ALC Game 17: Russia/Peter

[patagonia]

patagonia, is that really true, about Horses being more common than Bronze? Seems to be the reverse in my games, though I do play on a lot of land heavy maps.

I'm not a code reader so I can't say with certainty, but I'm pretty sure reading when Warlords came out that the map generator had been tweaked to make bronze rarer and iron more common as part of a trade-off to nerf the axerush.

This has certainly seemed to hold true in the games I've played. I tend to have either horses or iron in most of them, but often bronze isn't anywhere to be seen.

I have been generally playing fractal maps though.

 

[uncarved block]

Thanks, patagonia. I had noticed that Horses had started showing up more often (except on Oasis maps, of course), but hadn't really noticed the lack of Bronze before now-- if BW doesn't pan out, the next tech was usually IW in the past, but I've added more flexibility to that part of the game.

Back to the action.

 

[Sisiutil]

Starting Position Continued

I moved the Scout 1 NE onto the grassland hill. This is what that move revealed:

Interesting. I can see tundra peeking out of the tiles in the fog to the north, so that means I must be fairly far north myself. With coast close to the south, I'm suspecting that I have an isolated start again. On the other hand, I don't see a bunch of desert to the east of the floodplains, which is what I was expecting. Make that dreading.

More to the point, I don't see anything that would persuade me to move the Settler. So I think I should settle in place and play out the first round tomorrow, and post it as well. But I await your thoughts, as always.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Scout move ...

1 NE from there then towards the closest hill/hut/forest.​

Settling ...

Settle in place.​

Build order ...

Worker, Worker, Settler, Scout/Warrior.

As was previously mentioned, use the first worker to chop the 2nd and then both of them to chop the Settler.

Speed is everything, imho, and having that 'extra' Worker to begin immediate chopping [of a Warrior]/improving for the 2nd city is going to pay off big.

Then again, relying on fog-busting for Settler protection could also be considered a 'gambit'. ​

Tech order ...

BW (see above), AH (moo), Ag (farm the Flood Plains), Wheel (hook up the Horses/Copper), Writing (Library ftw).​

-- my 2

 

[futurehermit]

^^^^^I'm with him (but I think the farms should be temporary and the capital should be cottaged once initial whipping is completed)

 

[DarkFyre99]

"Difficult terain"=Worried for animals? On the very first turn??? Thats never happened to me and i fancy raging barbs quite often.

As swordmaster said, "difficult terrain"=hills and forests, which cost two movement points. Scouts are able to move quickly, and the only animals that are dangerous to them are bears... and being in a forest or on a hill isn't going to save them. Moving them one tile onto a hill, when you can move them two tiles, is a waste IMO. I want them rushing around the map popping huts ASAP.

 

[Porphyrius]

Well, nothing impressive but nothing awful either. North is blocked by tundra and south by sea, east looses floodplains. The only contender to settling in place is settler 3E really.

By comparison settle in place nets:
1)grass cows
2)4*FPs
3)3*Hills(one riverside)
4)5*Forests
5)lake giving FreshWater but poor poduction
6)all the rest are grass, less so plains maybe slightly better chance for hidden res

While 3*E nets:
1)plain wheat (+1,-1)
2)5*FPs(one extra)
3)4*hills at least (one looks like tundra though)
4)4*Forest at least
5)No FW/lake
6)2 extra riverside squares most plains less so grass, a few completely unkown to the very east (plains?/desert?/FPs?)
7)One extra turn

Hmmm considering the expansive trait a tough match...In place seems with slightly better potential, 3*E better short term (+1FP,+1 res) but maybe a bit less max cootages or food ...

PS:I wouldnt be sure on isolation its a land of line but continent size/number is impossible to predict, could be connected.

PS2:Ok, i read the better AI faq about blue circle changes. Makes absolutely no sense to show a single BS to SW. Anybody has ideas why?

To DarkFyre99: Yes undestandably so, my misconception.

