ALC Game #22 Take 2: Arabs/Saladin

[Validator]

The one thing that seems to be missing from all the plans is how to develop the economy. Writing is currently going to take 28 turns to finish at +1 gpt . IW would take 47 turns . Any additional cities, or even a buildup of troops, is going to slow things down. Damascus working its two gold mines will help, but that's not going to happen any time soon. And 15 /turn from those two tiles isn't going to support too many additional cities anyway. Getting some sort of a real economy going seems paramount at this point if we want to avoid a repeat of the last game (swords vs. X-bows ).

Is the plan still to run an SE? If so I don't know how so many people can be suggesting passing on Pyramids. It's possible that Rosy or Zara will build them, but if they get built on the other continent the effectiveness of the SE has been seriously reduced during the first half of the game. With stone available it seems like too great a risk to take.

I don't see what the hurry is in attacking Zara. He's been blocked enough at this point that he's not much of a threat. As far as we know he has no strategic resources (other than maybe Medina's copper ). If all he can build is archers why not let him sit there for a while. If he wants to found the city in the SE let him. If it's well placed it will save a settler when the time comes to take it. Otherwise it can be easily eliminated.

As to blocking Rosy the problem I see is that it would require founding cities into the jungle, which are really going to kill the economy without IW being available.

I made up a dotmap to show this:

The cyan, orange and light yellow cities would be needed to block American expansion to the south. None of these cities is going to amount to much without IW. I think this is one case where you're going to have to keep your greed for land in check, even if it means letting the AI found a couple of extra cities. There's still a lot of land in the south to power a mid-game offensive.

 

[Validator]

Arabia's never going to get much of a sniff of that copper, I'm afraid. Zara's culture wave is coming.

I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Medina will get it's cultural border expansion in 3 turns. If Honkoid's calculations are correct Aksum will not get it's next border expansion for several turns after that. As I understand it, most of the culture that is added to tiles is based on how close a tile is to the edge of a city's cultural influence. In this case the copper tile will be at the edge of both Medina and Aksum's borders. So they should be putting relatively equal amounts of culture into the tile. Even if Aksum is putting a little bit more the several turns head start that Medina gets should let it keep the tile for a good while. Long enough to build/whip a few axes anyway.

Long term Medina should have no trouble regaining control of the tile, since it will get its 150 expansion long before Aksum gets its 7500 expansion. It might make sense to have a chariot waiting in Medina so that it can go in and pillage the copper tile as soon as it flips. Sisiutil would then need to stay at war with Zara until the tile flips back.

 

[LuCiver]

Ouch! Passing on stonehenge is hurting you even more than I expected! I will have to remember that henge+UUobelisk strategy for my own games! And notice he did it without hooking up his stone. As I said before, if you want the henge you need forests.

Here's another strategy for attacking cities without siege: Plop down your own city as close as possible and crank up the culture. When the enemy city revolts, it loses it's cultural defense. Then DoW and march in against the wounded defenders. This is exactly what Zara is going to do to you in Medina and Damascus.

I think the only way you will avoid this fate is with some offense. You are going to have to DoW not with the intention of conquering established cities, but just to chariot rush new cities before their first border pop (within 3 turns IIRC) and to keep him from hooking up the medina copper.

The way I see it, you are looking at an early fight for survival. Leveraging Spiritual is out the window except for free civic switching. I suggest rushing at least three chariots with this in mind right away. Once medina finishes that barracks you can build more. You will need a third settler for the southern copper, Medina will never produce copper until Zara's capital burns. Fourth and Fifth settlers for Crab-corn and Elephants. Just hope you can hem Zara in for a while longer.

Tech path should aim towards Cats+Elephant or Cats+Swords. IW would be nice just to see if Zara has a source of Iron (my money is on 'Yes').

 

[patagonia]

I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Medina will get it's cultural border expansion in 3 turns. If Honkoid's calculations are correct Aksum will not get it's next border expansion for several turns after that. As I understand it, most of the culture that is added to tiles is based on how close a tile is to the edge of a city's cultural influence. In this case the copper tile will be at the edge of both Medina and Aksum's borders. So they should be putting relatively equal amounts of culture into the tile. Even if Aksum is putting a little bit more the several turns head start that Medina gets should let it keep the tile for a good while. Long enough to build/whip a few axes anyway.

