ALC Game #7: Frederick/Germany

[Sisiutil]

Yeesh, this is getting hard to follow. Math was never my favourite subject in school, gang, and time has not improved my disposition towards it. I'll probably just end up fumbling my way through it like I usually do and let everyone say, "You did WHAT!?!?!?!!" afterwards.

Remember you are talkin' to a guy who pulled off a Machinery slingshot without resorting to partnership with a calculator.

Er...once, anyway.

Long story short, I better get on with the game before this discussion collapses under its own weight, creates a quantum singularity, and sucks us all in. I like you guys, but I don't relish being stuck on some event horizon with you for eternity.

 

[Araqiel]

You're my new best freind.

*starts up warlords*

I'm going to do the same in 15 minutes.

 

[Betafor]

Yeesh, this is getting hard to follow. Math was never my favourite subject in school, gang, and time has not improved my disposition towards it.

Aww, but civ4 is 99.5% math! and it's not even hard 1 2 3 A B C. Well, you know what they say (actually just me)(actually i this is the first time i've said it), no one can force you to micromanage!

I better get on with the game before this discussion collapses under its own weight, creates a quantum singularity, and sucks us all in.

Black holes pwn. But inconvient. So i would agree with getting on with the game

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 1: to 3400 BC

Enough talk. Let's see action, let's see people, let's see freedom, let's see who cares...

Whoops, considering that I'm following Eggman's script, that's the wrong 60s band to be quoting.

I founded Berlin on the plains hill 2W of the start:

I immediately began building a Worker, and started researching Agriculture on my next turn. The city's first citizen worked the unpastured cow tile. The one thing Eggman has not prescriped is movement of the Scout, so I began by sending him northwest, then began moving him in a clockwise circle around the capital.

While my Scout was out for a look-see, another one appeared.

Well, that's a bit of a relief. Cyrus I can get along with. Long term, since he's also Creative, expands like crazy, is obviously nearby, and is a tech fiend, he'll be trouble, but in the short term, I can live with him.

Now if you check the map behind Cyrus, you'll notice that the food tile we all were hoping for appeared--a rice tile, just outside Berlin's fat cross. I still don't think this is the worst start I've had--the Mao and Louis starts come to mind--but it will be challenging for the strategy we want to employ.

However, my luck wasn't all bad. My Scout found the east coast, and a goody hut. Look what he popped it for:

YES!! One of the techs on our list. That should help a little. I also finished researching Agriculture in 7 turns, then started on the Wheel.

Berlin's border expansion revealed another goody hut just south and a little west. You can just see it in the Cyrus screenshot above. If you check how close Cyrus' Scout is to it, you can understand that I was worried that he'd get there before me. But amazingly, the hut remained, my Scout scooted over there, and lo and behold...

Now gang, I swear I did not save and reload to pop those huts! I played honestly, and that's what the huts gave me--two techs, both on our list! Not only that, but guess what I have in Berlin's fat cross:

HORSES!! On grassland! 2F/3H/1C, +1 health! Chariots!



Now obviously this changes things. When my worker completed in Berlin, I sent him to the cow tile, but to build a pasture, not a farm. That will obviously accelerate Berlin's growth and build times, so it throws off Eggman's detailed plan, but in a good way. Eggman could either write another one or leave me to figure out how to incorporate this good fortune into his existing one. The extra hammers make pasturing the horses a good idea, I think--worth substituting for a forest chop into Eggman's plan.

Now here's the map as revealed by 3400 BC:

See what I have to the south? That's right, stone! With a crab tile nearby to boot. And to our north, gold, cows, and rice. This looks promising for my 3rd and 4th cities.

The Scout has finished exploring the east coast (he went back east after the AH hut, when a lion appeared to the west ). I will likely send him northwest next. It looks like Cyrus' Scout came from the west then headed south through the tundra, so I'm hoping to find another goody hut or two up there. Even if I don't, I'll reveal more terrain, which is always valuable.

There is a wee complication for Hamburg: no additional food tiles if it goes on the plains hill 3E/1N of Berlin. If Hamburg goes on the plains coast & river tile 3E of the capital, however, it gains a clam tile...but it loses the ability to share the cow tile with Berlin.

So how do we incorporate all of this into our plans? If it was just me, I'd move Hamburg to the coast for better long-term viability. I'd build a third city down near the stone and crab, maybe 1NE of the stone for a fresh water bonus too. (That city can't get both the silver and the crabs, unfortunately; I always prioritize food over other resources in that sort of situation.) And I'd build a fourth city somewhere up near the gold once I've explored it a little more thoroughly. I'd work on getting the stone hooked up quickly for the Pyramids, and I'd be building Chariots as my early protective units.

