Plans for turns 40-70

Our short term goal for next 20 turns looks quite clear. Research will be Wheel-Pottery-Mining-Bronze working. And production Worker - Warrior - Warrior(maybe until pop4 or ready if we've lost 1 Warrior during scouting) - Settler. The BW will be ready ~(turn) 42. At that point we're producing our first settler and it will be ready ~(turn) 45. Worker has collected sheeps and build 2 cottages to FP and probably starts now to chop riverside forest.

After this it is little bit more unclear. I'm not certain if we've shot at Oracle. What do more experienced players think? It seems that we won't have Marble and if we want to improve horses (1 worker there) as soon as possible and possibly found our third city to flood plains before Oracle (using whip) it means that Oracle will be ready at the earliest ~turn 70 using 1 worker for chopping. On the other hand we could give up Oracle and try to get e.g. Great Wall. Nevertheless it might make sense to research Priesthood to release Monarchy to solve our happiness problems.

like the idea of possibly giving up the oracle and going great wall, only time will truly tell of the best course of action, and anyway I expect one team will have started with marble and will rush for oracle

With Immortals I wouldn't really put the Great Wall at high priority, those should be pretty good with taking care of all the barbs, with just a few axes here and there for the occassional spearman.

So Oracle --> Education slingslot go!

(p.s. before someone informs me that we're not philosophical and that its an awful terrible idea, I'm just joking )

Yeah, the Great Wall isn't really all that valuable on this map. Besides, if we don't have a shot at the Oracle, we almost certainly don't have a shot at the Great Wall.

No, I say let's give the Oracle a shot. I'm not sure whether it should be before or after our third city - it will depend on how quickly we can organise some chops. But let's attempt to build the thing.

if we attempt to build it, i'd like some kind of backup plan just in case we cant make it in time .. would not want to waste the hammers for a warrior ...

would not want to waste the hammers for a warrior ...

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i dont get it, i expect hammers will be converted into commerce

Ok I admit that The Great Wall isn't that useful. If we want to get Great spys we can use courthouses and spy specialists and still it might be that we would prefer some other Great persons more and other values of the wall are not that big.

If we're gonna go for Oracle, then we should make everything to get it. Here is the plan that in my opinion is almost fastest possible (it would be even faster if we don't send 1 of the workers to improve horses right away, but it makes some prechopping), but involves a risks e.g. we'll have only 2 warriors to protect 2 cities and safe route to our first Settler (assuming we don't lose 1). Priesthood is ready on turn ~55 depending on whether we prefer Meditation or Polytheism and when we had to lower slider because of the building our 2nd city. Writing takes ~6 turns after this. After settler is ready we would continue to produce 2 more workers. Chopping 2nd one by building mine in the riverside hill and building 3rd one normally. 3rd is ready about the same time as the Priesthood is finished. Meanwhile 2nd one prechops forests. We send 1st worker to improve the horses (If we're creating city, it should have improved tiles around it) and use 2nd and 3rd to finish chopping. After writing is ready we're almost done the chopping. Therefore we could get Oracle somewhere around turn 63. I doubt that going to slavery and whipping would make this any faster.

There is naturally price for all this. We won't have forests around our capital (1 left). Losing is somewhat compensated by the gold we get from losing it and can use 100% slider to get some of the loss back.

IF we go for the Oracle, what would be the free tech? Code of Laws? Also, maybe one of us should make a really long post with detailed info on every turn from 40-70? Then we have just one post to refer to instead of having lots of them in one thread.

Toch said:

i dont get it, i expect hammers will be converted into commerce

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ah my bad ..yes of course
but it will still be a waste

Hammers will be converted to gold.

