We don't yet have 3 warriors in position to form a blockade. We have one on his way north that could be turned around, one in the south on lookout, and one in the west finishing up exploring greek lands, and are about to produce one in Memphis, as well as one in the far north which is almost at Blue Dot. Most of our cities are undefended at the moment, with only Thebes having a single MP (we are running 20% lux to keep happy at size 6 -- with another MP at Thebes we should be able to reduce that to 10% now that we have hooked up our spice.)
RBE DSG4 - Beyond Deity
- Thread starter Sirian
- Start date
T-hawk
Transcend
Wow, what an interesting situation. Only one neighbor, and he's one of the hardest to fight -- but he got a low-food start and not much arable land.
As for the dotmap - I'd like to move Blue Dot one SE. Notice that will put the two middle cattle there within our borders via fill-in between Blue and Red, without waiting for either city to build a temple. That'll help the cities put out more settlers quicker for the northern area.
Do we know what's under that fog tile E of Pharsalos? If it's not a hill, the NE maroon dot becomes slightly more important since it's possible to get irrigation over there before electricity.
I'd suggest avoiding trying to flip Pharsalos; with his production advantage he'll cram dozens of units in there to suppress the flip. And once he gets Literature and Construction, we'd have to burn too many resources to keep our city ahead. Red dot where it is looks good.
Memphis may want to build a barracks, and start to be a military factory. I guess warriors for now is all we can do, though.
Oh, and one place we should almost certainly blockade: north of Pharsalos! In RBE2, the Zulu rushed a city into our lands and then BUILT A SETTLER with it. We don't want Alex doing that and stealing some of that fertile northern land...
Got it, will play tonight.
As for the dotmap - I'd like to move Blue Dot one SE. Notice that will put the two middle cattle there within our borders via fill-in between Blue and Red, without waiting for either city to build a temple. That'll help the cities put out more settlers quicker for the northern area.
Do we know what's under that fog tile E of Pharsalos? If it's not a hill, the NE maroon dot becomes slightly more important since it's possible to get irrigation over there before electricity.
I'd suggest avoiding trying to flip Pharsalos; with his production advantage he'll cram dozens of units in there to suppress the flip. And once he gets Literature and Construction, we'd have to burn too many resources to keep our city ahead. Red dot where it is looks good.
Memphis may want to build a barracks, and start to be a military factory. I guess warriors for now is all we can do, though.
Oh, and one place we should almost certainly blockade: north of Pharsalos! In RBE2, the Zulu rushed a city into our lands and then BUILT A SETTLER with it. We don't want Alex doing that and stealing some of that fertile northern land...
Got it, will play tonight.
Yes, the smilie was meant to indicate a friendly jest to Urug. One turn difference is no biggie.
Moving Blue Dot one SW is fine with me, gives some overlap with Red dot but as you say gets the cows in play before a temple. Gives up an extra spice but that's ok, we'd need another city up there anyway to claim the 2 tundra forest spice up there (those ones must be 'shrooms, never heard of boreal forest spice before.
)
Under the fog E of Pharsalos, I suspect is a grass. The borders of the tile look like grass to me, and it makes sense since Pharsalos has been able to get to 3 reasonably quickly; the only other tile with even moderate food they have in radius is a lake.
I would still vote for temples before barracks; Greece is playing into our cultural advantage by not researching Ceremonial Burial and we should take advantage of that, plus we get cheap temples but not cheap barracks. Literature is a low priority for the AI to research so it is quite possible that Greece will go culture-less for quite some time if they continue to focus on upper tree techs and ignore Ceremonial Burial. Moreover, the more we tie up Greece's time building units to suppress flip chances, the less resources he has available for expansion and infrastructure.
One possibility is to continue to build warriors out of Memphis until Heliopolis finishes a temple (which it needs anyway to get access to its best squares,) then switch warrior production to Heliopolis while Memphis builds temple and barracks, then swap unit production back to Memphis. Memphis has the potential to grow to a fairly large and productive city, and should be able to build a temple and barracks quickly.
Moving Blue Dot one SW is fine with me, gives some overlap with Red dot but as you say gets the cows in play before a temple. Gives up an extra spice but that's ok, we'd need another city up there anyway to claim the 2 tundra forest spice up there (those ones must be 'shrooms, never heard of boreal forest spice before.
) Under the fog E of Pharsalos, I suspect is a grass. The borders of the tile look like grass to me, and it makes sense since Pharsalos has been able to get to 3 reasonably quickly; the only other tile with even moderate food they have in radius is a lake.
