Nice going Thrallia!

The roster order is

Lehm - waiting
Conquistador 63 - waiting
hellwitch - waiting
da_Vinci - waiting
Thrallia - just played
g_storrow - UP NOW
Scout 214 - on deck
Ronnie1 - in the hole

@ gs, Please post your plans for review and discussion. There are a number of issues the jury is still out on, so it may take a day or two to get a consensus.

Pottery is 234 beakers, we have 11 or so now. 2 or 3 free BPT puts us 70 to 100 turns from getting it free. So we either have a long wait, or at some point we do it ourselves. I am willing to go writing > math first ... we can always jump on pottery if we decide later we really need it.

Pyramids ... 675 hammers. With math and stone, each chop is 90, so with three forests in the fat cross, 270 hammers from that. 405 left ... pop 2 working copper and a mine is 7 hammers plus city hammer is 8, doubled to 16.

405 / 16 = 25.3 so 26 turns to build the mids. So lets say by turn 130 we can do it ... that is 550 BC. Problem is, we can't get math that fast ... writing is 20 and math is another 49. So chops are less, only 60 each for 180 ... 90 more hammers the hard way. At 16 hpt, that is 5 more turns. A whip at the end could be worth those 5 turns, so we might get mids by 500 BC.

Qin is the only industrious AI, right? I don't see him having stone so far, so I think mids are within reach.

So the debate is do we want to do something else with the hammers? If we build troops instead, then I think we need sailing next to put them on ships. No point having them idle and costing gold for nothing.

I tend to be unable to resist building, so if Lehm or hellwitch strongly prefer forsaking wonders for early attack (without cats at this stage), I would be willing to try that out. But if we are not going to attack before cats, then stocking troops will just burn up our gold, and we have nothing better to do than mids. If we miss it, we will be rich, so it is win-win.

I think worker next in Karak so we have enough for fast development of copper city.

dV

IMO we should destroy or conquer everything on the big continent first. After it we´ll send our troops to conquer Saladin´s cities while we are building a lot of settlers which we will spawn on the big continent to win by domination. The advantage is that we don´t need to tech to astronomy which we would need to get to the island of Quin and Alex. Although we might reach Alex through the cultural bridge given by his cities.
The number of cottages per city depends on the number of tiles the city can work. IMO we should research pottery right after IW then go for construction. As two galleys will be enough to transport our units to the big continent there is no need to hurry and we can invent Sailing later.
We will build our cities on our island and we will need a couple of workers to chop some jungle tiles and to send one or two of them to build roads on the big continent to let our units move faster overthere.

We don't want a cottage economy for conquering the world...our research will die and it will be a struggle to finish off the continent. Pottery can wait...we are getting some free beakers right now in it, we'll get more soon, and Writing is more important for our research.

Sorry have not been posting. Had other stuff on.

Are we building pyramids in 3rd city? Are we worried we might get beat towards it?
Reagrding a specialist economy when we go all war 0% science we will still need money (ie cottages) to pay for war machine. IA m generally concnered at that.
Agree with making peace with saladin? Myabe alex as well havent looked at his island yet.

During war, most of our money can come from 0-40% research and from taking over cities. Our research will come from specialists. I've never had cash be a problem in war games, except when I attempt to do research at the same time using the sliders.

Just because they say they want Beshbalik, does that mean they won't make peace for less? We won't know until we try, but what is everyone's experience with that?

I like pyramids myself, and I think that is the first task for copper city. At one point our barbs had pillaged Cyrus' stone ... didn't look to see if he's hooked it back up. But with three forest chops (after math if we can get there fast enough) and perhaps three hills we can work (depending on WW), we should have a good shot.

In my experience, the AI will not give up more than it says they will in 'what will it take for peace', and they will also never take less than they suggest through that same method.

1. After IW, what tech path? Writing>math is good to chop mids, early pottery allows early cottaging (early granaries don't matter much give WW issue), and when to get sailing? Maybe beeline to cats and let sailing and pottery come in for free?

With low pop early, I say wait on pottery, go writing>math.

I agree with writing>math. Pottery will get more and more beakers for free soon, and Sailing will begin getting them soon as well.

2. What to build in copper city? Start on mids right away? Barracks first? No need to make units until we have ships to take them somewhere.

I'd start mids right away.

Agreed here as well, Mids are the most important of the things we can build in city 3.

3. What builds in other cities? We need one settler for the culture bridge city, and more workers (total of 4 perhaps?), as some will go to build the barbs (the "Peace Corps?")

dV

I've got both Karak and Beshbalik working on workers right now, which would give us 3 workers, we can keep building them as we want, it'll keep our cities at size 2 and give us plenty of workers and the rest of our settlers...that should be plenty to hook up the horses and chop down all those jungles.

As for the culture bridge, we do need to get that settler going either right now or after building the worker in Karak because the barbs don't care about our fogbusting, so they could settle a city in that area.

Well i don't think we need the Pyramids and it is very possible to miss it. In my longer tests AI get them around 500BC(don't know which turn that means).
About Pottery - we will get it soon for free so i vote for Writng directly.
My exp is that when the AI want a town for peace the peace is possible with giving the AI tech or money instead. The trouble here is that we need Alfabet and currency for these stuff.
We have horses in the FC. We need to hook them very soon - 4 hammers and 2comerce!!!

What would we do without the Pyramids though? How would we combat the WW we will undoubtedly get during this game without having access to Police State? I actually think that in terms of overall strategy, that's a bigger reason than Representation to try to get it.

-50% WW and +25% military production will be huge this game...and I believe that barbs will get the pyramids bonus also? I think teams usually both get the bonuses, if so, they could get +25% military production inside their cities as well.

Pyramids may be the most controversial issue for the next few turnsets. More on that below.

Pyramids ... The availability of police state could be key to this game, particularly if we are able to give the barbs good military techs. Representation is useful too (can't run both at the same time :sad: :lol: ).

Can we get it before the AI, and what do we sacrifice to do that? How many cats, swords, axes and galleys could we make instead of the 'mids? That is the tradeoff. But if we are cash poor, we can't afford many troops, so is police state critical for a large army? What if the AI never want to make peace? I had a game once where late into it, at war with three at once, WW had each city only working the city tile! :eek: Luckily I was able to make peace with at least one to fix that.

A pile of troops waiting for ships will just cost us money and slow our teching.

I can see the 'mids question going either way ... we need a calculation of what turn we could get it by if we chase it, and how that compares to 500 BC.

We need to solve the mids question before g_s plays next.

dV

I doubt the AI gets Pyramids at 500BC. raging barbs slows them down, and I rarely see the Pyramids built before 300BC in most games(unless some wonder happy AI is in the game, which we don't have other than Qin, who appears to have no stone)

So I think it is eminently possible for us to get it.

Pottery is 234 beakers, we have 11 or so now. 2 or 3 free BPT puts us 70 to 100 turns from getting it free. So we either have a long wait, or at some point we do it ourselves. I am willing to go writing > math first ... we can always jump on pottery if we decide later we really need it.

Pyramids ... 675 hammers. With math and stone, each chop is 90, so with three forests in the fat cross, 270 hammers from that. 405 left ... pop 2 working copper and a mine is 7 hammers plus city hammer is 8, doubled to 16.

405 / 16 = 25.3 so 26 turns to build the mids. So lets say by turn 130 we can do it ... that is 550 BC. Problem is, we can't get math that fast ... writing is 20 and math is another 49. So chops are less, only 60 each for 180 ... 90 more hammers the hard way. At 16 hpt, that is 5 more turns. A whip at the end could be worth those 5 turns, so we might get mids by 500 BC.

Qin is the only industrious AI, right? I don't see him having stone so far, so I think mids are within reach.

So the debate is do we want to do something else with the hammers? If we build troops instead, then I think we need sailing next to put them on ships. No point having them idle and costing gold for nothing.

I tend to be unable to resist building, so if Lehm or hellwitch strongly prefer forsaking wonders for early attack (without cats at this stage), I would be willing to try that out. But if we are not going to attack before cats, then stocking troops will just burn up our gold, and we have nothing better to do than mids. If we miss it, we will be rich, so it is win-win.

I think worker next in Karak so we have enough for fast development of copper city.

dV

I also tend to build more than I should...but then, if I were playing this game solo, I would go for the Henge and for the Pyramids whether I was going to attempt a military or a diplo victory. Those two are important for both, although Henge is more important for a military victory when Astro isn't required.

also, in order to find out if barb cities count for our domination limit, in the HOF mod settings set the civ4lerts domination land limit warning to about 50-55%, and hit end turn...it will tell you if we are getting withint that % of a domination win, and tell us how many tiles we have, and how many are required. Then we can count our tiles with and without the barb city. That's the easiest way to tell if their cities count toward domination or not.

If they don't, then conquest may end up being the only way to win militarily.

For this turnset, here is how I see it.

We settle city #3 where the scout is sitting right now, 1W of the copper. Start building the Pyramids immediately.

Finish researching IW and then start on Writing.

People have been talking WW being a big factor, but we are no where near our happy cap at the moment in either city. After the workers are done, which we need desperately, I think we build some Archers/Chariots for defense/counter attacks in both cities, and let the pops grow.

The workers in the south need to finish the Rice farm and then road to the Stone and Quarry that. Then road to city #3 ASAP to boost Pyramid production BEFORE chopping the forrests. I would build the Copper mine before chopping anything so we get to work a high production tile sooner.

The worker from Karak Pastures the Horses, then roads to city #3 to tie all resources together.

I think gs should play about 20 turns maybe(T120), which should get us about half way to writing and maybe get the copper mine up and most of the roads in.

Then Scout214 gets the job of chopping the forrests to bring the Pyramids in!

Thrallia made an interesting point about the barbs potentially founding cities where we want them ! :eek: Seems that we want to get a settler out of Karak next to secure the west bridge city, because if we lose that, we have to wait for astro ! :eek: :( :sad: :cry: :mad:

Is that even more important than mids and copper? Should the current settler go and settle there first? Not getting that bridge city could really screw up our game!

Or at the least, settler again in Karak, and whip it, get to west coast ASAP.

dV

I'd say settler again. The barbs just started founding cities, and its highly unlikely they would pick here before we could get there...besides, it appears they gain culture anyway, so if they do found a city there, we may get that culture bridge anyway :D

But they might settle 1 tile off the coast and then we would have to wait until second border expansion. I think we should build a settler again in Karak.

I just wanted to say that I agree 100% with Thrallia's analysis in his recent long post. :) I also think that R1's plans for MM for next turnset are pretty accurate. I'd just insert a workboat or 2 for exploring, if we want cities to grow. OTOH, I'd like to hear a more detailed alternative plan from Lehm and hw if they're against it. Like "build x,y attack z when we have n techs/troops, etc".

And I haven't tested it but I'm 99% sure that barbs' cities count towards Dom limit. Also, if we get the 'mids they also get option to pick any gov't civic. Nothing assures us that they'll pick PS, though.

How many turns till IW is done? Maybe gs could play until there then more discussion? Just a thought.

And have we decided on the peace/war question?

But they might settle 1 tile off the coast and then we would have to wait until second border expansion. I think we should build a settler again in Karak. Not as bad as I first thought, it occured to me later that we can use barb culture bridge. But I think we want to get right on the coast, as Lehm says, so I think settler ASAP in Karak to beat the barbs to the coast. And move the scout there, in case that makes any difference.

