aCK-3 The Cat with the Hat

[S.ilver]

First off, sorry for the delay. Next time I try to play on a weekend, everyone please remind me that my weekends suck and I have no time . Anyways, this game is going to go a bit slower than the other aCKs, largely because I'll have to write all the literature on it myself. Hopefully that's ok with everyone.

Without further ado, the report.

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4000BC (0):

Well, the first thing to be done this fine turnset is to move our warrior 1S1E, to give us some more information on what's going on...

Nothing at all to see there, and nothing to really make me want to move the settler (i.e. no resources). As I previously mentioned, the game engine likes to generate fairly decent starts for you, so unless you see some resource that would completely blow you away (or a far superior city location), it usually doesn't pay to move the settler.

In this case, the one minorly exciting thing I see is a lake tile. If we started with Fishing, it might be a decent idea to get that in the BFC. But since it's not a food resource itself, there really isn't a point in putting in the effort to pick it up.

We settle in place.

Corn, but no seafood. Well that simplifies our tech path a bit then. We dial up a worker and set research to Agri in 13 turns.

3975BC (1):

We angle NE with the warrior on our way to grab the hut (as the lake blocks progress to the south).

3950BC (2):

The hut gives us 60 gold! I'm just happy that I didn't pop a half-dozen barbarians .

As well, we find Marble 1S1E of the hut, but there are some mountains in the area too.

3925BC (3):

We appear to be at the bottom of our landmass, as I see a lot of ocean to the south.

3900BC (4):

More dyes, and yes, the land does end, so our expansion efforts will inevitably be north.

3875BC (5):

Uh, nothing of note...

3850BC (6):

Ok, so we meet Bismarck's scout on turn 6. So he's no farther than 12 squares from our capital. Well... at least it's not Toku!

In other news, we spot clams 2S of our corn. So might be room for a squatter city to our south.

3825BC (7):

Big turn!

3800BC (8):

Our borders do indeed pop, and now we can see the rest of the land to the south, so no sense wasting warrior time taking a look down there. It's well blocked by our capital, so if there's any seafood there, it can wait.

3375BC (9):

Zzzz.... Rerouting the warrior to the north.

3750BC (10):

Starting to wish that Justinian started with a scout instead of a warrior...

3725BC (11):

Bismarck gains a few points, so clearly he just teched something.

3700BC (12):

Our warrior participates in the epic beatdown of a lion.

Won 3XP from that fight, nice. Ok, so let's name him Dirk.

Unfortunately, what he discovered about the land was not that nice. More on that at the end of the set.

Oh, Agri in next turn!

3675BC (13):

Bud FIADL as well, so if we were crazy enough to try that, we would have lost by 1 turn .

Dirk wins Woody 1, and we stop to heal for a few turns.

Mining is set for 10 turns. The worker will take 10 turns. Oh rejoice!

3650BC (14):

Nothing... as Dirk is healing...

3625BC (15):

We get moving again on the scouting party...

3600BC (16):

Bismarck's scout is wasting a lot of time hanging around our lands...

3575BC (17):

BUG helpfully alerts me that we are 0.4 strength compared to Bismarck. Considering this is Monarch, that's not unexpected.

3550BC (18):

There are a lot of hills to the north, and it becomes conifer territory, so our placement on the map seems to be fairly equatorial...

3525BC (19):

Spot Bismarck's culture to the north...

3500BC (20):

Lions appear out of nowhere, blocking the way west, so going to deviate and check out the east, which appears to be desert that is blocked off by Bismarck.

3475BC (21):

The land also appears to end east of Bismarck, so it looks like it's going to be a race west.

3450BC (22):

We are up EPs on Bismarck at the moment, so clearly he met someone else.

Exciting turn, as Mining is due next turn!!!

3425BC (23):

Bronze Working is dialed in for 20 turns. A warrior has also been ordered, and will take 10 turns, so long as we're still working the spices, which is a solid idea.

Justin's "Chagrin" starts heading towards the farm to get that thing set up and increase our growth. We'll hang out on the spices until the farm is built, as it's worth an extra hammer and gold for the cost of one food.

3400BC (24):

Chagrin is building the farm in 8 turns, and Dirk turns around after scoping out Germany's wines and corn.

3375BC (25):

Zzz... Dirk covering old ground as he tries to get past the area with the lion.

3350BC (26):

Zzz... Hoping we meet more people soon.

