I'm mostly doing fine playing BTS with Solver's patch on Monarch, but there are a few big problems in my game. For one, I most often don't expand enough - I end up building buildings.. Also, I don't seem to keep enough military around most of the time. And when I start building units for offensive, I end up overbuilding my SoD and teching over so the SoD becomes massive but a bit dated.

I run CE almost exclusively. I've tried SE, but I have lots of trouble with the microing needed. I need to reload last turn way too often because I forgot to check cities for whips or specialists or tiles, or mismanaged my workers and forgot to stop their actions so a prechop went over..

Now, I got an excellent start here and decided I really want to get it right, and what better way to do it than to post here? I saved it as scenario file first so I can replay it later if I fail in SE again :)

So the game:
BTS,
Solver's patch (latest),
BUG 0.15 (will update as released),
XML modifications:
- GG emergence treshold increase lowered (next GG will cost less than it would in original game but more than current one),
- some units can be built even when they would normally be obsolete (units related to events and quests - I feel it more fair if eg. Elite Swords can be built even when maces are available, as they are better city attackers per hammer)

Difficulty: Monarch
Speed: Epic
Map size: Large
Map type: Big and Small, Island mixed in
Leader: Pericles of Greece
Options: No tech brokering, No tribal villages

The game options above are my standard settings. I got rid of huts at some point, as events bring enough randomness to the game already. Also no tech brokering feels fair - it encourages me to trade out the techs as I know they won't be passed around by happy AIs.

Pericles is Cre/Phi, so cheap libraries, theatres, odeons (Greece colosseum, very happy and cultured one) and universities.

Greek starting techs are Fishing and Hunting. Fishing is highly situational (here it's good), and Hunting is useful mainly for scouts (when playing with huts, which I don't do so not important), camps, and as prerequisite to Archery (if needed) and Animal Husbandry (often good idea).

I founded Athens where the settler stood after moving the scout and seeing the stone. Good? Bad? Well, it's done :)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_0_map.jpg

Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/BigNSmall_Large_islands_mixed_-_Epic_Monarch_-_No_Tech_Brokering_-_No_Huts_-_Greece_Pericles.CivBeyondSwordSave) from the start (before settling).

I'm sorry for the low quality of the image - it's resized to half the original resolution for more reasonable forum size.

So I have three clams, hill pigs, five floodplains, plains stone, forested plains hill, three forested grass hills, forested plains and four forested grasses. and only one non-resource costal tile. Cottaging all flatlands would come to 10, and with grass hills to 13 cots. Even then working all the tiles (incl. plains hill mine and stone quarry) the city would have +12 food at size 20. Or I could farm around and have more food than I can use :)

The general idea I had was to try SE again as I'm playing Philo leader, and with stone I should go for the big pile of rocks (aka Pyramids). I usually grab Great Wall as well when I have stone - it's cheap and gives nice Spy points as well as taking care of any barb issues I might have.

But first things first. The start is the most important time, so shouldn't skip ahead of the time yet.

I'm planning to run a circle clockwise around the city (or rather to the coast) with the scout, then reverse the course and run larger circle counterclockwise. Maybe. Unless I find something interesting :) This should reveal enough of the surroundings to plan some city sites. The scout will then wander off to meet other civs and whatnot, and I'll train a warrior to escort settler and garrison Athens.

For research, start with Mining (11 turns) -> Bronze Working (23 turns?), but then? Masonry? AH? Masonry would allow us to quarry the stone so Great Wall could be built soon enough that we don't need to worry about barb defenses at all, but this is probably even TOO soon - I'd prefer to kick out one settler first and then build the wall.

As I start with Fishing and I have clams, first build should be workboat. I have to wait 4 turns for borders to pop before I have forested plains hill I could work, so maybe I should just grow to two working floodplains then finish the workboat asap (working hillpigs and forested plains hill)? Growing to 2 working floodplains takes 11 turns and puts 11 hammers to workboat, which will then be finished in 7 more turns if as planned above.

After that - worker or another workboat? Worker should be 15 turns then, so would complete one turn before BW - maybe one more workboat instead (working clams + forested plains hill would mean 12 turns which leaves us at 24/36 food)?

My normal build order would be something like workboat -> workboat -> worker -> warrior -> settler -> worker -> great wall - worker would have enough to do mining the hills (four forested hills) with second worker possibly connecting second city and then improving it. But then there's the stone to quarry and.. Uhh... lots of worker activity needed.


The overall early plan I have is to settle second city, build great wall, settle third city, build pyramids. Having copper and nearby neighbour would of course change this plan, but large map rarely gives me neighbours near enough for axe rush, nor does BTS give me copper so often - and in the end, axe rushes are way more expensive than they were in Warlords so have to be considered case by case. I'm not so fond of early UUs as then you either ignore the UU or go for rush, where I easily end up choosing the former (ignore UU).

thats a nice start if ever there was one. Get the mids up and just never build a cottage ever.

Thats a sick starting location... did you regenerate many times ?

Hmm i would say go for the stone wonder with all those nice mountain titles + food and stone...

You sould get BW fast so you can whip some settles/workboats etc.

About the workers... i dont think you need more than one for some time. The amount of titles you can work is maximum 5, so don´t bother making the 2. worker for a while. If you have 2 workboats and 1 worker he should be able to keep up with the growth.

Hmm never played greece.. think i might download the save and play this game myself :)

I say grab the Pyramids and build an army of phalanxes for an early war with the nearest, weakest neighbour. :)

I didn't regenerate once - then again I have often enough discarded starts as "don't want to repeatedly hit head to wall" so an excellent one like this is bound to show up every now and then too :)

On whipping: working mines is likely to be better than whipping when happy cap has been reached (compare city with permanent -1 happiness with whip and the hammers you get per 15 turns to stagnating on mines), so most likely I will need three mines + quarry + clam (with lighthouse) or hillpig for total of 10 food and 14 (15 with hilldpig) hammers per turn until I get more happiness. Before reaching this I obviously will whip, and after that I think 3pop whips by growing one over happy cap is reasonable with 1pop whips simply out, 2pop whips roughly same as hammers from mines.

Mines + quarry will take over 50 worker turns, so second worker may be needed so second city will get some improvements as well if I plan to keep first worker chopping for capitol (which I do plan to do).

On food: As I have three clams, I don't think I even need more than two workboats for now. No need to eg. pasture the pig or farm the floodplains - worker(s) will mine, quarry, chop, and road.


And Phalanxes... I'm really not very good at axerushing. Phalanx is a standard axe that isn't vulnerable to its counter (Chariot) because of having bonus against the counter. And Pericles isn't aggressive. Thus, I doubt Phalanx rush would be cost effective unless there's a very vulnerable target. Isabella for example seems to forgo military in the beginning, preferring religions and wonders (she'll go for Oracle almost certainly) so is one of the neighbours that can be rushed with fairly low effort. No - I don't use random personalities which would indeed change this kind of thinking.

If this was Sumer or an Aggressive leader (such as Alexander), axe rush would be preferable. Also, Pyramids and dozen axes don't really mix that well - it's either or :)

I don't mean an axe rush to get cities just ruin his/her economy etc... I don't think you should go for Great Wall. What victory type are you going for?

Ah - so no rush just simple harassment war. Maybe - Phalanx is quite suitable for that being resistant to its counter.

Isn't it a bit early to think about victory types? I've had all kinds of maps with Big'n'small ranging from isolated starts to pangaeas with surrounding islands. Still in any case domination and conquest would be unlikely - as time goes on the wars become more tedious with lots of units, and I'm not exactly fond of moving units around by tens and hundreds. Most likely I will go for space, looking at possibilities regarding diplomatic victory (and maybe even religious one if opportunity presents itself) before that. If I see a chance at military victory that can be gained by clear and definitive action I'll consider that too.

Why do you think great wall isn't good? With stone it's 113 hammers, or two axe-equivalents. It provides spy points which would give me one for settling or scotland yard (either of which would practically remove the need to ever touch espionage slider for the passive benefits) or even infiltration should we see a good techer to steal from. Also, two axe equivalents of hammers is less than I need to put in axes (or other units) required for BarbWatch Corps - a good investment overall I'd think.
Of course the barbarian issue depends on the map, but large maps have way more space for barbs, which means lots more fogbusters required. BarbWatch Corps when I don't go for GW often push me to bleed annoying amounts of unit maintenace and unit supply.

Pyramids, Hanging Gardens for sure. Dunno about GW cuz it gives GSpy pts which can be good or bad.

