This forum is growingly inactive. Time to ignite some discussion.
I remember reading multiple times in expert circles that as Thor on Ghost Lake, you should not immediately cast Thor mine, but use your initial dwarves on huntables and save the Thor mine for later. However, I never saw a proper reason being given for this, so I wonder what the idea behind it is.
Ghost Lake always has a couple high-food huntables near your home base, either boars or auroxens. In addition, there is usually at least one tasty elk herd not too far from your base.
However, right at game start you sometimes see no huntables yet. Saving Thor mine would mean using your initial dwarves on berries until you have scouted something better. If you do see the huntables, saving Thor mine means you will not be able to afford the Pig Sticker upgrade early on. Sounds like a significant disadvantage.
In my naivity, the only reasons that I can see for saving Thor mine are:
Sometimes, Ghost Lake has ridiculously few remote gold mines, like only 2 or something like that. Under these circumstances, having a Thor mine in stock can make a considerable difference in the later ages.
Most of the times, you only have 1-4 boars or auroxens at home. Enough food to start out with hunting, but perhaps not enough hunting to justify the investition of another 100 gold for Pig Sticker? Of course you could move on to elks after doing your home hunt, but by the time you get there, classical age is reached, and your remote hunters are extremely vulnerable to raids on this open map. I found that in many cases remote hunting is not worth the risk on this map, for it is not hard for the enemy to predict the location of your hunters if he has scouted the available hunting properly in archaic.
Since your home animals on Ghost Lake are ones that fight back, using the sturdy dwarves with their additional hp helps in killing your first prey. If you used them on the Thor mine instead, you would have to lure the animal into TC fire. If that is not possible, you would have to live on berries with your first vills until you have accumulated enough vills so you can confront an ox or boar (using your cart as a decoy as usual)
But on the other hand:
Doing without the initial Thor mine can severely delay your classical advance. Especially against non-Eggy gods, an early advance time is important on this map.
If you use your initial dwarves on food first and redirect them to gold later, they will have an added distance to travel from their last food site to your gold mine.
Even if the amount of hunting is arguable on this map, you always have a couple animals near your home base that fight back. Getting Pig Sticker early definitely helps here, but is only possible if you use your initial dwarves on the Thor mine.
All of the above reasons and counter-reasons are pretty much speculative. I would like to hear some explanation from someone who really has some insight as to why experts recommend not using the Thor mine at game start on this map - and whether this recommendation applies to all opposing gods, including Loki and Kronos.
Darkness is a state of mind
Valor is the contempt of Death and Pain. (Tacitus)
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back. (Piet Hein)
I remember reading multiple times in expert circles that as Thor on Ghost Lake, you should not immediately cast Thor mine, but use your initial dwarves on huntables and save the Thor mine for later. However, I never saw a proper reason being given for this, so I wonder what the idea behind it is.
Ghost Lake always has a couple high-food huntables near your home base, either boars or auroxens. In addition, there is usually at least one tasty elk herd not too far from your base.
However, right at game start you sometimes see no huntables yet. Saving Thor mine would mean using your initial dwarves on berries until you have scouted something better. If you do see the huntables, saving Thor mine means you will not be able to afford the Pig Sticker upgrade early on. Sounds like a significant disadvantage.
All of the above reasons and counter-reasons are pretty much speculative. I would like to hear some explanation from someone who really has some insight as to why experts recommend not using the Thor mine at game start on this map - and whether this recommendation applies to all opposing gods, including Loki and Kronos.
Darkness is a state of mind
Valor is the contempt of Death and Pain. (Tacitus)
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back. (Piet Hein)