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I played these very different early games yesterday.
In the first, as Washington (Financial/Organised) starting with Fishing and Agriculture. City starts on plains hills so gets 2/2/1 centre tile. It has a freshwater lake and several sea tiles. Visible resources are clams, cattle and rice. Emperor level.
Although I can build my settler at the start in 20 turns, I will get little gold in the early game. So plan was therefore to build the boat first so that the extra three gold from the coastal square boosts tech development to get me to bronze-working quickly. Working the clam square produces 22 food which will be converted to 30 production. It’s an even better conversion rate with a granary since you only need 13 food needed to get from size 2 to size 3 – and unless you find any “happy” tiles, you’ll be stuck on 3 for some time.
I had made some reasonably accurate estimates that it would take 24 turns to produce a settler by this method compared to 20 turns if I started to build one from scratch. I have also got myself an unhappy face for 10 turns in my capital (which is no big deal). On the plus side I have an improved tile, one extra health, 21 more hammers (mixed between barracks and warrior) and an extra 48 gold (all invested in technology). I think the extra benefits here more than outweigh the delay in building a settler from day 1.
Looking longer term, I worked out that I even planned getting a worker, another settler, and a route through to granary , library and academy as soon as possible
In playing this through I made a few miscalculations in timing. First, I had not allowed for the 40 years of anarchy in adopting slavery. But this was not important since this would probably been a hit anyway. The second was that I had assumed whipping could take place one turn earlier than it would have been allowed - when production plus 30 hammers was enough to finish production rather than the game engine which needs the whipping to be able to complete production alone. I also found that there were times when it appeared that the game would not let me whip two population when just one would have be insufficient. Finally, I forgot that I needed to invent wheels before working on pottery and writing.
On the positive side, the bronze-working tech revealed bronze in my capital radius which allowed a more balanced strategy of whipping and working. This was an added bonus to fight the significant barbarian threat that seemed to emerge earlier than I had expected, and in larger numbers. In fact, the switch to axemen building was a major diversion from the objective of building an academy in the capital by 1000 BC.
All in all, with a little more work on the slavery option, I think the early flogging of flesh for production can be a very useful tool. If you can fast-track to bronze-working (preferably starting with mining) and have a nearby sea-tile to develop, this makes a useful alternative first-stage strategy
The second run was with Gandhi (Spiritual, Industrious) who starts with Mining and Mysticism. The city tiles are woods, river plains, flood plains and…..STONE!!!!!
Now I’ve often thought that Gandhi started with such hopeless traits and techs that my options would be limited. However, it seems that India does have probably the most valuable of all the unique units and this could be reason alone for selecting this civilisation.
However, in this case, the correct strategy is to go straight for the masonry and then build the pyramids. There might be arguments for building next to the stone and then making a quarry for the extra two production but I think the time needed to build a worker is wasted and can be used simply to grow the city up to 3 population if the city itself is placed on the stone. Either way, the Pyramids is a wonder where the leader traits are extremely useful. With 7 hammers at +100% production (stone) and +50% wonder production (industrious), the pyramids take 27 turns to complete. And with spiritual I can switch freely between government civic to suit the needs at the time.
Rush building unhappiness : Switch to representation (+3 happy in 5 cities) or monarchy (+1 happy per military unit)
Building military: Switch to police state (+25% production)
Employing specialists: Representation gives +3 beakers/specialist.
In the long term the building cost of 189 production (270 were “free”) will be recovered after building military units (under police state) worth 950 hammers which would barely be sufficient to buy a small mediaeval army. So I can only think that my biggest loss will be the delay in settling other areas and claiming key strategic points on the map. To be honest, I think that I might even be able to catch up on this if you consider the happy bonuses I can apply if my people get unhappy about being turned into production units.
In the first, as Washington (Financial/Organised) starting with Fishing and Agriculture. City starts on plains hills so gets 2/2/1 centre tile. It has a freshwater lake and several sea tiles. Visible resources are clams, cattle and rice. Emperor level.
Although I can build my settler at the start in 20 turns, I will get little gold in the early game. So plan was therefore to build the boat first so that the extra three gold from the coastal square boosts tech development to get me to bronze-working quickly. Working the clam square produces 22 food which will be converted to 30 production. It’s an even better conversion rate with a granary since you only need 13 food needed to get from size 2 to size 3 – and unless you find any “happy” tiles, you’ll be stuck on 3 for some time.
I had made some reasonably accurate estimates that it would take 24 turns to produce a settler by this method compared to 20 turns if I started to build one from scratch. I have also got myself an unhappy face for 10 turns in my capital (which is no big deal). On the plus side I have an improved tile, one extra health, 21 more hammers (mixed between barracks and warrior) and an extra 48 gold (all invested in technology). I think the extra benefits here more than outweigh the delay in building a settler from day 1.
Looking longer term, I worked out that I even planned getting a worker, another settler, and a route through to granary , library and academy as soon as possible
In playing this through I made a few miscalculations in timing. First, I had not allowed for the 40 years of anarchy in adopting slavery. But this was not important since this would probably been a hit anyway. The second was that I had assumed whipping could take place one turn earlier than it would have been allowed - when production plus 30 hammers was enough to finish production rather than the game engine which needs the whipping to be able to complete production alone. I also found that there were times when it appeared that the game would not let me whip two population when just one would have be insufficient. Finally, I forgot that I needed to invent wheels before working on pottery and writing.
On the positive side, the bronze-working tech revealed bronze in my capital radius which allowed a more balanced strategy of whipping and working. This was an added bonus to fight the significant barbarian threat that seemed to emerge earlier than I had expected, and in larger numbers. In fact, the switch to axemen building was a major diversion from the objective of building an academy in the capital by 1000 BC.
All in all, with a little more work on the slavery option, I think the early flogging of flesh for production can be a very useful tool. If you can fast-track to bronze-working (preferably starting with mining) and have a nearby sea-tile to develop, this makes a useful alternative first-stage strategy
The second run was with Gandhi (Spiritual, Industrious) who starts with Mining and Mysticism. The city tiles are woods, river plains, flood plains and…..STONE!!!!!
Now I’ve often thought that Gandhi started with such hopeless traits and techs that my options would be limited. However, it seems that India does have probably the most valuable of all the unique units and this could be reason alone for selecting this civilisation.
However, in this case, the correct strategy is to go straight for the masonry and then build the pyramids. There might be arguments for building next to the stone and then making a quarry for the extra two production but I think the time needed to build a worker is wasted and can be used simply to grow the city up to 3 population if the city itself is placed on the stone. Either way, the Pyramids is a wonder where the leader traits are extremely useful. With 7 hammers at +100% production (stone) and +50% wonder production (industrious), the pyramids take 27 turns to complete. And with spiritual I can switch freely between government civic to suit the needs at the time.
Rush building unhappiness : Switch to representation (+3 happy in 5 cities) or monarchy (+1 happy per military unit)
Building military: Switch to police state (+25% production)
Employing specialists: Representation gives +3 beakers/specialist.
In the long term the building cost of 189 production (270 were “free”) will be recovered after building military units (under police state) worth 950 hammers which would barely be sufficient to buy a small mediaeval army. So I can only think that my biggest loss will be the delay in settling other areas and claiming key strategic points on the map. To be honest, I think that I might even be able to catch up on this if you consider the happy bonuses I can apply if my people get unhappy about being turned into production units.
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