07-12-2002 00:33									#1
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Time for this to be established.

First topic. Exploration patterns for our soon to be 2 warriors. I assume the third is going to stick around the capitol. He could poke his head around a bit, but not too far.

	07-12-2002 00:35									#2
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I definitely agree that warrior #3 should stay close to home.

I favor sending the first warrior North, the second West to the Mountain, and then perhaps South (depending on what he sees from the Mtn).

-Arrian

	07-12-2002 00:37									#3
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What about sending the first down the river to the coast before heading north? We need to find a good site for the first coastal city. That may be our second city.

	07-12-2002 00:37									#4
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Perhaps the 3rd warrior can be sent due East, to scout the city site at the mouth of the river (is that a lake the river empties into, or the ocean?). That will only require a couple of moves, and then he can come back.

-Arrian

	07-12-2002 00:45									#5
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The reason I think scouting that city site can probably wait for the 3rd warrior is that I'm almost positive I already know where we should build:

6, 6, 9 from EotS. That would put it across the river with enough overlap to use one of the irrigated furs right away (meanwhile EotS is using FP or the other irrigated fur, size 1 after building the settler). I did that in the test scenario you set up.

-Arrian

	07-12-2002 01:13									#6
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Placement of our second city depends on what bonus food tiles, if any, we might find near our capital. Ideally, I'd love to stumble across some cattle.

What do you mean by, "6, 6, 9"?

It might be useful to have the second warrior move south a little, then back up north to finish looking around our capital area, and then head west since that's the other direction besides North where there may be vast distances to explore looking for other civs.

	07-12-2002 01:22									#7
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nathan: East, East, North East. It's what you type in on your numerical keyboard (actually, very intuitive way of describing where to go! )

DeepO

	07-12-2002 02:14									#8
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Yeah, because of the isometric layout of the map, I'm not always sure about what people mean by the standard directions (N, S, E, W), so I sometimes throw in the number keys for the moves instead.

I too am hoping for some cows (Grog likes cow tipping).

-Arrian

	07-12-2002 05:56									#9
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Is it a good idea to uncover the ring around the capitol fully before thrusting them out into the darkness?

How else do we establish the best spot for city #2?

	07-12-2002 09:24									#10
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First off, bear with me guys as my posting frequency has slowed down.

Second, I'd like us to discuss "map characteristics" a little bit. The short discourse that Aeson gave in his "Scouting" thread made me realize that we haven't discussed maps all that much. I played with them a lot when I was first trying to figure out the settings that would help to generate "killer AI civs" but with less focus on how the landscape is modeled.

Here's what I originally observed / guessed:

"That's an awful lot of plains... I predict horses to the SW of our capitol.

I believe the river indicates that there will be hills and / or mountains to the NW.

There will probably be some desert to the north, and if the island is big enough I would expect a jungle barrier on an E/W axis.

There *should* be more grassland to the south and west of us, depending on how nearby the coastline is."

What do we think now...

	07-12-2002 16:50									#11
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I have to agree.
Should we send the warrior to the nearby mountain, as was suggested, to improve visibility?

	07-12-2002 17:07									#12
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when a warrior reaches the mountain doesn't matter to me, but maybe it would be a good idea to go immediately West after the mountain with him, searching for the coastline. Rereading Aeson's thread, I have to agree with him that the best way to judge our map settings is to scout horizontally first.

DeepO

	07-12-2002 23:55									#13
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Can we clear the ring around the capitol first? Guys?

	08-12-2002 00:31									#14
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Here's a new idea to discuss while we wait to see more of the map: should we use Barbarian encampments as training centers for our troops, or should we just swoop in for the easy 25 gold?

In SP I've often used an accessible Barb camp as a sort of "Monolith" (remember SMAC?) that trains units. Since we're not Militaristic, this may help out quite a bit. Getting a few Spearmen to Elite status would really help in an early skirmish.

Thoughts?


Dominae

	08-12-2002 00:32									#15
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither Can we clear the ring around the capitol first? Guys?

The best way to clear the ring around the capitol is send the first Warrior to the mountain, then North, and the second Warrior South then West.


Dominae

	08-12-2002 00:38									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae The best way to clear the ring around the capitol is send the first Warrior to the mountain, then North, and the second Warrior South then West. Dominae

What about the coast though? That will not reveal the coast.

If we send the first down the river to the coast, and then arcing over the capitol to the North... and we send the second to the mountain and then arcing under the capitol to the South... we will reveal the first ring and then the warriors can move further off.

Thinking about it, it would be best to reverse those movements. From the mountain North, and to the coast then South will have the warriors finished the arcs and pointed in useful directions, North and West.

	08-12-2002 00:54									#17
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Coast then South makes sense, although I'm not sure how much information we're expecting to get from the coast (Fish?). Regardless, I think Mountain then North is the best bet for the first dude.


