hi as i am not very good i thought i would start a succession game with advice from cracker.

i will play 10 turns then post, to compare with you guys then i will play the next ten turns of my game and compare with your game at the same stage so hopfully i (and some others) will learn how to play the game well

it is on warlord
max land mass
randam conditions
with 8(i think)civs

www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/handyandy.Sav

here is the save

Andy,

I'll play along in parrallel with you if you think that will be helpful and then we can discuss things.

I'll download and try things later this evening. I am in Mountain Time USA and usually evenings 9 to midnight I can get some quick turns in. Sometimes an AM round if other tasks allow.

You may want to look at the "Improving Your Opening Play Sequences" article in the strategy articles subforum because this may really help alot.

Good luck,

I might play too, but I'm not the best! I'll try to come here every night too.

Cracker-You did a good job with your Opening play sequences!

Also, make sure you've unmodded you're game rules!

Andy, you are one lucky stiff to draw the civ and the start position that you drew for this game if that was generated all random.

Here's and image of the start position:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_start.jpg

Persia on a big juicy grassland with rivers out the wazoo and wheat right next door. Sweet!!

I left the minimap view in the image because that is really significant as well.

If you would like to discuss the start position and some possible early strategy choices before we start playing that will be up to you to take the lead.

We could talk about some general ideas and then we can play our opening turns and see how we approach those ideas.

Do you want one more player doing 10 turns?

I suspect Cracker will do better then me, but combining elements of various player always helps. My play style has stolen some ideas from the RBE crowd among others.

Ok, let's kick things off by making sure we understand the play format and the general rules.

This type of a succession game is open for people to join at any point in time and basically everyone plays along sort of like an inch worm. We all play the game in 10 turn increments and then at the end of the 10 turns we compare where we are.

For the next ten turns, then each player can keep playing from their own previous 10 turn save or you can pick the save of any other player and continue on. You are not locked in to continuing with your game the way you already played it unless you want to do that.

I would not recommend jumping ship every time you have a chance, because it may help for you to play 20 or 30 turns in your own style just using anything new that you may learn. Then you may be able to compare bigger differences between two different approaches.

Different objectives and strategies may force you to choose different approaches to the same game and that would make comparison tougher. I would recommend that since this game is started primarily by Handyandy that we adopt an objective that seem similar to his last game approach and that objective would be to go for the quickest possible Space Ship victory. To do this we will need to maximize our longterm science research pace and expand the size and power of our civilization as quickly as possible.

This is a Warlord level game, so we should expect to be ahead in tech research under most conditions because we can research technology cheaper than the AI players.

We will also expect to encounter contact with the other civilizations on our map and will probably need to engage in a war or two to make sure we have enough territory and resources to dominate the game and achieve our major objective of winning the Space Race.

A key factor in the game will be that our Persian Civ has the double speed industrious workers so we can throw down improvements very quickly.

We can also look at the minimap position and make a very strong guess as to the direction we will find our first neighbors in if we begin exploring.

We do not know what the barbarian status of our world will be.

If you have not played a succession game or team game before, you may need to make sure you know how to access a text editor from within the Civ game when you play so you can take some notes to compare with others. To do this, you need to open your choice of a word processor or spreadsheet program before you start the civ3 game. Then you can use the alt-tab keys on your keyboard to just step down from the game and access your text file to make any special notes you might like to make as you play. To get back into the game you just select CivIII from the taskbar or use alt-tab again.

Good luck to all and the first turns should be played up until the end of all moves for 3550bc and then saved. Save the files using the naming format of HA1_xxxxxx_yyyyyy.sav where xxxxx is you simplified CFC handle and yyyyyy is the year in a format of example "bc3550". For example, my game first game should be HA1_cracker_bc3550.sav and this way when we upload them or download them there should be no naming conflicts.

Try not to use the direct file attachment feature because it slows down the forums database more than using the easy upload feature, but initially both methods will work.

When you have played your turns, upload your next save file and then you are free to download any other save files from other players and look at the games to compare postions and get ready for discussion. One important thing to remember when you upload is that you should make sure to post which of the previous save files you used to begin your next set of turns.
If we all follow the naming conventions we should be able to download files to a single folder and they will still sort by player and chronologically.

Good luck to all, and I will look to the next step when I see upload files from the following players for this first round:

handyandy *
Jamesds *
cracker *
LKendter *
stwils (added 11/13/02) *
Padma (added 11/13/02) *
JaxomCA (added 11/13/02) *
ControlFreak (added 11/14/02)
Borealis (added 11/14/02) *
HotRod0823 (added 11/14/02)
Infoman (added 11/14/02)


(* confirmed active players as of 11/13/02 4PM EST)

other players are welcome also, but we need to see an upload or a post from you if you want us to include you in the game pacing.

For other players ---- SPOILER INFO in the next posts reveals the opening moves up to 3450bc.


Here's my first ten turns and a couple of early decisions. (note this got shifted to 12 turns after we started)

Remember, don't download this till you play your first twelve turns up until the end of the turns for 3450bc for comparison.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc35501.sav

here is my 10 turn game i havent done much

only irogate the grain and mine and road the tile next to it
building a settaler to build on one of the rivers

Andy,

Try to help us all by making sure you synchronize your ending date with the next step in the game play. Its not fatal, but when you play extra turns then all the other maps won't match you in the time sequence and it will make comparing positions much more difficult and confusing.

You may need to open your preference settings with the cntrl-p or shift-p command and then set the game to wait at the end of your turns until you hit enter. This will make sure the game does not play forward to a point beyond where you need to stop on the timeline.

I compensated for you this time by loading my game and bringing it up to match your time. The next stop point on the timeline will be the end of the turn for 2950bc which is actually turn 22.

----------------

Here are comparison maps of our two positions in the year 3450bc. Your position is the top view.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/3450bc_two_view_sized.jpg

(oops, I just noticed that the status labels are swapped between the two views. Your status box is actually in the bottom while mine is incorrectly up in the top with your map.)

There is nothing fatally different between either position at this point. You are dashing toward the first settler at a quicker pace and I have put out a warrior to go and explore. My warrior followed the road to get to the first mountain and then is going straight north along the ridge of mountains because it gives him the widest possible view.

My worker tasking went to the wheat also because this is the most powerful square. I built a road and irrigated and then moved back through town to mine and road the bonus grassland square near the river and then used my roads to get back north in one turn to mine and road the next nearest bonus grassland square that is next to a river.

The major difference between our two approaches to worker tasking is that I have been emphasizing the gonus grassland tiles next to rivers because they give one extra and free gold unit per turn.

The research settings and choices can also make a difference early on. I don't know if my choice is the correct answer for this map, it's just my choice based on my interpretation of the strategy.

I subscribe to the school of thought that says you should have only three possible research settings early in the game:

zero (build treasury and rely on getting techs by other means)
minimum (1 gold per turn = about 40 turns)
-or-
maximum (usually 100% or breakeven in the early game)

You have left the research at the in game default of 50% while I turned it to max and am beelining for horses.

I think we can play on from here and see what happens and let the other players catch up to us when they join the game.

The next break point for comparison saves is 2950bc.

Good luck,

Here is my try in this game to 3450BC. I did not look at your game or what you wrote, Cracker. I'm sure mine is nothing to write home about. But I offer it for comments and for help.

stwils

Here is the save

Great stwils. I added your name to the roster early in the thread.

Try to follow the file naming convention so you help avoid mistakes and disasters. With lots of people playing teh same turns we all need to save the save files with our "cfc handle" embedded in the names to avoid having all the saves from teh same turn end up with the same file name.

Yours in this example would be "ha1_stwils_bc3450.sav" so that the file will remain as unique.

Remember the next turn break should be at the end of turn for 2950bc.

------

stwils,

Your save shows a totally different approach.

You moved your settler before founding the first town but then went for production and exploration with a quick worker. We'll have to see how this compares in the next several movement sets.

You can download the sav games of all other players and compare the games to see if you can pick up any conclusions. I'll try to get an image of your 3450bc position up for comparison.

One thing to point out here to all players is that this gameplay format requires you to be a "big picture/little picture" player. Each set of turns can expose you to information that you should not really have in the current game even though we are definitely using this info for learning and comparison purposes.

To get the most out of the process, you have to do one of two things:

1) either try and play your own game while ignoring or discounting all the extra information that you will have.

2) or jump ship and switch over to using the end position of another player to then play forward.

The worst thing you can do is to use the revealed information of other players to significantly change what you are doing in your current game from your existing end position because this will land you in limbo land and make it had for your to compare things. You will in effect be doing some really impossible and unnatural things that will not help you learn.

Some of this is unavoidable to a certain degree becasue it is hard to forget the location of a hut or the location of a luxury or neighbor once that has been exposed to you.

Just try to remember what your big picture objectives are while trying to focus your little picture view of your own world on how you think you can best reach the objective.

I may give this one a whirl, myself. :D

I assume I'm a "better" (read - more experienced ;) ) player than handyandy. Cracker is a master of (especially early-game) tile usage. And I can always learn more from "General Lee". So another "middle-of-the-road" player's experience may prove illuminating. (If only for the humor value. :lol: )

And rest assured, I am quite used to the "big picture/little picture" idea. Back in the Dark Ages, before PCs, I used to play chess against the best opponent I could find: myself. I also used to play board-style wargames against myself. I have become rather adept at compartmentalising my data, pushing things I shouldn't know off the mental table, so to speak.

I'll try to post something tonight, if I'm able.

:D

Here is my game on turn 10:


Here is a summary of what I've been doing in these past 10 turns, (Please don't expect the best, I'm only 13 like Handyandy!!):

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

)-> I put my worker on autobuild so I can get on with other things. But I made sure I used the SHIFT-A option. I don't like moving them manually! That way they won't replace anything I have made. So for example, I can freely put down irragation and know that they won't change it to mines!

)-> I told my scientists to work on the technology of Alphabet, it leads to many other important things, like Writing, for communications and ROP, and Literacy which gives the Great Library along with standard libraries. If your're in a high level, the Great Library is very useful if you can get it first.

)-> I've built two warriors, and am working on one more to explore with. I've NOT built barracks, waste of time if you're not militaristic. (I'm usually the Greeks, and they're not militaristic) When you can make contact with new civs, you can start to trade. A barb hut, north of my city turned out to be barbs!! :(

)-> I've moved my warriors onto a mountain, and other mountains to explore further. Just a little bit of striped line is significant! (A civ's territory border!!)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Normally I play as the Greeks. They are scientific, essential to me, and commercial, which helps science in it's own way (with corruption). The commercial ability also gives me Alphabet, so normally I'd have chosen writing for a start. Not warrior code as the computer suggests! I don't usually have early wars. (Atleast I haven't so-far...) The Persians are my second favourite civ though. Workers gain a better bonus, and that gives you more gold, since you don't need so many workers!

Anyway, that's what I've done so far, I would appreciate feedback, because the starting strategy matters for the rest of the game, I want to have the best possible strategy. This is what I've mainly done for the past 4-5 games.

james,

Just confirming to make sure I understand you correctly, you are saying that your worker was Shift-A automated from right at the start. So this would mean the improvements we see on you map would be what the computer AI would recommend under this game play situation. Am I correct that all your worker moves were the result of the computer AI choices?

(Note: you can keep doing this if you wish because it will provide a great reference. But automating your workers is highly NOT recommended.)

Also, just a gentle nudge here, but try to hit the target save dates so your game will match up precisely with the other games in the timeline. The next date will be 2950bc.

This is only important for your benefit and so you don't waste too much of my time trying to reconcile the mismatches. In your case, for this one file, one more warrior move would not have changed the fog profile of what you can see, but in some cases this is a really big deal.

It is alot easier to compare your moves to handyandy, or stwils, or to cracker if the moves cover the same number of turns and end on the same year.

You'll see the importance of this a bit more as we progress. Although I may be able to project what the difference may be and write it down for you, a picture comparison will make it much easier for you to pick out some of the issues on your own.

All I've done is explored more, built another warrior and now founding a city on an ivory square.

Padma,

Glad to have you participate and add perspective. I'll add you to the roster near the biginning of the thread.

Feel free to jump in with any discussion or observations you may have as we get rolling and you have images and save files to compare.

You might try to play to 3450bc and then save at the end of the turn and then keep playing straight to 2950bc and save and the play straight on to 2590bc and save that file. This way you will have a straight shot sequence of 30 turns broken into 3 nice segments that will match everone elses games and you can just upload them one at a time as things progress. This will provide a nice reference as well

(note that this is what I already have done even though I have not uploaded the next two cuts yet.)

Cracker, I did put my worker on auto, it gets tiring when moving many workers near the end of the game, but I see your point. I might try it. Was it O.K though in your opinion? (You can be blunt!)

Couple more things:

You made a mistake in post #13!! You put that next submissions should be made at the date 3950bc. Did you mean 2950bc??

I can't download your save-game??????? Can you just post it as an attachment please?

+A funny spelling mistake: In post #11: "gonus grassland"!!!!!!!!! LOL! :lol:

Yes, I meant 2950 and have hopefully fixed those errors. Handyandy threw off my groove. :wallbash:

"gonus" :lol: (my brain and fingers are out of sync.)

Yes, you can download any or all of the save games you want to. You might try playing forward to the next break point at 2590bc (turn 30) and then again at 2190bc (turn 40) because these will give you perhaps a better blindfolded comparison.

This is not so much of a competetion as it is a way to compare what you think ought to be doing with the same thoughts by others so you can hopefully look at the decision making processes and see if you can pick out some key new things.

Cracker (and everybody, for that matter), could you try to post more screenshots? I don't have access to Civ3 at the moment (333MHz, 64MB of RAM, ouch, don't laugh), and even when I do, loading savegames is a pain. I love following succession games, but they can be a pain.

I caught that you already jumped to 2950 BC, so my first post went to that point.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/LAK-185.jpg


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-2950BC.zip


We may want to set a time schedule for each block of ten turns, or this thread could get really confusing.

Well, cracker, my initial position looks rather like yours. :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_padma_bc3450.jpg

My save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_padma_bc3450.zip

I see Lee managed to get techs from goody huts. This is the first game I've played where *all* I got were Barbs, Barbs, and Barbs!

:D

Hello Cracker, HandyAndy and all.

I'd like to tag along this game if nobody minds. I usually play emperor level but this is my first SG and I figured this will give me practice posting and reporting here. :)

So here are my first ten turns for this game.

[list=1]
4000BC I take the starting location, it looks good enough. I work the bonus grassland to get a couple of warriors out quickly. I send the worker to irrigate and road the wheat. I start research at max rate on pottery for a quick granary.

3950BC ...
3900BC ...
3850BC ...
3800BC ...

3750BC One warrior ready, he goes out exploring north as it is the most likely direction he can find neighbors. The worker now mine and road the bonus grassland near the river.

3700BC ...
3650BC ...
3600BC ...

3550BC The scout finds Ceremonial Burial in a hut. :jump:

3500BC 2nd scout comes out and goes to clear the fog to the east. Persepolis starts on temple as a prebuild to granary.

3450BC Worker goes to work another bonus grassland and starts a road to the second city.

The Persian empire at the end of 3450BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC3450.jpg

Here is the save game. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC3450.sav)
[/list=1]

Everyone is doing really well and I think we should proceed forward to the 30 turn mark before taking a short break for discussion.

We have ended up with 3 save file targets that each player should try to hit:

3450bc (turn 12: shifted a bit)
2950bc (turn 22)
2590bc (turn 30)

hopefully the last two time points won't create confusion, but turn 30 will be a good point to facilitate some discussion.

We are already seeing several different approaches to playing the opening and this will add some great prespective.

Hopefully everyone can get their saves uploaded by the end of the evening on Thursday and then we can use Friday as a discussion day before playing on.

Here's my 2950bc save position and I will try to get up some comparison screen shots as other games get posted.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc2950.sav

[list=1]
3400BC Pottery discovered, Persepolis switch to granary. Research set to Alphabet at max rate to get closer to both Republic and Literature (for quick libraries since we will do most of the research).

3350BC ...
3300BC ...
3250BC ...
3200BC One scout picks up a settler from a hut. :lol: He tags along the scout in hopes of finding some luxury.
Growth in Persepolis is slowed down to finish the granary before the next growth, in 7 turns.
3150BC ...
3100BC ...
3050BC ...
3000BC Pasargadae founded on a flood plain in range of two incenses and a flood plain wheat. It is set to produce workers for a long, long time.
2950BC ...
[/list=1]

This is a very fertile land :). Too bad Persepolis is not on the coast to grab colossus, Copernicus and Newton. With a little more luck there might be coast near to the SE, making a coastal city near the capitol. Here is a view of just some of the nice cities to grab:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC2950_dotmap.jpg

Here is the save game for 2950 BC. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC2950.sav)

Here is more :)

[list=1]
2900BC ...

2850BC Granary completes in Persepolis, starts on a warrior to let it grow to size 4 and have an idea of what lies to the west.

2800BC ...

2750BC A scout convinced a barbarian warrior to join us. :) Warrior completed in Persepolis, now will crank settlers for quite a while. I had to raise the luxury slider as Persepolis is now size 4 without MP.

2710BC The Bactrian tribe taught us The Wheel :jump: There is indeed a coast to the west, so that will probably be the next city. The new scout is seeing a purple border.

2670BC ...

2630BC I find the Iroquois to the NE. I sell Masonry for Warrior Code and 10 golds. The only horses I see so far are closer to Salamanca then to Persepolis. I think the first settler better go that way and steal the horses! Alphabet is discovered and Writing is ordered at 70%.

2590BC The first settler completes and is ready to go either for the horses or for a coastal city to build the colossus.
[/list=1]

The Persian empire at the end of 2590BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_2590BC.jpg

Here is the save game for 2590 BC. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC2590.sav)

I guess I am ow all caught up.

here is my save for 2950

recceared masonary and i got buirl and i built a seconed city next to two mountins

greetings all! I love this kind of SG because you get to read so many different ways to play. If I get time, I'll put in my attempt.

In the meantime, I have a request of Cracker. Could you start a thread (or sub-thread) to control the game speed. In this thread you could indicate what date to play to, when the "discussion day" for that timeframe would be and link all the submitted saves from the last round. That would give a concise place to load from and let lurkers join in without reading all the spoilers from the turn we're on.

LKendter started a Regent game like this a while back. He's actually evaluating every save game and choosing a "Winner" for each round. Then everyone plays from the winning save, like a "Best ball" competition in golf. I'm not saying you should do that, just that having a separate thread for game scheduling will help a lot.

By the way, LKendter's game is still open, we're still in the land-grabbing phase. Playing as Rome. We could use A LOT MORE players to make it really fun. Everyone here should consider playing that one too!

Read about the game in LK33 - Manager's Cage (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34885) .
Enter your submissions in the LK33 - Batter's Cage (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34884)

So, who's game should I start with here...:scan::goodjob:

Here is my save for 3450 BC, and the log of events. I'll try to read the other logs once I get caught up to the rest of you.

All worker actions refer to the turn in which the worker started doing them.

4000 BC Persepolis founded; research to 100% on Pottery. I
have the lone citizen work the grass+ by the river first-
I'm planning on a fast granary, to get more settlers
faster overall.
3950 BC Worker M (mines) river grass+
3800 BC Worker R (roads)
3750 BC Warrior built; sent to explore N. Persepolis starts
spear for defense.
3650 BC Worker I (irrigates) wheat on grassland
3550 BC Worker R
3500 BC Cultural boundaries expand; warrior pops hut NW of
city for Ceremonial Burial!
Pottery is discovered, and research started on
Alphabet.
3450 BC Not much happening; Persepolis is about to build a
spear the next turn, and the worker has moved N to
grab the other handy river/grass+.

For some reason, the Easy Upload feature and the Attach option don't like my screenshot, so one is not available for this turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Borealis_bc3450.sav

Here's the rest of it, up to 2950 BC. I've done up to the next turn, but I'll wait to post that until we've discussed these turns.

3400 BC Spearman built, and fortifies in capital; Granary
started. Worker M.
3250 BC Worker R.
3050 BC Worker R grass+ SE of capital.
2950 BC Worker M
2800 BC Persepolis builds Granary; starts Settler. Science rate
to 90% in order to avoid deficit.
2750 BC Alphabet discovered; research started on Writing.
Warrior pops hut farther N of Persepolis and gets
a 'skilled' warrior. The conscript is sent to explore.
Worker R grass+ S of city.
2710 BC Persepolis (size 5) microed to make an entertainer out
of the citizen working forest to avoid disorder.
2670 BC Worker M.
2630 BC Persepolis builds Setter, and starts another. Settler
sent to grassland coastal tile W of the city, near Ivory.
2590 BC Nothing much happens. Turn 3 ends.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA2_Borealis_bc2950.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA3_Borealis_bc2590.sav

Thanks to all the posters that are providing helpful management tips.

One thing to remember is that this is handyandy's game and not mine (or yours). I view myself as sort of a guest here even though I volunteered to steer things somewhat. Just trust me a bit.

Remember that our first major objective is to play the first thirty turns of the game in our own style and using our own decisions and then all players need to upload save games for the 3450bc, 2950bc and 2590bc time points. (we will probably be playing beyond this time point in ten turn increments but be patient, we are not to that point yet.)

You can post save games and turn reports if you like, but we are trying to hold off discussion a tad bit until we get a few more of the newer players up to the turn 30 time point in the game.

I promise you that there will be some detailed reviews and comments but my hope is to do this by comparison and some introspection that helps people see what may be the stronger move sequences by looking at what they might have done in a bigger picture sense.

For "smith" and others, I promise you also that we will have some more screenies and cuts, but again be patient. Instant gratification and long term satisfaction do not always come packaged in the same box.

I am using handyandy as a key pacing player in these objectives since it is his game and It is best not to get too far ahead of him.

Here's my 2590bc save position and I will try to get up some comparison screen shots as other games get posted.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc2590.sav

Before I give my summary, I want to point out that this is 1 turn late. I svaed at the wrong time, and this was the earliest autosave. I haven't moved andy units, so it's at the beggining of turn 31. Sorry! Now, onto more interesting stuff, the summary:


Lots happened here, I'll write another brief summary to outline it. I explored more, and built my second city on some ivory. I've built it in OCP style (optimal city placement for those who don't know) and I now own the luxury of Ivory. My warriors are finding even better things:
--Two barbarian huts, each containing a technology:), they were: Pottery and Ceremonial Burial,
--More luxuries :),
--Great city sites with grassland, rivers and luxuries galore! :),
--And most important of all, the ZULUS! :D :D

I contacted Shaka and asked to trade. He had only 1 city, I had 2 cities. He had less gold than me, not much of an advantage. He had another tech than me: Warrior Code, but I was only 2 turns away from Alphabet, not much of a disadvantage, and I had a better score than him! My score 40, His score: 38!-Difference of 2. Next turn: 42 & 39!-Difference of 3! Must be the extra city I built!!...

My next tech to work on is writing, so I can get communications from Shaka, and also give him some for techs and money. Then maybe ROP...

That's just about it really. Oh, and I fortified 1 spearman inside Persepolis (capital) before carrying on with settlers. My policy with settlers normally goes like: 1st uild spearman, then setttlers.

So far I have shown my strategies to be: Explore, Defend, Build. (Build being: build more cities than AI!!).
I gues my main ones are Explore & Build.

We need to hold postings to nothing past the 2590 (turn 30 date) until we get the main crew up to that date. (probably will move forward on Friday 11/15).

In the interim, here is a composite image to reflect the basic positions at the end of 3450bc as they are reflected in the save files.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/3450bc_warrior_composite.jpg

Note: that Lee(LKendter)'s position is not actually reflected in the image since he came in a tad later and jumped right to the second save point. No problem.

This composite image is really an outline composite so it does not necessarily reflect the position of your town, improvements, or worker.

The first point I would make is that only two people chose to move their settler and found the capital in another position. We can discuss this more after the rest of the players get their saves uploaded through the 2590bc (turn 30) time point. I will post a summary status message sometime later this evening (Thursday 11/14) an this will include an announcement that "Discussion is Open" so that everyone will be encouraged to actively discuss things for at least the next 24 hours before we play on.

The second point that is not obvious in the composite is that people chose two major sequences of worker tasks that put them into either the "Mined the Wheat" or the "Irrigated the Wheat" groups. This should also be a topic of discussion (later) but I wanted to highlight this difference with the posting of this composite image.

