Metaliturtle's Strategy Thread

[Arrian]

The reason I dislike coastal spots is that you typically need to build both workboats and workers... they can be quite powerful, but they take a while to "get going." They're also often a bit hammer poor.

I like start sites with a good balance of food and hammers... preferably with some commerce too, of course. I want to be able to hit the city's happy cap and switch over to food equalibrium and gain a bunch of hammers by so doing. Ideally, this means a couple of mined plains hills.

Some coastal sites work for me... but mostly not. Given the tech path I'm shooting for, I won't be chopping forests or whipping.

-Arrian

[wodan11]

The reason I dislike coastal spots is that you typically need to build both workboats and workers... they can be quite powerful, but they take a while to "get going." They're also often a bit hammer poor.

Hunh. I find they "get going" faster than land spots.

the only even slight negative is that you need to research both fishing and whatever land techs (ag, mining, roads).

I like start sites with a good balance of food and hammers... preferably with some commerce too, of course.

That seems to me the very definition of a coastal spot.

[Krill]

Hunh. I find they "get going" faster than land spots.

the only even slight negative is that you need to research both fishing and whatever land techs (ag, mining, roads).

Someone (I think it was Diadem?) showed that starting with a workboat when you have both fish and irrigated corn is the fastest start you can get.

The problem with this is that you have to start with fishing. If you don't start with fishing, then coastal starts do suck, because you have to build a worker at the start and then either complete that before a workboat, or fit in the workboat in the middle of the build, and both of these are slower than just building the workboat straight off.

The main point is that starting techs adjust the relative quality of a start. On a lond locked start the variation isn't that much though, because even going worker first, you should have enough time to get the required techs to start improving (either via chopping or farming/pasturing) before the worker is finished, but in the case of coastal starts you need fishing to make them "better" than land locked starts.

[Krill]

That seems to me the very definition of a coastal spot.

River grasslands > coast.

Hell, Grasslands > coast, unless you land collosus. And then you get ocean. A land locked capital with 10 grasslands and 1 irrigated corn is definately better than a coastal capital with 2 clams as a bureaucracy capital, the coastal start has to make up with it by starting quicker, and that depends on the surrounding lands...

[sorinache]

In another thread someone (I think rah or Arrian) mentioned that there are precious few techs they will trade to an AI. sorinache, are there any techs you don't trade that help you gain a tech advantage when you're not in an isolated start?

It will depend on the specific AI that wants to trade and of course on the specific tech. Generally speaking, I give anything - the only nuance is WHEN ! I won't for instance trade Philosophy until I've already been the first to research Liberalism, I won't trade Rifling unless I already have Assembly Line, I won't exchange Nationalism until I am 1 turn away from completing the Taj ...

I consistently give AIs a better than even deal : I would for instance consider giving Theology (800+ beakers) in exchange for CoL (500+ beakers) - this is because my main interest in Theo was founding Christianism, because doing such a trade is easy and improves my relations with the AI and because I can do it several times : a second AI would get Theo in exchange for Currency (600+), a third one would get it for Calendar (500+). All three would happily accept this deal and I, for my part, would have leveraged my investment in Theo

[Arrian]

Hunh. I find they "get going" faster than land spots.

the only even slight negative is that you need to research both fishing and whatever land techs (ag, mining, roads).

That's not a slight negative if you're aiming at a very narrow window and must stick pretty closely to a particular tech path to pull it off.

Workboats are cool and all, don't get me wrong, but having to build BOTH workboats and workers to really get the site going means I'm putting less into other ultra-early builds (such as, say, a barracks and some immortals).

That seems to me the very definition of a coastal spot.

Really? It's not my experience at all. Seafood is all food/commerce, and no hammers. You need to get the hammers out of the hills, which, w/o a river means 0 commerce from those tiles. I find coastal starts to be weighted too much toward food, too little toward hammers for my taste. Commerce varies (it can be quite good if you are FIN and start with clams/crabs or even the sweet coastal fish, but often it's just ok).

Let's consider two capitals:

1) On river, using 5 tiles - plains cow on river (3f, 3h, 1c), grassland rice on river (5f, 1c), mined grass hill on river (1f, 3h, 1c), mined plains hill off river (4h) and plains forest (1f, 2h). Total: 12f, 13h, 12c (8 from palace, +1 from river, +3 from river tiles).
2) Coastal, using 2 crabs (4f, 2c each), 1 ocean fish (5f, 1c), and 2 mined plains hills (4h each - though I rarely seem to get coastal starts with unforested plains hills available like that) Total: 15f, 9h, 13c (15c if you're FIN). If you have a plains forest or grass forest hill available, you could go 11f, 11h, 12 (14) c.

