Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 3 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

The Game
As Peter The Great, Leader of All the Russias, you are charged with achieving a Diplomatic or Space Victory.

This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, crowded map, at Epic speed, against 17 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Diplomatic or Space victory.

Version
Your team will play this map in Warlords version 2.08, using the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 2.08. This is currently HOF_Mod-2.08.001 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mods/HOF-2.08.008.exe), but we shall use the latest version of the mod as at the start date for the game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) at midnight, server local time, at the start of December 1st.

Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm3_start_small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm3_start_large.jpg)

Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Peter of Russia
Rivals - all the other 17 civs in version 1.61
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Archipelago, low sea level, tropical
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Aggressive
Barbarians - Standard
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing

Notes

Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439) to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

BOTH Civilization IV v1.61 and Warlords v.2.08 are supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with your chosen version throughout the game.

Teams will compete for four awards for each version of the game - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.

All teams must play the sponsored variant - awards will be given to teams who achieve Diplomatic or Space victories in the least turns.

All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.


Remember, Rule Number 11: Have Fun. :)

Well, here we go!

I guess the first question is where to settle. I think it looks good enough to settle in-place.

I think we want to stay on the coast so that we can build workboats to grab the clams. 1-north loses clams & spices. 2E loses a clams, means one spices gets demoted to a second city. The only benefit is opening-up another flood-plains. Before we considered this seriously, I think the scout would need to move E or potentially E-then-SE (maybe there's something in the water to the east).

I'd suggest that the first tech we go for is fishing. We start with hunting & mining. I think that bronze working & sailing should also be prioritised, but maybe we want to set-up a GPP factory, so pottery might be good early.

It's not a great start position, but I see no good move. Especially with that jungle visible to the north. We might as well move the scout onto one of the hills to see if we spot something exciting. Otherwise, settle in place and start researching Fishing.

With the crowded map, we want to figure out quickly whether we're alone on our island. If we're not alone, then we might want to start pumping out settlers as fast as we can.

Alright, the threads are open! This position is certainly shield poor; I can see lots of pop-rushing and chopping in our future.

Looks like Coast NW-W of the Scout, so it would seem slightly better to go E-NE and see what that Hill shows. Agree that we will likely be settling in place.

Regarding Team order, I suggest we slide Klarius in after malekithe, and start with malekithe since Phabuk finished SGOTM2 for us.

So proposed order would be:

malekithe
Klarius
civ_steve
ainwood
MailMan
DaviddesJ
Phabuk

We let things slide around a bit towards the end of SGOTM2 - everyone was pretty busy but we were really close to ending it so it wasn't too big an issue. Let's get back to posting a 'got it' within 24 hours of the prior turn set completing, and playing and posting the results within 48 hours after that.

We will be playing the Warlords expansion set (I'm buying it tomorrow!) Make sure you're up to the latest patch, AND have the latest HOF mod installed. Please post if you have any questions.

And don't forget, our primary objective is to ... beat CFR! ( :) ) (ok, it's to have fun, but beating CFR would BE fun!)

I would rather settle 1 north if nothing better turn up by scouting.
In place is extremely low in shields, so we would commit ourselves right away to slavery as only labour civic for a long time. 1 N also gives two more in principle cottageable tiles (though the grass hill probably stays mined for most of the game).
Also for the start it's not so nice to have only one 2 hammer tile. The 2.08 change to expansionist means that a 2 hammer - one food tile is as good for producing workers as a netted clam before lighthouse.

I would also go for BW first for the ability to pop-rush as early as possible. Clams (+2f) don't warrant the effort to hand-build a work boat early IMO.

For 1 N, I would grow to size 3 with both FP (20 turns), then build a worker with both wooded hills and another forest ( at +9 f+h ). Pop-rush the worker 1 turn before fishing comes in an put the overflow in a work boat.

For settling in place I still would go for BW first and worker starts at size 2 (at +7 f+h ). Complete warrior then (which has already started to decay :cry:) and pop-rush a work boat after that.

I don't think settling in place commits us to slavery for a long time. It just commits us to building some settlers quickly, and setting up some other cities in sites with more production. We have enough forests to chop to let us build our necessary early buildings (lighthouse, granary).

I also think that, if we settle in place, the ability to poprush isn't particularly useful, until we improve the clams, or build a granary, or both. With only +3 food (or +2 food, if we're working the forested spices), there's nothing so great about the opportunity to trade 36 food for 45 hammers with a happiness penalty.

The problem with moving 1N is we'll probably never get to use the 2nd clams at all (until we conquer our neighbors). Plus we lose a turn. I hate to give up valuable tiles when we don't know yet how much space we will have (but we do know the map is crowded).

I'd consider moving 3NE, if we find some good resources near that hill. But, the jungle is a bad sign, especially with no fresh water there. (But, we are Expansive, so maybe it's ok?) This preserves our ability to settle back near the clams, later. But is it worth two turns?

Tech:
I hear a lot about sailing being a high priority. I don't think so. Even if we settle in place we will not work more than 0-2 coastal tiles for a long time. A lighthouse is clearly inferior to a granary (and double as expensive for us).
But even after pottery I would rather go for writing and library first.
We need sailing for settling other islands, but I think that's quite a bit down the timeline. If we have a few good city sites on our island it may even be best to burn to alphabet and pick up sailing in trade.

My take on needed research early:
BW-fishing-TW-pottery-writing
Slot in agriculture if needed by another city.
Then evaluate what course to follow next.

Hitting lead-off again, eh? Alright, I'll give it my best. At least it appears unlikely I'll fail to spot a nearby oasis...:mischief:

I'm hesitant to commit myself to anything at the moment without knowledge of what lies off the eastern coast or off to the NE. If it came down to deciding between settling on the spot and moving north, I'd lean in favor of this spot. I don't like settling on floodplains, but I don't like giving up a 4-5 food tile for the foreseeable future either. The north spot also costs us the forest and a turn. I'm not sure the availablility of a single hill will be worth that; this city's not going to be a production center regardless, so we're going to be forced to rely on chopping and rushing with or without the hill. The hill may end up being worked by another city focused on production anyway.

For the scout's move, I'm leaning toward E, NE. That should reveal most of the eastern coast and a substantial tract of land in the NE. The most notable knowledge deficit there is the coast to the N-NW. I think the likelihood of seeing anything to alter our plans in that area, though, would be very slim.

Tech-wise, it's a bit premature, but I'm definitely thinking fishing first and BW second (swapping those if we settled 1 N). I'm a bit fuzzy on what our exact build order would look like in that scenario, but we've got ample time to straighten all that out. Also, the expansive bonus hammers on workers are, in my opinion, the most advantageous when you're primarily using slavery or chopping to produce your workers; applying the 50% bonus to virtually all of the hammers going into the worker.

EDIT: As to sailing being low-pri... I agree. We'll be wanting to get up to alphabet as quickly as convenient. Contacts can be established by workboat in the meantime. With 17 rivals, someone is bound to have researched sailing by that time. We should probably limit ourselves to the barest neccessities research-wise from the outset, keeping in mind that there are 17 other civs out there to provide a lot of our early research at the start of the classical era.

Still, settling N is not gaining only a hill but also 2 plains. That's 10 instead of 5 hammers if all forests should get cut in the fat cross.
And we still would have enough food to work every tile cottaged/mined w/o need for irrigations.

EDIT:
I think moving settler E-NW should show most of the tiles we potentially lose by settling in place.

Just to repeat myself, I agree with malekithe. You can't regard the tiles you work by moving 1N as a "gain", because you are adding them to this city only by taking them away from a future city. But the clams and the spices that you lose by moving 1N are lost "forever".

I do agree that Sailing doesn't seem so important, unless we are on a really small island. Even on a small island, we can pack in one city at our starting location, one city 3N, and one city 3NE, which is enough for a while.

On the other hand, I don't think Bronze Working is urgent either. I would consider Fishing-Wheel-Pottery-BW. with the goal of completing a granary before the switch to Slavery. Then, hopefully, building a 2nd city with good production near copper.

Given that we're shield-poor, I agree that a workboat first-up is a bad move. It requires both researching fishing, and then building the boat with naff-all shields. Perhaps bronze working is a better first tech to get slavery & chopping? First-up build should probably be a worker instead of a workboat.

As a suggestion for settling - what about on the forest tile E-NE? Can settle turn 2, and it gives us two hills (one a plains hill), two FPs, plus a choice of forest, plains, spices etc as the fifth - that's not bad for the first 4 workable tiles until we get some happiness resources or monarchy - a much better hammer / food balance (hammers might also be important for military with an aggressive AI - if we share our island). It means we have two FPs instead of one. It also puts us across the river, which saves a move for units expanding north. If there is a food resource in the sea out east, we're set.

The downside is it gives-up the clams, but I think that is worth it - we won't need the health, the food requires us to build slow workboats. Those clams are accessable from across the bay - a later goal.

I agree with BW first.

Give up both clams, forever? Sorry, but I think this is really a terrible idea, even worse than 1N. (And the eastern clams are not accessible from across the water, even assuming we eventually cross the water and kill whoever is over there and that they haven't built their cities in crappy locations that prevent us from using the resources.)

I firmly believe that the main objective at this point in the game (given the crowded archipelago map) is to maximize the number and value of the productive cities that we can locate on the land available to us. The relative productivity of any one city is not so important (as long as our capital isn't so feeble that it holds us back from building more cities quickly, which it definitely won't be if we have the clams). What is important is the total. The way to maximize the total is to make us of every high-value tile we have. The way to minimize it is to block a bunch of high-value tiles so that we can't use them. Building 1N or 1N1E or 1N2E are really damaging to our eventual total productivity. Essentially, it costs us one whole city in the middle part of the game.

I also don't see why a workboat is considered such a big expense. Or what else we are doing with those hammers, in the early game. Build a worker, so we can chop our forests for a settler? I'd much rather build a workboat, and use the food to build a settler, and we'll still have the forests. Chop them all down, and then we will be short on hammers. Not to mention the 20 hammers we lost just by settling on one.

If it's really so important that we have shields in our capital, then we should go settle on the jungle or the plains hill (assuming a food resource somewhere nearby, and not too much jungle), and at least we have preserved the starting location for settling later. But I really don't understand why two of you think those shields are important. Why is it so critical to have production in our first city instead of our second one? Doesn't the ability to build settlers quickly, using our food resources, make for a good start? Isn't it going to be useful for our Philosophical civ to have a GP farm, with lots of food, down the road?