I would still vote for temples before barracks; Greece is playing into our cultural advantage by not researching Ceremonial Burial and we should take advantage of that, plus we get cheap temples but not cheap barracks. Literature is a low priority for the AI to research so it is quite possible that Greece will go culture-less for quite some time if they continue to focus on upper tree techs and ignore Ceremonial Burial. Moreover, the more we tie up Greece's time building units to suppress flip chances, the less resources he has available for expansion and infrastructure.
One possibility is to continue to build warriors out of Memphis until Heliopolis finishes a temple (which it needs anyway to get access to its best squares,) then switch warrior production to Heliopolis while Memphis builds temple and barracks, then swap unit production back to Memphis. Memphis has the potential to grow to a fairly large and productive city, and should be able to build a temple and barracks quickly.
Urugharakh
Orc Chieftain
Don't worry, thats how I took it in the beginning. My answer was simple ironical.
As for the dot map I support T-hawks shipt of the blue dot.
Incidentally, here's the flip chance rules:
The Factors:
N = number of foreign nationals (resistors count as 2).
S = number of 21 city squares under foreign control
C = City Culture factor { =2 if foreigners have more culture IN CITY, =1 if you }
H = Happiness factor { =2 if in disorder, = 1/2 for WLKTD }
T = Number of garrisoning troops
R = Ratio of NATIONAL Cultures (Foreign civ total culture divided by your civ's total)
D = Capitol distance factor { = Ratio of distance to their capital over yours, capped at 4 }
Chance of flip = {[(N + S)*C*H*R] - T} / (20*D) [percent]
Troops = {(N+S)*C*H*R} needed to completely prevent a flip
Thus, if we can jack R high enough quickly enough and Alex obliges by continuing to not research/build culture sources, it won't matter how many troops he piles in Pharsalos, it will eventually flip. We already control 3 of his 21 squares with Thebes' culture (albeit at 3rd culture ring so if they do build a temple there it will steal two of those squares back.)
The Factors:
N = number of foreign nationals (resistors count as 2).
S = number of 21 city squares under foreign control
C = City Culture factor { =2 if foreigners have more culture IN CITY, =1 if you }
H = Happiness factor { =2 if in disorder, = 1/2 for WLKTD }
T = Number of garrisoning troops
R = Ratio of NATIONAL Cultures (Foreign civ total culture divided by your civ's total)
D = Capitol distance factor { = Ratio of distance to their capital over yours, capped at 4 }
Chance of flip = {[(N + S)*C*H*R] - T} / (20*D) [percent]
Troops = {(N+S)*C*H*R} needed to completely prevent a flip
Thus, if we can jack R high enough quickly enough and Alex obliges by continuing to not research/build culture sources, it won't matter how many troops he piles in Pharsalos, it will eventually flip. We already control 3 of his 21 squares with Thebes' culture (albeit at 3rd culture ring so if they do build a temple there it will steal two of those squares back.)
T-hawk
Transcend
Well, odds are that all Alex has to do is research Map Making and he'll very soon find someone else to get Ceremonial Burial from. We aren't going to get R above 3 or so; even if we pressure it enough for S to be 7 (and D is about 1/4), with T=5 it's only got about a 3% chance per turn of flipping. In that case, I'd wager that the city will expand borders (reducing S) and Alex will bring R back to even before the city would flip. It's okay for us to make an as-it-happens effort (using Thebes' culture, and Red Dot can build a temple first) but we shouldn't apply resources directly to it - we definitely cannot afford to waste a settler trying to flip Pharsalos.
No, that wasn't my intention. My intention was that our existing cities can build temples sooner rather than later, not that we should found cities located in spots to attempt to apply direct pressure to Pharsalos. I would dispute that we won't get R above 3, however -- all Alex has to go on is his palace, while we have both a palace and a temple. Even if Alex does get the tech for temples sooner rather than later, he still has to choose to and take the time to build them. Many of his cities are stuck in jungle and will take time to amass 60/2=30 shields, especially while in land-grab mode, while all our current cities are on good land and can come up with 30 shields relatively easily. Alex has about 80 (1*20+2*30) culture right now and will still only be amassing culture at 2/turn for quite a few turns yet. We have about 123(1*19+2*52) culture and are growing at 4/turn, soon to get a 1000-year bonus on our temple, and with the potential to build more temples soon as well. With 2 more temples and the 1000 year bonus, and assuming Alex doesn't/can't build any for a number of turns yet, we will be growing culture at 5 times his rate; it won't take long to beat R=3 under those circumstances. I would venture to guess that we can get R significantly higher than 3, at least for a while, and even once libraries become available it will take some time for Alex to catch up.
