[PB 59] Donovan Zoi Reflects on Over 100 Turns (of LIES!)

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 5




Found Rice and Marble in the NW, as well as a narrow passageway through some mountains.  This will be helpful for defense later, but I will refrain from scouting north for now so I can complete my radius to the east.  Also I am in no hurry to introduce myself to others just yet.

Getting Rice secures me all 3 granary foods if I can settle there in time, while Marble gives me a shot at MoM.  I may have to rethink my early PHI Academy strategy and see if I can be one of the first to Calendar, which would also allow me to work Incense and Sugar.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 7



I've got a nice natural border forming on the north, so my short term goal is to grab everything I can east of the Rice. This is going to mean a run for BW earlier than I had planned.  Even though I still intend to chop as little as possible, it would be foolish to forgo Slavery and build Settlers organically when there will be such a quick food recovery rate in just about every city.  And with more happiness on the way with Ivory, Gold and Gems (with IW), whips will be forgiven and settler builds can be pushed to the outside cities while inland cities build high to use the trees/mines as production with plenty of food for support. Then things can really take off when Lumbermills are available.

It's the prospect of Lumbermills that makes MoM with PHI something to really consider.  Because any GA will get a boost in both hammers and gold for any forest tiles I keep and improve.


Turn 8



More Corn, dry this time , but will allow me to settle north of the Pigs up here instead of west (which would have crowded the capital to grab Deer and Ivory).  And then it looks like I may be able to share that Corn with 2 new coastal cities.  I'll have to put a dotmap together shortly to confirm how things lay out.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 9




OK big news at the capital this turn.  Netted the Fish, which brings the Worker to my T18 target.  I will also make the T14 target for Agriculture thanks to the extra 2g, giving me a few turns to decide what I want to research next -- Mining > BW, or AH?

I have decided to wait on Archery and The Wheel for now, the former due to Archers' inability to stop a choke and the latter due to the extra movement not being necessary until we get closer to the first or second Settler.

Still leaning toward AH next, because I'll have both of the prerequisite techs (Hunting, Agri) which will hopefully get me down to about 10 turns.  I'll also get to locate Horses and see if they are in a viable first ring location. Then Mining/BW will become cheaper from their current 8 & 18 turn estimates as I move from Size 1 to Size 4 and pick up extra gold from the Corn, Deer and Ivory.

If all goes well with pasturing Horses, I may decide to go Wheel before BW so I can start laying down a roadnet before my Settler expansion.





My Scout encountered a Lion on the hill I was planning on sending him next, so I sent him 2E.  Yeah perhaps it was a missed opportunity for some easy XP, but for now I thought it best to reserve that 200% animal boost until I rolled up on one by accident. rather than limp around at partial health after a victory here.  I still want to get a clear picture of the east, which will be much easier now that the land has tightened up to 6-7 tiles coast to coast on this expanse. Also, some Wines to go with my eventual move to Monarchy.  But that may be delayed a bit since I'll have happiness covered by Ivory and Gold soon enough and won't need Hereditary Rule right away.


Demographics



Nothing too exciting this early.  Two capitals have moved to Size 2 and 6 civs have Warriors roaming the globe.  With my Fish, I am pretty competitive in the food race for a Size 1 city.  The size 2 civs are likely working two 3f1g tiles, since those look to be in abundance for my start.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 10 - Dotmap




Here's that dotmap, with the 6 additional sites I'll be concentrating on first.  You'll notice that each one has at least 2 decent food and secures several goodies along the way.  This is why keeping the forest tiles is important to me, since that production will be ideal in one city when their food tiles are being used for quick growth elsewhere.  And in some cases, I will have to build some kind of culture to grab all the resources.

Oh and we have Stone to the NE as well (!), which will come in handy to make my PRO Walls and/or Citadels even cheaper.  Not to mention bringing Oxford University on board somewhere quickly once I have built the allotted Universities, which are also at a discount for me as PHI.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 13

I've spent the last 3 turns unveiling the east and it's better than I expected:




--3 new resource discoveries in Sheep, Furs and Bananas
--confirmed coastline to the SE eliminates another surprise attack route, at least until Sailing. 
--Jungle in the NE which I don't want to explore just yet.
--Possible canal can be completed with 3 Forts from Tombstone to the lake NW of Witch Doctor to the Plains hill SW of the fish (a future city site, maybe. Though planting here could lose me the Furs if on its own island)

It makes me feel a lot better that I won't be subject to an early attack from the east, as it eliminates an additional region I need to protect.  Well, almost -- I have yet to explore the Banana jungle to see if it stops out, or provides a passage to another civ.  But I am hoping that any neighbor that does exist beyond that treacherous terrain will treat that region the same way as I am, by ignoring it for now and scouting elsewhere for defensive intel.  That said, my scout will be headed due NW to patrol the northern border.  The Worker will be done in 4 turns, and it will be much better for my development to expedite a Warrior after that if needed, though I am still planning on growing to Size 2 first if I can.