Well, one thing is that the clams are not a good food resource before lighthouse.
They don't add more to a settler than a mined hill. So at least the spice hill should be mined early and the chop can then go in whatever seems necessary at this time.

But all these arguments don't really help before we know more. Settling in place (as well as 1 north) will waste eventual food resources on the east coast.
We don't how far the land extends to the north and by that cannot how many cities there could be fit in eventually.
I'm also not convinced that squeezing in mediocre towns early does really help.

So at least the spice hill should be mined early

I don't see any spice hill. The tile 2N1W is plains/forest/spices, I think. The tile 1S/2E is grassland/spices.

I obviously don't agree that the clams aren't a good tile. Overall I think they are way more valuable than the grassland hill. But I still think the right comparison is between settle in place (which lets us use both the clams and the grassland hill, in different cities) and move 1N (which gives up the clams forever).

Well, if this is no hill (and you are probably right), then I think settling in place is absolutely bad.
It will take over 60 turns to build a settler naturally with nothing else than 1 work boat and 1 warrior built before.
Then the second city still needs a worker to get up to speed. So we are talking about maybe 80 turns w/o any real military production (and also no scouting work boat).

So I'm leaning now to let the starting position be our second city (maybe GP farm) and look for a better capital position even if it takes 3-4 turns to settle.

A fishing village like the starting position will do a lot better if a work boat comes already along with the settler.

In general, I'm really leery about removing resources from any city's fat cross, especially the capital. I can see considering settling in place, or possibly 1 N; the scout would have to uncover something eye-watering to consider settling near 3NE, and nothing else seems nearly as good.

Settling in place will eventually get us to +8 food with the 2 Clams and 1 Floodplains, assuming we have a Lighthouse and Irrigate the Fldplns. (With this much coast we would want a Lighthouse at some point.) Moving 1 North with same consideration gives us +7 food. Without Lighthouse both locations provide +6 food. Settling 1 North will gain us access to the Hill space, and quicker initial growth since we will have 2 Floodplains to use, but lose us 1 Clams and 1 Spice within Fat Cross and one forest to chop.

I'm not used to Warlords yet. klarius makes an interesting point about the Expansive benefit. Moving 1North and using 2 Floodplains we would grow to Size2 in 11 turns, and Size3 in 8 (I think). Building Worker with the 3 spaces indicated would take just 6 turns (15 h+bonus+f per turn), getting it on turn 25. Settling in place will grow to Size2 in 11 turns, and Size3 in 11 as well (3 turns later), and a Worker would take 7 turns (14 h+bonus+f per turn), getting it on turn 29. A 4 turn advantage, probably reduced to 3 turns so that a Warrior can be completed, or wait until after the Worker is done to complete the Warrior, or pop-rush the WB then and spill over to the Warrior.

Settling 1North provides some significant early advantages vs potential mid- to long- term slightly less favorable situations. I'm in a quandary as to which one is better for us to pursue. I'm not at all hopeful that the scout will reveal a better location for us to move to. And what if we're on a very small island?!

I favor both Fishing and BronzeWorking for our first 2 Techs, probably BW first. Chopping and rushing early and often seem pretty necessary. I would think that Chopping the 2 Grass/River spaces early then Cottaging them seems pretty desirable; perhaps one can help the Granary and the 2nd can help with the Library.

How do we wish to use GP and our Philosophical trait? We could go for Mysticism early and build Stonehenge; at 5-6 hpt it would take 30-36 turns, less with a chop and/or rush. The Great Prophet would come in 38 turns with Philosophical trait; probably just about right to give us a big boost for Civil Service. (Epic speed) Or just power up to Writing, build Library, and double Scientist would give us 1st GS in 13 turns, probably to be used to build Academy, and more after that. This is a research game and we have to make many decisions with that in mind.

If you look at the top of the screensot, it does look like its 'rounded' - is it coast? Are we really on a tiny island?

RE the scout - if its first move is east, will it show the tile 2E of the settler? I don't think it will.

Well, civ_steve, your math about expansionist workers is wrong. Let's take the 1N case.
Growth is in 11 (33/3) then 9 (36/4) turns.
After that we can work forest spice + forest hill + grass forest for 6 h +0f.
The bonus is 50% on hammers so that's 9h (no food surplus) towards a worker meaning 10 turns.
If we grow only to size 2, we can get a worker at 6h(4+50%) + 1f in 13 turns, which means we will already lose hammers on the warrior partially build before.

If you think of (probably temporary) irrigating floodplains, agriculture should come before BW.
Worker should come then with only 1 growth after 23 turns and be able to irrigate right away. We then need another worker tech (TW or BW) before fishing or will run out of worker tasks.

BTW for the tech sequence some durations

BW is 22 turns initially.
Fishing 8 turns.
TW or agri 12 turns

GP:
A prophet is not useful for civil service in 2.08.
Masonry is now higher on the list so no way to avoid a religious techs.
If we could snatch a merchant wonder, we could use a merchant for CS (after currency and metal casting is traded/researched).
Now there are a bunch of very useful early merchant wonders (Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Artemis). It's just a question, if we will have a city to build any wonder against all the industrious nuts in the game.
And if we have a city capable of building a wonder there is still the question if we want to try for pyramids.

Generally I think we should later try to get mostly scientists. 1-3 academies later use them for research.
In a high research game you want to get quick towards education research.
After researching paper there are lots of techs where you can use scientist lightbulbs for full value.

Well, if this is no hill (and you are probably right), then I think settling in place is absolutely bad.
It will take over 60 turns to build a settler naturally with nothing else than 1 work boat and 1 warrior built before.

That seems way too long. Here's my calculation:

10 turns working (3/0/1) => +30 food, +10 hammers in warrior
1 turn working (3/0/1) => +3 food (grow to size 2), +1 hammer in workboat
11 turns working (1/2/1, 2/1/0) => +11 food, +44 hammers in workboat (done)
5 turns working (4/0/2, 3/0/1) => +25 food (grow to size 3), +5 hammers in warrior (15)
2 turns working (1/2/1, 2/1/0, 2/1/0) => +2 food, +10 hammers in warrior (done, +3 carryover to settler)
21 turns working (4/0/2, 3/0/1, 1/2/1) => +147 hammers in settler (done)

That's 50 turns. (I think building a granary and poprushing the settler is probably better, though---it might take a bit longer, but we'll have the granary. If we can research Fishing/Wheel/Pottery/BW fast enough.)

So I'm leaning now to let the starting position be our second city (maybe GP farm) and look for a better capital position even if it takes 3-4 turns to settle.

I'm happy to look for a better location, if it exists. I'd definitely prefer to be in a position to use our cheap workers from the start. Certainly we should move the scout onto one of the two hills, before settling. But there's also the chance that we move onto one of the hills and we see the north coast of the island, or extensive jungle, and no resources anywhere nearby. Suppose that what we see is all we have. Then what's the best choice?

Also, are we agreed on the best initial move for the scout? Before we even move the scout, I'd like to load the savegame and blow up the magnification and try to figure out what's on the tiles at the edge of the shroud.

Also, are we agreed on the best initial move for the scout? Before we even move the scout, I'd like to load the savegame and blow up the magnification and try to figure out what's on the tiles at the edge of the shroud.
I think the first is east. Then, not sure. Based on what we see, either NW or NE.

If it truly is coast above the hill to the north, then NE is probably preferred.

I think the first is east. Then, not sure. Based on what we see, either NW or NE.

I tend to agree, but let me raise the counter-argument.

The advantage of NW first is that we will get a good look at the water to the northwest. There could be a coastal resource out there, which would be good to know. We may also find out if there's a land connection to the lands to the west.

If we're willing to commit to moving the settler and searching for a better spot, then the settler can go E-NE, while the scout goes NW-E (or NW-NE). We gather more total information that way.

My own preference is scout E-NE, but that's because I don't think settling in place is so bad.

Hello All,

First let me apologize for leaving in the middle of SGOTM2, my free time took a very deep dive as my first born came to life.
I hope that I will be able to play all my turns without any delays or skips.

One thing that I want to ask you all is pictures. usually I have time to read the turn logs and participate in the thread, but do not have time to open up a the save at home and look at the situation.

I think that at least a picture per turn log would make a great difference for keeping up in the game.

Now for my thoughts on the current game:

1. Food is king - much more than hammers.
Therefore I think the current location of the settler is great.
In the start of the game we will use the whip a lot, and in the later parts it will become a GP farm.

2. tile improvements
I think we should focus the capital on food and therefore build farms on the FP and the grass tiles.
we may build a cottage or two on tiles that overlap with our second city.

3. CS and techs
if we good the food route there is no much point in pursuing CS. CS do not give boost to food.
I think we should first go for fishing (work boats), than BW and writing. we should get library soon for the GS.

4. granary is half cost to us, we should take advantage of that as soon as we can.

5. contacts.
we need 3-4 work boats soon. 2 for the clams, and 2 for making contacts.
contacts will help us research faster.

6. settling.
I think that we will have just 1 more city on the mainland (the island seem to be small from the curve in the north)
we will want to expand fast in this crowded world even if it hurts our economy at first.

Summery:
I think that I agree with DaviddesJ, settle in place, research fishing, build work boat, go for settler early.
All that pending on what the scout will see (E NE for the scout)

The screenshot has been updated to show blue circles for the settler, at the start location and at 2NE. (Click on the small version in post #1.) Certainly this suggests that there are some nice resources on the tiles north of the hills.

By the way, moving the scout E-N is also a serious option. This would guarantee that we get visibility of all 3 tiles reachable from the 2NE location, which probably include all available resources. Just a thought.

I do think settling 3NE or 3N2E are realistic options. I don't like 2NE because it blocks building a city in our current location, later. The AI algorithm doesn't take that into account. It may be suggesting 2NE over 3N2E just because it gets an extra floodplain.

We can see from the enlarged screen shot that the land curve in the north and east, which suggest that we are on a very small island. my guess is that there are about 2-3 more land tiles on our little island.
If that is the case, the scout will see that on the first turn (E/NE is still my proffered move) for the scout.

P.S. Another possibility we should be considering is that there could be a resource 2E of our settler. It would be slightly embarrassing to go traipsing around when we're giving up a location that's better than we suspect.

