aCK-1 Behaving Ourselves

[Arlborn]

Color me confused...i thought yellow dot was 1E of where you placed it.
Now we gained a cow tile and got the extra hammer and defense in city tile... but we lost two FP tiles, we overlap with Ramesses capitol on two river tiles, plus our dotmap probably needs to be reconfigured.

I think we are going to need to circle the wagons here and figure out a new plan???

Hum, you are right, he did put it in another place. I didn't understand his reasoning though.

Anyway, I am just writing to point out that it doesn't necessarily needs to change the dot map plans because it won't overlap with any dots of the dotmap anyway.

Edit: Ow, but I see your point. It may be better to move now some dots to west to catch those FP tiles.

 

[PeteyP]

Hmm the St. Pete is 1W of the dotmap spot. With that city placement it looks like we may have to deal with Ramses a little earlier. How about going after him with our warriors soon? I don't have much experience or knowledge about rushes, but with our 2.1 power rating over Ramses, wouldn't it just makes sense to get rid of him asap? We have 4 warriors, and it seems to me that if we send 3 of them at their capital we might be able to take it. What do you guys think? Another option if we want to rush would be to hurry and hook up the copper so we can build axes.

 

[Diamondeye]

Sorry. But I obviously settled a stronger spot as long as it has access to the cows aswell?

 

[Arlborn]

Sorry. But I obviously settled a stronger spot as long as it has access to the cows aswell?

True, I guess it depends of how you see it. You got the cow but lost 2 FPs and you also got a desert tile. Well, this city also will make the "Egyptian situation" a bit more difficult to deal with! Or easier, depends of how you want to look into it.

 

[sturick]

If you can further explain your city placement I would appreciate it. Being a learning game I would like your thoughts on why your placement is more advantageous than the other.
Thats all.

 

[Liquidated]

Sorry. But I obviously settled a stronger spot as long as it has access to the cows aswell?

Sorry. Please explain how this is obvious.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[S.ilver]

Sorry. But I obviously settled a stronger spot as long as it has access to the cows aswell?

Hmm... ok again my fault for not properly explaining the dots, and the in depth purpose behind them. Obviously there was possible debate about the tundra dots, but I was fairly certain we were all agreed upon about the northern dots, so I didn't do an in depth analysis of them for you guys. I didn't expect there to be a unilateral change in the first town placement.

-----

Let's start with a tile counting exercise. I've turned on the tile yields and highlighted them for ease of counting.

Let's first count what both dots share...

-1 Flood Plain
-5 plains, 2 of them riverside
-2 Grasslands, both riverside
-2 Grassland Hills
-2 Gold
-1 Wine
-1 Wheat

Ok, let's see what we won by settling on that hill... (yields assume mines and farms, I realize that we cannot irrigate all spots until Civil Service, but since all the tiles in question are forested, we can still get 3 total food + hammers from it. I make this assumption because we must automatically assume the cows are improved.)

-2 riverside plains : 2 x 2/1/1
-1 riverside grassland : 3/0/1
-1 riverside plains hill : 0/4/1
-1 Cow : 4/2/0
-1 desert tile (useless)

Total Yield: 11/8/4

What would we have had if we settled on Yellow Dot?

-2 flood plains : 2 x 4/0/1
-1 grassland : 3/0/0
-1 plains : 2/1/0
-1 riverside plains hill : 0/4/1
-1 grass hill : 1/3/0

Total Yield: 14/8/3

So in reality we have sacrificed 3 food to gain 1 commerce. Just considering the tile yields, this is already a losing proposition. 3 food is, at worst, 1 and 1/2 merchants or scientists, which is 4.5 modified commerce, if you want to translate it directly like that.

-----

The other factor is the proximity to Ramesses Capital. We didn't know he was going to get Jud, but the fact that we founded the town on the same turn he converted to Jud should have sent massive alarm bells off. After that, it was complete to settle closer to his capital than before.

