Lizzy's rise to greatness

[Calanthian]

@ Ozzy and Hercules: sorry guys to say it but the only way to judge that is playing this through in both variants into detail..
The 3rd city delivers very quickly and simply works very good (food plains)..



The horses can get hooked up pretty quickly..

In my variant the builds are: worker (3t)- worker (4t)- setttler (city 3) (6t)- settler (horse) (6 or 7t).
So in 19 or 20 turns + 3 turns travel time the horse city is built. I also tried the other way around so first 4th and then 3rd city.. but that is worse..

[DNK]

And we have to wait for the horse to actually get hooked up... We're getting close to not finding anyone until T100 now... I can't remember the last game I put contact off so long.

I don't think we should scout much more with warriors - they just aren't so useful once barbs are out, plus their speed is so slow they're more likely to die on the way than to actually make it to any other players. We need units that can make it to other players, scout their territory, then make it past those players to find their neighbors. Chariots have a much better chance of doing that, especially if we get them a visibility promotion after they take out a few barbs. That visibility promotion is also important for seeing the city tiles - very useful for keeping tabs on civs. And we need to do that before 1st and 2nd border pops make them out of range completely.

I would also suggest a barracks perhaps in the chariot city to get visibility quicker - it will save the chariots and improve scouting a lot long-term to make up for the short-term loss of production. This requires scheduling a barracks into a production city that will finish just as we hook up the horse.

[OzzyKP]

I agree with DNK.

Even if we have to make a temporary trade off in beakers & hammers, we need to do this. Our long term security and position in the game is going to be determined more by politics and information then it will bean counting. Obviously we want to keep up our excellent min/maxing, but we're in a very competitive game with some extremely talented foes we can't expect them to leave us alone as we tweak our way to victory.

Most of us wanted to build a scout early on to make contact right away but you two opposed it and suggested a compromise that we'd send out our first warrior instead. Well he ended up getting recalled for guard duty.

[Calanthian]

And we have to wait for the horse to actually get hooked up...

We don't need to wait.. It can be hooked up around turn 50.

Even if we have to make a temporary trade off in beakers & hammers, we need to do this. Our long term security and position in the game is going to be determined more by politics and information then it will bean counting.

Agreed. We really need to scout more. Let Bellerophon continue AND build chariots around turn 50.

[mzprox]

city3 is important there to help us grow the cottages, we can however switch the oder how we found them. going for horse city first results in less science, but more production. I will make a testgamew for that too.

[Calanthian]

Mz, when you check my first test game (the first build schedule, a few threadpages back) you can explore that possibility.

There is room for improvement in that test game..

[Calanthian]

Just took a look around. Didn't play a thing..

[mzprox]

Moved warrior2 SE

Aurora will be founded in this turn, but I will do that later. I'm toying with some idea hot to develop further. we have many great sites for food and production, however we don't really have too much to build: military units we can't have too many and we need more advanced ones than warriors anyway, granaryies, barracks are not top priority yet, more settlers/workers: possibly, but civ upkeep is rising.
I wouldn't mind building our next city next to the horse, I also like the city spot NW of the southern oasis, just one road and immediately can work on the oasis and even on Arora's cow 8while i can switch to more floodplain cottage). so many options..

[LzPrst]

I say we grab the horse first. I know the value of those extra cottages, but in a game like this I believe paranoid>meticulous

[Hercules]

This sounds more like it guys, but I will wait for the test game results based on city 3 W of the horse and on that city NW of oasis option.

Meanwhile it looks like Belle's next move will be S to the hill.

To the east looks like desert.

I wonder if plako designed the map such that the civs have desert buffer zones east and west.

[mzprox]

Aurora is founded. There is problem though, in the actual map the city 'distant from palace' cost is much higher than those in our test maps. 1,72 vs 1,13. this means that we pay one gold more for maintenance which is at this stage about 10% of our entire income. This will affect our science rate and might affect our plan for further development. Would be nice if someone could create a test map which has the same maintenance costs. (obviously the map we are playing on is quite biger than the huge settings)

[Calanthian]

If the map is bigger, and maintenance is higher, then it would be logical to get those cottages going first..
As we will be farther away from our competition.

[LzPrst]

should we have another vote on whether to settle horses before flood plain? I am a bit uncertain. A good tech lead is always healthy, but it could invite hostility as well. a good production rate is often preferred to income in my book, but with the cost of cities being higher, we may need that gold even more than we thought.

what was the delay? if we build city 3 for the flood plains, was it 20 more turns before we could settle the horses? wouldnt 2 settlers back to back be the best option, then a ton of workers to catch up with the land improvement?

if anyone has second thoughts on their votes, please speak now.

[Calanthian]

my builds in Apolyton would be : worker - worker - settler - settler

So there would only be 7 or 8 turns between both cities.

[Dinner]

I want the flood plain then the horses settled. I'm fine with worker, worker, settler, settler if we really can get it done in 7-8 turns. After that build a scout and let him run wild.