The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

^Criticism is certainly welcome. I was just a bit puzzled. I've seen doom and gloom posts in thr ALC, and I thought they were beginning to appear here too :mischief:

Like I said, I have a habit of chopping and roading, since it helps to eventually get a full network of roads up that are essential for defense. I guess I should drop that habit on Immortal.

From the experience of my Emperor games, it seemed to me that mines are not that great. Maybe it's just that I've been getting low production starts, but I'm quite accustomed to whipping as a means of production. As Mutineer pointed out, it's just superior compared to working mines until later in the game. That's why I didn't feel the urgency to get mines up. But now that I think of it, I should have laid down at least a grassland mine. Ah, well. I'm still learning. Especially the math part :p
 
Oh, forgot to talk about what we would do next. I agree with researching Pottery next. It seems we would need it. I'm still inclined to rush Louis while it's still easy. If we succeed, I think the stage would be set for eventual victory.

I'm now in favour of settling our third city where the barb city was, as uberfish recommended. We don't have Sailing yet, so we can't turn the lake tiles into oasis tiles for a while. Might as well grab the clams and work the gold mine first. There's room for another lakeside/seaside city to the south.
 
Rush is a good idea.
I assume you know pottery, as it was in your plan. Researching iron working befor pottery was a grave error. lost in productin is huge. I would probably go and play a bit of parallel game, generally follow your tech but insert early pottery somewhere. Just want to show difference in development.
 
OK, I played to discovery Iron working.
Generally position is the same, difference is:
1) I build 2 workers befor settler.
2) I stick fishing-granary befor writing.
3) Rigth now I have 2 cities + 1 settler which will found city next turn.
4) Capital has granary, Temple, baracks, library and altar build.
5) Second city has obelisk+granary build, building Barack right now.
6) A lot more ties improved, even I lost gold mine to unlucky roll to archer.

I am not trying to discredit your work, I just wont to point out inprecisions.
Power of granary with slavery is hurd to undestate.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/84898/aelf_BC-0775.CivWarlordsSave
 
Aelf thanks for the thread.

My question is why the hurry to IW--I agree of course with the pottery analysis but with COL I would go alpha instead and trade for IW. Am I missing something here?
 
^Earlier Jaguars.

Mutineer, which year are you in and how many troops do you have? Do you think I've lost this game?
 
I'm not so worried about the French. I think the bigger danger is that the other continent will be teching faster because they'll have more trading opportunities. Assuming you succeed in taking significant land off the French (and I think you can), the key will be to turn that land into enough commerce that you can catch up.

Back to the whip vs mines question (yes, I know, it's getting old): pre-granaries, food and hammers equate very closely. They're identical while building a worker or settler. And 1 pop (equals 30 hammers) takes about 30 food to regrow. So look at a forest as a three 'production' tile vs. a mine as four 'production'. And when you consider that the citizen working that tile is consuming two food, a mine gives you about twice the net production as a forest. Or: whipping 2 pop every 10 turns is 6 hammers/turn. Working both plains hills and the grass hill as mines is 11 hammers/turn. With the three high food tiles, the city would still be at +5 food at size 6, enough to support some whipping (you might only be able to run 2 or 2 1/2 mines while whipping full speed). I too kind of got away from mines when I first discovered how powerful whipping is (and chopping), but I've come back to them. Besides resources and farmed floodplains, they're the only 4 production tiles until late in the game.

Now stop being doomy and gloomy and go kick some French butt.

peace,
lilnev
 
And 1 pop (equals 30 hammers) takes about 30 food to regrow.

No, it takes 15 food to regrow, once you have a granary.

I haven't been following this game closely, but I certainly doubt it is "lost". Winning just shouldn't be all that hard, even if you make some modest errors. That's no reason not to point out possible improvements.
 
Yeah, post-granaries the whip clearly gains in strength. The equation becomes closer to, "which tile(s) are you not working because of unhappiness and food needs?" But even here, if the answer is "two mines" (one because the city is a size smaller, and one because you need to work more food-surplus tiles to regrow), you might sometimes be better off just working the mines. Such cases become math-intensive. My main point was that mines are 'four production' tiles, very strong if you have the food to support them. And perhaps overlooked because they're not as flashy as the whip.

peace,
lilnev
 
lilnev, if you can convert all your food supluss to shield with mines, especially grasshill mines, they are stronger.
Math is actially simple.

ON size 4 slavery convers 1 food to 2.4 shields. (whipping 2 population)
on size 6 slavery convert 1 food to 2.14 shields(whipping 3 population)
or2.06 shields whipping 2 population)

Glassland mine convers 1 food to 3 shields = 3 shields/food convercion
Plain mine convers 2 food to 4 shields = 2shields/food conversion

So, somewhere around size 8 plain mine provide the same conversion as slavery.

He has 5food+6food+3 food tie.
2+3+4+1= 10 food excess.
he need 5 plain mines to convert food to shields normal way.
there 2 plain mines+ 1 grasslaned mine posible + 2 plain forests.

so maximum he can convert 4+1+2= 7 food into 11 shields/turn, but he need size 8 city to do that. If you add hourses tie, which is food neitral, then size 9. So, on size 9 he will be allmost as productive normally as on size 4-6 with slavery.
 
if you can convert all your food supluss to shield with mines, especially grasshill mines, they are stronger.
It doesn't matter what kind of mines you use. Plains mines and grass mines are both 4 (food+production) - that's what matters. Of course, in practice it depends exactly what tiles you have in the fat cross.
 
So the moral of the story is one should get granaries asap?

I think that's one sound approach, with definite advantages. It doesn't mean it's the only approach. There are tradeoffs.

Iron Working is good, too. But it's a lot more expensive than Pottery. And Pottery also helps you start building cottages.
 
You don't have to go early granaries all the time, however it has good synergy with a strategy based around slavery and sacrificial altars.

If you delay pottery (which I quite often do) it's good to place more priority on building mines though.
 
But, you see, it seems to me that what is limiting our use of the whip is whip weariness, not food problems (we have plenty). Unless we whip more than once every 10 turns (before Altar), something that I'm not accustomed to.
 
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