Great start (haven't had one of these in a while)

[joncnunn]

Actually the one problem with a Palace jump is there isn't a suitable nearby city for the FP other than Amsterdam itself.

Originally posted by Trip
We're talking serious Palace jump material here. Definitely wouldn't build anything too permanent in Amsterdam... Could raise productivity 2x by moving the capital west.

[joncnunn]

Mining wines is much better in the long run.

City will bump into size 12 limit quickly enough after leaving despotism with a granary.

After a hospital, even will all mined, it's going to have specalists.

Originally posted by Dominae
I would have irrigated the Wines. Other than that, you're looking good.

[joncnunn]

2 food + 1 shield is much more useful than 3 food and no shield, (even without considering GA) particlarly with no little tiles naturally having a shield.

Originally posted by Krill
Theseus:

grassland= 2 food
Wine= +1 food
irrigation= +1 food
Despotism= -1 food
Total food= 3 food


Make sense?

[joncnunn]

And probably won't until after building their own aquaducts and will also need timed to finish right before the cities grows to 8.

Originally posted by Theseus

One, at home.

The other towns don't have the irrigation yet to merit such, yet.

[Jon Shafer]

6 posts in a row... a new spamming record I think.

Originally posted by joncnunn
Actually the one problem with a Palace jump is there isn't a suitable nearby city for the FP other than Amsterdam itself.

I disagree... there's plenty of good FP locations. Utrecht with two cows and shielded grass comes to mind...

And mining the wines early on is a complete waste. Until you get to Republic they won't produce anything more than a regular grassland (with 1 extra gold). Irrigate them and you have extra food for a number of nearby cities.

You should be making it so that 3 cities can take advantage of all those irrigated wines, allowing for multiple Worker/Settler pumps. Giving them all to the same city is a waste.

[Arrian]

WTF??!! Since when can irrigated Wines generate 3 food under despotism?

Aren't you technically on the roster for Cake or Death (ptwdgII), Theseus? You should check out our forum once and a while.

That's how we got Izzardia to +5 fpt. 1 irrigated cattle on grass + 1 irrigated wine on grass. Under despotism. In Play the World.

...

I'm silly. I look at that start and think "not bad." My most recent game started on a river with several bonus grass, a ton of forest, and two hills. Nothing awesome, but nice, right? Well, 4 tiles southwest was a coastal spot that got a grass wheat and a couple bgrass tiles and some of the forest (yeah, overlap, grr! ). Veii therefore became my pump, first at +4fpt and then at +5 once I left despotism, whilst Rome build up to a major shield producer. Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, Sun Tzu, Sistine, Knights Templar, and currently building Smith's. In Rome alone. I got the other medieval wonders in my other cities. Yeah, it's Monarch, but still that's pretty solid for one city (all build fair 'n square, no SGLs - at least not there ). The rest of my land was pretty good - another major river system to the east, but with fair amount of jungle involved, huge mountain range to the north which became my border region, grass w/hills, plains, desert (in that order) to the south. 3 native luxuries. Easy access to iron (2 sources initially, got a 3rd via border pop - which led to a Dutch DoW, I think), difficult access to horses (offshore island). My only regret, which is an ongoing one, is that I just never seem to bring large numbers of Legionaries onto the battlefield. I want to play with them, but I always seem to hit the mid-middle ages before I'm really ready to contemplate a major war. I often end up pulling a Nathan (which to me = large horse -> cavalry upgrade followed by mass conquest). That's what happened in this game. I used my legionaries... on defense, and only when I was forced to because I lost the few early archers I had (not before Grog's Yeomen produced Maximus and he kindly polished off my Forbidden, though!) and literally HAD to use the legionaries to avoid losing cities (I was still worker-pumping/developing terrain. My cities weren't quite ready for the GA, damnit!). I already had feudalism, so I then lost the ability to build more legionaries.

I've had games of incredible luck, with great land, early settlers/SLGs, where I could build and fight full-tilt all at once. Just not as Rome, yet

-Arrian

p.s. The "Luckiest Game Ever Played" as I dubbed it included a settler from a hut and THREE ancient age SGLs. Oh, to have been Roman in that game (Hittites).

[joncnunn]

Still needs an aquaduct and maybe a Granary.

Originally posted by Trip

I disagree... there's plenty of good FP locations. Utrecht with two cows and shielded grass comes to mind...

[Jon Shafer]

FP is easy to build in a size 6 city, especially with those two cows. You don't need a Granary or an Aquaduct until later.

[Arrian]

This might not be right for Demigod with its higher corruption, but I'd shoot for the FP in Delft. A couple of forest chops to assist a courthouse, *maybe* a temple, and then straight on to build the FP.

edit: Yeah, probably doesn't need the temple, even on Demi, because he's got THREE luxuries available (nice!). Three luxes + 2 mp warriors... that should do nicely for the FP build.

