Seafaring is Superfluous: A No Ships Succession Game

[Prof. Garfield]

Cremona is going to restrict Washington, Boston, and Atlanta if we don't cut it down a bit. The only squares not workable by other nearby cities are the swamp and 3 ocean tiles to the east, leaving a food deficit of 6.

I'm not too concerned about having some overlap. In order to make a city celebrate that has more than 16 citizens working the land, you either need a Colosseum (expensive) or lots of specialists (need a large food surplus). It will be up to Jokemaster to decide exactly how large we want to make some cities, as the cities should get large enough for that to matter during his turnset. I don't have any strong opinion on the matter except that if possible, a city should be allocated territory to allow it to produce 10 shields.

Crete can make gems and silk and has a coal van 2 turns from delivery but is producing a temple, maybe switch that to caravan?

The only reason I was building a temple there was because I figured we might want a temple there when we cut the luxury rate.

Genes is only needed as a station city because we can't build bridges on the Berlin River. We're going to have to research bridges eventually unless we can get them from somebody else, and we will only ever build them on three squares.. You're probably right to put it off.

The first thing we should probably do is built a road on the swamp and see if the critical path does indeed go through the river (or use the explorer to check).

 

[Jokemaster]

Goals: Finish celebrations to size 16/17, build some more vans, build libraries and Adam Smith’s/Leo’s. Nice work Prof: this is an excellent setup. Will delay delivering vans until celebrations are done for higher payouts.


Turn 0 (1260 AD) Switch Berlin to Harbour, rush it for 112g. Rush Salzburg to 100s for 102g. Rush 10s in Verona.

Turn 1 (1280 AD) Capua, Issos, Naples, Dortmund, Munich sewer. Leipzig dye. Berlin harbour. Population exceeds 22 million citizens. Disband Chicago legion in Chicago, rush to 30 shields. Using GOTO from Holstebro to Washington goes through Berlin: we can delay BB, no roads through rivers needed for critical path. Rush Harbour in Bremen for 100g. Rush Temple in Crète. Rush Stuttgart to 40s. Rush a van in Cremona.

Turn2 (1300 AD) Verona silk, Crète temple, San Fran sewer, Cannae harbour, Cremona gold, Bonn sewer, Nuremburg sewer, Boston sewer, Konigsberg harbour, Hambourg sewer. Population exceeds 25 million citizens. Rush van in Gênes for 72g. Rush sewer in Berlin for 224g. Rush sewer in Leipzig for 226g. Rush sewer in Cologne for 216g. Rush Dortmund up to 40s. Rush 5s in Chicago. Rush an aqueduct in Salamis for 106g. Washington gets its first scientist. Rush a van in Munich.

Turn 3 (1320 AD) Salamis aqueduct. WLTPD cancelled in Verona, rush marketplace. Gênes silk. Holstebro finishes Leo’s. All Archers upgraded to Musketeers, all Settlers upgraded to Engineers. Holstebro starts university. WLTPD cancelled in Capua, rush marketplace. Same in Dortmund, switch workers around. Odd, did not see them in the F4 window. Salzburg sewer, Cologne sewer, Munich food, Leipzig sewer, Berlin sewer. Population exceeds 28 million citizens. Rush van in Hambourg. Rush harbour in Boston for 92g. Rush an aqueduct in Cremona for 156g. Disband a dip in San Fran, rush a shield for a musketeer soon. T3L6S1.

Turn 4 (1340 AD) Verona market, celebrates. Chicago gold. Capua marketplace, WLTPD. Cremona aqueduct. Dortmund WLTPD. Boston harbour. Hambourg food. Population exceeds 31 million citizens. Rush harbour in Munich for 98g. Rush sewer in Crète for 234g. Leipzig wine (d) to Philly: 100g. Rush university in Holstebro for 298g. Rush 7s in Bonn.

Turn 5 (1360 AD) Crète sewer. Holstebro university, start the SoL. Discover Economy: start Navigation. Population exceeds 34 million citizens. Switch Holstebro to Adam Smith’s. 6 vans in Holstebro. Rush market in Cannae to keep WLTPD going. Rush a van in Gênes. Rush a sewer in Stuttgart: I can’t believe I missed that one.

Interturn: Zulu capital moved to Intombe. Nobody cares.

