Screaming Orange Pumpkins - RR16B - It's tax day again ...

Pig - That's not a bad idea, but hard to confirm without more map knowledge on this type of map. If we don't have enough land on this continent to meet the % then it will be all or bust. :) Workboat out of Dam asap will help with that

Still, we are of like mind. I have a feeling that we might have that opportunity if we get a gateway to another reasonable landmass west of Dam. It could just be an island though. I definitely want to find ways of ending this quick and showing Team B superiority!

Rushing out Mids in Dam will speed up that border pop.

Rag can be an issue due to having the highest unitprob, but we might catch him off guard. At least take Nidaros and cripple him. He seems to still be in expansion mode and has not gone into war mode yet which is good.

I think we definitely keep the caps for now, at least RAg since he is close. Raze the Crap.

I meant to add that we should road south above Vandal toward Ndaros.
 
we run now 8 gpt only... we have place for ~3 cities in reasonable distance or more like 2 overall to not go broke...

just saying it as a reminder of mantinels :)

not sure with the mids... pumping out units out of 3 or 2 pumps right now can make big difference.

workers should road through the jungle towards raggy definitely
 
V definitely got Czech hockey on the brain :lol:

Few micro notes:

1) Cancel worker actions for 2 workers near Uruk. Unnecessary improvements. Better served chopping near Eridu and Uruk if we attack Rag (Uruk cannot work that PH...a farm would have been better.....road on corn not needed at present)

2) I would have rather divided the worker actions near Dam. 1 chops for Dam other mines gold

3) We can move all Dam MP south

4) Cancel road on ivory and have worker move to forest SW of that city to start road down to bananas and around VAndal culture

5) We can 2 pop whip gran in Eridu next turn for nice OF. Not this turn, but Uruk can 2 pop some Vulture if we rearrange tiles (only food) (LK - how good are you with whip mechanics and OF)

6) Uruk should switch from Copper mine to GH mine this turn. We could let a spear take the small OF this turn. Put turn into Vulture switching to all food tiles (2F grass tiles unimproved and lake) then whip next turn. It will complete the Spear.

Torn on Barracks in Eridu and Ivory city. It may be best to just rely on #s and speed at this point.
 
One of my big weaknesses with the game...

I don't know exactly where you stand with whip experience. You are a good player, so I assume you use it some, but just don't monitor the Overflow (OF) aspect of it much, so I'll offer an explanation here as basic as possible.

On normal speed, a citizen is worth 30H. When whipping, the OF counts the 30H from each citizen you whip, plus base hammers of the city at that point, any hammer modifiers (forges), civics (OR) or trait bonus on certain building if applicable. This added to the build item at the point of the whip plus any hammers already slow built into that item. (edit: I should correct here that hammer multipliers and bonuses are applied to OF the following turn)

Early game, units like Axes can be 2 pop whipped after 1t of build, if you only put no more than 4 hammers into them (pre-forge). So you need to adjust the worked tiles in a city to make sure only a minimal amount of hammers go into it. Depending on the city size and workable tiles affects how much overflow as this affects the amount of base hammers going into the build after you whip. You can often get in the range of 25 to 29 hammers which will complete another axe, spear or archer the next turn - again depending on the makeup of that city, if it's is low hammers it may take another turn to finish the new item.

This is a really fast way to get up an early army. If you have enough food and/or granaries, you can pump out a very nice army in just a few turns. Especially nice if you lack forests or already used them.

The key to this process is identifying and setting up the optimal whip points. BUG city screen enhancements help with this a lot. Sometimes you may need to adjust tiles on Turn X to make sure you reach or don't surpass the optimal whip point on Turn Y.

For instance, in Eridu, the Gran has 14 hammer into a 60H building. Eridu is producing 14 base hammers. If you go past 30H into a 60H buiding, then it is a 1 pop whip as you need less than or equal to the 30H you would get from 1 citizen. So to calculate at this point you have:

60H (Gran) - 14H (accrued) = 46H remaining to complete build

Note: Although Eridu has 14 base hammers, you will likely have less than that # after a whip depending on the city. I always whip and then adjust citizens to max hammers on that turn.

