AnthonyIII said:
Can I just ask, does the SID-AI get any growth bonus for their cities as well?
The production bonus applies both to food and shield production. So, instead of needing 20 shields (at Regent or for the human player) a Sid AI needs a mere 8 shields to grow from size 1-7.
Notice where you roaded inside Sumerian territory and wonder why you roaded there. We can trade with Russia (they have 0 spices, not non-existent spices), so we don't (at present at least, if the AIs declare on each other and start pillaging things might change) need a road to Russia. We really want some road to Greece, Babylon, and Germany.
0-1425 BC Worker on mined regular grassland roads square. Road a square before leaving it. Worker between 010 and 003 goes to forest on river to chop it. Worker from 001 goes to unroaded plains. I don't like the AI attitudes at this point, so I gift Sumeria, Russia, and the Byzantines 100 gold each. I let Germany stay annoyed with us... she's too far away I think. Check to see what our lump sum of 165 will do for Alphabet. It's not quite enough yet. The Wheel and Iron Working cost a little too much also. Maybe we should have done a 50 turn run on one of these techs, but it's a little late for that now in my opinion, and I haven't had to do it before.
1-1400 BC 003 settler-worker. Purchase The Wheel from Sumeria for 168 gold. We do have horses. Sumeria, Russia, The Byzantines, and Germany don't lack horses (we don't have 0 horses that we could supply to them with a trade route in place). Greece and Babylon do lack horses. Send warrior over to potentially pillage horses. We won't disconnect the horses next turn, just the trade route from the capital. So, I only need to have two workers ready to go, but in case we can start things up on the turn after that, 3 workers get sent, with the 4th coming out of 001 in a turn. Worker near Agade goes south to see if Sumeria has hooked up that gems (4 luxes for an AI seems uncommon to me, and Sumeria will have a 5th). Actually, I don't like planting a city on the hill at the moment, since Kisurra's borders have expanded, so the settler will just scout or something for a while until later on in the game. Put 003 temporarily on Palace to block chops from going to it.
2-1375 BC Pillage the trade route next to the capital. Hit F4. Notice that we can still trade with Sumeria. See the 6 spot still connected:
Spoonwood said:
The worker between 009 and 001 should mine, and then go somewhere else (no road here).
Now we'll get to rebuild that mine, and spend time moving in and out of that square. That's a whole 6 industrious worker turns. Edit: that's 8 industrious worker turns since time got spent building that road in the first place. Oh well... we're not in a rush, and the later the game goes, the more you'll potentially learn I guess
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In the following screenshot I've marked off the 8 spots with Xs which can NEVER have roads for this to work:
I pillage that road and ring everyone up in the F4 screen. Sumeria has extra horses, as does Russia. I send one of the warriors near 001 to go and pillage our horses. The warrior that pillaged the extra road will go to the 001 pillaging spot. I have no idea how we don't have a road from the 3 spot of 006. Scouting with the worker in Sumerian territory it seems they do have a road on the mountain there, but I don't know if they have that road connected to anything else.
3-1350 BC Babylon starts the Great Library. Sumeria has Ivory and Silks, while Russia has Spices. So, there's no need to pillage our horses. Check 003 and see that if the Palace swaps to a worker it'll complete in 1 turn. So, I wake a worker chopping a forest which would have completed, and swap to a worker, and then restart the chop (i. e. I could have timed things better), and swap 003 to a worker.
Change all citizens to tax collectors and temporarily set taxes to 100% (luxuries and science both to 0%). Ring up Russia, they won't give us 1 gpt for 50 gold. Ring up Sumeria, they will give us 2 gpt, but not 3 gpt for 50 gold. The rate at this aggression level comes as 1 gpt for 18 gold, so they'll give us 2 gpt for 36 gold. But, first before I do that, I check and see what the advisor says about various gpt amounts. At 23 gpt we have a "never accept this deal". At 22 gpt, we have a "would be insulted by this deal". So, Sumeria has 22 extra gpt. So, the deals go as follows:
1. Trade 36 gold for 2 gpt from Sumeria.
2. Trade 41 gpt to Sumeria for Silks and 570 gold. Now, we know Sumeria still has 20 more gpt if we didn't supply them with any cash for luxuries, and I don't recommend going below that.
3. Trade 360 gold for 20 gpt from Sumeria.
4. Trade 28 gpt for Ivory and 360 gold this turn, as we can't obtain any techs.
5. Then the road gets cut. I reassign all citizens to tiles (we won't have any need to use tax collectors like this later on). We now have 48 gpt at 100% taxes.
