ALC Game #10: India/Asoka

Oops, need to use my eyes
Every time I'm posting here it is just to learn that I haven't read properly

Sisiutil: you seem to have fallen into the money/commerce confusion error. As you know a shrine city is a money maker regardless of whether its production or commerce/research, so it doesn't matter.

Well, if you're at less than 100% beakers you get a little more leverage from the commerce buildings. Eg (10 villages) * (3 commerce) * (30% wealth) * (+100% market/grocer/bank) = a bonus from the buildings of 9 wealth. A bit of a difference. Sure, if you're a production or general city you'll build them anyway; the commerce just gives you back a little more for your hammers.

Of course a shrine city can alternatively be a good merchant farm.

pigswill said:

Sisiutil: you seem to have fallen into the money/commerce confusion error. As you know a shrine city is a money maker regardless of whether its production or commerce/research, so it doesn't matter.

Click to expand...

It matters if you want to go as far as putting Wall Street in that city. If you're only talking about a market, grocer, and a bank, then you're right that you'll make the same amount from the shrine regardless of the improvements you put on the tiles. Wall Street can only go in one city, so if you want to maximize its potential then it really ought to be in a commerce city.

The other issue is that if you make your capital into a production city, then you'd rather be building barracks, Heroic Epic, stable, and military units. You might eventually need a market and/or a grocer for happiness or health, but it's certainly not a financial priority, and you'd never build a bank unless that was the only way to get the 6th bank for Wall Street. So the shrine can turn into a bit of a distraction from the city's primary role.

Yup. Testify, EJ! (Getting a little silly from ALC starvation.)

Maybe Sisiutil got munched by a bear and cannot post.

I tell ya, Stephen King could learn from this guy how to sustain a level of suspense.

Round 2: To 2880 BC

I put my dithering aside and settled on the spot where I'd moved the Settler:



I decided to work one of the floodplains first, to grow the city and to take advantage of that coin for research:



At the start of the next turn, the research dialog appeared...



And again, I dithered. If you remember several posts back--I certainly did--newcomer Vikciukas (welcome to CFC, by the way) posted a warning that the new, improved AI just loves Polytheism; he reported the AI researching it first in five games out of five. That, to my mind, is not a coincidence. I've obviously had the time to re-read all the posts in this young but growing thread, and that warning stood out. Thus, more dithering.

My mouse hovered over Polytheism. Why? I wondered. Why would the AI, longtime fan of low-hanging fruit, suddenly shift its preference for its first religious tech to a more expensive option? Then I saw it: two wonders. Polytheism now unlocks not just the Parthenon, but the Temple of Artemis as well. That's just too tempting, isn't it? Furthermore, I've heard that the new AI is even better at tech research (scary thought, that), so it might forsee--as I certainly do--that Polytheism pays dividends later on as a prerequisite for Literature and the Great Library.

So I dithered. Then my mouse, seemingly of its own accord, like the planchette on a ouija board, moved. It came to hover teasingly over Polytheism's lowly, wonderless, plainer sister, Meditation...



Hey, wasn't Asoka Buddhist, not Hindu? And it leads to Priesthood and the Oracle faster. If the AI favours Polytheism now, I'm going to get beat to it. My turn to go after the low-hanging fruit.

I sent my worker exploring to the east. He popped a hut for 83 gold--nice--and soon ran into my first victim... er, neighbour:



Cool! One of the new leaders. I wonder if the opponent-selecting algorithm in Warlords is rigged to ensure you get at least 1 or 2 of the new leaders in each game? Based on this and aelf's EMC, it seems that way.

So Mehmed is Expansive and Organized; the former has been changed in the patch--Expansive leaders have their own version of "fast workers" now! His UB is available early, his UU comes in mid-game. If I plan on warring and Mehmed is this close by, I don't think he'll live long enough for me to see a Janissary. But we'll see. In terms of his "personality", I'm not sure what to expect--any insight there, gang? Is he a psycho like Monty, a religious nut like Isabella, a warmonger like Napoleon, or reasonable like Cyrus?

At that same moment, Delhi's borders expanded and the hut near the capital popped. For a tech. Look which one!



