All Leaders Challenge Game #7: Frederick/Germany

http://www.civfanatics.net/%7Ecivrules/Article/Leaders/FredrickSM.jpg

Pre-Game Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178629)

Round 0: 4000 BC
Round 1: to 3400 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4323837&postcount=84)
Round 2: to 2920 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4328836&postcount=123)
Round 3: to 975 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4333586&postcount=139)
Round 4: to 50 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4339416&postcount=148)
Round 5: to 720 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4360170&postcount=195)
Round 6: to 1200 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4366549&postcount=215)
Round 7: to 1530 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4370840&postcount=239)
Round 8: to 1700 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4375543&postcount=263)
Round 9, Part 1: to 1852 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4390710&postcount=345)
Round 9, Part 2: to 1870 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4391111&postcount=349)
Round 10, Part 1: to 1920 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4401424&postcount=395)
Round 10, Part 2: to 1934 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4401625&postcount=398)
Post-Mortem (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4401704&postcount=399)

The idea of the All Leaders Challenge is that I'm going to play a game with each of the Civ IV leaders--mostly the less popular ones--that I haven't tried before on my current difficulty level, Prince. With the help of all the posters who participate, I will attempt to make the most of the leader's traits, starting techs, and UU. Aside from the leader, the other game settings are kept constant, at their defaults, for the sake of comparison. I will post the saved game files, screenshots, and status reports here as the game progresses. Everyone then has a chance to chime in with their strategy ideas, or voice their frustration when I make a mistake. ;)

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible.

In this ALC game, I'm playing as Frederick II the Great (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II_of_Prussia), leader of Germany.

Here are the initial game settings:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred4000BC01.jpg

And the starting position:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred4000BC02.jpg

In the pre-game thread (link at the top of this post), we talked about trying something different in this game. Specifically, we discussed the idea of building the Pyramids as early as possible--stone or no stone. Then I'd switch to Representation and run a specialist economy in an attempt to leverage Frederick's Great Person-generating Philosophical trait.

Wonder-wise, I'm going to give Stonehenge a miss thanks to the Creative trait, but a secondary goal will be the Parthenon for more Great People points. Several people have also pointed out the advantages of also building the Oracle for a Metal Casting slingshot, followed by a forge, an Engineer specialist, and a GE who gets used to complete the Pyramids.

I'm going to take my time playing and posting the start to get as much guidance with this unfamiliar (to me, at least) strategy as possible. I've built the Pyramids on Prince, and I've also run specialists, but I can't say I've tried to exploit their combined synergy in this way before. I usually rely on cottage spam and haven't tried to run the economy off specialists.

Based on futurehermit's thread on this strategy (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178113), I'll be researching Bronze Working first. Correct me if I'm wrong. The recommended first city build is Worker - Settler. Freddy starts with Mining, which is great for this strat.

Also based on that thread, the start looks promising. No stone--I didn't think I'd be that lucky--but there's cows, a river, lots of trees for chopping, hills for production, and grassland for cott--er--farms. There's even a luxury resource at 6 o'clock.

The only reason I can think of moving is to settle on a plains hill for the one extra hammer. The Pyramids are expensive and eve

No problem with your suggestion, but my first thought was the plains hill to the west. You'll have river-protection from the north (given you're 'south of the border'), and there looks like more hills in the fat-X. The cows may be your best tile for your first working citizen, so you need not rely on a border-pop to get them.

It seems like a lot of mountains to the W. Not sure what's over the mountains. I agree with moving the Scout NE-SE, and I'd say, if you discover some more resources, go camping there, and maybe use the W hill for the second city (or third if you go for Copper first). As for working the cow tile, well, you ARE creative after all. :) You would expand to that very quickly, so that's not a problem.

I also agree that given what you want to accomplish Stonehenge is to be avoided. You have enough wonders to build as it is.

Edit: By the way, could you post the initial save for those who'd want to play a shaddow game? Thanks.

I think you should settle in place. You get the fresh water bonus, and that means that the unhealthy bonus of the forge is invalidated (fresh water bonus is +1 health, right?). It also means you start RIGHT away, and you need to do that for Pyramids first. If you settle in place, there will be 5 tree tiles to chop, which could come in handy. Since your second build is a settler, you can scout out good second city places whilst getting STRAIGHT to work on your worker. The start needs to go fast, because you won't be growing in pop for a few turns.

Woohoo and we are of again. I would really love the specialist economy. I hope you can pull it off. Forgoing on the stonehenge is obvious. No need for it. I really like the oracle -> metal casting -> GE route but it is tricky if you ask me. Never seen it work so suprise me and teach me ;)

Scouting NE and SE is the best course. Left side is all hills from what I can see so the hill to the NE might be good especially with the extra hammer. However you might be giving up 2 grassland hills for that.

You have a scout, use it!
2 moves is cool, i would go SW SW on the hill to see those West Mountains and the South coast (at least that's my fog guessing), then probably settle in place (if there is a gold or gem mine west, i would go for it).
tech? BW is good, but you need AH first. this cow is no good without it.

did I miss it, or is the save not attached?

you have a fun dillemma trying to get the starting spot. crazy ideas include settling on the wine. if you're willing to waste 2 turns, going ne then either nw or se depending on how it shakes out with the scout and heading 2 w with the settler?

settling on the wine is indeed crazy!
not better than settling on any usual plain hill, and losing the bonus...

IMHO there is either copper, iron or horses in the fat cross from the initial position. I'm doing a wild guess, but the plain to the east looks like a bonus tile (horses). If it's not there, it's under one of those plain hills.
That's why i would settle in place and mine all those hills even before knowing where the copper is.

I am really looking forward to this game, as I have not really run a specialist economy and tend to rely on cottages. The start looks good, and I would settle in place, but that reflects my cottage driven economy. The river plus the hills would make this a great city quickly. I would be tempted to settle in place, and see if a hut is revealed by the city, and go get it.

Looking at the hills and trees, I think you are near the southern end of your land mass, and you next 2 cities will be NE and NW of Berlin. (Man, the first turn is always like reading tea leaves.)

(Man, the first turn is always like reading tea leaves.)

so true :lol:

If you settle in place, it would be nice if your next couple of cities were on the river for an instant trade network. I would scout the river first, and go NW, W; or NE, SE.

My research prediliction is always BW first, but Cabert has a point about AH. If you are committed to specialists, then AH makes some sense, but if you are gonna push for the pyramids, you would want to chop. Still you can never go wrong with Bronze working.

If you settle in place, it would be nice if your next couple of cities were on the river for an instant trade network. I would scout the river first, and go NW, W; or NE, SE.

My research prediliction is always BW first, but Cabert has a point about AH. If you are committed to specialists, then AH makes some sense, but if you are gonna push for the pyramids, you would want to chop. Still you can never go wrong with Bronze working.

You can't start the mids right now anyway, and if you wanted to tech in the mids direction, you should go straight to masonry.

the cow gives food and hammers :o
exactly what you need for the pyramids (direct hammers + food to work a plains mine)


not being industrious and not having stone is making the pyramids very hard to get, you 'll need all the hammers available + a second city to build units while you build them.

AH is necessary if you ask me for the pyramids as Cabert has already pointed out. You will need the food and the hammers.

And I do think that a little south is a coast. You can see the river delta in the south which often is present in a river close to the coast.

Not sure it's really a delta. How does the starting point of the river look like? If it does look like that I'll bet it's a starting point, being near the mountains and all. Good catch though, I missed it the first time.

AH is necessary if you ask me for the pyramids as Cabert has already pointed out. You will need the food and the hammers.

And I do think that a little south is a coast. You can see the river delta in the south which often is present in a river close to the coast.

Are you sure that's the river delta? It's on a hill which means it's probably the headwaters. EDIT: dang, carl beat me to it.

I too would LOVE to see a specalist economy at work... I tried it and it worked OK for me. This could be very interesting since Sisiutil knows a heckuva lot more about Civ than I do. It seems very doable, especially after reading the great article by futurehermit.

if it's the river's source, then it's still good to see where you are.
My opinion is to send one scout in a general south direction, build another to send in a general north direction, then a worker. (then a warrior, then a settler, then pyramids)

Thx for the headwaters, I didn't know how to call it. The headwaters/riverdelta does connect four tiles so it is either a start or an end (propably the first). But I always see a lot of these babies spawning near the coast with only 1 or 2 river tiles in between.

I do agree with Caberts build but first quick surrounding check. If there is stone near then GREAT!!

I suggest settling in place. It looks as though any Hills to the west are Plains Hills, which, given the relatively low food start, cannot be worked efficiently anyway. However, that is an awesome sight to build The Pyramids from, having solid early game production with just enough food, given the happiness cap.

Worker/AH first, so that you can Pasture the Cows ASAP, as they are a great tile. You start with Mining and Hunting, so I would suggest one of Agriculture, The Wheel, or Bronze Working next. You want to complete Masonry sometime around when your first Settler completes, so that you can get an early start on The Pyramids.

Going for a The Oracle -> The Pyramids gambit is more viable on Prince than it would be on Monarch or Emperor (where futurehermit is attmepting to apply his specialist strategy), The Pyramids come earlier by flat out constructing them. In this case, completing The Oracle would mean earlier Metal Casting (not necessarily bad, but rememeber, Forges are very expensive to non-Industrious civs, at slightly over 1/4 the cost of The Pyramids themselves), but more significantly, it would deny someone else The Oracle.

I'm personally of the opinion that the slingshot is unnecessary, as is The Parthenon, though the latter has a greater impact on the early-mid game. Metal Casting is purely a solid trade piece for Fredrick. More important than either The Oracle or The Parthenon is The Great Library.

EDIT: Scout the Plains Hill 2W of the Settler first, or alternatively, the Plains Hill 2W1S of the Settler, and see what pops up. Keeping multiple Hills would be nice, and, given the only excess food you have atm will be +4 (+2 from Cows, +2 from city), there's no real worry in exchanging a Grassland Hill for a Plains Hill.

Hey Sisiutil, I've been shadowing your games for awhile, but I don't think I've actually posted in them yet. Great stuff.

Ok, I would suggest explording with your scout first, before settling. No since wasting a good resource in your starting city just because you didn't see it. I would either move the scout directly east, onto the plains hill across the river, or southwest onto the cows, then onto the plains hill directly west of your settler. I tihnk the first option is better, as it will let you see much more of the fat cross for your capital, if you settle in place (Revealing two squares of your fat cross if you settle in place, as opposed to just one if you go the western route) but ultimately it's your call.

Don't keep us in suspense, update soon! ;)

because of the food needs the grasslands are better for you anyway. scout NE then E to see what you can, if it looks good settle on that hill NE. the hills to the east of that will make an awesome production site.

definately tech towards animal husbandry, but if you are going to slingshot you HAVE TO GET POTTERY or you wont be able to pop metal casting.

since that path might be unlikely, your better off just going AH then researching bronze working and masonry. let your 2nd city provide you with axemen to defend against the incoming barbs then spit out another settler while the capitol cranks out the pyramids through the plains hill and chopping. once your first worker sets down 2-3 farms you'll be set to get that done.

after researching masonry and starting that way you need to get writing done so you can get your scientists in order.

while setting up for the specialist econ you wont be switching to it till after the pyramids are built, hopefully you read my input in the other thread for the culture victory.. it will be this point in time where you have to choose scientists and conquest or artists for culture victory

good starting position best of luck!!

NaZ

This screenshot looks very favorable to me for the Metal Casting Pyramids. To pull that off I would found Berlin on the tile west of the Cows and then post another screenshot showing the terrain revealed after you've moved your Scout. I can just see some trees in the blackness in the east, so at the moment I'd expect founding the second city on the plains hill two east and one up from the Cows. I can start working it out in a few hours or so but there is already enough revealed in this image to tell you the exact date you'd have a GE out to make the Pyramids. Going the Metal Casting route, early Bronze will actualy be a mistake, so I'd recommend not doing anything other than founding Berlin before you post another image so we have a chance to run our calculations.

Based on futurehermit's thread on this strategy (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178113), I'll be researching Bronze Working first. Correct me if I'm wrong. The recommended first city build is Worker - Settler. Freddy starts with Mining, which is great for this strat.

He also starts with Hunting, which... um... isn't.

Unless you are expecting to settle within your cultural borders (which isn't possible until 25 turns or so have gone by anyway), you are likely to want something a little bit more robust than a scout as an escort for the settler. (Using the scout isn't hopeless, but he leverages much better as a scout).

On top of that, Worker -> Settler basically throws away what little advantage Hunting offers in the opening. Not entirely - you still have the original scout, and if you catch copper on the river you can build Spears! how terribly exciting.

Pastured cows will support one specialist, and the city another, so (Hunting)->Animal Loving->Writing gets you two specialists up and going, but with not much food to spare... unless you've got some corn or wheat hiding in the shadows.

Actually, it looks to me as though food could be a problem long term as well - I can't be sure without the rest of the cross, but even eight watermills might not be enough for production central. (Remember, those hills do you no good if you can't feed them).

On the other hand, if you really want to try futurehermit's opening, don't be wishy washy about it. This is probably the wrong start for the strat, but it's certainly the wrong start if you don't go all out.

Sorry, I forgot to attach the saved game file. I'll correct that tonight.

futurehermit has not weighed in yet, and I'd like his input before I make my next move. But yes, the Scout will definitely look around before I do anything with the Settler.

Moving east is tempting for production, but remember the top concern is always food. Cows are a good food resource, but not a great one like, say, an irrigated wheat tile, or pigs. If it's mostly plains hills to the east, I'm going to have problems working mines without enough food. Also remember that I'm aiming for the Pyramids, so I won't have the population to work every single mined hill anyway.

It sounds like Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry may be the initial research route. If I have horses nearby and hook them up, I can rely on Chariots for early defense. AH will also help towards Pottery and Writing. Usually I have my Worker build roads if there's nothing else for him to do while he waits for research to complete, but in this case and for this strategy, he'd be building farms.

I'm also tempted to build a Scout first to leverage the Hunting starting tech a little more. Scouts, and more of them, means more terrain revealed, often including more tribal villages. If I can get gold (or even better, tech) from them, it could help me out a lot.

AH will also help towards Pottery

:smoke:

AH & Pottery both help toward Writing. Agriculture and Fishing both help toward Pottery.

I think I'll shadow this one with a vanilla cottage approach (as soon as a save is available, no real rush).

I think I'll shadow this one with a vanilla cottage approach (as soon as a save is available, no real rush).
That would be very interesting for comparison. Good idea.
AH & Pottery both help toward Writing. Agriculture and Fishing both help toward Pottery.
DUH. I should check the Info Centre before making statements like that.

This game is supposed to be about doing something new. I like the oracle/metalcasting/forge/GE pyramid rush strat rather than the just build pyramid strat because it will help immmensly for those of us who want to see a good step by step, while helping you learn as well. I'm eagerly watching this ALC because i really want to improve my sub-par specialist strat.

This game is supposed to be about doing something new. I like the oracle/metalcasting/forge/GE pyramid rush strat rather than the just build pyramid strat because it will help immmensly for those of us who want to see a good step by step, while helping you learn as well. I'm eagerly watching this ALC because i really want to improve my sub-par specialist strat.
Yeah, I really want to try that as well. I've never done it before, so it should be interesting and informative to give it a go.

Mind you, if I luck out and have stone nearby, I'm not going to delay the Pyramids just to see if this tactic works!

futurehermit has not weighed in yet, and I'd like his input before I make my next move.

Bah! I'm officially insulted ;). Using only the tiles I see in the screenshot you can have the Metal Casting version of Pyramids out in 975 BC. It will be faster if there is a 3F unimproved tile revealed nearby in your explorations.

EDIT: I forgot about the delayed switch to the slavery civic (do just before you need to use it on the Oracle) so it's actually 950 BC.

Tech path: Animal Husbandry -> Wheel -> Mysticism -> BronzeWorking -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Pottery

Settler moves to found Berlin on the hill west of the cows turn #2 and starts on a Worker. Next build is a Settler. The completion of the Settler times exactly with being finished with Mysticism. So the third build is an Obelisk. The Obelisk is worked on until you get as many hammers into it as you can without going over. By my estimate this will be 28/30 hammers and you will have to work a no-hammer riverine grasslands tile to prevent finishing the build in the turn you hit 28 hammers. You then queue swap to whatever you want to build, switching to make the Oracle the second it is available. Berlin is growing on the Cows until it reaches size three. Then you have to give the Cows over to Hamburg so that Hamburg can use the cows to grow to size three. The Oracle is finished with whip overflow from finishing the Obelisk, chopping the two forests we can see are adjacent to the Berlin proposed site, and 1 pop whipped directly on the Oracle. You'll need to produce 8 hammers per turn for 3 turns in Berlin which you can do with working a plains hill Mine + forested plains hill at a food loss for 1 turn then work the grasslands forest instead of the plains forest. EDIT: After further review it looks like Berlin has time to get a Barracks up to close to 59/60 hammers which will be more handy long-term than the Obelisk.

The first Worker makes the Pasture, then makes a Mine on the hill south of the proposed Berlin site. Then you start making roads until Bronzeworking is available. The first two tiles that need roads are the two trees in between Berlin and the site for Hamburg so that Hamburg can be founded on the tile 2 over and 1 up from the Cows on the turn after the Settler is done. After these you are connecting up all the other trees that you plan to chop later. Hamburg will make a Worker and then start but not finish an Obelisk. Once Berlin is at size 3 then Hamburg gets the Cows until it has reached size 3. The Forge is done in Hamburg from overflow on whipping the Obelisk, 1 point whipped into the Forge, and 3 chopped trees. The biggest drawback in the plan is the fact that only one good food tile is shown, if any other pop up then the plan only gets better. A lot of tech advances are precisiely timed with when you need them, and you will be completing Pottery the same turn you finish the Oracle. Tech research is evaluated before production, so you can still get Metal Casting (I've already had cause to verify this in another game I played).

Mind you, if I luck out and have stone nearby, I'm not going to delay the Pyramids just to see if this tactic works!

To be honest, unless the Stone appears in the fat cross of your Capital, it is frequently (but not always) as slow or slower to get the Pyramids via building the Quarry if you don't have enough trees nearby to really cash in. I've had the same results with starting with Marble- it actually hasn't proved to be a help in the earlier Oracle time since you still have tech research to accomplish and you need the second city ready to go with the Forge at a moment's notice.

Thank you, Eggman, for mapping that out so thoroughly. :goodjob:

Now watch me screw it up. :lol:

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot--if we've now determined the location of the first two cities, where should the scout go?

Well, this is certainly something I've thought of as a downside to the Metal Casting plan in the context of your ALC series. If you don't see how this naturally plays out, then you're relying more heavily on the community to help you avoid mistakes and moving more slowly in the early turns of the game. I could provide an exact list of all the Worker moves too but that isn't exactly going to be fun for you. Chopping the Pyramids is easy to manage and is done in a comparable amount of time, so it may be worthwhile just to avoid the headaches of the Metal Casting micromanagement if you're not used to that kind of thing.

I was very surprised that that timeline still comes close with just these few tiles. Playing on Prince gives just enough of a tech discount (vs Monarch) to pull it off. I'd expect your explorations will reveal some source of 3F nearby so the real time would be back in the 1000s BC. If you decide to chop the Pyramids I may run a shadow game long enough to see how long the MC route actually takes.

I believe Cabert mentioned you'd be 'crazy' to settle on the Wine. Crazy like a fox! In a specialist-heavy game where you aren't concerned with making Commerce directly, loss of a Wine is no big deal. Going the MC way to the Pyramids you need to squeeze out every coin you can to finish the tech research when you need it. A 2F/2H/2C base tile for the city is great! Plus you get the happiness bonus from the Wine the instant you acquire Monarchy. Malekithe made a related comment about Calendar resources in GoTM8, the exploitation tech comes late enough that you gain little by planning around that bonus from the start of the game. Settle on the tile and take the immedate benefits you can get. I'd have to rework the numbers but founding Berlin on the Wine might shave a turn or two off the MC time, but I think I'd still prefer the other spot since the Wine doesn't get fresh water.

I believe Cabert mentioned you'd be 'crazy' to settle on the Wine. Crazy like a fox! In a specialist-heavy game where you aren't concerned with making Commerce directly, loss of a Wine is no big deal. Going the MC way to the Pyramids you need to squeeze out every coin you can to finish the tech research when you need it. A 2F/2H/2C base tile for the city is great! Plus you get the happiness bonus from the Wine the instant you acquire Monarchy. Malekithe made a related comment about Calendar resources in GoTM8, the exploitation tech comes late enough that you gain little by planning around that bonus from the start of the game. Settle on the tile and take the immedate benefits you can get. I'd have to rework the numbers but founding Berlin on the Wine might shave a turn or two off the MC time, but I think I'd still prefer the other spot since the Wine doesn't get fresh water.

If the wine were on a river as well, it would be worth it. But, as it's not, settling the city there would only be worth 1C, not 2. If you're looking to settle on a hill, choose either the one to the NE or 2 to the west, I'd say.

A few people have already said they'd like to see the MC/GE Pyramids rush pulled off (or at least attempted), and I haven't done it before, so some hand-holding up to that point is not, I think, a bad thing. Especially since it illustrates some of the tactics for that strategy, such as building the first two cities within three tiles of one another and having them share a vital resource tile. The use of the Obelisk with whipping for a hammer overflow is also an interesting tactic, though it would be even more beneficial to a non-creative civ.

As for settling on wine--I've come to see settling on calendar/monarchy resources as very useful. Almost all of them provide an immediate commerce boost, plus instant access to the resource and its benefits with the discovery of the required tech. I also tend to find that cottages, farms, and mines are better tile improvements than most plantations anyway, so I don't regret the loss of being able to improve the tile. The only exception is bananas, which provide so much food that you'd never want to settle on them.

If the wine were on a river as well, it would be worth it. But, as it's not, settling the city there would only be worth 1C, not 2. If you're looking to settle on a hill, choose either the one to the NE or 2 to the west, I'd say.

I'd assumed that the Wine would provide +1C to the city's base tile, in the manner that if I settled on Rice for example I get +1F. But I checked it out, and you're right it doesn't, so in that event there is little reason to settle on the Wine.

If you're looking to settle on a hill, choose either the one to the NE or 2 to the west, I'd say.

Soley from what we can see in the picture, the NE hill is guaranteed 3 forests and would make a good Forge city. If the Scout reveals more trees off to the west, then either of those hills might be fine for the Forge. However it's better to have as many of the trees as possible lying in between the cities to minimize Worker turns during the Pyramids building. If you decide to simply chop the Pyramids directly, then I'd have no particular preference over either spot.

First off, I added the initial saved game file to the thread's opening post.

Second, I moved the Scout two tiles SW onto the southern plains hill, and this is what he revealed:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred4000BC03.jpg

So no additional food resources, but we have several more forests at our disposal. There's also more river, so the surrounding terrain will be relatively easy to irrigate. There also appears to be a desert to the south and west, and the headwaters of another river to the south. Could be floodplains down there.

That would be a little surprising, though. Usually on a continents map the human player starts close to the polar region. This terrain would seem to indicate we're closer to the equator.

I see no reason to negate the Eggman's plan of Berlin on the plains hill 2W of the Settler and the 2nd city (Hamburg) on the other hill 2NE. We sacrifice some of the late-game potential of one or both cities in exchange for achieving a substantial advantage--namely, building the Pyramids and jumping to Representation as early as possible.

Thoughts?

I'd assumed that the Wine would provide +1C to the city's base tile, in the manner that if I settled on Rice for example I get +1F. But I checked it out, and you're right it doesn't, so in that event there is little reason to settle on the Wine.
Yeah it has to be on a river for it to work. Does the financial trait affect that calculation though? I need to dig up that thread that explains it all.

Tech path: Animal Husbandry -> Wheel -> Mysticism -> BronzeWorking -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Pottery


:smoke:

Pottery isn't researchable at this point. See previous comment to Sisutil.

I'd assumed that the Wine would provide +1C to the city's base tile, in the manner that if I settled on Rice for example I get +1F. But I checked it out, and you're right it doesn't, so in that event there is little reason to settle on the Wine.

Yeah it has to be on a river for it to work. Does the financial trait affect that calculation though? I need to dig up that thread that explains it all.

You have to go a long way into the thread to find the right answer.

Short form: you get 2F/1C/1P from a tile unless the plot originally had a higher value for one of those elements before you settle it, after the overlays are removed. So a food resource on grassland becomes 3F/1C/1P, a commerce resource next to a river becomes 2F/2C/1P, a strategic resource on a plains hill becomes 2F/1C/3P.

Your 3F/1C/0P flood plain is an overlay, so when you settle it the floodplain is destroyed, and you end up with 2F/1C/1P in the city. The same thing happens to forests.

Financial does affect this (which is why Stuporstar's Complete Guide to Terrain... (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376024&postcount=5) gets it wrong - he used Washington as the leader for his examples).

Edit: fixed commerce resource.

Don't you mean 1P and 2P for your commerce and plains hill examples?

I don't think you quite answered my question. Does a financial civilization gain the extra commerce if they settle on a commerce resource thats not next a river?

I was about to suggest swapping the tiles and founding Berlin to the left, in the hopes that the city founding would reveal some food and save you turns of sending the Scout back that way. But not having the Cows in the first city ring will delay production of the first Worker by 2 turns (despite the 'fast pop' of the culture border) so that's probably not wise.

Some good news, there will be at least 105 hammers not going into Oracle production. Some of these need to go into either nearly finishing an Obelisk or Barracks, the rest can be used for Scouts/Warriors. So there will be some units left over to find goody huts and explore like you were wanting to do.

Don't you mean 1P and 2P for your commerce and plains hill examples?

Yes for commerce (it should have been 2F/2C/1P. I played a game recently where I settled a commerce resource by a river on a plains hill, which is 2F/2C/2P, so I may have been thinking about that, but more likely I just typoed).

A plains hill without a strategic resource becomes a 2F/1C/2P city, as does a flat plains tile with a strategic resource. A plains hill with a strategic resource becomes 2F/1C/3P, because the value of the original plot is 0F/0C/3P.

I don't think you quite answered my question. Does a financial civilization gain the extra commerce if they settle on a commerce resource thats not next a river?

No. A plot with a commerce resource that is not next to a river is 1C. When you settle on it, it is still one C.

The easy hint - look at the plot with the FPC layer enabled. If it doesn't show up with 3C before you settle, it won't have 3C after you settle.

Does that help?

Hmm, if that control is really called FPC, I should make a habit of sequencing the values of my plots the same way.

Pottery isn't researchable at this point. See previous comment to Sisutil.


Wow, good catch! I totally forgot about that. So I rescind my earlier comment when I said this was a 'favorable' start. I've reworked my plan replacing Animal Husbandry with Agriculture as the starting tech, and the Pyramids are then finished in 950 BC. I make no judgements on whether or not this is worth it. I'm curious if anyone else can work out a Metal Casting plan faster than this from the given data.

I think this is the worst opening I've seen in an ALC game. It certainly hurts the MC plan to not have an Agriculture-based bonus tile, and this map layout is completely sub-optimal for meeting the 1000 BC goal or earlier. The only way to even get into the 900s is the fact that there are barely enough trees to make up for not being able to work a pastured Cows. 1-2 less trees and MC would without question be a non-starter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a Specialist based economy require a butt load of food? Therefore the River would allow the farming of a number of Grassland tiles which would facilitate that, and with Slavery, you can whip a little more regularly and recover faster.

I got Warlords today, so I may be less helpful in the ALC for a bit...

thanks malekithe for writing down exactly what i meant for the settling on the wine.
If you settle on the wine, you'll get a 2F2P1C, so exactly the same amount you would get for any plain hill = 100% loss.

About settling the capitol, now that we see that a city on the hills to the west of the cow will have a hard time to feed mine workers, i vote for settling in place = using a plain that would be poor anyway, fresh water, can use the cow straight away, no risk to settle on copper or iron.
About tech, i previously voted for straight AH, but i now see that it would be a bad move : you WILL NEED AGRICULTURE.
Since Agri will give a bonus to AH, the best tech path seems to be :
agri->AH->
BW->wheel (maybe wheel before BW if you have horses) ->
masonry ->pottery (need granaries for whip recovery)->writing (need library for scientists)

(i don't like the oracle, because you don't need those religious techs, you also don't need the prophets it will give you)

(i don't like the oracle, because you don't need those religious techs, you also don't need the prophets it will give you)

If you're only getting the Oracle for the Metal Casting - Pyramids, you'll end up never getting a Prophet, the Engineer production will outpace it and later on the Great Scientist production will outpace both.

If you're only getting the Oracle for the Metal Casting - Pyramids, you'll end up never getting a Prophet, the Engineer production will outpace it and later on the Great Scientist production will outpace both.

yes? there are still odds (not that small!) that you get a prophet. Read ALC 6, and see what i mean. Your prophet isn't going to build a pyramid!

how many turns before the forge is built? If you want the Oracle soon, you have to chop it = not much forest left to chop.
All the turns before the forge will give prophet GPP, and only prophet!
Being philo means you get a prophet in 25 turns from the oracle alone. So if you want more engineer GPP, you need to build the forge in less than 7/8 turns. And then you have something like 50% odds to get a prophet.

You're correct that you have to move fast, but it is easily doable to build the Forge early enough to prevent the spawning of the first Great Prophet. The Oracle is finished in 1680 BC, the Forge in 1600 BC and the Great Engineer appears in 950 BC, a turn or two ahead of the Great Prophet. The only chance of the Great Prophet is if you get nervous and finish the Oracle too soon. 1680 BC might be pushing it for the Oracle on Monarch and above, I'm not sure what the average Prince times are for the AIs. Because the window for preventing the Prophet is so slim, I wouldn't recommend starting the Metal Casting - Pyramids plan unless you already know how you're going to pull the whole thing off. The only thing that should ever come as a surprise is the AI beating you to one of the Wonders.

yes? there are still odds (not that small!) that you get a prophet. Read ALC 6, and see what i mean. Your prophet isn't going to build a pyramid!

how many turns before the forge is built? If you want the Oracle soon, you have to chop it = not much forest left to chop.
All the turns before the forge will give prophet GPP, and only prophet!
Being philo means you get a prophet in 25 turns from the oracle alone. So if you want more engineer GPP, you need to build the forge in less than 7/8 turns. And then you have something like 50% odds to get a prophet.

You have 6 turns to complete the forge (we've been over the calculations elsewhere), and you do it in your second city so as not to mix the GPP. Beelining the whole thing does require lots of trees, which is why, at this difficulty level, I'd reign in the beeline a little and focus a bit more on developing a more robust economy first. Then, you may be able to get the forge with minimal chopping (grow the second city to 4 so you can whip most of it).

If your second GP is a priest it's not so bad. He can grab you a religion, or maybe even get you the shrine for a religion you've already founded. Generally, though, I like to get a scientisit as my second or third GP so he can grab Philosophy for Pacifism.

FWIW, I say settle on the hill 2W. If you're lucky maybe there's even another resouce in one of the three unrevealed tiles there. Then, assuming nothing else interesting, I'd lead with Animal Husbandry and a worker. Getting the pasture on the cow is very important. It may delay the pyramids by a few turns, but the benefit to your economy before then will be enormous. Again, I really don't see much point to commiting yourself to the fastest pyramids possible at this point anyway. I'd be very surprised if you couldn't safely let the pyramids' completion date drift to around 750BC or so. Of course, I haven't actually played at Prince difficulty since GOTM06...

