Mayan Mayhem: A Huge Deity Histographic

I've run for a map that might compete with Drazek's game for a few weeks or so now, going back to the fall. I have found a 4611 map, but I had a weak start.

This one looks very promising!:



Not just one early food bonus near a river city, but 3!:



Too bad I had a misandrist around:



I retired right after that. Not the most promising landform (the Ottomans who are orange built the Pyramids).



I've started playing a large histographic game where I don't know the domination limit. I have over 10,000 gold with 100+ knights, 30 some cannons, 1 army in that one at 90 AD without having learned Military Tradition or Theory of Gravity or Magnetism yet.
 
Wasn't there too much swamp and jungle in your core anyway?

I'd argue no, and that potentially that might even make the map stronger, since if you have swamp and jungle, then the AIs have less swamp and jungle. Consequently, you can get more gpt earlier from the AIs which increases your conquering speed. Then again, my expansion did seem a bit slow, but NOT as slow as when I've tried this without a food bonus.
 
I've started looking for a decent sized map with at least 2 one turn worker pumps. The following save consists of a failed attempt. I had moved my warrior around and stood just about ready to abandon this map, since I didn't think I'd have a 10 food spot in anywhere but my capital due to corruption. Then I found 2 wheats next to some hills and forests. It looked promising, but I figured corruption might make for a problem, and to try and grow faster I decided to put the Fordibben Palace in a city 2 squares away from the spotted worker pump. I needed an aqueduct, but buying it didn't make for a problem. Then I didn't have enough shields, so I thought that the courthouse might put the city just up to 10 shields in production. But, I ended up with only 9 shields in the city!

I decided I may as well see if I had put the city just a bit closer to the capital to see if that site might work (once it got to the right size).

And it looks like it would have worked:



See the following save for more details on where the Forbidden Palace city lies, where the capital lies, and where my attempted 1 turn work pump lies.
 

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I've finished a game with a domination limit of 4313. I had a higher score than any of the other games after the conquest phase, though I made the mistake of playing raze and replace with 3 of the civs. I had hoped that I might break 90k or top my other Sid histographic game, but that didn't happen. Final score of 88165.

I based my strategy on Drazek's game. I wanted a 1 turn worker factory in Despotism, hence the selection of a lower domination limit map. I figured out that I could use the workers to add into a nearby city which then could produce settlers and that seemed like it made for an easier thing to do than to set up 4 cities with granaries.

I don't know the exact trading sequence, and it doesn't look like I have pre-1000 BC saves, but sometime during the ancient age, after a 50 turn run on Alphabet, and a few turns into Writing, Babylon had some tech that the others didn't and I managed to trade for every tech available at the time AND made gpt on the deal. Edit: I'm not so sure about that actually, since it looks like I'm putting out more gpt with 1 turn left than I'm taking in. But, I did have the lump sum of gold in the game. I think I also bought some early tech like Currency/Construction for gpt. If I recall correctly, I had The Republic and had hoped I might get that gpt back after trading The Republic for the techs that the scientific tribes had.

After I did the first trades, I put in a harbor and established disconnect-reconnect in my capital. I managed to finish Literature by 1000 BC, which I think took me 19 turns to research. The AIs had Physics a little bit before 10 AD, so I managed to get somewhat close to Drazek's top spot in terms of tech speed.

I lost a few 1 size towns because of bad management during my war with the Babylonians which didn't feature all that many armies on my end, and most involved cavlary attacking rifles. Most wars went fairly easily after that. I had started a 50 turn run on Electricity when The Iroquois learned it for me. The Greeks also managed to research The Corporation, so after capturing some cities with stock exchanges, I built Wall Street via an MGL.

The Pyramids did NOT get built on my home island, but since I had topped the other game's scores by the end of my conquest phase, I don't think that was a big deal. That said, Smith's and Leo's Workshop both got built on my home island.
 
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In 660 I had a score of 10897, but I had too low of a domination limit and I could have played capture and keep a little more.
 
I learned Scientific Method, Replaceable Parts, and Sanitation in 590. I had conquered all sources of rubber by that point, had 217 cavalry, 60 armies, and a lot of cannons which had just gotten upgraded to artillery or soon would.
 
For my recent 88k game, here's my empire at 1000 BC:

upload_2017-4-27_11-57-17.png


My despotic 1 turn worker factory:

upload_2017-4-27_11-57-53.png


During the non-golden age pre-rails phase:

upload_2017-4-27_12-0-35.png


Since you can re-assign citizens once your production phase has completed, for a while I had my worker pumps share a mined bonus grassland upon growth. Since the capital always goes first in the production phase, the city advisor would ask me what I wanted to do with 001 when it produced a worker. So, I would zoom to the city and re-arrange tiles back to the above.