 

[KMadCandy]

I downloaded the save and loaded it into Warlords. I started it and settled in place first thing before moving the scout. Then I noticed it was epic speed. Ugh!

you can change game speed, difficulty level, victory conditions, level of barbarians, basically everything but leaders, map, and starting era, quite easily if you have access to a save that does not have Locked Modified Assets checked. i've seen other people mention at times that they'd like to shadow ALC game starts but at a lower level, or prefer other game speeds. with that in mind, this info might be useful to others too, but questions should probably be moved to the Bullpen and not kept in this thread. i did spoiler it to save space since it doesn't relate to how Sisiutil is going to play this game.

i've done this process quite a few times to increase/decrease difficulty level on starts that looked interesting but i wanted more/less of a challenge. if it's easy enough that i can do it, it's easy, trust me . of course, that doesn't mean i've explained it clearly.

Spoiler :

this works only if the save file you're using does not have Locked Modified Assets checked. S's saves do not have LMA, so this works for ALCs. you can do this on any turn, but turn 0 is best, for a number of reasons. it works for Vanilla too, just use the appropriate folders.

download and open the save and then open up worldbuilder. this works best if you have hubby or a helper to do the WB step for you, so that you don't see the map and ruin suspense. plan B if you have to do it yourself is to zoom in closely on your units so that you see as little as possible, turn off resource flags, and put a post-it note over the minimap so that you don't see the shape of the world, before opening WB. save the game as a worldbuilder save (that's one of the two globe-icon buttons on the upper right i think), name it Whatever (for example).

Whatever.CivWarlordsWBSave will be in your Saves/WorldBuilder folder. move it to your Warlords/PublicMaps folder. then start Warlords again. on the screen where you pick Play Now, Load Game, Warlords Scenarios etc, pick "Custom Scenario". pick the one called Whatever. that lets you pick the difficulty level, game speed, victory condition, set OCC and barbarian options, the stuff you could normally control if setting up your own game except for map stuff and starting era. you can even check Locked Modified Assets at that point, for a case where a pre-check is wanted for something or other, but then hard-coded assistance in self-control during gameplay might be desired *giggle*.

there are two potential downsides. neither one ever comes up again after the initial "change this game into what i want it to be" process. they are:
- seeing the map when you open up WB to save the game as a worldbuildsave to make the scenario possible
- when you load it as a custom scenario, two different screens list the rival civs/leaders. you won't know which might be neighbors and which might be far away, but if you read the list you won't be completely surprised by who you meet. the leader the human in the save was originally playing is always listed on top. so plan B there, if you don't have a hubby or a helper, could be to test-load a different custom scenario first, to see where the names appear on the screen, and use a piece of paper to cover that when you open the scenario you really want.

after you've done that, start the game/scenario. save it as a normal game, i do that right away not even moving a single unit. from now on, it's a normal game that you load just like any other. no need to bother with the scenario bit. checking the "Settings" tab on F8 does not reveal who the rival civs are after loading it as a normal game, so that is spiffy and takes away potential downside #2 above.

bingo, now you have the start you wanted, set up with the difficulty/game speed/level of barbarians/always war/whatever it is you wanted too!

 

[Yushal]

Settle the grassland hill on the coast due south. You have a slightly better chance of grabbing whatever the blue circle is about than settling in place, and there may very well be an ocean resource. Nice to have your capital on a coast, IMO. Not as great as with Vikings, of course, but still good, esp if you are going to consider moving the palace later.

Added benefit of opening up one FP tile to another city, while settling in place will mean one FP tile remains forever unworked. Also, not that it matters, but your city will be upon a hill if the . .. .. .. . ever hits the fan... And its likely there will be an extra forest to chop down there I think.

Worker --> Agriculture/BronzeWorking and farm the FPs to whip and later feed Specialists.

EDIT: Offhand, second or third city would be the hills till due east of the scout, to capture wheat and the aforementioned FP tile, hoping that the hill is a plains tile

 

[JujuLautre]

You have a slightly better chance of grabbing whatever the blue circle is about than settling in place,

Note that BetterAI's blue circles don't know anything that has not been revealed. So the actual blue circle does not know anything abouth ressources hidden in the fog.

 

[Yushal]

Oops! My mistake, I guess, but are you certain? Because it makes no sense otherwise it seems. Its true that "unrevealed" is the same as "hidden by fog" in this matter?

Thanks either way

 

[EEE_BOY]

why BW always be suggested as the first tech? u want to whip but u havn't grown your population, u want to chop to hurry the settler but building and working mines gives the same result. Either Agriculture or AH should be researched before BW in my opinion. And if this is an isolated start, chariots are better for fog-busting and defence.

