ALC Game 28: Ethiopia/Zara

Why not make city 10 your GP farm, with 2 fish, clams, and a lot of forests? If you build maoi there you get reasonable production, and you can even leave the forests intact for health and a nat park if you plan to go down that line pretty fast?

If you put 7 1N you use most of the good land in the north between 7 and 10.

I would cottage up the central floodplains and put your capital there for better maintenance and a good buro cottage cap...

With your wonder-whorish plan, your first city should be a settler-worker pump to relieve your Capitol of that duty. I like city 3 for this role: grow on wheat and cow while building 2 workboats, then alt*-settler-worker-worker-settler-worker (that is, 1.5 workers per settler).

Also, slow down!!!!!!! If this is going to be an ALC game you need to give us at least 2 days to debate first scout move!

vanatteveldt said:

Why not make city 10 your GP farm, with 2 fish, clams, and a lot of forests? If you build maoi there you get reasonable production, and you can even leave the forests intact for health and a nat park if you plan to go down that line pretty fast?

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I actually really like the idea of having city 10 be my GP farm. I'm not sure I'm going to head straight to biology, but we definitely can, we'll talk about it in a hundred turns. If we do, I'm also pretty confident that the jungles/forest will spread all over making it a pretty legit GP farm. That being said, I think Moai will not be going there, since we'll build the National Epic and the National Park as the two national wonders in that city. Just to clarify, when I say GP farm I mean the city we'll build the National Epic in. There's definitely an argument to be made for city 5 as a GP farm, since that way the dessert tiles won't be as wasted. While the northern city is definitely a better GP Farm looking just at the city, it's important to also look at the empire. If we make that our GP farm it makes city 5 terrible, as it would now have no purpose. So our two options appear to be B+ GP Farm and B+ Hybrid city versus A GP Farm and D+ city in the dessert. Is the GP Farm this important? ... discuss.

vanatteveldt said:

I would cottage up the central floodplains and put your capital there for better maintenance and a good buro cottage cap...

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Yeah, I think the floodplains will be cottaged. They'll be more useful that way later in the game. Do you guys think we should make that one city placed in the middle of the flood plains or two cities split up similarly to the way they are split up now?

LuCiver said:

With your wonder-whorish plan, your first city should be a settler-worker pump to relieve your Capitol of that duty. I like city 3 for this role: grow on wheat and cow while building 2 workboats, then alt*-settler-worker-worker-settler-worker (that is, 1.5 workers per settler).

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This is definitely true, but have we waited too long to build a settler for a settler pump city and then another one for the Oracle city. I'm worried about missing some wonders if we were to try and build two more cities. I'll think on it and hopefully some more of you will give me advice.

LuCiver said:

Also, slow down!!!!!!! If this is going to be an ALC game you need to give us at least 2 days to debate first scout move!

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Haha. I was reading one of Sisiutil's games the other day for old time's sake, the Lincoln one I think, and there were nearly 100 posts discussing the warrior move. But I have realized this and have started up an offline game to satisfy my civ fix.

Before I play the next round I'd like to hear your comments about where to place my second and third cities and what they should be used for. We can debate the dotmap as more settlers get built, never fear. Should we go for all the wonders? Prioritize the Great Lighthouse and mass build settlers? What do you guys think is best / want to see me try and do (probably unsuccessfully)?

I'd suggest making one awesome city for the flood plains; that way you can move your capital there, go Bureau, and build Oxford there. It'll capitalize on the commerce.

Since pyramids is out (I still think it's a good idea, but everyone else poohpoohed the idea, so I suppose I could be wrong), I'd suggest stressing GLH, TGL, and Colossus. The others are accessories, IMO.

This is an interesting start.
You're isolated, so this game is gonna play differently than most.
I suggest going wonder-whoring, you've got marble not far away, even if you're not industrious.
GLH and Colossus are must-have.
You're gonna have a shortage of happy ressource tough, only 2. (I don't count the whale.)
Monarchy should be a priority, I think.

Round 3: 2640 BC to 825 BC (48 Turns)

I started out the round as planned. I finished researching Fishing and moved straight on to Sailing. My capital finished building its warrior and then built a settler which went straight over here and settled the worker, settler pump of our empire. Thanks to LuCiver for this suggestion.