However, a lot of that may not be conducive to our goal of early Pyramids and a specialist economy. Eggman has said that stone, for example, may not help build the Pyramids as much as using the Oracle, Metal Casting, a forge, and a GE, all of which requires strict Worker tasks. So I look forward to everyone's input and guidance.

 

[Sisiutil]

Aww, but civ4 is 99.5% math!

Technically, computers are all about math. Everything a computer does is based upon seven mathematical operations: add, subtract, multiply, divide, greater than, less than, equal to. Everything. Makes me wonder why I like the damn things so much...

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

There is a wee complication for Hamburg: no additional food tiles if it goes on the plains hill 3E/1N of Berlin. If Hamburg goes on the plains coast & river tile 3E of the capital, however, it gains a clam tile...but it loses the ability to share the cow tile with Berlin.

I think Eggman will suggest building Hamburg on the plains hill 3N,1W. That will let it use the rice (though maybe not immediately depending on when Berlin's borders are going to expand), any number of grassland farms, and eventually mined gold. The main problem with your coastal location is that it's more than 3 tiles away from Berlin, which means it will cost you some upkeep, which means you'll need to dial down the research slider, which means you won't complete the necessary research as quickly.

Of course, the disadvantage to the closer location is overlap, but with the food deficit you have in Berlin, that's really more of an advantage in this game. There's no way Berlin is going to work all of its tiles without a ridiculous number of farms, so you might as well share some of the land with a neighboring city and get some use out of it.

Side note: If you had settled in place at the start, you would have gained ivory but lost the horses. Also, Berlin would have been awkwardly close to the coastline, making the clams a difficult grab. I'd say you're better off for the move.

 

[Eqqman]

Holy Cow!!!

I can't think of a better pair of techs to get popped from goody huts, and the local resources have definitely redeemed themselves. I won't write up anything else quite so detailed on how you can best maximize your results, it's not my name on the ALC brand label and I'm sure your own good judgement and the community opinion will be excellent. You can use what I did lay out as a guideline for the tasks you'll have to perform if you still shoot for MC/P.

One thing I've run into is that a surfeit of good luck can actually spoil things a little. You'll start slipping in extra things like a military unit you wouldn't have bought or use a tree to chop a Worker/Settler that would have gone to a building later. Suddenly you find you've somehow actually ran behind your goal.

Since Berlin is going to have great production and growth from the Horses + Cows, I would probably do Bronze Working immediately and now use a tree to chop out the Settler. Hamburg I would now consider founding south of the Gold. Frederick's culture will soon give you the Rice which will be worth waiting for. An earlier founding of Hamburg will make up for the fact that it doesn't have the kinds of tiles I prefer such a city to have in its first ring. My cautious nature tells me to continue to keep the second city close. Saving Worker turns with short travel times is helpful, and it helps keep the Barbarian activity down (maybe this is not so much of a concern on Prince).

I'd anticipate the advice coming from others will be Bronze Working + Masonry and founding Hamburg to get the Stone with direct production of Pyramids. This is obviously perfectly fine but I think a player has more net advantage in their corner if they went with a really strong MC/P than just making the Pyramids.

 

[Eqqman]

I think Eggman will suggest building Hamburg on the plains hill 3N,1W. That will let it use the rice (though maybe not immediately depending on when Berlin's borders are going to expand), any number of grassland farms, and eventually mined gold.

That's not a bad site either. I was thinking that tree might still need to be saved to chop the Forge, and long-term I'd rather have a hill to improve than a plains. But you can get a Watermill on that later I suppose and on the hill you've got one less desert tile. On the hill you'll still have 3-4 trees available to chop the Forge out when needed but they will all be farther away from the city which can cause delay troubles if they aren't roaded. On the plains I see 4 trees right next to the city site- quite convenient. The Rice is going to be a big help, Hamburg might then easily get to size 3 which will allow continued development while it runs an Engineer.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

I agree with eggman in that the MC slingshot will be better then the stone.

+
>you take advantage of the philisophical trait
>you free the production form the city building the pyrimids, letting it produce say, chariots.
>the second GE that Dr Elmer Jiggle calculated you would get would help a lot with the GL
>the second city could go by the gold/rice/cow spot for some early commerce

-
>you now run the risk of being beaten to 2 wonders
>less tech flexability
>less worker flexability

this is from what I can see, if someone more experianced wants to wiegh in I would apreciate that.

 

[Araqiel]

Its a risk reward situation. Oracle/MC/GE/Pyramid sequence has a pretty high probablilty of going wrong compared to hooking up stone and just building the pyramids. This is of course balanced by the gain of an extra technology and wonder. As well as a hammer advantage because you avoid putting in 225 hammers into pyramids. (assuming you'd get stone in the other case)

I say go for the oracle method. Building the pyramids normally with stone to leverage your philosophical trait is fairly boring. Not to mention I have utter faith that even should your experiment go wrong you'll still win the game handily.