Of course, if they settle inland two tiles, it prevents us from settling within 2 tiles of their city ... that could really delay our attack! If we settle the coast now, then copper ASAP, then we can have the jungles pre-chopped for copper, and hopefully work copper and two hills. Might still be able to get to mids. How fast can we make the second settler if the worker heads north to pasture the horse ASAP?

Maybe we need to think more about the risk that the barbs pose to the coastal city!

Some teams will get copper, then coast without barb interference. If we go coast, then copper, can we compete with them? If no, then we have to try the copper - coast gambit. A risk we have to take. If we think that we are competitive coast first, then copper, no mids, then that might be the safest play. In fact, coast first gives us an earlier land bridge, if nothing else we can send workers to develop the barb cities, if not troops.

We need to run the math on how fast we can get a second settler, if pasture horses helps, etc. Then decide if we want coast before copper.

Regarding peace, I think that since we have never seen a barb on Alex's Island, maybe there is no room for one? Might as well make peace with him, as I don't see any benefit to us for the war. I'd see if we can maintain the other wars until WW gets to onerous.

Workboats don't have anywhere to go exploring, do they? Not until we get the culture bridge up can they get away from our island. I think that after enough workers and settlers, it will be time to make libraries which will allow pop growth, or barracks, or even garrison warriors. So not sure the WB make sense right now.

dV

Well I've made some calcs and we will be 250 hammers short for the Pyramids at 500 BC. That make them impossible for city #3 for sure.
And look at Qin land - his cows and horse are builded again, he has a mine, forest and his 5pop capitol is on plain hill : 3+4+3+1+2 = 13x50%= 19. And this is on the save turn while we must to settle, build workers, build mines, connect the stone and so on and at the end we will have 16 hammers.
Also he could started the the pyramids before few turns.
IMO the Pyramids are sure big pile of gold from this point.

Well I've made some calcs and we will be 250 hammers short for the Pyramids at 500 BC. That make them impossible for city #3 for sure.
And look at Qin land - his cows and horse are builded again, he has a mine, forest and his 5pop capitol is on plain hill : 3+4+3+1+2 = 13x50%= 19. And this is on the save turn while we must to settle, build workers, build mines, connect the stone and so on and at the end we will have 16 hammers.
Also he could started the the pyramids before few turns.
IMO the Pyramids are sure big pile of gold from this point. It does take us a while to get up to our full production in copper city, so you may be right. Also, take a look at my post just before yours, if barbs plop a city two tiles inland, it could close out a coastal city and really delay reaching big land mass.

So if mids is questionable, maybe going for the coast with the current settler is the best play? If the barbs harrass Qin enough, we can evaluate mid try in copper city later?

A lot to think about.

dV

My latest hammer calcs shows that 2nd city ca build the mids faster than the #3 because there are 3 forests outside the culture border +1 inside + faster stone hook(working the rice before stone hooking and the stone after on -1 food) but even than we will be 150 hammers short at 500BC.
I vote for not going for the mids.
After all peace is 100% WW remover ;)

I vote for not going for the mids.
After all peace is 100% WW remover ;)

Sounds good reasoning
A few questions then:
. where to settle, what to build instead?
. how to get peace?

For this turnset, here is how I see it.

We settle city #3 where the scout is sitting right now, 1W of the copper. Start building the Pyramids immediately.

Finish researching IW and then start on Writing.

I think that seems to be the consensus. Which I agree with also!

People have been talking WW being a big factor, but we are no where near our happy cap at the moment in either city. After the workers are done, which we need desperately, I think we build some Archers/Chariots for defense/counter attacks in both cities, and let the pops grow.

I am unsure regarding this I dont think AI start landing ships this early!

The workers in the south need to finish the Rice farm and then road to the Stone and Quarry that. Then road to city #3 ASAP to boost Pyramid production BEFORE chopping the forrests. I would build the Copper mine before chopping anything so we get to work a high production tile sooner.

Understood

Very sensible but should we be chopping at all I am not a big fan?
The worker from Karak Pastures the Horses, then roads to city #3 to tie all resources together.

I think gs should play about 20 turns maybe(T120), which should get us about half way to writing and maybe get the copper mine up and most of the roads in.

Then Scout214 gets the job of chopping the forrests to bring the Pyramids in!

Sounds good. I can play this evening in a few hours.

Double checknig that city #3 if the one east of teh copper with one sea tile.

I think we are undecided whether 1)to build another settler straight away again 2) more workers 3) some more defences

I am in favour of settler and worker ten maybe with 1 or 2 chariots for defense

Only jsut thought of a problem with next settler straight away mean our enemies can attack us over the culture bridge or not. If they can I dont think we should get the culture bride city too soon. I am concerned regarding this so prob will not play which way.

I think we still have two huge unanswered questions:

1. Are we building 'mids or not?

2. Are we settling copper next or coast next?

The doubts about the original copper city builds mids idea have increased with today's posts.

I think if we don't get another round of comments an opinions on that, then we are not ready to go forward in the next few hours!

If we don't build 'mids, or if we go for it in the gold city, then I favor settling the coast with the current settler, making a second settler next in Karak for copper city. This may be the best of all worlds:

Build mids in Gold city, settle W coast now, build another settler in Karak

Fastest run to the pyramids, if hw is right (no reason to doubt him, as his prediction of WW onset was right on)

Best shot to get bridge city where we want it. Bridge forms earlier if we settle coast earlier ... this is a race after all!

Copper city can be pre-chopped (jungle) and pre-roaded pehaps when settler finally arrives. I suppose there is a risk that the barbs settle there before us, but proximity to Karak may limit that risk?

I'd like a chance to look at this again at home tonight before we move on ... can you wait to play tomorrow g_s?

Time zones may be making it hard to hear from everyone in the same day when a new issue arises. These settling issues are pretty fundamental, so I think worth the wait to get it right.

dV

Only just thought of a problem with next settler straight away mean our enemies can attack us over the culture bridge or not. If they can I dont think we should get the culture bride city too soon. I am concerned regarding this so prob will not play which way.

Unless Saladin sends a galley, no AI can reach us yet. Culture bridge is to an uninhabited island, which is close enough to mainland to get galleys there. So the culture bridge is not going to create any attack risk to us anytime soon.

dV

My first mids calculation skimmed over the time it would take to get to the 16 hpt. Here is a revision (not at game so may not be right yet either).

When we settle the city, work city plus a 2F 1H tile, as we need pop 2 ASAP.

2 hpt doubled by stone (may not happen right away) = 4 hpt.

Let's say we get copper mined in 10 turns (travel + build time)

40 hammers, then we get city 1 + copper mine 4 = 5 hpt doubles to 10 by stone.

5 more turns at 10 hpt is 50.

15 turns in, 90 hammers into mids. Pop 2 about here. If another hill is mined, now 16 hpt onwards. Working the grass hill is one food, so no third pop before mids is done.

675 to start, - 180 in chops, 495, - 90 for first 15 turns, 405, divide by 16 is 26 turns. So 41 turns minimum from founding of copper to mids done in copper, if mines can be done on this schedule. More like 400 BC to get mids in copper city.

In Besh, we get 3 hammers from gold mine? 4 from stone quarry? That is also 16 hpt after stone hookup. Let's suppose we can chop 120 hammers. That leaves 555 the hard way. 555 divide by 16 is 35. with another chop (maybe less than 60 due to distance?), migth shave off 3 more turns, and a whip could shave 3 more (or six if whip 2?). But are we starving to work these hammers? Will we need to flip on and off the rice, slowing us down?

If we have to alternate rice and stone, then stone is effectively two hammers per turn. city 1 plus gold 3 plus stone 2 doubles to 12. 555 divided by 12 is 46. Shorter if we burn off any stored food. Not too far from the 41 turns in copper city. Besh is likely better if we have additional chops (beyond the two I figured in).

If we can get mids just as fast in Besh, I say settle coast now, then copper right after.

But let's all sleep on this one before we play.

dV

I thnk we do mids in 3rd city and we build them.

That is my vote.

g_s votes build copper city now, start mids in it.

hw votes skip mids, not clear if he favors settle copper or coast next.

dV thinks that we build mids in gold city, settle coast next, build settler in Karak for copper city ASAP.

Th liked the mids in copper city idea last post, but he has not posted since hw corrected my earlier mids timetable. I expect he will weigh in tonight, as he is US central time (I think).

Lehm is probably off having a beer :D, I suspect he won't see this new discussion until tomorrow.

C63 seemed on the fence between mids or no mids on his last post. Not clear what he thinks about copper or coast next.

R1 initially liked mids in copper city, but has not posted since the revised due date from hw. He is US pacific time I think, so also likely to check in tonight.

I'll poke S2 to post his thoughts

We need most folks to post their opinion (with some reasons why they think it is best) after considering the later arrival of mids in copper city, and the issue of barbs settling to block our plans. Hopefully, we can get a consensus by early tomorrow and g_s can play it out.

dV

I still like mids. As I haven't done any math I'll take yours/hw's as truth, so mids in gold city is fine by me - and this path also makes settling by copper less urgent, so I'm also fine with settling bridge coast city.
What I tried in my last post was to offer the teammates who don't want to go mids an opportunity to present an alternate plan.

I think we make a play for Mids somewhere. Qin looks like he has his hands full with all the barbs up there, and with no outside contact, I believe he will be more inclined to try and fill up his island before he starts building wonders. He has no stone, so our stone is 50% better than his trait bonus.

With that being said, I could go either way on where to build Mids. I do think we need to try and grow our pops to work more tiles. I know we have been in worker/settler mode, but at some point we need to grow so can use the whip more effectively. The reason I like city #3 is that it allows it to grow out of the gate and all the forrests are max potential being in the FC. I don't remember if the copper is on grass or plains. If it is grass, then we work that tile from the outset and get a worker to mine it ASAP. Chop the hill forest first and then mine the hill so pop 2 is working max hammers before chopping forest 3 & 4.

If we can show that city #2 completes it faster, I am fine with building there.

On the question of settling culture bridge city first, I could be persuaded here as well. I don't really want to lose either of those locations to the barbs. But the bridge city is probably more critical to our long term plans, especially if we decide to go for Mids in Beshbalik.

I was hoping to get the game up on my daytime machine today, but if forgot vanilla disc #2 @ home. By tomorrow I should be back at full strength.

@ Thrallia: no, it's not the dishes :lol:

You are our budding computer guru, right? Go into CvGameCoreDLL and open CvGame.cpp.

Do a search for "Barb" About 80% of the way into the code, you will find a line "void CvGame::CreateBarbarianCities()"

1. Where is starts to loop pLoopPlot, is that saying don't found barb city on water, and don't found it where a CivTeam can see it? I assume we are not a CivTeam being paired with the Barbs.

2. Where the loop finishes with iBestValue=iValue and pBestPlot = pLoopPlot, is this a search to pick the best city location to found a Barb city?

If so, can we figure whether barbs would be more likely to found at copper or at coast?

Looking at Polynesian, with five resources in the fat cross, seems like it does pick best city site.

1S of the west dye is a three resource city, blocks our coast city, and would take three border expansions to make the culture bridge.

Several locations adjacent to the copper also net three resources, so not clear which the barbs would settle first. There are several three resource site elsewhere too.

