Dr kossin #37
- Thread starter kossin
- Start date
settle 2w of horses right away and go up the pottery/writing line - hey, you're EXP/CRE! two fast buildings to be unlocked, mass FPs to be cottaged, less worries about barbs... the whip is pretty useful in those FP cities, but as i see it you'll settle towards tokugawa first - and there are enough hammers to get the basic buildings and some units.
western horse first, then corn below the capital, then maybe even horse/cow and you have some really good land. there's no way to avoid shared borders with toku here anyway, so try to get some decent citysites at least.
crazy REX should be manageable with this setup. well done so far
western horse first, then corn below the capital, then maybe even horse/cow and you have some really good land. there's no way to avoid shared borders with toku here anyway, so try to get some decent citysites at least.
crazy REX should be manageable with this setup. well done so far
Doubtful, there are 4 unforested tiles in the original BFC which means it wasn't a forest spam start and therefore doesn't need to have 4 resources right? I'd say there is no discernible information one way or there other.
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
I do like that way of thinking about the scouting. It is actually a good way of explaining why you scout the way you do, and now that you pointed it out it is so obvious that I wonder why I did not come up with that. So thanks for explaining, that was indeed quite helpful.
Round 2
Here lies some math behind my reasoning. You can skip to the next bolded part if you don't want to read it.
We inherit the game 7 turns from The Wheel, at 3 or 6 turns from growth to size 3.
Starting a settler now will take 13 turns until completion (6hpt+2fpt -> 100/8 = 12.5 -> 13) [hpt is hammers per turn and fpt is food per turn; ppt is production per turn] which puts us at t38.
Starting a settler in 3 turns after growth to size 3 will reduce the required number of production turns by 1 (6hpt+3fpt -> 100/9 = 11.111 -> 12) and by 1 additional turn when the worker completes a farm on a floodplain (7 turns to farm, so 7 turns of 9 ppt is 63 hammers and then ppt is up to 10 when the farm completes: 4 turns gives 40 hammers 63+40 = 103) therefore the build time will be overall reduced by 2 turns.
Effectively, you're only delaying the settler by 1 turn by growing to size 3 now. The worker can't make roads just now and would have 3 'idle' turns where whatever he built wouldn't be used for a while.
You are delaying research a bit (3 turns of 8-1 = 21 commerce) but clearly commerce is not the limiting factor on this map.
This is the next bolded part.
I grew to size 3 first which also had the opportunity to allow an extra warrior to be completed. This one was sent northwest on a forested hill and the scout came back to fogbust east of the capital. 2-move units are very good fogbusters, just move them 1 tile at a time and the barbs can't catch you. Unfortunately, he got stuck in between too many barbs and died later.
On t36 Toku shows up with a settler party... nothing I can do here. Even going AH>BW wouldn't allow me to beat him (late 1 turn.)
So where am I to settle now?
The new city started on a granary and will grow to size 4 where I plan to whip settlers/workers, perhaps overflowing into a library.
As t50 came by, I stopped for another short round.
The known non-resized world
Techs: went TW>Pottery>Writing (OB with Ragnar+Peter)>BW
Diplo - wouldn't want to be in Hammy's shoes.
I need to block land southeast and also a city or 2 west. The north is pretty barren but it does contain some interesting resources for trading. I can get 7~8 (maybe more if there's food in the north) cities which should be good enough until Renaissance where Toku should be more or less easy to hit.
Barbs haven't been too vicious. I was a bit lucky to have Toku helping out with the southeast. Without the close proximity, Archery would have been needed here.
There's always the option of gifting a city to Tokugawa here - in a location that would add border pressure with someone else. Otherwise, I'll have to hope he goes after Hammy or stack some Archers on that hill.
I hope readers don't mind my playing only 25 turns sets for now. Longer sets take more time and if I shorten them odds I don't have time to post a set are lower
Here lies some math behind my reasoning. You can skip to the next bolded part if you don't want to read it.
We inherit the game 7 turns from The Wheel, at 3 or 6 turns from growth to size 3.
Starting a settler now will take 13 turns until completion (6hpt+2fpt -> 100/8 = 12.5 -> 13) [hpt is hammers per turn and fpt is food per turn; ppt is production per turn] which puts us at t38.
Starting a settler in 3 turns after growth to size 3 will reduce the required number of production turns by 1 (6hpt+3fpt -> 100/9 = 11.111 -> 12) and by 1 additional turn when the worker completes a farm on a floodplain (7 turns to farm, so 7 turns of 9 ppt is 63 hammers and then ppt is up to 10 when the farm completes: 4 turns gives 40 hammers 63+40 = 103) therefore the build time will be overall reduced by 2 turns.