His Capital is now putting out 2+5 culture, +1 more probably due to an obelisk that the guy is sure to run. We put out 2 culture per turn and are quickly being overrun. This will antagonize Ramesses as he will be quicker to say that our borders are too close, and we'll incur diplo penalties for that first. The point of this exercise was to block Ramesses, not to antagonize him into attacking us (see Boff-05 for blocking AIs so they go fight each other rather than us).

From a practical yields perspective, we have lost even more, as the tiles overlap with his capital, so we will not be controlling them until we attack him, and our early strategy was supposed to be REX, not axe-rush. Obviously deviating from your strategy is necessary if the AI does something you need to react to, but if you are deviating from your strategy for pointless reasons (like changing city locations without considering all the consequences), you needlessly weaken your strategy and make it more difficult for yourself.

As it stands right now, we don't control 5 tiles in our BFC. If we had settled yellow, that number would be 2 tiles. I have no idea when the culture at Ramesses capital expanded (as the report wasn't done as a turn-by-turn), so I can't calculate the exact timing, but we will be chewing on Egyptian culture in our city center within the next 100 turns (which would have been otherwise spent REXing). This hurts the stability of the city, and we have to waste time building a ton of culture here. If we had settled at the original yellow dot, we would have had until Ramesses reached 7500 culture (not happening soon) until culture pushed into the city center. By then, we would have had ample time to REX and strengthen our empire to take the guy out. Now we may be forced into action before we've had a chance to exploit the lands through settling.

 

[Low Beau]

Alright, first post.

I'm trying to learn more about this game. Liq and Silver I thank you, and think you cats are class just for giving others a chance at an easier SG for learning purposes. I would've signed up but I was a day late and a screenname short.

But, that's not what I want to bring up. Diamond, I see Silver's post above and wow, sometimes you need other's advice to help you. With that being said, why didn't you just stop right before placing the second city to have a cuss and discuss with your fellow SGers? Hell dude, even the Godlike Sulla and mighty Sirian would even stop in their SGs to ask what the hell to do, knowing full well what to do. On top of that, as far as I know (I could be dead wrong) Silver set this SG up so that cats could learn the ropes. Wouldn't a classy debate make them feel better than just simply saying "You cat's are wrong, my city is in a stronger place, and blah, heres the save"? DE not trying to hate on you man, or give you grief I just found it odd.

Anyways, Liq and Silver if you cats ever throw another one of these parties I'd love to be down for it. I will keep an eye or three open for when it does happen.

Your Boi
Low

 

[sturick]

Alrighty well first off I got it and I will be playing it early on saturday morning.

Secondly, let's try to put a happy spin on this situation. This is a learning game right? So let's treat this accordingly. What would we do if we captured this town with the intention of razing it but you accidentaly clicked install a new gov? That is how I will be looking at it at least.

Moving on...we have some time till I play my set so what do we tech build and fogbust during my set? And discuss...

 

[Diamondeye]

-2 riverside plains : 2 x 2/1/1
-1 riverside grassland : 3/0/1
-1 riverside plains hill : 0/4/1
-1 Cow : 4/2/0
-1 desert tile (useless)

At size one we effectively have three hammers more than if working a floodplain.
At size two, I guess we'd work the Wheat - no difference.
At size three, we'd work a floodplain farm - both of the sites have access to this.
At size four, with 8 food surplus, we'd work a goldmine/plains hill mine.
At size five, with 6 food surplus, we'd work another goldmine/plains hill mine.
At size six, the extra floodplains from yellow dot would be worth working if we wanted the town to be a commerce town.
At size 20, the desert tile might be a handicap.

I realize I did make a mistake, but it wasn't a huge

Feel free to ignore the save otherwise.

 

[S.ilver]

At size one we effectively have three hammers more than if working a floodplain.

At size 20, the desert tile might be a handicap.

The problem is that this city, along with the other 4 in the area, were to form our powerhouse core; we want them to reach size 20 and be the most productive cities possible.

I realize I did make a mistake, but it wasn't a huge

From a yields perspective, I admit it's not that painful. Yellow Dot just edges out that site (I forgot about the extra base hammer from the city, so I'll give you that).

