Our Starting Location!!

[Hercules]

If the map is 80 x 100, I get first contact at 6 squares from the start position, assuming equal distribution. So, yeah, we'll be getting early contact.

Surely it has to be more than that?

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, I screwed up on my maths.

80 x 100 = 8000 squares.

Assuming equal linear distribution of all 8, that leaves roughly 1000 squares per team. 1000 squares = 32 squares in any direction.

Assuming that they travel in our direction and we travel in there's we'd have to go 23 squares before we would expect to find someone.

The best part, this is a general solution. It doesn't matter what direction you travel in. Even distribution assumes all are equidistant from one another.

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3211123
3210123
3211123
3222223
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1, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100,
121, 144, 169, 196, 225, 256, 289,
324, 361, 400, 441, 484, 529, 576,
625, 676, 729, 784, 841, 900, 961.

[plako]

I've presented this publicly concerning the size of the map: "Size - Huge (game setting) - In reality something between 80-100 x 40-60"

[DNK]

Scouting really needs to be a priority, and before barbs get clubs and arrows, when it turns into a hammer sink. 90x50... It's big for 9 teams. That's 22x22 for each team, or about 5x5 cities (20+ cities total with decent overlap). Assume we'll have mountains and lakes/oceans to go around regularly. This is a big start, and we need more scouts. Alliances start early, and we need contact and diplomatic context when dealing with our neighbors, which includes knowing their neighbors and their strategic situation (includes knowing their surrounding territory).

Furthermore, it helps espionage GREATLY to have visibility on cities. I can keep tabs on what buildings they have, what they are producing, and it just really improves my ability to give accurate information. 2 warriors isn't going to suffice. We might find 1 capital with vis to the city tile before second pop with that. I'd prefer 1 scout per team, at least for our direct neighbors. Later on, we should have more scouting the areas between us as an advanced recon force. Either way, pure workers/settlers, minimal military, and no scouts = mistake for such a super competitive 9-way FFA.

I have no doubt that mzprox (with Cal's praise) has the best economic starting scenario for the first city, but if we focus purely on growth we're going to get left behind on what's really important - diplomacy.

Also, fogbusting? When do the barb waves start on Emperor-normal? They aren't "raging", but then we have a lot of empty territory to concern ourselves with...

I'd recommend waiting on a settler and getting 3 scouts out earlier instead. If we can get them out early enough, we're a lot less likely to lose them to barbs. And for sure we'll need a few more later on as barbs do take the ones we have.

[mzprox]

The numbers are right, assuming 90*50 each team has 22*22 squares so the distance between the capitals is likely 17-25 tiles, which makes an early rush quite hard unless it's with chariots or impi.
If we don't start building granaries we can build 5/6 warrior/scout by turn 50. If the majority wants we can build a scout first instead of a warrior and send him scouting. The third build I think should be a warrior and should stay at home to escort the settler. If possible i'd rather use two warriors for that. In my test games whenever I sent my warriors away they were killed by animals eventually.

About barbs: with relatively big land (we don't know the sea level yet) we can expect big activity. I don't know when exactly warriors appear, but they are around at t45, and that point they can enter our territory already. it depends on number of cities/players, if it's above 2 they could enter our land. Since we (human players) don't start with archery it will take some time until we would see barb archers. Axemen and spearman will appear quite soon tough. (the barbarians are researching the necessary techs, don't remember the exact mechanism, but the more player has the tech the sooner it become available to the barbarians)

[DNK]

Seeing those capital cities before second pop is going to be quite helpful. I assume we can "backfill" our scouting with friendly neighbors and OB later, but for a few this likely won't be an option, and those few are exactly the ones we'll want the info on - basically we need to start scouting them very early to get it. I do think since we start with a warrior that the second build should be a scout instead.

[mzprox]

I'd rather hide until we can . If they don't know we exist they don't analyze our graphs, they don't start on evil plans etc.

[Calanthian]

Mz, I agree: only ONE scout ... otherwise it will slow down growth..

[Hercules]

I'd prefer 2 scouts but I could live with 1 and a chariot. I have to assume that we would discover horse resource within reach of our first 3 cities. But I think a decision on a second scout (or a 2MP unit)can be decided on once the game gets going.

[DNK]

Early alliances are going to pay far more dividends than a little lost growth. It will be that much easier to do diplomacy when we know all the people we're directly dealing with and all the people the people we're dealing with are dealing with. We're sacrificing a small percentage of growth for a lot of diplomatic/strategic info and early relationship building. A game like this isn't going to be won by outteching someone by 5%, but rather by building large alliances. I'd say our priorities are a little backwards. Chariots are always preferable to scouts, and we'll need them for fogbusting soon enough anyway. I assume there's a horse whinnying somewhere out in those great plains we have...

[mzprox]

I despise large alliances, they ruin the game.. i also don't like the 500 turns nap with everybody. we must be strog and if they happen to challenge us we must win.. I rather fight two civs that to be part of a "large" alliance" which has already won by size.

[Calanthian]

I despse large alliances, they ruin the game.. i also don't like the 500 turns nap with everybody. we must be strog and if they happen to challenge us we must win.. I rather fight two civs that to be part of a "large" alliance" which has already won by size.

Agreed. Fun first, winning second.

[Calanthian]

On an earlier post of DNK:

I'd recommend waiting on a settler and getting 3 scouts out earlier instead. If we can get them out early enough, we're a lot less likely to lose them to barbs. And for sure we'll need a few more later on as barbs do take the ones we have.

I absolutely do NOT agree.

An extra city early is way more important than these extra scouts.
The city increases everything (growth, production, tech) by another 20 to 30%. And these advantages are cumulative.

And as Mz stated: if we don't get stats on them, they don't get stats on us.

[Dinner]

I'd rather get a settler instead of a second scout. One scout should be enough early in the game especially since we do need to expand up to the size where we can get the national wonders then start REXing out.

[Calanthian]

So to wrap up this is the scenario we are going for:

techs: Hunting-AH-pottery-mining-BW
(t47)-writing

build order:
first city: worker-war-war-settler -worker- settler-worker--worker or settler

worker turns: farm corn
1 turn spent farming banana (cancel)
move to deer and build camp
move to forest 1 SE cow
pasture cow
build road 1 sw cow
build road on corn (finish it before moving settler to the hill)
continue farm on banana (second worker will help finishing it)
then cottage spam with the two workers working together
(first the grasland next to second city, then the floodplains)

important notes: just before the camp gets ready on deer the city works the +3 food tile instead of deer for exactly two turns. at pop 3 the city
must work on the +3 food tile and not on the cow. Benchmark: city grows to pop4 with no food overflow, warrior gets ready in the same turn with 2 hammers overflow. start building settlers. building settler at pop3 is a bit better in science, but behind in producion, so i prefer the pop4 settler.

And the part we are discussing is if the first warrior should be a scout. We did elaborate testing which is best.

As far as Mz and me are concerned this is the fastest scenario. Check out the situation at turn 50 which Mz posted, and that is the one to beat.

I sure as hell did my best to beat it, but didn't manage.