[SPOILERS] pindicator prowls pacahuatl's path of pantheons

[pindicator]

I actually crunched some hammer numbers at work, and moving onto the plains hill from where I am now does not speed up the first settler (assuming I'm going to go slinger > settler to start, because I have lots of 4-yield tiles already. If there was a 3f tile i could work along with the 2h plant then that might be something, but it doesn't seem to be worth giving up another turn.

[pindicator]

Turn 003




We've uncovered a second luxury, but the Jade is too far away for our capital to use so I'll have to nab it with a future city.

To the west the banana tile is coastal - or it might actually just be freshwater.  I actually have a hard time distinguishing between the two shades of green they use.  Either way I could see a future city out that direction.

I think I see why Archduke was talking about his start.  He hasn't settled.  To be fair, I was on the fence about settling on t3 as well, but I have a feeling my start is a little better. 


Some opening move thoughts. 

Inca can generate a large amount of food, and my plan is to combine that with the GS-revamped Pingala to boost my early science and culture.  From the tiles I've uncovered so far I see room for three 4f2h terraces, although one needs a chop, and a 2f3h terrace. This also gets me a 3f2h and a 2f2h mountain, and doesn't count the 5f marsh rice.

I think my strategy then is to go to State Workforce as soon as possible to unlock my first government title, build a fast government plaza in the capital for my second title, and use those to unlock Pingala's title that allows every population point to give extra culture. Then we grab Pingala's science boosting with the third title at Early Empire.

This means delaying the big settler push until I reach Early Empire and unlock the settler card, but I still plan to get out to 3-4 cities. 

Some considerations:
* Early Campus or Holy Site? I'm learning campus right now but my best location is only +2 so I'm not thrilled. I can get that to +4 with a govt plaza though. In point of holy site, if we're able to land the pantheon Earth Goddess then those mountains can also generate lots of faith. 

* Where do I put my first district? The only good location that doesn't take up a terrace spot is on the rice, and that would mean needing Irrigation first.  Oh, and it's also one of the first tiles to go under water late in the game.  (Somehow I don't think that last part really should factor into my calculations.)

* You typically want Magnus in the same city that has your government plaza as the title which allows settlers to not take up population also works best with the 50% settler production bonus. There are also a lot of forests around so maybe I need to be looking at a Magnus strat anyway? Maybe the best answer is to use Magnus after Pingala to help catch up ... but that means swapping off Pingala at the capital.

* Do I want to go for an early pantheon or just accept myself as taking whatever replacements are around?  I should probably take a look into my opponents' civs and what that means they are likely to want to do.

* Likely opening build order: Slinger > Settler > Builder > Campus?

[pindicator]

Turn 005




Geography doesn't look good for us to the west.  The light green is all coast and no freshwater or mountains to be seen. Turtle/jade/cow coastal city will be needed, but I think I am going to loop my warrior back to the east and see if we can find a better 2nd city location.

Also, we climbed to #2 in domination ranking, which means someone is fighting barbarians already.

[pindicator]

Pity, this start wasn't amazing but it was starting to grow on me.

Also, I wish we could just go into a game with the mindset that we're going to play the hand we're dealt as best we can and not get caught up on balancing every single aspect

[pindicator]

Restart




I liked the old one better ... perhaps.  I'll need some time to think over this one.

[pindicator]

Lots not to like here:

Only 1 hill.  It's not in a spot that I would want to settle on and it's not near a mountain for terrace farms.
All yields within 2 of our settler are 3 or less.
We're on a floodplain.  So while the yields from flooding will be nice, the population loss will not be.
All the good tiles are 3rd ring: deer, tea, mercury.

Maybe I move just SW and get the deer in 2nd ring?  Doesn't really solve the first 2 problems - we're still on a flood plains along with those risks, and we still have crap tiles in the first ring.
Maybe I skip a turn and go south 2 tiles?  But if I do that then I pretty much need to continue south ... to settle where?  I can't see anywhere south along the river within 2 turns of movement that are worth going for.  North has even worse production.

So SW it has to be, by virtue of being the least worst choice.




Went with scout over slinger this time.

[pindicator]

Turn 005

The south is looking much better




And a second continent too!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Have you played around with GS singleplayer much? If so, do you have any thoughts about it?

[pindicator]

Have you played around with GS singleplayer much? If so, do you have any thoughts about it?

I did when it came out but not much since. I really have a hard time finishing single player games ever since MP spoiled me - the AI just leaves me feeling bored. 

But some things I noticed are there are a good number of natural disasters. I'm sure someone is going to get screwed at some point - like army in a flood plain gets injured on the eve of a battle kind of screwed. On the flip side of that we also can get a lot of bonus yields from flooding and volcano eruptions. Those were the biggest things I noticed. 

The governors being changed kind of make Pingala the new default choice over Magnus. Especially with the early culture generation. I'm hoping to get my capital growing tall on some floodplain bonus yields and then using that population to fuel Pingala research early. But in general the governors are more balanced I think. 

Resource upgrades and upgrades costing more gold in general will be the biggest change for fighting wars and meta decisions in MP. It's going to be more difficult to do that last second mass upgrade before an attack. 

I'm actually looking forward to the new patch too. Having knights be less of a beeline and having late game buildings be cheaper will both be nice. Although it's amazing that they still are trying to boost production years after the original game came out, and they're still on the low end of where I'd like it

[pindicator]

Turn 013

Met the neighbors




Yerevan wants a galley for its quest, but thankfully we were first to find it so we're assured of an early pantheon and can comfortably skip God King.  First settler is still likely heading southeast towards the warrior but there's a lot of mountains to build cities around here, so I'm encouraged.