You're correct that you have to move fast, but it is easily doable to build the Forge early enough to prevent the spawning of the first Great Prophet. The Oracle is finished in 1680 BC, the Forge in 1600 BC and the Great Engineer appears in 950 BC, a turn or two ahead of the Great Prophet. The only chance of the Great Prophet is if you get nervous and finish the Oracle too soon. 1680 BC might be pushing it for the Oracle on Monarch and above, I'm not sure what the average Prince times are for the AIs. Because the window for preventing the Prophet is so slim, I wouldn't recommend starting the Metal Casting - Pyramids plan unless you already know how you're going to pull the whole thing off. The only thing that should ever come as a surprise is the AI beating you to one of the Wonders.

did you play this or is it just calculation?
the first great people takes only 100 GPP.
even if (through chopping and whipping) you manage to get the forge out in the 2nd turn after the oracle and then put an engineer into it, you'll have:

8 GPP prophet flavour before the forge is built,
then 4 prophet and 6 engineer GPP/turn for 10 turns.
meaning 52 prophet points
and 60 engineer points.
For me, it's far from sure to get an engineer.
Unless you build the oracle or the forge somewhere else?
in this situation, you have 16 turns to wait for the GE, while the other city has 4 GPP/turn = 25 turns. So you need to build a forge in less than 9 turns in a distinct city. Doable, true.
Meaning you could have the mids some 24 turns after the oracle, if you didn't forget to research the techs :lol:

OK, worth a try. What you need is a high food second city though, and the ability to whip hard.

If you build the pyramids in the forge city, you'll end up with only engineer, since the prophet points won't catch up. You then could have a second engineer 20 turns later. just in time to build the hanging gardens and give yourself another push towards engineers :king:
Next GE can build yourself the national epic in the GE factory, to be sure you only get those:eek:
After a while you could build the hagia sophia there too = you used all those engineers to build useless wonders in order to get more GE :cry:

Edit : malekithe gave me the explanation i missed, and was faster than me ;) I leave my post because of the follow through GE generation thing

you used all those engineers to build useless wonders in order to get more GE :cry:

That's the exact reason I never try too hard to create a GE farm. You often end up using the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd engineers just to create the 4th and 5th ones faster.:smoke: That's not always the case, mind you, but most of the time, when I see people mention a GE farm, this is how they do it.

OK, worth a try. What you need is a high food second city though, and the ability to whip hard.


Not true, you may be surprised to learn. Hamburg only needs a 3F tile, since no 3F unimproved tiles are currently revealed, a Worker will need to farm one of the grassland plots for it, which there is time to do. Three forests will be chopped for the Oracle in Berlin and 4 for the Forge in Hamburg. Both cities only need to reach size 3 but both will whip 2 pop thanks to queue swaps (maybe this counts as 'whip hard'?)

The Animal Husbandry route will delay building the Pyramids via an Engineer into the 600s BC at least I think (I haven't run the numbers to check, but it's at least a 10 turn delay over the 950 BC finish). It would help if there was a second nearby Animal resource we can't see, but with an AH start I'd probably recommend direct production of the Pyramids over Metal Casting. The MC start is there if you want it, I offer no opinions over the efficacy of doing it over any other opening. BTW- After finishing Pottery in the beeline start I would then do AH and Masonry to convert the farmed Cows to pasture ASAP.

Not true, you may be surprised to learn. Hamburg only needs a 3F tile, since no 3F unimproved tiles are currently revealed, a Worker will need to farm one of the grassland plots for it, which there is time to do. Three forests will be chopped for the Oracle in Berlin and 4 for the Forge in Hamburg. Both cities only need to reach size 3 but both will whip 2 pop thanks to queue swaps (maybe this counts as 'whip hard'?)

The Animal Husbandry route will delay building the Pyramids via an Engineer into the 600s BC at least I think (I haven't run the numbers to check, but it's at least a 10 turn delay over the 950 BC finish). It would help if there was a second nearby Animal resource we can't see, but with an AH start I'd probably recommend direct production of the Pyramids over Metal Casting. The MC start is there if you want it, I offer no opinions over the efficacy of doing it over any other opening. BTW- After finishing Pottery in the beeline start I would then do AH and Masonry to convert the farmed Cows to pasture ASAP.

Ok, you could bring it to a 1 pop city running an engineer for 16 turns. But that's pretty lame, if you ask me.
Luckily, 4 hammers production gives you 1 hammer bonus with the forge lol.

That's trully something new to play. Not for the winning, but for the beauty of the move :lol:

You're right that it would be great to have a high-food second city that could grow while running the Engineer. I haven't read every ALC thread but this has to be about the worst start imaginable! I guess this is punishment for the Victoria opening... but 950 BC for the beeline seemed pretty remarkable under the circumstances. There are still some nearby tiles that could save the day with Corn and Wheat, have to keep our fingers crossed...

You're right that it would be great to have a high-food second city that could grow while running the Engineer. I haven't read every ALC thread but this has to be about the worst start imaginable! I guess this is punishment for the Victoria opening... but 950 BC for the beeline seemed pretty remarkable under the circumstances. There are still some nearby tiles that could save the day with Corn and Wheat, have to keep our fingers crossed...

yep!
so we're back with agri first tech, and scout first build ;)

edit : and about scouting "around" capital, remember how fast your cultural borders are going to expand = no need to go checking the nearest tiles, you'll see them fast enough.

The Animal Husbandry route will delay building the Pyramids via an Engineer into the 600s BC at least I think (I haven't run the numbers to check, but it's at least a 10 turn delay over the 950 BC finish).

I highly doubt getting Animal Husbandry first will really cause the pyramids to slip into the 600's. There's bound to be a workable 3 food tile somewhere within range of the second city. Additionally, what if there's stone nearby? In that scenario, it'd be much better to start with AH. I just think there's little reason to set the sights so squarely on the Oracle>Metal Casting beeline. Doing it slightly more lazily (building up a better economy or military in the meantime), in my experience, typically only costs around 1-2 hundred years.

Just to possibly save time later, I thought I'd take the time to write out the exact plan to use to finish the Pyramids via Metal Casting in what I think is the shortest possible time. If anybody can think of a faster way to get the Pyramids out via the use of Metal Casting I'd love to discuss it. Note that this plan assumes founding Berlin on the hill west of the Cows and Hamburg on the hill two over and one up from the Cows.


Tech Research:

Agriculture
Wheel
Mysticism
Bronze Working (do NOT switch to slavery yet)
Meditation
Priesthood
Pottery


After Pottery, you can evaluate the length of time it will take to research the techs that are available. If the cost of Animal Husbandry is now low enough, you may be able to research it before Masonry. This allows you to get the Cows properly pastured. If the research time of AH + Masonry >= 17 turns, then research Masonry first to be safe.

Build queue (Berlin):

Worker
Settler


After the Settler, you have ~60 hammers of production to play with. So, you can either start a Barracks, or build two 15 hammer units in a row and then begin an Obelisk. Allow either the Barracks or Obelisk to get as close to completion as you can without going over. By the time you get to the point where they are about to finish, the Oracle should now be available to go at the front of the queue. The Oracle should be ready to go the turn after you have 58 hammers' worth of post-Settler production accomplished.

Berlin will start working the Cows. At size 2, it will work the riverine grassland for 2F/1C to keep up tech speed and maintain city growth. At size 3, it works these tiles as well as the plains hill which will now have a Mine on it for 4P. As soon as Pottery completes, switch to the slavery civic and put your previous building back in the top of the queue. Next turn, whip 1 pop to finish this building and collect the overflow into the Oracle. The city will hit 26 food in the same turn you enter Anarchy so it might have grown to size 4. Whether it does or not, as you whip make sure you continue to produce 6 hammers a turn from working tiles in Berlin. Once the Oracle is out you can do whatever you like with the city. You pick up Metal Casting in 1680 BC and switch Hamburg to producing the Forge.

Build queue (Hamburg):

Worker
Anything you want until Forge is ready (you will produce ~40 hammers)
Forge, the instant it is available


Hamburg starts with no food tiles available. A grassland plot will have to be farmed in order for it to be able to grow quickly enough. This will be handled by the Worker from Berlin. After founding Hamburg will work this farm tile, then after growth to size 2 will work this tile plus the forested plains hill to the north. When the Forge is being built, you must maintain 5 hammers per turn even if this means the city runs at a food deficit for the next two turns (it should actually have a 1F surplus).

Worker turns (Berlin):
For the explanation of the Worker turns, turn on the gridlines. Imagine that the grid is labeled horizontally A-G, and vertically 1-6. The gird is centered such that the Cows lie on tile 2D. Berlin, one tile to the west, is on tile 2C.

Move to 2D, start Farm on top of Cows.
Move to hill on 3C, build Mine.
Move to 1D, build a Road.
Move to 1E, build a Road.
Move to 3E, build a Farm.
Move to 2F, build a Road.
Bronze Working is now done. Move to 2G, pre-chop, then build Road.
Move to 2F, pre-chop.
Move to 1E, pre-chop.
Move to 1D, pre-chop.
Move to 3D, build Road, then chop the woods completely. By this time the harvested trees should be going right into the Oracle.


Worker turns (Hamburg):

Move to 3F, pre-chop, then build Road.
Move to 1D, cut the tree for Oracle.
Move to 1B, cut the tree for Oracle.


When the Workers are done with these tasks, they have several turns' grace before they are needed to finish the chops for the Forge. Do whatever you like, so long as they are each in a position to cut a tree the minute you have the Forge in Hamburgs' queue. They must be standing in a spot allowing them to move and cut a tree in 1 move the subsequent turn. With the roads, this should not be a problem. Forge is done, Hamburg is then a size 1 city running only the Engineer until 950 BC. Voila... do these things and you will have the fame and ovation of the people forever.

The GE rush will definetally be difficult. If you have to delay the Oracle for MC (>_<) you need to pause everything else, giving the AI a chance to rush ahead of you. I can't recall the AI on Prince though, so, I could be wrong.

I highly doubt getting Animal Husbandry first will really cause the pyramids to slip into the 600's. There's bound to be a workable 3 food tile somewhere within range of the second city.

The limitation I run into that makes it take so long is that if there is no second animal-based food source for use in either city, you are forced to research both Animal Husbandry and Agriculture (and maybe no AG resource is available either!). Having to get both of these techs in delays your progress enough so that research, not production is the bottleneck. You either start Oracle too late, or if you boost up the religious techs to correct for it, you are getting something like Pottery too late. Of course, make whatever plan you like if there are better goodies off screen that we can't see. All I've said is that based entirely on what we can see in the picture, this is what you can do.

great job eggman, nice to see it's doable

But i don't think it's something to be done.
I'd like a city to grow bigger to have a chance to work 2 scientists asap.

I'd like a city to grow bigger to have a chance to work 2 scientists asap.

Hopefully there will be some more Cows or Pigs in the range of wherever the capital goes, so it can support Scientists quickly. I hate having to research two food producing techs in the early years, better to trade for the second later or research it directly after you have more beaker output and it can be done quickly. I'm not actually the biggest fan of AH since it's more expensive and can be used on fewer plots than AG. The Horse reveal is nice but vital only if you're going to be short on copper.

Hopefully there will be some more Cows or Pigs in the range of wherever the capital goes, so it can support Scientists quickly. I hate having to research two food producing techs in the early years, better to trade for the second later or research it directly after you have more beaker output and it can be done quickly. I'm not actually the biggest fan of AH since it's more expensive and can be used on fewer plots than AG. The Horse reveal is nice but vital only if you're going to be short on copper.

horses can be good for conquest/domination or more often for the barb killing.
I'm pretty sure there will be either horses or bronze (or iron:mad: ) in the initial fat cross. It would be a bad move to oversee those horses (assuming there are there).

Can somebody summarize the discussion for me on the last 2.5 pages of this thread? I read it all but don't see the "plan" moving forward.

Thanks.

Can somebody summarize the discussion for me on the last 2.5 pages of this thread? I read it all but don't see the "plan" moving forward.

Thanks.

the cat isn't here, mice are dancing ;)

there is no plan yet, AFAIK, but eggman build a very robust strategy towards pyramids, via a GE from an engineer specialist available via forge, MC is to be researched through the oracle for this to be early enough.

The plus part :
- it seems very reliable (at least on prince level, with a philosophical leader)
- it's relying on what we already know, with no assumption like copper in the second city, or such things (only the ability to get MC through the Oracle is not perfectly sure, not being industrious)

The minus part :
- very low defense in the beginning
- one GP used (+next will likely be a prophet) and no academy on the way = 200 GPP scientist flavour are to be gathered before an academy is available
- very low commerce up to this = very likely slow teching
- very low population available = low commerce for some more years


About what we agreed on (we = eggman and myself), it is to tech towards agri now, and build a scout first (or was it a worker for eggman?).

Stupid thread subscription emails. I didn't get the notification that things had started, so I'm arriving late to the party (I'm so fashionable!). If I remember correctly, there were two key points I wanted to make about the previous 4 pages of stuff.

1) cabert: Your mathematics on getting a prophet instead of an engineer seem to be based on putting the engineer specialist in the same city that has The Oracle. That's the wrong way to do it, because, well, as you said, you might get a prophet. What you need to do is build the forge quickly enough in a different city that the engineer specialist's points catch up and overtake The Oracle's prophet points before it produces a great person. Then you're 100% guaranteed to get an engineer. As Eggman said, you have 6 turns to build the forge to make this happen.

2) Sisiutil: You mentioned the Parthenon as a desirable secondary wonder. Just make sure that if you do build it, you do it after your forge is completed. Otherwise it will double the prophet points generated by The Oracle, which closes your window for building the forge to only 3 turns (or something like that; I haven't redone the math recently). I'm not sure this is a real concern, since I doubt you could actually manage to build The Oracle and The Parthenon before your forge, but it's something to be aware of.

3) OK, so I counted wrong. It's 3 points. Man, this start has some major food issues. It will be interesting to see how a specialist economy plays out here. I guess maybe you turn Berlin into your military production hub and let the others take care of the science?

Point #4: cabert, I think your 2nd great person will be another engineer. Here's my reasoning.

The first great person requires 100 points. The second great person requires 200 points. The Oracle is generating 4 points per turn (2 + 100% bonus), and the engineer specialist is generating 6 points per turn (3 + 100% bonus).

When you pop your first engineer after 17 turns, the engineering city will have generated 102 points for an overflow of 2. Assuming you timed the forge correctly, The Oracle will have generated no more than 96 points. We'll assume 96 for the sake of argument. So on turn N when the engineer pops, the score is reset to 2 points in the engineer city, 96 points in The Oracle city, and a new goal of 200.

You immediately rush The Pyramids in the engineer city, so you go one more turn generating 4 and 6 points per turn. Then on subsequent turns, after The Pyramids have completed, you're generating 4 prophet points from The Oracle and 10 engineer points in the engineering city. Updated scores on the turn when The Pyramids complete are 8 points of engineers, 100 points of prophets, on the way to 200.

At 4 points per turn, you'll generate a prophet in 25 turns. At 10 points per turn, you'll generate a 2nd engineer in 20 turns. Your second great person will be an engineer.

If you use that engineer to rush The Great Library, you'll be generating 16 scientist points per turn in that city. Assuming that's in a third, separate city (thus keeping the great person gene pool pure), your next great person should be a scientist. That might be a close call. It will take 19 turns after the library is rushed to finish the scientist, so if there's any delay you might get a 3rd engineer first. After that, I'm not sure. I suspect you'll eventually get a prophet someday, but it might take a surprisingly long time.

I have been trying this specialist economy for a bit now and I have to say keeping your capital as production is stronger for your civ with bureaucracy. Even to the point where I move my capital, if my city had been founded in a heavy food spot. Of course, this changes alot trying this MC -> pyramids start and needing the specialists. Would you think this would be a smart move moving the capital if you find a stronger production city?

I'd love to try a specialist economy, but I don't know how to STRART it. Is there a guide somewhere? Also, how do you turn the f/p/c displays on?

I'd love to try a specialist economy, but I don't know how to START (edit) it. Is there a guide somewhere?


I guess watching this thread will tell alot! I'm looking forward to learning much mysefl!

Point #4: cabert, I think your 2nd great person will be another engineer. Here's my reasoning.

The first great person requires 100 points. The second great person requires 200 points. The Oracle is generating 4 points per turn (2 + 100% bonus), and the engineer specialist is generating 6 points per turn (3 + 100% bonus).


i knew this was coming out :lol:
i already adressed this issue (as well as the "same city" issue) somewhere

My point being : low commerce = low tech, unless you set up a big specialist economy. Litterature is far away when all you have is 5 commerce!
We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

The fact that you end up with a second GE is good (or even a great prophet, you could well go on a religious path).

The fact that you don't have an academy in the city where you finally have enough food to feed 2 scientists before the great library is built is bad for the tech rate. It's very bad. It's awful. It's something like german barbarians getting stomped by roman legions (praetorians in cIV:crazyeye: ).

Point #4: cabert, I think your 2nd great person will be another engineer. Here's my reasoning.
Your reasoning is wrong. Great people percentage is based entirely on how many sources are contributing, weighted by the number of turns they contribute. This leads to very different results than a weighted average of the total GP. Take a look at this thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146174).

If you have different types of GPP sources, it gets a little more complicated. For each turn, the game notes what types of sources had produced GPPs in the city (regardless of how many GPPs each source had contributed!). This determines the odds of which type of great person would be produced for that turn. The overall odds are the average values of all the turns since the last great person was generated in that city.


Note that difference: The number of GPPs will determine when a great person will be generated, and the number of sources will determine what type it will be.

Unless they slipped in a change in one of the patches your analysis will be off.

My point being : low commerce = low tech, unless you set up a big specialist economy. Litterature is far away when all you have is 5 commerce!

I've tried the specialist economy in a couple half finished games. It worked quite well in both, but I found that I was happier if I built a few cottages along the way during the early part of the game. First, yes, it does take a while to get your specialists going, and I couldn't stomach waiting that long before I had decent commerce. Second, until you research Civil Service, you're likely to have a lot of flatlands that can't be improved with anything except a cottage. My workers were far enough ahead of the population that it made sense to have them build cottages there which were later destroyed to put in farms.

We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

Gosh, I hope not. Among other things, you need a library before you can build The Great Library. You should have 1 or 2 specialists in place (depending on food) from that. Still, like I said above, even libraries seemed like too long a wait for me.

Your reasoning is wrong. Great people percentage is based entirely on how many sources are contributing, weighted by the number of turns they contribute. This leads to very different results than a weighted average of the total GP. Take a look at this thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146174).


Unless they slipped in a change in one of the patches your analysis will be off.

I understand how great people points work. The key point here, again, is that The Oracle and your engineer specialist are in different cities. Presumably you'll build The Pyramids in the city with the engineer for exactly the reason you're mentioning. So you'll have two cities producing great people points.

One (The Oracle) will produce purely prophet points, nothing else. That city, if it produces a great person, will produce a prophet 100% of the time.

The other (engineer specialist and The Pyramids) will produce purely engineer points, nothing else. That city, if it produces a great person, will produce an engineer 100% of the time.

The only variable is which city reaches the threshhold first. You might pollute the gene pools with scientists at some point, and my analysis ignores that factor, but as far as prophet vs. engineer goes, the number of sources and weighted averages don't matter, because both cities are 100% pure one type of points.

Your reasoning is wrong. Great people percentage is based entirely on how many sources are contributing, weighted by the number of turns they contribute. This leads to very different results than a weighted average of the total GP. Take a look at this thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146174).


Unless they slipped in a change in one of the patches your analysis will be off.
I am fairly sure he's assuming that there are 2 cities, one with the Oracle and the other with an engineer from the forge and the Pyramids. So with separate GP pools it means he has complete control over what GP is built

Edit; too slow... much too slow ;)

We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

Gosh, I hope not. Among other things, you need a library before you can build The Great Library. You should have 1 or 2 specialists in place (depending on food) from that. Still, like I said above, even libraries seemed like too long a wait for me.


you cannot set up libraries if you don't tech writing
if you research AH, writing is available.
Then it comes early!
But if you go the oracle way, you come up with a useless forge, one used GP, and no scientist specialist available before you build 200 GPP in a city that probably has no library yet...:eek:
I'm really afraid building a forge to get the pyramids is a long shot (in the foot) because you'll end up lagging behind.

Oops my bad I skimmed over the second part of the post missed the bit about them being in seperate cities. Which only makes sense. Btw if you're using warlords there is now a different way to get a GE to pop the pyramids. Build the great wall with a philosophical civilization. Its 250 hammers and generates 2 GE points. So in 25 turns after you build your great wall you can build the pyramids. Since the great wall is unlocked by masonry as well this means your tech tree is no longer so tight giving you much more margin for error.

You have to make up a 100 hammers difference in the oracle and great wall costs but you don't even have to bother with a forge or researching up priesthood. So overall much easier to do. And you can build the pyramids in the same city and get even more GEs relatively soon!

Food - it comes down to food in a capital, especially if you intend to run a specialist economy. I am intrigued by why the blue circle appears where it does. Moving the settler to either the forest NW of current position or NNW on the river/grassland tile might give us some information as to why the computer likes that other tile.

This position reminds me of one I had as Rome on Monarch. The difference is that I had some flood plains to help out and Praetorians only need production to whale away, but the capitol didn't really shine until Biology.

It's a challenging situation on the hill to the west also. I would look towards more river grassland tiles to go along with the hills, which are woefully short on food for the most part.

[Edited capitol to capital so that the police don't get too anxious.]

capital (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/capital)
capitol (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/capitol)

Sorry, but it really bugs me when people constantly get it wrong. :D

capital (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/capital)
capitol (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/capitol)

Sorry, but it really bugs me when people constantly get it wrong. :D

OK, i was asking myself constantly capital or capitol? now there will be only capitals everywhere ;)

i knew this was coming out :lol:
i already adressed this issue (as well as the "same city" issue) somewhere

My point being : low commerce = low tech, unless you set up a big specialist economy. Litterature is far away when all you have is 5 commerce!
We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

The fact that you end up with a second GE is good (or even a great prophet, you could well go on a religious path).

The fact that you don't have an academy in the city where you finally have enough food to feed 2 scientists before the great library is built is bad for the tech rate. It's very bad. It's awful. It's something like german barbarians getting stomped by roman legions (praetorians in cIV:crazyeye: ).

The tech rate is not actually that bad. If you prioritize Masonry and Writing after completing the Metal Casting research requirements, you will have a Library out just in enough time to run 2 specialists under representation as soon as that becomes available. Futurehermit's numbers (if memory serves me correctly) state that an Academy is not essential if you have only 2 specialists in the first science city. If you build the Library in a third city (still possible under the MC strat) you have total control over the second Great Person. Run no specialists for the minimum amount you need for the GP from Oracle, or keep the Forge going for a GE, or turn off the Forge to get a GS. With two specialists running in the Library you can catch up on GS points in a fairly reasonable amount of time. But I'd expect Futurehermit to weigh in on this stuff, my expertise (such as it is) runs as far as getting the Pyramids out, once this happens I'm still fooling around myself with pulling this off. I just make the bomb, I don't drop it.

Oops my bad I skimmed over the second part of the post missed the bit about them being in seperate cities. Which only makes sense. Btw if you're using warlords there is now a different way to get a GE to pop the pyramids. Build the great wall with a philosophical civilization. Its 250 hammers and generates 2 GE points. So in 25 turns after you build your great wall you can build the pyramids. Since the great wall is unlocked by masonry as well this means your tech tree is no longer so tight giving you much more margin for error.

You have to make up a 100 hammers difference in the oracle and great wall costs but you don't even have to bother with a forge or researching up priesthood. So overall much easier to do. And you can build the pyramids in the same city and get even more GEs relatively soon!


You're my new best freind.

*starts up warlords*

Yeesh, this is getting hard to follow. Math was never my favourite subject in school, gang, and time has not improved my disposition towards it. I'll probably just end up fumbling my way through it like I usually do and let everyone say, "You did WHAT!?!?!?!!" afterwards. :blush: :D

Remember you are talkin' to a guy who pulled off a Machinery slingshot without resorting to partnership with a calculator. :cool:

Er...once, anyway.

Long story short, I better get on with the game before this discussion collapses under its own weight, creates a quantum singularity, and sucks us all in. I like you guys, but I don't relish being stuck on some event horizon with you for eternity. ;)

You're my new best freind.

*starts up warlords*
:goodjob:

I'm going to do the same in 15 minutes.

Yeesh, this is getting hard to follow. Math was never my favourite subject in school, gang, and time has not improved my disposition towards it.

Aww, but civ4 is 99.5% math! and it's not even hard :( 1 2 3 A B C. Well, you know what they say (actually just me)(actually i this is the first time i've said it), no one can force you to micromanage!

I better get on with the game before this discussion collapses under its own weight, creates a quantum singularity, and sucks us all in.

Black holes pwn. But inconvient. So i would agree with getting on with the game :goodjob:

Round 1: to 3400 BC

Enough talk. Let's see action, let's see people, let's see freedom, let's see who cares...

Whoops, considering that I'm following Eggman's script, that's the wrong 60s band to be quoting. :)

I founded Berlin on the plains hill 2W of the start:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred3400BC01.jpg

I immediately began building a Worker, and started researching Agriculture on my next turn. The city's first citizen worked the unpastured cow tile. The one thing Eggman has not prescriped is movement of the Scout, so I began by sending him northwest, then began moving him in a clockwise circle around the capital.

While my Scout was out for a look-see, another one appeared.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred3400BC02.jpg

Well, that's a bit of a relief. Cyrus I can get along with. Long term, since he's also Creative, expands like crazy, is obviously nearby, and is a tech fiend, he'll be trouble, but in the short term, I can live with him.

Now if you check the map behind Cyrus, you'll notice that the food tile we all were hoping for appeared--a rice tile, just outside Berlin's fat cross. :mad: I still don't think this is the worst start I've had--the Mao and Louis starts come to mind--but it will be challenging for the strategy we want to employ.

However, my luck wasn't all bad. My Scout found the east coast, and a goody hut. Look what he popped it for:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred3400BC03.jpg

YES!! One of the techs on our list. That should help a little. I also finished researching Agriculture in 7 turns, then started on the Wheel.

Berlin's border expansion revealed another goody hut just south and a little west. You can just see it in the Cyrus screenshot above. If you check how close Cyrus' Scout is to it, you can understand that I was worried that he'd get there before me. But amazingly, the hut remained, my Scout scooted over there, and lo and behold...

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred3400BC05.jpg

Now gang, I swear I did not save and reload to pop those huts! I played honestly, and that's what the huts gave me--two techs, both on our list! Not only that, but guess what I have in Berlin's fat cross:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred3400BC07.jpg

HORSES!! On grassland! 2F/3H/1C, +1 health! Chariots!

:woohoo:

Now obviously this changes things. When my worker completed in Berlin, I sent him to the cow tile, but to build a pasture, not a farm. That will obviously accelerate Berlin's growth and build times, so it throws off Eggman's detailed plan, but in a good way. Eggman could either write another one or leave me to figure out how to incorporate this good fortune into his existing one. The extra hammers make pasturing the horses a good idea, I think--worth substituting for a forest chop into Eggman's plan.

Now here's the map as revealed by 3400 BC:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred3400BC06.jpg

See what I have to the south? That's right, stone! With a crab tile nearby to boot. And to our north, gold, cows, and rice. This looks promising for my 3rd and 4th cities.

The Scout has finished exploring the east coast (he went back east after the AH hut, when a lion appeared to the west :eek: ). I will likely send him northwest next. It looks like Cyrus' Scout came from the west then headed south through the tundra, so I'm hoping to find another goody hut or two up there. Even if I don't, I'll reveal more terrain, which is always valuable.

There is a wee complication for Hamburg: no additional food tiles if it goes on the plains hill 3E/1N of Berlin. If Hamburg goes on the plains coast & river tile 3E of the capital, however, it gains a clam tile...but it loses the ability to share the cow tile with Berlin. :hmm:

So how do we incorporate all of this into our plans? If it was just me, I'd move Hamburg to the coast for better long-term viability. I'd build a third city down near the stone and crab, maybe 1NE of the stone for a fresh water bonus too. (That city can't get both the silver and the crabs, unfortunately; I always prioritize food over other resources in that sort of situation.) And I'd build a fourth city somewhere up near the gold once I've explored it a little more thoroughly. I'd work on getting the stone hooked up quickly for the Pyramids, and I'd be building Chariots as my early protective units.

However, a lot of that may not be conducive to our goal of early Pyramids and a specialist economy. Eggman has said that stone, for example, may not help build the Pyramids as much as using the Oracle, Metal Casting, a forge, and a GE, all of which requires strict Worker tasks. So I look forward to everyone's input and guidance.

Aww, but civ4 is 99.5% math!
Technically, computers are all about math. Everything a computer does is based upon seven mathematical operations: add, subtract, multiply, divide, greater than, less than, equal to. Everything. Makes me wonder why I like the damn things so much...

There is a wee complication for Hamburg: no additional food tiles if it goes on the plains hill 3E/1N of Berlin. If Hamburg goes on the plains coast & river tile 3E of the capital, however, it gains a clam tile...but it loses the ability to share the cow tile with Berlin. :hmm:

I think Eggman will suggest building Hamburg on the plains hill 3N,1W. That will let it use the rice (though maybe not immediately depending on when Berlin's borders are going to expand), any number of grassland farms, and eventually mined gold. The main problem with your coastal location is that it's more than 3 tiles away from Berlin, which means it will cost you some upkeep, which means you'll need to dial down the research slider, which means you won't complete the necessary research as quickly.

Of course, the disadvantage to the closer location is overlap, but with the food deficit you have in Berlin, that's really more of an advantage in this game. There's no way Berlin is going to work all of its tiles without a ridiculous number of farms, so you might as well share some of the land with a neighboring city and get some use out of it.

Side note: If you had settled in place at the start, you would have gained ivory but lost the horses. Also, Berlin would have been awkwardly close to the coastline, making the clams a difficult grab. I'd say you're better off for the move.

Holy Cow!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

I can't think of a better pair of techs to get popped from goody huts, and the local resources have definitely redeemed themselves. I won't write up anything else quite so detailed on how you can best maximize your results, it's not my name on the ALC brand label and I'm sure your own good judgement and the community opinion will be excellent. You can use what I did lay out as a guideline for the tasks you'll have to perform if you still shoot for MC/P.

One thing I've run into is that a surfeit of good luck can actually spoil things a little. You'll start slipping in extra things like a military unit you wouldn't have bought or use a tree to chop a Worker/Settler that would have gone to a building later. Suddenly you find you've somehow actually ran behind your goal.

Since Berlin is going to have great production and growth from the Horses + Cows, I would probably do Bronze Working immediately and now use a tree to chop out the Settler. Hamburg I would now consider founding south of the Gold. Frederick's culture will soon give you the Rice which will be worth waiting for. An earlier founding of Hamburg will make up for the fact that it doesn't have the kinds of tiles I prefer such a city to have in its first ring. My cautious nature tells me to continue to keep the second city close. Saving Worker turns with short travel times is helpful, and it helps keep the Barbarian activity down (maybe this is not so much of a concern on Prince).

I'd anticipate the advice coming from others will be Bronze Working + Masonry and founding Hamburg to get the Stone with direct production of Pyramids. This is obviously perfectly fine but I think a player has more net advantage in their corner if they went with a really strong MC/P than just making the Pyramids.

I think Eggman will suggest building Hamburg on the plains hill 3N,1W. That will let it use the rice (though maybe not immediately depending on when Berlin's borders are going to expand), any number of grassland farms, and eventually mined gold.