After the Sailing I started on Masonry. My capital had quickly built a lighthouse so that it could start on The Great Lighthouse right away. While I was waiting for Masonry to get in, I discovered that our worst fears were confirmed. We're isolated.



Luckily, we can put a great city on that island that will give all of the cities on our main island an intercontinental trade route. Score. This city will also do an excellent job fog busting. This leads to a question. When should we settle this city? It's going to be extremely beneficial to have a city up there sooner rather than later, methinks. What are your thoughts?

I decided to finish the settler I was building the capital before starting on The Great Lighthouse. I made this choice, because I wanted to get the Marble City up and running quickly to let us build the Oracle. I had some barb trouble, which messed up my plans a little bit, but in the end I got the city built okay with two workers and a fishing boat on the way.



I chopped minimally in the capital as I like those forests, sentimental attachment ya know. This might have been a mistake, but now we still have some forests left to chop to build our second wonder in the capital. That's right, our second wonder. Our first, as you all know was none other than



Yeah I like watching the wonder movies, sue me. I wanted to watch another, so I went ahead and started right in on the Temple of Artemis. This should make this city quite a trade route center in the middle ages. Unfortunately, it won't ever grow that big, but we'll get over it.

I had already finished the wheel and pottery and was just waiting to get this Oracle built so I could take Metal Casting. Marble City was doing its best to finish the Oracle, but I was getting a little worried, so I sent over some workers to help chop it out.



My worker-settler pump had been busy and had made, I think, two workers and a settler. The settler wandered over to Hexem's suggested city site. I have some workers there who are going to mass lay down cottages. This city will only ever work cottages and the gold so in a thousand years or so, it should be pretty well advanced.

Unfortunately, my chopping in Marble City was futile and I missed out on the Oracle, but got 82 gold for my effort. I had just finished researching Writing and started on Code of Laws when this happened, so I think this is a good time to stop and get some feedback and ideas on how we should proceed.

The area we have the technology to explore.



The technology situation.



I have some questions about where to proceed. I've selected Code of Laws as a place holder, but there are some other technologies we're going to need soon. As stragestranger pointed out, we're going to need Monarchy for the happiness. Code of Laws is also useful as it might land us a religion, which I have found really nice when isolated. I'm worried we might not be first to it, since it would still take 11 turns (although with the slider at 100% we can get there in 9 turns). We could also self-research Metal Casting for triremes and a half-price Colossus.

A quick look at our three main cities:







So I'm disappointed we didn't get the Oracle, but aside from that I think we're doing fairly well. We have 4 cities and 4 workers, with another one arriving shortly. We have an axeman with 3/5 experience hanging around up north killing bad guys. We have the Great Lighthouse and a possible Temple of Artemis. Random fact, I've only built one road, and it was just to keep my worker occupied while I waited for the flood plain city to get settled.

We're going to need two more axes (?) for city garrison, but other than that the cities are looking alright. I've been really light on the whip and we have happiness problems coming up, so I haven't built granaries, but I'm up for it if you can convince me. Cheap libraries will also be going up soon allowing us to run a few specialists. Settlers and workers will continue to be produced to take advantage of The Great Lighthouse.

I look forward to your thoughts.

I don't think anyone has mentioned this or not, but what about aiming for culture? Isolated, a useful UB, marble, cheap theaters and libraries... it's certainly doable.

While I was waiting for Masonry to get in, I discovered that our worst fears were confirmed. We're isolated.

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Just by looking at your screenshot of the continent, you have not revealed the coast/ocean near the NE cow. I'd send the WB down there just to be sure.
[EDIT] Or at least move a scout/warrior onto the cow for a decent look at those tiles.

Oracle goes earlier than great lighthouse. Now you know.

going after Oracle after 1200BC is always high risk.

btw you should connect wheat and cow, some cities have health problems.

I agree that you will have to solve happy issues with Monarchy eventually

and you should not forget Aesth->Lit line.
And then there is the problem with alpha+math for opening bulbs on philo, paper, edu.
And there is the MC with Colossus

Seems like a bit too much of conflicting roots to me, there is some streamlining in order.

If you can't get confucianism I'd forget religion. I've beelined taoism in the past when isolated and it's disappointing because you don't get long before you have to start thinking about swapping out of it again. Just get monarchy then go go optics.

Shame the copper is riverside as it means there's nowhere you'll be able to build garrison warriors. Probably worthwhile to tech archery and save 10 per garrison.