Effectively, you're only delaying the settler by 1 turn by growing to size 3 now. The worker can't make roads just now and would have 3 'idle' turns where whatever he built wouldn't be used for a while.
You are delaying research a bit (3 turns of 8-1 = 21 commerce) but clearly commerce is not the limiting factor on this map.
This is the next bolded part.
I grew to size 3 first which also had the opportunity to allow an extra warrior to be completed. This one was sent northwest on a forested hill and the scout came back to fogbust east of the capital. 2-move units are very good fogbusters, just move them 1 tile at a time and the barbs can't catch you. Unfortunately, he got stuck in between too many barbs and died later.
On t36 Toku shows up with a settler party... nothing I can do here. Even going AH>BW wouldn't allow me to beat him (late 1 turn.)
Spoiler :
So where am I to settle now?
Spoiler :
The new city started on a granary and will grow to size 4 where I plan to whip settlers/workers, perhaps overflowing into a library.
As t50 came by, I stopped for another short round.
The known non-resized world
Spoiler :
Techs: went TW>Pottery>Writing (OB with Ragnar+Peter)>BW
Spoiler :
Diplo - wouldn't want to be in Hammy's shoes.
Spoiler :
I need to block land southeast and also a city or 2 west. The north is pretty barren but it does contain some interesting resources for trading. I can get 7~8 (maybe more if there's food in the north) cities which should be good enough until Renaissance where Toku should be more or less easy to hit.
Barbs haven't been too vicious. I was a bit lucky to have Toku helping out with the southeast. Without the close proximity, Archery would have been needed here.
There's always the option of gifting a city to Tokugawa here - in a location that would add border pressure with someone else. Otherwise, I'll have to hope he goes after Hammy or stack some Archers on that hill.
I hope readers don't mind my playing only 25 turns sets for now. Longer sets take more time and if I shorten them odds I don't have time to post a set are lower
Infantry#14
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2006
- Messages
- 1,601
I agree on blocking land to the southeast asap. 1 city that grabs 2 wines, silk and cow, and another city for the pig, crab and horse. Later you can expand to the east.
Kossin,
The land is certaintly better and worth going after on the east side right away. But, what are your thoughts on the west side. After building a blocking city by the wine/cows to the south east side (if this is what you intend), you could effectively block japan after a border pop (joining up with the mountain range in the south east corner) from going into the floodplains area.
I'm interested to see what you do with your 4th city, you have the option of completely (with a mediocre city) or nearly blocking off Ragnar from the north with one city, but that does put at risk some choice land on the east side.
The land is certaintly better and worth going after on the east side right away. But, what are your thoughts on the west side. After building a blocking city by the wine/cows to the south east side (if this is what you intend), you could effectively block japan after a border pop (joining up with the mountain range in the south east corner) from going into the floodplains area.
I'm interested to see what you do with your 4th city, you have the option of completely (with a mediocre city) or nearly blocking off Ragnar from the north with one city, but that does put at risk some choice land on the east side.
shyuhe
Deity
Doesn't the overlapping border with Toku increase your odds of a dow from him (especially after he pops the city's borders)? If so, it seems to be an unnecessary risk to take since there's other riverside land to grab to the east.
Infantry#14
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2006
- Messages
- 1,601
Perhaps he can gift a city to toku. A city 5-6 tiles away from hissecond city (deserts + mountains) is very brutal!
SillyGoat
Warlord
@Kossin: Short sets are good, the level of detail tends to be higher which helps understanding the "why" as well as the "what".
Speaking of "why", I'm curious as to why you didn't settle in the east to grab the horses. My instinct would be to grab the visible strategic resource to have something better than warriors when the barbs show up. My few forays into Immortal have gotten me WTFpwned at the hands of barbs anytime I didn't grab a strat resource ASAP.
Speaking of "why", I'm curious as to why you didn't settle in the east to grab the horses. My instinct would be to grab the visible strategic resource to have something better than warriors when the barbs show up. My few forays into Immortal have gotten me WTFpwned at the hands of barbs anytime I didn't grab a strat resource ASAP.
I'll probably split up the floodplains a bit more if I can manage it... will depend on Toku and barbs.
