ALC Game #26: Willem van Oranje/Dutch

[nokem]

I've had alot less problems with barb galleys since I learned about spawnbusting.

I'd build the fish first because the barbs can't reach them. Fish + cows gives plenty of food. I'd send WBs #2 and #3 exploring and leave the clams for later. I hate having my seafood pillaged more than anything else in the world.

 

[Hero]

...

Three combats, a hut and a missionary could vary from 3 combat wins, a tech and a successful religion spread to 0 combat losses, a barbarian spawn and an unsuccessful religion spread just based on the order in which you take those actions.

3 combat wins = 0 combat losses

 

[Ultimocrat]

So, no responses to my idea about using "idle" worker turns in the WB(fish)-worker-WB sequence to farm the rice in the east? the page page has switched over, so I'm just making sure the point is noted. If horse appears in the second border pop region, it can also be pastured.

 

[sfnhltb]

Dunno, but when I did the wb (clams)/worker/wb sequence the worker wouldn't have had enough spare turns to even get to the rice before you want him back to start chopping. I guess if you go the fish route you get the worker earlier (1 more food) and the tech later (less commerce from the fish), so you probably have more spare turns, but irrigating rice before you even know if your next city is going to be over there seems to be a bit of a waste in the very early stages.

 

[madscientist]

As I understand, Barb Galleys don't start pillaging until after Sailing.

Also by the time it's pillage time Lord P should have grown to the happy cap and probably working the lake or coast instead of the clams.

 

[Lord Parkin]

LordParkin can you please post the 400BC save after settling and getting the hut? I would like to shadow with same hut result if possible. Thanks

Have you actually checked to make sure your result from the hut isn't the same as mine? As others have said, I can't see why it should be different. Let me know if you have problems, and I can post up the other save.

Build order:

I am tempted by WB(clams), worker, wb(fish)

The reason being the clams are used to get the worker, and increases tech by 3 commerce, which means that bronze working comes sooner - so you have less spare turns with the worker before chopping commences (4 turns - you could start farming the incense, although it wouldn't be completed by the time BW is available). The second population goes onto the first pasture increasing the second WB speed.

Sounds good. We can certainly deal with 4 turns of Worker downtime until Bronze Working. This makes me rather in favour of working the Clams first. (It's also relevant to note that comparing Clams to Fish, the Worker is only delayed by 3 turns working the Clams - and we get ~30 extra beakers.)

Wonders:
I find the problem with Colossus on a map with lots of islands is you often need to bee-line astronomy, so the advantage while useful is short lasting - and it only helps in your larger cities as the smaller ones don't work many sea squares. If you can put off astronomy for quite a while (pangea for example) it is a much more useful wonder. GLH means a boost for all your coastal cities as soon as you put them down, so is great for a coastal REX type strategy (as you can put down more cities before the maintenance costs get too much to be worthwhile) - and of course for the Dutch, this approach will pay off in the later game once Dikes start going down.

Good point that the Colossus will be less useful since we're intending on beelining Astronomy early. Still, it's sort of useful to deny the wonder to the AI's if possible. Then again, all this talk may be moot, because we're unlikely to get the Oracle (which would be needed for early Metal Casting). I guess we'll see what happens.

Getting a WB and worker will still leave time left on AH. I say leverage tech research speed a bit and go hunting/AH. Depending if you have horses or not you can immediately hit archery and feel alot safer while researching mining/BW. Archers make better fogbusters/city defenders although a bit more expensive. Then again I have always been an early archery fan.

Going for Hunting first delays Bronze Working though. And anyway, it hardly makes us "safer". If a barb turns up on our doorstep, then we'll have about 3 turns to respond. To research Archery and build an Archer would take at least 10 turns all up. So having Hunting doesn't make us any safer from barbs at all, IMHO.

Worker is build #2. Getting the hammers from cows while growing in population will help, and you can easily reassign them easily to the plains hills. You can also pop out a fast second worker and settler with pastuerized livestock!

Yeah, exactly - that's the other thing. WB -> WB -> Worker means that the two Cows will be delayed while we're building our next Worker or Settler. Whereas WB -> Worker -> WB would give us access to all 4 food resources by 1 turn after the third build. I think I'm definitely beginning to lean heavily in favour of WB -> Worker -> WB.

As has been noted, building the GLH will secure a win. That is not interesting to me.