So,

60H (2whipped citizens)
- 46H (remaining in build)
= 14 hammers whip OF

+8H max base hammers in Eridu after whip

= 22H total OF next turn

However, if we wait until next turn to whip, we add 14 base hammer to the Gran build for a total of 28 hammers into the Gran. 28H does not exceed the 30H limit to 2pop the gran.

So,

60H (gran) - 28H (accrued) = 32H left to complete build

60H (2 whipped citizens)
-32H (left to complete)
=28H whip OF

+8H max base hammers in Eridu after whip

= 36H total OF

You've now just whipped a Granary sooner and completed a Vulture the next turn

We can do the same in Uruk with a Vulture whip. However, we can't do it this turn because of the small OF you get with some build completions. So always look at your production bar after a build before determining if you can setup a unit whip. ( I assume you use BUG...the whip button and production bar in city screen help immensely with these quick calculations)

So, next turn, if we switch the mines to food only tiles, we can 2 pop whip a Vulture for in excess of likely 30H OF next turn. You just completed 2 units in 2 turns.

I know it probably sounds complicated from the mess I wrote above, but it really is quite simple once you get the knack for it. V is good with this too and probably can explain it much better..

Note that when you whip an item the production bar adds the hammers to the existing hammers that turns such that it looks something like this in the case of a granary:

88/60

88 being the total hammers produced by the whipped citizens + accrued hammers

60 being the hammer cost of the time

88 - 60 = 28 whip OF

However, 88 does not included the base hammers of the city, so your total OF could be a bit more.

There are penalties and caps to OF. Also, OF hammers are subject to the hammer multipliers, civic bonuses, and trait production bonuses.

So, for instance, if I'm playing a leader with the IMP trait I will often 2 whip a worker into a settler as the IMP trait will max the OF into the settler (vice versa if EXP) . If creative, I will whip....say...a settler and use the OF into a Library

Additional note: Warriors, Archers and Chariots can obviously never be 2popped due to their low hammer cost, but I assume you know this already.


And this folks, is why we often harp on getting up granaries early and why they are so important
 
A simple plan

Kill Rags, extort writing from Asoka, kill Asoka, kill Churchill, kill Willem Once we've secured enough land build up cash then go on settler spree and hope we pass domination before we run out of money. Couple of libraries to research up to priesthood for ziggurats.
I don't see this working. We have 6 of the 8 civs. If the other two are on other islands in theory we have ~75% of the land. Add a small island, maybe 70%. If the other island(s) have more land per civ, we drop to ~65% and we lose.

Before I can even start a pre-plan, I want to hear other opinions on this.
To be honest, I started at the game for 15 minutes and still don't have a clue what to do.
 
@LK

had the same feelings.

I would hold onto L's plans... just pump out some more vultures, get them to close to Nidaros and in my TS I will try to sneak claim Nidaros from Raggy and we will see.

This game is full of ??? and we have to go step by step.

Waiting the game out doesn't seem like viable option to play.

Worker force should concentrate on routing through the jungle imo with improving around new established cities of course.

I would recheck number of improved tiles around cities and where applicable I would stop improving and workers moved to roading/chopping duty.

Btw when we're at micro side. If you borrow in capital that wet corn, the cap will grow in 1T and Eridu will shrink only a little. Next turn of course return that corn to Eridu.

L advocated a lot granaries for whip purposes. With the lack of happiness we have to be a bit careful starting whip cycles and their length.

Vultures are still cheap build (35H) so it is actually tricky to get 2-pop whips on them at points (especially once you start rolling overflow) and if city can produce over 12 hammers without whips...well whipping makes much less sense.

Whips are most useful in situation with strong food bonus/es to get out production where you lack good hills/mine resources.

That almost closes out Eridu and Uruk since both cities have strong natural production and I would be very surprised if whipping would beat not whipping in these 2 sites.
 
