BtS SGOTM 09 - Back to the Future
Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 9 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

The Game
This is the second Beyond the Sword SGOTM. Thanks, Gyathaar :thumbsup:

You are Pericles of Greece. You have travelled back to 4000 BC, but you took with you a knowledge of several modern technologies. Your task is now to return to the modern era as fast as possible, and to reach for the stars.

This is a Quick speed, Monarch difficulty game on a Standard sized mystery map. There are no goody huts, no events and no city razing.

Pericles is Philosophical and Creative. The Phalanx is your unique unit, replacing the Axeman; and the Odeon unique building replaces the Colosseum. As well as your usual starting techs, Hunting and Fishing, you brought with you a comprehensive library of text books.

The Objective
All victory conditions are enabled, but laurels will be awarded to teams with the quickest Space victories.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.17, using HoF Mod 3.17.001 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php#bts_download).

If a later BtS patch is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in version 3.17 before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.

As there is no Mac version of BtS, Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows version on their system.

Schedule

The Team threads will open shortly.
The start files will be published here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) on Friday, March 27.
The latest Save for your team will be linked on the Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) throughout the game.
Please plan to complete the game within three months of the start date.
NOTE: Barring unforeseen disasters there will be a four month final deadline.
I shall declare winners and losers from those teams that have finished on July 27, 2009.

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

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm09_start_small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm09_start.jpg)

Map Parameters

Playable Leader/Civ - Pericles of the Greek Empire.
Characteristics - Philosophical and Creative, starts with Hunting and Fishing
You and all the AI also know Fascism, Scientific Method, Physics, Medicine, Flight, Machinery, Replaceable Parts and Superconductors
Unique Unit - Phalanx (Axeman)
Unique Building - Odeon (Colosseum)
Difficulty - Monarch
Game Speed - Quick (330 turns)
World size - Standard
Rivals - Probably
Landform - Mystery
Environment - Not saying
Other settings - No city razing, No goodie huts, No events

Notes

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

Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the teams with the fastest Spaceship victories, and the Wooden Spoons for the finishing team with the lowest final score.

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

Enjoy your game, and the best of luck :)

Reserved for Future Use

:wavey: Welcome back XTeam for SGOTM09.

Special Welcome to PaulisKhan and Grover22. If you would like, please take a moment to introduce yourselves. :salute:

Please do not feel as though you have to spell out my handle, leif or le will do fine. We'll find a suitable abbreviation for you as well. :mischief:

Please check in and let's get ready for another great game! :thumbsup:

Haven't had a chance to play the practice game SCT provided. Any insights. ;)

EDIT - Forgot to tell you that I am going to be out for a few days, more or less.
I have an all day meeting on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon I leave to take my son to visit a college which has accepted him. I will return late on Monday evening. Hopefully, I can keep up with things a bit. I will probably have 15 pages of posts to read through drooping eyes... :p

Checkin in.

War's tough with crossbows from the start. That's what I found out from the practice game.

Does anyone know how to make a game with the techs added? I tried to do an advance start in worldbuilder but couldn't figure it out.

[edit] We probably need to game out some practices with different start strategies before starting the actual game.

Checkin in.
Welcome back rrau. Hope you are well. :)

Does anyone know how to make a game with the techs added? I tried to do an advance start in worldbuilder but couldn't figure it out.
I think I may be able to do this. I'll have to have a look in WorldBuilder. I'm getting better with it... :mischief:

If not tomorrow evening, then early next week. :please:
Unless someone beats me to it.

OK, thanks. No rush, though. I need to work all day tomorrow then do chores around the house on Sunday.

Gator checking in. Welcome to our new players.

I've played SCT's practice game partway thru, but it was enough to see that starting with those modern era techs changes several things.

1) Great Library, Parthenon & Temple of Artemis are obsolete from the start of the game, as are monasteries, since we already know Scientific Methods.

2) Great Scientist tech preference path is "altered" from a normal game, again because we already know later era techs.

3) I started a new game which copied over my autosave files before I remembered to move them so I'm going from memeory here. But if we rush towards Liberalism, then techs like Electricity and Genetics are available as freebies. With the proper setup and if we know what our tech lead is we could setup even better choices.

4) We're a CS sling away from maces since we start with Machinery.

OK, thanks. No rush, though. I need to work all day tomorrow then do chores around the house on Sunday.
I just booted up SCT's save and now I am confused about what you are looking for? :crazyeye:

Are you looking for a save other than SCT's? Or can we use the one he created to game the opening? :confused:

EDIT - I just realized that the worst part of this game is listening to that depressing, modern era, music for all our turn sets. :cry:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for taking me aboard. I'm looking forward to this. I hope to learn a lot here.

I did play around with SCT's save a bit. The two corn farms pumped out six food almost right from the get-go, and it took more or less constant monitoring to avoid growing into unhappiness. With the bountiful food it was easy to crank out an army of workers to terraform the land. I wound up building lumber mills in the forests along the river (because those mills add a commerce in addition to the hammer), and forest preserves for extra happies in many of the other forests. My capital got up to size nine (I think) without a religion or the odeon or happiness resources, just from the forest preserves. There were enough non-river forests around that I probably could have pushed it higher.

The super corn tiles also made it easy to push out settlers fast. I founded three other cities pretty quickly, targeted BW and construction, built phalanxes and a few spears until cats were available, and then cats after that. I didn't think of researching iron for xbows.

Anyway, I plowed into Sury with my army and took three cities (including his capital) from him without too many losses. He'd hit me with airships every turn, but they didn't do too much damage. He was smart and moved the airships out of cities the turn before I took them. I think if I had to do it again, I'd have waited until I was sure I could take a city in a single turn rather than weaken it in one turn and polish it off the next. A couple times I got cities down to two barely-conscious defenders on one turn and finished them off the next, but the airships escaped in between.

My attack petered out on city number four. I sacrificed some cats and got no return from it, basically, and Sury brought up enough reinforcements that I wasn't going to make any more progress.

Maces and xbows were probably the way to go. :)

Grover

Anyway, I plowed into Sury with my army and took three cities (including his capital) from him without too many losses.
You should have no trouble fitting in here at all! :hammer:
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Checking in.

I had a few goes at my practice save. A couple of observations I had:

1. Windmills and watermills are strong improvements. Environmentalism makes grass windmills 2f2h3c, and electricity adds one more commerce. Grass watermills are 2f2h1c, and electricity adds 2 commerce. Getting electricity with the Oracle would be a strong play, because we could do it with very few prereqs. The extra commerce would make self-researching CS quite fast, and we'd have a big tech in our pocket that we could trade for a lot later. The CS-sling here is high risk with perhaps less reward.

2. Forest preserves give 1 happiness to any city in whose BFC they lie. So building cities with forests in their overlap is a good way to have high happy caps all around.

3. We have techs Flight, Fascism, and RepParts. That means a beeline to Gunpowder-Rifling let's us build paratroopers. PTs are strength 24, and can move faster into enemy territory than mounted units. A paratrooper-airship war in the early ADs should make quick work of anyone left on our continent. I'm half expecting some kind of barrier where paratroopers are necessary, a la GOTM39. A couple of well placed airports will also give much needed troop speed.

Nice work. :goodjob:

While we need to have a look at the map, wonder if we can make that hammer economy work for us. Gyathaar chose techs wisely and left us having to find our way to Assembly Line. :rolleyes:

As watermills and windmills are strong, then perhaps we should plot a quick course towards Assembly Line? I suppose that depends also upon the lay of the land?

Where to move the Scout? North looks like coast, as does east. A coastal capital would allow us The Great Lighthouse for a commerce boost. Think there will be more water about? :mischief:
Pyramids might be nice too, although how effective are Wonder in Quick? Great Engineers might be useful?

EDIT - What can we convert into beakers quickly? :hmm:
Off to :sleep:

Hi everyone, thanks for having me on board.

I'm Paul from New Zealand, Pauliskhan is the gaming tag that I adopted first for Civ I (mongol much), which has remained with me for every online or strategy game I've played since then.
In the intervening years people have referred to me variously as Paulis, Pauli or PK but you can make up your own minds as I'll answer to anything.

It could be fairly said that Civ is where I first got into gaming.
I've played every version of civ since the first, including all expansions and enjoyed them all immensely.
I initially struggled with the economic aspects of Civ IV and so for a long time my games were almost exclusively based around conquest rushes, eventually though even war starts to feel stale and a desire to participate in a BotM saw me get my first space victory in at least a year.
Appreciating the complexity and variety of strategies that could be implemented to play a game from start to finish through virtually every tech in the tree I decided to start participating in the HoF games as well.
I eventually achieved a first placed space game at every difficulty, although not always the best over all mapsizes and even managed to knock Ironhead off the deity table for a fleeting moment (since then a few games have been knocked down to number two or worse) .
I still spend a lot of time playing or strategising for space games, however the neccessity of taking larger risks to improve on some of the better finish dates means that failure is starting to enter my vocabulary on an increasingly frequent basis.

I have little experience with SGOTMS and risk analysis is a major flaw in my play that I make no attempt to hide. Too much time playing HoF means that I'm quite willing to launch a 50/50 rush where failure simply means regenerating a new map and trying again.
Such a thing is not an option here and so I will be expecting heavy input on my turnsets, possibly above and beyond what you might wish to provide :P

I do not play quick speed at all, this will be an entirely new experience to me. Perhaps the only thing I can bring to the team is some firsthand experience of what NOT to do in a competitive space race.
I am currently participating in a SG with Obselete, Snaaty, Dirk, Sleepless and Auron in an attempt to get used to criticism, and to get some practice with screenshots, turnsets and strategy debate.
If at any point you become unhappy with my contribution to the team then please don't hesitate to scold me, I appreciate that this is very much all of your team and I'm here on a working guest visa.
I'll do my best to contribute effectively and positively.

Good luck to all, let's have some fun =)

ok housekeeping done with - to business, I had trouble playing Shannons save.
The UI was not visible for me, although I could play from memorised shortcut commands this is probably not going to be optimal.
I have successfuly been downloading other HoF save games to open up and check, as well as picking up the SG save game I'm currently involved in.

Any suggestions?

PK,

I had the same problem or a similar one with the user interface. I found that if I minimized the screen with alt-tab and then switched back to it, the UI came up.

Alt-I (I think that was the command) to toggle the user interface did nothing until after the alt-tab minimization procedure. After that, Alt-I worked normally.

Cheers,

Grover

1. Windmills and watermills are strong improvements. Environmentalism makes grass windmills 2f2h3c, and electricity adds one more commerce. Grass watermills are 2f2h1c, and electricity adds 2 commerce. Getting electricity with the Oracle would be a strong play, because we could do it with very few prereqs. The extra commerce would make self-researching CS quite fast, and we'd have a big tech in our pocket that we could trade for a lot later. The CS-sling here is high risk with perhaps less reward.


I missed the Oracle in my one shot at the practice game, but still self researched CS in 13 turns aided by an Academy from the 1st GS. Taking Electricity from the Oracle would open up Radio and Fission as options for the Liberalism free tech.

Before we get to the real game I think it would be good if SCT or Fred could detail how the "hammer research" process that one of the other teams used effectively in the last SGOTM works. In general we should have a startegy from the start of what key techs are required to get to the max research level. So even though Radio may be available for free from Liberalism there maybe a better tech that will speed us to Corporations and Assembly Lines faster.

PK,

I had the same problem or a similar one with the user interface. I found that if I minimized the screen with alt-tab and then switched back to it, the UI came up.

Alt-I (I think that was the command) to toggle the user interface did nothing until after the alt-tab minimization procedure. After that, Alt-I worked normally.

Cheers,

Grover

One of the keyboard references I have indicates that Alt-I removes the interface, while Ctrl-I minimizes the interface.

Welcome to the new and old members :)

I have played a little with the test save, but only the opening moves until 2nd or 3rd city is founded.


1. Windmills and watermills are strong improvements. Environmentalism makes grass windmills 2f2h3c, and electricity adds one more commerce. Grass watermills are 2f2h1c, and electricity adds 2 commerce.

The early availability of these improvements is probably the most important aspect of this game. When a hill can be improved to yield 2f+2h+4c=8 it's almost as powerful as a resource tile. I think it will shift the balance in favor of more aggressive REX i.e. building more cities than usual early on.

Getting electricity with the Oracle would be a strong play, because we could do it with very few prereqs. The extra commerce would make self-researching CS quite fast, and we'd have a big tech in our pocket that we could trade for a lot later. The CS-sling here is high risk with perhaps less reward.

I have also arrived at the conclusion that the Electricity sling is better than CS sling. It's hard to pass up the chance to get such an expensive tech (almost 6 times as expensive as CS) and even though CS is more useful we can get it quite fast through self research or by bulbing with a GM.

2. Forest preserves give 1 happiness to any city in whose BFC they lie. So building cities with forests in their overlap is a good way to have high happy caps all around.


Yes, I also saw this. A forest preserve will give a happy face to multiple cities if it's placed in the fat cross of all the cities considered. I think we should be very conservative about chopping forests in the fat cross because it will be better in the long run to keep a higher happy cap

Before we get to the real game I think it would be good if SCT or Fred could detail how the "hammer research" process that one of the other teams used effectively in the last SGOTM works. In general we should have a startegy from the start of what key techs are required to get to the max research level.

Maybe PaulisKhan can explain the details. I suppose it has been discussed in the HOF. Dynamic wrote that he used it for his Space Race games.

What has happened in BtS is that the hammer to beaker conversion ratio is changed from 3:1 to 1:1. This means that in the late phase of a game you will often get more beakers for your hammers when building science directly rather than building infrastructure in your cities or units.

In a Space Game your main priority should be to maximize the beaker output and every single build should be considered with this in mind. So the tough decisions will be judging when to build settlers/workers for peaceful expansion, when to build infrastructure/Wonders for beaker multipliers, increased growth, etc, when to build units for military expansion and when to build science/commerce.

A good example of the dilemma in the early game is the Pyramids vs REX. With a philosophical leader it seems natural to go for a specialist economy and Representation for the extra beakers. This may conflict with the desire to expand fast and keep many forests for extra happiness. So which way is best...?

As watermills and windmills are strong, then perhaps we should plot a quick course towards Assembly Line? I suppose that depends also upon the lay of the land?

That's still a long way away but getting AL with Liberalism might be a goos goal.

Where to move the Scout? North looks like coast, as does east. A coastal capital would allow us The Great Lighthouse for a commerce boost. Think there will be more water about? :mischief:

Unless there's something spectacular to the north, I think a inland capital is stronger. If we move the settler south, we might find more hills or riversides for windmills and watermills. A city placed on the north coast later could share the capital's corn and serve as a GP farm. I've been settling my capital 1 south of the settler.

Pyramids might be nice too, although how effective are Wonder in Quick? Great Engineers might be useful?

Wonders work the same at all speeds. With the strength of watermills and windmills, it looks to me like a full-blown specialist economy is ill-advised. We can run a couple scientists in each city as they reach their happy caps. With a Philo leader, spreading specialists around gives good GP production. Maybe if we find some stone, we can gift it to a nearby AI and let them build Mids for us to conquer.

What has happened in BtS is that the hammer to beaker conversion ratio is changed from 3:1 to 1:1. This means that in the late phase of a game you will often get more beakers for your hammers when building science directly rather than building infrastructure in your cities or units.

Coming up with a decision rule would be a fun exercise for me. I would guess that it's not possible to get both bonus multipliers for the hammers and the research applied together, though.

I can imagine four cases:

Case A (neither bonus)
raw hammers ==> actual beakers

Case B (research bonus)
raw hammers ==> raw beakers
those raw beakers * research multiplier ==> actual beakers

Case C (production bonus)
raw hammers * production multiplier ==> actual hammers
those actual hammers ==> actual beakers

Case D (both bonuses)
raw hammers * production multiplier ==> actual hammers
those actual hammers ==> raw beakers
those raw beakers * research multiplier ==> actual beakers

Does anyone know offhand which case it is?

Grover

case C is the correct one

Before we get to the real game I think it would be good if SCT or Fred could detail how the "hammer research" process that one of the other teams used effectively in the last SGOTM works. In general we should have a startegy from the start of what key techs are required to get to the max research level. So even though Radio may be available for free from Liberalism there maybe a better tech that will speed us to Corporations and Assembly Lines faster.

As Fred said, hammer research turns hammers into beakers or gold at a 1:1 ratio. When a city builds wealth (available with Currency) or research (available with Alphabet), the hammers receive the hammer bonuses from forges, factories, plants, Ironworks, Bureaucracy, and State Property. Beaker bonuses and gold bonuses do nothing. So a city with a lot of workshops, mines, lumbermills, and watermills (and Mining Inc) can produce a lot of beakers or gold by building hammer multipliers buildings.

The question of whether to use a hammer economy in a city should arise during the midgame when we start capturing mature cities and can either build cottages or workshops. If a captured city already has a lot of villages and towns, then it doesn't make much sense to bulldoze them. But what of a city with none? With State Property, Caste Systems, Guilds, and Chemistry, workshops add 4 hammers to a tile with no loss of food. With State Property and Electricity, watermils add 1 food, 2 hammers, and 2 commerce. Compare that to cottages, which start off adding only 1 commerce, but eventually can grow to add 1 hammer and 7 commerce. A mature town with Printing Press, Free Speech, and Universal Suffrage is better for research than the best workshop or watermill. But cottages take a while to become towns (67 turns on Quick?). For each city, we want to calculate whether a hammer economy or a cottage economy will produce greater total benefit through the modern era.

The main buildings for a hammer city (forge, factory, coal plant) cost about the same as the main buildings for a science city (library, university, observatory, lab). However, a hammer city can build its needed buildings faster. On the flip side, being Philosophical will let us grow a lot of GSs, so we can build academies in a lot of cities, giving a commerce economy a bonus.

Other factors to consider are that 1) adopting Emancipation doubles cottage development speed and that 2) corporations don't work while in State Property. A cottage economy can overcome the initial advantage of the hammer economy fairly quickly with Emancipation. If pursuing this avenue, taking Democracy with Liberalism is a strong play. On a map with a lot of gold, silver, copper, iron, and coal, Mining Inc can be a powerful addition to both the hammer economy and the cottage economy. But heavily-workshopped cities may face a food deficit when not in State Property. Sushi/CerealMills can sometimes make up this deficit.

I have become a fan of the hybrid hammer-cottage economy for space colony games. In this gambit, one wants to have enough hammer cities to build enough wealth to keep research at 100% from the midgame through the spaceship launch. As we saw in SGOTM08, a typical economy can convert 1 gold to more than 1 beaker, because of the greater prevalence of beaker bonus buildings. Maximum research speed is acheived by using wealth building and GM trade missions to allow deficit research with minimal gold reserves. The hammer cities are ideal places to build units in the midgame and spaceship parts at the end. So one may aim to have enough hammer cities to BOTH build enough wealth for 100% research AND build units and spaceship parts. As in SGOTM08, we can pre-build workshops over towns so that at the end, we can build a lot of SS parts simultaneously.

The one immutable truth in any space colony game is that no matter what type of economy one chooses, more land and more cities = faster launch. A top space race game should start out as a controlled domination. By the time the modern era rolls around, one should be nearing the domination limit. I'm happy to say that we have the master of controlled domination on our team: Cactus Pete.

Coming up with a decision rule would be a fun exercise for me. I would guess that it's not possible to get both bonus multipliers for the hammers and the research applied together, though.

There are some decisions that can be made based on calculations - e.g. the return of building a Courthouse can be estimated fairly accurately if you have an idea of the total length of the game and the turn number when State Property is adopted (If this is going to happen). In many cases we will probably have to rely on approximations and maybe even intuition (This is where CP comes into the picture :D). Any effort to put numbers on our actions would be most welcomed since intuition is not always good enough - particularly in a game that has been altered because this invalidates experience from standard games to some extent.

For each city, we want to calculate whether a hammer economy or a cottage economy will produce greater total benefit through the modern era.

Another reason for getting an estimate of the end turn number. Can HOF help with that?

The one immutable truth in any space colony game is that no matter what type of economy one chooses, more land and more cities = faster launch. A top space race game should start out as a controlled domination. By the time the modern era rolls around, one should be nearing the domination limit. I'm happy to say that we have the master of controlled domination on our team: Cactus Pete.

This sounds very reasonable. The question is how to determine the "best" rate of expansion.

It seems quite clear that most cities will contribute commerce/beakers when we sum up over the whole game length. The first few cities will have very low maintenance and will thus provide commerce from the moment they are founded. This is particularly true if there are workers ready to improve city tiles immediately. As you get more cities costs go up for two reasons: One is the linear growth due to having one more city and the other is the quadratic growth due to increasing "Number of cities" maintenance that go up for all cities. The quadratic growthy may be saturated at some point - I don't know the specifics. Anyway, later cities will loose commerce in the beginning due to maintenance and it will take longer time before they produce more than they cost. Captured cities are more favorable because they come with a population and if large enough they may contribute commerce immediately. If some of you play test games, could you record the jump in maintenance when founding 2nd, 3rd, 4th... etc city.

Still, the answer to the question of "best rate" expansion is not answered by this. Getting late - I will come back to this issue another time :)

If some of you play test games, could you record the jump in maintenance when founding 2nd, 3rd, 4th... etc city.
With the 2nd city - +1 to Distance and +1 to Number of Cities
With the 3rd city - +1 to Distance and +1 to Number of Cities
With the 4th city - +2 to Distance and +2 to Number of Cities.
With the 5th city - +3 to Distance and +3 to Number of Cities.
With the 6th city - +3 to Distance and +3 to Number of Cities.

+20 Maintenance per turn, ouch!! :(

I've had my fun finding a formula for the break even point for building a building to increase the research bonus vs just dedicating the hammers directly to research. The calculation was disappointingly simple, which may mean I got it wrong, and which probably means it's uninteresting/inanely trivial to you all. Probably you've all figured this out for yourselves already. The calculation was actually a little more fun in the other bonus cases (both research and production bonuses, or just the research bonus applied to the raw hammers.) But here it goes, anyway.

Let...
T1 = the number of turns spent building the building
T2 = the number of additional turns after the building finishes until the break even point is reached.