Well, civ_steve, your math about expansionist workers is wrong. ...
I'm not surprised; I really shouldn't try to do even simple math at 3 am. :) Somehow I thought Workers were built using all food, not just excess food. (It made sense at the time.)

With your corrections it's still pretty obvious that founding 1N gets us to Size 3 after 20 turns, vs 23 turns if founding on the Floodplains (11+12). And 9 hpt vs 8 hpt (forest/spice, 2 forest/grass = 5 h, +2 bonus, +1 excess food) is 2 turns faster to a Worker.

1N has the initial advantage; getting the extra food longterm by settling in place will yield long term benefits. We may be on a rather small island, so Sailing might be desired fairly quickly, either through direct research or trade, and a Lighthouse can be obtained fairly quickly realizing the benefit of 2 Oysters.

Initial scouting will help; perhaps we should move the Settler 1 East (see what's in the unknown square) then 1 North (or NW) into the forest. From there it can found next turn in either location, or head off to the NE if the Scout sees something better.

I'm not aware of the updated GP Techs for Warlords; is there a link to that list? In general it would seem that Great Scientists would be most useful.

@MailMan - good to hear from you! Hope fatherhood is agreeing with you!

Regarding CS - it doesn't help food directly, but I believe you get the 50% bonus applied to shields generated from pop-rushing.

Agree that we should at least keep open a possible city site at our current starting spot or 1N of it; so founding 2NE isn't feasible, but there might be something nice at 3NE or 3N2E. There may be additional water-based resources near 2NE to justify the blue circle.

I'm not aware of the updated GP Techs for Warlords; is there a link to that list?
It's mentioned in the patch readme.
DaveMcW has updated the list in his article (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952).

OK. malekithe starts us off. Saves should be available in about 12 hours give or take. Any final comments before we start? malekithe - you did a great job of keeping us informed over the first few turns of SGOTM2; please feel free to do so again if interesting things are uncovered. Everybody else - stay tuned in case malekithe would like some quick feedback.

I'm going to be out to dinner when the save is released. Anyone who wants, though, should grab the save as soon as they can and do any fog-gazing they deem appropriate. If there's nothing else interesting that can be gleaned from the starting save, I'm going to be moving the scout E-NE and then reporting back.

Fog-gazing doesn't tell me much - except confirms the coast on the plains NW of the scout. Note that our version of the starting save doesn't calculate the two blue settling circles - because its a game loaded from a scenario.

The scout has been moved. Spotted more seafood, stone, the source of a river (in the fog), and the start of a jungle.

Given what we know now, and making no assumptions, there are two very good city spots where the settler and scout are located. Between those two, my gut says to go with the current settler location for the capital. I could see arguments for putting the capital to the NE, though, as it definitely has lots of potential. I don't think getting the stone in the inital city radius is very important, though. As long as we go with a quick settler, I think we'd have stone in time for any use we could put it to.

Despite all that, though, my favorite starting spot is probably 2E of the settler. I know it loses us the clams to the SW, but it brings both floodplains into play and lets us use the fish in the starting city (that's a lot of food). It would allow for 2 additional cities in the immediate area, likely: one on the stone and one to the NW. This all depends very heavily on another available food resource to the NW. It'd be a bit of a gamble at this stage of the game.

If we're willing to tolerate a turn's delay, I'd like to send the settler 1NE and then send the scout SW-NW next turn to scope out the NW coast. That should give us enough information to make a well-informed decision.

I'm definitely curious what the team thinks. I'd hate to set us in a spot that most of the team is against.

I can see quite a bit through the fog:

4N is water
4N1E looks like grass/flat/no forest
4N2E looks like grass/hill/forest
4N3E looks like plains/flat/no forest

I suggest moving the scout E-N rather than E-NE, so we can see all three of the 4N tiles.

Oops, posts crossed. Oh well.

My instinct is to settle 3NE. The site has good potential, with a quarry, and eventually two mines, to complement the two food resources.

Another possible advantage of settling farther north is that we might reserve the southern space to ourselves, if we're not alone on this island. While, if we settle in the south, it's conceivable that an AI will take our desired space to the north. We should keep in mind that this is a crowded map (with no razing!).

Also, while it's true that we can connect the stone "in time" to use it, even if we don't put our first city near it, the advantage of building the capital near the stone is that we will have a fully developed city with good production, and access to stone, so we can very easily build stone-based wonders. If we put our capital in the south, then, when we connect the stone via a 2nd city in the north, we'll have one mature city with low production, and a second immature city---no good place to build wonders quickly.

Also, malekithe's suggestion of founding our 2nd city directly on the stone is unappealing to me, because that will be a poor city due to insufficient food (unless another food resource turns up). I like the plains hill site better, but that isn't so consistent with the 2E idea.

The arguments by klarius for 1N are also growing on me. Trading 1 clams for 1 floodplains is not really so much of a loss. Still, even moving 1N gives us pretty low production; the way to start with a good production city is to go 3NE.

The tile the scout is on could actually be a very good capital - a nice balance of production & food that would support civil service quite well. It would then allow us to move our first settler back to the starting position as a GP factory.

X-post as well! But looks like daviddesj & I have the same thoughts (assuming that he means the other west ;)

I also vote for 3NE (the location of the current scout).
2nd city should probably go on the starting location. up north theree seems to be too much jungle.

I suggest go with fishing and workboats. after we get two workboat out, switch to settler, only than produce a worker

I suggest go with fishing and workboats. after we get two workboat out, switch to settler, only than produce a worker

Hmm. If we go 3NE then I was thinking that we would start with one workboat, then a worker who could build a quarry, chop down the forests, and build mines. I don't see the 2nd workboat as a high priority (and building a worker leverages our expansive trait).

I think we might even go with a worker as the initial build, then switch to workboat when we learn Fishing, and back to worker when the workboat is done. Might as well see the rest of the terrain before making that decision, though.

We should also seriously consider building the Great Wall early, using the GE for the Pyramids, and then perhaps using the 2nd GE for Great Lighthouse or Great Library. With 18 civs, there's a risk of being beaten to wonders, but, we have a good position for this.

Great discussion. I'm on board with settling to the NE; it's a great spot. Leading with fishing is almost a no-brainer as well (I'm mildly considering BW to get a jump on the chopping and mining). It's not so easy to decide what the first build should be. In light of that, I'm going to get the first city up, post a screenshot, and then we can discuss over the next 24 hours what the next steps should be. Of course, if anything else interesting pops up in the NW (or 2E) I'll be reporting back here very shortly.

If we settle on the plains hill, and work a 1/2 tile, we're getting 7 hpt toward the worker, at size 1! It's tempting to build the worker (13 turns) before starting a workboat. But, until we research Masonry or BW, it doesn't have anything useful to do. And if we go Masonry or BW first, it delays the workboat a lot. So, I think it may make sense to build warrior and grow, after all.

If it's 8 turns to Fishing, then:

8 turns working (2/0/2) => +16 food (16/33), +16 hammers in warrior (16/22)
8 turns working (2/1/0) => +16 food (32/33), +24 hammers in workboat (24/45)
1 turn working (1/2/0) => +1 food (size 2, 0/36), +4 hammers in workboat (28/45)
3 turns working (1/2/0, 1/2/0) => +0 food (0/36), +18 hammers in workboat (done, 1 carryover to worker)
1 turn working (1/2/0, 1/2/0) => +0 food (0/36), +9 hammers in worker (10/90)
8 turns working (5/0/1, 1/2/0) => +0 food (0/36), +80 hammers in worker (done)

If we research Fishing-Masonry-BW, then we should get Fishing around turn 10 (keeping in mind we lost two turns moving our settler), Masonry around turn 25, and BW around turn 47. The above plan gives us a worker on turn 31, we complete a quarry on turn 40, and we have to wait about 7 turns to start building mines on the forest hills.

Alternatively, we can go Fishing-BW-Masonry, which gives us BW right around the time that the worker comes out, and we can schedule 2 chops and 1 mine while we learn Masonry.

P.S. As written above, this scheme lets most of the hammers in the warrior decay. We probably should finish the warrior before building the workboat (this delays the workboat by 1-2 turns), or after building the workboat and before starting the worker (this delays the worker by 1-2 turns).

Sounds good - but I'd like to reserve a decision until we've got settled, and more importantly, had another couple of turns of exploration - see how big this place is.

The discussion sounds good to me. Trading off a bit more early food (Floodplains) for more production at all phases. I also like the argument about capturing more territory this way as well; going NE projects us towards more open territory while reserving the initial spot for later.

Is that fish to the SE on coast or ocean? It looks like only one commerce! :eek: That would reduce the value of settling 3NE!

It's ocean, but I certainly don't think it detracts appreciably from the value of the spot.

The fish are on ocean. (Fish usually appear on ocean tiles, and that tile isn't near any land---why are you surprised that it's ocean?)

Means we can't put our workboat on it, doesn't it?

Means we can't put our workboat on it, doesn't it?

No. It means we can't move our workboat there until our cultural borders expand to cover the tile. But that won't take long (and there wouldn't be much point in moving there until it's in our cultural borders, anyway).

Workboats (and all ships) can enter ocean tiles when they are in your cultural borders (or an ally's). Otherwise, how would you ever develop a fish tile?

Moscow has been founded. See the attached screenshots to get a look at the lay of the land. That mystery tile 2E from the start did end up having a resource, but it was simply another spice. I figured that wouldn't alter our plans in any way. The NW coast was bare of any extra resources, so I continued with our plan of founding on the plains hill.

We can't work a 2F tile at all until we either expand our borders or learn fishing (8 and 9 turns away respectively). With that in mind, I really don't think it's efficient to attempt to grow the population before bringing the fish online. I propose we work on a worker until fishing is done, switch over to a workboat, and then complete the worker once the workboat is out. After getting the worker out, we can concentrate on growth by working the fish. With the 15 turn grace period before units in the queue start decaying, we should be fine holding off on the worker while building the workboat (12 turns).

The research after fishing is up in the air in my mind. I lean ever so slightly in favor of masonry right now, but that could change easily. As I see it, the early techs we research should be fishing, masonry, BW, wheel, pottery, writing, and alphabet. The order is up in the air, of course, but I think there exist fairly clear reasons for all of those.

