Ah, rats, how very simple of me. Thanks for the reminder.
Benginal said:
This is one of those gems I never would have thought of even though I was trying to think of all the little tricks I'd picked up to keep the economy alive. I was whipping a little bit, but probably not enough to merit staying in slavery. And a turn of anarchy wouldn't have been that expensive since I wasn't really teching anything and the wonders probably would have remain un-built.
Nor would I, normally. It was the screenshot of the financial advisor that made me think of it and I don't often look there in my own games. I guess I should, thanks for that lesson.
Benginal said:
I'll write a more detailed post later. But the plan is to get the Great Lighthouse, the Colossus, and as many other wonders as we can while filling up the island with a bunch of coastal cities, working some cottages, and getting Charlemagne to pleased.
The first few turns will see us finishing Fishing and producing a workboat in Munich to go explore with. Hopefully we find somebody through Charlemagne's land. If not, the workboat will double back and improve the clams. I'll also switch to working coastal tiles in Munich which will give us some much needed gold.
Up next I'll finish Sailing and then plop down city number 4 which will get it's green hill and horses improved right away. It will build a lighthouse first and a Great Lighthouse second. It's also worth noting that it will have a free monument since I built Stonehenge.
After the Great Lighthouse comes in I will spam coastal cities to get the trade route economy up and running. My next major goals are going to be to get Charlemagne to Friendly and to build the Colossus.
Getting Charlemagne to friendly shouldn't be too hard, assuming I get Buddhism quickly. He'll probably get a little annoyed later when he catches a few spies causing trouble. But we can talk about that later.
The other goal is the Colossus which requires Metal Casting. It's extremely attractive to try and Oracle Metal Casting, but I'm worried it might be too late. I'm planning on getting the Wheel and Pottery as my next two techs. But then a divergence through Polytheism/Meditation -> Priesthood would slow us down getting to Writing. So is it worth the risk to try for Metal Casting and if so, in what order should I tech the 4 techs we need. They are The Wheel, Pottery, Poly/Medi, and Priesthood.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this round play out. It seems like a tough spot -- crappy land, a crashed economy, and only one neighbor. I agree with you that going for TGL and abandoning any plans for the Oracle is the way to go. The great spy should help a lot once you get to alphabet.
Settling that city all the way north of Charlemagne was a mistake, but if you can get the Great Lighthouse, it should be worth it. I'm not sold on the safety of getting the GLH as you're going to have to wait until the city can get a lighthouse, pop borders for those extra forests, and then build the GLH which isn't sped up by anything but the industrious trait.
Edit: Once you improve the economy, aim for Astronomy (via Liberalism?) so you can contact the other leaders for overseas trade routes.
Last round finished with us collecting a large amount of fail gold from our capital's version of Stonehenge. I put this gold to good use researching Fishing and then starting on Sailing. With Fishing in, it was time to get out a workboat and see if we could perhaps find some nearby intercontinental neighbors. We only had one coastal city, but it was more than up to the task.
Sailing came in just a few turns later and that meant that The Great Lighthouse settler needed to be settled and start on a lighthouse right away if we wanted to have a chance at getting the GLH.
You'll notice I put a chop into the lighthouse. That's a mistake. Can you figure out why? While you're thinking about it here's some news.
The Oracle has been built in a faraway land. That was fine by me as I'd already abandoned all hope of ever building that wonder for myself.
Also, you can see I chopped another forest, sigh. The reason this is bad is that we're Industrious but NOT Organized. So our hammers get a bonus if they go to building a wonder but NOT a lighthouse. So by putting the chops into the lighthouse we get 40 whereas we would have gotten 60 had we put them in the Great Lighthouse. It's the little things like this that can either get you or lose you a wonder. (EDIT: This is wrong! See next post for explanation.)
Over here we can see Charlemagne getting frisky, so I moved my own settler into position just in case.
Charlemagne would go on to settle right on the forest so I didn't need to settle. But I ended up settling on my forest. We're going to have a culture war. I hope I win.
In the capital we got some really welcome news.
This will give us the ability to revolt in to Representation.