Can you show the religious screen to see how fast the religions are founded? That will give you an indication whether it is possible to pop confucianism. Religion is a good way to get some happiness but monarchy is a sure thing. If you succeed the temple of artemis then the fish island should get a higher priority to get more trade route income.

I'd pump out settlers here, get all cities up by ~1AD. Economy will be fine with golds, GLH, etc

On the second screenshot of the last update if you stare hard enough it looks like there is coast tiles to the east of the east coast of your mainland and the little island, meaning more land and possibly AIs, it would be clearer zooming in in-game. You should get a scouting unit/work boat around the cows and two fish like huerfanista said. But then again perhaps its just my eyes.

Round 4: 825 BC to 525 BC (12 Turns)

Well baah, baah I feel sheepish. I decided to see if there was anything to what huerfanista and Hrun were saying. While I couldn't see any of the land that Hrun was talking about I did notice something that I can't believe I didn't notice earlier. This is what I get for not posting more pictures and/or paying more attention.



As you can see, those two tiles with the OMG marker have yields of 1F 1C. This can only be if a city can be placed in such a way that those tiles are worked. No city on my continent could work those tiles. This told me that not only was there land to the east, but a lot of it. Either that or two more small islands, but I found that unlikely. So in complete disregard of my decision to play slower I thought a short round was in order, since it would be stupid having long debates about research priorities and victory conditions if we weren't isolated.



I began the round by immediately switching a few things. Worker-Settler Pump city switched to a workboat for exploration. I switched techs from Code of Laws to Monarchy. I did this for a couple of reasons. 1) Kid R and Killroyan rightfully pointed out that going for the religion would be a gamble and that the happiness from Monarchy was a sure thing. 2) I was pretty sure there was somebody over there who's religion I could adopt both for happiness and culture victory purposes (if we decide to pursue that route). 3) If we decide to bulb down the Astronomy line, we would need to not have Code of Laws or else our GS would bulb Philosophy. I'm not sure if bulbing this way is going to work. We get our first Great Person in 7 turns from the capital. 70% chance of a GM 30% chance of a GP. What do you guys think we should do with either one?

Well I feel downright silly, but here's some proof.



Good news though for our trade route economy. Not only are we looking to have neighbors but we also completed



I finished research Monarchy and started on Metal Casting for the Colossus. And our workboat found our first Neighbor.



I opened borders right away, and the trade routes with Pacal took a turn off of Metal Casting. You gotta love it.

So here's our new empire. Very similar to the end of the last round, but also very different.



As you can see. We're not isolated. We have two settlers on the way. We're 9 turns from metal casting. We can revolt into Hereditary Rule and Slavery anytime (probably soon). The usual questions arise.

1. Where should we send the two settlers? It's probably still possible to settle over on Pacal's island, which could make a later war easier to manage.

2. What should we research? I'm thinking of finishing Metal Casting, and then Aesthetics and Literature. After that we could do any number of things: Alphabet, Maths, Iron Working. What do you guys think?

3. Should we pursue a Cultural Victory? If we decide to do this, we should probably decide to do so about 30 turns ago. But we still have time to win this way if we want to.

If there are any graphs, cities, etc you want to see screen shots of just let me know. I haven't been posting attachments mostly because I'm lazy, but if you guys want them, just let me know.

I would aim to settle your next city to control the sea lane between continents: your current dotmap does not do this. Swing your WB scout back west and see if a single city on the other continent can do this job. That will also give you IC traderoute. The second settler can go to your Nat epic site I guess.

After scouting the coast, send WB east and see if there are more neighbors. You can get a hint by checking if you are building EPs toward Pacal. The big question now is if there are other AIs out there so that Pacal will actually trade with you rather than sit on 'monopoly' techs.

Benginal said:

If there are any graphs, cities, etc you want to see screen shots of just let me know. I haven't been posting attachments mostly because I'm lazy, but if you guys want them, just let me know.

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Tech trades screen would be helpful, does Pacal have alphabet? Possibly not as you may well have mentioned it in the post. Pacal likes to go for cultural so he might be a threat for music and sistine. I would like to see a cultural victory. Optics and Astronomy may be important if there aren't many religions on Pacal's island. Hopefully you could use a combination of Aesthetics/Metal Casting/Drama/Literature to trade for Mathematics/Alphabet and stuff

LuCiver said:

I would aim to settle your next city to control the sea lane between continents: your current dotmap does not do this. Swing your WB scout back west and see if a single city on the other continent can do this job. That will also give you IC traderoute. The second settler can go to your Nat epic site I guess.