Ok, enough analysis. I'm not saying we should bend our civ out of shape in pursuit of the flip, absolutely we should not. But, squeezing in some temples definately has the potential to pay off if we get even a little bit of luck. This is even more true if Alex does pop a settler out of Pharsalos and settles somewhere in our rear.
Ok, enough analysis. I'm not saying we should bend our civ out of shape in pursuit of the flip, absolutely we should not. But, squeezing in some temples definately has the potential to pay off if we get even a little bit of luck. This is even more true if Alex does pop a settler out of Pharsalos and settles somewhere in our rear.
T-hawk
Transcend
Heh, had to dig around for a minute there to find the post with the save; we sure talk a lot
I veto the warrior in Memphis; what good would it do us? Changed to granary; the city's got the shields to build it fairly quickly, and it needs it to grow at any sort of decent speed. Also changed Elephantine to temple; they have good tiles they want to pull in Right Now. One worker at each city is enough while the cities are growing slowly without granaries (Thebes' worker is going to go over to Elephantine.)
(I) A Greek settler comes into view near Thebes. Heliopolis finishes worker, starts temple.
1725: Alexandria founded on the red dot. Our exploring warrior finds Athens.
1675: Thebes builds settler, which goes north.
1650: Yep, a Greek settler left Pharsalos. I'm going to try and run blockade as much as I can to get our settler to Blue Dot first...
London completes the Pyramids! That was, uh, fast.
And Paris completes the Oracle.
1600 BC: We connect the silks at Memphis.
1575 BC: I whip the temple in Elephantine. Getting that up brings the wheat in range (speeding its growth curve), and of course boosts our national culture. Our blockade has succeeded and we'll get the blue-dot cattle area. Thebes builds another settler, which I send north.
1550: I have to forget the dot and found Pi-Ramesses:
1525: Mathematics finally finishes. I check diplomacy with Greece, and he has gotten Ceremonial Burial, but not Mathematics, but he has gotten Map Making (we can trade maps.). There's a number of deals we could make: we can offer our world map, Mathematics and our only silks; he's got Warrior Code, Writing, Wheel, Bronze Working, and Dyes. I'll wait for the group discussion. I set 40-turn research to Currency, although that might change.
1500: Greece has founded Herakleia near our Blue Dot site. I'll let Sulla decide whether to continue with our blue dot location (there's a hoplite standing on it right now) or move it, say, one NW. I'd move it; no way is our city going to be ahead on culture, unless it builds the Forbidden Palace and maybe not even then.
Memphis is working the silks forest in order to get growth the turn after the granary completes; make sure it continues to do that.
I don't know where the Greek settler at Pi is going to go; if it settles on the hill to the south, the city will eventually steal the dyes from us...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe4-egypt-1500bc.zip
I veto the warrior in Memphis; what good would it do us? Changed to granary; the city's got the shields to build it fairly quickly, and it needs it to grow at any sort of decent speed. Also changed Elephantine to temple; they have good tiles they want to pull in Right Now. One worker at each city is enough while the cities are growing slowly without granaries (Thebes' worker is going to go over to Elephantine.)
(I) A Greek settler comes into view near Thebes. Heliopolis finishes worker, starts temple.
1725: Alexandria founded on the red dot. Our exploring warrior finds Athens.
1675: Thebes builds settler, which goes north.
1650: Yep, a Greek settler left Pharsalos. I'm going to try and run blockade as much as I can to get our settler to Blue Dot first...
London completes the Pyramids! That was, uh, fast.
And Paris completes the Oracle.
1600 BC: We connect the silks at Memphis.
1575 BC: I whip the temple in Elephantine. Getting that up brings the wheat in range (speeding its growth curve), and of course boosts our national culture. Our blockade has succeeded and we'll get the blue-dot cattle area. Thebes builds another settler, which I send north.
1550: I have to forget the dot and found Pi-Ramesses:
1525: Mathematics finally finishes. I check diplomacy with Greece, and he has gotten Ceremonial Burial, but not Mathematics, but he has gotten Map Making (we can trade maps.). There's a number of deals we could make: we can offer our world map, Mathematics and our only silks; he's got Warrior Code, Writing, Wheel, Bronze Working, and Dyes. I'll wait for the group discussion. I set 40-turn research to Currency, although that might change.
