Dr kossin #37

[kossin]

Welcome to Dr kossin #37.

Dr is an acronym for Daily Round. Yes, I mean to get in an update every day to the games I will be playing. Of course there might be some days where I can only play a little or not at all, but I will make up for it those other days when I do have extra time on my hands.

Since the 21st edition of this series, the difficulty level has been cranked all the way up to Deity. I'm not at the point where I can win every game thrown at me on Deity level... I probably can't even win every game thrown at me on Immortal but it is getting a bit boring. My goal is now to achieve competitive skills on this level which should hopefully help me improve more.

You, the reader, can help me achieve this goal by pointing out where I got astray, give suggestions on how to proceed, use complex abstract mathematical analysis to argue, curse at me or anything that you may like. Please note that you must respect the Terms of Service of CFC in any case

You may shadow this game and post it here if you please, but I kindly request that you put it in spoiler tags and that anyone reading the report abstain from using information found there to help me out.

Should you want more clarification about something I've done, just ask for it and I will try to answer as best as I can.

Enough talk, on to the game.

Dr kossin #37

Game settings
Deity
Normal Speed
Fractal
No Events
No Huts
Fractal
BTS 3.19 with BUG 4.4 in CustomAssets and BULL 1.2 mods - >>>Get Them Here<<<
Everything else is normal.

EDIT: Due to map tampering, the game is temporarily suspended. I will generate my own maps from now on, my thanks to all the map submitters over the course of the series and my apologies to remove this possibility. It was fun. A new thread will be opened in time.

Spoiler:

The leader, this time, is:


Please refer to the Khmer Civ IV wiki for more information on this leader/nation.

The start:

[Shurdus]

I think I would go 1W here. Food is one of the most important things, grabbing more is better.

[Wreck]

Originally Posted by kossin

I see 2 options for the start: in place to take advantage of Expansive and the 3 tile for worker production, or 1W for a high-food, high-production city.

I don't understand what you mean about the 3 tile. Is not any tile w/ 3 total food + hammers equivalent for worker production?

[CivilizedTiger]

He's talking about 1E2S after the border pop.

Anyway, Suryavarman's starting techs are completely terrible, I've found that in most games I've played as this leader, worker first was a bad choice, as worker couldn't work anything at all for a long time, so I see no reason why hurrying worker would be a good thing.

Anyway, I play marathon, so it might be different, but, at least in that speed, it takes more to research agriculture than to train a worker. If it holds for your speed as well, that 3P tile is irrelevant.

[hou jing]

That's a lot of hills. 1W looks to be the better start. It also provides for a possible surprise resource or two further west.

[kossin]

Originally Posted by Wreck

I don't understand what you mean about the 3 tile. Is not any tile w/ 3 total food + hammers equivalent for worker production?

Forested plains hill. With Expansive you get +25% production to workers so instead of
2+4 = 6 ppt (production per turn)
you get
2+1.25*4 = 7 ppt

Guess I didn't make it clear enough.

[Moroktonos]

Yay!!! No Daggers! Good luck!

Spoiler:

Pangaea off randomscript. He's got a TON of land to expand into, all the Ai's, save Miss Catherine, are smushed together into a corner. Kossin's won out of much tougher situations than this...

Commerce might be tough to come by, however, and the particular ai involved aren't really a cuddly bunch of teddy bears either.

[vranasm]

maybe I see it wrong but wouldnt 1W settle bring you 3 coastal water tiles instead of 2 coast+1grassland? I generally thought that less coastal in city is "better"?

[LuCiver]

Originally Posted by hou jing

That's a lot of hills. 1W looks to be the better start. It also provides for a possible surprise resource or two further west.

I think the only hidden tiles he will pick up to the west are coast. Perhaps more seafood is possible.

Nice going on #36, Kossin. You always make me realize how inefficient my play is!

[TCMIV]

1W removes what looks like an island grassland hill (correct me if I'm wrong here) from the BFC, which gives it my vote

[kossin]

@Moroktonos
Actually I haven't tried the map at all so maybe I'll get daggered anyway

Originally Posted by vranasm

maybe I see it wrong but wouldnt 1W settle bring you 3 coastal water tiles instead of 2 coast+1grassland? I generally thought that less coastal in city is "better"?

It's more like:
SIP: what you see is what you get
1W: a few more coast but an irrigated corn (if you hover the mouse over the corn it says fresh water so there's a lake S of it rather than more coast)

I don't mind more coast for a second food resource, especially corn. Also it moves us slightly closer to the inland part of the continent... our capital is terrible for blocking land, I'm glad tp be Creative here.

Originally Posted by LuCiver

I think the only hidden tiles he will pick up to the west are coast. Perhaps more seafood is possible.