3325BC (27):

Bismarck breaks the 100 point mark. We're at 76 points. Unimportant, but what else would I blather on about this turn?

3300BC (28):

Bismarck clearly got some nice RNG rolls.

2 corns? Great.

3275BC (29):

We have multiple lions prowling around and Bismarck's scout is busy healing.

3250BC (30):

Germany drops into Slavery. The implications of that are obvious I hope.

3225BC (31):

Farm is finished this turn, so switch to it. Growth in 4 vs 9, BW in 13 instead of 12, and 4 turns for the warrior instead of 2. Cry me a river.

3200BC (32):

Hinduism FIADL... quite late, so that means no other religious freaks hanging around.

Chagrin has nothing to do for now, so we build a road back to the capital.

3175BC (33):

Land narrowing considerably to the NW, such that we will probably get into an unfriendly confrontation with Bismarck sooner rather than later.

3150BC (34):

Constantinople popping to the next size next turn!

3125BC (35):

Warrior pops, and immediately heads north to add to the scouting while we dial another warrior. 11 turns on the warrior, 9 turns on Bronze Working and chops to get our settlers out. Growth in 7, so expect overall times to drop.

3100BC (36):

Zzz...

3075BC (37):

We run into Germany's scout again, who appears to have been "delayed" by the wildlife.

3050BC (38):

Tundra lions appear in the north!

I was feeling lucky so they get beat down and Dirk takes his XP to 5/5.

3025BC (39):

Dirk wins Woody 2 and stops to rest again.

3000BC (40):

Zzz...

2975BC (41):

Yes... turn hogging. I know ...

2950BC (42):

Capital pops to size 3.

2925BC (43):

I only cropped the parts of the tech screen that are of use to us because, much to no one's surprise... we have no Copper. The RNG screwed us. Typical.

Tech placeholder set on AH. After thinking about this, we probably don't even want AH next (pottery makes a lot of sense to get empowered whipping, not to mention the fact that we'll need all the growth help we can get.

A look at the world as we know it.

Very barren looking at the moment. Note the obvious chokepoint in the mountains to the west. That means that Bismarck needs to die soonish so we can secure our lands.

I'm going to give everyone else a chance to voice their ideas first, and maybe a dotmap as well.

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Roster (when we're done discussing)
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S.ilver <-- Just Played --
pholtz >> Up Next <<
The Simple Mind <-- On Deck --
IamJohn

 

[The Simple Mind]

Can’t see us wonder hogging on this one!! I’ve downloaded the save and will look at tonight and attempt to dot map. A couple of thoughts for now:

1 Not a lot of food about. Only one corn that we’d be able to use at present. I’d be
keen to research AH to allow us to use the beasts as well (cows x3 + piggies).

2 Defense – rubbish news re bronze. I don’t like just having warriors to defend against barbs & other civs. Another reason for going for AH to settle the horses.

3 Berlin is on flatland. Chariot rush anyone?

Looking at your previous adventures I can see that you like to name warriors & workers. I don’t know a lot of Byzantine names but “Dirk” certainly doesn’t sound like one. How did you decide on that name?

 

[IamJohn]

How hard is the AI going to push settling towards us do you think? If he is we probably want a city by the cows and spices. Hopefully the desert will prevent him from getting too aggressive with his settling.

 

[pholtz]

Just downloaded the save, but will await further discussion before I do any turns. Some ideas.

- Yes, we need to rush Biz. I am glad he isn't on a hill. Too late for a Warrior rush . Chariots or Swordsmen/Axe's depends on whether we got horses or iron (really wish we had found copper).

- I think we need to get our second city built asap, even without the information on where the horses or iron may be. I'm looking at the plains hill 1W of the cows between us and Biz. A good location for a third city might be over by the corn/silk/cows, but we need to peel back more of the fog.

- Yes we need Pottery for Granaries but horse location may be more important. AH then pottery? then IW?

- Let the Warrior complete normally, then build a settler, helped by a chop. Then a worker, probably using the whip. The warrior will stay in the area, ready to escort the settler. Don't see a need to revolt to slavery until after we get the first settler done.

- other warriors need to head towards Biz's area, both to check out behind him and look for a chance to grab a worker. We need to know if he has any copper/horses. If I see a chance to grab a worker, I would stop and get a consensus before continuing.

- the current worker can move to the southern spice in one move, chop, then build a farm, then start a road towards the second city.

- the second city will have no culture, but no immediate need for it as no resources in a second ring. If horses appear in the second ring we would need to chop/whip a monument.

