Shadow Game: Cyrus, Monarch, Pangea

[antimony]

On your dotmap I think both pigs-wine and floodplains desert city (east of cap) could be moved 1W. Wine is not a priority and not destroying a forest would be better. Settling of floodplains destroys the extra food but reduces unhealthiness. More importantly it can also share gold with horse city which might be good when you want the former to grow faster.

That said, after the food resources the best spot for settling seems to be northwest of cap with those rivers (e.g. 3 tiles NW). Unless the southern section where you have dots also has riverside grass, cannot see well at the bottom.

 

[Fippy]

Why not on the PH rather than floodplains, @antimony ?

 

[lymond]

It appears you may have lost your scout possibly. I'm a little confused as to why your first warrior is basically moving toward already scouted land when you still have a plethora of fog to uncover near Pers to the W. You coulda at least started him westward a bit and then moved N->NE back to spawn-bust for the settler. These little decisions can sometimes be very important. I'd not be overly concerned with city spots after horse/gold until you do more scouting. You might be focusing on a 2 city immortal rush of Rome here.

Rome looks a bit blocked for a sneak attack from the NW....maybe you can pounce from the SE if it is open - I'm talking first-turn attack to take the city. I can't see enough to tell here. Anyway, on this level, I don't think you need much to start - maybe 6 imms could take Rome if you can hit quickly. Keep an eye out for when he sends out settlers. (I just don't know what the rough timings are on this level)

(sidenote: Other than no huts/events I don't really like your settings. They are not doing you any favors)

 

[lymond]

Why not on the PH rather than floodplains, @antimony ?

I'm not really sure even what he is talking about.....which floodplain? anyway, it is still a desert tile when settled

edit: oh nevermind...i see what he is saying now....in a city without food unhealthy would be the least concern. PH there would be fine, although not necessarily a priority spot

 

[antimony]

Why not on the PH rather than floodplains, @antimony ?

True, didn't think of that. Also pigs city can already share gold.

 

[Fippy]

Decent commerce city with all river, but no priority yup.
+4 is fine overall..city never contributes much but nice little cottage place.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

On your dotmap I think both pigs-wine and floodplains desert city (east of cap) could be moved 1W. Wine is not a priority and not destroying a forest would be better. Settling of floodplains destroys the extra food but reduces unhealthiness. More importantly it can also share gold with horse city which might be good when you want the former to grow faster.

That said, after the food resources the best spot for settling seems to be northwest of cap with those rivers (e.g. 3 tiles NW). Unless the southern section where you have dots also has riverside grass, cannot see well at the bottom.

So, here's my thinking on the the position of the two dots you mentioned:
Moving the pig/wine city 1W would move it 1 tile away from the coast. I'd like to know how to calculate the cost of that vs the benefit of getting access to the gold (which is already accessible by another city).
Moving the other city (4E, 1N of capital) onto the FP means that it will only ever have access to a single FP as its only food source. Since this city is not a high priority, long term viability would seem to be more important than.... actually, I don't know exactly what would be gained by moving that one.

Also, here's a better view of the land to the south. Some nice river grassland, but also a lot of jungle, so again, not a super high priority.

Spoiler South :

It appears you may have lost your scout possibly. I'm a little confused as to why your first warrior is basically moving toward already scouted land when you still have a plethora of fog to uncover near Pers to the W. You coulda at least started him westward a bit and then moved N->NE back to spawn-bust for the settler. These little decisions can sometimes be very important. I'd not be overly concerned with city spots after horse/gold until you do more scouting. You might be focusing on a 2 city immortal rush of Rome here.

Yep. Lost my scout in a forest to a panther (80% chance to survive - the RNG hates me). As for the warrior's position, you're right. I got a little tunnel-visioned about fog-busting for the settler. I didn't really think I'd have the time to scout before doing that. I just finished another warrior in my capital, so I'm sending him west to reveal some of that land.