The problem starts when you look past yields. I calculated the yields for you because you seem to like looking at the numbers (wish I had Grover here, as that's his specialty). However, I looked at many intangibles with the city as well, which I outlined in the post above, but will repeat here briefly.

-The city now has less control of it's BFC tiles. Missing 5 tiles from it's BFC vs 2 from Yellow Dot. Meaning the only real tile we gained was the cow tile.
-We have to actively worry and work against this city being flipped. I realize I spoke false about 750 culture in Ramesses capital pushing into our city center; it won't, but we are highly likely to lose second ring tiles (since we are fighting a holy city capital of a Civ that gets Priest slots with a Monument). That means the cows and the wheat.
-Increased "close border" diplo malus with Ramesses.
-The above detracts from REXing, which is what we are trying to do.

-----

@ sturick

You are correct, this is a learning game, so we'll learn from this and move on (otherwise I wouldn't have typed a book for it ).




Game wise... We just dialed up Writing. Liq punted out the suggestion that we put up The Great Wall. This requires Masonry, which is a 9 turn deviation from writing. The idea behind The Great Wall is that there is a ton of tundra to the south, which we will REX eventually, but will probably spawn legions of barbarians while we explore the north. This will let the other civs deal with this problem. As well, we are Imperialistic to begin with, so adding the Great Wall gives us 300% Great General emergence in our territory; excellent for fighting defensive wars and/or killing that first enemy stack that wanders into your territory.

So we need to make the team decision whether to pursue the Great Wall. Stonehenge has not yet fallen, and that falls before The Great Wall in my experience, so we still have a chance, especially since the AIs will probably found a second city before starting on that project (and we're a bit faster in city founding due to Imp).

Regardless of what we decide to do, it is best to whip the Settler right now. If whipped on this turn, it will provide 42 hammers of overflow (max is 44) towards whatever our next build is, and that next build should be a Granary to facilitate further whipping/growth. (While the Granary is building, please Throttle growth by working the maximum number of hammers to get the granary done).

We don't yet need another warrior in St. Petes, so please switch to a Granary until the city grows. At size 2, it should be able to push out a worker in 15 turns.

For new cities, the entire name of the game is growth and development. Granaries are core buildings, not just because of the health (which is a bonus), but because it cuts down on food needed for growth, and therefore the cost of each citizen (which doubles whipping effectiveness).

 

[sturick]

Question...when you build the Great Wall you get the graphic around your current borders.
When you found a new city after that you still get the Barbarian and GG benefit in the new city right?

I think that given the fact that our REXing will leave many coastlines unguarded the great wall would save us from defending and fogbusting over much of our land. We could use those resources to deal with Ramesses. I think it might be worth a shot.

 

[Low Beau]

Man, Sturick, if you think you can complete the Great Wall go for it. Besides keeping all land based Barbs from never being able to enter any of your cultural tiles, the GW produces GSpy points. Enough so that after a few turns of clicking enter the city that created the Wall will produce a spy. If you get a GSpy settle him, then produce another and create the Scotland Yard and you'll be able to steal techs like a fiend, granted you build the buildings with spy pluses too. You're right about the GGen points. I'd honestly take the Wall over any other early Wonder besides the Oracle every time.

Good luck.

 

[Diamondeye]

Sturick, the graphic is just topping. It does what it states: Keeps barbarians out of (land) borders for all cities on the same continent.

 

[sturick]

I don't think i could complete the GW during my set as I want to focus on pumping out the third settler and building up St. Pete. I'll look at the save in a bit and post a preliminary plan to see if it is in the cards and you guys can tell me if I'm on the right track.

Thx for clarifying my question on the Great Wall DE...thats what I thought.

 

[goblinmarine]

i think we should definitely go for the great wall if we can get it, as long as it doesn't interfere with our REXing too much. then we can just hope for those "barbarian uprising" events to bother the AI a bit

as far as yellow dot... well this should give us some hands learning as to how to deal with AI cultural borders and also a possibly annoyed neighbor.

 

[Liquidated]

BTW those two floods are lost, blue dot is still one tile west of the wine, otherwise blue will be forever sick.

Spamming settlers without supporting workers is bad news as you need to get new towns on their feet and contributing before adding more.