Turn 6 (1380 AD) WLTPD ends in Crète, will not restart. Gênes food. Cannae marketplace. Stuttgart sewer. WLTPD cancelled in Boston. Population exceeds 36 million citizens. Van in Holstebro: Adam Smith’s in 4 turns. Rush Aqueducts in Verona, Chicago. Rush Salamis to 40s.

Turn 7 (1400 AD) WLTPD ends in Salamis, not restarting. Verona, Chicago aqueducts. Cunaxa, Brandenburg library. Population exceeds 38 million citizens. Crète coal (d) to Atlanta: 145g. Rush 7s in Hambourg. Rush 2s in Leipzig. Rush 10s in Heidelburg. Rush 16s in Cologne. Rush 12s in Stuttgart. Rush 5s in Salzburg. Rush a van in Cremona. Rush 8s in Capua. Rush a library in Washington. Rush to 60s in Munich. Rush to 40s in Bremen.

Interturn: Barbs land near Philly. Zulu capital moved to Tugela.

Turn 8 (1420 AD) Salamis silk. Cremona dye. Salzburg dye. Atlanta library. Bonn gems, WLTPD cancelled. Hambourg food. Washington copper. Population exceeds 41 million citizens. Send 2 Vet crusaders to Chicago to deal with the barbs. Rush a harbour in Verona for 102g. Rush 20s in Dortmund. Rush 8s in Brandenburg. Rush market in Issos to keep WLTPD going. Rush San Fran to 60s. Rush Bremen to 60s. T2L6S2, science 3 turns, making 160g per turn.

Interturn: Barb legion+leader move near Engineer, at striking distance from my crusaders (they are from a city that has stopped celebrating already) Zulu capital moved to Bapedi. 3 moves in 4 turns...

Turn 9 (1440 AD) Verona harbour. Capua spice. Issos marketplace. Cologne beads. Nuremburg library. Discover Navigation: start Physics. Heidelburg dye. Munich library. Konigsberg library. Population exceeds 42 million citizens. Kill barb stack with crusader. Rush Chicago to 40s. Leipzig dye (d) to size 10 Buffalo: 106g. Rush Hambourg, Salzburg to 60s. Rush Crète to 30s.

Interturn: Americans develop Bronze Working. Oh, irony. A bit too late. Attacking Barb legion gets smacked by defending American Warrior at Philly.

Turn 10 (1460 AD) Holstebro builds Adam Smith’s. Starts bank. Chicago food. Dortmund library. WLTPD cancelled in Bremen, Cologne. Boston builds library. Leipzig gold. Berlin food. Population exceeds 43 million citizens. Cost down to 111 per turn. Bribe Barb legion for 82g, disband in Chicago. T2L3S5: growing only 4 cities is not enough. We should stay at 30% luxuries until we have enough marketplaces built. Holstebro: 358 science per turn. Cannae gems (d) to Chicago: 153g. Verona silk (d) to NY: 147g.


Notes: RBing left to next player, 457g left over.

The next priority, as build orders go, should be to rush marketplaces and libraries in all of our cities. I think we have 9 marketplaces and around 12 libraries (can’t check because of Adam Smith’s) but that number needs to go up. A fair number of them are going to go up by city production in the next few turns, so I think that we can finish it up and start rushing marketplaces (for the added luxuries, to lower the LUX rate to 20%) everywhere. Afterwards, we can start on the serious stuff: a.k.a banks and universities. But that is something for another turnset.

One thing I decided to put off was moving Gênes. It is indeed placed at the wrong place (confirmed by the GOTO path of a caravan) but I always had some other needs for money. I think that we can get enough cash to rush 3 Engineers in Gênes (after the first engineer, Gênes will regrow to size 2) in the first 5 turns of the next turnset. If needed, you can raise the tax rate a bit.

Leo's and Adam Smith's built. Almost all cities raised to their max pre-Refrigeration size. Techrate 2 turns, making 255g per turn at T2L3S5.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

This looks quite good. You pushed a few cities beyond size 12 that I wasn't planning on (eg Stuttgart) but I can't say if that was really a bad choice or not.

We don't really have to disband Genes. The only reason to do that was if we needed a station city right beside its location. We might as well let it grow as much as it can.

Something we should be working on is getting all our cities 3 trade routes; if a city produces a junk commodity it should probably be sent to a nearby city that is currently lacking in a trade route. We can then take advantage of the road (and later rail) trade bonus. On that note, it might be wise for future players to use our explorer to map out critical paths that we might like to have, and record the results. That way, we can build railroads to accommodate the paths once we get that tech.