The total number of turns to break even then is the sum T1 + T2.

More definitions...
B = raw beaker rate (beakers per turn)
C = cost of the building in hammers (total cost)
E = extra bonus to research rate from the building (expressed as a decimal, 25% = .25, for instance)

I considered two cases, and the answer came out the same both times.

Case A:
build the building for T1 turns then dedicate hammers to research for T2 turns thereafter
vs
build research for T1 turns and research for T2 turns thereafter

Case B:
build the building for T1 turns then dedicate hammers to something other than research for T2 turns thereafter
vs
build research for T1 turns then something other than research for T2 turns thereafter

In either case, T1 = C/H and T2 = C/BE. The total number of turns to break even is T1 + T2. We're getting behind for the first T1 turns, and catching up again for the next T2.

Details for anyone who cares:

One more definition...
R = the research multiplier to convert raw beakers to actual beakers, expressed as a decimal (25% bonus = 1.25, for instance)
It'll turn out that R drops out, anyway.

Case A:
hammers go to building for T1 turns and to research for T2 turns
total beakers: BRT1 + B(R+E)T2 + HT2

hammers go to beakers for T1 + T2 turns
total beakers: BRT1 + HT1 + BRT2 + HT2

equating those two expressions
BRT1 + B(R+E)T2 + HT2 = BRT1 + HT1 + BRT2 + HT2

simplifying a little,
BET2 = HT1
T2 = HT1/BE

but HT1 is just the cost of the building, in hammers, which is C
C = HT1,
T1 = C/H
T2 = C/BE

Case B:
hammers go to building for T1 turns and to non-research for T2 turns thereafter
total beakers = BRT1 + B(R+E)T2

hammers go to research for T1 turns and to non-research for T2 turns thereafter
total beakers = BRT1 + HT1 + BRT2

equating them,
BRT1 + B(R+E)T2 = BRT1 + HT1 + BRT2

and simplifying,
BET2 = HT1, as before

T1 = C/H
T2 = C/BE

Shannon has already dealt with the most important parts of any race to space. Everything I add is on the assumption that the map resembles something that might be generated by the standard map generator.

State property hammer economy is not optimal for speed. Mining inc will almost always provide more benefit.
Push the dom limit. More land means more resources and more cities. There are times when it might make more sense to vassalise an AI and demand their mining resources, can claim the same number of resources for only half the landtile points.
With enough resources fueling mining inc it is worthwhile to spam cities in the most rediculous locations just to have them build courthouse+forge and then nothing but wealth for the rest of the game. The math can be dealt with later but it's something to keep in mind.


Maximise capitals commerce
This usually means the obvious academy+bureau+oxford trio asap. Cottage as many tiles as possible (15+)
Use every trick in the book to run at 100% research for as many turns as possible.
We definitely will want at least 3-4 other heavily cottaged cities too though. It's complicated a lot by all of these changes with the additional techs so it's hard to be specific without more testing (which I'll be working on soon).

One of the biggest problems I encounter with my games is getting the great engineer in time for mining inc while still pushing out a suitable number of GP (it's either a case of slowing down the GP farm just to let a GE pop elsewhere, or pollute the genepool and hope for the best), Hopefully this will be less problematic with a philo leader and players with more experience managing GP.

ok, I played around with the start and everything got a lot more complicated than I expected. There really is a very strong case for electricity+environmentalism windmills+watermills as the primary focus across the entire empire. Lumbermills don't seem all that potent so there's room to turn the non river/hills tiles into cottages
There's a question to be asked about a possible free market switchover later, but for now nothing seems stronger than the electricity slingshot, after which we can tech through to Civil Service manually.

Is it too early to be discussing the first scout move/possible capital locations?

There are a million subtleties to space colony that could be discussed but they're all hypothetical until we have more info.

In either case, T1 = C/H and T2 = C/BE. The total number of turns to break even is T1 + T2. We're getting behind for the first T1 turns, and catching up again for the next T2.

So if T1 + T2 < (number of turns until last SS tech), build the building
and if T1 + T2 > (number of turns until last SS tech), don't build the building.

I think I intuitively make this kind of calculation when I build a building. The one factor you need to add in though is the fact that B is not a constant function. City growth and cottage development increase commerce over time. And increases or decreases to the tech slider affect B as well. Also, buildings have additional effects - forges and markets can bring in happiness that can increase B; forges, markets, and libraries allow specialists, which can generate some GP that gives am important global effect.

ok, I played around with the start and everything got a lot more complicated than I expected. There really is a very strong case for electricity+environmentalism windmills+watermills as the primary focus across the entire empire. Lumbermills don't seem all that potent so there's room to turn the non river/hills tiles into cottages
There's a question to be asked about a possible free market switchover later, but for now nothing seems stronger than the electricity slingshot, after which we can tech through to Civil Service manually.

Is it too early to be discussing the first scout move/possible capital locations?

There are a million subtleties to space colony that could be discussed but they're all hypothetical until we have more info.
Nice work PK and G22! :goodjob:

I think it is fine to begin the Scout move discussion. One of the things we have done in the past is to move the Scout and post a screenshot of what is found. Then we can build a quick test save and work out what we think the best solution may be.

This process may continue as often as we need to update things as we move along. If you wish to read this page (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290544&page=5) of our SGOTM08 thread, it may help to better understand. :)

Sorry I'm a bit useless as I'm thinking about heading to Maine this afternoon and tomorrow. Should be back and ready by Wednesday evening... :rolleyes:

Maximise capitals commerce
This usually means the obvious academy+bureau+oxford trio asap. Cottage as many tiles as possible (15+)
Use every trick in the book to run at 100% research for as many turns as possible.
We definitely will want at least 3-4 other heavily cottaged cities too though. It's complicated a lot by all of these changes with the additional techs so it's hard to be specific without more testing (which I'll be working on soon).

Yes, the availability of full-strength watermills and windmills (and forest preserves) may require a tweak to the usual strategy of cottaging everything in sight. The immediate benefit of a watermill w/ Elec is 2h and 3c while the benefit of a cottage is 1c for 7 turns, then 2c for 13 turns, then 3c for 20 turns, then 4c, until other techs and civics push that up to 5c, then 1h and 7c. The watermill is dominant for 40 turns, and never clearly surpassed until FS/US civics are adopted.

One of the biggest problems I encounter with my games is getting the great engineer in time for mining inc while still pushing out a suitable number of GP (it's either a case of slowing down the GP farm just to let a GE pop elsewhere, or pollute the genepool and hope for the best), Hopefully this will be less problematic with a philo leader and players with more experience managing GP.

Forges in every city to allow an engineer specialist in every city would give a Philo leader a very good chance of generating one by the time Railroad and Corp are researched. Or we could try for a Mids/HG/Hagia/forge city that would guarantee a GE.

ok, I played around with the start and everything got a lot more complicated than I expected. There really is a very strong case for electricity+environmentalism windmills+watermills as the primary focus across the entire empire. Lumbermills don't seem all that potent so there's room to turn the non river/hills tiles into cottages

Hills tiles should be windmills I guess. Grass forests can be chopped and cottaged, unless they are riverside, in which case they can be chopped and watermilled if possible, or lumbermilled for +1h and +1c, or preserved for +3c and +1happy.

Is it too early to be discussing the first scout move/possible capital locations?

I've been moving my scout northwest and west to get a better view of the coast. The thinking is that there would have to be something amazing up there to entice me to settle on the coast. Assuming there isn't, I would settle 1S to free up the hill for a windmill and to allow for the possibility of more watermillable tiles. I think we want to minimize coastal tiles in our capital.

With the 2nd city - +1 to Distance and +1 to Number of Cities
With the 3rd city - +1 to Distance and +1 to Number of Cities
With the 4th city - +2 to Distance and +2 to Number of Cities.
With the 5th city - +3 to Distance and +3 to Number of Cities.
With the 6th city - +3 to Distance and +3 to Number of Cities.

+20 Maintenance per turn, ouch!! :(

From these numbers it looks like the maintenance increases are going up linearly suggesting a quadratic growth of the total maintenance since the derivative of a quadratic function is a linear function.

Yes, the availability of full-strength watermills and windmills (and forest preserves) may require a tweak to the usual strategy of cottaging everything in sight. The immediate benefit of a watermill w/ Elec is 2h and 3c while the benefit of a cottage is 1c for 7 turns, then 2c for 13 turns, then 3c for 20 turns, then 4c, until other techs and civics push that up to 5c, then 1h and 7c. The watermill is dominant for 40 turns, and never clearly surpassed until FS/US civics are adopted.

Since hammers can be converted to commerce at 1:1 ratio I guess that we can add hammers and commerce into one "yield" number, y. This means that the watermill is yielding a constant y=5 while the cottage is yielding:

y=1, t<=7 (Cottage)
y=2, t<=20 (Hamlet)
y=3, t<=40 (Village)
y=4, t<=T_PP (Town)
y=5, t<=T_FSUS (Town)
y=8, t>T_FSUS (Town)

With Emancipation the numbers 7,20,40 will be only half. T_PP is the time when Printing Press is discovered and T_FSUS is the time when Free Speach and Universal Suffrage is adopted. It should be noted that adopting US comes at the cost of missing the extra specialist beakers from Representation.

Grassland forests present a special problem, because the forest preserve is only yielding y=3 (1h2c) but at the same time raising the happy cap of one or more cities. These extra citizens will also produce commerce and you have to factor that in to the value of the forest preserve. If that extra citizen is working cottaged grassland or a windmill/watermill (not to mention a resource) the additional yield seems worth it. Forest preserves inside overlapping fat crosses are particularly strong raising the happy cap in several cities. So when do we not want forest preserves? If there are no decent tiles left to work and no excess food to hire specialists. Or if we are not near the happy cap due to lack of food. So decisions on using forest preserves probably ned to be taken on a per city basis.

Grassland forests present a special problem, because the forest preserve is only yielding y=3 (1h2c) but at the same time raising the happy cap of one or more cities. These extra citizens will also produce commerce and you have to factor that in to the value of the forest preserve. If that extra citizen is working cottaged grassland or a windmill/watermill (not to mention a resource) the additional yield seems worth it. Forest preserves inside overlapping fat crosses are particularly strong raising the happy cap in several cities. So when do we not want forest preserves? If there are no decent tiles left to work and no excess food to hire specialists. Or if we are not near the happy cap due to lack of food. So decisions on using forest preserves probably ned to be taken on a per city basis.
Really, isn't this only in terms of Worker turns? Early in the game, we cannot work all the tiles in a city. On the least valuable grassland forest tiles, away from rivers, we could build Forest Preserves as we need them to sustain pop growth to work the more valuable tiles. As we gain happiness, through other resources and buildings, we could exchange the forest preserves for other needed improvements and chopping hammers. If we use a hybrid hammer economy, then Workshops. If not, we could build some cottages, especially if we are in Emancipation? :hmm:

Really, isn't this only in terms of Worker turns? Early in the game, we cannot work all the tiles in a city. On the least valuable grassland forest tiles, away from rivers, we could build Forest Preserves as we need them to sustain pop growth to work the more valuable tiles. As we gain happiness, through other resources and buildings, we could exchange the forest preserves for other needed improvements and chopping hammers. If we use a hybrid hammer economy, then Workshops. If not, we could build some cottages, especially if we are in Emancipation? :hmm:

Yes, we can use forest preserves early to get big fast. (We also get +6 health from Environmentalism, so health will not be a problem early.) And they're not bad to work temporarily (2f1h2c) while we grow to the happy cap. Riversides that can't support watermills probably should get cottages. They won't take too long to surpass forest preserves in total yield. When we start getting Calendar resources, forges, markets, odeons, etc., we should replace preserves with cottages. That will still be early enough in the game where towns should outperform workshops in the long run.

It seems quite clear that most cities will contribute commerce/beakers when we sum up over the whole game length. The first few cities will have very low maintenance and will thus provide commerce from the moment they are founded. This is particularly true if there are workers ready to improve city tiles immediately. As you get more cities costs go up for two reasons: One is the linear growth due to having one more city and the other is the quadratic growth due to increasing "Number of cities" maintenance that go up for all cities. The quadratic growthy may be saturated at some point - I don't know the specifics. Anyway, later cities will loose commerce in the beginning due to maintenance and it will take longer time before they produce more than they cost. Captured cities are more favorable because they come with a population and if large enough they may contribute commerce immediately. If some of you play test games, could you record the jump in maintenance when founding 2nd, 3rd, 4th... etc city.

Still, the answer to the question of "best rate" expansion is not answered by this. Getting late - I will come back to this issue another time :)

The Empire Size maintenance stops increasing after 14 cities on these settings. Empire Size maintenance also increases in a city as population increases, but it looks like it's capped at 6.0. That's really quite small compared to the commerce a city can make with a few tile improvements. The availability of full-powered windmills and watermills means that new cities can pay for themselves very quickly. Whether by settling or by conquering, there looks to be a strong payoff for early expansion in this game. As soon as we have Currency, we can build wealth and easily stay at 100% research. So we should not fear expansion.

Yes, we can use forest preserves early to get big fast. (We also get +6 health from Environmentalism, so health will not be a problem early.) And they're not bad to work temporarily (2f1h2c) while we grow to the happy cap. Riversides that can't support watermills probably should get cottages. They won't take too long to surpass forest preserves in total yield. When we start getting Calendar resources, forges, markets, odeons, etc., we should replace preserves with cottages. That will still be early enough in the game where towns should outperform workshops in the long run.

Exactly, we need the forest preserves early on to maximize city size and then as we get other mean of happiness they can be turned into something with a higher yield. Some planning of where to put the forest preserves should go together with dot-maps since forest preserves in overlapping fat crosses will add happiness to more cities.

The Empire Size maintenance stops increasing after 14 cities on these settings. Empire Size maintenance also increases in a city as population increases, but it looks like it's capped at 6.0. That's really quite small compared to the commerce a city can make with a few tile improvements. The availability of full-powered windmills and watermills means that new cities can pay for themselves very quickly. Whether by settling or by conquering, there looks to be a strong payoff for early expansion in this game. As soon as we have Currency, we can build wealth and easily stay at 100% research. So we should not fear expansion.

This is my intuition as well. Maximum focus on expansion could well be the way forward. The difficult part will be to decide which wonders and city infrastructure (buildings) should be given up or postponed in favor of settlers/workers and military units. Maybe we should make a list of early wonders and buildings and see if we can analyze which ones are crucial to build and which ones are unimportant or at least has lower priority.

EDIT: For starters I would say that Oracle is important and so are granaries.

Unless there's something spectacular to the north, I think a inland capital is stronger. If we move the settler south, we might find more hills or riversides for windmills and watermills. A city placed on the north coast later could share the capital's corn and serve as a GP farm. I've been settling my capital 1 south of the settler.

My thinking is the same. My one concern is that the land ends just south of the visible trees, in which case moving the settler south would waste us a turn.

This raises the question of moving the scout south of the settler to check it out first, if it shows up coastline in the fog we'd have to re-evaluate.
I'm not sure that moving the scout onto the blue circle in the NW would reveal anything good enough to justify putting the capital up that way. Having an early GP farm that can share the corn though is defintely a strong move.

This is my intuition as well. Maximum focus on expansion could well be the way forward. The difficult part will be to decide which wonders and city infrastructure (buildings) should be given up or postponed in favor of settlers/workers and military units. Maybe we should make a list of early wonders and buildings and see if we can analyze which ones are crucial to build and which ones are unimportant or at least has lower priority.

EDIT: For starters I would say that Oracle is important and so are granaries.

Oracle is the only must-have wonder. Some others that would be nice:

Pyramids: for GE points, happiness, and beakers
Hagia: for GE points and 50% worker bonus (road-building speed is actually doubled)
MoM: for extra 3 turns per golden age (which we could have 4-5 of with our Philo trait)
Hanging Gardens: for more GE points in the Mids/Hagia city (though Mids/Hagia/forge is adequate)

Buildings that we should focus on:

granaries: everywhere
forges: next build after granary in most cities
libraries: at least 6, and especially a quick one where we can grow a GS before the Oracle Prophet pops
academies: first in the capital, and then in other commerce cities
barracks: in 2-4 cities before we rush someone
airport: 1 in a central location that can airlift units to the front lines

My thinking is the same. My one concern is that the land ends just south of the visible trees, in which case moving the settler south would waste us a turn.

This raises the question of moving the scout south of the settler to check it out first, if it shows up coastline in the fog we'd have to re-evaluate.
I'm not sure that moving the scout onto the blue circle in the NW would reveal anything good enough to justify putting the capital up that way. Having an early GP farm that can share the corn though is defintely a strong move.

OK, that makes sense. If there's nothing that could justify settling on the coast, then move the scout south. Though I think that even if the scout sees some coastline in the south, it still may make sense to free up the hill for a windmill.

From the maintenance thread:

Just so you know.. the game WILL have barbarians... if they pop or not in the game depends on how your give the techs to the civs...

If you give the techs to the civs in the worldbuilder, then no barbarians will pop during the game.. however if you do it by editing the WB file in a text editor, then they will pop
(the secret is what the StartingEra= line in the individual player sections in the WB file says)

Actually.. barbarians will be a bit meaner in this game than in normal games... so beware... :evil:

When I created the original save in worldbuilder, giving everyone Superconductors automatically started everyone in the modern era, and thus eliminated barbs. Apparently that was wrong. So I editted the worldbuilder file so we start in the ancient era. Barbs are back baby!

Here's the current strategy as I see it (these additonal starting techs have definitely changed things up).
Electricity slingshot and run mills under environmentalism for most of the game.

Grow capital to size 20 asap (keeping in mind the need to build settlers and workers)

Find a good grassland/floodplains city with food that can support 16+ cottages, mature cottages and eventually build oxford (I believe this will prove more efficient than doing it in the starting city, although the eventual placement of oxford will depend on the situation in game)
I'm assuming that our empire will soon be large enough for FS to outweigh Bureau.

War/Rex our way to just under the Dom limit at a sustainable rate, while trying to maximise metal resources.
Make sure to pop a GE in time for mining inc.
We may want to consider keeping a GProph in had to shrine the major religion when we capture/found it.

something to consider: large cities mean big trade routes which can make the GLH even more powerful than normal, obviously this will be somewhat map dependent, but we need to keep it in mind (an extra 2 matured cottages per coastal city that dont require citizens to work them is not to be laughed at).


lessons learned form hard experience: Disproportionate amounts of effort tend to go into the last few turns of these types of game, when really it is the decisions made at the start that determine the outcome. If we can keep our economy intact and run at 100% research for most of the first third of the game, we stand a good chance of winning this.
I know that I was recruited for my experience playing space race games and all that experience tells me that it's the teams with the best civ-economists that will be the most competitive.

Here's the current strategy as I see it (these additonal starting techs have definitely changed things up).

Sounds like you have been busy :goodjob:. Do you have any estimate on the total game length? It may be of use when calculating the interest we get on our investments.

something to consider: large cities mean big trade routes which can make the GLH even more powerful than normal, obviously this will be somewhat map dependent, but we need to keep it in mind (an extra 2 matured cottages per coastal city that dont require citizens to work them is not to be laughed at).


You may have a point here. Even the AI cities tend to get big fast, don't they.

lessons learned form hard experience: Disproportionate amounts of effort tend to go into the last few turns of these types of game, when really it is the decisions made at the start that determine the outcome. If we can keep our economy intact and run at 100% research for most of the first third of the game, we stand a good chance of winning this.

You are completely right in pointing out the importance of having a game plan from the beginning. In the late game only a few turns can be won or lost while a wrong strategy early on can be very costly indeed.

If we can keep our economy intact and run at 100% research for most of the first third of the game, we stand a good chance of winning this.

What about the last 2/3 of the game? Having the science slider at 100% doesn't mean that you couldn't make even more beakers with a larger empire running at lower rate. I suppose you are thinking about building commerce to support a higher science rate which is often a good deal as SCT explained in the last SGOTM.

One reason I'm asking this is that there is an interesting dilemma between REX and maintaining a reasonable beaker production in the early game. You might think that maximum REX is best in the long run because growth will be massive with many cities and what you loose early in maintenance will come back with interests later. I'm not sure, however, that things are that simple. One obvious reason is that reducing early beakers will delay the time when beaker and hammer multipliers like Libraries and forges kick in. What does your experience tell you about this trade off between REX and keeping early beaker rate up?

MoM: for extra 3 turns per golden age (which we could have 4-5 of with our Philo trait)

Actually golden ages are more powerful than usual in this game for two reasons:
1) Golden age length is 6 vs 8 on normal speed but 6 turns on quick corresponds to 9 turns on normal.
2) With many windmills, watermills and some forest preserves we will have more tiles with both an extra hammer and an extra commerce during a golden age.

What about the last 2/3 of the game? Having the science slider at 100% doesn't mean that you couldn't make even more beakers with a larger empire running at lower rate. I suppose you are thinking about building commerce to support a higher science rate which is often a good deal as SCT explained in the last SGOTM.

You're right and I should have discussed this in more detail
I mentioned the importance of teching strongly in the first 1/3 of the game because that is when there are the fewest option for generating cash and that is the point where it can be possible to get stuck in a hole. By the end we should be completing 1 tech per turn however early on it's quite possible to get stuck on a tech for 25+ (quick) turns which is a significant fraction of the game
I've lost count of the number of games I've played where overexpansion has crippled me and it's take 100-200 turns (on marathon) to dig my way out. I'm nervous here because of the "no do-over" style of GoTM.
I recall in the deity game where I knocked Ironhead off the board briefly, I was generating -37 gold at 0% research and was forced to whip warriors just to generate enough overflow cash to finish off writing (all of my captured workers had been disbanded). I think in that game I pushed the expansion too far (or kept one too many cities) and it probably cost me 60/650 turns (9% of the game length).
Knowing when to stop will be crucial in this game
Later on we'll have dozens of ways of generating gold to keep our economy afloat so getting "stuck" is much less problematic.


One reason I'm asking this is that there is an interesting dilemma between REX and maintaining a reasonable beaker production in the early game. You might think that maximum REX is best in the long run because growth will be massive with many cities and what you loose early in maintenance will come back with interests later. I'm not sure, however, that things are that simple. One obvious reason is that reducing early beakers will delay the time when beaker and hammer multipliers like Libraries and forges kick in. What does your experience tell you about this trade off between REX and keeping early beaker rate up?