That's not a bad site either. I was thinking that tree might still need to be saved to chop the Forge, and long-term I'd rather have a hill to improve than a plains. But you can get a Watermill on that later I suppose and on the hill you've got one less desert tile. On the hill you'll still have 3-4 trees available to chop the Forge out when needed but they will all be farther away from the city which can cause delay troubles if they aren't roaded. On the plains I see 4 trees right next to the city site- quite convenient. The Rice is going to be a big help, Hamburg might then easily get to size 3 which will allow continued development while it runs an Engineer.

I agree with eggman in that the MC slingshot will be better then the stone.

+
>you take advantage of the philisophical trait
>you free the production form the city building the pyrimids, letting it produce say, chariots.
>the second GE that Dr Elmer Jiggle calculated you would get would help a lot with the GL
>the second city could go by the gold/rice/cow spot for some early commerce

-
>you now run the risk of being beaten to 2 wonders
>less tech flexability
>less worker flexability

this is from what I can see, if someone more experianced wants to wiegh in I would apreciate that.

Its a risk reward situation. Oracle/MC/GE/Pyramid sequence has a pretty high probablilty of going wrong compared to hooking up stone and just building the pyramids. This is of course balanced by the gain of an extra technology and wonder. As well as a hammer advantage because you avoid putting in 225 hammers into pyramids. (assuming you'd get stone in the other case)

I say go for the oracle method. Building the pyramids normally with stone to leverage your philosophical trait is fairly boring. Not to mention I have utter faith that even should your experiment go wrong you'll still win the game handily.

One last thing, since you got Mysticism for free I'd replace Meditation with Polytheism so you have a faster eventual path to Literature.

One thing I've run into is that a surfeit of good luck can actually spoil things a little. You'll start slipping in extra things like a military unit you wouldn't have bought or use a tree to chop a Worker/Settler that would have gone to a building later. Suddenly you find you've somehow actually ran behind your goal.
I agree, so I'll still be following your plan closely with as few variations as possible, and I'll be posting updates after fewer turns to verify my progress. The goal here is to illustrate the MC/Pyramids gambit, so that's what I'll stick with.

The Wheel is a mere 2 turns from completion, and Bronze Working is next on the tech list (after Mysticism, which I now have), so that's where I'm headed next.

I think that after the pasture is complete I'll change the plan by pasturing the horses and building a road to it, then chopping the Settler if the remaining turns justify it. My thinking is that in the production time between the Settler and an Obelisk or Barracks (I prefer the latter), where you suggested two 15 hammer units, I'll insert a single 25-hammer chariot. Likewise for the build between the Worker and the Forge in Hamburg. Then I have a unit that can do a little exploration and return home to do some initial barb-busting. It's either that or start (but not finish) a Settler for the other cities.

Here's a dotmap based on your suggestions, and my own. I moved the 4th coastal city to avoid overlap with Berlin, as it already has more than enough of that with Hamburg. The wine tile would remain outside any city's fat cross, but with the Creative trait, will be within my cultural borders soon enough:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/FredDotMap01.jpg

One thing missing from your plan posts but which I'm surmising is that both the Oracle and the Pyramids are getting built in Berlin. Or am I wrong about that?

One thing missing from your plan posts but which I'm surmising is that both the Oracle and the Pyramids are getting built in Berlin. Or am I wrong about that?

*has heart attack*

That's the whole crux of the argument of when and how many GP/GE's you end up getting that popped up in this thread. It's vital you don't pollute your Great Person pools with mixed sources. So the Oracle goes into Berlin, and the Forge + Pyramids go into Hamburg. Later on when the Great Library is up for consideration, there will be some flexibility on where that goes. The GS points will quickly swamp any other source in the city, but it might be best to find a good spot for a GP farm to have unpolluted science points. I'd expect Futurehermit to have some opinions on this since it's one of the key elements of setting up his specialist econ. Along with the other features of the MC plan, you can continue to run the Engineer in the Pyramids city, with the GPP boost from Pyramids, you'll soon enough have a 2nd GE to burn on the Great Library. Whether you shoot for a 3rd GE will be up for debate. You could also try to build the Hanging Gardens direct in Hamburg to try and squeeze out even a 4th GE but I'm not sure that would work out, since you'll be expected to be churning out GSs instead.

A concern might be if Cyrus beats you to city site #3, but if he does, the Ivory from city site #4 will allow your War Elephants to show him what a mistake that was.

now we see game!
so much luck is surely hiding something! Checked your wife's agenda lately?

however, i'm reaallly glad we have HA now! And horses!
I smelled them, i must say ;)
with the wheel, you'll have chariots that pretty cover your back against barbs.

About the dot map, i think the numbers are right (and elephants are cool!) if you follow the oracle + pyramids path. I still think it's very much useless to go for meditation or polytheism without grabbing a religion, but i won't argue more than i already did. So be it.
Only thing is n°2. Don't you want that cow to the north?
I wanted a high food city. Here it is, if you push you n°2 NE( ie 1 tile E of the gold). Cow + rice +gold = :)

That's the whole crux of the argument of when and how many GP/GE's you end up getting that popped up in this thread. It's vital you don't pollute your Great Person pools with mixed sources. So the Oracle goes into Berlin, and the Forge + Pyramids go into Hamburg. Later on when the Great Library is up for consideration, there will be some flexibility on where that goes.

Surely you want the Library in the GP Farm, intending to mix in Oxford and a bunch of attached specialists?

I'm wondering if site 2 is suitable for the farm and whether we should care if the engineer points get mixed with the science points. It looks as though there's at least one floodplain there, and perhaps more available to the west. More scouting needed, but 2 is the best available GP city right now; it might be better long term to move it west slightly, and pair the rice with the cows in a city north of Berlin.

If i may say one more thing :
cultural is about having 3 big cities
You're going to build an early wonder in your capital (a, not o ;) )
If you rush-build the pyramids in city n°2, that's 2 good culture city.
So a good move maybe to found city n°3 early enough to connect the stone and build a "late" stonehenge in the capital and the great library in n°3. It's not going to be a high food city but with the 2 free scientists and the crabs, you may very well have a good foot on the cultural path.

I still mourn the GSs supposed to fuel your SE.
If I understand it well, the basic thing of a SE is a city with an academy where you add as superspecialists the second and third GS.
Here, you'll probably have 2 GE before the first GS. Meaning you're going to build an academy roughly 20 turns after the GL, and then you're going to wait 400 GPP to get a second GS.
400 GPP with the great library alone= 25 turns. If you add one more scientist (hopefully you will), it's still 19 turns. If you add a second scientist (possible with the crabs) you're down to 15 turns.
But that's 15 turns after the 20 turns for the academy.
I fear you won't be able to fuel the research through those late specialists = need to work good tiles.
Gold is your life saver, here. Crabs are quite too = need fishing tech soon (before pottery is better because you get a bonus to the research).

This seems like a challenging start for a specialist economy. The first 4 cities each have to be built around only a single food resource. But at least they all have rivers for farming. Anyway, the challenge makes it educational!

I'd build a third city down near the stone and crab, maybe 1NE of the stone for a fresh water bonus too. (That city can't get both the silver and the crabs, unfortunately; I always prioritize food over other resources in that sort of situation.)
How about putting City #3 right on the stone and setting it up as a science city? The Stone site would give it 2 free production, and both sites have fresh water, no? With the free production, you could probably get away with running one more scientist rather than working a production tile. Hopefully the city would only have to build food/science/happy/health buildings. The initial workboat/granary/library/lighthouse could be chopped/whipped, and later it could temporarily switch specialists to production tiles if something had to get built quickly. In the short term the Stone site provides 2 more farmable grass tiles, and in the long term its total food yield is something like 2-5 higher, depending on whether the tile S-SE of the stone is flat or hilled, and on whether the game lasts long enough for Biology and/or State Property. What do y'all think?

Along with the other features of the MC plan, you can continue to run the Engineer in the Pyramids city, with the GPP boost from Pyramids, you'll soon enough have a 2nd GE to burn on the Great Library.
Hmmm... wouldn't that force Sisiutil to delay when he starts Representin' scientists in Cities #3 and #4? I guess he could Represent just one in each city until GPP-wise it was safe to add the second. But since he's going for a specialist strategy, maybe it'd be better to go all out with the scientists as soon as he gets Representation?

Hmmm... wouldn't that force Sisiutil to delay when he starts Representin' scientists in Cities #3 and #4? I guess he could Represent just one in each city until GPP-wise it was safe to add the second. But since he's going for a specialist strategy, maybe it'd be better to go all out with the scientists as soon as he gets Representation?

exactly my point :)

exactly my point :)
Oh, I see. And you went farther, to argue that even farming the *first* GE may impose an unacceptable delay on when Sisiutil can begin to run scientists. (No?)

On the other hand, it will anyway take time to develop cities 3 and 4 with a workboat/granary/library/lighthouse, and to grow to maximum size. If they develop to that state before the Pyramids are ready, they could still run scientists until *just before* a GS is popped, and then *stop* until the first GE is popped.

Farming the first GE does delay the first academy and the first settled scientist, but if it brings Representation earlier, that of course is a balance against the loss. And I have to admit, none of the 4 one-food-resource sites that we see on the map now looks like a very good super-science site. Maybe it's better to wait for a better site anyway.

On the whole, I think I agree with you. Here, I suspect it would be more optimal to just build the Pyramids, because Sisiutil has strong production sites and stone (which he can hook up quickly, by building a city on the stone tile and building three roads); and to use the GP pool only for scientists. But personally, I prefer that ALCs pursue interesting strategies rather than hyper-optimal ones. :)

Oh, I see. And you went farther, to argue that even farming the *first* GE may impose an unacceptable delay on when Sisiutil can begin to run scientists. (No?)

On the other hand, it will anyway take time to develop cities 3 and 4 with a workboat/granary/library/lighthouse, and to grow to maximum size. If they develop to that state before the Pyramids are ready, they could still run scientists until *just before* a GS is popped, and then *stop* until the first GE is popped.

Farming the first GE does delay the first academy and the first settled scientist, but if it brings Representation earlier, that of course is a balance against the loss. And I have to admit, none of the 4 one-food-resource sites that we see on the map now looks like a very good super-science site. Maybe it's better to wait for a better site anyway.

n°2 can be a 2 food ressource tile
n°3 could build a pyramid without oracle in the same time frame (of course you don't know MC then, but you have more beakers per turn = catching up)

n°3 could build a pyramid without oracle in the same time frame
Aha! For example: build on the stone and work crabs + 2 mines. I'm not sure whether the mystery tile is hills or flat, but assuming it's flat, 1 plains mine and 1 grass mine. Hammers = 3(city tile) + 4 (plains mine) + 3 (grass mine) = 10. x2 = 20. Pyramids (cost 450) in 23 turns with zero delay for stone hookup. That's brilliant (of you, not me :lol:)!

@sisiutil : your spot for city 4 --> 1 food ressource but only 1 irrigated tile (plains are useless anyway), you will get short on food :o
berlin looks like your production city (that is good, let your capital produce and other cities run specialists). Just hambourg spot seems bad to me... could you explore a bit more NW from berlin ?

edit : I have a question too... whats the use o queue switching eggman ??? you say : 'prepare obelisk to 28/30 and then whip it to comlpete oracle with the overflow'... okya but : if the overflow is okay to finish the oracle, why not whip directly the oracle ??? well i dont really understand the benefits of queue switching yet :/

The Scout has not revealed enough of the map to determine where the city placements should go. There is a flood plain revealed to the west of Berlin and where there is one flood plain . . .

There is food for a specialist city. Send the scout west and let's see what else is over there. Also, it wouild be helpful to know where Cyrus is located in relation to Berlin. It's usually a good idea to expand towards your neighbor and fill in behind later, but let's see what's revealed before making too many plans.

Aha! For example: build on the stone and work crabs + 2 mines. I'm not sure whether the mystery tile is hills or flat, but assuming it's flat, 1 plains mine and 1 grass mine. Hammers = 3(city tile) + 4 (plains mine) + 3 (grass mine) = 10. x2 = 20. Pyramids (cost 450) in 23 turns with zero delay for stone hookup. That's brilliant (of you, not me :lol:)!

:confused:
are you having fun on me? Or are you serious?
I did not say anything brilliant yet, and I don't think i'm a brilliant cIVer.

However founding the city on the stone and sending 2 workers to chop the pyramids there maybe much faster than teching priesthood. That was my idea. I don't think you can grow the city to size 4 in time to build it the way you wrote it, but i'm pretty sure you can build the city in the same time frame than you tech masonry, and chop all those woody things much sooner than you would get the Oracle, the forge ,...

One last thing, since you got Mysticism for free I'd replace Meditation with Polytheism so you have a faster eventual path to Literature.

It also gives you an outside shot at founding Hinduism. The times I've tried this approach on Prince, I've made the Hindu holy city. If you do succeed at that (and/or maybe if you don't), it's worth considering removing the engineer specialist after you build The Pyramids. That would change the timing so you'll get a prophet instead of an engineer for your second great person. If you really want to get fancy, you could remove the engineer only for exactly the right number of turns (which I have not calculated for you ;)) to miss the great engineer by one turn.

It also gives you an outside shot at founding Hinduism. The times I've tried this approach on Prince, I've made the Hindu holy city. If you do succeed at that (and/or maybe if you don't), it's worth considering removing the engineer specialist after you build The Pyramids. That would change the timing so you'll get a prophet instead of an engineer for your second great person. If you really want to get fancy, you could remove the engineer only for exactly the right number of turns (which I have not calculated for you ;)) to miss the great engineer by one turn.

if the game goes this way I very much plead that we go towards a cultural win (ie : build the GL in a 3rd city, build the hindu monastery ASAP in the 3 big ones, ...)

Its a risk reward situation. Oracle/MC/GE/Pyramid sequence has a pretty high probablilty of going wrong compared to hooking up stone and just building the pyramids.

I think you're overestimating the chance of failure. My gut feeling is that if you can get The Pyramids built by 1000BC, you have virtually 100% chance of success. I think the only way you would miss it is in a truly diabolical situation like Industrious nation that starts with Agriculture founds their capital on a plains hill next two 2 corn tiles and stone and/or marble.

You're building The Oracle pretty much as fast as possible. This plan is pretty much a beeline to Priesthood followed by chopping and whipping The Oracle. About the only way you could speed that up would be if you don't build the worker or settler first, and at that point you've totally trashed your empire. Also, I don't think the AI would ever start a wonder before building a settler, so you don't need to rush that quickly.

The Pyramids will be built no more than 6 + 17 turns later and hopefully before 1000BC. Eggman, have you or futurehermit ever failed to get The Pyramids when you've made that deadline? I get the impression you haven't.

Update on generating a prophet: The basic question is how many turns do you need to remove the engineer in order to reach 100 points from The Oracle (at 4 per turn) before you reach 192 points from the engineer and The Pyramids combined (at 10 per turn). Since it will take The Oracle 25 turns, I think the algebra works out something like this, where N is the number of turns without the specialist.


192 > 4N + 10 * (25 - N)
192 > 4N + 250 - 10N
6N > 58
N > 9.67


So if you want a prophet, you would need to remove the engineer for 9 or 10 turns (probably 10 to be safe) out of the 20 to 25 it would take to generate your second great person.

This is obviously perfectly fine but I think a player has more net advantage in their corner if they went with a really strong MC/P than just making the Pyramids.

I'm unsure why you consider the slingshot to be so much more powerful. All it does is net you Metal Casting, and a source of ancient culture plus some Great Prophet points.

Metal Casting is nice if you can use it. Forges are expensive for non-Industrious civs, and even with the Silver down south, I doubt it will be accessable early enough to warrant a MC slingshot.

The extra GPP are unnecessary, and actually serve to complicate the process of generating Great People as GPs are otherwise undesirable when working towards GEs and GSs.

Besides, it blows the Great Engineer you could be using for The Great Library on The Pyramids.

It wasn't mentioned, but in regards to popping the techs from the huts:

IIRC, 1.61 update has a "feature" in it such that what is given by the first hut is most likely given by all huts. In your case Tech > tech. Now, I'm not sure whate effect reloading the game will have on that, but I would actively pursue more huts with your scout and with the chariots you plan to build. I believe they will be very beneficial.

Its a risk reward situation. Oracle/MC/GE/Pyramid sequence has a pretty high probablilty of going wrong compared to hooking up stone and just building the pyramids. This is of course balanced by the gain of an extra technology and wonder. As well as a hammer advantage because you avoid putting in 225 hammers into pyramids. (assuming you'd get stone in the other case).

Yes, there are things that can go wrong in the slingshot, though I find it unlikely that they will happen on this difficulty. The biggest risk is that Cyrus, or another wonder inclined (perhaps even Industrious) leader with access to Stone and having a Government civic has his or her favorite civic may build The Pyramids before Sisiutil does.

This happened in ALC6. I consistently saw Cyrus complete The Pyramids, because Representation is his favorite civic, and he had access to Stone, and he is rather inclined to build wonders (tied for second with some other leaders; only Louis XIV is more inclined to start a wonder).

Keep in mind that, offsetting the 225 hammer cost of The Pyramids with Stone by pure building is the 150 hammer cost of The Oracle and the 120 hammer cost of a Forge under the slingshot. While the Forge can be whipped, and must be whipped in order to have it running in time to pick up enough GEP to overcome the 4GPPpt The Oracle will generate (I believe it's a seven or eight turn window here, and without Industrious, the 120 hammer cost of a Forge is prohibitive), this would serve to stagnate the GE city, especially with the low food start at hand.

I don't know, they've pretty much mapped the Forge-GE-Pyramid tactic some time ago, I guess they know what they're doing. :) As for me, I love netting Metal Casting. In my experience, on Prince, if I go for it I'm the only one to have it for some time, so I quickly beeline to Alphabet and Currency instead of the "usual" CoL and CS. That way I have a really good tech to trade for the CoL-CS line and I have early forges in the cities which can afford them. I guess it's just another way of playing. :D

I'm unsure why you consider the slingshot to be so much more powerful. All it does is net you Metal Casting, and a source of ancient culture plus some Great Prophet points.

It also saves you 450 hammers (or 225 if you're lucky enough to have stone). When you look at it that way, it basically gains you a barracks, a monastery, and nearly 10 axemen.

It's also just a different approach than the standard recipes for a win, which can make the game more entertaining, even if it isn't the best strategy (which I'm not conceding ;), but even if ...).

Also, keep in mind that this was originally being tried with Mao where Metal Casting gets you a major step along the way to Cho-Ko-Nus, so there's an extra advantage in that situation.

Besides, it blows the Great Engineer you could be using for The Great Library on The Pyramids.

That's true, but


You have another Great Engineer on the way 20 turns later which should be plenty soon enough for The Great Library.
The Great Library costs 350 hammers compared to 450 for The Pyramids. Assuming you want both (and if you're running a specialist economy, you do want both), which one is a better use of the engineer? Before you answer, make sure you also consider that by the time you discover Literature, your empire will be better developed and more prepared to build a wonder from scratch. Also you'll be prepared to research Mathematics for improved chopping if you like.


Edit: You make a good point about the hammers for The Oracle and the forge offsetting the savings from The Pyramids, though I don't think it's a one-to-one comparison. That is, you can't just say 450 - 150 - 120 = 180. You get some side benefits from The Oracle and the forge, so it's not like you're just throwing hammers away on them. Also note that he has both gold and silver, so the forge will generate 2 happy faces, not just one from the silver.

i don't like the "going around" strats much, because you always have some unwanted side effects. Here the side effect are :
- the biggest risk of failing;
- the unwanted Great Prophet points;
- the next GP will be more expensive;
- the GE generating city will be stagnant at size 1.

But IF (i don't vote for it) this going around strat is used, it should be pushed as far as possible :
- forges are great buildings when you have gold and silver!
- if you (we?) get a religion on the way (and you should try to get one if you go around the pyramids), this religion can be used for even more happiness + culture (one more thing : the holy city will most certainly go to a later city, ie not Berlin, so you'll have one more source of pollution to the GPP. Either you'll get less GE or you'll get less GS)
- multiple wonders should be in 3 big cities, preparing for a cultural run

- multiple wonders should be in 3 big cities, preparing for a cultural run

The main worry I have with this is that I'm not sure how big any of the 3 "big" cities will be able to grow.

Berlin is horribly food challenged. If I counted correctly, it has 28 food without improvements. Pastured cows gives it 29, leaving 11 to be made up elsewhere.

If we assume that all of Hamburg's (assuming Hamburg is 1S of the gold as shown in Sisiutil's dot map) foggy tiles are 2 food (a generous assumption, I think), then I count 34 food without improvements. Farm the rice and flood plains and farm one more tile to bring water to the rice, and you get 4 more food (3 farms plus rice). Then Hamburg only needs 2 more food, but note that it shares 4 tiles with Berlin, so that will limit the growth of one or both cities.

City #3 has 36 food without improvements but with a lighthouse. The crabs will add 2 more, so that city is pretty good in terms of base food; however, if you go the cottage spam route to culture, there are only 12 tiles that can take a cottage. That goes down to 10 if you consider the missing 2 food. If you go the specialist route to culture, there are 10 farmable tiles and 3 that can take windmills -- enough for 11 extra food and 5 specialists.

City #4 has 37 food without improvements but with a lighthouse. The clams will add 2 more, so that city is pretty good in terms of base food; however, if you go the cottage spam route to culture, there are only 9 tiles that can take a cottage (assuming the ivory is out of play). That goes down to 8 if you consider the missing 1 food. If you go the specialist route to culture, there are 8 farmable tiles and 1 that can take a windmill -- enough for 8 extra food and 4 specialists.

None of these cities is terrible. I'm not suggesting they should be built elsewhere, but none of them strikes me as a cultural powerhouse. It might be possible to achieve a cultural win, but I don't look at this setup and think that it screams out cultural win.

The main worry I have with this is that I'm not sure how big any of the 3 "big" cities will be able to grow.

Berlin is horribly food challenged. If I counted correctly, it has 28 food without improvements. Pastured cows gives it 29, leaving 11 to be made up elsewhere.

If we assume that all of Hamburg's (assuming Hamburg is 1S of the gold as shown in Sisiutil's dot map) foggy tiles are 2 food (a generous assumption, I think), then I count 34 food without improvements. Farm the rice and flood plains and farm one more tile to bring water to the rice, and you get 4 more food (3 farms plus rice). Then Hamburg only needs 2 more food, but note that it shares 4 tiles with Berlin, so that will limit the growth of one or both cities.


that's why i advocate building n°2 (hamburg) 1E of the gold.

But you're right the map doesn't scream cultural. But the going around strategy screams "backward teching" and "religion", so ...
My opinion is either going for a SE through building the pyramids or have fun with going around strat but don't expect a solid economy.

:confused: are you having fun on me? Or are you serious?
My intent was not to make fun of you, but to exaggerate for humor because I was pleased by your brilliant idea to build the Pyramids there! Even though it is fairly obvious, I hadn't thought of it myself!

Edit: I don't think you can grow the city to size 4 in time to build it the way you wrote it,
Only need size 3, actually! :)

That's the whole crux of the argument of when and how many GP/GE's you end up getting that popped up in this thread. It's vital you don't pollute your Great Person pools with mixed sources. So the Oracle goes into Berlin, and the Forge + Pyramids go into Hamburg.
That's what I thought, but given the precise detail of your plan, I wanted to make sure I had it right. The first couple of ALCs (Monty and Mao) indicated just how important and powerful dedicated GP points in each city can be, so that is my preference as well. Having Hamburg producing GEs would be very handy since I'm not Industrial. Remember all the GEs and resultant Wonders I was able to build in the Mao game? That was fun. :D I may try to build the Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sophia there later on for more GE points.

I agree that a little more exploration is needed before the final city sites are decided. I think the Scout will head northwest, so we can determine the exact site for Hamburg before the Settler appears. Though I like Jet's suggestion for building right on the stone and making that site the science city.

On the bigger picture regarding strategy selections, Doc is correct. With all of us getting more skilled, to the point where an ALC ending in a win has become a foregone conclusion, my thoughts are to make the games more interesting and challenging by trying some different gambits. Even if they result in a sub-optimal game, we can all, nonetheless, learn a lot from that. Though if this plan comes together, I doubt the result will indeed be sub-optimal.

It also saves you 450 hammers (or 225 if you're lucky enough to have stone). When you look at it that way, it basically gains you a barracks, a monastery, and nearly 10 axemen.

But it doesn't save you 450 hammers. It comes to 450 - 150 (The Oracle) - 120 (Forge), which comes out to 450 - 270, which is only a 180 hammer difference, 90 with stone.

As I said, it does give you Metal Casting, and it does give you a source of ancient culture (8/16pt), and it keeps The Oracle out of your enemies' hands.

But it blows a GE, increases your future GP costs, pollutes the GP pool in an additional city, and delays your GSs.

I'm still not sold on it, besides it being typically far slower than advertised, though I will agree that it is the more "interesting" option.

But it doesn't save you 450 hammers. It comes to 450 - 150 (The Oracle) - 120 (Forge), which comes out to 450 - 270, which is only a 180 hammer difference, 90 with stone.

As I said, it does give you Metal Casting, and it does give you a source of ancient culture (8/16pt), and it keeps The Oracle out of your enemies' hands.

But it blows a GE, increases your future GP costs, pollutes the GP pool in an additional city, and delays your GSs.

I'm still not sold on it, besides it being typically far slower than advertised, though I will agree that it is the more "interesting" option.
Since I'd usually want to build the Oracle and a forge anyway, I'd still be spending those hammers, so I think this gambit is saving a huge amount of them.

As for the other costs--well, just remember that in the last few ALCs I haven't bothered pursuing the Pyramids because of the multiple costs involved in building them. Why are the Pyramids so attractive to capture rather than build? It isn't just because of the wonder's effects. It's because you know the civ that built them had to devote much of its production in one of its best cities, for several turns, to the 'mids rather than to other things, such as the Axemen you will use to take them.

The appeal of this strategy is that you get to have your cake and eat it too. You get a wonder (The Oracle), a tech (Metal Casting), and a building (Forge) you'd want anyway. You might change the order in which you do things, but over the course of the gambit you avoid directing your production to the Pyramids.

For a Philosophical civ, delaying other Great People is not as big a deal. But having the Pyramids to help generate more Great Engineers IS a big deal.

Since I'd usually want to build the Oracle and a forge anyway, I'd still be spending those hammers, so I think this gambit is saving a huge amount of them.

Exactly. You probably want The Oracle, you definitely want a forge eventually, you're going to research Metal Casting at some point, and if you want to run a specialist economy, you need to build (or capture, I suppose) The Pyramids. You aren't spending the 280 hammers to get The Pyramids. You're spending them to get The Oracle, Metal Casting, a forge, and The Pyramids.

I'm not really sure why using a great engineer to build a 450 hammer wonder that gives you Representation is wasting it. The fact that it increases the cost of future great people is irrelevant unless you never want to generate any great people in your game. Whatever your first great person is and whenever he appears, he'll increase the cost of the next one.

The only thing you're really losing compared to an alternative approach is that depending on your terrain, your cities might not grow quite as large as they otherwise would, since you're emphasizing hammers for a while and occasionally using the whip. You're trading hammers for commerce and/or food, which I'll admit is a tradeoff, but it's not necessarily a bad tradeoff. It's just a decision to go one way instead of another. It's not substantially different than going for Construction quickly instead of founding religions.

Well just one thought, I'd consider putting the City #2 Immediately north of Berlin (1 North of the Rice), so as to get the Cow, Rice And Gold.

The Cow and Rice will be good for getting the city growing+getting the Forge more readily, also I believe you gain a Forest or two. (although you lose some mystery Terrain.)

Whew! I think this thread has already generated more thought at this stage than any of the others has throughout the whole thing! There's a lot of things I read through that ellicit a response, but if I missed anybody's points I apologize in advance.

RE: My preference for Metal Casting/Pyramids
I wouldn't take my enthusiasm for this opening as a qualitative indicator of how much better I think this is over straight Pyramids (which I'll simplify as s/P). Do I think it is better in general? Yes. Can you find examples of openings where Pyramids can be had faster with a straight build? I'll take that as a given. To be as brief as possible, MC/P is better (totally just an opinion) since if something fails post-Oracle, you still have tons of good options available, whereas if you fail s/P, all you get is cash. It's true, the risk you lose out on building the Oracle is never going to go away. But you should always be getting Oracle out in the 1800s BC, and I seldom see an AI match this unless you started with Stonehenge yourself, forcing them to go early Oracle. I've done this opening enough times now that I've lost count and I've never been beaten to Oracle on Monarch (haven't tried higher yet). If this start works 'typically slower than advertised', then I suspect either you didn't start with a Philosophical leader (this opening is a non-starter without one), or you just don't have enough experience planning out how to coordinate all the different things that have to be timed together. You should know by 3960 BC if you can do this plan at all, if you can, then you should have your plan worked out to meet the 1000 BC or earlier target, or the 900s if things are not favorable. If you cannot work a plan that does not finish in the 900s then do not bother with MC/P :nono: , go s/P instead. You should be able to make a plan through this far from the moment you found your capital and have enough explored to find a minimally acceptable 2nd city site. I'll admit there is a little practice involved in doing it. I spent over 10 hours in research before I could pull this off one time with even one leader. Saladin is the most forgiving- with Saladin and this start, we would have a 1000 BC Pyramids instead of 950 (maybe 1040). I would recommend that people who are experimenting with this opening try it with him a few times to get the hang of it. Once you've done it a few times, then you'll have an easier time figuring out how to pull it off with other Philosophical leaders and better map bonuses. Unless I get a goofy tundra/floodplains/jungle start I can pretty much pull this off with Saladin every single time (I've yet to fail). But as I said, you can pretty much tell from your opening view in 4000 BC if you can do it or not. If you can't, don't bother. Bah! This was supposed to be brief!

EDIT: I should also clear up any possible misunderstandings on the use of the MC/P opening. Recent development on it came from a request to get a quick Pyramids with no Stone, to facilitate the specialist economy. But this opening is also perfectly fine if you plan on going all-out for cottages too.

RE: Great Person generation/use
I'll totally bow to the whims of the community on this one. The strength of this plan is that you're giving yourself total control over how and whom you spawn. In my games, I would usually make the second person a GE and burn him on Great Library. I can easily see the case for making the 2nd guy a GS instead, but I don't know what the minimally acceptable times are to get science going- we really need Futurehermit to weigh in (I assume he's spending too much time with Warlords and can't watch the pot he stirred up). I think any thoughts on the GPP coming from Oracle are a non-starter. Oracle is never going to produce a Great Person unless you let it and therefore has no bearing on your Great Person output. Does this mean the points from Oracle are 'wasted'? Well, I suppose so, but once the super-science city goes up the GPP from every other city will also be wasted, so there's no reason to care. Remember that we are forced to time the Forge so that the GE will beat the GP from Oracle... so in terms of both how many people we get and the date we get the first one, nothing at all is actually lost.

RE: Use of first GS
Futurehermit will have the best ideas on this, but if memory serves me correctly his numbers prove that in the absence of commerce the first GS should be used to settle and not found an Academy. The Library city is making 15 beakers with rep, adding an Academy gives 21, but settling gives 26. The 2nd GS would then go into an Academy. You can prove me wrong by adding in the town's commerce supply, but we're supposed to be running the slider at 0% at some point so we are ignoring commerce and not doing tasks that are meant to increase commerce. If the GL is ready before the first GS pops up, then I think Academy first is supposed to be better. The point I'm supposed to be making is that it's not straightforward that you will automatically make an Academy the second the GS pops out.

