The West Tower

I only recorded the snaaty sim. And that one improved both corns before gems. There I get my 4th tech at turn 35, 5th tech on turn 40. Your sims with gems 2nd seems to shave off those two turns.

But one of the things I've been contemplating is what it means to be morking those gems at say, a cost of 2 or 3 settler turns. In terms of late game, those gems are worth a turn of town, and I could easily see a 2-3 turns of quicker settler catching up and surpassing even 6 turns of early gems. However, what we have now is much more important to us now. So I think we should mix together what we have working for us, and I think that leads to using the early gems at pop 2 on a 2nd worker.

But through that I think we may have two paths are they are surroundings dependant. One is to scrap that and 1 worker only, but whip the settler from 3>2 but close 2nd city picks up the lost gems/corn quickly. Two, with a better 2nd city away, is 2nd worker at pop two (lose a couple turns for 2nd city, gain them back with 3rd city and decimated forest) and probably settler at pop 3 with ~2 chops.

An early 2nd city connected with roads has 20:commerce:, which runs through multipliers real efficient.
 
All these numbers, calculations and mathematics are sadly out of my league as of yet - I trust in His Majesty, and my fellow nobles, that we will come to a good conclusion that will ultimately be the best decision for the future glory of Merlot!

That been said though, it is highly interesting to follow this discussion, as I am learning about aspects of planning out a city that I have never considered in such depth! So, even though we are a Monarchy, I would like to thank you all for taking the time and effort to do this thorough planning public for all the nobles present!

Your Humble Servant,
Sir Caledorn
Imperial Diplomat of House Merlot
 
My fellow lords, I still am appalled at how quick you are to dismiss the meditation/mine plan of the noble Ash.

Not only will it help keep the rabble in line, but, with a holy shrine, we shall get a substantial boost to taxes and informants in every city with believers.

Remember, my friends, that Knowledge IS power, and it shall greatly aid the efforts and improve the reliability of our spy masters and their reports.

Nuts to Ghandi. We can achieve anything if we put enough of our effort behind it, and I refuse to allow the noble Kingdom of Merlot to be thwarted by an over-sized raisin.

Besides, his followers are foolish enough to believe in "Democracy" and will face considerable strife over choosing a course of action. I have little doubt that, once they see that we too have the ability to learn Meditation and Polytheism, they shall fear that we are rushing it, just as Tegvtec was when he realised their identity.

We could easily capitalise upon this.

Nonetheless, ultimately, the decision lays with My Liege and our chances of retaining the initiative rest with him. As such, I shall not hinder his plans, even if they utterly ignore religion.
 
My fellow lords, I still am appalled at how quick you are to dismiss the meditation/mine plan of the noble Ash.

My Lords, I must agree. The benefits of religion cannot be lightly cast aside.

Although Gandhi (alone amongst our rival nations) has meditation, we are also Financial. Moreover,even supposing he has gems, gold or some other great boost to commerce, he cannot produce a worker so rapidly to exploit it. This being so surely we stand an excellent chance, with the gems, of beating Gandhi to the punch?

Let us think of the long term.

One thing that has not been mentioned yet is that in founding a religion we do not only get the benefit, we also deny such benefit to our rivals. With our financial status and a holy city we would be a powerhouse of research, while our rivals are left to daub themselves in wode like the primitive rabble they are.

We must play to our strengths, my Lords. With Cyrus and Brennus out there if we get drawn into war in a comparable technological position in the late classical period we are sunk, and our noble house will fall under their barbaric lash. This must not happen. With the commerce Lord Ash's strategy offers we will be able to move rapidly through the dangerous classical era into the relative safety of medievalism. And Gandhi, short a religion (or two), will be seriously inconvenienced as well.

As for which religion, I am less sure. I can see the argument for allowing Gandhi Buddhism, while we take Polytheism, allowing us a fall-back plan of Monotheism (after Agriculture and BW) in case of the worst.

Gracious Majesty, you are of course right to be concerned about losing early growth. But our rapid production of a worker, thanks to the fecundity of our commonfolk, will greatly mitigate this, having as we do not just one but two fields of corn to farm.

May it please Your Majesty, I humbly submit that we seek out the secrets of religion most assiduously. They will stand us in good stead for millennia to come.

Long live the king!
 