I'm being burnt out too much at work to really opine; when I'm up I'm able to find time to play turnsets with at least some attention to detail (although missing that Asoka got Alpha on my watch is terrifying even if we can't do anything with his Alpha yet). I get LK's sense of "what the heck do we do now" but I don't have the time to think it through.

My 2c for now - for immediate future agree with vranasm, plan on a kill-Ragnar war, not yet on the all-continent razing spree.

Some points - I think it is possible to kill many AIs without having to do the rush of settle-pop borders before we run out of gold.
Assuming we get Writing before killing everyone we can build 2 libraries and trickle Scientists...research will be slow but we can get to Math, Sailing, Calendar, and Currency eventually (as well as PH). That will give us enough tech to settle our whole continent while having a (small) surplus.

LK - we have only met 4 AI's, we know of 5 of the 7 civs right? (Or did I miss something in the setup). Of course your basic point is still right on, the scope of our landmass may or may not be enough to win domination. Really curious about the land W of Amsterdam, as others have pointed out the Pyramids there will really help that out.
 
Extorting writing is a major part of my suggested strategy particularly coz we're creative, libraries generate research while cottages support cities, that's why great wall is also a big deal as cities can work cottages without fear of pillage.

Also because we're creative we get faster border pops (25 turns with a library) which means cities can be further apart so we need fewer of them.

Beating up AI with vultures is going to be hideously expensive if they get to longbows (particularly protective churchill) and if we don't beat them up we don't get to extort techs. We could try staying small and buying techs but that seems very slow. We're likely to be too far behind so to able to have anything worth trading for a very long time. Once churchill gets to LBs we'll probably need trebs and how long will that take?

I'd be more than happy if someone were to post an alternative game winning strategy but I haven't seen one yet.
 
LK - It would help to know what your thinking. Based on what you written so far, I'm not sure any of my thoughts are being considered.

I think Pig and I are of like mind in the sense that I think we both agree we need to carve a path to Asoka and start extorting some techs. Otherwise we will get too far behind. We have plenty of muscle at present. I agree with you, LK, that we should table the early DOM idea until we have a better sense of the land.

Maybe going ahead and putting your thoughts down in a pre-plan draft would allow us to get an idea of what you have in mind and agree with and then we can build from there.

V - I was not necessarily suggesting extensive whipping. Just a couple of rounds should get us in a comfortable position to attack Rag and Asoka. Complete Gran next turn will get a Vulture in 1t. Uruk can take 1 vulture whip to complete 2 in 2ts. It's more about speed in the short term rather than worrying about happies and all that, which I'm not that concerned about. We need to make things happen. We do have a few more forests to chop as well, so there is that.

LK - I hope my little whipping tutorial was of use to you. I may have been presumptive. It's good to hear feedback though.
 
well whips always limit natural production. I learned the hard way that reading about whip 4->2 cycles can sometimes mean you will lose the GLH ;-)

Whips can complement working strong tiles... so if the city has 4 strong tiles sometimes it's good to do the whip from 6->4 then just running best 4->2 cycle (best F->H conversion)

so if we look at uruk we see corn, clams, copper, riverside GH, then some plains hill, maybe grass farm/lake... it's clear that retaining corn, clams, copper, GH is best and what is above can be whipped.

Eridu has some more good hills then Uruk (more food) and would have to look a bit closer to tip the optimal size.

Each worked hill or not worked of X amount of time can be quantified, but honestly don't want to get micro heavy again.
 
LK - It would help to know what you're thinking. Based on what you written so far, I'm not sure any of my thoughts are being considered.
Everyone's posts are being looked at. I am trying to figure out a long-term plan, and pigswill was the only one I noticed.
Space is all but impossible without research.
Cultural will be very hard, especially as I don't see how to get key cultural things such as Sistine Chapel without research.
Time "victory" is a team B win.
Early domination is a coin toss.
What is left????? That is where my brain is stuck and can't get past.