Each player has been following somewhat of a different sequence of moves and that is great because it reflects how many different things can happen in the game even when we all start with the same cards dealt to us.

We can group the choices into some major groups and this will help move the discussion along in a more productive manner because the big picture decisions are what we really need to be focusing on instead of the tiny issues.

The third major point is that we end up with two groups of players with one group producing a warrior (or warriors) to "get out of town" and find ou more about the world. The other group went instantly toward internal build issues without pushing the exploration.

In the group of players that sent out a warrior to explore the map, we can again divide these choices by the major directions of exploration. Most players went sort of north initially and many of these players used the mountain ridge to get the widest view of their world. WIthout focusing on the discussion of these choices yet, I need to emphasize the different paths chosen because it is a bit tough to show them on the composite image clearly:

stwils was the only play who went directly northwest, virtually in a straight line from Persepolis to his position shown in the composite.
Lee(LKendter)'s moves are not shown on the composite but he had moved his town 1 square northwest to found and then sent his warrior explorer straight north to the hut and then through the ridge to the central mountain to the north
handandy did not produce a unit to explore
all the other players basically crossed the river at the wheat and followed the mountain ridge north until they could choose an east or north path


Players Borealis, LKendter (not shown on image), Jamesds, and Jaxom, have already popped the hut directly north of Persepolis while stwils hasn't seen it, cracker bypassed it, and Padma is eyeing it with passionate intent.

Only Jaxom and James have second warriors out to explore more territory.

Thinking a head to the discussion, a comparison of the position of stwills and James1 will reveal a very important game play concept the relates to speedin gup exploration and using the orthogonal grid layout that is built into the game. We can discuss this when the discussion period opens later this evening.

All in all, it is very enlightening to look at this sort of composite overlay and try to understand the reasons for the common things that people decided to do.

-----------------------
A couple of process related notes to emphasize:

This game format is really a bit introspective in how it needs to be played. We can discuss many things when we get to the discussion breaks, but it may be best if we avoid too much forward discussion like projecting city layouts and longterm map plans because this may be your strategy but it may not match the strategy of other players. It is hard to play the game and test your decisons against the similar decisions of others when the discussion of what to do occurs before you have a chance to really commit yourself to the decision you would make without all the extra guidance and information. If I told you exactly what the optimium movement strategy was (not that I know it) then you would not be crafting the same well hone set of decision skills that really will let you play the game more in your own style and to the level of enjoyment that you personally seek.

Also, posting images is good, but we need to be concious of image file size as we get lots of those going. Some of the graphics modpacks have changes to resources that make them really hard to see on clearly on sized web images, so use caution.

Think ahead to the issues you really want to discuss for the first 30 turns as well as any question you think the group should address before moving on, and -

... continued good luck to all players.

Are you saying that tonight (or some other time) we'll heve a discussion in the chatroom?? That would be a great idea to swap ideas, etc.
Or do you mean here?

cracker,

Just letting you know that my "turn-30" post probably won't go up until *late* tonight. I have a company "all-hands" meeting this afternoon, followed by a High School Bowling Association meeting this evening, so I may not even get home until 10:00pm.

Also, I agree with you about holding "forward discussion" until the discussion period. :goodjob:

Originally posted by Jamesds
Are you saying that tonight (or some other time) we'll heve a discussion in the chatroom?? That would be a great idea to swap ideas, etc.
Or do you mean here? I'm sure he means here in the forum. :)

The chat idea is a good one, but when could we schedule it? Most of us appear to be in the US or Canada, but you're in the UK. Some of us have jobs, families, etc., and others are students, with a need for study time. I would love a chat, but it would be very hard to get more than a few of us together at once, I think. :(

Yeah, forgot about time zones!!!

Yes, I think chat is not a prime option due to time and place differences. (not trying to be NA centric here, just recognizing the mechanics).

My intent is to have everyone try and plan a little extra time between tonight (Thursday PM USA times) and Friday evening (PM USA times) to read and perhaps post a few messages targeted toward some of the issues I tried to outline in the past few posts.

Then after I get a sense that the discussion has had some active participation I will look to make a recommendation to move on. That recommendation may include the option and procedures for some players to "shift lifeboats" so to speak.

Here is a summary of my turn reports up through the 2590bc (turn 30 stopping report):

4000 BC (turn 1) – Found at start point. Set science to 20% to get 1 gpt for minimum research at 40 turns. Move worker to wheat. Irrigate then road is the plan
3900 BC (turn 3) – Irrigated wheat at EOT.
3800 BC (turn 5) – Road wheat at Eot
3750 BC (turn 6) – move to bonus grassland SW of town near river. (Mine and Road is the plan)
3700 BC (turn 7) – Population is now 2 citizens.
3600 BC (turn 9) – now have a warrior sent him along the wheat road and up on the mountain to see the east plains. Dropped science down to 10% to still keep the 1 gpt. Set the queue to build a settler.
3550 BC (turn 10) – sent warrior1 to next mountain and we see a hut to the west. Bypass it
3450 BC (turn 12) – Population is now 3 citizens. Worker completes mine and moves NE to bonus grass between rivers next to mountain: Mine and road is the plan.
3350 BC (turn 14) – Warrior1 continues straight north onto next mountain and sees hut next.
3300 BC (turn 15) – Got a huge regional map from the hut.
3250 BC (turn 16) – Met the Iroquois scout off to the east thanks to the huge map view and traded Masonry for Pottery, Burial, and 9 gold. Warrior continues straight north. Tuned research down to 50% to finish the wheel in the next turn.
3200 BC (turn 17) – Wheel discovered but no sign of horses yet. Settler out of Persepolis sent east southeast beyond gold and pop up by 1, so town stays at pop 2.
3150 BC (turn 18) – Worker completes road and mine and moves southeast two moves to grass to follow and hook up settler.
3050 BC (turn 20) – Founded Pasagardae
3000 BC (turn 21) – Warrior2 out of Persepolis heads to pop hut north of town.
2900 BC (turn 23) – Mysticism out of hut north of town.
2850 BC (turn 24) – Warrior2 jumps up on mountain NW and then heads west to hill.
2800 BC (turn 25) – Pasagardae builds warrior3 to send to help keep Persepolis MP happy. Short rush 20 shields in Persepolis, to fill barracks and then switch to Granary.
2750 BC (turn 26) – Warrior2 sees ivory west of us plus the coast. Warrior1 can see dark blue and from F11 this must be Babylon.
2710 BC (turn 27) – Warrior2 heads straight north along the forests. Met Hammurabi and he has nothing, zip, nada, bupkis to trade.
2670 BC (turn 28) – Luxuries up to 10% to balance the rush unhappiness in Persepolis, Sent Warrior3 west across the river to the forest to clear the black. Worker1 crosses the river to bonus grass SW of Pasagardae: plan to mine and road. Warrior1 way up north turns straight east (this is ugly terrain.)
2630 BC (turn 29) – Pasagardae builds worker to improve the cow.
2590 BC (turn 30) – (nothing exciting but end point)

I played 30 turns more as a curiosity but will post my results along side to others later tonight.

Hotrod

Welcome Hotrod,

Try to post save files for the break points in the timeline if you can. The first three dates are 3450bc, 2950bc and 2590bc. I can uses these save files to produce some consolidated and comparative graphics as the game progresses.

After the discussion round on Friday, we will probably proceed forward with three more bites at the apple of 10 turns each.

These additional break points will be at:
2190bc (turn 40)
1790bc (turn 50)
and
1525bc (turn 60)

You may not want to play ahead to these break points until after the discussion process and looking ahead this will aim us toward another discussion point after turn 60.

I want to jump in on this progession game. I will get caught up on turns and will post later.

I guess I got a bit carried away with images :) Your composite image is much more interesting than any single game image could be so I'll keep the images off from now on. Maybe just the minimap, somehow I have a need to include a picture with my post :)

I went with your suggestion of a quick space victory as a strategy, I think HandyAndy should really let us know what objective he is pursuing so we can stir our games in the same direction.

I am not clear on what the report format should be, either a quick summary with the most notable event and a save game each ten turns or a single detailed 30 turns report with all 3 saves? I believe that without the reason of why a certain move is made there is not much learning potential.

Anyway, I will go along with what ever format is choosen. As I said before, I tag along mostly to get practice using this forum.

2900 BC (I) -
The granary completes, and I begin a settler.

2800 BC - Up luxury tax to 10% until the settler is completed.

2710 BC -
(I) I begin research on The Wheel next, but that could change since I just spotted a unit from the south :confused: and I may be able to get the wheel.
A settler completes, and I order another.

2670 BC - I pop another goodie hut and get warrior code for free.
?? Why can't I do this in emperor where it would really help ??
We have 2 sources of iron nearby.
I have first contact with the Zulu, and they have no technology to offer - surprising for an expansionist civ.

2590 BC - I have another first contact - the Iroquois. I can really tell this is warlord, as the Iroquois are also hopeless for tech.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/LAK-192.jpg


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-2590BC.zip

Not much to talk about, some warrior exploring, b-line for pottery/granaries, and irrigation of the wheat. Got Maps from the hut.

Here is the save and image:
http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_3450BC.zip

http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1hot3450.jpg

Use settler to found city #2 to the East on the River with cows.

Building Granary in Persepolis, see ivory to the West

Here is the save: I can't seem to get my images up properly, I get confirmation bu they are not there??

http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_2950BC.ziphttp://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1hot2950.jpg

Built the granary, started on settler number 2, not too much more exploration. Had to raise lux to 10% because of the rapid growth in the capital and no MPs. With some MM capital growth and settler completion should be the same turn.

Here is the save: http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_2590BC.zip



http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1hot2590.jpg

Got home a bit earlier than I hoped.

Here is the 2950BC save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_padma_bc2950.zip

and the 30-turn 2590BC save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_padma_bc2590.zip

A quick screenshot of 2590BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_padma_bc2590.jpg

I seem to have lost my notes, but you can tell the most important things from the screenshot. I have 2 cities built, and 2 Settlers on the way. My northern Warrior has popped 3 Goody Huts, and received 3 Barb warriors each time! :eek: That's why he's Elite now. ;)

I am going 100% Research; I have discoverd Alphabet, and decided to go for CB because it was relatively cheap, and *I want my temples*! :cry: I usually get CB from a goody hut, but like I said, only Barbs, so far.

One exploring Warrior has found the Eastern Sea, while another is heading west to see what's there.

My two cities are almost linked together, and I plan on putting a worker to use around Pasargadae.

I'll save anything else for the discussion round.

:D

Stwils seems to have fallen into a black hole with both 2950bc and 2590bc and I still do not have an upload for handyandy to match the 2590bc (turn 30) time point. Hopefully they will both join us soon.

I have several comparison and composite pieces of information to provide to you all as it is gleened from the save files you have all uploaded.

First, I have a set of composite maps that overlay all the exploration positions for the second save point ast 2950bc.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2950bc_outline_composite.jpg

The base map image is sort of a kluge since city positions begin to be different for each player, but the key point of this composite is to give you a feel for the diverse elements of the exploration and expansion approaches for the various players.

If you would like to look at the individual map positions for any player in more detail, I suggest you look back in the postings at the turn reports for that player and then download the corresponding save games.

The common approaches that we saw in the composite image of warrior/explorer positions in 3450bc have given way to more focused exploration approaches on a grand scale:

Cracker continues to head straight north
Borealis is dedicated to exploring west.
Jaxom is exploring almost exclusively to the northwest.
Hotrod is looking for whales to the southwest
Padma and Lkendter have very similar central approaches.
Handyandy is still doing no exploring beyond the suburbs of his towns


There are colored dots placed on the composite map to correspond to the five players who have founded 2nd city locations. If I recall the reporting posts correctly, Jaxom got his second town from a settler from a hut while all four of the other towns where from built settlers. One other player has a settler out and on the move.

This next image is just a clearer composite with only the outlines for Borealis and Jaxom shown so we can see that they are clearly headed in two different directions.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2950bc_borealis_jaxom_compare.jpg

The most significant advantage shown in this image is the town at the yellow dot that cam from the free settler nearby.

(remember that the secondary city locations near Persepolis are for composite reference to other player's maps and thes towns do not really exist for either one of the outlines shown.)

This next image is not to pick on handyandy but is just meant to emphasize the great expanse of territory that most players are exploring while Andy is building towns and staying home.

(note that the QSC power scoring formula has not been giving Andy the lowest score so far.) ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2950bc_ha_compare.jpg

This fourth and final composite image, is a comparison between James's position and handyandy's position because these two games represent the two extremes of the exploration process.

James has three warriors out exploring but has not yet built a second town, even though he has a settler out and on the move.

Handyandy has produced no exploration units at all but may have built the first settler to go for the second town.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2950bc_ha_james_compare.jpg

This image also clearly outlines James's three pronged explorer approach.

Here are two tables that summarize the power ratings of each player's position at 3450bc and then again at 2950bc"

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/3450bc_table.gif

The second table has more elements in it as players add units and gain techs:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2950bc_table.gif

These tables are based on the Quick Start Challenge point system that rates every game position in terms of its equivalent "Gross National Product". You can find more about the points system at:

http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/quik_start/scoring.htm

if you are interested in that detail.

-----------

When you look at the tables, bear in mind that every player started the game with stuff that was worth 250 points even before they made any moves.

In the first table, we see that power scores range from 350 to 415 points, with Borealis in the lead by virtue of her strong technology position.

In the second table, everyone is gaining power points even more quickly than in the first table and the relative positions are beginning to shift a bit. Lee Kendter is in the lead in at 2950bc on the strength of having gotten Mysticism out of a goody hut because this is the first second tier technology in the game that takes advantage of some other prerequisite tech.

In the second table, you can also see the free starting techs highlighted in yellow, and the techs that the player already had at 3450bc highlighted in orange.

I will try to have a graph of this power score tracking by sometime Friday if we can get stwils and handyandy in the rest of the scoring up to 2590bc.

DISCUSSION IS NOW OPEN

Feel free to ask questions and discuss anything you have seen in the posting threads up to 2590bc.

A key part of this discussion is to focus on what choices we have made up to this point and what we effects these diffent choices seem to be having on game play.

Try not to talk about future plans because that is not how this format works.

When we are done with discussion, we will hopefully let each individual move forward and apply anything new that they think they may have learned from the process to improving their position in the game or "progressing the game forward" from that point in time.

It helps in these discussion processes if you focus in on things you are observing and ask questions of other players to explore how their decision logic and play choices may be leading to the differences we are seeing in the game so far.

Good luck to all,

Just thought I'd pass on that stwils has indicated in our other SGs that she is away from her coomputer until sometime late Sunday.

@cracker
The 2nd table as of 2950BC is incorrect. I had a setter on the map at that time.

Lee,

The scoring table (and me too) is not infallible, so it is possible there are mistakes in the table.

Here's a screen shot of your map position composited with your military advisor list:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2950bc_LKendter.jpg

I think you were building a granary and had 2 warriors and a worker as shown in the score sheet. If you can help me find the settler, I'll add him/her in. ;)

@Cracker

I will try to have a graph of this power score tracking by sometime Friday if we can get stwils and handyandy in the rest of the scoring up to 2590bc.

I missed the above comment the first time, and I was confusing 2950 with 2590.

Looks like the formula gives a decided advantage to early tech grabs and contacts. Early exploration will give both of those through techs and new civ contacts but may not give a quick start on new city sites.

I found maps in my hut and that really influenced where I started to explore. I saw some good land to the North and decided to head west to the coast. Cracker, Lee, Jaxom headed North and got contacts or more huts etc. but didn't get a look at all the lands close by.

It is usually my preference to explore in a kind of a circle to find out where the next 2 - 3 or even 4 cities are and wait for a new city to build a warrior for future exploring outward in a single direction, looking for huts and contacts. I have a habit of placing my cities almost too soon without getting a true feel of what is in the area and that wheat or cow that was just in the fog shows up just out of the city reach.

I am interested to see the "scores" for the last 10 turns! This is a pretty cool concept and I really enjoy the discussion and information.

Hotrod

I see one area where my "style" left me at a slight disadvantage: I count on getting at least one or two techs from Goody Huts. This is the first game that I recall in a year's playing where I got *nothing but Barbs!* :aargh:

:D

My first couple of scouts usually go where I might find another civ. I put a high priority on getting contacts, the early brokering opportunities can fill out your first tech column, and sometimes your second column, for a bargain price.

Since I wanted to build a granary and get to size 4 before making my first settler, I had more than enough time to bust the fog around the capitol, which I did by 2590BC.

I often wondered if it was better to build a settler or a granary first, I guess this format with this fertile start will provide an answer to that :).

I think the scoring would better measure the 'quick start' if there was no huts on the map. As it stands now a good dice roll can mean a lot of points. It is true that if you don't explore, you don't get to pop the huts, but even if you send a scout you may just get barbs, barbs, barbs :)

By the way, Cracker, "her" scoring position would be the proper wording in your earlier post. ;)

As for discussion, I'm wondering what other people think about the early granary build as compared to pumping out a settler immediately. I usually find that building a granary first means faster settlers later, as well as a good rebound to wonder-building size for the capital. When/if does everyone else build granaries, and why?

Also, I notice that as of 2950 BC I'm the only person with a Spearman defending my capital. Would it have been better to build a warrior and get the granary earlier? I've tried this in the past, but it seems that every time I do that, the AI finds me and a spear would have been more useful, to either move to a border city or deter attack. (This may also be a difficulty level issue- the AI seems to like to attack me much earlier on Regent/Monarch.)

It's good that we are discussing "exploring" and I have some points on that, but first I want to focus on the very first moves of the game.

Most players settled right at the startposition but two players (stwils and LKendter) decided to move.

Here is and image of the start position as it would look after the worker would be moved onto the wheat:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/should_you_move.jpg

I posted an image of the start position before the worker moved in a very early post, and I think you have to look at the start position in combination with the minimap position to decide if moving the settler is a good idea.

In the "Improving Your Opening Play Sequences" article, I recommend that you develop a list of rules that help you decide when it would be a good idea to move the settler. If the position doesn't satisfy your rules that you like to play by, then don't move the settler. Don't just wander around unless there is something that tells you the current position is bad.

(here's the link to page in the article that discusses when to move the settler.) (http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/gotm8_russ_move.htm)

The issue is not if you might be able to find a better position, but is this position good enough to give you a strong start.

If you look at the annoted image above, this is a great start position. The minimap position gives us our position in the world and indicates that there is probably tundra or the edge of the world to the south of us and in fact we can see a bit of tundra peeking out from under the fog if we look closely.

We can also look at the river position and see that we get the commercial bonus from every square next to a river indicated with a "gold dollar sign" in the image.

stwils made the choice to move one step southeast and I would rate this as a bad move for 4 reasons:

[list=1]
the move gives up 5 squares adjacent to rivers and this loosing commerce power that is not offset by a gain
The move obviosly moves you further away from any potential neighbors
The move costs one turn of output (at least 5 power points) and this delays the first explorer and first settler by a turn without a clear benefit
The move kicks you off the river and will force you to build an aqueduct.
[/list=1]

LKendter's move northwest by one step is hard to label as not a good move, but some of the factors that add value to the move you could not possibly see unless you had foreknowledge of the map. In the short view, I cannot say this would be a recommended move.

In general, there is nothing in this start position that would lead you to make any choices other than move the worker to the wheat and found the capital right where the settler stands at the opening. If I would holding up score cards, like a judge at a figure skating competition, I would give higher marks to all the players that found the city right away rather than moving the settler.

You can also look at the image and see the two terrain squares marked "1" and "2" and these represent the two most powerful terrain squares that should probably be improved first under any of the starting sequences. Even if you move the settler to one of the two choices made, I would still have improves these two squares first.

The order of the improvements and what you built would be based on you overall strategy and what you decided to build in the town.

I believe a couple of players built irrigation or a mine without building roads in the same square and on this map, at this lower difficulty, I definately would not have skipped the road after I already had invested in the ditches or mines.

I think the early exploration techniques can have some impact on how successful we might be.

First, there will always be the random luck of the draw with the positions of things, so even good technique could yield a "less better" result, but that is related to the phase of the moon and hindsight.

Here is an image that shows what I refer to as the "swastika" effect that tends to make it a better choice to move units straight in one of the compass directions instead of taking the diagonal paths.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/orthog_explore.jpg

If you look at the image, the yellow paths will get you to the same ending explore positions as the green paths and will use the same number of moves.

Moving straight N, E, S, or W will reveal at least 5 new terrain squares per move while moving diagionally will only expose 3 terrain squares per move. On a perfectly flat map, with no hills or mountains, if you explore 10 squares in the straight orthogonal directions, then you would reveal 50 new terrain squares while the diagonal path would reveal 30 squares. The orthogonal explorer would have a 40% greater chance of finding a hut or making contact.

A second major issue in early exploration is to read the terrain and use it to expose more visibility. Jumping up on a hill or a mountain reveals an average of 15-18 new terrain squares while making an equivalent move on flat terrain reveals just 3-5. This view distance advantage helps you choose the direction of your next move.

In this case, we have to explore with warriors or workers so the 1 movement rate vs 2 movement rate is not an issue. Jumping up on a hill or a mountain when it is generally in you path would almost always be a great idea in these circumstances.

I think the combination of the orthogonal movement and good use of extended terrain vision can double or even triple the general effectiveness of your exploration.

Look at the positions the James1 warrior and the position of the stwils warrior in the composite image of the 3450bc warrior positions. These two warriors end up in almost identical positions using the same number of moves but James has seen twice as much terrain and already popped a hut.

Here's an image that accents these path choices:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/3450bc_orthog_explore.jpg
The orange diagonal path is approximately the path that stwils chose, while the blue path was the route James chose. The yellow path would also lead to the same end destination and both the blue and the yellow paths would reveal a goody hut while the orange path would reveal about 40% less territory to view.

The final major explore issue is the general minimap position in the world. Just based on the first glimpse of the map, I would be planning to explore North, then choose either east or west, and follow eventually with the other east or west. Whether this choice is randomly a good fit for where the other civs and the goody huts actually lie is something we cannot guess about in the first several moves.

I was tempted to move NW or N when I saw the bit of tundra under the fog. But then I figured that by the time I would need to use that square, the game will be almost over.

A question about the orthogonal moves, if a mountain range is oriented diagonally, is is better to follow the range?

Jaxom,

I think you have to read the terrain combined with the minimap position to decide if following a diagonal mountain ridge would be a good move for whatever situation you are in.

You can test some of these and count the visibiity impact if you think it might give you a better feel.

I think the diagonal mountain trace will reveal about 18 new squares in the first move and then 4-5 new squares for each subsequent step.

A straight N, E, S, or W path even on plain flat ground will reveal 5 new squares in the first move and then 5 new squares in each subsequent move.

An excellent analysis, cracker.

In my playing, I will normally follow a mountain ridge even if it runs diagonally, because of the benefit of the increased visibility.

What is the benifit if any, of bypassing the hut the way cracker did?

Hotrod

At the current time there was almost NO military.
If the hut at barbs, 3 barbs next to the capital.
Not a fun situation. Much more dangerous in PTW with the new lurking barbs.

plus, on the issue of bypassing the hut ...

Lee's assessment of bypassing the hut to avoid spewing warriors back into my capital is exactly why I left the hut.

That would also have pulled my explorer warrior a bit off the track I was trying to follow because I was trying to follow and extreme example of the go straight N, E, S, or W principles. (I wasn't gonna do anything obviously stupid but I was trying not to be distracted from going way north as quickly as possible.

I looked at the position of the hut and saw that there were mountains and forests on the side of the hut away from my capital. This made it a bit safer to bypass the hut without as much risk that a wandering scout could use its two move advantage to poach the hut from my next explorer unit that was planned to follow.

yep , I try not to think about barbs

Yeah, popping the hut early like I did was a gamble, and when 3 barbs spewed out, I was worried. Fortunately, all three suicided against my exploring warrior.

:D

Here is the QSC score table for turn 30 at the 2590bc save point:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2590bc_tableA.gif

(note that for James, I tried to subtract off the right number of things to move the data back just through the production cycle since his position at the beginning of 2550bc would be almost the same as 2590bc :spank: )

In this table, I highlighted all the new tech discoveries in green and also highlight where contacts went up from last turn. The contact scoring gives you more points for each subsequent contact so the first contact is 10pts, 2nd = 20pts, 3rd = 30pts etc.