You can see the Great Wall around Ragnar's culture. I would love to have a blocking city by sheep+corn but I doubt I can manage to seal off east and west. All that city blocks is tundra... there's almost no way Ragnar can beat me to the furs/silver so it wouldn't be that great of a loss. Still I'd prefer getting all the good spots
That pretty much sums it up. RNG is the greatest foe in comparisons.Oh well, i see, no chance getting the cities as i suggested
As long as I don't have 8 bordering tiles there's not a great risk. With Hammy being his worst enemy I'm hoping he'll be his first target... giving me some time to perhaps plant a gift city (or get Buddhism and him too). It's certainly not the safest approach but my second city needs production and this is the best site close to my capital.
That's probably too far and Toku wouldn't consider it unfortunately. But yes, I'm keeping this option in mind.
Believe it or not, barbs have already hit and it should be more easy from now on. The and west is occupied by AIs. The north is fogbusted by the Capital, the northwest has 1 Woodsman warrior on a forested hill that should handle barbs well enough.@Kossin: Short sets are good, the level of detail tends to be higher which helps understanding the "why" as well as the "what".
Speaking of "why", I'm curious as to why you didn't settle in the east to grab the horses. My instinct would be to grab the visible strategic resource to have something better than warriors when the barbs show up. My few forays into Immortal have gotten me WTFpwned at the hands of barbs anytime I didn't grab a strat resource ASAP.
Remains the east...
The real reason however is setting up that city would take too long. Barbs would hit me before horses were even improved. A close city on hill has good protection and the capital was able to churn out a few cheap warriors to defend itself.
My biggest luck so far is not getting pillaged.
georgjorge
Deity Wannabe
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2009
- Messages
- 921
Settling that second city is the reason why I love Creative .
I always think long and hard about settling right in the face of an Aggressive AI early, but I think it's a good choice this time, because as Toku is settling in your direction, you would have shared borders soon anyway. The question now is how much room Ragnar and Toku have to settle down there (I think the AI is more likely to attack when they run out of space), and who - if anyone - is bordering Hammurabi.
. I always think long and hard about settling right in the face of an Aggressive AI early, but I think it's a good choice this time, because as Toku is settling in your direction, you would have shared borders soon anyway. The question now is how much room Ragnar and Toku have to settle down there (I think the AI is more likely to attack when they run out of space), and who - if anyone - is bordering Hammurabi.
I like the in-your-face placement of second city!
RE: Blocking out the east
If you want to do it with one city, I only see two choices, both of which rely on a 3rd border pop from the capital (which isn't too far off):
1) 1W of silk: Nets silk, wine, 15 river tiles, essentially no production.
2) 2N of cow: Nets cow, silk, 2 wine, 10 river, 1 hill.
Choice 2 seems obvious, but will spark border tension with Toku. On the other hand, he is already expanding north (not only tokyo, but you can see by the irregular shape of his culture that he also dropped his 2nd starting settler NE of his capital). So border tension is coming no matter what you do.
After blocking the east, you are in desperate need for some scouting north of deer and east of pigs to see how you can squeeze 2-3 cities into that area. If barbs have really calmed down maybe a scout would survive long enough to peek.
RE: Blocking out the east
If you want to do it with one city, I only see two choices, both of which rely on a 3rd border pop from the capital (which isn't too far off):
1) 1W of silk: Nets silk, wine, 15 river tiles, essentially no production.
2) 2N of cow: Nets cow, silk, 2 wine, 10 river, 1 hill.
Choice 2 seems obvious, but will spark border tension with Toku. On the other hand, he is already expanding north (not only tokyo, but you can see by the irregular shape of his culture that he also dropped his 2nd starting settler NE of his capital). So border tension is coming no matter what you do.
After blocking the east, you are in desperate need for some scouting north of deer and east of pigs to see how you can squeeze 2-3 cities into that area. If barbs have really calmed down maybe a scout would survive long enough to peek.
It certainly helped out for the next round. I didn't have to improve more than 2 tiles to have a good city and was able to send my worker elsewhere instead.Settling that second city is the reason why I love Creative
I always think long and hard about settling right in the face of an Aggressive AI early, but I think it's a good choice this time, because as Toku is settling in your direction, you would have shared borders soon anyway. The question now is how much room Ragnar and Toku have to settle down there (I think the AI is more likely to attack when they run out of space), and who - if anyone - is bordering Hammurabi.
The goal is obviously to befriend the AIs before they run out of space
1) I hate flatland cities with no food/floodplains. If you cottage them, they're useless. If you farm them, they're less useless but still not good unless you use the whip. Of course they are great spots in the late game but I can't afford to grab all the spots I see, the AIs are too close.
