ALC Game 17, Take 2: Russia/Peter (BtS)
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
settle in place!! great starting location and plains hill!! the crab can be grabbed by an island city.. MUCH better than it sounds given the moai heads wonder. a 1-2 tile island becomes a production monster with it.
with that many forests, if you see stone nearby (hell even if you dont) I would think REALLY hard about using up some of those on the great wall. an early great spy can really work over an opponent... infiltrate whoever is or is going to be the tech leader, you'll be able to see everything they do and once you get to alphabet you can start filching techs from them.
suggested tech would be fishing, BW, masonry
build warrior, workboat, worker, warrior, chop/whip settler, great wall.
i have noticed a LOT of tech pops off of huts while playing BtS monarch.. maybe you'll get lucky in that department.
or do something completely different, thats just been my early opening lately so I'm a bit fond of it. if you can get the barbs off your back it gives you time to get chariots or axes in place and expand over land before the AI becomes a threat.
NaZ
with that many forests, if you see stone nearby (hell even if you dont) I would think REALLY hard about using up some of those on the great wall. an early great spy can really work over an opponent... infiltrate whoever is or is going to be the tech leader, you'll be able to see everything they do and once you get to alphabet you can start filching techs from them.
suggested tech would be fishing, BW, masonry
build warrior, workboat, worker, warrior, chop/whip settler, great wall.
i have noticed a LOT of tech pops off of huts while playing BtS monarch.. maybe you'll get lucky in that department.
or do something completely different, thats just been my early opening lately so I'm a bit fond of it. if you can get the barbs off your back it gives you time to get chariots or axes in place and expand over land before the AI becomes a threat.
NaZ
Longtime reader and lurker of these threads checking in!
One thing you might want to consider is by what time would you be able to take advantage of this many seafood.
By rough count, after lighthouse you'd have +19 food at this spot without doing any irrigation! This means 9.5 specialists/plains hills you can work on this surplus, which puts you at a population of 15.5. Unless you go for monarchy and use HR heavily, there's no way your happiness cap is going to reach that high before Renaissance.
Much like you would consider splitting floodplains at an overabundant start. I would recommend splitting up the seafood. If you settle where the scout is, you'd be able to get 2 seafood and a corn for a surplus for +8. Plenty to work gold hill (-2), plains hillx2 (-4), and grassland hillx2(-2), at size 8. That sounds like a pretty damn solid capital to me! And you free up three seafood to make an awesome second city site with production potential similar to your first! (assuming those are grassland hills on the far east fog, and not mountain peaks)
Whereas if you hog all the seafood for your capital in its current spot, it looks like there will be dry land to your southwest, and I'm not sure you are guaranteed food to support those plains without having to do wasteful irrigation.
Of course, settling at the current spot will make an unbelievably fast start in terms of worker and settler production, which might be worth more than all these other considerations. So, moving is just a suggestion I'm throwing out there.
One thing you might want to consider is by what time would you be able to take advantage of this many seafood.
By rough count, after lighthouse you'd have +19 food at this spot without doing any irrigation! This means 9.5 specialists/plains hills you can work on this surplus, which puts you at a population of 15.5. Unless you go for monarchy and use HR heavily, there's no way your happiness cap is going to reach that high before Renaissance.
Much like you would consider splitting floodplains at an overabundant start. I would recommend splitting up the seafood. If you settle where the scout is, you'd be able to get 2 seafood and a corn for a surplus for +8. Plenty to work gold hill (-2), plains hillx2 (-4), and grassland hillx2(-2), at size 8. That sounds like a pretty damn solid capital to me! And you free up three seafood to make an awesome second city site with production potential similar to your first! (assuming those are grassland hills on the far east fog, and not mountain peaks)
Whereas if you hog all the seafood for your capital in its current spot, it looks like there will be dry land to your southwest, and I'm not sure you are guaranteed food to support those plains without having to do wasteful irrigation.
