[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

IMO, you will probably want to settle your city site 3 (on the western most mercury) as your 2nd site. That way, you can build a 2nd Cothon and then have 2 cities that can pump out settlers.

[williams482]

FYI, I'm pretty sure that districts from different civs cannot provide adjacencies to each other. Those Aqueduct/dam/IZ clusters will have to be single-civ groups to get the full effect.

[ljubljana]

IMO, you will probably want to settle your city site 3 (on the western most mercury) as your 2nd site. That way, you can build a 2nd Cothon and then have 2 cities that can pump out settlers.

The only problem with doing that site second is its incredibly poor food situation - it only has one two-food tile, and won't be able to pump much of anything until it gets a domestic trade route or two. I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon, unfortunately - while I could research Foreign Trade next, I'm probably 25-ish turns away from it even if I do, which is a long time for my second city to be capped at size 2, and we also need the capital to build some districts for those trade routes to even be worth anything. That could be a good argument for moving the west coast site and settling that second, though I do think the pinmap we'd get from doing that (the second one I posted) is noticeably weaker. I could also just settle the west coast site second as-is and buy a monument ASAP (20 turns from now), but it'd still be sitting on zero two-food tiles for 10-ish turns under that plan. I have to say, I'm starting to regret buying the fish tile now - that extra gold would make this way easier, and it looks like the always-mercurial tile picker has switched over to wanting the crabs next .

[Woden]

Buy the horse tile when you settle. That will get you going. Center tile will have 2 food, 1 production, and 1 science. Save your gold afterwards to buy a trader. The benefit beyond the Cothon is the extra science on the city center and then extra science when you can get a builder out and improve the another mercury. First build can be a builder, which can throw a farm down for another 2/1 tile. I just think the early extra science, even if it is just 1, is better.

As for your pin map, I don't think we should plan around getting monster IZs down. I think our best avenue to win this is early aggression. That means building out ways to get ships/units out while keeping relevant in science and culture. Mercury city will give you an early advantage in science, while you build out your Cothons. Your best option for production will be domestic trade routes. Find a central city where you want to build the government center and then build an encampment and industrial zone. Those will bring your yield to 5 for domestic trade routes.

Also, I see a great set up for SP gameplay. IMO, you need to specialize your cities a little more. Figure out what cities can be high production cities and give those IZs and encampments. Mercury city would be great for that. No need for campuses in those cities. Campuses and theater squares should go in your less productive spots. I would also cram as many coastal cities as you can and that should be how you lay out your cities. Each Cothon is another trade route.

You will want a large empire, which also means you will need to plan for Entertainment Zones, which also means you might want to find some places for Theater Squares.

Edit to Add: Another thing to think about is that the more Cothons you build, the better chance you get to activate the district discount.
Edit2: Also, I am not sure how worried we have to be about where we settle on the coast. Having only 1 approachable tile is great but we can keep a substantial navy at home if we feel vulnerable.

[ljubljana]

Ok, yes, thanks for this - I did say I wanted a war game, and, yeah, SP builderism has resulted in a pinmap that has nothing at all to do with a war game . Luckily, we still have a ways to go before the first settler comes out, time which I can spend rethinking this .

I guess the GP should probably go at the capital, since no other city has a prayer of hitting size 10 for Cothon/IZ/Encampment/GP. That, or maybe we should put it inland at one of the few spots that can hit size 7 without lots of trade route food (wheat city maybe?), though the only real candidates for that have pretty poor native production. We might need a high food TR city too, so cities like mercury can grow onto their hills - maybe the capital should do that with CH+Cothon+Campus while some other city takes the GP.

If you're not worried about it dragging us down by sitting at size 2/3 forever, I'm fine with mercury city as second. It may be the best visible site long-term, and we are going to badly need as much science as we can get to hit Cothons quickly.

[ljubljana]

Turn 18 - Phoenicia



Well, no punish incoming from the scout at least, which wanders back into the hills. I respond by pasturing the horse and microing off the turtle for exactly one turn to make up for the hammer we lost by not having this done last turn - the settler's now due on t25 and will remain so even if we work the turtle for the rest of the build. The builder, assuming it survives the next interturn, will embark and get started on the CN eureka next turn.

And...here's HBR:



Perfect, now we're guaranteed at least a somewhat-viable path to Ancient Age Cothons. After Sailing, I start on Pottery, just because it's mathematically three times as likely to be a Cothon prerequisite as Mining is.