With that much food you want to max out happiness and growth in your capital and run a pile of representation-enhanced scientists. Other high-food centers can run scientists as well, but most of the rest of your empire can be devoted to producing military once you've got a target picked out.

As you expand your empire peacefully though (assuming that is an option, which it usually is in bts in my experience) don't be afraid to build some commerce cities where city sites call for it. Keeping the science slider up with cottages while running a pile of scientists in other cities (hybrid econ) can be very powerful.

Basically what I'm saying is don't force cities into running specialists that aren't suited for it.

[QUOTE=Elandal;5925264

Why do you think great wall isn't good? With stone it's 113 hammers, or two axe-equivalents. It provides spy points which would give me one for settling or scotland yard (either of which would practically remove the need to ever touch espionage slider for the passive benefits) or even infiltration should we see a good techer to steal from. [/QUOTE]

My thinking with Pericles is that you should always be in a tech lead playing as him and by a lot. :) I can't see a use for the GS points. You can get them by running a spy specialist when you get a courthouse. I just think it'll be a waste of hammers. But build it, if you really want it. I guess.

I think the GW is really situational this game. If you can manage barbs on your own and if you don't have a really close neighbour to make infiltration easier (spies are only 1-move so tech stealing can be tedious if far away) then the gp pool pollution isn't desirable when you could be getting GE instead (pyramids, hanging gardens) to use on say GL and also GS to lightbulb toward liberalism. GE could also be used on machinery while you tech to CS for early maces. If you get maces before your opponent gets feudalism it can be a serious romp.

Turn 32 / BC 3200

I played quickly a few turns, researching Mining -> BW, building two workboats, and scouting around. On the same turn Athens reached size three, second workboat was completed, and BW was researched, providing for first checkpoint in the game.

I found myself on some kind of peninsula with ample space and food to settle. I also met my first neighbour: Sitting Bull of Native Americans. Now there's someone I wouldn't rush in any case - even should I have copper in capitol for immediate axe buildup. Speaking of which, I don't see any copper yet. Then again, my scout hasn't come back to complete the counterclockwise circle - there's lots of black on the map still.


I marked three city sites on the southern coast of the peninsula mainly based on seafood:

1) immediatelly south of Athens, grabbing pigs and clam. Has two plains hills and one grass hill for production, runs scientists otherwise. Food positive, so with Metal Casting will get workshops on the flat tiles for extra hammers, switching between military and scientists. Working the food and three hills would yield F=14 and 12 hammers.

2) a bit east along the coast, 2N of the crab. One plains hill, one grass hill, two plains tiles, 9 grass tiles, crab for food. Stagnates if works all these tiles without other food or farms, but could run 11 cottages with the two hills for hammers. See - I'm still thinking about the cottages :) 11 cots isn't too shabby, but in early game it could as well work mines for hammers or scientists with the crab - or cottages plus scientists when hammers aren't needed.

3) SE corner of the peninsula, grabbing fish, corn, two floodplains, three plains hills and three grass hills - hammers if I've ever seen them :) I left the pig out of the city, as that's not needed for food purposes here and it'd force me to settle on a hill that I would rather mine. The six hills would provide 21 hammers, and could be powered by fish + corn. The corn needs irrigation, which will be provided by farming either of the floodplains (the other can be used for watermill). Forested plains, riverside plains, and flat grass in addition to the above, so maybe workshop + watermill + lumbermill. But that's later on.

One city to grab the pigs in the central southern area, but I'll wait for the scout to sweep westwards from the NatAm territories before dotmapping the central peninsula.

There's also land to the south of my coast, visible past just two tiles of water. Whether they're islands, other continent, or part of this landmass remains to be seen. I will have to build a workboat (or galley) to explore when I find the time for that.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_32_map_resources.jpg

So, there's food and wine, there's good land and rivers. Jungle to the north - we started in the fertile mediterranean climate. Maybe there're some jumbos to the north of us, maybe gems? In any case, with no happies apart from wine revealed yet, and ample food to grow, monarchy looks an important target.

As it's time to choose research path and we don't see any copper yet, so:
Should I go for AH next? Agriculture isn't needed yet (I see two corns but there's no immediate need for farming) still it will eventually be desired and will lower the cost of AH, so should I research that before AH or not? If there're no horses around, there's still time for Archery, or even Wheel -> Masonry (as detailed below) although in that case might be better to train second worker to get stone up ASAP and two chops to complete GW immediatelly, training settler only after that's been done.
Otherwise I think Wheel -> Masonry would be the path with Great Wall built. Worker whipped after six turns of build (no overflow but we get the worker five turns earlier and the city will grow back to three in six turns working the clams) could go chop the hill south of the stone, road to stone from there (wheel should be ready then) connecting the stone to river (and thus Athens), the mine the hill while waiting for Masonry research to complete. In this time we could train a warrior, take the chop to a settler, then complete the warrior, then settler, build great wall (one hilltop chopped towards it, one worker won't have time for more chops), then proceed for another worker, warriors, settlers, pyramids...

Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/elandal_BC-3200_-_BW.CivBeyondSwordSave)


On the matter of Great Wall:

Infiltration and techstealing at Monarch isn't really worth much. I ran a couple of tries at Sumerian Spy Scam earlier, the result being mainly that my infiltrated target ran out of techs before I ran out of EPs :confused: It takes several spies (and thus hammers), some of which get caught causing possible diplomacy setbacks as well, mainly because the spies need to walk to the city you steal from (build a road if you go this way), lie low for five turns (for maximum discount), and will be returned to capitol after mission if not caught.

So Great Spy is useful mainly for Scotland Yard or settling. SY is best in a commerce city or capitol depending on if the four EPs from Palace are bigger than the amount of commerce to be multiplied using slider (and often enough capitol should be commerce city for bureaucracy effect - this isn't necessary though). I don't consider active espionage worth much except for specific cases (eg. incite revolt in a city when attacking it) so this is still of low value - the passive effects can be gained by running 100% espionage for a few turns against required target(s) when needed.

I consider GW mainly as a convenience, taking care of barb issues. It's cheaper than building the barbwatch corps most of the time, but situational indeed. At one time I just seemed to get maps where barbarians were a problem and just grew used to it, maybe even so much that building GW has become a routine instead of being actually considered each time.

So... It's good that it was questioned - forced me to think about it for this particular situation and in general :blush:

On this particular map, I believe fogbusting will be OK. Depending on eventual settling pattern (and that of Sitting Bull), it'll take 4-8 able chariots / phalanxes which would then also gain some experience that'd be useful in warring. Hammerwise BarbWatch corps will cost me 1.5 - 3 times the great wall, but again the comparison needs to consider the further value of the units. And regarding unit maintenance and supply, this'd probably come to 1-3 gpt - manageable amount. At least it doesn't look like I'd need to go to dozen plus BarbWatch units, which is often causes the imperial treasurer to moan and complain.

I'm starting to lean on AH first, with scout hopefully completing this circle during that time. If either copper is revealed in the fog or horses are found, settle them, otherwise go the wheel -> masonry -> chop GW route ASAP.
I don't really think archers are that useful as barbwatchers - their future value is fairly low. The drawback of course is that if I miss GW a bit this way a lot of time will have been spent already with little expansion to show for it, and Archery STILL will be required.

wth @ those city placements??? The single crab no other good titles is obviously not very good.. Though can be usefull later. The Corn fish pig city is pretty darn insane and could be nice to use as a GP farm(though admitedly some wonder will produce some gps and your capital doesnt have low food either...). The pig/clam city is pretty good since you are after all creative. I supose the "cottage" city might be usefull later but for the early game the high food cities are just better. The floodplain along the river in the north is better cottage cities anyways. there is also a pig / corn / double wine city that looks ok.

Well, those city placements are spots I'd normally consider good for cities. And it's all preliminary still - too much fog to dotmap the area between me and Sitting Bull, which is why I only dotted the three cities that are based on simply seafood locations.

Eg. #2 (not necessarily second I'd found, just second I dotted along the coast) with crab and forested grassland could run 11 cottages - that's not good? Of course without rivers around it wouldn't be good as high food city, but is there something wrong with cottages + some hills? On another note... What else can you do with this area? If you can provide another function for the crab or these tiles, please go ahead. That's exactly why I'm posting here.

The pig/clam city is good because I'm creative? It wouldn't be good otherwise? I'd just need Mysticism and monument in that case.