It's a well posed question and I wish I had an answer to it. In fact I'll now probably contradict myself completely
I play by gut feel and if I ever start feeling comfortable I know that I'm not expanding fast enough.
A lot will be determined by the geography of the map and we fortunately have a scout to help bring that info in asap (I think we need to run him as far as possible before he gets eaten by a bear, that will give us a good estimate of the size of our continent, detailed scouting can probably come later).
Right now my gut is telling me that crashing the economy will be tougher to do given our enhanced windmills and watermills compared to a normal game, so we should be as aggressive in our expansion as humanly possible.
I think it's safe to assume that all teams will be using a variation of that same strategy, the first split in the teams performance is going to come from being able to create cash out of nothing early enough that the slider can be kept running high.
The second split will come in the worker micro, and making sure that there are enough workers (there can never be enough!)


Generating cash: partially completed wonders (not as effective as with an industrious civ but still worthwhile if pre-currency, under organised religion or possessing a multiplyer resource)
Whip overflow: Not sure how effective this is on quick speed, I'm hoping that someone in this team is a master of the whip. My usual strategy is to put as many hammers as possible into a 30 hammer marathon warrior and then whip (in emergencies can chop a tree into it as well). The optimal strategy for quick will need some work
Trademission: possible relatively early with GLH and a philo leader
Razing/Capturing cities: self explanatory

If we're rexing fast enough we should need some or all of these strategies in order to stay afloat.
I'll play Shannons new test save and see how far I can push it, though we shouldn't read too much into those results.


additional comments: If we only have access to two civs at the start then it is imperative that we do not destroy either of them too soon. They have to be milked of techs through trade first. Those first few round of tech trading can make or break the game. The only exception to this is if one of the two is Mansa, as he'll trade us his monopoly techs without needing to be friendly.
For this reason we need to know who/what is out there asap as it will determine everything we do later.
I'm not normally a scout builder, but I also normally know who I'll be playing against and what the map will be like in advance.

Actually golden ages are more powerful than usual in this game for two reasons:
1) Golden age length is 6 vs 8 on normal speed but 6 turns on quick corresponds to 9 turns on normal.
2) With many windmills, watermills and some forest preserves we will have more tiles with both an extra hammer and an extra commerce during a golden age.

Definitely, absolutely, 100%, no debate!

Golden ages are king and even more so on quick speed. MoM is a must have, Taj is often a nice way to get the GAge session in play.
Maybe we need to start a list of GP's

1GE for corp
1GM for corp (possibly/probably)
2GS for academy (minimum)
1GS for edu bulb (possibly)
1Proph for shrine (probably)

4 GAges from GP's = 10 additional GP's.

16 GP's total as our base minimum
1 from music (probably worth the detour?)
1 from economics (sometimes it is acceptable to lose this one in favour of beelining railroad and then backfilling the economic branch with trades, but I'm not sure how well the AI will be teching compared to us, very map dependent)
1 from physics
1 from fusion

so we need to generate 12GP minimum from the pool. That should be relatively easy with a philo leader right? (I'm weak on GP generation). The real trick is going to be mixing them up enough to run the golden ages.
A 6th golden age could be on the cards, alternatively that's 5 scientists that could be bulbed early/academised.

I know I'm easily excitable, but this is so much awesome.


Sounds like you have been busy . Do you have any estimate on the total game length? It may be of use when calculating the interest we get on our investments.

I have no real experience with quick speed and the additional starting techs (along with any other surprises) will have a dramatic impact on the game.
If you wanted me to make a best initial guess that could be recursively refined as the game progresses then I'd start with a date of 1400AD (I have no idea what turn that is on quick).
That is a best guess though, not a calculated prediction. I'm guessing that the quick speed and distribution of civs will be more of a hindrance than the starting techs will be gain.

I think in that game I pushed the expansion too far (or kept one too many cities) and it probably cost me 60/650 turns (9% of the game length).
Knowing when to stop will be crucial in this game
Later on we'll have dozens of ways of generating gold to keep our economy afloat so getting "stuck" is much less problematic.

I think I'm starting to get the picture. So generating cash in the early game is important to enable both a fast expansion and a reasonable tech rate. Postponing "multiplier techs" like Writing and Metal Casting can be expensive.

Right now my gut is telling me that crashing the economy will be tougher to do given our enhanced windmills and watermills compared to a normal game, so we should be as aggressive in our expansion as humanly possible.

Yes, the availability of windmills and watermills should tip the scales in favor of faster expansion

I think it's safe to assume that all teams will be using a variation of that same strategy, the first split in the teams performance is going to come from being able to create cash out of nothing early enough that the slider can be kept running high.
The second split will come in the worker micro, and making sure that there are enough workers (there can never be enough!)

I remember CP (Cactus Pete) saying that as a rule of thumb you need at least one more worker than the number of cities you have. Settlers should always be accompanied by a worker so that tile improvement can start immediately in a new city.

Generating cash: partially completed wonders (not as effective as with an industrious civ but still worthwhile if pre-currency, under organised religion or possessing a multiplyer resource)
Whip overflow: Not sure how effective this is on quick speed, I'm hoping that someone in this team is a master of the whip. My usual strategy is to put as many hammers as possible into a 30 hammer marathon warrior and then whip (in emergencies can chop a tree into it as well). The optimal strategy for quick will need some work
Trademission: possible relatively early with GLH and a philo leader
Razing/Capturing cities: self explanatory

We have the option of adopting Police State and get a multiplier on military units. So whipping warriors is a way to generate gold, I think. As soon as we have CoL we can generate GM's for trade missions. Is this more important than generating GS's for Academies? I think city razing is disabled so we have to be careful about which cities we capture - don't want crappy cities that count towards Domination.

EDIT: When Currency is discovered I guess that building gold is the easy answer to keeping the science slider high.

yep to the edit, though partially building wonders can prove to be more efficient than building cash directly when they have additonal build multipliers, you just have to put up with not getting the cash until the AI complete the wonder themselves.
I'm pretty sure you can also partially build the same wonder in multiple cities if gets to 1 turn from finished and the AI still hasn't completed it. This could prove particularly effective if we're building something like a marble/stone wonder under organised religion.
I'll have to double check this in game though if nobody knows for sure.
Also, Murky Waters in the last SGOTM showed that the HE city whipping workboats for cash overflow generated more gpt than building wealth (the Heroic Epic bonus applies to workboats too, as would police state)

That mention of police state bought another point to mind.
Christo Redento is an extremely powerful wonder whos only detriment is that it arrives so late. In this game we unlock the required tech (radio?) with our electricity slingshot.
Now obviously we don't want to go for it immediately after electricity, due to the massive cost, but I think that it would prove beneficial to keep the fact that it is available constantly on the boil.
ie. how quickly can we reasonably bring this online?
Doing so opens up all sorts of efficient whipping/cash buying infrastructure/GP rushing/Drafting massive XP unit rounds etc etc.
I'll try and fit in some test games tomorrow to see how many cities we want in order to tech it in a reasonable time.
It really is a game changing wonder (eliminates the 5 turn delay between civic changes along with the anarchy, although can still only change once per turn). Utilising it properly is going to add another degree of separation between the best teams.
I apologise if it sounds like I'm harping on about so called "game changing opportunities" I just feel strongly that we have a great shot of taking down the two russian teams, despite them having the two strongest space game players and the way to do it is by making sure that we take advantage of every non standard feature of this scenario.

I remember CP (Cactus Pete) saying that as a rule of thumb you need at least one more worker than the number of cities you have. Settlers should always be accompanied by a worker so that tile improvement can start immediately in a new city.

It's also worthwhile roading to any new city sites in advance if we have workers to spare. Having 1-2 traderoutes instantly connected can go a reasonable way to mitigating the initial maintainance cost.
I think with our high potential happy caps, the amount of work our workers will have to do, and the disproportionate movement cost on quick speed, we'll want even more workers than that. There's also a lot of pre-workshopping/mining that will need to be done in preparation for the endgame component build.
We'll want to be irrigating many tiles in all of our new cities, growing them to the happy cap asap while the irrigated tiles all get pre-improved over the irrigation for when we no longer need to grow and want to convert them to hammer/commerce tiles.
These last things are the sorts of micro that I struggle with in solo games, but with short turnsets and frequent discussions I'm hoping it won't be a problem for me here =)

Radio is extremely expensive as far as I remember. I suppose that the benefits of frequent civic changes are not that big in the early game when only a few civics are available. Radio can be partially bulb'ed using GA's:

Great Artist:
Literature
Drama
Music
Polytheism
Monarchy
Mass Media
Radio

Cristo would indeed be a powerful wonder for the strategic options it would allow. We could get Radio with Liberalism fairly early. It might also be nice to have an extra GE to partially rush Cristo.

On the expansion discussion, I'm finding that it's not possible to overexpand. The mills are generating too much commerce for maintenance to be more than a nuisance. The bigger question I think is HOW to expand. Usually expanding through conquest is more productive than expanding through settlers, but the quick speed and the early appearance of Xbows and airships, coupled with the quick speed is making conquest very inefficient. An early war is going to have to target an AI with low unit building rate and/or no iron. Alternatively, we can go for unrestrained REX with a rush to Rifling for paratroopers.

Cristo would indeed be a powerful wonder for the strategic options it would allow. We could get Radio with Liberalism fairly early. It might also be nice to have an extra GE to partially rush Cristo.

The Liberalism slingshot to Radio sounds attractive, Radio is more than 4 times as expensive as Liberalism so we get a lot of free beakers. Rifling can probably be self researched in reasonable time so the most obvious alternative would be a slingshot to Assembly Line.

On the expansion discussion, I'm finding that it's not possible to overexpand. The mills are generating too much commerce for maintenance to be more than a nuisance. The bigger question I think is HOW to expand. Usually expanding through conquest is more productive than expanding through settlers, but the quick speed and the early appearance of Xbows and airships, coupled with the quick speed is making conquest very inefficient. An early war is going to have to target an AI with low unit building rate and/or no iron. Alternatively, we can go for unrestrained REX with a rush to Rifling for paratroopers.

The trade off between settling and capturing will to some extent depend on the map. If there is lot's of available land and particularly some juicy spots with rivers and hills settling many cities could be favorable. Do you think we can apply our old tactic of harassing a neighbour civ preventing it from improving the land and resources for a while until we are ready to launch a full scale attack? If the AI is denied the use of improved tiles it should become seriously weakened.

Also, Murky Waters in the last SGOTM showed that the HE city whipping workboats for cash overflow generated more gpt than building wealth (the Heroic Epic bonus applies to workboats too, as would police state)


We did something similar - only we had so high production in the HE city that no whipping was necessary to generate lot's of cash. I believe it was SCT who suggested it.

Christo Redento is an extremely powerful wonder whos only detriment is that it arrives so late. In this game we unlock the required tech (radio?) with our electricity slingshot.
Doing so opens up all sorts of efficient whipping/cash buying infrastructure/GP rushing/Drafting massive XP unit rounds etc etc.

Does a hammer still cost 3 gold in BtS? And if so, aren't the benefits of cash rushing limited compared to pop rushing? GP rushing sound interesting. I suppose it has something to do with running massive numbers of specialists for just one turn in Pacifism/Representation...

Does a hammer still cost 3 gold in BtS? And if so, aren't the benefits of cash rushing limited compared to pop rushing? GP rushing sound interesting. I suppose it has something to do with running massive numbers of specialists for just one turn in Pacifism/Representation...

If we gain christo redento (and Kremlin becomes a very serious option worth going for then) then all sorts of rushing opportunities will become available to us and there will be times when we want a building "now" but don't want to sacrifice the pop to do it.
I'm thinking specifically of cities that are busy maturing cottages but could do with some infrastructure in place to meet minimum building requirements for national wonders etc. Universities and Banks are an example of this. I understand whipping to be very inefficient in high pop cities too.
I can easily be convinced otherwise with a healthy dose of mathematics though.

GP rushing is pretty much exactly what you described, desperate for cash? swap to castes and run merchants in the GP farm at starvation levels for a turn or two under pacifism, a golden age with a philo leader is a great time to do it and the removal of the 5 turn standdown period between civic switches makes Christo powerful even during a golden age.


This raises a question I've never thought to ask before. Is a city limited to 1 pop starvation per turn or can it actually starve more than one in a single turn?
A 20 pop GP farm could generate a lot of GP points for free by running at massive starvation levels for a couple of turns and only lose a couple of pop doing it.
I'm really weak on GP theory though, so it could be a silly question.

-edit- at what point do we start discussing specifics of the first turnset and stop discussing general strategies.
I understand the need to move the scout first before even talking talking about settling. I admit I'm fumbling around in the dark a bit still.


-2nd edit rather than new post- In terms of warring I've always been a fan of spy assisted flanking promoted HA/Cavalry blitzes rather than siege warfare (even on marathon speed). With a good medic unit, immunity to first strikes, strong withdrawal chance and the ability to spread forces between attacks, it's virtually uncounterable. I expect this could be particularly useful on quick speed.
It generally suffers a few more casualties than a methodical siege grind but it's also over far quicker and so war weariness doesn't tend to stick around for long. What is the typical war strategy for this team?

The trade off between settling and capturing will to some extent depend on the map. If there is lot's of available land and particularly some juicy spots with rivers and hills settling many cities could be favorable. Do you think we can apply our old tactic of harassing a neighbour civ preventing it from improving the land and resources for a while until we are ready to launch a full scale attack? If the AI is denied the use of improved tiles it should become seriously weakened.

It will be marginally harder since it will take longer to get units in position. But in theory it should still work. If we want to try a phalanx or mace rush, we really want to prevent the target from hooking iron.

@PK

Cities can only starve 1 pop per turn, so GP rushing can work.

We can start talking about opening sequences. I've been starting with worker and agriculture, mining, and BW, building warrior to pop2, then second worker to build 2 windmills. Revolt to PS, slavery, and tree-hugging simultaneously. Build settler at pop4 or pop5.

Attack speed will be critical in this game. On quick speed, if your attack is plodding, the AI is going to spam large numbers. Any fast unit with spies and airships sounds like a winning combo. Have you tried paratroopers? We should be able to get them in the early ADs, faster than Cuirs. Horse Archers could come earlier but how many EPs will we have then and can we really expect to keep the AI from hooking any metal?

Of course you are right, I forgot about paratroopers completely. The AI have nothing capable of combating them, there's no way that they will get to rifling in time. Obviously beats the cavalry strategy. Airship the top couple of defenders to minimise required healing time and we can blitz each civ in a couple of turns.
Maybe we should focus on peaceful rex to start then (with possibility of choke on nearest neighbours if we have multiple trading partners around). I don't know what our conquest hammer efficiency will be like vs settler spam on quick speed.

Re start: Do you think it's safe to build the warrior after the revolt? I say this because with anything more than 4 hpt production we get a free hpt on the warrior by building it under police state. Of course then we'd have to dump hammers into something like the barracks while we were trying to grow but I very much suspect we'll want one there anyway.
Alternatively, could we use a second scout more than a warrior?
Anyway, I think I'll devote tonight to bunch of different starting strategies, I guess my HoF is going to be put on the back burner for a while =). In particular I want to compare the "grow to pop 2 while teching to bronzeworking and whip worker under slavery, vs the "build worker first"


I guess I'll experiment on your updated save

component dependent travel time for all game speeds.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7905284&postcount=10

Not entirely useful at the present but I'll never find it again 3 months from now.

Intuitive master of controlled Domination checking in . . . tardy (been completing leif's game -- and not so masterfully -- during limited time available).

Productive discussion. Particularly pleased to note the thoughtful contributions of our new team members. I'm going to learn even more than usual this game.

I'll try my hand a SCT's latest save tomorrow. Couple questions:

1. My immediate inclination is to settle on the northern corn, which would allow either a settler and/or a workboat to be built in (guessing, never tried a Quick game) about 8 turns. I read no mention of this approach in our thread. Has it been tried and rejected, summarily dismissed as obviously sub-optimal due to long-term limitations on the capital's contributions (lots of sea tiles), or is it worth exploring?

2. What effects does the universal knowledge of advanced technology have on the kind of barb units that appear; that is, how advanced, when?

1. My immediate inclination is to settle on the northern corn, which would allow either a settler and/or a workboat to be built in (guessing, never tried a Quick game) about 8 turns. I read no mention of this approach in our thread. Has it been tried and rejected, summarily dismissed as obviously sub-optimal due to long-term limitations on the capital's contributions (lots of sea tiles), or is it worth exploring?

Please try this and report back. All ideas should be given a chance at this point.

2. What effects does the universal knowledge of advanced technology have on the kind of barb units that appear; that is, how advanced, when?

I'm not seeing any difference. Land is filling up pretty quickly in the practice game, so the barb threat has been minimal. But then Gyathaar says the barbs will be a bit meaner. Maybe he's given them some other military techs?

Please try this and report back. All ideas should be given a chance at this point. Will do.

But then Gyathaar says the barbs will be a bit meaner. Maybe he's given them some other military techs? If so, this may make it important to hook up an early military resource.

Intuitive master of controlled Domination checking in


:lol: I understand you have thoroughly read up on the thread.

1. My immediate inclination is to settle on the northern corn, which would allow either a settler and/or a workboat to be built in (guessing, never tried a Quick game) about 8 turns. I read no mention of this approach in our thread. Has it been tried and rejected, summarily dismissed as obviously sub-optimal due to long-term limitations on the capital's contributions (lots of sea tiles), or is it worth exploring?

I tried this in an early, very short test game. The argument against is that the early gain may not be enough to offset the reduced number of grassland and hill tiles in the FC. The question is if building the GLH will somehow make this placement OK also in the longer term.

2. What effects does the universal knowledge of advanced technology have on the kind of barb units that appear; that is, how advanced, when?

Gyathaar wrote somewhere that the AI doesn't know any techs to begin with. In the SGOTM where we were teamed up with the barbs we learned that they receive free beakers every turn for all techs known by the civs in the game. As I recall they received more beakers if more civs knew a tech. So we should expect the barbs to learn Archery and Machinery quite early meaning that barb x-bows could appear early. We can use the test save and check the world builder now and then to see how advanced the barbs are.

In particular I want to compare the "grow to pop 2 while teching to bronzeworking and whip worker under slavery, vs the "build worker first"

Whipping the worker saves some food/hammers compared to building the worker. Question is how much delay there will be before we have the first worker. I think it's also worthwhile to test building the settler faster e.g. at pop 2 while working the two corn (or corn+fish if we settle on the northern corn). Pop growth is approximately doubled when we have two cities.

It will be marginally harder since it will take longer to get units in position. But in theory it should still work. If we want to try a phalanx or mace rush, we really want to prevent the target from hooking iron.

In order to do a successful phalanx rush in time we have little time to locate the AI and evaluate the political situation (how many AI, and which leaders). Maybe we really should build an extra scout also having in mind that units travel relatively slow on Quick speed.

I tried this in an early, very short test game. The argument against is that the early gain may not be enough to offset the reduced number of grassland and hill tiles in the FC. The question is if building the GLH will somehow make this placement OK also in the longer term.

Been reading the discussion and staring at the start location. If we want the Great Lighthouse, what is the possibility of settling on the forested grass hill one tile SE of the southern Corn tile? It gives us sea access, both corn tiles, two grass hills (and whatever is south), plus it should provide us quite a few river tiles. It also allows room to build a city in the north that can use the Fish and a Corn if we need it to. Perhaps, it si too many water tiles? :rolleyes:

It calls to me to move the Scout two tiles south? :hmm:

The big question for me is the significance of the blue circle to the north. Sometimes they pay off and other times, well ..... :cringe:

Just had a first run at the test game. Settling on the corn looks pretty powerful to me. Here's a save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208250&stc=1&d=1238001031

I wrote quite a bit on coastal vs inland but then realised I was probably missing the point.

Are we treating our capital as a settler/worker pump for maximum early rex, or as the future seat of our power. That will determine the answer really.

Just had a first run at the test game. Settling on the corn looks pretty powerful to me.

I don't think there's any doubt that settling on the corn is best in the short term. The hard thing to evaluate is if the 2-3 turns gained + some extra commerce from the fish are worth the cost of having say 5-6 extra water tiles in the FC. Water tiles are notoriously low yield. On the plus side are the extra trade routes if we build GLH.

Are we treating our capital as a settler/worker pump for maximum early rex, or as the future seat of our power. That will determine the answer really.

Moving the palace costs 107 hammers or about the same as settler+worker. Is it likely that we can find a better spot for a capital in the vicinity? Anyway it's not without costs if we want to have the palace moved before CS is discovered. Btw. wouldn't the spot 2N of the settler be a better settler/worker pump location with 3 (maybe even 4) food resources?

I wrote quite a bit on coastal vs inland but then realised I was probably missing the point.

Are we treating our capital as a settler/worker pump for maximum early rex, or as the future seat of our power. That will determine the answer really.

I'm thinking settler/worker pump initially and then make what we can of it later. Because movement is so slow relative to other aspects of the game at Quick speed (e.g. it's 60 years of tech speed per turn, but the same distances traveled), getting workers building roads and settlers settled in a timely manner could be a major consideration. Suppose horses and a great city site are 10 tiles from our capital and nearer another AI. At best, the site would be 300 years away. Rushing early should be similarly compromised. My concern is not so much leveraging early development as avoiding excessive adverse effects from slow development.

On the issue of when to build the first settler I think there is a relatively simple geometric argument in favor of shooting for the earliest possible date. For the sake of simplicity I will assume that the yield defined as hammers+commerce of a city grows linearly with time except during the time when it's building a settler. The picture below illustrates the difference between early settler (red curve) and late settler (blue curve). Yield growth is doubled when the new city is founded. The total yield during a game is the area under the curves. This means that the gain of late settler over early settler corresponds to the pink area and the gain of the early settler (over late) corresponds to the yellow area. As time goes the yellow area is bound to grow bigger reflecting that the city founded late will never catch up to the city founded early and that difference in development will keep adding up over time.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208285&stc=1&d=1238021807

This is, of course, a simplified picture and it doesn't necessarily mean that we should build settler at size 1. Size 2 may be a good bet.

normally there's a negative cost to founding new cities, and that's the maintainance before it starts working enough tiles to cover that and start making a profit, in a normal game this can have a devastating impact on research rate, however in this game we're reasonably sure that won't be a consideration due to the powerful improvements we have access to, so simply maximising the number of cities IS probably the optimum path.

