[Eitb spoilers] Miguelito's fortune hangs on a thread

[mackoti]

Well about the FFH economy, I think GK is the king until you have 6-7 cities and if i remember right aritocracy got a  nerf so installing it at 3 cities is a net lose. Even more i didnt seen a game last 5-6 games where someone with aritocracy to win the game or at least the economical game. So practicaly I think cottages are  the way to go. And wen you are over 7 cities city state beats aristo again....Well this is from my limited experience 

Perhaps there is aother way to play aristofarm stuff but i didnt find it yet.

[Miguelito]

From another FFH newb, thanks for the in-depth summaries. Makes this somewhat easier to follow.

Glad to hear that! Would you also consider joining a game some time going forwardß

my limited experience

*giggle*

Yes, Aristocracy has a big opportunity cost blocking God King and City States. I was considering it for a moment, just because it sounds like good Org synergy, but probably it's still bad.
Basically I envision a revolt to Apprenticeship + something before a possible GA (unless we roll one from a lair or something lol) that something might be
- Nationhood, to get rid of the military malus
- City States
- Agrarianism

Agri sounds quite appealing, but I don't really have a feeling for timing yet.




Mining came out, and there's no copper visibl. Surely that means it's by the deer, right, because Ref wouldn't leave us without would he? By the deer would actually be good news, that's where I'd like to plant second.

If we have no copper, should we look for a different early defense unit? Hunters? Horsemen? Archers never... Just straight to adepts?

[DaveV]

Note that settling in position 2 will clear the scrub and give a naked desert tile, for -25% defense in the city. It's generally better to attack out than defend, but I try to avoid settling potential front line cities on desert. You can move onto the plains tile between the gold and wheat and then settle, whereas moving onto the scrubland will use up both settler movement points. Then you have to move your city 3, though.

It looks like warriors can take bronze weapons again (I think they couldn't in your last game?), so finding copper would be really helpful in fending off the barbs and other human players. If there's no copper, I'd favor biting the bullet and hoping to train some well promoted units that can survive without bronze weapons while still beelining adepts. Apprenticeship would be a good start on this, with Combat I giving you 73% odds against unpromoted barb warriors and skeletons, instead of 50%. I like Nationhood with Apprenticeship, there's not much point in Religion for you, and the net -30% production on military units with Pacifism will be too painful. Agrarianism is helpful, but is it worth delaying KotE to pick up a couple more food per city? Although maybe the commerce from the incense tile will make up for the detour?

Aristocracy was really good with vanilla FFH financial trait, since it made all farms 3 commerce (4 riverside). Now that FIN doesn't give bonus commerce, and the costs of Aristocracy have gone up (cost Low->Medium, distance maintenance -40%->-20%), it seems like City States is almost always better economically. You can hold off on City States for a while, it takes quite a few cities before maintenance will overcome the God King bonus.

It looks like you still haven't met any other players?

[Tarkeel]

From another FFH newb, thanks for the in-depth summaries. Makes this somewhat easier to follow.

Glad to hear that! Would you also consider joining a game some time going forwardß

Probably not anytime soon, but I won't say never. Not sure how I feel playing without BUG features, especially the FOV slider.

[Miguelito]

Probably not anytime soon, but I won't say never. Not sure how I feel playing without BUG features, especially the FOV slider.

FOV = field of view? That's up on the right isn't it? Is it good?

Mining came out, and there's no copper visibl. Surely that means it's by the deer, right, because Ref wouldn't leave us without would he? By the deer would actually be good news, that's where I'd like to plant second.

Ha!



Ref!With the sheep, on the looks like a pretty good second city (or third, do we want pigrice in the soouth first?). I'm not sure though that desert hill incense is a very good tile, what is it 0/1/6, and happy only with Cave? Also costs a lot of worker turns. Wouldn't research Calendar just for it. Can this city work two scientists? With the sheep surely.
Warriors can't take bronze weapons. I'm a bit less hot on BW because of that gems being foodless, but I guess it still makes sense to have swords for survival until mages.

[Tarkeel]

Looks like there's several ways to pick up that copper!

Probably not anytime soon, but I won't say never. Not sure how I feel playing without BUG features, especially the FOV slider.

FOV = field of view? That's up on the right isn't it? Is it good?

Yeah, the slider in the upper right. The default value is 42. I tend to play at 62 which gives me a better view of the surroundings, which I feel gives better situational awareness.