Of course, settling at the current spot will make an unbelievably fast start in terms of worker and settler production, which might be worth more than all these other considerations. So, moving is just a suggestion I'm throwing out there.
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
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Oh yeah. About speed: personally I haven't played BTS Epic because of a bug in the spy missions to forment unhappiness and poison water (thread.) On Normal it's -8 happy or health, with the effect decaying by 1 per turn. The bug is that that on Epic it's -12, decaying by 1 per turn. It's an imbalance that they overlooked. On Marathon it's grossly unbalanced (-24 decaying by 1 per turn), but on Epic it's still pretty reasonable. By all means, you should just finish this game however you want.
viinno
Chieftain
kniteowl you muppet, it is not possible to settle 1NE, unless of course sisiutil has devolped the ability to settle underwater cities.
But definatly 1NW
But definatly 1NW
Porphyrius
Warlord
First of all, the scout really should be moved to the grass hill NW of the gold, so an estimate can be made on the quality of a later city grabing the gold.
Are you teasing us?
As things show, however, i'd settle in place : fresh water, a +1
plain hill to settle on and way to many forest to count cant really be offset by a single gold.
To those suggesting working the gold ASAP, remember its a 0
tile. The city has to grow a bit to work it without sacrifising growth rate(size 3 most likely), and since fishing has to be researched before boats start being produced reaching a good growth rate will take a while.
Besides sea tile esp coast give quite a
boost this early.
A cottage city usually involves river grass or FP. Maybe with this location wicth looks ideal for fast growth a conqured rivals capital will solve such problems.
Research fishes first btw.
A patch out allready... With all the bits and pieces figures... I'd better go grab it. Hope it fixes the spy
and 
issues for poor marathon speed addicts like me.
Are you teasing us?
As things show, however, i'd settle in place : fresh water, a +1
plain hill to settle on and way to many forest to count cant really be offset by a single gold.To those suggesting working the gold ASAP, remember its a 0
tile. The city has to grow a bit to work it without sacrifising growth rate(size 3 most likely), and since fishing has to be researched before boats start being produced reaching a good growth rate will take a while.Besides sea tile esp coast give quite a
boost this early.A cottage city usually involves river grass or FP. Maybe with this location wicth looks ideal for fast growth a conqured rivals capital will solve such problems.
Research fishes first btw.
A patch out allready... With all the bits and pieces figures... I'd better go grab it. Hope it fixes the spy
and issues for poor marathon speed addicts like me.this is just my opinion, but I would strongly consider going into the espionage xml file and editing the duration that poision water and forment unhappiness last. I adjust them per game speed for each game. I leave it at 3 for marathon which translates to 9 unhappy for 9 turns because it scales with speed. for epic its only double, but on a city that would be 16!!! for 16 turns.
edit it to 4 for each and you'll be fine.
NaZ
for 16 turns.edit it to 4 for each and you'll be fine.
NaZ
rtfischbeck
Chieftain
My vote is to move the settler 1nw in order to make use of the gold. Gold in the capitol is too good to pass up considering that you don't really lose much other than a turn. You could put a second city there, but strategic resources usually are more important for your second city; so it' d have to be the third, and that's lots of lost turns of gold funded research, or unit upkeep if you have a close neighbor.
For research i'd go fishing, ag, mining, then either BW or AH.
For research i'd go fishing, ag, mining, then either BW or AH.
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
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I think you have to decide what kind of game you want to play, and work backwards from there.
PHI/EXP is a great combo for a one city challenge. On top of that, you've got a lot of small green wooden pyramids that you can convert into a big brown stone one.
You can have additional fun working out the timing of your scout & fishing boat builds, because the extra hammer skews the normal counts around.
Downchecks - you don't have a strategic resource in your fat cross (not a peak - just too many trees).
On the other hand, if you want to play a normal game, then you really need to split the food into two cities - I think I see some grassland hills in the shadows to the east.