Rome looks a bit blocked for a sneak attack from the NW....maybe you can pounce from the SE if it is open - I'm talking first-turn attack to take the city. I can't see enough to tell here. Anyway, on this level, I don't think you need much to start - maybe 6 imms could take Rome if you can hit quickly. Keep an eye out for when he sends out settlers. (I just don't know what the rough timings are on this level)

If I'm not mistaken, a sneak attack like the one you describe would have to happen before his borders pop again. If I can manage to get a sufficient army up and in position before then, I'd be very impressed. I've never managed it before. As for his settlers, is it worth waiting until his second city is at size 2, so I can take both?

(sidenote: Other than no huts/events I don't really like your settings. They are not doing you any favors)

So, this next bit may sound a bit defensive. I don't mean it to be. Mostly I'm frustrated at myself for still being so incompetent at this game. If you can see any flaws in my justifications, or advice on how to overcome things, I'd be grateful...

I'm not really impressed with these settings either, but I find the game almost unplayable without them. They are designed to compensate for known deficiencies in my abilities. On lower difficulties I had a mostly isolationist play style where I did my own thing until I was strong enough to waltz all over the AI. Obviously, that doesn't work anymore.

I was losing way too many games to AP/UN shenanigans, and it was making the whole game seriously not fun for me, so I turned Dip victories off.
I often struggle to keep up in tech, and when I have any kind of parity, the AI never wants to trade anything with me anyway. Turning brokering off was an attempt to stop them trading too freely amongst themselves and making my situation even worse while still giving me an opportunity to trade for some things when they let me.
Ferrying troops to other continents for exploring and/or conquest is a whole headache that I just don't want to deal with until I'm better at other parts of the game. Hence pangea.
I have no idea why I set the sea level to low. I think I tried it once when I was messing around with other map types and just never bothered to put it back.

 

[antimony]

@Gunboat Diplomat

For the pig/wine city, there are a few minor points that together suggest 1W: not losing a forest; being closer to capital (so possibly reduction in maintenance); sharing the gold. The benefit of being on the coast was not clear to me in the absence of sea resources. (Although, now I see some sea resources could still be covered in the fog, so it would depend on what lies NE. Even the forest N of the pig, despite all the tundra around there, would be good if it puts a seafood resource in play.)

Re: the gold tile. The issue is that its commerce output is so good we want to be always working it, but it slows down city growth by contributing no food. Thus it's useful to switch it between cities for growth needs, and while the horse city is useful to grab it initially, the pig city has a stronger food tile to help offset the lack of food on the gold tile.

For the other city @Fippy was right, settling on the hill so you don't lose any cottageable tiles by settling on them (and you're marginally closer to capital).

In the same line of thought, for the rice city to the south you may want to settle on jungle instead of forest, since the jungle is a dead tile until you get iron working wheras the forest can be chopped for production.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

@antimony
Thanks for that. I think I see where I was going wrong with regard to the city to the east. I was looking at it in terms of production potential. I figured by farming the two FP, it could eventually work three PH. Not a powerhouse, but not useless. Settling on the PH and cottaging those FP means it will never produce many hammers, but I can see the commerce potential is significantly improved. At size 5, it's the difference between working 1) 2 farmed FP and 3 mined PH; or 2) 4 riverside cottages and 1 mined PH (and still having surplus food). If I'm reading these comments right, there seems to be consensus that the cottages are better.

As for the pig/wine city, I thought it was considered bad because without a lighthouse, those coast tiles will never be worth working. Admittedly, in this case, there would only be 2 of them if we moved. Other considerations (GL, Colossus, naval units) are unlikely to be a factor in this game, obviously. Your other points regarding this city are well taken.

 

[lymond]

I'm not really impressed with these settings either, but I find the game almost unplayable without them. ........

I was losing way too many games to AP/UN shenanigans, and it was making the whole game seriously not fun for me, so I turned Dip victories off.
I often struggle to keep up in tech, and when I have any kind of parity, the AI never wants to trade anything with me anyway. Turning brokering off was an attempt to stop them trading too freely amongst themselves and making my situation even worse while still giving me an opportunity to trade for some things when they let me.
Ferrying troops to other continents for exploring and/or conquest is a whole headache that I just don't want to deal with until I'm better at other parts of the game. Hence pangea.
I have no idea why I set the sea level to low. I think I tried it once when I was messing around with other map types and just never bothered to put it back.

Pangaea is perfectly fine as is the low sea level. I was referring to the other things you did mention though. Focus less on "settings" on more on good early gameplay. What you need to do to improve your game you are doing right now .