[Miguelito]

Looks like there's several ways to pick up that copper!

Is there? I really only see , but maybe that's because I'm just after the meme?

Somewhat more seriously, I do believe that it's the best spot in the area right now according to my current plan. It doesn't need a monument, has plenty food with the shared sheep, and the wine even gives us a very welcome happy. And it's a goodbridge to the awesome gold/wheat/cow plant.

If we want to camp the deer we need to research Hunting, which also gives us a happy from the ivory. But it costs 300 beakers, and I wouldn't mind delaying this until after Sorcery / until we know we'll have everything in place for the bulb in time.
Without Hunting it's a nice 1/4/0 tile, but to grab the copper we'd have to settle 1N of deer, losing out on the 2h plant and sheep sharing. Sounds like a bad deal.
There's also a case to be made for W or NW of deer so it's coastal, but then what about the copper?

[Tarkeel]

(Caveat: I have seen the whole map, but I don't remember anything about resources and fine details, so I have no idea what's in the fog here)

S of the copper is probably best, but it's also possible to go W, or even settle on it. Wouldn't you need to settle for copper in outer ring to share the sheep?

[RefSteel]

I'm glad you found that copper; it would have been ... something ... if I'd accidentally put it on the wrong side of a mountain range!  I'm much more content with accidentally encouraging you to Brick a Deer - and/or presenting an interesting choice about where to settle, depending on your perspective!  One correction on mechanics though:

Note that settling in position 2 will clear the scrub and give a naked desert tile, for -25% defense in the city. It's generally better to attack out than defend, but I try to avoid settling potential front line cities on desert. You can move onto the plains tile between the gold and wheat and then settle, whereas moving onto the scrubland will use up both settler movement points.

The first part is correct (settling removes scrubland, resulting in the desert defense penalty for units in the city) - but the movement part is not.  Normal desert tiles do eat two movement points for non-Malakim, but desert scrubland counts as regular flatland for movement purposes, costing just one move.  Once the city is planted though, and the scrubland therefore gone, the movement part of the desert penalty is back in force too, so a Scout, Worker, Settler, or other two-mover that moves into a desert city without using a road will use up both movement points to get there.

[Miguelito]

played the morningturn in a hurry, and after the spectre mayhem the micro was lacking 2 hammers for the settler to be delayed only one turn; would have needed to firethe sage a turn earlier but missed that, so now it's just t23, full 2 turn delay .
Meanwhile someone already built their 2nd city, not really surprising with 2 expansive leaders in the game.

We have some dotmapping to do!





First off is, does the first settler go south (A) or northeast (B)?

advantages A:

• the worker is already there and the cow is roaded already, while B has slow access due to forests at cap
  
• either dot has strong food
  

advantages B:

• profitable tilesharing
  
• east in general is the best immediate expansion target (while A is safe backline). Stepping stone for gold and eastern valley
  
• if we go BW and need a monument it'll be best to get going asap. I expect to get a third settler out before BW comes in (it's verycostly at 400b), but a monument might taketoo much time.
  
• military's already there
  

slight leaning A, but let's discuss the dots:

• A1 - double food, allows coastal filler SW of reagents, needs border pop or the filler for reagents, no tile sharing with cap, offcoast
  
• A2 - has reagents in borders but invalidates the coastal filler
  
• A3 - coastal and shares cow but pig needs a town on the other side of mountains
  
• A4 - shares cow but needs monument for pigs
  
• on the rice - needs a monument as well, shares cow, trades 5f farm (6f with Agri/Sanitation) for 3f city tile 
  

Of these I like A1 the best.

• B1 - shares sheep and no culture needed; a forest has grown on the deer to make it more attractive, but we'd still need to research Hunting to camp (300b), which otherwise would just make the ivory farm into camp for one happy. 2h city tile!
  
• B2 - needs monument for copper, shared sheep + first ring deer, blocks "2", which is a questionable dot anyways
  
• B3 - the wine would be in borders soon enough, but still low on foodm while high on hammers. Border pop gets plainshill sheep, yay
  
• B4 - coastal, shares sheep, needs border pop for copper which wouldalso yield the sheep, claim is more towards the north than east where we want to go
  

I still like B1, because I want to skip Hunting, but admittedly with the forest on the deer it's harder. Even unimproved for a while that's a decent tile.

your thoughts?