I'm gradually being convinced of the power of a super rex early on as opposed to developing a mega capital. Those tiles improvements really do change the game significantly.
So maybe we SHOULD do something crazy like settler on the corn, pop out a worker extra fast, grow to size 2 while building a workboat and then spam settlers like crazy.

This could backfire if we're stuck on a smallish landmass though.

normally there's a negative cost to founding new cities, and that's the maintainance before it starts working enough tiles to cover that and start making a profit, in a normal game this can have a devastating impact on research rate, however in this game we're reasonably sure that won't be a consideration due to the powerful improvements we have access to, so simply maximising the number of cities IS probably the optimum path.

All in moderation, I think. For the first settler we need not consider the increased maintenance because it's almost zero but the added maintenance grows quadratically with the number of cities until it starts saturating (I think SCT mentioned 14 cities as the point of saturation). So we need to play a few extreme REX tests to better understand how far this strategy can be taken.

I'm gradually being convinced of the power of a super rex early on as opposed to developing a mega capital. Those tiles improvements really do change the game significantly.
So maybe we SHOULD do something crazy like settler on the corn, pop out a worker extra fast, grow to size 2 while building a workboat and then spam settlers like crazy.

This could backfire if we're stuck on a smallish landmass though.

I'm far from being convinced of anything yet and I think we need some more testing and preferably some longer tests.

I managed to crash the economy by 200 BC with 10 cities and 12 workers by settling on the corn.
That's not a bad effort.
This is including the electricity slingshot.

I was slow getting the wheel for roads to hook my cities up which slowed my route to currency which cost me many turns of free traderoutes.

The more I play this scenario the more I think we need two workers per settler.

I managed to crash the economy by 200 BC with 10 cities and 12 workers by settling on the corn.
That's not a bad effort.
This is including the electricity slingshot.

I was slow getting the wheel for roads to hook my cities up which slowed my route to currency which cost me many turns of free traderoutes.

The more I play this scenario the more I think we need two workers per settler.

Good to hear about the electric sling. I'll try to give the updated practice game a go tomorrow night.

With the super rexing how large are you letting the capital grow before starting to pump settlers and workers?

In one of my tests, I bulbed electricity with 3 GS's. Could we do that with a radio sling? I think you have to have electricity to get radio.

With the super rexing how large are you letting the capital grow before starting to pump settlers and workers?

I think I was about pop 4 when I built the first settler and gradually grew to pop 6 as a result of building warrior escorts in between settlers/workers.

In one of my tests, I bulbed electricity with 3 GS's. Could we do that with a radio sling? I think you have to have electricity to get radio.

I'm a bit concerned about bulbing prodigious amount of GP as opposed to saving them for golden ages, 6 Golden ages is a serious consideration I think which would last us from around the age of nationalism all the way to future tech.
but I don't know how I would do the calculation to compare the benefits of early radio (Christo) vs an extra golden age or two.

Really like starting settler at pop2, using 2 chops (improving to a windmill and water wheel where the two forests were) while growing city (producing warrior but switching to settler as chops come in) and then quickly completing the settler after the chops. This gets a settler out just as we learn AH and should allow for a nice second city placement. Like to have that second city both hook up a military resource (ideally before 2000BC for barbs and/or possible worker steal) and fairly quickly build the Oracle. As the first settler is produced, we can revolt to slavery and be ready to take advantage of our capital's rapid growth rate to alternate between producing and whipping. An exploring workboat and advanced unit could be produced while in growth phase before granary and library (delayed to get to Priesthood) are available.

Early in the game, GAs are not so valuable. Doubt that holding early GPs for later GAs is optimal.

Early in the game, GAs are not so valuable. Doubt that holding early GPs for later GAs is optimal.

Late game GA's are very important for space colony, especially with a lot of mills in play. I'd be more than happy to horde half a dozen GP to lanch a series of golden ages initiated by the Taj, or to start the series just beforehand.
The only reason I don't do it more frequently in my own space games is that I'm hopeless at generating my great engineer in time if I push out too many other GP early.
I think almost all of the HoF space games are based heavily around running MoM enhanced golden ages throught as much of the endgame as possible.

Really like starting settler at pop2, using 2 chops (improving to a windmill and water wheel where the two forests were) while growing city (producing warrior but switching to settler as chops come in) and then quickly completing the settler after the chops.

I aimed for that too but I found myself growing so quickly while trying to get the warrior fogbusters/escorts out that I ended up at a much higher pop than planned.

I'm a bit unsure what the barbs will be like in this game and didn't want to take any chances with losing an early settler, how aggressive do you think we can be in settling that first city?
escort optional?

Save will be available tomorrow. I don't think there is any rush to begin. Testing the initial strategy seems to be the best use of time for this scenario as there are few turns to recover should we err.

If we are ready, we should decide where we want the Scout to go, move him, and then stop to decide on where to settle.

Proposal for play order:
ShannonCT
Frederiksberg
PaulisKhan
rrau
Cactus Pete
Grover22
DJMGator13
leif

Not sure of everyone's availability, so please let me know if you'd like a change.

Once you are "UP" in the roster, please let me know within 24 hours that you "Have It", which means you can play the set, and then post a Pre-Play Plan within the next 24 hours, and then you have 72 hours to play and post the save. These times are guidelines. In difficult parts of a game, we have, and should, take longer. If you are in game and need advice, please save the game and post the save by attaching it to the thread. At the end of the turn set, please upload the save file HERE. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm.php)

Just a note, please be careful when you are viewing the save and not up. During the game, we cannot make any changes to the save, moving units or doing anything that cannot be undone. Additionally, we cannot replay any part of the game that has already been played. Please note which saves are ones we generate for testing and the real save. I keep them in separate folders. In naming test saves, let's use something like SG09Test...

Here's a practice game I played where I settled Athens 1S of the starting location. My intuition is that it's better to not settle on freshwater corn. Rather, leave space for a GP farm on the north coast that can use fish and corn, and get more forests and river tiles in the capital.

Practice Game Turns 0 - 43

T0 - move settler 1S
T1 - settle Athens, start agriculture, start worker1
T7 - agriculture->mining
T11 - Athens worker1->warrior1, start corn1
T12 - mining->BW
T15 - Athens Pop2 start worker2, start corn2
T20 - Athens worker2->warrior1, start windmill1
T21 - Athens warrior1->warrior2, start windmill2
T22 - BW->AH, Athens Pop3, revolt to PS/slavery/enviro
T25 - Athens Pop4, start settler, start chop1
T26 - start chop2
T28 - AH->wheel, start windmill3
T29 - Athens settler1->worker3, watermill1
T30 - settler Sparta 3N of Athens, start WB, work corn
T31 - Athens worker3->scout2
T32 - wheel->pottery, Athens scout2->warrior2
T33 - Athens Pop5 warrior2->settler2, Sparta Pop2 whip WB, start chop3 and watermill2
T34 - Sparta WB->WB, start preserve1
T35 - pottery->myst, Sparta start worker4
T36 - Athens settler2->warrior3, start chop4
T37 - Athens warrior3->settler3
T38 - myst->meditation, settler Corinth 2SE1S of Athens start WB
T39 - Sparta worker4->WB
T41 - meditation->preist, Sparta Pop3 whip WB, Athens settler3->granary, start preserve2
T42 - Athens whip granary for 2pop, Sparta Pop3 WB->worker5
T43 - preist->writing, Athens Pop4 granary->Oracle, Corinth Pop2, settle Thebes 3SW of Athens start granary, start watermill3 and preserve2
T44 - stop

I stopped here because someone else completed Oracle. :( It hasn't been going so fast in most of my practice games, but it's good that we are aware of how early it can go. Maybe we can delay AH or Pottery or both. And if we have 4+ workers at this point, we can have them all chopping the Oracle.

Note that I built settler1 when Athens was at Pop4, so it could work 2 windmills. Maybe building at Pop2 is optimal.

But I don't know how I would do the calculation to compare the benefits of early radio (Christo) vs an extra golden age or two.

My guess is that very early Radio is not optimal because we don't have the hammers required to build Christo and we don't have all the civic options that make Christo powerful. Lib sling to Radio is thus my preference with the facts I have right now.

Really like starting settler at pop2, using 2 chops (improving to a windmill and water wheel where the two forests were) while growing city (producing warrior but switching to settler as chops come in) and then quickly completing the settler after the chops.
I aimed for that too but I found myself growing so quickly while trying to get the warrior fogbusters/escorts out that I ended up at a much higher pop than planned.

Starting settler at pop2 certainly seems reasonable. The important thing is to get the first settler out fast, it's less important what the pop count in our capital is when we start building him. I guess we could still accept some delay if we are settling in a spot that has better long term perspectives or if we can produce settler 3 and 4 faster to compensate for a delay in settler 1. We have to look ahead, 1st settler is not all important but the principle of getting the first few settlers out ASAP probably is.

I'm a bit unsure what the barbs will be like in this game and didn't want to take any chances with losing an early settler, how aggressive do you think we can be in settling that first city?
escort optional?

Good question since Gyathaar didn't reveal the barb setting. As far as I know it takes a while before barbs even start to spawn so if first city is founded fast the escort could be optional - particularly if he only has to travel a short distance outside our cultural borders. I think we need an estimate of when barbs in general start spawning and also when barb xbows start spawning because they will certainly be threatening.

Early in the game, GAs are not so valuable. Doubt that holding early GPs for later GAs is optimal.

I suppose that early GS's are best used for Academies and early GM's can either be settled or sent on a trade mission.

SCT, like very much what you've laid out here -- at least through turn 29 (not sure our first city shouldn't try and hook up a military resource [Why else research AH before The Wheel and Pottery?] and build the Oracle) -- but would feel more confident in relying on your intuition if you would spend some time playing with the corn-settle option. It is a more flexible approach and powerful in its own way, especially given the relative advantages of rexing at Quick speed. Suggest you might compare how each approach plays out if you settle the second city near the SW copper (better simulation of response to the unknown exigencies of the real map) and build the Oracle there. (I would delay Pottery rather than AH. If horses are available and we don't take advantage, we could fall significantly behind early if there are multiple AIs around.)

"Good question since Gyathaar didn't reveal the barb setting. As far as I know it takes a while before barbs even start to spawn so if first city is founded fast the escort could be optional - particularly if he only has to travel a short distance outside our cultural borders. I think we need an estimate of when barbs in general start spawning and also when barb xbows start spawning because they will certainly be threatening." My experience is that barb military units don't start spawning until 2000BC, about the same date that barbs will start to cross cultural borders. Before 2000, a settled city is safe; however, in these northern climes, the possibility of wolves (with 2 movement) usually means some sort of escort or fog busting is required to get the settler safely in place.

Good question since Gyathaar didn't reveal the barb setting. As far as I know it takes a while before barbs even start to spawn so if first city is founded fast the escort could be optional - particularly if he only has to travel a short distance outside our cultural borders. I think we need an estimate of when barbs in general start spawning and also when barb xbows start spawning because they will certainly be threatening.

I've played several games through to rifling and haven't seen any barb Xbows. I've even used worldbuilder to give barbs IW, Archery, and Machinery, and hooked iron for them, and they didn't build any Xbows or upgrade any archers to Xbows. I've never seen a barb Xbow in any game. Longbows I have seen before.

I'm not too worried about barbs. We're cultural, so we get free border expansions, and we want to REX quickly, so the fog will get consumed quickly. And being near the coast will limit the directions from which barbs can come at us. Just getting some fogbuster in place and horse or copper hooked reasonably quickly should protect us.

If we are building city 2 within our cultural borders, or 1 tile away on flat, bare land, there's no need for an escort. Any farther, and an animal could get it.

I think we should compare turn numbers for first 3-4 settlers to get an idea of how much we gain in the short term by settling on corn.

If copper is available pottery sounds more important than AH. Primarily to get those granaries built ASAP - doubling growth is very important in cities with limited food and in cities where we can get happy faces from forest preserves.

I think we should compare turn numbers for first 3-4 settlers to get an idea of how much we gain in the short term by settling on corn. Hard to evaluate the potential advantages of getting advanced units out early when the map is unknown, but this is reasonable.

If copper is available pottery sounds more important than AH. Primarily to get those granaries built ASAP - doubling growth is very important in cities with limited food and in cities where we can get happy faces from forest preserves. No doubt about the utility of granaries, but perhaps you are underestimating the possible benefits of our UU. Also thinking windmills, water wheels, roads, and even forest preserves may be better early improvements than cottages, and there are only so many worker turns.

SCT, like very much what you've laid out here -- at least through turn 29 (not sure our first city shouldn't try and hook up a military resource [Why else research AH before The Wheel and Pottery?] and build the Oracle) -- but would feel more confident in relying on your intuition if you would spend some time playing with the corn-settle option. It is a more flexible approach and powerful in its own way, especially given the relative advantages of rexing at Quick speed. Suggest you might compare how each approach plays out if you settle the second city near the SW copper (better simulation of response to the unknown exigencies of the real map) and build the Oracle there. (I would delay Pottery rather than AH. If horses are available and we don't take advantage, we could fall significantly behind early if there are multiple AIs around.)

I see your point about wanting the second city to be built to grab copper and push toward the AI. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind building the Oracle in the second city. The capital will have 4-5 mills built by then and will have forests available for chopping. If you are worried about Prophet points in the capital, I was thinking that we could whip a library in a high-food city and grow GSs there before a Prophet can be born. If we're developing Athens as a long-term capital, we want it big and working lots of tiles and no specialists, so there's no risk of an early unwanted Prophet.

I see your point about wanting the second city to be built to grab copper and push toward the AI. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind building the Oracle in the second city. The capital will have 4-5 mills built by then and will have forests available for chopping. If you are worried about Prophet points in the capital, I was thinking that we could whip a library in a high-food city and grow GSs there before a Prophet can be born. If we're developing Athens as a long-term capital, we want it big and working lots of tiles and no specialists, so there's no risk of an early unwanted Prophet. I was trying to avoid a Gprophet in our capital and also wanted to be free to build settlers and workers (interspersed with other builds during growth) there, rather than the Oracle. I agree with you that we should take little chance on missing the Oracle, given the opportunity to get Electricity, so I'm anxious to get started on it early (and still be able to rex and/or rush).

My tech strategy has been irrigation->mining->BW->poly->priesthood

The bonus commerce for mills from electricity gives us a big jump in the tech rate so I think it's important to get it online sooner rather than later, above and beyond the risk of losing out to the AI.
It also gets us the police state+environmentalism+slavery civics change in as soon as is reasonably possible.

I agree we should be able to whip a library in our gp farm (assuming we don't settle on the corn), long before the GP from the capital pops.
Keep in mind we also want an unpolluted GE pool so we need to keep an early city set aside to get the mids out asap.

@SCT - does the second version of the practice game have the HOF mod loaded?

@SCT - does the second version of the practice game have the HOF mod loaded?

No, I guess after I edited the worldbuilder file, I opened it back up in non-HOF mode. I can try to make a HOF version if it makes a difference.

I wasn't positive that it was the save. BTS had locked up while I was loading a different save file from the HOF area and when I loaded up this one it forced a restart of BTS w/o the mod. I wanted to make sure I hadn't messed something up.

Just checking in. I've been trying to keep up with all the posts. I got behind last weekend when I had trouble connecting and I had some houseguests. And you guys have been posting faster than I can process. I hope to get fully caught up tomorrow.

All enjoyable stuff, though.

Yes, we can certainly fill up a thread! :goodjob:

Having read little discussion on Worker moves and play order, I assume we will hold off starting on the actual save a bit more? :thumbsup:

Good reading so far. I hope to play a bit of practice tomorrow. :please:

Here's a look at the situation at turn 42 settling on the corn and establishing our second city near the copper. SCT, how does this compare with your practice? It will be difficult to get the Oracle out much faster than turn 45 or so, unless we do indeed build it in the capital and skip, say, AH (which means we need to discuss further).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208424&stc=1&d=1238134729

My tech strategy has been irrigation->mining->BW->poly->priesthood

The bonus commerce for mills from electricity gives us a big jump in the tech rate so I think it's important to get it online sooner rather than later, above and beyond the risk of losing out to the AI.
It also gets us the police state+environmentalism+slavery civics change in as soon as is reasonably possible.

This has also been my strategy in the few short tests I played.


Keep in mind we also want an unpolluted GE pool so we need to keep an early city set aside to get the mids out asap.

I'm not convinced that we should build the Pyramids. It's very expensive (same cost as 5 settlers!) and so far we have been focusing on building a cottage/windmill/watermill economy so the benefit of Representation is smaller than usual. Mids also come early so it's likely that there are other things we can build that will give a better return on the invested hammers. If we want engineer points I'd rather build HG since it's cheaper and it has a nice synergy with the REX'ing strategy.

On the discussion of where to build the Oracle I think Athens is the best choice and I suggest we limit the chopping as much as possible. Chopping before Math means sacrificing hammers and forests are needed for happiness in the early game. In one of my test games I got the Oracle pretty fast by maximizing overflow from pop rushing and letting these overflow hammers go into Oracle. This way the wonder penalty on whipping is not applied.

I'm not convinced that we should build the Pyramids. It's very expensive (same cost as 5 settlers!) and so far we have been focusing on building a cottage/windmill/watermill economy so the benefit of Representation is smaller than usual. Mids also come early so it's likely that there are other things we can build that will give a better return on the invested hammers. If we want engineer points I'd rather build HG since it's cheaper and it has a nice synergy with the REX'ing strategy.

Without stone, Mids are too expensive. If we find stone, we'll have something to think about.

On the discussion of where to build the Oracle I think Athens is the best choice and I suggest we limit the chopping as much as possible. Chopping before Math means sacrificing hammers and forests are needed for happiness in the early game. In one of my test games I got the Oracle pretty fast by maximizing overflow from pop rushing and letting these overflow hammers go into Oracle. This way the wonder penalty on whipping is not applied.

Yes, I have been doing a 2pop whip on a granary with something like 18 hammers invested. But I have been also looking to chop 4 forests into Oracle, despite the hammer loss. In one of my practice games, Oracle went to the AI on turn 44. And I looked through the HOF and found several more games with the same settings where Oracle went to the AI on turn 44. I think we need to complete Oracle by turn 43 to be safe. If we miss out on Oracle, our chance for a laurel is severely harmed.

Here's a look at the situation at turn 42 settling on the corn and establishing our second city near the copper. SCT, how does this compare with your practice? It will be difficult to get the Oracle out much faster than turn 45 or so, unless we do indeed build it in the capital and skip, say, AH (which means we need to discuss further).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208424&stc=1&d=1238134729

On this particular practice map, I think your placement of the third city is putting your strategy at a disadvantage compared with my capital placement. Who knows what the real map will bring. There may be a strategically important 3rd site that we want to reach out to before backfilling cities near the capital. But in terms of maximization through turn 42 on our practice map, saving a 2nd/3rd city site on the north coast seems like a winning move, because at pop2, it can work corn and fish and build workers in 4 turns and settlers in 6-7 turns. The capital quickly runs out of use for 2 high food tiles, so having 2 different cities sharing the 2 corn and 1 fish works well. Settling on corn loses its advantage quite early because after 2 corn are farmed in my game, its food is the same as yours.

AH is probably the best early tech to save until after Preisthood. Wheel is very important on quick speed. Pottery gives us the ability to 2pop whip a granary for overflow into Oracle. And wheat/cow/copper site really should build an early granary. I don't see any urgency in looking for horses. I'd much rather have copper.

I'll post a save shortly where I settle the cow/wheat/copper site first and corn/fish site second so we can compare results. I'll also try to match your 5 workers and copper hookup.


Edit: I've downloaded the starting save to have a closer look. I think our practice map matches what we can see in the real map. So what are people's thoughts on the scout move? North to reveal the coast or south to reveal the land? Either way could give us useful info about capital placement. If we find more seafood north, I think that gives stronger incentive to save the coast for a GP farm. If we find coast to the south, that might recommend against a southern settler move. More river or hills to the south would make a southern settler move better.

If we plan to settle on the corn I guess there is nothing the scout can discover to change this. If we plan to settle 1S or 1SE we need to know if there is more coast to the south and east. Moving 2N would give a Capital with an extraordinary growth. Has anyone checked this? Maybe we will be severely limited by happiness with so much food. I'm leaning towards sending the scout south unless 2N is feasible in which case checking the northern shore would be relevant.

Edit: I've downloaded the starting save to have a closer look. I think our practice map matches what we can see in the real map. So what are people's thoughts on the scout move? North to reveal the coast or south to reveal the land? Either way could give us useful info about capital placement. If we find more seafood north, I think that gives stronger incentive to save the coast for a GP farm. If we find coast to the south, that might recommend against a southern settler move. More river or hills to the south would make a southern settler move better.
Reading all your thoughts, it seems to me that the possible sites to settle include:
On the NE Corn
South to maximize land tiles
Two-tiles north of the start location

I have been reading with interest the power of Water Mills and Windmills. It would seem to me that we would want to maximize those in our capital? In order to keep all options open, I am thinking that the Scout moves either south and southwest or south and south. Should we find coast tiles down there, it might make the Corn look a better possibility? The only other consideration is if we are serious about the northern site for our capital, but it appears to be quite hammer poor to me and might serve better as a GP Farm. When I loaded up the save, I do not see a blue circle as on the screenie. :hmm:

Reading all your thoughts, it seems to me that the possible sites to settle include:
On the NE Corn
South to maximize land tiles
Two-tiles north of the start location

Two tiles would make for the best early settler/worker machine, but the worst long term capital - only 1 visible hill and no visible riverside. Actually, it's not even that much better of a settler/worker machine. Windmills and watermills net 2 food/hammers while fish net 3 early. The other two capital locations have at least 4+ millable tiles.