Well, I certainly felt better about researching a religion first, and moving the Settler! As much as I love popping techs, I'm always a little disappointed if I get the one I'm currently researching--wasted beakers, don'tcha know.

Those were the only two huts I popped in this round, and it seems unlikely I'll get anymore. Good thing they were both valuable. The bad news: copper did not appear. Anywhere. Not at first, anyway, which meant nowhere nearby.

Delhi also grew to size 2, and I put the 2nd citizen to work on another flood plain, hoping it would reduce my research time on Meditation from one turn to two.



It didn't, so I shifted back to working a forested tile to get the Warrior out faster.

I held my breath for two turns, wincing every time I hit ENTER, expecting my decision to go after Buddhism to bite me on the butt. It didn't.





Look what else happened on the very same turn:



Vikciukas, make that 6 starts out of 6. I think we can call this a trend: the improved AI definitely favours Polytheism/Hinduism now. Something to remember in the future.

I didn't make Buddhism my state religion. I'll wait to see how things look diplomatically first, or until I need to raise the happiness cap on my cities. Then again, I'll probably need it for my other cities' 1st border pop, won't I? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I also started researching Agriculture, heading towards Animal Husbandry and hoping for horses, given the dearth of copper. It will also allow me to work the piggies, the wheat that appeared to my west, and to farm the flood plains if I so desire for faster Fast Workers & Settlers.

The Warrior finished and started exploring to the southwest. The border pop had revealed what looked like nothing more than a thin strip of land to the northwest of Delhi, and my capital's cultural borders made it inaccessible to everybody else, so I knew I could explore it at my leisure.

In 3080, my first Fast Worker appeared.



I immediately took advantage of the unit's 3 movement points; I sent the Fast Worker to that strip of land to my northwest, fingers crossed, hoping for copper.

No such luck:



Hmm, cows and wine. And some unfriendly kitty-cats. I had the FW high-tail it outta there in a hurry.

One of my exploring Warriors finally found copper, but far to the southeast--too far for me to reach before either Mehmed or this guy:



Oh joy. Unless I can spread Buddhism to Japan, convert him, and run Mercantilism, Tokugawa is going to be about as useful to me as a snow-cone in a blizzard. The only time I ever saw friendly, tech-trading maven Mansa Musa destroy another civ, it was this guy--because Tokugawa is so obviously his antithesis. Mehmed may live longer just so I can go after Toku first and crush him like the bug he is.

With the Fast Worker completed, I started building a Settler. My two Warriors continued exploring the south and found no more huts, but did encounter a couple of animals, which they survived. When I finished researching AH, horses appeared! Not in the fat cross, though; there's one source nearby to my east, another that's further south. Here's the map so we can start talking about potential city sites:



(By the way, something about the graphics adjustments made in either Warlords or its patch makes the grid lines in world view more difficult to see on my computer. I don't know if anyone else has experienced anything like that, but if you have a solution, let me know.)

Interesting, no? Lots of good resources that are a little difficult to get into decent city sites. One city on the grassland 2W of the northern elephants seems like a no-brainer (cows, wine, and wheat, and it shares the Elephants with the capital). But it can wait, since that area is closed off by my borders. All that desert in the northern centre makes the remaining floodplains a little difficult to claim. It could snag the horses to the east, but it would have a lot of desert in its fat cross. There's probably oil there somewhere, but that's a long way off.

And yes, there's stone, but it may be difficult to work. I think the capital's 2nd border pop may claim that tile--can someone say for sure? Marble is available to the east, but Mehmed will probably claim it before me. I'll have to wrest the quarry from his cold, dead hands. There's gold too; I think a city 2N of the bananas would be excellent, claiming them, the gold, and two ivory tiles. Someone might beat me there, though.

Of course, a big issue is the lack of nearby metal--specifically, copper. You just know either Toku or Mehmed will claim that source far to the southeast. Which raises the obvious question--how big a priority do we now place on iron working? I think we're all hoping it will appear in the fat cross, but who knows? It could pop up in the eastern wasteland!

