ALC Game 20: Vikings/Ragnar

[Kev]

I'm all for getting a religion, and I think that heading toward Priesthood for the Oracle is going to be a good play. With it, you can unlock Metal Casting which gives you forges, allows for the Colossus (bonus if you find copper), and gives some Prophet points (and is on the way to Optics, no?). The great prophet would be great if you miss Monotheism as you can use it for Theology at that point. Otherwise, it can be great to settle for the extra hammers and such it can bring.

Not to mention a Holy city would be great economically - especially if we can get those fast ships moving like crazy with lots of missionaries.

Stonehenge is another option, but I think that the Oracle offers more as a package. A religion can help to spread those borders, albeit a bit more slowly.

I would not fear overly much if you are fully isolated. You should be able to keep things together tech-wise and make a quick play to optics. You might not get the full use out of the Berserkers, but they are great to upgrade to CR, amphibious grens/infantry as you mentioned in the pre-game. I had a great game not long ago where I had a brutal water stack of 30+ amphibious CR 2-3 infantry in transports with a good 10 or so destroyers on a small/medium map. So many cities were coastal that I just went from one to the other - remove the defense with the ships and take out the cities one after the other.

 

[Daedal]

It looks like Sisi only wants to go for a limited number of wonders, so we probably ought to prioritize them. I don't think Stonehenge is particularly useful here and we're already pretty late in building it. It's cheap, sure, but even if we could get it do we really need it? There's no cultural competition for borders and by the time there is we'll probably be building cultural buildings anyway. GW is iffy in this situation. It's a toss-up between GW or a couple of land and sea anti-barb units. The advantage (?) to GW is the GSpy points. Pyramids are also iffy. Are the extra beakers from representation worth the hammers spent on it? Will we be running that much SE? Personally, I think there are other wonders that give more bang for our buck and when we run out of those wonders the hammers would be better spent on settlers, workers, and military. The three really important ones at this point, IMO, are GLighthouse, Oracle, and Colossus, in that order. Somebody else mentioned that deviating techs toward the Oracle would be made up for by grabbing metal casting and I tend to agree. It's an especially nice move in this game because metal casting is a tech we really want. So Oracle is a freebie and the slight chance that we'll get a GProphet at some point is just gravy.

Oh and I think Ultimocrat's dotmap is excellent. A city to grab crabs and choke off the northern wastes would be nice later, but not a priority. As would a city on sugar island. This looks like a great start! Can't wait to see what Sisi does with it.

 

[Zanttu]

It looks like Sisi only wants to go for a limited number of wonders, so we probably ought to prioritize them. I don't think Stonehenge is particularly useful here and we're already pretty late in building it. It's cheap, sure, but even if we could get it do we really need it? There's no cultural competition for borders and by the time there is we'll probably be building cultural buildings anyway. GW is iffy in this situation. It's a toss-up between GW or a couple of land and sea anti-barb units. The advantage (?) to GW is the GSpy points. Pyramids are also iffy. Are the extra beakers from representation worth the hammers spent on it? Will we be running that much SE? Personally, I think there are other wonders that give more bang for our buck and when we run out of those wonders the hammers would be better spent on settlers, workers, and military. The three really important ones at this point, IMO, are GLighthouse, Oracle, and Colossus, in that order. Somebody else mentioned that deviating techs toward the Oracle would be made up for by grabbing metal casting and I tend to agree. It's an especially nice move in this game because metal casting is a tech we really want. So Oracle is a freebie and the slight chance that we'll get a GProphet at some point is just gravy.

GLighthouse is useless without trade routes, and there aren't going to be many if we're isolated. Pyramids is useful for the beaker bonus, we will have GP farms running specialists in any case. But in this game the best advantage of early representation is the happiness bonus. +3 in the biggest cities is really HUGE boon in the early game. Isolated starts are good for spamming some wonders, because you aren't racing for the best city spots and you don't have to worry about your military. I agree with the Oracle-MC-slingshot, and building the colossus. Bulbing theology with the possible GProphet is a good strategy if/when we want a religion.

