The Sinister Scheme of Dr. Fu Manchu

[FiveRings]

the numbers mean size of city (aka number of citizens), so whips from size 4 for 2 population points to size 2 and regrow back to size 4 gets best hammers return from all options.

I didn't do the calculations myself, but others did and said so... sooo I just trust them ;-).

granted some things can't be whipped in reasonable time for 2 population points, but at this phase of game maximizing outputs in particular cities is more for HoF players then for poor peops like me.

The early whip maximizing otoh is very important (you work with less cities) so it's worth remembering this calculations for the very few types of situations.

One thing that isn't (imo) implied clearly with the whip is that the saying about whips converting food to hammers can be seen in 2 different lights.
1) you get for population hammers and for getting population you need the food (thus the emphasis on high food cities and food being prioritized)

2) building settlers and workers and whipping THIS units into buildings brings you bigger hammers (except for situations with abundant mines and low food) then just plainly building buildings and whipping them, since all your surplus food (which is in early game abundant if you place your cities right) is used as hammers for producing settlers and workers.

there is one danger with OFing workers+settlers into wonders, especially in case of GLH which doesn't get any multipliers, that usually in your cap you should have enough pop and enough mines to get the GLH quicker without whipping and not losing the wonder (I had games where I went for OFing settlers+workers into GLH and losing that wonder, since the regrowth into mines was too long).

For this case is better to build settler before starting on GLH asap though, so you can run at least 1 city for supporting rex.

Btw Oracle usually is in the same boat since going for masonry for improving marble usually ends delaying you more then just going straight for Oracle and building it on mines + forests. It is never worth the wait for connecting marble, especially if you have marble in 2nd city.
Having marble in cap's BFC especially if you settle on it can be different beast and can be argued if masonry is worth it or not.

Thanks for the clarification, V!

Thanks for the thoughts on whipping settlers/workers, too! As a matter of fact, I am used to whipping them - as opposed to buildings -and was wondering if this might be one of the reasons for getting so much behind the AIs. Now, I think that this is definitely it, but not because of whipping those particular builds! It seems taht I was doing the whipping in a quite inefficient way: taking care of the penalty and the fast regrowth rather, than of the max OF.

BTW, as you see, I have taken your point on (civ) efficiency close to heart, and it has already helped in my side games, though not to the extent to win on Monarch yet... well, I also give up when I see that my chances are very slim, and my playing in the modern era might be a notch lower than in the initial eras, too.

 

[vranasm]

there is always the problem with trees and forest... I would say that for winning on Monarch you really don't need to care much about trees...it's more about the forest.

in this particular:

1) city placement
2) empire and worker management (city specialization, improvements, enough of improvements, happiness etc)
3) diplomacy
4) tech trades and tech paths

point 3 can sometimes cover for some other points

From what I saw here yet... we have biggest problem with city placement and worker management .

Btw I wanted to see if on this map was available Oracle->Constr and tried and succeeded at 900 BC at first try without much MM (going with my horsey city to the east as 2nd city first ofc )...

all that said I will probably switch to lurker mode... throwing here my "awesomeness" here and there...

 

[FiveRings]

all that said I will probably switch to lurker mode... throwing here my "awesomeness" here and there...

I don't want to put on Cam's hat, but I'd hate to let you off the hook of making half-a-dozen turns now and then - every 50-60 turns, actually... This will greatly diminish our team punch and what we get from you as advice and insight ... lurking will never be the same as playing, motivationwise, too....

 

[Cam_H]

@ woopdeedoo,

I'm happy with the plan except I'd propose that Manchu's Snarl be handled as a 'special case'. Firstly, it doesn't have a Granary, so the efficiency of whipping cycles are severely diminished. Secondly, it's the only city with a multiplier and has three 'Financial trait' Hamlets at its disposal (one's soon to be a 'Financial trait' Village) - I'd really treat this city with care as it could be pulling in over half of our haul if its citizens go onto those cottages (after it gets to 3+ population).

Were we swapping into Hinduism and Organised Religion?

I'd focus Worker actions on Farms or chops in all cities except Manchu's Snarl, where at least I'd put a Cottage on 'Cottage 4'.