RE: Cultural win
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that cultural is last on your list of victory options when running the specialist econ. The first principal tenet is that our funds comes from conquering cities and not commerce. So there is no commerce available to produce culture and we're making GS, not GA so we can't culture bomb. I did make the mistake of trying this once, but that could have been atypical since I'm not a specialist econ expert in the best of times. It seems like Sistine Chapel is going to have to be a must. Somebody who is proficient in winning with the science specialist-heavy plan will have to pipe in with advice on how to go cultural before that VC even gets on the table. Since we need cold hard cash and don't have commerce to get it, it seems like Domination/Conquest is the preferred path.

RE: Slavery gimmicks
I was asked about how slavery was getting used in my detailed write-up. These tricks can be fully explained in Zombie69's micromanagement article in that forum. I'll try to give a brief overview here.

Berlin is going to produce a Wonder. When you use slavery on a Wonder (normal speed), 1 pop point only gives 15 hammers. On average we might expect Berlin to grow to size 4 by the time we're ready to whip. There's also the limitation that you cannot whip more than half of your pop, so if we have Oracle in the top of the queue and whip, we expect to get only 30 hammers at best. If we're making something like the Obelisk and it has >0 hammers in it, whipping 1 point of pop gives us a flat 30 hammers at this point. Any hammers above what I need to finish the item are going into the next thing in the queue as overflow. So let's say I have Berlin at size 4 and Oracle is in the top of the queue. I put my unfinished Obelisk (at 28/30 hammers say) at the top of the queue and whip it. The Obelisk finishes and 28 hammers of overflow go into Oracle. Effectively, I've whipped one point of pop on Oracle and gained 28 hammers instead of 15. Now I just add forest chops and normal production until I have >= 135 hammers into it, at which point I can whip 1 more pop directly into the Oracle for 15 hammers to finish it. This trick is especially important to get around the 1/2 max pop per whip limitation in cities that have an odd number of pop. When building the Forge, you're lucky to get this city to size 3. Without this trick I can only whip 1 pop for 30 hammers on Forge, with this trick I'm getting 2 pop for ~60 hammers and only need to chop 3 trees to finish it. The utility of this trick is a function of the growth of the Forge city and the amount of the trees than can be chopped for Forge. If 4 trees are available, then I have 80 hammers from trees, +30 from 1 point of whip, +10 needed to be produced over two turns normally. My lengthy writeup for this map assumed only 3 trees available for Forge, so I included use of this trick for the Forge city. With what is now revealed, if Hamburg goes near the Gold spot somewhere, you can get 4 trees in its cultural border without too much trouble and starting the Obelisk in Hamburg is no longer important, you could make a Chariot instead.

feh... I hope all interested parties are keeping up, 'cause I pity the fool who tries to get through this whole thread from scratch!

Round 2: to 2920 BC

I started the round by moving my Scout back to the west, traveling south of Berlin, through previously revealed tiles. He would then proceed a little further west before heading north towards our prefered site for the second city, around the gold, cow, and rice.

I finished researching my second "honest" tech:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred2920BC01.jpg

After that, I started on Bronze Working. Meanwhile, my Worker finished the cow pasture, which shaved about 5 turns off the build of the Settler. In a variation from Eggman's carefully-laid plan, I built a road on the plains tile 1W of Berlin, then the horse pasture and a road on its tile. I did not build the mine on the plains hill south of Berlin as Eggman first specified. I figured that the cow and horse pastures will now provide 5 hammers to the original plan's 4 from the mine for a better swap (the cows, in the absence of AH, were to be farmed initially). Not to mention both tiles bring in 1 commerce to help research, as well as 6 food.

I got news about another religion being founded:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred2920BC02.jpg

So much for that idea, but it wasn't essential to our plans anyway.

And yet another neighbour showed up:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred2920BC03.jpg

Hmmm, Kublai, interesting... I seem to get along with Kublai for a while, then his Aggressive trait kicks in and it's war. Well, Eggman indicated that a specialist economy gets its gold from war (capturing cities and pillaging), so it's starting to look like that will be the route to go. I'd prefer to take out Cyrus much earlier this time than in the Louis game. He's a pain to deal with if left too long. So maybe I can try to share Kublai's religion to keep him off my back at first. A lot depends on who else is on our continent.

Speaking of Cyrus, I found his territory, and it's awfully close to ours:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred2920BC04.jpg

To give you a better idea, that rice tile in the upper right is 2W of Berlin's horse tile. Yeah, that close.

And in 2920, my Settler completed:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred2920BC05.jpg

I ended the round here because I think we now need to decide on the location of city #2, Hamburg. My Scout revealed a bit more territory around the gold, discovering a banana tile that could be in Hamburg's fat cross if I found the city a little further northwest of where we'd been talking. Check the big map to see what I mean:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred2920BC06.jpg

However, that may put Hamburg too far away for our Pyramid plans, and it might be best to leave the bananas for another city that also gets the sugar and whatever else might be unrevealed in the fog. I mean, Hamburg could easily claim both the cows and the rice for food. Why get greedy?

The other problem is that we don't know the location of copper yet because of the timing of the research. It would be a pain to found Hamburg only to have copper appear on the following turn just out of its reach. I could hold the Settler back for a turn, but that would delay some of the builds which need to be timed rather precisely.

Thoughts?

Hmm, Cyrus has rocks.

Playing on general principles, I'd be looking at settling the corner of the river to pick off the gold mine and the floodplains, and the plains hill to pick off the cows and rice. I looked further west, to pick of the two gold resources, but my quick review suggested that the site wasn't strong enough (though the corner there, with two gold mines and four flood plains, certainly isn't bad).

Which site do you most want to ensure that you get? I'd say get your city where you want it so that Cyrus doesn't mess up your dotmap...

i vote for food city (rice+cow+banana+gold :) + hills )
you're going to need another city anyway, so the 3rd city will have to get the copper

edit : let cyrus build a few cities to capture near you

edit 2 : a little dotmap of possible food cities: (red dot and green dot)
133929

Tough choice between the gold/flood plains/rice awest and the gold/cows/rice north. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Do you want to fight an early war? If so, then Cyrus is your target. He has stone and he will undoubtedly settle the gold/flood plains area, but probably not where you want it, which wouid be 5 tiles west of Berlin.

Do you want a peaceful early phase? If so, then settle 5 West also because Khan will come south and the border clash will begin early. Each of them is creative, right? That means they'll have to be disposed of before they become problems.

Would knowing where the copper and iron are make a difference to your strategy? If so, then a two turn wait might be in order. The chariot can escort the setter perhaps? (are animals a problem?) But if copper isn't a necessity for an early war or if you don't want to fight one, then don't wait.

Preference: 5 tiles west. Khan will be coming south and Cyrus east/north. The question is which of these creative civs should you hem in a little. Forcing Cyrus south of you is tactically useful, but you will probably lose the gold/cows/banana/rice city as Khan will take some of it, unless he has another site that's better.

Also, the western gold city has immediate food from the flood plains while the northern city will take some time to develop and grow. Problem: health and few forests west.

I see three cities, possibly four in the picture. 5 West and another 5 east/1North on the coast after seeing what's left up north. Or, north first and then the coast as Cyrus will undoubtedly want those gold hills. The Clams/Ivory coastal site is a plum and it opens war elephants, but you don't have to race to it.

If you are going to build the Pyramids (or at least Oracle) then you won't have many hammers for early axes IMO, esp. when playing at normal speed (the axe supremacy is shorter comparing with lower speeds).

Maybe it is doable with Oracle, but I am not sure.

When you go for the mids and therefore have fewer hammers to spend on other things like axes, I would prefer a little peacefull expanding. Therefore settle towards your opponents and still give your self an option for the closer sites. Therefore in this situation I would go for the double gold site. Third city would be copper (or might even delay, since you have chariots against barbs) and next city the gold/rice/bananas.

i vote for food city (rice+cow+banana+gold :) + hills )
you're going to need another city anyway, so the 3rd city will have to get the copper

edit : let cyrus build a few cities to capture near you

edit 2 : a little dotmap of possible food cities: (red dot and green dot)
133929
cyrus is creative too... that means early cultural defenses... without iron It might be hard to take :o or you'll have to wait until cats

Cabert, thanks for the dotmap. Very handy.

I like the site 5W of Berlin too, but it has problems.

First off, with only one food resource, it may be sub-optimal for both running the Engineer specialist post-forge (primary objective) and working the gold mine (secondary objective). Then again, with farms on those floodplains instead of cottages (specialist economy, remember), I may be able to make up for that.

A bigger problem, however, is that the site has only three forests for chopping. I need four forests for 80 hammers to rush the forge there. I suppose we could make up for the loss of 20 chopped hammers with a skillful pop rush, since 1 pop gives 30 hammers (and, of course, much more from 2 pop if you do it right). But with fewer citizens, I'm back to having trouble running an Engineer specialist, feeding and growing the city, and working the gold.

I am, therefore, leaning more towards the site to the north with the cow, gold, rice, and banana. It has the required number of forests for chopping. Its distance from the capital may complicate things, as its maintenance may slow research--especially since I have no gold from huts (more on that in a moment). But it is definitely a better long-term location since it avoids overlap with the capital, and all those food resources guarantee I'll be able to work that gold mine. The 5W site is one for a little later. I may have to raze one of Cyrus' cities to snag the site. C'est la vie.

One other troublesome though relatively minor concern: both civs I've met so far start with Hunting and, therefore, a Scout. Cyrus came from the west and has explored south while Kublai came from the northwest. I'm pretty sure I saw one or both of those scouts head northeast as well. All this means I'm beginning to doubt I'll come across any remaining tribal villages.

Well, given the amazing luck I had with the two I did manage to pop, I probably will have no cause for complaint if that's the case. I wouldn't mind finding at least one more for a little gold to finance research at 100% just a little longer, though.

Longer term, I don't like either of these neighbours. Both are going to be trouble, though in different ways. Once the goal of the Pyramids has been achieved, I think I will be going on a war footing for the rest of the early game. In fact, once the Chariot is finished in Berlin, I may send it towards Persepolis to see if I can snag a Worker from Cyrus.

The AI routinely farms flood plains for their GP/specialist sites. France is particularly adept at this as they often build the Pyramids with Napoleon.

I concur that the dearth of forests 5W could be a problem. How much so depends upon a number of factors that we don't quite have quantified.

Time will tell. I'm sure you'll do fine with whichever city site you have as #2.

at the 3320 screenie when hinduism was founded, you commented ' so much for that idea ' which idea was that ? considering a run on hinduism?
If you wanted to do that you had an opportunity when your scout flipped you mysticism, thats about the only time I go for religion early unless I start with myst.

i vote for food city (rice+cow+banana+gold :) + hills )
you're going to need another city anyway, so the 3rd city will have to get the copper

edit : let cyrus build a few cities to capture near you

edit 2 : a little dotmap of possible food cities: (red dot and green dot)
133929
I vote move that city 1 square east, still picking up the gold (giving up the banana to go with sugar for later city).

So far I've seen some pretty good advice on what to do with Hamburg. However, this advice is focusing on the best long-term use of the city. If you're going to implement MC/P, you cannot :nono: take in any considerations of your long-term goals for city #2 unless that plan satisfies every short-term requirement as well. This is why a lot of players won't be keen on this type of opening (and I certainly don't blame them): you've been spending your time getting your city-building instincts honed to a razor's edge and now you're being asked to place them on the shelf for a while.

City #2 at a minimum needs a 3F source, 3 forests, and must be no more than 3 tiles away from the capital (hmmm... 3 threes, easy to remember!) The disadvantages you'll accrue from violating these guidelines are actually going to cancel out whatever gains you start to make from whatever tempted you off the One True Path (TM). I'll admit I'm impressed by that lucre in the north, and getting the Gold Mine hooked up is going to be very nice... but that may be a job for city #3. I see the Gold/Cows/Rice as going to some sort of production-themed city and the Bananas/Sugar (2nd only to Bananas in food output) going to some other city carved out of that jungle. Maybe another production city with Workshops or our 'have just 1 cottage city for cash emergencies' spot. A very minor consideration in placing city #2 is if you can squeeze in a 4th forest or not. If city #2 has 4 culturally enclosed trees in its border, then that helps a lot, since all of the city's post-Worker pre-Forge hammers can be put to whatever use you like. If you have only 3 forests to play with, then you're forced to store hammers in a 30+ hammer item for the double-whip-at-size-3 trick, unless you have enough food where the second city is guaranteed to hit size 4 when you're ready to whip. I when I say 'guarantee', I mean guarantee don't assume that extra food means you will be at size 4 exactly when you need to be. You have to do the math and be absolutely sure. A rookie MC/P mistake is to think that a floodplains city will get to size 4 in time- it won't, because the extra time involved in farming a floodplains over grass knocks you out of your target window.

Given what we see now, I recommend the hill 3W of Berlin. It meets the first standard of passing the 3-3-3 test, plus you get the bonus of being on a hill which is always nice. I see 4 forests that will clearly be in the cultural range of the city by the time you need them to be. [EDIT: I miscounted, there are only 3 available if the one below the Horses cannot be credited to 3W] This is not counting the forest south of the Horses. This tile would be exactly 2 away from both Hamburg and Berlin. In these situations I don't know which city will get the credit for the chop (closest in X direction, closest in Y, most recently founded, capital over anybody else, who knows?) so I always assume in these cases that the 2nd city will not get the credit. Now then, why would I pick this site over any other that meets the 3-3-3 guidelines?

The specialist econ write-up says that the 'super-science' city at the very end of the game only needs to support 6 specialists that we have to feed ourselves and acquire at a minimum 6 Great Scientists (1 Academy, 5 settled). A recommendation is to get one of these GS from Physics. So the SS-city remarkably only needs a food surplus of 12! Before Biology but after Civil Service the 3W tile can easily support this surplus farming the tiles that do not overlap with Berlin. Before Civil Service, we only need at a minimum to feed the 2 specialists working the Library, which 3W can easily do. Of course, this will mean Great Library goes into city #2 and we'll have a polluted Great Person pool, but I can't imagine any any serious complaints on suddenly finding ourselves with a GE later in the game.

When Hamburg is founded, wherever it goes, the Worker's priority is to get roads out to the trees you will use on Forge and to get them pre-chopped. Once this is done, your Workers can pre-chop or chop outright (based on the time-frame) any trees that are necessary to complete Oracle in line with the finishing of Pottery. Only then would I ever get around to farming the Rice for 3W. Remember that the guidelines say you need 3F unimproved... this is another one of those cases where your instincts are going to be bothering you if you haven't left them on the shelf yet. Now, there could be time to farm the Rice early and still get your woodworking chores done. But you must be sure of this, never guess! :nono: . Your first incorrect guess will often be enough to drop you past 1000 BC for being finished.

You beat me to the punch on suggesting using the first Chariot to steal a Worker from Cyrus. I would still try this, but remember that unless the stolen Worker can get to the area around your cities either before or right after the 2nd Worker is built anyways, then he'll have little to contribute to accelerating the MC/P timeline. The best use for such a Worker might be the farming chores around 3W, or helping with the roadbuilding (a setback in 3W is that all its trees are almost as far away from each other as you can get) while the rest are doing their woodworking. Although Nares doesn't cover this in his excellent stealing guide, a few of the AI leaders are willing to accept white peace (no units are killed on either side) as soon as you can talk to them and Cyrus is one of those. Having a Chariot who can grab a guy and avoid a counter attack will help you achieve this. A minor concern is how close Cyrus might be to having Immortals out. Pay attention to the message log, if you see 'Cyrus has adopted Slavery!' then you can start to be worried about it. Since we're south of the southern jungle band I suspect Cyrus has a tundra start which should keep him from doing anything too impressive down here. It will be quite handy to have him so close when wartime comes and I think he's an obvious first target. The northern jungles will screen you from Kublai for a while.

I was hoping Eggman would weigh in. As with several of the strategies I've learned from the ALC posters, this is yet another counter-intuitive one. In that regard it reminds me of VoiceofUnreason's watermill-and-workshop based Ironworks city, which is now a regular part of my games.

I looked again at Eggman's plan and did my best to pull some general principles from it. The 3x3 rule makes sense, and yes, I'd gathered that you want to "prep" the forest tiles to be used for chopping Oracle and the Forge with roads and pre-chopping. The closer the forests are, the better, since that economizes the Workers' moves. My 1st Worker is currently roading the forest tile 1NE of Berlin for this very reason.

So I think the Settler is indeed going 3W to continue my attempt to pull off a MC/Pyramids gambit. I also like it based upon the fact that it expands towards the opposition--not as much as 5W would, but it follows that principle nonetheless. I will keep everyone's suggestions in mind for later cities, of course.

Hmm, 3W is the hill NW of the horses, right? There might be one problem though. How do you make sure that those forests you chop will go to your second city and not to your capital? If it goes by proximity, then the forests 1S, 1E and 2N from that city site might do the trick. Not sure how this works though.

Edit: Or does it work by lighting up the square in the city in which you want the forest? I think I never really cared about this before, not having placed cities so close, but this makes more sense than the proximity "theorem". :D

I tried exploring this gambit last night (as Saladin). One caution - the city governor will jack with your specialists when you aren't paying attention. My GE came out many turns later than it should have simply because the specialist kept getting turned off.

But Eqqman isn't kidding - those cities look weird.

I tried exploring this gambit last night (as Saladin). One caution - the city governor will jack with your specialists when you aren't paying attention.
The main danger is having everything rearranged when your city grows in size. So if you remember to check your cities after growth you can nip these things in the bud. With everything turned off, I don't recall the AI meddling with specialists unless I've done something like change to a civic that affects them in some way. If people have had experiences where specialists were changed and nothing happened anywhere at all, then that's pretty scary! I've heard the best fix is to highlight all three of the 'prefer F/P/C' buttons so that the governor won't fool with specialists at all.

---

At this stage we can do some comparisons to monitor our progress and illustrate how tight your planning has to be in these cases. Under the 'worst case scenario' plan of my write-up we are done in 950 BC, and we really want to do better. Originally we have the Settler ready in 2760 BC, and the Oracle done in 1680 BC. To meet the 1000 BC deadline, we need to get Oracle bumped up into the 1800s. Mysticism is going to be a huge help for that.

Our Settler is out in 2920 BC, an improvement of 4 turns since the existing roads mean that Hamburg is founded in the same time-frame as the original plan. So, Worker #2 comes out 4 turns earlier and we've gained 4 Worker-turns. However, we're missing the roads that would have been on the forests east of Berlin, so we've lost 4 Worker-turns. Five, really, since the Worker has moved onto tiles that otherwise we had no reason to visit. Surprisingly, we've yet to accrue any advantage so far from our pastures! This is one of those things I was getting at when I mentioned that good luck can actually shoot you in the foot. This should also illustrate that starting your research with Animal Husbandry is a huge mistake no matter how tempting those Cows look.

Now we have to assume that some good must surely come to us out of these pastures. We'd like to hope so, so let's find out. Getting Mysticism from the hut saves us ~5 tech-turns. I expect Oracle to now be started in 2280 BC. Given 2 chops and ~45 hammers out of slavery we need 65 hammers of regular production. Berlin is certain to be at size 3 by then. If we work the Cows, Horse, and the forested plains hill, we'll crank out 10 hammers/turn and thus it takes 7 turns to complete Oracle. Surprise! Under the original plan, we only would have spent 8 turns working on Oracle. So while our pastures are absolutely vital for future developments in the capital, they contribute little to helping MC/P. We can see that popping Mysticism from the hut gave us 5x the benefit. At this point we're sure we've saved at least 5 turns off the original plan so the GE should be out now in 1120 BC. I've yet to break the 1100 barrier so this will certainly be an achievement. But wait, we can't pat ourselves on the back just yet. We're hoping to finish Oracle 5 turns earlier. This means that both Workers need to be done with all the chores we had set up for them 5 turns earlier. We've already discovered that we have yet to gain any Worker-turn surplus at all. Luckily we might be okay. I'd have to dig through my notes, but if memory serves me correctly under the original plan one Worker had a 5 turn surplus while the second had a 3 turn surplus. So it's clear that Worker micromanagement is going to be vital. Since one of the trees for site 3W is not adjacent to the city, we may be losing a Worker-turn here. It should be clear that we have no Worker-turn surplus that could have been used up by settling Hamburg any farther away than we already plan to. I think conservation of Worker-turns is the very last skill you pick up as a cIV player and the most challenging part of the MC/P opening.

EDIT: I was forced to make a farm I didn't want to in the first Master Plan (TM), so there's a savings of 4 Worker-turns right there. This could be saved as surplus to keep a buffer for the accelerated Oracle building, or used as a gamble on the Rice for site 3W. Worker #2 could try to immediately farm the Rice as soon as he appears, but since the Rice won't be irrigated any gains from this will probably be marginal.

Round 3: to 975 BC

I decided that this round, I should play things through and see how our MC/P plans pan out...or don't. Hence the 975 finish.

To start off, our third continental companion showed up:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC01.jpg

Hoo boy, good ol' Monty. He took a while to show up, so I suspect he's nowhere nearby, and that's a good thing for now. More on him later.

I also built the second city, Hamburg, in the Eggman-approved spot:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC02.jpg

As I said, a very counter-intuitive location. Just look back through the posts after the last round with everybody urging me to put it either 5 tiles west or 5 tiles north. And here it is only 3 tiles away from the capital, with enough overlap to make a dedicated dot-mapper lose sleep! But it's part of the MC/P gambit, so that's where it goes.

Research-wise, I completed Bronze Working and moved on to Polytheism.

Shortly thereafter, the Chariot fininshed in Berlin. Trusting that barb activity and AI aggression would remain low for a while, I sent him towards Persian territory. I didn't see a Worker, so no luck there. Cyrus has quarried his stone, but strangely, had not yet built a road to it. I also found, against all odds, another goody hut:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC03.jpg

I don't think I've popped a hut for a Warrior since my second Civ IV game on Settler level. (My first, if you're wondering, was on the supposedly-best-for-Civ-vets Noble level, where I got promptly and severely spanked for trying all my Civ II tricks.) I would have preferred gold to support research, but I'm not going to turn my nose up at a Warrior, especially since both my cities are still bereft of defenders! I sent the Warrior east to finish exploring the south coast. The Chariot went northwest to reveal that area. And my Scout was further northwest and had earned Woodsman I thanks to a panther and a lion.

(Barbs military units, by the way, have been practically non-existent so far. I've only seen three barb Warriors, and my Chariots have killed all of them. There isn't a lot of empty fog (such as a big swath of tundra), so there may not be many in this game. Or maybe it's still too early.)

A few turns later, I finished researching Priesthood, started the Oracle, and then researched Pottery. I chopped three forests for the Oracle. Following Eggman's precise instructions, when Pottery was done, I changed civics:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC04.jpg

And when I came out of anarchy, I put the "hammer collector" back at the top of the queue. I then cracked the whip:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC05.jpg

And on second turn after that...

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC06.jpg

Of course, I selected Metal Casting as my free tech. So I immediately switched Hamburg's production to a Forge.

Then I realized I had a problem.

I'm not the mathematician that Eggman and a lot of other Civ players are. I don't play the game, as I've said, with a calculator in hand. I prefer general principles to precise calculations. Maybe I'll never manage to win on Emperor or higher as a result. Insert shrug here.

Up to this point, I'd done relatively well enough because Eggman had laid out a precise plan for me to follow. But this was where I suddenly realized some of the variations I'd indulged in had the potential to bite me on the butt.

To go back to my cherished general principles, I had failed to sufficiently pre-chop the forests around Hamburg. And I realized, as I finally got past my math aversion and did some calculations, that getting the Forge built ASAP in the second city is far more important than speeding up the Oracle in the first city. But I had focused on the Oracle, because that's what I'm used to doing.

I had six turns after the Oracle completed to get the Forge built in Hamburg, otherwise my first Great Person would be a Great Prophet from Berlin, not a Great Engineer from Hamburg. Three chops weren't going to do the job, and because I had not done enough pre-chopping and road-building to Hamburg's forests, I didn't have time to do a fourth chop. Frankly, I didn't want to--I wanted to keep two forests for their health bonus, what with all those floodplains.

But the floodplains were the saving grace, as was the horse tile. I switched Hamburg to work the horse tile, a floodplain, and the plains forest until it was chopped. Then I switched to working a grassland forest, maxing out the hammers per turn, but also growing the population. Hamburg now had 2 pop, you see, and on the fifth turn of building the Forge, it had just over 90 out of the required 120 hammers to go--that's right, just enough to whip the forge. It would also grow back to 2 pop within a couple of turns.

So I whipped the forge, assigned the Engineer specialist, redid my math, and breathed a sigh of relief. I would indeed be getting a Great Engineer.

After that, I was able to pretty much do what I wanted. I built my third city, Munich, 5N and 1W of Berlin to claim the banana, rice, gold, and cow. Kublai, you see, was expanding quickly, and I didn't think I'd have time to claim the banana tile with another city, at least not peacefully.

I had copper in two inconvenient locations. One was 4W 1S of Hamburg, with too many desert tiles to make a viable city. (if I'd built Hamburg 5W as many suggested, I would have had it, along with all the floodplains. Oh well.) The other was 4W of the cow that Munich claimed. When I moved a Chariot up there to check the area, Kublai had already built rather close to the rice tile, the only nearby food source. It looked like he'd take that tile on the city's first border pop.

So once I had Masonry, I decided to research Iron Working and hope for iron in a better location than the copper.

In 1040 BC, the Great Engineer appeared:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC07.jpg

So on the next turn, in EXACTLY 1000 BC...

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC08.jpg

YES!! Okay, I probably could have done that a little faster and smoother, but I'm not an egghead...er...Eggman. ;) I immediately switched civics to Representation. I then played one more turn, since I had a couple of things to do.

Iron had appeared, you see, and I built my fourth city in order to access it:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC09.jpg

I decided to put Cologne 1NE of the location some had recommended in order to decrease its overlap with Berlin. The capital has more than enough overlap with Hamburg.

Notice that I will have Writing on the next turn, so I can start building Libraries. That's important, since the next stage, now that the MC/P gambit has been accomplished, is to build my specialist economy to take full advantage of it.

Here's a look at the map in 975 BC. First, the north...

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC12.jpg

And the south:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred975BC11.jpg

You can see that Monty is, indeed, quite far away (for now), and it looks like Kublai will be a buffer between us for a while.

--------------------------------------------
So first off, let's talk about next moves. I'll run through what I'm thinking of doing and you can all tell me what you think.

I'd like to build one or two more cities. I definitely want to put one more down to the south, right on the stone as was previously suggested, and make that the science city if I can. If the rice tile nearby remains unclaimed, a lower priority might be putting a city to the northeast to lay claim to that copper. But since I'll soon have iron, that's not vital.

Once the iron is hooked up, I think I should prioritize military. Barracks, Granaries (for more efficient whipping), and units. Libraries, however, have to enter into the equation soon too, to allow for scientists. At least, that's what I'm assuming. I've never run a specialist economy before, so I would appreciate all and any guidance with it.

Back to military. I have two Creative civs and two Aggressive ones on the continent. Cyrus could easily out-tech me, Kublai will jump on me the moment he sees and advantage, and Monty is...well, he's Monty. They all have to die, the sooner the better.

I want to build Axes for city defense, then a stack: an Axe and a Spear for stack defense and several Swordsmen. Then research towards Catapults.

Speaking of research, after Writing, I'd like to research Alphabet. I have an excellent bargaining chip in Metal Casting and I think I should see what I can get for it, especially before I start attacking the neighbours. Fishing, Sailing, Monotheism, Archery, Mathematics, and even Horseback Riding are all on the shopping list. After that, I'll research Literature (for the Great Library), Mathematics (if I can't trade for it), Construction, and Code of Laws.

Back to war: who to attack first? Well, to go about it the other way, I'd like to attack Monty last, since he's furthest away and it looks like Kublai will be between us. So I'd like to buddy up to Monty for now. I'm hoping Buddhism will spread to one or more of my cities, then I'll convert. If he requests tribute, unless it's ridiculous, I'll likely cave.

My thinking here is that Monty can be formidable in the early game, but he quickly falls behind in tech. So if I leave him until much later, I should have enough of a tech lead on him to make the war much easier. So yeah, I'd like to make him my pet dog. For now.

So who's first, if not Monty? Well, the main disadvantage to Kublai at the moment is that he's Buddhist like Montezuma. Attacking him would likely earn me a "You declared war on our friend!" demerit from Monty. Cyrus is closer and is starting to claim some territory I'm thinking should be rightfully mine, like those desert gold hills.

The only problem with Cyrus first is it gives Kublai more time to get and build up a force of Keshiks. That would necessitate lots of Spearmen and prioritizing Engineering for the even better Pikemen.

Thoughts?

-----------------------------------------
While you're thinking about all of that, let me give you my perspective--thus far--on the MC/P gambit.

As Eggman said, planning is important, but I think my success with the gambit shows you can be a little looser about your approach to it on Prince. But not by much. Obviously, I was very lucky with the huts, but as Eggman pointed out, that wasn't quite as big and obvious an advantage as it seemed.

My main tip to add to everything Eggman said is that building the Forge in 6 turns or less is vital to this gambit's success. So if in doubt, make a priority of pre-chopping and building roads in the forests for the second (forge) city. Looking back, I may have been better off NOT chopping for the Oracle as much as I did.

I think that Frederick is the ideal leader for this gambit. Obviously you don't want to attempt it with anything but a Philosophical leader. But Frederick's Creative trait is a perfect match as well, because it means you don't need Stonehenge, which would--if built early--play havok with the GP generation.

Not only that, you don't need obelisks either. The chief concern with this gambit is the weakness of your military. But I've been able to build two barracks because I didn't have to build obelisks, and I also built some promoted units to protect my cities. Since AH and BW are both on the tech path, there's a chance you could locate the second city to obtain copper or horses.

Is it worth it? Well, for that answer, I'll have to play the rest of the game. Which I will do once I hear from everyone.

After a quick look, and counting some watermills... A GP farm in Hamburg looks reasonable - not great, as those desert tiles are worthless, but you'll want to run an irrigation line to the rice anyway, so why not? I'd go ahead and stack the Great Library with it, if you can. Note that the city is only pulling 5 raw engineering points per turn - if you start running double scientists, it may not stay ahead for the next GP.

Berlin's fated for production, and probably not enough of it, in the late game I think. The fate of those shared tiles between them is not clear to me. Cyrus, I think, has your big production center - you'll just have to go take it from him.

As for your libraries - yeah, you want them, but military may be a higher need at the moment. I'd look at grabbing code of laws, and playing the slavery/caste system zim zam to get your scientists instead.

Good job on getting up to 1000 BC! I'm sure after that hard work '...do what I wanted' comes as a relief :lol:.

It's just as well that the Copper is in out-of-the-way spots. If it had been closer, you'd have been tempted to build a Mine on it with no Worker-turn surplus left for it. Since 1000 BC is a little late for an 'early' war and you already have Chariots, it's best to get right to Iron Working and fight the first war with Swords. Trying to get Copper hooked up for Axemen wouldn't help much.

It's a shame that Montezuma founded Buddhism. On the plus side Kublai looks like he's totally buried in the jungle so that should slow him down. The downside here is that with two Creative neighbors and your 'slow' opening war, you'll be facing 40% culture or more and the defenders will start to be more advanced than Archers. So you might be right in thinking that Catapults are going to be a requirement for your first fight.