 

[Pe Ell]

Colossus would be mucho useful on an archipelago map. I think that one should get highest wonder priority. Pyramids aren't bad either since we have stone and could really use the happiness. I would go for HR rather than representation since we are financial and should get most of our research from cottages and sea. Go full cottage I say and use the seafood+HR for /health happy to grow your cities and work the squares.
Tech optics and try to get astro from liberalism.

 

[Ultimocrat]

Munch's white dot/gray dot combination (as also suggested by Zanttu) is probably better than my yellow dot, especially if there's ample food on the silk island, obviating the need to leave the W fish for a silk city.

One other thought -- if truly isolated, don't fogbust the northern wastes; get a fort or city at the chokepoint and keep an attacker/attackers there, with the goal of getting enough promotions out of barbs to be able to build the HE (I'm a vanilla player, so forgive me if this works differently in BtS).

 

[oldsaxon]

Bulbing theology with the possible GProphet is a good strategy if/when we want a religion.

Alternatively, as we're already planning to get Mysticism and Polytheism on the way to the Oracle... how about trying to found Judaism? We already know Masonry.

In the short term, I'd
- Build Settler-Galley-Stonehenge
- Research Mysticism-Polytheism
... I reckon a second city should come before contact with other civs.

In the medium term, I'd
- Research Priesthood, Pottery and Monotheism in some order
- Build more Settlers and Workers with the (food-rich) capital
- Build the Oracle in our second city (probably the red one)

My long-term goals would be
- Secure Judaism and spread it (using Organised Religion to make missionaries)
- Build the Oracle and take Metal Casting
- Explore with the Galley, dot-map the Western island, and find out whether we're isolated.

If it goes wrong:
- The two most likely problems are missing Judaism, and missing the Oracle.
- If we miss Judaism, we should decide how we're getting a religion: one possibility would be to aim for a different Oracle tech... another would be to bulb with a GP from Stonehenge (probably best).
- If we miss the Oracle, we just have to dry our eyes and tech the hard way.

If it goes really well:
- I vote against the Great Lighthouse. We're beelining for Optics, which also brings Astronomy closer... and we may well be isolated. I also don't think the GW is worthwhile, simply because there are better wonders. IMO the only 'wonders of opportunity' should be the Pyramids and the Colossus.

And on that note, where do people think we should fit Bronze Working in? I reckon we should go for it as soon as we've got Metal Casting... so we tech it while we build our forges, and by then the next turnset will be over and we can decide whether we want the Colossus. So,

Tentative research order:
Mysticism (make Settler, start Galley)
Polytheism (finish Galley, start Stonehenge)
Priesthood (finish Stonehenge, Start Oracle)
Monotheism (probably time for this, as we don't have Marble)
Pottery (build missionaries, more Galleys, or more Settlers/Workers)
Bronze Working (build forges)
?? (Consider the Colossus)

With the Pyramids being a possibility after the Oracle, if they haven't been built by then.

 

[Zanttu]

Colossus would be mucho useful on an archipelago map. I think that one should get highest wonder priority. Pyramids aren't bad either since we have stone and could really use the happiness. I would go for HR rather than representation since we are financial and should get most of our research from cottages and sea. Go full cottage I say and use the seafood+HR for /health happy to grow your cities and work the squares.
Tech optics and try to get astro from liberalism.

HR doesn't help CE in any way, and in this case there's no point in building a lot of military in the early game. Without a big military, we get bigger happiness bonus from representation than what we would get from HR. The GP farm(s) is going to run few specialists even when going full CE, so I see much more benefit from representation than HR in early game. Later on a switch from rep to HR can be made, as at some point we are going to bump up an army and start getting more happiness from HR than what we would get from representation.

 

[Zanttu]

Alternatively, as we're already planning to get Mysticism and Polytheism on the way to the Oracle... how about trying to found Judaism? We already know Masonry.

Yep, Judaism wouldn't be a bad choice either, if we can get there first. I don't really know how likely it is, because I rarely find any of those 3 early religions so I don't know when AI tends to grab them.

 

[Morgawr]

I recommend definitely going for the Great Lighthouse. You beelined both necessary techs for it so you have a good chance of finishing it before anyone else. In addition, the prereq building is the Viking unique building which you were going to build anyway. GL will be a great commerce boost even if you end up being isolated, since can always settle your 3rd or 4th cities on the nearby islands to get the more lucrative "intercontinental" domestic trade routes.

