23-11-2002 05:46									#1
	The First 10 Turns... Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

It seems the first 10 turns will be played in quick succession. Not much time (zero) for consultation. Therefore I would like to ask for some general guidance from all of you should certain things occur...

1. Goodie huts. If we are not the Iroquois, should I pop goody huts with the initial city placement? (it happens sometimes that the start is adjacent to a hut). Should I pop huts with the worker if it is where we would like to build an improvement?

2. We get a free Settler really early (turn 1 through 10). Should I push out agressively with the golden calf to seek out an ideal site? Should I plonk him down ASAP to get churning (even if I do not know the lay of the land fully around the capitol)? Should I return him directly to the capitol to await results of exploration around the capitol and a warrior escort?

3. Early exploration. I assume we will play Egypt, and the build que will go W/W/W/St (or close). Should I circle the capitol first (to make sure we have a complete picture for the first Settler destination) before we head out further to make contact?

That's all I can think of right now. Are there any other things you all would like me to take into account?

	23-11-2002 05:47									#2
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Ohh. One other question. Should we support the movement for 10 rapid turns to start the game?

	23-11-2002 06:02									#3
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Support the movement for 10 rapid turns, definetely. It would be best to get the ball rolling, and 10 turns into it is not incredibly significant, especially if we can all figure out what we want happen in those first 10 turns...

Pop huts with worker? Dangerous....we still don't know what the level of barbarian activity will be, and we want to make sure without losing any important units like a worker or settler in the beginning...

Settler (warrior escort or not) - Also dangerous, but not nearly as huts on a high barbarian level. I recommend we explore the general vicinity before we plop that 2nd city down. WITH warrior escort.

	23-11-2002 06:03									#4
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Yeah, I like the 10 turn start. Is there anyway we can have a chat or a thread going to give advice?

1. Goodie huts: Yes and yes.

2. Free Settler: God, I hope so. We need to further discuss city placement.

3. Early exploration (and build queue): If W/W/W/St gives the right timing for the Settler to be built ASAP on reaching 3 pop, then great... let's see what terrain we get. In general though, I agree with the concept, and would typically get a clear idea of my immediate area (i.e., a first ring of towns ranging from 2-4 tile placement) [sidenote: we need to agree on the convention... by 2-tile spacing I mean 3 tile movements], and then explore further, considering terrain.

Another point: Capitol placement. Can we get the other teams to agree to a longer time period allowed for the first 1-3 moves?

	23-11-2002 06:09									#5
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Agreed on the convention. # spacing refers to the number of empty tiles between cities.

Capitol placement. Good point. Yes, I would like to chat here during our first couple of turns. I can add an attachment to the first post of a thread (I think). So I could start a thread 'Turn 1', post the screenie and wait a few minutes for comments before executing the turn. Same thing for turn 2 if it is decided to move the settler instead of building immediately. We won't have too long though, so it'll have to be a very short discussion.

	23-11-2002 06:26									#6
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Ohh man. Can't believe I forgot this one.

The Slider. Do we max it on science right off? And what do we research?

I would say max it. We will be playing humans. Buying tech for gold will not be a viable strategy.

First tech would be either Bronze Working, or The Wheel. I would say Bronze in case LI or GoW is just over the next hill.

	23-11-2002 06:38									#7
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Don;t forget, in PTW we have to choose what to research one turn earlier.

Also in PTW, I don;t think anything above 20% will get us speedier research (at least in the first 10 turns).

Research choice? Hugely important, but 1) I'd like to know who all the other civs will be, and 2) this is somewhat terrain dependent. I'd lean towards Bronze Working though.

	23-11-2002 06:45									#8
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My view on Max Slider on Science would be...

If less than 40 turns unattainable, set to 10%.

If less than 40 turns attainable, set it to the minimum setting for the shortest research time (does that make sense?).

	23-11-2002 06:52									#9
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Within the first 10 turns, yes.

	23-11-2002 08:48									#10
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Most if not all first-tier techs can be sped up by maxing the science slider, especially if we start on a river. I routinely max the science slider going after pottery early, but I agree that bronze working and the wheel are higher priorities with human warmongers around. (Note also that since we're playing on Monarch difficulty, we'll have two innately content citizens, so the luxury slider won't divert gold away from science quite as early as it would on Emperor.)

All else being equal, I'd prefer not to pop a hut founding our initial city, but odds are that all else won't be equal. My inclination is to make building the city quickly in a good location our top priority.

If we have other huts near the capital, I would advocate making sure our capital and initial worker are defended and then using a warrior to pop the hut. We also need to try to manipulate things so we don't give up shots at free settlers unnecessarily (although if we get a great starting position or a free settler, there will probably come a time when we should start assuming we're too big to get free settlers anyhow, not that that's likely to be a "first ten turns" issue).