On techs you will notice that the first level techs that are the freebies for some civs only count as their base research value while the higher order techs are worth their value plus teh value of their prerequisites. This is to emphasize pushing early research further to the right as quick as possible in at least one of the 4 major branches.

Don't let the nuances of the scoring system worry you to much, because it is designed to give a higher score for a more powerful position but not necessarily to cause you to do things just to increase your score alone without doing the things that will win the game quicker.

A quick look at the table will show that 3 players have grabbed early granaries.

Lee is still spanking us fairly well with the benefits of the tech lead and contacts coming from exploration.

Yes, some of the benefits of early exploration are just lucky (or potentially unlucky) outcomes but as things progeress we should see some of this balance out.

A couple of players are showing no variance in their treasury (stuck at 10 gold) and this usually is an indicator that your may not be managing the research slider properly when you get down to just 1 or 2 turns left to go in the research. A little tweaking for a turn or two may save you a full turn of research and leave more gold available in your treasury each time you discover a new tech.

I will try to update the table with results from handyandy and stwils if we get those

Here's my attempt.

Target Saves:
3450bc (turn 12: shifted a bit)
2950bc (turn 22)
2590bc (turn 30)

4000BC-Move worker to wheat since thats his first job, also to bust some fog. Build city at start. Pottery ordered. 90/0 0gpt pot in 12.
3950-irrigation of wheat started.
3900-
3850- irrigation of wheat done. start road. city using wheat for fast growth.
3800-
3750-road done. move to bonus grass on river for mining. MM to save wasted food on next turn grown, gain 1 sheild.
3700-start mine.
3650-
3600-warrior built, and ordered. head north.
3550-mine done, road started. warrior head to mountian E.
3500-borders expand. War N. Sci at 80 pot in 2.
3450-warrior build, order worker. Warrior W. Worker to next BG. E War N. Sci 40 +5gpt, pot in 1.
3400-Get pottery, start alpha. Sci to 100 +0gpt Alpah in 15. Wars NW and NE. Wokr start mine.
3350-Worker bld, start granery. worker to bg SE. Wars, W and NE.
3300-War NE and W. W sees coast and ivory.
3250-Worker done mine, start road.Wars N.
3200-W war N, E war NW, sees goodyhut. MM for growth in 1 + 2 shd.
3150-workr, NE cross river, head to ivory. Wars, NE, NW take cerimonial bury from hut.
3100-E war W to mtn.W war NE to hill. MM to mines instead of wheat for faster granery. wrkr srt rd.
3050wrkr to NE bg. wars E.
3000wrkr done rd, mov to bg NW. Wars E, NE see incense.
2950 were 2nd place behind england. learn wheel from hut.
2900 more exploring.
2850-mine done rd strt. lux tax 90/10.
2800-mine done rd strt.
2750-granery done,strt settlr. wrker done rd, W to help other. Horse found NE.
2710-rd done, W to bg.
2670-strt road.
2630-Alpha done, strt IW 16@80/20 -1 gpt. wrk done rd, NE.
2590-Settlr done, ordr spear. War learn mysticism from hut. Sci 90/0 -1gpt, IW in 17.

Slowed growth a bit to bld granery but can now start cranking out cities. Theres tons of bonuses and no AI net so the plan is to alternate 1 near city for growth, then 1 far citi for land grab, until AI found. Target rivers with food bonus for free aquaduct and quick growth. grab both ivory and incense.

EDIT:Zipped Together (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_ControlFreak_BC2590.zip)


EDIT: Sorry, I posted before cathing up on the thread. Lots of discussion in 1 day. Hope you find time to add my score. I'll try to play next round also.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-ControlFreak-BC2590-ss.jpg

missed a granary

Cracker: I believe you failed to notice I have a granary by 2590BC.

Here is a graph of the power progression up through 2590bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/power_graph.jpg

Jaxom, the graph is updated to include the granary, I'll catch the table graphic update if we get the other submissions from stwils and handyandy.

Sorry, I couldn't post the discussion before Saturday, but I couldn't get on the net for enough time lastnight to post anything good!

Anyway here's a few tips from myelf.

As you've probably seen, my best strategy for early game is explore! I think handyandy should really think about doing this. New civs really are worth it, usually, and hopefully they'll have something that you don't have, and visa-versa so you both benefit! (and if the AI isn't a miser, maybe make it your benefit!!) ;)

Also, just as important, is finding huts. I love finding techs! They really give you a head start, and the more you get, the less the AI's will get! (They seem to leave them alone though, at times...the AI'S loss is the humans gain.) This strategy has given me great headstarts through games. 3 warriors is my minimum for exploration, because your usually stuck aginst some edge, that will leaving only 3 possible orthoganic ways to explore. :)

--And by then, you'll have used up your units per town allowance! This is why I have 3: Under despotism, you are allowed 4 per town, city and metro. This means 4 units total (3xwarrior, 1xworker) and means you don't waste a bit of that unit allowance, while not using gold per turn (useful in early game for tech discovery!!) ;)

I usually follow mountain ranges, providing there's no mountains on both sides of me. Mountins give a great view, 2 square radii is really a great improvement from 1:

1 square radii is only 9 squares
2 square radii is 25 squares!
So going orthagonically can really give a difference in each of these. Compare it to a mountain and a grassland, each being explored by a warrior (and othogonal of course). From grassland to grassland you would discover a total of 5 squares. From grassland to mountain you would discover (providing it's the only mouhntain in a 4 square radius) a total of 16 squares! Ther's a significant difference.

This map generated by handyandy's computer was great for this SG, because it has so many thigs to discuss about it! Such as city placement, exploration, and technologies, etc etc.


The scores for QSC are really good, and very interesting, and I can't wait too see them at the 30 turn mark! My score should rise, I hope! I built a city, got more techs, explored a great deal more, and discovered the Zulus!

It's amazing how much can happen in a matter of only 10 turns!!! Wow!

Dejvu : 2590 - 2190

2590 (0):Nothing to change, imagine that :lol:

2550 (1): Pasargadae builds worker starts granary, may change to granary with sooo much good land to the north the more settlers the better. Want a city on the coast asap, I see a coast to the east.

2510 BC (2): Learn WC, start Iron working for my immortals. MM persepolis to grow in 2 get new settler in 2.

2470 BC (3): Continue to explore to the NE.

2430 BC (4): Settler completes and head to north cow and at any possible other civs. Start another settler, reduce lux for now.

2390 BC (5): MOre warrior movement.

2350 BC (6): same

2310 BC (7): Found Susa on the river Bend by the cows, start warrior. See furs and more wheat to the NE. MM Capital to get settler and growth in 3 turns. Increase lux to 10% to avoid riots.

2270 BC (8): more exploring.

2230 BC (9): Settler next turn.

2190 BC (10): Persepolis builds settler and starts another. Settler heasing toward SW coastline. See incense and a hut on a northern hill top, still no contacts, IW due in 3 turns, 58 gold in the bank.


2150 BC (1): Settler moves south W, warriors continue to the north and NE.

2110 BC (2): Susa builds warrior will go pop the hut. Starts on barracks. Reduce research to 70%.

2070 BC (3): Learn IW start on the wheel. There are 2 iron deposits one to the North and the other to the Western coat by the ivory. MM capital again to ensure growth and the new settler match. Found Arbela on the river on the coast, some overlap but decided on the river site, start warrior.

2030 BC (4): Pop the hut and learn Mysticism.

1990 BC (5): More exploring.

1950 BC (6): Persepolis builds settler and starts another., Settler heading north.

1910 BC (7): Settlers and warrior continue moving. NO sign of barbs yet but may be a concern soon.

1870 BC (8): Pasargadae builds granary starts settler. Arabea builds warrior starts worker.

Stopped for dot map break, many options for city placeement at this point, very fertile lands and no AI to contend with.

1830 BC (9): First contact with the zulu. They lack Masonry only, decide to hold for one more turn. Only 1 turn away from the wheel at this point.

1790 BC (10): Learn the wheel begin on writing. Decide to hold onto Masonry, they can offer up 70 gold but will hold it for now.

Addmittedly I am running a risk without any homeland protection but have yet to see a threat with a barracks due in susa vet troops are right around the corner.

1750 BC (1): See another hut to the NE. more wheat to the NW. Horses to the west across the sea.

1725 BC (2): Persepolis builds a settler and starts yet another. Hut to the north gives barbs. move settler toward my next city spots. MM Pasargadae to grow in 2 settler in 2.

1700 BC (3): Worker in Arbela completes start temple. Found Antioch to the north on the river, start temple.

1675 BC (4): Pasargardae completes settler starts another.

1650 BC (5): more movement.

1625 BC (6): Found the zulus territory. Found Tarsus, start worker. Susa completes baracks starts spearman.

1600 BC (7): Contact the Iroquois, they too lack masonry.

1575 BC (8): Another settler completes heading to the inscence and flood plains.

1550 BC (9): Found Gorduim to the NE. start warrior.

1525 BC (10): Learn writing, start code of laws for the necessary courthouses. Write 2 embassies with Zulu and Iroqouis for 36 and 38 gold respectively. Pasargdae builds settler starts another. Sign ROP with Zulu for his 29 gold.

I realize this may be early but I will be travelling next week and wanted to submit my next 3 ten turn blocks to add to the discussion.





http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_2190BC.zip
http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_1790BC.zip
http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_1525BC.zip

here is my 2190bc save

i have founded a new city reseraed a couple of tech

By Handyandy, Post #80

here is my 2190bc save

--Do you have your 2590bc save Handyandy??

My game from 2590->2190

Here's my 40th turn, in 2190BC. Lots happened but not as much as before. Here's a summary:

-I kept exploring with my 3 warriors, and found another 2 barb huts in the course of the 10 turns. They weren't very exciting: 2 warriors attacked me, the only benefit being an elite, and 25 gold from the next. (Who needs 25 gold?? I'd MUCH rather a tech!).

-I also built the new city of Susa in Optimal City Placement Style (OCP). 5 squares away from Persepolis in the NE, diagonally. This means that I don't need to share any squares of a city radii with another, prohibiting it from growing nice and prosperous! And playing with Persia will mean extra shields in metros!! Although I'm not sure whether we'll get that far, possible over a few months I guess.

That's about it! I'll look forward to see the QSC scores for this, and I have already learnt a couple of things from the other players here. :goodjob: !!

sorry forgot about the 2590 save i only have the 2190 save sorry

oh well! I played a bit over as well, and had to get an aoutosave, it was a turn late! Don't worry, just try and keep your eye on the date. I get carried away just as much!

These were 30 very quite turns, outside of adding a lot more cities, the only significant events are:

2350 BC - First contact with the Aztecs.

2070 BC - First contact with Babylon, also incredibly backwards.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-2190BC.zip
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-1790BC.zip
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-1525BC.zip

Just to make sure everyone survived the holocost blackout of the Telefragged server braindamage, we should all be back alive and now playing to the next three time points:

2190bc (turn 40)
1790bc (turn 50)
1525bc (turn 60)

If you look back at the power progression graph that was posted about 5 posts back it will show you the relative strength positions of the different game approaches.

Look closely at this graph and determine if you have a chance of being one of the bottom two or three lines on the graph. If this is your case then I strongly recommend that you do not play beyond the 40,50,60 save points until we all get posted up to 1525bc and have the next discussion period.

If you are in one of the top power positions you may play forward to the turn 70,80,90, savepoints BUT DO NOT UPLOAD THESE until we get to the next discussion break. :whipped:

Handyandy, I'll pick you up in the power scoring chart by interpolation, but help us help you the most by trying to hit all three of these next time points (2190, 1790, and 1525). You are in a position to get some of the greatest benefit from this game and there are a number of good players providing you with some really solid examples that you can copy for future games.

Control, you still need to fix the problem with your savefile uploads and I think this is that you should stop using the "-" dash character in filenames for the web and use the "_" underscore character instead.

stwils - wo bist du?

Remember: Hit the timepoints or you create MEGA extra work for me and that will make me surly and cost you a box of white fudge covered oreos as tribute to get me back to polite or gracious again. ;)

Ooops....

*leaves box of white fudge covered oreos*

Sorry- I had to leave my computer right before I would have saved for the 2190 BC time point, and I didn't realize it until the last autosave available was 1950 BC. :blush: Hopefully the log will help in reconstruction, and once we start up again- I'm going to wait on the next save points for a while- I'll submit in 3 different posts as I go rather than this long chunk.


2550 BC Warriors start exploring N, after the existence of a W
ocean is confirmed.

2510 BC Warrior pops hut N of Persepolis; the Kassite tribe
teaches us Warrior Code!
Worker R forest W of the river.

2430 BC Science rate adjusted to 70% in order to avoid deficit.
Persepolis builds Settler and starts another. This
settler is sent just N of Persepolis, to found a city
nearby.
Warrior pops hut NE of capital and disturbs an angry
warrior.

****** Our warrior survives the ambush and becomes a vet.

2390 BC Pasagardae founded on coastal tile near W ivory, and
starts spearman.

2350 BC Worker starts road to ivory near Pasagardae from the
grass+ tile W of the river.
Warrior exploration through mountains reveals purple
boundaries to the NE.

2310 BC Susa founded; starts Worker first, then will build Spear.

2270 BC Warrior reveals city of Salamanca with a warrior
standing guard.

2230 BC Persepolis builds settler and starts another. This
settler is sent to the gold mtn in order to
reveal a possible spot for it, as no free-ranging barbs
have been spotted yet.
Warrior pops hut in jungle; Hittite tribe teaches us
Mysticism!
Contact made with Hiawatha of the Iroquois; he trades
us The Wheel + 1 gold for Alphabet. He has two other
cities and no contacts with anyone else to sell me as
yet.

Argh; I forgot to save for this turn- the closest
autosave was 1950 BC and that's submitted as the
closest substitute.

2070 BC Arbela founded; starts Spear. Warrior notices Horses in
Iroquois territory.

2030 BC Green borders spotted north of the Iroquois.

1990 BC Persepolis builds a Settler, and starts another, sending
the settler to the flood plain near the wheat and
incense.
Pasagardae builds a Spear, and starts another. This
spear is sent to join the settler.
Contact is made with Montezuma of the Aztecs. He has
one city and exactly 1 gold, and lacks Masonry,
Alphabet, and Mysticism.

1910 BC Worker finishes road to Ivory near Pasagardae, linking
up a luxury to the trade routes.

1830 BC Worker R forest S of Pasagardae. Worker R grass river
near Susa.
Warrior pops hut to NW and gets maps. They reveal
what appears to be another landmass, connected by
coast.
1790 BC Writing discovered; research begun on Literature.
Science rate upped to 90% as we now have 74 gold.

1750 BC Persepolis builds a settler and starts another. This
settler is sent NW.
Worker near Susa M.
Worker near Pasagardae sent to forest E of Persepolis
to link up with Arbela.

1700 BC Arbela builds spear and starts a settler. The spear
decides to take a risk and heads for the goody hut right
next to the city. If barbs appear too close to Antioch, I'll
build embassies with my gold if I can't trade it for
anything.
Antioch founded, starts worker.

1675 BC The Cuman tribe near Antioch teaches us Horseback
riding. :D
I buy Contact with the Zulu from Hiawatha for 50 gold.
He doesn't have Writing or Horseback Riding yet.
Adjustment of science rate down to 80% yields 2 gpt,
which allows me to trade with Shaka.
Contact with the Babylonians is had for Alphabet + 24
gold (all of it) + 1 gpt. He still lacks Writing, Mysticism,
and Horseback riding.
Hammurabi is contacted, and found to be extremely
backward: he lacks Alphabet, Pottery, Mysticism,
Horseback Riding, and communications with the Iroqouis
and Aztecs.

1650 BC Pasagardae builds a spear, and starts another- until I
get the time to either build a temple, or irrigate there, it
won't grow very much. Once is boundaries expand, it'll
be better, but for now it can keep building military to
help support Persepolis' settler boom. The spear is
sent to join the settler already out.
Worker near Susa R forest to connect city to network.

1625 BC Worker R forest W of Persepolis.

1600 BC Persepolis builds Settler; starts another. The spear in
Persepolis starts clearing out the fog to the south, as
the Ivory linked up will help pacify the population.
Settler sent to N of Susa.

1575 BC Aztec jag + settler pair spotted coming out of
Teotihuacan.
Tarsus founded to coast N of Pasagardae; starts worker.

********* Machiavelli reports on "The Happiest Nations of the
World:"
1. Persia
2. Egypt
3. Rome
4. English
5. Zulu
6. Aztecs
7. Iroquois
8. Babylon

1550 BC I sell Hammurabi Alphabet for 30 gold before someone
else does. This makes him Polite.
Shaka lacks Writing; Hiawatha trades me Iron Working
and 70 gold for Writing. Montezuma is still hopelessly
backward, and lacks anything to trade me for tech. No
one else that I have contact with has Horseback Riding
yet. Hiawatha is the only other one with Iron Working,
and the others now have nothing to trade him for it.
Science advisor: "We are technologically advanced!"
Iron appears in the mountains north of Susa and SE of
Pasagardae.
Blue borders are spied N of the Aztecs, who will have
Iron once Teoithuacan expands.
Worker I plains square near river NE of Susa.

1525 BC Susa builds a spear, which stays there, and starts a
settler.
Worker R grass+ river W of Arbela to connect it.
Warrior spots Babylonian city of Nineveh, with a warrior
in it and horses next to it.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA4_Borealis_bc1950BC.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA5_Borealis_bc1790BC.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA6_Borealis_bc1525BC.sav

Here's a screenshot from 1525BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1525bcscreen.png

Turns 31 to 40.

Preturn: reset slider to 100% research as a settler was just completed in Persepolis. Settler sent NE to the cow by the river to close the gap with Pasargadae.

[list=1]
2550BC Pasargadae finishes worker, start on another. Worker goes to mine and road NW hill, this city needs shield for now, not food. Persepolis MM to grow in 1 turn and get a spear in 2 turns.

2510BC ...

2470BC Persepolis finishes spear, starts on settler.

2430BC Susa founded, starts on warrior for MP. NE scout sees a dark green border to the north.

2390BC Persepolis worker completes work on a BG, goes to improve another. The Cuman tribe teaches us Mysticism :jump:

2350BC NE scout finds the Aztec. I sell poor Montezuma pottery for his 10 golds. This is to help the relationship and I might as well get his gold before Hiawatha does.

2310BC Pasargadae finishes worker, starts another. Persepolis finishes settler, starts a 2nd spear for MP. Settler sent E to grab cow on river, another powerful spot.

2270BC ...

2230BC Susa finishes a warrior, starts on a worker.

2190BC Persepolis finishes 2nd spear, starts on a settler. Arbela founded, starts on a warrior/worker.
[/LIST=1]

Turns 41 to 50.

[LIST=1]
2150BC Diplomacy checks, Hiawatha has Iron Working and I could buy it for Alphabet and the Wheel. Montezuma has nothing new. I will wait a little, hoping to get more contacts. Writing will be here in 3 turns and then I'll know who has contact with who. The Persepolis worker will now start a road network as the city is unlikely to go above size 6 for a little while.

2110BC ...
2070BC ...

2030BC Wow! Lots of things to do this turn.

a) Writing discovered, Research started at break even on Literature in 16 turns to gain access to our cheap libraries.

b) Hiawatha now wants 5 golds with the Wheel and Alphabet because he has contact with the Zulus. I buy the contact for 44 golds and 2 golds per turn. This will cost 6 turns of research on Literature but I believe early contact is a high priority.

c) Meet Shaka, he is polite, and he has IW but lacks masonry. I trade masonry and contact with the Aztec for his IW and 2 golds.

d) I go back to Hiawatha and sell him the Wheel to recover my 44 golds. So I end up buying IW for 38 golds by trading them tech they would trade between themselves anyway. I still have Alphabet and Mysticism that none of them have.

e) Switching the slider back to 80% research gives Literature in 18 turns at -1 gold per turn.

f) Susa finishes worker, starts on a barrack to start cranking out some real military. The worker is sent to improve the cattle.

g) Persepolis finishes settler, starts a spear. The settler goes W to grab the ivory which happens to have iron nearby. :)

1990BC Pasargadae finishes a worker, starts another, maybe it will become a settler instead.

1950BC A scout finds the Babylonian. Hammurabi is cautious so I give him pottery for his 10 golds, he is now polite. The Nubiam tribe teaches us Horseback Riding :jump:

1910BC ...

1870BC Antioch-by-the-Sea is founded and starts a temple right away. I will soon need those luxuries.

1830BC ...
1790BC Persepolis finishes a settler and starts on a spear. The settler is sent straight N to claim another iron.
[/LIST=1]

Turns 51 to 60.

Preturn: Diplomacy checks reveals Babylon has a worker to sell. I establish an embassy with Babylon for 43 golds and buy the worker for 1gpt and 7 golds. You can never have too many workers. :)

[LIST=1]
1750BC ...
1725BC ...

1700BC Pasargadae finishes another worker, starts a temple as a prebuild to a library. Literature will be discovered in 8 turns.
The barracks in Susa is pop-rushed and the city is now set on spear duty.

1675BC ...

1650BC The Parthian tribe teaches us Philosophy :jump: I have never been so lucky with huts. :)
Arbela pop-rushed 20 shields into a settler and switch back to temple, shaving 10 turns off completion date.

1625BC ...

1600BC Persepolis finishes a settler, starts a spear. The previous settler was re directed further N to grab the dye, this settler will go claim the iron N.

1575BC ...
1550BC The Bactrian tribe teaches us Mathematics :jump: The RNG loves me :)
1525BC Tarsus founded, starts on a worker. Literature discovered, research set to code of laws in 12 turns at break even.
[/list=1]

Pasargadae will rush a library soon to bring the incense online and so will Antioch-by-the-Sea. With 2 luxuries coming online soon, Arbela will not need a temple to stay happy but it still needs to expand to bring in the most productive tiles, so Arbela is switched to a library, due up in one turn.

The Persian empire at the end of 1525BC. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC1525.jpg)

Here are the save games:
2190 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC2190.sav)
1790 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC1790.sav)
1525 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC1525.sav)

Cracker, I left town early Thursday morning and just got home about 30 minutes ago.

I checked this thread and you all have moved quite fast.

Any suggestions as to how I might jump back in?

stwils:)

I changed my last post and uploaded a zipped file of all three saves.

Here's round 4 and 5. 6 to follow in the next couple of days.

Turns 31-40
30 2590-Sci 80/0 0gpt IW in 20
31-2550 Settler to forest on coast, workers continue to road to ivory. Wars N.
32-2510 Road done, mine started for future town. Wars N. Find jungle W and gems E. 80/10 for happiness. -1gpt IW in 14.
33-2470 Parsargedae founded, ord temple for broader city range, will whip as soon as possible. Wars N. still no contact.
34-2430 Spear blt, settler ord. Lux 90/0 ok with spear. W War E, E War N, see dyes W and lots of lakes by gems E. Plan is to found cities stretching toward gems since coast on W indicates civs to the E?
35-2390 Worker heads to Persepolis to start roading in the direction of the cow. W War E and E War N. 90/10 -1gpt, IW in 7.
36-2350 W War SE to mtn see hut, E War NE toward Mountain range, hopefully civs behind that. (Guess I could cheat and check other players saves?
37-2310 W War pops Warrior Code. E War E and at long last sees a border.
38-2270 Settler bld, warrior ordered. Setter sent to hill north of wheat by Incense, claim incense in 2nd radius and wheat helps growth, hill for protection.W War S to clear fog, E War NE to approach border. 100/0 , IW in 4 with -1gpt.
39-2230 E War E. Mine done srt rd. E War E into border.
40-2190 Aztecsmet. Warrior blt, Settler ordred. new Warrior sent E and sees more fertile ground plus cow. Settler retask to this area 1 NW of Cow, next to claim incense. W Warrior NE. E Warrior S out of Aztecs. Worker NE to continue rd toward E. Aztecs have 10g and nothing else. No trades.
SAVE GAME

Turns 41-50
41-2150 Rd done, Wrkr NE. x2. 2nd for more ivory. Settler E, S War E. W War N, E War E see hut + border 2. 80/10 IW in 1 0gpt.
42-2110 IW done strt Writing. Iron SE Parsargae inside borders! Settler S found next turn. S War E, W War N, E War E gets Horseback riding. To date, 4 huts, 4 techs no barbs!?!?! 90/10 -1 gpt Writ in15.
43-2070 E rd done, head E. Susa founded. Spear ordered for def. S War E see coast with land offshore. Contact Iroquois, they want, Alpha, IW, HBR. Az need Mason, Alpha, Pot, IW, Myst and HBR. Sell Mason to Az for 10g. Sell Alpha for 35 to Ir.
44-2030 Settler blt, Spear order. Settler sent to Hill by Incense. E worker starts road. W worker heads to BG that will be avail after temple. S War N. W War N, E War S, see more Ir border. Horses should be our next city to ensure a supply. Sci 100/0 -1gpt writ in 11.
45-1990 Zulu warrior appear S of E Worker. Trade Masonry for 10 gold. Worker starts mine, S war N, W War N, E War SW.
46-1950 rd done strt mine. S War N, E War, SW, W War N.
47-1910 Spear blt, settler ord. Spear Fortify so no more LUX on growth to 5. S War NE, E War SW, W War
48-1870 W worker to Iron, S War N, E War S, W War N.
49-1830 Rd iron, wrkr move to cow for irrigation. S War NE, E War S, W war N see blue border.
50-1790 Start irrigation. S War W to Hill, E War SE on Mtn. W War N. Contact Babylon, sell Alpha for 10 g. Trade summary: Iroquois are closest in tech, only needing IW and HBR, Babylon also needs Myst. Zulu need Alpha, Burial, IW and HBR. Aztec needs Alpha, Pot, IW, Myst and HBR. All are broke. 80/10 Writing in 5.
SAVE GAME

Zipped file with Round 4 and 5 saves (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_ControlFreak_BC1790.zip)

Here is an updated powergraph to include the save games that have been received so far for the years up to 1790bc.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/power_graph_2190.jpg

(note for Borealis, the 2190 data is averaged between 2590 and 1790 to fill in for the file that was too many turns off line)

I will post images of the data tables for you to double check your game features as soon as we give stwils one last chance to gte games submitted since she has been out of town plus we had the serve glitch from hell.