Is there another path to take that will show case fin/cre UU/UB and still get a win?

I would be more interested in developing that strategy.

For me, these games should be primarily about showing off the UU and UB (as well as traits) for the different leaders. For Willem, there's no doubt that we can do that earliest (and best) if we can get Astronomy and Steam Power as early as possible. And for that, we need to take every economic boost we can.

Anyway, I disagree the GLH will "secure" a win - that's rather an exaggeration. And frankly, I don't think the object of this game should be to find "what's the most suboptimal strategy that we can take and still eke out a win?", because that's simply not as much fun from my perspective (and I'm sure from other peoples' too). I'm sure there are other games around here that play with that variant, but I don't think we'll be doing that here.

Did you actually use BUG3.6 for this save? When I open the game and press Alt-X to create a dotmap, nothing happens...

I used BUG3.6 in my Custom Assets folder. You can see that it's BUG from the screenshots. Not sure what could be causing your problem...

So, no responses to my idea about using "idle" worker turns in the WB(fish)-worker-WB sequence to farm the rice in the east? the page page has switched over, so I'm just making sure the point is noted. If horse appears in the second border pop region, it can also be pastured.

If there's time, improving the Rice would certainly be sensible. However, as others have noted, there actually may not be time to build the farm on the Rice before Bronze Working. We'll see how it turns out, though.

I'll play the first round later today.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Also by the time it's pillage time Lord P should have grown to the happy cap and probably working the lake or coast instead of the clams.

Uh... why? What point is there in working a 1-2 / 3 tile when you can work a 4 / 3 tile? Extra food is always useful, as it can be whipped away later if nothing else.

 

[madscientist]

Uh... why? What point is there in working a 1-2 / 3 tile when you can work a 4 / 3 tile? Extra food is always useful, as it can be whipped away later if nothing else.

This could be simply a leftover from my marathon speed thinking. I rarely whip as it never seams efficient at that speed, but here on epic it's much more useful.

What I mean is your population will max out at which point you will be avoiding city growth. Of course if you whip, then my comments do not matter.

 

[madscientist]

For me, these games should be primarily about showing off the UU and UB (as well as traits) for the different leaders. For Willem, there's no doubt that we can do that earliest (and best) if we can get Astronomy and Steam Power as early as possible. And for that, we need to take every economic boost we can.

Anyway, I disagree the GLH will "secure" a win - that's rather an exaggeration. And frankly, I don't think the object of this game should be to find "what's the most suboptimal strategy that we can take and still eke out a win?", because that's simply not as much fun from my perspective (and I'm sure from other peoples' too). I'm sure there are other games around here that play with that variant, but I don't think we'll be doing that here.

I agree about leveraging every edge for the ACL game and go for the GLH. Of course there are some of us mischief who enjoy a good challenge!

 

[CarelessTaffer]

Lord Parkin I appreciate a good debate. Your comments wre respectful and thats and thats all I ask of disagreement. Now as to the myst tech I forgot were creative, however I would just change my tech order to sailing then myst. As to Chariots I'm not saying don't build them Ijust think its too much to rely on them exclusivly. You could slip in archery if you fail to reveal nearby copper. I don't think your strategy is bad or even wrong. In fact it seems to be tried and true. In other words it works well. I propose an alternative method of equal value.
1. worker can build several roads after cows
2. work clams or fish(prefer) safe from barbs 2 cows PHF and lake or PHF more than adequate production.
3.Archers provide solid guaranteed defense chariots and axes rely on chance.
4. save forests to chop for double value i.e. library, coliseum, theatre, wonders
5. I want an early start on ligthhouse.
6. If horses are nearby I'll skip BW and go To HBR after writing.

I realize from reading these posts that I am the minority voice on this topic.
I respectfully request a 125 turn comparison challenge. To go further invites to many variables to come into play. Experience has taught me that you can play the map over with wildly different AI results. I ask this as a way to help others by either showing the usefullness of my plan or its failure. This is in no way intended to takeover, upstage, try and make you look like an ass or anything involving this game. my main reason is this, if the only way to play is the BW>CS>Lib route as these seem to be the holy grail of civ4 I don't want to play anymore.

also those turn figures are for epic speed hope their helpful

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

3.Archers provide solid guaranteed defense chariots and axes rely on chance.