2) Even being Creative, settling the cows in the second ring it will be hard to keep them after a while. This is a good city spot indeed but I don't want to anger Toku too much before I can afford it
Still a city here would make a lot of sense.There should be a few trickling barbs after the large wave but other than that I'll be fine with only warriors here. (Another benefit of Creative is the easy cultural defense of cities to help out against barbs)
Round 3
We left off 2 turns from Bronze Working. Of course there was no bronze anywhere near our current position. There is some to the west but it will be swallowed up by Ragnar before I have a settler handy.
As expected, barbs were only an annoyance that were easily swatted away [mostly by AI archers hehe].
After BW I pondered what tech to research.
Once again, skip to the next bolded part if you don't want to read a wall of text.
[...]>Monarchy?
A lot of beaker investments. In theory I could go for The Oracle but the price is a bit steep. 150 hammers is a settler and a worker... over time an extra city is worth more than a free Oracle tech, especially in this crowded neighborhood.
Trade fodder?
Aesthetics/HBR/IW>Compass/etc
It's still a bit early, no one should even be close to Alphabet at this point.
Masonry/Archery?
What could possibly be less useful right now? Yes I know having them is a precaution one can take to be prepared in case of a Dagger/DoW but I'm feeling a bit safe here with Hammy as punching bag for my neighbors.
Fishing>Sailing
With the amount of rivers nearby, this is an excellent way to avoid needing a bazzilion roads. Since I'll be spamming more settlers than workers, this is the best choice right now in my opinion.
Now let's talk about economy.
First off we have a strong gold tile to generate commerce. This allows me to research the initial techs much faster (since we've almost got double the normal tech rate) but of course it won't suffice. With cheap granaries, cities will grow quickly and cheap libraries would favor running scientists.
While all the above is true, you need to specialize your cities. The first two cities you have are the most important cities for a long time.
The capital is often your strongest city and will remain until the end of the game... early on you have two choices for your capital: production (hammers+food) or commerce (specials, cottages). The same is true with your second city of course. On Deity you don't have the liberty you might get on Immortal and you need at least 1 production city, with 2 being even better, to spam settlers/workers. If you want to rely on forests to do your dirty work, you're going to slow down your infrastructure later on which is not really better. As you start getting more cities however it can be a good idea to start shifting some production cities to commerce/GPP if the land allows it.
In our case, both cities will start as production even though the capital has a good part of commerce going on. I plan on cottaging it since floodplains just lend themselves so well to that job. I'll probably need some farms later on to keep it growing at a decent rate before turning them into cottages afterwards.
Normally with Creative I like to setup a city to run 2 scientists ASAP but here I'll have to delay it in favor of more production - as you can see the land is crowded and the good spots are going fast. It will have to wait a little bit I'm afraid.
The land is good enough to run specialists but without that many food specials it will take a long time to setup so I'll just cottage instead
Needless to say, 3~4 scientists while in route to Liberalism will be most welcome.
This is the next bolded part.
Early in, I met yet another leader that likes spamming troops.
At least he's one of the more passive ones... and one of the worst techers. Great target for assimilation.
This is where I planned out city #3.
But, but, there's copper to the west, by the blocking city!
I didn't want further pressure against Toku either so preferred to avoid the cows a bit to the west.
Luckily, there's still a source of copper I can get.
Early Writing+OB usually helps the AI go into missionary spam mode.
Meanwhile, due east...
Seeing this potential city site, I go ahead with this trade:
The downside of going east however is that I'm losing ground on the west side.
I once again stopped after 25 turns.
Here's my capital:
My empire
The tech screens
Diplo
As you can see I'm going for Alphabet here. While Peter has it already, that can easily be explained by the at least 2 gems he has. Tokugawa usually likes going Alphabet early but as I can see his research, he's nowhere near it.
The plan is obviously Alphabet>Currency. Currency will be worth 2 commerce for each city I have, plus the ability to trade/beg for gold - something crucial. This lot of AIs don't have an economic flavor so even if I run dry on Alphabet, Currency should allow me to get back in the trading game.
However I don't believe I'll have a problem with that yet, my techrate is pretty good already and will only keep increasing with the great land I have.
Next objective is an Academy in the capital (how I wish there was more land... I could already have the Academy!)
The odds of winning this game are pretty good at this point, with the biggest question mark on Ragnar's intended target. The RNG should send him to Hammy but I could just as well be the target
EDIT: oops, wrong save. It's kind of a shame that Oracle went so late (1120BC iIrc). Still I think I prefer an extra settler+worker combo.
We left off 2 turns from Bronze Working. Of course there was no bronze anywhere near our current position. There is some to the west but it will be swallowed up by Ragnar before I have a settler handy.