6. Ring up Russia and give them 8 gpt for Spices.
7. Ring up Sumeria and trade 17 gpt for both ivory and silks.
And here's something I find a bit peculiar, though I've known about it for a while. I hit F1 and we still have unhappy citizens. So, I bump the luxury slider up a notch and then back down a notch to reset the citizens to what they look like with the new luxuries online. Unfortunately, 009 doesn't have a road to it at the moment, so we'll need to chop and then road there. Luxes at 20% just for this city.
Warrior moves back in 001. I start sending the worker in Sumerian territory home.
4-1325 Sumeria boots us. 003 worker-palace pre-build on a worker. Greeks, Germans, Russians, Sumerians all start The Great Library, and Sumeria completes the Statue of Zeus in Ur. We have a VERY tough neighbor. Move worker 8-8 from 003 to chop and then road the cleared grassland square. Move 4 workers and 2 warriors to the spot.
1. Pillage the road.
2. Change all citizens to tax collectors (step becomes unnecessary almost always once we become a Republic).
3. Rebuild road.
4. 378 gold to Sumeria for 21 gpt.
5. 9 gpt for Spices and 10 gold from Russia.
6. Ivory, worker, 413 gold, Alphabet, Iron Working, and Mysticism for 68 gpt from Sumeria. I left out Horseback Riding, which with 91 gpt still available I could have gotten in this deal. It doesn't come as a pre-requisite to anything, so if we have enough gpt, since Sumeria has another luxury we might pick up something like Writing this turn also. Then again, 23 gpt doesn't sound like enough. Also, delaying it can also enable you to put out chariots for chariot upgrades to riders or potentially horses. But, I generally haven't done this, as you'd have to delay getting Engineering this way.
7. We have an iron source. We'll want 4 workers and 1 warrior here later on. This does lie in one of the squares I blacked out in the screenshot above, but we'll just cut this road everyturn (which we'd do anyways for a while at least). We can't get any of the newly available techs this turn, so for silks and horseback riding, I trade 23 gpt (that's more than needed... generally try and haggle until you understand why haggling wouldn't do anything in this case).
8. The road is cut and re-built.
9. Citizens go back to work.
10. Spices from Russia for 8 gpt. Ivory and Silks for 17 gpt from Sumeria (these numbers will go up in time). Luxes to 40%. Build road in odd spot not inside Sumerian territory yet for kicks. Start bringing warrior home. We could have disbanded it, but he might come in useful later on. You'll see why Kisurra got planted where it did.
5-1300 BC Babylonains start/restart Great Library, and Russia and Sumeria do also. I don't understand MapStat sometimes. It tells me we can now trade Gems with Greece, except we can't! Some workers in tiles that won't have the ability to get worked by citizens for a bit road first instead of mining.
1. Cut the trade route.
2. Taxes to 100%, all citizens to tax collectors.
3. The road gets re-built.
4. No more gpt available from Russia or Sumeria.
5. Ivory, 29 gold, Writing, and Mathematics from Sumeria for 40 gpt. I leave Polytheism off, since getting other techs would come as more valuable. Sumeria and Greece have Currency, no one else does. Literature isn't know by Theodora. No one is running a Republic. Silks and Currency from Sumeria for 51 gpt.
6. Trade Currency to Babylon for 2 gpt, 98 gold, Code of Laws, and Literature.
7. Trade Literature and Currency to the Byzantines for Philosophy and Map Making. The Byzantines have The Republic. No one else does.
8. Trade Currency for Polytheism from Greece.
9. Gift Russia Currency (them building markets sooner rather than later makes for a good idea!).
10. Pillage with the warrior.
11. Reassign citizens to tiles.
12. I reconnect the road.
13. 8 gpt to Russia for Spices. 17 gpt to Sumeria for Ivory and Silks. Luxes back to 40%.
So that a chop comes as better times, I actually decide on roading a forest (exceptional case!) near 009. Move worker to marsh to start clearing it. Mine hill on one of the black cross spots.
Oh... and I do this:
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Actually, that's not the order I built the embassies in. It went Athens-Babylon, Berlin, Moscow, Constantinope, Ur.
Take your time with everything. Once we acquire Construction, we can gift the AIs into the middle ages and use the disconnect-reconnect to obtain all first level techs (and hopefully Republic soon enough). If we can't get a tech even with all tax collectors (probably will happen with The Republic, it's very expensive), don't sweat it. We'll slowly pick up more gpt from the AIs, and from our cities. Once we've traded for The Republic, make sure we have all the luxuries we can before ending the turn, and then revolt. And remember... do NOT build any roads in the 7 crossed squares without iron. Also, we don't really need to build any roads on the iron hill until we have Chivalry.
. Limited civ for me.