Care to explain how axes "rely on chance"? They are better vs. any type of barbs than archers, better attackers and defenders. Unless you count the city garrison bonus, and well, you REALLY don't want to wait in your cities for barbs.

6. If horses are nearby I'll skip BW and go To HBR after writing.

Do you not whip? What will you do when you reach the cap? Stop working your powerful food tiles? You want an early lighthouse? Whip it, whip it good (or chop it)! I understand waiting to chop, I do this from time to time as well. But I agree with LP, BW is so powerful because it opens up SO many options, copper, whipping, chopping...and you aren't going to realize the full hammer potential of your hills in this game, as they are all forested.

 

[madscientist]

I agree about good civil debate! A few comments on your comments

.
1. worker can build several roads after cows

he needs the wheel technology though

2. work clams or fish(prefer) safe from barbs 2 cows PHF and lake or PHF more than adequate production.

unsure here, what is PHF?

3.Archers provide solid guaranteed defense chariots and axes rely on chance.

I agree on archer value and I understand the chance comment (dependant on finding the resources). However both BW and AH will get something useful, cows pastuerized and the option to chop/whip.

4. save forests to chop for double value i.e. library, coliseum, theatre, wonders

Library yes, wonders maybe (Immortal is tough there), theaters/collesiums are cheap enough and come much later than something like Monarchy for Heritary Rule. Also it depends on the local neighbors.

5. I want an early start on ligthhouse.

We all do but we need basics and defense first.

6. If horses are nearby I'll skip BW and go To HBR after writing.

BW offers chopping and slavery, more valuable than copper sometimes. I sometimes tech HBR before Iron Working but never BW.

 

[Gliese 581]

Technically, fogbusting and spawnbusting achieve the same goal.
However, spawnbusting abuses the knowledge that no unit whatsoever may spawn in a 5x5 square around any unit of a civilization, including another barbarian (iIrc). Meaning you can 'fogbust' with less units - and even get away with just warriors.

The difference is that fogbusting prevents barbs from settling cities so sometimes it's worth it to cover a smaller or less ideal area in order to make sure that a desired expansion spot is not blocked by a barb settlement.

 

[Krill]

unsure here, what is PHF?

= Plains/Hill/Forest

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This could be simply a leftover from my marathon speed thinking. I rarely whip as it never seams efficient at that speed, but here on epic it's much more useful.

What I mean is your population will max out at which point you will be avoiding city growth. Of course if you whip, then my comments do not matter.

People have told you this before, but whipping is no less efficient on marathon than any other speed, with the exception of very early units that can't go for 2 pop due to the 50% unit production bonus multiplicative with all other modifiers...but then catapults and horse archers are even better off.

The higher yield tile is always better, just like he said...it tends to get whipped.

One thing I noticed recently is that you can get a city to build "nothing", only better because it banks the hammers! Using the governor to select your build...if it runs out of buildings some governor settings will make it just turn "black bar"...the city accrues hammers that can be changed into anything instantly! Haha!

I agree about leveraging every edge for the ACL game

Somewhere, Tom Brady just cringed.

I agree on archer value and I understand the chance comment (dependant on finding the resources). However both BW and AH will get something useful, cows pastuerized and the option to chop/whip.

Agreed, and water maps tend to make it excessively easy to defeat or lock-out barbs with only warriors.

BW offers chopping and slavery, more valuable than copper sometimes. I sometimes tech HBR before Iron Working but never BW.

I was surprised to see DaveMCW show up in an emperor cookbook. He definitely went writing and HBR before BW. Then by the end of the BC's segment he had double digit cities and essentially won already. The keshik is a good unit, as I'm sure you'll agree .

Still, it's hard to put BW off too long with a seafood start like this, and the commerce should help him get away with not going straight research early.

 

[Soirana]

I was surprised to see DaveMCW show up in an emperor cookbook. He definitely went writing and HBR before BW. Then by the end of the BC's segment he had double digit cities and essentially won already. The keshik is a good unit, as I'm sure you'll agree .

he went also alpha before BW and backfilled with trading it arround... this can be done without Keshiks idfyou trade [or bulb] for math and beeline coinstruction...

 

[shyuhe]

I'd WB -- fish over clams. Food is generally more important than commerce early on so that you get those settlers and workers out faster. Just toss in a fogbusting warrior if you're worried about an idle worker.

 

[madscientist]

@MIT

you are probably right, many times I have been told that . Don't get wrong, I do use the whip at marathon but never early in a game at the "When to research BW" phase because I know I am missing out on the early military! Consider it a middle age mindset!