You're certainly right that the AIs will be tripping over themselves to get Metal Casting off you. I wouldn't go too nuts trading for the cheap techs- doing a better job of avoiding WFYABTA is something I'm still learning to manage. You might try cleaning out Cyrus for what he's worth shortly before you attack him, then do the same with Kublai and so forth.

Planning out the tech tree is going to be tricky. Literature has to be quick for the Great Library. Banking for mercantilism. We're recommended to try and pick up Astronomy via Liberalism. Education of course for Oxford. I'm not exactly sure where we're supposed to slip in the military techs. They may have to be traded for until we can get an advantage from Grenadiers. Since we may be the only ones on our block with War Elephants they'll have to last for a while... and since the WE is going to be just as good as Pikemen vs Keshiks, the war against Kublai will probably rely a lot on those backed up by the City Raider veterans of the Cyrus war.

Yeah, once I got the forge completed and the engineer assigned, I realized that the game was entirely mine once again. Wheeee!!

I don't think Monty founding Buddhism is so bad. As I said, I'm hoping for it to spread to my cities so I can convert and keep him happy with my while I take out the other two. I find founding and especially spreading my own religion to be a distraction from more worthwhile pursuits.

What's "WFYABTA"?

VoU, I see you've added your vote to Eggman's for making Hamburg the science city and GP farm. One tricky thing with it is that it will need several health improvements to grow its population properly. I'd rather not chop its two remaining forests to build the GL and lose their health bonus. It occurs to me that the proposed city 5W of Berlin would have had two more floodplains and no forests after chopping its only two for the forge, so health would have been an even bigger headache there.

On the other side of the coin, with gold, early access to forges, ivory, wine and silver within reach, happiness will not be too much a problem early on.

I am going to make a couple of minor changes right off the bat. I have a Combat I/Shock Chariot in Cologne, which is the city least likely to come under attack, so I'm going to swap him with the 1 XP Chariot currently in Hamburg. I'm also going to reassign the shared horse tile to be worked by Hamburg. It has a forge and will therefore get more out of the extra hammers.

In terms of research, I think I'm going to have to balance the techs needed for a specialist economy against those needed for military. Since several people have mentioned how a specialist economy lends itself to warring, this doesn't strike me as unusual, but I will appreciate tips, suggestions, and guidance.

I'll play the next round later today, after more feedback, and post it tonight.

I don't think Monty founding Buddhism is so bad...

What's "WFYABTA"?


My Buddhism concern is more along the lines of, since your two northern opponents are already sharing a religion you don't have, they are earning religious diplo points. So you are going to have a harder time trying to persuade Monty to attack Kublai instead of you than you would otherwise.

WFYABTA is the inappropriately named 'We fear you are becoming too advanced'. It should really be called 'We're just tired of trading with you.' The former makes it seem like the AI is actually gauging your progress and trying to slow you down. This is partly true, since when your score becomes significantly higher than the AI's it does factor into play. But really the largest factor is that each AI will only trade so many techs with you and no more. And this has nothing to do with beaker count- so for the purposes of WFYABTA Archery counts the same as Artillery.

I used to do the intuitive, naive trading- be the first to Alphabet and hawk that around for everything I could get. Then I'd be stuck mid-game trying to trade for important things like Guilds, Banking, Currency, or Optics. I recently won my last Monarch game because I'd learned to wise up and not take everything they offer. Saladin was willing to trade tech with me throughout the entire game so I was able to make a game winning trade of giving him Electricity and Radio for Artillery (a total rip-off, but this was game-winning). If I'd run into WFYABTA with him I'd have added a huge amount of time to my eventual victory.

You mentioned trading for Archery, Monotheism, and Horse Back Riding. Archery and HBR aren't going to be needed for quite a while, if ever. Maybe you can slowly acquire them as techs used to 'make change' when you make a more important deal. Or just wait until your science is up high enough that you can do them in 1-2 turns yourself. I don't know what Monotheism is going to be useful for. Maybe you were thinking of Monarchy, to get the Wine? With the happiness from representation and the other luxuries already close by getting the Wine going can come much later than you might otherwise be forced to shoot for. Plenty of stuff comes into play in trying to avoid the WFYABTA message, but the only rule of thumb you really need to bother worrying about is, stop trading for techs that just aren't that important/urgent.

VoU, I see you've added your vote to Eggman's for making Hamburg the science city and GP farm. One tricky thing with it is that it will need several health improvements to grow its population properly. I'd rather not chop its two remaining forests to build the GL and lose their health bonus.

Well, you are pulling in 10 engineer points per turn - there's a decent chance that you can rush it. If your GP generators were to remain as they are, you'd get a GE as your next GP 20 turns from now (Hamburg would pass Berlin again).

But part of the point of this start is to get the specialist economy going. Which means libraries and scientists. GP are determined by the ratio of source turns, not the ratio of GP points, so running two scientists in Hamburg more than doubles your GP rate while keeping your chances of scoring an Engineer at 50%. It's not a great trade off, as you don't need the GE sooner, you just need him at all, but it should give you two or three cracks at the apple before you need it.

The tricky build will be getting the National Epic in there. You may need to resort to the whip to get the hammers. Or turn off a couple specialists and work the desert hills for a while. Go get some marble.


BTW: I'm impressed by 1000 BC - I've been screwing around with a Saladin start that looks promising, and my best is whatever turn is after 925 (I'm deliberately adding the handicap of no prechopping, but I think I just realized that I misunderstood how the obelisk and barracks are used).

Hamburg does look like the best Specialist City.. short/mid term.. it has the Rice and 3 Floodplains.

Longterm, it probably is too, it has 5 regular grasslands, and has some OK production spots that can be worked.

I'd say let it build a Library, get to 3 Specialists, (2 Scientists and an Engineer)
Start building N.Ep. as soon as you can and Rush GL when you get an Engineer

Assuming the Library takes ~10 turns your GPP wil be ~100
then you switch to full specialists, and you get the next 2 GP (total cost =500) within 20 turns... that should be a bit after the time you get Alphabet... earlier because of the Library....you can then Rush the Great Library and Start building National Epic, because you should get a Third GP sometime after Literature... One of those three should be another GE.

Extra Engineers that you get can even be Settled if there are no useful Wonders to get [Side note: big advantage of Engineer Wonders being they can go wherever you want] But a Settled Represented Engineer still gives 6 Flasks. (and 3 hammers, helping to build things like National Epic, Universities, Oxford)


Settling on the Stone seems like a bad idea, that city would not have good production early on, and I think the tile 1 W of the Stone would allow it to have some decent Early production. (unless you want to Rush for Stonehenge with it)

Otherwise start gearing up for War Production everywhere else.

Yes, you have your pyramids, not kick someone's ass. I vote Cyrus first. Once you get your Iron up, build your mixed force and Git'R'Done!

damn this thread is starting to give me a headache!! well good job on performing the MC/P sling you did it well (pulling off the forge intime despite the mistake was great) the technical nature of the specialist econ does make it a tougher game than normal but you're doing fine. as far as upcoming war.. I would definately pursue construction asap.. but do remember that you'll need to get COL asap to really maximize what you can do with the specialist econ.

your 2nd GE definately should go to the library if you can.. will put you seriously ahead in tech for quite a long time. just remember that you'll have 1science city with the library, academy, 2 more scientists, and then settled ones.. then 2 scientists in every other city.

because of the need to use soo much pop for science, you won't be able to really use whipping, instead shoot for calendar when you can to take advantage of the happy's around you.. and start switching from science to culture so you can increase happiness... more happy = more pop to really dominate w/ a specialist econ.

even still I'd recommend settling west for the 2 gold and copper, and or settling near that other source of iron. preventing the ai from getting it.

while the specialist econ does rock.. i'd still either work the happiness resources (the patches of die or silks) so that you have a little more commerce to pay for upkeep and move your culture slider up. it will be helpful!!!

gonna keep following this to see how it turns out, best of luck sisuitil!!

back to warlords for me :D

NaZ

Round 4: to 25 AD

This round was mostly about building up.

My Scout continued exploring the north around Aztec territory. He found a source of marble, but unfortunately, it's WAAAAAAY up north in Aztec territory.

I finished researching writing and made the diplomatic rounds:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD01.jpg

I got Open Borders agreements with all three known civs. Anything, at this point, to improve relations and possibly lead to the spread of Buddhism. Since barb military units are also starting to appear, it meant my Scout could survive by ducking into "friendly" territory when needed.

I finished another Chariot in Berlin and sent him on a recon mission through Persian territory. It turns out that Cyrus has built Stonehenge in his capital! Check the hill just east of the city:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD02.jpg

I also founded my fifth city:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD03.jpg

I decided to take an earlier suggestion by Jet regarding its location, as well as making this the science city and GP farm. Once I take out Cyrus, this will be a very secure location. It has a fresh water bonus, a food resource, extra production and defense built-in, 7 riverside grasslands and 5 riverside plains, a grassland hill, and a plains hill.

I also, based on previous experience (especially the Mao ALC game), I wanted to keep my GP production in each city as "pure" as possible. So the majority of my GPs from this point on should be Great Scientists, though I may still get a few Great Engineers out of Hamburg. I'm certainly going to try to build a couple of GE wonders there, like the Hanging Gardens, though the lack of production tiles may not help.

Once the iron mine came on-line, my cities shifted into war preparations, building barracks, then Combat I Axemen for city defense, then Swordsmen for city attack. The rally point for the units was Hamburg. I'm anticipating an L-shaped, northwest-to-southeast sweep through Persia.

I had to take some time out of the military build-up to start building libraries, though, to further lay the groundwork for the specialist economy. Hamburg got its first. I stagnated this city's growth for awhile to avoid health problems, but once I got Cologne's clams and Frankfurt's crabs available, I was able to grow it a little further.

My next GP was, as expected, a Great Engineer:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD04.jpg

Hey, you won't hear me complaining. I sent him to Frankfurt in anticipation of researching Literature after Alphabet so I could use him for the Great Library--especially since I have no marble.

Once I had Alphabet, Monty showed up and demanded I give him Polytheism. Wanting to keep him happy for now, I complied. I then decided to see what I could get from him and wasn't too disappointed:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD05.jpg

That, so far, is the only tech trade I've made, mainly because trading with Cyrus or Kublai would have been very unbalanced in their favour--Metal Casting for Monotheism, for example. Forget that noise.

But I should be able to keep up in tech. Once I finished researching Literature, I put that GE to good use:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD06.jpg

So Frankfurt is now the Science city. I built a Granary there to get its population growing quickly.

My next Great Person came out of Hamburg and was also a Great Engineer! I'd been hoping for that and had tried to rig it by juggling specialists, but I could only run one engineer and at times ran 2 scientists, so it was never certain. I briefly contemplated using the GE for the Parthenon, but decided against it. For the rest of the game, I'll want as many Great Scientists out of Frankfurt as I can get, and the best way to guarantee that is with the National Epic, not the Parthenon.

So that's where Heron went, and that's what I used him for. I mean, look at how many turns the NE would have taken without him. Granted, the only tile iwth hammers being worked was the city itself, but still:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD07.jpg

Shortly after this, I had enough of a stack put together (5 Swords, 1 Axe, 1 Spear) to go after Cyrus, who was nipping at my heels in terms of score, population, and research the whole round. He even managed to beat me to Code of Laws and founded Confucianism, to which he converted. (Arbella became the holy city, but in spite of that, Cyrus' creative trait, and Stonehenge, it's having no luck claiming tiles from Frankfurt with its Library, GL, and NE. Heh heh heh...)

First off, I went to see Cyrus to see if I could squeeze him for something, since I was slightly ahead of him in terms of power. City maintenance was still low, you see, so I had diverted research towards Construction rather than Code of Laws. I managed to get Sailing from him, gratis. Then I wasted no time:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD08.jpg

This reminds me of the previous ALC (Louis), when I took tribute from Isabella right before declaring war on her. As I said then, I did not do this in Civ IV for the longest time because in Civ II, doing this earned you the emnity of other civs. That doesn't seem to be the case any more in Civ IV, so what the heck. The advantage is that I don't necessarily have to pause for peace to extort some techs.

My stack is currently parked outside of Susa, which is just northwest of Hamburg:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD09.jpg

Granted, Susa has a 40% defense bonus, but 5 Swords ought to be able to handle it, especially since that Axe only has a City Raider promotion and the Archers have none. I should be able to take Susa and lose 1 to 3 Swords in the process. Most of my cities are now building Catapults (and 1 War Elephant) to augment the stack. Since I'm going up against two Creative leaders, I wanted to get Catapults available soon, and the high defense bonus here seems to validate that decision.

Should I keep Susa? I'm awfully tempted. It's well-positioned to get the second iron tile, both gold mines, and to work two more floodplains which I can farm in order to work the gold mines. I'll shortly be able to build courthouses now to offset maintenance costs. If I don't keep it, given its proximity to Kublai, he'll likely swoop in there and build a city to claim the territory. I'll also likely be keeping Persopolis, though, and Arbella, the Confucian holy city. Even so, keeping Susa seems the best course.

My stack would then sweep south. The nice thing is that given the way my territory is parallel to Persia's, it will be easy to reinforce the stack. The bad news is that makes it very easy for Cyrus to counter-attack. He had a couple of Axemen just west of Frankfurt, guarding his silver mine, but they've vanished--I suspect he'll use them to reinforce the defense of one of his cities, but I can't rely on that. I plan on shifting a couple more units down to Frankfurt to protect it--probably the Axe from Cologne, and maybe I'll build an Archer as well. I do like the idea with a specialist economy that the AI's usual predilection for pillaging will not do it nearly as much good as if there were cottages everywhere.

Here's a look at the southern half of my continent in 25 AD:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD10.jpg

And, just for interest's sake, the northern half:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25AD11.jpg

I am just starting to shift to a specialist economy; the slider is at 20%, yet still maintaining a decent amount of research. In fact, I went from 70% research and a -6 GPT deficit to 20% research and a +15 GPT surplus without losing a turn for researching CoL. I have libraries in most of my cities and am starting to shift the population to scientists as the cities grow. Most of the resources are hooked up, so my Workers are mainly building farms and roads.

Neverthelss, I keep reminding myself that this is the first time I've run a specialist economy. So I'm going to follow up this post with another one a little later today, showing screen shots of every city to get input on how I'm managing this particular strategy (among other things).

The saved game file is below.

Yeah, keep Susa. The Gold will be great once the SE gets up and running. I tried an SE (On Quick Warlord, had little time) and it worked out amazing. Great change. Also, it says 'Round 4: To 50 BC' instead of to '25 AD'.

Well I'd keep Susa, and Tarsus as well (you are running at +15 right now and will get some good capture gold)... Throw in Pasagardae as well (6 pop means it will be pretty easy to whip a courthouse and that is prime Real estate... you don't want to raze whatever buildings he may have there, and 6 pop is a definite time advantage in development)

All of those cities are well positioned, and you will have CoL soon enough

Tarsus and Susa can fairly easily pay for themselves (Tarsus with water commerce, Susa with Gold)


Yeah, I'd take him and Not raze anything


One final tactical consideration.... you are attacking an Axe with Swordsmen?... It would probably be better to use your Axeman in the Attacking Stack to hit them, but I'm guessing he's defensive

If you hit Susa with a Swordsman (assuming they are CR I), your odds are
6 v. 5 (+50melee +40 city +25 fort -20CR -10 sw)=9.25

You can take Susa, but you will have to stop while you replenish your Swords... and I'd include some CR Axes for this circumstance in another city AND get your Cats ready.

(of course the alternative is to wait for the Cats, so basically it is just taking Susa because you can, since you will have to wait to take city 2 no mater what you do). After you get CoL I would concentrate on Production rather than Scientist specialists everywhere but Frankfurt.

I think we can see how helpful SE can be in the early stages of the game. Regardless of how many turns you actually spent working on it, your screenshot shows that you now have the science output to handle Code of Laws in 6 turns. That seems pretty good (but not great, we were shooting for 5 turns). Something to think about is your temptation to fiddle with the science slider. I'm guessing that the 20% you discussed is the highest you can have it without running a deficit, which is an entirely instinctual move. I would abandon this instinct and drop the slider down to 0% and leave it there, probably for the rest of the game. You'll be tempted to raise this up to try and shave a turn or two off of tech research, but instead to make this adjustment you should be increasing your specialists. We want to squeeze every gold deutschemark we can out of our commerce, both for the maintenance we'll be racking up and to save for unit upgrades. If we're not running a deficit for prolonged periods then you can start by upgrading the Chariots (if they turn into War Elephants) or starting to save up for your Macemen upgrades that might come in the next 500 years or so. Commerce should be going 100% into gold production until we need to raise the culture slider to fight unhappiness.

It's a tough call for me on making a 3rd GE over the first GS. With Great Library out, we now need an Academy ASAP.

One thought on the war plan. Some people have complained that it's impossible to get the AI to agree to give up a city in peace talks. To a large extent this is true. I've found the only circumstance I've been able to get a city is when the proffered town has been cut off culturally from the rest of the AI's empire. Not only that, in these situations it's even been my opponent's idea to give up the city! So, if you attack Susa and swing south, Cyrus might be willing to part with Tarsus without a fight. As the fighting goes on, check every round to see if he'll part with it as you head towards the doorstep of his final city in the south. If he never does, no big deal, just crush it later at the end of the war when you want troops to be handy in that area to face Kublai anyway.

Yeah, keep Susa. The Gold will be great once the SE gets up and running. I tried an SE (On Quick Warlord, had little time) and it worked out amazing. Great change. Also, it says 'Round 4: To 50 BC' instead of to '25 AD'.
Fixed.

I haven't been whipping much since the Pyramids got built, so I think I should also switch to Caste System as soon as CoL makes it available.

Krikkitone, I got kind of blind-sided by the Axe in Susa. Last time I checked, he only had a couple of Archers there. But that's a good suggestion, Cyrus has a few Axes running around, so I will build a few CR Axes to counter them, and lots of Catapults too. I may wait for a Catapult or two before taking Susa, given how lousy the odds are. I could see losing almost every unit to that Axe.

I noticed, though, that there is a worker on the silver hill just within reach of Frankfurt's Chariot. I may snatch him away.

And looking at the map, every one of Cyrus's cities is, indeed, desireable and in a good location. I don't think I'll be razing anything, so I'm going to have to build plenty of city defenders along with my offensive units.

Now for the run-through of each city so everyone can comment on how the specialist economy (among other things) is coming along.

First up, the capital, Berlin:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25ADb01.jpg

I haven't seen any mounted opposition units so far, so I will probably get rid of that Spearman in the queue and build a CR Axe, as suggested. At 9/6 on both happiness and health, Berlin has plenty of room for growth. I may move a citizen from one of its plains farms to that grassland farm to encourage just that. It has its library and one science specialist, but it occurs to me that I haven't taken advantage of the early discovery of Metal Casting yet. Specifically, I haven't built forges anywhere but Hamburg.

Well, I've had other priorities: getting cities founded, the libraries built, and a military up and running. But a forge for Berlin is definitely in the plans for the near future--once I have enough units in the field. Berlin may wind up being the military city in this game.

Now for Hamburg:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25ADb02.jpg

As you can see, I've had to watch Hamburg's health carefully. The addition of each health resource has allowed me to increment its population, but then I've had to stagnate it. This is why, after it finishes that Catapult, it's going to build an Aqueduct. After that, I'd like to have a go at the Hanging Gardens. All my cities--Hamburg in particular--will benefit from the health boost, the specialist economy should benefit from the population boost, and who knows, I may get another GE out of it.

On to Munich:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25ADb03.jpg

I must confess, I haven't given Munich much thought. It's just a good, productive, non-specialized city. It will benefit a great deal from Calendar and a plantation on that banana tile; Civil Service will also irrigate the rice and help its growth and # of specialists further. So those are priority techs.

Munich could also benefit from a Forge, and a Granary, but I've had to keep it building units thus far. I'll have to sneak those in when I can.

Cologne:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25ADb04.jpg

Cologne, thanks to its iron mine and ivory camp, is my #1 production city (by 1 hammer). I'd like to put a Forge here soon, but the library is next--I have enough extra food to run a specialist here.

But a forge would be good too, and maybe I should swap it into the queue. My thinking is that with two coastal cities, each with a food resource--and more to come once I capture all those Persian cities--the Colossus may make sense as a wonder to pursue. I'd like to have copper accessible first. Fortunately, Persepolis has some. How convenient.

Finally, Frankfurt:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred25ADb05.jpg

In 3 turns, when Frankfurt's population grows, I should be able to add a 2nd allocated scientist. That would raise the city's GP production from 36 points per turn to 45. It currently has 266/400 GP points. In contrast, Berlin has 320/400 and is producing 10 GP points per turn; Hamburg has 38/400 and is producing 22 per turn. Either way, my next GP should be a Great Scientist from Frankfurt in 4 turns. So I think I'll assign the city's next citizen to the mine to help production.

It occurs to me that having this city build a barracks is a mistake. I think I threw it in there for lack of anything better. But now that I have Sailing, I think a Lighthouse would be a much better build. So I will probably switch that when I get back to the game.

I must confess that using that 3rd GE for the National Epic in Frankfurt, rather than building the Parthenon, was based entirely on the idea of running a specialist economy. Normally, like most players, I rely on commerce (through cottages and science and commerce multipliers) to take care of research. In that situation, I probably would have gone for the Parthenon to balance out the GP production in my various cities.

In this game, however, I'm relying on specialists for research, which means I want as many Great Scientists as possible. So it made sense to rush the Great Library and then the National Epic to make that possible, especially since I'm not going to have access to marble for quite some time.

It might make sense to prioritize units over Forges until you get Forge happiness resources.

Frankfurt's only purpose in life is to run as many specialists as you can squeeze into it. After making the Lighthouse I would get that second scientist up ASAP and not care if you ever finish the Barracks. Really if you can spare the food I would work the second scientist now. We really need that Academy in Frankfurt. Since you already have so many hammers in the Barracks, you might as well finish it eventually. But start on the Aqueduct and Colesseum before making units. We want growth in this city to be as unlimited as we can make it, and running specialists over working hammers it will take longer to finish these things, so it will help to start them well before we really need them.

Colossus is a nice, but commerce-increasing Wonder. Since we are not focusing on (but perhaps not entirely ignoring) commerce this Wonder is very low priority. I would certainly not try to build it and Hanging Gardens in different cities at the same time when we need troops. And I definitely agree with you that it perhaps unwise to start it at all without having Copper handy.

Slavery vs Caste System is a tough call. You can certainly switch too soon. Slavery benefits every city, Caste System only benefits cities that can afford to feed at least three specialists. I would continue to try and maximize your gains from slavery until you are ready to switch to Mercantilism. Now that you have Construction I would get Machinery, Civil Service, and then make Banking your number one priority. To keep up with the tech rate we have to run mercantilism as fast as possible. Obviously, look for tech trades that advance research to Banking over other avenues.

Life in Sisiutil's shadow is different at 25ad. Went for old fashioned CoL slingshot,prophet for CS, prophet for shrine. Had my first war vs Cyrus c 500bc, took two cities, he's got 2 left. Now up to 7 cities and paying hefty city maintenance which is denting my finances. Tech wise you've got metal working and construction while I've got CoL and CS. I haven't been playing that well which hasn't helped but atm too close to call.

Frankfort? Are you kidding me? Can anybody persuade me that isn't a significant strategic error?

In Frankfort's fat cross, you have:

Four coastal tiles: in a GP farm, those might as well be desert - they can never support a specialist.

Two hills: again, they can't support a specialist. Not worthless; the ability to improve production speed is something, and the grassland hill can be a permanent home if you have odd food.

Five plains tiles: worthless until Biology, then worth half a specialist each.

One food bonus: the crabs are +3 when you get the lighthouse built.
Seven grasslands with fresh water.
One grassland without fresh water.

So you are looking at... six specialists at size 15 pre biology, 13 specialists at size 25 afterwards?

Compare this to Hamburg, which can run five specialists at size 9, without even touching any of the seven grassland tiles not including the one with the forrest that you are trying to hold onto.

Hamburg also had the upside of combining the National Epic with the engineering wonders.

Frankfort, on the other hand, was destined to be a fine shipyard (ooh, watermills!) in the modern era, and in the meantime was going to be a perfectly reasonable commerce center (harbor for trade routes, space for cottages).

I'm perplexed, is what I am. My best guess is that you spooked at the temporary health crisis.


Second thought - the Parthenon; I think it should be much more prominent in your strategy than you seem to have it right now. If you are running specialists everywhere, then a wonder that improves GPP yield everywhere is a very good thing. The artist points are an issue, so tuck it out of the way, but you'll want to have it.

One point, since in a Specxialist Economy, Commerce= Gold, then High Commerce Cities (Capital+Gold cities) should run NO specialists, and No Libraries, just Markets (especially the Capital once you start running Bureaucracy)

The main advantage of a Specialist Economy is that you only have a few cities that have anything to do with science (since Science buildings are useless unless you have Science... unlike Gold buildings which also give happiness and health)

Stick with the current level in Frankfurt until you grow, that will guarantee that you can continue growing, even if slowly (and for a building, Lighthouses, Monasteries, antything else to get more pop+Science bonus)

I wouldn't worry too much about the Forges, unless you're Industrial, the only real bonus is the Happiness and the Slavery exploit.

I'd probably wait til COL is done before going to 0% science, but I would do it at that point... it'll help you to maintain a solid empire.

Overall I'd say
1. Finish CoL

2. drop science to 0% and focus all non Science Cities on Production of units [tech towards Macemen... C.S., revolt then Machinery]

3. Save Great Prophets for Shrines... if Berlin gives you one, otherwise build the Academy and Settle other GSs and GEs in Frankfurt. [I wouldn't burn either of them for techs over time the settling will be far better]

4. once your Army seems big enough, and you are crushing the Persians, then start restoring some of the 'Secondary Science' cities.


Note, you may want to start turning Berlin into a massive Gold Center (Towns there to benefit from Bureaucracy) all other cities can be Secondary Science/Production.

Frankfort? Are you kidding me? Can anybody persuade me that isn't a significant strategic error?


Don't blame me, I voted for McGovern!

Aside from that, I wouldn't take any steps to boost empire-wide GPP production unless it's a side effect of efforts to boost it in the super-science city. With science specialists and settled GSs, this city should be making increasing levels of GPP that prevent any other city from generating a Great Person. While I'm not thrilled with this decision, it isn't game-breaking. The specialist econ write-up says that even late game we only need to feed 6 specialists in the super-science city, so as long as Frankfurt can handle that, we're okay at least on that score.

3. Save Great Prophets for Shrines... if Berlin gives you one, otherwise build the Academy and Settle other GSs and GEs in Frankfurt. [I wouldn't burn either of them for techs over time the settling will be far better]


I'm flabbergasted anybody would ever recommend settling a GE. If one pops out, then save him for Statue of Liberty since that is a key part of the late-game plans. If more than one pops out, then there's bound to be something he can build or tech-rush that gives more advantage than settling.

Aside from that, I wouldn't take any steps to boost empire-wide GPP production unless it's a side effect of efforts to boost it in the super-science city. With science specialists and settled GSs, this city should be making increasing levels of GPP that prevent any other city from generating a Great Person.

I think your math is broken here. First, the settled specialists don't generate any GP points (I think you knew that, but the sentence you wrote implies otherwise).

Second, if a specialist economy is going to have an edge, it's got to be in GP generation, and that's going to come from running GP streams in parallel (you may not, ultimately, get more GP that way; but you will get them sooner). Parthenon, Pacifism, and Caste System all fit together for this.

A specialist economy may be able to meet it's artificial targets without parallel GP creation, but I don't think it's going to beat a commerce economy to similar milestones.

Sidethought: cutting Berlin over to commerce will have the additional benefit of killing off the Prophet points. Sounds like one wonder per commerce city unless it generates the kind of points you want.

I'm flabbergasted anybody would ever recommend settling a GE. If one pops out, then save him for Statue of Liberty since that is a key part of the late-game plans.

And be certain to rename him, so that you don't forget his purpose in life.

I think your math is broken here. First, the settled specialists don't generate any GP points (I think you knew that, but the sentence you wrote implies otherwise).


With the eventual 6 specialists in one city and 2 in any other (that we feed ourselves), it's going to be difficult for any other city to pop out a Great Person. But you're right that the first few out will probably come quicker if it's handled in parallel and carefully managed. And it will get wackier if the specialists are distributed in a manner where any given city could have any amount of specialists in it. I haven't had a lot of practice trying to optimize Great Person throughput yet, usually I focus on the easy way of just increasing the specialists in a single city.

Getting another GE would mean hanging gardens if you ask me in your GE city. You want your cities to be big so the hanging gardens could help with that. Next GE should be on Notre dame and last one on Statue of liberty but then again GS is priority number 1. Great game so far. And a very nice one on the Metal casting/forge/GE/pyramids tactics. But Frankfurt is a bit strange instead of Hamburg, but then again Hamburg is your GE production city and Frankfurt is 100% GS. Following this with great interest again.

about frankfurt, i think it's a strange choice but with good side effects:
- strange because banana city had a bigger potential for GP farm IMHO.
- good side effect is the high culture pushing back cyrus and it's creative religious stonehenge.
A bad for a good then...
Let's live with that.

About war, you don't need spearmen. build elephants (anti melee, anti mounted, anti siege, anti city, ...), axes (antispear) and cats (antistack, anticulture). Some swords can be useful, but i would choose elephant over sword anytime!
My guess is to build a few CR axe against defensive axes. If you use a shock axe, it will go against the archer :eek: while the CR or combat axes will face the defensive axe first.
You could use some chariots to break those little axewielding bastards or just send in the elephants...
Cats are good too, but you will lose them.

I'm flabbergasted anybody would ever recommend settling a GE. If one pops out, then save him for Statue of Liberty since that is a key part of the late-game plans. If more than one pops out, then there's bound to be something he can build or tech-rush that gives more advantage than settling.

Well the benefit of Rushing SoL is ~700 Hammers.. say 20-30 turns of production in whatever city (assuming you have copper by that point)

The benefit of Settling the GE is 3 Hammers in Frankfurt [doubling minimum production there for science+Food boosters] plus 6 base flasks (~ 10% boost in overall Science)

Depending on when you get him, that may save more turns in getting the Statue of Liberty than saving him for a rush....plus it gets you the other important techs (ie Banking, Education) earlier. And it continues to provide benefits.

If you get it while researching Representation or Printing Press... definitely save it for Rushing, If you get it while researching Feudalism or Guilds, Settle.

Now that Is assuming you aren't Really interested in any other Wonders, instead just overall improvement (in sustainable tech and military) right now. If you Really want HG and want to make sure you can get it in Hamburg, then go ahead and rush it there.

about frankfurt, i think it's a strange choice but with good side effects:
- strange because banana city had a bigger potential for GP farm IMHO.
- good side effect is the high culture pushing back cyrus and it's creative religious stonehenge.
A bad for a good then...
Let's live with that.

About war, you don't need spearmen. build elephants (anti melee, anti mounted, anti siege, anti city, ...), axes (antispear) and cats (antistack, anticulture). Some swords can be useful, but i would choose elephant over sword anytime!
My guess is to build a few CR axe against defensive axes. If you use a shock axe, it will go against the archer :eek: while the CR or combat axes will face the defensive axe first.
You could use some chariots to break those little axewielding bastards or just send in the elephants...
Cats are good too, but you will lose them.


Swords with CR promotions will take cities much better than elephants. I usually use elephants and most other mounted units as escorts and leave one behind with an axe to protect a newly conquered city.