Does founding w of copper, with the Bananas in our fat cross, make the coast just a two resource city, and less attractive to the barbs? If so, maybe founding W of copper first is best? Who knows?

dV

I'm looking at Beshbalik and the current worker down there. It will take 15 turns to finish farming the rice and road through the stone. The second worker will be done in 10 turns(after we start working the rice farm), the quarry will take only 4 turns with 2 workers. If we start counting now (T97=T0) the quarry will be up and roaded to Beshbalik on T16 with 1 worker able to move into the jungle that same turn.

We have 5 squares of jungle/forest/hill plus the copper square to road to city #3 if we place it west of the copper as planned. That is 23 turns for 1 worker to build that road, so about 1/2 that with 2 workers, except that both workers lose a turn moving onto the next tile. So I figure 16 turns to be roaded to city #3. 16 + 16 from the previous paragraph is 32 turns before we get stone hooked in city #3.

I think Besbalik will be our best shot at completing the Mids. We get the stone hooked in 16 turns. The rice farm will allow us to get to pop 3, work the gold mine/stone quarry and be +1 food for slow growth. That gets us 16 hammers per turn. We will have 6 turns after the worker is done at 5H/t for 30H leaving 645. If we come off of the gold after the quarry is done, we will be able to grow to pop 3, 5 turns faster than working the gold and pick up an extra H, we lose the gold for those five turns of course, but I think that will be OK. So we have (6T @ 5H/t = 30H) + (10T @ 12H/t = 120H) then pop 3 for (16H/t). That is 48 turns with NO chops to complete Mids. Chopping the FC forest gives us 60H, cutting 4 turns. Chopping the 2 other forests will net us about 60H given the distance, cutting 4 more turns, so now we are down to 40T total. We can whip at least 1 pop and maybe 2 when we get close, cutting us down to 36T. Turn 97 now + 36 puts us at turn 133. With this set up, I think that is a reasonable time table for completion. I would almost be more worried about Cyrus getting his stone back than Qin and his bonus trait.

I still like settling city #3 by the copper, and then moving the scout out to the west coast to wait for the next settler. There is still a lot of black map, I don't believe we are in immediate danger of the barbs settling on our island.

Those are my 3 cents worth.

The mids story gets worse the more I look at it ...

We are 12 turns from a worker in Besh now, cuts to 11 after worker finishes rice farm. We are 14 turns from hooking up the stone (two roads at 3 each, quarry for 8 IIRC), the extra worker is done at the same time.

So if we start on mids in 14 turns in Besh, we net 14 hammers per turn (have to rotate two turns on gold with one on farm to even out food stability).

675, I expect only 120 from chops, 555/14 is 40 turns. So we are 54 turns from mids in Besh if we finish the worker. If we go right to mids now, 14 turns are at 5 hammers per, for 70 hammers saving 5 turns to mids (49 turns).

Next, how fast in copper ...

OK, R1 finds we can't hook the stone there for 32 turns ... then 675 -270 is 405/16 = 26 ... 58 turns minus what few we can cut before the stone hookup. R1's three pop method in Besh looks fastest to mids, and worth the shot I think.

Where to settle now? We can settle west coast in 8 turns, 18 to next settler, + 3 to move and settle, is both settled in 21 turns. If we settle copper now,, then it takes 18 + 8 to settle the coast, or 26 turns to sweat out the barbs.

If barbs settle near copper, we have a shot at founding to steal back the copper by founding as close to it as we can, or maybe we have iron somewhere we can use. If they block the coast, we have to wait for their culture to expand, with no other options.

So I like R1 plan for mids in Besh (lay out the blow by blow of that so we are all clear on the details), but I prefer settling coast now ... plus we can see where iron is before we commit to the coast ... in fact, might we want g_s to do a mid turnset upload when iron is visible and before we settle coast in case that changes our plans on exact location? Might we settle 1 inland if it gets iron?

dV

Getting the city on the west coast looms strategically important to gain access to the next island out that way. If our allies, the Barbarians, plunk down a city that would interfere with us getting that site, we would be at a serious disadvantage vis a vis the other teams.

To me, we need to answer the question as to whether placing our mobile units in the vicinity would suppress our allies from placing a Barbarian city in the area. If we can, the placement of that city can wait and we should do the 'copper' location first. If not, we had better get that port in place so that once the culture expands its reach we will be able to leapfrog over to the next island with galleys. Otherwise, we might have to wait a loooooooooong time to get off of our little homeland. Surely that would be a disaster.

For other current points of discussion I have no strong feeling and will do with my set of turns what the consensus thinks that we ought to do. Except that I like the idea of getting Pyramids if it is feasible.

To me, we need to answer the question as to whether placing our mobile units in the vicinity would suppress our allies from placing a Barbarian city in the area. If we can, the placement of that city can wait and we should do the 'copper' location first. If not, we had better get that port in place so that once the culture expands its reach we will be able to leapfrog over to the next island with galleys. Otherwise, we might have to wait a loooooooooong time to get off of our little homeland. Surely that would be a disaster. From my uneducated look at code, I think we cannot count on our units preventing barbs from settling in a particular location. Maybe Thrallia can confirm?

Which would mean that S2 likes coast before copper.

dV

Sounds good reasoning
A few questions then:
. where to settle, what to build instead?
. how to get peace?

I vote for 1W of the copper as it allow us to start building the axe force now.
We will get the culture bridge from #4 city - there is no worry for that(our island is tin and we will get it in 30-40 turn anyway)
About the peace: after the first capured town(some on the second) all AI tend to want peace. And in over 10 test games the barbs start to capture cities as the get sword which is near to our current position.
I want to make peace with alex now because we will gain +1 for long peace with him. I have a lot of game where i made Alex a good trading partner the point is to keep him week, otherwise he became a moron and attack unpredicted enemy. The other point is that when war/peace is made the AI mess their production queues - they even stop building a wonder in one town and start to build it in other or start a settlers if they are low in towns and so on.
And you know my opinion for the mids - they are dream from now. If they were the first build in the second city(a lot of turns before 1090BC) we could succeed on them but now i don't think so.
One more think Alex is with only one city (if you look the trade sceen with him) i.e. not building settler, havent seen boats (he starts with fishing) so he is busy with something hudge - gues what.
So for the mids we have two competitors for them - a long time building Alex + not pillaged Qin who can beat us even if he start the mids few turn after us.

I've look at the graphs. Here are my analysis results - the Geezers builded the mids in 850BC(the culture grow(+6) is lower than ours), the fifth element have builded the Oracle at around 770BC(same as our first culture jump +8). the little culture changes in their graphs talks for obeliscks builded. Also the big jump in the points and power in the Geezers graph says again they get the mids while the no changed graphs of the fifth element i think means that they get the oracle.
One possible tactic(don't know if it is allowed) is to wait till most of the teams goes after 500BC and we can see where are the last builded mids. This can prove that the mids are or not accessible from this point(i'm sure that they are not)
One conclusion - in all ways the mids are hudge risks while building some axes for diffence or for helping the barbs sooner is sure thing.

The WW will be hude with and without the police state(I even found that +25% millitary is bigger adv.) so we will need peace anyway but just sooner. Which is not so bad as better AI development will make the game speed faster+our conquest will be faster.

Not as bad as I first thought, it occured to me later that we can use barb culture bridge. But I think we want to get right on the coast, as Lehm says, so I think settler ASAP in Karak to beat the barbs to the coast. And move the scout there, in case that makes any difference.

Of course, if they settle inland two tiles, it prevents us from settling within 2 tiles of their city ... that could really delay our attack! If we settle the coast now, then copper ASAP, then we can have the jungles pre-chopped for copper, and hopefully work copper and two hills. Might still be able to get to mids. How fast can we make the second settler if the worker heads north to pasture the horse ASAP?

Maybe we need to think more about the risk that the barbs pose to the coastal city!

Some teams will get copper, then coast without barb interference. If we go coast, then copper, can we compete with them? If no, then we have to try the copper - coast gambit. A risk we have to take. If we think that we are competitive coast first, then copper, no mids, then that might be the safest play. In fact, coast first gives us an earlier land bridge, if nothing else we can send workers to develop the barb cities, if not troops.

We need to run the math on how fast we can get a second settler, if pasture horses helps, etc. Then decide if we want coast before copper.

Regarding peace, I think that since we have never seen a barb on Alex's Island, maybe there is no room for one? Might as well make peace with him, as I don't see any benefit to us for the war. I'd see if we can maintain the other wars until WW gets to onerous.

Workboats don't have anywhere to go exploring, do they? Not until we get the culture bridge up can they get away from our island. I think that after enough workers and settlers, it will be time to make libraries which will allow pop growth, or barracks, or even garrison warriors. So not sure the WB make sense right now.

dV

If the overall better plan(ignoring risk) is the settle the copper city first and coastal city second, then in order to compete for gold, we need to do that, regardless of risk.

Taking a calculated risk for a big gain is something that the best teams do, and succeed at.

However, I agree that in this case, the chances of us getting the Pyramids is the same whether we build them in the copper city or in Beshbalik(and the risk is far less as well), so I vote we build them in Beshbalik, and found our culture bridge next. I wonder whether we should switch to the Pyramids there immediately, whip out the worker for some overflow, or just wait till the worker is finished there...dV, you should be able to figure out which of those is better, you seem good at calculating how long it will take to build something. :)

@ Thrallia: no, it's not the dishes :lol:

You are our budding computer guru, right? Go into CvGameCoreDLL and open CvGame.cpp.

Do a search for "Barb" About 80% of the way into the code, you will find a line "void CvGame::CreateBarbarianCities()"

1. Where is starts to loop pLoopPlot, is that saying don't found barb city on water, and don't found it where a CivTeam can see it? I assume we are not a CivTeam being paired with the Barbs.

2. Where the loop finishes with iBestValue=iValue and pBestPlot = pLoopPlot, is this a search to pick the best city location to found a Barb city?

If so, can we figure whether barbs would be more likely to found at copper or at coast?

Looking at Polynesian, with five resources in the fat cross, seems like it does pick best city site.

1S of the west dye is a three resource city, blocks our coast city, and would take three border expansions to make the culture bridge.

Several locations adjacent to the copper also net three resources, so not clear which the barbs would settle first. There are several three resource site elsewhere too.

Does founding w of copper, with the Bananas in our fat cross, make the coast just a two resource city, and less attractive to the barbs? If so, maybe founding W of copper first is best? Who knows?

dV

Unfortunately, I'm crappy with C++...my best programming abilities are in Java, followed by PHP. But from what I can make of it, essentially a barb city will be founded only where no civ can see it, and only in a spot designated by those blue circles(they both use the same best spot algorithm) So the best way to figure out where the barbs would settle, is to look for the blue circles.

Unfortunately, the only way to tell for us, would be to create a test save using worldbuilder, give ourselves a settler in it, and see where it shows blue circles at...those are the only places the barbs will settle.

I think it highly likely the barbs will settle elsewhere in the world, because there's likely plenty of blue circle areas available there, while jungle tiles make it less likely the barbs will settle on our island before we chop the jungles down.