If I get a chance, I'll try to run a sim with us going for either religion. However, I do agree with King Indiansmoke's assertion that doing so will set us too far back. Especially if we lose the race. If we had Fishing from the outset and could leverage some early commerce to ensure our success, I'd feel a lot better about trying for it.

But all is not lost. By building a solid foundation early, we could still make a play for Taoism or Islam or even Confucianism later in the game with a good chance of success.
 
MP is not like SP, everybody doesn't rush off to religion. Just because we don't beeline for it right away doesn't mean we won't get one. We still have Myst, we can sidetrack to it once we get going.
 
Based on the risks of us losing the religion race if Gandhi decides to research it, I would say that it's not worth taking that risk. We can also assume that the other civilizations have a similar starting position to ours, since that was one of the challenges given to the map maker (no unfair starts). Given, gems are an excellent start bonus to get, but if Gandhi also has gems in their fat cross and decides to go for Buddhism - then what?

In my humble opinion it's better to play safe and go for rapid early expansion rather than the initial religion(s) - I concur with Donovan Zoi on making a play for one of the later religions rather than taking this high risk at the very beginning of the game, which could set our Kingdom back quite a bit compared to our rivals.
 
MP is not like SP, everybody doesn't rush off to religion. Just because we don't beeline for it right away doesn't mean we won't get one. We still have Myst, we can sidetrack to it once we get going.

Maybe, but it is still competitive. And we know now that we can definitely beat everyone else; Gandhi is the only risk; by the time of Taoism or Islam we will have no such certainty. Gandhi may well have gems or fish too, but he can't access them as fast as we can.
 
My fellow lords, I still am appalled at how quick you are to dismiss the meditation/mine plan of the noble Ash.

Sir mgsmuhammad, I am but a humble servant of the King and toil endlessly for his pleasure and purpose alone. Any strategy I may devise now or in the future is his to dismiss.

I deeply and most sincerely appreciate your confidences. As you can see I have laboured late into many evenings, and denied myself the comfort and warmth of my good womans companionship, all to demonstrate the glory of founding a religion. In previous posts I have run simultations and provided meticulous documentation and comparison. This has all been done.

The idea that we woud be "way behind" has been dispelled through careful analysis. It has no legs. I would be so bold as to say that any that continue to state it simply haven't taken the time to read my long winded and meticulous detailings. For that I do not hold them at fault.

If I was to play devils advocate against the Meditation first strategy the argument would be this: what if Ghandi is going for it as well, and what if he chooses the same one we do? No doubt their team is thinking the same thing of us right now when considering their strategy. What if we choose Meditation? Or Polytheism? What if we get it first? What if we win the race? What if we are more aggressive?

The question about whether to found a religion (either through Meditation or Polytheism) isn't about whether it will put us too far behind. The game simply isn't that black and white - otherwise every civ that has ever founded a religion would always lose multiplayer civ.

Rather the question is about well timed aggression - as most questions in Civ4 are. Is this the time to be aggressive?

The only way I can see Ghandi being successful in multiplayer is if he founds multiple religions - I just can't figure another strategy with that civ. I expect Ghandi will go for Meditation then Polytheism in short order afterwards. The fact that we are playing another Civ with Meditation must really be a thorn in his side. No doubt he is losing much more sleep over this than we are. I would love to use that to our advantage. The question then becomes do we anticipate him going for Meditation to attempt to get both religions? Or does he go for Polytheism - a safer option - because it helps him secure Judaism.

As in all things I bend my will to the will of the King.

Cheers.
 
Sir mgsmuhammad, I am but a humble servant of the King and toil endlessly for his pleasure and purpose alone. Any strategy I may devise now or in the future is his to dismiss.

I understand all to well our Liege's god-given right to act as he sees fit, however I feel the other members of the aristocracy could be slightly more receptive.

As to whether or not it is the time to be aggressive, well, when honestly can we afford to not be?

The world is turning, sons of Merlot, and I fear we may easily over the course of time be brought down by its burden.
WE MUST KEEP UP THE PRESSURE.
WE MUST KEEP ADVANCING.

WE MUST SURVIVE.

The moment we give our foes ANY quarter, is the moment they thrust a knife through our throats.

Aggression is the only method of keeping them on the backfoot, and prolonging our existence.