Long term Medina should have no trouble regaining control of the tile, since it will get its 150 expansion long before Aksum gets its 7500 expansion. It might make sense to have a chariot waiting in Medina so that it can go in and pillage the copper tile as soon as it flips. Sisiutil would then need to stay at war with Zara until the tile flips back.

In the short term, Zara will gain control of the copper, since he'll be putting more culture onto the tile than Medina will (it's the base culture/turn in the city that's added to tiles in the outer ring). However, if Medina quickly gets its next border pop, it will soon regain control of the copper, since tiles in the second outer ring gain an additional 20/turn.

All that's assuming Aksum's culture doesn't increase significantly in the interim of course. Monument + Madrassa = 5/turn. With 20 for being in the second ring, we get a total of 25. If Zara's output exceeds that, you'll not regain control without giving Medina a significant boost.

 

[whakamole]

It might make sense to have a chariot waiting in Medina so that it can go in and pillage the copper tile as soon as it flips. Sisiutil would then need to stay at war with Zara until the tile flips back.

If you're good at timing the border pops, you can pillage the copper mine on your own land just before it flips. This way, you can avoid DoW if you're not ready to bring it to Zara, and I assume by this time we'll have another source of copper hooked up (or iron?), and we shouldn't have a lull in our axe production.

This would at least slow down Zara by a few turns until his own workers re-attach the copper, which gives a few more turns to position yourself for DoW.

 

[patagonia]

On another note, maximally leveraging the Madrassa to me suggests building the Pyramids. Rushing in this situation is going to be more trouble than it's worth. Better to grab a few choice city locations and use the UB and representation to generate a position of strength from which to attack later.

And to all those advising fighting a defensive war to leverage protective, are you ?

All that'll achieve is having even fewer friends and getting everything pillaged, while the enemy continues to develop its cities. There's something to be said for trying to get an AI to commit its SoD into your land so you can destroy it more easily, but that's only worthwhile if you immediately go on the attack yourself.

 

[Melon Head]

How do you pillage your own tile improvements? For whatever reason I seem to think i can't do that/don't have the option wen I select a unit. Can I just hit p or whichever to pillage it?

 

[Sisiutil]

Much thanks to Validator for the reminder regarding the economy. When I saw how long Writing was going to take, I realized something needed to be done. I have Pottery now, so the 1st step to me seems to be cottaging some of those riverside grassland tiles around the capital. Mecca is about to hit its happiness cap anyway, so I can switch some citizens from high-food tiles to commerce tiles. Long term, I agree, I don't think I can afford to pass on the Pyramids. If I want to keep expanding, an early CE is just not going to keep me afloat. Madrassas are required for many reasons, so I'll stick with Writing.

Regarding the expansion, I need to obtain an alternative source of copper just to be on the safe side as well as trying to block off Roosevelt. Validator's blue city due west of Mecca seems to fit the bill in that regard, plus it claims jumbos. The magenta west coast city may follow it to complete the block, and the SW blue flood plain city can follow that--working the gold will offset its maintenance costs. As Validator said, the cities he mapped out north of those won't be much until several workers attack the jungle. Why not let Roosevelt clear the jungle for me? I've done that with jungle in previous games, leaving it for the AI to do the grunt work, then taking the cities later. I won't be able to afford those 3 cities for some time anyways, and they mostly claim mid-game Calendar resources anyway.

Now, there's been a lot of talk about tricks involving the Pyramids, chopping, and Settlers on the one hand, and walls and gold overflow on the other. Maybe I'm just feeling dense, but I just don't understand either one. Well, no, that's not entirely true, I understand the idea of building a Settler for a few turns then whipping it so the overflow goes into the Pyramids, though I'm not as clear on when to do that by whipping away 3 pop versus 2 pop. (Whipping 2 pop is my usual "sweet spot" for whipping--on Epic speed, you get about 45 hammers unmodified per pop whipped, so I whip when there's about 46 - 50 hammers left in the build; I'll even change tile assignments on the previous turn to try to maximize the hammer overflow. So I guess for whipping 3 pop, I wait until there's a little over 90 hammers left in the build?)