In that case, I'd actually be targeting the capital for where the scout now stands. That's two turns the shortest way, so I would run the settler into the forest west of the corn on turn 1, and run the scout to the grassland hill. If nothing interesting turned up, I still have two more scout moves and one more settler move before I'm committed.
My plan would be to settle in place, with the intent of picking up the gold with an early satellite city. The gold will be fed by the crabs, and until the happiness issue is settled the clams can be shared. Since the clams and crab will be coming under the influence of the capitals culture soon enough, you likely won't need to worry about culture in the fishing village for a while.
I'm not expecting to have many land based improvements for a while, so I'm not too worried about defending them. I might well just grab archery, which will cover the cities and the mines, and punt the rest.
The normal procedure would be to grow as fast as possible to size two - that would give you 22 hammers, and then 6 hammers per turn after that until the boat is finished. 22 hammers is precisely what you need for a warrior or a scout.
So relatively normal plays are to build the scout/warrior until turn 11, then build the boat, which is ready on turn 19, with three hammers of overflow.
A second possibility is to put the boat at the top of the queue before the initial unit is trained - the boat is fast enough that you lose nothing in decay (somebody should check this). That actually moves the boat up by a turn, without costing you anything but time for your first unit. If your first unit is a warrior, the marginal cost is pretty small.
Of course, the borders will have popped by the time Fishing is discovered, so you can also get the boat done in 9 turns by running no food surplus at size 1. At a cost of 32 food (plus a hammer per turn until you make up the deficit), you could instead run totally on hammers for the first 9 turns, allowing you to complete a unit on turn 5, and another on turn 9.
You need 34 hammers invested to whip a worker. With a 25% bonus, the sweet spot is population 3 - two plains hills and the fish nets you 10 hammers +1 food per turn. If you go Fishing, Bronze Working, that comes in right around turn 30. Three turns back from there is 27. Plenty of time. Note that to arrange the overflow, you'll probably want to train a unit that finishes on the proper turn, and may consequently need to sink some hammers into a building to get the timing just right.
postscript:Agriculture? Not any time soon, I shouldn't think.
PHI/EXP is a great combo for a one city challenge. On top of that, you've got a lot of small green wooden pyramids that you can convert into a big brown stone one.
You can have additional fun working out the timing of your scout & fishing boat builds, because the extra hammer skews the normal counts around.
Downchecks - you don't have a strategic resource in your fat cross (not a peak - just too many trees).
On the other hand, if you want to play a normal game, then you really need to split the food into two cities - I think I see some grassland hills in the shadows to the east.
In that case, I'd actually be targeting the capital for where the scout now stands. That's two turns the shortest way, so I would run the settler into the forest west of the corn on turn 1, and run the scout to the grassland hill. If nothing interesting turned up, I still have two more scout moves and one more settler move before I'm committed.
My plan would be to settle in place, with the intent of picking up the gold with an early satellite city. The gold will be fed by the crabs, and until the happiness issue is settled the clams can be shared. Since the clams and crab will be coming under the influence of the capitals culture soon enough, you likely won't need to worry about culture in the fishing village for a while.
I'm not expecting to have many land based improvements for a while, so I'm not too worried about defending them. I might well just grab archery, which will cover the cities and the mines, and punt the rest.
The normal procedure would be to grow as fast as possible to size two - that would give you 22 hammers, and then 6 hammers per turn after that until the boat is finished. 22 hammers is precisely what you need for a warrior or a scout.
So relatively normal plays are to build the scout/warrior until turn 11, then build the boat, which is ready on turn 19, with three hammers of overflow.
A second possibility is to put the boat at the top of the queue before the initial unit is trained - the boat is fast enough that you lose nothing in decay (somebody should check this). That actually moves the boat up by a turn, without costing you anything but time for your first unit. If your first unit is a warrior, the marginal cost is pretty small.