 

[mackerel]

I've had similar issued with F4 not showing the current status of cities. It updates after you look at the city screen, so I'm guessing the game generates an F4 report at some point(s) during the turn and is missing a recalculate trigger. In any case, you can't take that report at face value. Sadness.

70% science would give one turn advances. Just noting that, not recommending it. Markets and universities are needed first, may be worth cranking the taxes again to get them quickly. (8.2.0 gives 1300 profit per turn). Once we build universities we should be able to achieve 1 turn discoveries with a 50% science rate.

We're running out of things for our engineers to do. I see irrigation everywhere, tundra and swamp transformation, the last few forests and America getting roaded. We're still 5 techs away from refrigeration, and I know we'll be busy making farmland after that. We have maybe 10 turns before that happens, in which to consider long term plans. We're not too far from Hoover and factories (potentially 6 discoveries after refrigeration), is it too early to make a long term production plan and maybe change a few terrain squares while we have free time?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've had similar issued with F4 not showing the current status of cities. It updates after you look at the city screen, so I'm guessing the game generates an F4 report at some point(s) during the turn and is missing a recalculate trigger. In any case, you can't take that report at face value. Sadness.

Try increasing the luxury rate, opening the advisor, putting the luxuries back to normal and then checking. This should force a recalculation.

70% science would give one turn advances. Just noting that, not recommending it. Markets and universities are needed first, may be worth cranking the taxes again to get them quickly. (8.2.0 gives 1300 profit per turn). Once we build universities we should be able to achieve 1 turn discoveries with a 50% science rate.

Rushing Universities is nothing more than trading gold for science, and should be governed by our needs for each of those resources and how much science a university would give in a particular city. I'm not sure that raising taxes to rush universities is wise (although I'm not saying it is unwise). In any case, I would wait until after refrigeration, because a massive tax now, research later plan would probably delay the tech, and we want our engineers making farmland ASAP.

We're running out of things for our engineers to do. I see irrigation everywhere, tundra and swamp transformation, the last few forests and America getting roaded. We're still 5 techs away from refrigeration, and I know we'll be busy making farmland after that. We have maybe 10 turns before that happens, in which to consider long term plans. We're not too far from Hoover and factories (potentially 6 discoveries after refrigeration), is it too early to make a long term production plan and maybe change a few terrain squares while we have free time?

I would probably mine our hills before starting terrain changes, particularly to help cities with less than 10 shield production. We also still have enough swamps to drain, that I think we can cover ourselves until refrigeration (particularly if we have to spend time moving engineers back from the west).

We might want to consider increasing our engineer count in preparation for our "farmland campaign." It takes an engineer 3 turns to make farmland, so dedicating all but one of our engineers to the task produces 7 squares of farmland per turn. I count, very roughly, 210 squares that will need farmland, or about a 30 turn job for our engineers. I don't think we want to wait that long preserving Hanging Gardens (ie, not teching past steam engine).

 

[Magic_gorter]

If Catwalk wants to play it's his turn right now. Please let know if you still wants to play.
I'm going on a short holiday soon (next week) so could play this weekend if RL is not to busy.....

I'm glad with how our game is developping so far.....to bad we still don't know how the other civ's are doing.....

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Wounded Knee (and thus the Sioux) is a short distance south of us (our map is just visible if we use find-city for Wounded Knee). Hopefully they will get around to paying us a visit.

Something to keep in mind is that we can give technology to the Egyptians via the Great Library by giving the tech to the Americans. This will no longer be possible after Electricity, so if we want to disperse any techs (eg Navigation, Magnetism) we will have to do so soon.

 

[Magic_gorter]

I have not enough free time to play this weekend. Next week I'm on a short holiday and can't play. Or you guys have to wait 1,5 week before I can play or start next round without me....

I don't mind what you chose...

 

[mackerel]

I'm ok with waiting. Maybe Catwalk will turn up again before then anyway. If he's not back before your holiday is over, I'd say play then.

 

[Catwalk]

I'm sorry for my extended absence, I'll play a turnset tonight. Studies, work, other game projects and wife kept me busy

 

[Jokemaster]

Better late than never. Always

 

[Catwalk]

It'll likely be tomorrow until I get around to it. In the meantime, I'd appreciate some detailed advice

 

[Prof. Garfield]

We are not actually in the middle of implementing a plan at the moment, since Jokemaster finished our most recent celebrations during his round. Our next goal is to celebrate our cities to their maximum (post farmland) size. We want to do this before railroad is discovered, so that we won't have to build courthouses everywhere or build Cure for Cancer. This may force us to stop research, so we want to get farmland everywhere as quickly as possible.