As Krill notes, the cow cities are better utilized as worker pumps. More granaries Theseus!

-Arrian

[Krill]

Why build the FP before a granary? And why build it where you can have two 2 turn worker pumps? In this size empire I would have at least 6 worker pumps, using the wines and some cows. Maybe one cow near Utrect for the FP, because of the hills, but other than that I don't like the positioning. I would build the FP in Groningen and move the palace near the cowsand sugar in the bottom left of the picture.

[Jon Shafer]

I was just taking a quick glance at the landscape. It wasn't a highly scrutinized selection. My point is that there's plenty of locations which are fine for the FP. With this much land the earlier the Palace Jump the better... worth way more than a few extra Workers.

[Theseus]

I just can't do Palace Jumps... I suffer for it, I know, but I just can't; I'll move the Palace later, likely with an MGL.

FP in Groningen.

And don't ya know it: NO FRIGGIN' IRON!!

[Solomwi]

Saw that last part out of the corner of my eye and thought it said "NO FRIGGIN' PORN!! "

My first reaction was "Damn straight, I'd be depressed, too." My second reaction was "Wait, porn's everywhere." My third reaction was "Uh, wait again, I'm in the Strategy Forum, not the OT."

In any event, sorry to hear about the iron, T. Sounds like a good excuse to test out the effectiveness of archers and catapults on neighboring civs.

Edit: stupid homonyms.

[Arrian]

@ Solomwi.

If it makes you feel any better, Theseus, I just can't bring myself to do palace jumps either. I might if I played seafaring civs more often, I suppose.

...

I finally managed to use legions in decent numbers in my most recent Roman game (last night, *yawn* I was up to 1am). Two factors contributed: the early capture of Paris with a couple of archers and a SGL that showed up right before I discovered Invention. Paris happened because Rome built a barracks as its first build, since there was a hut that would pop when my borders expanded, and I was hoping for a settler (didn't get it). So with a few vet archers running around... well, the Frenchies were in trouble. The capture of Paris got me the site for my FP (courthouse first, then FP, built the hard way), a slave, wines (how appropriate), and two techs for peace. I went builder for quite some time, filling up the land that France & I would normally have split and developing my cities. I did a decent job of sticking with my worker pump (it kept on pumping until my GA in the mid-medieval, but now I feel I'm low on workers. 16 native plus some slaves with the Industrial Age looming). 4 native luxuries made happiness almost a non-factor. I had horsies and iron. Built the Great Library for no real good reason... Veii had started on the Pyramids but the Americans built those quite early (750bc) and I had nothing better to do, I guess. I got exactly 1 tech - Monarchy - from it. The GL was the only ancient wonder I built. Anyway, I got Leos earlier than normal via that SGL, cut my iron, built a bunch of warriors, and upgraded ~25 (on top of some I already had) legionaries. I also got Chivalry and upgraded some knights. I had made sure to build cats, so I had about 10 trebuchets to bring along as well. And so I picked a fight with dear Lizzie.

It was beautiful. See, when I first hooked up iron, waaaay back in the mid-ancient age, I upgraded maybe 5 legionaries, and sent several of them to fight barbarians. 2 or 3 were promoted elite doing that. The battle that triggered my GA also generated a MGL. That was cool. I took my time with England... although the 3x knight army sped things up a tad. Got a second MGL who waited for Cavalry. Casualties... come to think of it, I think I lost only 1 unit: an old elite warrior I was using to fish for MGLs. I honestly can't remember losing any other units. I usually remember the losses.

My GA really was an awesome time to be a Roman. I'd recently made contact with the other continent, and managed to swing trades to bring in 3 more luxuries, giving me 7. Sistine & Bach completed, and I captured the HG in London (got all the other medieval wonders too, helped along by 2 more SGLs). I am a river to my people.

I was pleased to see that the AIs on the other continent chewed up and spit out one of their neighbors (Spain), so there are two pretty strong AIs over there (Celts, Dutch). The Americans are actually the weak link, despite (or rather because of, IMO) the Pyramids. Well, the English, French and Spanish are weakest, but 1-2 city "civs" don't count. And I'll snuff Joan shortly.

I'm considering doing something I rarely do: leaving the an AI civ on my continent alone. Germany, in the far north, has nothing I really want. I could kill them, sure, but I could instead load up some galleons and go take away the Americans' two luxuries. That would stretch me just a little bit, which is a good thing, I figure.

-Arrian

[Aqualung71]

Theseus, your city spacing looks uncharatcterisically wide. That is, if I recall correctly that it was you who put about 100 cities on the home island in AU501

(I can't be bothered going back to check)