So far I have Mining, Mysticism, Meditation, Bronze Working, Agriculture, and Animal Husbandry. We saved a lot of turns by popping Bronze Working and we have our early religion. I've selected the Wheel as my next tech, but I could change it and keep the overflow if someone has a better idea.

Should I even think about Wonders yet--specifically Stonehenge? I'm thinking that with the early religion in hand, I shouldn't bother, even with stone. There are lots of Calendar resources, and with the border-popping religion in hand, I could forgo the 'Henge, which makes Calendar a more attractive tech target.

As for the Great Wall, I don't know if this map is going to spawn too many barbs, given the lack northern wastes. (By the way, does anyone else suspect there's a big island to the north of us?) I'm thinking of getting Priesthood soon for the Oracle, probably to be used on Code of Laws for Organized's cheap courthouses. Or would Metal Casting be a better option? Am I counting chickens here?

Food for thought, to be sure. The saved game file is below.

Mehemed is almost as religiousy as Isabella, I think. It seems that why in my current game. He is a wuss, though, and he won't attack. but He will hate you. I would probably wait until after IW for my second city, but I'm very stingy with settlers...

Yeah, Mehmed normally behaves himself. Toku though....what a rotten apple that one is. Even if he's friendly, he doesn't trade much! Makes a crappy vassal too, because he doesn't do teching very well(and thus won't have juicy techs you can force from him.) The copper situation effectively nixes any hope of an early axe rush. I recommend trying to get those horses down the river before Mehmed does. Chariots have a much nastier bite now, and you could work in that grassland hill for some decent early-game production. The FPs take care of the rest.

As for the stone....why not settling right on top of it? The city won't be anything to write home about, but anything with gold and a source of food ain't too bad and pays for itself nicely. The 'Mids will help you make the best of this situation, but this is one of those cases where the GW is a giant waste of hammers, even WITH stone....

But yeah...this isn't an ideal situation due to the general mediocrity of the land you can generally expect to reach easily combined with the lack of copper. Even if you get the horses, IW all of a sudden becomes very important. While you're trying to scrape something together, I think the Colossus could be a good investment down the road, as it seems to me a good many of your cities will be relying upon the sea to make themselves worthwhile. The forgotten GL(the Lighthouse, mind you) might help things a little too...

Excellent!

I took my own advice, went onto the plains hill and went Settler first. By the year 3100 BC I had a second city up and running at the sight just south of the flood plains on the river. I popped a scout from the hut and used it as a screen to get the 2nd city going. I found two other huts. One gave me some gold, the other a nice map.

First city site.
2nd city site. Potential spoilers inside that one.
*******************************************************



In your game, it may be worth thinking about trying to settle on the stone so as to be able to work both the wheat and the gold in the fat cross. Maybe as a 3rd or fourth city, but there are a bunch of brown tiles there so it could be a slow build out for that one.

With those 2 food resources highlighted green for Mehemd, I am expecting his capital to be outpacing us already. It is usually much quicker to get clams and/or rice working then it is for pigs.

Sisiutil said:

(By the way, something about the graphics adjustments made in either Warlords or its patch makes the grid lines in world view more difficult to see on my computer. I don't know if anyone else has experienced anything like that, but if you have a solution, let me know.)

Click to expand...

I don't like this solution posted by alexman - but it works...

You do not have a very hammer intensive site in order to build Pyramids and remember that their cost went up in the patch to 500 hammers.

If you are aiming to get religious, then why not go for priesthood and Oracle?

Here's one way:

A is eccentric, but gets you chariots and the floodplains 3E of Delhi.
B is a good military site.
C gets you stone and gold quickly. EDIT: duh, your capital won't let you settle there. But you could settle on the stone, like drkodos said.
D would be OK for later.
None of these is a good Oxford site, but dividing the floodplains might be better for the beginning game while you have a lower happy cap, and there are plenty of good Oxford sites down in the jungle. I assume you'd cottage A and farm B. You could drop a few more cottages on C and D.

Ah, that allocation of resources looks awfully familiar-- like 9 out of 10 maps I've seen since getting Warlords. Second and third city placements are even more critical than before, and still the hardest part of the game for me. The discussion over this subject should be very helpful. Once again, thanks for taking the time for these ALCs.