I vote for 1W of the copper as it allow us to start building the axe force now.
We will get the culture bridge from #4 city - there is no worry for that(our island is tin and we will get it in 30-40 turn anyway)
About the peace: after the first capured town(some on the second) all AI tend to want peace. And in over 10 test games the barbs start to capture cities as the get sword which is near to our current position.
I want to make peace with alex now because we will gain +1 for long peace with him. I have a lot of game where i made Alex a good trading partner the point is to keep him week, otherwise he became a moron and attack unpredicted enemy. The other point is that when war/peace is made the AI mess their production queues - they even stop building a wonder in one town and start to build it in other or start a settlers if they are low in towns and so on.
And you know my opinion for the mids - they are dream from now. If they were the first build in the second city(a lot of turns before 1090BC) we could succeed on them but now i don't think so.
One more think Alex is with only one city (if you look the trade sceen with him) i.e. not building settler, havent seen boats (he starts with fishing) so he is busy with something hudge - gues what.
So for the mids we have two competitors for them - a long time building Alex + not pillaged Qin who can beat us even if he start the mids few turn after us.

I disagree about your analysis of Alex...we have no knowledge of his lands because the barbs haven't spawned there. The only things we know for sure about Alex are that he started with fishing and only has 1 city. My analysis of that, considering our lack of barbs there, is that there's room for a second city, but his culture is already covering it, so no barbs, or that his island is too small for two cities, in which case he has a huge lack of hammers, and it doesn't matter how long he's been building it, he won't finish it.

Lastly, we can see very little of his coastal area, I think it likely he is/has built a work boat and set it up on the far side of his island.

@Tr:
Don't forget that this is manipulated map. The moderators will not leave one of the AI without hammers as they put all except Cyrus capitol on a hill(to be sure that they will survive the ragging barbs). So Alex is hidden and this is not accidently.


Anyway it is better to make peace with Alex now as we will get dplo benefit in the future. If we decide we can declere again without any problems.
And if we want to try the mids in #2 city i have a plan to do it without the problem to fall in pop1. It is better to work the rice(the worker better finnish it first) in the begining (start the mids now is a must ofcource) till we get at least 24 food overflow. Thats way we will lose some hammers before the stone is hook and get them after connectiong the stone. Right after hooking the rice the worker must go on the stone imidiatly and build a quarry first(as the hammers are most needed). then to connect the stone. At this time the capitols worker will be done and can even help for the roads. Then the two workers must prechop the 3 forests(the one that is can be cut at ones) as there is chance to grow new forest near them. When the mids hit the 475 hammers we must finish the chops(meanwhile the workers can build road near there) then at the first chance wimp on the mids(that will save us 3 or 4 turns). The forest will give 60+26+20 hammers. if we are luvky we can save 2-3 turn if a new forest grow.
This i found as best way as the #3 will need at least 4-5 turns more. The end date will be - 370BC or 400(415)BC if a new forest grow. For example #3 city build will be after 300BC in anyway.
And for the danger to miss the mids i post some pics which talk themselves:

However, I agree that in this case, the chances of us getting the Pyramids is the same whether we build them in the copper city or in Beshbalik(and the risk is far less as well), so I vote we build them in Beshbalik, and found our culture bridge next. I wonder whether we should switch to the Pyramids there immediately, whip out the worker for some overflow, or just wait till the worker is finished there...dV, you should be able to figure out which of those is better, you seem good at calculating how long it will take to build something. :) Let me look at this with fresh eyes. In post 275 I had thought 54 and 49 turns in Besh if working at pop 2.

59 f/h to finish worker, 5 pt surplus now, 12 turns. Farm done in 3, adds one surplus. 59-15 = 44 after 3 turns, divide by 6 per turn = 7.3 so 8 turns more.

Worker is done in 11 turns.

3 turns to do farm. 1 turn move to Besh. 3 turns road north of Besh, 3 turns road on stone. 10 turns Start quarry. new worker arrives, so say quarry take 4 turns. So we are 14 turns from hooking up stone from current turn 98. 10 turns to do is once we start, and 4 turns to be ready to start.

Worker done in 11 turns. Stay at pop 2 option:

mids for 3 turns at 6 hpt x2 is 12 hpt: 36 hammers.

So after 14 turns, 36 hammers into mids. Stone comes in. Now 16 hpt two turns, then one turn off gold onto rice is 10 per turn. Net is 14 per turn.

675 - 36 = 634 - 120 in chops = 514 / 14 = 37 turns + 14 turns at the start to get stone = 51 turns. That is about 250 BC, way too late.

What if we grow to pop 3?

Worker done in 11, now start mids. But work Farm and Forest for 4 food surplus. need 31 food for next pop. 8 turns for next pop.

8 turns at 2 h x2 is 4h is 32 hammers. So after 11 + 8 = 19 turns, we are 32 hammers into mids. Now work farm, gold, stone for 16 hpt

675 - 32 = 643 - 120 chops = 523/16 = 33 turns, + 19 = 52 turns.

Addendum 1: fix above: 3 turns at 2 hpt, then stone, 5 turns at 4 hpt. 6 hammers less. 529/16 = 33 (smaller remainder)

That is really different from R1's estimate ... let me post this, take a closer look and post that later.

Addendum2: Let's look at working stone and farm to grow to pop 3. 3 turns at 2 hpt is 6 hammers. Stone comes online. Work farm = stone for 3 food surplus. We've added 12 food (3 turns at surplus of 4) 31 -12 = 19 food 7 turns on farm and stone is 10 hammers each turn to mids 70 hammers. 11 turns to worker, 3 more to stone, 7 to pop 3 is 21 turns. 76 hammers.

675 - 76 = 599 - 120 chops = 479 / 16 = 30 turns, plus the 21 to get to pop 3, 51 turns. All options appear to be 51 to 52 turns without whips.

I don't see mids any sooner than 250 BC if we don't whip, and if we whip, still after 400 BC

R1, are you sure about your 33 turn estimate? I can't make that work.

dV

@ hellwitch: you might have the best predictive recored on the team so far!

Your screenshots do indicate that we will have lots of competition for the mids.

Can you post a turn by turn description of how to execute your approach to the mids? You are not building the second worker in Besh, right? But you are building worker next in Karak, which risks barbs settling a city on our copper or coast, I think.

We have a few options here:

Build mids until we get them or someone else does.

Build mids, if barbs can't keep pillaging the AI, and mids looks hopeless, stop building it and collect the gold on its hammers later.

Forget mids from the start. Build units instead. If we choose that, maybe early sailing to get units to the mainland ... we can defend barb cities, send workers to develop them, etc.

Let me now look at a mids right away option:

Switch to mids right away. 31 food needed for pop 2. Stay on gold. we are 1 F, 4 H in yield. 3 turns at this, 3 F, 12 h. Farm done. now 2F, 4 H. 28 food to go. 14 turns to pop 3. 10 turns to get stone quarried (2 to move, 8 to build) 20 F, 40 H.

So 13 turns in, we have 8 food to go to pop 3, 52 hammers.

Now work stone and farm: +3 food, +5 hammers. 3 turns to pop 3.

9 food gets pop 3, 15 more hammers. One road done on stone.

At turn 16, we have pop 3, 67 hammers. Now we can work farm, stone, gold.

+1 food, +8 hammers, 3 more turns for second road to be done.

24 hammers in those three turns. So 19 turns in, we have 91 hammers into mids, and now stone has hooked up.

675 - 91 = 584 - the 120 chop estimate (to be consistent with other calcs) = 464/16 = 29 turns. 29 + 19 = 48 turns, not including whips. If we can save 8 turns with whips, then we are at about 400 BC.

This seems close to the hw plan, but does not depend on a worker from Karak. Only lose 3 turns of gold (we don't want to lose the resarch from gold for too long).

Does this sound right to you, hw?

I think my priorities are

1. Settle coast city now! Have g_s upload in 8 turns when IW done and before settler founds on coast (settler will have moved there) to see if iron changes our plans any. Then g_s can play on after that.

2. Build settler next in Karak to settle copper in 21 turns.

3. Follow my mids right away plan above. Good chance we don't get it, but I think securing the coast bridge and the copper HE city are more important than mids. If we get it, its a bonus. We can build plenty of troops in the other three cities, all founded in the next 21 turns.

And if we decide mids is hopeless at some point, we can switch to troops at any time we want.

If we agree on that, then the plan is:

1. Switch build in Karak to settler.

2. Settler there now moves to the north of rice west coast site. Gets there on turn 8. We hit end turn (city not founded yet), IW is done, upload to discuss. Did we find iron? Maybe if no iron on our island, no need for the upload.

3. Besh changes to mid production now. Work rice and gold. Continue to work rice and gold after farm done. Worker goes right to quarry the stone, no stopping for roads.

g_s uploads again when the stone is quarried (13 turns of play total), or switches to stone and farm when the stone is quarried and uploads when we hit pop 3 (16 turns of play total).

Then we reassess the run for the mids.

Writing after IW on the research front.

How does this sound to everyone?

dV

@dV if the worker build the quarry before the road - the quarry and be worked 5 turn sooner = 10 hammers + the worker from Karak will come for the roads and will save 2 turns.
And sorry of the mistake the needed food supply is more - around 30.

DV you have confused me a little there.

I think we should still go for it personally. I conceed beshbalik might be a better bet than #3.

1.I agree settler in Karak

2. I think copper city before culture bridge city. personally. because slightly closer.

3. Agree with maybe reloading if Iron on island though but not to stop settling the 3rd city.

4. I personally dont think we stop building mids until somone else does. All averages tell us to probabilities but every game is different. If we go for it we go for it. We dontn reassess or anything liek that.

writing next tech defo.

@dV if the worker build the quarry before the road - the quarry and be worked 5 turn sooner = 10 hammers + the worker from Karak will come for the roads and will save 2 turns.
And sorry of the mistake the needed food supply is more - around 30. In my latest post, I had the worker quarry the stone first. I did not make a worker right away in Karak, as I want the setter next there to reduce risk that barbs settle where we want to be. Is that second worker in Karak only good for 2 turns sooner to mids? I'd rather get the settler next in Karak in that case.

The west coast city rice is in jungle, so it will take a while to get that up. And with Karak on a settler, and Besh on the mids, we have to wait a while to get workers in the new cities.

An alternative to going for mids ourselves, is to let AI build it and we target capturing it as first priority. Does that get us faster to the mainland, faster city development on our island, and yet get us representation or police state when we need it?

Pushing mids may be a longshot and may stunt our other development. I am kind of liking the skip it ourselves, go capture it first idea ... but that city will have big maintenance.

Something to ponder ...

dV

1. I agree settler in Karak Works for me.

2. I think copper city before culture bridge city. personally. because slightly closer. I like Bridge city first becase it is farther! :eek: We don't want the barbs to block us from either our HE city W of copper, or our culture bridge city. If we settle copper first, we can't settle coast until 26 turns from now: 18 to build, 8 to walk. If we settle coast in 9 turns, then we can settle copper in 21 from now (18 to build, 3 to walk). Five fewer turns to risk the barbs blocking us with their city.

Also, suppose there is iron near the copper, and that changes best site for the HE copper city? Too late if we build it in 3 turns (IW in 8).

The coast city pretty much goes in one place, regardless ... maybe one inland if that gets the iron. We can walk to coast, see iron before we decide. That seems best to me.

3. Agree with maybe uploading if Iron on island though but not to stop settling the 3rd city. Not much point to upload when the iron comes in if the settler has already founded. It is to see if that changes what the settler does that make a post iron upload useful, which only occurs if we walk to the coast.

I think we should still go for it personally. I conceed beshbalik might be a better bet than #3.