upload_2017-4-27_12-1-7.png


The courthouse gave me an extra shield needed to get to size 10. I put a harbor in that city, because when I learned Map Making, it could produce a harbor faster than any other city to set up trade routes. As you can see, I still got something out of the harbor, because it got that city an extra food, and workers didn't have to spend time irrigating. I didn't put harbors in most other cities until after my conquest phase, because I thought I could expand more horizontally, in other words by territorial expansion, than by putting in harbors. I also chose city sites that emphasized production early on, and then abandoned some cities later on to put them in more coastal spots... those that maximize sea squares that can get used and potential commerce overall, though in this game for maximal score. There did exist an arrangement of tiles that I could have used to still have two 1 turn worker pumps and not have them share a tile upon growth. Note the bonus grassland here not directly adjacent to 005 and which could have gotten used by either 001 or 002:

upload_2017-4-27_12-5-47.png


I've sometimes had trouble keeping up with putting out settlers early on in games when I've started taking land. Not so much once I've had captured cities for a few turns, since then I can have those cities produce settlers. A 1 turn worker factory city site can get used to produce an elegant solution to the problem of not having enough settlers (though not necessarily always), as can get inferred from either of the following screenshots. My tile selection was not necessarily optimal for my empire overall, but it gave me plenty to produce 2 turn settlers:

upload_2017-4-27_12-26-23.png


And on the next turn:

upload_2017-4-27_12-28-58.png


Well, it actual went from size 4 to 6 instead of 5 to 7 later on, because of an enemy landing, but the above suffices for purposes of illustration.

My other 2 turn settler factory:

upload_2017-4-27_12-26-45.png


And on the next turn of the cycle:

upload_2017-4-27_12-31-49.png


I also had a 2 turn worker pump, which also produced settlers during various periods. After a while, I made it into a third 1 turn worker pump:

upload_2017-4-27_12-36-16.png
 
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Additional notes and some suggestions:

1 turn worker pumps come as easiest to set up if you use your capital, since you don't have to worry about corruption to get things to ten shields upon growth (which happens every single turn). Maybe you don't want to run them the whole game. Maybe you need military or something for a bit. In such a case, I would advise to put out some artillery units from a 1 turn worker pump city site and forget about barracks. Don't have it produce attack or defense units, or The Military Academy. Then come back to producing workers, hence the barracks would just eat up commerce later on for no reason. You might lose some food growth by doing that, but you often can win and play well without optimizing things in terms of food.

If you want more beakers, a 1 turn worker pump might work well in conjunction with a library, perhaps a university, so perhaps put one in, and then come back to producing workers. If you want more coins, then build a market, and I recommend that you go back to producing workers at a size below 6. Such a city though, since it will maintain a small size for optimal empire wide growth, doesn't need a market for happiness. If you get worried about drowning in unit support from so many workers, then just build roads around your cities, don't worry about mines or forestry, and then join in workers to your cities to get them to their maximum size.

Further, please note that though the above screenshots have rather uncommon food bonuses (though not necessarily too hard to find using MapFinder... at least for one city), 1 turn worker pumps are possible even without playing as agricultural and having a food bonus. For instance, if you have 5 bonus grasslands and either a hill or mountain even without iron or coal, such a city can get set up by irrigating and railing 4 of the bonus grasslands, mining and railing the other bonus grassland, and then mining a hill... which does not need a road or railroad, since you don't get any commerce from production produced upon growth. Or if you have iron, an example like this is possible:

upload_2017-4-27_12-57-21.png


Furthermore, and I've just realized this, this week, 1 turn worker pumps can have utility for simplifying micromanagement. At least, if you put up a nice road network first. You can quickly build a worker team for jobs and find out how to optimize use of your workers in the squares around your capital, and any roaded squares near enough to your rail network, if you have it connected to your 1 turn worker pump site. Why? Because you can consistently have a stream of workers coming from a single point. For instance, let's say that you want to plant a forest and then chop it playing as non-industrious...

One the first turn one worker starts the forest, for 1 out of 9 turns which will get completed when the turn ends.

On the second turn, now with two workers foresting, we have 2 more turns. 1/9 + 2/9 = 3/9.

On the third turn, we have 3/9, and 3/9 + 3/9 = 6/9.

On the fourth turn we can put the new worker somewhere else, and the previous 3 workers finish the forest.

On the fifth turn you have 3 workers ready to do something else, and one more coming, so you can then chop the forest with those 3 workers and the one coming from your 1 turn worker pump city site.

Then once you've done that, you have a team of 4 workers ready to go which can then split up or join some other workers to complete a job immediately, and with some teams of workers, and roads up, it becomes much easier to complete worker jobs without wasted worker turns.

It also turns out that if you irrigate a square on the first turn, then have that worker and another worker irrigating on the second turn, and finally have a third worker join those two workers on the last turn, the first two workers are ready to go for other work *on the third turn*. So, you get the irrigation done without any worker turns wasted (playing as non-industrious).

To test things out an "average start" worker pump and experiment with workers and managing such a city... which only requires you to keep on managing the tiles in the exactly the same pattern every turn... just zoom to the city when you produce a worker and try this... here's two saves for anyone interested. The first, at 530 AD, is the city site before rails, if you want to practice setting one up yourself, and the save at 620 AD with it set up so that you can easily experiment for yourself:
 

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