Again the SE corner where I dotted a city specifically leaving the pig out was because I looked at the city as "excellent production" meaning this could very well become my HE-city. Sure - take pigs in and we get 13 excess food from three tiles, up to 18 from five post-CS assuming floodplains farmed and corn thus irrigated. That's 9 specialists at size 14 - but then we're wasting best hammers I can see around (six hills, one settled five not worked). Also, capitol still has more food and will make even better GP farm (has almost as many hammers though - the two would be close in both food and hammer potentials).
Without the pig, the central southern part of the peninsula is almost worthless, but with the pig it can be made useful. So if I grab all three foods to one city, I also discard lots of other potential. Now, maybe the central southern part of the peninsula should not be considered as potential? Maybe it is not settlable at all, and thus the pig should be grabbed for fish/corn/hills city?

Yes - I can see the wine / corn / pig city too. But as I said, I'm waiting for my scout to reveal more terrain to dotmap that area - it's entirely possible that I need the pig for what's in the fog still. If not, then probably 1S of the peak. Other than the two foods there won't be good tiles to work until the grass can be farmed (mostly post-CS), so the city will early on just be whipped and later will run four or so scientists, more after CS when irrigation chaining can be done.

And considering there's jungle, there's bound to be good grass (given loads of worker turns) to cottage. And yes, the riverside might be good for cottaging, but isn't farmed floodplain good for SE too? I consider farmed grass almost junk pre-biology (3F tile? Hello? Half a specialist? four farmers to support two scientists or two plains hill mines?) but farmed fp supports one specialist per farmer.


Hmm... I guess I need to add one more problem I've had: I seriously want hammer cities. Such cities that can churn out stuff reliably and consistently. If it's all about the whip, then it's all about the 15 turn cycle, which is just unacceptably slow. And if we're talking about serious food, we're talking about caste system which means no whipping. No whip and no hammers begs the question of "you and what army?".

So, of the three dotted cities #1 has clear explanation of hammers, with and without whip. #3 was dotted with the expressed purpose of hammers without the whip, and moving it 1N to grab the pig doesn't change the fact that it still has five hills left and the flatlands can be workshopped (which are nice under caste anyway). #2 only has two hills and its food source is inadequate for serious whipping, so clearly it's not going to produce much.

Assuming wine/corn/pig city is good and will happen, then it'll be under dual-pressure: either farms or workshops. It's hard to configure a city to be capable of both running lots of specialists AND produce lots of hammers. I'd usually do that when I can combine food specials with hills.

Turn 47 / BC 2825

All things considered I decided to quickly nab AH, expecting to have a map suitable for dotmapping after that. That's pretty much what I got :) The brave scout earned Woods II in the process.
The shape of the peninsula (and depth - Athens isn't in the upper end like I had assumed) is now forming. Or maybe not peninsula at all? This could simply be west coast of narrower continent.

Whipped the worker and started mining hill 1W of Athens - I don't see need for road on that hill and I don't need the hammers from chop sooner than 11 turns anyway, so directly mining forested hill. I noted I will need garrison unit to Athens to keep whipping, or it'll cap at size 3 due to fear of grue combined with whip unhappiness.

So, I've posted turns 0, 32, and 47 already. Am I going to keep posting at intervals even shorter than in SGs? Nope - I'm just hoping that a perfect starting location will not be wasted by stupid early game decisions. Bad techpath can lead to development slowdown of 10 turns (for one unnecessary tech) to 30 turns (for weedy choice in path) easily. And bad dotmap can lead to need for fillers, resource grabbers, and junk cities still lacking the great ones.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_47_map_resources.jpg

So first things first:

Dotmapping

I've marked five potential city locations on the map. Two are as before (clam + pig + hills and crab cottages), one is almost as before (SE corner fish + corn moved 1N to grab pig), two are new based on revealed terrain and location of horses.

Reasoning for the southern coastal cities stands the same:

1) clam + pig south of Athens is very near (low maint), has high food (can run up to 4 scientists) and has lots of production potential (2 plains hills, one grass hill, workshops).

2) crab + two hills + flatlands can run 11 cottages. Enough said.

3) SE corner fish + corn + pig is a production powerhouse. Now, I'm certainly stubborn but when argued against and given time, I will consider the arguments thoroughly. Yes - getting the pig into the BFC of this city is good. It can't be wrong to have more food in the city. Also, while I now waste one hill that could've been mined, I also get one more grass hill, so there's no net loss. And this location is riverside where 1S would not be - which means a LOT later in the game. And even should I need that pig for another city at some point, this city can live and work mines / workshops / watermills without it just fine. Thanks for the argument, oyzar :)

The two new city locations I've added are:

4) Horse city labeled "cot?". A bit NE of Athens, it's a natural location to nab the horses. For me at least - counter arguments are welcome :) It's labeled "cot?" because it could work 17 cottages, grassland horse, and desert hill windmill - 17 is more than I remember from many other games. I could move palace here to gain bureaucratic benefits, leaving Athens and fish+corn+pig cities to run scientists (or working mines and workshops).

5) foody, which was already noted before: pigs + corn + two wines. Cottagewise it'd be 11, which considering the amount of food available isn't good enough, so it certainly looks like something else. Scientists + work the food tiles? Post-CS farm the grasses? Workshop plains? Mine the hill (wine or no wine - flat plains wine is OK to work but hillwine I wouldn't)?


I haven't dotted the northern area yet. There's a pig just north of Athens, but I'm not sure yet what would be best use there, for example. There's jungle to the north, there's jumbos, there's dye. And there's coast. I need to map that area before I would commit dotting it, but if there's a brave soul with insight, please go ahead :)

Main questions I guess are related to the horse. How and where to nab it. What kind of city it would be.
In a few more turns I'll get the chop (will take into settler) to Athens, the warrior completes, and I hope to get 2pop whip for settler almost immediatelly after that, so settling party will be ready soon. If you see a priority higher than horse city, please tell me - but for now I assume it has to be settled ASAP as the horse is halfway between me and Sitting Bull.

After horse is settled, I would go for foody, thus blocking Sitting Bull from the rest of the peninsula.

So, dotmapping help now would be appreciated, including explanations of what the city is good for, how it could be improved, what it should be doing / working. I'm a cottager myself, as can be seen from my dotmaps, and will certainly need help to understand SE (/FE?) better. I will end up with hybrid economy unless the cities are very clearly geared towards either CE or SE, but from current dotmap I already gather two cottage cities vs. four food cities of which at least three will double as production cities. Note that this double capability I count as strength of SE/FE: you can run scientists or you can work hammers and you can also whip. Cottage cities rarely can double in any other capacity.


Strategy

Peaceful expansion, nab Pyramids, aim to make friends until we know who's going to be left standing when the music stops, then prepare for the eventuality. If things go well, it'll spell a start for a longer campaign to gain control of the continent (unless this is pangaea, in which case I doubt I have the guts to continue war to the end).

Sounds easy? :lol:

So what do we start with? We need to block Sitting Bull from OUR peninsula (sorry, we aren't sharing more than we have to - please go clear the jungles instead). This means whipping and chopping settler parties for blocking cities.

Two cities, but then we have to move attention: Pyramids aren't building themselves, so when those two settler parties are out, the cities will have to manage themselves. I would prefer second worker for chopping, but I'm not sure I'll have time for that.

And if Athens kicks out two settler parties then goes onto building Pyramids, who's going to get us units, how and when and what? Barbarians will appear before Pyramids are done, so something will have to be done by that time. And I'm keeping the only worker I have for now in Athens to quarry and connect stone then chop hilltops towards Pyramids (depending on timings I'll see if I mine / prechop + road / direct chop those hilltops).

What we need for all this?

Techpath

Wheel is needed to connect cities. Pottery is needed for granaries and cottages. Foody needs Agriculture to farm the corn. Masonry allows us to quarry the stone and enables Pyramids. Writing allows Open Borders and Libraries, being a cornerstone of SE. Iron Working would tell us if there's metal at all around and plan for that. Sailing seems a good idea, for lighthouses and coastal / river trade.

Priorities, priorities...

1) Wheel. Needed as prereq for Pottery, to connect stone, to connect cities. I think this is #1 here.
2) Masonry. Quarrying takes 9 turns afterall, so better be able to do it early.
3) Agriculture. As this makes Pottery cheaper being an additional optional prerequisite, it's better to get it before Pottery.
4) Pottery. Finally the granaries :) And I hope I can spare a worker to cottage some.
5) Writing. This is when SE starts, before this tech we don't have economy. Libraries are essential. Open Borders aren't needed - at least for now.

Those will take some 50-60 turns together I guess. Am I smoking good stuff or does this look good?