OK, I lied. I settled the fish/corn site as my second city. I don't know what the real map will hold, but the fish/corn site gets productive more quickly than any other 2nd city site on the practice map. 3 turns to grow to Pop2 and whip a WB. Then 2 more turns to grow back to Pop2 and start building 4-turn workers. If there isn't an AI close by, it seems better to settle the 2nd city north of the inland capital.

In this turn 43 save, I have just completed the Oracle. I have 3 cities, at Pop4, Pop2, and Pop2. I have 5 workers and 3 warriors. 1 turn away from Animal Husbandry (Wheel and Pottery already researched). 3 watermills, 3 windmills, 2 corn farms, 1 fish net, 2 roads. Copper is not yet hooked. Emphasis on chopping Oracle has delayed road-building, and not having fish in capital means we're a turn or two behind in tech compared with CP's save.

"Without stone, Mids are too expensive. If we find stone, we'll have something to think about." Strongly agree with this assessment.

On this particular practice map, I think your placement of the third city is putting your strategy at a disadvantage compared with my capital placement. Who knows what the real map will bring. Yes, I didn't give much thought to third city placement, as it's almost certainly going to be map dependent. Just wanted to show that the third could be settled that far from the capital that early and still get other critical things done as well. (Understand that I need to test some more to get the Oracle by turn 43.) There may be a strategically important 3rd site that we want to reach out to before backfilling cities near the capital. Yes. But in terms of maximization through turn 42 on our practice map, saving a 2nd/3rd city site on the north coast seems like a winning move, because at pop2, it can work corn and fish and build workers in 4 turns and settlers in 6-7 turns. The capital quickly runs out of use for 2 high food tiles, so having 2 different cities sharing the 2 corn and 1 fish works well. Not, of course, if we settle on the corn. Settling on corn loses its advantage quite early because after 2 corn are farmed in my game, its food is the same as yours. But how many turns are you behind? That's why I posted my save for comparison. I suspect your approach is better, but I remain concerned that it lacks flexibility, plus a couple of turns early might be critical. For example, with your capital location, could you research AH (given no copper) in time for a second city site, and still build the Oracle in a timely manner? I'll try to do that with corn settle and see what sacrifices (like skipping Pottery and/or AH) have to be made.

AH is probably the best early tech to save until after Preisthood. Wheel is very important on quick speed. Pottery gives us the ability to 2pop whip a granary for overflow into Oracle. We could pop whip anything couldn't we? A second settler for the third city might time out well, for instance. And wheat/cow/copper site really should build an early granary. I don't see any urgency in looking for horses. I'd much rather have copper. Agree with that, but we may not have copper nearby, so we need to test whether/how we can get the Oracle built by turn 43 and still research AH.

I'll post a save shortly where I settle the cow/wheat/copper site first and corn/fish site second so we can compare results. I'll also try to match your 5 workers and copper hookup. Comparing results is a good. Think all future testing should get the Oracle built by 43.


Edit: I've downloaded the starting save to have a closer look. I think our practice map matches what we can see in the real map. So what are people's thoughts on the scout move? North to reveal the coast or south to reveal the land? Either way could give us useful info about capital placement. If we find more seafood north, I think that gives stronger incentive to save the coast for a GP farm. If we find coast to the south, that might recommend against a southern settler move. More river or hills to the south would make a southern settler move better. Might learn the most by moving scout to SE hill.

OK, I lied. I settled the fish/corn site as my second city. I don't know what the real map will hold, but the fish/corn site gets productive more quickly than any other 2nd city site on the practice map. 3 turns to grow to Pop2 and whip a WB. Then 2 more turns to grow back to Pop2 and start building 4-turn workers. If there isn't an AI close by, it seems better to settle the 2nd city north of the inland capital.

In this turn 43 save, I have just completed the Oracle. I have 3 cities, at Pop4, Pop2, and Pop2. I have 5 workers and 3 warriors. 1 turn away from Animal Husbandry (Wheel and Pottery already researched). 3 watermills, 3 windmills, 2 corn farms, 1 fish net, 2 roads. Copper is not yet hooked. Emphasis on chopping Oracle has delayed road-building, and not having fish in capital means we're a turn or two behind in tech compared with CP's save.

I'll try to have an appropriate comparison save up before retiring tonight.

Might learn the most by moving scout to SE hill.

I agree with this. Looks like that move will reveal 13 tiles and the edges/corners of 15 more. The tile south of the forested hill looks like grassland, so we'll be able to see 3 extra land tiles. The tile SE of the forest hill looks like forest. There may be quite a bit more land that way, unlike the practice save.

I agree with moving to the SE hill.

SE Hill is looking pretty good to me too. :goodjob:

CFR and Misfits have both posted saves which show them with 4 culture less than the max. Looks like they both settled on Turn 1.

Anyone have any argument against the SSE settler scout move?

Anyone have any argument against the SSE settler move?
None here. :)

I've played the practice game thru to turn 107 when I acheived the Radio sling from Liberalism. I stayed pretty true to SCT game plan of settling 1 south until he built the 2nd scout. I went for a warrior instead due to the barbs being in play. I had a barb axe attacking while I only had warriors in defense but I pop rushed an airship to weaken him then sacrificed a few 1 turn warriors on forest tile to him before he finally died. No other barbs got inside the cultural boundary thankfully.

I got the Oracle on turn 50. I teched per SCT's plan so I knew Agri, mining, BW, AH, wheel, pot, myst, med, preist & writing by the time the Oracle completed. Athens hit size 6 on turn 48 and I had 2 other cities. I popped 1st GS on T65 used for academy and have saved the others. So I'm sitting on 4 GS and I'm 5 turns away from either a GE or a GP. Athens built Oracle, then Pyramids and later the Hanging Gardens. Pyramids were built when city was above size 10 so it did not take long. Athens is up to size 15 or 16 now with the forest preserves.

This was still a sloppy performance on my part but here is the save file. I played fast and wasn't mm cities like I should have been. The 1000bc save is from when the oracle completed and the 940ad save is the radio sling.

Just a clarification: Are we discussing moving the scout to the SSE hill and then posting a save or discussing settling on the SSE hill without seeing what's around it? Seems to be a bit of confusion here and I'd like it cleared up before a mistake is made.

Just a clarification: Are we discussing moving the scout to the SSE hill and then posting a save or discussing settling on the SSE hill without seeing what's around it? Seems to be a bit of confusion here and I'd like it cleared up before a mistake is made.

Sorry, I'll fix my post. I meant SSE scout move.

CFR and Misfits have both posted saves which show them with 4 culture less than the max. Looks like they both settled on Turn 1. If it's 4 less than the max, doesn't that imply that they settled on turn 2?

Anyone have any argument against the SSE settler scout move? Looking at the save posted in the thread, wondering if there isn't a hill 2NW of the start that might provide an equal amount of info.

I did have an argument to make but then I realised you were right and the land extends to the east in that southern fog.

Agree SSE seems like the optimum scout move.

Here is a corn-settled save through turn 43: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208527&stc=1&d=1238222670

Oracle has been completed on turn 43 and will come in on 44. Is that safe?

Could have gotten my second settler out 3 turns earlier, if I had built one less worker, and that's probably the way to go. Otherwise, I think this is a good attempt at what I was trying to accomplish: Oracle timely and not in capital (had to get to Priesthood quickly to do this); copper hooked up to get UU built fairly early, creating attractive options; research close to maximum possible (surprised to note that I'm several turns ahead of SCT's save in this respect); and road network well started to prepare for possible rexing and/or rushing.

As I proceeded, realized that if barbs had raged, would not have been able to accomplish this, and that's something to be discussed. Think possible barb problems is both an argument for Oracle in capital and getting a millitary resource hooked up soon.

Not clear to me that corn-settle is optimal, but it certainly seems viable. Will have one more go at it Saturday with Oracle in the capital if there is interest. Perhaps we want to move the scout first.

I don't think we need to worry about raging barbs since that option is not on according to the "settings" screen (see below). Also note that climate is temperate and sea level is medium and we have the standard 6 unknown rivals. Only thing that is unusual is that the info on map type is replaced by a filename - probably some custom map that Gyathaar has used. It is, of course, possible that Gyathaar has placed some barb cities already on the map similar to Jesusins GOTM. But that's only speculation. And still this wouldn't make the barbs raging, only they might have more units they build instead of spawned units.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208534&stc=1&d=1238233779

Ok, I don't hear any objections to moving the scout SSE, so I will do that in a couple hours and post a screenshot.

If you haven't done so yet, I advise you all to read posts 42 on in the Maintenance thread. Very interesting exploit discussion. :hmm:

If you haven't done so yet, I advise you all to read posts 42 on in the Maintenance thread. Very interesting exploit discussion. :hmm:

Alan also advises that only the active player uses this on the real map. If your finger slips off the mouse, you'll end up moving the unit. I don't think we want 9 different people all performing this risky maneuver. Try it out on the practice map.

I see what klarius is saying, to some extent. If you do this with the scout and are zoomed out at the right amount, you can see the path bending a bit in certain places, indicating that you would be moving uphill or downhill. If you see the path take a seemingly unnecessary zig-zag, it's a mountain peak. I can't really tell exactly where the ocean borders are though. I guess you could use the settler and check where the computer thinks are good spots to settle. If you find a big expanse of unsettleable land, it's probably ocean.

"If you find a big expanse of unsettleable land, it's probably ocean." Or AI territory? If so, that knowledge could be useful in determining early strategy.

Alan also advises that only the active player uses this on the real map. If your finger slips off the mouse, you'll end up moving the unit. I don't think we want 9 different people all performing this risky maneuver. Try it out on the practice map.
Let's make a simple rule, no one uses this unless they are up on the real save. We should all practice on a test game only.

And, should your finger slip, you have moved the unit and either must continue to play or save it before you leave the game. So please be careful when viewing the save when you are planning.

This would also explain the blue settle here circle on a tile in the fog.

Test out the moves feature and see if you can learn anything about the northwestern shoreline - then go for the SSE scout move sounds good.

I found that 2 N city to be a very powerful city for popping GPeople so even with building the Oracle in Athens my GPP from specialists were outpacing the 3 wonders in Athens.

For a little practice of another kind with Space Colony games the current HOF Gauntlet Minor 69 is a quick speed monarch level game, although it is a OCC. No permanent alliance are allowed so it will research more like this one, except for our free modern age techs of course.

I can't get any info from the exploit -- perhaps because my graphics are set on low -- but did learn that the risk could be eliminated by waiting until after the settler had moved.

I can't get any info from the exploit -- perhaps because my graphics are set on low -- but did learn that the risk could be eliminated by waiting until after the settler had moved.

Yes, that goes for the scout too.

I moved the scout and here's what we can see:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208557&stc=1&d=1238253052

Using the shift-click trick (you can also do this by hitting "g", the go-to button), I checked that the settler is 7 tiles away from the top of the map. We're in the north. There is some ice-covered water to the southeast, probably hand-added. The river bends in such a way that we could build 4 watermills with a 1S capital, with 2 more riversides for cottages. I don't detect any other hills near the settler.

Here is a corn-settled save through turn 43: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208527&stc=1&d=1238222670

Oracle has been completed on turn 43 and will come in on 44. Is that safe?

Yes, I think that is still in the safe zone, because you would get credit for building it on Turn 43 (I built it on turn 42).

Could have gotten my second settler out 3 turns earlier, if I had built one less worker, and that's probably the way to go. Otherwise, I think this is a good attempt at what I was trying to accomplish: Oracle timely and not in capital (had to get to Priesthood quickly to do this); copper hooked up to get UU built fairly early, creating attractive options; research close to maximum possible (surprised to note that I'm several turns ahead of SCT's save in this respect); and road network well started to prepare for possible rexing and/or rushing.

Agree that earlier settler is better. 6 workers to 2 cities is excessive. Your strategy would better suit an axe rush. My strategy will catch up in research pretty soon because of additional river tiles in capital and good GP farm location.

If it's 4 less than the max, doesn't that imply that they settled on turn 2?

No, we're cultural. We get 4 culture per turn.

Not very exciting. Would point out that the eastern land mass enhances the value of settling on the corn -- second expansion will reveal some of it.

You didn't respond to my query about how quickly our opposition has settled based on their culture.

edit: simultaneous posts -- our friends have probably settled on the corn, then?

"Agree that earlier settler is better. 6 workers to 2 cities is excessive. Your strategy would better suit an axe rush. Well, we do have an upgraded version available, but will there be anybody to rush or copper to mine? My strategy will catch up in research pretty soon because of additional river tiles in capital and good GP farm location." Yes, would have to rush and/or rex pretty successfully to compensate for those advantages.

Are you saying that you can determine that there are no hills either to the NW or the south, where there is obviously a mountain?

Not very exciting. Would point out that the eastern land mass enhances the value of settling on the corn.

You didn't respond to my query about how quickly our opposition has settled based on their culture.

edit: simultaneous posts -- our friends have probably settled on the corn, then?

No, our friends have settled on Turn 1, as opposed to turn 0.

Are you saying that a coastal capital would be able to build an exploratory workboat sooner?

"Agree that earlier settler is better. 6 workers to 2 cities is excessive. Your strategy would better suit an axe rush. Well, we do have an upgraded version available, but will there be anybody to rush or copper to mine? My strategy will catch up in research pretty soon because of additional river tiles in capital and good GP farm location." Yes, would have to rush and/or rex pretty successfully to compensate for those advantages.

Are you saying that you can determine that there are no hills either to the NW or the south, where there is obviously a mountain?

Upon my initial inspection, I can't detect any additional hills in either proposed BFC. I'll have another look later.

If we settle on the corn then 1 city claims all 3 of the food resources. While settling 1 S allows Athens to grow while initially using both corns then it can give the northernmost corn to Sparta which can also use the fish. This would make both of these strong cities.

That ice to the SE looks like it is forming a nice blockade which would prevent passage from that direction. We may need that 2N city location to reach the next island if copper/iron or horses pops up there.

No, our friends have settled on Turn 1, as opposed to turn 0. Got it.

Are you saying that a coastal capital would be able to build an exploratory workboat sooner? Probably (realize your GP city could get this done, probably soon enough), but was thinking the second expansion would be more revealing (not a big deal).

Looks like some challenges may have been 'mapped out' for us.

I'm liking one south for settler with a possible GP city up north. That gives us a number of less useful grassland forests that overlap to build preserves for happiness for both cities.

That would probably mean Oracle in Athens so we don't pollute the gene pool in the GP city.

I also think an early Work Boat performing recon would be very useful. :)

Upon further review, I am detecting another hill in the BFC of the 1S capital site. In the screenshot, you can see that the go-to path bends upward a bit. I'm also showing 2 mountain peaks in the south.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208581&stc=1&d=1238264948

That is a subtle read. Wonder that someone noticed it originally.

Settling south is even stronger with the hill. If that's the plan, counterintuitively, the next scout move might best be onto that same 1S tile.

That is a subtle read. Wonder that someone noticed it originally.

Settling south is even stronger with the hill. If that's the plan, counterintuitively, the next scout move might best be onto that same 1S tile.

I understand. No need to explore what our border pops will reveal. Second border pop will come 13 turns after settling. Maybe that's where my turnset should end. We can redo the practice map with the new info.

That is a subtle read. Wonder that someone noticed it originally.

Settling south is even stronger with the hill. If that's the plan, counterintuitively, the next scout move might best be onto that same 1S tile.

Very subtle, even when you add changing the camera angle into the equation it is still hard to read. But you can indeed see the little dip that the line takes. I noticed that it will let you try to move to fogged water tiles. I moved the scout that way in the practice game. So unless it gives you a red circle it will attempt to move the unit you are fog gazing with.

I understand. No need to explore what our border pops will reveal. Second border pop will come 13 turns after settling. Yes. Maybe that's where my turnset should end. We can redo the practice map with the new info. When settling on the corn, there were little micro-manages (new word?) that only occurred to me after practicing. Suspect this is the same for settling 1S and would encourage you to go additional turns to get past some of those if needed and thus take advantage of all your testing.

I understand. No need to explore what our border pops will reveal. Second border pop will come 13 turns after settling. Maybe that's where my turnset should end. We can redo the practice map with the new info.
Unless something unusual happens, would like to see you play about 20 turns.

Are we set on tech path and builds? Read the details in post 80 but thought there was some tweaking to do? Perhaps it has been done through several posts and I am lost again? Would appreciate a summary of what we are planning to do.

As our border expansion is fairly rapid, where do we want the Scout headed next? North to check on a second city site, further south or west?

Thanks. :thumbsup:

When settling on the corn, there were little micro-manages (new word?) that only occurred to me after practicing. Suspect this is the same for settling 1S and would encourage you to go additional turns to get past some of those if needed and thus take advantage of all your testing.

The first moves are pretty obvious. Research Agri-Mining-BW-Wheel. Build worker. Farm both corn. Start warrior but build 2nd worker at Pop2. Build 2 windmills, because BW is not done yet. From there, the MMing decisions increase exponentially. First settler at Pop2, or Pop3, or Pop4? Chop forest and then build mill OR build mill straight away to delay chop a few turns? Chop settlers aggressively or save more forests for Oracle? Skip pottery or AH or both until after preisthood? You get the point.

I definitely want to pause after the second border pop to redo the practice map, so we can game the the next 30 turns with perfect knowledge of the surrounding area. If the team wants me to take more turns, I will.

Unless something unusual happens, would like to see you play about 20 turns.

Are we set on tech path and builds? Read the details in post 80 but thought there was some tweaking to do? Perhaps it has been done through several posts and I am lost again? Would appreciate a summary of what we are planning to do.

As our border expansion is fairly rapid, where do we want the Scout headed next? North to check on a second city site, further south or west?

Thanks. :thumbsup:

I'm not using post 80 as a guide. That practice game showed me that Oracle needs to be expedited. See my previous post for my plan for the first 20 turns. But I want to stop at turn 14 for a more exact plan for the run-up to Oracle.

I think the scout needs to look for a city site to the south and west and find as many AI as possible. The 2N site for a 2nd or 3rd city is already money in the bank. Whether there's more seafood up there or not, I think there's only one good place to put that city. Athens's second border pop will reveal all anyway.

Sounds good. :goodjob:
Just crossin' my t's and dottin' my i's. :mischief:

Good luck. :thumbsup:

The first moves are pretty obvious. Research Agri-Mining-BW-Wheel. Build worker. Farm both corn. Start warrior but build 2nd worker at Pop2. Build 2 windmills, because BW is not done yet. Once a windmill is built (or will be next turn) and BW is in, don't forget to revolt. From there, the MMing decisions increase exponentially. First settler at Pop2, or Pop3, or Pop4? Chop forest and then build mill OR build mill straight away to delay chop a few turns? Chop settlers aggressively or save more forests for Oracle? Skip pottery or AH or both until after preisthood? You get the point.

I definitely want to pause after the second border pop to redo the practice map, so we can game the the next 30 turns with perfect knowledge of the surrounding area. If the team wants me to take more turns, I will. Sounds good to me.

Do we want to wait until the settler is out to revolt so we don't lose a turn getting the settler out? Then revolt the turn the settler is on the move? Definitely want to revolt before the second city is settled.

Do we want to wait until the settler is out to revolt so we don't lose a turn getting the settler out? Then revolt the turn the settler is on the move? Definitely want to revolt before the second city is settled. Normally that would be optimal, but in this Back-To-The-Future scenario we can revolt to Environmentalism (increasing yields from windmills) and Police State (25% bonus hammers for military units), as well as Slavery.

I'm reading all posts but I don't have much to add to the plan in motion.

I do like settling 1S on turn 1 and the 2nd or 3rd city to share the corn and pick up the fish.
I suspect I'll probably be making a case for more workers later, but that can wait =)

Do we want to wait until the settler is out to revolt so we don't lose a turn getting the settler out? Then revolt the turn the settler is on the move? Definitely want to revolt before the second city is settled.

Good question. It depends on how big we are (and how many windmills we're working) when we start the first settler. I will be stopping before we come to that point, so let's continue to give this thought.

I have a busy day today. I can start my turnset in about 15 hours.

I
I do like settling 1S on turn 1 and the 2nd or 3rd city to share the corn and pick up the fish.

Yes, unless Copper is near! Then we have a decision to make... ;)

EDIT - Looks like CFR and CRC are playing one game while Wonder Bumpkins and Misfits are playing another. :)

I'm fine with settling 1S. Seems like a safe bet no matter what the rest of the map looks like.

Second border pop will come 13 turns after settling. Maybe that's where my turn set should end. We can redo the practice map with the new info.

Stopping for a review of our plans after 13 turns seems like a good idea. Then we can discuss issues like this:

First settler at Pop2, or Pop3, or Pop4? Chop forest and then build mill OR build mill straight away to delay chop a few turns? Chop settlers aggressively or save more forests for Oracle? Skip pottery or AH or both until after priesthood?

Just a quick note, a reminder (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7924904&postcount=50) from Alan in the Maintenance Thread.

Happy Hunting SCT! :thumbsup:

Good question. It depends on how big we are (and how many windmills we're working) when we start the first settler. I will be stopping before we come to that point, so let's continue to give this thought. Depends on number of turns between time when revolt is useful [windmill(s) completed, warrior being built] and arrival of settler. One turn of production in a new city won't equal several turns of 2-4 extra commerce and perhaps a few extra hammers until many turns into the game (when the new city has grown large). Loss of production and growth in capital is temporary (and we actually lose more when the city is larger during revolt). A turn could be critical if we were going to build the Oracle in our second city or were desperate to get a military unit built, but neither seems likely to apply, so probably want to leverage the short-term gains.

I have a busy day today. I can start my turnset in about 15 hours. Whenever you are ready.

Just a quick note, a reminder (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7924904&postcount=50) from Alan in the Maintenance Thread.

Happy Hunting SCT! :thumbsup:

I good option to avoid mixing up the saves is to go into the globe view and place a label in the practice game.