A lot of exciting stuff is starting to show up in the files. ;)

The next open discussion period should be really exciting. Please plan ahead for the Tuesday to Wednesday time period so you can be prepared to ask questions and discuss issues that interest you. Remember again, that these discussion periods should try to look at things that already have happened to see if the events can put things in perspective as well as perhaps reveal any tips or tricks that may need to be highlighted.

continued good luck to all players,

ouch - I went from the lead in 2590 to 4th place in 1790 :(
Well, I thought I had a good game going here. Time will tell, but it looks like I need to figure out what cracker and Jaxom did to get the big jump!

Here are my upload files for:

cracker's 2190bc (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc2190.sav)
cracker's 1790bc (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc1790.sav)
cracker's 1525bc (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc1525.sav)

and the following turns reports accompany the files.

Just a quick note, that I included more info in these turns reports than I would normally document. All the comments about specific micromanagement choices would be something I would do but would not right down every one of these decisions for 20 or 30 cities. That would be just too tedious. ;)

2550 to 2190 BC - turns 31-40
2550 BC (turn 31) – Granary in Persepolis. Warrior1 is in ugly mountains turns south and sees a hut. Warrior2 still heading north our west.
2510 BC (turn 32) – Warrior1 find gems in a central ugly place.
2470 BC (turn 33) – Warrior1 gets Alphabet from the hut near gems. Warrior2 sees yucky jungle ahead. Luxuries at 20% temporarily.
2430 BC (turn 34) – Workers are roading & mining all bonus grass plus roading & irrigating plains. Warrior1 backtracks to the east. Warrior2 heads to mountain in center to look for route through jungle and sees dyes and a hut behind us.
2390 BC (turn 35) – Warrior2 gets Iron Working from a hut south of mountain. Warrior1 can see a green border; F11 says this is the Aztecs. Micromanage shields/food in Pasagardae.
2350 BC (turn 36) – Settler out of Persepolis and heads west into forest toward coast.. Warrior3 is now available to garrison, set luxury to zero. Tune research to 30% for horseback riding in 1. Warrior2 climbs the dye mountain. Micromanage shields/food in Pasagardae.
2310 BC (turn 37) – Got horseback riding: Aim Research at Writing at 100%. Warrior2 north and sees dyes. Warrior1 heads north to mountain and we meet the Aztecs.
2270 BC (turn 38) – Worker out of Persepolis to hook up to Susa and ivory west. Found Susa on the west coast.
2230 BC (turn 39) – Warrior2 is in the jungle heading north. Bought an Iroquois worker for 30 gold and joined it to Persepolis. Up luxuries to 10% to balance.
2190 BC (turn 40) – Warrior2 sees a mountain in the jungle two steps northwest.


2150 to 1790 BC - turns 41-50
2150 BC (turn 41) –Warrior2 sees a hut north of mountain
2110 BC (turn 42) – doubled up workers between Susa and Persepolis. Warrior2 got Math from hut. Micromanage shields in Persepolis to get settler in 1.
2070 BC (turn 43) – Settler out of Persepolis heads east. Harvested forest between Susa and Persepolis. Connected road to Susa. Drop luxuries to 0%. Warrior2 is exploring straight west. Warrior1 is exploring straight north.
1990 BC (turn 45) – Settler explores on east mountain then aims for hill straight east.
1950 BC (turn 46) – Micromanaging Persepolis citizen assignment 1 in 3 turns. Warrior2 has been running west through Jungle and runs into a fish. Turns north out of the jungle. Warrior1 is still heading straight north east of Babylon.
1910 BC (turn 47) – Warrior2 sees a hill northwest.
1870 BC (turn 48) – Warrior1 sees gold hill coast and furs way northeast. Warrior2 sees a hut next to hill.
1830 BC (turn 49) – Settler out of Persepolis heads to central river cow. Founded Arbela on the east hill. Warrior2 pops 25 gold out of the hut. Warrior1 spies a hut on a mountain northeast. Up luxuries to 10% to keep Pasagaradae happy at pop4. Warrior3 in Persepolis heads to mountain between Arbela and Pasagardae to garrison. Micromanage food in Persepolis to gain 2 shields.
1790 BC (turn 50) –Discovered Writing aim for Literature next. Found a horse way off to the north of Babylon.
• Iroquois give Zulus and 17 gold in exchange for Babs
• Zulus give 19 gold in exchange for the Babs
• Babs give 10 gold in exchange for Pottery.
• Aztecs give 10 gold in exchange for the Babs
Everybody is gleeful. Warrior2 uses hill to the northwest to see the end of the earth.

1750 to 1525 BC - turns 51-60
1750 BC (turn 51) – Establish Embassies in Salamanca and Zimbabwe for 75 gold total. Popped a northeast hut and got 50 gold. Warrior3 heads back to Pasagardae to garrison (prior move was dumb and cost me 8 gold.)
1725 BC (turn 52) – Warrior1 heads straight east to snow mountain. Warrior3 now garrisons Pasagardae. Reduce luxuries to 0%. Founded Antioch near the central cow. Micromanage food/shields in Persepolis, and Susa.
1700 BC (turn 53) – Warrior1 sees the north coast. Warrior2 runs into the Iroq scout. Micromanage food/shields in Persepolis, and Susa. Luxuries up to 10%
1675 BC (turn 54) – Settler out of Persepolis heads for incense. Luxuries down to 0%.
1650 BC (turn 55) – Bringing warrior2 back into the center north of incense for picket duty.
1625 BC (turn 56) – Luxuries up to 10% to keep Pasagaradae happy
1600 BC (turn 57) – Warrior4 out of Antioch back to Pasagardae. Micromanage shields in Arbela.
1575 BC (turn 58) – Warrior5 out of Arbela explores east into forest by cow and sees more hills.
1550 BC (turn 59) – Micromanage Persepolis to gain 1 gold.
1525 BC (turn 60) – Settler out of Persepolis heads east. Sold ROP to Zulus for 25 gold. Turned luxuries down to 0%.

Hi Cracker,

I posted late yesterday saying I had been out of town for 4 days. I was hoping there was a way I could catch up.

But looking at the thread this morning, I think you all are too far along now for me to catch up.

I'll just read along with the thread. That in itself will be helpful.

Maybe I can participate next time you mentor another open game like this.

stwils:)

I may have to drop this one, myself. :(

Real Life time constraints are really eating into my Civ3 time. I'm having trouble keeping up with ct3 and SUL5b as it is. And those two games must get my priority right now.

I will *try* to do these 30 turns tonight.

That's funny, I've been considering dropping RL for more Civ time. Anyone got ideas on how to survive with no money and still keep the spouse and kids happy even though you're ignoring them?;) :lol:

ControlFreak: If I could figure that out, I would probably be here 24/7! :lol: :D

Lee,

There are a couple of things about your game that are really worth noting to help put the graph in context.

First, you used the build sequence of warrior-warrior-granary and this gave you two quick explorers before dedicating shields to speed growth in your capital. If you look back at the posts of the early tables graphics for turn 3450, 2950, and 2590 you can see these choices being implemented.

Your first explorer path was sort of like mine but you went for the first hut and got pottery while I bypassed it. You set your research to get Burial through research and your second hut gave you Mysticism. Mysticism before 2950bc gave you an early power advantage even though it obviously did not match with the traits of Persia or your strategy.

The only thing that let you get Mysticism so early, besides a big fat dose of luck, was your choice to research Burial on your own. I find this sort of an interesting choice because of your build sequence of Warrior-Warrior-Granary-(then settler) because I see the primary use for Burial as enabling the path to Monarchy and giving us the ability to build temples in our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th towns for a quick happy face and ealy culture/border expansion.

This also may have indicated to me that you did not use the F11 key right after your first turn so that you could see the other civs in the game. F11 reveals at least 4 or 5 of the other civs in the game and helps me to make some early strategy, trade, and research decisions. Burial is one of the cheapest techs in the tree and you can usually trade for it very easily when you make contact with other civs.

On the other hand, many people do not recognize how the early tech choice works with exploration. The tech you designate for current research can never be acquired from a goody hut and is hard coded to be blocked as a free result. Chosing Burial as the blocked tech could be a great choice because you may in fact want the other stuff.

This process of choosing the tech you research because you know it will block that choice from the goody hut results can be very valuable.

Your choice to go for the early granary before a settler to build a second town is also one of those factors that has been debated somewhat. I think that in order for this to pay off you have to have at least one luxury resource very close by so your happiness balance will let you grow. Even in that case it may be best to push out the first settler and then go for the granary.

You got the early tech lead, but have been losing ground as other players have been growing more quickly plus getting equal to you in the random results from the goody huts.

When you look at Jaxom's early game, bear in mind that his game was the only game that got a free settler in the first two rounds and that is giving him an artifical early kick. Comparison of your two goody hut results (Lkendter:Mysticsim -vs- Jaxom:settler) shows that the instantaneous power difference between those two outcomes was 120 vs (70 to 90) but in the long run, the free settler would begin to yield per turn power dividends of and additional 3 to 5 power points per turn which would start to compound like interest in the bank.

Reason number 2345 for joining playalong games: invaluable tips. This thread is great!

I never thought to use F11 as a clue to the other civs. Even if I did, I forget which civs start with which techs and how I should research based on what they know. I usually just research what I really want to have next. Other than tech, does knowing your enemies influence other strategies? Like build up military versus farmer gambit, knowing warmonger is next door?

Regarding "guiding goody hut development" will goody huts continue to provide techs if you've gotten all the cheap ones already? Would it be worth it to protect a hut from exploration until a point when you know you'll get a second level tech? Or is it hardcoded to shutoff the tech possiblity and just give you gold or barbs?

There are some threads on goody hut outcomes that have had posts from Mike B. at Firaxis and those are revealing. There are some sound management practices you must follow with goody huts in order to maximize your chances of finding valuable stuff.

Unfortunately, the goody hut code was written by a summer intern at Firaxis and I get the impression that the way some things function is not well documented of fully integrated in the game concept. The outcome is based on some choices that are available to each player at the time the hut is popped and then an RNG controls selection. 10 different players playing the same game can different outcomes from the same hut just depending on phase of the moon.

All of the ancient age techs can get popped from a goody hut if you have the prerequisites and don't have it blocked.

In general, it is not to your advantage to wait for a long time to pop huts, but if you can do things to make sure the hut outcome could give you the greatest value everytime, thne you will gain more of an advantage.

My choices in this game illustrate the points even though my strategy may not really have paid off due to resource positions and other random factors.

I set my research at The Wheel initially because that would have revealed horses and non of the other civs but Japan would have this tech. Since I was exploring, this left the options open to get Pottery, Alphabet, Warrior Code, Burial, or Iron Working out of a hut or by trade. Right, wrong, or indifferent, my logic was that none of the civs I would meet would naturally have the wheel.

In the next turn, I could see civs like Babylon, Zulus, Iroquois, and Egypt in my F11 list so I knew that there were a number of religious civs with burial, plus at least two expansionist civs with pottery.

One of my early huts gave me a regional map which in many cases may not be of great value, but it revealed a second hut off to the east by incense just as the Iroquois scout jumped out an popped the hut. In one turn I got a semi worthless map from a hut and saw the Iroqs poach another hut and that could have been fairly depressing. I salvaged the process by trading Masonry (my high value 4 pt starting tech) for Burial and Pottery (both 2 point techs) and 9 gold. So effectively my hut yield from that map hut was 80 points for gained techs, 9 pts for gold, plus 10 points for contact with the iroqs.

With these techs and completion of the wheel the hard way, I chose to block Warrior Code by choosing it as the next research target, because I could potentially get that in trade. This choice left me with only the options of getting Alphabet (5 factor), Iron Working (6 factor 2nd tier) or Mysticism (4 factor 2nd tier) as hut outcomes if the RNG spun up a tech.

Early on I was not getting a lot of hut results and I had the Iroquois scout poaching huts all around me. I saw the iroqs pop at least three huts that I could not get to with my slow moving 1 step units even though I was really close. Not getting huts plus the fact that all our neighbors and horses are so far away almost backfired for my strategy because it looked like I was gonna come up empty handed for a while.

One thing you have to be careful about with the F11 key is that it does not tell you where the civs are and you have to check the F11 key every turn or two to see if the order will shift and give you a glimpse of anybody new. This is discussed somewhere in the "Improving Your Opening Play Sequences" article.

@Cracker - Thanks for the clue with the deceptive power graph.
Factor out CB, and I was behind some of the other players.

What is weird is that I joined to help the lower level players, yet my play sequence will get changed. I think it will now be warrior - warrior - settler (if enough food built), then granary from now on. The results I am seeing show that the early granary before the first settler is not justified.

I will continue on using my game, but I suspect I will continue to fall behind the curve. Civ3 has a stream roller effect, and I started at a slower speed.

What is weird is that I joined to help the lower level players, yet my play sequence will get changed.

Yeah, I think alot of experienced players can pick up a few tips from this thread, I sure did. Thanks, Cracker.

About the goody huts, here is the quote from Firaxis:

It's not really that it's difficult; it's just that it was implemented by an intern . Here are the conditions:

Gold:
*The tile must not have any type of resource or luxury on it.

Maps:
--always available

Nothing:
--always available

Settler:
*Player must not have a settler (active or in production) or any unit with the Settle AI strategy.
*Number of player's cities must be <= (TotalCities / NumActivePlayers).

Mercenaries (skilled warrior):
*There must be a unit available to the Barbarians as well as the player and that unit must be able to be built (or have been built) by some player in the game.

Tech:
*Player must still be in Ancient Times.

Barbarians:
*Player must not have Expansionist trait.
*There must not be a city within a 1-tile radius.
*The player must have at least 1 city.
*The player must have at least 1 military unit.
*The unit popping the hut must not have the "All Terrain As Roads" ability.


__________________
Mike Breitkreutz
Programmer
FIRAXIS Games


Last edited by Mike B. FIRAXIS on Aug 01, 2002 at 09:37 PM



And another thing I have noticed is that the goody hut, when it does give you a tech, it is almost always the cheapest tech that is available (tech that you aren't blocking). Because I always get Mystism before Alphabet, and alphabet before Iron Working (if I'm not blocking the prerequisite). The hut will only give you the tech you are researching, if there are no other techs available. This would most likely only happen if playing on a huge pangea map with minimal civs (or you find a hut on an island late in the ancient era) and you blocked Alphabet and got enough huts to go all the way down the monarchy line and also picking up Iron Working, horseback riding and all the tier 1 techs.

LK: Whether to build a granary or settler first depends on how much food you have available to start with, and whether you know you will have access to enough happiness factors that you can grow to a reasonable size safely. On lower difficulty levels it may also depend on whether your game plan includes building the Pyramids from scratch.

If you have no bonus food squares nearby, I would almost always start with a granary. If I have a lux nearby, or some rivers for extra commerce (lux tax), then you have enough extra happiness that a granary is often still the best option. On the other hand, shield-poor lands (e.g. flood plains) can be a disincentive to building a granary. There are also situations where it can be hard to choose what will be best, for instance if your capital is buried in jungle.

Still, it comes down to a judgement call -- are you shorter on food, or on happiness factors? Generally food gets the call, in which case you build a granary, but this is not always the case. Additionally, early scouting plays a key role as well -- if your capital is in a relatively food-poor location but you spot a great high-food spot nearby, it may well be worth it to pump out a quick settler before building that granary to get a quick start on your second city.

In this instance, you started with both a bonus food tile and river access, so it's a tough call. The results will depend more on the surrounding terrain than on anything else, and you won't know that until you have some scouts out, so it is a bit of a gamble either way. If the surrounding terrain is food-rich, then the settler first is better, but if it's food poor then your early granary will help more in the long run. Looking at ControlFreak's 2590 map suggests that you have enough food in the area that a settler might have been better in this instance, but you may not have been able to make that call by the time you decided whether to build a granary first or not.

Still, I would argue that your results are not they way they are because of your granary, but more likely because of the tech situation. Your report didn't say much but I didn't get the impression that you got as much tech as Cracker did with trading or Jaxom did by popping huts.

The key rule you want to remember is that all else being equal, growth is king. If you can acheive fast growth by founding a second city sooner, that is the route to pursue. If a second city will not grow that fast, and you think you can keep a larger city happy, then you want to build a granary first so you can double the rate your first city grows. There is no single rule that will fit every situation, so be flexible. Also, don't expect to make the perfect call every time; you're operating on limited information, and good enough is good enough. The whole game is a series of priority calls, and while the earliest ones do matter the most, what really counts is that you call enough of them correctly to get the job done and win the game. Look at RBE2 for an example of what you can do with a come-from-(way)-behind situation. :)

I wasn't sure whether I should build a granary first or not. When I saw the fertile land around and I wanted to get a settler out before the granary. But then I got a settler from a hut, so this solved my dilemma :) As Zed-F mentionned, the tech situation is probably what accounts for your lower power LK.

Edit: Oh and about the F11 key, you can also use the spaceship key (I don't even remember which one it is :) ) and then you can see who are ALL the other civs in your game. I don't use it personally, in my solo games I almost always set everything random and just go with the flow.

I get carrried away too!
:blush:And it happpened! I forgot the 1790bc save, sorry! :blush: I feel terrible after just telling handyandy to take care next time!! :wallbash: It seems we all get carried away, handyandy, Borealis, me...

But I have the 1525BC save, phew!

Here's a timeline for each save, merged into one:

2150bc - Put science to 100% so that I'm now breaking even.
- My worker is building a road to Pasargadae for the Ivory.

2110bc - I see hut and blue border with my warrior scouts.

2070bc - I meet Hammurabi of the Babylonians, and give him Pottery + 58 gold, for The Wheel and Warrior Code.
- My Ivory road is finished.

2030bc - The hut I discovered turned out to be barbarians! Grrr! :mad:

1990bc - The barbs all lose, and I'm not hurt a bit.
- More exploration commences.

1950bc - Persepolis builds settler, I send it on the goto command to plains next to some incense.

1910bc - I continue exploring with my 3 warriors.

1870bc - I discover an Iroquois scout, and trade with them: The Wheel (mine) for Mysticism (theirs)
- Change Persepolis production to worker.

1830bc - Susa builds spearman, now building settlers.

1790bc - Pasargadae built settler, now building granary.
- I send the settler with goto command 5 squares away, diagonally. It will work in OCP style!
- I FORGOT TO SAVE! :blush:

1750bc - While scouting around, I find the Zulu territory.

1725bc - Found another hut! I'll pop it next turn.
- More exploring, like every turn so far.

1700bc - Persepolis builds a worker, and I change it to build Settlers again.
- I set the worker to build a road to (Ctrl+R) the new city place next to Incense.
- 50 gold gained from hut.

1675bc - I discover writing and my new target is Map Making.
- Buy embassy with Babylonians - Their capital of Babylon has 2 warriors and is building a spearman.
- I build 2 more cities, Arbela next to Incense, Antioch in a grass/forest area. Both building spearmen.
- Iroquois give me Iron Working and 3 gold for Contact with Babylonians.
- No-one has any communications, yet.

1650bc - Just more exploring.

1625bc - Warrior set on goto for some unexplored mountains. Another sees a hut!

1600bc - I'm next to hut, ready to pop it next turn.

1575bc - Hut deserted, not fair!!! :mad:

1550bc - Exploring.

1525bc - See an Aztec city of Texoco
- I contact the Iroquois, hoping for the Aztec's contact. They give me Aztecs contact + 17gold for Alphabet.
- The Aztecs have a technology, Horseback Riding. They want atleast 3 techs for it!!! Terrible!
- I sell the Aztecs' contact to the Zulu's and Babylonians for a total of 85gold, and treasury of 121 gold.
- Then the Aztecs accept Horseback Riding for Iron Working and 95 gold. Ouch!

That's my timeline, much happened here, and I discovered 3 new contacts, and many new techs! Goes to show that exploring is important!!

Based on this round of discussions it seems my initial play weed:smoke: was 1)building a granery in the middle of bonusified grasslands instead of getting a settler out there, and 2) researching Alphabet first. Alphabet being so expensive, it would have been better to start on something cheap and grab the expensive techs through huts or trade.

Regarding the granery, I guess I did have enough info to see the need for a quick settler but hate giving up the two pop points without shortening their time to return. I just hope I can make up for it now that I can crank out a settler every 5-6 turns. I think I realized that it would have been better to delay the granery because I am doing so with my worker factory until I get a few more workers in the field. It will be faster to build a granery in a food town once the grass is mined.

I am noticing that huts made a difference in the scores and results of the first few rounds in a couple of ways.

First, depending on what you were researching, you could have gotten "free" techs from huts that were 40 points or so higher in score if you researched cheap techs early. Had I known that I would get 4 techs from 4 huts and that I could steer which ones came up I definitely wouldn't have researched Alphabet first.

Second, I think I grabbed some of the AI's goody huts (one of them I know was between the borders of Aztecs and Iroquois). This has made all of my AI really behind in Tech. I have a minimum of two tech lead and upto 5 techs on some. This meant that after pilfering the huts, there was little left to trade with the AI. One tech and they were out of cash with nothing else to offer. How are the AI in other peoples games?

Lee,

Another factor in your game is that you made the decison to move your settler. I think this was a marginal call based on my personnal decision rules that say "only move when I can pass one of these specific tests ...". You can see the basic tests that I use outlined in the "Improving Your Opening Play Sequences" article.

I think that the net impact of your move was to delay the first settler by 1 extra move while gaining no additional power or movement savings up until you hit pop 3 or greater in the capital.

Since you were going for the early granary, that would delay the first settler by an additional 8 to 10 turns but you would hopefully make up for the delay with a higher rate of settlers afterwards.

Adding the 2nd warrior, delayed the first settler by an additional 3 to 4 turns. I am not sure how the happiness balance would have worked out but keeping the 2nd warrior as garrison may have been possible to let him explore and just use cheap early luxuries to compensate. I was using micromanged luxury balance extensively in turns 30 through 80 to try and get around this exact issue even when I had teh maximum of 2 MPs available.

So all taken together, the sequence you chose delayed your second city by 1+3+8= at least 12 turns.

Your early lead seems to be more of a lucky break on the hut techs while internally you were lagging in base growth elements.

------------

Another thing that I would really emphasize is that you should never memorize an opening sequence of moves such as "Warrior-Warrior-Settler". The AI does this religiously and it destroys them 50% of the time if not more often. Your opening build sequence should change to match the power and power mix of your starting terrain plus the traits of your civ, your global map position, and the strategy that you choose to follow.