I'd tech Construction (around 80%) - I'm not sure if there's a lot of value in hording as it looks like we'll probably be the first tribe to get it anyway (and therefore we can't trade for it).

Can we delete some of those of signs on our map?

 

[lymond]

I agree about Snarl, Cam. It's normally not a good idea to whip so heavily in your cap, especially since it's the one city that will generally eschew a granary for some time - plus, it's usually your most productive city early. In this case, I felt we were so far behind in development that making these sacrifices would pay long term. Snarl should definitely just grow back.

Woop - On normal speed, I find that grouping workers early is not the best idea. This was confirmed by some super-pros in the past. Grouping early often means that other areas are neglected, like in our example where all the cities outside Snarl were basically unimproved for a very long time. Later, as the empire becomes more established and stable, I will start to group up workers on newer sites.

V - I think you should really just continue playing this one out. You, Cam and I have TS only so often so it should not be that time consuming.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Cam, I agree on 2 points.

First, all the "pings". I will remove them.

2nd, Manchu = Science cap etc etc. So Dark Horse is working Manchu's cottage, that will be rectified. Switch to Hindu, sure thing. OR I think can be up for discussion still? I think?

As for farms and chops, no probs but we are somewhat limited in and I think mines should also be built where possible.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Yes V!!!

This is a learning experience for 2 n00bs! Give a little back, man

 

[lymond]

woop - I agree that mines will be needed, but the most important thing right now for these cities is food. I know this may be a newer concept for you, but Food=Production. This will be intensified with the use of OR.

Yeah, although the switch to Hindi is to serve the purpose initially of facilitating trades, we can wait a bit on the OR switch since we really don't have much to work with at the moment as far as whipping. However, I would switch fairly soon. It will also allow us to spread Hindu to cities that don't have it.

 

[Cam_H]

vranasm ... please indicate if you're prepared to play 'say' another five or six turns or not.
___

Switching to Hinduism makes sense to me. Organised Religion's timing isn't that great given our emphasis will be on unit spamming for a while, but it'd be nice to squeeze out a couple of Hindu Missionaries for the 'heathen' cities (+1 in those cities to offset some whip weariness if nothing else).

btw ... Can you believe Stalin's city???

 

[lymond]

btw ... Can you believe Stalin's city???

yeah, bizarre. It came out of nowhere and he has like 20 archers in it

 

[vranasm]

vranasm ... please indicate if you're prepared to play 'say' another five or six turns or not.

just lurking from now on.

 

[Cam_H]

OK - thanks for letting us know. Please feel free to re-join.

 

[woopdeedoo]

yeah, bizarre. It came out of nowhere and he has like 20 archers in it

Am I missing something here? I only see one Russian city (Rostov) and it has 2 archers and a warrior?

 

[woopdeedoo]

Since there hasn't been a response, I will assume it's all cool as discussed and I will play today.

 

[Cam_H]

Yep ... go for it!

 

[woopdeedoo]

T0 - MM Snarl as discussed to get cottages working. Switch from stable to granary. Move warrior from V Frown to DH for . Set to 80% (-2gpt), Constr due in 12t.

T1 - DH finishes barracks --> archer. Chariot is scouting WK's land and the warrior in Rostov is moved back to V Frown. Worker goes to cottage "cottage 4" spot and another cottages 1S of BoS.

T2 - Oops! Forgot to revolt to Hindu, do so now.

T3 - Warrior reaches DH and people . Revolt to OR. Now, I wasn't sure whether or not to revolt so soon after the previous anarchy but did it anyway. If someone could explain if that was correct or not and also explain why, I would be most appreciative.

T4 - Roosy demands Mono; No. MM DH to help Snarl's cottages and shave 2t of Constr.

T5 - BoS becomes . MM Snarl so the granary and growth occur simultaneously (9t).

T6 - BoS: Barracks --> Aquaduct. DH: Archer -->Hindu miss. Trade WK Alpha for Monarchy. I'm not sure if this was discussed or not but I thought it the correct move...
P.S. WK has swordsmen... in fact, everyone except for us have metal, it seems...