Sorry it took so long for me to weigh in, I didn't realize that the spec econ was rollin' in this ALC.

There have been some things so far that made me cringe, but it's my own fault for not weighing in sooner.

First off, good job on the oracle-pyramid build.

Here are my reflections:

1) I always start with police state, not representation. Libraries usually aren't on board yet and police state helps recoup some of the lost military production spent building wonders. I would suggest using police state whenever you have a tech lead over the AI. Then, when they start catching up enough to trade with you, switch back to representation.

2) Only run scientists off of 4+ food tiles. Don't use farmed grasslands. If this means you only have 1 scientist in a city, that's fine. Add the second when stagnating your city at the happiness limit.

3) DO NOT go to caste system asap. Only use it when you're going past 2 scientists (see point 2). I usually consider it when mercantilism becomes available. I don't see you having enough 4+ food tiles to justify it at this point.

4) Creative civs suck :( Tough luck! I would suggest trying to collar Monty to help you take out cyrus and/or kublai. Should be easy as long as you use good diplomacy, you'll have a nice tech lead over him.

5) Try and get GSs going asap. Use the first to build an academy in your GL city. Settle the rest in the GL city.

6) Set slider to 0% and then try and capture as many cities as you can without totally crippling your econ. First priority in newly captured cities is getting libraries on board.

7) After your food tiles, your next priority for your cities is trying to get as much production going as possible (farms + mines).

I'll post more soon. Good job so far.

Well the benefit of Rushing SoL is ~700 Hammers.. say 20-30 turns of production in whatever city (assuming you have copper by that point)

The benefit of Settling the GE is 3 Hammers in Frankfurt [doubling minimum production there for science+Food boosters] plus 6 base flasks (~ 10% boost in overall Science)


Not a trade-off that is very convincing (on me). If I need the beaker output I can get that from adding a single specialist in any city (based on science buildings produced). The hammers I don't care about since this is a science, not production city. I think you're undervaluing what you get from rushing SoL. If, at the point this Wonder is available, you've got at least 15 cities that have a Library + one other science improvement, rushing SoL adds ~135 beakers per turn at a minimum. Multiply this by the amount of turns you would have spent building this Wonder normally and you're basically looking at a free tech.

I certainly wouldn't use the next GE (if we even get one) on Hanging Gardens though. Cabert pointed out that it's foolish to use GEs on Wonders that produce more GEs when the ROI is so small. HG is one of the safer Wonders to beat the AI to if you make an effort to do so and there are far more Wonders that would benefit from rushing, like Oxford.

Once again, VoU catches me out on my aversion to math. I think playing with a calculator at my side during the MC/Pyramids run exhausted me in that regard, so I didn't feel up to calculating food and GPs and all of that. Hence, Frankfurt.

See, this is why I'm still playing these games at Prince level. I can take a suggestion from someone and give it a try and if it's sub-optimal, we all learn from it but it doesn't make or break the game. Frankfurt will support several scientists and produce several GS. Hamburg could have supported and produced more--the advantage, evidently, of farmed floodplains over farmed grassland (futurehermit, where were you, dude?). Point taken, lesson learned, I will remember that for my next specialist economy game. On Monarch, I suspect it would be very hard to compensate for this sort of thing, but Prince is a little more forgiving. I'll obviously find out how much so soon enough.

Frankly, I'd prefer to make mistakes (or perhaps a better term is "sub-optimal decisions") than play a perfect game. Speaking as a former teacher, you don't learn by doing something flawlessly; you learn by screwing up. (Now if someone could explain that to my wife for me, I'd really appreciate it.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the guidance on my next moves with this unfamiliar but evidently very powerful specialist economy strategy. Next time I play as a philosophical civ and find lots of floodplains early on, I'll probably go in this direction. It's like playing Civ IV on Bizarro-world: my capital and 2nd city are too close together, the science slider is about to drop to 0% and stay there forever, and I haven't built a single cottage. It's weird, but it's fun! :crazyeye:

It is going well, a very interesting game so far.

Try to be sure that the change to the Caste System will benefit your economy as a whole rather than just boost research for a short time. I'm thinking here that you have quite a few cities (and will get some more from Kyros) that are missing buildings that would be easy to whip in with Slavery but would take a long time to build normally. You don't seem to have a lot of spare food to run the Caste System effectively right now.

Also in your city shots you seem to using scientists (costing 2 food) when the city can grow by a further one or 2 pop. Unless you have an ulterior motive (like popping out a GP quickly) it is better to defer using specialists while you can still grow the city.

In Cologne which is a slow grower a granary is more valuable than the library and that should raise the health there too ;) You seem to be low on health giving resources right now but conquering Kyros should eventually give you wheat, sheep and fish.

2) Only run scientists off of 4+ food tiles. Don't use farmed grasslands. If this means you only have 1 scientist in a city, that's fine. Add the second when stagnating your city at the happiness limit.


This, I can believe - essentially instead of using the surplus food to generate hammers (:whipped:) you are using it to generate research and GP points. But are you doing with the flat and green, when you have space under the happy cap? Cottages, or pairing farms with grassland mines?


7) After your food tiles, your next priority for your cities is trying to get as much production going as possible (farms + mines).


I guess that's the answer to my question.

While I know we are running a specialist economy, I must beg the question - Where are we going to set up our commerce/ cottage city. For those of you who dont know, this city will provide us with bundles of gold for upgrades/RUSH BUYING, matinance, ect, because the slider is at 0.

futurehermit, you said don't use farmed grasslands, only 4 plus food tiles. Can i revise that and say, IF it's not a production city, a workshop would be bad on the tile, you can farm TWO grasslands for a +6, with a -4 for pop upkeep, leaving 2 for specialist, same as if you had a +4 farmed flood plain, -2 for pop upkeep, and 2 for specialist

While I know we are running a specialist economy, I must beg the question - Where are we going to set up our commerce/ cottage city. For those of you who dont know, this city will provide us with bundles of gold for upgrades/RUSH BUYING, matinance, ect, because the slider is at 0.
Ah, good question. Suggestions? One of the existing cities, or one I'll capture from Cyrus?

Unfortunately, his holy city is not in a great spot for this and will be choked somewhat by Frankfurt. Susa has a few tiles that would be good for this and several that won't, and I'll probably have to farm its floodplains to work the gold hills. Berlin and Pasargadae have a few grassland tiles, but not a lot.

I dunno, I think the Mongol capital looks like the best candidate for this--it's just a question of how long it might take to capture it.

Not a trade-off that is very convincing (on me). If I need the beaker output I can get that from adding a single specialist in any city (based on science buildings produced). The hammers I don't care about since this is a science, not production city. I think you're undervaluing what you get from rushing SoL. If, at the point this Wonder is available, you've got at least 15 cities that have a Library + one other science improvement, rushing SoL adds ~135 beakers per turn at a minimum. Multiply this by the amount of turns you would have spent building this Wonder normally and you're basically looking at a free tech.

I certainly wouldn't use the next GE (if we even get one) on Hanging Gardens though. Cabert pointed out that it's foolish to use GEs on Wonders that produce more GEs when the ROI is so small. HG is one of the safer Wonders to beat the AI to if you make an effort to do so and there are far more Wonders that would benefit from rushing, like Oxford.

Few points

1. Even a Science city needs some Production (such as ... for Oxford, a National Wonder/Monasteries/Univeristies/Lightouse/Health Buildings/Happy Buildings)

2. By Settling the Engineer, you get those beakers without having to take someone off whatever else they are doing, plus you get them in Frankfurt, which means that after Education it will be worth more than a Specialist anywhere else.

3. If Rushing the SoL gets you 30 turn gain (700 is the hammers it will give you in a pop 10 city) and settling lets you get to Democracy 31 turns earlier then Settling will be worth one extra turn of that ~135 beakers per turn...

Plus if it also lets you get Banking/Education one turn earlier thats another +X research

Settling banks on the Now v. Later bonus (Of course there is also getting a tech, like Machinery/Guilds which is even more favored by that, but has fairly low yield)

The fact is all of those are all three potentially useful uses, and depend on when you get the GE and what it can do (ie techs to research).

Ah, good question. Suggestions? One of the existing cities, or one I'll capture from Cyrus?


To maximize gains in such a city you'd probably want to have it in your capital under Bureaucracy. This is probably going to involve moving the Palace since I don't see any exceptional spots in the lands you now have. Since you're in the lower half of the continent an eventual Palace move is probably a good idea anyway to save on distance maintenance. You may want to use a city you get from Kublai since he's in a greener belt and ought to have city spots that can support a lot of cottages in a single place.

To maximize gains in such a city you'd probably want to have it in your capital under Bureaucracy.

Was just about to edit my post when i saw yours. Good idea.

Well, the problem is, the exact same tiles that would be good for a super science city would be good for a super wealth city, and you already have taken the prime spot on your bottom half of the continent. You have to either accept it will be not perfect, or go north after cyrus.

That being said, assuming you choose a southern financial city, i would choose Pardegarse(cyrus's second city, dont know spelling) over susa. Why? because it's quantity over quality. 5 cottages on grasslands will always triumph over 3 cottages on floodplains. The city also has iron for building thing like market, grocer, bank, wall street, ect. Situated in the middle of the bottom continent, it would be a good capital while you build forbidden palace in kublai's territory.

Of course, in all decisions, one person comes with the "crazy F!@#" option, and this one would be to build in the jungle and use the LOTS of fertile grasslands underneath the jungle. Yes, it requires work, but it all depends on what you are aiming for.

Choice A(pardegarse(sp)) gives you pretty much instant gratification, but is the worst long term option

Choice B (Kublai) takes longer, but more rewards/more cottages to mature/ more time/ more gold

Choice C (Crazy F!@#) Gives the best long term benifits, but the longest startup time(I'm assuming, being the warmonger sistuil is, and we are doing a specialist strat, that kublai will be gone before all the jungle is cleared)

And that's all i can do, give you the choices. I've been lurking the ALC games since egypt, and this was supposed to be the one i gave advice on, but we went specialist, and i end up in the backseat again. Someone with more experience should answer - "How long can you survive w/out a good commerce city" - or maybe better - "At what point should you have aquired a good commerce city" to help choose.

I'll say this...I agree with you that the Colossus is a good idea. Just don't wait on it long...in my experience, the AI is often quick to build it...

I find Cyrus to be a real jerk in Vanilla. Please cruch the little worm for me...

Choice C (Crazy F!@#) Gives the best long term benifits, but the longest startup time(I'm assuming, being the warmonger sistuil is, and we are doing a specialist strat, that kublai will be gone before all the jungle is cleared)
A warmonger? Sweet, mild-mannered li'l ol' me? :mischief:

I'm Canadian. We call it "peacekeeping". So did Civ II once you had the UN--I loved that... :D

We call it "peacekeeping". So did Civ II once you had the UN--I loved that...
:rotfl:

Question: Why do you need hammers in science cities? Is it not much more practical to :whipped: that occasional building(at the moment you need only Lib. and Granary in Science cities; later add Monastery, Uni., etc.)? You only need 2 buildings/science city at the moment, so why bother getting up production???
:confused: :confused: :confused:

William III

:rotfl:

Question: Why do you need hammers in science cities? Is it not much more practical to :whipped: that occasional building(at the moment you need only Lib. and Granary in Science cities; later add Monastery, Uni., etc.)? You only need 2 buildings/science city at the moment, so why bother getting up production???
:confused: :confused: :confused:

William III

when you switch to caste system, needed for a SE, you don't have slavery anymore

Swords with CR promotions will take cities much better than elephants. I usually use elephants and most other mounted units as escorts and leave one behind with an axe to protect a newly conquered city.

when there is 1 axeman in a city, your swords have a really hard time, it's happening here
+he already has loads of swords, if i see well ;)

I must say i have much better results with elephants than with swords, but it's also because when you have elephants you also have catapults...
the catapults get CR, the elephant get varied promotions (combat/medic/march, combat I,II,III, combat/shock, ...)

an elephant right out of the barrack is combat 1 (that's sure)
let's say you face a CG II archer

combat 1 jumbo is 8.8 vs 3( 1+50% city+45%CGII) =5,95 so A/D = 1,48
CR1 sword is 6 vs 3(1+50%city+45%CGII-20%CR1-10% sword vs city) = 4,95 so A/D = 1,21
Of course, the sword is cheaper, but i must say the jumbo has much better odds!

Of course, higher level is different

combat 2 jumbo is 1,61 times stronger than the archer
CR 2 sword is 1,42...

combat 3 jumbo is 1,75
CR3 sword is 2:blush:

It gets good for the sword only after level 4:eek: . In the meantime, my elephant did a nasty job, while the sword has died :lol:

Ok, played a couple turns shadow game, got lucky taking susa, lost one unit, swinged south while building more swords/catapults. Killed himm, but took heavy losses because of those pesky horse archers he sent towads frankfurt. I suggest - either a) get a lot of spear/war elephents(depending if you want to split stacks and attk from frankfurt too or not) and defend/premptive there. You may not get attked in your game, but the cities there are all too tasty a treat for the AI, and relativly lightly defended, while your stack is on the other side of the map. choice b) is to screw the original plan, and go for tarsus.

pros-
no more pillaging horse/chariot
You know what they are going to build(see below)
Don't have to move units all the way back up to deal with last city
Tarkus is probably lightly defended
cons-
They are going to build axe instead(and archers, because copper is only strategic recource they have)
More time at war away from major cities

My suggestion, build 2 stacks, the current one hits the northern cities, then swings south. The one you build reinforces frankfurt and hits arbela, then turns NW

Well, the problem is, the exact same tiles that would be good for a super science city would be good for a super wealth city

not true. super wealth you want lots of grasslands, preferably with lots of river tiles. super science you want lots of 4+ food spots (floodplains, food resources, etc.) and some decent production (for science buildings).

@ sisiutil: sorry it took me so long to weigh in. don't worry though, you had some great advice and the game is going smoothly. when i play i usually prefer to build the pyramids and use the GE on parthenon, but the oracle build is good. one thing some critics of it are overlooking is that it nabs you the pyramids and also DENIES an ai civ the benefits of the oracle! it also gives you a high-priced tech that you can trade instead of alphabet, denying the ai tech-trading for as long as possible.

here's what i would recommend going forward in your game:

1) try and capture as many cities as possible. don't delay CoL and get down courthouses and forbidden palace to handle maintenance. consider moving your capital, as others have suggested. use your capital for your super-wealth city (try and pick a high-grasslands area, preferably with a river running through it).

2) in ALL of your cities, you want to try and have at least one 4+ food spot, preferably 2. if you have 2, then you can use the whip fairly frequently and use the 2 food tiles to run your pair of scientists. if you only have 1, then i would suggest stagnating at the happiness limit for your 2nd scientist and avoid the whip here.

3) in classical prioritize: lit for GL, then construction for dealing with your creative neighbours, then CoL for maintenance costs. i usually trade for iron and math (you can count on monty to have at least one of these).

4) in medieval priortize: music. why? the GA will nab you nationalism after you research divine right meaning you can use liberalism on military tradition for cavalry. then use cavalry to cruise to a domination victory. after music, i would prioritize CS and Machinery for obvious reasons. theology and feudalism as well, also for obvious reasons. maybe one that is not so obvious is divine right. if you can get there first, i'd recommend building versailles to also help with maintenance.

5) Hold off on caste system until banking so that you can ensure all of your cities will have at least 3 scientists (no guarantee you'll have the food to support them prior to this).

6) I would suggest forgetting about research post-liberalism and astronomy, as others have suggested to me on these forums. Using liberalism to get military tradition and astronomy for galleons, this is all you need for an early domination victory. And you should have an early tech lead thanks to the specialist econ ensuring that you'll be facing only medeival units with your powerful and fast-moving cavalry.

I'll probably have more to add later, but I think this should help :)

Originally Posted by William III
Question: Why do you need hammers in science cities? Is it not much more practical to that occasional building(at the moment you need only Lib. and Granary in Science cities; later add Monastery, Uni., etc.)? You only need 2 buildings/science city at the moment, so why bother getting up production???


William III

when you switch to caste system, needed for a SE, you don't have slavery anymore

Yes, when you switch to caste system. As futurehermit pointed out here:

5) Hold off on caste system until banking so that you can ensure all of your cities will have at least 3 scientists (no guarantee you'll have the food to support them prior to this).

You'll have to be able to support 3 scientist in most of your cities to make it worthwhile. If you can support 3 scientists, you've got enough food and growth to have whipped that library and granary long ago, don't worry. Besides, if you go on a conquest tour, which is not unlikely, the cost of caste system is definitely against it, and you'll want to wait for the war to be over and courthouses to be built; and the AI's cities will have enough hammers. That leaves at least 20 years for whipping: Really, I would concentrate on food, and food alone in my science cities.

I'm sorry it's taking so long to get the next round posted. I keep coming home from work only to discover all these errands requiring my attention. :sad:

Thanks to everyone for the excellent discussion and advice. As Stan the Man would say, Excelsior! (whatever the heck that means). I will do my best to get the next round played and posted ASAP.

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Nice poem! A guess concerning the meaning of the word 'Excelsior': In Latin, the verb ex-cello means 1. To rise (above)(i.e. in statue/heighth etc.), 2. to surpass or 3. to excel in. The word excelsus comes from this verb and means 1. High/tall or 2. Excelling. The end of the word Excelsior, -ior, signifies a superlativus in Latin. Excelsior therefore means: excelling above those who excel. Eqqman, is this correct? I don't know how good my Latin vocabulary still is, so perhaps I mixed it up.

William III

It's the name of Stan Lee's (Spiderman etc.) autobiography about the days of Marvel Comics in the 60's. Apparently the expression was made famous in a column he wrote. I think it just means "Awesome!", only in a slighly more eccentric phrasing.

:scan:

/Sibben

I thought it was from Al Gore :blush:

I thought it was from Al Gore :blush:
too many letters in this word for al gore ;)

Main Entry: ex·cel·si·or
Pronunciation: ik-'sel-sE-&r, -or
Function: noun
Etymology: trade name, from Latin, higher, comparative of excelsus high, from past participle of excellere
: fine curled wood shavings used especially for packing fragile items

Somehow I don't think Stan intended the second meaning.

We are SO far off-topic now... :rolleyes: :lol:

We are SO far off-topic now... :rolleyes: :lol:

Haha, yes. So stop it already with these silly posts and get back to your game! I want to see how it goes! :mad:

Sisiutil, PLEASE don't tell me you are watching Sci-Fi's "Who wants to be a superhero?" hosted by Stan Lee... I know that guy's voice by heart, and i dont even like comics... must be a video game i played once...

Ahem... ON TO THE CYRUS BUSTING!

EXCeLCi0Rz!!

Excelsior would make a good board-name (as long as you don't have the whole poem as your sig)

Round 5: to 720 AD

Before I even started the next turn, I made a few adjustments to my cities' tile assignments and builds. In Frankfurt, in particular, I did as Eggman suggested and added a second scientist:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD01.jpg

This sped up the arrival of the Great Scientist, of course, as well as research. But it also throttled city growth, so I had to deal with that a little later as well.

Meanwhile, I attacked Susa. Emboldened by Betafor's success story, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD02.jpg

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD03.jpg

I achieved similar results: 1 Swordsman lost, three promoted to CRII, and all without catapults! I posted an Axeman to guard the city; once the other units healed, they went south.

Meanwhile, I generated my next Great Person--as expected, a Great Scientist from Frankfurt:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD04.jpg

I immediately used him to build an Academy in that city. That done, I put the scientist back to work until the city grew. Three turns later, I had enough population in Frankfurt to run two scientists AND a food surplus. Building a lighthouse rather than a barracks also helped.

A few turns later I got another GP, a Great Prophet in Berlin this time. He's asleep--once I have a holy city and a shrine to build, he'll be used for that. (He would have popped for Meditation--not the best use for him.) He may wait quite some time. I'd be surprised, frankly, to get another Great Prophet for a long time. And I'm thinking that unless Monty builds the Mahabodhi (the Buddhist shrine), I should save him for that. If Monty does build it, I can just use him for either the Confucian or Christian shrines.

Once I finished researching Code of Laws, Montezuma came by looking for a tech trade:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD05.jpg

I thought it over and went for it (though I did try negotiating for some of those other techs). I could have given Monty Alphabet, but I want him nice and backwards when I finally take him on, so the longer he lacks it, the more likely that will be. HBR will be handy later on--it means I can upgrade my Chariots that have Combat I/Shock, and take full advantage of my horses. I haven't built any Horse Archers or upgraded to them, but it's good to have that as an option.

Kublai also came by, demanding Construction from me and offering nothing in return. I thought that over carefully and turned him down. I had checked the power chart and saw that I was a little ahead of him, so I figured I was safe for awhile. Besides, since he's my next target, I don't mind if he's ticked with me. It would be extremely convenient if Kublai gets annoyed enough to declare war once I'm finished with Cyrus.

Nevertheless, I managed to work out a decent tech trade with Kublai:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD06.jpg

After a few turns of inactivity, Cyrus got a little aggressive. Not overly so; he sent some Horse Archers towards Hamburg and Frankfurt to do some pillaging. I had to do some deft micromanagement to keep enough science specialists going. So much for not needing Spearmen!

I switched builds and whipped a couple of Spears, one in Berlin, the other in Cologne. The Warrior I had obtained from a goody hut got upgraded to one as well. By the time I dealt with the pillagers I had lost two Spears, but the remaining one had been promoted to Medic I; Frankfurt's Chariot had finished off a Horse Archer and now has a Shock promotion.

Right around this time, I finished researching Civil Service changed civics:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD07.jpg

CS and Organized Religion. OR? Yep. Buddhism had spread to my lands! I quickly converted. Montezuma immediately became "Pleased" with me! Excellent...right according to plan.

Meanwhile, the war with Cyrus continued to unfold. I captured Persepolis, and along with it, obtained not only Stonehenge, but also Chichen Itza! Cyrus has been a busy boy...he also founded Christianity. Tarsus is the holy city, making it even more attractive, though I've left it alone for now as I swing south and east.

Pasargadae was next:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD08.jpg

So now Cyrus was down to two cities. I've seen the AI get very stubborn when its demise is obvious--say, only one city left. So I decided to see what I could get from Cyrus. Tarsus, unfortunately, had disappeared from the list of available items probably because it had become the capital. He was unwilling to give up both Arbela and a tech. But I did manage to extort what I think is a pretty good deal from him:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD09.jpg

Not bad, eh? Theology and a nice amount of gold. Thanks to the slider running at 0% and the war booty, I have nearly 1000 gold now--plenty for some upgrades when I get Machinery in a few turns. I'm busy researching towards Banking, and I'm picking up several useful techs like Currency, Guilds, and Feudalism along the way.

Speaking of techs, here's a comparative look at the known civs' technologies in 720 AD:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD12.jpg

And relations:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD11.jpg

Notice something? Yes, Monty declare war on Kublai, despite their sharing the same religion! Good ol' reliable Monty. Although that does remind me that sharing his religion may not count for much diplomatically. Oh well, it keeps them out of my hair. There is also a chance that Monty may soon ask me to join in the grand Mongolian butt-kicking festival. I may leave Cyrus alone for awhile if the opportunity arises. Persia has been relegated to a non-entity; the only thing they have going for them is two holy cities.

And a look at the map:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred720AD10.jpg

Yes, the war's been going so well that I've turned to a few much-delayed civilian builds. I can build the Heroic Epic now, and I'm thinking of putting it in Cologne. But if someone thinks of a better location is in order--maybe one of the captured Persian cities?--by all means, let me know.

Since I'm running OR, I plan on building a few Buddhist missionaries once the current builds are complete and spreading the good word to as many of my cities as possible. Then I can switch to Theocracy to build some units with additional XPs for the next war. I would particularly like to get my usual 4 Catapults with Accuracy promotions to remove those pesky city defense bonuses--especially since I'm up against a couple of creative civs.

Now, once again, I'm not sure how well I'm handling the specialist economy. Granted, I have a lot more gold than I usually do at this point in the game, and I'm doing respectably well in comparison to the other civs...but Kublai and Monty aren't exactly tech fiends, and a lot of my pace has to do with trades. I've had some delays farming the floodplains near Susa and Hamburg because, well, I've been at war, and Cyrus had those HAs sniffing around.

I am generating 102 research points per turn at 0% research. Machinery is up after Feudalism, and at my current tech pace, it will take 9 turns to research. Then Guilds will take 14, and Banking, 10. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Frankfurt are the cities running science specialists--2 each in the first 3 cities, while Frankfurt also has the GL scientists, plus a merged scientist (my 2nd GS).

Oh, speaking of GPs, I should mention that Monty built the Parthenon. I'm looking forward to taking it from him, though it may be close to obsolete by the time I do.

So while the war has gone quite well, where I really need commentary is on the specialist economy and whether I need to make any changes or adjustments.

Nice set you have played there Sisiutil. Impressive. You could be considering turning up the research a bit but that is maybe against the specialist economy. Too bad you aren't religious otherwise you could switch between representation and US to rushbuild stuff. BTW did you already said thank you to Cyrus for the stonehenge and Chiczen Itza? He is such a nice guy and then even Theology in the peace conference. If only things were this easy in the middle east. Finish him off after 10 turns and then get the parthenon of Monty.

about the HE, Pasergadae (could be renamed to a more germanic thing like ironcow ;)) may become a quite decent production city. The only problems are:
- it's inland
- it's far from your next fronts
- it's not out of revolt yet.

Well, if you don't mind those little problems, it's perfect :lol:

About your turns :goodjob: good trade, perfect diplomatic situation. I don't think there is much you could have done better.

About SE, you do good too, but now that your pockets are full, there really is no need to stay at 0% research. Most of your commerce tiles are seadfood :lol: but the few turns you can win are welcome in the race to macemen, if i understand the goal.

About next war, where are the elephants?
Against keshiks, you need them (well, you can use spearmen, but elephants are twice as strong!)

For the amount of the scientists you say you're running the tech rate seems to be a little slow. If Frankfurt can start developing more of a food surplus to make it pay off, it may be time to switch to caste system soon. I don't think you can afford to wait for Astromomy or Education to have your next opportunity to run more specialists, and trying to run too many cities with 2 scientists each is going to slow down your growth. But you might be okay if Banking is close on the horizon, you'll have to see how much of a tech boost you get from mercantilism.

I don't know if it will be worth fiddling with the slider to squeeze out faster research unless it makes more than a couple of turns' difference. It's just going to be too handy having a stockpile of cash when you're ready to crank out the upgrades. With specialists, fiddling with the slider doesn't make much of a difference anyway unless you have it at one end or the other, but it will make a lot of difference to your gold supply. This will seem to contradict my earlier complaint that your tech rate is too slow, but we need to find ways to speed it up significantly, not just by a turn or two here and there.

How bad was war weariness accumulating during the fight with Cyrus? It would be a shame to have to switch to police state when you're doing such a fine job raking in the cash with representation + war.

Excelsior! ;)

Killroyan, I'll have to go through Kublai to get to Monty, so the Parthenon will have to wait awhile. But yes, it was awfully nice of Cyrus to build a couple of wonders for me, even if CI isn't one of my favourites.

Cabert and Eggman, I'll fiddle with the slider a bit in the next round and see where it gets me. As you said, Eggman, there's no point adjusting it unless it shaves off a significant number of turns for research. But I felt that research was indeed slower than in should be, and you've confirmed that. I'm currently 38 turns from Banking, though as the cities grow and Cyrus' come out of revolt, that could change. Even so, it's a long time to wait for a needed civics change.

So on that topic, what I think makes sense is to stick with OR for a few more turns, churning out Buddhist missionaries to spread my SR to my other cities. Then, right around the time the peace treaty expires, switch to Theocracy and Caste System. I will have Vassalage by then too, but I'm wondering if it would really be worthwhile to switch away from Bureaucracy? Perhaps just until Banking/Mercantilism is available, since I'll be switching civics then--about 25 turns later or so.

I am planning on going after Kublai almost as soon as Cyrus is done and will need the units, after all. On that note, I have to say that I'm positively rubbing my hands with glee over that pile of gold the SE is accumulating as I anticipate all those promoted Swords, Axes, and Spears turning into Maces and Pikes. :goodjob:

War weariness has, thus far, been non-existent, so I don't think a change to PS is really necessary. Perhaps if the war versus Kublai drags on. I have been trading gold to Monty for wine for a happy boost, but I should prioritize getting my own vineyard operational. Perhaps Monty has something else I could buy from him.

I hate how they named them macemen, they are holding FLAILS!

*cough* anyway - Playing a shadow game from your recent save, i have to admit i spent a lot more turns than i needed to taking out cyrus. Just moving units back and forth.. and you have to keep some units in the south, then bring htem ALL the way up north before you attk... I think it's probably better to leave cyrus as-is and go after kublai. Cyrus will probably build a settler and go to the far SW (there is like 4/5 non tundra tiles), allowing you to possibly extort somethiing else when you go after him again, but even if you can't, he is no threat. You dant need the happiness majorly for your super ciites. another reason - In my game MONTY IS KICKING BUTT! he's taken 2 cities the same turn i finish machinary! I realized my mistake, i had to get over there asap and not waste turns in the double digits finishing cyrus. Why? To a)claim some of the land before its gone and b)get xtra diplo points w/ monty.

On a side note, the city you have your CR2 swords in (forgot the name, how come cyrus has to name his first 2 cities almost identical... monty does this 2 :'( ) Looks like a great spot for a wealth city... look at all the cottages!

On another side note, about a slow tech, this is mostly to do w/ u not switching to caste system earlier. However, i AM worried. Your "Science city" has a bunch of grassland. I've been experimenting with specialist econs, and I agree w/ futurehermit. Floodplains don't just > grassland, they PWN grassland. It's only a 1 food difference per tile, but the math works out to HALF as many specialists! Well, this whole thing was a big exeperiment, and the point is that it wouldnt be perfect, but I would like everyone's opinion of starting a SECOND science city! Pros-cons-

Pro-
More science(duh)

Con-
Have to use a GS for second acadamy
Oxford can only be in one place
have to split settling GS(see below)

The data seems to suggest- Make another science city, but make it a secondary science city. Acadamy is only used when you have upwards of 4 scientists, NO settling GS there, No oxford, ect.

Also, in the all of (4-5) SE games i've played, I've found there is one thing that ALWAYS helps science - expansion. Because for every city, you can have on average 1.5 scientists, which equates to 11.5 beakers per city- meaning if you have 40+ cities, that DEFINITLY can pull some slack off your one/two major science cities. And the great thing is- You can AFFORD TO EXPAND RECKLESSLY- upkeep will NOT hurt your science AT ALL! You are currently running a profit of 23 gpt W/O a major commerce city! w/ one major commerce city, you should be able to upkeep a city for every nook and cranny. Once you have the continent unifited, or maybe even now, build settler.. settler... settler and more settler. build a city w/ all tundra and a deer/silver! or even just the deer! build a city in order to pick up 2 grasslands to stagnate at 2 specialists(well, one extra food, but....). Remember back to the good old days of Unlimited City sprawl? Not quite that extreme, but definitly fill the gaps, as if you had to have the orginal 9 tiles of a city to count for the land for a domination win.

At around 720ad in my shadow I was roughly on a par with you tech wise though I did have a stack of newly upgraded maces and a few cats so maybe slightly ahead. I was comfortably crushing Cyrus and about to head for his last 2 cities with KK declared on me!
I'm currently up to 1530, still haven't cleared the continent but got liberalism, circum nav and the usual stuff, got astronomy and grenadiers and three turns away from cannons. Been building lots of cottages, running binary research.

