ALC Game #24: Hammurabi/Babylon

[CivCorpse]

You could always delete a unit the turn before you finish a unit; that or build a unit to within one turn of completion, then switch to another. Sis may actually want to consider something like this - don't let units finish now (to save on maintenance), but have a lot ready in case of emergency or to pop out once HR makes them worth having. He's already good at it since he likes to queue up units like that before switching to vassalage/theo anyways.

True but hammer decay makes that a suboptimal use of production. I have just one word for you...Monastaries. Ummm, made out of plastic.

 

[csarmi]

I don't think it makes much sense whipping those courthouses, they can be completed in so few turns anyway. You lose more by whipping away your pop than the gpt you're facing without courthouses (they're not even THAT important with so few cities anyway).

In my shadow game I finished this war with 9 towns and even then I wasn't feeling like hurrying courts at all - it took like 9-12 turns everywhere (except that tundra-close town) and caste system was actually more important. (I had 3x gpt upkeep on towns).

He has less towns and more important matters. Like scouting, getting CoL and rexing (plus getting an extra religion and spread it somehow)

As for settling the GG, for mw, the extra capitol (Akkad?) seemed like the best production site, but I might have missed something.

 

[pigswill]

If S starts running low on useful things to build then it makes sense to work commerce tiles (water and cottages) instead of production tiles.

 

[Northpole'r]

Sisiutil - Kudos for the ALC games! They have helped me make the Prince - Monarch transition much easier and give anyone looking to improve their games a great resource to learn strategies for different leaders. I was getting frustrated with how easy it was to win on Prince and how much harder it was on Monarch until I found your ALC games. Thanks again and keep up the good work. These games help even if I still haven't bought the BTS expansion yet.

One thing I would ask (for me and others trying to hone their early build orders in capital) is if you could mention in the beginning a bit more about your build orders and the tiles you work and why... That information is the what I've found most helpfull in getting used to Civ4, leveraging the power of a good starting location, and playing an enjoyable/challenging game overall.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 4: 455 BC to 320 BC (9 turns)

A short round because I decided to follow BlueSoxSWJ's suggestion and just research the first few cheap techs and see what else cropped up.

I decided to fit in Sailing before Meditation and Priesthood. Besides hoping for trade routes, I also thought I might need some Galleys before long. Remember the 3.17 patch has increased barb ship activity.

As you can see, researching at 100% with all that gold was helping research. Unfortunately, I was going to go through that gold very quickly.

As many of you suggested, I reassigned the capital's tile assignments to emphasize commerce:

The Work Boat is only being built for exploration, after all, so it can wait. By this point I had also connected my territory with Arabia by way of a road north of Akkad, hence the new, enhance trade route.

Sailing didn't take long.

However, my trade routes didn't change.

So even though I had open borders with Darius, the barb city, and perhaps Saladin as well, are preventing us from having trade routes. Or maybe I need to find at least one Persian city, too. Anyone care to explain how it all works?

Shortly after this, Saladin discovered Alphabet.

Of course he's even more advanced than he appears. He had dye to trade, for example, so he obviously has Calendar as well.

No surprise, I'm at the bottom of the advancement chart...

And at the end of the round, I met another neighbour.

Justinian's Scout is north of Babylon, so I assume he himself is somewhere north of Saladin. Interesting how he has no religion yet.

I also finished a tech at the end of the round, having researched Meditation earlier...

And now I had to decide on my next target. Or, more to the point, come back here to discuss it more. Monarchy will take 10 turns:

Code of Laws, 11:

I'll be broke after 10 turns of research. But then again I have a stack poised outside that barb city, ready to capture it next turn, so that might just give me enough to research either tech and leave a little cash in the treasury so it isn't running on fumes. Oh, and I checked, and I can run the slider at 10% with a 2 GPT surplus. Yay me.

So as recommended, I stopped here so we can have a more informed discussion around which tech would be better to pursue. To provide more grist for that particular mill, here's a look at the map:

So there's a little bit of good news there on the happiness front: My exploring Chariots have discovered, down south, both furs and silver. I should have no problem founding a city there, although it has no food source visible, so unless something shows up in that fogged area to the NW, it will be an extremely marginal city founded solely to claim these resources... and fog-bust, too.