Aggression, not neccessarily militarily, but economically, technologically or even diplomatically. Although they would, admittedly, have far more potential if one or more were used in conjuction with each other.

I dare anyone to disagree with me when I say that we cannot prosper by staying lax.
 
So I am a little late to this party, sorry. IMO, Confucianism should be the Religious target for the following reasons.

1) Other priorities are MORE critical in the very early going.
2) By leveraging our worker production speed, we get a jump on working improved tiles. There is no reason to grow into tiles that are unimproved for an extended period of time. I would even consider a worker>worker start.
3) Confucianism is on the way to Bureaucracy, which should be an early target tech, even if/when we decide to move the Capitol to a better location.

Now, another possibility is to target Hindu through Poly>Priesthood>...on the way to Literature>Music for the GL and the free GA from the free GA!!!!

I am trying to catch up on all the threads, but haven't a lot of time. Is there a single thread where I can find ALL the basic info. Who the rival civs are is one main point I know I am unaware of. I know I saw the mention of Gandhi, Brennus, Cyrus...who else???

About Gandhi...someone said they didn't see a reason to use G in MP. Do not underestimate the power of the fast worker. Faster tile improvement, especially early in the game, is critical to long term success. Cities 2,3,4 get settled faster, using improved tiles earlier. Also, being able to swap civics without anarchy is underrated. Whipping and then running specialists under Caste is a great way to build infrastructure early if you don't have to worry about losing turns to anarchy.

Our King has been through the MP wars before, and I am sure he is wise to these ways! Single player strategies will almost surely fail in the MP environment. :(

Which brings me to my last point! Scouting....I know huts are removed, but early contact, to begin making friends, may be the single most important factor in our long term success.

Long live the King!
 
So I am a little late to this party, sorry. IMO, Confucianism should be the Religious target for the following reasons.

Confusianism is a fair goal, however given the number of prerequisite technologies needed it seems that it would be "fair game" to a number of civilizations - not just ours. Unlike Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Judaism we would have lost the head start granted us by our opening tech - Mysticism. This is particularly true since Code of Laws occurs well after Alphabet and the potential tech trading that occurs there (although in multi player games in my experience this is limited).

1) Other priorities are MORE critical in the very early going.
If you take a look back at my meticulous side by side comparison you will see that by turn 35 the meditiation/mine strategy is actually 1 turn ahead in research then the agriculture/farm strategy. Which critical priorities do you feel are being neglectied?

2) By leveraging our worker production speed, we get a jump on working improved tiles. There is no reason to grow into tiles that are unimproved for an extended period of time. I would even consider a worker>worker start.
Again, referencing the detailic work I did in the side by side play through you can see (and play through yourself) to notice that there is never a turn in the Meditation/Mine strategy when an unimproved tile is worked - apart from the initial time it takes us to get our first worker and improve our first tile - but this is the same timeline for all the strategies.

3) Confucianism is on the way to Bureaucracy, which should be an early target tech, even if/when we decide to move the Capitol to a better location.
I agree that moving our glorious capital should be a strong consideration once the Kings Scouts report back to us on the lay of the land. I also agree that learning the distant secrets of Bureaucracy will be a great asset to our Kingdom. Howver I again want to emphasize that at that point in history we will no longer be playing to the current advantage that we have of already knowing Mysticism. Almost any of our aggressive rivals could equally learn the secrets of Civil Service before we do for any number of reasons we cannot forecast. One of the two primary traits of Pacal is Mystricism - why not use the strength of the leader we have choosen?

Now, another possibility is to target Hindu through Poly>Priesthood>...on the way to Literature>Music for the GL and the free GA from the free GA!!!!
Meditation/Mine is a quick diversion to pick up a religion. What you are suggesting is more of a lifestyle choice - and one that may work on the periphery of a broader focused plan. For the amount of time that this would take to implement I for one would feel more comfortable with Archers defending my city walls then a Great Artist creating a painting. ;)

I am trying to catch up on all the threads, but haven't a lot of time. Is there a single thread where I can find ALL the basic info. Who the rival civs are is one main point I know I am unaware of. I know I saw the mention of Gandhi, Brennus, Cyrus...who else???
If you have to read one thread I think this is the one most applicable to the game start. The leaders are discussed in here somewhere Although really there are some cool other threads here as well.[/Quote]

Which brings me to my last point! Scouting....I know huts are removed, but early contact, to begin making friends, may be the single most important factor in our long term success.
This is my first MP game on civfanatics. I am not use to "making friends" for very long, or trading too many techs, or the like. Maybe I will be surprised and it will be a big care-bear stare fest. If it is - cool. In the mp games I have played the main advanatge of early scouting is knowing the layout of the land. Once the borders go up you won't be getting a "map trade" - and "open borders" are reserved for those very close to you (mainly for the trade and rarely relligous benefits).