As for a Second science city... a good idea but
1. Only settle GSs in the Major Science City (where the Oxford will be)
2. Only put the Academy in the Secondary Science city if putting it there will get you more Science than putting a Scientist in the Primary Science City

Quick analysis... Pre education
Primary Settled
=9+85% Library+Monastery+Academy=16.65
Academy in Secondary
50% of....34 to compare... that means the Secondary city needs to run 6 Science Specialists for an Academy there to be worthwhile... that means 12 excess food... I don't think you have any city that can run that.

So keep your primary Science city, and several "Others" all running 1-3 Scientists (after going to Caste) and concentrate all Great Scientists on Frankfurt itself

Cologne seems like a good spot for H.E. Other spots might be better long term, but Cologne has a good start, and is very decent.

I wouldn't put off crushing Cyrus too long, just make sure that the Army you do that with is ready to wheel back around to Finish off Kublai

As for Civics, I'd stick with what you have for the readjustment period (State religion, basic buildings...whipping a few in Frankfurt, like Monastery and Lighthouse)
then
->Caste, Theocracy... and just stay there, Bureaucracy is perfect for this strategy, This strategy it need minimal development of most cities (science improvements are barely needed) so OR isn't that necessary, Bureaucracy+Theocracy is a Better War combo than Vassalage+OR
(and Vassalage Theocracy isn't that good... the 4 extra exp are nice, but it doesn't get you a new promotion over 2 exp)

If you have already started on Monty and have most of your army once you get Banking, then it might be worthwhile putting off Mercantilism so that you can go to Mercantilism+OR... but that is probably unlikely, chances are you will be ready to start Gearing up to take on Monty and the Remnants so just switch to Mercantilism, and save the OR return for after Monty has ceased to be an issue.

(any units for the 'Oceanic war' should either be Westpoint or Cannon fodder)

I played a few turns from your latest savegame and I must say I'm impressed and somewhat surprised. You have done very well militarily. But on the economic front it is another matter :p

You should not be mislead by the pile of gold you have. As an experiment I turned up the science rate to 100% and you then had about 200 beakers and losing 65 gold, which leads me to conclude that you have roughly 50% of your economy from commerce and 50% from specialists. In a cottage economy that is equivalent to the 50% research point where you should stop and consolidate and a specialist economy is no different in that resepect. Your long term expansion is as always dependent as much on your economy as it is your military.

Many of your own cities are horribly underdeveloped :( ... with for instance the capital still building a granary in 700 AD ! Only half your cities have the state religion. You have Markets researched and none built. Many of your cities are well below their happy limit and yet you are running scientists and stunting thier growth. Working more tiles will expand your economy and food is converted to hammers efficiently using Slavery especially with Organised Religion and Forges.

I see you are getting a lot of conflicting advice and mine is no different. :lol: The strength of the position you have at present is such that you can win many different ways. I would not use the Caste System in this position (too little food) and Theocracy is totally worthless as your army is big enough for the near future (especially if you upgrade to Maces and Pikes). I would stick with Slavery and Organised Religion, build some infrastructure and when you have both of Kyros's Holy cities spread his religions and maybe change to one of those when you eventually war with Monty. That will be giving money to your economy rather than Monty's.

I await your next move with interest. :cheers:

Many of your cities are well below their happy limit and yet you are running scientists and stunting thier growth. Working more tiles will expand your economy and food is converted to hammers efficiently using Slavery especially with Organised Religion and Forges.


This is about the same point I run into with SE. I do really well setting it up, but then I start to peter out shortly after Civil Service. While you're growing to be able to support specialists, you have no science, and if you crank up specialists too soon, then your city growth is too slow. Especially a problem in cities where your food surplus has to come from grassland farms. I'm not sure if total beaker output is more from half science + half growth or all growth then all science. But I believe Futurehermit recommends always growing to happiness limits before running scientists.

If you're playing a shadow game, that's cool, but I consider that information to be spoilers if it goes beyond the current end turn. So if you could please NOT post information about your shadow game until the ALC is done, I'd appreciate it. I like reading your posts, but I had to force myself to not read a couple of the preceeding ones lest they influence my choices.

Although I did play a couple of turns to get a feel where your units were etc, my comments above pertain to the general state of the nation at the savegame. As such they can be considered comments or advice on your game and not a spoiler. Adjusting the Research slider is something you could do yourself at any stage of the game to get a feel for how well your economy is developed and is something I highly recommend.

As an experiment I turned up the science rate to 100% and you then had about 200 beakers and losing 65 gold, which leads me to conclude that you have roughly 50% of your economy from commerce and 50% from specialists. In a cottage economy that is equivalent to the 50% research point where you should stop

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is flawed. ;) I read your post 5ish ours ago, thought "there is something wrong with this" but couldn't place it. Now i have it (good thing too, because it seriously contradicts my theory)

Why? The simple fact that at a slider at 0, gold and beakers are COMPELETLY seperate.

In a CE, adjusting the slider has one purpose - it TRANSFERS MONEY TO BEAKERS AND VICA VERSA. It does NOT increase the amount of either you have. In a SE, however, gold and beakers are seperate. playing with the slider still transfers the gold to beakers, BUT as soon as you leave 0 percent, you no longer have seperation between beakers and gold. The conclusion is invalid unless you plan to hit enter with the slider above 0. Adjusting with the slider is not a good representation of the civ's econ anymore.

Lets see... I dont feel i've explained my point enough... In a SE, the only way to increase beakers is through specialists, and gold by cottages/traderoute/shrine.

It's your assumption in this quote-

"you have roughly 50% of your economy from commerce and 50% from specialists."

You still think of terms of YOUR ECONOMY, split into TWO PARTS. in reality, its TWO SEPERATE ECONS - gold and science

The so-called 60% rule for the CE is based on matinace and keeping your science rate up. Having less matinance=more gold in a CE means higher slider=more science. The 60% rule is made, not to make sure you are keeping matinance costs down, but to make sure that matinance costs arent keeping you from "teching at the right speed". this is IMPOSSIBLE in a SE. Because the beaker and gold econ are seperate, you could be running a deficit at 0% and still be "teching at the right speed". matinance has no impact on science. civic upkeep comes out of yoru gold tresury, not science. So long as you have a positive cashflow, you are good to go. It's not a "race to keep the matiance costs down" its a "race to get a big enogh profit so i can expand". while stopping and building matiance busters are nice, SO LONG AS YOU HAVE A POSITIVE CASHFLOW THE ONLY THING YOUR GPT AFFECTS IS RUSH BUYING AND UPGRADES Sure, your upkeep could be such that you are running plus ONE at 0%, but the only thing it affects is uprade and rush buying. In a CE, its a slow, dwindling process that kills your science gradually if you dont keep it up. In a SE, it's all or nothing. You don't HAVE to keep it up unless you want a gpt increase for buying upgrades and buildings.

Sorry for the long post- Ever had one of those times when you are trying to explain something and can't find the words, so have to talk around it so people get your drift?

Point taken

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is flawed. ;) I read your post 5ish ours ago, thought "there is something wrong with this" but couldn't place it. Now i have it (good thing too, because it seriously contradicts my theory)

You are both right and wrong ;) . There is a mathematical error in my post which I'll correct later but the essentials of what I posted are still correct. It is possible to assess the strength of the economy (my definition) by adding the beakers to the gold and subtracting the costs. Let me be precise about the numbers since I made a mistake previously.

For the current game with science rate slider = 0% we get

Research 102
Gold 88
Trade 0
Costs 64


Adjusting the science rate to 100% we get

Research 209
Gold 0
Trade 0
Costs 64

And these figures support the first part of my statement that the commerce is (or can be) about the same as scientists... since it increases the Research from 102 to 209. Therefore it can be seen that slightly more than 50% of the "output" of the current economy comes from commerce.

Furthermore it's possible to see that strength of the economy with the slider at 0% is 102 + 88 = 190 total income versus 209 for the slider at 100%. This is due to the fact that most cities have a library and none have markets yet.

The mistake I made was compare the costs 64 to 190 income and conclude that it was equivalent to 50% in a CE. That is not true and a better estimate would be that a CE (in this situation) would lose gold at 70% and gain gold at 60%. However if Susiutil takes the remaining Persian cities and his population grows he will soon approach the 50% threshold I warned about... so he's getting close to it but is not there yet.


Why? The simple fact that at a slider at 0, gold and beakers are COMPELETLY seperate.


Nonsense. That is not a "fact" it is a false dichotomy that you perpetuate from something futurehermit said a long time ago and it is a position that I believe he has retreated from (but let him speak for himself). There is no reason that a SE should not use commerce to generate beakers as well as specialists. It is perfectly possible to run your economy for long periods with the Science slider at 100%. I will write an article explaining my ideas in another thread rather than clog up Sisutil's thread with unnecessary detail ;) Obviously to use your commerce in this way you need to find other sources of gold... but believe me there are many, many ways to do this.


"you have roughly 50% of your economy from commerce and 50% from specialists."

You still think of terms of YOUR ECONOMY, split into TWO PARTS. in reality, its TWO SEPERATE ECONS - gold and science

There is only one economy in an empire but several ways to look at it. The fact that you can "transfer" gold to beakers via the sliders for commerce and by swapping specialist types indicates there is one economy consisting of beakers and gold produced. For most purposes it is fair to equate one beaker to one gold, but culture complicates the picture and 1 culture is in many cases not worth either a beaker or a gold. Fortunately culture need not complicate our analysis of this game at least at present.


The so-called 60% rule for the CE is based on matinace and keeping your science rate up. Having less matinance=more gold in a CE means higher slider=more science. The 60% rule is made, not to make sure you are keeping matinance costs down, but to make sure that matinance costs arent keeping you from "teching at the right speed". this is IMPOSSIBLE in a SE. Because the beaker and gold econ are seperate, you could be running a deficit at 0% and still be "teching at the right speed". matinance has no impact on science. civic upkeep comes out of yoru gold tresury, not science. So long as you have a positive cashflow, you are good to go. It's not a "race to keep the matiance costs down" its a "race to get a big enogh profit so i can expand". while stopping and building matiance busters are nice, SO LONG AS YOU HAVE A POSITIVE CASHFLOW THE ONLY THING YOUR GPT AFFECTS IS RUSH BUYING AND UPGRADES Sure, your upkeep could be such that you are running plus ONE at 0%, but the only thing it affects is uprade and rush buying. In a CE, its a slow, dwindling process that kills your science gradually if you dont keep it up. In a SE, it's all or nothing. You don't HAVE to keep it up unless you want a gpt increase for buying upgrades and buildings


Sorry, I don't really understand that at all. It seems to conceal some sort of voodoo economics that you seem to think gives you something for nothing and "empowers" a SE in some special way. There is nothing magical about having a research slider set at 0%. That simply consigns all your commerce to gold (assuming culture =0%) ... which might or might not meet the current costs of your empire. The commerce you earn is an independent variable from the costs of your empire. As far as the economic health of your empire is concerned saving 10 gold from your costs is as good as earning 10 gold more income.

The costs of an empire running a SE with say 10 cities and 60 population and an an army of 50 units are the same as the costs of an equivalent sized CE or any other type of "economy". But when this little empire doubles in size the costs will more than double (due to the way the game is set up) but obviously the commerce will only double (on average) and this is where the simplistic assumption that keeping the research slider at 0% fails. At some point the costs of a larger empire will become unbearable and the expansion will need stop until costs have been cut and / or income boosted.

There is much more to say... but it has all been said before by many good people :) so I'll stop and let you rest your eyes.:wow:

BIG SNIP

Well, i think we are arguing about something the other person never said :crazyeye: .

My analysis assumes that we keep it at 0% the entire game. In this case, since they ARE seperate (your argument otherwise assumes moving the slider) You can feel free to expand w/o hurting your science until you run a negative. This is NOT to say that building your income to pay for future matinance/rushbuy/upgrade is a bad thing, and that you have to expand to the breaking point before you build. I'm just saying you CAN do this with a SE w/o killing your econ. The 50% you see from adjusting the slider is based on the imbalance(as you have said) of X% boni in the ciites (more library than market)

You analysis assumes that the slider is not "fixed" at 0. This means that at some point, the "value" of a coin is less than the "value" of a beaker (50% actually:) )

It's almost like the value of a dollar vs the value of the euro. If the EU and America never interacted, lived on seperate worlds, never affected each other, the % difference between them is negligable(discounting the interior problems of inflation, but thats a diff topic) Because all of America would be on the same basis and all of EU would be on the same basis. However, if they do interact, it is a cause for concern. Because now the value of the dollar is 50% of euro or vica versa, meaning happy tourists one end and sad the other :)

Well in a SE, even with the slider at 0% more expansion will kill your Science... because eventually you are running a deficit.... which means you need to change scientists into merchants.

The fact is this Is definitely comparable to a Cottage Economy being run at 50% (with a surplus)

The sole advantage to the SE is that almost all of your science is being channeled through the Science city giving it the maximum possible benefit.... in a corttage economy running at 50% you can't specialize that way because every city is producing equal gold and science... a Marketplace+a Library is needed in each city for the benefit of a Library in one city and a Marketplace in others for a Specialist city.

(actually Mercantilism weakens this specialization... but it basically gives free stuff, so you don't complain)

Well in a SE, even with the slider at 0% more expansion will kill your Science... because eventually you are running a deficit.... which means you need to change scientists into merchants.

The fact is this Is definitely comparable to a Cottage Economy being run at 50% (with a surplus)


Yes. for the fist, No for the second. Count the bad effects in a SE of having a lower, but not deficit, profit(econ wise)- 0. In a CE, you have to keep the matinance down/gold up in order to keep the slider running for science, so having the "percentage slider" at 50 is worse than 60 is worse than 70 is worse than 80, ect. because the lower you go, the less science you are producing. In an SE, it's all or nothing, because anything short of a deficit will NOT affect your economy.- In this case, econ wise, a "percentage slider" of 90 is exactly the same as 10. (I'm talking about the 50% number here, not what the actual slider is on). Because the only thing that is affected as you go from 90 to 80 to 70 is how much GOLD surplus you have, NOT how much beakers you are producing.

You cold theoretically expand until you run a deficit, then build.(provided you have enough gold stored to keep you afloat until you get the problem fixed.

Now. I'm goign to say something that may sound counterproductive. Eventually, running enough SE games, you will get to the point when you should find when you need to build in anticipation of expansion, so you dont hit a deficit. Therefore(i haven't looked at the numbers yet) it actually may be best to build and bring up your gold to pay for the matinance (commerce city, anyone?). BUT the reason you would do this is PREVENTION, whereas in a CE it would be to keep your econ strong. In a SE all or nothing scenario, your efforts should be one goal-keeping it a plus(assuming you dont want more of a plus for buying, upgrade ect). How much of a plus is irrelavent. So the question here is not "What percent slider is it at?"(50%) it's "how much matinance would it take for me to have x more cities? Do I have that amount of gold i want to spend? Will I have that much gold to spend by the time i get the cities?"


The sole advantage to the SE is that almost all of your science is being channeled through the Science city giving it the maximum possible benefit.... in a corttage economy running at 50% you can't specialize that way because every city is producing equal gold and science... a Marketplace+a Library is needed in each city for the benefit of a Library in one city and a Marketplace in others for a Specialist city.

(actually Mercantilism weakens this specialization... but it basically gives free stuff, so you don't complain)

It's a major advantage, but not the sole one, ty very much :)

Well in a SE, even with the slider at 0% more expansion will kill your Science... because eventually you are running a deficit.... which means you need to change scientists into merchants.

The fact is this Is definitely comparable to a Cottage Economy being run at 50% (with a surplus)

The sole advantage to the SE is that almost all of your science is being channeled through the Science city giving it the maximum possible benefit.... in a corttage economy running at 50% you can't specialize that way because every city is producing equal gold and science... a Marketplace+a Library is needed in each city for the benefit of a Library in one city and a Marketplace in others for a Specialist city.

(actually Mercantilism weakens this specialization... but it basically gives free stuff, so you don't complain)

The advantage of a SE is that you can choose which city to make the change from scientist to merchant. Obviously you do that first in the city with the best gold bonusses and then proceed in a way that raises the gold needed while still getting as much science as possible. A CE can't be so selective and applies his commerce changes to all cities regardless of how good they are at making beakers or gold. It is this ability to pick and choose that is the advantage.

Also you can decide what to build first in each city to boost its main role... so if you intend to run mainly scientists build library, university and observatories plus as many monastries as you can and only build a market and grocer if needed for health and happiness. Similarly if you intend to run merchants be sure to build a bank. This allows you to get an early advantage over a CE.

Most gold modifiers come late enough that I don't think that it'd qualify as an early advantage.

Round 6: to 1200 AD

Build, war, build. That about sums it up. It also tells you what we're in for come the next round. :D

I started by making a wee diversion on the tech path. It was only going to take one turn, a trade for it would have been very lopsided, and it would allow me to build some more science multipliers in addition to libraries:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD01.jpg

Then I went back on the path to Banking. I immediately changed build orders in Frankfurt to a Confucian monastery. I later spread Buddhism there and built a Buddhist monastery as well. Meanwhile, the Heroic Epic was built in Cologne.

I tinkered with the slider, but I would have had to set it at 100% research to make a significant difference and would have had a large deficit that would eat through my gold in no time. So I left it at 0% the whole round.

Meanwhile, my next wonder finished in Hamburg:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD02.jpg

That was handy. I did a tour of my cities and was able to increase the number of scientists in a couple of them while still keeping growth at a reasonable level (+2 food per turn in almost all my cities). As has been pointed out, I'd delayed some vital infrastructure--granaries in particular--in favour of military, so the pop boost helped offset that opportunity cost somewhat.

Kublai, mired in his war with Monty, also came by for a visit:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD03.jpg

Ah...no, you're on your own, big guy. I'm keeping Monty as happy with my as I can until I'm ready to take him down. You, on the other hand, are expendable. Later in the round, Monty captured one of Kublai's cities and then they made peace. They're now pleased with each other again, but Monty has declaring war on Kublai as an available option in the diplomacy screen. I'm pretty far ahead of Monty in tech and cash, so later on, I should be able to bribe him into attacking if I want.

But I had a war of my own to finish.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD04.jpg

He was just about to plunk down another city just south of Pasargadae (there was a Settler and an Archer accompanying the Spearman you can see to the left in that screenshot). I hemmed and hawed and decided that I didn't want to waste time bombarding and capturing three cities instead of two, so I took them down before moving on to besiege Arbela. And, of course, I got a free Worker for my trouble!

I also got some more Great People.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD05.jpg

I got three Great Scientists this round--two from Frankfurt and one from Hamburg. Two settled in Frankfurt for additional research. I regarded the one from Hamburg as a bit of a freebie since I was expecting a Great Engineer whom I would have saved for a worthwhile wonder. So instead of settling him, I used him to acquire Philosophy, especially since Taoism had not been founded yet and I wanted a leg up on the Liberalism race. Munich became the holy city. Unfortunately, the free missionary failed in his attempt to spread Taoism to Frankfurt so I could build another monastery. I'll have to try again later, and with Christianity as well.

You can weigh in on whether burning a GS for a tech is the best use of him in the specialist economy or not. I suppose not, since it's all about specialists, and I just burned one instead of making use of him for the rest of the game. But as I said, I wanted a leg up on the Liberalism race. Eggman had agreed with me that my research was progressing more slowly than expected, and I was making a research diversion to Banking (which I usually don't research until AFTER Liberalism). So, as with several things in Civ, it was a trade-off.

Shortly thereafter, Herr Cyrus was finally kaput:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD06.jpg

Yes! The southern half of the continent is now MINE. Very satisfying.

Just a few turns after that, a very significant technology was discovered, one I'd been working towards in order to further boost the specialist economy:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD07.jpg

With everything now in place, I made a civics change:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD08.jpg

Representation for the continued research boost per specialist, Bureaucracy for the boost in the capital, Caste System for the unlimited scientists, Mercantilism for the free specialist, and Organized Religion for the help infrastructure buildings.

While I lost several GPT from the lack of foreign trade routes, the multiple scientists I'm now running in several cities has been a huge boost to research, especially as the captured Persian cities become productive in that regard. I'm being careful to ensoure the cities can still grow. But WOW--4-5 scientists in several cities is making a big, BIG difference. It's obvious that those two civics really unleash the power of the specialist economy once you have enough farms in place.

I'm teetering on a deficit at 0% on the slider, but I'm managing to stay afloat even without any merchant specialists. I'm building some markets and courthouses to help with that. My large standing army probably isn't helping, so I really should get some use out of them shortly.

I played a few more turns to get things settled out (including researching calendar just to get Munich's bananas plantationed). Here's the map at 1200 AD:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD09.jpg

And since I'm getting all antsy to go to war again, a look at the power grid:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1200AD10.jpg

I considered diverting research again, from Education towards Engineering, in order to gain the road bonus as well as Pikemen before attacking Kublai. But then I checked the resource screen and saw that poor Kublai apparently doesn't have any horses! No Keshiks for you! says the Civ nazi! :lol: So instead, I'll stay on the Liberalism track...

But what should the free tech be? Printing Press is not going to be very useful this time, with no cottages to speak of. If I want Astronomy, I'll have to make a detour to Optics. That may not be a bad idea, so I can get a couple of Caravels out to find the remaining civs and potentially circumnavigate the world. It's only three turns. Sounds like a plan.

Since I'm still building some infrastructure, I think it may make sense to bribe Monty to attack Kublai. This would divert some of Kublai's forces away from his borders with me, as well as potentially weakening him. The problem might be that Monty would be TOO successful, but then again, that would only spread his forces more thinly when I do take him on.

I also have a bit of empty space south of Tarsus where I really should put another city to grab the wheat and the copper. Hmm, yes, I razed one that Cyrus put there in the first war, and now I think I probably should have kept it. Live and learn. I also should eventually found a coastal city south of Pasargadae just to snag that whale tile. Kublai has a galley with an Archer and a Settler just starting to travel down my east coast, so he may do it for me.

Here's the saved game, and I look forward to your thoughts.

Yes. for the fist, No for the second. Count the bad effects in a SE of having a lower, but not deficit, profit(econ wise)- 0.

This didn't make any sense to me as I read it, so let me try to write it, and you tell me if I have the right idea.

Assumption: in a specialist economy, commerce is concentrated in cities specialized for wealth. Until the gold multiplier buildings become available, these cities are primarily dedicating their hammers to units, forsaking the usual assortment of science multiplier buildings.

Therefore, to first order, the efficiency of the economy is not affected by the research slider; that is - commerce gets converted to (gold+beakers) at the same rate no matter where the slider is set. Yes, I'm ignoring trade routes here, I did say first order. The efficiency of the economy does still depend on the culture slider.

In a commerce driven economy, lowering the slider shifts the allocation of commerce from research to gold; this reduces the efficiency of the economy during this period.

In other words, a 500 GNP commerce based economy goes becomes a 400 GNP economy when you switch from 100% science economy (multiplied by libraries) to a 100% wealth economy (multiplied by nothing). A 500 GNP specialist economy is still running at 500 GNP regardless of where the science slider is set.

Do I have the argument right? I don't agree that anything I just wrote is relevant, but I would like to be sure that I'm understanding the stated position correctly.

Sisiutil: for purpose of comparision could you post your Gold/beaker/hammer output when you get to 1500ad (its about the only save I've kept).

This didn't make any sense to me as I read it, so let me try to write it, and you tell me if I have the right idea.

Assumption: in a specialist economy, commerce is concentrated in cities specialized for wealth. Until the gold multiplier buildings become available, these cities are primarily dedicating their hammers to units, forsaking the usual assortment of science multiplier buildings.

Therefore, to first order, the efficiency of the economy is not affected by the research slider; that is - commerce gets converted to (gold+beakers) at the same rate no matter where the slider is set. Yes, I'm ignoring trade routes here, I did say first order. The efficiency of the economy does still depend on the culture slider.

In a commerce driven economy, lowering the slider shifts the allocation of commerce from research to gold; this reduces the efficiency of the economy during this period.

In other words, a 500 GNP commerce based economy goes becomes a 400 GNP economy when you switch from 100% science economy (multiplied by libraries) to a 100% wealth economy (multiplied by nothing). A 500 GNP specialist economy is still running at 500 GNP regardless of where the science slider is set.

Do I have the argument right? I don't agree that anything I just wrote is relevant, but I would like to be sure that I'm understanding the stated position correctly.

The basics are right, but i have a nit pick- you say "no matter where the slider is set" In fact, the subtle change is -

SE - 500 GNP econ - 400 specialist beakers, 100 raw gold.
Moving the slider Only affects the 100 raw gold - What you notice as the 500 GNP "still running at 500 GMP" is really the 400 beakers.

CE - 500 GNP econ - 500 raw gold
Moving the slider affects the entire 500 raw gold.

I also have a bit of empty space south of Tarsus where I really should put another city to grab the wheat and the copper. Hmm, yes, I razed one that Cyrus put there in the first war, and now I think I probably should have kept it. Live and learn.


I wouldn't fret too much about it. Since those people would be yearning to rejoin the motherland during the second fight with Cyrus, if it wasn't a great city to begin with it's no loss. One of those cases you mentioned where you have to weigh your long term benefits vs your short ones.

I think Futurehermit's numbers only needed something on the order of 6 settled specialists in the super science city, so if you're on track for pulling that off burning one on tech is probably wise. If you're close to getting another one you may even consider using him on Liberalism. If you can arrange the techs to use a GS on Liberalism, you may want to stagnate Frankfurt for a while to run enough scientists to make sure you get one when you need it. This can help offset the tech diversions of Optics & Engineering. I think getting Astonomy for free will be wise, since we need those Universities & Observatories right away.

The basics are right, but i have a nit pick- you say "no matter where the slider is set" In fact, the subtle change is -

SE - 500 GNP econ - 400 specialist beakers, 100 raw gold.
Moving the slider Only affects the 100 raw gold - What you notice as the 500 GNP "still running at 500 GMP" is really the 400 beakers.

CE - 500 GNP econ - 500 raw gold
Moving the slider affects the entire 500 raw gold.

Well, we aren't close yet, because I don't agree that for a cottage economy 500 GNP goes to 500 raw gold. Are we confusing gold and commerce? Let me try again.

A hypothetical specialist economy, running at about 500 GNP, would look like specialists worth 320 raw beakers, running in cities with a 25% modifier, plus 100 commerce, which runs with no modifier at all. We don't bother to build libraries in the commerce towns, so that 100 commerce is converted to 100 beakers, 100 gold, or some mix, depending on where the slider is set - but regardless of the setting, the total GNP is still 500 (320*1.25 + (100-gold) + gold).

A commerce driven economy, matching this at 100% science, would need to have 400 commerce (400 * 1.25 = 500 beakers = 500 GNP). But as you start moving the slider, GNP falls - every 10% on the slider lowers the GNP by 10, so that when you are running 0% science, instead of 500 GNP (all research), you have 400 GNP (all gold).

So the question: is this loss of 100 GNP the effect you were trying to describe when you wrote:


Yes. for the fist, No for the second. Count the bad effects in a SE of having a lower, but not deficit, profit(econ wise)- 0. In a CE, you have to keep the matinance down/gold up in order to keep the slider running for science, so having the "percentage slider" at 50 is worse than 60 is worse than 70 is worse than 80, ect. because the lower you go, the less science you are producing. In an SE, it's all or nothing, because anything short of a deficit will NOT affect your economy.- In this case, econ wise, a "percentage slider" of 90 is exactly the same as 10. (I'm talking about the 50% number here, not what the actual slider is on). Because the only thing that is affected as you go from 90 to 80 to 70 is how much GOLD surplus you have, NOT how much beakers you are producing.

Sidenote: my apologies to everyone - I should have looked more carefully at tech costs before setting up this example, which while possibly illustrative is hopelessly out of scale - I ought to have been aiming for economies producing 150-200 beakers per turn, because what we are really talking about here is the era between libraries and markets/grocers/banks. 500 GNP is too strong for that era, I ought to have scaled things to the 1 tech/5 turn standard. Something to correct going forward, assuming that I'm getting agreement on the basics of the topic.

Well, we aren't close yet, because I don't agree that for a cottage economy 500 GNP goes to 500 raw gold. Are we confusing gold and commerce? Let me try again.

When i say "raw" i mean "before dividing into beakers and gold via the slider, since the question was about a variable slider.

A hypothetical specialist economy, running at about 500 GNP, would look like specialists worth 320 raw beakers, running in cities with a 25% modifier, plus 100 commerce, which runs with no modifier at all. We don't bother to build libraries in the commerce towns, so that 100 commerce is converted to 100 beakers, 100 gold, or some mix, depending on where the slider is set - but regardless of the setting, the total GNP is still 500 (320*1.25 + (100-gold) + gold).

A commerce driven economy, matching this at 100% science, would need to have 400 commerce (400 * 1.25 = 500 beakers = 500 GNP). But as you start moving the slider, GNP falls - every 10% on the slider lowers the GNP by 10, so that when you are running 0% science, instead of 500 GNP (all research), you have 400 GNP (all gold).

Before we continue with this, we need to have an established lingo so there is no confusion.

GNP- sum of BASE beakers and gold (GROSS product)(i think we are different here)
beakers- science units that pay for techs
commerce-money pre-slider
gold-money post-slider as gold OR shrines/ect

So the question: is this loss of 100 GNP the effect you were trying to describe when you wrote:

Sidenote: my apologies to everyone - I should have looked more carefully at tech costs before setting up this example, which while possibly illustrative is hopelessly out of scale - I ought to have been aiming for economies producing 150-200 beakers per turn, because what we are really talking about here is the era between libraries and markets/grocers/banks. 500 GNP is too strong for that era, I ought to have scaled things to the 1 tech/5 turn standard. Something to correct going forward, assuming that I'm getting agreement on the basics of the topic.

LOL :P. There are two issues on debate here-since you just openned one up.

One- The value/devalue of raw GNP when it is put through the slider via boni like libraries(The first part of your post). My point-This value/devalue only happens when you bring the slider above 0. When it is at 0, you can adjust the boni for gold/beakers seperatly in specialized cities. In anything else, or a cottage econ, both boni are needed in each city producing GNP.

Two- Matinance effect on economy and how it differs in SE/CE(the quote you made). My point - In a CE, Matinance does 2 things-Prevents an increased gold surplus and forces you to lower the slider, hurting your beaker output. In an SE, Matinance does 1 thing - prevents an increased gold surplus, since(i'm getting tired of typing this :goodjob: ) the beakers and gold are separate at 0% slider. This then leads to the assumption that you can run a given beaker count at a variable gold count, so long as it is postive.

One- The value/devalue of raw GNP when it is put through the slider via boni like libraries(The first part of your post). My point-This value/devalue only happens when you bring the slider above 0. When it is at 0, you can adjust the boni for gold/beakers seperatly in specialized cities. In anything else, or a cottage econ, both boni are needed in each city producing GNP.

I don't understand this. When it's at 0, all your specialist cities are producing a little bit of commerce and a bunch of beakers, exactly the same as a cottage economy with the slider at like 40%.