Of course, the borders will have popped by the time Fishing is discovered, so you can also get the boat done in 9 turns by running no food surplus at size 1. At a cost of 32 food (plus a hammer per turn until you make up the deficit), you could instead run totally on hammers for the first 9 turns, allowing you to complete a unit on turn 5, and another on turn 9.
You need 34 hammers invested to whip a worker. With a 25% bonus, the sweet spot is population 3 - two plains hills and the fish nets you 10 hammers +1 food per turn. If you go Fishing, Bronze Working, that comes in right around turn 30. Three turns back from there is 27. Plenty of time. Note that to arrange the overflow, you'll probably want to train a unit that finishes on the proper turn, and may consequently need to sink some hammers into a building to get the timing just right.
postscript:Agriculture? Not any time soon, I shouldn't think.
uncarved block
Prince
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I'll throw in a vote for the 1NW spot too, but for power gaming reasons. Most of the games I've played on BtS so far have been on Big and Small maps (which seems to be the current popular map), and one consistent pattern has been a lack of nearby military resources-- especially Bronze. You may need all that extra commerce just to pay for a second city that will keep the Barbs off your back. And it can get even worse with the modern resources like Oil and Aluminum . . .
One nice thing about Big and Small maps is that your neighbors are usually pretty far away: a bad thing if you want to Axe rush, but nice if you want to get 2-3 cities right away without worrying about getting invaded. (Unless it's Monty, of course.) Be interesting to see if the AI techs any better at Monarch (in comparison) than it does on Noble. Guess we'll find out soon enough. May change some of the research choices, though, knowing you may not get a big payoff for beating the AI to a key tech.
One nice thing about Big and Small maps is that your neighbors are usually pretty far away: a bad thing if you want to Axe rush, but nice if you want to get 2-3 cities right away without worrying about getting invaded. (Unless it's Monty, of course.) Be interesting to see if the AI techs any better at Monarch (in comparison) than it does on Noble. Guess we'll find out soon enough. May change some of the research choices, though, knowing you may not get a big payoff for beating the AI to a key tech.
1NW
Starting with mining really makes the gold so powerful that I would like to grab it with your capital. your 2nd city probabaly needs to grab copper somewhere so the gold city would then come into the 3rd, hence u lost huge amount of research by not grabing the gold with your capital. the fresh water bonus isn't that important with expansive, u have 8 health bonus with granary and harbour already.
Starting with mining really makes the gold so powerful that I would like to grab it with your capital. your 2nd city probabaly needs to grab copper somewhere so the gold city would then come into the 3rd, hence u lost huge amount of research by not grabing the gold with your capital. the fresh water bonus isn't that important with expansive, u have 8 health bonus with granary and harbour already.
Move the scout southwest, and the settler one NW. You get the gold, and still have an amazing five food resources in your fat cross - perfect for the SE! You could settle in place, but I don't understand why you would, except to get that one extra hammer - but really, gold in your capitol's fat cross is more important than an extra hammer.
Porphyrius
Warlord
Hmmm...
pop at 8 turns, fishing at 9 and cant be hurried cause you have no giving tiles but sea ones.
Working the corn synchronizes growth and a (presumably as in most ALCs ) scout in 11 turns. But you could aim for 3 tile after the pop for a turn and make the scout in 10.
Either way after growth to pop 2 you can make the boat in 8 and hook the fish. A second boat right after the first is optimal. Worker can wait. Only the corn (need agro) or gold (should you move) can be improved so you should start the worker at size 3.
Chop the forest hill(s) to a settler then mine them.
If you HAVE to get the gold in the capital you ll lose the extra from plain hill (=slower boats). Your suggestion of 2W to the plain hill there in non coastal.
Essentially its a toss between faster capital growth + chops at early wonders and aerly research boost via the gold.