Main focus for cities is mainly going to always be food, not much else really matters. Make good settling decisions based on food and proximity to your cap. Exceptions, like in this case, may be to grab a strategic resource quickly or a nice early commerce boost. FOOD=PRODUCTION is the golden rule though. Think less about mines.

Yep, Rome's borders may likely pop before an attack... Point is to find a good straight path to attack the city quickly. Yeah, a city needs to be size 2 or it will be razed. Whether you wait for that depends a good deal on whether that city is worth keeping - they aren't always worth it.

UN should not be a problem once you improve your gameplay. On this level, you will likely soon be dominating the map long before UN comes into play.

Lastly, I saw you mention "long-term potential" of a city. Focus more on short term potential

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

So, I've moved the dotmap around based on comments above (thanks again peeps) and the absence of seafood to the NE, and done a bit of scouting. Finished the wheel, and started roading towards horses a turn after my settler emerged. Found Babylon to the west. It's a bit closer than Rome, but harder to get to due to all the forests and hills. On higher difficulties, I might have to choose, but on monarch, I reckon I can take them both (Rome first). The question is, will this kill my economy/development? Of course, the payoff is that I end up with essentially 3 capitals and a ton of space.

I mistimed moving my warrior back into position, so I might have to lose a turn getting my second city up (or risk moving the settler onto the gold without visibility). Slightly off-topic, but why on earth would an oasis block vision like a forest? I thought my warrior would be able to see past it.

Spoiler Turn 28 :

It feels a bit silly, but since micro seems to be a major problem for me, I thought I'd ask about priorities in my capital. Working the pig is a no-brainer, but at size 2, should I be working the unimproved FP (didn't have time to finish a farm), or the gold. Working the gold shaves 5 turns off my research time for BW, but grows to size 3 two turns later. The extra hammers for working the gold don't hurt either. Speaking of hammers, I'm assuming that getting a barracks up in preparation for churning out immortals is the right play here?

Spoiler Persepolis :

So, I guess my questions at this point are:
1. Is taking both neighbours realistic?
2.a) If so, should I still focus on Rome first (I'll probably send my first immortal to scout to Gus' south)?
2.b) If not, which should I attack? I like the idea of not having anyone to my east (assuming that's the edge of the continent).
3. Should Persepolis work the gold or the FP?
4. Is barracks the right build here? (or maybe start barracks then switch to worker when I hit size 3?)
5. And, as always, is there anything I'm missing or should be thinking about?

 

[Fippy]

I think what you really want is worker #2 instead of barracks, fits with working gold.
Combat 1 isn't that big on Immortals..i would rather start building them right away after the worker.
We will need some chops so that worker really matters, size 3 not so much with no more really good tiles available.

 

[lymond]

Plus, if the worker is where I think it is, you can put a chop into the new worker. 2nd worker will really help get your horses online faster and Immortals out quicker. Afterward, another warrior or two while waiting for horses may be beneficial for more busting.

 

[Pedro78]

Not sure how urgent immortals are. I'd maybe build a couple more cities/workers, get some cottages up & chop the immortals a bit later, it's very likely that at least one of the two AIs won't have spears for a while (btw if you click on their names a few times they'll brag about their best unit, doesn't beat good scouting but is good to always have an idea of what's going on). I'd rather let the AI settle 1 or 2 more cities & improve some tiles before taking their stuff, gives a better return on invested hammers. Might not be the best way to progress onto higher difficulties tho, cause there you generally want to attack ASAP.

I like the idea of not having anyone to my east

This makes sense visually, but is generally a bad thinking process. As aesthetically pleasing as it may seem to have your own uncontested share of the continent, it's relatively unimportant in comparison to other factors (i.e. if hammy turns out to have better land, attacking Rome would make little sense). A lot of players (including myself) have a bias towards what "looks pretty" (taking 5 more turns to kill off an AI to remove cultural pressure instead of vassaling them and moving on to the next one is a common example). It's all about weighing the concrete pros & cons of each decision (which is why you correctly decided to settle on the marble away from the river, which looks a bit ugly but gives you quicker development).

