Where Do We Settle Next?

[Sullla]

Originally posted by regoarrarr
We've got to have iron at the capital, don't we? I know we've all made fun of the scenario designer (and not without good reason!) but even a regular map you'd think the odds were pretty high that iron would be near our capital

Yeah, I should have mentioned that I was more or less covertly assuming that we would have iron at the capital. I cannot possibly image a customized map that would leave a team with no copper, horses, or iron within 4-5 tiles of the start.

Then again, I also couldn't imagine a map where there were no copper or horses on the entire western half of a continent, and a map where giving one team gold/furs and the neighboring team wines/silks are treated equally... So caution might be in order here.

We definitely don't NEED to push to the Twin Peaks area for red, as I can't see another civ beating us there. Another worker might be a good idea, I just worry that we'll reach the happy cap pretty fast with no resources to speak of. Guess we can do some chopping though, right? How many military units to build is entirely dependent on what the other teams do, so we'll keep an eye on the Soldier count and see what develops. Better safe than sorry, obviously.

[darrelljs]

Interesting...I usually am at 5-6 Workers by my third city, 9 Workers by my sixth city, and 12 Workers by my ninth city. Terrain changes things of course but that's pretty much my par. I'd definitely favor another Worker prior to the Settler, at which point we might as well wait for Iron Working . Based on what I've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised if we had no Iron in reach.

Darrell

[Sullla]

Zeviz has suggested in the turn player thread that we produce a settler next in the capital. I more or less concur, but would like to make one or two slight modifications and elaborate a larger strategy behind the idea. Immediately speaking, I'd like to see us train a second archer next, so that we can have one for each of our two cities, and provide a little more deterrent in terms of Solider rating. (We can train an archer in a mere 2 turns at 13 shields/turn too!) After that, however, I would indeed favor a settler for a third city - and I think we should send him to BLUE location. Here's why...

1) We don't gain much benefit from growing the capital beyond size 4 at this point. As mentioned above, we can run 13 shields/turn at zero growth for impressive early game production, especially considering that we're using all of ONE resource there. In terms of raw numbers, that's the best use of our land there right now. We'll want to add some cottages soon enough, just not for another 20-25 turns. At the moment, building settlers and workers at the capital is better for our growth curve, IMO.

2) Holding the capital at size 4 means we don't need additional worker actions there at the moment - so we can stick with our current two workers a little longer. We absolutely will need more workers very soon. However, I favor going settler THEN worker, so that we can start growing and working tiles at the new city sooner. For the immediate future, I envision the capital running zero growth and producing settlers/workers while Pink runs high growth and focuses on military.

3) Why Blue? Because it won't require much defense at this point. By the time that we're ready to found it, the Templar scouting quechua will be out of the picture, and no other team will even know it's there. We can take along a single archer and feel quite safe. The biggest issue with founding Red right now is that we'd need to make a substantial defensive commitment in that location, which we're not (quite) ready to do yet. Since the spot is probably not going to be taken in the next 25 turns, we can grab Blue first, get some commerce going there from sea + floodplains tiles, then go after Red (or iron location) with our NEXT settler, which will be produced right around the time that we finish researching Iron Working.

4) Again, why should we care about Blue? Beyond purely economic benefit, we can gain a strategic advantage as well. By settling in that coastal location, we can build a work boat and send it around the northern ice (hopefully!) to go scout and contact the other civs on the eastern continent. Now this does require researching Fishing... but Fishing is the cheapest tech in the game, and will take all of 4 turns to knock out. I would actually recommend that we swap right *NOW* to Fishing (as it's an optional prerequisite for Pottery that will cheapen the cost), THEN research Pottery, then Iron Working. We will finish this research path in about ~25 turns, which will be just enough time to go archer -> settler -> worker -> archer -> settler in the capital, and be ready to grab a spot wherever iron might be (or Red if we already have iron).

Anyway, that was what I came up with last night while mulling over our situation. I'd like to hear what the rest of you think, and if this is a path worth pursuing.

[ruff_hi]

I like the idea of getting a boat into the water to meet the other CIVs. And sending it North will hide this from Templars and Imperio and hide it from PAL until we actually make contact.