Prioritize BW / AH / IW, war resources are quite a bit rarer in BTS from my (limited) experience. And dont put as much faith in tech trades. Alphabet can net spying for the same effect though.
pop at 8 turns, fishing at 9 and cant be hurried cause you have no giving tiles but sea ones.Working the corn synchronizes growth and a (presumably as in most ALCs
) scout in 11 turns. But you could aim for 3 tile after the pop for a turn and make the scout in 10.Either way after growth to pop 2 you can make the boat in 8 and hook the fish. A second boat right after the first is optimal. Worker can wait. Only the corn (need agro) or gold (should you move) can be improved so you should start the worker at size 3.
Chop the forest hill(s) to a settler then mine them.
If you HAVE to get the gold in the capital you ll lose the extra
from plain hill (=slower boats). Your suggestion of 2W to the plain hill there in non coastal.Essentially its a toss between faster capital growth + chops at early wonders and aerly research boost via the gold.
Prioritize BW / AH / IW, war resources are quite a bit rarer in BTS from my (limited) experience. And dont put as much faith in tech trades. Alphabet can net spying for the same effect though.
Lance of Llanwy
King
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I wouldn't pass on the gold in your capital. The only way to feed it(if you settled in place) would be the crabs, and with everything that needs to be worried about at the beginning of a game(claiming bronzes and/or horses, especially) it could easily get put off. The gold is most useful now, as it'll let you power through the early tech-tree and fund expansion...so why be forced to expand to get its benefits, when you'll already need to build at least one city for a strategic resource? Do you really want to wait until your 3rd, 4th, or even 5th city to claim the gold? Horses and bronze don't pop up as much as they used to either....
Oh, and, if you don't have nearby bronze or horses, you can get to IW faster and not have to settle right in your backyard and potentially run the risk of getting bottled up....
Oh, and, if you don't have nearby bronze or horses, you can get to IW faster and not have to settle right in your backyard and potentially run the risk of getting bottled up....
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
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Answering my own question about decay....
1) The decay clock only runs for units/buildings that you have invested hammers in, and only when they are not at the top of the build queue.
2) The rot clock ( UNIT_PRODUCTION_DECAY_TIME et al in GlobalDefines.xml) does NOT scale with game speed.
3) The rot clock is reset if no hammers have been invested in that unit.
Everybody clear so far? Good, now we get micro.
The specific sequence (run city by city) is that production is run, then decay. Thus, the production queue is advanced before the decay occurs - if the rot clock has expired on the second item in your queue, there is no effect on the turn when the first item in the queue finishes. The rotting item moves to the top of the queue (where it is protected) before the decay occurs.
Next trick: the reset check occurs before the rot. In other words, on the turn where your production rots to zero, your clock is NOT reset. If you invest more hammers, then take the item off the queue again, you'll see that the rot clock is working from the total number of turns that unit has been off queue. However, if after the unit has completely rotted away, you allow one more turn to pass, now the clock is reset.
Oh, yeah - only human players face a decay penalty.
1) The decay clock only runs for units/buildings that you have invested hammers in, and only when they are not at the top of the build queue.
2) The rot clock ( UNIT_PRODUCTION_DECAY_TIME et al in GlobalDefines.xml) does NOT scale with game speed.
3) The rot clock is reset if no hammers have been invested in that unit.
Everybody clear so far? Good, now we get micro.
The specific sequence (run city by city) is that production is run, then decay. Thus, the production queue is advanced before the decay occurs - if the rot clock has expired on the second item in your queue, there is no effect on the turn when the first item in the queue finishes. The rotting item moves to the top of the queue (where it is protected) before the decay occurs.
Next trick: the reset check occurs before the rot. In other words, on the turn where your production rots to zero, your clock is NOT reset. If you invest more hammers, then take the item off the queue again, you'll see that the rot clock is working from the total number of turns that unit has been off queue. However, if after the unit has completely rotted away, you allow one more turn to pass, now the clock is reset.
Oh, yeah - only human players face a decay penalty.
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
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Hmmm...