See the unbalance in the coastal start? High food, meh hammers, solid commerce. And, like I said, I rarely seem to get coastal starts with plains hills I can mine w/o Bronzeworking (a tech I usually cannot afford to get before the slingshot, unless I pop it from a hut).

It's not like having lots of food sucks. It's just that the best use of a big food surplus is to build settlers/workers and/or whip things. Again, no BW for me early on, typically, so whipping is out. Settlers/workers are great and all, but most of my expansion is going to be post-slingshot (when I will not only get BW, but I will have math, so I will get max value from forest chops) or via a rush.

YMMV. I don't like coastal starts. That does not mean they suck. Not at all. They just don't work for me. That's mostly about my playstyle.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Regarding tech trades with the AI... I do typically trade with the AI as little as possible, and I do my best to rip them off. Nice guy, aren't I? This is an empire building game, after all. Empires are usually pushy bastards.

The amount I need to trade with the AI is inversely proportional to how well I'm doing. If I've opened up a nice lead, I will only trade really old, mostly useless techs to fill in gaps (my tech gaps are usually archery, HBR and drama) and acquire world maps. If things are closer, I may have to actually cough up something of real value (Code of Laws, for instance). But I hate doing it. When it comes to the AI, I'm the Man. I try to keep it down.

-Arrian

[wodan11]

The problem with this is that you have to start with fishing. If you don't start with fishing, then coastal starts do suck, because you have to build a worker at the start and then either complete that before a workboat, or fit in the workboat in the middle of the build, and both of these are slower than just building the workboat straight off.

Clearly you make the worker first as if the fish didn't exist. Once the worker is out THEN you make the boat. This is no different than corn with NO fish.

Clearly corn + fish is better than corn + nothing, even if you have to research fishing.

The problem comes if you have fish + nothing AND don't start with Fishing. But, this is equivalent to a land start with no Ag resource. Or a land start without Ag.

So I guess I'm saying I don't think your argument works, no matter the situation.

The main point is that starting techs adjust the relative quality of a start.

Duh.

On a lond locked start the variation isn't that much though, because even going worker first, you should have enough time to get the required techs to start improving (either via chopping or farming/pasturing) before the worker is finished, but in the case of coastal starts you need fishing to make them "better" than land locked starts.

So? And if you have gems or gold, you need Mining to make them better. Or if you have cows/pigs/sheep, AH.

River grasslands > coast.

How so?

Hell, Grasslands > coast, unless you land collosus.

We're talking starting builds, not 1000 years later.

And then you get ocean. A land locked capital with 10 grasslands and 1 irrigated corn is definately better than a coastal capital with 2 clams as a bureaucracy capital, the coastal start has to make up with it by starting quicker, and that depends on the surrounding lands...

Define "better" please.

For one thing, I daresay you're forgetting coasts have better routes.

Workboats are cool and all, don't get me wrong, but having to build BOTH workboats and workers to really get the site going means I'm putting less into other ultra-early builds (such as, say, a barracks and some immortals).

OTOH you're growing while you build the boat, and once it's done you're making the worker faster than your size 1 city AND you're getting 2 or 3 commerce all the while.

Rework your example without the river, please. Or, grant the river to the coastal capitol as well.

[Ming]

For all those people who don't whip or chop early, how can you even talk about getting off to a fast start.

I hope you all want to play MP some time and see what a fast start really means

[Krill]

You do know that you just basically said that 1>0? And ignored every other aspect of the game to make that trivial statement?

Wodan, if you can't see by now I'm not going to help teach you why. I'm not a mathematician demonstrating a proof, having to walk you through every step if you don't get why something is trivial. You have a college degree, and seem fairly interested in the game, if you really wanted to make sure of what is better, go make a scenario and play out each opening to turn 30 an tote up the commerce, production and food each start gives you (and vary the resources, and distance of resources from the capital, and the amount of forests).

[Arrian]

For all those people who don't whip or chop early, how can you even talk about getting off to a fast start.

I hope you all want to play MP some time and see what a fast start really means

True, that!

But of course I've been pretty clear about what I'm trying to do in my games, and why it means no chopping.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Rework your example without the river, please. Or, grant the river to the coastal capitol as well.