Since there are Barbarian cities in the game the other advantage will be finding any well placed barbo cities to cap. Granted they always seem to be 1 tile off from where you would want them. Still, every once in a while it is worth it.

I admit I don't use scouts as much as the next guy - particularly if an early scout succumbs to a bear mauling. I will be interested to see if our King plays it differently and to learn from his strengths.

Cheers. :)
 
As a religious target, I've always liked Christianity as it also enables the AP. The free hammers from temples are a handy way to kick-start new cities (both production and culture) and it lets you play merry havoc with diplomacy.
 
As a religious target, I've always liked Christianity as it also enables the AP. The free hammers from temples are a handy way to kick-start new cities (both production and culture) and it lets you play merry havoc with diplomacy.

This is a great point.....the AP can really be a thorn in your side if you are on the wrong side.

I admit I don't use scouts as much as the next guy - particularly if an early scout succumbs to a bear mauling. I will be interested to see if our King plays it differently and to learn from his strengths.
I was actually thinking more about getting AH and using Chariots as armed scouts. But to the main ?....in MP, if you don't make at least 1 friend early to trade with(assuming tech trading is an option), you can/will get totally hosed. Being on the outside of a trading block is the death noll for any civ. At the same time, it has been my experience that drawing too much attention to ones self early in the game through the acquisition of "too many" religions or wonders, will also stack the opposition against you. All of these teams have experienced MP players, and none of them should be taken lightly, IMO!

Now, if our KING wants an early religion, we should take one. But the happiness it could bring is virtually meaningless IMO. Monarchy is a much better happiness builder. Forges get us hammers and happiness from the gems, = to the single happy face from the religion, and +25% on virtually EVERY hammer produced after the completion of the forge. It could be argued that Monotheism is a better option for the 25% building bonus early in the game when infrastructure building is in progress.

IMO, the priorities would go something like this....
1. Improve tiles in capitol = worker 1st
2. Scout for friends = 1-3 scouting units based on what we find in the 1st 10 turns.
3. Strategic resources = metals and horses, order not critical, but BW lets us chop.
4. Get cities 2-3 up ASAP.

Questions that will drive our needs.
What type of economy are we planning on running? Specialist? Cottage? Hammer? Combo? This is always a great question.

I personally like a combo economy because it offers more flexibility and is less susceptible to pillaging. If you run a straight cottage economy and start getting your cottages pillaged, you are DONE! Virtually impossible to recover the lost turns to regrow those cottages. Farms and workshops give many options for science generation and hammer production. Obviously the Pyramids give a great boost to this idea if you can run Representation early.

Now that doesn't mean I would forgo cottages completely. They should just be used in moderation in a well protected environment. Unfortunately, our current starting position does not lend itself to cottages.

Please keep the ideas coming!

Long live the KING!
 
I don't have time to build a test map with the proper opponents. It wouldn't really make a difference(now), because the likelihood of our human competitors playing like the computer are relatively nil. But it might be beneficial going forward to have one we can work with.

I just played around with the test save posted earlier. Here are my results....

I ignore EVERYTHING not built in capitol.

Tech path is AG>BW>Wheel>Pottery>Writing>working on math

Capitol has Granary and working on Library.

We have 4 workers, 5 warriors and 3 cities by T55.

It is a solid opening IMO....
 
Even though the AI will be unrealistic, here's a test map with the actual opponents.

(Oops. If you downloaded it before this edit, I had the grassland and plains southwest of the starting location switched.)
 

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Not only will it help keep the rabble in line, but, with a holy shrine, we shall get a substantial boost to taxes and informants in every city with believers.
We actually won't get informants in cities with our religion since we are playing BtS. What we would get is a spying bonus to the cities with our state religion. If my memory serves me well, that does not even require a holy city in our possession.