I'm iffy on the Great Wall grab. With the GE points being reduced to 1, I'm just not sure we can have a GE out of it in enough time to be competitive. In addition to the ~15 turns it would take to build, we'd have to wait an additional 75 before it produced a single GE. All that time we'd have to be sure and leave the local GP pool sufficiently undiluted. I think it makes more sense for us to go on a Scientist push, possibly grabbing the pyramids along the way through straight building and chopping. Great Scientists mesh very well with a beeline toward mass media (which we'll want to pursue if we go for a diplomatic victory, the quicker choice). Yes, we'll eventually want a GE, but we've got plenty of opportunities to device a plan to get one.

I forgot about the reduced GPP for Great Wall (I haven't actually played a game with the 2.08 patch). I would agree, that probably makes it more attractive to just build the Pyramids, if we want them.

Did you want to leave Pottery off the list of early techs? It would be nice to build our cheap granaries. And the spice/clams city in the south will want some cottages.

I also forgot that we can't work the clams yet. I'm pretty sure that unit decay starts in 10 turns, even at Epic speed. But 2 hammers of decay isn't a big deal.

If we build (worker)-workboat-worker-warrior, we get the workboat in 21 turns, and the worker in 25 turns, which is about the same time we can have Masonry. If we build warrior-(worker)-workboat-worker, we get the worker in 30 turns, which is just as good if we're going for Bronze Working.

So, I think we should build worker now, if we're going to research Masonry immediately after Fishing. If we want to research BW next, then we can consider a warrior (but worker may still be just as good).

P.S. Finding the extra spice in the south means there's a decent chance that Moscow will have copper nearby (there's not really room for the copper to be in the south, and the odds favor having one on the island). So that's one argument for researching BW asap.

I do not like to go for masonry so early. it can only improve the stone, I rather go for BW in order to chop and mine the 2 hills first.

I think that the second scenario (warrior-(worker)-workboat-worker) is better, we should study fishing, BW and than masonry(?)

I would like to consider another scenario that emphasize getting or settler early:
warrior-workboat-workboat-settler at size 3
In the mean time we will study all the necessary worker techs to allow our future worker to be productive from the start.

I see our second city go in the original city location, the next city would probably go 2N of the gems (after we get IW to remove all the jungle from that location) to grab the fish.

I would build a warrior for 5 turns, then go worker for 3 turns, switch back to warrior to get overflow into the first work boat (so it can complete in 10 turns).
Then I would grow to size 2 before completing the worker.

Science fishing - BW , which then should be complete just around the time the worker comes out.

The worker should chop and mine the two hills and the chops going into a settler by switching between it and a second work boat, while still growing fast.

Wheel next will allow the worker to be busy after he improved the hills (a tactical road network is never wrong maybe already to the site for the second city).

I like klarius' proposal. Key issue should be getting a Workboat out ASAP; building a Worker first would have it sit around while we finish BW. We'll want a 2nd Workboat fairly soon after; not sure of the timing with respect to Settler. (OK, I see we switch between Settler and Workboat - Settler getting the chops)

Alright I've been persuaded in favor of BW over masonry as the second tech. I also like using a bit of overflow from a warrior to speed the workboat ever so slightly (doesn't it reduce it to 11 turns - 43 remaining hammers at 4 HPT?).

Just ran the numbers and am in favor of a build order that looks like this:

5 turns @ (warrior)
3 turns @ (worker)
1 turns @ warrior
11 turns @ workboat
4 turns @ (workboat)
7 turns @ worker

As other have said, the worker should pop right around the same time BW comes in (+/-1 turn, I think).

Building a settler after the worker seems reasonable. We'll need to keep in mind that the in-turn queue juggling possible in Vanilla Civ 4 isn't possible in warlords. We'll actually have to spend a full turn working on a settler in order for a forest chop to count towards its production. I'm gettting a bit ahead of myself here, though. I plan to play this evening up until the first workboat is done or something else interesting happens. I won't get started for another 8-9 hours or so, giving everyone plenty of time to come other with other ideas.

I'm not a fan of waiting to build our first worker till after we've got a settler out. The worker can very quickly make up his cost through chopping and mining.

No. It means we can't move our workboat there until our cultural borders expand to cover the tile. But that won't take long (and there wouldn't be much point in moving there until it's in our cultural borders, anyway).Thanks for the clarification. I guess I need to pay more attention....


FWIW, the discussions on early build order are good. I too, would like to get pottery early - soon after fishing & bronze working.

Now for some random thoughts:
Do we want to try for the oracle (and CS slingshot?) Its a bit harder now.... Is there another tech that we'd like to pursue through the oracle? With 18 civs, we may lose the oracle to some other civ (eg. industrious with marble!) Looking at our immediate needs, I think the need to get bronze & iron working early may delay us a bit; conversely, the need for the mysticism / priesthood etc may hurt our growth. The other issue is that the best city for this would be moscow - it will have the highest production. This could stuff-up any GPP plans we have, and also delay production of (eg) workboats for the second city, settlers, workers etc.

Past that, we will need some happiness resources hooked-up reasonably early - with cheap granaries & some good food resources, we'll hit the happiness cap long before we get to monarchy / hereditary rule. The gems will need iron working and a third city - and I don't really see a particularly nice location for a city to nab these (second border expansion from Moscow will probably be the best bet for these). So I'd advocate getting iron working early, too, as it allows us to chop jungle to make space for a third or fourth city. However, a better route might be to alphabet / mathematics / calendar, to grab spices. If we're making our second city a science / GPP one, then this will help with commerce, and we obviously want to get exploring and trading techs asap.

BTW - I would not be at all surprised to have no horses, copper or iron on this home island - this is a gyathaar map, remember!

I would build a warrior for 5 turns, then go worker for 3 turns, switch back to warrior to get overflow into the first work boat (so it can complete in 10 turns).
Then I would grow to size 2 before completing the worker.

I guess you mean "so the workboat can complete in 11 turns". 2 carryover plus 4*11 production.

5 turns (1/2/0) => +5 food (5), +20 hammers in warrior (20)
3 turns (1/2/0) => +21 hammers in worker (21)
1 turn (1/2/0) => +1 food (6), +4 hammers in warrior (22+2)
10 turns (1/2/0) => +10 food (16), +40 hammers in workboat (42)
1 turn (2/1/0) => +2 food (18), +3 hammers in workboat (45)
1 turn (1/2/0) => +7 hammers in worker [-2 decay] (26)
3 turns (5/0/1) => +15 food (33), +6 hammers in workboat #2 (6)
7 turns (5/0/1, 1/2/0) => +70 hammers in worker [-3 decay] (90+3)

So that's 31 turns for the worker in this scheme, which is just about right for BW.

The worker should chop and mine the two hills and the chops going into a settler by switching between it and a second work boat, while still growing fast.

If we're going to build a second workboat before the settler, I don't believe we want to save our 1st chop for a later settler, rather than just putting it into the workboat to get it sooner, thus allowing us to work a better tile and grow faster. (We aren't growing very fast, with just the one fish.) When the chop goes into the workboat, we still get significant carryover to a settler.

Wheel next will allow the worker to be busy after he improved the hills (a tactical road network is never wrong maybe already to the site for the second city).

I think I would prefer Masonry before BW, but I'm not aggressive about it. I definitely think we should get Masonry after BW, though. I can't believe we would rather have our worker building roads than getting us +2 hpt from the quarry.

I'm not excited about the Oracle and I really doubt we could get CS from it. Especially if you want Iron Working too! And Calendar also! I think you're getting rather carried away.

If we do go for a wonder, I'd choose Pyramids, at this point.

All I would say about Gyathaar is that the two previous SGOTM maps have been quite friendly.

I'm not excited about the Oracle and I really doubt we could get CS from it. Especially if you want Iron Working too! And Calendar also! I think you're getting rather carried away.Yeah - I was very concise or structured - I tend to ramble quite often.... What I meant to discuss was some short-mid term goals that are mutually exclusive.

A better summary:
Do we want to go for the oracle?

CS slingshot is harder in Warlords 2.08.
Therefore, to get it we need to be a lot more dedicated/focused about going for it.
This dedication/focus means we would probably have to forgo things like iron-working, as well as 'growth' production (workboats, settlers, workers) from Moscow.


I see this as a risky approach, and I would prefer to go for assured growth instead, and I see happiness as a reasonably early cap to this. Based on current visible resources, iron working for gems and jungle clearing; and calendar for spices + commerce look like good things to prioritise. With three sources of spices, we also have trade opportunities.

I can see the argument for Masonry before BW; not sure if the Worker will run out of things to do though (which isn't the end of the world).

It seems we have two direct paths to go down after Fishing and BW/Masonry - IronWorking to clear Jungle, get Gems and develop a 3rd city site in the jungly north, and Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet, Math, Calendar. Oracle is probably out unless we want to commit to it and exclude pursuing either other path.

I'm inclined to go after the Wheel, Pottery path next. There may be other available resources nearby that we can utilize for happiness, the cheap Granaries will be wanted sooner than later, faster research for IW later, and we might be able to trade for it or other Techs once we make contacts, so our first 2 cities might focus on WB's and exploration before we commit to developing Gems and the North.

I think we should generally work towards alphabet soon. Iron working is usually something you can trade then pretty soon.
And we might think of slotting in sailing early to get a lighthouse and the Great Lighthouse (pretty cheap with stone).
We could think of getting a merchant from that for civil service. That means don't research or trade priesthood (or trade for priesthood and monarchy) and go to CoL via currency (hopefully with some trade help from the AI).

Still pyramids is a big advantage, so we might want to go that route soon instead (or try both).

Later GP should come from a dedicated GP factory, not the capital IMO. The initial starting position should work pretty good for that. This city should not have any wonders (besides national epic), but just use caste system for max scientists. If some artists come from the epic, these can still be later used towards radio or mass media (or we might want a GA).

Oracle slingshot to CS isn't very likely with the need to get math first and a lot industrious nuts in the game. So if we would build Oracle we could just get something like metal casting or CoL. I think these techs are not really worth the effort, especially because we probably have no good use for the prophet points.

Since we have a good 2nd city site without IW (and the gems site doesn't look so good, unless we discover additional resources nearby), I'm definitely inclined to prefer Wheel-Pottery-Writing-Alphabet, before IW. By then, hopefully we will have some contacts, and can trade techs (or even make some gifts to start making friends).

The fact that we might find copper in our fat cross is enough for me to support BW before Masonry, if that's the majority choice (as it seems to be).

We do have to worry a bit about barbarian defense, since our island is looking larger than we expected, and with all of that jungle it will be hard to bust all the fog.