Why would I do that? How often do you get a river with a coastal start that also has the goodies I gave the coastal start in my example? When you *do* get such a river, in my experience it might be 2 tiles long, max. I was trying to compare two good, but not incredible, starts. You're now asking me to spruce up the coastal start so it will win? Well hell, why not give it a gold hill too*? If I was to change my example at all, I might yank out a plains hill but give it a cow or somesuch. I realize now that I gave it purely coastal/oceanic resources. Most of the time you get at least 1 land resource too. That would be realistic.

I explained that I was comparing an inland river start to a coastal non-river start. Inland non-river starts suck (in general, for my playstyle, anyway), so I wouldn't bother arguing that they're better than coastal starts. Note the following, from my earlier post:

Some coastal sites work for me... but mostly not

Give me a good enough coastal start and sure, I'll play it. But *in general* I don't like the food/hammer balance I find in coastal starts.

Finally, in closing, I was explaining a PREFERENCE. I'm certainly *not* trying to assert that my preference is a rule of thumb. In my experience, given what I'm trying to do (Prince level, hemispheres maps, standard other rules, attempt at CS slingshot + early rush if possible), a good river start > a good coastal start. If you want to doctor it up so the good inland start is up against a great coastal start... whatever, dude.

-Arrian

* Another thing one could do to make the coastal start more desirable & address the food/hammer balance would be to specify a CHA civ. +1 happy to start & +1 another happy with monument means my "happy cap" is 7, not 5. All that lovely food can fuel rapid growth to size 7, and hopefully there are enough hills/forest (plains forest or hill forest or plains hill forest) to soak up the food & provide hammers, so that at size 7 I can be at or near equalibrium whilst getting solid production. That's what I'm after here.

[wodan11]

You do know that you just basically said that 1>0? And ignored every other aspect of the game to make that trivial statement?

What statement are you referring to?

And yes I agree it was a trivial statement. I was trying to understand YOUR statement and yes I feel you said basically 1>0.

Wodan, if you can't see by now I'm not going to help teach you why. I'm not a mathematician demonstrating a proof, having to walk you through every step if you don't get why something is trivial.

If it was trivial then it wouldn't need a demonstration.

All too often, people on here just state "X is better" and don't say why and how.

When asked for why and how, you say "if you can't see by now I"m not going to teach you". That's a cop out, I think anyone would agree.

You have a college degree, and seem fairly interested in the game, if you really wanted to make sure of what is better, go make a scenario and play out each opening to turn 30 an tote up the commerce, production and food each start gives you (and vary the resources, and distance of resources from the capital, and the amount of forests).

I've done that before and if I have time this weekend will do so again, but frankly it's not necessarily up to me. You've made some unasserted claims that you should back up yourself.

For example, "River grasslands > coast".

Are you pretending to help newbies or what? How the heck does that statement do anything at all for them? Why, if someone asks you to explain yourself, do you feel entitled to say "I'm not going to bother."

Seriously, share your knowledge with the rest of us, or please don't bother participating in the conversation. It doesn't help any.

Having a discussion on what's the best start, how it's affected by starting techs, and which leads to the better game position is VERY worthwhile. But, without the knowledge of WHY and HOW a start results in a superior position (as well as a discussion of what "superior" is defined as), an unasserted claim is worthless.

Why would I do that?

Because it's apples to oranges otherwise, and also because in my experience it's not valid.

How often do you get a river with a coastal start that also has the goodies I gave the coastal start in my example? When you *do* get such a river, in my experience it might be 2 tiles long, max.

Depends on the mapscipt. Most mapscripts are designed to give the starting position fresh water. That means either a lake or a river. Furthermore, many mapscipts are designed to give a river (not a lake).

To answer your question, I would say "always" but I won't rule out it hasn't ever happened or won't ever happen.

I was trying to compare two good, but not incredible, starts. You're now asking me to spruce up the coastal start so it will win?

I feel you did exactly that by giving one a river but not the other.

[Krill]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Not growing your cities is a serious negative.

OTOH you're growing while you build the boat, and once it's done you're making the worker faster than your size 1 city AND you're getting 2 or 3 commerce all the while.

Hunh. I find they "get going" faster than land spots.

Your unasserted claims. Pot, Kettle?

So you can prove all of the above hold true 100% of the time. I'm not going to tell n00bs exactly why everything is just so. It's a strategy game, and if they aren't going to think about it then they can go play Red Alert 3, or stick at the level they are already at.

Me, I'm happy laughing at some of the stupid statements I see, and occasionally killing people in an MP game when I'm bored.

[ZEE]

This is why this forum needs a PvP Dual-Challenge board.