[SPOILERS] scooter's Rule of Three

[scooter]

Thinking about the start a bit, I think the way to go is T0 move 1S while revolting to Slavery/OR. Tech Mathematics as we want to get 30h from all of these forests. Worker can improve the Sheep then cottage the floodplains while dropping 1T into cottages/roads on grassland tiles while moving. OR is of course pointless for a bit, but I think we revolt into our religion when the settler is on the move which would make it worth it.


I think Scout wants to go SW-SW while the Archer goes SE and probably follows the hills for a turn or two for maximum vision.


As for actual builds, I really have no idea. Well that's not quite true. My gut says this start wants worker labor, both because floodplains are worker-intensive and so are forest chops. This makes me think it's probably worthwhile to acquire a second worker prior to our first settler. The timing is trickier. Worker-first results in a situation where multiple tiles are improved prior to being able to work them which feels a bit inefficient. I haven't had much chance to actually test this yet. I may peek at other Classical games to see how others navigated this as I don't have the (mental) muscle memory for this one.

[scooter]

Played as planned, moving the scout southwest and archer east along the hills. Revolted to Slavery/OR. I'm clearly in the north near-ish the Tundra, so my scouting should be south-biased in general as there shouldn't be anyone north of me. This river valley is indeed beautiful, though health will be an issue to deal with. But this is the perfect cottage cheese capital. I haven't been able to spend the time I'd like solving this start, so this is going to have to be more instinct-based. That instinct says to grow to size 4 on warriors and then whip a settler, and then get the second worker after that. I'm a tad uncertain about tech. Mathematics feels right with these forests and the possible health issues, but Monarchy/MC both sound defensible.


I did one quick test game of the settings before I saw the start, and that had barb animals converting into axes around T40. The timing isn't bad as second city comes fast here, but the fact that it goes straight to axes/archers/etc is the real challenge here. I bet someone will be caught out by this.


This quest is a good one for us. We are the only one with discounts on the buildings, plus its our UB. The real challenge here will be the 9 cities portion. In addition. Great Library is appealing for us in a supercap game. I looked up this quest.

Code:

Quest5:
    Classic Literature
    Prereq: WRITING
    Obsolete: NATIONALISM or PRINTING_PRESS or EDUCATION or GUNPOWDER or ASTRONOMY
    Active/Weight: 20/500
        Aim:
        Build default number of players for this world size libraries (7 for standard)
        Result:
1.+2 research in one (triggering) city's library
2.get one ancient era tech
3.IF you control the Great Library wonder gain +1 scientist specialist for this wonder

Option 2 is hilarious - what kind of reward is that for a quest that takes this long? Option 1 is pretty underwhelming, but a small perk. But not the kind of thing you want to bend your game around. As a result, this is really all about completing it while controlling the Great Library. The catch of course is that Commodore is IND, and GL is a really great wonder for Nebu. He's my competition there.


With all of this in mind, there's a case to be made here that I should get UB + Metal Casting relatively early and spawn an early Engineer and use it to rush Great Library. Something to think about.

[scooter]

Got an early hut with some money. No tech popping in this game, so I guess we're mostly rooting for gold. Experience wouldn't be bad early though I suppose with barbs on.





I went with the Culture Victory name as I liked it a lot. We're going to grow on a warrior, and the worker is going to put a couple turns into a cottage while waiting for the Sheep to come in borders. Copper and Horse are immediately nearby which is good. It seems likely both can be claimed with cities that share/grow floodplains cottages which is excellent news. Would be better if we can find a food for them. I am debating how aggressive to be with my scouting. With huts on, you sort of want to hunt for them hardcore which means pushing external scouting at the cost of your vicinity to some extent. However, a lot of that is because popping a single tech can be so impactful. That won't be happening here, so maybe it's less crucial.





At least one player is lacking a PH plant which is interesting. That player is minimum -1 yield on me as a result. I think this hurts less than on ancient, though. One player is only working 3F, so someone is working like a 1/2 tile or something. I don't know why you would do this. A good way to find out would probably be writing opponent previews so I can figure out what other players are likely to do early . It does make me wonder if someone is doing worker-first or something. That seems wrong to me, but I could be way off.


Also of note, it sort of looks like nobody is coastal? One player has a single water tile in their starting 9 tiles, so it's possible it's a weird formation, but most likely everyone is inland.

[scooter]

Met Commodore. Did something mildly rude but IMO clever.





Sequential turns means he was going to get this hut I found. However, by declaring, it's just out of reach.


If it's gold, I might share half the winnings with him as a peace offering. He does get crabby about these things.

[pindicator]

Finally

It's time to nerf America. Their pick/ban presence is practically 100%. Charriu isn't around anymore, but it's time to do this. I mostly think CtH should be largely left alone, but there's no denying America is simply too popular. I maintain a real part of it is because it's fun, but also it is simply a very good and impactful UB.

We've never been able to find a good solution to America's UB over all the iterations of MP mods, from RtR's armory or now the CtH uber library. I think it's just kind of funny that we keep missing on this civ.

Maybe we should make it a mall replacement and have it give extra happiness

Edit: And can he see how much gold you get? Do you need to give exactly half or just what might be interpretted as half?

[scooter]

Man, I really should have objected to launching this game during the holiday. Fell behind here, and I am majorly winging it in this game. But now is the right time to check back in.





Named of course after a trio I watched quite a bit as a little kid.