Builds

Athens
Hiliting the 7 turns of whip unhappiness left:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_47_Athens.jpg

Athens will complete the warrior first. I'd put the two turns towards second warrior after that to grow to size 4 (for 2pop whip). Chop will come in before that though (and delaying that will cause loss of worker turns without gain) so I'll just switch to settler to take it in, then grow to 4 training warrior, switch again to settler and whip as soon as possible for 2 pop.

After settler has been whipped, Athens will complete second warrior growing, and will keep that warrior as garrison. The first warrior will, after escorting first settler, be ready to escort second settler.

Athens will build workboat for growth to size 4 at minimum, 5 at maximum, depending on timings (I'm horrible at calculating those that far as there's whip and unhappiness and chop and whatnot inbetween). As soon as stone is online, Athens will move to Pyramids. I certainly do hope one worker can be squeezed in somewhere in here, but I'm not expecting to get that. Second & third cities will have to take care of one more garrison unit, fogbusters, barbwatch, workers... Athens will handle Pyramids.

Sparta
Warrior -> Worker (-> Worker depending on Athens? ) -> Barracks -> Chariots (as many as needed) -> Library ?

Corinth
Barracks -> Chariots (as many as needed) -> Library ?

Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/elandal_BC-2825_-_AH.CivBeyondSwordSave)

This i what I made of it...

I started from black, its the only logical position to grab the pigs IMHO
The three down south are the same... but they are for later grabbing I think...

There is room for a fishing city NW of Athens, sucks tho that this dotmap doesnt grab the horses, but if you settle Red first by the time you are ready to hook up them horses your second border expansion will be about to happen I think... (maybe add a lib to make sure?)

I thought you were going for an SE? What is all this talk of cottages?

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/5541/turn47mapresourcesom9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

With the late resources (no copper and horses later) maybe its smart to grab the wall anyway...

I would mine the pigs, you have food plenty for the time beeing. The mined pigs is a nice 2/3/1 tile :)

Why a third workboat? You are not going to be working the third clams for a while yet... I think you have better places to send your hammers.

edit: I am no SE expert either, but am following this/shadowing this with great intrest.

i look at the red city and think of production. In the end game, with Metal Casting and Replaceable parts, as well as Civil Service, all the Riverside tiles become Watermills, the rest Workshops, and Farms as needed. A good Riverside Ironworks would be there. Also, the pink city is kinda unneeded. I can see why the pigs and crabs would be good, but stealing tiles from Athens would result in the hampering of an otherwise stellar capital. Also, a green city only for the crabs? Maybe a cottage city, as indicated, but food would be a problem since no river is nearby and CS is a long ways away.

2) crab + two hills + flatlands can run 11 cottages. Enough said.

nah, let me be a brat and add one more point in its defense. crab is a health resource we don't see anywhere else on the map. placing that city ( eventually, not recommending it as your second) will help every other city grow bigger, yummy!

Thanks for extra reasons for my crab-city, KMadCandy :)
Indeed, I can't think of any other use for the Crabs than cottage city. There's no river in the city area, so irrigation chaining would happen way later. Crabs is enough food for slowly growing cottage city, making the site just fine way earlier.

And yes, I'm speaking of cottages and of SE. See my problem? Still, one cottage city I believe is favoured in full SE as well, for bureaucratic capitol which is expected to provide commerce turned to gold so that slider is kept on gold while research is conducted by scientists in other cities. Athens isn't perfect for this purpose - it's way better as GP farm - so a good cottage city would be reasonable for transferring capitol? Please educate me on the matter.

Now, on NOT grabbing the horses in first or second ring (ie. in BFC) of a city simply isn't acceptable.
Second border pop requires total of 150 culture, or 75 turns. Assuming red city as Sparta, and techpath as laid out in my post, it'll be around BC 2500 for founding of Sparta, and about BC 1500 before I have Writing (so no Library before that). Maybe I could get second border pop in BC 1000 or so, then quick pasturing and connecting (I could of course road it already before that), but are barbs going to wait for that? I would have to go for Wall in that case, which means delaying third city (Stonehenge and Great Wall are likely to go around BC 2000), which opens a window for Sitting Bull to sneak in to my peninsula along the coast.

If the above scenario is acceptable or can somehow be worked around or made look good, fine. Please educate me :)


On mining the pigs: nice idea, but I don't have worker turns to add improvement I will re-improve when I finally do have some worker turns (probably as soon as Pyramids have been built and worker can move from chopping into pasturing pigs).

On sinking hammers: I was thinking the boat could make some exploratory circles before catching something. I don't think I really do have good things to sink hammers into at that moment, although again I might be wrong regarding timings. Also, just popped to my mind that building Pyramids will take long enough for hammers to rot, so whatever I do sink hammers into will have to be completed before Pyramids are built. One more warrior, barracks, or workboat? Those will probably be the only choices. IF I do have Masonry at that moment, there will be no hammer sinking but rather Pyramids will be started whether stone is online or not.


Otherwise on the dots:

black) I agree on the logic of black. But horses just have to be the starting point unless Wall scenario is chosen.
Now, as a city site it could either:
- 16 cottages OR
- 1 mine + 9 watermills + 2 plains workshops OR
- pig + fp farm + 8 grass farms -> F+16 working 10 tiles (F+8 working 2) and two more grass farms (F+2) with CS
Again please educate me on benefits of grassland farms pre-biology. Two farmers for one specialist is IMO bad ratio, considering three citizens can either get up one specialist or three cottages (if there's good argument for specialist at this ratio, please tell me).
My conclusion: black is cottage city.

red) Red looks a bit unsatisfactory, and is supposed to be my second city... The only GOOD tiles it has are two floodplains, or F+6 working two tiles assuming farmed. It grabs hillwines (meh), two desert hills (double meh), two deserts (yawn), a lake (whatever), five freshwater flat grasses (farmed for F+5, so totals F+11 working 7 tiles?).
OK - let's consider it for potential as riverside ironworks instead:
- 6 watermills: fp + 2 grass + 3 plains,
- 1 mine: plains hill wine - add 2 desert hill mines only if otherwise ends food positive
- now has F-2, so one floodplain farmed for balance
- four grasses and two plains left, so two plains workshops + four grasses balancing farms
Hmm... Not stellar. Not even great.
As cottage city? 12. Well, it's kind of OK - good cottage filler when I have time for it. But great? Not even close (crab city is better because it grabs a resource).
My conclusion: red city is pure filler unless someone educates me on the matter.

pink) Exists from my first map on, and will certainly NOT steal tiles from Athens. It has food, it has hills, it runs scientists, it can switch to hammers - it's a good city? Founded when first priorities are over - it's close to Athens so low maintenance burden.

yellow) [it's green but yellowish and there's "the other green" that is bluish, so this better be yellow] grabs crab, works up to 11 cottages, can't think of other uses due to lack of fresh water. Founded when I get around to it, not priority city.

brown) Loads of food, loads of hills, can run up to 9 scientists or work six mines + workshops + watermills for extreme production. I would priorize this at "after blocking cities and Pyramids" and make this my main production center.
My conclusion: brown shares burden with Athens equally, be that production or scientists.

purple) corn + pig, one grass hill, coastal. Scientists. Grass farm south of the peak (lakeside) and irrigation chained after CS. F+10 working three tiles (pig + corn + grass farm) pre-CS for 5 scientists, add three grass farms and irrigation for corn with CS for F+14 working 6 tiles post-CS.
Cottaging would net 10 at most, so not even an option for this.
No river -> no levee -> workshoppable to low degree but never going to be great at production.
My conclusion: size 7 for 4/5 scientists - works pig + corn + one grass farm pre-CS for F+10, pig + corn post-CS for F+10, stagnates at size 7 with four scientists, five post-CS.

white and green) Look just fine but I refrain from comments until fog is cleared.


Overall impression: I don't agree with namliaM dotmap :(

Well one must chose some point of reference to start...

I think the southern 3 cities are "set in stone" Moving the Red city 2 north creates a gap of 3 tiles between Yellow (granted dirty yellow) and Red, also it makes for a painfull situation with the pigs. Plus you have to move Black 2 or 3 west giving it no access to fresh water
This could be an alternative...
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/1313/turn47mapresourcesmm4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Given the resource distribution around Green/blue (near the indian) he will probably settle a city 1 east, opening up a (biger) spot between white and green for a filler city to grab the horses. But given the lack of
- river
- food
and proximity of jungle... it will not be a great city site.