And we might think of slotting in sailing early to get a lighthouse and the Great Lighthouse (pretty cheap with stone).

Stone doesn't help build the Great Lighthouse. I do like the GL, on archipelago maps, but, I think I would build the Pyramids instead (and avoid having to research Sailing early), in our current position.

Don't forget that we'll also need a 3rd workboat, for the clams, and a 4th one for exploration. And some military. We have decent production, but a lot to build.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC3340_01.CivWarlordsSave

We've completed a fair amount of exploration, a warrior, and a workboat. The island is bigger than I had assumed and may even be larger if it continues off to the west. I pulled the scout back for fear of being eaten by a nearby bear. Someone braver than I may wish to venture forth into the great untamed wilds.

I believe Klarius is up next. The path for the next 10-12 turns should be pretty straightforward. After that, we have a few things up in the air; tech to research after BW, what the forest chops are going toward, our medium-term goals. Those things should constitute the bulk of the discussion. There seem to be a wealth of resources nearby, but lots of jungle as well. Still, I don't know if that means we're neccessarily in any hurry to research iron working.

Turn 1 - 4000 BC
- Moved scout E-NE, saw clams fish and stone
- Moved settler NE toward selected city spot on NE plains hill, spotted spices in the formerly unseen spot 2E

Turn 2 - 3970
- Moved scout SW-NW, spotted gems in the jungle to the north
- moved settler onto the targeted plains hill

Turn 3 - 3940
- Moved scout N-NW, spotted fish well off the coast
- Founded Moscow on the plains hill
- Started research on Fishing
- Set Moscow production to a warrior

Turn 4 - 3910
- Scout spots Rice to the N of Moscow

Turn 5 - 3880
- Scout spots more fish in the north

Turn 6 - 3850
- Scout spots Cattle and Gems in the north

Turn 7 - 3820
- Scout spots even more fish off the northern coast of the island

Turn 8 - 3790
- Switch production in Moscow to a worker
- Scout spots 2 more gem tiles on what looks like a northwest peninsula

Turn 10 - 3730
- Peninsula turns out to be a land bridge, spot more clams and rice

Turn 11 - 3700
- Contact with Mao of the Chinese, He has an archer on the land mass to our SE (with the stone)
- Switch Production in Moscow back to a warrior to finish

Turn 12 - 3670
- IBT complete research of fishing, start on Bronze Working
- Complete warrior in Moscow, start work on work boat
- scout spot more gems

Turn 13 - 3640
- see our first wild animals, bears near the scout (but still 2 tiles away)

Turn 17 - 3520
- IBT - Hinduism is founded

Turn 23 - 3340
- IBT - interesting hang encountered; maybe something to do with the 2.08 patch (which I hadn't downloaded till yesterday) and windows vista (and my video driver, apparently)... had to load autoasave
- I'm going to play around with some of the compatibility settings and see if I can't get to the bottom of the hang
- Complete workboat in moscow, switch to worker (which suffered no decay)

Turn 2, 3940 BC: Moscow has been founded.

Turn 9, 3730 BC: The borders of Moscow have expanded!

Turn 10, 3700 BC: You have discovered Fishing!
Turn 10, 3700 BC: You have trained a Warrior in Moscow. Work has now begun on a Worker.

Turn 15, 3550 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 18, 3460 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 21, 3370 BC: You have trained a Work Boat in Moscow. Work has now begun on a Worker.

We could have viewed a few more tiles by moving the workboat E-SE last turn, and then SW next turn. Not a big deal.

I agree with not risking the scout. If there's another AI on our landmass, we'll find out soon enough (the fact they haven't shown up means they probably aren't there). Doesn't really matter for now what's on the other side of the island. I'd rather keep the scout alive for fogbusting. One less warrior we'll have to build.

We could fortify the warrior on the jungle hill where the scout is now, but, that leaves more land in between that warrior and our territory than a single scout can view. Maybe we'll want a 2nd warrior for fogbusting, plus 1 per city for garrisons.

Given the timetable for BW, klarius's plan of growing to size 2 and then finishing the worker seems most sensible. The next real decision won't come until we get BW and see if/where there is copper. I'm tempted to just go ahead and jump in to play those 12 turns, since they are so uncontroversial.

I think we should grab the great wall.
why?
1. we have stone
2. we are prioritizing masonry anyway
3. we phil which will give us GE twice sooner and most probably the pyramids.
the GE will be helpful for sure even if the pyramids are gone.
4. the wonder itself is useful as we got big chunk of land.

Actually, I find those are better arguments in favor of building the pyramids.

By building the pyramids (as opposed to the great wall):
- we get a GE sooner
- we don't need to spend that great engineer on the pyramids; he could maybe get something like the great lighthouse or metal casting (for trade bait) instead
- we are much more likely to be able to obtain the pyramids
- the benefit of the wonder we'd actually be building is much higher. Honestly, there's not that much territory; it would only take 2-3 more units to see the whole island and prevent the emergence of any barbarians. Plus, the power of representation when combined with philosophical is remarkably potent.

I believe those advantages more than offset the extra cost (it'll take at least 25-30 turns to build, as opposed to around 15).

Keep in mind that in warlords 2.08 the Great Wall gives only 1 point/turn (2 for us with philosophical). If it still gave 2/turn, I think that route would be getting a lot more support.

Since we all seemed to agree on the next 11 turns, I just went ahead and played those. Hope no one objects to that. We grew to size 2, produced a worker, discovered Bronze Working. There is no copper visible in our explored area. :( We also spotted Alexander on the SE island (same landmass as Mao).

3010 BC save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC3010_01.CivWarlordsSave

Events:

3310 BC: Improve fish, work fish, switch to workboat.

3220 BC: Grow to size 2, work fish and stone, switch to worker.

3160 BC: Met Alexander on SE island.

3010 BC: Discover Bronze Working, build worker in Moscow.

We have 6 hammers in the workboat. IMHO the natural thing to do is to spend the next 6 turns building workboat, completing it with a forest chop. Put the carryover into a settler. Then finish growing to size 3, before working on settler.

But klarius should take those (more interesting) turns.

I got it.
I'm on travel for the next 18 hours and will try to play on the airplane.
Shouldn't be many decisions. I will complete work boat, settler and probably a warrior and hand over then.

Maybe it would make sense to build 3rd workboat before the settler? We could use the workboat for a small amount of exploring, and then time it so that it can reach the SW clams at the same time as our settler is ready to build the 2nd city. That way our new city will grow quickly right from the beginning. Also, this lets Moscow grow while building the workboat.

What a lot of Gems! We'll certainly have a lot of resources to trade ... eventually.

Plans sound good; I'll look for klarius' save in a couple of days.

What a lot of Gems! We'll certainly have a lot of resources to trade ... eventually.
And a nice site for a science or commerce city.

Where do you intend to put the science city? There's only one location that works 3 gems. I'm not sure if it's a good place to put a city, or not. The 3-gem city wouldn't have very much food.

I see at least two viable ways to build out the continent. One is shown in the dotmap below. The other would have alternative city sites A, B, and C.

Well I played. The save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC2320_01.CivWarlordsSave)

I built work boat, warrior and settler. Settler is in the capital ready to move.

There is copper on our island but far away over land, so we should again consider to move sailing up.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/47447/klarius_sg4_3_1.jpg

Our first warrior survived a bear attack, but then got eaten by a panther. :cry:

Masonry and wheel are researched and science set to pottery.

I think we should consider to settle the third city on the nearby gems as recommended by the blue circle, to get gems into play w/o need for IW.

We should complete pottery and all new cities should pop-rush a granary as soon as they grow to size 2.

I think we should build cities in the locations I've labeled A, B, and C. All three of these will be good, long-term cities. And city C can work the copper.

We can also put a city on the gems near Moscow, if we want. That city will have no long-term value; all of the resources available to it would be worked by other, more important cities. Its only purpose would be to get +1 happiness in Moscow and the 2nd city, before we connect up another gems resource. I don't think this is worth the cost of the settler, really.

I wonder if we should think of building Stonehenge. It's not very expensive with stone, and several of our city sites will require cultural expansion to be productive. If we get an early GP and settle it, that's not so bad.

If we don't want to build Stonehenge, we might still want to research Mysticism and partially build Stonehenge, so we can get an infusion of gold when someone else builds it.

The loss of the warrior is unfortunate, that's going to have to be replaced. I still think we're going to want a warrior on the jungle hill near B; it can kill some barbs and get experience, while we don't have to put fogbusters on the western part of the island right away.

Where do you intend to put the science city? There's only one location that works 3 gems. I'm not sure if it's a good place to put a city, or not. The 3-gem city wouldn't have very much food.
I was thinking the purple site you drew. Long term, rather than short-term, we can actually chain irrigation up to go through a fair chunk of the continent.

I can't remember, and can't pick it out from the map you posted - are any of those gems on hills?

I see at least two viable ways to build out the continent. One is shown in the dotmap below. The other would have alternative city sites A, B, and C.

With the extra info from klarius, A, B & C look good.

I was thinking the purple site you drew. Long term, rather than short-term, we can actually chain irrigation up to go through a fair chunk of the continent.

I can't remember, and can't pick it out from the map you posted - are any of those gems on hills?

The gems NE of B are on a hill. So no irrigation on the west side of the island. I agree we can chain irrigation up the east side. But, in the A/B/C plan, city A already has a lot of food, and chaining irrigation won't help B or C.

Current status

malekithe
DaviddesJ
Klarius -> Just played.
civ_steve -> Up now.
ainwood
MailMan
DaviddesJ
Phabuk

OK, I'll post a 'got-it'. Probably play tomorrow, and look at the save later tonight or early tomorrow.

I think I liked the A-B-C locations better of the two options DaviddesJ has proposed. I'd definitely like to settle strong, long-term cities. Since Copper is across the 'bay' from us, I'm inclined to go for Sailing soon, perhaps after Writing, or better yet, after Alphabet and we see if we can trade for it first.

Stonehenge - I think I can support that.

I believe we are agreed to settle City#2 on the original floodplains starting location (2nd blue circle in klarius' picture) ?

On the topic of stonehenge, I can see some benefit. I'm not sure it's worth delaying the pyramids for, though. One thing it will definitely help us with is grabbing a few of the religions. I think it will be fairly important to grab most of the later religions in order to reduce the number of factions present later in the game. If we can limit the number of religions spread to the AI to 2-3, it will be much easier to build a powerful coalition. With that in mind, maybe building stonhenge is a good first step. My question is, though, how much does it interfere with getting the pyramids?