1500: Greece has founded Herakleia near our Blue Dot site. I'll let Sulla decide whether to continue with our blue dot location (there's a hoplite standing on it right now) or move it, say, one NW. I'd move it; no way is our city going to be ahead on culture, unless it builds the Forbidden Palace and maybe not even then.
Memphis is working the silks forest in order to get growth the turn after the granary completes; make sure it continues to do that.
I don't know where the Greek settler at Pi is going to go; if it settles on the hill to the south, the city will eventually steal the dyes from us...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe4-egypt-1500bc.zip
T-hawk
Transcend
My own plan for diplomacy would be this:
Trade Mathematics, our world map, and about 60 gold (I think it was) for Writing. Then cash in everything we've got, if possible, including our only silks (we'll have more soon and he'll have his own at Pharsalos soon too) for Map Making. We've got to make some more friends. Then Memphis could whip a galley fairly efficiently after it finishes its granary, and maybe Elephantine could build one too.
I expect Blue Dot to become our Forbidden Palace site, and I think Alexandria should help it out with workers to get the cattle squares improved for it.
Trade Mathematics, our world map, and about 60 gold (I think it was) for Writing. Then cash in everything we've got, if possible, including our only silks (we'll have more soon and he'll have his own at Pharsalos soon too) for Map Making. We've got to make some more friends. Then Memphis could whip a galley fairly efficiently after it finishes its granary, and maybe Elephantine could build one too.
I expect Blue Dot to become our Forbidden Palace site, and I think Alexandria should help it out with workers to get the cattle squares improved for it.
Sullla
Patrician Roman Dictator
I concur with T-Hawk on his trading plan. We need to contact the other civs ASAP, otherwise Alex will blow past us faster than we can blink once he gets cheap libraries. Mores contacts = good after all. We need to broker Mathematics @2nd right away before Alex starts researching it himself and lowers what we can get from it. I'll go back and re-examine the dot maps, trying to keep to them as much as possible but allowing for some change due to Greek settlements. The big positive in the game so far is that we actually are keeping pace with Alex on expansion, thanks to our awesome starting location and his poor one (thanks Sirian!) I'll have the game back within 24 hours.
We need to broker Mathematics @2nd right away before Alex starts researching it himself and lowers what we can get from it. I'll go back and re-examine the dot maps, trying to keep to them as much as possible but allowing for some change due to Greek settlements. The big positive in the game so far is that we actually are keeping pace with Alex on expansion, thanks to our awesome starting location and his poor one (thanks Sirian!) I'll have the game back within 24 hours.
Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
I didn't do anything to worsen Alex's position. That's the situation the map generator created for him. Just be glad I chose not to put you at that start point. 
T-hawk
Transcend
We're not really keeping pace; there's at least two more Greek cities off the bottom of the map that aren't shown there, and they've got a settler right by Pi and I think another in the jungle somewhere. We've also got two settlers out there, but that's still a 10-6 city count in his favor...
Sullla
Patrician Roman Dictator
(0) 1500BC Open up the game and spent a good 15 minutes just looking at our situation and reading the comments of others. The aforementioned blue dot in the north has got to change; I don't think we can win out a culture battle with Herakleia up there. I'm going to place the settler one tile to the west of the original location on the silks; it wastes a bonus grassland and takes the city off the coast, but it will ensure no overlap and still has a lot of very good tile. Minimal (2-tile) overlap with Alexandria. Next settler from Thebes has got to be light blue dot to claim the jungle in our southeast. Yellow dot settler is already on its way.
Diplomacy: I agree with T-Hawks plan to get galleys as soon as possible to make contact with the rest of the world. As a result, I immediately trade Mathematics + WM + 81g for Writing. Unfortunately, even everything we have (322g + 16gpt + silks) is not enough to get Map Making (wow...) We'll have to keep building up funds towards that (researching is folly at this point). Since it only costs 37g (2 turn's income), we found an embassy with Greece. Here's what a city under 50% cost reduction looks like:
Notice that he just got Ceremonial Burial and is working on a temple. Not much hope to flip any Greek cities, if at ever we entertained the idea. Only two defenders in Athens is interesting though. With nothing else to do, I end the turn.
(1) 1475BC Thebes builds settler, Alexandria builds worker. I set Thebes to another settler, Alexandria to a temple that will presumably be whipped. BAD news: the Greeks founded a city right where we were going to put our light blue dot city. It has major overlap with Heliopolis, so there's almost certainly a hidden resource there. The settler produced heads east to found a fishing town.
(2) 1450BC Giza founded, set to worker, may need to be changed to temple.