I did see s your micro and build ideas, but my concern is long-term plans. All the micro in the world is meaningless with out a sense of where we are going.


Maybe going ahead and putting your thoughts down in a pre-plan draft would allow us to get an idea of what you have in mind and agree with and then we can build from there.
I really don't want to play a short-term pick a target game, yet I feel stuck with prepare to rush Ragnar. Unless I see some good ideas in the next few hours before I get home I reluctantly will set up a Ragnar rush.
I don't like this plan, but I can't offer an alternative. If we destroy too many civs on our continent, how do we keep up with the other continent?
I really fear the other continent(s) finds us and they are way ahead. If we have Zara, Mansa or one of the other good tech civs on the other continent we are in deep trouble

To be honest, I started at the game for 15 minutes and still don't have a clue what to do.
Reposting this, as this is pretty much the answer to Lymond above.

I haven't posted many thoughts as I literally stared at the game going WTH?
The only clear thought I have is ignore the Dutch. Maybe we get a miracle and he builds the Jewish shrine. That would give us another income source.
 
Thanks for your response, LK ;)

My first suggestion is not to get overwhelmed by the long-term end game. With this setup, dom/conquest is usually always the fastest approach so should always be on our mind. I think Time and Space are way out. Cultural and Diplo is feasible. (Was AP banned?) This game is very early and we have lots of scouting to do, so we should not get worked up over the end game yet. Just focus on the now

I agree with you that we need AIs to live in order for us to thrive, but not necessarily all them. The idea right now is to get to Asoka asap to extort Writing and Alpha. Rag is blocking our path. We don't have to kill Rag now, but we do need a path. Taking Nidaros would at least be a boon anyway.

We need 3 key techs as soon as possible to make this game successful whatever route we take: Writing, Alpha and Currency....Asoka is the answer. If we wait to long for this, the we risk losing the game. Also, Rag will quickly become a nuisance if we don't cripple him.

Here's a link to my post with my ideas http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11494571&postcount=178

Was my bit on slavery helpful for you?

The only clear thought I have is ignore the Dutch.

I'm of like mind. No point is attacking him until we can get something for it.
 
Once we've got writing the rest will come, multiple cities with libraries can fund our research, we aren't allowed to build research which limits alphabet a bit. For the moment weakening Ragdoll and marching on Asoka is a reasonable short-medium term objective, until we have writing research path is a slightly academic debate.
 
agree - Writing is the keystone to everything. Alpha is majorly important as it allows us to buy techs, and steal them. Currency, ofc, is the real jewel.
 
Thanks for your response, LK ;) (Was AP banned?)
Let us see what is answered from the common thread. However, this has the same tech issue as space. How to we get Theology in order to build the AP? Unless we get lucky and capture it, I think it is a long shot.


We need 3 key techs as soon as possible to make this game successful whatever route we take: Writing, Alpha and Currency....Asoka is the answer.
IMO we also need ASAP courts. EP and tech stealing needs those built. Some of our tech will need to be stolen to pull this off.


Was my bit on slavery helpful for you?
I will know more when I go to play. I want that fresh on my brain during my turn. Right now it is all theory, and I need to make it practical.


One new area to start thinking about is GP generation. A few techs popped from GP would help.
 
We'll be able to buy or steal Priesthood easily in the near future, so I'm not worried about Zigs. We've already accumulated a nice chunk of gold that will help fund war and a little expansion. We just need to manage what we take. There's no reason why we can't capture cities and return them, if we feel they will be burden. OR raze them

I actually think we are in a good position now, but we do need to make things happen. Trust me, I would not worry about the war or end game now. Let's pump out some units and make Rag our beeeoottchhh

Eventually all this will work out once we get alpha and currency. We will buy and steal a lot of techs.
(Confirmed: AP is banned)
 
[Lurker comment] :goodjob: Thanks Lymond for a great (short) primer on whip overflow. Thought I understood it before, but I see there are some nuances!

sorry, forgot to respond...I'm glad I could help :) It just takes a little practice
 
Top Bottom