Turn Report for turns 0 - 14 (4000BC - 3160BC)

T0) Scout S-SE
Settler South

T1) Settle Athens -> worker
Start agriculture
Scout 2W

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208761&stc=1&d=1238380462

T2) Scout SW

T3) Borders expand
Scout 2W
I see borders to the SE. Maybe barbs?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208762&stc=1&d=1238380462

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208763&stc=1&d=1238380462

T4) Scout W-SW

T5) Scout S-SW

T6) Scout NW-SW

T7) Agriculture -> Mining
We meet Hammurabi's bowman in the west. No phalanx rush that way.
Scout 2SE

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208764&stc=1&d=1238380462

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208765&stc=1&d=1238380462

T8) Scout 2SE

T9) Scout N-NE

T10) Scout survives wolf attack with 0.8 strength, stops to heal

T11) Scout N-E
Athens worker->warrior
Start corn farm

T12) Mining -> BW
Scout S-SE

T13) Barb galley sails into view of scout
Scout S-SE

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208766&stc=1&d=1238380462

T14) Borders expand, confirming barb borders
Scout 2SW

The southlands:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208767&stc=1&d=1238380462

The northlands:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208768&stc=1&d=1238380462

Save has not been uploaded to the server.

:goodjob: Lots of screenies.

Inland doesn't look too hospitable. :cringe:

We have our city site to the north and, perhaps, one to the south either on the Cow near the Rice and Clams or one tile north?

Looks like an early Work Boat for scouting might get caught by a Barb Galley. :rolleyes:
But it would be helpful to have a look east.

Had to be Bowmen... :eek:

After I moved the settler south on T0, I played around with the shift-right-click trick to see what tiles the computer thought were good places to settle. I checked every tile within a 27x27 square around Athens. Let Athens's tile be the coordinate (0,0). Here are the tiles where the settle button lit up:

On the eastern landmass: (4,1) , (5,3) , (6,2) , (6,3) , (6,4) , (7,2) , (7,3) , (7,5) , (7,6) , (8,3) , (8,4) , (8,5) , (9,3) , (9,4)

Further in the Southeast fog: (10,-10) , (12,-10) , (13,-8) , (13,-9) , (13,-10)

South of Athens: (1,-4) , (1,-5) , (0,-5) , (0,-6) , (-1,-6) , (-1,-7) , (0,-8) , (-1,-8) , (-1,-9) , (-2,-9) , (-2,-10) , (-3,-10) , (-3,-11) , (-2,-12) , (-3,-12) , (-1,-13) , (-2,-13) , (-4,-13)

West of Athens: (-1,3) , (-3,-4) , (-5,-3) ----> (-14,3) , (-10,4) , (-14,4)

Southwest of Athens: (-13,-5) , (-12,-5) , (-11,-6)


Now the interesting thing is that when the settler made its way down south of Athens, the tiles that had lit up in the fog before coincided perfectly with the coastal tiles down there. So it seem that we can predict where other coastlines are.

Here's a map of where the settle button lit up:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208774&stc=1&d=1238383242

Very interesting that it should light up along the coast line?

I don't really trust those darn blue circles most of the time. :p

EDIT - Perhaps those settlers are looking for beach front property, or a nice vacation? :hmm:

Settle on the cow and lose the hammers from it or settle north of it by the river and lose a watermill but get freshwater health benefits. Neither of those sites would be able to share forest preserves with the capital, but if we settle one N of the cow, a city E of the rice would get the fish also (unless barb culture gets it) and there would be some forests to share for the preserves.

If we settle NW of the clams, the city would have cows and clams and be able to share a forest with the capital and the city E of the rice could share the cows and potentially have 3 food sources and could be a good GP site.

Settle on the cow and lose the hammers from it or settle north of it by the river and lose a watermill but get freshwater health benefits. Neither of those sites would be able to share forest preserves with the capital, but if we settle one N of the cow, a city E of the rice would get the fish also (unless barb culture gets it) and there would be some forests to share for the preserves.

If we settle NW of the clams, the city would have cows and clams and be able to share a forest with the capital and the city E of the rice could share the cows and potentially have 3 food sources and could be a good GP site.

Until we have Sailing and galleys, not sure any of those sites are desirable, as the barbs will surely destroy our fishnets. (Hopefully there are no barbs on the eastern island chain, and the ice barier will allow us to operate a GP farm 3N of capital as planned.)

:goodjob: Lots of screenies.

Inland doesn't look too hospitable. :cringe: No, it doesn't, at least not nearby. Is there any viable option for chopping gold in this game? Expect strategic resource location will determine third city site.

Had to be Bowmen... :eek: With iron, we will have crossbows. What do we know of Ham's personality traits?

[QUOTE=ShannonCT;7927090]Here's a map of where the settle button lit up:

Nice find, SCT. Do we have to wait for our settler to come out before determining the borders of Barbland, and do we have to send the scout SE to see whether the land extends in that direction? Hope we don't lose that scout. Knowledge of the map is needed and will be slow to come by without him.

Looks like you can work the lake until the second corn is farmed and still get our worker out in 5 turns, then start two windmills. Suggest you proceed to BW if others concur. Will have some time Monday night and Tuesday to fool with a test map, if you have time to create one.

I see that I was right when I guessed that there might already be barb cities settled. Gyathaar clearly want us to face some advanced barbs as well. I'm almost certain that the ice barrier prevents the barbs from reaching the northern fish - that's why Gyathaar put the ice there in the first place. To prevent teams that settle on the corn or 2N to get the nasty surprise that working the fish is not possible. I wonder if he has given the barbs other units than that galley...

I'm very pleased that we got an extra grassland hill by moving south. Looks like there are very few good city cites nearby. Glad that we reserved space 2N for a 2nd city. Rivers and hills with some grassland and food resources would be ideal. There seems to be a river and some hills to the west - might be worth exploring more.

Do we have time to settle near or on top of the marble before building the Oracle? Not the best long term city site though :(.

No, it doesn't, at least not nearby. Is there any viable option for chopping gold in this game?

We get double production on libraries, universities, odeons, and theaters. Theaters are as cheap as walls (33 hammers) but pretty useless. Odeons are 53 hammers, and libraries are 60. So say we put 12 hammers into an Odeon. With 41 hammers remaining, we could whip 2 pop for 40 hammers each. Then let's say we chopped 5 forests for another 40 hammers each. We just produced 280 hammers. 41 go into the Odeon and 53 overflow into the next build. That leaves 186 to overflow into gold. Is it worth using 5 forests and 2 pop for 186 gold? Remember the reason wall-overflow was so powerful was that a Protective civ gets triple production on walls with stone hooked.

With iron, we will have crossbows. What do we know of Ham's personality traits?

Hammurabi:
Aggressive and Organized
UU is the Bowman, with 50% bonus vs. melee units
UB is the Garden (Colosseum) that grants an extra 2 health
Favorite civic is Bureaucracy
Favors culture victories
Builds wonders "very often" (I don't trust this, because Gandhi supposedly builds wonders "very rarely")
Average amount of unit building
Will trade non-monopoly techs at Cautious
Will trade monopoly techs at +10
Considers tech monopoly if fewer than 40% of civs know the tech
Will trade open borders and maps at Cautious
Will not declare war at Pleased or Friendly (unless forced by a resolution or DP/PA)
Long Refuse-to-Talk delay
Can get +4 relations for favorite civic and +5 for same religion

Sounds like Hammy is worth getting Pleased with. He'll trade us techs and be a good neighbor (until we unleash hell on him).

Nice find, SCT. Do we have to wait for our settler to come out before determining the borders of Barbland, and do we have to send the scout SE to see whether the land extends in that direction? Hope we don't lose that scout. Knowledge of the map is needed and will be slow to come by without him.

Looks like you can work the lake until the second corn is farmed and still get our worker out in 5 turns, then start two windmills. Suggest you proceed to BW if others concur. Will have some time Monday night and Tuesday to fool with a test map, if you have time to create one.

I saved the game at T0 after moving the settler 1S, so I can always open it back up and do more hunting. However, I've already checked the area around the barb city, and nothing is lighting up. It may be that barbland is only a few tiles, or that the settle button won't light up too close to a barb city.

The coordinates of the barb city are (5,-6). The closest coastal tiles I can detect to that are (4,1) and (10,-10). Right now, there's nothing to suggest barbland connects with anything to the north or east.

I'm working on updating the practice map. I figured out how to replace Mansa with Hammy. Now I just need to change a couple hundred tiles.

Do we have time to settle near or on top of the marble before building the Oracle? Not the best long term city site though :(.

We can try it after I post a new practice map. Settling on top of the marble isn't bad. We could work the sheep and 4 hills. Even tundra hills are strong with windmills - 1f2h4c.

Here's the updated practice map:

Settling 3rd city on marble speeds up Oracle by at least 2 turns, I've found. It also saves a couple forests. After BW, I researched Wheel, Myst, Medi, Preist, Masonry. AH and Pottery are delayed a couple turns.

Thanks for all the info and the practice map, SCT.

Settling 3rd city on marble speeds up Oracle by at least 2 turns, I've found. It also saves a couple forests. After BW, I researched Wheel, Myst, Medi, Preist, Masonry. AH and Pottery are delayed a couple turns. Settling on marble might beat getting GP farm up and running? (Think Fred is right that ice was placed to protect that fish.)

Still advocate that SCT gets to BW before we spend lengthy time practicing.

The presence of a galley before any civ has Sailing troubles me. What are the implications? Can you protest an SGOTM? Something like . . .

The X-team protests SGOTM9 on two grounds:

1. The presence of advanced barb units before game mechanics makes them possible. Since such units are possible in this game, it follows logically (from a false premise) that any and everything else is also possible. Optimal game play could therefore be penalized by completely unpredictable (normally impossible) events.

2. Teams are informed of the above-mentioned change in game mechanics by a reference to 'mean' barbs, which is subject to broad interpretation. While it is common practice to attempt to deduce the creator's intentions and behave accordingly, such mind reading is certainly not a Civ skill and could conceivably be aided by personal revelations not equally available to all teams.

It is understood that good intentions are at work here in order to provide an interesting challenge; nonetheless, the result is inappropriate. We suggest that either the game be called off before more time and effort is put into it or the changes in mechanics be immediately revealed to all teams.

Respectfully submitted,

The X-team

Hi team,

I'm officially caught up (again), but I expect you guys will bury me under another mountain of posts today while I'm at work (again). I should have some time to dig myself out again tonight, and I'm looking forward to playing the revised practice save.

I'd like to request that I be taken out of the turnset rotation, though. I haven't been able to put in the time I expected to, and you guys are all way better players than I am. I am learning quite a bit, though, and I'm really enjoying watching this, so I'd like to stay on the team if that's ok. And perhaps when I feel I'm a little closer to pulling my weight I'll ask to be re-inserted into the rotation.

Cheers,
G22

"I'm very pleased that we got an extra grassland hill by moving south. Looks like there are very few good city cites nearby. Glad that we reserved space 2N for a 2nd city. Rivers and hills with some grassland and food resources would be ideal." Fred, you really don't think we should have settled on the corn?

G22, whatever works for you, but don't hesitate to contribute ideas.

Thanks for all the info and the practice map, SCT.

Settling on marble might beat getting GP farm up and running? (Think Fred is right that ice was placed to protect that fish.)

We still need BW, Wheel, Myst, Medi, Preist, and Masonry before settling on marble does any good.

Still advocate that SCT gets to BW before we spend lengthy time practicing.

OK, I'll play tonight as soon as we figure out when to start the first settler.

The presence of a galley before any civ has Sailing troubles me. What are the implications? Can you protest an SGOTM? Something like . . .

It's like GOTM39 all over again eh?

The problem with Gyathaar revealing the tricks of the map now is that some teams may have already played far enough to learn them the hard way. It would give the slow starters an advantage.

I hope there aren't too many eccentricities on the map. All we can do is prepare for different scenarios. We can build an early airship for wider scouting. We can beeline to paratroopers in case we need to jump over obstacles.

Here's the updated practice map:

Excellent job :goodjob:

There is some oil in the practice map which is not in the real save. And also, there are a couple of extra tundra hills near the marble in the real save. Not important though, the map will do fine for practise.

Sounds like Hammy is worth getting Pleased with. He'll trade us techs and be a good neighbor (until we unleash hell on him).

Let's hope that we can fin another civ we can go after first. That would also mean more potential for tech trading.

Settling on top of the marble isn't bad. We could work the sheep and 4 hills. Even tundra hills are strong with windmills - 1f2h4c.

You are right! Sounds very promising.

We get double production on libraries, universities, odeons, and theaters. Theaters are as cheap as walls (33 hammers) but pretty useless. Odeons are 53 hammers, and libraries are 60. So say we put 12 hammers into an Odeon. With 41 hammers remaining, we could whip 2 pop for 40 hammers each. Then let's say we chopped 5 forests for another 40 hammers each. We just produced 280 hammers. 41 go into the Odeon and 53 overflow into the next build. That leaves 186 to overflow into gold. Is it worth using 5 forests and 2 pop for 186 gold? Remember the reason wall-overflow was so powerful was that a Protective civ gets triple production on walls with stone hooked.

Might I add that the forests will only be worth 26 hammers each pre-Math. I think we should consider doing this in the marble city or perhaps in a city founded on the "Great Plains" with cow, wheat, uranium and wine in the FC. Another option is to start building a Wonder like Parthenon (50% hammers w. marble) with the intention of cashing in when it's built. My first priority is still Rex - it looks like there is some floodplain and hills near the scout and a river+ hills to the west. So there are spots for at least 6-7 cities including the capital. Where did the bowman come from? South or west?

I'd like to request that I be taken out of the turnset rotation, though. I haven't been able to put in the time I expected to, and you guys are all way better players than I am. I am learning quite a bit, though, and I'm really enjoying watching this, so I'd like to stay on the team if that's ok. And perhaps when I feel I'm a little closer to pulling my weight I'll ask to be re-inserted into the rotation.

There's no pressure to play a turnset. We don't have a shortage of players. What we want is many minds with different ideas. If you have some ideas or questions about the game, throw them out there. Too much groupthink has cost us laurels in the past.

Where did the bowman come from? South or west?

It seemed to come from the west. Babylon is probably 3-5 tiles away in the western fog.

We still need BW, Wheel, Myst, Medi, Preist, and Masonry before settling on marble does any good. Yes, and BW might make it optimal to settle just off the marble to get both copper and marble.

OK, I'll play tonight as soon as we figure out when to start the first settler. I'll test and get back with an opinion on that ASAP.

It's like GOTM39 all over again eh? Indeed, deja vu (def. "something unpleasantly familiar").

The problem with Gyathaar revealing the tricks of the map now is that some teams may have already played far enough to learn them the hard way. It would give the slow starters an advantage. Depends on just what he's done.

I hope there aren't too many eccentricities on the map. All we can do is prepare for different scenarios. We can build an early airship for wider scouting. We can beeline to paratroopers in case we need to jump over obstacles. And if we do, but don't need to, we lose. If we don't, and do need to, same result.

Can you protest an SGOTM?

I suppose we can send a PM to AlanH. No team has yet played beyond 30 turns so I suppose it wouldn't hurt anyones chances if the map changes are explained a bit. I'm not that worried about the changes - it looks like Gyathaar has settled a barb city and given the barbs a galley. He may have given them more units, but since they are on a different land mass I doubt it will cause any problems. I have never seen barbs transport units inside galleys. We can build a galley ourselves and do some reconnainsance of the barb city...

OK, I'll play tonight as soon as we figure out when to start the first settler.

Did a quick test and found one promising continuation. Building warrior for one more turn so that Athens reaches pop2 and then switch to Settler. Work the lake until 2nd corn is farmed and then switch to working both corn. This way BW should be available at the same time as setler and we can do tripple revolt while settler heads for 3N site. Worker builds mill so that Athens can work corn+mill and Sparta corn. This means that we have two cities at turn 23 which is pretty fast.

EDIT: I continued by building in Sparta: WB (whip) - warrior (or scout?) - worker and in Athens finish warrior - worker (chop). Looks good, Sparta could possibly build the settler fot the Marble quite fast.

"No team has yet played beyond 30 turns so I suppose it wouldn't hurt anyones chances if the map changes are explained a bit. I'm not that worried about the changes" I'm not greatly concerned either, but there could be unintended consequences and thus reason for concern. It is the principle that troubles me, and I'd like to file a protest if only to limit this kind of thing in the future.

Did a quick test and found one promising continuation. Building warrior for one more turn so that Athens reaches pop2 and then switch to Settler. Work the lake until 2nd corn is farmed and then switch to working both corn. This way BW should be available at the same time as setler and we can do tripple revolt while settler heads for 3N site. Worker builds mill so that Athens can work corn+mill and Sparta corn. This means that we have two cities at turn 23 which is pretty fast. This looks very promising. I took the other approach and revolted at pop3(turn 23), completing the settler after pop4. Get second city significantly slower (about turn 29), but take a look at my 1960BC save below and make sure you can do better.

EDIT: I continued by building in Sparta: WB (whip) - warrior (or scout?) - worker and in Athens finish warrior - worker (chop). Looks good, Sparta could possibly build the settler fot the Marble quite fast. Yes, with either continuation, Sparta looks like the place to build the next settler.

Couple of things I've found from practice:

Only way to have scout survive is to move him extremely conservatively -- only one tile per turn on open ground, and retreat when confronted.

We really don't need The Wheel (counter to my experience, but this map just allows the workers to get where they're going eficiently without it) before Priesthood. By delaying Wheel, we can get to the Oracle and Electricity earlier.

1960BC save utilizing early revolt and late settler, with late Wheel (I made a careless error two turns earlier that prevented the second city from being at pop two on this date): http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208892&stc=1&d=1238453174

Almost forgot . . . had unexpected gold from a chop that completed a warrior (plus 12 gold), allowing me to run research at 100%. Not sure whether this is desirable or not, but it needs to be watched out for.

We really don't need The Wheel (counter to my experience, but this map just allows the workers to get where they're going eficiently without it) before Priesthood. By delaying Wheel, we can get to the Oracle and Electricity earlier.

I arrived at the same conclusion

1960BC save utilizing early revolt and late settler, with late Wheel (I made a careless error two turns earlier that prevented the second city from being at pop two on this date)

I played on just to make sure that Oracle could be built in time. Got it in turn 43, 3 cities and a pop of 12 total. Used only 2 chops. I played quite fast so this can probably be improved upon. I can try to redo tomorrow and compare at 1960BC.

Almost forgot . . . had unexpected gold from a chop that completed a warrior (plus 12 gold), allowing me to run research at 100%. Not sure whether this is desirable or not, but it needs to be watched out for.

Certainly - particularly after revolting to Police State. This was one of the tricks PaulisKhan was talking about. If we do this we should probably use both a chop and a pop to get a substantial amount of gold.

With no conquest rush on the cards and no hut pops our only early source of cash is going to be whip/chop over-over-flow.
The costs that we have to factor in include
1) worker intensive. Workers need to be in place for simultaneous chop
2) opportunity cost of the chopped forest - happiness/infrastructure/units

I am however very very happy to see that marble. We want to consider getting a good production city set up reasonably early to start utilising that resource as a hammer->gold multiplyer, with so many early-mid game marble wonders we can milk that marble for a lot of cash.

I am very happy/impressed with the grow to pop 2, build settler to share corn+claim fish, revolt to slavery during travel time strategy.

Will we use Sparta to fuel the rex, or will it whip a library after it builds its first settler and run two scientists?

Also, keep in mind that hills are now a valuable resource, much more so than we are used to thinking of them as, including tundra hills.

With no conquest rush on the cards and no hut pops our only early source of cash is going to be whip/chop over-over-flow.
The costs that we have to factor in include
1) worker intensive. Workers need to be in place for simultaneous chop
2) opportunity cost of the chopped forest - happiness/infrastructure/units

If we are going to do this very early worker turns is clearly a problem. I was thinking of combining a single pop rush with a single chop in Sparta. That would yield something like 30 gold. Not much but might save a couple of turns of research. Chopping/whipping gold this way becomes more attractive when we start having libraries because this means that additional gold is multiplied by 1.25 before it's turned into beakers.

I am however very very happy to see that marble. We want to consider getting a good production city set up reasonably early to start utilising that resource as a hammer->gold multiplyer, with so many early-mid game marble wonders we can milk that marble for a lot of cash.

In my test game 3rd city is founded on top of marble to speed up Oracle.

Will we use Sparta to fuel the rex, or will it whip a library after it builds its first settler and run two scientists?

Could support REX early on and then later start running scientists?

Also, keep in mind that hills are now a valuable resource, much more so than we are used to thinking of them as, including tundra hills.

Absolutely! Most of our early cities should be founded where there is hills and food.

The first pop whip + 1 forest chop I think has merit though the point you make about library multipliers is definitely valid. We'll want writing fairly early on so it's probably not too big of a deal to wait until then but we'll know more when the second and third cities get founded.

There's a city site to the south (possible 4th city) that claims wheat, cows and 3 wine. The cows and wheat allow it to support a total of 5 cottages in addition to the resource tiles. It has at least 4 forest tiles that could be chopped into a warrior, and still leave behind something of a patchwork pattern to maximise chances of forest regrowth for a later math/OR/forge enhanced chop (especially if we preserve the remaining forests).
Looking ahead, there's an option available there if we find we need more cash.
I also see a rice+fish moai and a cow+clams /coastal/cottage/watermill city.

I defintely like settling on the marble as city No. 3. ToA is a good wonder to sink hammers into after the Oracle is finished. It's one of the first marble wonders to be completed by the AI and will give us a return on our investment pretty quickly. That city has enough hills and the sheep to let it help out with other things later on, despite the inferior looking land.

Writing this did remind me of something I had heard but didn't know the code for.
Forest preserve increases the chance of forest growth in the neighbouring tiles, correct? presuming that no improvement is currently occupying the tile?
It might be in our best interests to be rather aggressive with our chops on certain tiles (surrounded by a large number of forest preserves). A hammer farm could pay for itself many times over and less emphasis would need to put into maximising the benefits of a forests one and only chop.

I played on just to make sure that Oracle could be built in time. Got it in turn 43, 3 cities and a pop of 12 total. Used only 2 chops. I played quite fast so this can probably be improved upon. I can try to redo tomorrow and compare at 1960BC. Please do. At turn 34 in my game, I think Oracle was due in 10 without chops.

