OK I am going to give up.....

[Cort Haus]

I'm looking forward to the post-Optics situation, when the other civs have been met.

Isolated starts on Monarch seem more manageable if other civs are isolated from each other too. If they are mostly on the same continent and haven't been at war, even the most focused Optics beeline can find itself 10 techs behind if the others have all been trading since Alphabet.

[Enigma_Nova]

I have a dry sense of humor that has grown out of my arrogance and cynicism. It serves me well in places where idiots spam comments that leads one to believe their logical reasoning, awareness, literacy, active memory and comprehension were eaten by a giant Starfish.

I still have no understanding of why most people are so stupid (due to lack of similar experience on my part, one would assume).
My best explanation is that in caveman times, you only needed 5% of the people leading and 95% performing menial tasks, so that trend continues today.
Still, you'd think that self-inflicted stupidity (people who can think, but don't) would be a negative trait that would be being bred out, not having a population boom!

Oh, yes, the topic. Err, go Vel! :cheer:

[poiuyt00]

Yes I can see a different path right now. I used to chop two settlers to get to the next river and space out two cities over the gold before the barbs got there. I usually never even got bronze as archers on hills outside my cities never had issues with barbs after that. I tired to head toward optics and left religion out , which never even let me get the GL. Pop'in always angered my cities even more than they already are without religion...so I never did it. But I can't wait til you meet the others. You will find no other places to found cities except on the very edges of America and maybe Frenchy. There are some Ice towns to be had though.

Verrrry cool so far, thanks a bunch.

[Velociryx]

Hey guys, and g'morning! Glad this thread is drawing interest! Having gotten my feet wet in Helio's thread, I feel like I'm getting more comfortable with this type of analysis. I think when I get caught up, I'll go back to Helio's thread and start again, including pictorals like I'm doing here. That'll be cool!

WRT rushing the Great Library - two reasons I decided to. 1) Very few forests on our little island. I already chopped the ones I felt comfortable with losing, and having done that, I didn't wanna take any chances. 2) Moscow grows like a weed. Any pop loss sustained is gonna be very short-lived, and is mostly offset by the fact that the great library essentially "gives us" +2 pop (in the form of specialists). So in the short term, my net pop loss is only -1, and that should be offset pretty quickly.

Isolated starts can be tricky, and to get a feel for how you're doing, relative to everyone else until Optics, you've gotta use every clue and cue you can find. One thing that tells me we're not doing too bad is the fact that we secured the first wonder we went after whole-heartedly. Had we been lagging badly, we'd have undoubtedly been beaten to it. Second cue is coming up shortly. If we get the Great Artist for being the first to Music, this will tell me that we're holding our own, tech-wise (of course, it could also mean that we're hopelessly behind, but no one is researching the creative branch of the tree, but I'm an optimist!).

Still, I think with the initial report that, at the point of the save game I started with, we secured FOUR free techs from huts, I seriously doubt that we're far behind, and with several cottages already developed at the capitol, and FIVE gold mines soon to be in service, I don't think that commerce is going to pose a problem for us.

I'm actually one screenie behind, at present, because when I stopped playing last night, I had captured the second Barb city, and am currently building two settlers.

Plans for the future include:

* Finish researching Music and hope for the Great Artist (which, if we get him, we'll just hold onto him for a while...prolly until after we've met everyone....the ability to have an "at-will" culture bomb waiting in the wings is far, far more valuable than assigning him to a city or grabbing a free tech...if we get him, we'll probably keep him until we meet the others, and/or settle elsewhere. That kind of cultural influx could give us complete domination of a small or mid-sized island out beyond the blue.

* Need to get Grainaries up everywhere we got food surplusses (which at the moment, is everywhere but St. Pete. Not many trees to spare, which means that pop-rushing is going to be our primary means of building fast infrastructure, and grainaries are important for that (and the health benefit, of course)

* Need currency, and markets in every place that it'll pay to put them...CASH!

* When Moscow's population bounces back some, we'll assign at least one scientist again....faster G-men, and we'll want at least one other academy (Novgorod).

* Possibly re-locate the palace to a more central location. If we can centralize it, then we can save the FP for some other continent/island, which will give us expansion options. Nov or Goth might make a good site for the capitol, but that's not an immediate-term issue....it can come later.

* While we're doing all that, we're gonna fill up our continent, culturally lock down the borders so the AI can't cheese any cities on the borders (this place is easily big enough for 10-12 good cities, and we're already almost halfway there), and prepare for ever-greater things.

* Guilds will be important, once we push the limit on cities, cos that'll give us 12-14 specialists (counting the two we've already got from the G-Lib), and that should give us a nice shot in the arm, and then, of course, Optics, the harbors that come before it, caravels, and getting out to meet people.

Good stuffs!

-=Vel=-

[eluciv]

How on Earth can you afford all those cities?
I'd be at 50% or less science right now - even on lower difficulties. What are you sacrificing? Military? I assume you'd have a larger military if others knew you existed? I guess I don't buld courthouses that early though either. That's got to be a key when building early and so far away from the capital.

What's your ETA for the 10-12 cities? How can you afford that, keep a respectable military AND keep up in research? I assume you'll be doing a fair amount of tech trading down the road? People make it sound impossible to win on Monarch or higher without using an early military to handica opponents. This thread is going to teach me something!