(3) 1425BC When offering everything, we are now up to "close to a deal" on Map Making.
(4) 1400BC Memphis finishes granary, set to temple. Heliopolis finishes temple, starts on warrior (need some kind of defense), Elephantine finishes warrior, starts on granary. I'm starting several granaries in the expectation that we may want to change them to barracks, but either way we can use the accumulated shields. The Greeks complete the Colossus this turn in Delphi and start the Great Lighthouse there as well. A Greek worker is available for purchase; given the nature of this game, I don't feel bad at all about purchasing it for WM + 27g.
(5) 1375BC Byblos founded as a somewhat overlapped fishing town. It can grab one bonus grassland from Memphis though, and we can use that for whipping purposes. I have it set to temple for whipping at the moment, subjct to veto.
(6) 1350BC We get the Forbidden Palace message this turn. That's pretty darn fast to get to 8 cities. We're not doing bad - problem is that the Greeks are even faster.
(7) 1325BC El-Amarna founded in the north in a revised yellow dot location. It's set to worker, also subject to change as need dictates. Alex has founded a number of cities down in the south, and is close to filling up the continent.
(8) 1300BC Heliopolis borders expand so that we now have significant cultural pressure on Ephesus. A flip would make our lives so much easier...
(9) 1275BC Thebes produces another settler to send to the north, Greece has a settler pair headed up there as well. I set Thebes to barracks, since I don't think we can grab any more cities in the north. We'll get two more up there and Alex will get one more. I whipped a temple at Alexandria, as it can quickly grow back up to size and will give us another edge culturally. Memphis completed a temple and started on barracks for lack of other things to build. We can now get Map Making by trading away everything, but I will hold off to next player on that decision...
(10) 1250BC And a quiet final turn. But now we have some discussing to do as a team...
We really have two options, both of which have advantages and disadvantages. The first would be to buy The Wheel from Alex, find horses, link them up, have all our cities produce barracks, and attack with veteran horses before he has adequate defenses in his outlying colonies. Goal would be to capture the cities that overlap with ours (Pharsalos, Ephesus, Herakleia) and gain complete control of the north. Hold out for a couple of turns against his counters and get lots of tech for peace. Downside is that we have only 7 warriors for military at the moment, lack Bronze Working for spears, Iron Working for swords, Warrior Code for archers, and The Wheel and Horseback Riding for horses. It's entirely possible that Alex could be into the Middle Ages before we even assemble a decent enough force to attack. And if we screw up, we could be killed too.
The other option is to continue peaceful building, trade for Map Making now (it will cost us everything, and I mean Everything we have for it) build some galleys, and pray that we find the rest of the world ASAP. If we can broker contacts, we could get right back into decent shape on techs and possibly get by without having to risk war. The downside is that if we are in fact on an island separated from another landmass by ocean tiles, we might not be able to make contact anyway. And if we are stuck alone with Alex and no way to swing 2 for 1 tech deals until Navigation comes along... we're never going to win this game.
It's a tricky situation, but I'm confident we can pull it out. Some discussion is certainly in order at this point before the next turn gets played out. We can easily follow either route at this point, so there's a lot of options on the table.
RBE4 1250BC
Diplomacy: I agree with T-Hawks plan to get galleys as soon as possible to make contact with the rest of the world. As a result, I immediately trade Mathematics + WM + 81g for Writing. Unfortunately, even everything we have (322g + 16gpt + silks) is not enough to get Map Making (wow...) We'll have to keep building up funds towards that (researching is folly at this point). Since it only costs 37g (2 turn's income), we found an embassy with Greece. Here's what a city under 50% cost reduction looks like:
Notice that he just got Ceremonial Burial and is working on a temple. Not much hope to flip any Greek cities, if at ever we entertained the idea. Only two defenders in Athens is interesting though. With nothing else to do, I end the turn.
(1) 1475BC Thebes builds settler, Alexandria builds worker. I set Thebes to another settler, Alexandria to a temple that will presumably be whipped. BAD news: the Greeks founded a city right where we were going to put our light blue dot city. It has major overlap with Heliopolis, so there's almost certainly a hidden resource there. The settler produced heads east to found a fishing town.
(2) 1450BC Giza founded, set to worker, may need to be changed to temple.
(3) 1425BC When offering everything, we are now up to "close to a deal" on Map Making.