Our long term settling projects are a nice topic, but we should think also how to proceed immediately.
We need the work boat currently under construction for sure. Then I think we need urgently another worker (or 2).
One more work boat for scouting wouldn't be bad and a couple of warriors over time will also be needed.
The biggest boost to our tiny empire would be the pyramids as early as possible, so I'm now questioning if we should build another settler at all out of our capital before it (noting all the above needed things).
If we build another settler soon, I still think the gems site to be worth it. Not only for the boost to other cities, but this town will also have enough tiles to work w/o need to hack a lot of jungle. It doesn't contradict the A,B,C settling and in fact can help C (by lending the fish), if it has culture expansion by then.
I'm not convinced that stonehenge will do us much good. Especially the great prophet points which might give us several GP, when we would like to have GS or GE.

I think we either 1.) settle the Gems location as 3rd city, per klarius' thoughts, or 2.) don't settle a 3rd city until we have Sailing, and go get the copper (location 'C' IIRC) first. The other sites require a lot of hacking to become useful so they should wait until after IW, whether it's us directly or we trade.

Agree that several Workboat's are in our future - not only to help city#2 but to scout with. Perhaps there's a great city site nearby that we want to grab before getting our machetes out. Workers are good, too; and keep the pop down.

And just because I can support Stonehenge doesn't mean it's the best choice! If we want to focus on Pyramids, we can probably start on that soon.

I don't think we need another settler immediately. If we settle on the gems and we want to develop that city, we would need to build yet another workboat, for the fish. If we build a 4th workboat, I'd rather send it to make more contacts for when we get Alphabet.

I also don't think we need another worker right away. I guess we could chop forests and build cottages. That's ok, but not urgent.

I think we need two more workboats (one for the clams and one for exploration), and at least two warriors (one for Moscow and one for fogbusting/patrolling in the jungle). After that, I would be ready to build Stonehenge or Pyramids.

Stonehenge costs 180, and Moscow can easily generate 13 hpt (x2 for stone), so that's only 7 turns to build.

I don't think that getting GPs is so terrible---they are pretty good for settling as super specialists (2 hpt and 5 gpt), and we can use those extra hammers to build wonders as well as other things we need. But I'm also perfectly happy with skipping Stonehenge and going straight for Pyramids.

P.S. I think we should avoid chopping the two remaining forests near Moscow, for now.

We do need to finish the quarry, build a road there, build a mine on the other hill, and build a road down to city #2. Along with some chopping and cottages for city #2, we do have a fair amount of work for our workers to do, so I guess I might change my mind about a 2nd worker. We can build workers very fast; we might as well take advantage of that.

Turn 0 - 2320 BC
12 turns to Pottery; plan to continue along path to Alphabet
We know BW, but are not in Slavery yet; I'll wait until it's about time to pop-rush some granaries
Moscow can go to size5 without unhappiness, keep growing
Send Settler towards floodplains

(IBT Mao adopts Slavery)

Turn 1 - 2290 BC
Found St Petersburg on the Floodplains; start on Workboat
We're now at -1 gpt; set research to 0% for one turn
Scout released for fog-busting duties

Turn 2 - 2260 BC
13 Gold in bank, set research back to 100%; Pottery in 9 turns at -1 gpt

Turn 3 - 2230 BC

Turn 4 - 2200 BC
Quarry finished during turn; move Hill citizen to Quarry

Turn 5 - 2170 BC
Start Road to bring Stone to Moscow

Turn 6 - 2140 BC
Moscow finishes Workboat (heading to St Pete's) start on Warrior (4)
Scout retreats from Barb Warrior out in hinterlands

Turn 7 - 2110 BC
Moscow is Size5; Warrior now in 2
Stone now connected

(IBT Alexander adopts Slavery)

Turn 8 - 2080 BC
Send Worker down to chop forest near St Pete's
Workboat says 'hi' to Alexander's scout

Turn 9 - 2050 BC
Moscow finishes Warrior - send off to help bust fog; order another
Worker starts chopping near St Pete's
Workboat starts working Oysters near St. Pete's

Turn 10 - 2020 BC
1 turn to Pottery - revolt to slavery

Turn 11 - 1990 BC
Now in Slavery

Turn 12 - 1960 BC
Learn Pottery, Writing Next
Set Research to 0%
Moscow finishes Warrior (go to St Pete's for MP duty), next a Granary
St. Pete's switch to Granary

Turn 13 - 1930 BC
Moscow pops a Granary for 1 pop
St Pete's grows to size 2
Forest is cleared, adding 30 Hammers to St Pete's Granary
St Pete's pops a Granary for 1 pop
+14 Gold now in treasury (18 total); Research back to 100%, Writing in 14 at -1 gpt
Warrior/Scout stack is now adjacent to Barb Warrior to the North

(IBT Barb attacks and loses)

Turn 14 - 1900 BC
Both Moscow and St Petersburg finish their Granaries
I apply excess hammers to Workboats for both cities
Scout returns to fogbusting location
Warrior forges onward - looking for Jungle hill to heal on

SAVE

end of log

Status -
Stone Quarried and connected
St Petersburg founded
Pottery learned and Writing started.
Both Moscow and St Petersburg have just finished Granaries

I have applied the excess to Workboats; St Petersburg was already working on a WB and shows 3 turns to complete. Moscow had no previous build; we may wish to switch it's excess hammers to something else.

Warrior to North is slightly wounded (1.4/2.0); I was going to move it to a Gems hill and heal, then eventually move it over to keep eye on site 'C' near the Bronze. Moscow and St Pete's each have 1 Warrior MP.

Scout has been moving back and forth, into Cattle space then back into Jungle; I figured this was a fairly safe way to keep an eye on most of the Jungle to the north.

Attached a picture - doesn't show much more

Roster:

malekithe
DaviddesJ
Klarius
civ_steve - Just played.
ainwood <--- You're Up
MailMan
DaviddesJ
Phabuk

1900 BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3//Peanut_SG003_BC1900_01.CivWarlordsSave)

Log entries when uploaded:
Here is your Session Turn Log from 2320 BC to 1900 BC:

Turn 56, 2320 BC: Mao Zedong adopts <COLOR=102,229,255,255Slavery!

Turn 57, 2290 BC: St. Petersburg has been founded.

Turn 63, 2110 BC: Alexander adopts <COLOR=102,229,255,255Slavery!

Turn 66, 2020 BC: The revolution has begun!!!
Turn 66, 2020 BC: Peanut adopts <COLOR=102,229,255,255Slavery!
Turn 66, 2020 BC: The anarchy is over! Your government is re-established.

Turn 67, 1990 BC: You have discovered Pottery!

Turn 68, 1960 BC: <COLOR=252,147,40,255St. Petersburg has grown to size 2

Turn 69, 1930 BC: Clearing a Forest has created 30 ? for St. Petersburg.
Turn 69, 1930 BC: You have constructed a Granary in St. Petersburg. Work has now begun on a Work Boat.
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Peanut's Warrior (3.00)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Combat Odds: 9.9%
Turn 69, 1930 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 24 (76/100HP)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 24 (52/100HP)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Peanut's Warrior is hit for 16 (84/100HP)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 24 (28/100HP)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 24 (4/100HP)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Peanut's Warrior is hit for 16 (68/100HP)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 24 (0/100HP)
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Peanut's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!
Turn 69, 1930 BC: While defending, your Warrior has killed a Barbarian Warrior!

Usually it's a good idea to switch to Slavery when your settler is en route to found a new city. The switch to Slavery costs you one turn of production, whenever you do it. But it doesn't cost a turn for cities that haven't been founded yet. So, if you switch while your settler is en route, you effectively save a turn of production in that city. You also get an extra turn of worker output on the turn you switch (so, in this case, switching before the quarry was built would effectively have given an extra turn of quarry output).

I think we could start building Pyramids (or Stonehenge) in Moscow. We need another mine on the hill, though.

Damn you're fast! :) That's a good point; I was surprised we weren't in Slavery already, and I wasn't sure when the 'right' time to switch might have been. The late Slavery switch on the quarry amounts to 1 hammer difference since that 'citizen' was already working a mined hill.

(edit - there's a Worker yet to be moved, and I thought I'd leave that until after discussion. Perhaps it should move back to start mining that extra hill.)

OK - "got it", although I haven't really, 'cause I've just got to work for the day. ;)

I'll have a look at the save tonight, and might play tonight as well (although its likely that I will wait until tomorrow night).

If we want to start the pyramids, should we do that now - using the carry-over hammers? How many are there? Otherwise, a quick warrior might be a good idea, to head north for fogbusting.

@civ_steve - what graphic mod are you using?

graphic mod? What's that! :)

I just got Warlords installed last Wednesday, and patched and updated Saturday. That's all I've installed.

There's something odd about your graphics settings. Your jungles are almost invisible. Compare your screenshots to the ones from klarius.

I must have the wimpy, easily cut down Jungles! :) I haven't done anything with Warlords, but in CIV I turned down anything that might have a graphics impact, but I'm not sure if any of that would carry forward or cause this change in display.

Well, pop-rushing the capital for a currently not needed granary wasn't such a smart move, IMO.
Generally we shouldn't pop-rush the capital for only 1 pop point. The unhappiness loses too much relative to the small gain.

Mining the hill had and still has highest priority.

I think we should consider to build a worker now or even a settler, to make use of some of the unhappiness time.
Then pyramids, IMO, though I could also live with pyramids directly, if the hill mine gets the priority.

And configure for high shields when working on the wonder. Don't use the clams over a high shield tile, at least not before we are back to 5 happy faces.

Even if we consider ( I don't ) to pop-rush the library in the capital soon, we should start the wonder first. Then wait for happiness to return, build library for a few turns, rush for 2 pop then resume the wonder.

And, well, I should probably not write such a meager turn report.
As small excuse, it was after 18 hours of travel and changing timezone by 8 hours :crazyeye:.
Then I probably would have remembered to note that I delayed the switch to slavery just for the settler to complete and didn't do it at the obvious time, to not do anything drastic on the last turn before handover.

EDIT:
Plans for St. Pete:
Grow as fast as possible.
When writing is available switch from whatever you build to library.
Put a forest chop (the one 2n - we still need the1 n for a hammer) into the library and rush for 2 pop when possible.