Warriors:
* We should do everything possible to keep our Warriors alive (even consider giving up scouting). If we lose one we'll almost certainly had to build additional one before Oracle.
* 1st Warrior should head to horses so that it is there around turn ~48 (so that we can settle our horse city as safely as possible)

City is working following tiles most of the time in order given. (when optimizing Oracle build some ForestedPlainsHIll could be used instead of crab)
1: Crab
2: Sheep
3: FP
4: FP
5: mined hill

Here is my suggestion (Starting from turn 20):
23: Wheel ready -> Pottery
26: 1st Worker ready Working schedule: First Sheeps then 2*cottage then chop and mine the riverside hill. After this go to horse city and collect horses and build 1 farm.
29: Pottery->Mining
30: pop3 (working 2*FP+crab. Other FP changes to sheeps soon.)
34: Mining->BW. Warrior ready start another for 1 turns. Send warrior to fortify hill in the way to horse city.
35: pop 4 change to settler (the hammers put to Warrior will disappear because we won't finish it early enough. It might be better to produce warrior for 1 turns at some point. It might be that we can get the oracle ready at turn 63 even if we do this.)
45: settler ready start 2nd worker
47: Mystisicm->Meditation
49: Riverside mines ready 1st worker starts trip to horse city
50: Send 1 protecting warrior back to Saturn to take care of happiness. Titan is founded (starts monument). Had to lower slider to 80%.
51: Meditation->Priesthood
55: Prieshood->Writing. 3rd Worker ready. Meanwhile 2nd Worker has prechopped 2 forests. Starting Oracle.
59: pop 5. optimizing max prod. using 2*forestedplainshill instead of flood plains (one of the hills is chopped after 2 turns => back to work Flood plains. Afterwards thinking I think this unnescessary. Last chop will do the thing wo. need to work all high hammer tiles.)
61: Writing ready starting Monarchy. Titan has monument ready switching to immortal.
63: Oracle is ready.

Here is save from turn 20 that I used for the testing (made using worldbuilder)
View attachment saturn20.CivBeyondSwordSave

Will we want to change civics to Slavery?

In my opinion slavery is not needed before Oracle is ready and even after that we probably won't need it right away. Saturn probably builds settler and has again some room in happy cap (assuming we got religion). However Titan could be used to whip immortals earlier.

I was thinking we could whip for the Oracle if we really needed it but I don't know if it's the best thing to do. Also, we risk slave revolts (are random events on?).

Events are on. We really wouldn't win many turns by whipping (at max 1 turn because writing is delayed for 1 turns because of revolt). If we go for Metal casting 2 turns is possible.

Overall, I like the plan for getting the Oracle earlier. A couple of points I should mention though - I wouldn't be happy with either (a) sacrificing our exploration by keeping Warriors at home, or (b) risking any Settlers or Workers travelling in neutral territory without escourts.

Scuum said:

if we attempt to build it, i'd like some kind of backup plan just in case we cant make it in time .. would not want to waste the hammers for a warrior ...

Click to expand...

Toch said:

i dont get it, i expect hammers will be converted into commerce

Click to expand...

Scuum said:

ah my bad ..yes of course
but it will still be a waste

Click to expand...

I think you just got confused between Civ3 and Civ4.

The gold isn't actually too much of a waste, although it's obviously disappointing to miss out on the free tech.

DMOC said:

Will we want to change civics to Slavery?

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DMOC said:

I was thinking we could whip for the Oracle if we really needed it but I don't know if it's the best thing to do. Also, we risk slave revolts (are random events on?).

Click to expand...

Whipping the Oracle would be a bad idea. First of all there's the more expensive cost for whipping wonders, and on top of that there's the lost citizens (and tiles) for several turns. Plus you have to have a turn wasted in Anarchy for the switch, and you risk Slave revolts. I definitely think that we shouldn't switch to Slavery unless we actually need it.

Lord Parkin said:

Whipping the Oracle would be a bad idea. First of all there's the more expensive cost for whipping wonders, and on top of that there's the lost citizens (and tiles) for several turns. Plus you have to have a turn wasted in Anarchy for the switch, and you risk Slave revolts. I definitely think that we shouldn't switch to Slavery unless we actually need it.