Right now, the best placement for a city down there would be 1SW of the silver, on a tundra hill; 1N of that tile is a forested grassland tile next to a lake, which would therefore be the city's only source of food. That would place the silver, the copper, and 4 fur tiles in the city's fat cross. Unfortunately it won't be able to work the silver mine and pay for itself until Biology, but having the resources (especially the furs, which provide the added benefit of being trading fodder) would be worth it, I think. (I can also place another marginal city 1E 2S of the southeastern deer tile to claim it and the copper, but that's a very low priority right now.)

And the gold/pig/fish site is still available; that would be the next city site, as I'd have to rush a Settler there to keep it out of Saladin's hands. The fur/silver site can wait a while, if necessary.

So there are three resources available, though it requires founding 2 additional cities at considerable distance from the capital to claim them. Nevertheless, I think that argues in favour of Code of Laws as the next tech.

Here's a look at the domestic advisor to check on the city builds:

Once Akkad completed its library I began on a Christian Monastery. After that it won't have anything to build until CoL allows it to construct a courthouse, so I may switch to military temporarily. As I recall, some of you were suggesting settling the Great General there, which I haven't done yet. The monastery's culture will help stave off Saladin's borders, which are pushing against mine in that area.

Foreign Advisor, Relations:

Everyone's at cautious with me and is likely to stay that way for some time, unless and until someone else's religion spreads to me--or I spread Christianity to them. Zara pursuing that early religion was both a good thing and a bad thing; it distracted him from military pursuits and provided me with a potential shrine city, but because of my failure to construct any roads to Arabia (and, thereby, trade routes), it's spread to all my cities and has put me in a difficult diplomatic spot.

Resources:

So like I said, Saladin also has Calendar. I could potentially trade pigs to him for dye, especially if I can claim that eastern city spot for an extra source of them.

Info - trade income and civics:

Thus far, Darius is the only one running Hereditary Rule, and the Oracle apparently provided him with Feudalism (!) so he's the only one running vassalage. Everyone who's anyone has slaves, though!

Techs:

So although I'd venture that Darius is the most advanced civ, he currently lacks Alphabet. Everyone else has it--everyone but me, that is. One of the tough things is guessing what Justinian might be researching next. Hopefully it's not Code of Laws or Monarchy, but the AI does like those techs. That could be critical, as Justinian is the only leader besides Saladin who's currently open to trading techs. It would be nice if I have an expensive one that he wants.

Assuming I do get a tech that both Saladin and Justinian want, what should I trade it for? I was thinking of getting Alphabet from Saladin, and then maybe Iron Working and whatever else Justinian will part with--maybe Masonry. Of course, if I manage to get Alphabet, that would open up trading with Darius and would change the tactics considerably. One complication: Saladin currently lacks Priesthood and therefore cannot trade for either Monarchy or Code of Laws directly. I could gift him Priesthood if he still needs it at that point, though I'm loathe to do so.

Overall, though, I think the tech situation also argues in favour of Code of Laws. It's worth more than Monarchy and will therefore make better tech bait. In addition, the AI typically prioritizes Monarchy over CoL, so if Justinian is pursuing one of our next two chosen techs, I'd lay odds it's Monarchy. On the other hand, CoL might still have a religion available with it, which may also make it attractive to the very Spiritual Justinian. Hmmm...

The Power graph:

This is only moderately worrisome at the moment, but I'll need to keep an eye on it. Everyone else's power has climbed and if I'm not careful I'll be left in the dust and look like a tasty treat. I haven't seen too many barbs from the south or east thus far, but with all that empty space I know they'll be coming.

Demographics:

Dead last in almost everything, but that's par for the course at this point in the game. The one bright spot is land area, where I'm in the middle of the field.

So as I said, I think I should pursue Code of Laws next along with founding those two cities. Combined, they'll raise the happy cap by 3, and double that once I have forges and markets. I can then trade CoL around, adopt Caste System to run more scientists or merchants as needed, and of course build cheap courthouses, especially in those two distant resource-claiming cities I'm eyeing.

But as always, I look forward to your own views before proceeding.

 

[BlueSoxSWJ]

I think the extra city site for Silver and Fur makes CoL slightly better than Monarchy now, although HR would still be nice. Hopefully it is the barb city and Sal blocking TRs to Darius and not just you not seeing him; otherwise you're still essentially gifting him gold. Lastly, if you have nothing else to build, missionary spamming to try to convert Ragnar and/or Justinian might be a good use of the hammers, if unit upkeep would hurt too much.