One other option is to slip a library in there too (extra beakers, ability to run scientists) but this might be a few turns too many. We could always whip it - but our capital takes soooo long to grow.

Edit: Ignore me - I'm a loonie - we'll need writing for a library and (as someone already pointed out), writing opens up 'open borders' and that could / will blow our bluff.

[darrelljs]

I like the plan, as long as we build a Worker after the Settler at our capital.

Darrell

[sunrise089]

I strongly agree with Sullla's thoughts - call me paranoid, but defending 2 cities against enemies that may have horses in the near-future without metal isn't my idea of conservative play

[regoarrarr]

And isn't Fishing a "military" tech too to further play along our Soldier points bluff :-D

[Zeviz]

Accidental double-post.

[Zeviz]

I agree with most of Sulla's suggestions. I was also going to suggest Blue Dot next, but for a slightly different reason: Blue Dot is a much stronger location, so it will start giving economic benefit sooner. Red Dot is more strategic, but Imperio is expanding to the south, and Templars have too much good land next to them to found a city close to our capital just to spite us. (They also don't sound like the kind of team to do that. Especially with their weak start.) So Blue Dot will be a more useful city in the immediate future.

If we are going to train second archer, I suggest our first archer explore northern part of our peninsula before returning to the capital. This way we will be sure there is no ice blocking that path and there is no copper/iron there. (I have a nightmare of the only source of metal on our continent being in that tundra. )

About Workboat, PAL stated that they control the crossing between continents, and our scouting confirms this so far. So we'd need to get OB with PAL to contact other civs.

[regoarrarr]

Well what PAL said was

Our island is made up of us, Banana and Rabbit, we are the only team that has access to your island and also the only team to be placed on the west coast of the island - Therefore it is pretty unlikely you will meet the other 2 teams until caravels.

So I don't know that that means that we NEED open borders with them to get past their lands, though it's certainly possible.

I'm not looking at the map so I can't see what the intra-continent waters look like.

[ruff_hi]

take a look at the last screen shot in the screen shot thread (I knew that thread would be useful!). In particular, look at the distance between the two land masses near the 4,000 beavers and 3,000 fish - just NE of Impario's capital. You can easily (really easily) get a boat from our land mass to theirs. PAL is just smoking something with that statement of theirs - it is just plain wrong.

[Zeviz]

In that case I agree with immediate switch to Fishing, and getting a scouting workboat out ASAP.

If we agree with change in research priority, can somebody log in and make the change about 10 hours from now? (To give people enough time to comment on it.)

[mostly-harmless]

Research is set for Pottery at the moment.
Is there a consensus for settling Blue Dot next instead of Red Dot?
In that case it makes sense to switch to Fishing now. After all we need it not just for scouting, but also to net the clams for Blue Dot.
I think as long as the turn is not completed by all teams we can still switch.
So hands up please.

Furthermore:
The undiscovered tundra tile in the north of Airstrip One is covered by forests, as can be seen from tile bleeding, so does not hold any metal.
I am not in favor of sending our archer on a long mission to the north just for scouting.
Regarding ice blockage, the north of Imperios land is much more critical. Our northern scout should clear that northern coast first.

Btw. our southern scout remains unmoved for this turn?
I guess this is to wait for Imperio to make their settler move?
I personally think it is save to move the scout towards a general south westerly course. 1. We can see Imperios second city from their borders from a distance and we know all the lands to judge the resources. 2. There is a small possibility that IMperios settles in a weird way and traps our scout.
Any thoughts on this?
I am in favour of moving the scout (still possible I think) 1SE & 1S on that forested hill.

Regarding the PAL message. I understand their statement in a way, that they are the only civ that has currently the possibility to make contact with our continent via cultural borders.

mh

[ruff_hi]

I vote switch - however, the only down side of not switching is that we put 1 turn's research into pottery without the 'knowing fishing' bonus. It is going to take us a few turns to get the settler to blue dot to actually settle the city to build the boat to ...

[sooooo]

Sullla's plan looks well thought out. I'll be willing to support it.