The AI never likes to grap goodyhuts!! I don't know why, they just don't! I always do. Like even at the start, the one N of Persepolis, I just took a chance! Maybe I shouldn't, but there you go!

CF, an early granary is rarely weed. ( :nosmoking: ) Weed indicates a *bad* move, not a suboptimal one, and I certainly would not call a granary weed here. Whether it is optimal or slightly less than optimal is another question; in this case it's a close call, and we will see if the faster growth in the capital lets you and Lee catch up more in the long term. Another thing a granary lets you do is keep your capital larger longer, so you do pick up some extra commerce that way as well, as long as you have a worker there improving the tiles you are using.

One other thing to bear in mind, don't put too much emphasis on the power formula. It is fine as far as it goes, BUT bear in mind that certain things are more important at certain stages of the game than other things are, and the formula doesn't really take that into account. For instance, players that got lucky with goody huts or with good tech trades early have a significant advantage in the power formula over those that do not. Still, at this stage of the game you're still in exclusively high growth landgrab mode, and what matters most is not how much tech you have bartered for (you can do that any time, depending on when you get contact) but how much land you can grab and hold and populate quickly. So long as you do pick up that tech at some point before or when you need to start worrying more about the benefits those techs provide, then there's no problem with not having them yet. How efficiently you trade for techs is often important, and the formula ought to take that into account, but the exact timing of the trades is less important, despite the fact that it is highlighted here by virtue of some players having made lots of trades while others haven't gotten around to it yet. Also, consider that there is some value in being generous, depending on the diplomatic state of the world, especially if you are aiming for a diplomatic victory or if you want to avoid pissing off your neighbors.

In the same manner as Cracker suggested not locking into a starting sequence, don't lock into a universal measure for your opening move performance. A formula can be a good tool, but don't be a slave to it; it is neither a perfect measure nor perfectly applicable to every situation, so take it with a grain of salt. Use your judgement to figure out which factors are the most important for your game plan at whatever point you're at in the game, and evaluate yourself based on those criteria.

CF extinuishes roach without inhaling:rolleyes:

Well, hope there are no suboptimal moves in this round. Here's #6.

Turns 51-60
50-1790BC Iroquois are only one with 2 cities.

51-1750 Settler blt, ord. Setter sent to Cow NE. S War and NE War SE. NW war S.

52-1725 Susa blt spear ord worker. Irrigation done, rd start. Wars west.

53-1700 Arebela founded, ord worker. Zulu have another city, all still broke.

54-1675 Iron connected, start mine. Rd done, move worker to start rding to incense. S War S, NE war E,NW war NE to mtn. Whip temple. Sci 50/0 writing in 1.
55-1650 Settler blt, Settler ord. Temple blt, Spear ordered. Settler sent toward horse. Rd starts Nw of Susa. . Antioch founded set to warrior. Wars west. Sci to 100, MM in 16 -2 gpt.
56-1625 Susa blt wrkr, ord wrkr. wrkr to help road. S war S, NE war E, N War N.
57-1600 Rd advances, S War S, very fertile here with 3 game. E War E, N war N. All civs but Babs have three cities. No tech advances.
58-1575 Rd continues, settler walks toward horses, Warriors explore orthogonally. Contacts are ripe for selling but noone can buy.
59-1550 Borders expand bringing Ivory into the fold. Settler blt and ord. warriors explore to hills and mtns. Settlers advance. Wake spear and send to parsargae. Hoping lux will keep people happy, want to defend towns.
60-1525 Susa blds workr, ord Worker. Antioch bld warrior, ord worker. Susa wrkr SW to mine/road. Rd completes to antioch. Settler moves toward horse, settler moves toward Forest NW of Mtn in grass land North of persepolis. Spear almost to parsagae. Warriors head SW, N and N. Switch Parsagae to barracks. This will be our military producer, good sheilds and Iron within city. Iroquois found Allegany (4th city). Still no purchase power.


SAVE GAME (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_ControlFreak_BC1525.zip)

BTW, I usually type out the turnnumbers into my turnlog before I start playing. When I get to the SAVE GAME line I save. Just how I prevent keeping cracker bloated on White Fudge Covered Oreos.:D

I think that you really can't judge the start until the early middle ages. Until that time, random events mean too much. By the second rung of techs in the niddle ages, those things should begin to stop oscillating and the true outlook of the game should start to be seen.

Lee, don't count your granary out just yet, you haven't let the power of it work for you long enough to see if it truely wasn't the way to go. That said, most of the time (on average starts) I will get a settler out early to get the second city off and running. I also try to maximize income to trade for techs with. I notice in most of the games I have played with you, you tend to improve before you road, and I do it the other way around. I think roading first gives a small but significant difference, especaillyt since most ofg the early terrian improvements tend to be mines. Once you have multiple workers, roading first allows workers who come free to step unto the square and help finish a project the same turn it arrives.

Here is the updated power graph for data up to 1525bc.

(note how the results are magically updated and available for your viewing pleasure less that 45 minutes after the last save game was uploaded. Who is that masked man? ;) )

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/power_graph_1525.jpg

(James, your 1790 data is a swag, average, guess) :whipped:

At the rate you guys are starting to rack up the oreo penalties, I'm gonna need to start feeding them to the hapless zulus.

Part of the discussion about recognizing that the power formula is not the only thing you need to watch for is very true, but also keep in mind that this game has a preset objective of an early Space Race victory regardless what else you decide to do. In these type games the power formula can be particularly appropriate.

Things the formula does not yet recognize include: unit experience levels and whether the techs, units, and or improvements are even remotely appropriate for the circumstances.

First a few admin updates:

Do not post any save files beyond the 1525bc timepoint until I post a release message here in the thread. We want to give andy a chance to catch up to where we currently are before we push forward.

Looking ahead (but don't upload them yet) the next 3 time points will be:

1275bc (turn 70)
1025bc (turn 80)
775bc (turn 90)

turns will be getting a bit longer here and a bit more complex because we are getting 2 to 3 times more going on in each turn. SO be patient with the game and pay close attention to your 10 turn blocks.

Be particulary careful not to miss the 1025bc time point because that is right at the key 1000bc timepoint that will let you compare your game to other QSC games that you may encounter.

DISCUSSION IS FORMALLY OPEN for the next active discussion period.

Discussion should continue at least until end of the day Wednesday, November 20th so we can give some time for reflection before we move on. (updated the discussion traget to Wednesday to give move time.)

We are getting ready to approach a point in the timeline of the games where a lot of different things will start happening and it is important for us to tie down this early expansion and exploration phase first.

I will try to post some data tables as soon as we get handyandy's next games uploaded and included but I think we have a lot to discuss even without those games.

Remember, that the focus of the discussion should be on trying to understand what happened in the various versions of the game and discussing the strategy of why people did various things. We should continue to avoid discussing future plans if at all possible because this alters the progression of the game.

Some great comments are coming in from all sources so I encourage everyone to continue and participate in the discussion as actively as possible.

This is a nice thread for newbies to see differences in taking some actions. I'll recommend it for that.

Looks like Jaxom has already launched his spaceship. Look at his trace on the graph take off, even passing Cracker!:goodjob: Whats the secret?:confused:

Actually, looking at the turnlog I would guess the difference is in getting a 2nd and a THIRD level tech for free from the barbs. Yeah, the RNG does love you J.:)

I've got to get more explorers out there.

Yeah, thanks to the RNG I have skyrocketed. In a higher difficulty game this would even out eventually but at this level, I doubt the AI will contribute much to global science.

When Cracker puts up the data table, I will factor out all I gained from huts, although factoring out the first settler will be rather difficult.

Early exploration is a very high priority, the higher the difficulty level, the higher the priority. Not for what you can get out of goody huts but for the contacts you will gain. The more civs you know, the cheaper technology is.

We are just waiting for Handyandy to catch up to the 1525 timepoint so I can output the datatables so everyone can see these elements. I have a couple of other graphs also.

I also updated the plan to let us keep formal discussion open all the way through the end of the day on Wednesday, 20 November before we try to move on.

Jaxom,

You are in a great position so far. The early settler will give you the power to stay at the front or near the front of the pack for quite some time because of the compounding effect. It's not just that you got the early settler for free, its that the early settler came at a perfect, perfect, absolutely perfect time and place.

On the value of contacts, remember that the tech cost is dependent on the number of civs you have contact with who already have the tech. So in this game the tech cost will not go down for the leading edge techs because usually no one will have them.

Another problem on this low difficulty level is that the AIs are so handicapped and "not too bright" that they will rarely have anything of value to trade you for your obsolete techs except right at the time you make first contact. Its almost like running a Salvation Army thrift store of technology.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the QSC scoring formula is still being tweaked. We will probably adjust the scoring bonus for some of the techs down a bit, because it may be overemphasixing tech value even though that is part of the intent. The idea is to try and push us to research the 2nd and 3rd level techs whenever all the other choices are equal. This is because it is generally more powerful (but not always) to pick a strategy to get to at least one of the 4th tier techs as quickly as possible.

Personal schedule note: I'll be out of pocket most of today because of my teaching schedule and a dinner engagement but will return later tonight.

All players have a lot to discuss just by looking at the save games in the last round and if you look closely you will see that most players are clustered togethers in a common path of progress while a couple of players are below the curve and a couple are above. I know the charts would help but we just have to wait a tad on handyandy, If any of you locate him while I am out, try to help him along.

sorry i can not play civ for a bit as i have s.a.t test revision to do
but when that is over i will try to catch up.

SAT's! Well, I guess I'll have them soon, but that's a bit further off for me!

Just checking in for a few seconds and I see Andy's post as to why he is falling off the pace.

My proposal will be to continue this discussion period until Wednesday and then play two more rounds before stopping if handyandy has not rejoined the play by then.

One of the major purposes of thsi game down at the warlord level was to let less experienced players play along and gain some basic play tips and skills particularly in the openning game play.

If we continue with this proposal we are currently played up to the 1525bc or turn 60 time point and that is where we are now discussing.

The next two rounds will take us up to time points 70, 80, and 90

and then onward to turns 100, 110, and 120 which will end at 170bc where we will stop if all the less experienced players have dropped out.

Any comments or discussion?

I am a 'less experienced' player, and I'll try not to drop out.

Anyway, here's my minimap showing how I emphasise exploration (I'm sure you've got minimaps like this anyway).
The coloured lines show each warrior's basic path. You can see how I go round the coast a little. Jaxom, did you explore with 2, 3, or 4 warriors? I used 3, and it gives a good result.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/1525bcminimap.jpg

Great image James, that really helps to visualize the starategy you were following in exploration.

Here are three table images for the game data for 2190bc, 1790bc, and 1525bc:

Several things you will see in the table images include:

1) In two cases, the data has gaps because we had to average over the missing or miss timed save files.

2) The green highlighted boxes are areas in diplomacy and techs that showed an increase from the prior known positiosn.

3) In the tech areas, I outlined the boxes to indicate the techs that were targeted for research in the save file.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/2190bc_table.gif

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/1790bc_table.gif

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/1525bc_table.gif

James, I startd with 3 warriors and found one in a hut on the way. Later I added a 5th warrior when I saw an opening to the east.

Cracker, I bought an embassy with Babylon around 1790 if I am not mistaken. However, it is not impossible I wrote it down on the report and forgot to implement my policy :)

I'll check on my save game when I can and I'll confirm or deny.

So Lee, what you gonna do with all that cash burnin' a hole in your pocket?? ;)

I look at the 1525bc table and see that Jaxom got a major point pop from getting to Literature first and also from getting Philosophy out of a hut. Look at the subtotal lines in the 1525bc table and notice the difference betweeh the technology subtotals for my game vs Jaxom's game.

A number of players are going hot and heavy for spearmen and Jaxon is definitely kicking everybodies butt in the worker race.

Borealis, your worker counts seems to be way to low to sustain progress and only 2 workers for 6 (almost 7) cities would mean that you are probably way low on road count which will is really starting to show up in you tech research rate.

Cracker, I don't know about 1790 Bc, but I definately have an embassy with Babylon by 1525 BC. Also, one of my workers is a foreign national, if that makes any difference.

I believe when your pyramid finish you will take quite a lead :)

Lee, I will sell you mathematics for 250 golds and, hmm, 10gpt?

1500 BC - Gordium is formed.
1375 BC - Bactra is formed.
(I) We already get the offer for the FP to be built.
1250 BC - Sidon is formed.
1125 BC - Tyre is formed.
(I) Tarsus is hit by disease :(
1025 BC - Sardis is formed.
1000 BC - Samaria is formed.
900 BC - I find a goody hut, but all I get is a warrior.
875 BC - Hamadan is formed.
850 BC - Ergili is formed.

Summary - I can tell we are on warlord; the tech pace is painfully slow.

@Cracker - If you want run a section like this at emperor, I would love to play it.
I can tell I am playing a bit lazy, since I know I can slaughter warlord.

I did make one critical mistake - I failed to notice the goal of Space Race until I started these turns. My play would have been different if I realized that.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-1275BC.zip
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-1025BC.zip
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-775BC.zip


@JaxomCA - They would be insulted by that deal :lol:

LK, evidence that the early granary helped as much or more than the delay of the 1st settler hurt is there in the above chart. You are tops on units/people score other than Jaxom (who got a free settler) and you are 2nd on improvements score behind cracker. At this stage of the game those are the most important metrics, so I'd say you are doing quite well, better than your overall score would indicate. (Not to say it couldn't be better... :) )

Zed-F thats good insight on only looking at the units and improvements scores at this point. That really helps make these numbers usable despite the random events of the barbs (with the exception of Jaxoms settler). That moves me from the massive peloton to 4th in units and 6th in improvements. Now I know what I haven't been focusing on. Thanks.

LK-
Yeah I had to go back and see where Space Race was defined too. Totally didn't remember it.

In what way would you have done things differently though? Since so far most techs have been of barb origin.

Originally posted by cracker - Post ID 591334 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=591334#post591334)
I would recommend that since this game is started primarily by Handyandy that we adopt an objective that seem similar to his last game approach and that objective would be to go for the quickest possible Space Ship victory. To do this we will need to maximize our longterm science research pace and expand the size and power of our civilization as quickly as possible.

This is a Warlord level game, so we should expect to be ahead in tech research under most conditions because we can research technology cheaper than the AI players.

We will also expect to encounter contact with the other civilizations on our map and will probably need to engage in a war or two to make sure we have enough territory and resources to dominate the game and achieve our major objective of winning the Space Race.

If we are to aim mainly at a spacerace win, what should we really be doing different? Maybe build tech improvements, libraries, etc. Maybe build lots of cities, (Lee's doing good on that!)

Lee, if you've got too much money, put your science rate up, and if you're getting it a considerable amount of time quicker, it doen't matter if you lose a few gold per turn, does it?

Also, do you think that building the granary helped in Lee's game? Nice idea, just that by the time you've built it, you could've built 2 settlers. So, does it pay you back then??

Aiming for a space race victory at this difficulty level means the more science you produce, the sooner you will win. Building many cities is a big part, until there is too much corruption for them to be useful. Researching techs that increase commerce/science is another part. Building roads quickly to increase commerce, acquiring Literature early to build libraries, getting to a better government to reduce corruption and increase commerce, these were my targets from the very start. The tech I got from huts were mostly extra gravy (except math and philosophy, that was a boon!).

Have fun!

James, you're only counting shields, not growth. At the earliest stages of the game food is the limiting factor. You will probably NOT be able to build two settlers by the time you complete the granary, because building the granary first gives you more commerce and more spt from having a bigger city, and furthermore allows you to save on food so you can stay bigger when you do start pumping out settlers so you can pump them out faster. Not building a granary means that once you're done that first settler, you're right back to where you started, so the 30 shields for the second settler takes much longer to accumulate than the 30 shields for the 2nd half of the granary, due to the city growth that has occurred during the granary build.

This doesn't mean it's always wrong to build a settler first; the food situation in your lands almost always determines whether a granary or an early settler should be your first build. Usually you don't want to build more than one settler before building a granary, however. If you compare a build where one player builds settlers only and another starts with a granary first and then pumps settlers, the granary build will usually get its first settler or two out later but will catch up and surpass the city founding rate of the settler-only build starting at about the 3rd city (depending on the availability of bonus food resources in the area.)

Originally posted by ControlFreak
LK-
Yeah I had to go back and see where Space Race was defined too. Totally didn't remember it.

In what way would you have done things differently though? Since so far most techs have been of barb origin.


1) I would NOT have done a 40-turn science research project to build up cash - cash at warlord doesn't help much. At emperor, that cash would pay for trading, but I am already in a tech leader despite the 40-turn play.

2) I would have bee lined for Republic to get the extra income and lower corruption. At this low level, I have to do 100% of my own research. The more revenue, the faster the research rate and that is the key here. By the time I got to Republic, the slow warlord civs would have researched at least the first tier techs so that I could trade for them.

3) I would head toward a super-early fp in order to further improve the cash flow.

Originally posted by Zed-F
LK, evidence that the early granary helped as much or more than the delay of the 1st settler hurt is there in the above chart. You are tops on units/people score other than Jaxom (who got a free settler) and you are 2nd on improvements score behind cracker. At this stage of the game those are the most important metrics, so I'd say you are doing quite well, better than your overall score would indicate. (Not to say it couldn't be better... :) )


Good point. I play the philosphy - if you get enough cities, and enough population - every thing else will get in order. As the turn 90 I have 2 luxuries conectted, 1 controlled, and 1 close. This sets me up for size 6 cities with a market place being all I need to stay happy until hospitals. That should let me concentrate on libraries which will be key.

Let us move on!!

The next three save points to upload and report should be:

1275bc (turn 70)
1025bc (turn 80)
775bc (turn 90)

as soon as we get all players up to turn 90, I will update some tables and powergraphs to support further discussion.

Here are my save games and the accompanying turn reports:

1275bc (turn 70) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc1275.sav)
1025bc (turn 80) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc1025.sav)
775bc (turn 90) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_cracker_bc775.sav)

I am pouring on the coals for an extreme strategy choice in this game so we will have to see if this has any major positive benefit compared to other approaches:

1500 BC (turn 61) – Borders expand at Capital. Discovered Literature. Settler out of Susa heads toward Ivory Coast. Worker out of Antioch starts road to incense.
1475 BC (turn 62) – Micromanage shields in Pasagardae.
1450 BC (turn 63) – Luxuries up to 10% to keep Pasagardae happy.
1425 BC (turn 64) – Gordium founded on the coastal plains Ivory. Tuned luxuries down to 0%. Worker out of Arbela begins road to east.
1400 BC (turn 65) – Finally found the closer damn horses over to the east, reroute the east settler to claim it.
1375 BC (turn 66) – Warrior2 spies another hut in the central mountains, Yipee!
1350 BC (turn 67) –Micromanage food in Persepolis. Found Bactra out east on hill near horses. Jag warrior jumps out of the fog and poaches the hut but I watch him kill 3 barbs.
1325 BC (turn 68) – Found Sidon to fill in road east to Arbela. Begin clearing forest at Ivory to rush Library. Micromanage food/shields in Persepolis.
1300 BC (turn 69) – Jag warrior is flirting with death.
1275 BC (turn 70) – Micromanage Pasagardae to balance happiness and a scientist to get Map Making in 1 turn.



1250 BC (turn 71) – Hot swap Susa to build a Galley when Map Making is discovered. Send galley north along west coast. Shift luxuries to 70% to kick WLTKD in Pasagardae and speed Pyramids 1 turn. Worker out of Tarsus to hook up incense.
1225 BC (turn 72) – Settler out of Persepolis heads east.
1200 BC (turn 73) – Incense is connected. Micromanage Pasagardae and Persepolis. Tuned luxuries down to 60%.
1175 BC (turn 74) – Micromanage food in Persepolis.
1150 BC (turn 75) – Trade Masonry to the Montezuma for World Map (pottery is already worthless even though he doesn’t have it yet. Short rushed to speed the library in Arbela by 10 turns.
1100 BC (turn 77) – Libraries in Antioch and Gordium. Turn luxuries down to 0% because the Pyramids are guaranteed.
1075 BC (turn 78) – Settler out of Persepolis heads to fill in northwest. Galley sights more land to northwest. Cleared a square of forest and then whipped in the Library at Bactra.
1050 BC (turn 79) – Galley sees wine and iron and heads northeast along the new coast.
1025 BC (turn 80) – Pyramids complete in Pasgaradae. Assign governor in Pasagardae and Tarsus to emphasize food. Build settlers and workers everywhere possible.


1000 BC (turn 81) – Discovered Code of Laws. Founded Persepfill. Sold off the pre-Granary in Persepolis for 7 gold. Exploring Galley sees an Egyptian warrior. We trade Math for contact with Rome + World Map+3 gold. (Egypt had 5 gold but 3 was max). Trade Rome Math for World map + 46 gold (leaves 19 in their treasury).
975 BC (turn 82) – Galley heads west around Egypt.
950 BC (turn 83) – Settler out of Pasagardae heads east towards furs. Warrior garrisoning Pasagardae heads to Tarsus (incense)
925 BC (turn 84) – Settler out of Persepolis heads east. Micromanage shields in Persepolis to speed worker.
900 BC (turn 85) – Settler out of Antioch heads northeast past Tarsus. Library in Arbela. Barracks in Sidon. Workers connect horses near Bactra.
875 BC (turn 86) – Trade ROP and Math to Iroqs for World Map and Rop (I know, basically a gift.) Worker out of Persepolis; MM food to speed library.
850 BC (turn 87) – Settler out of Pasagardae heads for central Dyes. Set embassy with Rome for 57 gold. Trade them ROP for ROP + 19 gold.
825 BC (turn 88) – Settler taunts a Jag warrior in the central grassland.
800 BC (turn 89) – Workers out of Susa, Antioch, and Sidon. Found Sardis on hill next to furs near Iroqs. Found Samaria on hill next to cow north or Tarsus.
775 BC (turn 90) – Discovered Currency. Worker out of Gordium to road northwest along coast. Daring galley jumps out to explore north of Egypt. MM shields in Arbela to speed worker. Burn three people in Tarsus to rush 60 shields for Courthouse.

I had a chance to look at this map last night. It's very good for learning some building techniques.

This was a perfect map to do a "Palace Jump". Once you get to 10 to 12 cities, you start to hit the distance from the palace where corruption starts to factor heavily in new cities. That would be a good time to do a "Palace Jump", with that in mind probably the second or third city that was built could have been placed to develop as the capitol (there are so many good sites with all those rivers). That would be the city where building a granary work work and then seeded to grow to accept the new palace. If all the other cities are producing , military, workers and settlers to keep their size small; this new capitol will be the natural choice for the program algorithm to assign the palace to when the original capitol is disbanded. The move allows for your productive core to be greatly enhanced as you advance toward the other growing civs. The down side of this growth pattern is that it leaves your technology development a tech or two behind the current leaders but with a fair sized warrior base that can be upgraded to swordsmen.

I have been away and trying to catch up. Reviewed the graphs only to see my poor performance on paper. And here I thought getting all those cities out was a good thing. :lol:. Will I see the benifit of all the cities later on? I have been focusing on building cities and controlling as much territory as possible but way behind in the score.

Hotrod

Actually HotRod, if you take Zed-F's advice and only look at Units and Improvements, you're third in Units and Third in Improvements. Not only that but only 1 person (LK) is ahead of you in both catagories. Cracker leads in improvements but is behind you in units. Jax is ahead in units but is behind you in improvements. I WISH I were you.

If LK's philosophy of build good cities and the rest will come around holds true, you're in a great spot.

1500 BC to 775 BC

Turns 61 to 70:

[list=1]
1500BC
Hiawatha came asking for contact with Babylon. His request was firmly rejected and he backed down.
An embassy is opened in Salamanca for 34 golds.
Arbela finishes a library and begins the Pyramids.

1475BC
The library is pop-rushed in Antioch-by-the-sea.
Gordium is founded by the north iron.
The Cuman tribe gives us a warrior.

1450BC
Antioch-by-the-Sea begins the Colossus.

1425BC
Persepolis finishes a settler, starts another.
The settler is sent NE to claim the furs.
The library is pop-rushed in Pasargadae. It will now go back to worker duty.

1400BC
Susa completes a library and is now set on spear duty.

1375BC ...
1350BC ...

1325BC
Persepolis trains a settler, starts a spear.
The settler is sent to the game by the river, NE of Persepolis.