Nice going on #36, Kossin. You always make me realize how inefficient my play is!

Thanks. You'll get used to it... the biggest thing is finding those small things and incorporating them in your usual thought process when making decisions.

[Fleme]

Not to rain on anyones parade but that map has been retouched - it's not first generation, unless that map script has features that aren't present in other scripts.

That said, it seems playable regardless - the only thing "obviously" handmade I found was a fish 3 tiles off any coast. Still, it's not first generation.

Edit: Looks interesting.

[Moroktonos]

No real retouching... I did use a random script (maybe has different rules, but I don't think so), and I did regenerate a few times, but I didn't really mess with bonuses.

One Ai did get completely screwed, however, and I cleaned up that start (minimally), but I feel this is insignificant beyond belief. Its not anything like that original louis map...

As far as I'm concerned, this is map might as well be completely untouched, and is in the spirit of an untouched map.

[kossin]

^^Really?

[CivilizedTiger]

I'm sorry to ask the silly questions but... what is "daggered" in this context you're talking about?

[Fleme]

Well, I'm just saying what I saw. I always look at your maps for clues to whether they're touched or not. He even admitted to editing but I honestly don't see anything that would affect gameplay in general so you can go ahead and use this map.

[Moroktonos]

As far as I'm concerned, this is map might as well be completely untouched (and the one touch I gave it is really amazingly minimal), and is entirely in the spirit of an untouched map.

Just saying this again for reassurance and emphasis.

Complete disclosure

Spoiler:

Moved catherine inland a little more, replacing a fish tile with a crab tile, and removed a mountain that would have cut off cathy completely from the mainland. I also made a fallout smile in the middle of the ocean, but this cannot possibly change gameplay.

[Kadazzle]

Spoiler:

I decided to go Warrior/Agriculture first and settle 1W. My thinking, was that with high food, and low commerce I'll just run a bunch of specialists.



I went Worker/Bronze Working next, then went Warrior/Fishing. My Worker path is has been Farm Irrigated Corn, Farm non-Irrigated Corn and will Mine the unforested hill next, then chop/mine the other hills until I have The Wheel. I've scouted a fair bit, and so far a lot of jungle but a lot of room. I think I might head for the Great Lighthouse this game.



After Warrior/Fishing I went on to another Warrior (before Fishing ended) and Masonry. I started on a Settler once I grew to size 5, and started chopping/mining those hills. We met Catherine and, I also set up my spawnbusters:



I have to leave, so I'm ending it here for now, but the map looks good. I'm going to settle my next city where my curser is in the last screenshot (Cow/Seafood/Stone site). After Masonry I'm going to go either Sailing (traderoutes), Animal Husbandry (to Pasture Cows and find Horses) or The Wheel (to connect Stone/Marble and traderoutes).

I'm going to go for The Great Lighthouse, which is always a gamble on Deity (especially since I'm not prioritizing some of the techs I need...). Luckily, Sury is Expensive and Creative, so if I fail at The Great Lighthouse I'll just use the gold to beeline to Currency and REX out the land. I'll do the same thing if I do nab The Great Lighthouse, but the economy will be in better shape if I nab The Great Lighthouse. Sailing, The Wheel and Animal Husbandry are going to be my next 3 techs (not in that order, going to count worker turns) but after that I'm most likely going to skip Pottery and just head Writing/Ironworking -> Mathematics. Not sure where my third city is going to go, but it will either be far away or at the Cow/2 Hill/Lake (for irrigation) site, while will have decent production and food for a Worker/Settler pump once I set up or fail at the Great Lighthouse.

[barbertje]

Originally Posted by CivilizedTiger

He's talking about 1E2S after the border pop.

Anyway, Suryavarman's starting techs are completely terrible, I've found that in most games I've played as this leader, worker first was a bad choice, as worker couldn't work anything at all for a long time, so I see no reason why hurrying worker would be a good thing.

Anyway, I play marathon, so it might be different, but, at least in that speed, it takes more to research agriculture than to train a worker. If it holds for your speed as well, that 3P tile is irrelevant.

If you move W there's no problem. 27 turns to research agriculture and bronzeworking, and 32 turns to produce a worker, build two farms and a mine plus 3 turns of movement. Even without the unforested hill there wouldn't be a stall.

Settling in place will leave the worker unemployed for very long, as there is only one farm and no unforested hills.

The starting techs of Sury are really quite good on a non-coastal start, as long as there is something the worker can mine.

[Fleme]

@Moroktonos

Spoiler:

Doesn't fallout generate global warming? He'll never use maps by you ever again if the world starts turning into desert in the BC's.