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Hmmmm... Some interesting thoughts there.
@lymond I can't chop anything yet. Still researching BW.

I played a few more turns, building a worker in Persepolis, founding Pasargadae near the horses and getting it to work on producing a warrior. I also sent a warrior to scout out Hammy's land. Nothing too earth-shattering yet. Some silk to his north and a few FP to his NW.

If I take @Pedro78 's advice and delay my attack for a while, I'm thinking that the NE pig location and the PH to my immediate east are my best two spots for my next cities (probably in that order). As I think I mentioned, I've never had any real success with early rushes so I don't know exactly how long I can wait before going full military production mode.

Oh, and to be clear, my thoughts about clearing my eastern border weren't exactly aesthetic, they were tactical. If I manage to secure a good chunk of land, the thought of fighting a future war on two fronts scares me. I've lost too many games because whoever I was trying to annex had a friend on my opposite border. If I take out Augustus now, I never have to worry about him stabbing me in the back, and I can more or less neglect my garrisons in those cities. Otherwise, I'll always have keep a reasonable number of (up to date) units on that border. That can get expensive.

Anyway, I'm at turn 34 (2640BC). I know it has only been 6 turns, however, I stopped here because I just finished the second worker and my autopilot told me to start farming the FP, but I'm questioning that decision. The idea (if I'm going to delay my immortal rush) is to build a warrior or two (to fog bust my next two city sites) then start chopping settlers (and probably another worker or two). Assuming I'm going to let Persepolis grow to size 3 before building settlers, it would probably make sense to mine the PH on the river. I believe that the settler production bonus I get from Imperialistic only counts for hammers (not food), so the mine would be better than the farm in the short term. Does that sound right?

 

[Fippy]

I really question a delayed attack here..there are very few good city spots around, the best we can get are AI capitals
Plus you now settled horse city and some of the best advice for higher level games always was: stick with one plan (unless there are some really obvious changes).

Pedro wrote about how delays are not good on high difficulties. If you would like to progress further than Monarch, little can be gained from exploiting AI weaknesses on Monarch.
I'm interested in micro (with pics or a save) cos it's very important for more difficult rushes.

Fogbusters are pointless imo, barb cities or maybe even some roaming barbs would be welcome as "training" for one of the best early game units.
They are good on high difficulties with only weak units available.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Ok. So I played the game out a bit. I settled those two cities, and took Rome (along with his other city) fairly easily. After that, however, I really stalled quite badly. By the time I looked at Hammy, he already had spears and axes. I struggled with city placement and before long, I couldn't build anything except units in several of my cities. I know that my tile improvement probably wasn't ideal, and I'm sure some of my tech decisions could have been more efficient. All this leads me to think that @Fippy was right, and I really should be concentrating on getting help with my micro.

It will be tedious, but if you wonderful people are willing to help me, I'd be a fool not to avail myself of the opportunity.

As a result, I'm backing up to turn 28. I really don't care that I've got some foreknowledge of the map and who is out in the fog, because even if I knew, I'd still run into the same problems. I want to get this right.

Spoiler Future knowledge - actual spoilers :

Rome's second city (SE of Rome) has double gems and dry corn.
Gilgamesh to the south. Other leaders seem to be west of Hammurabi.

I won't be doing it tonight though. I've run out of spoons for today, so it's time to switch the game off. One thing I'm really coming to realise is that fatigue leads to bad decisions. "Just one more turn!" is only compounding my problems. When all this is done, I might have to write a whole post about the psychology of trying to learn this game.

 

[Pedro78]

Played this to T45, pointing out some micro bits:

Spoiler T28 :

T16 first warrior is out. Since I have horses & am going for Immortals, Persepolis starts putting hammers into a barracks (next builds are Settler @size 2 followed by a worker, so any hammers put into a warrior would decay anyway)

T17

Switching from working the floodplain to working a 2h tile to get the IMP bonus for the settler

T19. Mining. Going for the Wheel next. It's good to get it before BW because the worker won't be chopping for a little while, he will connect the horses & both cities will start on immortals. Second worker will arrive right around chopping time.