@ Elledge

What Betafor means:
In a specialists economy you specialize your cities:
You have usually one gold city with cottages, 1-2 production cities, 1 Super Science city and the rest normal science cities. In your gold city, as soon as the cottages are matured, you'll make 30-90 raw commerce. You build a bank, market and grocer here, and you'll make 60-180 gold here. Of course this is the city where you build Wall Street etc. etc.. Therefore, you will produce some 90% of all your gold in this one city; In your production, science and Super Science cities, you'll make almost no raw commerce; only 1 commerce from tiles with fresh water and some from resources. Therefore you'll make approximately 5 commerce in every one of these cities; of course you are not going to build markets, grocers and banks for those cities, are you? You only have to build science buildings in your (Super) Science cities, and production buildings in your production cities. This leads to a higher efficiency: In a cottage economy you built science AND gold buildings in all your cities, in a Specialists economy you build science OR gold buildings in all your cities. This saves you 30-50% of the total amount of hammers you have, which can be turned into units, for a strong military, par example.
And another benefit: If you make all your gold in one city, and you build Wall Street etc. there, you'll get the 100% bonus over 80-90% of all gold you produce, instead over 5-15% in a cottage economy. In the same way, you'll make 50-80% of all your science in your super science city, making the academy etc. you build there, and through them your GL, much more effective then they were in a cottage economy.

Hope this helps.
Regards,
William III

minor point: to build wall street in commerce city you need six banks (standard map) which need six marketplaces.
No mention of shrinegold which is a major factor in either cottage or specialist economies.
My preference is to go for capital as superscience city (bureaucracy +cottages +academy +science specialists) and shrine city as gold city. Quite happy for the rest to be hybrid (apart from production cities)
A benefit of specialist economy does seem to be number of GP generated.
How does bureaucracy tie in with specialist economy?

I don't understand this. When it's at 0, all your specialist cities are producing a little bit of commerce and a bunch of beakers, exactly the same as a cottage economy with the slider at like 40%.

Say that a CE is producing 500 commerce. With the slider at 0, all the commerce is being converted into gold. At 50%, half gold, half beakers.

Say that a SE is producing 400 beakers, 100 commerce. With the slider at 0, you have 400 beakers and 100 gold. At 50%, you have 450 beakers and 50 gold.

While, yes, it is possible to maneuver the slider so you get the exact same beaker/gold count per turn in both econs, see William's post.

The differnance- the differance between gold and commerce. The differance- the "little bit of commerce and a bunch of beakers" are generated differently for a SE or CE. In a CE, the percentage is totally based on the slider, and adjusting the science HAS to adjust the gold. in an SE at 0 slider, you can increase the beakers w/o affecting the gold by adding a scienctist or vica versa w/ cottage. In a CE, you have no choice but to simply increase raw commerce and let the slider figure it out, which is (here we go) limited by your matinance.

How does bureaucracy tie in with specialist economy?

Since your capital is usually a jack of all trades city until later in the game- I prefer to make science city elsewhere, unless i get a good capital start. Either way, its a waste to have the beurocracy boni on a science(no bonus) or jack of all trades(small bonus) city. I prefer moving my captial to my established commerce city to make best use of it. I have, once, put it in a production city, but that was because i had my wealth city set up early and i needed to expand more than build...

GNP- sum of BASE beakers and gold (GROSS product)(i think we are different here)
beakers- science units that pay for techs
commerce-money pre-slider
gold-money post-slider as gold OR shrines/ect


OK, this is a lousy definition of GNP (because GNP already means something else), but I don't have a better word to offer, so we can stick with it.

OK, first of all, I think you are kidding yourself that maintenance affects a commerce economy differently than it does an SE economy. Regardless of what kind of economy you are running, you cannot sustain your research rate if your income is lower than your expenses. The comparison between economies needs to fix income, or if maintenance costs are significantly different for the two economies fix income minus maintenance.

Second - a commerce economy can run at full science or full wealth, which a specialist economy cannot (a specialist economy can only get half of the contributions from specialists converted to wealth) minor detail; it probably doesn't matter during the period where we care about the difference.

Third - deficit research doesn't work as well for a specialist economy as a commerce economy, because the commerce cities don't have the research multipliers. Again, minor point.

The big point for me, which I've been missing up to this point, is that a specialist economy gets essentially the same yield from its commerce until the gold multiplier buildings come on line. The only advantage you have up to this point is the hammers that you aren't investing in buildings in the commerce cities (btw: even the capital? that's an awfully long time to go without a library when the gold can't buy anything useful).

Does this imply that a specialist game needs to put a higher priority on the wealth techs?

OK, this is a lousy definition of GNP (because GNP already means something else), but I don't have a better word to offer, so we can stick with it.

I know, but does it really matter so long as we keep it constant?

OK, first of all, I think you are kidding yourself that maintenance affects a commerce economy differently than it does an SE economy. Regardless of what kind of economy you are running, you cannot sustain your research rate if your income is lower than your expenses. The comparison between economies needs to fix income, or if maintenance costs are significantly different for the two economies fix income minus maintenance.


You still have tunnel vision(it's ok i'm even having trouble seperating the 2 arguements i'm trying to make). YES! - Both a CE and SE will fall if gpt < expenses. But that's not the point.

In a CE, it's a gradual decline process, bringing beakers goes down as you have to move the slider to 70% then 60% then 50%, until you run a deficit at 0%.

In a SE at 0%, it's all or nothing. There is only one point where gpt < expenses, and that point is deadly. ANYTHING above that point is EXACTLY the same beaker wise than any other point. There is no gradual down of the slider, because you can't go past 0. So, the beakers remain the same until you run a deficit at 0%

Put the 2 red sentances together.


Second - a commerce economy can run at full science or full wealth, which a specialist economy cannot (a specialist economy can only get half of the contributions from specialists converted to wealth) minor detail; it probably doesn't matter during the period where we care about the difference.

Agreed. Though, theoretically you can simply switch all your scientists to merchants at 0% and run full wealth, or run scientists at 100%, BUT this would not be as efficiant, as you don't have banks in your science cities or libraries in your wealth cities. Inefficiant - because it's anti-specialization - which is a MAJOR component of a SE. So i would like to think it's inefficiancy not that they can't do it.

Third - deficit research doesn't work as well for a specialist economy as a commerce economy, because the commerce cities don't have the research multipliers. Again, minor point.
Agreed. Again, not can't - shouldn't. Inefficiancy due to specialization. One major thing you are doing by running a diff econ is trading hammers used on buildings for flexibility or vica versa.


The big point for me, which I've been missing up to this point, is that a specialist economy gets essentially the same yield from its commerce until the gold multiplier buildings come on line. The only advantage you have up to this point is the hammers that you aren't investing in buildings in the commerce cities (btw: even the capital? that's an awfully long time to go without a library when the gold can't buy anything useful).

Does this imply that a specialist game needs to put a higher priority on the wealth techs?

Um... Gold can build upgrades early on... But besides that i see your point...

The capital i like to make a jack of all trades city to support all the others UNTIL you get wealth techs and move palace to a commerce city and run beurocracy. I'm not sure how you would incorperate that into your game.

Higher priority for wealth? Depends on your needs. As stated WAY above in a previous post - SE only needs gold (the whole paragraph discounting more plus gpt for upgrades/rushbuy) for matinance, and if you have a surplus, you can expand. It depends on your needs. Wealth techs bring more gold - and more gold allows more expansion. Pure and simple. If you already have your continent conqured and settled, there really isn't a point having more gpt. If you are about to attk a neighbor, and want to keep his cities, you need to plan ahead and get some gold to support it, weather that means develouping a better commerce city or researching banking.

Um...guys? I'm playin' a game here. Maybe you could direct your attention to how all this specifically affects what's going on in it.

I'm not saying that a discussion of this depth is not worthwhile--far from it. I just think the purpose of the ALC threads is to illustrate concepts like this through the vehicle of a game. Along those lines, there isn't much feedback on how to proceed with the next round yet (so I'll hold off on it for a bit).

William III brought up an interesting point. I'm building Marketplaces in several of my cities. Are they indeed a waste of hammers? All of those cities are producing more than 4 gpt, and some are well over 10 gpt, so in my mind, they're not wasted. BUT I acknowledge, once again, that this is my first time running a specialist economy and may be missing the big picture.

I'm not down to 1 tech in 5 turns just yet, more like 7-8 turns, but I'm getting there. I think a little more conquering is in order. More cities = more specialists = more beakers. I think we pretty much agreed on using the Mongol capital for my wealth city, so the sooner I get on with that, the better.

I still have a Great Prophet in Berlin! I'm still thinking I should save him for the Buddhist shrine, which Monty STILL hasn't built (he did manage to build the Sistine Chapel, though, so I have something else to look forward to taking from him). The alternative is to use him for either the Confucian or the Christian shrine, but then I'd have to build a lot of missionaries and make a concerted effort to spread it. In addition, neither Tarsus nor especially Arbela are going to be able to capitalize (literally) on the shrine because of the tiles around them. Tenochtitlan is quite another story. Hmmm...what's everyone's thoughts on having TWO wealth cities?

two wealth cities would be well advised. otherwise you'll find yourself trapped in a position where u are unable to research or expand, due to having to devote a number of scientists to a merchant role instead. save the prophet, use him like you intended. take out monty's cities and build a few more if you need to. specialist cities don't always need the full fat cross, so you can use tight city placement if you need to. as long as you can emphasize food you'll have enough to run more scientists.

now watch as futurehermit and the other supporters of a specialist econ blast my opinion, all I can say is best of luck and I look forward to seing your next update

NaZ

Sorry, Sisiutil, I'm trying to keep on topic, but it seems i have to go deep to prove a point.

The issue is- expansion. When are you ready to expand in the game. We dont want you to conquer the continant and not be able to support it, but its hard to tell if you can w/ a specialist econ.

That being said - do what you do best - war for the prize! You should use the GP asap, and that means a holy city that is worthwhile.

Build an intermediate, secondary commerce city in persia's ex-land to supplement you until you can get the north rolling and you rprimary commerce online.

As to markets/grocers - i wouldn't call myself a SE expert, but i think if you need it for the health/happy, do it. If you have nothing else to build, build units(units are always good when you have neighbors on the same continent still)

Um...guys? I'm playin' a game here. Maybe you could direct your attention to how all this specifically affects what's going on in it.

I'm not saying that a discussion of this depth is not worthwhile--far from it. I just think the purpose of the ALC threads is to illustrate concepts like this through the vehicle of a game. Along those lines, there isn't much feedback on how to proceed with the next round yet (so I'll hold off on it for a bit).


Hey man, its your game - if you want these discussions taken elsewhere, just put the kibosh on it. Oh, you did. Um.... I'll create a shadow thread to continue this discussion out of band.

William III brought up an interesting point. I'm building Marketplaces in several of my cities. Are they indeed a waste of hammers? All of those cities are producing more than 4 gpt, and some are well over 10 gpt, so in my mind, they're not wasted. BUT I acknowledge, once again, that this is my first time running a specialist economy and may be missing the big picture.

Well, I haven't been asking all these questions because I understand the style either, though the game is moving out of the era that I've been concentrating my attention on. But here's my thought - if building Markets in your science cities for the gold is the best use of your hammers now, something is seriously broken in the strategy.

What's a market for? +25% gold, two merchant specialists, happy from fur, ivory, silk, whales.

25% of 8 gold is 2. big whoop.
slots for merchant specialists? Worthless as (a) you are running caste system, so you don't need the slots (b) this is a science city, so you don't want to be running merchants anyway.
happy? Your city isn't close the the happy limit already in place.

So which has more leverage right now, a Market, four catapults, or some other 150 hammer item? If the market is the right answer, then you are heading toward building all of the wealth buildings everywhere, and one of the main arguments of the specialist economy is going to collapse.

BTW: what's going on in the capital - you are running a specialist economy with bureaucracy? :smoke: ? Maybe the changeover hasn't happened yet, but I really expected you to have the cottages running there by this point... unless the plan is to move the capital somewhere else, and convert Berlin to pure specialists?

I'd have to agree with VoU. Unless you are building up a city that will produce a lot of wealth, or need one of the secondary bonuses from a Market, then you should be making soldiers over buildings. You should be thinking of your gold production in terms of the rate you can capture enemy cities. Two wealth cities might be overkill, you really only need one for 'emergency' money. It's science cities you will never have enough of.

Something else to consider is how many junk cities you can spam into your territory. Any city that can grow just enough to stagnate on supporting two specialists may be worth founding, these can be the first cities you convert to running merchants over scientists when you hit a cash crunch. After you've built the Statue of Liberty you can easily have any such city giving you 24 beakers shortly after founding, which seems like a good deal. How fast will you reach this total under other circumstances? This is also a reminder to make sure this Wonder is your top priority after the Liberalism race is over, since it's the next thing after Oxford to give your tech rate a shot in the arm.

You screenshots show you will a lot of disposable income even after the demise of Cyrus. Have you been spending anything on troop upgrades?

Yeah, VoU, that's what I've been thinking (i.e. cottages around Berlin). It's going to be several turns before I have Karakorum available as a wealth city. In fact, there's a chance that I may not even have it running that way before the next round--I'm just thinking that to really get it humming, not only do I have to conquer it, it has to come out of revolt, then I have to conquer the surrounding Mongol cities to free up those tiles, THEN I have to wait for the war to be more or less over so my Workers are safe, then I have to build cottages, and they have to mature, and...

You get the picture.

Since I'm running Bureaucracy and have a market almost built in Berlin, it's starting to make sense to flip most of its grassland river tiles over to cottages. In fact, I probably should have started doing that awhile ago, but I got distracted by the concept of using Karakorum as my first wealth city, and a bit too committed to the "purity" of the SE, if you will. ("Oh, no, Berlin is a pure science city! I couldn't possibly change that!")

I may end up having three wealth cities. Or I may just use Karakorum for science, leave Berlin as the Capital, and push towards Tenochtitlan. It promises to be VERY lucrative since it's also the Buddhist holy city.

I will also take the markets out of the queues of the other cities unless they're almost done and/or the cities are producing well over 12 gpt. They'd be better off building units or science multipliers like monasteries. I've also put off building courthouses, but maintenance costs are starting to rise, so it's time to tackle that.

I will also take the markets out of the queues of the other cities unless they're almost done and/or the cities are producing well over 12 gpt. They'd be better off building units or science multipliers like monasteries. I've also put off building courthouses, but maintenance costs are starting to rise, so it's time to tackle that.

markets give a happiness bonus!
don't you need it?

IMHO you need theatres more than markets though, since it gives more effect to the culture slider you'll have to use later.

As soon as you have researched education, you'll be building universities everywhere (well, at least in 6 cities) = not units.
Do you have enough units already to crush kublai? (i was thinking catapults, mostly. My guess is to have 12 ready to go minimum+elephants 4 minimum + macemen 8 minimum+knights (as much as possible, 4 minimum) )

I looked at your savegame and again it is very interesting. My assessment of your situation is Military 10/10, Research 9/10, Gold 3/10, Hammers 3/10 (all figures estimated and purely for effect :lol: ) Seriously, I do feel you have over- emphasised research at the expense of your gold production and hammers. That is a product of the advice you've been given (that a SE needs minimal infrastructure) and that the Caste System is effective (or even needed in a SE:( ). At present all your commerce is just meeting the running costs of the empire with some help from trades. I can't see this frail economy surviving another large expansion without major surgury.

You have been able to build markets for perhaps 100 turns and yet the capital still doesn't have one despite having over 24 commerce the whole time... that's 600+ gold you could have picked up for one whip and a small loss of research for a few turns. The same argument applies to grocer and later bank although they have been available for less time. Some time in the future you will look back at this period and say "I wish I'd built those buildings in the capital in 1200AD " ;). Running the Caste System in a SE is bad news for production unless you have a Spiritual leader.

What I think you need to do in the medium term is decide that certain high productivity cities such as Berlin and Hamburg build all of market, grocer and bank for 100% gold bonus. Then they can run merchant specialists to get 6 gold and 3 beakers if you need more gold. These cities will go a long way to meeting your gold costs with minimal impact on the beaker output especially as the building improve commerce at the same time.

Religion can help you a lot over time, but this is not a quick fix. You need to make a shrine in one of the 3 holy cities you have using the G Prophet you have kept for a long time. Munich seems to be the best choice. Then build market, grocer and bank and spread religion to all your cities for a nice exchange of 40 hammers for 2 gold pt :gold:

To generate more G Prophets I would build Ankor Wat in Persepolis. You have stone and failing would give nice money anyway... but if you suceed you could build a few temples there as well and run a lot of priests to add to the GP pool there that is already 95 % G prophet. That is a long term strategy that would allow you to be sure of being able to build shrines in the future.

I have never won a monarch game without a shrine - founded or captured. It seems to me that the GPT you get from a holy city are quintessential in maintaining a larger empire (+10 cities).

For me, at the very least, it usually saves me the trouble of having to run merchants (and thus stunting growth). Pop a market and a bank in one of those cities and it really helps keep you out of defeceit.

I don't play the game with a calculator at my side, but it does feel like shrines help push you over "the hump" of maintenance.

I agree with uncleJJ. After reviewing your gpt, while you have a fairly good gold surplus, it is not enough to afford a major expansion.

However, you do have quite a nice stockpile... Perhaps you could run a deficit for a few turns WHILE setting up your infastructure... just a thought.

Pull the brakes and consolidate. Monty and KK has already been at war, right? Maybe you can fuel that conflict a bit and make Monty wear Kublai down. He'll probably gain some cities but that's not really a problem as Monty never techs up. He can be a bit of a pain when he gets to machinery and tries a maceman rush, but he's usually more of an annoyance than a real threath.

Round 7: to 1530 AD

I took everyone's remarks to heart, even if I didn't do exactly what I was told. What can I say, I have a rebellious streak. So sue me. The main point, though, was that with the slider at 0% and the GPT in the negative, I had no room to maneuver, let alone invade someone, and had to make some corrections.

I think this is, once again, my lack of familiarity with the specialist economy shining through. With a cottage economy, a surplus of +2 gold or an occassional deficit in the same neighbourhood is not a bad thing. With the SE, though, you really should be raking it in. It's a question of looking at the screen and not taking things for granted just because they look like what I'm used to.

So rather than go to war with Kublai right away, I took several turns to build infrastructure. I did take the markets out of the queues, except in Berlin, where I sent workers to start converting all its riverside grassland tiles into cottages. I built forges, missionaries to spread the various religions, and a few catapults to prepare for the upcoming war.

Meanwhile, I sent a Knight through Mongol and then Aztec territory to see what I'd be up against.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD01.jpg

It didn't look too intimidating, but as you'll see, ol' Kublai had a trick or two up his sleeve.

The distant continent began to make itself known:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD02.jpg

Interesting how he showed up on the exact turn I discovered Optics (after which it was back to the Liberalism race). I quickly built two Caravels, one in Tarsus and one in Cologne, and sent them out to boldly go where I hadn't gone yet.

Caesar wasn't very friendly (or useful), but several turns later one of my Caravels met his much more accomodating neighbour:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD03.jpg

The best part of that deal was the world map, as it both allowed me to find the other missing civ as well as giving me a leg up on the circumnavigation race.

Shortly after that, I met up with our final mystery contestant:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD04.jpg

Hatty is less friendly that she usually is, mainly because of religious differences. Also, once I finished that initial tech trade with Roosevelt, the other continents' civs really didn't have much to offer (though I did snag Music, her map, and some gold from Hatty for Philosophy). It seems the SE, even in my inept hands, has indeed paid huge dividends, and I have a pretty comfortable tech lead. The Universities from Education are helping to maintain it, as will Oxford, which will be complete in Frankfurt in 1540 (the next turn).

In terms of relations, with Kublai and then Monty about to fall beneath the German juggernaut, I'm gonna be fresh outta friends. I've decided to stay as friendly as possible with Roosevelt since he's mired in the bottom half of the pack, and Hatty and Julie are being rather frosty. I even gifted Roosevelt Education when he asked for it; I turned down Caesar when he showed up demanding gold, however.

You'll also notice that half-way through the round, my economy was doing much better--mainly thanks to the cottages around Berlin, plus a Market, Bank, and, later, a Grocer in that city as well. I also got another Great Prophet in Berlin and used him to build the Confucian shrine. So it was time to start makin' trouble. I first checked in with Monty to see if he wanted to join in on the fun, but his price tag was exhorbitant:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD05.jpg

You have to hand it to him, he knows when he's behind and wants to make up for it. I'll live with the -1 "You declared war on our friend" demerit. He's next anyway.

I declared war, snagged a couple of workers right off the bat, and moved my stack towards Beshbalik. Before things really got under way, though, I had one more pleasant bit of news:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD06.jpg

As you can see, I chose Astronomy. The Observatories will further boost research in the science cities, and trading with the other continent provided happiness and health bonuses, plus a little filthy lucre. After a diversion to grab Economics for the free Great Merchant (who settled in my current and only wealth city, Berlin), I set off on the track towards Democracy and the Statue of Liberty.

Meanwhile, the first Mongol city fell to my stack:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD07.jpg

It wasn't as easy as it first looked. Kublai had some gold stockpiled and began upgrading Archers to Longbows and Axemen to Maces after I declared war. He's also getting Ivory from Monty, because while he may not have Keshiks, he definitely has War Elephants! Monty, unfortunately, refuses to stop trading with his bosom Buddhist buddy. He'll pay for that...

The War Elephants counter-attacked Bebshalik with some Macemen and Crossbows and slowed my advance. I had to spend several turns with the stack defending and/or reinforcing Bebshalik before it could go on its way. Plus I kept having to throw my Catapults at the opposing stacks to damage them, and after taking the city, I was low on those anyway. So even once I'd decimated Kublai's stacks, I had to wait for more Cats to arrive!

While progress at the front was a little slow, I had some good news back home. I got another Great Scientist from Frankfurt, who settled there, and then, thanks to my reassinging one specialist in Hamburg to be an Engineer, I got a Great Engineer! Woo hoo! Since I was in the middle of researching Nationhood, I saved him for a few turns, and then...

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD08.jpg

WOW. Look at what a Golden Age does to your income in a specialist economy! Now keep in mind that I'm still hardly running any merchants anywhere, and the only city with cottages is Berlin. I already have a pile of dough, and have upgraded several units, but by the time this GA is done I'll have a stockpile for gunpowder upgrades! Then I'll go a-knockin' on Monty's door...

I shouldn't get ahead of myself, though. My stack finally made it to Karakorum, then faced another delay when Kublai unleashed three Catapults on it. In typical AI fashion, though, he failed to follow up despite the presence of a few Macemen and a Crossbow in the city. After a turn of healing, the result was inevitable:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD09.jpg

It seems as though Bebshalik and the capital were the two best-defended cities, so I'm hoping the rest of the Mongolian conquest will go more quickly. I'm also focusing military production on catapults, as I think I have more than enough of everything else. I think I should now send most of the stack southeast to take out the two remaining Mongol cities on my right flank. Then the troops can swing around to the northwest and take the last two cities.

Here's a look at the map in 1530 AD:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD10.jpg

And while we're at it, the other continent:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD11.jpg

And the state of relations:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALCFred1530AD12.jpg

I think it's likely that when I eventually go to Free Religion, Hatshepsut will become much friendlier, which is her usual state. Caesar, tough to say. But since Hatty and Julius have been at war, and Egypt and American are "Friendly", it's likely that those latter two civs will be my buddies on that continent. In terms of power, Caesar out-ranks me, and he's #2 in score. He also gave me a demerit for attacking Kublai. I'm trading with Rome at the moment, but if push comes to shove, Julie will be the odd man out.

So let's talk victory conditions. I'm building a commanding lead. I anticipate taking out Kublai, then taking on Monty's classical and medieval units with gunpowder. (I've delayed Military Tradition and Cavalry in favour of going for Democracy and the SoL partly because I don't yet have a Level 5 unit for West Point. I'm close, though.) Domination is a definite possibility, but the continents are very evenly balanced. I suspect I'll have more than enough population just on my own continent, but I'm likely to need territory on the other one for the win.

It seems likely, then, that during the war with Monty I'll have to lay the groundwork (or, more accurately, waterwork) for a naval invasion of the other continent. I'll also have to think about who my potential opponent will be. Caesar is gearing up to be my antagonist, but the other two civs will likely be weaker and, therefore, easier targets. Remember part of my aim with this ALC is to not just win, but win handily, and that means early. Hmmm...decisions, decisions...

In any case, here's the save and I look forward to your comments. Pigswill, I hope this is close enough to 1500 for you to do a meaningful comparison, as you indicated you wanted to do.

Wow... I have no qualms with the game plan. I was going to say a bit of advice about the next 2 techs, but then i saw you already on that beeline. Great minds think alike? Or, better yet, SoL anyone? w/ merchantalism, and 2 base scientists thats 4 scientists per city, plus w/ observatories coming up... Yayz.

you did ask a question as to the long term victory... I would say domination, and yes, you need land from the other continent. However, one of MY biggest flaws is acting a bit too much like the AI - playing for growth and best advantage rather than a specific win strategy(I win a lot of time/domination, on a side note, any tips from you more flexible people?) So i'm probably not a good judge but -

Cultural is out - obviously
Space race is out - the advantage of your specialists are going to start dwindling down. Late game techs are very expensive, and to get more beakers, you need to expand, which means going to the other continant anyway...
Conquest is out - domination would come first and easier
Time is out - see space race

That leaves domination. build up a raw military (all this is talking about after you have continent unified and infastructured up) and THEN decide who to attack. find how much more % land you need and act accordingly, counting in the respective military might of the other continant. If one civ will do, go to the weakest one. If either the largest civ or the two smaller civs will do, then go for the weaker between the large civ and the combined military of the two smaller civs. If you need 2 civs, go w/ the 2 weaker.

A GE on Taj Mahal? *grumbles*

At least you'll have plenty of money to make with the City Raider III Grenadiers. Something you might want to try, is reload your 4000 BC save and refound Berlin. Then go to the victory screen and divide your land percentage by 9. This will give you an idea how many percentage points each tile is worth, which can affect your battle plan. If you only need to get a few cities on the other continent, then you'll be able to attack anybody you like.

If you're looking to avoid a lengthy war, you might give Hatshepsut a try. It looks like nearly all of her cities are coastal, so you could virtually eliminate her on the first round of the war. The downside is you'll probably have to start stockpiling the ships for this immediately. Roosevelt offers access with a smaller inital invasion force, but he may not have the land area to give you a win without having to attack somebody else anyway.

What would you say your average tech rate is at this stage? It looks like you had 5 turns for Printing Press, which is good. Has that been typical?

One thing that I have heard mentioned in threads on specialist economies, is that because it loses some advantages to cottages in the later games, it can be worth it to transition to a cottage-based economy. Beshbalik and Karakorum both seem like they could be configured for max tile-based commerce, which could either provide more wealth for further expansion, or ease the transition in upping the slider on research. Perhaps use wealth in those two cities to finance the expansion through the Aztec lands, and then transition to cottages? People with more specialist economy experience might be able to provide more focused advice.

A good point to raise, Phrederick. Several people have been cautioning me that even with several science cities, Caste System, Statue of Liberty, etc, the SE still begins to peter out in the modern era. Do the experienced SE fans make a transition to cottages in the late game or dance with the lady whut brung yuh?

As for the GE on TM...I hear ya, but remember that I DO have copper (for the SoL) but I DO NOT have marble and won't until I take out Monty. And look at all that GPT!

:gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold: :gold:

I feel like Scrooge McDuck, but without the lack of pants. Ahem.

Seriously, with gunpowder units right around the corner, that gold is going to finance a round of upgrades that will clean Monty off the map in record time.

I'd caution you against blowing ALL the money on unit upgrades; you might need some of it to run a deficit while absorbing the Aztec homelands. I don't have civ4 available right now (living vicariously through games like these!), so I don't really know exactly how strong your economy is and how much of a hit that added maintenance will be.

A good point to raise, Phrederick. Several people have been cautioning me that even with several science cities, Caste System, Statue of Liberty, etc, the SE still begins to peter out in the modern era.


This is one of those things we want you to find out :lol:. The level of 'petering' is going to be almost entirely related to the amount of cities you control and how many settled GSs you can squeeze into Frankfurt. With the entire continent under your iron fist- er, velvet glove, I think you'll be more than satisfied with the tech rate. If memory serves me correctly Futurehermit's numbers keep up the 1 tech/5 turns pace well through the modern era provided you have 6 specialists you feed yourself in the Oxford city + at least 5 settled GSs, and 6 other cities running at least two specialists that you feed yourself (so 4, with the free ones). All of these cities are required to have every possible science multiplier, which is now Library + University + Observatory. In the modern era this also includes Research Labs, so this means your next beeline after Democracy would be Computers. Grenadiers and Cannons should be more than adequate to finish off this continent and probably win the game for you, if not you may make a pit stop at Rifles or Artillery. Computers normally come rather late but you can get them surprising early if you're willing to skip plenty of other techs you would usually be going after. Once you have Statue of Liberty and control over most if not all of your continent you can gauge your tech rate and decide if you'll need the extra help from Computers or not. How many settled scientists are now in Frankfurt? If you're not up to 5-6 (excluding GL) I would stay on Pacifism until you get that many. The sure-fire fix to avoid a falling tech rate is to win! Part of the advantage we're trying to get from the specialist economy is to be able to win quickly enough that things don't have a chance to fall apart late-game.


Seriously, with gunpowder units right around the corner, that gold is going to finance a round of upgrades that will clean Monty off the map in record time.

Here's hoping!

As for the Specialist economy Petering out... it depends how Specialist it is, The problem is in the Modern Age, it gets hard for one city (even on Oxford stuffed city) to produce that much science.


So options
1. Domination, minimal tech needed, so current levels are fine, just get the Ren group Gun->Chem->Steel and Cavalry and Riflemen. Just build up a lot, and improve your Gold cities (Shrines, Capitals, etc.)

2 Space Race, for a SE the key thing here is you need to get a few cities that really use that Caste System. Have the 'backup science cities' running 4 Scientists, and make sure you get Biology so they can run 6-8. Besides the raw science, this will have a chance of getting one or two additional GSs that can go to Frankfurt. Add on to that the fact that Every city will be getting at least 6 science from two Specialists (with SoL+Merc) and possibly 12 Science if they pick two Scientists... and you should be able to keep going, at a good pace.

It seems to me that a diplomatic victory seems possible here too, seeing as Rosevelt and hatty may be on your side vs ceaser. and of course you could put a SS victory as a fail-safe.

Just another path to follow, though I doubt it would yield as high a score as other victories.

It seems to me that a diplomatic victory seems possible here too, seeing as Rosevelt and hatty may be on your side vs ceaser. and of course you could put a SS victory as a fail-safe.

I was just starting to think about that myself. With a beeline to Mass Media instead of Computers it may be faster to go for the diplomatic victory rather than try to force a toehold on the second continent. Take the starting continent, get to Mass Media, then yank the specialists to focus on farms + growth to crank out the votes. Even better would be to get a war started over there in the turns just before the vote is called to get them soured on Ceaesar and pick up some mutual struggle brownie points. Send troops over to gift them to Roosevelt and let him pick up the tab. If none of the other ALC games have been won via diplomacy it might be fun to try.

I was truly awed and inspired by Aelf's mastery of the diplomatic game in his Emperor's Challenge, so this has a certain appeal. But let me get the SoL built and Kublai and Monty well and properly gone before we make our final decision.

Financial/Demographic Comparision 1530ad

Sisutil's Farm: 408 beakers, 348 gold, 190 expenses, 12 cities, 224 hammers, 9477k pop, 434k soldiers. Techs: banking, nationalism, constitution.

Pisgwill's Cottage: 389 beakers, 223 gold, 196 expenses, 16 cities, 182 hammers, 11094k pop, 384k soliders. Techs: gunpowder, chemistry.

Figures slightly distorted by Sisutil's Golden Age.