Epic Speed - pop at 11 turns. Required food is 3 * (10 + pop).
Longtime lurker and ALC fan chiming in for first time as well!
Moving the scout to the NW grassland hill really seems like the thing to do in light of the current capital site quandary. The hill LoS bonus will provide us with a fuller picture and hopefully help us make a more informed decision.
Personally, my early predisposition would be to settle in place since we are going to try and get lots of mileage out of philosphical. The benefits would be significant.
Moving the scout will really give us a fuller picture though!
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can do here Sis. I've truely enjoyed following along in the previous chapters and know this one will be enlightening as well. Appreciate the time and effort you invest sharing your games with the community!
Moving the scout to the NW grassland hill really seems like the thing to do in light of the current capital site quandary. The hill LoS bonus will provide us with a fuller picture and hopefully help us make a more informed decision.
Personally, my early predisposition would be to settle in place since we are going to try and get lots of mileage out of philosphical. The benefits would be significant.
- Don't miss a turn of research
- Fresh water bonus
- Grassland tiles with fresh water for farms
- An extra hill for mining, synergizing nicely with the farming potential and abundant seafood!
- Extra hammer from settling on plains
- Dovetails nicely with cheap granary from expansive
Moving the scout will really give us a fuller picture though!
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can do here Sis. I've truely enjoyed following along in the previous chapters and know this one will be enlightening as well. Appreciate the time and effort you invest sharing your games with the community!
If you have the inclination, this would be the perfect start to try Obsolete's Wonder Economy strategy. By settling in place, you have both massive food and massive production. I wouldn't worry about missing out on the gold, or having too much food, because a city 1 N of the gold would make a 2 city team that can make the most of using all that food and keeping those mined hills working. You can switch off the food and the hills depending on which city needs production, and the other city works more food and runs more specialists.
If you do try the Wonder Economy, from my experience, my first few tries, it is crucial to pick the right teching order. You have to get BW, so you can clear for the mines. You have to get fishing obviously. But you also have to open up techs in the proper order for the wonders you will build. If you build the oracle, the best you will probably do is alphabet, because your early research is usually a bit slow, and you have to research so many techs to get the early wonders you need. I found in my games with vanilla civIV that it was pretty important to get stonehenge before pyramids to get the first GP out sooner for more commerce and hammers. This may not be such a good strategy in Bts since the great wall no longer makes GE points though.
Either way, this is a killer start for a SE. Lots of health, get monarchy and code of laws, and you will grow so fast, you will have massive amounts of scientists. Personally, I would prioritize pyramids first, then parthenon, at all expense of expansion. The only thing I might pause for is to grab stone if it shows up, or to settle the sister city N of the gold for a commerce boost. Get pyramids and parthenon, CoL and Monarchy, Settle all your scientists, and you pretty much can't lose here.
Of course, it is really a new game( Bts) so I might be full of it.
If you do try the Wonder Economy, from my experience, my first few tries, it is crucial to pick the right teching order. You have to get BW, so you can clear for the mines. You have to get fishing obviously. But you also have to open up techs in the proper order for the wonders you will build. If you build the oracle, the best you will probably do is alphabet, because your early research is usually a bit slow, and you have to research so many techs to get the early wonders you need. I found in my games with vanilla civIV that it was pretty important to get stonehenge before pyramids to get the first GP out sooner for more commerce and hammers. This may not be such a good strategy in Bts since the great wall no longer makes GE points though.
Either way, this is a killer start for a SE. Lots of health, get monarchy and code of laws, and you will grow so fast, you will have massive amounts of scientists. Personally, I would prioritize pyramids first, then parthenon, at all expense of expansion. The only thing I might pause for is to grab stone if it shows up, or to settle the sister city N of the gold for a commerce boost. Get pyramids and parthenon, CoL and Monarchy, Settle all your scientists, and you pretty much can't lose here.
Of course, it is really a new game( Bts) so I might be full of it.
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