Agree that, at least until we have Writing, Sparta is settler/worker pump.

The presence of a galley before any civ has Sailing troubles me. What are the implications? Can you protest an SGOTM? Something like . . .

The X-team protests SGOTM9 on two grounds:

1. The presence of advanced barb units before game mechanics makes them possible. Since such units are possible in this game, it follows logically (from a false premise) that any and everything else is also possible. Optimal game play could therefore be penalized by completely unpredictable (normally impossible) events.

2. Teams are informed of the above-mentioned change in game mechanics by a reference to 'mean' barbs, which is subject to broad interpretation. While it is common practice to attempt to deduce the creator's intentions and behave accordingly, such mind reading is certainly not a Civ skill and could conceivably be aided by personal revelations not equally available to all teams.

It is understood that good intentions are at work here in order to provide an interesting challenge; nonetheless, the result is inappropriate. We suggest that either the game be called off before more time and effort is put into it or the changes in mechanics be immediately revealed to all teams.

Respectfully submitted,

The X-team
Gyathaar and Alan will see this as you have posted it here. They are monitoring all the threads.

Is your concern that Gyathaar may have given the Barbs additional techs beyond Sailing? Gyathaar did post in the sign up thread that none of the advanced techs we received were given to the Barbs. He also said in the maintenance thread that the Barbs were a bit meaner in this game.

Hi team,

I'm officially caught up (again), but I expect you guys will bury me under another mountain of posts today while I'm at work (again). I should have some time to dig myself out again tonight, and I'm looking forward to playing the revised practice save.

I'd like to request that I be taken out of the turnset rotation, though. I haven't been able to put in the time I expected to, and you guys are all way better players than I am. I am learning quite a bit, though, and I'm really enjoying watching this, so I'd like to stay on the team if that's ok. And perhaps when I feel I'm a little closer to pulling my weight I'll ask to be re-inserted into the rotation.

Cheers,
G22
This is not a problem. Please let me know when you are ready. Also, please do not skip yourself because you feel behind. We will help you through comments on your pre-play plan to get through a set. If you get into the middle of a set and feel completely lost then stop, save and post asking for help. We're very good at giving you more than you bargained for. :lol:

Re: Founding on the marble...

If we do that, we just need masonry and not also wheel to have the marble count as hooked for the city on top of it, right?

Actually, I would have thought both masonry and wheel were necessary, but I did a little experiment myself. I started a scratch game as Willem van Orange, who starts with fishing and agriculture, but not wheel. I founded my capital on a corn tile, and the corn resource showed up in the resource list inside the capital, even though I didn't have roads yet.

Marble would work the same way, right?

Agriculture would let the corn show up. Unfortunately, you still have to have the appropriate techs before the resources become available - even if you are settled on them.

Gyathaar and Alan will see this as you have posted it here. They are monitoring all the threads.

Is your concern that Gyathaar may have given the Barbs additional techs beyond Sailing? My concern is that he may have done something to make the game unpredictable (otherwise impossible, as opposed to improbable) and that, if we don't protest, a precedent will be set. Gyathaar did post in the sign up thread that none of the advanced techs we received were given to the Barbs. Yes, but he didn't tell us that he gave them galleys, which we could have rightfully assumed they could not yet have, since they were not given Sailing. Are we therefore wise (or foolish) to protect ourselves from other advanced barb units, as SCT has suggested? He also said in the maintenance thread that the Barbs were a bit meaner in this game. And what does that imply? If we guess correctly, will that gain an advantage? It shouldn't. Success at such quessing is not a Civ skill.

Re: Founding on the marble...

If we do that, we just need masonry and not also wheel to have the marble count as hooked for the city on top of it, right?

Actually, I would have thought both masonry and wheel were necessary, but I did a little experiment myself. I started a scratch game as Willem van Orange, who starts with fishing and agriculture, but not wheel. I founded my capital on a corn tile, and the corn resource showed up in the resource list inside the capital, even though I didn't have roads yet.

Marble would work the same way, right?

That's right. We could found on the marble and chop Oracle there with the bonus after Masonry. With 3 chops we get 78 hammers, and another 8 hammers per turn from marble and a plains forest would complete the Oracle in 3 turns. This might let us to REX faster or build something else useful in Athens, like an airship.

That's right. We could found on the marble and chop Oracle there with the bonus after Masonry. With 3 chops we get 78 hammers, and another 8 hammers per turn from marble and a plains forest would complete the Oracle in 3 turns. This might let us to REX faster or build something else useful in Athens, like an airship. Interesting, but might be best to wait and see where both the copper and horses are before settling our third city.

I'm having fun with the practice save. One thing I'm noticing, which I'm sure you're all aware of, is that we can get screwed by rounding.

For instance, when I found city number two at 100% research, we fall to -1gpt. I have to drop research to 90% to get back to 0gpt, but that takes away 2 beakers/turn (typically from 12bpt to 10bpt), not just 1. So we're paying 2 beakers for 1 gold. That's a bad deal.

But if we run a single turn at 0% research to build up 12 gold in reserve, we can run for 12 turns at -1gpt at 100% research and keep all 12bpt for each of those turns. Over the 13-turn cycle, one turn off and 12 on, that's a total of 1*0 + 12*12 = 144 beakers, compared to 13 turns at 10bpt, 13*10 = 130 beakers.

Yup, standard practice should always be to run at 0% research or 100% research.

For a normal solo game it's ok to not do that so you don't get overwhelmed by micromanagement, but for this style of game where we're only playing short turn sets we should definitely stick to the "binary research" plan.

CP, please see this post in the maintenance thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7931526&postcount=56) concerning Barbs.

I PM'ed Alan and Gyathaar responded to your concern. Hope the answer is satisfactory. :)

I tend to clog threads up a bit with walls of text so I just wanted to reraise the topic of forests preserves and forest regrowth in case it got missed by tired eyes

this did remind me of something I had heard but didn't know the code for.
Forest preserve increases the chance of forest growth in the neighbouring tiles, correct? presuming that no improvement is currently occupying the tile?
It might be in our best interests to be rather aggressive with our chops on certain tiles (surrounded by a large number of forest preserves). A hammer farm could pay for itself many times over and less emphasis would need to put into maximising the benefits of a forests one and only chop.

Apologies if I broke protocol, still trying to find my feet here =)

I'm having fun with the practice save. One thing I'm noticing, which I'm sure you're all aware of, is that we can get screwed by rounding.

For instance, when I found city number two at 100% research, we fall to -1gpt. I have to drop research to 90% to get back to 0gpt, but that takes away 2 beakers/turn (typically from 12bpt to 10bpt), not just 1. So we're paying 2 beakers for 1 gold. That's a bad deal.

But if we run a single turn at 0% research to build up 12 gold in reserve, we can run for 12 turns at -1gpt at 100% research and keep all 12bpt for each of those turns. Over the 13-turn cycle, one turn off and 12 on, that's a total of 1*0 + 12*12 = 144 beakers, compared to 13 turns at 10bpt, 13*10 = 130 beakers.

Good observation. I have been ignoring this in my practice games but should have been taking it into account after founding the second city.

In BtS, beakers, gold, and espionage are calculated to the nearest hundredth in each city, summed, and then rounded down. Later in the game, when you're making 1000 bpt, losing a fraction of a beaker hardly matters. But early in the game, it's much more significant.

So we should try to research at 100% when possible, but then turn research to 0% when we can't sustain 100%, unless researching at some other rate will get us an important tech one turn sooner. Or if you can find a research percentage where the sum of your cities' beakers and sum of gold are both integers, you'll avoid rounding losses that way too.

I tend to clog threads up a bit with walls of text so I just wanted to reraise the topic of forests preserves and forest regrowth in case it got missed by tired eyes

Apologies if I broke protocol, still trying to find my feet here =)

I think that's a good idea for some of the city sites to the south and southwest. As far as I know, the chance of forest spreading to a tile depends on the number of forests adjacent to it, and forest preserves increase the spreading effect of forests. But in the capital, we'll probably want to replace any chopped forest with a cottage, and we'll want more preserves than usual to get it big enough to work 4 windmills, 4 watermills, and 2+ cottages.

I think I'm ready to continue through BW, with the decision to build a settler at Pop2 (next turn) to settle 3N of the capital. Since that city doesn't need any land tile improvements, it doesn't make much sense to build a second worker before the settler.

So the plan for the next few turns:

Research BW
Grow to Pop2 and work lake
Farm second corn, and work corn farm when completed
Start windmill after corn farm
Don't expose the scout on open terrain

sounds good

I made a mental note of the forest spreading idea :). And please help us remember when we start planning where to put the forest preserves. Maybe we could already now make a map of where to put the FP's in our first 3 cities: Athens, Sparta (3N) and Marble City?

CP, please see this post in the maintenance thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7931526&postcount=56) concerning Barbs.

I PM'ed Alan and Gyathaar responded to your concern. Hope the answer is satisfactory. :)

So I guess that barb galley was either built in the barb city, or it spawned from the fog somewhere. Does that mean several AI have researched Sailing already? Maybe a race for GLH?

Gyathaar says barbs were given no techs and no units. So the only thing left is to give them cities, and buildings in those cities. It's pretty clear the barb city to our SE was given a culture producing building or some free culture. What else could that city have been given to make it meaner? Barracks? Maybe it has the only iron in the area?

I think I'm ready to continue through BW, with the decision to build a settler at Pop2 (next turn) to settle 3N of the capital. Since that city doesn't need any land tile improvements, it doesn't make much sense to build a second worker before the settler.

So the plan for the next few turns:

Research BW
Grow to Pop2 and work lake
Farm second corn, and work corn farm when completed
Start windmill after corn farm
Don't expose the scout on open terrain

Yes, I think you can do that. Haven't had time to redo test and compare with CP's 1960 BC save, but I'm pretty confident that it's at least not worse than his approach and I know for sure that we can found a 3rd city on marble and build Oracle no later than turn 43 with this approach.

Yes, I think you can do that. Haven't had time to redo test and compare with CP's 1960 BC save, but I'm pretty confident that it's at least not worse than his approach and I know for sure that we can found a 3rd city on marble and build Oracle no later than turn 43 with this approach.

If you're getting Oracle by T43 and with 12 pop total, that's better than anything I was able to do with second worker first. How are you using the marble to speed up Oracle? Are you building roads to that city?

So I guess that barb galley was either built in the barb city, or it spawned from the fog somewhere. Does that mean several AI have researched Sailing already? Maybe a race for GLH?

Gyathaar says barbs were given no techs and no units. So the only thing left is to give them cities, and buildings in those cities. It's pretty clear the barb city to our SE was given a culture producing building or some free culture. What else could that city have been given to make it meaner? Barracks? Maybe it has the only iron in the area?

It's surprising that the barbs already have Sailing. I guess there must be many AI starting with Fishing in this game. Does that tell us something about the possible opponents? Toku starts with fishing and so do we. Who else?

If you're getting Oracle by T43 and with 12 pop total, that's better than anything I was able to do with second worker first. How are you using the marble to speed up Oracle? Are you building roads to that city?

Yes, the Oracle was started a few turns before the road is finished. I think I used all 5 workers to build the road fast. (Wheel was postponed to after Priesthood). Only one chop went into Oracle. There is probably room for improvement :).

EDIT: I did little chopping because I needed worker turns for making tile improvements and I think this strategy makes sense because the improvements are very strong and the chopping not all that powerful before Math.

Plan sounds good SCT. :thumbsup:

Since Gyathaar states that he did not give any free units to the Barbs, then it says that some of our opponent, indeed, have Sailing! I expect that the Barb city may have a number of improvements and he could have added pop and tile improvements as well, making it productive. If he can't give them additional techs, then they can't have Iron Working yet to see the Iron. Perhaps we might consider an early Air Ship to scout that area, and, if needed, to give that Barb galley a going over? :mischief:

Turn Report for turns 15 - 22 (3100BC - 2680BC)

T15) Athens Pop2, work lake and start settler
Worker start north corn farm
Scout W-N

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208964&stc=1&d=1238506296

T16) Scout SW-W

T17) Scout SW

T18) Scout SE
Change Athens to work second corn

T19) Scout NE-S

T20) Hinduism FIDL
Scout SE-S

T21) Scout SE

T22) BW->Myst (no revolt yet)
Copper pops up at the site where we were going to found our second city!
Athens settler->worker
Scout SE
We meet Joao's archer in the jungle

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208965&stc=1&d=1238506296

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208966&stc=1&d=1238506296

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=208967&stc=1&d=1238506296

Save is up on the GOTM server.

Turn Log:

Turn 1, 3940 BC: Athens has been founded.

Turn 2, 3880 BC: The borders of Athens have expanded!

Turn 6, 3640 BC: You have discovered Agriculture!
Turn 6, 3640 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 9, 3460 BC: Barbarian's Wolf (1.00) vs Pericles'sScout (2.70)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Combat Odds: 0.1%
Turn 9, 3460 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: (Class Animal Combat: +100%)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 31 (69/100HP)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Pericles's Scout is hit for 12 (88/100HP)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 31 (38/100HP)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Pericles's Scout is hit for 12 (76/100HP)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 31 (7/100HP)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 31 (0/100HP)
Turn 9, 3460 BC: Pericles's Scout has defeated Barbarian's Wolf!

Turn 11, 3340 BC: You have discovered Mining!

Turn 13, 3220 BC: The borders of Athens have expanded!

Turn 19, 2860 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 21, 2740 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 21, 2740 BC: You have discovered a source of Copper near Athens!
Turn 21, 2740 BC: You have trained a Settler in Athens. Work has now begun on a Warrior.

I see you're windmilling the eastern hill first. In my practices, I milled the hill 1N of our capital first, because that could be shared by the second city (3N of the capital). And I let that second city work the windmill immediately after it was founded to give it growth in 7 turns and a workboat in 7 turns. (In my practices, I worked a forest 2f/1h after BizarroAthens grew to size 2, letting the warrior finish and growth to size 3 and the second corn farm finish all happen in 3 turns after size 2. Then I reallocated worked tiles and started a settler without building another worker first.)

I guess we're not founding city two on the copper that showed up there, anyway, though. Do we go one east of the copper?

And for the record, I was getting the Oracle movie playing in between turns 43 and 44 in my practices. I don't know what turn you guys count that as.

I founded the third city on the marble and chopped two forests for oracle. Two more forests went down to provide watermills for BizarroAthens. I think my total population for three cities was 10 when the oracle came in, so I wasn't able to beat you experts. I meant to try a few more tweaks this morning, but I was too late. :)

I did not research wheel or AH in my practices until after priesthood, so again, it sounds like you guys were better.

G22

" Alan and Gyathaar responded to your concern. Hope the answer is satisfactory." Yes it is. At least now Civ logic can be applied. Wonder what kind of island city-state on a hill the "barbarians" have built.

Looks good, SCT. I'll check the save tonight and post. Is a test from here in the works?

Here's the new practice save with copper added and Suryvarman removed. It's possible that there are moe AI on our continent, but I didn't want us to be getting research boni in the practice game that we wouldn't be getting in the real game.

I didn't bother editting the map in the south, since we won't be settling there soon.

I see you're windmilling the eastern hill first. In my practices, I milled the hill 1N of our capital first, because that could be shared by the second city (3N of the capital). And I let that second city work the windmill immediately after it was founded to give it growth in 7 turns and a workboat in 7 turns. (In my practices, I worked a forest 2f/1h after BizarroAthens grew to size 2, letting the warrior finish and growth to size 3 and the second corn farm finish all happen in 3 turns after size 2. Then I reallocated worked tiles and started a settler without building another worker first.)

I guess we're not founding city two on the copper that showed up there, anyway, though. Do we go one east of the copper?

I had been whipping the workboat in my practice games, using the corn at Pop1. Windmilling the other hill first would have been a better general practice. But now it's a moot point, because I think we want to settle 1E of the copper.

Here's the new practice save with copper added and Suryvarman removed. It's possible that there are more AI on our continent, but I didn't want us to be getting research boni in the practice game that we wouldn't be getting in the real game.

I didn't bother editing the map in the south, since we won't be settling there soon.

Excellent. I will start playing with it. Settling 1E of copper seems reasonable now. We loose a turn and a forest, but I think the long term use of the copper will more than compensate us.

I'm leaving for Paris on April 6 so I plan to post a plan no later than Friday and play sometime during the weekend.

And for the record, I was getting the Oracle movie playing in between turns 43 and 44 in my practices. I don't know what turn you guys count that as.

The turnlog will count that as turn 43, because builds complete at the end of a turn. I found several games with these settings where AI completed Oracle on turn 44, that is, after the end of our turn 44. Now it seems we should be able to beat that comfortably. We could probably get it by turn 40, though with some trade-offs.

:high5: Nice start SCT! :goodjob:

Like seeing that copper close by too! :cheers:

Roster:
Frederiksberg - UP
PaulisKhan - On Deck
rrau
Cactus Pete
DJMGator13
leif
ShannonCT - Facing lions and tigers and bears... :mischief:

Grover22 - Keeping a close eye! :scan:

EDIT - Looks like a good time to change civics. We can change to Police State, Slavery and Environmentalism all for 1-turn of revolt. :thumbsup:

Placing the city east of the copper looks OK. A lot of water...
There is also a blue circle west and NW of the copper. Wonder if anything is interesting up there besides the Sheep?

Meeting Joao to the south, should we consider REX down there after Marble City?

"It's surprising that the barbs already have Sailing. I guess there must be many AI starting with Fishing in this game. Does that tell us something about the possible opponents? Toku starts with fishing and so do we. Who else?" Good question, and what are the Portuguese personality traits?

I can get the Oracle built in the Marble city, freeing other two cities to build other things (e.g. airship and settler). Requires some marble-enhanced chopping, but it's an option to be considered. Will post save late tonight after I replay and try to optimize.

Good question, and what are the Portuguese personality traits?
Joao is Expansive (+2 health in city, 25% faster Worker production and Double production speed of Granary and Harbor) and Imperialistic (+100% Great General emergence and +50 faster production of Settler). The Portuguese start with Fishing and Mining. UU is Carrack, replaces Caravel and carries two units and UB is Feitoria which replces Customs House. Joao's favorite civic is Hereditary Rule.

I can get the Oracle built in the Marble city, freeing other two cities to build other things (e.g. airship and settler). Requires some marble-enhanced chopping, but it's an option to be considered. Will post save late tonight after I replay and try to optimize.
Sounds good. Looking forward to having a look. :goodjob:

Joao is Expansive (+2 health in city, 25% faster Worker production and Double production speed of Granary and Harbor) and Imperialistic (+100% Great General emergence and +50 faster production of Settler). The Portuguese start with Fishing and Mining. UU is Carrack, replaces Caravel and carries two units and UB is Feitoria which replces Customs House. Joao's favorite civic is Hereditary Rule.

Also:
He won't declare war at Pleased or Friendly
Will trade non-monopoly techs at Cautious
Will trade monopoly techs at +15
Considers a tech monopoly if known by less than 40% of civs
Will open borders at Cautious or higher
Will trade maps at Friendly only
Builds wonders "sometimes"
Below average unit numbers
High espionage spending
Medium refuse-to-talk delay
Gives up to +3 relations for favorite civic and +3 for same religion

The portugese rex amazingly well, we'll probably have to do some blocking to keep them out of our land.

The portugese rex amazingly well, we'll probably have to do some blocking to keep them out of our land.

It looks like we are separated by a single-tile wide isthmus. And south of that isthmus is jungle.

I think it's two isthmusesses on either side of a lake? (I was looking at the lake and considering a Moai city there instead. 3f 1h 2c is an ok tile if you're going to use water tiles.

Yeah. In the screenshots of the actual game, it looks like two isthmi. I haven't worked up the courage to touch an actual save yet. Too much could go wrong there, I think.

In the Bizarro save, it's a single tile isthmus, and probably that's what Shannon was remembering.

As promised, here is a test from SCT's practice save, building Oracle in the marble city on turn 43: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=209031&stc=1&d=1238560215

If other testing suggests that this is the best approach, I'll replay, take, and post detailed notes.

I haven't had time to do any new testing yet. My feeling from old testing is that tech speed is limiting more than hammers for the moment and I'm tempted to investigate if we can get some gold from overflow - perhaps by whipping/chopping a warrior in Sparta. We would want Pottery and Writing soon to get those Granaries and Libraries built.

I think it's two isthmusesses on either side of a lake? (I was looking at the lake and considering a Moai city there instead. 3f 1h 2c is an ok tile if you're going to use water tiles.

Settling on the westernmost isthmus is not bad at all. There are no resources, but a floodplain and several hills. And the lake tiles will have 3f when a lighthouse is built (And 1 hammer with Moai). Blocking or slowing down Portuguese expansion is another benefit.

How much time do we have for play testing?

I played through 10 turns twice last night before I fell asleep. I could try again once this morning before work, and then some more late tonight.

It's nice to have a posted target of turn 43 to beat. It'd also be nice to know an approx deadline.

This is far more fun than I imagined it would be. The practice save idea is great.

One thing that probably isn't valued as highly as it should be in replaying the practice saves is scouting. In the real game, it'd be nice to reveal what else is around that marble sooner rather than later. I guess we need to put turns into warriors (or something) even in the practices to allow our two cities to grow, but the faster we crank out a warrior in the actual game, the better, I'd say.

G22

I haven't had time to do any new testing yet. My feeling from old testing is that tech speed is limiting more than hammers for the moment and I'm tempted to investigate if we can get some gold from overflow - perhaps by whipping/chopping a warrior in Sparta. We would want Pottery and Writing soon to get those Granaries and Libraries built.
The change to Environmentalism brings +2 gold per Windmill. This we can now. The completion of the Oracle and selection of Electricity brings +2 per Watermill.

I like CP's save. It shows one problem with locating our second city east of the copper. It shares only one tile with our Capital and thus only one happy for a forest preserve. This is not the overiding consideration, so we should still place it there I think.

How much time do we have for play testing?

I played through 10 turns twice last night before I fell asleep. I could try again once this morning before work, and then some more late tonight.

It's nice to have a posted target of turn 43 to beat. It'd also be nice to know an approx deadline.