Well, pop-rushing the capital for a currently not needed granary wasn't such a smart move, IMO.

I think it's ok since we don't have the 2nd mine yet. Being smaller isn't costing us much. And getting the granary sets us up for bigger poprushes later.

I think we should consider to build a worker now or even a settler, to make use of some of the unhappiness time. Then pyramids, IMO, though I could also live with pyramids directly, if the hill mine gets the priority.

I agree, 2nd worker then Pyramids makes sense to me. Or Pyramids directly.

Even if we consider ( I don't ) to pop-rush the library in the capital soon, we should start the wonder first. Then wait for happiness to return, build library for a few turns, rush for 2 pop then resume the wonder.

I think we can grow to size 6 and rush the library for 3 pop. That way we only have to take away from working on the wonder for 1 turn.

Plans for St. Pete:
Grow as fast as possible.
When writing is available switch from whatever you build to library.
Put a forest chop (the one 2n - we still need the1 n for a hammer) into the library and rush for 2 pop when possible.

Chopping a forest outside our cultural boundaries only gives 20 hammers. I'd rather chop the 1N forest for 30 hammers, even if that means we work a less desirable tile for a while.

I can't load the game right now, but I think Moscow is close to its 2nd cultural expansion? I think that will come before Writing. In that case, if we chop a forest, it should definitely be the one on the river (which is where we want to put cottages, or maybe farms).

Well, we will have the 2nd mine 6 turns after we move the worker there, which can be done in preturn. We then still have 7 turns of unhappiness left before 5 citizens go to work.
With 5 citizens working and all high shield tiles available the granary would have been just 4 turns compared to 2 with the rush.

Growing to 6 will anyway not mean library soon, because we will not grow at 5 at all before unhappiness is away (working all 3 high shield tiles) and then only at 2fpt (and granary is not full). Then we will already be very near to pyramids and by that higher happiness limit, so pop-rushing a lot of people is not desirable.

Library soon means switching to it as soon as writing is available and then rushing it after 4 turns. This will go down to 3 with a nearly full food bin (or even full?). So the loss to the wonder build is similar to going to 6, returning to 3 with empty food bin and the need to grow then first to 4 with high food.

Exact mileage may vary and left as exercise for the next driver :). But I would rather complete the pyramids even before starting the library. By that time, I hope that we already have a library and first scientist in St. Pete, so representation earlier will at least partially compensate for a delay of library in capital.
And I just generally like a happy empire :).

Edit:
Just saw the note about the chop. The chop depends just on distance not on it being in cultural boundary. Inside fat cross is full value even before border extension. And 3 or more tiles away is reduced value even if inside culture.
But you're right that Moscow will grow borders before, so we can chop the river tile.

The chop depends just on distance not on it being in cultural boundary.

I think it depends on both. There's a value based on distance, and it's also reduced by 33% if outside your cultural boundaries.

(I think this might have been added in Warlords; maybe it's different in 1.51.)

Growing to 6 will anyway not mean library soon, because we will not grow at 5 at all before unhappiness is away (working all 3 high shield tiles) and then only at 2fpt (and granary is not full).

At size 5, we can work fish, clams, quarry, 2 mines, which is +4 fpt. What I was suggesting is to stay at size 4 (with full food basket, using "Avoid Growth" setting), working fish, quarry, 2 mines, until happiness penalty expires. Then turn off Avoid Growth to grow to size 5. Then work clams to grow to size 6. On the turn before hitting size 6, switch to library, then, after hitting size 6, poprush it for 3 pop.

The alternatives of rushing library for 2 pop, or of waiting until Pyramids are done, are both also ok.

Library soon means switching to it as soon as writing is available and then rushing it after 4 turns. This will go down to 3 with a nearly full food bin (or even full?). So the loss to the wonder build is similar to going to 6, returning to 3 with empty food bin and the need to grow then first to 4 with high food.

Suppose you're at size 5 with no happiness penalty and 39/45 food. You can 2-rush the library, which gives you 90 hammers and takes you down to size 3 at 39/39 (full food bin), so you immediately regrow to size 4 (at which point you're stable, working fish, quarry, 2 mines). Or you can spend 2 turns working fish, clams, quarry, 2 mines, so you grow to size 6 with 24/48 food (counting granary carryover). Then you immediately 3-rush for 135 hammers. Now you're at size 3 with 24/39 food. You need to spend 3 turns working fish, clams, quarry for +6 food, to regrow to size 4. So you're losing about 6 hammers/turn for not working the two mines. But that's only costing 18 hammers over 3 turns, and you got 45 extra hammers from the poprush. I think it's considerably better.

I'll have to think about this; this is a level of management deeper than I usually go!

Also a note - I'll be out for 2 days on travel; back late Wednesday night. Probably no chance to check on things, but that's OK. Roster's set - ainwood, then MailMan if he can take it. Back in 48 hours.

Well, the rumour that CIV made MM a lot simpler is just not true, at least for high level play. :p

But, as always the greater strategy is more important than squeezing out the last hammer-food-coin.

So we should also think ahead.

I see the role of St. Pete as GP factory. So in the long run (as happiness permits), it would want farms not cottages.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't put some cottages there at first, if we have worker turns to spare, but maybe rather on the grass spices (to be changed later) than on the river grass.
I would also cottage the plains tile shared with Moscow, thinking that this will be later used permanently by Moscow, but can be matured by either city as food permits.
As soon as we are in representation we would like to have the other Moscow grass tiles cottaged. First the one on the river, but ultimately all flat grass.

Other cities should be mainly go for cottages, though we might want one irrigation chain to the north later. This should be planned beforehand, so we don't have to irrigate over towns later.

Technology:
We set our course to alphabet fast up to now, but we still can consider to slot in sailing first. It could be a problem to trade for sailing, if we want to keep alphabet for ourselves for some time. Also the sooner you have alphabet, the sooner the demands for techs start. And as long as we don't really know the diplomatic situation we shouldn't acquire too many refused help modifiers.

Question is also what to do after alphabet. This is also connected to the engineer we will probably generate in Moscow (and do we want this as first or second Great Person ?).
One standard way would be to go for literature and rush the GLib in St. Pete to speed along subsequent scientist generation.
Another option is to go metal casting, to light bulb machinery, which might be just the trade bait we need at this time :confused:. But I'm uncertain about how good the general tech pace will be in this set up and how far we have explored by then.

Generally we should rather work towards liberalism, but we might (very probably) need decent troops at some time.

I see the role of St. Pete as GP factory. So in the long run (as happiness permits), it would want farms not cottages.

Maybe city "A" should actually be the GP farm, eventually? I haven't counted carefully, but I think it will have more food than St Peterburg. We get more advantage from building early cottages in St Petersburg, and letting them grow. Whereas, building farms later is just as good as building them earlier.

I'll have to think about this; this is a level of management deeper than I usually go!

Using Avoid Growth is a refinement that adds complexity (and is probably a bad idea in a succession game where control is moving from one player to the next), but the basic idea is just: stay at size 4 until happiness penalty expires, then grow quickly to size 6, then rush the library for 3 pop. This isn't so complicated, right?

We set our course to alphabet fast up to now, but we still can consider to slot in sailing first. It could be a problem to trade for sailing, if we want to keep alphabet for ourselves for some time. Also the sooner you have alphabet, the sooner the demands for techs start. And as long as we don't really know the diplomatic situation we shouldn't acquire too many refused help modifiers.

I don't mind trading Alphabet pretty freely. (But I'd like to explore and make as many contacts as we can, before that happens---this is a reason I want at least one workboat for exploration.) The main objective of the game isn't for us to dominate---that won't be so hard at Monarch level. The main objective is a fast tech pace (to get to UN as quickly as possible). Spreading Alphabet around early not only makes us friends, but it also helps the AIs accelerate their collective tech pace by causing them to trade with each other rather than research redundant techs.

I would like to whip the library for 3 pops and use the carry over for the wonder.
The whip is a very powerful tool that we should probably use every 15 turns for as many pop point as possible.

I would like St. Pete to produce our next worker and settler. that will allow the capital to stay on wonder builds.

I rather build our next settler sooner than later probably when IW will allow us to cut some jungles.

The whip is a very powerful tool that we should probably use every 15 turns for as many pop point as possible.

But these two objectives are contradictory. If we want to whip every 15 turns, and also whip for 3 pop (i.e., as many as possible), that means we have to grow to size 6 while suffering a happiness penalty that limits happy people to 4, which is very difficult, and will cost us more than the benefits.

Realistically, imho, the choices are to whip 3 pop at a time, but we can't do that every 15 turns, or to whip only 2 pop at a time.

I would like St. Pete to produce our next worker and settler. that will allow the capital to stay on wonder builds.

Against that, Moscow is much better at building workers than St Petersburg (because it has more hammers, and we get a 50% bonus on hammers), and also St Petersburg needs to work hard just to build the infrastructure that it needs (e.g., library, lighthouse). I haven't studied the exact situation in Moscow at the moment, but, given that we don't have 2 mines to work yet, so we really want to work fish, clams, quarry, mine, yet we don't want to grow to size 5 for some time, that strongly suggests building a worker if we would otherwise hit our pop limit.

I rather build our next settler sooner than later probably when IW will allow us to cut some jungles.

I'm fine with building more settlers as soon as we get Iron Working, but I would call that "later" rather than "sooner". We might be able to trade for Iron Working when we get Alphabet, but probably not.

Currently pop-rushing anything other than the library isn't very interesting. We have no builds which give large overflow, so we will just delay what we are building.
Maybe barracks or walls for 2 might be worth it wrt to hammers, but we will lose some commerce.
But anyway we should not pop-rush anything in the next 14 turns.
And if we now really go for Pyramids full speed (after a worker probably) this should be less than 40 turns away.

In this case I see no use to think further (besides library) about pop-rushing before we revolt to representation, when the happiness limit changes drastically.

Any city we build now (except gem city :)), will be just a drag to our economy, before we hack it out of jungle.

I just noticed that Pyramids cost 750 in 2.08. (Increase from 675 previously.) Not a show stopper but something to keep in mind.

Poprushing workers might be interesting. If we poprush a worker, do we get the 50% production bonus? I would think we do.

If we build the Pyramids, then I think we definitely want the Great Library. Whether we get it by building it directly, or rushing with a great engineer. Either way, it suggests a push to research Literature.