 

[Eqqman]

One last thing, since you got Mysticism for free I'd replace Meditation with Polytheism so you have a faster eventual path to Literature.

 

[Sisiutil]

One thing I've run into is that a surfeit of good luck can actually spoil things a little. You'll start slipping in extra things like a military unit you wouldn't have bought or use a tree to chop a Worker/Settler that would have gone to a building later. Suddenly you find you've somehow actually ran behind your goal.

I agree, so I'll still be following your plan closely with as few variations as possible, and I'll be posting updates after fewer turns to verify my progress. The goal here is to illustrate the MC/Pyramids gambit, so that's what I'll stick with.

The Wheel is a mere 2 turns from completion, and Bronze Working is next on the tech list (after Mysticism, which I now have), so that's where I'm headed next.

I think that after the pasture is complete I'll change the plan by pasturing the horses and building a road to it, then chopping the Settler if the remaining turns justify it. My thinking is that in the production time between the Settler and an Obelisk or Barracks (I prefer the latter), where you suggested two 15 hammer units, I'll insert a single 25-hammer chariot. Likewise for the build between the Worker and the Forge in Hamburg. Then I have a unit that can do a little exploration and return home to do some initial barb-busting. It's either that or start (but not finish) a Settler for the other cities.

Here's a dotmap based on your suggestions, and my own. I moved the 4th coastal city to avoid overlap with Berlin, as it already has more than enough of that with Hamburg. The wine tile would remain outside any city's fat cross, but with the Creative trait, will be within my cultural borders soon enough:

One thing missing from your plan posts but which I'm surmising is that both the Oracle and the Pyramids are getting built in Berlin. Or am I wrong about that?

 

[Eqqman]

One thing missing from your plan posts but which I'm surmising is that both the Oracle and the Pyramids are getting built in Berlin. Or am I wrong about that?

*has heart attack*

That's the whole crux of the argument of when and how many GP/GE's you end up getting that popped up in this thread. It's vital you don't pollute your Great Person pools with mixed sources. So the Oracle goes into Berlin, and the Forge + Pyramids go into Hamburg. Later on when the Great Library is up for consideration, there will be some flexibility on where that goes. The GS points will quickly swamp any other source in the city, but it might be best to find a good spot for a GP farm to have unpolluted science points. I'd expect Futurehermit to have some opinions on this since it's one of the key elements of setting up his specialist econ. Along with the other features of the MC plan, you can continue to run the Engineer in the Pyramids city, with the GPP boost from Pyramids, you'll soon enough have a 2nd GE to burn on the Great Library. Whether you shoot for a 3rd GE will be up for debate. You could also try to build the Hanging Gardens direct in Hamburg to try and squeeze out even a 4th GE but I'm not sure that would work out, since you'll be expected to be churning out GSs instead.

A concern might be if Cyrus beats you to city site #3, but if he does, the Ivory from city site #4 will allow your War Elephants to show him what a mistake that was.

 

[cabert]

now we see game!
so much luck is surely hiding something! Checked your wife's agenda lately?

however, i'm reaallly glad we have HA now! And horses!
I smelled them, i must say
with the wheel, you'll have chariots that pretty cover your back against barbs.

About the dot map, i think the numbers are right (and elephants are cool!) if you follow the oracle + pyramids path. I still think it's very much useless to go for meditation or polytheism without grabbing a religion, but i won't argue more than i already did. So be it.
Only thing is n°2. Don't you want that cow to the north?
I wanted a high food city. Here it is, if you push you n°2 NE( ie 1 tile E of the gold). Cow + rice +gold =

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

That's the whole crux of the argument of when and how many GP/GE's you end up getting that popped up in this thread. It's vital you don't pollute your Great Person pools with mixed sources. So the Oracle goes into Berlin, and the Forge + Pyramids go into Hamburg. Later on when the Great Library is up for consideration, there will be some flexibility on where that goes.

Surely you want the Library in the GP Farm, intending to mix in Oxford and a bunch of attached specialists?

I'm wondering if site 2 is suitable for the farm and whether we should care if the engineer points get mixed with the science points. It looks as though there's at least one floodplain there, and perhaps more available to the west. More scouting needed, but 2 is the best available GP city right now; it might be better long term to move it west slightly, and pair the rice with the cows in a city north of Berlin.

 

[cabert]

If i may say one more thing :
cultural is about having 3 big cities
You're going to build an early wonder in your capital (a, not o )
If you rush-build the pyramids in city n°2, that's 2 good culture city.
So a good move maybe to found city n°3 early enough to connect the stone and build a "late" stonehenge in the capital and the great library in n°3. It's not going to be a high food city but with the 2 free scientists and the crabs, you may very well have a good foot on the cultural path.