4. I personally dont think we stop building mids until somone else does. All averages tell us to probabilities but every game is different. If we go for it we go for it. We dontn reassess or anything liek that. There are costs to building the mids. Workers are focused there, so it delays development of copper city and coast city. We aren't building workers or library in Besh while mids in production.

Getting mids may depend on effective pillage by the barbs. If it is clear a bit later that barbs are spent, and AI has multiple resources hooked up, we might decide to speed up our other city development and forgo mids.

I agree that at any time we are pursuing mids, it should be pretty much all out, but if during that it seems pointless, I can see deciding to scrap it for another plan.

The AI builds, capture mids as job one plan is worth considering, I think.

dV

about the wimp it will make only 3 to 4 turns less on the mids. And if we go to pop3 we will have -1 :mad: in Beshbalik. About the calcs i can make turn by turn description but i can post it tomorrow because i have an arrangment for this evning.
Also the second worker will help only 1 turn on the mid as it help to connect the stone 2 turn earlier + 8+8=16 hammers.
And i really want peace with alex. Maybe when he ask for it (don't know if that gives some hidden benefit).
In long term all the AIs will want peace in one point.
The thing that i am not happy for is that we could live without this barrack in Besh and because of it we can loose the mids now. But that like in live thing happend and we must handle them :)

about the wimp it will make only 3 to 4 turns less on the mids. And if we go to pop3 we will have -1 :mad: in Beshbalik. About the calcs i can make turn by turn description but i can post it tomorrow because i have an arrangment for this evning.
Also the second worker will help only 1 turn on the mid as it help to connect the stone 2 turn earlier + 8+8=16 hammers.
And i really want peace with alex. Maybe when he ask for it (don't know if that gives some hidden benefit).
In long term all the AIs will want peace in one point.
The thing that i am not happy for is that we could live without this barrack in Besh and because of it we can loose the mids now. But that like in live thing happend and we must handle them :) So your plan is to store up food at first, but not get to pop 3 end by working gold and stone after the food reserves are up? If the WW gets to 3, we'd need to do that, but will it get that high that soon? Right now it is at 1, if it goes to 2 we can still be at pop 3 without idle citizen. But maybe your way is faster regardless? I'll need to look at that.

Working the rice farm and the stone for a long time will stunt our tech growth as the gold will be unworked for a long stretch, won't it? I think my pop 3 plan only leaves gold unworked for 3 turns.

You seem rather skeptical that we can get mids, would you rather we just go capture it from an AI? Or is the gold for the hammers a good fallback if we go after mids? What is your thought about how going for mids slows down other development?

You favor settling the copper next I think. Does the risk of barbs settling near the coast and wrecking our bridge seem small to you?

I think that few or none of us expected that we would build mids in the gold city at the time we founded it. Had we known, starting mids ASAP there would have been nice, but we only learned masonry 1300 BC, 7 or 8 turns ago, so a difference of 32 hammers maybe? Is that such a big difference?

@ all: It seems like we are still not sure what the optimal route to mids is in Besh, whether capturing it later might not be better, and if we are settling coast or copper next.

I think that I, Th, S2 like coast first.

R1, hw and g_s seem to prefer copper first

C63 and Lehm, I'm not sure what their latest thought on this is.

Do we all agree at least that Karak builds a settler?

My sense is that most are willing to start down the mids path in Besh.

Still not sure if pop 3 or pop 2 plan is the best way to go.

Seems like still too much uncertainty for g_s to play yet.

dV

Here is the recap of my pop 3 plan:

Switch to mids right away. 31 food needed for pop 2. Stay on gold. we are 1 F, 4 H in yield. 3 turns at this, 3 F, 12 h. Farm done. now 2F, 4 H. 28 food to go. 14 turns to pop 3. 10 turns to get stone quarried (2 to move, 8 to build) 20 F, 40 H.

So 13 turns in, we have 8 food to go to pop 3, 52 hammers.

Now work stone and farm: +3 food, +5 hammers. 3 turns to pop 3.

9 food gets pop 3, 15 more hammers. One road done on stone.

At turn 16, we have pop 3, 67 hammers. Now we can work farm, stone, gold.

+1 food, +8 hammers, 3 more turns for second road to be done.

24 hammers in those three turns. So 19 turns in, we have 91 hammers into mids, and now stone has hooked up.

675 - 91 = 584 - the 120 chop estimate (to be consistent with other calcs) = 464/16 = 29 turns. 29 + 19 = 48 turns, not including whips.

This works if WW does not reach 3 in those 48 turns.

My view of the pop 2 option:

Start mids now, work gold and rice now. 3 turns to farm done,

Add 3 food to current store of 5 for 8 total food. 12 hammers for mids.

10 turns to quarry stone. Work gold and farm. +2 food, + 4 hammers.

now we have 28 food stored, 40 + 12 = 52 hammers done.

Now work gold and stone for six turns (time to road the stone)

Food drops to 22, six turns of 8 hammers is 48. So now 100 hammers done. Now we get our 16 per turn

So after 19 turns, we have 675 - 100 = 575 hammers, - the 120 chops (for comparison to other plans) is 455 hammers, divide by 16 is 29 turns ...

29 turns but we don't have 29 food, we have 28. So one turn we work farm istead of gold, lose 6 hammers, might still be 29 turns due to fractions.

29 turns + 19 turns = 48 turns. Just like pop 3

Difference is pop 3 gives us a bigger whip at the end. That is a plus for that.

Is Pop 2 safer if WW jumps to 3 before we are done? With an idle citizen, we just work the stone and gold, and if we starve, we just lose the idle citizen. So maybe pop 3 plan is better, for the bigger whip at the end?.

I did not calculate the idea that pop 3 works the river plains instead of the rice ... 29 turns of 2 extra hammers, so the calc is 464/18 is 26 turns. 26+19 is 45 turns ... pop 3 saves three turns if WW does not make it to 3. now we can whip this to 40 turns, we are staring at turn 98, so mids done by turn 138, which is about 445 BC?

I would like hw to look at this comparison ... have I got his plan right? Or does he still have something better than my pop 3 plan?

And hw, did you factor in the extra happy from the gold, in saying that we can't be at pop 3? Or did you find that the WW went up more exponentially?

dV

I definitely favor trying to build Mids in beshbalik!!

I agree with dV that we should get to pop 3 there ASAP (working rice farm and quarry when available) then add gold when @ pop 3.

If we are going to stop the worker in Besh to start on mids now, I think we need another worker out of Karak before another settler. 1 worker is not enough.

The reason I was advocating more troops a few posts back was not for the troops themselves, but to allow the cities to grow pops. There are no other build options besides troops right now.

I favor founding the copper city next. I don't feel we are in immediate danger of the barbs founding on our island.

I also don't see WW being a factor this early!

If we are going to stop the worker in Besh to start on mids now, I think we need another worker out of Karak before another settler. 1 worker is not enough.

I favor founding the copper city next. I don't feel we are in immediate danger of the barbs founding on our island. If we build a worker in Karak before settler, that is 11 turns + 18 turns + 8 walking turns, or 37 turns, until we can found the coast city. If the barbs do settle in our west, it will be 1 south of the dye to get rice, dye, banana. That will kill our coast city. Do you want to play barb city roulette that long?

I think that if you want worker before settler, that makes settling coast city next even more crucial!

Second, what if iron is located in a way that will change our copper location? Settle the coast first, we still get to see iron just before we found on coast.

If there is iron near the coast city, and it makes south of dye a four resoruce city, the barb city program will make that a prime site for a barb city. If we have already founded copper, and started worker, we are stuck waiting for a settler for the coast.

I guess I'm not convinced that we get so much out of copper early ... let me see ... the copper mined is a nice tile, probably better than any we can get at early in the coast city. If not for the barb risk, copper makes sense first (but I might want to know if there is iron to change my mind about exact spot).

So, do we risk a low probability catastrophic event, for the sake of a relatively small advantage of settling copper first (which has high probablity of still letting us settle coast)? That is the question. If we are even sure that the barb city probability is low.

Do we have any idea of the rate at which barbs will settle cities? How many turns per city on average, and does it depend on number of Civ cities?

All of my worker first in Besh plans took 51 to 52 turns. Mids right away, pop 3 plan, is 45, not counting any chops. So I think we have to go right to mids in Besh if we are serious about mids.

There are three things we want:

1. No barb cities getting in our way.

2. Mids in Besh

3. Fast city development.

No way to guarantee all three at once.

To get 1 and 2, we settle coast, settler in Karak, mids in Besh. The cost: workers arrive late (we have only one for 29 turns, until besh can make one, or until coast can make one)

To get 1 and 3, we settle coast, settler in Karak, finish worker in Besh. The cost: can't get mids before turn 150 (250 BC)

To get 2 and 3, we settle copper (or coast), Mids in Besh, worker in Karak. The cost: risk of barbs blocking either coast or copper city. Loss of which one is more catastrphic?

Pick your poison ... I want to go for 1 and 2, as I think missing 3 (delaying it some) is the smallest loss. My next choice is 1 and 3, as we can then capture mids from someone (well, unless Qin builds it, or Alex). Just seems to me that if we miss the coast city, we can stop the game right there.

A tought and lengthy choice, but worth getting it right, I think. The extra day today has clarified the best routes to mids (still need to see if hw pop 2 plan is something different than mine).

After that, just a matter of choosing among risks and benefits. Thrallia, any chance you can divine how fast barb cities will spawn? If slow enough, we could go for 2 and 3, as R1 wants to do.

dV

I'd say loss of coast is more damaging. My vote is to continue Pyramids until we finish them, or someone else does. If we lose out, that gold will be able to fund faster research for ourselves for quite awhile while we set up our SE. If we succeed, then we'll have a great shot at finishing faster than most teams. Remember, if the risk is worth the reward, we must accept the riskier plan, if we want to compete for gold.

There's a problem with hw's screenshots though...this is vanilla. The AI doesn't chop forests for wonders. It will work the forests, and if it decides it needs more food, then it might chop a forest for a farm, it won't chop it simply to speed up a wonder.

The only one of those screenshots that worries me is Qin's cow, horse, and mine...but his score is so low, that I think he'll be attempting to expand rather than build wonders right now.

So, do we risk a low probability catastrophic event, for the sake of a relatively small advantage of settling copper first (which has high probablity of still letting us settle coast)? That is the question. If we are even sure that the barb city probability is low.

While I agree on the low risk of barb settling our bridge location, I disagree on this event being catastrophic. There's a 2nd bridge city site available, check screenshot.

157818


There are three things we want:

1. No barb cities getting in our way.

2. Mids in Besh

3. Fast city development.


To get 2 and 3, we settle copper (or coast), Mids in Besh, worker in Karak. The cost: risk of barbs blocking either coast or copper city. Loss of which one is more catastrphic?

If we agree on alternate bridge city site, I think "2 and 3 plan" is the way to go. Of course, in the likely event bridge city 1 is still available when next settler is ready, that city is preferrable to 2.

On MM for faster mids, I leave it to the experts out there. :)

I still think we should look at worker next in Karak. Worker next allows us to pasture the horses and speed the following settler by a few turns. Then we get the benefit of roads to speed the settler to his destination, or working more improved tiles sooner.

An alternative to worker next in Karak is worker as first build in new city while Karak produces another settler, but I don't like it as much.

I will vote for Beshbalik to start mids now. Research writing after IW. Settle the coast site next, (unless location of Iron changes something dramatically). I vote for worker next in Karak, followed by settler.