Dominae

	08-12-2002 00:54									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae Here's a new idea to discuss while we wait to see more of the map: should we use Barbarian encampments as training centers for our troops, or should we just swoop in for the easy 25 gold? In SP I've often used an accessible Barb camp as a sort of "Monolith" (remember SMAC?) that trains units. Since we're not Militaristic, this may help out quite a bit. Getting a few Spearmen to Elite status would really help in an early skirmish. Thoughts? Dominae

Excellent idea!!
I can't wait to see the looks on GhengisFarb's stupid face when he sees our elite warriors.

	08-12-2002 01:24									#19
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This is a gut call, without having done the turn forecasting discussed elsewhere, but I tend to think we are going to want 4 Warriors ASAP...

1st goes to the mountain, and then north... the early visisibility is a no-brainer, and then I want to see what's along the river and whether there are hills up there.

2nd goes south... tempted to go west, but don;t forget this guy gets built on turn 7... I'd rather wait for the road to be completed on the fur tile, and I also am dying to see a) whether there's a coast immediately below us and b) if there's any shielded grassland and / or other luxuries.

3rd is a question mark. Do we need an MP at pop 2, or is the fur enough? Either the 3rd or 4th to the west.

	08-12-2002 01:27									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus 3rd is a question mark. Do we need an MP at pop 2, or is the fur enough? Either the 3rd or 4th to the west.

With the Fur connected, we can go up to size 3 without unhappiness. I don't think we'll need any MP anytime soon. Note that this isn't an argument against keeping a unit inside the capital, which may be a good idea for safety purposes.


Dominae

	08-12-2002 03:20									#21
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We won't be connecting the fur for a bit. Alexman explained that roading fur next to river isn't optimal for the time being, because despotism eats the 3rd commerce from the tile. We save worker turns too.

The current plan is to chop, irrigate, move, chop, irrigate, move to floodplain and irrigation & road those. Then I want to chop a 3rd fur tile that is off the river, and road that one.

We can use luxury spending for a couple of turns if necessary, and keep in mind that the third warrior will be sticking close to home anyway to offer some defense.

-Arrian

	08-12-2002 03:53									#22
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Understood.

I still advocate sending the 3rd Warrior to the west... 66984 and then home.

	08-12-2002 04:14									#23
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As we get a good bonus against barbs, I'm inclined to be in favour of using them as target practise.

Should we do a poll on where to send the first warrior?

	08-12-2002 04:51									#24
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Question: how mutually exclusive are raiding camps for gold and getting target practice? If new camps pop up fairly quickly to replace old ones, we might be able to get some decent target practice and still gain a fair amount of gold.

Also note that every two camps raided for gold can eventually pay for one and a quarter warrior-to-swordsman upgrades. Would the training really be worth more than that?

Nathan

	08-12-2002 05:10									#25
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You would only need to "set aside" one Barb camp for training since the rate at which camps generates units is pretty good. The others would all be used for gold. I'm not thinking of sending all our units to train, maybe just a few Spearmen to give ourselves an edge. Hopefully the 25 gold will not be missed.


Dominae

	08-12-2002 05:14									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae You would only need to "set aside" one Barb camp for training since the rate at which camps generates units is pretty good. The others would all be used for gold. I'm not thinking of sending all our units to train, maybe just a few Spearmen to give ourselves an edge. Hopefully the 25 gold will not be missed.

It's not so much the 25 gold itself as it is the question of how leaving that camp would affect generation of other camps in the area. I don't know what the formula for camp generation is, but if leaving a camp intact slows down the generation of other camps, that could cost considerably more than 25 gold.

Nathan

	08-12-2002 05:15									#27
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay It's not so much the 25 gold itself as it is the question of how leaving that camp would affect generation of other camps in the area. I don't know what the formula for camp generation is, but if leaving a camp intact slows down the generation of other camps, that could cost considerably more than 25 gold. Nathan

That said, and giving it a little more thought, leaving one camp for training is probably still worthwhile, especially as long as we have regular units around.

	08-12-2002 05:31									#28
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay It's not so much the 25 gold itself as it is the question of how leaving that camp would affect generation of other camps in the area. I don't know what the formula for camp generation is, but if leaving a camp intact slows down the generation of other camps, that could cost considerably more than 25 gold.

Just an assumption, but Barb camp generation is probably linear in the number of pre-existing camps. So, always having 1 around would decrease the chances that others show up. However, given that it is a probability that camps appear, I'm not sure this would cost us all that much gold. Plus, we would be denying camps to others as well! If this is all correct, it would be interesting to see one civ have a monopoly on all the camps, which it could use to train units until the end of the game!


Dominae

	08-12-2002 05:42									#29
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Ideally, we'll have one barb camp in a remote corner (remote to the other civs that is), with a hill or mountain next to it... that's the one we use for training, and we grab the gold from all others we find, ASAP.

Dominae, why do you refer to Spearmen for this? I usually do it with Warriors or Archers.

	08-12-2002 05:44									#30
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I would expect that camps don't show up near other camps. I've played games where I'd destroy a camp and have it regenerate a few turns later in the same area over and over, but I don't remember ever seeing two camps especially close to each other. Do you have any particular reason to think that leaving camps in our area would affect their rate of appearance elsewhere, or is that just a wild guess?