mansa and a doubtless disappointed, angry Izzy ASAP. And steer cleer of religion. Far too much competition!

[Brian Shanahan]

Yeah, we've Mansa and Monty already with religions, Izzy jonesing for one and Charles who'll look to get a later one.

Pink dot 1W is probably the best in the short term, though it does lose a later levee. To be honest, it's a sub-par location no matter what you want to do with it.

Edit, when the settler popped out the tile marked "Fish in Fog?" was given a blue circle, hence the tag, and another one was at 1N of the western of the two spices.

[Zalson]

Can't post a got it yet, not at home. But I'll need to play tonight as I have a work event tomorrow evening -- so speak now or forever hold your peace!

What I can see for my priorities:

1. revolt to slavery
   
2. found city 3 on pink dot (ew)
   
3. add 2 more workers (4 for 3 cities).
   
4. get a settler ready for shallow_thought's turnset
   
5. ORACLE?!
   

What's our research path? Writing > Math? We don't need:

• Sailing (until calendar)
  
• Archery (not until horse archers)
  
• Mysticism (unless we decide want oracle)
  

The case for the oracle: it's only 4 chops with marble (fewer with whip overflow ~20 whip overflow, much fewer with math); it's also only what, 300 beakers away? With both golds we should have around 25 bpt which means we can do it in my turnset if we want to. Probably.


The only other things I could see us using would be Iron Working (for jungles) and then following the top of the tree into Math/Currency/CoL. I like the oracle play because it is quick and we'll be paying 60H for around 600 beakers plus a rapidly built building that'll help us expand rapidly.

This would mean that we'd need to found blue dot before pink dot. So I'd like to make sure the team's comfortable with me heading that direction before I take it. we'd have the oracle ... on ~T50 (maybe)

[chumchu]

You know that your dotmap contains no city able to work the second gold, right? What is your plan for working it? Planting pink dot on spices I would assume.

[RefSteel]

Pink dot on the marked tile would render the gold permanently unworkable. (Working gold tiles definitely helps with pre-currency Emperor maintenance costs!) 1W (ON the spices) isn't terrible - it gets a bonus commerce in the city, and can work the gold itself - but it sounds like you may have meant 1E (on the desert)? That's a good site (by local standards) bringing in the cows and a couple of grasslands (one forested, one jungled) and leaving the jungled spices for a city 1N of the gold.

The original pink dot (on the hill 1SE of the current sign) would be a plains hill plant, but gives up four dry grassland tiles (two forested, one jungled) relative to the desert plant. It shares additional riverside tiles with Bean a Sidhe, which might be helpful for growing cottages or annoying for juggling growth (or both) depending on how you use them.

[EDIT: Also, the purple dot on the most recent dotmap should surely be moved south, giving up desert and plains tiles for a plains hill plant, more forests, and second ring silver.....]

[EDIT2: Of course none of these are a real Pink Dot. A real Pink Dot[tm] might be placed 2N of the cows. Against humans, I might go with the original "pink dot" on the plains hill: Forward but not ridiculous, on a hill with a killing field in front of it, with Creative culture to try to control the cows, wheat, and theater of operations. Against the AI, "not ridiculous" isn't really an advantage though.]

[EDIT3: That cow/wheat/dyes plant probably isn't realistic though given the worker situation and the expansion rate of Emperor AIs. I think I'd take the plains hill "pink," or go Purple next (1S as mentioned) if I were willing to concede the plains cows (i.e. expecting to plant "pink" on the spices).]

[Zalson]

Turn 30 Settler finishes and moves to Yellow Dot (I'll later move 1SE from Yellow Dot as the computer says it's a better site, and I agree. Put a turn into a new worker.

You know that your dotmap contains no city able to work the second gold, right?

I did not see what Brian wrote in his report. D'oh. I wondered how we'd got that floodplains in the second ring and now I realize it. Oh well. C'est la vie.

I think that does mean I will found on the new location proposed by RefSteel and chumchu: 1W of pink dot.

Still want the Oracle. But it might be better to wait for it a bit.

[RefSteel]

So, some more thoughts on early worker actions and dotmapping: Maximizing speed to the completion of the first settler (except in service to the considerations below) is critical only if the settler is going to claim a strategic location (and, against humans, if it can be defended adequately). Otherwise, the key is getting as many as possible of the best available (improved) tiles around worked as quickly as possible. In particular, 4-foodhammer tiles are easy to get; any old mine will do. Food is better than hammers when growing, obviously, but the margin is small until granaries. One reason I love the plains hill pink dot is that the plains cow is (still!) the best foodhammer tile on the map outside the capital's pig, followed by the dry wheat that would be claimed by the same city! Of course, the workers have to actually get over there and improve those tiles (and the borders have to pop first) before they're usable.

Bean a Sidhe (I love this name) is going to be a wonderful city down the line, but improving it is going to be a challenge early on, especially with the empire's only worker burning time on an FP farm that requires 7 worker turns and won't build workers or settlers any faster than a mine when it's done. The best single tile claimed by Bean a Sidhe - and the best tile improvement currently available - is the horse, especially since it will enable chariots to help fight Emperor barbs (once you road [EDIT: to either river] for a trade connection). But if I were playing, I would make sure to pasture that horse by turn 41, and I'd probably work that tile continuously for the rest of the game. It's not like the city would be growing onto something better otherwise! (Unless iron turns up around there, but by then the city should have slowly grown some more and built a granary....)

Planting a city on the marble for Oracle seems to me like it would be a mistake, but I'm not in favor of Oracle regardless: Myst + Medi/Poly + Priesthood + Masonry combine to provide zero short-term benefit to the empire if Oracle is BiaDL. If it's still around when those techs look cheap and the empire can afford the hammers and worker labor, it would be something to consider again, naturally.

[Zalson]

Got it.

Brian and shallow_thought, you're UK/east coast US? It might not be worth it to for me to wait. I'm not too concerned with the turnset but I'll let you know my plan after I look around.

[Zalson]

Turns played. Sorry for leading you all on. But these early ones are quick and it was this or play not at all.