 

[Polobo]

You've got only 1 scientist running in Akhad (and 9 hammers...)
You've got libraries due is 5 and 11 turns in your other 2 cities. The food bars are pretty full so you can get away with starvation to get CoL done ASAP and still have some gold in the coffers even without taking the barbarian city.

Not positive about the trade routes though you do have trade route access with Ragnar and cannot see any of his cities (though I can't check in you have any actual trade routes with him - just the trade route symbol in the score area). I cannot load the save (for a while) but maybe some industrious world builder and try and figure out exactly why (and/or how) you could get a route to Darius and then describe the game mechanics accordingly - keeping in mind to not post a spoiler but only game mechanics. This seems to be a case where - other than requiring that you see the city you are trading with - I would expect that you would have trade routes with Darius.

Its still a ways away but you have a nice corn/whale/coastal city as well that you can claim for health, happiness and the pursuit of trade routes (to the east).

As soon as you get the next tech (whichever you choose) you should whip down Babylon and get out that already started workboat as well as 2 galleys and send them north.

You can check right now whether or not a religion is still available with CoL since you are able to research it (just click on the CoL label on the research progress bar and check for the religion symbol on the CoL icon). However, I would recommend going for it regardless.

Not sure how much time you can shave off of CoL but if you go for maximum research you may be able to get close or complete HBR as well. No one else (that you can see) has researched it yet and it is only 6 turns right now.

 

[csarmi]

What about founding the city 2W1N from the silver? In that case borders need to pop before you can use any of the resources and you won't have much trading bait for a while, but it's much closer to the capital and in that case the city actually has some perspective (with 2 grassland farms). You can run artists for a while for 2 fast border pops, or just chop the first one (monument).

I know it sounds weird, but the real problem is - despite the money trouble - being way too low on cities. You captured that land so you can use it, with CoL done and all those happiness and health resources you can expand fast - and you need to. So focus on settlers and building up - with so much land you'll be back in the game in no time.

Trade routes: I think you can have one with someone you cannot see, and yes, barbarians might block it (actually you know that they do block you on the western shore and you can't know what's happening elsewhere)

 

[slobberinbear]

I opened the save and have a few observations.

Courthouses everywhere would save you about 9 gpt. Doesn't sound like much, but that's about two ticks on the ol' science slider at the moment. If that allowed you to run a 30% slider, you could get to Currency via Mathematics in about 30 more turns with your current commerce input. Not to mention all of the EPs that you could use to rob Saladin blind. So my vote remains cheap courthouses and using CoL as trade bait. It would also be a good tech to sell for cash when you get Currency.

The game plan is to REX the remainder of the continent, yes?

 

[Validator]

As many of you suggested, I reassigned the capital's tile assignments to emphasize commerce:

I cringe when I see the way you're managing tiles worked in your cities, especially since MM was supposed to be a focus in this game. I understand you're trying to maximize commerce at this point, but in general I think you're taking a lazy approach. To stagnate a city you don't have to choose a set of tiles that produces exactly 2 /pop every turn. You just need to maintain this average over a set of turns. It means more micromanagement, but you'll end up with more and possibly more if you make the effort.

So even though I had open borders with Darius, the barb city, and perhaps Saladin as well, are preventing us from having trade routes. Or maybe I need to find at least one Persian city, too. Anyone care to explain how it all works?

As I understand it you have to be able to trace a trade route to one of the other civ's cities to get trade routes with that city and any other city connected to that city. You can't trace the route through hostile tiles, unexplored tiles or tiles belonging to civs who you don't have OB with. In this case you haven't explored a route to any Persian cities.

Once Akkad completed its library I began on a Christian Monastery. After that it won't have anything to build until CoL allows it to construct a courthouse

You just finished Priesthood, so it may not have registered yet (), but you can build temples in all your cities. Considering the current situation I would make those the highest priority.

As I recall, some of you were suggesting settling the Great General there, which I haven't done yet.

I'm not sure about the others, but I suggested settled the GG in Aksum, not Akkad. Akkad is too low on food to be a decent production city IMO. You might want to rename Aksum to avoid any further confusion (if there was any ).

Saladin also has Calendar. I could potentially trade pigs to him for dye, especially if I can claim that eastern city spot for an extra source of them.

I would make the trade now. You don't need the extra provided by the pig. You desperately need all the you can get.