[Velociryx]

In truth, I have had to drop my science to 60% at present, but that's okay, because I've more than doubled my coin outputs with Nov and the acquisition of Goth (four gold mines @ 8gpt each), so my science rate isn't hurting at all (100% science with 16gpt = 50% science at 32gpt--before taking multipliers into account, of course), so I'm not having any difficulties maintaining the empire I've got now, and when the courthouses complete in the current towns, it'll help offset the rising costs of the next round of cities.

That, combined with a continued emphasis on cottages (and some offset by virtue of the fact that the new cities will pick up some coin via new trade routes that develop), should enable me to ride out the roughest part of the storm (the period before I get courthouses up in the new burgs and markets up in my profitable cities). After that, it's pure gravy.

Military...yep, I'm in last place, and partly, that's cos I'm secure on my little island. I've got a robust enough military to handle the barbs, but I'd definitely need more if someone were to suddenly appear on the horizon.

Timeframe-wise, I've got two settlers cooking right now, which will bump me to seven cities, and although I don't have the save here at work, I believe that they'll be done and set up inside of ten turns. One of the two will be taking advantage of more floodplains and another gold mine, so that'll be yet another cash cow, but as always, the trick is to balance everything out. I don't want to drop below 60% research, so I'll let the economy rebound from that addition before I continue to expand....my guess is that I'll be able to add 2 additional cities every ~20 turns, til I fill up the landmass, so we're looking at 10 turns to reach 7, 30 to reach 9, 50 to do the rest....however many that ultimately winds up being...so something like fifty turns from now?

Sacrifices: At present, military is the big loser, but that was an easy choice to make, since my only immediate threats are the barbs, and the five axes I've got as the core of the army have been more than enough to handle them. More are planned, of course, and at the moment, none of my cities are even properly garrisoned, so it's definitely true that we've got lots of work ahead where the military is concerned.

I don't think I'm gonna bother building galleys though. Hard enough to keep the army up to date, and since I can't go anywhere in a galley, that'll be one less thing to have to pay for upgrades on.

If I were to stop expanding after the next city (to take advantage of the last gold mine), it's true that I could grow a HUGE financial empire with just those cities, and not worry about the increasing maintenance costs, however....many of my future city sites are coastal, which are themselves, cash cows, and long term, the gains I'll be able to reap from them outweigh the marginal increasing costs by huge amounts....so, I'll have to suffer with a short term drop in research as expansion continues, but once those cities are firmly established, I'll be able to come roaring back....at least....that's the plan/hope...

-=Vel=-

[snafuc4]

Great thread! I've been wondering why I keep ending up behind with what appear to be superb FIN starts (floodplains, gold nearby, etc); this is going to be a lot of help! TVM Vel & Poiuyt! )

(BTW Vel, not meaning to be offensive or anything, but this keeps irritating me: there's no 'i' in 'Granary' )

Keep on going!

[Swiss Pauli]

I really enjoy the 'Game Doctor' approach - it makes tactics like pop n chop come alive. Great stuff!

Will be interesting (and crucial for the outcome, I think) to see whether Vel can get to Optics before the rest of the world is (more or less) fully settled...Good luck!

[poiuyt00]

I hope Vel has not been defeated?? I have tried more games and seem to be losing the same way whether I am on an Island or not, so it's just me I am sure.

[Velociryx]

Nope...not defeated, just at work. Should have time to continue from where we left off this weekend tho...

-=Vel=-

[Jerh9e1k5]

Great stuff Vel, this is exactly what I was hoping for! Especially the inclusion of so many screenshots!

Keep up the great work!

[poiuyt00]

hmm weekend over and no Vel, me thinks this start was too tough. I have beaten Monarch finally. On Marathon I played Cathy and bumped and run (Take a town make peace, then take another.) My way to total domination and 72000 points. Cossacks rock on Marathon.!!

[Velociryx]

Nahh, the start's great! I'm taking careful notes and lots of screen shots, so it's taking me longer than I anticipated to get the next report ready (mostly cos so much HAPPENED!), but it's coming...it's coming....

And congrats on beating Monarch!

-=Vel=-

[poiuyt00]

phew, finally did it on this level. By the skin of my teeth I eeked out a Space Race victory over the US, but I could of won quicker if I had payed attention to my research. Here is the screen shot of city placement just before victory. It was the one just to the right of moscow that I think won it for me. Using almost all the space on the island I was able to out do the others with out ever having to take another city (although I did take a French city because I was tired of him attacking me). All in all was a good game and a good learning experience. I ended up Lincoln with a score of 13000. I could of made one more little fishing village, but never got around to it. The main thing I did was chop rush two locations in the middle river then spread from there with the last city being the one in the middle of nowhere next to the capital. I did do a different arrangment of cities to spread out more and get more cities in, worked out well.

[Verrucosus]

Congratulations, poiyut00! That's quite impressive. Of course, having followed this thread as a lurker, I hope that Vel will still post his report.

P.S.: Don't you think that the circurlar railtrack design looks a bit weird from above? I just hope that those switchmen in the Russian desert are well trained!