Note to all ALC futue players, just ignore anything old MadScientists ever says in the future regarding slavery!

 

[Lord Parkin]

Lord Parkin I appreciate a good debate. Your comments wre respectful and thats and thats all I ask of disagreement. Now as to the myst tech I forgot were creative, however I would just change my tech order to sailing then myst.

But what point is there in getting Mysticism at all that early? It's a tech which we don't need, and should be able to back-trade for after Alphabet (with a bit of luck). I'm guessing that you want Mysticism to get the slight research modifier on Masonry - however, I personally disagree with doing that (as I disagreed with Hunting -> Animal Husbandry). I think it's better to get a much-needed tech ASAP than try to get all research modifiers and end up taking a lot longer. Especially on the higher difficulty levels where time is so important, and it's usually possible to back-fill the early techs later (after Alphabet).

As to Chariots I'm not saying don't build them Ijust think its too much to rely on them exclusivly.

Well, obviously at some point we'll want some variety - without metal units we won't go very far in the long run. But in the short term, if we have Horses in the early game then Chariots will do us just fine for a while.

1. worker can build several roads after cows

Not without The Wheel...

3.Archers provide solid guaranteed defense chariots and axes rely on chance.

Erm... as someone else has said, Axes are definitely better than Archers. And I would argue that Chariots are too, since Archers do badly against other Archers, and Chariots are definitely superior against Axes.

4. save forests to chop for double value i.e. library, coliseum, theatre, wonders

It makes very little difference if we do this. Either way, chop or not, we get the +100% production bonus on those buildings. And as someone else has said, the Colosseum and Theatre are exceptionally late buildings to consider saving forests for...

5. I want an early start on ligthhouse.

Sure, so does everyone.

6. If horses are nearby I'll skip BW and go To HBR after writing.

I disagree, BW is still very useful even aside from Copper, for reasons mentioned above by others.

I realize from reading these posts that I am the minority voice on this topic.
I respectfully request a 125 turn comparison challenge. To go further invites to many variables to come into play. Experience has taught me that you can play the map over with wildly different AI results. I ask this as a way to help others by either showing the usefullness of my plan or its failure. This is in no way intended to takeover, upstage, try and make you look like an ass or anything involving this game. my main reason is this, if the only way to play is the BW>CS>Lib route as these seem to be the holy grail of civ4 I don't want to play anymore.

Sure, you (as with everyone else!) are welcome to play through the same game and compare how you do. In fact, I encourage it! However, please do start a separate thread for it, so as not to introduce spoilers or interrupt the flow of this game.

also those turn figures are for epic speed hope their helpful

Yeah, thanks. I'm already fairly familiar with when the AI tends to build many of the early wonders on Epic/Immortal, but good to have your input too.

The difference is that fogbusting prevents barbs from settling cities so sometimes it's worth it to cover a smaller or less ideal area in order to make sure that a desired expansion spot is not blocked by a barb settlement.

Hmm... but connecting the two statements made on this subject (barbarian units can't spawn 2 tiles from any non-barbarian unit, yet barbarian cities can), there seems to be an inconsistency. If a barbarian city were to spawn 2 tiles from a unit, would it have no units inside it? If so, that would be a major freebie for whoever was nearest. If not, then the initial statement that barbarian units can't spawn 2 tiles from any non-barbarian unit is incorrect.

One thing I noticed recently is that you can get a city to build "nothing", only better because it banks the hammers! Using the governor to select your build...if it runs out of buildings some governor settings will make it just turn "black bar"...the city accrues hammers that can be changed into anything instantly! Haha!

Heh, that's interesting. I think I've run into that before myself, although I seem to remember that after a time the hammers stopped accruing. (Or maybe that was a different patch/version.)

I was surprised to see DaveMCW show up in an emperor cookbook. He definitely went writing and HBR before BW. Then by the end of the BC's segment he had double digit cities and essentially won already. The keshik is a good unit, as I'm sure you'll agree .

Still, it's hard to put BW off too long with a seafood start like this, and the commerce should help him get away with not going straight research early.

Sounds like an interesting game. Got a link?

 

[Lord Parkin]

By the way guys, I've played the first round. It's taking longer than I thought to write up though, and it's bedtime here, so I'll finish up the write-up in the morning.