The orignal black one, having an FP and Pigs gives +2 (farm FP) +4 (pigs) = 3 specialists + 2food to spare from the city center.

How much better would your "Foody" be over my purple? Wine is +1 food with the winery and IIRC + 2 commerce (or possibly only 1) not a great tile to be working. Love the :) you get from the winery... but I dont mind it beeing outside of my workable area of if it is... like the hill, to just mine it.

I would/will be aiming for an early-ish WE/Cat crush on Our neighbours :)

True - starting point is needed. I consider the only visible strategic resource I can grab the only viable starting point :)

However much I'd like to say that "nothing is set in stone", I can't see a way to move the three southern cities really. Maybe we could nitpick about moving clam-pig one west, but that's about it. They're tied to seafood. They also have very simple and clear plans that will last all the way to modern age.

I guess before I continue I must again consider some of the issues here. As said, I'm cottager, but Pericles is better suited for FE/SE, so this isn't as easy for me as some other leader would be. Before proceeding, let's review quickly the SE w/Pyramids idea:

- Food is used to hire Scientist specialists which under Representation civic provide 6 beakers and 3GPP (GS) each do the research.
- One city (generally capitol for bureaucracy multiplier) is cottaged, and slider is run on gold so that commerce (generated mainly by this one city, although trade strategies may generate more commerce) covers all expenses but is not used for research.
- Gold multipliers (Market, Grocery, Bank) are built in commerce city or cities, as well as possible shrines or other great gold sources
- Beaker multipliers (Library, University) are built in food cities that, under Caste System civic, can run several scientists to provide the research.
- Hammers are provided often by whipping, as the cities have lots of food and thus grow fast, making whipping reasonable. Additionally hammers are gained from mines, workshops, and other usual hammer tiles. Production oriented cities are still needed as usual.
- Great Scientists are used to build Academy in the highest food city (GP farm) because it'll be running most scientists, thus providing most beakers, and after that to lightbulb techs. Main focus there is the liberalism line, bulbing Philosophy, Paper, Education using 2-4 Great Scientists for this, researching the rest conventionally.

The above strategy propels a civ through Lib race to Industrial Era, but as soon as other civs gain access to Emancipation via Democracy, civic switch starts looming ahead. Times of Caste System will be over and the strategy starts to slow down.
Transition to Cottage Economy is most common choice at this point, cottaging over farms then running Emancipation to grow the cottages fast into towns. This is not absolutely necessary (eg. CE/SE comparison game with Peter of Russia had SE used all the way to space, but Peter of Russia is best equipped for this considering Russian UB) but alternatives may be hard or have special requirements.

As post-transition is running late game civics, usually US, FS, Em, FT(/SP), FR, the capitol does not need to be considered from Bureaucracy multiplier point of view anymore.

Hybrid Economy (which as the name implies, combines aspect of different economy models, mainly by having both cottage cities and specialist cities throughout the eras) is easier to transition to pure CE if need be, but has the drawback of slider having higher effect on research, thus calling for cottage cities to possibly build both gold and beaker multipliers. There's of course the ideal of "work more cottages, they're worth more than multiplier buildings" which can be considered here in the sense of still building multipliers for only gold.


From the above considerations I assume each city needs to be considered in all of "early game", "midgame", and "post-transition" roles.


So to start with the (alternative) dots again :)

Athens is I believe best suited for GP Farm throughout eras. In early game it has to fullfill the multitude of capitol burdens, but those should slowly lighten as other cities are founded and take over. I'm not considering NP yet, as that's late game wonder, but I guess remaining forests in Athens can stay as is - there's no need to improve those tiles, and I don't see need for more chopping in immediate future.

The three south coast cities:

clampig) scientists and hammers. Will never be cottaged as there's nothing to cottage.
yellow) cottages, as that's all the city can become
brown) scientists and hammers, as it's almost equal to Athens in quality. Will focus on hammers as much as possible, as that's its highest strength - it'll lose to Athens in foodrace.

As seen, their roles stay the same throughout the eras. They're pretty simple in many ways.

red) Immediate purpose is to grab horse. Best suited for cottaging (17 cottages) and thus should get palace when we get closer to Bureaucracy. It's geographically better capitol anyway.

black) Purpose is to grab jumbos for happiness and war phant troops. 8 grasses, 4 plains, grass hill, grass jumbo, pig. Lack of fresh water makes it hard to farm this city for more scientists, so we'd rely mainly on the pig and could thus run only three scientists. Alternative is 12 cottages. Post-CS irrigation is easy, from rivers south and east of the city. So... Early game: 3 scientists + pig + grass jumbo? Midgame farm the grasses and workshop the plains? Transition to cottages when Emancipation becomes necessary?

green) Without any food sources and just four flat grasses (that could eventually be farmed for food) this is a pure filler city. Improvements would be "whatever it has food to work"... Founded if I ever want to found a city for the reason of founding a city :rolleyes:
The above reason is why I would go for foody instead of pink - the tiles pink leaves available for this filler just will never be worked anyway.

Comparison of foody vs pink)
- pink is coastal (harbor -> trade benefits)
- foody has fresh water (health)
- foody tiles: pig, corn (post-CS irrigation), 5x flat grass, 7x flat plains, wine, hillwine, lake
- pink tiles: pig, corn (post-CS irrigation), 5x flat grass, 5x flat plains, grass hill, 5x coast, 1x ocean
Both have same number of flat grasses, same food resources, both have one hill (foody has plains with wine, pink has grass), foody has flatlands winery. Plains tiles are food-negative anyway, coastals are barely worth working (financials would work them for sure).
Early game: scientists, whip
Midgame: farm grasses, workshop plains, mine the hills, winery on flatlands wine -> scientists, whip
Late game: transition to cottages
It seems to me that they're roughly equal, with foody having the freshwater and winery advantages where pink has coastal advantage. Lategame foody can run more cottages (12) due to more flatland tiles.

I agree on wine being great resource but not identical tile to work. Wine adds 1c to tile, winery adds +1f +2c, so it'll become 2f 1h 3c - a reasonable tile even if not great. But as hill it'd be 1f 2h 3c - about the same as windmill. Hmm... Actually, it means maybe it should be winery and worked as that if city is commerce oriented, then windmilled over (if wine resource not required) after electricity (when windmill is otherwise equal but provides one more hammer)?

Again, white looks OK but I'll refrain from commenting until I see more. Also blue depends heavily on Sitting Bulls plans, and is later problem in any case.


Bah, I'll go play quickly to settle Sparta (new red, Horse city, my plan being cottaged capitol to provide gold from commerce in SE era) and we can continue discussing SE/FE/hybrid and dotmaps maybe with even a few more tiles shown by scout. Once it's settled it'll be carved to stone and we can only discuss how it should be improved and run, no longer where it should be founded :)

I'm starting to feel stupid posting after just 30 more turns, but I felt the dotmapping and SE/FE discussion wasn't over yet. Just wanted to settle Sparta so there's something set in stone, and also scout a bit more of the map.

Turn 75 / BC 2125

Everything as planned:
- Wheel and Masonry researched, Agriculture halfway researched
- Stone quarried and connected
- Athens started Pyramids, has warrior garrison
- Forested hill currently being directly mined east of Athens, plan is to then mine the forested plains hill and then chop another forested grass hill.
- Sparta founded, started building a warrior (for garrison)
- Warrior standing on the wine hill SE of Sparta, waiting for the settler - city spot needs to be decided (foody, pink, or other?)

Two lucky events: Black Pearls (+1 commerce to one clam tile in Athens) and Prairie Dogs (+1 commerce to one plains tile in Sparta) during this round. These tile value events seem to be very common - I think I've had Black Pearls almost every game. While Athens isn't meant to be commerce city, I'm not spitting on extra coin. The clam will be worked throughout the whole game, so that coin hit a very good tile. OTOH the plains tile Prairie Dogs were found from is not riverside and isn't exactly on top of the cottage list, so much less useful. Eventually, but not yet.

The other noteworthy happenings were meetings of Justinian and Huayna Capac, former of the two being Buddhist founder.

First, a quick peek at the continent (map rotated so South is towards right here):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_75_-_map_resources.jpg

Justinian is just north of us beyond the jungle belt, HC a bit more north but on eastern coast - pretty much directly north of Sitting Bull. I think we have all the jumbos and dyes here on this continent :)


Then the southern part of the continent - the area relevant for dotmapping:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_75_-_map_resources_south.jpg

Hmm... Should I rather have split that to two screenies so the tiles would be larger, making dotmapping easier?