To this end, I suggest the following:

1. Rush to Refrigeration, so that our engineers can actually start making farmland.

2. Build more engineers. I estimate that it will take about 30 turns to turn all our tiles into farmland with the number of engineers we currently have.

Almost all our cities have scientists at the moment, so they can all build an engineer. If they all did that, we would about double our engineer count, substantially reducing the farming time. You will probably want to choose cities to support the engineers (since a lot of our cities produce exactly 10 shields and we want to minimize the number of cities producing less than that) and give those cities supermarkets and farmland first.

I would also suggest keeping our engineers spread out in the civ for a couple reasons. First, we don't want to find ourselves in a position where all the land is farmland in one area and we have to spend time moving engineers to another area. Second, we may be able to start celebrations a couple turns before the engineers finish their work if we plan carefully enough (once we get closer to the time).

Beyond farming, our other ongoing projects are to build libraries and marketplaces and other necessary buildings. Also, we should make sure our cities have 3 trade routes, as it makes celebrating the city much easier, so making deliveries is also important.

Something to think about is that Great Library will expire once we discover electricity, so it might be worth giving the Americans Navigation and Magnetism before that time, so that the Egyptians get them too. I think it can only help us if seafaring technology is spread as far as possible.

 

[Catwalk]

Initial thoughts

I'm impressed with the progress you've made here, but baffled by a few things:
1) There are still several undeveloped squares scattered about (hills, jungles, deserts, forests)
2) No marketplaces! This is probably just me being a horrible newbie, but I thought they were well worth it. Were we too busy with caravans? EDIT: Whoops, they don't show up because of Adam Smith Still, we have very few. I'm guessing it's because we make so much cash from caravans and have been able to celebrate without them?
3) We have room for another 3 little cities east and north. Are we refraining from doing so for unrest reasons?
4) Will we be safe from barbarians without any garrison units? Forgot if we have barbarians turned off or not.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

1) There are still several undeveloped squares scattered about (hills, jungles, deserts, forests)

We just haven't gotten around to those yet; they take longer to improve than plains and grassland, so we left them for later (so that we could get as much benefit out of our settlers and engineers as quickly as possible).

2) No marketplaces! This is probably just me being a horrible newbie, but I thought they were well worth it. Were we too busy with caravans? EDIT: Whoops, they don't show up because of Adam Smith Still, we have very few. I'm guessing it's because we make so much cash from caravans and have been able to celebrate without them?

We just haven't gotten around to making them yet. Libraries and marketplaces are on our current to do list, but we needed temples, aqueducts and sewer systems before that (and it is more important to get our farmland up as quickly as possible now). We've been celebrating all our cities at the same time, so it wasn't a huge deal to raise luxuries extra high to compensate for the lack of marketplaces.

Also, we have been getting very little cash from caravans this game because we are limited in distance and to a single continent.

3) We have room for another 3 little cities east and north. Are we refraining from doing so for unrest reasons?

No, unrest reasons have nothing to do with not building a couple extra cities. I think that the only reason we haven't built them, is that we had other priorities. Personally, I would build them after we've made farmland and have extra engineers.

4) Will we be safe from barbarians without any garrison units? Forgot if we have barbarians turned off or not.

Barbarians are raging hordes. We should probably have a unit inside Holstebro, but other than that, we have about the same amount of defenses as I usually have in a game. Garrisons are ineffective in dealing with barbarians, because the latter get an attack bonus of 50%, and attack usually beats defense anyway. We're better off retaking a city if the barbarians attack than we are building and maintaining a permanent garrison unit for each city.

 

[Catwalk]

Ugh, managed to finish one turn. Had lots to do, and my wife demands my presence in the bedroom I'll be reporting a little slowly, a turn or two at a time and editing this post. I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with all the caravans. Does anyone have the revenue and trade bonus formulas handy? Which trade route is replaced when a city already has 3 trade routes and gets another?