On MM for Mids. Worker finishes rice farm 2 turns ( it says 3 now, but the worker action has not taken place yet this turn). Then worker moves all the way into Beshbalik (T3). T4 he moves 1 square and builds road, then clear worker action. T5 moves onto stone and quarries until done. The intermediate road build allows us to not waste any turns moving N of Besh, as we are able to start the quarry on T5, just as if we moved all the way there on T4 and started quarry T5. Our road coming back Besh will take 5 more turns (3 on stone and 2 on the tile that got the intermediate build, make sure we move back to that tile).

Switch to Mids this turn (T97). Population works rice now and gold mine for (+1F/4H/7C) for 2 turns until farm is done, (7/36F and 8H/Mids). Then we get (+2F/4H/7C) for 10 turns until quarry is done, (+27/36F and 48H/Mids). Then we work rice farm and quarry for (+3F/5H) for 3 turns and we grow to pop 3, (36/36F and 63H/Mids). Now at pop 3 we get (+1F/8H/7C) for 2 more turns until road is completed to Beshbalik, (+2/38F and 79H/Mids). Now getting (+1F/16H/7C) per turn. 675-79= 596-60(1 chop)=536/16=33.5 (34 turns to completion without any more chops or whips). We can chop the other 2 forests for 60H and whip 1 pop for 45H. 536-105=431/16=26.9 (27 turns to completion). So if we add it all up 27+2+3+10+2= 44 turns. 97 + 44 = Finish date T141 about 400BC.

I will post my plan soon.
@dV the 3pop plan dont work because when the WW became 2 it will grow againg with the new pop up and it will go to +3 :mad: from WW and +3 :mad: from the population itself became +6 :mad: while we have +5:) .

So leting the city to mean idle citizen who want food and maitenence so we will be unable to work the quarry at all = mid in the AD age. If thats happend and we starve this citizen we will lack of stored food we must switch each 2 turn from the quarry to the rice and this will make after 300BC mids = sure(110%) miss too.
Conclusion: pop3 is not a option it is a catastrophe for the mids.

PS.:A rule for WW is that it depends from the population. So if 2pop have -2 WW the 3pop city(50% more pop) will have 50% more WW i.e. -3 WW. This situation is very common and i've seen it in many games.

I think we grow it to size 3 as I propose and IF the WW goes to 3 we deal with it then. I don't think it will go that high. But, if it does, we make peace with the AI's 1 at a time until we reduce WW enough to keep working all 3 improved tiles.

While I agree on the low risk of barb settling our bridge location, I disagree on this event being catastrophic. There's a 2nd bridge city site available, check screenshot.

If we agree on alternate bridge city site, I think "2 and 3 plan" is the way to go. Of course, in the likely event bridge city 1 is still available when next settler is ready, that city is preferrable to 2. Nice pickup C63 !! :goodjob:

With a backup bridge city site, that is very low probability for barbs to settle, I am comfortable with the 2, 3 plan, worker in Karak next.

Is it worth waiting an extra 5 turns to see if any iron shows up that might make us settle the copper city on a different tile? Maybe not, as we can expand to use it, if not work it, easily, and why risk barbs ploping a city near our copper. But something to consider.

Assuming that iron won't show up in jungle grass, seems unlikely to find it close enough to copper to change our city site.

I still think we should look at worker next in Karak. Worker next allows us to pasture the horses and speed the following settler by a few turns. Then we get the benefit of roads to speed the settler to his destination, or working more improved tiles sooner.

An alternative to worker next in Karak is worker as first build in new city while Karak produces another settler, but I don't like it as much.

I will vote for Beshbalik to start mids now. Research writing after IW. Settle the coast site next, (unless location of Iron changes something dramatically). I vote for worker next in Karak, followed by settler. I now agree, worker next in Karak, as we have a backup bridge city. To me, means settle copper next, so barbs don't block that. Is that still your choice for current settler? Not sure based on your last comment.

On MM for Mids. Worker finishes rice farm 2 turns ( it says 3 now, but the worker action has not taken place yet this turn). Then worker moves all the way into Beshbalik (T3). T4 he moves 1 square and builds road, then clear worker action. T5 moves onto stone and quarries until done. The intermediate road build allows us to not waste any turns moving N of Besh, as we are able to start the quarry on T5, just as if we moved all the way there on T4 and started quarry T5. Our road coming back Besh will take 5 more turns (3 on stone and 2 on the tile that got the intermediate build, make sure we move back to that tile).

Switch to Mids this turn (T97). Population works rice now and gold mine for (+1F/4H/7C) for 2 turns until farm is done, (7/36F and 8H/Mids). Then we get (+2F/4H/7C) for 10 turns until quarry is done, (+27/36F and 48H/Mids). Then we work rice farm and quarry for (+3F/5H) for 3 turns and we grow to pop 3, (36/36F and 63H/Mids). Now at pop 3 we get (+1F/8H/7C) for 2 more turns until road is completed to Beshbalik, (+2/38F and 79H/Mids). Now getting (+1F/16H/7C) per turn. 675-79= 596-60(1 chop)=536/16=33.5 (34 turns to completion without any more chops or whips). We can chop the other 2 forests for 60H and whip 1 pop for 45H. 536-105=431/16=26.9 (27 turns to completion). So if we add it all up 27+2+3+10+2= 44 turns. 97 + 44 = Finish date T141 about 400BC. Sounds like my plan, with a few nuances. It is great if WW does not bite it, see below. Note that we can work gold, quarry and the river plains for 18 hpt at pop 3 and we stagnate our pop at 0 surplus food. That takes 3 more turns off the time, so T138 I is possible, WW permitting.

I will post my plan soon.
@dV the 3pop plan dont work because when the WW became 2 it will grow againg with the new pop up and it will go to +3 :mad: from WW and +3 :mad: from the population itself became +6 :mad: while we have +5:) .

So leting the city to mean idle citizen who want food and maitenence so we will be unable to work the quarry at all = mid in the AD age. If thats happend and we starve this citizen we will lack of stored food we must switch each 2 turn from the quarry to the rice and this will make after 300BC mids = sure(110%) miss too.
Conclusion: pop3 is not a option it is a catastrophe for the mids.

PS.:A rule for WW is that it depends from the population. So if 2pop have -2 WW the 3pop city(50% more pop) will have 50% more WW i.e. -3 WW. This situation is very common and i've seen it in many games. I have learned to take hw very seriously, as he always has good points. The fact that WW is population dependent does add a significant risk to the pop 3 plan.

If we store the food in the bin, it is available to eat while we work gold and quarry, losing 1 food per turn. If we have that food "stored up" in a worker that is idle from WW, we are screwed, as hw says. Even if that idle worker starves off, we have no stored food to sustain constant gold+quarry.

I think we grow it to size 3 as I propose and IF the WW goes to 3 we deal with it then. I don't think it will go that high. But, if it does, we make peace with the AI's 1 at a time until we reduce WW enough to keep working all 3 improved tiles. By my calculation, the hw pop 2 plan should take just as many turns as the R1 plan above. The pop 3 plan, if work the river plains for 18 hpt at the end, saves an additional 3 turns.

Right now, only Alex will make an even peace deal. So we may not be able to make peace when we want in the next 20 to 30 turns. And, we may want to keep the wars up if the barb swords are being effective at pillage.

We don't have to decide between pop 2 and pop 3 until just before pop grows, which is what, 15 turns? So g_s could play to just before pop growth, and we re-assess the WW status.

I'm leaning toward the pop 2 plan of hw, unless we can see clearly in 15 turns how we can control WW (need to have even peace offers from AI that we have lost troops to ... peace with Alex won't reduce it as we have no losses to him, right?). We use all of R1's nuances in the pop 2 plan (like the road trick).

Three turn delay is worth avoiding the idle worker disaster. So at turn 14 (or 15 perhaps), when we are one turn away from pop 3 in Besh, g_s uploads and we think this out some more. If no clear way to manage WW, then we go negative food and stay at pop 2.

There is also the possibility of delaying the decision point on pop 2 or pop 3 by working both gold and stone before pop 3. If we were to delay pop 3 decision until turn 20, and WW was still 1 at pop 2, maybe pop 3 option would work? But does the later pop 3 approach still save 3 turns, or is it now down to 2?

dV

THE PLAN

turn 0: start the mids. Work the rice and the gold
turn 2: At the end the rice is ready(the worker has no movement points) the mids are on 8hammers, the stored food is +7.
Continue working the rice(farmed) and the gold so on this turn the food will grow with +2.
turn 4: nothing changed but the worker is moved on the stone. the mids are on 16h the food storege is 11.
turn 13: at the end the quarry is ready. We keep working the rice and the gold. The mids are on 52h = 16 + 9x4, the food is
on +29.
turn 14: the worker start a road. The worked tile from Beshbalik must be changed this turn on gold and the Quarry. The mids will be on 56h
the food acomulated will be 31. From this turn the food will be on -1.
turn 19: at the end the road to the stone is finished. the mids will be on 96h = 56 + 8x5, and the food will be on 26 = 31 - 5x1
turn 20: the worker is on the forest. mids: 112h food=25
turn 24: at the end of the turn the worker has finished the prechop (the message must be "2 turn to chop") the worker must be
stoped with cancel mission button. Mids: 176 = 112 + 4x16 Food = 21
turn 31: The worker has already choped the southest forest(this forest doesn't have border tiles where a forest can grow so we ca chop it at ones)
the Mids: 314h = 176 + 26 + 16x7 the food: 14
turn 36: the East forest is prechoped (1turn form the move and 4 for prechop). Mids:394= 314 + 16x5, food:9. Now the worker can make roads
(the road are aways usefull) or to chop a new forest if there is. The already prechoped forest is for 80 hammers.
turn 40: The worker must finsh one road(maybe). finish the east forest chop. The mids:478 = 394 + 4x16 + 20, the food:5
turn 43: the worker made 2 turns movement and 1 turn finishing the chop. the mids:586 = 478 + 3x16 +60 the food:2
turn 45: The mids are on 618 the food is 0. This must be the first chance for wimp(=60). So just wimp and the Pyramids are builded because even if a AI
finish them on the next turn we will get them as our turn goes before AI's turn.(And from my exp if you wimp a wonder it is already builded)
At turn 45 the date must be 370BC so from 355BC the mids will appear in beshbalik.

few notes: if we finish the worker in karak the start new settler we will get the mids 1 turn earlier because this worker can go directly for the stone
and will work with the first worker on the connection roads for 2 turns= 2 turns earlier stone access= 2 turn with +16 hammers instead of 8 which make
16 hammers bonus on the mids=1 turn earlier. The point is that i fill that every turn could be vital.

So the course I now favor is:

mids in Besh right away. Work rice to build up food supply while we quarry the stone. Upload just before pop 3 to see if we can afford to grow to 3 or need to stay at two (depends on WW and peace offers). I would need at least 4 even peace offers other than Alex to go to pop 3.

Details of MM in Besh will be some hybrid of the dV/R1 pop 3 plan with what hw presents shortly on pop 2.

Worker in Karak. Settler founds 1W of copper, as I doubt iron close enough to change that idea, and let's lock in the copper before barb city spawns there. We have a backup bridge city :goodjob: Settler after the worker. That worker pastures horse, mines copper, roads to coast city or clears a hill to mine for copper city.

Research writing after IW.