The Protective walls/gold overflow trick I just don't fathom. So maybe someone who's done it can explain how that's done, and more importantly, why it works, because I've never seen production for anything other than a failed wonder turned into gold before.

EDIT: Yes, at the end of the round I realized, hey, I'm Spiritual, I switched to Slavery and I haven't whipped anything yet. I knew you guys were gonna call me on it, too. What can I say, it's been a while since I played as a Spiritual leader.

 

[Andvare]

That overflow production is turned into gold, is because the original item is below a certain production cost. All overflow from production that cost below this level, is turned into gold instead of overflow production, IIRC.

So it's just a matter of maxing the overflow of such a building, hence the protection powered wall with stone. A whip plus chop will turn into huge amounts of gold. At least that's the theory, never did it much myself.

 

[Kev]

The copper issues - whether regarding losing some to culture or going out and claiming a second supply ASAP - is really only an issue in the short term and only if an early axe rush is in the works.

Otherwise, I think it becomes moot because iron will soon enter the picture, and - despite this looking like a Vanilla map with copper - there is bound to be plenty of iron around to utilize. Given how quickly the AI can tech to it, odds are good that Zara will have it hooked up soon enough.

I think it really behooves us to research IW right after writing. Assuming there will be iron that is obtainable (chances are there will be) it will allow us the metal source we need should copper go to Zara, allow us to get the gems online, allow us to see where Zara's iron might be in order to possibly pillage it later, and allow us to put aside the charge for a city devoted to a second source of copper and concentrate on other sites.

 

[johnny_rico]

I would gift stone to roosevelt asap and get open borders with everyone as soon as possible. Crank out some chariots to keep up on the lay of the land. If zara is boxed in, he might pick a fight with you, but you should hold him off easy. Since his borders will press right up to your city, you won't have to worry about pillaging stacks; I imagine he'd just assault the closest city. If he stays passive, he'll turtle up and build wonders also. Aksum and Washington could both wind up very nice, especially once in arabian hands.

I agree with the masses on whipping and then switching out of slavery. In fact, you should chronicle your civics changes to illustrate the frequency with which you shift.

 

[Validator]

I need to obtain an alternative source of copper just to be on the safe side as well as trying to block off Roosevelt. Validator's blue city due west of Mecca seems to fit the bill in that regard, plus it claims jumbos.

I think you mean the purple city. They cyan city to the N of Mecca also would claim a source of copper. Of course it will struggle before IW is available, but it does serve the purpose of denying that copper to Rosy.

So I guess for whipping 3 pop, I wait until there's a little over 90 hammers left in the build?

That's right. Whipping 3 pop shouldn't be a problem here since you only have 3 high yield tiles to work. The fourth pop should regrow quickly to work one of the mined hills.

The Protective walls/gold overflow trick I just don't fathom. So maybe someone who's done it can explain how that's done, and more importantly, why it works, because I've never seen production for anything other than a failed wonder turned into gold before.

Just to follow up on Andvare's explanation, the number of overflow hammers you get to apply to the next production item is limited to the number of hammers it takes to build the item you just completed. Any additional hammers of overflow are converted to gold. So if you whip a warrior when it's one turn away from completion you only get 23 overflow hammers to apply to the next build and you'll get about 20 (epic speed of course). With the high multiplier available for walls with Protective and stone it's easy to make a lot of via excess overflow.

 

[Validator]

IW would be nice just to see if Zara has a source of Iron (my money is on 'Yes').

Zara's worthless second city might have some iron, but I think it's unlikely Aksum will have iron. It already has 3 fish (if the trade screen is to be believed), corn and stone. If he has iron on top of that it would be one hell of a capital. I would guess that Medina's copper is probably his closest strategic resource.

But IW after Writing would be my choice too just in case.

 

[Bandobras Took]

@ Validator: We only really need two cities to block Roosevelt given adequate cultural expansion if we move that orangeish city and the light yellow both 1 square to the right, don't we? Misses none of the resources and even grabs the bananas for the orangeish one.

 

[Yeosol]

Monument + Madrassa = 5 Culture. That should be enough to give Zara a run for his money. A serious culture war I don't think we've seen in a while (ever?) as well as a perfect (only?) opportunity to see the advantages of the culture bonus on the UB, which is something often overlooked.