I left the western side of the pinmap in place, since I think those two cities are the highest production spots available...except for the capital, that is, but the cap probably wants mostly ecomonic buildings to serve as a high-food TR destination for places like mercury city. I'm still undecided about the GP location/production TR hub, which could go in mercury city (but that city will never hit size 10 for Cothon+IZ+Encampment as well), at the west coast city (but that will get a slow start since it's not one of the first two cities), or at the capital (but that dilutes the city's food TR focus). Mercury city's plus a ton of high-food TRs to boost it up to size is probably best, unless we do a second settler pre-Cothons for the west coast city, or something like that...

edit: Actually, yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe my perceived need for a separate "food TR" city in the capital is a little overblown compared to just getting those +2 food/+5 hammer TRs up as quickly as possible and simply sending more of those to the food-poor cities. The capital should be able to get Cothon+GP+Encampment(+IZ) up much faster than any other city, and also has the highest production potential available, so maybe we should just do that, use the GP to boost IZs, and rely on Cothons and whatever campuses the weaker east can build to keep us relevant in science.

Also, I realize now that I forgot to consciously notice which tech was revealed after Sailing - sorry about that! I'll pass that along next turn.

[ljubljana]

Turn 19 - Phoenicia

I manage to finally run down the scout on the floodplains and highroll it, giving us the BW eureka. Here's what that looks like:



So Archery's the tech after Sailing. I'm not sure if we want Cothons to show up after this one or not - I'm in a pretty awful position to eureka it, but I guess if we get desperate you could always grab it first to make up for that, or I could just hard-research it.



Here's what the 'production TRs at the capital' plan might look like, with the eastern cities not filled in yet but presumably to be assigned to campus/cothon/CH/etc duty. It's pretty silly, since the GP doesn't boost anything until Apprenticeship, but if we're not building the capital's campus, I don't see where else it could usefully go. I guess that awkwardness is a significant strike against a plan like this one...but then again, I don't really see any site east of here with the production to make this work, and the other western sites will grow too slowly to get it done in a reasonable timeframe. This plan also lets the capital stack Cothon + AH + Colonization with its high native production at an early date to pump settlers quicker than any other city would be able to, and with the food to regrow after that, though obviously during the big settler push the capital will be far from the only city building settlers in any case. (Ignore the double IZs at city 5, whoops.) If we don't think the game will go on long enough for GP-boosted IZs to be a good investment, another option is to just put the GP 1 NE of the capital. This is worse long-term, but it does free us from wasting any money on tile purchases while also boosting the Cothon there to +7.

The warriors are probably going to heal up for a bit in case of any more camp spawns, then I'll have the unpromoted one scout down the west coast while the other escorts the settler. Or, that was my plan, anyways, but if you think your warrior + slinger are going to clean up the camp and move back to scouting so quickly that I shouldn't bother, I can also just leave them both back here for barb duty.

What to build after the capital's settler? I think we can get away with only one more builder for the time being, using two charges on the second city's horse and mercury and the other either on the capital's sheep/marble or just to scout on the ocean. The capital should probably build that rather than the second city, I imagine, since the second city will take forever to get it done at 3 shields per turn and will be stuck unable to contribute much of anything until it does so. While the capital does that, maybe the second city should open with the first boat, while the capital follows up with a monument before we fall too far behind in culture, then a second boat. I do think we need a monument somewhere sooner rather than later, even with the marble on track to come online eventually - this start is heavily gated by access to the GP to make trade routes worth anything and Pingala to push up the tech tree to Cothons and the civics tree to Foreign Trade, and I have a sense that without the monument I'll be stuck researching State Workforce unboosted for 30 turns and just fall far, far behind in the growth curve as a result. Maybe I'll get lucky and manage to land God of the Open Sky by virtue of moving first in the turn order...I could see it getting passed up for a while on this water map, but it seems really strong for me with three pastures at the first two cities.

[ljubljana]

Turn 20 - Phoenicia



Not much to report with both warriors still healing. I build the first fishing boat on the turtles. To my great chagrin, the tile picker did indeed pick the crabs this turn, which means I should have waited to see whether it would change its mind before committing to buying that fish tile . Oh well, you live and you learn, I guess. We won't get the marble until t38 unless we buy it now, which heightens the need for an early monument...and also might make buying the marble worth consideration actually. 50 gold and 18 food (from not working the sheep instead) for 18 culture may not be a bad trade this early.

[Woden]

Turn 19-Vikings

Decided to start attacking the barb camp. Will heal a couple of turns before attacking again. Hopefully, slinger will be in range to help and grab boost to archery. 
   

Slinger did find some more dyes, so the interior city location is probably the better option. Still need to see if I can fit another city on the coast though. Looking around, i think the pantheon that provides culture to plantations might be a viable option. Would be a little bit of work to get it going but might be worth it. Tile picker sucks, I will get the rice next turn instead of the deer, which it has been on for teh last 10 turns but now it decided to change last minute to the rice. At least I can get the boost to irrigation.

[Woden]

We won't get the marble until t38 unless we buy it now, which heightens the need for an early monument...and also might make buying the marble worth consideration actually. 50 gold and 18 food (from not working the sheep instead) for 18 culture may not be a bad trade this early.

For an added bonus, with turtles, marble, and mercury, your 2nd city should be at +2 happiness and get the extra 10% yields.