All in all, I would concur with the assesment that while founding an early religion would be a nice bonus, it is by no means necessary. What it would give to us is +1 happinenss in each city with religion (+2 with temples) and 1 currency for each city with our religion. Early happiness bonus is much better with monarchy and we get also +2 extra happiness for our UB so getting the happines early is not going to be a problem. The financial bonus is nice extra but does not compare at all to having a good infrastructure early.
 
Charismatic is very weak trait IMO the weakest after protective, so both hanibal and cyrus are weak choices...but...can prove handy in situations with real shortage of hapiness resources, which fortunatelly does not seem the case here.

My Lord. I believe you already have taken this in account, but both Persia and Carthage pose a significant early threat with Immortals and Numidian Cavalry. I have to agree that the leaders are somewhat poor though. For one I cannot understand why anyone would choose Cyrus over Darius. :confused: Perhaps it is due to ridiculous system of democracy this is even possible.

On the other hand I personally regard Immortals being one of the most powerful UUs and Numidian Cavalry is not half bad either. I can understand why someone would pick Persia or Carthage for their civilization. For us Immortals probably will not pose that serious of a threat due to Holkans. Numidian Cavalry on the other hand can not be thwarted with Holkans that easily but will require preferably Horse Archers of our own or sufficient amount of properly upgraded Archers.
 
Your Majesty,

Without reading through the (undoubtedly excellent) discussion here, I saw fit to conduct my own independent study into the strategy our glorious nation might adopt over the coming years. Seeing, in my ignorance, a single path marked out as the most likely to yield success, I paid no heed to any alternatives, and cleaved only to the simple farmer's method of prioritising growth above all else.

Thus, that which I now present is given only for the sake of completeness, lest his glorious Majesty should glean some small scrap of enlightenment from my unworthy toil...

Spoiler :
Turn 0: Settle in place. Work forest. Agriculture in 9. Worker in 12. Border in 5.

Turn 5: Border pop. Work forest hill. Agriculture in 4. Worker in 6.

Turn 9: Agriculture done. Bronze Working in 15. Worker in 2.

Turn 11: Worker done - head south to Corn. Work Corn. Growth in 8. BW in 13. Warrior in 8.

Turn 16: Corn farmed. Growth in 2. BW in 8. Warrior in 3.

Turn 17: Worker heads north towards Corn. Growth in 1. BW in 7. Warrior in 2.

Turn 18: Grow to size 2. Work Corn. Growth in 4. BW in 6. Warrior in 1.

Turn 19: Warrior done. Growth in 3. BW in 5. Warrior in 7.

Turn 22: Grow to size 3. Work grassland forest. Growth in 4. BW in 2. Warrior in 3.

Turn 23: Corn farmed. Growth in 3. BW in 1. Warrior in 2.

Turn 24: Worker to grass hill forest. BW done. Growth in 2. Hunting in 6. Warrior in 1.

Turn 25: Worker mines/chops. Warrior done. Growth in 1. Hunting in 5. Warrior in 5.

Turn 26: Grow to size 4. Hunting in 4. Settler in 9.

Turn 31: Hunting done. Fishing in 6. Whip Settler (2 pop). Chop/mine done.

Turn 32: Settler done. City at size 2. Fishing in 5. Worker in 2.

So, the Settler can head off with the original Worker, leaving the part-built Worker to take over at the capital a couple of turns later. The choice of Fishing as the next tech is purely speculative - we'd want to see what the local surroundings had to offer before making that choice.

Your humble servant,

Winston of Hughes.
 
First let me welcome Ronnie1 and Winston Hughes in the Kingdom of Merlot! It is great having you with us!

Alot of fair and well thought points have been made and I am glad that all the nobles of Merlot are eager to contribute and help Merlot in it's quest for Glory!

The main issue at our hands right now is whether to go for a religion straight away or to tech agriculture. Although religion is tempting, I feel that we should not delay developement and not risk a chance of going for religion and losing it. I am sure we will have our chances in the short future to get a religion and make our people happy.

So we will tech agriculture by making a worker first and focus on rapid development. We will have sometime until our worker is done to decide the optimal way to handle worker improvements, moves and city builds.

What we must be extra carefull about is an opponent wandering warrior however. We will have more info after we move warrior and settle, but if our cultural borders leave blind spots it might be worth to build a warrior for a turn or 2, just in case.
 
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