(4) 1400BC Memphis finishes granary, set to temple. Heliopolis finishes temple, starts on warrior (need some kind of defense), Elephantine finishes warrior, starts on granary. I'm starting several granaries in the expectation that we may want to change them to barracks, but either way we can use the accumulated shields. The Greeks complete the Colossus this turn in Delphi and start the Great Lighthouse there as well. A Greek worker is available for purchase; given the nature of this game, I don't feel bad at all about purchasing it for WM + 27g.
(5) 1375BC Byblos founded as a somewhat overlapped fishing town. It can grab one bonus grassland from Memphis though, and we can use that for whipping purposes. I have it set to temple for whipping at the moment, subjct to veto.
(6) 1350BC We get the Forbidden Palace message this turn. That's pretty darn fast to get to 8 cities. We're not doing bad - problem is that the Greeks are even faster.
(7) 1325BC El-Amarna founded in the north in a revised yellow dot location. It's set to worker, also subject to change as need dictates. Alex has founded a number of cities down in the south, and is close to filling up the continent.
(8) 1300BC Heliopolis borders expand so that we now have significant cultural pressure on Ephesus. A flip would make our lives so much easier...
(9) 1275BC Thebes produces another settler to send to the north, Greece has a settler pair headed up there as well. I set Thebes to barracks, since I don't think we can grab any more cities in the north. We'll get two more up there and Alex will get one more. I whipped a temple at Alexandria, as it can quickly grow back up to size and will give us another edge culturally. Memphis completed a temple and started on barracks for lack of other things to build. We can now get Map Making by trading away everything, but I will hold off to next player on that decision...
(10) 1250BC And a quiet final turn. But now we have some discussing to do as a team...
We really have two options, both of which have advantages and disadvantages. The first would be to buy The Wheel from Alex, find horses, link them up, have all our cities produce barracks, and attack with veteran horses before he has adequate defenses in his outlying colonies. Goal would be to capture the cities that overlap with ours (Pharsalos, Ephesus, Herakleia) and gain complete control of the north. Hold out for a couple of turns against his counters and get lots of tech for peace. Downside is that we have only 7 warriors for military at the moment, lack Bronze Working for spears, Iron Working for swords, Warrior Code for archers, and The Wheel and Horseback Riding for horses. It's entirely possible that Alex could be into the Middle Ages before we even assemble a decent enough force to attack. And if we screw up, we could be killed too.
The other option is to continue peaceful building, trade for Map Making now (it will cost us everything, and I mean Everything we have for it) build some galleys, and pray that we find the rest of the world ASAP. If we can broker contacts, we could get right back into decent shape on techs and possibly get by without having to risk war. The downside is that if we are in fact on an island separated from another landmass by ocean tiles, we might not be able to make contact anyway. And if we are stuck alone with Alex and no way to swing 2 for 1 tech deals until Navigation comes along... we're never going to win this game.
It's a tricky situation, but I'm confident we can pull it out. Some discussion is certainly in order at this point before the next turn gets played out. We can easily follow either route at this point, so there's a lot of options on the table.
RBE4 1250BC
Sullla
Patrician Roman Dictator
And our map (I almost forgot to mention: since the game can only handle food consumption in rows of two, we are actually giving the AI a discount of 40% on food - look above how Athens only needs 4 food to grow to the next size! We've really got our work cut out for us here.)
I don't want to butt in too much here, since this is your game and all, but research is NOT folly at this point. With only one other civ to buy from, it actually costs MORE commerce to buy than to research -- even at first civ prices.
In patch 1.29f, they introduced a "monopoly" factor that doubles the price for a tech when no one else has it (by "no one else", it only refers to civs that the purchasing civ has contact with, of course).
So, if the cost to research a tech is N, the cost to do second research is now about 13/14*N and the cost to buy it is about 13/14*N*3/4*2 (3/4 is the cash rate for tech) = 39/28 * N, or about 140% the cost of researching it yourself, in terms of pure commerce. That is not counting any AI "screw you" factor, which I'm not sure how to calculate (I think most of the "screw you factor" is absorbed by the huge difference in N for you and them).
To compare, let's say you know two other civs, both of whom own a certain tech. The cost to research is then ~6/7*N and the cost to buy is ~9/14*N or about 65% of the original cost.
Now, I'm not 100% certain of my numbers, but I feel reasonably confident. They changed three of the factors in this computation in 1.29 (which balances things pretty nicely, IMHO). Buying from a monopolizer is almost always a bad idea at this point.
I wish you all much luck with the game. On the plus side, you don't have to worry about being buried before you can get started. On the minus side, teching is gonna be tough.