This is far more fun than I imagined it would be. The practice save idea is great
Fred will be posting a pre-play plan sometime between now and Friday. He will most likely play the actual save this weekend. So, we have at least 48 hours of test time left.

After the pre-play plan is posted, then we can add our ideas if we think we have found something better and the plan can be adjusted as needed. Once we agree, then Fred is off to conquer... :mischief:

How much time do we have for play testing?

I will post a plan for my turn set Friday evening and then play Saturday evening or Sunday. So there is still a fair amount of time to give input.

I figure that my turn set would naturally end when the Oracle is built or approximately 20 turns from now.

I guess we need to put turns into warriors (or something) even in the practices to allow our two cities to grow, but the faster we crank out a warrior in the actual game, the better, I'd say.

Good point, I think I will do so in my own tests. I hope to do some testing tonight so that we have more for comparison and discussion.

The change to Environmentalism brings +2 gold per Windmill. This we can now.

Don't worry leif, I won't forget :).

I've managed to get the Oracle on turn 42. (The movie shows up at the beginning of turn 43, so we got the oracle on turn 42. Also, the log shows the oracle completion date as 1480bc.) I've attached a save, and I've included the step-by-step instructions for what I did in a spoiler down below.

The highlights, or, where we stand at the start of turn 43:

We have three cities: Size 3, size 3, size 1.

Athens is 1 turn from growth to size 4.
Sparta is one turn from finishing a settler for a fourth city.
Copper is hooked to all three cities.
Athens has a barracks.
We have researched
Myst > Wheel > Med > Priesthood > Masonry > AH (just finished)
We collect Electricity from the Oracle on turn 43.

[edit: new highlight] We have only chopped two forests in all. Both were next to the marble city.
A forest preserve has been built in the forest that Athens and Sparta share.

We have a phalanx that should have been sent south to clear the path for our fourth city. He should have been able to get there before the settler could.

We have one warrior out scouting west, and another warrior garrisoned in our third city (which I named BizarroCorinth).

We have four workers.

What could have gone better:

The phalanx really should have headed south to clear a fourth city site right after he was built. I am running out of time before I have to go to work today, and I wanted to simplify things as much as I could for myself.

Athens was running three windmills for most of my set. Towards the end, after Masonry comes in, probably 2 windmills and a corn would be better to get it another quick growth or two. Electricity makes the windmills even better, so we should run the corn before Elec and the windmills after, not the other way around. I'd have re-run the last few turns differently, but I'm out of time.

[edit: caveat added] But moving from windmills to corn may delay AH and require a different tuning of the research rate to get it back by the same turn, if that will even be possible at all.

Turn 22
Triple revolt, 1 turn anarchy.
Settler heads to 1e of Cu.

Turn 23
Settler reaches site. Can found next turn.
Worker A finishes windmill. Will move to other northern hill next turn.
Athens works 2 corn. Worker in 4 turns.
0% research for 1 turn.

Turn 24
Found Sparta. start workboat. work corn. growth in 3 turns.
Athens works 1 corn and windmill. worker in 4 turns.
Worker A moves to the hill 1N of athens.
100% research again. -1gpt, 9 gold in the bank.
Fortify our scout. He was distracting me.

Turn 25
Worker A starts windmilling the hill 1N of athens (4 turns).

Turn 26
Hit enter.

Turn 27
Mysticism comes in. Wheel next.
Sparta grows to size 2. Whip workboat.

Turn 28
Sparta completes workboat.
Workboat nets the fish.
Sparta starts warrior (1 turn) and can grow next turn working either fish or corn, so work fish to give corn to athens.
Athens completes Worker B. Works 2 corn. Resumes warrior, 1 turn. Growth in 2 turns. (Yuck.)
Worker A finishes windmill.
Worker B starts heading towards southern hill

Turn 29
Sparta grows to size 2 and finishes warrior Alex. Work 1 corn and fish. Start settler, 7 turns.
Athens finishes warrior Bill. Work 1 corn and 1 windmill. Start another warrior, 3 turns. Growth in 1.
Bill and Alex both head west to see what they can see near the marble. Is there a better site just west of the marble, maybe? Also, they'll have pre-chopper protection duties out there, eventually.
Worker A moves onto the copper.
Worker B reaches the southern hill.

Turn 30
Athens grows to size 3. work 2 windmills and a corn. Growth in 3, warrior in 1. Switch to a worker, 4 turns.
Worker A starts the copper mine.
Worker B starts the windmill.

Turn 31
Wheel comes in. Start Meditation, 4 nominal turns.
Set research to 0% for a turn.

Turn 32
Set research back to 100%. -1gpt, 19 gold in the bank.
Happily, we stay at -1gpt with both Alex and Bill outside our culture, and our scout in the south outside, too.

Turn 33
Bill defends against a lion.
He bravely moves onto the ice hill NW of the marble at 1.7 strength to get a view, and he sees a barb warrior in the forest adjacent to him (gulp). In any case, he has succeeded in revealing the remaining tiles in the BFC centered on the marble this turn.
Worker A starts roading his copper mine.

Turn 34
Bill fends off the barb warrior with 0.3 health left to spare. He earns a promo to combat 1 for the health it restores and stays on his hill to heal.
Athens finishes Worker C. Start another, 4 turns. Work 3 windmills.
Worker C moves 1NE into the forest. He's heading to the forests near the marble for some pre-chops.
Worker B moves off his windmill, W-NW to a plains hill. He'll mine that hill for the marble city and then become a chopper.

Turn 35
Meditation comes in. Priesthood next, 3 turns.
Alex and Bill are near the marble to provide cover for workers, if necessary.
Worker C moves 1W. He'll reach a pre-choppable forest next turn.
Worker B starts mining the plains hill SE of the marble.
Worker A moves into the forest SW of copper. He'll build a road and a forest preserve there.

Turn 36
Sparta finishes Settler. Works copper and fish. Starts phalanx, 3 turns. Growth in 3.
Worker A starts a road SW of copper.
Worker C moves to forest 1N of marble.
We stay at -1gpt when he leaves our culture.
Settler moves W-SW, heading to marble.
Alex and Bill strike poses to show off their awesome physiques. Not a barb in sight.

Turn 37
Settler moves SW.
Worker C starts pre-chopping the forest 1N of the marble.
Worker B finishes mining the plains hill SE of the marble.

Turn 38
Priesthood comes in. Masonry next, 2 turns.
Settler moves onto the marble. Can found next turn.
We are at -2gpt once the settler left our culture.
Worker B moves into the forest 1W of the marble.
Bill moves onto Worker B for protection.
Worker C gets a second turn of pre-chopping done.
Athens finishes Worker D. Working 3 windmills. Starts barracks, 5 turns, growth in 8.
Worker D heads into the forest NW to build a road.
Worker A starts preserving the forest SW of the copper.
Alex and Bill continue flexing.

Turn 39
Worker D starts his road (NW of Athens)

Sparta grows to size 3 and finishes a phalanx. Works fish, copper, and corn. Starts a settler, 5 turns.
I test-move the phalanx out of sparta and then back in using the road to see if sparta stays happy without him, and it does. So that phalanx could be sent somewhere (south) to clear a path for our fourth city down there. I leave him in Sparta for now, but I don't think that's optimal.

BizarroCorinth is founded on the marble. Works the mined plains hill. Start oracle, 17 nominal turns.
Worker B starts chopping 1W of Corinth.
We drop to -3 gpt. We have 11 gold in the bank. Masonry comes in next turn.

I'm not sure whether worker C's chop will finish before or after we get Masonry next turn.

I re-issue the chop order for this turn, spending his action for the turn. Then I manually cancel the chop order. He will finish the chop next turn. I just want to make sure it'll finish after Masonry. (I'm not really sure how that marble bonus will work.)

Alex goes out exploring NW. Bill stays near Corinth, just in case.

Turn 40

Masonry comes in. AH next, 3 turns, but we'll need to spend a turn at 0% before it finishes. Oracle drops to 8 turns with masonry.

Worker C is then manually given the order to finish his chop. The chop puts 13 towards Corinth's production, and they all get doubled. Oracle in 6 nominal turns, now.

Turn 41

Worker D has finished his road and moves 1W into new forest to start another.
Alex goes out exploring. Bill stays near Corinth.

Worker C starts a road 1N of Corinth. We'll connect to the other cities through the sheep.
Worker B finishes his chop. Oracle in 2 turns.

Turn 42

Corinth's borders expand, and the auto-governor takes us off the mined hill and onto the sheep, delaying the oracle by a turn. I go back to working the mined hill. Oracle next turn.
Worker B moves NE and takes over roading duties from Worker C.
Worker C moves NE onto the sheep and starts a road there.
Worker D starts his road in the forest SE of sheep.
Bill moves into Corinth itself.
Alex keeps exploring W.

What to do about research rate? We can't sustain 100% for another turn. 50% for a turn is free of rounding losses, but gives AH in 2 turns. We really want it next turn to keep our workers working.

I set research to 60% for a turn, losing one beaker to rounding, but keeping us in the black and getting us AH next turn.

Turn 43
AH comes in.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=209062&stc=1&d=1238604649
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=209063&stc=1&d=1238604649
These pictures appeared on turn 43, 1420bc.

Set research rate back to 100%, at -3gpt. (We can sustain that for only 2 turns...)
Research pottery, because that's 2 turns and we get it before we need another 0% research break, whereas writing is 4 turns and comes after the break. I guess?

Athens finishes barracks and resumes spearman (was a warrior in the queue). Growth in 3 and spearman in 2. Move onto (2 windmills, 1 corn). Now growth in 1 and spearman in 3. We'll be back on that windmill next turn with the extra pop.



G22

Very interesting read G22 :goodjob:.

I have a few comments:

It may be to our advantage not to connect copper immediately after building the mine because we want to build more warriors for fog busting and later MP duty. Warriors are much cheaper than phalanx's and spears.

It's probably too early to build barracks. We are not anywhere close to attacking someone so it's probably better to invest our hammers in something immediately useful. There aren't many alternatives except building warriors/workers and settlers. This is also one reason why I would like to get to Pottery faster (So that we can build granaries). Perhaps postpone Wheel even further and substitute with Pottery?

It would be very interesting to see if it's possible to get some gold from overflow without delaying the Oracle significantly. The mechanism for this is as follows: Build a warrior until he is almost complete. Then whip him and finish a forest chop simultaneously. This generates so much overflow that some of the hammers will be paid out in gold instead of overflowing to the next build.

Very interesting read G22 :goodjob:.

It would be very interesting to see if it's possible to get some gold from overflow without delaying the Oracle significantly. The mechanism for this is as follows: Build a warrior until he is almost complete. Then whip him and finish a forest chop simultaneously. This generates so much overflow that some of the hammers will be paid out in gold instead of overflowing to the next build.

I'm not ready for the advanced course, yet. :)

Perhaps postpone Wheel even further and substitute with Pottery?


Is wheel not a pre-requisite of pottery?

Is wheel not a pre-requisite of pottery?

The student has become the teacher. :goodjob:

Here's a practice game I just ran through:

Is wheel not a pre-requisite of pottery?

:D Yes, I quite often forget.

I'm not ready for the advanced course, yet. :)

:lol: Sure you are. Exam on Friday ;)


I did a test of my own with more emphasis on tech rate. Here's the result:

Test game w. gold chop (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=209104&stc=1&d=1238620852)

I managed to get the Oracle in turn 43 and chop some gold to fuel research. This enabled me to get Pottery. AH is due in 2 turns and Writing in 5. There is, of course a trade off compared to e.g. SCT's save where a Settler is available along with an almost completed Airship. I think I'm willing to do the trade in order to get granaries and Libraries faster. When Writing is in the bag we are ready for the next expansion phase. Fast Writing is important if we want to avoid getting a GProphet from Oracle.

I was thinking, it would be interesting to see how SCT's game would go if the Airship or Settler could somehow be replace by a gold chop. One interesting question is if it's better to build Oracle in the marble city?

One interesting question is if it's better to build Oracle in the marble city?
I like the idea of building The Oracle in Marble City. It keeps the gene pool clear should we get Hanging Garden or another Engineer producing wonder in the Capital and it pushes culture at the edge of our growing empire. The city will keep gaining GP points for most of the game, should we find that need a GP at some point. Can we use a GProphet for Golden Age?

It also keeps the queue clear in Capital to push out Workers, Settlers and Warriors as needed (Airship?) :D

EDIT - Might be a bit scarce as I have to replace a motherboard this evening and reload windows on a system. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to really pay attention to the test game a bit later. You guys are doing fine for sure. :goodjob:

It also keeps the queue clear in Capital to push out Workers, Settlers and Warriors as needed (Airship?) :D

This is not necessarily an advantage. With little useful stuff to build outside of workers, settlers and warriors it's actually not bad to spend some turns on The Oracle while growing the capital. An Airship is nice but I doubt that hammers invested in it at this early stage will give a return that is even close to the return on an early Granary or Library.

Before selecting each build we should consider what is the best investment right now. Even if an Airship is a good investment there may be even better ways to use the relatively limited hammers we have at this early stage of the game.

Good progress everyone. :goodjob:

An airship would allow us to scout for and weaken any approaching barb before it hits our borders. This might delay it from actually attacking one of our cities while we are running a minimum number of defenders.

Without the ability to granaries right now we may want to nearly complete a barrack or a warrior and then poprush it so that we start with a hammer overflow towards the Oracle build. (You all may have done this in the practice games but I wasn't sure.)

I won't have time to run through the practice game until Friday night and by then Fred will have probably posted his pre-plan.

If someone is near a computer can they test this (it will be superior to the warrior overflow method), I'll be home in around 6 hours to try it myself otherwise

1) Chop a forest or two into the oracle (and invest some build hammers) in the NON oracle intended city that has marble hooked up(ideally on the first turn it becomes available)

2) Cancel the build and complete the oracle in the intended oracle city.

I'm 99.9% sure that we get to cash in the hammers from the city that didn't finish the oracle.
Doing this gives us a 1.5x multiplier on our hammer-gold conversion rather than the 1.25x multiplier for a warrior under police state (or do we get 2x multiplier from marble, I'm ashamed to say I'm not sure >.<).

I suspect that delaying oracle by a turn or two to invest more hammers could actually be worth more than the couple of commerce we lose from the delay in electricity (it would let us run at 100% for several more turns which should recoup the investment).

-edit- thinking on the plan some more: hook marble city up to capital, chop two riverside capital forests into oracle and invest build hammers until oracle almost complete, then cancel build and chop oracle into marble city.
This nets us 1.5x(2x?) hammer cost of oracle in gold for only a couple of turns lost electricity commerce.
That will fuel our research until the next wonder investment comes through.

"It may be to our advantage not to connect copper immediately after building the mine because we want to build more warriors for fog busting and later MP duty. Warriors are much cheaper than phalanx's and spears. If we don't connect the copper, we need to get an airship out quickly to give advance notice of potential problems. There could be another advanced barb city in the western fog.

It's probably too early to build barracks. We are not anywhere close to attacking someone so it's probably better to invest our hammers in something immediately useful. Yes, unless it's the only good option for storing hammers (they don't deteriorate quickly, and we'll need the rax eventually). There aren't many alternatives except building warriors/workers and settlers. And airships or possibly Oracle in a second city, as PK suggests. This is also one reason why I would like to get to Pottery faster (So that we can build granaries). Perhaps postpone Wheel even further [But Fred, you (unlike G22) are building the Oracle in the capital, which requires roads to hook up the marble. Are you arguing for building the Oracle in Marbletown to avoid researching The Wheel? If so, like your thinking, but it won't work -- need The Wheel for Pottery.]and substitute with Pottery?

It would be very interesting to see if it's possible to get some gold from overflow without delaying the Oracle significantly. The mechanism for this is as follows: Build a warrior until he is almost complete. Then whip him and finish a forest chop simultaneously. This generates so much overflow that some of the hammers will be paid out in gold instead of overflowing to the next build." This could work for building anything and might be worthwhile, but the more interesting possibility is taking advantage of the marble multiplier (if that works).

:D I did a test of my own with more emphasis on tech rate. Here's the result:

Test game w. gold chop (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=209104&stc=1&d=1238620852)

I managed to get the Oracle in turn 43 and chop some gold to fuel research. This enabled me to get Pottery. AH is due in 2 turns and Writing in 5. There is, of course a trade off compared to e.g. SCT's save where a Settler is available along with an almost completed Airship. I believe either SCT or myself could have gotten Pottery researched as well if we had delayed AH. I opted for AH first because the sheep needs to be pastured, my cities were already at max size (didn't get a forest preserve created), and wanted to know where the horses were before the next settler was put in play.I think I'm willing to do the trade in order to get granaries and Libraries faster. When Writing is in the bag we are ready for the next expansion phase. Fast Writing is important if we want to avoid getting a GProphet from Oracle. [COLOR="red"]We'll need to get a library built in 7 or 8 turns (have a total of 17 turns before the GP -- not exactly sure how this works) after the Oracle is completed and probably have to run 2 scientists immediately until GS. Argues for Writing before Pottery. Not easy in any case. Will it be worth it?

I've managed to get the Oracle on turn 42. Yes, and not in the capital. There is much in common with mine and SCT's saves. Only chopping two forests, plus a forest preserve is certainly an improvement on my attempt, but small cities (will be relatively fewer hammers and commerce in the future) and fewer units isn't. Also there is merit in Fred's suggestions.
G22

Doubt any of us has optimized. Hope you'll have another go.

Comparing SCT's test and mine, there is considerable similarity. He has chopped one more forest and not built any roads, but he has created a forest preserve where one must go (bad mistake to have chopped this forest, as I did) and has an additional windmill improvement.

I think that, if I build one less road, I can leave the critical forest unchopped for a later preserve (utilizing a forest next to the city). The question, then, is whether the remaining roads are more valuable at this stage than the preserve and the windmill. Suspect the improvements are the better value, but not certain, as lack of roads means lack of mobility. Barbs could threaten.

Also would argue that getting the airship out earlier, which SCT apparently could have done but didn't, provides advance information on any activities around Marbletown. Can't afford to put that city at risk, and it has only warrior defence.

Possibilty of chopping for gold should be explored as well.

Hope Fred will borrow from all three test attempts and try his hand at putting the Oracle in Marbletown.

If someone is near a computer can they test this (it will be superior to the warrior overflow method), I'll be home in around 6 hours to try it myself otherwise

1) Chop a forest or two into the oracle (and invest some build hammers) in the NON oracle intended city that has marble hooked up(ideally on the first turn it becomes available)

2) Cancel the build and complete the oracle in the intended oracle city.

I'm 99.9% sure that we get to cash in the hammers from the city that didn't finish the oracle.
Doing this gives us a 1.5x multiplier on our hammer-gold conversion rather than the 1.25x multiplier for a warrior under police state (or do we get 2x multiplier from marble, I'm ashamed to say I'm not sure >.<).

I suspect that delaying oracle by a turn or two to invest more hammers could actually be worth more than the couple of commerce we lose from the delay in electricity (it would let us run at 100% for several more turns which should recoup the investment).

-edit- thinking on the plan some more: hook marble city up to capital, chop two riverside capital forests into oracle and invest build hammers until oracle almost complete, then cancel build and chop oracle into marble city.
This nets us 1.5x(2x?) hammer cost of oracle in gold for only a couple of turns lost electricity commerce.
That will fuel our research until the next wonder investment comes through.

Yes, this works, and can be done so that Oracle still completes in Marble City on turn 43. The difference is that we'll need to chop 4 forests into Marble City so that it can be produced there immediately after Athens stops building it. Delaying the Oracle is too risky. Spending more worker turns on chopping and roading will mean we will be delayed in building watermills and preserves. If getting this extra gold means Athens takes longer to work a 6th tile, a 7th tile, an 8th tile, etc, is it worth pursuing?

I didn't do any real micro as this was more a proof of concept rather than optimised strategy but the results are positive.

Test 1 went as expected
1) Chopped two forests into oracle in capital along with natural build
2) cancelled build and chopped two forests into oracle in marble city and finished it.
3) next turn recieved 120ish gold in the bank from capital hammers, fueled research for a good period of time

Test 2
1) deposited hammers into stonehenge in all 3 cities in the period that I was wanting them to grow or when they didn't have anything that was vital at the time, can mix and match cities depending on which one has nothing better to do (obviously this works better with a marble WW)
2) Stonehenge BIDL, recieved gold from all three cities corresponding to the number of hammers deposited into the wonder in that particular city.

excellent results and possibly the best use of hammers when we want a city to grow.
For infrastructure we could just use the whip as the food->hammer conversion will usually be better for that.

If the strategy sounds good then we'll need to work on optimising it for the next turnset.

PK,

Test 2 seems far easier to pull off to me. I'll save test 1 for the experts. I wound up building and finishing a barracks in Athens during my try just so that the hammers would have somewhere to go while Athens grew. Stonehenge is a better idea.

I'll try to run an improved set tomorrow morning, using Stonehenges as hammer dumps and not building so many roads.

G22

I take on board the comment about the opportunity cost of the worker actions and alternative build actions.

The research it is worth is the difference in the max tech rate, and the tech rate we'd be forced to use to not go negative (takes a dive when we settle the 4th city).
I think it's worth the 4-5 turn delay to the windmill.

PK,

Test 2 seems far easier to pull off to me. I'll save test 1 for the experts. I wound up building and finishing a barracks in Athens during my try just so that the hammers would have somewhere to go while Athens grew. Stonehenge is a better idea.

I'll try to run an improved set tomorrow morning, using Stonehenges as hammer dumps and not building so many roads.

G22

The downside of this is that we don't have stone, we're not industrious and we aren't able to adopt Org Rel, so we're just getting a 1:1 conversion rate on our hammers.
It will definitely work great when we start unlocking the marble WW's though, I accept that we probably have to build enough units early on to fogbust and defend against barbs too.

Test 1 can carry a turn or two of risk, and require some extra chops/worker turns, but we get the benefit of the 1:2 conversion rate of hammers to gold which is where we have a chance to pull ahead of other teams and stay competitive with the best.

-edit- realistically, what is the earliest that the Oracle will be built by the AI?