For Land Denial, we need yellowish dot and Blue dot for support. Those two towns block the rich center From hammy as I'll try and show in an edit (need to get food)


As for the fun micro that's needed, lets go over a bit of non Grover vetted "micro". DE left this settler at the perfect time to whip

Abusing overflow...
Turn 0: Whip the Settler turn 0 and place a worker right behind it.
-> Settler completes 1.5 and dumps ehh... 50 +Ish Imperial Boosted hammers into the Worker you placed.
Turn:1 We are now size 2 and need to grow back so place a granary in front of the Half completed worker to get back to size 4 before finishing the worker.

Worker one should mine that hill and then start roading out to the stone as we need that hooked up when masonry finishes. The second Worker can help with stone and then one can work on hooking that copper off so we can make axes and the other can toss a chop into the great wall AFTER stone is hooked up.

Tech Wise, Masonry is after pottery and Writing is Soon(TM).

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[sturick]

Ok so basic plan:

Boris the scout will continue scouting...probably making a clockwise circle around ramesses land and hopefully ending up around where our sugar town will be...maybe the goodie hut will still be there.

Moscow will finish its settler with a whip...I was playing with the city tiles and if I move from the farmed floodplain to the forest hill it says the overflow would be 45 hammers...is that true and if so do we lose the 1 commerce to do so...im guessing that 3 hammers for 1 beaker isn't a good tradeoff. I will put the overflow into a granary and after that we can either plug in a worker or go for the Great Wall if we choose to go that route.

St. Pete will finish its warrior and then I will plug in a worker as we need to work improved tiles in that city and it will take too long to bring one from Moscow...we will have a warrior to escort him as he works on the border. After that maybe a granary with a whip into a military unit....not sure here.

Our whipped settler is going to the flood plains site and settling there...the dotmap is remaining the same I assume...I didn't see any other options.

Tech depends on the Great Wall decision....
If we go for it Masonry>Writing
If we don't Writing>Myst for the monument culture or Masonry for the walls defense or maybe archery for the defensive units.

Lemme know what you think of my preliminary plans gang.

 

[sturick]

Slavery noob here (or perhaps more accurately overflow noob)...do we get more overflow if we whip into the worker rather than the granary? Or do you want to grow while we slow build the granary and then only have a couple of turns to finish the worker afterwards. Or is it both?

 

[Liquidated]

Workers stall growth, granaries do not.

Basically we have imperial amplified hammers flowing into Something. So long as that item is at least 50ish hammers in cost, overflow will go to it (if we put it into another settler it would be about 75ish hammers actually I think).

Basically we need another worker badly so worker here wins and slow grow the granary to get population back. Then it's time to hook stone and copper up and move onto the Chop assisted great wall (if nothing ugly happens).

Here's a map btw of what the overall plan is. Keep in mind this is a HUGE tract of land which we will not be able to settle for a long time. The best land on our side is the fat river starting around yellow dot and snaking north to red dot.

Red boxed areas mean crap land no one will want to settle any time soon and which act as a natural block.

Blue box is blue dots general area of culture and green box is red dot's culture footprint (sorry about that). That's the overall land we want to settle before Rammy does btw but red dot has time as the land between it and rammy is ugly.

Land the AI will surely settle is wang blue which is flanked by a huge tract of desert and tundra, two great tastes that are less filling. Wang will prolly net that as rammy expands slowly and has those lovely gems to the north (rammy yellow box).

In BTS, the AI will not purposely settle behind anther civ's culture this early in the game so ywlloe and blue dots will block out rammy from our area for a long time.

In time it makes sense for us to move our capital to blue dot since the land around our capital is meh and the best city sites on the dot map are the inverted T formed by Yellow, Blue, Magenta, and Red.

Scouting wise, boris' days are numbered try and end turns in defensive terrain and get the most scouting done you can... Don;t expect much.

Since we have another warrior, have one head north as we REALLY <------------want to see the fog around red dot (Green box on my minimap). Really!

Silver is awake so he might post a book shorter than liq's

Cheers!
-Liq