1300BC ...

1275BC
Tarsus trains a worker, starts on a library.
Horseback riding is sold to Hammurabi for all his 27 golds.
Code of laws is discovered, research is set on Republic at best pace.
[/list=1]


Turns 71 to 80:

[list=1]
1250BC
Persepolis trains a spearman, starts on a settler.

1225BC
Bactra founded by the furs in the NE and starts on a library.

1200BC
Our people want a Forbidden Palace, maybe we should...
An embassy is taken with the Zulu for 36 golds.

1175BC
Sidon is founded and starts on a library.

1150BC
Persepolis trains a settler, starts a spear.

1125BC ...
1100BC ...

1075BC
Persepolis trains a spear, starts a settler.

1050BC
Gordium finishes a library and starts on the Forbidden Palace.

1025BC
An embassy is taken with the Aztec for 42 golds and ROP taken with everyone.
[/list=1]


Turns 81 to 90:

[list=1]
1000BC
Tyre is founded and starts on a library.

975BC
Persepolis trains a settler, starts on a spear.
The settler is sent to the wheat by the NW river.

950BC ...
925BC ...

900BC
Persepolis trains a spear, starts a settler.

875BC
We discover the Republic and revolt immediately. The situation will be touch and go for the next 4 turns. Currency is ordered.

850BC ...
825BC ...

800BC
Sardis is founded next to the wheat near the NW river.

775BC
We are now a republic!
[/list=1]


The Persian empire at the end of 1525BC.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC0775_minimap.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC0775_master.jpg)

Click on the mini map to see a full view.

Here are the save games:
1275 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC1275.sav)
1025 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC1025.sav)
775 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC0775.sav)

I seem to have taken the 'middle' road between building lots of cities and building some improvements, and I don't know how this will work out. The Pyramids should in 14 turns, and the FP in Susa in 24 or less. As the 'outer ring' cities become more productive, I'll have more cities soon overall, and granaries in all of them should add to growth. :D

Cracker- Libraries already? :eek: I never even thought of building them this early on such a large map, especially at warlord level.

______________________________________________

1500 BC Nothing much happens; worker actions & movement.

1475 BC Pasagardae builds spear; starts another.

1450 BC Persepolis builds settler; starts temple.

1425 BC Arbela builds settler; starts another.

1400 BC Literature research; research on Mathematics started.

1375 BC

1350 BC Bactra founded.

1325 BC Forbidden Palace prompt appears. Susa switches to Temple, microes for production; it will build a FP next. Tarsus builds a worker and starts another.

1300 BC Pasagardae builds spear; starts another.

1275 BC Embassies in Babylon, Salamanca, and Zimbabwe, which is starting The Oracle.

1250 BC Sidon founded; starts spear.

1225 BC Persepolis finishes Temple; starts Pyramids. Arbela builds settler; starts spear.

1200 BC Antioch builds worker; starts another.

1175 BC Mathematics researched; research started on Currency. Gordium builds worker; starts Settler.

1150 BC

1125 BC Pasgardae builds spear; starts another.

1100 BC Bactra builds spear; starts settler.

1075 BC Tarsus builds worker; starts settler.

1050 BC Susa builds Temple; starts Forbidden Palace.

1025 BC Arbela builds spear; starts settler. Bactra changes production to Worker


1000 BC Iron is linked into the trade network. Sidon builds spear; starts settler.

975 BC Bactra builds worker; starts another.

950 BC Antioch builds woker; starts settler. Pasagardae builds spear; starts another.

925 BC

900 BC Embassy in Tenochtitlan; it is building the Oracle. Tyre founded; starts Worker.

875 BC Currency discovered; research started on Code of Laws. Bactra builds worker; starts spear.

850 BC Arbela builds settler; starts spear. Lux tax to 10% to quiet Persepolis, science to 70%.

825 BC

800 BC

775 BC Pasagardae builds Spear; starts another.

As of the end of this turn, Hiawatha has Map Making, but no one else does- I'll either wait for other civs to get it or research it later when I have the resources to explore again, as right now everything is targeted at early Republic/fast territory expansion.

The Persian Empire as of 775 BC:





http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA775bcborealis.png

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA7_Borealis_bc1275.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA8_Borealis_bc1025bc.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA9_Borealis_bc775.sav

Turns 61-70
61 1500 Workers move to next tile for improving. Settlers progress to destinations. Spearman fortified in Parsargadae. Warriors explore.

62 1475 Antioch workers start mine. Moves as before.

63 1450 Arbela blt worker, start temple to get incense. Move worker to wheat for mining and road. Tarsus founded NW of mtns, clearing forest automatically. Order worker. More moving and exploring. Sci 90, MM still in 7 -1gpt.

64 1425 Persepolis blt settler, ord settler. Susa blt worker, ord granary. I wanted to let the population come up before going back to worker farm. New settler sent to forest NE of wheat. Workers mine/road, settler warriors move.

65 1400 Antioch will start irrigating river for money purposes,and worker production. not much shield potential here. more moves.

66 1375 Paying the price for not exploring where I sent the settler. wasted 1 move going to mtn to decide where to settle.

67 1350 Switch Susa to Barracks, switch Antioch from immortal to granary. Susa will be western front military supplier, Antioch worker farm. Decide settler to found on horse. more moves.

68 1325 Gordium founded on horse. more moves.

69 1300 Worker moves from parsagae territory to Tarsus for mining BGs and road. Warrior in Gordium for protection of our only horse. Establish embassy with iroquois, blding spear due in 4, 1 in garrison, have 1 horse but I can't see how from the map.

70 1275 Done MapMaking, ord Code of Law for courts and Republic. Persepolis blt settler, ord spear to let popluation recover a little and provide MP for higher pop. Parsar blt barraks, ord immortal. All warriors come to the end of their continent, will start looping back toward home. Workers complete road to Arbela.

Next: Start improving Arbela tiles to make temple sooner. Then connect Gordium for horses. Gordium is building a spear but should probably be changed to a temple since its right next to the Iroquois capital. Antiochs mine on the cow should be irrigated instead once the granary is built. 2 settlers on their way to:

1)Settle NE of 1st wheat above Tarsus: on river, 2nd wheat and 2 bgs in 2nd radius.
2)Settle SE of dyes on jungle side of river so get tehm in 1st radius and leave space for city(s) on river NW of Arbela.

Other prime spots, two areas of furs to the E. Going to need some towns on the Coast of the inlet to ensure we can get to fur area without taking a boat. Then head out to game and furs area just discovered. Once #1 is founded, all Persepolis settlers to go east. #1 city will provide settlers/workers for NW expansion. Since we're industrious, clear jungle is easier and may provide lots of grassland.

All known AI's are still pathetic. None of the AI learned anything this round.

Probably switch to Literature for librarys to get help on research. Seems to be the way to go for space ship victory.

HA1_ControlFreak_BC1275.zip (Http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_ControlFreak_BC1275.zip)

My turns from 1525bc to 775bc

My turns have been mainly building cities, and exploring.

Not much happened else. But I did trade maps, and have a nearly complete map showing the whole continent. Question: Will the AI have built it's cities in the same places, etc in everyone elses games??? Here's my map of the continent we are on, showing it in a zoomed out view. It's 1.7 megs in total though.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/bc950map.jpg

I think you should download it. It's quite interesting. Or just save it until you know the whole continent yourself! (Sorry about Tarsus' city box, it only comes out half.
This Sucession game is really interesting. The tips here are great too! Keep posting please!

My 3 savegames in a zip (223kb) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/jamesds_trn70_90.zip)
Download the full map of the continent (2048x1536 Res. & 1.73Mb) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha_jamesds_civ3map_950bc.zip)

James, I think AI cities will be almost in the same location for everybody, at least initially. The name might be different though. For instance, the Iroquois city near the horses is Oil Spings in my case and Catarragus (sp?) in your case. But once the AI borders start to collide, it might end up very different from one player to the other.

1525 (60): The game continues

1500 BC (61): some warrior and settler movement, see another hut and dyes to the north.

1475 bC (62): Hut give barbs :(, exploration continues, spear at susa start another.

1450 BC (63): spear arrives in Pasargadae, settler and growth in 3. Movements continue. Change antioch to worker.

1425 BC (64): Persepolis builds settler and starts another. Gordium builds warrior and starts worker. Antioch builds worker starts temple.

1400 BC (65): more movement.

1375 BC (66): Tarsus builds worker, starts temple. Lots o movements.

1350 BC (67): Forestry by Tarsus, susa completes spear starts another, founded bactra to the NE by 2 wheat and horsies, start warrior.

Heh maybe we should build a forbidden palace.

1325 BC (68): Some more movement.

1300 BC (69): Found Sidon, start warrior. Monty has HBR, but will not be reasonable. :(.

1275 BC (70): Finish COL, start Literature, due in 9 turns +1 gpt.





1250 BC (71): Contact the Babs, they don't have alphbet and are cautious. More movement.

1225 BC (72): Found Sardis to the west near furs and a whale, start warrior.

1200 BC (73): move stuff

1175 BC (74): continue moving stuff.

1150 BC (75): they just keep on going. Trade Hammi alphabet and 30 gold for HBR.

1125 BC (76): zzzzz

1100 BC (77): Found Samaria near the northern dyes.

1075 BC (78): Found Hamadan near the floodplain near the incence.

Learn Lit start philosophy.

1050 BC (79): Change Garibella to library.

1025 BC (80): some more movement. New Embassy with Babylon. and ROP with Iroquios.

1000 BC (81): on the road again.

975 BC (82): Found Ergili on the West coast, start warrior. The settler parade out of our capital continues.

950 BC (83): Learn philo start Republic.

925 BC (84): Hooked up the ivory finally. Reduce lux to 0%, research up to 90%, republic in 16 with -1 gpt.

900 BC (85): more of the same.

875 BC (86): Tarsus builds temple start library.

850 BC (87): The movement continues, susa switches gear to build a library. Decide to whip a library at Bactra.

825 BC (88): Arbela builds library starts barracks. Found Dariush Kabir.

800 BC (89): Found Ghulaman on the west coast.

775 BC (90): Republic due in 10 turns, +1 gpt, Some libraries on line soon. Few more settler are still out and about, land still remains to the north.

http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_1275BC.zip http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_1025BC.zip http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_775BC.zip

(Disregard regard this post. I found the problem where I duplicated the data for Jaxom into James's column for 1025 and have fixed it in the data. All other data is correct and James's data for 775bc is correct in the graphics even though 1025 is currently wrong).

(I have uploade the revised graphs for the messages that follow and this should fix the error. It also makes the problem of James having to few workers really obvious.)

James,

Something nasty happened to you between 1025bc (turn 80) and 775bc (turn 90).

Since you did not mention it at all in your turns reports I thought I should ask this question separately from the other discussions just to see where all your workers and your warriors went to?

We are still waiting on the final two game uploads from Controlfreak, but in the interim here is the power graph comparing the other game positions up to turn 90 at 775bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/power_graph_775bc_old.jpg

This image uses the valuation of discovered technologies that takes the cost of the technology and increases its point value by adding the cost of all the prerequisites. This gives a much heavier weight to techs on the right hand side of the tree.

This cummulative point value scoring system was developed on game at the Emperor difficulty level and had not previously been tested on this lower Warlord difficulty level. Also none of the previous test games have had no chance at getting barbarian camps. These new inputs reveal that the 100% cumulative scoring bonus for tech research of techs that have prerequisites is too much of a scoring bonus and it tends to overwhelm the scoring balance with unit/people and improvements.

The second graph below is the exact same data as shown above with the tech cummulative scoring bonus dropped from 100% down to 30%. This change means that a tech is scored based on its research cost plus 30% of the cost of its prerequisites.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/power_graph_775bc_new.jpg

This change does not have a lot of impact on the early scoring, but now that we are proceeding to the higher level technologies, its impact will be more important.

Another change in the scoring formula is to drop the score bonus for most wonders to 100 points for any wonder. This at first may seem like a unfair change when you have a wonder that costs, for example, 400 shields but we have to look at the benefit of the wonder to get a better understanding of how it impacts the power of the civilization. A good example of this impact is the power of the Pyramids to instantly build a granary in every city while eliminating the maintenance cost of the granaries. The pyramids built in an empire of 15 cities will instantly give you 15 granaries which would have cost over 900 shields to build. The no maintenance factor will reduce gold per turn costs by 15 and let you spend that on techs or other things or just keep it in your treasury.

The scoring change does not effect who is in what position in the graph. But it does close the gap between the tech leaders and the others and it also will make it easier to compare the various builder/military/technology approaches to the game.

Look closely at the graph with the new tech scoring and you will clearly see that some of the game strategies are beginning to produce some very noticeable difference in the power positions for the civilizations

I will post the datatables that go with these power graphs as soon as I can get the data from ControlFreak download and input into the spreadsheet.

Here are three additional specialized graphs that focus on aspects of game progress that should be less dominated by technology and exploration.

Note that you cannot say that progress in these areas is not related to technology and exploration because without certain technology advances it would not be possible to build many improvements and without these improvements it would not be possible to grow or sustain higher levels of population and build more improvements, etc.

The first graph represent the number of population points in your civilization by adding up the workers/slaves (1 pop pt), settlers (2 pop pts), citizens (1 pop pt), and towns (equivalent of 1 pop pt).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/population_graph_775bc1.jpg

(all graphs updated on Sunday 11/24/02 at 1530 MST to include ControlFreak and fix the error in James data transcription for 1025bc)

The second graph represents the population data converted to power points and adds in the power points for the units built so far in the game.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/units_graph_775bc1.jpg

The final graph looks at the civilization infrastructure as represented by improvements, territory held, treasury, and accumulated food/shields.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/infra_graph_775bc1.jpg

Another caution we should apply in comparing these graphs, is that choices between the various game aspects are not necessarily mutually exclusive and/or directly transferrable. It is not necessarily true that you have the choice of increasing your power in the technology are by 100 points versus making the same exact 100 point increase in population, units, treasury, or infrastructure.

Round 8 and 9 (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_ControlFreak_BC775.zip)

Will post turnlog soon.

Here are the data tables for 1275bc and 1025bc.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/1275bc_table.gif

note that the tech scoring formula is updated to the new 30% accumulation and that I have continued to highlight some significant change elements in the tables.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/1025bc_table.gif

Yikes! I'm at the bottom. Seems my improvments are letting me down.

Why is everyone beating me??????????? :( :(

If I am right, we should aim towards 570bc, 370bc, and 170bc after the discussion period.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/LAK-210.jpg


The red box area says it all. You are so far behind in workers versus everyone else. This has you way behind in shields and money vs. everyone else. I think you will continue to find the people getting the most workers will most likely stay at the top of the charts.

Thanks Lee, I'll try more workers! :goodjob:

Well James,

I'm working hard at taking over the bottom from you. I'm plummeting in position.

Here's my turnlog for rounds 8 and 9 for what it's worth.

Play to:
1025bc (turn 80)
775bc (turn 90)


Turns 71-80
Changed susa and gordium to temple.
1250 Switch to math for block, pop hut in N by fish but get 50g instead. Switch to literature. Trade WM to everyone for WM+TM. Babs have 1 grassland city. other two in the mtns. Iroquois have lots of grass, iron, horse and incense. Aztecs have 5 gems in texcoco. City NW of fur by our horse would gain that lux plus gold and still be ok on grass. Then focus on expanding to NW. Penisula has river down its length. Lots of coastline and all the dyes. Hurry!

1225 Bactra founded, ord spear. Warriors head for fog. S warrior will attempt to cross zulu land to pop hut.

1200 Iro start oracle. Tarus blt worker, start temple. will switch to library when lit comes do. AIs start to catch up in tech. Iro, Babs need writing. Zulu need alphabet and mystism. Aztec need alphabet and horseback riding. Spear sent to Gordium.
1175 move,work
1150 est embassy with babs. Nothing exciting.
1125 work. warrior enters zululand.
1100 Shaka no likey. OK we'll leave:). We keep going for hut.
1075 Shaka no likey. We get booted. Persepolis blt settler, ord settler. Parsar blt immortal, start galley. Susa blt temple ord barracks. Settler sent toward furs. Immortal sent to baccra. Warrior recalled for MP duty. Goodie hut found in north.
1050 N hut makes barbs. Lit in 1, sci 70/0 +4 gpt.
1025 Warrior survives barbs, 0hp lost and promote to elite! Lit done, Code started. Change all temples to libraries. Change susa to library. All civs now have alphabet except Axtecs. I feel generous so I give it to them. Iro have writing and need map and literature. Change Susa and all temples to librarys. 80/0+3 code in 10.
SAVE GAME

Turns 81-90
1000BC zulu,bab strt oracle. found sidon near dyes. order lib.
975 pers expand. baccra blt worker start lib. Arbela unhappy, wake war from gord to mp. lux 80/20 -4 gpt for 1 turn.
950pers blt sett, ord lib. sett send to delta SW. war fortify arbela sci 90/0,-2gpt code in 5.
925 parsar blt galley, ord immortal. Susa blt lib, spear for mp.
900 Hammarabi ask to trade maps. i hold off till our turn. wm all around.
875 Tyre fonud S of delta . ord war. for mp. Galley exploring sea, moving out and back to north. note land off tip of OUR penisula. sci 80/0 +2 code in 1.
850 Code done, phil strt. Susa blt spear ord settlr. Sardis founded with fur in 2nd ring, on coast. ord worker. sci 80/0 +2 phil in 4
825antioch blt granary, ord settler. Tarsus blt lib, ord spear.
800perse blt lib, ord settler. Antioch changed to spear. Arbela hires entertainer losing 1 corrupt sheild, 1 corrupt commerece and 1 food. Still growing. Change gordium to court. Leave arbela to build library first since sheild count low, need happiness. Sci 50/0 still 2 turns +12 gpt.
775 Parsargae blt immortal order another.
SAVE GAME

Just in case any one was holding back:

DISCUSSION IS NOW OPEN

Unless you are in the lead, you have to ask questions and solicit input, our pay the "Oreos, of continued ignorance" penalty. ;)

Here is a screen shot that I took of the Aztec capital when I set an Embassy early in the game.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/settler_block_evidence.jpg

This screen shot is evidence of the settler fixation mistake that is coded into the AI logic, The AI will try to produce a settler from one of its cities even when producing the settler is impossible because the food/shield availability is not balanced to make sure that the city is at least at pop 3 when the shield bin fills to 30.

(note that the screen shot is a warlord AI example, so the AI food bin is 24 while the shields to produce a settler would be 36 compared to 20 and 30 respectively for the human player)

No telling how many turns Monty has already wasted, but if you look at the screen shot you will see the shield bin is full but the food bin still needs 6 more food units (at 2 per turn) before a settler can be released. The result is that Monty will waste at least 6 and probably at least 8 to 10 shields, just to produce each settler and this will also delay the production of each new unit and each new town by 3 to 5 turns.

This mistake is a death sentence and human players should never allow this to happen in their games because it basically just reduces your success rate down to the AI level.

A number of players have had this problem in some of their cities in the recent save games and it is like committing suicide in the game. Borealis, you had it in your 1525 or 1275 save file IIRC and James your Pasagardae had this exact problem in 1025bc. THis does not mean it was not in other games as well because I was not scanning every city to find this mistake. These two incidents just jumped out as I ran the scoring table.

Look carefully to balance your expected timing of when your towns will have enough people to produce a settler or a worker and still accomplish your early objectives. Settlers and workers need to be interspersed with other units and improvements in order to support happiness balance plus building a more productive civilization at every possible step in the game.

Here is the data table for 775bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/775bc_table.gif

You will note in the table that a box around an open square in the tech area indicates the current research choice that the player had selected for the 775bc save file.

-----

James,

Lee has already helped to answer part of your question as to why you are getting stomped, but this table makes it even more obvious.

Your civ is Persia and this gives you several major in game advantages you want to exploit. The first advantage is the faster speed industrious worker that effectively turns these guys into economic warriors to help you smash your neighbors with your productivity power.

The average number of workers in the game is 10 by 775bc and you only have 3.

This also indicates to me that you may need to look more closely at the details of how to choose the correct worker tasking to maximize the power of your civ. If you only have 3 workers so far, it tells me you do not fully recognize the importance of worker tasks as they relate to all the other issues in the game.

The article on "Improving Your Opening Play Sequences" focuses almost entirely on learning to assess your terrian power and task your workers properly in tandem with managing the production queue and population of your first few cities to maximize the power output of your civ.

-------

I am certain these same comments would apply to handyandy's game as well because his prior uplaod examples showed severe evidence of these same problems even when he was already up to playing with tanks and marines.

Lee,

I still wanna know what you think you're gonna do with all that cash in a warlord game in despotism. (I think you ought to have to buy the beers whenever you get that much coin stocked up.)

You are also the only player that has not gone for Literature quickly in the game. Care to shed any light of the thought processes here?

Control, (You vicous warmonger you)

So, what do you think you are gonna do with them there immortals now that you win the prize for first player to build immortals in the game??

I have already played the next 30. I am a republic and have resereached literature and already have some libraries. Much of my problem was my screw-up of not realizing until well into the game that the goal was fastest space race.

Much of the cash is now gone. My original plan was to mass produce warriors, mass upgrade to Immortals and go on a romp.
:satan: I did still create a few immortals :satan:

Lee,

I was just yanking your chain about the cash, and Yes, I too have played forward to about 700AD.

Here are some minimaps of the 775bc positions just for comparison.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/borealis_cracker_775.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/james_jaxom_775.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/lkendter_hotrod_775.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/controlfreak_775.jpg

Hopefully they will make for some interesting discussion.

One thing that is not at first obvious from the maps and the data is that Jaxom has made the transition into Republic by 775bc.

Now why would you need some Immortals Lee? :rolleyes:

I have assembled a force of warriors too, once I get the cash I'll upgrade them and probably go on a romp just to get my golden age started. That is, once I have settled all the land I still plan to claim. There is nothing like GA production to get all the planned marketplaces up and running :)

On a different note, I believe counting the free granaries overpowers the Pyramids in the scoring. The points for the shield cost, the improve growth rate and the reduced maintenance cost should be rewards enough. Otherwise, it is one of two wonders worth building under QSC, the other being Sun Tzu. Without the points for free granaries, some setups would call for an early Oracle or Hanging Gardens for happiness, other setups would call for the Great Library for free access to technology, and some setups might even call for the Great Lighthouse to create a brokering situation.

In any case, this is just my opinion. Giving too much weight to any wonders creates a false sense of 'I must have it'. Granted that on this map the Pyramids is THE wonder to build.

Edit: Oh and looking back at the mini maps, it looks like James, and maybe ControlFreak, are the only one to have secured the horses so far. Good move James, now get some workers out and build some roads :)

I am still running under the "get those settlers moving" routine. There was soo much land to be had I chose to build the second granary and move settlers from 2 locations. I think there is still more land to be had even at this stage.

This is the 3rd game I have been playing in where the capital could exclusively build settlers (LK33, and LK34 being the other), without too much MM and without dropping below size 4. That has been the key for my early expansion. The tough thing has been on how to get those cities that are being built actually productive. James that is where workers come in. I have found through guidance from Lee, Sirian and others that worker actions and city placement can really influence how things go.

On another note, is upgrading cheaper than building from scratch? In the case of the immortals what is the upgrade cost vs. the direct production costs. Also, Lee are you really going to upgrade all your "reg" warriors to "reg" immortals, a mass upgrade really needs SunZu to be effective or at least a few more barracks. In this game at Warlord the Sun is almost without doubt.

Hotrod

Just checked the charts, yep Lee has built 4 baracks already

Should the cost of the baracks be included in the upgrade costs?

One other question? How are luxuries handled, or resources? I am in position on with a few town expansions and workers to pull in ivory, incence, dyes, furs, horses and iron. I think ivory is already hooked up. In some games a quick lux or 2 can make the difference, particularly when happiness is a real problem. Having 3+ lux also makes those markets all the more attactive.

Hotrod

Hotrod, upgrading from warrior to Immortal cost 40 golds each. Under Republic it costs 80 golds to rush an immortal with 10 shields work on it. So in that regard it is cheaper to upgrade than to build from scratch. But you have to consider if cash or time is the biggest issue.