Spoiler :

I still mourn the GSs supposed to fuel your SE.
If I understand it well, the basic thing of a SE is a city with an academy where you add as superspecialists the second and third GS.
Here, you'll probably have 2 GE before the first GS. Meaning you're going to build an academy roughly 20 turns after the GL, and then you're going to wait 400 GPP to get a second GS.
400 GPP with the great library alone= 25 turns. If you add one more scientist (hopefully you will), it's still 19 turns. If you add a second scientist (possible with the crabs) you're down to 15 turns.
But that's 15 turns after the 20 turns for the academy.
I fear you won't be able to fuel the research through those late specialists = need to work good tiles.
Gold is your life saver, here. Crabs are quite too = need fishing tech soon (before pottery is better because you get a bonus to the research).

 

[Jet]

This seems like a challenging start for a specialist economy. The first 4 cities each have to be built around only a single food resource. But at least they all have rivers for farming. Anyway, the challenge makes it educational!

I'd build a third city down near the stone and crab, maybe 1NE of the stone for a fresh water bonus too. (That city can't get both the silver and the crabs, unfortunately; I always prioritize food over other resources in that sort of situation.)

How about putting City #3 right on the stone and setting it up as a science city? The Stone site would give it 2 free production, and both sites have fresh water, no? With the free production, you could probably get away with running one more scientist rather than working a production tile. Hopefully the city would only have to build food/science/happy/health buildings. The initial workboat/granary/library/lighthouse could be chopped/whipped, and later it could temporarily switch specialists to production tiles if something had to get built quickly. In the short term the Stone site provides 2 more farmable grass tiles, and in the long term its total food yield is something like 2-5 higher, depending on whether the tile S-SE of the stone is flat or hilled, and on whether the game lasts long enough for Biology and/or State Property. What do y'all think?

Along with the other features of the MC plan, you can continue to run the Engineer in the Pyramids city, with the GPP boost from Pyramids, you'll soon enough have a 2nd GE to burn on the Great Library.

Hmmm... wouldn't that force Sisiutil to delay when he starts Representin' scientists in Cities #3 and #4? I guess he could Represent just one in each city until GPP-wise it was safe to add the second. But since he's going for a specialist strategy, maybe it'd be better to go all out with the scientists as soon as he gets Representation?

 

[cabert]

Hmmm... wouldn't that force Sisiutil to delay when he starts Representin' scientists in Cities #3 and #4? I guess he could Represent just one in each city until GPP-wise it was safe to add the second. But since he's going for a specialist strategy, maybe it'd be better to go all out with the scientists as soon as he gets Representation?

exactly my point

 

[Jet]

exactly my point

Oh, I see. And you went farther, to argue that even farming the *first* GE may impose an unacceptable delay on when Sisiutil can begin to run scientists. (No?)

On the other hand, it will anyway take time to develop cities 3 and 4 with a workboat/granary/library/lighthouse, and to grow to maximum size. If they develop to that state before the Pyramids are ready, they could still run scientists until *just before* a GS is popped, and then *stop* until the first GE is popped.

Farming the first GE does delay the first academy and the first settled scientist, but if it brings Representation earlier, that of course is a balance against the loss. And I have to admit, none of the 4 one-food-resource sites that we see on the map now looks like a very good super-science site. Maybe it's better to wait for a better site anyway.

On the whole, I think I agree with you. Here, I suspect it would be more optimal to just build the Pyramids, because Sisiutil has strong production sites and stone (which he can hook up quickly, by building a city on the stone tile and building three roads); and to use the GP pool only for scientists. But personally, I prefer that ALCs pursue interesting strategies rather than hyper-optimal ones.

 

[cabert]

Oh, I see. And you went farther, to argue that even farming the *first* GE may impose an unacceptable delay on when Sisiutil can begin to run scientists. (No?)

On the other hand, it will anyway take time to develop cities 3 and 4 with a workboat/granary/library/lighthouse, and to grow to maximum size. If they develop to that state before the Pyramids are ready, they could still run scientists until *just before* a GS is popped, and then *stop* until the first GE is popped.

Farming the first GE does delay the first academy and the first settled scientist, but if it brings Representation earlier, that of course is a balance against the loss. And I have to admit, none of the 4 one-food-resource sites that we see on the map now looks like a very good super-science site. Maybe it's better to wait for a better site anyway.

n°2 can be a 2 food ressource tile
n°3 could build a pyramid without oracle in the same time frame (of course you don't know MC then, but you have more beakers per turn = catching up)