Representation is going to extremely useful for both the extra happiness and the super-powered specialists ... shoot, I don't have writing, so no libraries, so no specialists, . I revolted anyway as I was immediately able to start growing my cities at full throttle.
And more welcome news.
Funnily enough, it spread to my capital first. But that's fine by me. I revolted right away to let the positive relationship building begin.
After all the anarchy finished, I switched to a tech that would be way more useful than the wheel.
Luckily, the science slider had always been at 0% so I didn't waste any gold.
I finished up my BFC chopping in Cologne and was now pretty hopeful that I'd be able to get the Great Lighthouse.
Noooooo! Say it isn't so! .
Well let's see what we can learn from this experience. It turns out totally butchering the first 70 turns of a game makes getting the late first round wonders hard to get. Other things that wasted resources were the messed up chopping and the two turns of anarchy. I probably should have settled earlier to get the border pop earlier so that I could work the crabs earlier and get to size 2. Given the first two turnsets, is there anything else I'm missing?
We were so close!
We only needed 42 more hammers. And once the city grew to size 2 we'd be able to work the horses and the plains hill mine for 9 * 1.5 = 13 base hammers. So we could have done it in ~5 turns. Sigh. We wasted 20 hammers with messed up chopping and spent two turns in anarchy. Rats.
The next 9 turns were spent in frustration. I finished up the Wheel and Pottery with the failure gold (thank god for failure gold) and then started on Alphabet. My cities started on infrastructure -- cheap granaries, lighthouses, and libraries, in that order. As soon as the capital and Hamburg finished their libraries they started running scientists to try to get us back in the tech picture.
Perhaps this was a mistake.
Well that just happened! And at 5% odd no less. It's actually not a bad time for my first Great Scientist, but I had really been hoping for a Great Spy first to allow tech stealing from Charlemagne. I stopped the round here as I'm now slightly frustrated and need some time to think things over.
State of the Empire
I promised TheBackStabber some discussion on plains tiles.
Spoiler:
You can see that I don't really have that many, but the ones I do have I've left untouched. I'd rather work coast, run specialists or whip then work a plains tile.
There is one exception. Cities that are very food poor and have the ability to work a riverside plains farm. Look at Cologne which has some great production potential but is going to be really slow growing. The options for two turns as I saw it were:
Work the plains hill farm for 4 food, 2 hammers, and 2 commerce
Work the coast for 4 food and 4 commerce
Work the grassland hill for 2 food and 3 commerce
Alternate the grassland hill and the coast for 3 food, 3 hammers, and 2 commerce.
I wanted to grow as fast as possible but also wanted some hammers. So I picked option 1.
So in general, the first 100 turns of a game should see no plains tiles being worked. And if there are any bring worked it's probably not going to be an obviously better play.
Question 1: Where should I build Moai? Both of the two northern cities seem like good possibilities as they both have decent production and both have a lot of blue tiles. I'm kind of torn as to which should get it.
Question 2: What should I do with the Great Scientist? I can build an academy in the capital. That would be a pretty safe play I think, but it only gives 6 beakers according to BULL. Other options include bulbing math (I think) or keeping him for later to bulb something down either the Education line or the Optics line. I could also settle him right away which would give 9 beakers and be the best short-term output.
Question 3: I have a ton of overflow about to happen in Hamburg. I'm planning to put it into a settler and head over to the clams site. Would it be better going into a worker? Actually, maybe a worker would be better now that I can spam some cottages. And I think I only have 6 workers for 6 cities. Yeah worker it is. Right?
So this is good news. I am at pleased with Charlemagne and he was never plotting war so I am now safe from any war possibilities. He can't even be bribed since we don't know anybody else, .
Question 4: I'm not currently doing that horse for clam trade. I think it might be worth it just to get the years you have supplied us with resources modifier. Maybe I should just gift him the horse since I'll have clams of my own soon. What do you think? Which gets modifiers sooner?
There's the land, one with add-ons and one without. It's a real shame I missed out on the GLH, since I have so many coastal cities, but I suppose I'll get over it. On the bright side, I've completely blocked Charlemagne and he is now stuck with just 4 cities only two of which are any good, while I'll have 8 ... only two of which are any good, .