At this level, building from scratch probably makes more sense because there is no urgency to get a strong military. You don't need more than one barrack to upgrade, now that I have a spear in every town, all my warriors moved to the only city with a barrack and are waiting for the upgrade. I did not upgrade yet because I have no need to. Regular troops can still kill a 1 hp archer or spear quite easily and will quickly promote to veteran so upgrading regular still makes sense. If you are strap for cash it is better to upgrade veteran first.

As for luxuries, I believe higher happiness means faster research or more cash and a better growth curve since more people can be productive. So even though there is no specific score for luxury, they improve your score in other ways.

Resources is even more subtle. If you control resources, you have access to better military, which may result in expansion through war, thus increasing your score through more cities and population.

Listening to all the comments here makes me realize why I'm on the lower half of the scores.

Re: Immortals. Looking back I guess I really didn't think about the PURPOSE of immortals. They are great attackers and bad defenders. Since my towns still need defence I should be building more spearmen. I'm hoping that having offensive capability is a deterent to the AI from attacking me. If they do and I can use the Immortals, I'll get a golden age. But since I have no plan to attack the AI (yet) I'll probably focus on spears from now on.

Re: Settler factories. I'm behind in # of towns and # of settlers. My goal has been to crank out settler after settler in the capital. I think that the top players are doing this too. My problem is I can't maintain my population. Where others say they go from 4 - 6, I drop 6-4-5-3-4-2 then I must build something else to let my pop come back. Am I missing something here?

Re: Wealth/Tech how are the top players making so much more money and so much more tech than me? I'm only working improved tiles, all with roads. I tried to get as many tiles along rivers a possible. What else can I do. Did I choose the wrong city placement for early towns?

Just trying to get better.:confused: All suggestions welcome!
:love:

BTW

Looks like my avatar was a good choice. I'm the only one with a galley besides Cracker. I see from the minimaps that I better pickup some flowers on my way north. I wouldn't want to show up as a guest to two civs with no presents.;)

Cracker, did you trade your world map to (I'm guessing from color, Egypt and Rome)? I know you must have gotten theirs from the amount of exploration you have but I'm not sure I want them to know about the penisula of grassland NW of the dyes. I know that AI's start with the knowledge of resource location but will they know about territory on our continent if we don't sell them a map?

Edit: Hey, how come you still only have 4 contacts if you've got all a map of the two civs? Did you get this info from Babs or someone you knew already?

CFreak,

The contact count was just an error on my part in data entry. Glad you caught that, I have now fixed it.

Since you get to see that map in advance it could definately save you a turn or two on contacts. I actually went the wrong way up there because I was distracted a bit.

I traded for their world map but did not give them mine.

The AI knowledge of the World Map is coded sort of flaky in some ways. They sort of have total knowledge of the map even without exploring or without you giving them your map. Selling them a map just seems to kick them up a notch in settler spewing.

I had the same questions about crackers map. With a granary in the capital and my second city both are able to build settlers and grow to size 6 on the same turns thus only dropping to 4 and starting over. It takes some MM but it does happen. The growth is the key, growing a city means more workers and in the city and overall more shields. Staying with High food and MM allows the balance to grow exactly at the same time the settler is built.

Hotrod

JaxonCa: moving the warriors out as spears come in is a good tip I usually wait too long and by the time I decide to move them I really need the MP duty. Albeit a regular warrior.

Hotrod can you detail the micromanagement? My capital is working grassland and wheat. Every tile I have has two food except irrigated wheat which has four. The mines on BGs have two sheilds each. I can't micromanage for any more food. only for fewer sheilds. Am I building sheilds too fast? How many turns does it take for you to go from 4 to 6? I only irrigated the wheat, all other tiles are mined. Is this correct?

I will check this out tonight. I do remember that I have to change from a bonus grass to a regular unmined grass for 1 turn to avoid completing the settler too soon. If I left it alone I would grow to 6 in 3 and complete the settler in 2, by MM to slow the shields I can still grow in 3 and slow the settler to be completed in 3. Is this better I am not sure but it seems to be working for me?

I will check it out tonight for more specific information.

Hotrod

I checked my reports and I am getting a settler every 6 turns out of the capital and Paresegarde(sp)

Here's a thread that you guys may find useful in your talks about granaries.
The early game build out (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33806)
And here's a quote by Cartouche Bee on how much extra food is needed to produce settlers at a certain pace with or without granaries.
It all depend on the situation.

The best you can hope for is a situation where you can produce 5 extra food per turn and have a granary. Assuming that there is enough shield production you can pop a settler every 4 turns. You need either a haystack on a flood plain or two bonus squares (haystack, cattle, game, floodplain) to have a shot at this.

The next best situation is producing 4 extra food with granary then you can only produce a settler every 6 turns.

The next best situation is producing 5 extra food then you can only produce a settler every 8 turns.
The next best situation is producing 3 extra food with granary then you can only produce a settler every 8 turns.

The next best situation is producing 4 extra food then you can only produce a settler every 10 turns.
The next best situation is producing 2 extra food with granary then you can only produce a settler every 10 turns.

The next best situation is producing 3 extra food then you can only produce a settler every 14 turns.

The next best situation is producing 2 extra food then you can only produce a settler every 20 turns.

Looking at the reports, one big difference I can see in the minimap comparison is city layout. All the players at the top have gone for a denser city placement that while overlapping allows for max shield use in cities for most of the early to midgame. I can't really salvage that quickly- any 'fill-ins' I'll have to make will probably occur after I get the Pyramids as I need to claim the territory in the northern dye peninsula- but afterwards I may be able to regain some production. As it is, I'll never catch up at this point- having an early FP will help me not fall completely behind, but my infrastructure will suffer from not having those early extra cities, as they have to focus on settler production at the moment.
I don't usually play on larger maps, and having all that territory to sprawl over made me lazy- usually I'm much more efficient in ekeing every last dab of productivity out of the terrain.

This discussion is good, and my best lesson so far : MORE WORKERS!! I now realise about the whole reason behind this. Also Jaxom I think said how I got the horses along with Control. Well, I had to build next to the border of an Iroquois city, but that doesn't matter, maybe I'll culture flip him or capture him!!

I just like getting settlers out like mad, then when all land has been aquired, build tons of workers (put the cities on autobuild and put 'Build workers' on always, you'll get a ton!!

I am not fond of Governors or Automated workers. Choosing what's best at that time I have found to be more productive. Workers are great to have but don't neglect the infrastructure or military. I find that if a city is only producing 1 or 2 shields and can grow to 2 in time for a worker to pop at the same time then a worker it is. That worker is usually put to task in that city but not on auto, particularly in a SG. The early worker will help that city grow that much faster.

Hotrod

Bam. good info on the settlers!

Here's an image of a micromanagement example:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/micromanage_example.jpg

This composite image is actually from my Persepolis circa 1790bc and it shows a case when micromanagement is almost required.

The Persepolis site had the wheat on grass which when irrigated under despostism gave a net of 4 extra food per turn. With a granary in place, only 10 food is required to grow a new person but 3 turns of the wheat square would be 12 with 2 wasted.

Every third turn, I would have to micromanage the citizen assignment to move the citizen off of the wheat square and onto the next best square with 2/2/2 food/shields/gold instead of the four food units from the wheat. This way I could take the two food units and convert them to two extra shield units as shown by the numbers that I labeled in the food bins and the shield bin. The magenta colored shields are the shields I gained through micromanagement and effectively this reduced the number of turns required to produce each settler by 1 turn. This site was in perfect equilibrium at pop numbers between 2 and 4 without any military police or luxury expenses.

The focus of this example is only on shields and food, but it is important not to lose sight of the third part of the equation that impacts gold/commerce production. Fortunately, in this example all the powerful terrain squares (except for square labeled 5 in the righthand image) were located next to rivers and with roads in place would have the same 2 commerce per turn output.

Note also that I did not bother to mine tile 6 in the image because it would have produced 1 extra shield which would have been wasted and then the population would have dropped back down to where the tile would not have been used.

General Disdainful Comment: This is definately one of those tedious thing that the governors ought to be able to do based on the settings currently available. It would not be that difficult for a competent programming approach to use the terrain power assessment to determine when the citizen assignements should be rearranged. Not only would this make the game less tedious and more fun, it would also result in a more competent AI and this would reduce the need to rely on imbalanced cost factors and other kluges that we see a great deal.

Originally posted by cracker


General Disdainful Comment: This is definately one of those tedious thing that the governors ought to be able to do based on the settings currently available. It would not be that difficult for a competent programming approach to use the terrain power assessment to determine when the citizen assignements should be rearranged. Not only would this make the game less tedious and more fun, it would also result in a more competent AI and this would reduce the need to rely on imbalanced cost factors and other kluges that we see a great deal.

Improving the governors would indeed be one of the easiest ways to get a better performance out of the AI. When I play a game without all the exploits and dastardly cheap shots, I use the governors to play with the same handicap as the AI. :)

If I can just insert a quick note from a lurker. what you guys have going here is nothing less than amazing. I read the first page, and only got a glimpse of page NINE(!) Before I say anything, I want to promise all participants that I will read EVERY post in this amazing thread. THIS is what I wanted out of CFC. Thumbs way the hell up to you guys!

It seems a bit late to join the festivities, but please let me know if this goes down again. I'd very much like to join in.

@cracker: please forgive any previous outbursts on my part against you. I had no idea. the work you're doing here is amazing. these people have quite the mentor.:goodjob:

I'm going back to page two. excuse me if i vanish for a while, as i have a lot of catching up to do.

OK, so the only condition to micromanage persepolis is when setters go from pop4 to pop2 every six turns. I tried to let persepolis grow to 6 and then bounce 6 to 4. The problem is that I have more sheild per turn than extra food per turn. So my settler will always get built in in three turns and it takes three turns to grow 1 pop. So starting at 6 I end up with 6-4-5-3-4-2 and then I end up building something else to come back up in population. I haven't done the math to see which way produces more settlers. I do think that I get more gold per turn this way though since each square worked gets at least 1gpt, and three get 2gpt. Going this way also eliminates the micromanagement except selecting what to build next. I'm guessing the math will show that micromanagement from 4 to 2 will give an extra settler every sixth settler?

Since I'm at the bottom, maybe this is one of the many reasons why I'm not doing as well as I could.:confused:

EDIT: so what I should do is road but not mine the river squares. Then I could still run the micromanagement of a settler per 6 turns but do it from 6 to 4 instead, gaining the extra gold. Is that right?

If the governers could do what cracker and all you good players do then the key would be to provide the governor with the right combination of worked tiles. I can handle the micromanagement but I think where I'm really lacking is what the right combination of worked tiles are.

I learned from LK that I should never leave a tile without roading it first. And I know that I should have an improved tile for every citizen in my town. I also know that in despotism, never make an improvement that raises what your improving from 2 to 3 because the despot penalty will reduce it back to 2. (Exception: bonus that would be three and has already been reduced to 2 can become 3 with improvement.) Each tile has a starting strength and an improved strength. I know how to prioritize the strongest tiles and improve them first. I think that my problem might be overkill on improvements and wasted worker turns (useless) before their moved to the next town.

What should I look for when deciding to improve? When is it ok to use 2 or 3 worker MOVES (on roads of course) to get to the next town? I hate to leave a city with a potential size of 12 with only a few improved tiles and then have to come back later. But in the case of Persepolis, this could have been the right move.

Originally posted by ControlFreak
...
The problem is that I have more sheild per turn than extra food per turn. So my settler will always get built in in three turns and it takes three turns to grow 1 pop. So starting at 6 I end up with 6-4-5-3-4-2 and then I end up building something else to come back up in population.
...


You needed to build something else that took 3 turns in between.
In my case, I was starting a spear at size 4 and a settler at size 5 so my capitol was oscillating between size 6 and 4. This gave me better research overall. I never had more than one town producing settlers. Population is power, but only close to your capitol. So my most corrupt city was the only one producing workers. My least corrupt city was supposed to supply military but it turned out I was better off building spears in the capitol, so that city started on a wonder instead. Every other city went straight into building improvement, no workers, no military.

I opened up your save file and you are in a decent position. You are holding the key land positions except for one iron and your tiles have sensible improvements. You are lacking in workers, and have too many of them bunched together but that is something that can easily be fixed. I try to have 1 worker for each city, 2 in high food cities, and then 2-3 groups of 2 to build roads between cities. So in that regard I also am lacking workers :)

Hand in there, I think you have the basics well covered.

We are getting some great discussion here and hopefully that will continue.

We should play on an begin uploading the next round of turns with the hope we can finish these turns before the weekend even though we have Thanksgiving week in the US to contend with.

If you have not mastered the upload feature yet, you may have to do this in order to proceed because the 100k limit for direct file attachments may come into play.

The next three save points are:

turn 100: 570bc
turn 110: 370bc
turn 120: 170bc

we should begin to see some radically different game events during these turns because of where we are in the game progression.

continued good luck to all players.

Jaxom - thanks for taking the time to download my game. Your comments were detailed and direct. They will help me a lot.

I think my worker stack thing is a result of having played mostly non-industrious civs. This double speed worker thing is really nice:)

Turns 91 to 100:

Not much to say about those 10 turns, more settlers, more workers, more libraries, some marketplaces started.

[list=1]
750 BC ...
730 BC ...
710 BC ...
690 BC ...
670 BC ...
650 BC ...

630 BC We discover Currency. Research on Map Making is ordered. Library is rushed in Tarsus to bring in another luxury.

610 BC ...

590 BC Hamadan is founded to claim the horses.

570 BC Ergili is founded to complete the claim on the west coast.
[/list=1]


Turns 101 to 110:

[list=1]
550 BC We discover Map Making. Research started on Construction.

530 BC ...
510 BC ...
490 BC ...
470 BC ...

450 BC The Pyramids completes in Arbela.

430 BC Contact made with Egypt and Rome. The first marketplace is online in Persepolis.

410 BC We discover Construction. Research ordered on Polytheism.

390 BC ...

370 BC Dariush Kabir founded to begin filling up the south coast.
[/list=1]

Turns 111 to 120:

[list=1]
350 BC Ghulaman founded far to the NE to claim some gems.

330 BC The Colossus completes in Antioch. We discover Polytheism and enter the Middle Ages. Monotheism is gained for free and research is ordered on Theology. Persepolis starts on the Great Library to trigger our golden age.

310 BC Zohak founded SW of Persepolis on the coast. The library in Ghulaman is rushed to bring in the gems sooner and establish cultural dominance in the area.

290 BC Istakhr founded south of Persepolis, completing the claim of the south coast.

270 BC ...
250 BC ...

230 BC Jinjan founded on the Egyptian continent to claim some wine. This will be my last city unless I can find some spices to grab.

210 BC Library rushed in Jinjan to gain cultural dominance over the wine.

190 BC Embassy established with Egypt and Rome.

170 BC Forbidden Palace completes in Gordium.
[/list=1]

Here are the save games:
570 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC0570.sav)
370 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC0370.sav)
170 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_Jaxom_BC0170.sav)

ControlFreak, the basic idea is to have enough workers to improve tiles as fast as your population grows, and then some for special projects. The industrious trait reduce the number of workers needed but it still better (IMHO) to have workers assigned to each growing city. In my game, Persepolis was without a worker for a very long time since it rarely had more than 6 productive citizens and I had enough improved tiles for size 7.

When your workers are coming out of a high corruption town, there is no such thing as too many workers because workers can be merged back into a city. By 170 BC, my Pasargadae city on the flood plains is producing a worker every 2 turns while staying at size 6. It will do so until all my mainland cities reach size 12.

might not post till nex tweek. :(
see you later!

Turns 91 to 100 - 750bc to 570bc

750 BC (turn 91) – Galley finds an Island? Tarsus builds a Courthouse. Worker out of Arbela.
730 BC (turn 92) – Hooked up furs and glee resounds throughout the land.
710 BC (turn 93) – Library in Pasagardae. MM food/shields to speed settler. Tune down research to save 18 gold.
690 BC (turn 94) – Checked and Hambone has Polytheism available to trade.
670 BC (turn 95) – Library in Persepolis. Worker out of Gordium. Forest cleared near Sidon to speed Horseman next turn. MM food/shields to speed settler from Pasagardae. MM scientist in Tarsus to balance happiness.
650 BC (turn 96) – Settlers out of Pasagardae and Persepfill. Horseman out of Sidon.
630 BC (turn 97) – Salamanca has built the Oracle for us. Forest cleared near Arbela to speed courthouse. Horseman out of Susa. Burn three people to rush Courthouse in Bactra; horseman garrisons to keep order. Burn one person in Tarsus to rush Settler. Pull warrior spying on central Aztecs/Iroqs back to help garrison.
610 BC (turn 98) – Worker out of Pasagardae. Settler out of Tarsus. Courthouse in Bactra. Founded Ghulaman on west coast.
590 BC (turn 99) – Settlers out of Persepolis and Antioch. Trade babs Math + Writing + Contact with Rome for Polytheism. Trade Shaka Math for World Map and 1 gold. Trade Egypt contact with the Babs for 13 gold + a renewed World Map. Burned three citizens in Tyre to get a courthouse in 1 turn.
570 BC (turn 100) – Courthouse in Tyre. Worker out of Gordium. Forest cleared near Persepfill. Burn 1 citizen in Sardis to rush Library.

Turns 101 to 110 - 550bc to 370bc
550 BC (turn 101) – Library in Sardis. Micromanage Persepolis and Susa.
530 BC (turn 102) – Susa builds a horseman. Using my workers to hook up roads to Iroqs and Zulus.
510 BC (turn 103) – Settlers out of Persepolis and Pasagardae head for coast. Workers out of Antioch and Bactra. Micromanage shields in Sidon.
490 BC (turn 104) – Discovered Republic.
470 BC (turn 105) – Found Ishtkar, Jinjan, and Heart on the coasts plus Borazjan near dyes.
450 BC (turn 106) – Two forests harvested near Susa push out a Horseman even in Anarchy.
430 BC (turn 107) –
410 BC (turn 108) –
390 BC (turn 109) – Moved workers to hook up Iron. Recalled Warriors to get ready to upgrade to Immortals.
370 BC (turn 110) – Forests harvested at Persepfill and Gordium. Library completes in Persepfill. Now a Republic to build some cash.

Turns 111 to 120 - 330bc to 170bc
330 BC (turn 112) – Worker out of Ghulaman. Assign Scientists in Samaria. Upgrade 3 warriors to Immortals.
310 BC (turn 113) – Set luxuries to 10% and research to 0% to build some cash.
290 BC (turn 114) – Horseman out of Susa. Workers out of Tarsus and Tyre. Rush Library at Dyes for 108 gold. Road to Dyes complete, need border
270 BC (turn 115) – Forests harvested at Ergli and Arbela. Library at Driush Kabir for Dyes.
250 BC (turn 116) – Courthouse in Arbela. Immortals reach the front lines near Zulus and Iroqs.

The evil Iroquois violate our ROP and attack us without warning. Hiawatha, the idiot attacks our worker who was hooking up roads to his civ so we could trade with him and enlist his feeble aid in the destruction of the Aztec cannibals. Hiawatha attacks and kills one of our horsemen in the open with his warrior. What military genius thought that move up.

230 BC (turn 117) – Discovered Construction and Monotheism. Susa builds settler who heads east. We finally get grass in front of our cave. Trade Zulus Philosophy and Polytheism they give updated World Map, 15 gold, Military alliance vs Hiawatha. Set embassy with the Aztecs. Trade Monty ROP for alliance vs Hiawatha.
210 BC (turn 118) – Marketplace in Persepolis. Spearman out of Tyre. Barracks in Persepfill. Plus we upgrade our cave to a house.
170 BC (turn 120) – Marketplace in Pasagardae. Settler out of Arbela. Immortals capture Cattaraugus and stimulate our Golden Age.

(I'll post links to save games here when I get them uploaded later today.)

I think Jaxom may be running 1 turn ahead of me on the space race regardless what the other power data may indicate. ;)

Finally some action somewhere :)

775 bc (90): NO changes

IBTN: Zulus have maps, we trbce Territory maps.

750 bc (91): Ergili builds warrior start library. Lots of settler and worker movement. MM Capital. Change Pasargbcae to Library. Change Sidon to Library.

730 bc (92): move some settlers and change to couple libraries.

710 bc (93): Antioch builds Temple starts courthouse. Found Zohak to the West, start library.

690 bc (94): Susa builds library start temple. Persopolis builds settler starts another. Missed a trbce opportunity they all have maps now. :(.

670 bc (95): Gordium builds spear starts library. Trbce with Iroquois for Map making.

650 bc (96): Pasargbcae builds library start worker. Tyre builds temple start galley.

630 bc (97): Not much to speak of.

610 bc (98): Arabela builds barracks starts spearman.

590 bc (99): Found Istakhr. Start library.

570 bc (100): Parsepolis completes settler start another.Learn Repulic, start Math due in 4 turns. Parsargbcae starts temple. Revolt and draw 4 turns of anarchy.

550 bc (101): Found JinJan to the far north.

530 BC (102): not much in anarchy.

510 BC (103): see above.

490 BC (104): still waiting. Roads to horses complete.

470 BC (105): zzzz

450 BC (106): Borazian is founded. We Welcome the new republic of Persia.

430 BC (107): Math in 2 with +14 gpt.

390 BC (108): Learn Math start currency, due in 5.

370 BC (109): Build a couple libraries. Persepolis builds settler starts another.

350 BC (110): Continue building more infrastructer than armies. Can trade for polytheism to boost my score for this round but decide the price is too high. Republic I want to hold onto. Don't know how to take this in to account but I think it matters just as much as what the others don't have.

330 BC (111): Pasargadae stars the pyramids. Ergili builds library start galley.

310 BC (112): The settler parade continues. Hurry courthouse in Antioch.

290 BC (113): Antioch builds courthouse starts FP. Learn currency start contstruction.

270 BC (114): Have a horsey, start marketplace. Tarsus builds temple starts market.

250 BC (115): See yellow coastline off the northern coast.

230 BC (116): Sardis builds library starts temple.

210 BC (117): Found Herat to the far north.

190 BC (118): Still no trade for Poly.

170 BC (119): Found Dakyanus. Contact Rome and Egypt they are behind as is expected. Trade contact to get Polytheism.

150 BC (120): Construction next turn. Dyes are now online. Formed 2 more embassies with Rome and Egypt. More libraries coming on soon.

Here are the saves:



570 BC (http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_570BC.zip)
350 BC (http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_350BC.zip)
150 BC (http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_150BC.zip)

710 BC - I acquire map making and a complete world map from the AI civs.

650 BC - Dariush Kabir is formed, another ice city, but will provide some good revenue after a harbor.

630 BC - Ghulaman is formed.

610 BC - Zohak is formed, and starts a temple. This city will give me dyes after a border expansion.

570 BC -
(I) Republic is learned, and the revolt begins. I draw 5 turns of anarchy :(

550 BC- Thank you Shaka, I trade Code of Laws to the Zulu and acquire Mathematics. I move forward in tech despite anarchy.

510 BC - Istakhr is formed, to claim horses. It is next to the Iroquois city, but I doubt I will suffer a culture flip at Warlord level. This will be the last city until the revolt is over.

470 BC -
(I) Anarchy is over, and the Persian Republic is formed.

450 BC - First Contact - I have located Egypt. [dance]
Horseback riding gets me tm and $11.
Polytheism gets me wm and contact with Rome.
There is just 1 civ left to find.
I establish embassies with both civs.
Horseback riding gets me $59, wm from Rome.
These civs are so backwards that they haven't even started any wonders.

390 BC - I hurry the temple at Zohak. It pretty much leaves me out of cash, but dyes will be on-line shortly. Long term I will come ahead as I should be able to keep luxuries lower. Furs are connected to the road net.

230 BC - Well, I guess it happens even at warlord - the AI beats me my next city site by 2 turns.


Summary - I can see missing the Space Race target at first has put me behind as there are some libraries already built by some players much earlier then mine. :( I never would have done the 40 turn poly play if I realized Space Race. Jaxom has a significant tech lead.


I need only 5 more turns to hit the middle ages.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-570BC.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-370BC.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1-LKENDTER-170BC.zip

Hotrod,

You selectively skipped 410bc and that has thrown you one turn off cycle to match everyone else. [punch]

I'll try to compensate appropriately in the data summaries.

Your date count adjust ment should put you at 270bc for turn 110 and 170bc for turn 120.

Unless I play at lightning speed at lunch today Round 12 probably won't submit until Tuesday. I'll be out of town til then.