Right now, the best placement for a city down there would be 1SW of the silver, on a tundra hill;

If nothing else shows up I would actually settle it on the tile N of the chariot (on the fur, SW of the southern lake tile). This is a coastal tile and although it would be blocked by ice it can still build a lighthouse which means the two lake tiles would turn into positive food tiles. It could also build harbor/customs house later in the game to maximize trade route incomes. The down side is that it won't claim the southern two furs, so you'll have less trade opportunities for a while at least.


Looking at the save I noticed a couple of things:

Your medic chariot is just sitting in Lalibela. Why hasn't it scouted out Saladin's lands?

It looks like Saladin's claimed the bananas/sugar site.

 

[Validator]

Not positive about the trade routes though you do have trade route access with Ragnar and cannot see any of his cities (though I can't check in you have any actual trade routes with him - just the trade route symbol in the score area).

The trade route symbol in the score area just means that you can trade resources with them. It gets established when either civ can trace a trade route to the other, but that doesn't allow the other civ to establish city<->city trade routes.

 

[jerVL/kg]

(deleted - duplicate post)

 

[jerVL/kg]

So there's a little bit of good news there on the happiness front: My exploring Chariots have discovered, down south, both furs and silver. I should have no problem founding a city there, although it has no food source visible, so unless something shows up in that fogged area to the NW, it will be an extremely marginal city founded solely to claim these resources... and fog-bust, too.

Right now, the best placement for a city down there would be 1SW of the silver, on a tundra hill; 1N of that tile is a forested grassland tile next to a lake, which would therefore be the city's only source of food. That would place the silver, the copper, and 4 fur tiles in the city's fat cross. Unfortunately it won't be able to work the silver mine and pay for itself until Biology, but having the resources (especially the furs, which provide the added benefit of being trading fodder) would be worth it, I think. (I can also place another marginal city 1E 2S of the southeastern deer tile to claim it and the copper, but that's a very low priority right now.)

And the gold/pig/fish site is still available; that would be the next city site, as I'd have to rush a Settler there to keep it out of Saladin's hands. The fur/silver site can wait a while, if necessary.

The NE fur (closest to the silver) is coastal. Founding a city on that tile will allow you to build a lighthouse, which makes the lake 3F2C. That will enable you to work the silver mine (or copper) plus one camp, plus at least one coast tile. (Naturally, check the coast for seafood first.)

Don't wait too long to get your next cities out. The sooner you build them, the sooner you'll get Islamified and can convert to Saladin's religion. And don't forget to keep an eye on the Invisible Iron Mine -- for all you know, that might be the only Iron in your region. Luckily, the area is food-poor so Sally might not settle there for awhile.

I would also snatch up Sally's extra dye (trade for pigs) before he gives it to somebody else.

Any chance of HBR before CoL? You still have beakers invested, and nobody else knows it yet. Or is that too risky?

 

[azzaman333]

CoL has to be the target. You're ORG, abuse it. Plus if nessecary you'd be able to run Spy specialists to get an extra bpt that you may not be able to otherwise get.

 

[rupertmonkey]

I don't understand why you're working the least improved tiles in Babylon. Did I miss an important discussion? btw, I don't download the saves, I just look at the screenies.

 

[PaulusIII]

If you intend to spread Christianity a bit for a more juicy shrine, try to convert Justinian before Saladin sends an islamic missionary that way (or Islam spreads of its own accord). While it would be difficult to get these two to attack each other, Ragnar might just try to take on Justinian.

As for CoL, somebody already got the religion from that tech (you can see because the religion icon does not appear anymore in the corner of CoL), and as such has a low AI priority. CoL will make for good tradebait.

 

[CivCorpse]

I don't understand why you're working the least improved tiles in Babylon. Did I miss an important discussion? btw, I don't download the saves, I just look at the screenies.

They are the highest commerce tiles.

