ALC Game #24: Hammurabi/Babylon

[Northpole'r]

My only gripe about HR is that if you switch into it, garrison up, and then get DoWed by somebody before you can get alternate sources of happiness you'll be worse off than when you started. It's no fun getting caught between a garrison you can't move because it'll cause your city to riot and a neighbor who has their own SoD coming your way.

Am I missing something here?

I've had this happen to me before and I've taken that unhappy pop and it into a nice (and fast ) standing army which helps to make the aggressor regret every DoWing me. I feel that the extra unhappy citizens are just waiting to be whipped if you are forced to withdraw troops from a city while running HR. Yes it will cost you one or two extra unhappy faces to bring your population down but that usually isn't nation wide for me. And the benefits of HR are hard to turn down since I always have at least one unit in all of my cities at ALL times. So that's at least one free in all my cities (even if I am being invaded... actually... especially when I'm being invaded ). This is at the same upkeep cost as Despotism so as I see it there are no drawbacks unless you have REP which I tend to prefer over HR.

How can this lead to being worse off than when you were in despotism?

 

[Zanttu]

How come I see no one pointing currency as a high-priority research target? AI's don't have it yet (making it as a trading bait) and Sisiutil has both pre-req's (for discounts on the beaker cost)... Not to mention 6 new trade routes. I would research currency immediately.

 

[Rubbaduck]

How come I see no one pointing currency as a high-priority research target? AI's don't have it yet (making it as a trading bait) and Sisiutil has both pre-req's (for discounts on the beaker cost)... Not to mention 6 new trade routes. I would research currency immediately.

Definately a high-priority, but IF we're going to run CS then monarchy is a more logcal choice for the happiness.

 

[schwartz]

Definately a high-priority, but IF we're going to run CS then monarchy is a more logcal choice for the happiness.

Nope, tech currency and trade for Monarchy (+), can still run CS + HR but you get more effective
Zanttu has the right idea here, Currency is a huge tech priority.

 

[Validator]

Sisiutil already has Monarchy. It was one of the techs he got in trade for Philosophy from Justinian.

 

[schwartz]

Sisiutil already has Monarchy. It was one of the techs he got in trade for Philosophy from Justinian.

I missed that somehow..

More points for currency, then
Looking forward to the next round!

 

[oyzar]

You can't afford to focus on military at this point... Just win lib while expanding peacefully on the rest of the land, then kill someone with rifles...

 

[CivCorpse]

You can't afford to focus on military at this point... Just win lib while expanding peacefully on the rest of the land, then kill someone with rifles...

The problem is Sal might want peace for that long. Sis is only+2 diplomatically with him and once the available land is gobbled up he will want to expand again. I don't recall seeing any of daruius roops wandering through in any of the screenshots so he is probably on another landmass. sis is the closest target.
We can't count on bulbing super-tradable techs to stay even with the Ai. Sis is being outteched by the Ai. So winning the lib race is not guaranteed.
To leverage Babylon's Org trait (what the ALCS is all about) he needs a larger empire. And he can get that with Hammy's other trait...aggressive. Besides when there is no war in the offerings, we have to wait weeks at a time for updates.

 

[huerfanista]

Besides when there is no war in the offerings, we have to wait weeks at a time for updates.

Too true!

 

[azzaman333]

The economy needs to recover before another war will be profitable though. Sis is only running at 10%, he doesn't have the economy to win a war at the moment. While the medium-term goal should be to eliminate Saladin, until his economy is stronger the primary short term goal he should have is building infrastructure.

EDIT: I think Aesthetics -> Lit and build the Great Library would be a fairly sound strategy with Marble, for the increased science and greatly increased GP points.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

1. trading col usually is good to be avoided; it's incredible how much it slows them down the lack of courthouses. And usually after it's founded, they don't research it till way later.
2. if trading col is to be avoided, philo is a nono trade! And definitelly not for monarchy/calendar... Philo opens lib/nat; philo is researched... post islam and all the crap usually if the religion was founded(ok, darius will go for lib., but beside him - plus you might want to trade him aesthetics fast, so he builds spaya, so he goes fr, so he doesn't bother with lib.). At worst, you trade it for feud/cs/machinery(with mc turn before). All that while putting 1 turn in each so the trade is ok and you get some cash.