 

[carl corey]

If you still want to start by building a Scout, how about Agri -> AH -> BW -> Wheel as a tech order? Agri makes AH cheaper, and if you build the scout first the worker will probably just have to mine a hill before pasturing the cows. I wouldn't chop the forests just yet, there are good tiles to be worked anyway, and once you get Maths you can enjoy the chopping bonus if you want.

 

[KMadCandy]

Settle the grassland hill on the coast due south. You have a slightly better chance of grabbing whatever the blue circle is about than settling in place, and there may very well be an ocean resource. Nice to have your capital on a coast, IMO. Not as great as with Vikings, of course, but still good, esp if you are going to consider moving the palace later.

Added benefit of opening up one FP tile to another city, while settling in place will mean one FP tile remains forever unworked....

nothing about settling in place requires that the FP diagonal from the settler starting spot is forever unworked.

fog-gazing shows a forest 4S of the wheat tile. i don't know whether the rest of the terrain there is worth anything, but overlap with the capital would certainly not rule it out as a city spot. a whopping one FP would be shared, big deal. so no, settling in place does not mean one FP is forever unworked. i look at it as, settling in place means one city won't catch both that corner FP and the wheat. which is actually kind of okay. to get that FP and that wheat in the same city cross, you'd have not be on fresh water. even with the expansive trait, freshwater bonus and/or harbor always helps, and 5 FPs would give the city -2 health forever.

i personally would not make the move south to the hill without knowing for sure there is reachable seafood. i think this game is out to get me, as far as seafood resources placed so that only cities on one particular tile can ever reach them and the rest of that city will be junk forevermore *giggle*. but that's just me and my superstition. i don't have evidence for that one like i think (in my giggly biased opinion) i do for the wasted FP argument.

here, i'd settle in place.

The only contender to settling in place is settler 3E really.

By comparison settle in place nets: 2)4*FPs

While 3*E nets: 2)5*FPs(one extra)

every flood plain gives your city -0.4 health. so settling in place gives you -1 health for 4 FPs, and +2 for freshwater. settling 3 E gives you -2 health due to the jump to 5 FPs, and you get 0 from freshwater.

so net health changes based on terrain in your comparison is that settling in place is +3 health higher than moving 3 tiles east. yes we have more food if we move east so losing food is okay in that sense, but i hate staring at ugly green clouds so i felt compelled to point out the big difference between 4 and 5 FP. the jump does happen exactly at 5 flood plains, i did a quick tiny-map WB test to make sure the game doesn't round up in this case.

 

[carl corey]

By the way, I don't think we can actually be sure it's an isolated start, since the continent might just go around that southern ocean on either the west or east side (or both). It's a Fractal map, and those come sometimes with very snaky continents. Let's wait a bit before declaring this isolated. If you are isolated though the quick Liberalism path might be even easier to go for since you won't need even Construction not to mention Machinery. Just get 5 GSs or more, research Compass & Metal Casting on your own and bulb Philo, Paper, Edu (2xGS) and part of Liberalism.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Settle the grassland hill on the coast due south. You have a slightly better chance of grabbing whatever the blue circle is about than settling in place, and there may very well be an ocean resource. Nice to have your capital on a coast, IMO.

But what if there isn't a seafood resource down there?

S is likely going to find himself on top of the hill looking out into a blue ocean where the nearest seafood resource is just outside the fat cross (if even there).

If that turns out to be the case, we'll have lost two turns treating our Settler like a Scout.

That sounds more like a gamble than a gambit.

 

[carl corey]

Also, I'm not sure what's so good about having a coastal capital. I mean, you do get better trade routes, but that comes later. For now the starting spot seems way better in terms of commerce/production. I just wouldn't give it up.

 

[Killroyan]

I wouldn't be suprised if 1 strategic resource would pop up at this starting point and then you have a real good production capital with more then enough food for a SE economy.

 

[manu-fan]

Settle in place (you'll probably get Horses or Iron in the cross) and get on with it

Cheers.

 

[budweiser]

I'm out - so much for a shadow game on 'normal ai'. I wont spoil anything, I'll just say I wanted to play the game 'my way', not the way the map laid things out. So, I made some bad choices and was a little thrown off by epic, being used to normal.