I suspect we can all agree to this. And I think that the time taken in this discussion has served us well, as we have reached the optimal plan, I think.

dV

Few words more:
I don't like this one city Alex he is up to something (wonder or maybe even invasion force). I really don't believe that in this game there is a buged AI. And we have peace option for him now(it can disappear later). From this peace we can only have benefits so i think we must make peace with Alex.

Other point: if Qin goes for the mids this will be the shortest wonder race:lol: . Lets hope he wont go or will go for the oracle,the wall .or something else.
About the cities location : i think that beshbalik culture will prevent a barb city on bridge city #2 (in the east). IMO the copper city must go first then the bridge in the west and i prefer to finish that worker in karak as many times 1 turn is the difference between a wonder and a pile of gold. And we allway will have the 2nd bridge option as reserve.

mids in Besh right away. Work rice to build up food supply while we quarry the stone. Upload just before pop 3

dV

31 is the exact food we need;)

few notes: if we finish the worker in karak the start new settler we will get the mids 1 turn earlier because this worker can go directly for the stone
and will work with the first worker on the connection roads for 2 turns= 2 turns earlier stone access= 2 turn with +16 hammers instead of 8 which make
16 hammers bonus on the mids=1 turn earlier. The point is that i fill that every turn could be vital. We may have cross-posted.

What do you think of R1's road trick? Otherwise, it looks like your plan and his/my plan are pretty similar up to the point of deciding on growing to pop 2 or not. Do you agree with that assessment?

Bringing the second worker down to speed quarry makes sense to me.

Since you feel that evey turn is vital, do you agree that if we could get away with it, pop 3 is better because working the stone, gold and river plain stagnates our pop at 3 and gets us 18 hpt? Looks to me that we can shave off 3 turns with that.

Of course, we would have to get the WW under control. If we could make enough peace at turn 14, before we grow to pop 3, would you then favor going with the pop 3 plan?

I think we agree up to the 31 food in the bin at Besh point (a few turns before pop 3, and after 14 turns of play, it appears), so if g_s plays up to that, we can reassess the pop 2 or pop 3 decision at that time. How does that sound?

dV

I don't like this one city Alex he is up to something (wonder or maybe even invasion force). I really don't believe that in this game there is a buged AI. And we have peace option for him now(it can disappear later). From this peace we can only have benefits so i think we must make peace with Alex. I agree, peace with Alex now. Clearly, his culture is bigger than his island, so nothing barbs can do there.

dV

Yes it is clear that if we can support 3pop it will be better but we cant. See the pucture from the example OCC how the WW grow in these ages:...
and pay attention on how the WW grows for 1 to 4 beween 1000BC and 600BC. And yes they have 4pop and 5pop but the 1pop diference give exactly +1 WW.

Yes it is clear that if we can support 3pop it will be better but we cant. See the pucture from the example OCC how the WW grow in these ages:...
and pay attention on how the WW grows for 1 to 4 beween 1000BC and 600BC. And yes they have 4pop and 5pop but the 1pop diference give exactly +1 WW. Are we sure that we can't support pop 3 if we can make peace with about half of the AI? Suppose we make peace with Alex now, and at turn 14, before pop grows, we can make peace with 4 more, and WW goes to 0 at pop 2. In that case, can we support pop 3?

In your OCC example, were you capturing cities? That adds the most to WW per the war academy article

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/war_weariness.php

Since we don't expect the barbs to be taking cities, maybe with enough peace we could afford pop 3 in Besh?

I do agree that if we can't get peace with a majority of AI at turn 14, we can't go to pop 3.

dV

I hate to change my mind but I think the iron might change or plans with the placement of the 3rd city as if it falls on a nice tile we might want that in our HE site. but as you say Assuming that iron won't show up in jungle grass, seems unlikely to find it close enough to copper to change our city site.

so changed my mind again I think copper site first. I agree with worker first from karak also.

so we have consensus on the first 14turns (till Bashbalik gets 31 food):
- finnish the worker in karak
- peace with Alex
- settle W of the copper
- finish the rice
- start quarry as possible
- start the pyramids in Bash
- Bash will work gold+rice
-send the karak worker to the quarry when it is builded(settler after that in karak?)
just to make it clear what will the copper city work first? worker or barracks. I am for the worker but i don't think that it matters much.

at the end of this turns we will see can we make peace with someone else.
By my plan the mids status will be hammers: 56; food: 31;

few requests for the player: Look closely the WW and tell us when it will became +2. Check the AI for peace every turn.

so we have consensus on the first 14turns (till Bashbalik gets 31 food):
- finnish the worker in karak
- peace with Alex
- settle W of the copper
- finish the rice
- start quarry as possible
- start the pyramids in Bash
- Bash will work gold+rice
-send the karak worker to the quarry when it is builded(settler after that in karak?)
just to make it clear what will the copper city work first? worker or barracks. I am for the worker but i don't think that it matters much.

at the end of this turns we will see can we make peace with someone else.
By my plan the mids status will be hammers: 56; food: 31;

I agree all of those I prefer worker first for #3. also.

Will have to play when I get home( on my tower) as my laptop gives me the error.
Error loading shader libraries. for our save and when trying to run programme normally.
I have tried to install new direct 9c but it is very quick and doesnt seem to update properly!:(

so we have consensus on the first 14turns (till Bashbalik gets 31 food):
- finnish the worker in karak
- peace with Alex
- settle W of the copper
- finish the rice
- start quarry as possible
- start the pyramids in Bash
- Bash will work gold+rice
-send the karak worker to the quarry when it is builded(settler after that in karak?)
just to make it clear what will the copper city work first? worker or barracks. I am for the worker but i don't think that it matters much.

at the end of this turns we will see can we make peace with someone else.
By my plan the mids status will be hammers: 56; food: 31;

few requests for the player: Look closely the WW and tell us when it will became +2. Check the AI for peace every turn. Just one item to clarify ... as g_s checks for peace every turn, do we make peace if available, or do we just keep a list of who is willing until we can discuss it at turn 14, or whichever turn is the food 31 turn.

The biggest key to this next turnset is ending it when the food in Besh is at 31 food, and the city is still pop 2.

@ g_s: any questions about the details (I think for the next 13 -14 turns, the dV/R1 mechanics pretty much match the hw plan), or are you good to go?

dV

I think I am straight. to beo honest I am making peace with alex but keeping an eye out for others. and noteing down when they wont peace.

Look closely the WW and tell us when it will became +2
do you mean tell us when it hits +2 is that in all cities or jsut capital ? does it alter how much pop each city has.

I think I am straight. to beo honest I am making peace with alex but keeping an eye out for others. and noteing down when they wont peace.

do you mean tell us when it hits +2 is that in all cities or jsut capital ? does it alter how much pop each city has. Most important is when it hits +2 in Besh, but keep a record of all cities.

It is population dependent. The same state of war will be 2WW in a pop 4 city, 4WW in a pop 8 city, 3WW in a pop 6 city, and if it rounds up, probably 3WW in a pop 5 city as well.

That is hw's point, that adding one pop might add both a crowding :mad: face, and a WW :mad: face to what is already in the city.

dV

I will post my plan soon.
@dV the 3pop plan dont work because when the WW became 2 it will grow againg with the new pop up and it will go to +3 :mad: from WW and +3 :mad: from the population itself became +6 :mad: while we have +5:) .

I haven't read most recent posts, but there is a minor flaw in HW logic: won't we have 6:) if gold is connected to Besh? That way it still supports pop3.

I haven't read most recent posts, but there is a minor flaw in HW logic: won't we have 6:) if gold is connected to Besh? That way it still supports pop3.
We have 6 :) in Karak after gold becuase of 1 extra from palace. Besh is 4 :) base, +1 gold for 5 max now.

dV

Hehe that's what happens when you post stuff like this while away from the game. My bad.

Just playing now. The food is beshabalik for the increase is 7/36 after 2 turns or so. we talked about 31 surely it will be 35 the turn before it increases to pop 3.

Here is your Session Turn Log from 1090 BC to 805 BC:

Turn 97, 1090 BC: You have made peace with Alexander!

Turn 99, 1030 BC: Turfan has been founded.

Turn 102, 970 BC: Asoka adopts Slavery!

Turn 104, 940 BC: You have discovered Iron Working!

Turn 112, 820 BC: Beshbalik will grow to size 3 on the next turn
Turn 112, 820 BC: Qin Shi Huang has completed The Oracle!
Turn 112, 820 BC: Turfan's cultural boundary is about to expand.

We moved onto +2 WW it changed at turn 103/660. now at 114.

Peace status Izzy and Cyrus changed in the last couple of turns to not accepting any kind of peace. The other still want the city apoart from Saladin who is still not bothered.
QSH was doing oracle.
Didnt send the worker down to as by the time it should get there it would have speeded by 1 turn the last road so built the copper mine.

Just playing now. The food is beshabalik for the increase is 7/36 after 2 turns or so. we talked about 31 surely it will be 35 the turn before it increases to pop 3. Yes, the food could be 35 before pop growth, the idea was that we only needed 31 so if we were going to stay at pop 2, we would work both the gold and the stone starting when we had 31 food, which is 6 or 8 extra hammers per turn for two turns, maybe saving us a turn on the pop 2 option.

I won't see the save until tonight, S214 is now up IIRC. He and I usually play some game together online Friday nights, so if we have a consensus on the next 15 turns, I can review the plan with him and he can play tonight.

hellwitch is right again in his predictions ... WW 2 at pop 2 means it will certainly be WW 3 at pop 3, a disaster for the mids. So seems to me we go with the pop 2 plan, unless ...

We could try to see if enough AI will make peace to get WW down to 1 in Besh (might even need to get WW to 1 then get peace from two more for this to work). That is the only scenario in which a pop 3 option has a chance to work. And if we miscalculate, we are screwed.

I suppose that if we could make enough peace to get WW to 0, the pop 3 option might work.

But, is the war with barbs slowing the progress of the other civs to mids? If that is the case, then maybe keep war, use pop 2 option is the way to go.

Or do we need to make as much peace as we can to keep WW low? With pop 2, WW could go to 3 and we are still OK, right?

We need to see how many barb cities have been founded ... maybe some civs won't make peace because they want to capture barb cities?

dV

Here is your Session Turn Log from 1090 BC to 805 BC:

Turn 112, 820 BC: Beshbalik will grow to size 3 on the next turn
Turn 112, 820 BC: Qin Shi Huang has completed The Oracle!
Turn 112, 820 BC: Turfan's cultural boundary is about to expand.

We moved onto +2 WW it changed at turn 103/660. now at 114. We are still at pop 2 in Besh, right???

dV

yes I was worried for a moment also but I didnt finish the turn I saved.
I uploaded so th turn is there I think we go with 3 pop and when we hit WW3 jsut work the 2 hammer tiles. and starve ourselves.

Nice work gs!!

The roster order is

Lehm - in the hole
Conquistador 63 - waiting
hellwitch - waiting
da_Vinci - waiting
Thrallia - waiting
g_storrow - just played
Scout 214 - UP NOW
Ronnie1 - on deck

yes I was worried for a moment also but I didnt finish the turn I saved.
I uploaded so th turn is there I think we go with 3 pop and when we hit WW3 jsut work the 2 hammer tiles. and starve ourselves. I'm not at the game, but if WW is 2 and pop is 2, then we have 5 :) and 4 :mad: in Besh now I assume.

