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Mountain Sage
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jshelr,
I just started your game. Yuck! But it's fun...
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Mountain Sage
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440AD: another push against Rome and my 1st temple!
The good news is that I got almost all the ancient GW.
 Attachment: 440ad.jpg
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Mountain Sage
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1897AD: the classical builder's game. I let the other AI war among themeselves and now they are three.
Attachment: v.jpg
This has been downloaded 91 time(s).
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Dominae
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Very cool game. In my opinion, it really demonstrates that "bad" or "impossible" starts can lead to a lot of fun nonetheless, and even some UP down the line.
I took a different approach to this game than Mountain Sage and (probably) jshelr. Rather than found the my capital right away in the clearly bad and remote location, I sent my Settler and Worker on a walk down South to find more attractive lands to settle.
With starting locations near the poles, I think this is generally the right play. Up to 10 "lost" turns at the beginning is a small price to pay that ensure that you're not stuck in Tundra the entire Ancient age.
Conveniently, on this map the way South paved by a nice long mountain range, so turn-by-turn I could get more information as to my settling options. Even so, after 5 turns, I was getting pretty worried; the only "good" tile so far (other than the Wines I left behind) was a Gold Hills! The next turn brought a sigh of relief, as I saw the Grassland Wines next to a River...pretty good even in a "normal" game.
Attachment: jshelr1.jpg
This has been downloaded 82 time(s).
Last edited by Dominae on 27-11-2003 at 03:01
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Dominae
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I began researching Pottery, as Carthage promised to become an pretty sweet pump city. Then my Warrior spotted the Egyptians, who were very close to "my" lands. When I saw the awesome Cattle patch, I knew the AI would go for it ASAP, so I got off a Granary prebuild and went for a Settler to claim that spot.
After Pottery I went for Mathematics at a 40-turn pace, as is oftentimes best with Carthage and France.
Attachment: jshelr4.jpg
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Dominae
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Obviously my second city, with all those Cattle, was going to be a better city in the long run than my capital (despite the Wines). The Great Cattle Farm also looked to be more central on the continent. I therefore hatched a plan to jump my Palace right away.
Palace-jumping when you've only got two cities is really quite powerful. You always know where your new Palace will end up (no need for any "work" to be done to ensure the target city gets picked). Although you do lose some Shields and production power at the critical early stages, in maps like these it gets you back on track in a hurry.
From the screenshot above you can see that Carthage is building another Worker to get pop down. It then proceeded to build a Settler. Utica went straight for a Granary. I was hoping neither Rome or Egypt would rush me. The screenshot below is from the turn my capital got teleported to Utica. Notice the Lux slider at 30% to make sure Utica would not revolt when the Wines would get momentarily disconnected.
Attachment: jshelr6.jpg
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Dominae
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Trades with the Egyptians and Romans went as follows:
Egypt: 1. Pottery, Alphabet and 5 Gold for Bronze Working
Rome:
1. Masonry for Warrior Code and 8 Gold
2. 7gpt and 166 Gold for Iron Working
I was hoping to turn around and trade Iron Working to Egypt for The Wheel and Ceremonial Burial, but Cleopatra would hear nothing of it. The slow tech rate of these two civs lead me to believe that it was just us three on the continent.
Here's a screenshot from my current position. Utica is rapidly becoming the dream pump city. I'm going for RCP 3, 7. I plan to take out both Egypt and Rome with an army of upgraded Warriors. I hope they let me get that far!
Attachment: jshelr9.jpg
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Dominae
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You've got my reasoning about right, Catt.
Picture the visible map at turn 5, that is, when my Settler reaches the tile just NW of the upper Gold Hills. The only tiles that I had encountered thus far that would provide at leastp 2 Food were the Wines I left behind. So, although the Gold Hills is typically a "good" tile to found a city upon, with the information available it was still not good enough, because as far as I knew there was nothing but 1-Food tiles surrounding it. Some 2-Food tiles would have been a far more welcome sight than the Gold.
I therefore sent my Worker SW to the Mountains tile the next turn, because I had not found an acceptable city-site yet. That's when I saw the Wines, and decided that it was better to grow fast than get extra Commerce. I was already 6 turns behind: a bunch of extra Gold does not let you catch up, but Food does.
Dominae
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Aeson
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orangesoda
Nov 2001
time: 22:32
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I played the same way as Dominae, only I wandered a few turns more. Initially, the start is good enough to build at, with the 2 Wine Hills, but the position is up against the coast, disallowing much of a first ring of cities. So my Settler and Worker headed South, if only to center my capitol better.
I made contact with an Egyptian Warrior while heading S. My Worker saw the 2 Tundra Game tiles, which I passed on, also passing on the 2 Wine Grasslands. I figured if there was any land a bit further south, then I could use those two sites for cities in my first ring instead of having about half my first ring stuck in tundra/mountains.
Ended up with my Settler next to the Game Forest in 3600BC, and built my city there the next turn.
Attachment: nomad.jpg
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Dominae
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Two differences between my game and Aeson's:
1. I kept my Worker close to my Settler when scouting, mostly because I expected to find a reasonable site quickly, and wanted to get started on those improvements ASAP. It ended up well because due South was the best way to go, but sending off the Worker on another route is probably better in general.
2. I guess I'm a bit more squeamish about spending too much time at the beginning without a city than Aeson is. That's why I settled the first decent spot I found. I was not at all thinking about rings and city placements at that point.