I'll try to stay out of "what to do" decisions/discussions, but I did want to point out what I see to be a (potentially fatal) flaw in reasoning.
Arathorn
In patch 1.29f, they introduced a "monopoly" factor that doubles the price for a tech when no one else has it (by "no one else", it only refers to civs that the purchasing civ has contact with, of course).
So, if the cost to research a tech is N, the cost to do second research is now about 13/14*N and the cost to buy it is about 13/14*N*3/4*2 (3/4 is the cash rate for tech) = 39/28 * N, or about 140% the cost of researching it yourself, in terms of pure commerce. That is not counting any AI "screw you" factor, which I'm not sure how to calculate (I think most of the "screw you factor" is absorbed by the huge difference in N for you and them).
To compare, let's say you know two other civs, both of whom own a certain tech. The cost to research is then ~6/7*N and the cost to buy is ~9/14*N or about 65% of the original cost.
Now, I'm not 100% certain of my numbers, but I feel reasonably confident. They changed three of the factors in this computation in 1.29 (which balances things pretty nicely, IMHO). Buying from a monopolizer is almost always a bad idea at this point.
I wish you all much luck with the game. On the plus side, you don't have to worry about being buried before you can get started. On the minus side, teching is gonna be tough.
I'll try to stay out of "what to do" decisions/discussions, but I did want to point out what I see to be a (potentially fatal) flaw in reasoning.
Arathorn
Charis
Realms Beyond
I'm just curious if anyone ever considered the military option, trying to curtail Alex's growth significantly, move toward making the island your own someday, and letting him play your researcher while he lived. (I know, I know, hoplites...) ??
Was my thinking *that* insane in the fighting w/stats post at the end of page one, or just that no one wants to pursue such a suicidal avenue at this stage?
(I'm guessing it's preposterous enough to get a: [phaser] )
Charis
Was my thinking *that* insane in the fighting w/stats post at the end of page one, or just that no one wants to pursue such a suicidal avenue at this stage?
(I'm guessing it's preposterous enough to get a: [phaser] )
Charis
T-hawk
Transcend
Well, the advantage to buying, of course, is that you get the tech NOW, rather than 20-30 turns from now, which is when we want Map Making.
Re the food cost thing - I had mentioned this before in the DSG thread, and that happens because a granary splits one of the rows-of-two in half. Notice, though, that the city still says growth in 3 turns! Perhaps the food is tracked properly behind the scenes and just isn't displayed right?
Alex hasn't gotten any contacts yet, right? He's had Map Making for a good 12 or so turns now; no idea if he's gotten a galley out to explore (has Elephantine seen one sail by?) We may be alone until Astronomy; but we do have one BIG advantage: we know how to run suicide galleys...
It'd be impossible to get super-expensive techs from Alex for peace. But, do remember that we don't need Horseback Riding or Warrior Code with our UU. War might not be completely suicidal; a stack of 12 or so veteran war chariots could probably clear out Pharsalos and Herakleia. That'd start both of our Golden Ages, of course; and we could leverage the increased production towards aggression better than he could.
One other option is to do BOTH the Map Making and war routes; pay through the nose for it, and try to get him to declare by demanding withdrawal and recover our gold/turn payments.
But we're a couple of player turns away from doing any of that right now. JMB is up now; see what you can do...
BTW, I'd suggest taking Giza off worker and starting it on a Forbidden Palace path. Have it get a granary up (faster growth will in fact recover the 60 shields by the time it accumulates 200 shields for the FP). Also, Thebes can supply some more workers very quickly, since it seems to be done cranking settlers. We didn't need the workers back on the start of my turn, but we do now.
All in all, I'm in favor of not going to war just yet, but it might become so by my next turn...
Re the food cost thing - I had mentioned this before in the DSG thread, and that happens because a granary splits one of the rows-of-two in half. Notice, though, that the city still says growth in 3 turns! Perhaps the food is tracked properly behind the scenes and just isn't displayed right?
Alex hasn't gotten any contacts yet, right? He's had Map Making for a good 12 or so turns now; no idea if he's gotten a galley out to explore (has Elephantine seen one sail by?) We may be alone until Astronomy; but we do have one BIG advantage: we know how to run suicide galleys...
It'd be impossible to get super-expensive techs from Alex for peace. But, do remember that we don't need Horseback Riding or Warrior Code with our UU. War might not be completely suicidal; a stack of 12 or so veteran war chariots could probably clear out Pharsalos and Herakleia. That'd start both of our Golden Ages, of course; and we could leverage the increased production towards aggression better than he could.