Nathan

	23-11-2002 10:39									#11
	Got spare money?

quote: It seems the first 10 turns will be played in quick succession. Not much time (zero) for consultation. Therefore I would like to ask for some general guidance from all of you should certain things occur...

Maybe a small pauze when we get the to the first turn, it is a quite important one, then play 10 quick turns.(some small debate should be possible in a chatroom, while the save changes hands)

agree with max science

	23-11-2002 16:33									#12
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quote: Maybe a small pauze when we get the to the first turn, it is a quite important one, then play 10 quick turns

"A beginning is a very delicate time" (I think that's how it goes...)

We should hold a quick discussion at the first turn, as alva suggested, but that might not be possible, as other teams might push for a quick session.

I agree with Mesh. poping huts with worker, especially early on can be most dangerous, and as an Industrious civ we can't afford to lose workers early on.
On the matter of an early Settler, i favor quick deployment over ldeal location, but common sense should be applied, a real bad site should be denied, even if that means we have a second city beofre 10 turns end.

I also wouldn't mind placing that city without protection, but only for as little time as possible.

	23-11-2002 17:01									#13
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I agree that popping hut with worker is extermely dangerous: while we are not an expansionist civ we must always assume the worst, being that the hut might be filled with barbarians.
Losing the first worker would be very bad indeed.

Keeping in mind that the barbarian logic is somewhat different in PTW: even if you pop the hut with warrior - they usually do not all attack the warrior as they did in vanilla civ3, but most of the time atleast one if not two of those barbs goes after your worker or city. It is still risky to pop huts near our capital with our military being only one warrior, because of this new barbarian logic (or maybe a bug?). This could ofcourse be changed if/when the new patch comes out before the start of this game.

Good idea also is that we would be allowed some time for chat when we see the first turn, so there could be debate if to build city there or to move the settler etc.

After that the next 10 turns are rather "nothing happens" turns so they could be played straight trough without much negotiations.

	23-11-2002 18:42									#14
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My views: Don't pop huts with workers, but popping with city placement would be acceptable. I hope barbs go after the city instead of after the worker (is this so in PTW?), so that you could move the worker out of harms way, and only lose 1 or 2 turns of sacking in the capital.

Further: research bronze at max, later on we can adjust if needed. And it does matter in the first 10 turns what we set the slider to, as long as more then 1 beaker is generated. say a tech would cost 100 beakers, you will only get 1 beaker each turn when setting the slider to minimum, meaning that if you don't do it the first 10 turns when you could get 2 beakers, it will be harder later on.

I mean: consider 2 beakers in city first 10 turns. If you set to 100% research, of the 100 beakers you will get to 80 beakers. With 20%, you will get to 90 beakers left. After the first 10 turns you receive 4 beakers, which means that in the first case you are left with 20 turns, while in the second you still have 23 turns left... so the total becomes 30 turns, or 33 turns.

As to quickly going through the first 10 turns: it would help if there was a pauze of 15 minutes, in which to decide fast. And, it is rumoured that initial saves don't work, only the poster can download them. Further, a IRC chat will be better then the forum when it comes to playing the first few turns, it's faster and more direct.

Oh, if we would get a settler fast, plop it down, but try to do it more or less considerable: if you already explored a bit of land, and within 1 or 2 moves you see some better land, go there. Also if possible try to take the city placing scheme of SR to heart, don't plop him down with 3 tiles spacing, if moving one tile would mean 2-spacing (diagonal).

DeepO

	25-11-2002 19:49									#15
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Tech: BW @ max, or 20% if you can't get it much below 40 turns.

Build orders: I'd go 3-4 warriors, then settler. # of warriors depends on how much food we have. If we have a high-growth site, then 3 warriors, settler. If we have a slower-growing city, then 4 warriors, settler, and hope we get pottery from a hut.

Huts: no popping with worker. Warriors ok, so long as if we get angry barbs, our city(ies) are defended.

Early settler: yeah, right. But if we do, I'd say optomize placement as best you can, but plunk down a city w/in a couple of turns.

-Arrian

	25-11-2002 22:53									#16
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Might be useful for when you're exploring in the early game...

An awesome scouting thread by Aeson:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...&threadid=68531

If we're Egypt we can't build scouts, but there's at least a 50/50 chance we'll end up with Iroquois anyway (Egypt are in great demand) so these Scout tactics might be useful.
Any thoughts on how it'd work in MP?
Obviously border violations are not going to be possible, nor is resource denial (unless the enemy are stupid), but since we will never trade for maps the Scouts would be perfect as mobile fog-of-war destroyers so we can see the enemy coming.