Next turn I get Agriculture, and am still thinking AH > Mining.  Gonna put a bit more thought into that and will let you know if anything changes.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 14

I decided to start on AH this turn and am heading the Scout through Tombstone on his way north.  I am hoping to go just north of the mountains to see if I can view the edge of someone's border without contacting them.  This will give me a chance to vet that player to determine my best strategy against them.

Back to AH -- my thought is that if I find Horses, it may end up in one of the sites that have Pigs or Cows by which AH is also required.  There's also a chance that Horses could be in the capital cross, though I am definitely not counting on that.  Thing is, this will likely send me down a tech rabbit hole where I'll need to go Wheel next in order to connect some of these resources by road.  But with so much river in the immediate area, roads may not gain their full benefit until Construction.

Next, I am still considering whether to go with Cottages or Mines after Fish > Corn > Deer > Ivory (in that order).  Getting Ivory and having no whips available will allow me Size 6.  So let's say go Pottery (already down to 9 turns) after Wheel, I'll be able to start working Cottages to shrink tech times even more.

But then here's the kicker: I am 99% sure that my next city will be Hydra no matter what, because it shares both Fish and Corn with my capital.  So if Horses end up outside either city's radius, then I will have started AH for nothing.

Feel free to read the above if you must, but you'll see it doesn't make much sense since Hydra is likely going to the be next city no matter what.  Here are some audibles I am making:

--I'll be logging in shortly and changing my tech from AH to the Wheel.  The rivers and terrain won't allow me to settle Hydra on the same turn, but roading the forest and the destination hill will allow me to build it on the next turn instead of 2 turns out.
--on T18, I am going to send the Worker to the Deer first, eliminating the 1 turn lag of going Corn first.  This will have the Deer ready on T21 and the Corn on T27.  I am pretty sure growth to s3 will happen on T27 and the Worker will will queued up to build the two roads in time.
--I'll have to see when I can get the Settler out but am looking at starting it with the food from Size 3.  But I'd still like to get a Warrior or Scout out before then.
--So right now I am estimating my second city at T34-36 which is pretty late.


The above seems messy, so I have a question to ask of the lurkers.  Can someone do one of the following by any chance?

1. Point me to the details on how to create a sandbox that will get the tech costs right based on a particular size map.  Do we include all the other civs? And where do they go?  Is there a way to de determine the size and create it that way to match this map?
2. Provide me with a sandbox (original start tiles only -- I can create the rest) and I will pay $25 to your Patreon or Paypal.  I'm not kidding. 

Turns out I really do need to see my plans in action to capture any nuances, so I can avoid posts like this one. You can just consider this post as thinking aloud for now, but I am pretty set on Wheel next.  I think.  

[Donovan Zoi]

Great news, I figured out the sandbox and tech looks good.  Looking forward to mapping out different strategies through at least T50, and will post some here once I've completed the set up.

I'll leave my last post up for posterity, but I should be able to visualize a more solid gameplan now that I have the sandbox.  In the meantime, I am putting a second turn into the Wheel on T15 but can always change it without issue since I won't need any of the following techs right away.

My tech options to choose from are :
Mining
The Wheel
Animal Husbandry

There are compelling reasons to prioritize each, but I'll have more details once I run through a few sims.  Obviously I won't be able to guess where Horses should be, so I will mostly be checking the viability of the Mining/Wheel paths against the chance of landing early Horses in one of my first 2 cities.

[Lewwyn]

The thread title is a lie!

[Donovan Zoi]

The thread title is a lie!

Um, yes, you've got me there!  Let me get to work on updating that thread title.    

I am looking to start posting again as the game is getting too good to not talk about.  Even though my last posts above seemed a bit alarmist, I was able to create a decent sim around T15 which I used pretty exhaustively until about Turn 70.  I do like where my civ stands right now, thought things could definitely be better.  Not really not sure why I stopped posting, but its likely because I want to be too perfect in my reporting.  So I am going to ease my ridiculous personal standards and start posting my thoughts, even if pics are not included on a particular day.

For starters, here is a pic of where Spain stands as of T105:




My landmass is surrounded by water except for two land connections to my NW and NE.  I have Miguelito's French to my NE and, until recently, AT's Khmer to my NW.  However that region is currently being aggressively claimed by civac/Suite's Sumeria, who have AT down to his last 2 cities as of T106.

I've also discovered that the map is Toroidal, as I encountered civac's workboats from both the north and south a while back.  Here is an expanded map, thanks to BUG (notice the city of Kraken at both the top and bottom of this pic to complete the wrap):




I'll be posting city screenshots and graphs in the next few posts, though I have to run out for a bit.  Please feel free to ask any questions you may have, and I will have those updates later tonight.

[Lewwyn]

Are you still expanding?