Ok, my notes on this round. Sailing was a distraction you didn't really need. I know you were hoping for trade routes but the road to Sal provided them. It's a tech you were going to need soon anyway to maximize Babylon so not a real issue. The trade routes with persia are blocked by the barb city and the ice to the south. Darius is rather far away so the routes would be good. What is bad, is that Sal is going to ask you to stop trading with him soon because he worships the blue squiggly lines instead of the green moon. It's a diplohit with one of them either way. perhaps you should cancel open borders now without a diplomatic issue. If you hadn't teched sailing you would be 6 turns from CoL and with the pilliage gold from the barb city you could add a couple extra turns towards Monarchy.
I agree with validator of the managing of the tiles. In babylon you are working commerce tiles to try and get the most researched before you're broke. I moved them around a bit and even if you work a plains mine and the horses, you still finish CoL in the same amount of time. But i wouldn't build a workboat. I would build a temple, takes 15 turns and it's one extra specialist you can work with CS. If you want to keep emphasizing commerce switch to your 3 seafood tiles and build a worker. Or a lighthouse in 6 turns to help with Caste System and recovering from the whip.Anything is better than one hammer per turn for a work boat.
On founding new cities. If you capture the close and affordable barb city and found the two you were considering then you will actually have 3 new cities to pay for. I would put off the silver/fur city until you have a better handle on the cash flow. There are better city sites for the AI to establish so you can delay. The plan is to head for Monarchy and HR after CoL, so your happiness issues aren't as pressing. By the time you have Courthouses whipped and then build a settler, move him down there, found the city and connect the resources you will have monarchy. Gold/fish city is probably your 2nd best bet. I think you should settle where Zara found the iron to make sure you have some.Knights n Pikes baby. It is far away and hard to defend. I think sal will eventually DoW, especially if islam doesn't spread to the captured barb city. . After HR, perhaps you could tech math->construction (UB) while unit spamming until you can build catapults. Your cottages will be maturing and your economy back in shape. A quick strike into Kafur and then north until you capture and islamic city. Then sue for peace and adopt islam. the same faith bonus will quickly cancel out the DoW penalty. Consider taking an extra city just to gift to liberate back to him. This gets you another diplobonus. Consider heading for Theocracy as well, between that and same religion he should be BFF fairly quickly.
OR, you can do a little tech mongering. You gift Priesthood to Saladin. He needs it to trade you alphabet for CoL. Research alphabet one turn so he will trade it to you. Then trade CoL to Justinian for math and maybe a little gold if he has currency. NOW you use your GS you have cleverly saved in babylon to bulb Philosphy. the Ai will give you buckets and buckets of techs for Philosophy.Yes it's a liberalism tech Economy saved, tech parity pretty much accomplished and then you can unit spam to cut into the powergraph before attacking Sal to grab some religion.

 

[patagonia]

I'd pretty much follow Validator's advice, but add...

1. Cancel OB with Darius until you've scouted a route to him!
2. Temples =
3. Capture the barb city; Saladin's already grabbed the banana/sugar spot so he'll head there soon.
4. Build a couple of settler/chariot/worker parties now ready to settle the gold and fur sites as soon as your economy will allow.
5. The furs spot will pay for itself as soon as you get currency and can start selling spare resources to the AI for gpt.
6. Use your first GS to bulb philosophy once CoL is in and you'll be right back in the game as far as tech's concerned. This means trading CoL for alphabet and maths!

I can't look at the save, but have you checked the others for WHEOOHRN?

 

[CivCorpse]

I'd pretty much follow Validator's advice, but add...

1. Cancel OB with Darius until you've scouted a route to him!
2. Temples =
3. Capture the barb city; Saladin's already grabbed the banana/sugar spot so he'll head there soon.
4. Build a couple of settler/chariot/worker parties now ready to settle the gold and fur sites as soon as your economy will allow.
5. The furs spot will pay for itself as soon as you get currency and can start selling spare resources to the AI for gpt.
6. Use your first GS to bulb philosophy once CoL is in and you'll be right back in the game as far as tech's concerned.

I can't look at the save, but have you checked the others for WHEOOHRN?

No wheoorrn at the moment. as for bulbing Philo, he needs to trade CoL for math and alphabet first. you can usually get a straight trade formath but alphabet sometimes requires a turn or two of research.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I can't look at the save, but have you checked the others for WHEOOHRN?

What on earth is WHEOOHRN? Clearly I don't keep up with the abbreviations here...

Definitely Code of Laws next. The Philosophy grab-and-trade sounds like a very good idea too.

I'd be tempted to go for the Silver/Furs city sooner rather than later, simply because more population = more commerce. The problem right now is that we have several quite small-sized cities, which is the worst possible situation for commerce. We either want fewer small cities (not a good idea), or more large cities (a very good idea). Greater happiness = more tiles to work in all cities. Of course we should get Monarchy soon too, but having happiness provided from resources (which don't require an upkeep cost) is always helpful.