I'm also in favor of Monarchy for happiness and Metal Casting for Colossus. It's also probably worth it to try grabbing Monotheism but the spiritual AI's might beat you to it.

 

[steve7811]

Long time lurker of ALC threads. So good to see so many people chipping in and participating. Can't wait to see how the game plays itself out.

I am also in the camp for the Great Lighthouse, Oracle and Colossus.

On the issue of Great Lighthouse, I believe that the short term benefits are little to none if we are indeed isolated. However, I believe that the long term benefits of building it will eventually pay off. Assuming that we make Metal Casting --> Optics --> Liberalism --> Astronomy tech path a priority, it won't take long until the benefits of the extra trade routes will kick in. Not to mention that it will take quite a while for the Great Lighthouse to become obsolete, and between all those turns where research starts to get expensive, I think the benefits will be tremendous.

I am almost very certain that at least 4 other AI civs will be in contact with each other. On a map where at least one civ is completely isolated, the RNG tends to cluster a good number of civs within good reach of each other, so early contact among them will be highly likely. In that scenario, they would have benefited from trading among themselves, which could place us at a tech disadvantage, even if we successfully achieve the Astronomy beeline goal. By that time, techs start to become expensive to a point where a single GP cannot lighbulb the entire tech. This point is also where we will have to evaluate the military situation more carefully, depending on which AI civ is located where, and how much power each of those civs have. Assuming that military will not be much of a priority until then, I am assuming that by the time Astronomy is researched, research will start to get more expensive and ANY advantage we can get at that point merits the effort we put into put up the Great Lighthouse for ourselves.

I would absolutely hate to see a scenario where a civ like Hannibal, Mansa Musa, or Joao II end up grabbing the Great Lighthouse. There is no guarantee that one or any number of these guys will show up in this game, but I am sure it is self explanatory for many advanced players to see why their possession of the Great Lighthouse can be quite deadly.

The purpose of these ALC games were to effectively utilize the strengths of the leader's traits as much as possible, and leaving the Great Lighthouse out of the equation seems to be off our goals of playing these games in the first place.

Stonehenge and the Great Wall, even though we have the precious stone available to us, don't seem to be as important for us, since we are not in a situation to worry about culture competition, and barbarians can easily be controlled with strategic placement of fog busters and good city placements.

For the Pyramids, perhaps an inland city with good potential hammer production can build one, while other food-rich, hammer-poor coastal cities can chip in with settler and worker pumps. Perhaps the Oracle and the Pyramids can be built in a same city while Nidaros can build the Great Lighthouse and the Colossus.

But if I have to choose between the Pyramids and the Great Lighthouse, I would choose the Great Lighthouse. No matter how out-of-sense it might be to have come up with that decision, I think we will be very satisfied in the end once we start to reap its benefits.

 

[johnny_rico]

If it goes really well:
- I vote against the Great Lighthouse. We're beelining for Optics, which also brings Astronomy closer... and we may well be isolated. I also don't think the GW is worthwhile, simply because there are better wonders. IMO the only 'wonders of opportunity' should be the Pyramids and the Colossus.

Won't that be a good thing? I thought the Gr. Lighthouse is obsolete with corporation. If relations are good with multiple AI civs, trade routes should be high yield. Use Free religion to keep AIs at least cautious, spread economics and Free Market, trade routes will be booming. Use customs houses to further bolster the value of trades. Too bad there's no marble, the ToA goes so well with the Great Lighthouse.

I'm not certain the colossus is a great build. As astronomy will be a priority, the colossus will be obsolete fast. The only way I'd consider the colossus is a fast oracle > MC and then building the colossus quickly (and only if copper is present). Even at that rate, it will still take too long to expand to get full benefits of the wonder. By the time you've got enough developed cities ready to cash in on all that coastal commerce, you'll have liberalism (and I'm presuming astronomy is your free tech choice on this map).

Save the colossus for when you play Joao II.

 

[Ultimocrat]

This wonder debate -- Pyramids vs. Colossus vs. Great Lighthouse -- is particularly interesting because unlike most other wonder comparisons, these wonders have mostly commensurate benefits (treating the main benefit of the 'mids as the +3b from rep. scpecialists).