One other option is to do BOTH the Map Making and war routes; pay through the nose for it, and try to get him to declare by demanding withdrawal and recover our gold/turn payments.
But we're a couple of player turns away from doing any of that right now. JMB is up now; see what you can do...
BTW, I'd suggest taking Giza off worker and starting it on a Forbidden Palace path. Have it get a granary up (faster growth will in fact recover the 60 shields by the time it accumulates 200 shields for the FP). Also, Thebes can supply some more workers very quickly, since it seems to be done cranking settlers. We didn't need the workers back on the start of my turn, but we do now.
All in all, I'm in favor of not going to war just yet, but it might become so by my next turn...
If we ask him to leave, he might just leave, like the Iros in RBE2. Doesn't hurt to try of course. I'm not 100% sure about this, but I believe the only way we get the "leave or declare war" option is if he moves a unit next to one of our cities.
Urugharakh
Orc Chieftain
I checked the save and discovered, that we will eventually get at least one more contact:
There is a purple border near Pi-Ramesses.
Hence the question is, can we make contact before Alex does and get the brooker option gaining most of what we spend on map making or should we wait until Alex made the contact and buy it from him. Does anybody know if it is cheaper to buy the contact and then map making @3rd or 4th or is it cheaper to buy map making @2nd and make the contacts ourself with the additional possibility of trading contacts?
Concerning a war, I would prefer using swords. First it is more effective than war chariots. Second, I want our golden age under a better goverment. Using swords has another advantage: we can prebuild a couple of vet warriors and we can build some spears for defense. If we can some day kick Alex from our continent, we should do so, just for the fun. Of course only in case we would be successful.
There is a purple border near Pi-Ramesses.
Hence the question is, can we make contact before Alex does and get the brooker option gaining most of what we spend on map making or should we wait until Alex made the contact and buy it from him. Does anybody know if it is cheaper to buy the contact and then map making @3rd or 4th or is it cheaper to buy map making @2nd and make the contacts ourself with the additional possibility of trading contacts?
Concerning a war, I would prefer using swords. First it is more effective than war chariots. Second, I want our golden age under a better goverment. Using swords has another advantage: we can prebuild a couple of vet warriors and we can build some spears for defense. If we can some day kick Alex from our continent, we should do so, just for the fun. Of course only in case we would be successful.
T-hawk
Transcend
WOW, good catch! 
I'd say to buy map making and get the contact ourselves. ASAP. The contact itself will be good to trade to Greece for at least one tech. Too bad Pi will take several more turns to build a galley - 8 turns until it reaches size 2 and then the whip will only get 10 shields. I guess Memphis will have to, or maybe Byblos can whip one.
If our galley meets MORE THAN ONE civ over there, we're set. Buy techs at late-civ cost from over there and sell to Greece at monopoly.
When we get the contact, though, we should trade it to Greece for a tech or two right away, or as soon as our galley discovers all the other civs that the purple one has met. I am surprised Alex hasn't demanded tribute yet; he will soon, and he'll demand the contact if we have it. And we will not be in a position to refuse the demand yet.
This development makes peaceful building much more of a possibility, and immediate war less necessary. I'd still favor war chariots over swords if we do decide to; they're significantly cheaper and can retreat, which is very important.
I peeked at the save myself now too - Why is Memphis still working that forest? It was supposed to get back on all 2-food squares after its granary was built.
Heck of a load on JMB's shoulders, but I'm sure you can pull it off.
I'd say to buy map making and get the contact ourselves. ASAP. The contact itself will be good to trade to Greece for at least one tech. Too bad Pi will take several more turns to build a galley - 8 turns until it reaches size 2 and then the whip will only get 10 shields. I guess Memphis will have to, or maybe Byblos can whip one.
If our galley meets MORE THAN ONE civ over there, we're set. Buy techs at late-civ cost from over there and sell to Greece at monopoly.
When we get the contact, though, we should trade it to Greece for a tech or two right away, or as soon as our galley discovers all the other civs that the purple one has met. I am surprised Alex hasn't demanded tribute yet; he will soon, and he'll demand the contact if we have it. And we will not be in a position to refuse the demand yet.
This development makes peaceful building much more of a possibility, and immediate war less necessary. I'd still favor war chariots over swords if we do decide to; they're significantly cheaper and can retreat, which is very important.
I peeked at the save myself now too - Why is Memphis still working that forest? It was supposed to get back on all 2-food squares after its granary was built.
Heck of a load on JMB's shoulders, but I'm sure you can pull it off.
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