I kept southern shore dots as is, kept Foody, marked alternative black as jumbopigs (grabs ivory and pig), moved white one SE, added one dot a bit north of jumbopigs on western coast (clams + ivory).

Sitting Bull has founded Poverty Point one east of the blue dot as expected.

Now let's start with new alternative white:
North of Sparta, on the riverside. Grabs three dyes, corn (not irrigated), peak, plains, 14 flat grasses, sits on grassland hill. As jungle usually is, this would make good cottage city. But it does have river and one food special, so it can also be farmed. Or watermilled. Dyes are commerce resources, so there will be some amount of commerce in any case. Clearing all that jungle will take horrendous amount of worker turns, but nothing we can do about it.

Then northern west coast city: clam, two grassland phants, one grass hill, 8 flat grasses, four coasts, three oceans, peak. Irrigation chaining possible later on from north (lake) or east (river). Doesn't really look that strong a city. The purpose would probably be just to found a city towards Justinian and to establish near-monopoly on ivory (Sitting Bull has one). And it's the way to nab the clam - and where there's SOME food there must be a city :)


Again, I measured cities in cottages. But that's because they didn't have more than one food special each, and only one had fresh water in BFC to allow for farming. Any other takes on the spots, or finding better spots for specifically SE purposes with capability to continue past Emancipation, whether using SE still or by transforming to CE?


And the list:

Strategy
No changes for now.

Early game:
- Peaceful expansion - block Sitting Bull with two cities (Sparta founded, second settler available) and then maybe expand Northwards into the jungles to block Justinian?
- Pyramids - build started, 30-40 turns maybe (Athens has just been whipped, so it's at 2 pop again and has to grow while building Pyramids)
- First war possibly with Construction - cats and phants? Target either Sitting Bull or Justinian. I think Justinian would be good to take out before Guilds, while Sitting Bull gets to slowly stagnate in tech and can easily (?) be removed later on? OTOH, Sitting Bull is in a way nearer to us - we'd get cleaner and better defined territory by grabbing his land.

Midgame:
Depending on the situation we find ourselves in, either:
A) Continue the warring to gain control of the continent, consider military options
B) Consolidate, explore to find other civs, make friends, consider diplomatic options
C) Consolidate, start working for space race, priorize economic transition post-Liberalism?

And late game will then be defined by decisions above.

Diplomacy
Who're our friends, who're our enemies?
As the plan calls for attack against Justinian and/or Sitting Bull (I'd expect eventually 'and' but maybe that'll be late middle ages / reneissance war), seems we should befriend HC. He probably will found his own religion, be that Judaism (not yet founded), Confu, Tao, or Christianity. How well Justinian spreads Buddhism before that will affect the relations a lot.

Justinian should be easy to deal with. But Sitting Bull will probably be demanding something almost all the time - very annoying. If we want to be on his good side, maybe just give him the techs and whatnot? But if it's choice between HC and SB, just send him packing and rather trade / gift HC as needed?
Assuming HC founds his own religion, he won't be friends with Justinian, and if Justinian spreads Buddhism well, SB will be on Justinians side thus against HC. This could become north + south against center, that is, me and HC against SB and Justinian.

Of course there're other continents to consider as well. I need to get fishing boat out to explore ASAP...

Techpath

- Agriculture -> Pottery -> Writing
This gives us granaries and libraries, allows us to build cottages to Sparta.

But after that?
- Sailing: maybe half our cities will be coastal, but of the first three only one (Athens). Certainly Lightouse in Athens would be nice, but it's not necessary for now. Maybe later?
- Iron Working: we don't see any metals yet, and we expect to expand north into the jungle after Pyramids. Quite important it seems.
- Mathematics: One step from Construction, albeit Warphants apparently require HBR too these days so we would need to get that while building cats. And I think we need Currency and/or CoL before we can expand really. Math leads to Currency too, so this looks fine.
- Alphabet: Tech trading. We could then trade Alpha for IW and Math, maybe? Also leads to Currency and thus CoL too.

- Currency, CoL - Allow us to expand past early game limits
- Construction, Horseback Riding - Allow for Cats and War Elephants, leading to war

What would the research path be? I'm leaning a bit on Alpha -> trade for Math + IW -> Currency (trade for Construction as soon as possible) -> CoL to enable economy while trading the other side of the coin. Alpha is more expensive than Math or IW and thus can be traded for either, and again Currency is a bit more expensive than Construction with AI favouring research of Construction over Currency. Oh yes - Construction will bring us Odeons - more happiness. Should we prioritize this instead of Currency for the reason?

Cities

Athens
Pyramids will keep Athens busy for a while. We'll be way past Writing before the mids are up, but when that happens we also gain three happiness by switch to representation, allowing us to grow even more... What will Athens do then? Library, then settlers to continue expansion but run two scientists all the time? Aqueduct and Hanging Gardens when available?

Sparta
1) Warrior (being built)
2) Worker (2pop whip ASAP)
3) Barracks
4) Chariots (total force probably 4-6 to fogbust and handle barbs)
- Whip Granary at suitable moment

As Sparta will get cottages, and we expect to keep slider geared to gold instead of beakers, Sparta shouldn't need library? Just slowly build units (and workers as needed), then Market, Courthouse, and Palace? Run Merchants if excess food while working cottages?

Corinth
Not yet founded. Pink or foody - or other spot suited for blocking the peninsula from Sitting Bull.
1) Barracks
2) Chariots (see Sparta above)
3) Library - and start running scientists while slowly building units and workers as needed?
- Whip Granary at suitable moment
- Courthouse when available


Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/elandal_BC-2125_-_2nd_Settler_now_ready.CivBeyondSwordSave)

Wow that is quite a post you made....

Seems to me my 2nd dotmap still works tho...
Having the white city on that (salt) lake makes it able to build a harbor and get more early commerce thru that harbor and the traderoute(s). Course the new spot gives it more long term potential.

It is too bad we dont have a FE specialist in this thread, but FE seems to want Caste system & Whipping??? Which excludes eachother.... so if you are aiming for 2 scientists in each city you only need 1 resource to bring atleast +3 food. Together with the 2 from your CC gives you 2 specialists and +1 food. Another (grassland) Farm makes it +2 food again.

Sparta
I would farm one of those FPs for even better growth (total of +6 food working the 3 FPs) and flexibility. More growth = more whip = more production and working the horses makes for 5 hammers/turn = chariot every 9 turns (+whipping) Not great not bad...

Corinth
Pink vs Foody.
I think Pink + green > Foody alone, which is why I would opt to found Pink if SB allows you to. Offcourse you could take a risk and settle the cheap city south of athens first
1) Good productive city which you are going to need to fight barbs
2) cheap = More research money
3) Easier to defend a smaller border from the barbs instead of the long streachy one. (even with chariots)

Neither pink of foody gets a barracks or starts building any units (IMHO) it has ++Food = Specialist city => Goal of this game right?
Lib, Market, Temples, Odeon, more than enough places to send your (few?) hammers while running specialists.

Sparta:
If I aim this to be my bureaucratic capitol, then the best tiles for cottages (floodplains) should obviously be cottaged.

White:
I moved it 1SE to trade five coastal tiles for five grasslands. This would also close the one-row gap of grassland between white and Sparta. Sure I like harbors, but I feel five grasses is even better.

Pink vs Foody:
I've dismissed the central area of the peninsula as "uninhabitable lands". Green is just too fillery city for my tastes. Thus, it's pink vs foody, not pink + green vs foody :)

I don't really want to risk SB settling my peninsula, so I'd rather found Foody first.

Builds of Corinth:
Can I afford to not build units there? It'd be down to only Sparta then. Other builds it could start with is Granary, and I think we should have Writing before that's done so Library. That'd be nice for specialist route, but I feel it's too much of a gamble - Athens isn't building units and Sparta is doing that a bit slowly.
I could of course start with Granary, waiting until Corinth is connected to trade network, then train a chariot or few without barracks, then move to Library. Hmm... This sounds like a good plan actually :)

Also as Corinth is a specialist city, it will need Market, Odeon, etc. only if it needs the happiness. It needs beaker multipliers and enough happiness & health to reach designated size.


I'm thinking about the next milestone for the game here. Before the Sparta settling post I had assumed I'll post after Writing to discuss research path further, but that's again just 30 (or not even that) more turns so blah.
Techwise it'd mean I'll followup with Alpha after Writing, and will then stop to discuss eg. trading and research path.

getting pyramids before you have less than 3 cities would seem like worse than foolish...

getting pyramids before you have less than 3 cities would seem like worse than foolish...