Click to expand...

Slavery depends on the map. If there's a lot of food and poor production, you want to slave all over the place as much as possible. Conversely if there's lots of hills, and not many food resources ( ) it won't be very helpful. So while I love slavery, this map doesn't seem like we'll want it much.

As a general rule I use if a city grows signifigantly faster than it builds, time to whip.

After rethought. I think the plan I presented costs too much, if we won't get Oracle. To be more on safe side I would finish at least 1 more warrior and after we've 3 workers I would start building settler and prechop all remaining forests. If it seems possible to get Oracle, I would send all workers to finish the chops and build it in 2-3 turns. This probably wouldn't delay oracle much, but if it is finished somewhere we can use prechopped forests for something else.

plako said:

After rethought. I think the plan I presented costs too much, if we won't get Oracle. To be more on safe side I would finish at least 1 more warrior and after we've 3 workers I would start building settler and prechop all remaining forests. If it seems possible to get Oracle, I would send all workers to finish the chops and build it in 2-3 turns. This probably wouldn't delay oracle much, but if it is finished somewhere we can use prechopped forests for something else.

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This seems pretty safe. Just make sure that the workers build roads on the forests so that they can go to the forest and chop in 1 turn. I hope some of the other teams aim for other wonders.

Also what free tech do you plan on getting? I would like Metal Casting or Code of Laws. If this were single player, I would probably consider other techs but those two look like the best so far.

Any idea what the time Oracle usually gets built in multiplayer games with skilled players?

I've run some further tests. It seems that my previous statement was not realistic. If we just prechop and do not delay anything else Oracle will be delayded more than 2-3 turns. If we would try this, we wouldn't get Oracle.

In my opinion, if we try to build it we should build it as fast as possible. This is attained if we can both have workable high hammer tiles and use chops. I also suggest that we raise population to 5 by building 1 more warrior before starting Worker or Settler. This doesn't delay much the the first settler, if we want it (2 turns), because we can use chop to finish it. In my tests I didn't accumulate any gold to handle events. Research was every time the same. i.e. Mystisicm-Meditation-Priesthood-Writing.

In first test, after additional warrior and population 5 I started to produce 2 more Workers and after this Settler (ready at turn 54, when Priesthood comes). Workers mine the grassland hill and both flood plain hills (2nd is ready when Oracle is under construction). 1 worker can go to assist horse city right away, when settler is ready and 2 others finish the last mine and then chop all but 1 forest. When building Oracle, Saturn works most of the time high hammer producing tiles not flood plains. Oracle and Writing comes at turn 61.

I tested also scenario where I tried to build Oracle as fast as possible. If we concentrate only on Oracle and delay everything else. We could get it on turn 58 (Had to take either Metal Casting or Monarchy). This involves building warriors until size 5 and then 3 more workers. No settler in this scenario. Key here is to improve the high hammer tiles before we start Oracle and prechopping and chopping so that they can be worked while building oracle. Priesthood is ready at turn 54. After Oracle there is 1 Forest left to e.g. chop settler.

At the moment I see following realistic alternatives:
1. Don't build oracle concentrate on getting 3 cities as fast as possible and improve their tiles.
2. Use the first presented alternative. Build early second city and improve the horses. If we're succesful Oracle is ready at turn 63. If we lose it, nothing bad has yet happened we've already two nice cities and Immortals start soon to patrol our borders
3. Build Oracle as fast as possible and forget everything else. This would give Oracle at turn 58, but not Code of laws. There would be just 1 city and settler could be ready on turn 59 to collect the horses.
4. Build Oracle and Code of Laws as fast as possible on turn 61. This would delay horse city for ~10 turns, but tiles around capital would be well improved.

My opinion changes all the time. I can accept all these alternatives. However I usually like to play it safe so I like option 1 most. If we're going to gamble, I think my first choice is option 4. Building of Oracle is not based only on chops.

I would like to go for the Oracle, and would choose option 4.