My turn may be short... if horses appear anywhere, it could call for a stop and discussion. But don't mind as I'll need more time to prepare the report, being my first time doing it.

Question: A chop gives us 30 pre-mathematics. But this gets upped to 45 if it goes to a settler. Would any overflow keep the +50%? What if I chopped something else and put the overflow into a settler, would the overflow get +50%?

 

[The Simple Mind]

Okay, here is my first public dotmapping attempt:

(It's also the first time I've used Photobucket & posted a screenie)

I would settling in the follwong order:

Red – on plains hill, pasture the cows, build monument & whip when size 2, build barracks & whip, build troops.

Yellow – irrigate corn, build library & whip, build troops or barracks until size 4 and able to run 2 scientists, build troops or worker.

Green – pasture cows, build & whip barracks, build units.

Marginal cities if seafood available:

White – Either spot selected or 1N. Allows us to quarry marble to help later wonder building. No seafood, possibly settle between marble & dyes?

Blue – if more seafood then possible GP farm.

Light blue – possible GP farm if seafood in 1 fogged tile. If not, don’t settle.

Other cities:

At least one blocking city at the mountain range. Up to Dirk to find us the ideal location(s). Should be settled before white, blue or light blue.

Research:

I think we should go AH (16) then Writing (23). AH to identify location of horses and to allow us to utilise the cows (possibly pigs) which are the only other viable food sources available to us. The alternative would be to go Pottery (13) then Writing (23). This would be completed 3 turns sooner but doesn’t give us any additional food sources or military options.

Constantinople:

Present build warrior 3 & growth in 7 turns. Queue a 2nd warrior. Worker chops grassland hill in 5 turns & puts hammers into worker then mines hill (6 turns). Move warrior to front of queue until size 4 then swap to worker. One worker chops settler & the other either helps chopping or begins road to second city (Red). We need to settle this city asap to stop Bismark from blocking us in. Hopefully, he has stone in his bfc and is kndly building Stonehenge or Great Wall for us .

I think we should chariot rush him. It is a question of before or after we've built yellow? I would say before and possibly don't bother building monuments / barracks and whip the troops.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Just reviewed my post, screenie is obviously too big. What do you guys do so that your images don't go further than the width of the page? I thought it automatically sized it in the page.

 

[pholtz]

I agree with the location of the 2nd city, we need it asap. Other locations may change as we get location of horses/iron and burn more fog.

Present build warrior 3 & growth in 7 turns. Queue a 2nd warrior. Worker chops grassland hill in 5 turns & puts hammers into worker then mines hill (6 turns). Move warrior to front of queue until size 4 then swap to worker. One worker chops settler & the other either helps chopping or begins road to second city (Red). We need to settle this city asap to stop Bismark from blocking us in.

Your plan doesn't use the Imperialistic trait. We need to chop settlers, not workers. I think we whip workers. Also you say we need to settle the second city asap, so then why don't you build a settler right away? I know we need a mine, but we also need more farms to recover from whipping, which is why I say we need to clear and farm a spice. In working that tile, I accomplish three (four) things, chop, more food, and a road to 2nd city (also more commerce, a farmed spice will be 3 food and 2 commerce).

So, we chop a settler, whip a worker, then a warrior or two or three for garrison duty/ fog busting. By that time I have a farm up to recover from the whip, and by the time we recover from that we have a mine going. But every time we chop, we need to chop into a settler if possible, adjusting the queue as necessary to do that. If we don't have a settler to chop into, then we may want to save the forest for after mathematics? (but since we have so many forests, and need to clear to mine, we may have to chop into something else).

I'm not sure why you want writing so soon. Yes it's important, but granaries for whipping and AH for horses are both more important. And if there are no horses in the area, then IW. I don't understand how writing helps us with the Biz rush.

Remember, barbarians haven't appeared yet, and when they do they will stay out of culture area for a short while. I'm pretty sure, that the unnamed warrior on the way north to Biz can fog bust along with the warrior about to be finished, and they will allow the second city to be built.

I think we need to rush Biz, and anything that doesn't help that now should probably have a lower priority. I'm only a prince/monarch level player, so I could be wrong. Please let me know the reasons why if I am . I don't know if we need two or three cities for the rush. I'm guessing two if we get a horse close to one of our cites, three if we need to build another city to get the horse, and maybe four if we need to wait until iron?