1460
- RB lots of stuff, mainly marketplaces and libraries
- Switched 3 cities to engineers
- Removed a whole bunch of workers from 1 food tiles, turned them into scientists
- 70 gold left
- Switching allocation to 20% taxes, 60% science and 20% luxuries (from 20/60/20), only need a handful of entertainers to keep all cities happy and it raises our beaker count from 1417 to 1621
- Most cities running at a food deficit, keeping a close eye on food totals

IT
- Physics discovered, Electricity not available. I pick Bridge Building over Atomic Theory and Chivalry.
- Lots of celebration cancelled
- 2 Engineers + 3 Caravans + bunch of small buildings completed

1480
- 4 engineers started
- Explorer moves straight NW towards Holstebro
- Lisbon founded NW of Philadelphia
- RB more marketplaces and libraries, 27 gold left

IT
- Barbarians land near Holstebro... Looks like one Legion and a Diplomat, more may be on the ship.
- BB discovered. options are AT, Chi, Mag, Met and SE. I choose Magnetism.

1500
- Rushing a Crusader at Genes near Holstebro, using the food caravans near Holstebro as improvised defense
- Hamburg founded south of Naples
- Prague founded north of Capua
- Deforesting a bunch of tiles with no bonus grassland underneath
- Gifted the Americans Sanitation, Democracy, Navigation, University and Bridge Building. Asked for their world map, they have no new exploration to report.
- Rushbuilt lots more

IT
- One caravan killed, second legion landed near Holstebro
- Magnetism discovered, picking Metallurgy

1510
- Crusader kills a legion
- Establishing a bunch of trade routes, most not notable. Trying to get good distance on them.
- Rushbuilt lots more, 50 gold left

IT
- An extra legion was hiding in the stack, fortunately it attacked the explorer in Holstebro rather than the crusader
- Salamis built Granary by mistake, whoops. Selling it.
- Metallurgy discovered, picking Electricity

1520
- Killed off remaining legions with the crusader, Holstebro is safe.
- Bribed an American unit of Settlers for 220 gold, has no home city.
- RB some more, 79 gold left.

IT
- Electricity discovered, can't pick Refrigeration. Picking Steam Engine over AT, Chi and Conscription.
- Now up to 26 engineers.

1530
- Transforming some plains and forests on bonus grassland tiles.
- RB more.

IT
- Unrest in Nuremberg, whoops.
- Steam Engine discovered, picking Refrigeration! Railroad also available.

1540
- Various micro, nothing interesting.

IT
- Refrigeration discovered! Railroad next.
- Now up to 30 engineers.

1550
- Start producing a bunch of supermarkets
- Raising Luxuries to 30% just in case the cancellation of HG next turn leads to unrest

IT
- Railroad discovered, cancelling Hanging Gardens. Conscription picked next.
- A few Supermarkets finished

1560
- More micro, 94 gold left
- Gave a bunch of techs to the Americans, they have sent a trireme west.
- Most cities are content without HG, keeping luxuries at 20%
- I'm unsure about when to start Darwin's Voyage, putting it off for now

IT
- Nothing much happened, the Americans explored the waters off Lisbon for us
- Accidentally made Nuremberg riot when it finished an engineer
- Now up to 34 engineers. 2 supermarkets completed, 15 in production.

1570
- More micro and done! Leaving RB and the IT for the next player so I don't mess up anymore on research choices.

 

[Catwalk]

I'm inching ahead Feel free to comment on my progress, not sure if I'm doing things right.

Also feel free to have a look at my mod thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=417902, I'd love to play a later SG with it.

 

[mackerel]

We are not actually in the middle of implementing a plan at the moment, since Jokemaster finished our most recent celebrations during his round. Our next goal is to celebrate our cities to their maximum (post farmland) size. We want to do this before railroad is discovered, so that we won't have to build courthouses everywhere or build Cure for Cancer. This may force us to stop research, so we want to get farmland everywhere as quickly as possible.

We'll have to cure cancer before the big celebration now, and we might as well make a basic railnet before continuing the farmland transformation. That's assuming we don't stagnate research right now for 30 turns, which is probably a bad idea.

 

[Catwalk]

Uh oh, sorry about that. Will we be able to celebrate with courthouses? I'm not keen on halting research either. We're pretty close to Genetic Engineering, though: Industrialization and Corporation will let us research it (after finishing Railroad). Suggestions?

 

[mackerel]

Since it's too late to stop now, I'd say go straight for Corporation and GenEng. One off-path tech will be required. We'll have cancer cured before we're done building farms.