Say you've got 10 coastal cities, and you're running 25 specialists empire-wide (8 each in Nidaros and Green Dot, the others scattered). The 'mids would be worth +75 b. Those 10 cities could potentially have 75 water tiles being worked, for +75 c from the Colossus. They could also be getting an average of +75 c from the twenty extra GLH trade routes, if you're not isolated. If you are isolated, the GLH is going to be worth a lot less for quite some time.

With this said, let's debate 3 wonder options:
1) Oracle -> MC slingshot & Colossus
2) Pyramids
3) Great Lighthouse

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but even if you're able to get more than one of them, the costs to expansion might be too large. I vote for the 'mids, given how amenable the map is to running specialists, the fact that they are cheap with the stone (only about 10% more hammers than the GLH), and for the rep. happiness. Oracle - Colossus is very expensive, especially if there's no copper, and the early forges are not nearly as useful without the lux. metals.

 

[Morgawr]

Ragnar is financial and his trait is best leveraged by getting as much from sea tiles and cottages as possible. Therefore I am against going for Pyramids. should not be a problem once we switch to Hereditary Rule

 

[r_rolo1]

I would say that, before we star discussing wonders, we need to know if we are really isolated or not, because that affects the usefulness of 2 of the above proposed wonders... I would change the prod for another work boat ( it is quicker to build than a galley.... in spite of that so tempting hut in the western island ) and check if there is anybody out there first.....

Regardless of that I would advice Oracling MC, Collosus and then try the GLighthouse. Even in isolation the GLighthouse would be useful in the time between the fade of the collosus and the rise of the corps.....

 

[oldsaxon]

Won't that be a good thing? I thought the Gr. Lighthouse is obsolete with corporation.

My mistake. In that case, maybe the GL is worth building.

Regardless, I reckon Sis should make a settler now, just so we have two cities to play with. If we want GL, the capital can make that afterwards.

 

[Gliese 581]

Reading through the posts there seems to be a general consensus that Stonehenge and GW is uneccesary and I agree with this. I also like the idea of founding a religion for culture spread and a holy shrine, hopefully in Nidaros could bring in extra $, especially if Sisiutil goes for the oracle slingshot. If we're going for the Oracle we could try to get monotheism after priesthood, the OR civic should come in handy in giving a boost to the poor production that most cities will have as well. One advantage of settling on the stone is that we have 4 sea tiles to work, making the delay of worker techs less damaging than it usually would be.

I think getting TGL and Colossus would not only be a nice boost to a sea-based economy but like others have pointed out, denying these wonders to the AI on this kind of map is HUGE. Like I said in my earlier post, I think we can still get pyramids pretty late with stone already hooked up if we want to, and if we don't, there's always hereditary rule that enables the wine resource as well as the civic.

 

[KMadCandy]

Munch's white dot/gray dot combination (as also suggested by Zanttu) is probably better than my yellow dot, especially if there's ample food on the silk island, obviating the need to leave the W fish for a silk city.

i really do want to see that island. if it has food, putting a couple cities there ought to make us money not lose it. we'll get intercontinental trade route credit that'll more than make up colony expenses if we put only 2 or 3 cities on the landmass. if it was my own game, i'd hold off placing a city using those fish until i'd looked more around that island.

i think the value of GLH goes up, if we're isolated or don't have enough neighbors to have trade routes for each of our cities, if that island looks good and we put a couple cities on it. then all of our cities could have internal intercontinental trade routes, right? tiny ones at first of course but as the cities grow in size they'd get to be decent trade routes i bet. [edit: i see Oedali thought of that too ]

One other thought -- if truly isolated, don't fogbust the northern wastes; get a fort or city at the chokepoint and keep an attacker/attackers there, with the goal of getting enough promotions out of barbs to be able to build the HE (I'm a vanilla player, so forgive me if this works differently in BtS).

yes you can definitely still unlock HE off barbs. i like to fogbust well enough to keep my empire safe, but also to give the barbs a spot or 2 to be born where they won't be a hassle, they'll just be target practice for my rookies that want exp. i like to pick on them since real wars scare me, but you make a good point i hadn't thought about; they're your only option if you're isolated.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but even if you're able to get more than one of them, the costs to expansion might be too large. I vote for the 'mids, given how amenable the map is to running specialists, the fact that they are cheap with the stone (only about 10% more hammers than the GLH), and for the rep. happiness. Oracle - Colossus is very expensive, especially if there's no copper, and the early forges are not nearly as useful without the lux. metals.