Poprushing workers might be interesting. If we poprush a worker, do we get the 50% production bonus? I would think we do.

Pop-rushing workers sounds indeed very interesting.
I think the capital can make 22 towards a worker with 5 working.
The remaining 68 should just be 1 short of rushing it with 1 pop (I think I verified at some time that one does get indeed 67 for a pop-rush with the bonus).
I'm not quite sure how the production on this turn is then taken into account, but I would assume we will get then 56-58 base hammers overflow for the next project, doubled if it's the pyramids.
In fact this could probably speed up pyramids by 2 turns, relative to just build it at highest hammer output right away.

Pop-rushing workers sounds indeed very interesting.
I think the capital can make 22 towards a worker with 5 working.
The remaining 68 should just be 1 short of rushing it with 1 pop (I think I verified at some time that one does get indeed 67 for a pop-rush with the bonus).
I'm not quite sure how the production on this turn is then taken into account, but I would assume we will get then 56-58 base hammers overflow for the next project, doubled if it's the pyramids.

No, I'm 99% sure the Warlords code will adjust the overflow hammers back down. If you're at 22/90 on a worker, and rush it for 2 pop, you'll get overflow of (2*67+22-90)/1.5 = 44, or 88 for the Pyramids with stone.

Sure 44 for the pop-rush, but how is the production for this turn handled.

I can play tonight (in about 12 hours from the timestamp).

A consensus before then would be nice! :D

Sure 44 for the pop-rush, but how is the production for this turn handled.

I don't understand the question exactly.

Say you have 22/90 in a worker.

You poprush for 2 pop which gives +2*67 = 134 hammers. Now you have 158/90.

Let's say you work fish, clams, quarry for +6f +6h = +15 hammers toward worker (with 50% bonus).

Then next turn you'll have (158+15-90)/1.5 = 55 hammers of overflow. If you put that overflow into the Pyramids (with stone) it will be multiplied 2x, for 110 hammers.

To put it another way, you used (90-22-15)/67 = 0.79 pop to rush the worker, which leaves 1.21 pop = 55 hammers to apply to the next project.

Answered my own question about overflow with a small world builder test :)

At size six (with one unhappy), building worker for 1 turn gives 22 (unhappy pop still don't eat while building worker),
Pop-rush for 2 gave +135 (90*1.5 - they don't round down for every pop :)).
So we have 157-90 = 67 for overflow.
Pop 4 I'm then at +20.

I got 58 overflow for the next build which is consistent with 87/1.5.
Applied to the pyramids with the 12 hammers from this turn adds 140 hammers.
58 hammers + 1 worker in 2 turns isn't to shabby compared to the otherwise possible 26, even considering losing 1hpt or 1-2 gpt for 15 turns.

@Ainwood:
My take how to proceed now is pyramids ASAP:
That means switch immediately to pyramids to use the current overflow.
Worker to second hill in pre-turn.
Turn on no growth.
Work quarry, mined hill, forest, clams.
When mine completes switch from forest to hill.
When unhappiness down to 1 turn (16 hovering over rush button), switch off no growth.
Work quarry, 2 hills, clam, fish until growth to 6.
Switch to worker to pop-rush for overflow next turn.
Let the new worker chop one forest to go into the pyramids.
The other worker should be busy at St. Pete by now.

I can play tonight (in about 12 hours from the timestamp).

A consensus before then would be nice! :D

I'm traveling and I haven't been able to load the save. So it's hard to be precise. How much food does Moscow have in the food box? How much overflow from the granary? We want to fill up the food box almost all the way, but not actually grow to size 5 yet.

I disagree with chopping forests for Pyramids.

Well, we cross post a lot. ;)

Overflow is 20h currently.
Food 31/42, so it will fill up already before the mining is done @ 2fpt.
But we also have to fill the granary, which should just be right with the no growth phase, I think :crazyeye:.

If chopping is rejected, I would rather do the growth to 6 slowly with forest instead clams to shave off another turn on the build.

Food 31/42, so it will fill up already before the mining is done @ 2fpt.
But we also have to fill the granary, which should just be right with the no growth phase, I think :crazyeye:.

I don't really understand this. If we're at 31/42 when we build the granary, then we'll have 11/45 when we grow to size 5, regardless of what we do in the meantime, right? (Unless we spend food down and then build it back up.) Can we accumulate extra food in the granary, if we turn on Avoid Growth so we're at 42/42 and generating a food surplus?

We have 6 turns without the 2nd mine. Say we put the 20 overflow into Pyramids, and work fish, clams, quarry, mine, for +5f +9h (36/42 food, 58/750 in Pyramids). Then switch to worker for 5 turns, working fish, clams, quarry, mine for +18h (90/90 in five turns). Then switch back to Pyramids, working fish, quarry, mine, mine for +2f +12h, with Avoid Growth on. We'll reach 42/42 in the food box in 3 more turns, but with only 11 food in the granary. So we can spend another 5 turns generating +2 fpt (but staying at size 4 with Avoid Growth) to get the granary up to 21. That's about the time the happiness penalty expires. Is that what you're thinking?

The granary still fills when the no growth button is set and you have food surplus.

The granary still fills when the no growth button is set and you have food surplus.

OK, see previous post (edited). I think it makes sense to build a worker during the period that we don't have the 2nd mine. We can still use Avoid Growth to fill up the food box and granary, afterward.

Well sure that sounds more efficient use of the tiles.
I just have now set my goal to pyramids as fast as possible :crazyeye: and building the worker in 5 turns will mean a 4-5 turn delay.
But I'm fine with building the worker.

I'm also ok with just going for Pyramids as fast as possible. We still want to generate +21 food over the next 14 turns, to fill up the granary.

New plan: Switch to Pyramids. Turn on Avoid Growth. Work fish, clams, quarry, mine (+5f +9h) for 2 turns. Then work fish, quarry, mine, forest (+3f +10h) for 4 turns. That puts food at 42/42, with 21 in the granary. Then work quarry, mine, mine, forest (-1f +13h) for 5 turns. That takes us down to 37/42, with 16 in granary. Then turn off Avoid Growth. Then work fish, quarry, mine, mine (+2f +12h) for 3 turns. That puts us at size 5 in exactly 14 turns. Pyramids will have 2*(20+2*9+4*10+5*13+3*12) = 358 hammers.

[P.S. This is more complicated than klarius's plan from message #109, and only slightly better.]

Under my previous plan (message #113), we'll have 2*(20+9+8*12) = 250 hammers in the Pyramids, but we'll also have an extra worker. As you say, we delay the Pyramids by 4-5 turns, in order to get the worker. I'm happy either way. We don't desperately need the worker, but it can't hurt to build some roads. I guess we can also chop the two remaining forests around Moscow, if we want. We don't need the health, even in Representation, and we can work coast tiles eventually, when we build a lighthouse, about as productively as the forests.

OK - sounds like you two have reached a consensus - I'm happy with that as well (and I'm enjoying reading your detailed analyses - please keep this up! :D))

As for research? I'll continue with writing (looks like that won't complete before the end of the turnset).

Which consensus? I think that both klarius and I are equally happy with going straight to Pyramids, or interposing a worker. So I think it's your call, as the active player, which you prefer.

After the mine, useful things for the worker or workers to do include: a road from Moscow to St Petersburg (that gets us +2 commerce by creating trade routes), cottage on the floodplains, chop the forest 1N of St Petersburg (but time this to complete after Writing, so we can put it into a library).

St Petersburg will probably build warrior, after the current workboat? We'll have to defend against barbarians, eventually. When the current workboat is finished, it should go make contact with the player to our west, I think, and then continue circumnavigating that island. It would be nice to have a 4th workboat, to explore east, but we aren't going to have time to finish it any time soon without delaying the library. St Petersburg should maximize growth, as we want it to get to size 4 so that we can rush the library and then expand to work the 2nd clams.

I always like having lots of workers (normally I figure I don't have enough of them). I like the idea of putting the worker in, but given 18 civs, I think I'll be (we should be) risk-averse and go for the pyramids - 5 turns could potentially be critical.

Not convinced of the immediate need of a warrior in St. P - are there any fogged tiles next to it at all? Might be useful all the same for sending it to defend jungle north of moscow (at least, once we get a road built to connect them). I'll make a judgement call.

Not convinced of the immediate need of a warrior in St. P - are there any fogged tiles next to it at all? Might be useful all the same for sending it to defend jungle north of moscow (at least, once we get a road built to connect them). I'll make a judgement call.

I see from re-reading the notes that we already have 3 warriors (one for garrison in Moscow, one for garrison in St Petersburg, and one for fogbusting/defense against barbs in the north). If that's right, then I think you're probably right that we don't need a 4th one for now. We could start on a 5th workboat, then, planning to switch to library when we discover Writing, then switch back to workboat when the library is done, hopefully finishing it around the time our border expands to include the clams.

Your call. Nothing else seems appealing, although, if we had stone connected, we could throw hammers into Stonehenge, figuring we'll get them back as gold when someone else builds it.

We will be able to rush the library in St. Pete in less then 20 turns (switching to it immediately with writing, max hammers + chop at pop 4 to get down to 2 pop rush).
8 turns later we want a work boat on the second clams.
So that's what we should start - it will probably not even be ready in time.

BTW there is no time to be sloppy with the worker.
Mining the hill (no road), then the 2 road segments, just leaves enough time for the chop.

Another remark: we should check trade options every turn. We can trade resources with Mao, but he has nothing to give. Our fish could be traded away currently at no harm.

I still haven't loaded the save. If we can trade with Mao (because he has Sailing), then we should have trade routes to his cities? So the road to St Petersburg isn't particularly important.

We can trade resources, but don't have trade routes :hmm:. I also thought the two would be connected, but it seems not.

EDIT:
Ok, forgetting about some basics.
Trade routes needs open borders. So when we have writing we should get them.

Back in town, and there's been a lot of discusion! I take it the key point about rushing the Worker is to take advantage of the 50% hammer bonus to apply to the Pyramids! Nice! (And I've never played a game with the Pyramids, so it will be nice to see that wonder in effect, hopefully).

Once we have the Pyramids (assuming we have them) and a Library some time later, is the intention to not use the Library's Scientists to allow the GE to generate? And hold it for a Great Library build later?

Our capital anyway doesn't have much food surplus, when working the best tiles.
If we still want to po