Dominae
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Aeson
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orangesoda
Nov 2001
time: 22:32
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After that, the game played out much like any other Emperor game. The high quality of the 'starting location' I had wandered to quickly made up for the 9 turns spent finding it.
I started by building 2 Warriors and then Settlers from the capitol right off, as I wanted to grab the Cows before Egypt or Rome could get there. Waiting for a Granary would have probably meant that the two prime locations I had planned to build on would be gone.
I built my first city 2 tiles directly East, and built a Granary there. It would have access to a Plains and Grassland Cattle, and +5 food. The next city was built to use the other two Plains Cattle further south and also built a Granary right off. I ended up not using either as much of a Settler or Worker pump, but the faster growth allowed me to keep the tech rate up, and produce a lot of military quickly.
Given the location of those two cities, I decided to have only 3 cities in my first 'ring' at distance 3/3.5, so as not to affect the corruption too much in my distance 5.5 city with 2 Cattle. The terrain was very much in favor of this as well, allowing me to use every tile and get most of my cities to size 12 or close to it while using all the Hills and Mountains. 3 more cities were on the 5.5 distance ring.
Rome's start didn't seem to work well for them, and I was able to build up a strong enough force of Swords and gift them Republic (so they couldn't pop rush) before attacking. They had hooked up their Iron just a turn before I gifted Republic, and I ended up only having to face one regular Legionary in the fighting. I let Rome keep one little city up in the Tundra for the time being, and kept them up to date in techs so they could help out a bit.
I had built one Vet Merc, and this stayed home and constituted my entire defense against Egypt if they chose to attack, and had been most of my defense the entire game to that point. After Rome fell, I switched to more Horsemen, and then as soon as my Swords were healthy and in position, I attacked. I had a couple of agreements in place with Egypt at the time (gpt and luxury), but it looked like there wouldn't be any contact with other landmasses for a while yet.
Egypt had built the Oracle and Great Lighthouse for me in Thebes and Alexandria. Those were the only two cities of note they had, and the conquest was rather easy. I kept it really slow after Thebes and Alexandria fell, so as to farm some Leaders. I got two in the fighting, one rushing Sistene, and the other building an Army. I had already built the FP by hand as close to center of the continent in Leptis Magna. Near the end of the fighting I used my Merc to trigger my GA. The continent was basically mine by 50BC.
Egypt also was kept around a little while longer to help with techs. I don't think they actually researched anything, but they did contribute a few gold and Workers to the cause. I made contact with Persia thanks to the Great Lighthouse, and was thankful their island wasn't mine. 7 suicide Galleys sinking convinced me that I would wait for Navigation to make contact with the other landmass(es).
Then I destroyed Rome and Egypt just before the other civs were able to get to Navigation (I gave it to them in trades) so to keep anyone from ever finding out about how little respect for agreements I had.
Attachment: continent.jpg
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Aeson
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orangesoda
Nov 2001
time: 22:32
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quote:
1. I kept my Worker close to my Settler when scouting, mostly because I expected to find a reasonable site quickly, and wanted to get started on those improvements ASAP. It ended up well because due South was the best way to go, but sending off the Worker on another route is probably better in general. |
I agree that if going nomad, it's better to miss a few turns of tile improvements than to miss out on a better starting location. I like to keep my Worker within a few turns of my Settler though, as there isn't a whole lot of point in spreading them out further if they aren't overlapping their sight radius already.
South was definitely the way to go in this case, as only Tundra could be expected East and West, and obviously nothing to the North. That there were two ridges to follow was the main reason I split my Worker and Settler in this case.
quote:
2. I guess I'm a bit more squeamish about spending too much time at the beginning without a city than Aeson is. That's why I settled the first decent spot I found. I was not at all thinking about rings and city placements at that point. |
The lead-in to the thread was a factor even though I tried not to let it affect my decisions. It was pretty clear that there was a better location (ie. Palace Jump) on the continent somewhere close by (ie. Archer Rush). If it was a regular random start, I probably would have been more likely to build next to the 2 game tiles, given the river and gold. Not sure though.
I played this before getting Conquest, otherwise I would have been much more at ease wandering around. Might have even made it to those Cattle! 
Conquests has definitely changed my perspective on wandering. Playing on Sid difficulty, it seems you almost have to make contact with a Civ or two right off or you'll be left out of the trading loop. As a non-Expansionist, using the Worker and Settler can often be the best way, and you get a better idea of where to Settle. Being able to trade your starting techs (especially if you have Alphabet/Masonry) can mean the difference of a couple thousand gold (or having to conquer the Great Library if you're lucky in who builds it). Of course this mainly only applies on smaller or more crowded maps where contact is made in the first 5 or so turns. The land fills up so quickly that having your 'forced' OCC (or nearly so) in a slightly better position is a big deal.
Given the changes to the FP, a more centralized Palace start is a bigger factor too. A Palace jump no longer has the side effects of lowered corruption in the old core because of the FP. Also, playing with one larger core instead of two smaller is much more viable given the changes to the FP.
Agricultural civs are often better off going looking for a river too. Not sure just how long is efficient, but it feels like that finding that good start (not necessarily a river of course) for an Agricultural civ is worth 10-20 turns even. You can't count on finding that good start, but it's a safe play in many ways. If the better start is there you'll find it, and even if it's not, you'll have a better idea of where to position your Palace. You'll always lose something in regards to the perfect start, but give yourself a chance at a near perfect start, and be able to keep from making mistakes that would need to be rectified by a Palace jump or FP build later.
Last edited by Aeson on 27-11-2003 at 06:35
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12-11-2003 18:00
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