Mehmed is a builder, from what little I've seen of him; hasn't turned up in many of my games, really. I don't know if one game makes a pattern, but in the one game post-patch that included Tokugawa, he beelined for Feudalism pretty hard. I don't know if you've experienced the joy of trying to take down a Protective civs Longbows on hills in any of your non-ALC games, but it ranks right up there with root canals, in a Civ sense. Heck, even an Axe rush might be a losing proposition without Cats.

Iron Working? Only if your second city doesn't try to capture those Horses. If these are the only two AIs on your continent (a hunch says no), you won't have to worry about an early attack, and Chariots can take care of the Barbs handily, although that jungle down there looks like prime terrain for Barb cities. The AI won't settle it right away, and fog busting is a lot harder. (I've read that Barb Spearmen will only spawn in cities, hence this whole detour.) Unless you're going to go for really early war, Horses should be enough for defense, but that's just a humble opinion. Others who play on tougher levels might tell you the opposite.

Wonders? I think a third, even fourth city might be a higher priority. You can get GP points with Priesthood and Writing, and your capitol will have enough food to make this work, and an early Prophet would net you a shrine. If this game holds even slightly true to my experiences post-patch, you're really going to want that extra commerce early, whether you take out Mehmed or not. Gonna be a lot of cottaging on the other continent . . .

Lots to think about, you're right.

Why not construction sling off Oracle? Catapults and Elephants can then storm all over Mehmed and no need to worry about other strategic resources. Horses are nearby to exploit with Guilds/Knights after the Elephants get tiresome.


I mean, it would fit nicely with the map as we now see it.

Get a settler out ASAP and grab those horses. Chariots are great and needed without the bronze. They were uber before the new patch, since now barb spearmen can spawn (be careful!!) They are still great fogbusters, warrior/archer/axemen killers anyway. The faster you go, the better the chance to claim that city more east and capture some wine and cows and more land.

Third city the gold. Hapiness and it will boost economy. If room availabe a would take site SE first. Since you don't have bronze, you want as much land within your grasp so you have a good chance for iron. But at least you (can) have horses. If you are fast enough (you have fast workers) you can claim 5 sites, which is more then enough. Then you could always wait for cats and elephants.

Lucky basterd on the bronzeworking btw.

Everytime I look at the map, bells are starting to ring louder. You need those horses!! If you fail, you might need to rush down south. Don't know where Toku exaclty is, but you might get those horses in case of failure.

When Mehemet is gone, you already have some nice land for yourself.

Thinking of strategy.

voek said:

Chariots are great and needed without the bronze. They were uber before the new patch, since now barb spearmen can spawn

Click to expand...

They still cannot spawn (alexman confirmed that they made it into the changelog but not the patch ) - Barb cities can build them though... The same is true for barb galleys by the way...

ori said:

They still cannot spawn (alexman confirmed that they made it into the changelog but not the patch ) - Barb cities can build them though... The same is true for barb galleys by the way...

Click to expand...

Ok, I didn't knew that! Good to know! tnx. But still, they can be build. Only it's easier since you know where they are coming from.

Good work grabbing Buddhism, especially with the AI snatching Poly the same turn! I have seen it go the other way since the patch, but it seems more of a lottery now than previously when you were almost guaranteed Hinduism.

Delhi's next border pop will just miss the stone if I've interpreted it correctly.

Construction slingshot off the Oracle isn't going to happen on Monarch without gold mines to work in your capital. No way you can tech through writing and maths before the AI builds it, especially since someone's bound to have marble.

And finally, given that the new AI is better at selecting city sites:
If I was Mehmed, my second city would be plonked down on the grassland hill 1W of the wine, picking up wine, clams, horses and cows. Something to bear in mind if you're looking to snag those horses too - you'll have to culture battle him for control (religion will help with that, as will a monument).

Let me ask a newbie question here...
You guys are talking about settling right on the stone. Well, If it's done, we won't have access to it, right?
If that is true, the stone will be gone for good, or if we want we may have to gift that city away and raze it (or something like that) to build a quarry there?