Noble to Prince Transition: Economy Help

Thanks shaandore and kirkav
--Granary: yeah that was my bad, I need to put those into early build queue.
--Archer/warrior rush: my first one ever - Khmer was so close and I had 5 units so I went for it. Game "12" (thread started with "11" and this is "13") was a random start of Mongols continents with Portugal 12 spaces west. I looked for horses but had none, and did a successful axe rush on Joao (had ~10 axes; he built Stonehenge...). Then I turned my army south to Suleiman and nailed him but by then was in serious debt (first strikes of my units). Then Shaka was left of my continent and I couldn't recover. I should play that one again; I overexpanded and had too much military, plus I should have hit Shaka first before Suleiman.
--Wonders: I had production coming out of my ears this game so took them, but I agree that it would be best to play without wonders to break the habit/addiction.
--Still have to work on 1) city specialization, and 2) doing everything earlier (e.g. in absolute time and relative to AI)
Thanks all for reviewing - have tried to follow VoiceofUnreason's guide for getting advice.

Cultural victory 1922, spaceship also launched same turn. Mao and Pacal both decided to attack me for no reason, prolonging the turns.

Built every corporation (a first)


Never saw this random event


Going to try another one of the series you guys mentioned.

dmd175 said:

Then I played another random continents prince game and drew Inca. ...Germany was my neighbor ...poor economic performance...

...

I'm tempted to try this map again but will hold off for now.

Click to expand...

Though I've played the last few games at monarch, this old game has bothered me and I want to return to conquer it. Eleven Reborn = Undici Renato.

I have the turn 2 save from CFC and will start there. I have quechas which make it tempting to rush, but I am isolated with the Germans. I could let them build me a few cities and then gank them, but it's a waste of the quecha not too.

Plans = things I didn't know how to do when playing 8 months ago after getting the game but that I do now...
The initial save is research Meditation . Convert that to AH->mine->wheel->BW->pottery->fishing (for city #3) -> writing.
6 Quechas moving as of 2720 BC to Berlin
Don't dive into jungle without workers and IW.
Overlap for building up cottages.
Sailing techs to get to 1) island to SW [to increase trade routes] and 2) other continent ASAP.
Stone to NE --> Pyramids. Too far away to use it to make a play for Stonehenge (but I can chop it out).
Whips and chops.
Let other continent develop multiple early religions so there is friction there.

New dot map


"Visiting" our friends in Berlin

Expanded at reasonable pace, chopped out wonders.


After writing --> sailing (for boats, GLH) --> masonry (pyramids) --> IW --> (math for chopping) --> med/priesthood for Oracle --> CoL --> MC from Oracle -> PolyT --> Currency -> aesthetics -> literature (figuring it will speed up machinery/compass/optics)

1 AD this game,compared to last time:

• 6 cities, 7th to be founded next turn (9 cities last time) [Cori was founded to get stone]
• 99 bpt at 100% science (79 bpt last time at 100%).
• GNP #1 (145 vs. 80 next best). Last time also #1 but 90 v. 86.
• MFG #1 (55 v. 46 next best). Last time also #1 but 47 v. 45.
• Tech = 20. Last time had 18, including monotheism, but I lacked math, CoL, currency.
• Six wonders SH, GLH, GW, Pyramids, Oracle, Colossus: soon to get HG,ToA Last time only had Oracle.
• Still awaiting first GS (got a GP). No great people last time.

This seems good compared to my prior attempt, but I checked this game, and at 100 AD, he has

• more wonders (obviously got aesthetics earlier)
• a GNP double mine 293 v. 145, ? due to more advanced cottage development and key overlap with capital?
• more tech with aesthetics, literature, alphabet, calendar ahead of me

Things I did wrong

• did not settle SW island?
• build too many roads?
• should have chopped/whipped more?
• ran more specialists?
• tech order? seems barbertje did aesthetics earlier, what else? interestingly he founded buddhism...

Checked your save, dmd. A few comments:

Do not work unimproved tiles. Tiwa is working two. Make another scientist specialist and steal a cottage from cap to work it instead.

I don't see the logic behind settling Ollantyantambo and Tiwanaku where you did. Tiwanaku would have been much better 1 or even 2 South of the Iron with the grassland cow and a bunch of riverside greenery. It's currently stuck with lots of hills it can't work due to being food poor with only Rice. The other sites I suggested could have done whatever they wanted - Farms for specialists, cottages if you want them or workshops, watermills for late game production monstrosity with the levee.

Similarly, Olly should have been settled 3 East from the capital. It would have take away half the cap's cottages to grow them and would have still been a very nice city later on with flood plains and a bunch of hills it can use.

I don't like where that settler is headed. Sure, gold and GLH trade routes will make it a nice city. But it's going to be a dead end stuck with a Plains Cow, one citizen already taken up by the gold tile and now you are stuck working coast. (Not terrible with financial and Colossus). But I think a better site is 1 SW of the Plains cow. With three flood plains, plains cow and a grassland you can irrigate post Civil service and all the hills with copper and gold in there will make for a solid production city you can pump troops out of later. I would settle a city with Wheat on that coast if you really want those trade routes and simply run a few specialists.