Whew this got wordy. Just trying to explain the thinking behind what I'm proposing so it's easier to explain why I'm wrong

 

[pholtz]

Just reviewed my post, screenie is obviously too big. What do you guys do so that your images don't go further than the width of the page? I thought it automatically sized it in the page.

Actually it looks ok to me. But I need to figure that out myself. I'll either resize pictures in paint or photobucket. Not sure how to do it there yet.

I suppose to make it smaller you could have cropped just the map.

 

[IamJohn]

I like the decision to rush. The only problem of coure being that we need horses or iron to do so.

I agree with pholz as well with research. If we are going to rush we actually need to do so, we can't futz around with other techs as well. IMO we need to make a decision on whether to go for iron or AH first, then get the other. If we're going to rush we need to focus everything on it, otherwise we'll do badly on everything.

I'm on win7, which has a different (far better) interface for paint, but there should be an option to resize the picture there in one of the menus.

 

[pholtz]

I'm on win7, which has a different (far better) interface for paint, but there should be an option to resize the picture there in one of the menus.

How do you like Win7? Any problems with Civ4 on it?

 

[IamJohn]

Yeah, I like it. No question it's worth the money to upgrade to upgrade to win7 premium (ultimate on the other had has nothing really useful that premium doesn't). I've been using it as my operating system since the RC was released and I've had extremely few issues. The main thing is that there is no one "huge upgrade", except perhaps the taskbar, but a ton of small upgrades everywhere that really add up. Civ4 has had no problems with it for me either.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Thanks for reminding me that we're Imp and not Exp so the settlers should get the chops. I always get them mixed up . That been said, I think it is a good idea to have 2 workers before the first settler to allow us to connect the 2nd city & hopefully horses quicker.

Re Spices v Mine - I tend not to whip the Capital a lot that's why I thought the mine would be better. Though I did contradict myself by saying we should whip out troops. Certainly, if we’re whipping then having the extra food from farmed spices would help. What would be better farmed spices or dyes?

Re Writing - I'm concerned our research will nose dive when we expand. I don’t see a lot of good cottagable (is that a word?) locations at present, we're not financial (a crutch I use too often) and I'd like to build libraries / run scientists in yellow dot & Berlin asap. It will also allow to scout Bismark’s land before any attack. I agree AH first to decide where the 2nd city should be.

Re Screenie - sorry to confuse everyone but when I viewed it last night it was wider than the page. It now appears to fit

 

[pholtz]

I'm concerned our research will tank also. But I think if we destroy Biz, his starting location will help us recover. His location is better than ours.

worker - > settler or settler - > worker ? I can see an argument either way, not sure which is best. Whatever we do we are going to need more than 1:1 ratio of worker to city to start as we are going to need to connect our cities by road. The starting location has no rivers to speak of. That second city location isn't all that good, but it expands towards Biz to deprive him of territory where horses/iron might appear.

I'm just afraid that if we are going to chariot rush him, we need to do it quick. I'm not that familiar with Monarch level, but I would assume that the window for a chariot rush is shorter than Prince. We need AH badly to find the horses, and Pottery badly to minimize the effect of whipping as our food sources are a bit scarce. Now all we need to do is pray that there will be horses where we can get at them.

By the way, Byzantine was Roman, they called themselves Romans, but they spoke Greek. So I think most any Roman or Greek name would work.

 

[pholtz]

Took me a while to figure it out, but I guess we should chop a settler before whipping a worker. When working on a settler, we need maximum number of workers to help. And we need max workers before a whip. If we whipped a worker first the number of workers would drop, increasing the time for a settler. So we chop a settler, whip a worker, then build whatever while we recover from the whip.

Question is should I wait until size four to whip a settler so I can whip 2 pop?

Hmm how about this. I start a chop in the current location. Finish the warrior, start another until the chop is 1 away, put the settler in to receive the chop, then switch back to warrior while the worker moves to the spice and starts chopping there. Just before that chop is done, put the settler back on top and that chop goes into the settler. So we get two chops into the settler and finish it (2 chops is 90 plus the production the turns the chops go into it, about the 100 it costs.) before we whip the worker, by that time the size of the city is 4 and we can 2 pop whip.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Three options are:

Warrior + settler prod'n per Pholtz
Warrior completes on turn 3
Settler completes on turn 13
2 chops used
AH 16 turns

Start settler immediately, no changes to tiles worked
Settler completes on turn 12
1 chop used or 2 with overflow
AH 16 turns

Start settler immediately, change one spice to 1F+2H tile
Settler completes on turn 11
1 chop used
AH 18 turns

I favour the first option as the settler would get to red dot on turn 16 and settle on turn 17. This gives us the option to change 2nd city location to get horses.