Explain? Athens built two settlers, you mean I should've expanded more before going for Pyramids? Second settler has just been finished, so I can easily switch back to training third settler before moving to Pyramids. Which cities should I settle before Pyramids still?

I thought a bit about how to continue settling pre-Pyramids. There seem to be three possible city sites that to consider for immediate settling:
- Jumbopigs just north of Athens. While jungle covers half the BFC of the city, it can get pigs and grass hill still. And camp can be built without removing the jungle, giving us access to a precious luxury resource.
- Clampigs just south of Athens. This is close by and fastest to get to productive status.
- Production city in the SE corned of the peninsula. This is farthest of the sites I consider, but the location is excellent so the earlier I can found it the better.

Fiscally fourth city will be OK, and fifth would be highest I'd go before getting economy to better shape. As I'm a bit unsure about how long I can postpone Pyramids and still be certain to get them, I think just fourth city is enough for now.

As I noted in an earlier post, Athens has just been whipped (the settler that is going to found Corinth at foody I believe). It's down to 2 pop, so it has to grow before building yet another settler. I could of course train a warrior to garrison the new city in this time, and the worker could pasture the pigs. Also, this is the only worker in the area, so I can either chop Pyramids or bring the fourth city up to productive status - not both.

Ideas? Fourth city? Or more? Should I train workers too now? When will the Pyramids window close?

I havent got a clue...

The thing is your city is food rich, hammer poor-ish (for the moment). Growing is needed, preferably > pop 5. Which means lux or HR.... or heavy whipping.... I whipped till my hands bleed, whipping out settlers and granary and Library. Offcourse I mined the Pigs as IMHO you have way to much food allready to grow way to fast and you dont need the +3 from the pasture for the moment, a lighthouse (whipped) will give you +2 without sacrificing the 2 hammers/turn for the pig hill.

SE is supposed to be able to be done without the mids, so if this is your (and mine) christening for SE, might as well go without it? I did build it dont remember the date tho (have to look it up), working the mines while growing. A library is a good whip, as is a Barracks or even a settler. Grow Athens to size 5 (right at 1 turn before growing to 6 and 1 unhappy) put a couple of turns into production of the settler (make sure to stay over 90 hammers needed), remember food builds settlers too. Then grow to 6 whip for 3, and get > 45 hammer overflow to the mids, which doubles due to the stone = 1/8 th of the mids done.

Library has double production speed, so stay over 90 hammers needed, whip for 2 and again 40 or more overflow to the mids. But I think you have to get started pretty soon now.... Or hope HC builds it for you and go and capture it on the other side of the continent.

Also IMHO when a warrior takes the same time as a worker, the worker allways comes first (if you need one that is and boy.... do you need one) Get Sparta to build a worker (atleast) for itself, you could also finish it by whipping 1 now that it is at size 2.

do you have a starting save? this one looks fun, so I'd like to play a shadow running a CE from the start.

Luxuries I can see on the map for now are:
- wine (within my dotmapped empire)
- ivory (same)
- dye (same)
- spice (close by - trade from Sitting Bull or take them from him)
- gold (north - Justinian has at least one)

If I settle jumbopigs I get ivory. If I go for Monarchy after Alphabet (trading for Math + IW) I get HR and Wine. This would allow city size of 7 (8 for capitol) with the one garrison unit all cities need anyway, and reasonably 1-3 more pop for some cities. But as I still plan on building Pyramids, this means Representation instead of HR, and thus 3 :) for 6 cities or size 8(9) with just ivory.

Only ivory can be gained before mids though.

Regarding whipping: when I have mines online in Athens so I can stagnate working high hammer tiles, whipping for 2pop isn't reasonable anymore, but 3pop still is - eg. Library or well planned settler whip can thus be done. Pasturing pigs will give me a tile with same amount of food as clams with lighthouse, but a hammer instead of second coin. Calculating the optimal tiles worked is getting tedious as this will be a close call :) But I could indeed whip overflow to mids and get 3rd settler and one more worker, then granary (when pottery is researched) and library (again when writing comes) that way. This means mids will be slightly delayed but I'll get the infra down in that time.

Sparta is soon at size 3 and will then build worker for itself. I'll whip it (1pop immediately when possible so without overflow), then build barracks and whip them with overflow to chariot. I hope I've counted worker turns and build times right so it'll work this way :) Sparta doesn't have time to build second worker, as I want those chariots up really - I've had barb trouble in a couple of games recently as I didn't get BarbWatch Corps up early enough. So the only cities that can build more workers are Athens and Thebes (4th city).

And so, to the 4th city.. I guess I'll build one south of Athens for the nearness factor unless someone argues for another location instead.

SE without mids is playing with GPP and lightbulbs. Without those, it can't compete with CE even in early game when it comes to beakers, but it is more flexible and competes in other ways. I'll go for rep-SE instead, and will go for FE/lightbulb economy another time when I have no stone to play with.

@tycoonist: Starting save is in the first post.

sorry elandal, got it now

Only ivory can be gained before mids though. This is what I am saying...

Regarding whipping:
At low pops even without a granary stagnating a city and not whipping it is a bad idea...When whipping at size 4 for 2 pop you get a food:hammer conversion of 1.2, where you get a conversion rate of 1 when you switch the clams for a grass mine.

If you have a granary this more than doubles to slightly higher than 2.4. i.e. Every 10 food (stored in population) is translated roughly into 24 hammers.

Furthermore you are ignoring the benifite of i.e. a barracks whip for 2 where the barracks is only 75 hammers and the 2 pop whip (allways after 1 turn of production!) will yield 90 hammers.

55 turns until planned milestone of Alphabet - decided to play them now without waiting for more opinions on city sites or alike.

Turn 130 / BC 750

I didn't have a detailed plan for this turnset like I did for the last, so can't say "Everything as planned". Quick summary:
- The settler completed in the last turn of previous turnset went ahead and founded Corinth at foody. Didn't really have many build options, so started on Barracks. One turn to having chariot now.
- Another settler whipped (for 3pop) in Athens, founded Thebes south of Athens. Thebes borrowed the plains hill from Athens to build a workboat, then gave it back and started slowly building a warrior for garrison.
- Sparta got warrior built for garrison, whipped worker which pastured and connected horse, then whipped barracks and chariot from the overflow. Built granary while growing, and is now ready to whip it (chariot from overflow again I think)
- Athens got Granary, Library, and Pyramids. We're now running Representation.

Techpath: Agriculture completed, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet.

HC got Alphabet before us:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_104_-_HC_has_Alphabet.jpg

And while I didn't notice when, Sitting Bull got that also before us. The turn before I had Alphabet Justinian was the only one lacking it, and now that I got it he too has it. Ominously HC has IW which he can't trade, so I suspect Justinian got it in trade.

Our technology trading isn't working as I had planned:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_130_-_tech_trade_screen.jpg

A look at our continent (less some northern tundra - there were too many barb warriors for my scout to map that area):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_130_-_map.jpg

and with resources:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_130_-_map_resources.jpg

The maps have again been rotated so that south is right. And no, I still don't have workboat out exploring :(


Based on Justinian's last city I think we need to found cities into the jungle fast to get them. Jumbopigs should be next, then ivoryclam and dyecorn. Any comments on locations - use marked ones or shuffle them around?

Now, we don't have anything at all to trade with. To be able to trade, we need some bargaining chip here. Self-research math and trade that for IW then?

So the plan?

Strategy
- Peaceful expansion, found planned cities (5 sites left) ASAP. Running representation we can afford to crash our economy in the short term.
- Explore the waters. There are islands or continents very close, and we need to find more partners for our dance.
- First war possibly with Construction - cats and phants? Target either Sitting Bull or Justinian. I think Justinian would be good to take out before Guilds, while Sitting Bull gets to slowly stagnate in tech and can easily (?) be removed later on? OTOH, Sitting Bull is in a way nearer to us - we'd get cleaner and better defined territory by grabbing his land. Then again, Constantinople is holy city with Stonehenge, so it'll have Shrine before that.

Midgame:
Depending on the situation we find ourselves in, either:
A) Continue the warring to gain control of the continent, consider military options
B) Consolidate, explore to find other civs, make friends, consider diplomatic options
C) Consolidate, start working for space race, priorize economic transition post-Liberalism?

And late game will then be defined by decisions above.

Yes, there was some copypaste above :) But hey, how much has the strategy really changed?