Regardless of the scout units themselves, Aeson's observations on the map generator and terrain configurations could be useful in the early game when we're exploring.

	25-11-2002 23:01									#17
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quote: Originally posted by FrustratedPoet Obviously border violations are not going to be possible, nor is resource denial (unless the enemy are stupid)

that unless.. part

	26-11-2002 02:38									#18
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I've noticed in early games with PTW so far that the barbarians tend to spread apart, and generally take a few turns to decide what their going to do. Once decided though, it seems they go after that lone worker, and raid your city if no one is defending it.

They seems a bit more aggressive right off the bat in vanilla Civ3, although now in PTW I get the strange feeling that they're up to something else....like figuring out a strategy to attack.

As far as Egypt is concerned, I know we've already announced it as our main choice, but Egypt seems to be the first on everyone's list. The Demogyptian team will probably want them.

It's either PaperRockScissors or Iroquois for us.

	26-11-2002 22:13									#19
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It now looks like Demogyptia is leaning toward the Arabs. We may have no opposition for Egypt.

-Arrian

	26-11-2002 22:48									#20
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I like everything I've heard on this thread concerning the first 10 turns. Some comments (which hopefully aren't too repititious):

1. Science slider should always go as high as required to research a tech in the least number of turns (for any tech). If the least number of turns on our chosen tech is 40, then obviously the slider should go to 10%. Falling behind in research is a real possibility in this game.

2. I think the build order should be such that we produce as much as we can before we reach size 3, with a Settler produced on exactly that turn (I believe most people use this strategy already). This may mean switching worked tiles around to produce fewer shields in favor of extra trade (the shield will go to waste anyway, so there's no loss here).

3. Any tile with a bonus that produces food should be irrigated (if it falls within the city radius). This gets some good REXing going, and still leaves some production available for defensive units. Flood Plains are interesting scenario, the best case being irrigated Flood Plain with shielded Grassland (which should go first?).

4. Is it possible to get Barbarians when a hut is popped by expanding borders (i.e. when our first city is founded)? If so, should be move away from that spot, even if it's a good one?

5. Granary isn't a bad idea depending on the workable tiles, but I don't this decision needs to be made in the first 10 turns. The real question is whether a Granary should be produced before the first Settler.


Dominae

	26-11-2002 22:51									#21
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Should we go for Bronze Working first, or The Wheel (assuming we do get Egypt, which seems a good bet at this point)? Even if one of the other civs is Japan, The Wheel will be a great commodity in early trades. Plus, it's a safe bet to assume that most civs will be researching Bronze Working themselves (especially the AI, from alexman's work).


Dominae

	30-11-2002 21:06									#22
	High-Cattle Option Full PM-box? Change here!

I've done some thinking, and if we do get super-lucky and start along a river with three or more food bonus tiles, including two or more cattle, it might be good to go with a granary/"settler pump" opening after all. I'm thinking in terms of a build queue of two warriors to explore, than two to defend the capital, and then the granary (with Pottery as our first tech). If our exploring warriors find a warmonger nearby, we could switch production to a settler during the first 30 shields of the granary or a barracks in the next ten. After that, we'd be within three turns or so of finishing the granary and being able to start something else (and we'd have the population up to a point where we could produce something else pretty quickly).

The down side is that the delay in researching Bronze Working could get us in big trouble if we start right next to a warmonger that's willing to gamble on a nearly all-out militaristic start. But the potential payoff of having a four-turn settler pump/2-turn worker pump would be enormous, setting the stage for a truly fantastic builder game (and the latent military advantage that goes with good building) if we have room. (And a high-food capital with a granary can also turn into a production powerhouse with proper use of the luxury slider should circumstances so dictate.) Further, in a game with few if any expansionists (at least that I've noticed so far), Pottery might be a useful tech to trade.

Nathan

	30-11-2002 21:53									#23
	Put an end to popups!

I like the idea of the settler pump city, but would really hope we have another city or two for mutual defense so we don't just get swarmed early on. But you already said something like that anyway nbarclay, so I'll pipe down.

	01-12-2002 01:23									#24
	Increase the size of your Attachments

The start will be critical. We will have a lot of time to consider it. We will still be building warriors by the end of next weekend.

	01-12-2002 22:32									#25
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Very true, NYE. Speaking of which, what's going on? I checked the main PTW-Demo game forum and it doesn't look like things are organized... at all.

-Arrian

	01-12-2002 22:48									#26
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I guess timezones arn't making things any easier either