Workings are in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Alternating Production Per Pholtz
Turn Prod Prod'n Chop Cumulative

1 Worker begins chop 2S 0
2 0
3 Warrior completes. Start warrior 0
4 0
5 Chop completes into Settler 45 45
6 Worker moves onto spices 45
7 Worker begins chop 45
8 Grow to size 4, change to settler 11 56
9 11 67
10 11 78
11 Chop completes into Settler (45H) 11 45 134
12 11 145
13 Settler completes 11 156

Keep tile selection
Turn Prod Prod'n Chop Cumulative

1 Worker begins chop 2S 9 9
2 9 18
3 9 27
4 9 36
5 Chop completes into Settler 9 45 90
6 Worker moves onto spices 9 99
7 Worker begins chop 9 108
8 9 117
9 9 126
10 9 135
11 9 144
12 Settler completes 9 153
13 9 162

Change one spice to 1F+2H tile
Turn Prod Prod'n Chop Cumulative

1 Worker begins chop 2S 10 10
2 10 20
3 10 30
4 10 40
5 Chop completes into Settler 10 45 95
6 Worker moves onto spices 10 105
7 Worker begins chop 10 115
8 10 125
9 10 135
10 10 145
11 Settler completes 10 155
12 10 165
13 10 175

 

[pholtz]

I like the timing. We finish the Settler and then AH just in time to reconsider the 2nd city location. So now I guess we wait for S.ilver to check in before I start the turns. Glad you figured out what I was saying. Looking at it myself, I get confused as I used "worker" to mean both the unit and the city population working the squares.

 

[S.ilver]

Clearly fate is conspiring against me, as my rig has just suffered the failure of a graphics card. Going to have to go get that thing replaced before I can play any more turns here. Working on a backup machine here.


Otherwise, good discussion while I was out of the loop there. The land is indeed horrendous, such that leveraging Imp's settlers to fill up all the space would likely be a bad idea.

So it looks like a rush is in the cards. Chariot based (heck even Horse Archer based) rushes are never a favoured strategy of mine, but it appears we may have no choice in the matter, due to our cramped spacing. If we are indeed going for a rush, we need to commit to it.

That being said, we need AH and Pottery next anyways (no food other than cows...), so we do have some time before we need to commit to a rush. We need to expand and get a road network up in Bismarck's direction anyways, and we also need to know if we actually HAVE horses anywhere (or iron for an axe rush or whatever).

 

[pholtz]

Sounds like we are ready for me to get to where AH is discovered. I'll try to get some kind of report together by tomorrow.

 

[pholtz]

I've played some turns and am preparing a report, but have a question. I said something in an earlier post no one remarked on:

- other warriors need to head towards Biz's area, both to check out behind him and look for a chance to grab a worker. We need to know if he has any copper/horses. If I see a chance to grab a worker, I would stop and get a consensus before continuing.

I stopped four turns short of AW because I have a chance to take/destroy one of Biz's workers. Not a good chance as you will see, but I could easily get a much better chance in a turn or two depending on what ol' Battleship does. So the question(s) is:

- Should we start a war if there is a "safe" chance to grab a worker? Or would we rather stay at peace until we attack with a large stack?

And if we do start a war do we accept peace at the first opportunity or camp out on a forested hill in his BFC? And as you will see when I post, we also may want to try to pillage a mine (yes he has copper).

A few things to think about while I prepare my report that I'll get posted later today.


Also, and probably the most important thing, what is Bismark's nickname? I've been using Biz, the sound of his first syllable. But I also like ol' Battleship except that is longer than his real name. Of course Battleship could be shorted to BS or the more correct naval abbreviation BB. Hmm BB? we could call him Bubba!

 

[The Simple Mind]

Worker - I'd be reluctant to steal the worker when we're going to be going to war within the next 20 or 30 turns. Ol' Battleship (gotta love that name) has a trains unit factor of often in peacetime. If we go to war now I would have thought his unit numbers would increase significantly by the time we're ready to fully attack.

Bronze Mine - Is ol' Battleship (sounds a lot better than Bis though that is easier to type) more likely to build spears or axes? If axes, I'd say don't pillage until full attack as our chariots would be more successful against axes than archers (if no bronze).

Name - I vote for ol' Battleship (had you guessed?)