Diplomacy
HC didn't found Judaism, and Buddhism hasn't spread to us yet. Sitting Bull has converted though. I'm hoping it'll be HC and me against Justinian and Sitting Bull though, and will consider this in diplomacy.

Techpath
- Math -> trade for IW -> build Aqueduct and Hanging Gardens in Athens
- Currency -> trade for Construction and whatever else we can glean out of it
- Sailing, Horseback Riding, Construction, Code of Laws - what we can't get in trades we must self-research

The above set would allow our economy to recover and would give us access to Catapults and War Elephants. Also we could clear the jungle and would see where Iron is - if anywhere.

- Meditation, Priesthood, Monotheism - once we get religion it'd be nice to get temples for happiness, monasteries to boost research, and Organized Religion to boost infra builds. Meditation is required for Philosophy as well.


Cities

Athens
Currently building workboat while growing. As soon as reaches happy cap, start running scientists and build settlers settlers and more settlers.
When we get Math, build Aqueduct and Hanging Gardens.

Sparta
Granary should be whipped this turn, with overflow getting us one more Chariot. After that, Sparta can settle on slowly building chariots.
Sparta needs almost a hundred worker turns to get enough cottages to work...

Corinth
Chariot completes now, continue by whipping Granary (to support more whipping) then Library. Chariots with overflow.
Pigs pastured, corn soon farmed. Mining the winehill is still needed, but after that Corinth will do just fine. The worker from there can go build cottages for Sparta then?
When library is ready, Corinth will run two scientists until further notice - or until Caste System when it can run more of them :)

Thebes
Garrison warrior ready in two turns. Then whip granary, library, barracks - maybe two workboats for exploration using the overflow from whips?
When library is up, run two scientists, work the hills for hammers (yes - there's food to do both of those). Build units and workers?


Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/elandal_BC-0750_-_Alphabet.CivBeyondSwordSave)

I dont see anything that would lead me to move cities...

31 more turns :)

Turn 161 / BC 185

This turnset went roughly as planned.

One very nice event occurred: my melee units are now equipped with tower shields - all melee units get free Cover promotion.

I started by slipping Mysticism in before Math. Weedy probably, but wanted to see if Meditation or Polytheism was tradeable.

Athens built two workboats growing to maximum size. After that it had time to train two settlers and start on third. I didn't whip it, as it has very good tiles to work.

Other cities worked as planned: granaries, chariots, one workboat from Thebes to complement the one from Athens so I got two of them exploring. Started cities on workers too, and got two built during the turnset. I need more workers still.

Justinian built The Mahabodhi. Constantinople would be nice city to take..

Met Frederick soon, and immediately traded Writing for Archery. First contact trades give diplomatic bonus afterall. Traded Alphabet to him on same turn for IW - everyone else had Alpha anyway.

Founded Argos (jumbopigs). During this turnset a worker got it connected and is going to camp the elephants - that'll be the first improved tile but I want empire wide luxury first and will only after that consider Argos' food.

As I got Math, I noticed it didn't have the value I had hoped for. Justinian wasn't giving anything at all for it, but I traded it to Freddy for Sailing and Meditation. Sitting Bull was the only one who didn't have it then.

Oracle was built in a distant land.

My first Great Scientist was born in Corinth. After thinking a while I ended up building Academy in Athens, as I expect Athens to run lots of scientists once I have Caste System.

I founded Knossos (moved white), and Justinians settler party has to find another place - they missed the spot barely.

I met Napoleon. Honestly, world would be better off without him... I hope he's somewhere mired in wars so he won't be too much pain in this game. He was annoyed from the start, as I had traded with his worst enemy. Whatever - Napoleon just isn't worth keeping as a friend if there's any choice.

When I got Currency (at the end of the turnset) I finally traded Math to Sitting Bull for Priesthood and his meager treasury.

A quick look at what my workboats have seen:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_161_-_map_of_newly_explored_areas.jpg

Not much of a map. Better ones when there are better ones..

As I now have Currency, technology trading is of great interest:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/turn_161_-_tech_trade_screen.jpg

The only interesting trade I see is Monarchy from Justinian, maybe Polytheism along with it.
HC is the only one with Construction so far. I hope someone else gets it too - HC is OK trading partner but only Mansa trades monopoly techs still.
Sitting Bull has Code of Laws. I doubt anyone else will research it soon as the religion is gone, so I'll have to self-research it. That was planned though, so it's OK.
Napoleon has HBR, but I doubt he will have much to do with me. I guess I'll have to self-research that.


Oh yes, I got Iron Working during this turnset, so new development in strategic resources has indeed occurred. No, I don't have iron within my boundaries yet, but there's one at the spot where production city is to be founded. Which is the task for next settler due in three turns. Justinian has copper, Sitting Bull has iron, HC has both. Assuming all have connected their resources. I have the only horses on the continent.

And next the plan again:

Strategy
- Peaceful expansion, found planned cities (2 sites left assuming Justinian founds clam-ivory or around the area) ASAP. Running representation we can afford to crash our economy in the short term.
- Explore the waters. There are islands or continents very close, and we need to find more partners for our dance.
- First war possibly with Construction - cats and phants? Target either Sitting Bull or Justinian. I think Justinian would be good to take out before Guilds, while Sitting Bull gets to slowly stagnate in tech and can easily (?) be removed later on? OTOH, Sitting Bull is in a way nearer to us - we'd get cleaner and better defined territory by grabbing his land. Then again, Constantinople is holy city with Stonehenge, so it'll have Shrine before that.

Midgame:
Depending on the situation we find ourselves in, either:
A) Continue the warring to gain control of the continent, consider military options
B) Consolidate, explore to find other civs, make friends, consider diplomatic options
C) Consolidate, start working for space race, priorize economic transition post-Liberalism?

And late game will then be defined by decisions above.

Yes, there was some copypaste above :) But hey, how much has the strategy really changed?

Diplomacy
Sitting Bull founded Confucianism in Powerty Point but hasn't converted yet. Buddhism has spread to HC and Frederick, both of which have converted. Buddhism has spread to Corinth, so I could convert as well. Assuming Sitting Bull switches to Confu, I could take him out without diplo problems. Otherwise I will just have to suffer the "you attacked our friend" penalty, in which case I will rather go for Justinian.

Techpath
1) Code of Laws
2) Construction
3) Horseback Riding

I hope I can trade for Construction, but the other two I'll have to self-research.
Given all that and the last two cities, I can build swords, war elephants and catapults, with swords having free Cover promotion. Add some axes as stack protectors and it'll be a fine stack.

Next GS will bulb Philosophy I believe, but it'll be a while before I get to Liberalism path. In case I get GE, I'll look at wonders I'd want :)

Cities

Athens
One settler in three turns, then one more. After that Aqueduct and Hanging Gardens - if still available.
Scientists.

Sparta
Market, workers, units.

Corinth
Maybe I should convert to Buddhism and spread it? In that case Corinth will have to train missionaries. So Temple for happiness and Monastery for missionaries?
Scientists.

Thebes
Barracks, workers, units.
Scientists.

Argos
Granary, Barracks, units?

Knossos
Granary, Barracks, units?

New cities starting from Argos lack good tiles and all infra. As I'm planning on war soon, they won't have time for more than granary + barracks.

Mycenae
To Be Founded - the production city. As with Argos and Knossos?

Pharsalos
Crab + cottages. Will simply build infra, there won't be hammers nor food to whip units.

Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/102906/elandal_BC-0185_-_Priest_traded_.CivBeyondSwordSave)

With all them settlers and no whipping, how are the mids comming?

Pyramids were completed in last turnset already - been running representation for all of this turnset.

Why don't you move your southern cottage city 1 east? You can still work the crabs, although you'll need another city to build the workboat. You will trade some overlap with another planned city for overlap with your production city, which will allow them to trade off working the pigs and corn and allow both to be working the cottaged plains (so when your cottage city is growing another spot, your production city can grow that one).

Athens may want to consider building the Moai statues for the permanent production bonus.

You have the pyramids, so monarchy only offers you (at this time) access to wine. I don't think it's enough incentive to give up currency early for that.

Techs:
You really need COL for courthouses and Construction for catapults. HBR you can pick up later, unless you really feel you need horseback riders and stables.

Workboat is not a problem, but without lighthouse the crab will be one less food and the other coastal tiles useless, and the city can't then build harbor or customs house (for added trade income). Gain doesn't seem big, and I think food situation ends up so that this city becomes dependant on getting the pig or corn permanently.

HBR is needed for War Elephants, and I have ivory.