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I'll do both parts of this I think. I'll send the workboat back the other way to explore the western coast of that continent. I'll build some galleys and get a settler over to that wheat spot as soon as possible. The city will pay for itself right away. A useful tip for people learning: foreign cities can only have trade routes to one of your cities. For example, my capital has trade routes with Mutal (Pacal's capital), but none of my other cities get to trade with Mutal. Mutal is a more lucrative trade opportunity for my empire for many reasons, but one of them is that it's across an ocean. However, the one-city limit only applies to foreign cities, so if I can build one of my own cities on another continent then every one of my cities will get that intercontinental trade route. I'll show some screen shots of this profitable phenomenon in the next turn set.

My second settler I do plan to settle at that northern fish+fish+clams+grassland+grassland hills site very soon. It will grow very quickly and work cottages and specialists. This will very likely be the third culture city, more on this later.

LuCiver said:

After scouting the coast, send WB east and see if there are more neighbors. You can get a hint by checking if you are building EPs toward Pacal. The big question now is if there are other AIs out there so that Pacal will actually trade with you rather than sit on 'monopoly' techs.

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I've never been quite sure how this works. Care to elaborate. Let me know what screenshots you need.

Hrun said:

Tech trades screen would be helpful, does Pacal have alphabet? Possibly not as you may well have mentioned it in the post.

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No he doesn't. He's got three sources of corn and that's it.

Hrun said:

Pacal likes to go for cultural so he might be a threat for music and sistine.

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This is very true. I think after Metal Casting we'll shoot through Aesthetics, Literature, and Music in that order. The Great Artist will be especially useful.

Hrun said:

I would like to see a cultural victory.

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You got it. Unless there are any objections I'll go culture. It's definitely going to be a challenge, more on this later, but I think Sisiutil would like the ALC flavor it has. We are, after all, playing as Zara. What better victory condition than Creative. We will also definitely get to use his UB!

Hrun said:

Optics and Astronomy may be important if there aren't many religions on Pacal's island. Hopefully you could use a combination of Aesthetics/Metal Casting/Drama/Literature to trade for Mathematics/Alphabet and stuff

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Yep, I agree. Once we have the Sistine Chapel, Shwedagon Paya, and The Great Library well in hand, we'll trade the three techs away for the bottom two thirds of the tech tree.

Optics is great, as hopefully we'll have time to get a good three religions in our cities for Cathedral buildings. However, I'm going to disagree with Astronomy. The trade route income is really nice, but we won't need to tech much beyond Democracy in this game, assuming we stick to going for culture. Also, our awesome UB becomes obsolete at Astronomy, so let's just not tech it, . When I have some more time, I'll post my thoughts on a Cultural Victory and how we're going to get it.

OK, completely agree on Astro. As for espionage espionage my understanding is, and I'm not certain if this works without BUG (should do), hover over Pacal on the score and check your EP ratio with him, if you've got a lot less than him/the same as him then it is likely he knows no other AIs as he would be sharing EPs between you and the other civ whereas you aren't.

Luckily, we can put a great city on that island that will give all of the cities on our main island an intercontinental trade route. Score.

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That is a really big deal in isolation. but it doesn't quite apply the way it did. still, it turns the last trade city from a +1 to a +2, so it doubles a small part of your economy. anyway...

if you check pacal's espionage, you should have more points accumulated against him, as he is likely to split his (relatively few) points among several ais. if he is in contact with at least one other civ, he will trade techs, otherwise he won't, so researching alphabet is less of a priority.

i think you would do well to settle on pacal's island. he can be befriended easily if you share a religion, and he's not creative. as long as you can hold that one city (and the sea-lane), you wouldn't have to worry too much about building troops until everyone researches astronomy.

are you still holding out for more wonders? if so, culture victory and music make sense. but honestly, i find that those sorts of victories take much longer than i anticipate. you might as well hold out on astro, let the ai come to you, and milk your steles as long as possible. but i don't think you will have time to finish the game with them. the ai will start sending carrier groups to take all the shiny wonders you slaved over.