Honestly... was like: col for alpha, sally; col monarchy, justinian; alpha maths darius; and stop. Aesthetics(you have marble and 2 capitols... really, parth and glib should be there). At aesthetics, part research calendar, part construction, milk aesthetics(calendar, construction, iw, stop); but keep philo...

You really didn't need calendar when you must go hr anyway...

3. you'll hit wfybta in no time with this trading; why get masonry? **** masonry... you have here 5 and 10 techs people(wfybta wise...).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=206578

ragnar - 5; sally - 10; darius - 10 I think; justinian - 10; 1 was masonry...

and ragnar is the only one you can easily get to friendly with religion/hr; it's not like you'll run theo too soon, at least because probably it'll be a long while till you'll have the prereqs. Without theo, justinian/sally will get to friendly, but even 2 mis steps and you're out(you'll have +8 from religion, +1 from years of peace, hopefully +2 from each "our open borders" and "years you supplied"). With justinian you're just about to eat -2 from refusing to stop trading and refusing to join war when ragnar will declare on him.

Plus you just don't want theo as there'll be eons till you'll war again...

4. hr the second you got it... it's +5 diplo with ragnar at same maintenance... even if you'd have infinite happiness... it's not like barbarism gives you any bonuses... Leaving aside you'll be the odd man out who doesn't have this bonus with ragnar...

5. you're perfectly safe... sally is a nice chum and ragnar will attack justinian anyway...

6. expand; now! You'll always find something better to do, and then you'll wonder why those new cities have 0 infrastructure... well, it's because you just built them Go east, block sally(he probably won't settle behind you, just make sure you wait on the barbarian city and raze it after sally softens it up(or whoever, all ais love to get the city half the map from their capitol). Grab the spice/gold(you have calendar now ) and park a settler so you plant the pig/fish far east when it's the barbs are gone.

 

[CmdrGoob]

There's another ~4 civs out there on other continents, though, so by the time he hits wfyabta, he'll be able to make contact with them, and they won't know about his previous tech trades. So he can get away with tech trading to the max now and then finding new partners when the current ones hit wfyabta.

 

[jerVL/kg]

There's another ~4 civs out there on other continents, though, so by the time he hits wfyabta, he'll be able to make contact with them, and they won't know about his previous tech trades. So he can get away with tech trading to the max now and then finding new partners when the current ones hit wfyabta.

Good point.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

ofc., but there's no guarantee the other continent will be too advanced; especially since:

1. this one grabbed all the religions; and theo will be grabbed by either justinian or sally due to fav. civic. So the other will be prone to warring;
2. usually the human continent is more advanced; since you act like a proxy and speed up the pace as you trade with everyone regardless of sharing religion with you or not

 

[jerVL/kg]

ofc., but there's no guarantee the other continent will be too advanced; especially since:

1. this one grabbed all the religions; and theo will be grabbed by either justinian or sally due to fav. civic. So the other will be prone to warring;
2. usually the human continent is more advanced; since you act like a proxy and speed up the pace as you trade with everyone regardless of sharing religion with you or not

The most recent "Advanced Civilizations" notice (in 335 BC) went like this:
1. Unknown
2. Unknown
3. Darius
4. Unknown
5. Unknown
6. Saladin
7. Ragnar
8. Sisiutil
9. Unknown

Justin is either #4 or #5, so there are two AI's somewhere that are more advanced than Darius. So yeah, I think there will be trading opportunities down the road...if we don't fall too far behind.

 

[Lord Chambers]

You're right you're right. Avoid Growth does have it's place. Just like baiting enemy horse archers with Great People, just like pillaging your own resources so no one demands them, just like choosing Sailing with your Liberalism tech. It's true, doing all these things is situational.