This is the first city anyone has settled, and I was last in turn order, so I am officially first to do so. No idea if this is good or bad! But barbs are on and the map is extremely roomy, and we're 15ish turns from barb axes/spears appearing, so I've got to be ready. It's also a solid enough city with a shareable cottage already down and workable, and Creative means the Fish is good. Though we did not disable barb boats, so I may need to get one of my own to defend it sooner than later unfortunately. I popped into my religion this turn which was well-timed due to overflow into a Granary getting the OR boost. I did eventually realize I could have done the revolt while improving the sheep, but like I said, we're winging this opening.

Edit: And can he see how much gold you get? Do you need to give exactly half or just what might be interpretted as half?

Well, the simple answer is I was stupid and forgot nobody has Currency, so none of this matters.





However, here is my hut results. It was going fine until I lost my Scout due to a misclick I opted not to fuss about. It got eaten by an animal in this area after I misclicked it onto flatland rather than Jungle. Oh well. I do have two huts "behind" my capital I haven't popped yet. May build a scout in order to safely pop them, not sure yet.





I have met Commodore and Cornflakes, who have not met each other. This map is massive, so this isn't terribly shocking. I haven't found either of their capitals, but judging from where I met them, Commodore is southwest-ish of me on the other side of the jungle belt, while Cornflakes appears to be my eastern neighbor. Yuris then is probably southeast of me? We sort of have a north and south hemisphere situation with the jungle. Although Iron Working is not far off, so jungle will bump up in priority.





Commodore (Bach) did a weird opening I would have spent more time figuring out if we weren't going blistering fast over a holiday weekend. He was at size 1 for quite awhile which made me think worker-first, which itself seems weird. So maybe something else is going on. But he's never grown beyond size 2, meanwhile I've already done a 4 -> 2 settler whip.





Seems fine. Not really paying attention to the others yet, so I don't have many conclusions to draw.

[Tarkeel]

This is the first city anyone has settled, and I was last in turn order, so I am officially first to do so. No idea if this is good or bad! But barbs are on and the map is extremely roomy, and we're 15ish turns from barb axes/spears appearing, so I've got to be ready. It's also a solid enough city with a shareable cottage already down and workable, and Creative means the Fish is good. Though we did not disable barb boats, so I may need to get one of my own to defend it sooner than later unfortunately. I popped into my religion this turn which was well-timed due to overflow into a Granary getting the OR boost. I did eventually realize I could have done the revolt while improving the sheep, but like I said, we're winging this opening.

FWIW, based on the information available to me, I approve of the city spot. Also, I think the fish is safe from barbs as it's on an ocean tile.

Will see if I get around to doing an opponent overview, if for no other reason than to remind myself what combos they (and we!) are playing.

[scooter]

Ah, good call on the Fish being ocean, slipped my mind. Your reply has prodded me to post some actual pictures of the surrounding area, so here we go.





Culture Victory is getting a second worker chopped out to lay more cottages. It will be out and will finish a new cottage right as the city hits size 4. In addition, there is a Granary in there that is ~20/60h, so will continue growing on that. Inclination is to grow the city a size or two and then do another settler. Stooges can mostly take care of itself initially. The Work Boat will complete and hook the Fish right as it needs a second tile.


The only other spot I really considered was this one marked here in white. It's similar in that it's new food + military strategic + shareable cottages. Ultimately, just preferred ocean fish + flatland copper over dry wheat + plains horse. Health will be an issue soon, so the Wheat which is 2 health post-Granary will be more important than usual. However, the main reason I'm planning the next spot here is because of the rest of what I've found.





This area is our highest priority area in the land grab. I don't know how far away Cornflakes is to the east, but ideally I'd like to claim everything from this Corn/Pig on down. We'll find out how realistic that is soon I guess. I need to return this Archer home soon and replace it with a scouting warrior, so that is going to limit my scouting a bit. But the most obviously fertile thing is this huge river valley. In general, a lot of green and/or river tiles everywhere which is great for FIN. So I think the initial land grab phase will be focused on this area.





The second phase will be this area, which may actually be sooner than later if I'm being honest. I even considered teching IW before MC in an attempt to unlock this region sooner. I may NEED to settle something down here before long if for no reason than to bring the Ivory in to improve the happy situation. This region should be quite valuable long-term.


Another thing about this region - I've only found Commodore to the southwest, and there's a lot of land that way. It's critical I don't let Commodore just have all of it. This little bay southwest of Stooges is one I will have to navigate around and get some sort of foothold in. I don't have full vision on the region, but I've seen enough to know it's a lot of land. It's possible Yuris is that way actually, though it was weird I didn't run into him there if so. Hard to say.





Finally, our backlines. Will have to fogbust this. Probably a very good city available at Deer/Corn, but in general more focused on land claiming initially. I think we want to settle towards other players and then backfill.


One other thing. I picked MC over IW in part because I would like to keep the door open to an early-ish Engineer for Great Library. I think that's the wonder I'm most interested in here. Obviously our UB can do most of the work there, but unlocking MC good and early means there's flexibility to get the Forge up and run at least 1T of Engineer. In addition, the presence of Gold bumped up the Forge in value too.

[pindicator]

Another thing about this region - I've only found Commodore to the southwest, and there's a lot of land that way. It's critical I don't let Commodore just have all of it.

pb80 flashback goes here

[scooter]

Another thing about this region - I've only found Commodore to the southwest, and there's a lot of land that way. It's critical I don't let Commodore just have all of it.

pb80 flashback goes here

Literally yes, and I didn't even play the game. In fact, I think PB80 is the only reason this even registered to me as something important to say. It's very fresh on my mind.