So once upon a time, Alphabet seemed an obvious choice so that I could build some spies and get some techs. But that benefit of alphabet is now out. I'm still researching it though for the ability to build research which I will very likely do in some cities.
Question 5: What should I tech. Lots of things seem like good ideas - Metal Casting (Colossus, cheap forges), Meditation and Priesthood (Monasteries and Temples), Aesthetics (a bunch of wonders), Mathematics (better chopping, aqueducts, Hanging Gardens), but nothing seems great. What do you think?
The save is attached. I appreciate your comments and suggestions, keep them coming.
Also, you can see I chopped another forest, sigh. The reason this is bad is that we're Industrious but NOT Organized. So our hammers get a bonus if they go to building a wonder but NOT a lighthouse. So by putting the chops into the lighthouse we get 40 whereas we would have gotten 60 had we put them in the Great Lighthouse. It's the little things like this that can either get you or lose you a wonder.
Support a lighthouse is 60 hammers and TGLH is 240 (can't remember the details), and support that you have 10 base hammers and 1 possible chop for 30 hammers.
Chopping first means you need 3 turns to complete lighthouse (3x30+30 = 60) and then 16 turns for TGLH (16x10x1.5 = 240), so 21 turns total
Chopping the wonder means that you need 6 turns to complete the lighthouse (6x10) and then 15 turns for TGLH (45 from chop + 13x10x1.5 = 240), so also 21 turns total
Chopping saves you N turns of production, regardless of whether the production is multiplied or not. 45 hammers might seem more than 30, but in both cases it is 3 turns of production.
The real pro and con:
pro chopping lighthouse: quicker +1 food
con chopping lighthouse: if you have population to spare, it is better to whip the lighthouse as that incurs no wonder rush penalty (but by whipping the pop earlier you also lose productive turns...)
SO, in your case the decision to chop the lighthouse was correct.
HOWEVER, the decision to wait settling until after sailing was in probably wasn't. If you had settled it earlier and built a workboat (or sent it from greedy) you would have had more pop to build stuff quicker (although sailing might have been delayed from maintenance so it is a tradeoff...)
About the plains stuff: Personally, I would ignore the plains and work the mines immediately. Growing slower while building stuff is better than working a meh tile just to get to some ideal future a bit quicker.
About maoi: You have no city with >1 useful sea tile (resource or lake), so don't expect to be working even the maoi-enhanced tiles. A non-financial non-colossus maoi coast is only 2f1h2c, only 1c better than a plains riverside farm. I normally look at the number of special sea tiles to decide whether it is worth it. Even with stond and IND maoi is pretty expensive..
you are expansive you get bonus to lighthouse and granary, so you didn't waste the chops, the problem was merely the size of the city, which you couldn't do anything with it.
I told you I don't see city "capable" (emphasis on it! a lot of posters completely missed this point) of building the GLH. One of the reasons was that the new city would have to get up to size a little bit.
I don't know the usual times of GLH for AI's from memory on emperor, but I use to build it asap and my good times are around T77-80 which I usually get then.
Definitely settle the great scientist ASAP. It is a 30% boost to your science rate as well as an extra hammer in your capitol. Bummer about the GLH. It was a gamble but it almost worked
Could you explain the decision to settle versus building an academy? I tend to favor the long term benefits of an academy with the first GS, but I don't know that I'm always making the optimal choice.
Is settling stronger here because the need for beakers is more immediate, and Berlin is presently pretty commerce poor?
Benigal: You revolted twice while trying to rush a wonder? With Buddhism, I would have waited for Charlemagne to request you convert for the diplomacy bonus. Ah well...
There might be a possibility that you are not alone with Charlemagne after all.
How do you have Espionage on him if it's Emperor level, you have no buildings which increased espionage, you have not raised the esp slider and Charlemagne has no means of spending espionage points on you. Which might mean another civ found Charle, but not you... then again feel free to disregard my ramblings.
Could you explain the decision to settle versus building an academy? I tend to favor the long term benefits of an academy with the first GS, but I don't know that I'm always making the optimal choice.