But it's . .. .. .. .ing stupid. Avoid Growth is a sign that you're not managing your city properly. If it's a Hammer city, work tiles that give you hammers. If it's a commerce city, work a cottage. "Switching tiles worked to avoid growth in a cottaged commerce city would require switching them off of cottages thus reducing the effectiveness of the city." Negative soldat, if you have plains, work the plains cottage. If you have hills work the hills cottage. If you find a city that somehow is nothing but floodplains you have the unhealthiness to combat with a food surplus. Run a . .. .. .. .ing specialist. Honestly, the chance you have a city with so much food you can't reduce its intake and have no utility for 3 beakers specialists is 1/1000 games. And in that game, in that single city on the map which has this problem, let it have an unhappy citizen. That's not going to impact your civic costs and he'll be instantly available the turn you secure a new health resource.

Lets stop pretending everything has it's place in Civ4. Avoid Growth is in the game so that beginners don't get a feeling that all their cities are helplessly going red faced. "Avoid growth" means "throw the extra food in the river." It has no place on Immortal.

Along with 1 food 2 commerce costal tiles. Mine some hills man.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Avoid Growth does have the occasional good use. I used it for about 15-20 turns in a city of population 22 (or thereabouts) in the Industrial ages in my current game (the same one that I'm writing up in this forum). The city in question had no way to secure extra happiness or health resources in the next few turns, no happiness/healthiness buildings left to build, and was at +1 food per turn and about to grow. Allowing that city to grow would have created an immediate -2 food per turn for those 15-20 turns. I preferred to turn on Avoid Growth and save the food in the Granary, than the alternative of the city potentially starving back down again, leaving no spare food in the Granary.

You're right that Avoid Growth is very, very infrequently useful. But it does have the (very occasional) use, so I'm not complaining as to its presence.

 

[CivCorpse]

You're right you're right. Avoid Growth does have it's place. Just like baiting enemy horse archers with Great People, just like pillaging your own resources so no one demands them, just like choosing Sailing with your Liberalism tech. It's true, doing all these things is situational.

But it's . .. .. .. .ing stupid. Avoid Growth is a sign that you're not managing your city properly. If it's a Hammer city, work tiles that give you hammers. If it's a commerce city, work a cottage. "Switching tiles worked to avoid growth in a cottaged commerce city would require switching them off of cottages thus reducing the effectiveness of the city." Negative soldat, if you have plains, work the plains cottage. If you have hills work the hills cottage. If you find a city that somehow is nothing but floodplains you have the unhealthiness to combat with a food surplus. Run a . .. .. .. .ing specialist. Honestly, the chance you have a city with so much food you can't reduce its intake and have no utility for 3 beakers specialists is 1/1000 games. And in that game, in that single city on the map which has this problem, let it have an unhappy citizen. That's not going to impact your civic costs and he'll be instantly available the turn you secure a new health resource.

Lets stop pretending everything has it's place in Civ4. Avoid Growth is in the game so that beginners don't get a feeling that all their cities are helplessly going red faced. "Avoid growth" means "throw the extra food in the river." It has no place on Immortal.

Along with 1 food 2 commerce costal tiles. Mine some hills man.

Jungle infested city location early in the game and no hills. Only reason you have this city so early without an army or workers to quickly chop it, is because it is a nice juicy spot and the AI is close by. Don't have the population to whip a library yet and am working my workers to the bone trying to clear jungle and put down cottages. Wonderful happy cap of 4 and working my 4 cottages and here comes the next growth. Whatever shall i do? if I listen to you I will work 1 food zero production zero commerce jungle tiles. Or maybe I should run a worker citizen for the whopping one big hammer. That sounds much better than working cottages. i am so glad you cam along to help me out. Whatever would I have done without you?
Of course you being the super player that you are...you have teched Monarchy by 3550BC so avoiding growth is never an issue.

 

[kazapp]

Don't settle marginal cities at high cost just to beat Saladin...

If you plan on going to war with him soon, why not hope he will settle your cities for you? (If the city is truly marginal, it won't help his war effort to any measurable degree)

You could use the blue circles to anticipate if the AI will settle in a reasonable or stupid location, right?

 

[CivCorpse]

Don't settle marginal cities at high cost just to beat Saladin...

If you plan on going to war with him soon, why not hope he will settle your cities for you? (If the city is truly marginal, it won't help his war effort to any measurable degree)

You could use the blue circles to anticipate if the AI will settle in a reasonable or stupid location, right?

Taking extra cities means a longer war and more time spent building units instead of infrastructure. The long war with monty almost sunk the Lincoln game.