obviously we don't want to be building a wonder that we have our hearts set on and then get the BIAFL message. but how soon do we think the pyramids will fall? they don't seem to get built early in BtS anyway, and on archi maps even less so. the only one i specifically remember the date was monarch, so lower diff, but epic speed so the same there. i wouldn't let myself build the pyramids, trying to kick the habit. they finally got built after 1500 AD, and nobody had ever been at war before that, so it wasn't that they were distracted by battles , i think the main thing was they couldn't deal with "how do i get production on an archi map?" they might be much better off on this one, of course, it's just the only reference point i have.

i think that if we really do want the pyramids (i don't know whether i agree with you there, but even it i do), my estimate for how much time we have to expand and build other things (wonders or not) before we start building them is longer than yours. that may be partly due to you playing vanilla and me playing BtS, and partly due to me being a permanoob .

I would say that, before we star discussing wonders, we need to know if we are really isolated or not, because that affects the usefulness of 2 of the above proposed wonders... I would change the prod for another work boat ( it is quicker to build than a galley.... in spite of that so tempting hut in the western island ) and check if there is anybody out there first.....

don't look at the hut as tempting now. think of it as "probably nobody can reach it but us yet. we'll get to it before terribly long, and even if it's guarded we can take care of the guard. and by then maybe we'll pop a really good tech out of it!" *knockwood* "does the "remove the jinx" dance* you've seen that work for me after all.

 

[r_rolo1]

don't look at the hut as tempting now. think of it as "probably nobody can reach it but us yet. we'll get to it before terribly long, and even if it's guarded we can take care of the guard. and by then maybe we'll pop a really good tech out of it!" *knockwood* "does the "remove the jinx" dance* you've seen that work for me after all.

I always forgot S man hut luck .... If someone can take astro of a hut in Deity, he's the man

 

[Daedal]

Just focusing on the Pyramids here.. if we want them for the effects of representation that's a decent plan. We can work three extra tiles for our trouble, which is nice on such a food heavy map. But if we're going to play to Ragnar's advantages I think we ought to consider sticking with a CE, not an SE, so the extra from the civic will be largely wasted.

@Ultimocrat: The gains from Colossus and Pyramids would actually be mutually exclusive. You can work food-heavy inland tiles for specialists to get the rep bonus or you can work commerce heavy Colossified coast tiles, but you can't really do both to maximum effect. I guess that brings into question, is either wonder really worth it? The Pyramids don't let us cottage to full effect because we need food. The Colossus doesn't let us use our cottages without ignoring the tiles we built the Colossus for in the first place. Only Nidaros and green dot can really benefit from both Pyramids and Colossus with all that seafood around, but even then by sacrificing some specialists or some commerce. Only the GLighthouse benefits all coastal cities regardless of what economy Sisiutil runs and isn't mutually exclusive with other wonder strategies, which is why I like it even if we are isolated.

 

[Pe Ell]

HR doesn't help CE in any way, and in this case there's no point in building a lot of military in the early game. Without a big military, we get bigger happiness bonus from representation than what we would get from HR. The GP farm(s) is going to run few specialists even when going full CE, so I see much more benefit from representation than HR in early game. Later on a switch from rep to HR can be made, as at some point we are going to bump up an army and start getting more happiness from HR than what we would get from representation.

True, but Rep is more expensive and I don't see why we should run so many specialist when we are financial? I know you get more sci from bulbing with scientists early on but I want those cottages worked so we have a nice economy in time for astro conquest.
I've found that HR is just nicer to have when you're isolated. Every bit of happy helps.

Much can change still, we can be semi-isolated wich will make things rather different.

Although maybe your argument was against building the pyramids for HR rather than HR itself? I figured we could just as well take advantage of that stone and get some GE point as well. Also, monarchy is a bit of sidetrack in terms of teching right? Or is it cheap enough? Hmm, we had wines som maybe we should just tech monarchy at some point and skip the pyramids.

I think I want another round before I make more stupid decissions.