You need to farm Great Scientists. Your first GP was a Prophet. I think you built the Confu shrine with him. Not bad, but you want reasearch first. Gold from the shrine will help, but not as much as an academy in cottaged up cap with mature cottages. That GP should have been your second or third Great Person because now not only is your Scientist delayed, you are now at the mercy of all the wonders to give you the next GP. This will delay the scientist and academy even more.

I would tech Monotheism and double switch into Organised religion and Caste. See if I can spawn two scientists (very hard as your GP pool is nutty due to the wonders). Build an academy with one in cap and bulb Philo with the other. OR will help in the meantime to get your infra set up, build even more wonders (why stop now? ) and later, Pacifism, Bureaucracy, Caste and Rep will make a killer combo in isolation. I would tech to Civil Service after Literature and securing the Great Library (see if you can build it in a city with lots of food and clean GP pool). Then go down the Machinery -> Optics route to meet and greet the AIs.

Turn off avoid growth in Berlin. Whip any pop and unhappy citizens you don't want and put it into workers. After caste, growth can easily be halted by manipulating specialists.

Overlap is a good thing, but overlap for the sake of overlap causes weak cities like Tiwanaku. Try and settle cities so they can work every cottaged tile in the capital as and when necessary. Capital cottages should always be worked and take priority over non-capital cottages. (Cap gets Bureaucracy bonus and stacks with palace commerce).

And this is only a suggestion, consider getting the BUG mod. I use BUG and BULL dll. But only BUG by itself provides lots of conveniences like a dotmap tool, slider adjustments, city growth warnings and such. It also lags a whole lot less than BUG with BULL.

Many thanks Smilingrogue, really value the careful analysis.

My GP pool is messed up and I realized I delayed my hopes at early GS.

I had infrastructure up and about the only thing I had to build was wonders so I went for it, but GP pool is totally nutty.

You and the other save game agree on city placement 3E and I see your point about overlap for overlap bad, e.g Tiwa.

Unworked tiles =

I think I will try again.

You are right about BUG, it at least would help in avoiding clicking slider back and forth to 0/100%.

In comparing saves here, I noted that the other game popped a gold hill in the BFC of Cuzco, which certainly had a beneficial effect on tech. Do new resource events pop up in the log?

I've played this map a third time, to see if I can better the economic performance from Barbertje.

In the second go around I nearly doubled my GNP from first

• attempt, but this time I focused on:
• worker priorities (roads later than tiles)
• cottage development by capital overlap (thanks Smilingrogue)
• whipping - notice no forests around (Smilingrogue again)
• logical tech order

Two important caveats in my games versus Barbertje that handicapped my relative performance:
--A gold popped in his BFC, and we all know how much that can boost commerce.
--Germany settled Hamburg due West of Berlin, on coast/fresh water/cow. In my game, every time they went due South for a jungle hill/cow city It is a good city and he was able to build wonders in it, so the loss of this contribution is hard to gauge.

That being said, here are my demographics

and a compilation of the the results at turn 120, comparing my progress over three games to a better player.


Thanks to veteran players on CFC, I have tripled my early economic output through MM.

Undoubtedly, I still could improve further. Any comments on tech path, build path, worker actions would be greatly greatly appreciated.
--I got four GP but Stonehenge messed up my pool, rendering it impossible to get GS first. How best to work around this and pop early GS (obviously you can avoid SH, but how about besides avoiding Stonehenge?)
--How much of the difference in the games are attributable to gold in BFC and capturing a second German city? E.g. that seems what the difference in MFG and bpt are due to.
--I built too many roads still?

Here are some key images every 15 turns or so to help with the assessment.


I'll play this one out, with next plans to beeline optics and find the other continent. Victory condition TBD.

@ dmd

Excellent work, mate!
I am digging the site you chose for Tiwanaku.

As for avoiding GP from the Stonehenge, the obvious answer is to not build it. You are Inca and your granary gives 2 Culture per turn. Since Granary is a mandatory building in every city, it takes care of border pops without needing monuments on stonehenge. But let's say you needed another wonder - Great Lighthouse or the Oracle or you are stuck in isolation on a huge map, so you take the Great Wall to keep barb pressure down. In these cases you can generate your first Great Person as a Great scientist by running scientists ASAP in your second city. Your second city might have to stall on growth till the scientist pops. In the meantime if you managed to settle a high food city with potential to be your National Epic city, that city can also start running scientists and soon the specialists you run will overwhelm that lone wonder back in the BCs' GPP and you have full control over which Great Person you generate. If you do want a prophet or Spy or Merchant as second GP, then you can simply stack the corresponding specialists onto the cap's wonder GPP.

Yes, you still built way too many roads!

Edit: Looking at Barbertje's save, I guess his research is higher as he's working a lot of Financial/Colossus coast. (A very nice combo ).