Benginal is going to be at a low science slider for quite a long time I assume due to the early expansion - so an Academy will not help much since commerce is low and quite decentralized at the moment. There's several cities running scientists. I'd favour settling on those grounds as well - right now, you want any beaker you can get.
Don't bother settling city #7 and #8 unless you feel like sabotaging your economy. They're useless spots until you get chain irrigation from civil service.
Also, how do you know that HRE wasn't plotting war against you? There's no way to tell as far as I know if you're in semi-isolation with just one AI.
Yeah, that's a good point. With no other neighbors, you can't find out of if he has enough on his hands. Theoretically, he could have started planning a war before you got him to pleased. (I think that's right.)
I've also never seen the "A first impression is a lasting one" modifier before. Where does that come from?
Yeah, that's a good point. With no other neighbors, you can't find out of if he has enough on his hands. Theoretically, he could have started planning a war before you got him to pleased. (I think that's right.)
I've also never seen the "A first impression is a lasting one" modifier before. Where does that come from?
The BUG mod now adds some of the hidden diplomatic modifiers as well.
The 'A first impression is a lasting one' is, if my wild guessing serves me correct, the base modifier for the leader, the base modifier for difficulty (Emperor gives a base -1, IIRC) and the peaceweight modifier between AI leaders.
Plus, he's in Representation and would be getting the extra beakers from that.
Too bad about the GLH, it would have been perfect here. If you get that copper I would go for Colossus which means I would research MC and also work towards getting some religion up north in Greedy, that means researching Med/Priest. Of course, you want to be able to tech trade with the HRE as soon as possible, which means Alphabet. Hmmm, which one first. Ideally I guess it would be Med/Priest and build infrastructure to spread religion while you research MC which will help you get the copper. Meanwhile you are building a forge in Greedy and then the Colossus. After that it is over to Alphabet. But, will you get to the Colossus in time?
hmm well I stand corrected... I wasn't sure, probably has to be confused through Mehmed (he is Exp+Org) and I remembered that I had there discount for LH .
It seems that Moai is not popular among anybody here. I don't see any reason to build it right away. But I'll probably spend some hammers on it in a few cities and then finish it somewhere for the fail gold from the other cities. And since there's no worry about losing the national wonder I can take my time in building it.
The comment about working the grassland hill instead of the plain farm is interesting. I'll consider it. But once upon a time Kossin said "food man food" and those words ring in my ears to this day. But given that the northern city likely won't be whipping at all I think the hammers might be more useful. I don't know.
I also likely will not be hurrying to settle those two other cities. I've been laying some cottages but I'm inclined to stop doing that and just hurry up to chain farming. This will allow me to whip quite a few curis/cavs since I'll have 8 cities to be whipping from.
I like the idea of taking over the rest of this island and then hopefully some other nearby island with cavs and curis and then teching to panzers and finishing the game with them.
In the near term, though, I'm still undecided on what to research. I've heard a vote for Metal Casting and I'm inclined to go with that since getting Colossus powered coast in the empire quickly seems like a good idea. Another idea is to hold off on Metal Casting and go Maths, Code of Laws, and then Civil Service. This would allow us to run multiple specialists (in Caste) and then chain farm. Does anybody else have any reasons to research other things?
The next turnset will likely be a boring one with me just trying to get to Friendly with Charlemagne while chain farming, running rep-specialists, and trying to get the Colossus. Does that sound good with everybody?
In the near term, though, I'm still undecided on what to research. I've heard a vote for Metal Casting and I'm inclined to go with that since getting Colossus powered coast in the empire quickly seems like a good idea. Another idea is to hold off on Metal Casting and go Maths, Code of Laws, and then Civil Service. This would allow us to run multiple specialists (in Caste) and then chain farm. Does anybody else have any reasons to research other things?
This is a good idea. It's kind of like The Great Lighthouse lite. I'm not sure where it would fit in best. Are you saying very first? This makes sense as it could then speed up every other tech.
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whereas we would have gotten 60 
. I revolted anyway as I was immediately able to start growing my cities at full throttle. 
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With Buddhism, I would have waited for Charlemagne to request you convert for the diplomacy bonus. Ah well...
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