T7 - Stalin demands HBR; No.

T8 - Chariot in V Frown finishes (where did that come from again ) and I set it to build a stable. Whip missionary in DH. BoS has become in addition to so I change from aqua to HA to whip the pain away
Now, Mao is willing to trade clam for horse (!!!) which would help our short-term problems but he is worst enemy of Roosy and I already denied him once this TS so I didn't make the trade.

T9 - This comes in:



OK. Missionary is finished in DH so switch to Lib. Send Miss to BoS. Also whip the HA in BoS.

T10 - BoS: HA --> Aqua

T11 - Hindu spreads in BoS, no more Whip aqua, no more . Snarl finishes and switches to stable (queued) and I make a mistake, I whip it. I hang my head in shame, that shouldn't have happened, growth etc is crappy now.

T12 - Constr is in, queue Calendar, set to 0%. Stable blush in Snarl finishes and I set it to Hindu Mona. Aqua finished in BoS --> Library

T13 - zzz

T14 - Churchie demands we cancel deals with Zao, OK.

T15 - Clearing a forest by V Frown throws loads of for OF with the completion of stables, I set it to HA*. WK is willing to pay all his cash; 200 for HBR. I think it's worth considering.

T16 - Whip (failed 2pop attempt ) V Frown, primarily due to

I made a couple of errors, most notably the accidental whip in Snarl, but I think the TS went ok... all in all... I think...

 

[FiveRings]

W, I haven't looked at the save and only read the report, so would abstain on discussing the situation and I think I will abstain from discussing anyone's turn, maybe just asking questions. This one comes to my mind right away now, though: haven't we discussed taking both OR+HR at one and the same turn so that to have only one turn of anarchy instead of two? I think that might have been the reason why L didn't switch immediately.

 

[Cam_H]

woopdeedoo,

Thanks for the turnset and report (good to see more of the map), but I fear there might be a bit of communication breakdown in terms of our strategy.

What I had in mind was that Manchu's Snarl become our centre - grow to the happy cap working those Cottages and running Scientists. The other three cities were to focus on military production with quite an emphasis on strategic whipping. I envisaged that we could be approaching 10 Horse Archers or thereabouts, so we can be on the verge of invading someone. Libraries and Aqueducts, while nice and all, I believe should take a back seat to getting together an invasion force in light of the fact that we're small and surrounded.

My 'first draft' PPP:

Swap into Hereditary Rule.

I think we'd better start mixing up Catapults and Horse Archers now. Black Horse doesn't have a Stable, so it should focus on Hwachas. Bay of Storms can do Hwachas also, while V Frown can do Horse Archers. Maybe some 'stack protection' Archers also?

Manchu's Snarl grows, working the four Cottages and two Scientists. Our first should pop within the next 15 turns. I'd like to get another Cottage or two up there in light of our pending Hereditary Rule happiness boost allowing for more citizens.

Tech'wise, in light of our lack of metal and Ivory I am quite tempted to take the long trip to Feudalism for Longbows, but Literature's The Great Library is 'just around the corner'. Currency's another attractive option, but trade-able ...

Wang's Currency + 270 <> Horseback Riding + Construction deal is somewhat tempting. Views?

In terms of war targets, Gandhi's now presented himself as an option in my view; The Pyramids in Delhi not being the least of the factors that's 'sparked' my interest. Unfortunately he's fairly popular with most AIs, so we might have to take a hit on the 'relations front' if we do go after India.​

 

[woopdeedoo]

With regards to HR and OR revolt, I realised that I missed that only 2 turns after the OR revolt. Sorry, it was a mistake on my end. The aquaduct in BoS was put in due to severe health problems. I think if we attack Mao, we should get Roosy and Chuchill in on the action. He is hated by almost everyone. I agree with the Snarl capitol and know I shouldn't have whipped there. I apologise for that, I clicked the button before I realised what I was doing.

Wang's Currency + 270 <> Horseback Riding + Construction deal is somewhat tempting.

Me likey

 

[lymond]

woop - I really think it is important to at least write up a general PPP. It is helpful for you as well.

Cam - Like the plan and the trade.