Round 10:
(90 775bc Tarsus changed to pyramids. Parsar changed to spear. Sardis to worker. Sidon to warrior.)
91 750 Phil done, repub ord. Susa settler, ord barracks. Sidon warrior, ord worker. Tyre warrior, ord worker. 70/10 reb in 18 with scientist in arbela. AI all have writing. Need phil, code, map and lit.
92 730 Arbela blt lib ord court. Antioch blt worker ord same. Lux 70/10 +0 gpt for pers happiness.
93 710 Persep blt settler ord same.
94 690 Samaria founded N of Susa.
95 670 Susa blt spear, order settler. Iro discover mapmaking. Trade it to all others for their WM and TM. (Gift)
96 650 Antioch blt worker ord same. Tyre blt worker ord spear. Discover Rome. Trade Literature and TM for WM and contact with egypt. Trade Egypt TM for WM and 12g. Perse blt settler ord same. Sardis blt worker ord same.
97 630 normal moves.
98 610 Iro threaten us for roman contact. No way.Hamadan founded SE of iron. order worker.
99 590 Parsar blt galley, ord Susa blt settler, ord spear. Settler sent to delta NE of Susa. Galley sent to Eastern cove for transport.
100 570 Antioch blt worker, ord spear. Whip lib in bactra. Science set to 90 -7gpt repub in 7.

Round 11
Turns 101-110:
101 550 Persep blt settler, ord settler. Bactra blt lib, ord worker. Sidon blt worker ord spear.
102 530 Whip Arbela court with 3 civs. Hire scientist. Sci 90/0 -9gpt reb in 3. Gordium changed to barracks. Babs discovered phil. aztecs discover code of laws. Zulus have math, we need. Give them code, phil, TM and 26g. Give code to babs for WM and TM. Ergili founded on delta N or Susa. Goody hut spotted on Rome continent.
103 510 Gordium blt court ord settler.
104 490 Parsar blt spear, ord spear. Susa blt spear ord settler.
105 470 normal moves. Sci to 50 repub next turn. Trade TM to Rome for 8g.
106 450 Republic done, ord currency for banks. Revolt at advisor request. 3 turn anarchy. Gordium revolts from the whipping. Scroll ahead to fix Arbela and Bactra from their whips. Darius Kabir founded in desert. Ord court but no sheilds available.
107 430 Gordium restored. Eygpt start Great Lib. Persep hires entertainer for anarchy.
108 410 Gualaman founded in flood plain n of incense. Ord lib. Literature to zulu for 26g and WM. Everyone else needs it still.
109 390 Repub selected. 40/10 currency in 9 still. entertainer in gordium and scientist in bactra from whipping.
110 370 Perse blt settler, ord settler. Tyre blt spear ord Colossus. This city will have lots of commerce tiles with the river and coast. Hope we can beat Aztecs who have been working on this for a while. Planning on war with Aztecs for their gems. Maybe twenty turns from now. If we take gem city, they may abandon colosus. Otherwise, take them out altogether. They're so backwards. MM Arbela to sheild to get settler out fast and reduce unhappy civs. MM Susa to use gold mine without wasting food on growth turn. MM Bactra to use newly irrigated wheat. This will have +4 food per turn. Pyramids due in 52. Granary would take 29 here so just keep making settlers and wait. Hopefully I get GP. No one else is building it.
Setup to Transport 2 settlers to other side of cove in 3 turns with galley. That should be our outskirts towards zulu. He's now cautious and we better fortify these cities with a lot of troops. We should get incense and dyes online in the next couple turns which should allow reasearch back to at least 50%/0lux%.

Sorry about round 12. I'll do what I can.
HA1_ControlFreak_BC570.SAV and HA1_ControlFreak_BC370.SAV zipped (Http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_ControlFreak_BC370.zip)

I had a 170BC autosave. It was at the start of the turns so I replayed the best I could and I think my overall outcome for turn 120 is the same.

Here is the new 170BC save:

The correct save 170BC (http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/ha1_hotrod_170BC.zip)

In my shadow game I fell into the same trap that others did, not watching the object of the game, Space Race. By 170BC I had been in Monarchy for a while, researched Feudalism, met 7 civs, won my first war, hooked 5 luxuries and had to back track to research Republic now. Moved my palace, got Pyramids, and about 8 turns from Sun Tzu (it's that war mongering in me, 15 Immortals,18 warrior MP, 6 spears, 14 workers), working on the Great Library to prevent others, working on the Great Lighthouse to prevent others, working on Hanging Gardens to aid happiness. A number of Libraries and marketplaces and about 20 cities. I'm in Golden Age so research is only 4 turns but I will have to wait to switch to Republic now and any early gains will be lost on the govern'mental' two step. Dooh!

With QSC-c1 - Cracker's 1st open Quick Start coming up I can't keep two of these type of games going.

My interest in this game really died when I realized way to late about the space race objective - I can never make up the 40 turn play for poly.

My current turns submitted are my last.

I've seen a lot of comments here about getting all off track by not knowing the intended victory condition was space race. My question is, what difference does it make? It's only the start of Middle Ages! Specifically, how would it have impacted your ancient era choices?

Culture win and diplo benefit greatly by early focus, as far as early culture and avoiding ticking off people, respectively. But through Chivarly or throughout Middle Ages, I don't see any real difference betwen all the other victory conditions. For a space race on difficulty this low it's not like you're going to be trailing in tech - if you're behind there you can easily beat the tech out of your neighbors :hammer:

Unlike culture, where early temples are crucial, the date at which you build a library or university doesn't matter, once its built you get the same visit whether old or new. The middle ages path is so similar for most victory paths - aim for a well timed GA, snag the best wonders, build up infrastructure, five banks and 1000 in capital, and solve any global inequities with Cavalry.

This isn't a critique, I'm genuinely wondering how finding out late about a space race makes any difference here? :confused:

Charis

Don't worry Lee, my intent is with you and although I have played up to about 600AD already, I will advocate to stop the detailed tracking of this game after the 170bc data gets posted.

The main intent of this game was to provide handyandy some detailed support for basic gameplay skill in the openning sequences. Since he has basically stopped playing we have enough example information here for him to spend several weeks just playing with the save files and trying to get his basic skills on par with lifesupport.

Warlord games pose little challenge for most players who have read threads like this or the basic strategy articles and it is really frustrating to be in a game that is so severely handicapped by the combination of hardcoded trading faux pas plus the cost factor that renders all the AI players incapable of palying or trading anywhere near the human levels.

I think this has been a great example game for us to put on the record for other players and I hope people will continue to refer to it as an example. I also thank you and everyone else for participating on such a dilligent and professional level.

Charis,

I think the comments you see are just reflecting the fact that this game is right at the beginning of the Medieval age but the outcome is already determined.

At this point, Jaxom will launch the spaceship in 1 turn before I would be able to Launch the ship unless our duration periods for anarchy transitioning from Republic to Democracy randomly draw as different numbers.

Lee's decision to do a 40 turn magical mystery tour into cash is virtually unrecoverable in space ship time because the Warlord AI's are too stupid and too slow to help with any portion of the scientific research.

Basically on this game level, everything is just a horserace to see who can get up the required portions of the tech tree at 4 turns per tech and the minimum anarchy spin to get into democracy.

The targeted early victory condition is important in that different branches in strategy would definately show as radically different approaches. Lee's 40 play is great example of a choice that does not support the quick victory objective at this warlord level.

The theory is that the research differential will be hard to make up (those that concentrated on early research versus those that built up cash instead.) Since this is warlord, you can't rely on any of the AIs to research for you, so any turns where you were not doing research are relatively hard to catch up on. HOWEVER, this assumes that you are approaching the 4-turn limit for tech. If that's not true, an advantage in territory/population will more than compensate for any early research sub-optimal moves.

Lee, I don't recall this being a competition! :) You might as well stick it out and see what you can learn. You are already in a pretty good position relative to most of the other players anyway, despite the tech mix-up, so you might as well keep going. I have a feeling you will be able to catch up most of the way regardless due to a strong economy. You might not be able to catch all the way up to Jaxom or Cracker but you should still make a strong showing.

Originally posted by Charis


This isn't a critique, I'm genuinely wondering how finding out late about a space race makes any difference here? :confused:

Charis

In a warlord game you don't have the same challenges going for early republic (as we may be used to) and is the better government for quick research. Once you get your research up to 4 turns a tech the other civs will never really aid your cause at warlord level later in the game, even if your gifting to them along the way. (well they might a bit but I'd rather keep it simple and beat them out of contention. :))

I think that really if you want a quick space ship launch (on warlord) you would just research right to literature so you can get some libraries on line and then fill in the gaps to get republic. May not be right but that's what I would have done rather than go for monarchy which is a great ancient warmonger government but not really required when the AI has it hands tied behind it's back. I doubt either of us are used to playing this level ;)

@Zed-F

Well there is another factor hear - BOREDOM.
There is a reason why I started a deity game -
even emperor has lost some of the excitement.

I'm back!

My turns from 775bc to 170bc

Lots happened here, but I won't write a timeline. Just write the main stuff. Mw worker count is now 13-14!! Hooray!! I am going to build Pyramids and Forbidden Palace in under 10 turns, I've been mainly building cities, workers and spearmen. I've built cities near luxeries, like gems, and furs to capture them, and am working towards getting roads to them. One city is just building a library to let the cultural borders expand over some dyes!

I'm researching Republic, and after will discover Mathematics. I can also see some land to the NW! Building a galley to explore it. If I'm the first to do so, I'll get the money from it, not the AI. So it's essential I get there first! Maybe with a settler too.

I see you've explored that bit already cracker! :eek:

If there are any more tips to improve my gameplay, they would be welcome. I am trying to beat the game at Regent, as the Babylonians and it's going O.K, but it could be better. Maybe if I built more workers!! It just seems that only more workers don't make a great difference though compared to your score (about 3,000 above mine!! :eek: :eek:)

Keep the tips coming!!!!! :goodjob:

Download my Save-Games in a zip (254kb) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/jamesds170bc.zip)

Regardless of difficulty level, I believe Republic is the only government worth switching too, unless your civ is religious. It is the only switch that provides a significant increase in commerce, thus allowing more research or more gold depending on your need. Even Democracy is rarely worth the switch.

I would be curious to see the final result Cracker as I don't intend to switch to Democracy. I think if you would go the way of democracy, I would beat you by at least 10 turns to the spaceship. I also don't intent to build more cities past my 170 BC save point. Maybe a couple to better fill out the first ring around the FP and a couple more to claim the 2 luxuries I don't have, but then only if I don't have to fight for the spots.

Playng at this diffilculty level made me realize something rather disturbing. The AI is not worst or better based on difficulty, the AI simply doesn't know how to play the game, at any level. It's a shame really, I can only dream of how good the game would be if the AI would use even the most basic strategies.

JaxomCA, problem with Republic on higher levels (emp. and up) is if your stuck with meager resources you have to funnel too much taxes towards luxuries to keep afloat. Compound that with some major military efforts and there can sure be games when Republic should come after Monarchy. Guess it depends on how you play the game though, seems like when there is a will there is a way.

i am not very good

i'm worst...

Well, I'm planning on a switch to Democracy, because it cuts down on corruption even further, therefore, hopefully (based on how many cities you have) raising your science rate!

Cartouche, if you are making so little commerce that Republic would leave you short for cash, then Monarchy will not be any help either, specially if you plan some major military effort. Granted Monarchy will allow 3 MP per city for crowd control, but in most of your city you will have only 2 units supported for free, so you end up paying support for you offensive force. On top of that, since you don't have enough commerce to keep your population happy, you don't have enough commerce to rush improvement either. You would be better off in Despotism in that case, with 2 MPs, 4 free units per city and you can pop-rush. The only time I would go for Monarchy would be with a religious civ if I was lucky enough to acquire the 3 requisites to Monarchy before I am done with my first couple of research projects.

James, acquiring Democracy on your own will cost at least 8 turns of research, plus 3-8 turns of Anarchy, most likely on the 8 side if you have enough cities to justify Democracy. If you built your Forbidden palace in a sensible place and have built your courthouses, you will not get enough reduced corruption to be worth it. Agains, unless you are religious and can buy democracy for obsolete tech, then it it worth the switch.

I see Jaxom, my Forbidden Palace is about 5-6 squares away, is that O.K? To build it far away it's hard, with so much corruption!!

Here is the power graph for the save game date up through 170bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/power_graph_170bc_new.jpg

(this graph does not include the last three save games for Borealis of the 170bc data for controlfreak.)

The period between 570 and 370 bc was dominated by transitions from Despotism to Republic for most players. Jaxom beat us all into Republic by at least 12 turns and James is still at least 12 turns away.

Here are the three graphs specializing in Units, Infrastructure, and Population:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/units_graph_170bc.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/infra_graph_170bc.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/population_graph_170bc.jpg

Some things you will note:

1) Jaxom gets a huge infrastructure surge from the Pyramids in 470bc since he gained granaries in 14 new towns all in one stroke. The impact of this jump may be different in the long run because Jaxom has virtually stopped expanding by 170bc and is focusing on infrastructure, units, and internal growth to sustain his research run at the space shuttle.

2) James is dying the slow death of too few workers, too few people, and no infrastucture to support growth, happiness, culture or research. Every other player is in Republic nad kicking out techs at 1 per 4 turns and James has no libraries in any city and is researching new techs a 1 per 10 to 12 turns.

3) look at the units graph together with the infrastructure graph to see the impact of the outbreak of hostilities between cracker and the treacherous Iroqs. Shifting shields from infrastructure to military units is restructuring the power balance.

4) You can compare the two lines for Jaxom and Cracker to see the impact of two different strategy decisions. Jaxom is has built the FP 6 tiles away from his palace and is letting population in many cities climb above 7 uniformly. Cracker is still expanding and pulling out workers with most towns in the 4 to 6 pop range and only one or two larger towns. The growth rate of population at 7 and above is 1/2 the growth rate between 4 to 6 pop points.

The QSC scoring formula rewards you for the Forbidden Palace based on the distance between the FP and your Palace.

Jaxom has already built his FP in a town that is 6 tiles away from his Palace and several other players are working on the FP.

The Palace define the center of a set of concentric rings of productivity and corruption that radiate out across your empire. How wide these rings are will depend on the difficulty level and map size/Optimal City Number (OCN) that your play. Smaller maps will have smaller radiuses while larger maps will allow larger radiuses.

The FP defines the center point of a second set of rings of power. When the FP and Palace are close together there can be a great deal of overlap of the effects. When the FP and Palace are far apart each ring of power has its maximum but almost independent effect.

Having the FP rewards you with internal jumps in cash and production but the scoring formula only gives you 15 additional points for each terrain square that you are away from the palace.

On a map of this size the value of the FP will continue to go up substantially as the distance increases but as James has observed build the FP by hand goes way up as the distance gets out beyond 9 ot 10 tiles.

The power of the FP continued to go up out to distances of about 15 tile on this map size.

As Cartouche Bee has already observed, this map was a primo example of a situation where you could build a town immediately next to Persepolis and then build the FP right there. The location of this town would probably have been ideal just two steps North-Northeast. You build the FP while you use Persepolis to keep cranking out settlers and workers at the max rate and then pick a new future palace location way off in the boonies to make sure you get the population of that new town way up in first place by any means possible. Because food production is uncorrupted and because you can use the Pyramids to throw a granary out the far reaches of your empire, you can often build a huge frontire city by growth and adding workers. Then you collapse Persepolis by rush building a couple of extra settlers and "Wala!!" your palace jumps away from the FP by 10 to 15 tiles of distance.

James,

The missing elements in your game so far are not related to the FP.

Look at you Pasagardae town again in the 570bc save and you will see another example of settler fixation. In that example you are wasting enough shields that you could have built half a library or an extra spearman. If you are doing this regularly in the game it causes your settlers to cost an average of 40+ shields instead of 30 and this is one of the reasons you are lagging so far behind.

Look closely at the balance of shield and food production in towns that will produce workers or settlers because there are two conditions that must be met in order for these units to come out. A town must have a population of 3 and a shield bin of 30 shields in order to produce a settler. If you have a town a pop 1 that is producing 4 shields per turn and only 2 extra food per town with no granary, it will take 20 turns to grow the food for the settler and only 8 turns to build the shields. If you do this you will waste 8 to 12 turns of shields at 4 shields per turns which would be 32 to 48 shields out the window.

Your save files have already shown this problem twice in two different years so you have to be doing this a lot in order to get this problem.

Look closely to fix this management issue and it will really boost your game.

Actually I did not build a FP, in the BC's. I popped my palace north 6 squares by rushing at settler from Persepolis at an appropriate time to disband the city and take advantage of my growth. The Palace popped north to a city that I had prepped with population as a new capitol and then I reestablished Persepolis with the settler that was rushed. This allowed me to get some production out all that flood plain now that the palace was more centered in my developed area, this is much quicker than building a FP (but this is a banned thing if you play in the Epics, sorry). Since the jungle to the north would take too long to develop I would have probably expand out to the east between the Iroquois and the Zulu's and then formed another nucleolus out in that area. I like to get my palaces in the center of fertile land formations so that you can maximize the palaces effect.

Guess who donated us a great leader leader during the assault on their capital in 70bc (turn 125)? :beer:

James, it is not hard to build the forbidden palace but it does require patience. The FP is 200 shields so even at only 2 shields per turn it is only 100 turns to build it. If you plan on doing a lot of warfare, it is usually best to build your FP near your capitol and then move your palace with a leader gained from the wars.

I often build my FP on the site of an enemy capitol but I had no intentions to do warfare in this game. My location is not ideal but the fact that it was built so early should more than compensate for that fact. I built it where I did because I had no plans to get more cities than what I already had by 170 BC. It turned out that I had quite a few cities in the jungle so building the FP further north would have been better but it would not have made on a difference on my final result, except to delay the spaceship launch by many turns.

As for moving the Palace by disbanding the capitol, it is considered exploitative of the game in many circles, including most high skill deity players, because you get something from nothing.

I have played the game to its conclusion. From the 170 BC save point, my launch date can be beaten by 10 turns at most. 2 techs were researched in 5 turns instead of 4 to have cash to rush the research buildings. 2 optional techs were researched (sanitation, economics) which may or may not have helped researching all Modern times techs in 4 turns each. The spaceship was launched on the same turn the Laser was discovered.

Edit: make that 14 turns, my free tech for industrial era was Nationalism, an optional tech. With luck someone could get Steam Power or Medecine instead.

650 BC: Traded Math + 24 gold for Map Making from Hammurabi.

630 BC: Founded Sardis on the horses, and started a temple there.

Interturn: Trade Map Making for Philosophy + Territory Map + 2 gold from Shaka. Start research on Republic.

590 BC: Samaria founded near dyes in jungle.

530 BC: The Pyramids are completed in Persepolis. :)
Hamadan founded.

510 BC: Arbela builds a library.

490 BC: The Aztecs have Polytheism, but lack Writing and Math. No one else has it, so they won't trade it for anything.

470 BC: Persepolis builds library and is microed to stop growing until I get more lux and a marketplace- at size 9, it's large
enough. Ergili founded.

390 BC: Forbidden Palace built in Susa.

370 BC: I'm one turn away from Republic, and so I micro cities to avoid disorder when I revolt.

350 BC: Republic is discovered interturn and anarchy begins!

270 BC: We are now a Republic!

250 BC: Persepolis builds Marketplace; starts Courthouse prebuild for Colosseum. Arbela builds Temple; starts Marketplace.

230 BC: Cleo met; I trade her my World Map and Math for contact with the Romans and Territory Map. Caesar trades me his World
Map + 35 gold for Mathematics before Cleo can give it to them. Neither of them have contact with the other civs on the map, and
both lack Literature and The Republic.

210 BC: Library built in Susa; Marketplace started. I trade Territory Map for Shaka's Territory Map + 20 gold, repeating the same deal with Hammurabi and Montezuma. I hurry a temple in Sardis for 164 gold, a steep price, but needed to keep the horses and stop it from flipping.

190 BC: Sardis builds Temple and starts a Library.

Looking back, I realize that I should have hurried a cheaper library in Sardis before a Temple :blush: but there's not much else I did that was noteworthy. Sorry about the delay in posting this- I started to post it and had to run out the door before I could finish it on Wednesday.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA10_Borealis_bc570.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA11_Borealis_bc370.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA10_Borealis_bc170.sav

This is all very helpful, but will my score be permanently bottom, or is there ANY way to grow? I'm just not a great player, the whole reason I came here in the first place!!

James is dying the slow death of too few workers, too few people, and no infrastucture to support growth, happiness, culture or research. Every other player is in Republic nad kicking out techs at 1 per 4 turns and James has no libraries in any city and is researching new techs a 1 per 10 to 12 turns.

Hmm, what about settlers? Cities are also improtant though, but I guess I'd rather have done it your way, is it really possible to get a library while waiting for the city to grow for a settler??

James, one thing I have learned through many games is to coordinate your efforts. Build military from a city with a baracks and move them around to the others, build settlers (or workers) from cities with food bonuses, build libraries or temples in cities that aren't doing the first 2. And don't neglect the worker actions, try to make sure all the city workers are using improved squares. There are some very good info in Sirians Training Day game on all these subjects as well as the TDG by Sullla, and Lee.

Hotrod

cracker: are you posting another data, charts, maps etc? or should we be on to the next 3 save points?

Hotrod

Finally my 12th round.

Turns 111-120
121 350 parsar blt spear order spear. Antioch blt spear ord lib. Bactra blt worker ord settler. Sardis blt worker ord lib. embassy w zulu. their oracle in 46. iron and ivory.
122 330 susa blt sestt, ord barracks. This will be military. Trade Tm for WMs.
123 310 Ergli blt worker ord spear. Egypt building oracle.
124 290 Persep blt sett ord temple. Aztecs building oracle. Aztecs blt colossus. Tyre switch to lib. Romans foudn Ravenna on our penisula.
125 270 Parsargae blt, ord spear. Zohak founded on E of cove. ord lib.
126 250 Hanaman blt spear ord barracks. samaria blt settler ord worker. sci 20/20 +14 currency in 1.
127 230 Order construction. Arbella order market. Iskahr on SE coast. sci 40/10 constr in 9.
128 210 Ergili changed to lib. Moves towards border towns.
129 190 Parsargae blt spear starts another. Tyre blt library start GL as prebuild for Sun Tsus. Embassy with rome for 51g. They have 5spt working toward Great library in 84. 3 spices and 2 spears in capital. Their 100% sci, have no improvements in capital.
130 170 Lumberjacking goes toward Zolak lib. Susa blt spear order another. Zulu are building GLib.

HA1_ControlFreak_BC170.zip (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA1_ControlFreak_BC170.zip)

Not to many posts recently. Everything OK?

Cracker, one request. Can we see the tables for the savegames please? I like to see what I've lost in to see how and what to improve in! If not, just put the files themselves on the server for downlaod.

Thanks!!

I know that most players joined QSC1 - Irritated Mao. Also Cracker is running GOTM (congratulations, thanks for taking over?).

Is this thread dead or did I miss something? No posts in 6 days.:( I know the outcome is decided but I was still interested in learning how the space race strategy continues through the other ages. Also wondering if unexpected war can change the "predetermined" outcome.

I will still try and update the final data table if time permits.

My civ task load has increased 10x in teh past two weeks.

I think that some players may wish to continue playing to test other theories but the difficulty level at Warlord really is too low to spur an real game challenges beyond this point in time.

You may wish to use this game as a foundation for a "best ball" type succession game that will continue if you can recruit enough interest or you could use the save files that already exist to recruit some more warlord players for a "shot gun start" where all the new recruits get to pick the game that they take over for and proceed from there.

Good luck,

Thanks for all your help. The work you put in to teach the game is awesome. I'm looking forward to joining your next Training Session (at regent, or even higher!?!?!)

When does QSC2 begin?

Good luck meeting all of your civ commitments. Your plate sure did get full!

Yeah, I think I'll leave now, it was a great time though, and you really did a great job cracker!! All those graphics, tables, WOW!!!! You're a great mentor, and I'm glad you're doing GOTM!

THANKS!!!!!!!!
:goodjob: !!!

Clear you calendar to make time to play GOTM15-Russia starting on January 1st and plan ahead to play the Qsc15 that will accompany that game on the same map.

You will get two competition opportunities out of playing one game and with your previous experience in QSC type games you should be able to do well (with practice ;) )