THAT MEANS THAT WE CANNOT GO TO POP 3 ... unless we make peace with a lot of AI right now! Which we may not be able to do ...

This is what hw has been telling us, and he is right. Why can't we go to pop 3? We have a marigin of one happy face, don't we?

The problem is that going to pop 3 will likely add two unhappy faces at once, giving us an idle worker!, as I stated in this post:

Most important is when it hits +2 in Besh, but keep a record of all cities.

It is population dependent. The same state of war will be 2WW in a pop 4 city, 4WW in a pop 8 city, 3WW in a pop 6 city, and if it rounds up, probably 3WW in a pop 5 city as well.

That is hw's point, that adding one pop might add both a crowding :mad: face, and a WW :mad: face to what is already in the city.

dV

In this game where WW may be a persistent issue, this is something we all need to understand.

Here is the war academy on WW:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/war_weariness.php

here is an excerpt from it ...

"So the "simple" formula seems to be:

WW Unhappiness in a City=
Pop x Active WW/200
x (100% -25%(Jail)-25%(Rushmore)-50%(Police State) )
x World Size Modifier
__Duel=150%
__Tiny=130%
__Small=110%
__Standard=90%
__Large=70%
__Huge=50%
x 50% if Multiplayer game
x 50% if Always War or Permanent War/Peace Options
x AIs Modifier (100% at Settler..10% lower for each level up)
x (100+AI Per Era Modifier * Era)% [-1 for every Level above Noble]
0 if you are a Barbarian

Active WW = sum of all WW from all living teams that you are at war with"

So the number of WW :mad: in a city is proportional to the pop size.

Pop X ActiveWW/200 X "other stuff" is a simpler version.

Rearrange that to Pop X (active WW X stuff) / 200

Our WW in Besh is 2 at pop 2, therefore our active WW X stuff = 200, or more correctly, someting between 150 and 249.

In that case, we get 2 * 200/200 = 2,

or 2* 0.75 = 1.5 which rounds to 2,

or 2*1.245 = 2.49 which rounds to 2, unless anything over 2 becomes 3 (the ceiling function, I think).

Since we just got to WW = 2, assume that our active WW * stuff is 150. What happens when we go to pop 3?

3* 150/200 = 2.25 Now if that is interpreted as a 3 because it is over 2, then pop 3 will mean WW of 3, and with 3 :mad: from crowding, 6 :mad: with only 5 ;) . One idle worker, no food in the bin, and no way we can get to mids.

If it only rounds to 3 at 2.50, then we are still precariously close to that at 2.25, and if we are still losing barbs, we could get there pretty quick.

So unless we can discern what function converts 2.xx in to an interger (floor, round, or ceiling), I think growing to pop 3 is too big a risk, unless we can make enough peace to get WW to at least 1 (if not 0) right now.

dV

Unless there is a reason to wait for discussion on something, I'll jump in and play tonight. I'll have dV on the phone while I do so. If something comes up during the turn set that necessitates stopping to refer to everyone, then I'll save it so we can all see where we are at that point. Otherwise, I'll have my set done later tonight.

There's an Iron site down where the Bridge City site is at the SE corner of the island. Should we give precedence to that site or still go for the western location preferentially?

The island to the SE also has an iron site there. None that we can see on the island to the west.

Also, Alex has a galley with an archer and settler on the north coast of the island to the SE of us.

Doing the math, it makes no sense at all to allow the Pop to grow to 3 at the moment.

I stopped when we got the Settler because there is a question about which port city to do, west or east. It does not appear that the Barbarians putting a city down in either place is going to happen.

That question is now further complicated by the appearance of Saladin on our coast, which just occurred, in the SW corner of the island. One galley loaded with an archer and a settler.

We are about to finish a barracks in Turfan but have no garrison there.

Shifted city worker in Karakorum from the pigs to the horses (we have a pasture now) to speed up chariot from 8 to 6 turns. Can't do 4 (pigs and horses) because we have only 1 food stored there and food prod would be -1). We finish the connecting road between Turfan and Karakorum next turn. Just started Library there but can easily change to chariot or whatever other troop everyone thinks we should make in a hurry.

Copper and road connection are done.

Sent worker down isthmus to help with chopping but building roads as he goes. Halfway to the stone quarry. Quarry is road linked to Beshbalik.

Forest 1E pre-chopped. Forest 1S of Iron chopped, worker just got to the other forest down there. No new forests.

Mids in 25 turns, to be sped up with chopping. Did not allow Pop to go to 3. No one would make peace anyway.

Alex started city on island SE of us, in NW corner. Just out of sight.

Barbarians now have 7 archers, 7 warriors, 6 swordsmen, 4 axemen. They have been attacking Bombay (Asoka) and CAPTURED Edo (Tokugawa)! (All the more reason not to make peace.) They have started one city, near Bombay.

We still need a road E of the Mtn to connect Karakorum to Beshbalik, as well as the 1 1/2 tiles on the isthmus.

Finished Writing, started Mathematics. We may need Sailing sooner than expected. Only 10 turns to research right now.

Good stopping point to discuss where to put city, putting garrisons in them, Saladin's threat to put a city on our island, etc.

The game is uploaded at BC 595.

Scout214 and I looked at the g_s save and there was no practical way at pop three to work more than gold and stone consistently. At best, could have gotten 14 additional hammers alternating the rice and forest, but that would have meant running the risk of WW moving to 3, idling a worker, and adding some 8 turns to the finish. So we felt that proceeding with pop 2 option was the best, as it did not require making peace yet.

This was rewarded by the barbs capturing Edo from Japan. Only got 26 from the one distant forest chop, maybe only 20 from the next one ... I figure mids is 20 turns away without a whip, maybe 17 with a final whip ... due about turn 144. Keep your fingers crossed!

dV

I think we'll get it...we are ahead of Qin for it, definitely, since he was working on the Oracle and has no stone :)

Toku and Asoka are gonna be too busy with the barbs, Alex doesn't tend to put an emphasis on wonders, Izzy doesn't either(at least, non-religious wonders), and doesn't have any production other than those forests that she won't chop.

Another good reason to have peaced Alex, is that he and the other AI on the continent would have started getting mutual war bonuses against us. Now he's out of the loop there, even if the others aren't.

After Math, should we go for Construction, or beeline to CS? cats or half of Maces?

First, we need to be sure the Arab archer in the boat does not get to our cities. Move scout to Turfan, move Karak warrior to Turfan, make Chariot in Karak, switch to horse + pighill after we stock some food this turn. Turfan builds axe or sword after barracks in 1 turn. Or archer or chariot if we need something faster. Chariot can run to Besh if boat goes that way.

Where do we settle next? West coast has more food, but SE has the iron. Also, SE bridges to a spot with silver ... more happiness, esp after forges at some point. But that island to the west has an awesome city spot: S of horses ... horse + 4 hills and two seafood, IIRC.

We could potentially kill off Alex first, and bridge to mainland his way. Then later bridge west as well and pincers the mainland with two armies.

We might want sailing soon, so we can send troops to the mainland to threaten some AI into peace. I'd vote const after math unless sailing, as I think we might get mileage with cats + swords against Alex. I think I like math > sailing > const, with a SE settle for iron and bridge, send swords to take the silver island.

dV

Before we decide what to develope next we should talk about our overall tactic. In my opinion we should attack Saladin first, keep the capital while destroying the rest. Then we could directly go to destroy the main continent keeping as much cities as our economy allows it WITHOUT COURTHOUSES. The thing is that it costs too much time to build the courthouses. We better built units in the time. It´s not too bad to raze some cities because the barbs will fill the land with cities too what counts to our land area. When we are almost done with the continent we will build settlers settlers and then settlers and then we will spawn them everywhere to reach the domination limit. As the pop limit could be a problem due to our small cities we should make peace with Alex and Qin as soon as possible because we don´t wont to attack them anyway as there is no need to.

I started some calculation to become aware of how the barb´s cities do influence our land area. But it´s a bit confusing.
By now Cyrus is first in size with 7,00% and I counted his country with 77 tiles. We on our own have 47 tiles and the barbs 22, 1 from Edo and 21 from Polynesia. Together we have 6,38% of the world´s land mass. If we trust the 77 tiles of Cyrus and the 7,00% there should be exactly 1000 tiles as 100%. But then I am not sure how the barbs influence our percentage. It can´t count by 100% because in this case there have to be about 1081 tiles.

So, all in all, I think we should go for construction, then Sailing and then it doesn´t matter. Of course maceman would be next goal but we don´t need them if we are fast enough.

Oh, and I counted the tiles of the land which we see now.

Our island - 78 tiles
big continent - 672 tiles
Saladin - 87 tiles
island west to us - 22
Qin - 141 tiles
island SE (where Alex has the city now) - 28 tiles
island in the E - 8 tiles

and then there is some other stuff.

The important thing is that the big continent has by far enough tiles to support the domination limit and we also have some islands close to us to be able to spawn settlers very fast.

So what do you guys think about the plan? Bad thing which could happen is that Alex is going to declare war on us again as he is coming closer to us. So we still need some defence on our island. Good thing is that we can react early as we can see how many units the AI has on board their ships and how many.

I started some calculation to become aware of how the barb´s cities do influence our land area. But it´s a bit confusing.
By now Cyrus is first in size with 7,00% and I counted his country with 77 tiles. We on our own have 47 tiles and the barbs 22, 1 from Edo and 21 from Polynesia. Together we have 6,38% of the world´s land mass. If we trust the 77 tiles of Cyrus and the 7,00% there should be exactly 1000 tiles as 100%. But then I am not sure how the barbs influence our percentage. It can´t count by 100% because in this case there have to be about 1081 tiles.


If 77 is 7%, 100% is 1100, not 1000. 1100 or 1081 must be a matter of rounding. BTW if he had 76 tiles/7% then 100% would be 1085. Are you sure you counted it right? Also, in your other post the sum is 1046, not counting "other stuff". So, 1080~1100 must be the total.

All in all, I believe barb tiles count 100% towards our dom limit. :)

Shifted city worker in Karakorum from the pigs to the horses (we have a pasture now) to speed up chariot from 8 to 6 turns. Can't do 4 (pigs and horses) because we have only 1 food stored there and food prod would be -1). I just opened the save. I'm confused with this statement. Karak is at pop2 and can support pig/horses and still have +1 food. :confused: I'd build axes right now, for defense or to capture Saladin's to-be-founded-city in our island.

Barbarians now have 7 archers, 7 warriors, 6 swordsmen, 4 axemen. They have been attacking Bombay (Asoka) and CAPTURED Edo (Tokugawa)! (All the more reason not to make peace.) They have started one city, near Bombay.

I assume you're talking about Polynesian, the city they founded a few turnsets before?

On overall strategy, are we sure that conquest wouldn't be easier/faster to achieve than domination? Because it seems to me that Qin can be reached without Astro, using a city bridge in the small island (N of clams) to the NE of Karak. For that maybe cats/axes/swords is enough?

157945

That been said, I agree with going for Sal next, and still prefer the western bridge city. I believe that the iron to the SE will be eventually in Besh's cultural radius.

Another question is what to do with GProphet we'll get soon. I'd love to lightbulb CoL, but as we have masonry that won't be possible. Just settle him in Karak then?

Well i'm for the West Bridge city as it is closer to the Continent and bettet city spot as well. In that case Sal attack will go there and he will be more predictable. We will need as many spears as axes because Sal has horses