T24

Scouting. You can move the scout 1 tile at a time so he can retreat in case he meets a barbarian. This way you can reveal a lot of land relatively safely. Here you can see on the screenshot that Hammurabi's capital is on flatland, which is a big deal when attacking very early. You can use the "toggle bare map" function to make all the tiles brighter, helps with fog-gazing.


T27

Small micro detail: the worker just finished building a road. Now he can start improving the horses on the turn the city is founded. The road will be useful because all we need is another road 1NW of Persepolis for both cities to be connected via the river. This will be the first order of business for worker #2, who will then proceed to chop around Persepolis.
Also note that I am running 0% research for 1T to save up gold. Running sub-100% research can lead to the loss of a beaker because of roundings.
Lastly, the barracks in Pasargadae is a placeholder: I probably won't finish it but I have no use for a warrior & hammers put into buildings don't decay for 50 turns.

Spoiler T45 :

Forgot to take screens there.
T34 Bronze working. The horses are connected since last turn & both workers start chopping. Timing is important. Neither Persepolis nor Pasargadae will finish the barracks. Hammurabi is the target since he's got a flatland capital with gold + a religion. (didn't check out whether or not Rome was on flatland, which was a small mistake, but Babylon is more central & much juicier anyway).

T42. Hammurabi has founded a second city on the previous turn, which means he probably only has 1 or 2 defenders in his capital. I'll attack in 2 turns with 4 Immortals (no point in going for his second city since it would autoraze at size 1)

T45
Only one Bowman in Babylon, I take it without losses (winning one 20% fight) + 1 worker on the pigs. Now got writing and 6 immortals, 4 of which are in Babylonian territory. Will wait until Akkad grows to size 2 before I take it. Could certainly have done with less units. Now going for Augustus is probably best. But I'll stop here, since this is about handling micro in the early game, not viciously stomping the Monarch AI.

On a sidenote, once city #2 was settled I didn't fogbust anything. On higher difficulties you would have to build a couple more warriors to prevent barbs from spawning too close to your stuff.


Edit: a couple of comments after looking at your game / notes

Spoiler :

- For the first 30-40 turns, Persepolis only has two strong tiles. So when you reach size two, you should start on a settler unless you have a clear reason not to (the most common one being building warriors for fogbusting).
- What has your worker been doing between reaching The Wheel and your T28 screenshot? One good way to micro your cities efficiently is to optimize towards short term goals. Here the obvious goal is "attack with Immortals asap", which means building roads to connect the horses. Farming a flood plain would make little sense.
- About barracks: they often make sense on higher difficulties when you're going to build 10+ immortals from your capital. Here they're mostly just delaying your attack date.
- When you have a lot of forests, building 1 or 2 extra workers to chop pays off very quickly

 

[Fippy]

Cheers Pedro, exactly what the OP needs
Also glad we agree on wheel before BW.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

@Pedro78 Oh wow. That is awesome. Fippy's right - exactly what I needed. Thanks muchly! In answer to your question, I didn't finish The Wheel until T28. So there were a few wasted worker turns moving and farming. Now I'll have to see if I can get the wheel as quickly as you did. Thanks for the info about invested hammers. I knew that they perished over time, but I didn't realise that units and buildings had a different decay rate.

On the matter of binary research, does it make a difference whether you A) run 0% until you have enough gold to finish the tech, then switch to 100%; or B) run 100% until you can't anymore, then alternate between 0% and 100%? I know that later in the game, when I use option A, the AIs will often start demanding all my sweet gold, but I'm not sure whether tech decay would make option B less efficient.

Also, what did you do with the worker between finishing the pigs and finishing mining? I had two or three turns where he had nothing to do.

Lost my scout again. I moved slowly, I saw the panther. I retreated. It pursued. I lost. C'est la vie.

Did you let Pasargadae grow to size two on the oasis, or did you switch over to the horses as soon as they were improved? Or maybe once they were connected and you could start building the immortals? That seems to make the most sense to me. The more I think about it, the more I feel that the extra hammers from the horse are wasted on the barracks. Better off putting food in the coffers, and then switching. Although, working the FP for an extra two turns after horses are connected would let it grow on T35.

Spoiler Pasargadae, Turn 32 :

vs

I'm going to stop there for a bit. Thanks again everyone, I feel I'm starting to see things a bit differently, and that feels like progress.