So I vote not to war. Go for peaceful expansion, go for the pyramids for sure. Madrassa + Mids = Power.

The Idea of fighting a fake war to kill settlers/stop his expansion is an interesting idea. However with building the mids and the potential loss of copper it would probably be too costly.

BTW I had never heard of the protective walls -> gold trick. That does add a little edge to protective.

 

[Abegweit]

Wouldn't that cost 4 citizens? With one chop it should be 3.

The exact answer is, like almost everything else in civ, that it depends. You need to put enough hammers into the settler so that the whip takes exactly 3 citizens. Not 2 or 4.

At normal speed this means you need between 10 and 39 hammers. Ten hammers is easy enough to get with a capital so the chop will usually be too much. I don't have the program in front of me right now in order to check, but I think that at epic you will need between 15 and 59 hammers. Fifteen is quite a lot so you will usually need a chop to assist. But sometimes it will be too much at this speed too.

It also depends what size the city is when you put the settler in the build queue. The larger it is, the less likely the chop is to be right. My tendency, for whatever reason, has been to put it in at size 5 which means my experience has usually been that the chop is wrong.

In my current game (normal speed) the capital doesn't have any trees at all. I can assure you that the chop is not necessary.

So we're both right. Sort of anyway.

 

[Bandobras Took]

And to all those advising fighting a defensive war to leverage protective, are you ?

All that'll achieve is having even fewer friends and getting everything pillaged, while the enemy continues to develop its cities. There's something to be said for trying to get an AI to commit its SoD into your land so you can destroy it more easily, but that's only worthwhile if you immediately go on the attack yourself.

I partially agree in that there's no sense in declaring any sort of war if we settle to block. Protective will shine because we have to figure on one of those Civs declaring on us anyway; the AI doesn't like it when you crowd them. CG2 Archers behind walls kill almost everything sent against them (watch out for Roosevelt's War Elephants, though . . .), and if we're going primarily specialists for research, pillaging of a border city is easily repaired. And it's never been my experience that the AI ignores border cities unless it's a stack that's relatively easily destroyed anyway.

 

[Artichoker]

It looks like the Green Guy (Zara?) to the southeast is really close.

I think some offensive settling might be able to edge him out of the good land. After settling a few cities to edge him out, you can then leverage Protective by garrisoning the cities with Archers.

The hammers you save on military can then be used to help build the Pyramids. Chop some forests to speed up the Pyramids, of course.

With the Gems now in the BFC of the second city, it should become a priority to get those into action. That means lots of hammers and commerce! Use them to help mobilize for war...after you finish the Pyramids, that is.

 

[Polobo]

With Pyramids we can run artists under caste system (or head for drama and get theaters setup) and still get the 3 beakers from Representation. No worse off than running a scientist HR (a little better since the artist gives you beaker as well) and you get mucho culture to keep your borders firm while you settle the south. Incite them to declare war on you while you garrison your walled/castled archer/longbow defended border cities running heavy farms and representation powered specialists and put some cottage cities in the interior for transitioning later (in addition to the capital).

 

[aelf]

The exact answer is, like almost everything else in civ, that it depends. You need to put enough hammers into the settler so that the whip takes exactly 3 citizens. Not 2 or 4.

At normal speed this means you need between 10 and 39 hammers. Ten hammers is easy enough to get with a capital so the chop will usually be too much. I don't have the program in front of me right now in order to check, but I think that at epic you will need between 15 and 59 hammers. Fifteen is quite a lot so you will usually need a chop to assist. But sometimes it will be too much at this speed too.

It also depends what size the city is when you put the settler in the build queue. The larger it is, the less likely the chop is to be right. My tendency, for whatever reason, has been to put it in at size 5 which means my experience has usually been that the chop is wrong.

In my current game (normal speed) the capital doesn't have any trees at all. I can assure you that the chop is not necessary.

So we're both right. Sort of anyway.

Well, I generally like to whip 2 citizens, so my estimate is based on it. 1 chop on Epic pre-Math is not enough for that, so 1 reasoned that 1 chop should let you whip 3. The overflow would go to the Pyramids anyway.