As expected, barbs were only an annoyance that were easily swatted away [mostly by AI archers hehe].
After BW I pondered what tech to research.
Once again, skip to the next bolded part if you don't want to read a wall of text.
[...]>Monarchy?
A lot of beaker investments. In theory I could go for The Oracle but the price is a bit steep. 150 hammers is a settler and a worker... over time an extra city is worth more than a free Oracle tech, especially in this crowded neighborhood.
Trade fodder?
Aesthetics/HBR/IW>Compass/etc
It's still a bit early, no one should even be close to Alphabet at this point.
Masonry/Archery?
What could possibly be less useful right now? Yes I know having them is a precaution one can take to be prepared in case of a Dagger/DoW but I'm feeling a bit safe here with Hammy as punching bag for my neighbors.
Fishing>Sailing
With the amount of rivers nearby, this is an excellent way to avoid needing a bazzilion roads. Since I'll be spamming more settlers than workers, this is the best choice right now in my opinion.
Now let's talk about economy.
First off we have a strong gold tile to generate commerce. This allows me to research the initial techs much faster (since we've almost got double the normal tech rate) but of course it won't suffice. With cheap granaries, cities will grow quickly and cheap libraries would favor running scientists.
While all the above is true, you need to specialize your cities. The first two cities you have are the most important cities for a long time.
The capital is often your strongest city and will remain until the end of the game... early on you have two choices for your capital: production (hammers+food) or commerce (specials, cottages). The same is true with your second city of course. On Deity you don't have the liberty you might get on Immortal and you need at least 1 production city, with 2 being even better, to spam settlers/workers. If you want to rely on forests to do your dirty work, you're going to slow down your infrastructure later on which is not really better. As you start getting more cities however it can be a good idea to start shifting some production cities to commerce/GPP if the land allows it.
In our case, both cities will start as production even though the capital has a good part of commerce going on. I plan on cottaging it since floodplains just lend themselves so well to that job. I'll probably need some farms later on to keep it growing at a decent rate before turning them into cottages afterwards.
Normally with Creative I like to setup a city to run 2 scientists ASAP but here I'll have to delay it in favor of more production - as you can see the land is crowded and the good spots are going fast. It will have to wait a little bit I'm afraid.
The land is good enough to run specialists but without that many food specials it will take a long time to setup so I'll just cottage instead
Needless to say, 3~4 scientists while in route to Liberalism will be most welcome.
This is the next bolded part.
Early in, I met yet another leader that likes spamming troops.
Spoiler :
At least he's one of the more passive ones... and one of the worst techers. Great target for assimilation.
This is where I planned out city #3.
Spoiler :
But, but, there's copper to the west, by the blocking city!
Spoiler :
I didn't want further pressure against Toku either so preferred to avoid the cows a bit to the west.
Luckily, there's still a source of copper I can get.
Spoiler :
Early Writing+OB usually helps the AI go into missionary spam mode.
Spoiler :
Meanwhile, due east...
Spoiler :
Seeing this potential city site, I go ahead with this trade:
Spoiler :
The downside of going east however is that I'm losing ground on the west side.
Spoiler :
I once again stopped after 25 turns.
Here's my capital:
Spoiler :
My empire
Spoiler :
The tech screens
Spoiler :
Diplo
Spoiler :
As you can see I'm going for Alphabet here. While Peter has it already, that can easily be explained by the at least 2 gems he has. Tokugawa usually likes going Alphabet early but as I can see his research, he's nowhere near it.
The plan is obviously Alphabet>Currency. Currency will be worth 2 commerce for each city I have, plus the ability to trade/beg for gold - something crucial. This lot of AIs don't have an economic flavor so even if I run dry on Alphabet, Currency should allow me to get back in the trading game.
However I don't believe I'll have a problem with that yet, my techrate is pretty good already and will only keep increasing with the great land I have.
Next objective is an Academy in the capital (how I wish there was more land... I could already have the Academy!)
The odds of winning this game are pretty good at this point, with the biggest question mark on Ragnar's intended target. The RNG should send him to Hammy but I could just as well be the target
EDIT: oops, wrong save. It's kind of a shame that Oracle went so late (1120BC iIrc). Still I think I prefer an extra settler+worker combo.
shyuhe
Deity
Toku may still choose you as a victim as well, especially now that you're over 8 shared tiles with Tokyo's border pop. It's up to the RNG, but if Ragnar is going after Hammy then the game should be good since you can dogpile and bribe against Hammy with Alphabet.
