ALC Game #7: Frederick/Germany

[Eqqman]

I think your math is broken here. First, the settled specialists don't generate any GP points (I think you knew that, but the sentence you wrote implies otherwise).

With the eventual 6 specialists in one city and 2 in any other (that we feed ourselves), it's going to be difficult for any other city to pop out a Great Person. But you're right that the first few out will probably come quicker if it's handled in parallel and carefully managed. And it will get wackier if the specialists are distributed in a manner where any given city could have any amount of specialists in it. I haven't had a lot of practice trying to optimize Great Person throughput yet, usually I focus on the easy way of just increasing the specialists in a single city.

 

[Killroyan]

Getting another GE would mean hanging gardens if you ask me in your GE city. You want your cities to be big so the hanging gardens could help with that. Next GE should be on Notre dame and last one on Statue of liberty but then again GS is priority number 1. Great game so far. And a very nice one on the Metal casting/forge/GE/pyramids tactics. But Frankfurt is a bit strange instead of Hamburg, but then again Hamburg is your GE production city and Frankfurt is 100% GS. Following this with great interest again.

 

[cabert]

about frankfurt, i think it's a strange choice but with good side effects:
- strange because banana city had a bigger potential for GP farm IMHO.
- good side effect is the high culture pushing back cyrus and it's creative religious stonehenge.
A bad for a good then...
Let's live with that.

About war, you don't need spearmen. build elephants (anti melee, anti mounted, anti siege, anti city, ...), axes (antispear) and cats (antistack, anticulture). Some swords can be useful, but i would choose elephant over sword anytime!
My guess is to build a few CR axe against defensive axes. If you use a shock axe, it will go against the archer while the CR or combat axes will face the defensive axe first.
You could use some chariots to break those little axewielding bastards or just send in the elephants...
Cats are good too, but you will lose them.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm flabbergasted anybody would ever recommend settling a GE. If one pops out, then save him for Statue of Liberty since that is a key part of the late-game plans. If more than one pops out, then there's bound to be something he can build or tech-rush that gives more advantage than settling.

Well the benefit of Rushing SoL is ~700 Hammers.. say 20-30 turns of production in whatever city (assuming you have copper by that point)

The benefit of Settling the GE is 3 Hammers in Frankfurt [doubling minimum production there for science+Food boosters] plus 6 base flasks (~ 10% boost in overall Science)

Depending on when you get him, that may save more turns in getting the Statue of Liberty than saving him for a rush....plus it gets you the other important techs (ie Banking, Education) earlier. And it continues to provide benefits.

If you get it while researching Representation or Printing Press... definitely save it for Rushing, If you get it while researching Feudalism or Guilds, Settle.

Now that Is assuming you aren't Really interested in any other Wonders, instead just overall improvement (in sustainable tech and military) right now. If you Really want HG and want to make sure you can get it in Hamburg, then go ahead and rush it there.

 

[Pete2006]

about frankfurt, i think it's a strange choice but with good side effects:
- strange because banana city had a bigger potential for GP farm IMHO.
- good side effect is the high culture pushing back cyrus and it's creative religious stonehenge.
A bad for a good then...
Let's live with that.

About war, you don't need spearmen. build elephants (anti melee, anti mounted, anti siege, anti city, ...), axes (antispear) and cats (antistack, anticulture). Some swords can be useful, but i would choose elephant over sword anytime!
My guess is to build a few CR axe against defensive axes. If you use a shock axe, it will go against the archer while the CR or combat axes will face the defensive axe first.
You could use some chariots to break those little axewielding bastards or just send in the elephants...
Cats are good too, but you will lose them.

Swords with CR promotions will take cities much better than elephants. I usually use elephants and most other mounted units as escorts and leave one behind with an axe to protect a newly conquered city.

 

[futurehermit]

Sorry it took so long for me to weigh in, I didn't realize that the spec econ was rollin' in this ALC.

There have been some things so far that made me cringe, but it's my own fault for not weighing in sooner.

First off, good job on the oracle-pyramid build.

Here are my reflections:

1) I always start with police state, not representation. Libraries usually aren't on board yet and police state helps recoup some of the lost military production spent building wonders. I would suggest using police state whenever you have a tech lead over the AI. Then, when they start catching up enough to trade with you, switch back to representation.

2) Only run scientists off of 4+ food tiles. Don't use farmed grasslands. If this means you only have 1 scientist in a city, that's fine. Add the second when stagnating your city at the happiness limit.

3) DO NOT go to caste system asap. Only use it when you're going past 2 scientists (see point 2). I usually consider it when mercantilism becomes available. I don't see you having enough 4+ food tiles to justify it at this point.

4) Creative civs suck Tough luck! I would suggest trying to collar Monty to help you take out cyrus and/or kublai. Should be easy as long as you use good diplomacy, you'll have a nice tech lead over him.

5) Try and get GSs going asap. Use the first to build an academy in your GL city. Settle the rest in the GL city.

6) Set slider to 0% and then try and capture as many cities as you can without totally crippling your econ. First priority in newly captured cities is getting libraries on board.

7) After your food tiles, your next priority for your cities is trying to get as much production going as possible (farms + mines).

I'll post more soon. Good job so far.

 

[Eqqman]

Well the benefit of Rushing SoL is ~700 Hammers.. say 20-30 turns of production in whatever city (assuming you have copper by that point)

The benefit of Settling the GE is 3 Hammers in Frankfurt [doubling minimum production there for science+Food boosters] plus 6 base flasks (~ 10% boost in overall Science)

Not a trade-off that is very convincing (on me). If I need the beaker output I can get that from adding a single specialist in any city (based on science buildings produced). The hammers I don't care about since this is a science, not production city. I think you're undervaluing what you get from rushing SoL. If, at the point this Wonder is available, you've got at least 15 cities that have a Library + one other science improvement, rushing SoL adds ~135 beakers per turn at a minimum. Multiply this by the amount of turns you would have spent building this Wonder normally and you're basically looking at a free tech.

I certainly wouldn't use the next GE (if we even get one) on Hanging Gardens though. Cabert pointed out that it's foolish to use GEs on Wonders that produce more GEs when the ROI is so small. HG is one of the safer Wonders to beat the AI to if you make an effort to do so and there are far more Wonders that would benefit from rushing, like Oxford.

 

[Sisiutil]

Once again, VoU catches me out on my aversion to math. I think playing with a calculator at my side during the MC/Pyramids run exhausted me in that regard, so I didn't feel up to calculating food and GPs and all of that. Hence, Frankfurt.

See, this is why I'm still playing these games at Prince level. I can take a suggestion from someone and give it a try and if it's sub-optimal, we all learn from it but it doesn't make or break the game. Frankfurt will support several scientists and produce several GS. Hamburg could have supported and produced more--the advantage, evidently, of farmed floodplains over farmed grassland (futurehermit, where were you, dude?). Point taken, lesson learned, I will remember that for my next specialist economy game. On Monarch, I suspect it would be very hard to compensate for this sort of thing, but Prince is a little more forgiving. I'll obviously find out how much so soon enough.

Frankly, I'd prefer to make mistakes (or perhaps a better term is "sub-optimal decisions") than play a perfect game. Speaking as a former teacher, you don't learn by doing something flawlessly; you learn by screwing up. (Now if someone could explain that to my wife for me, I'd really appreciate it.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the guidance on my next moves with this unfamiliar but evidently very powerful specialist economy strategy. Next time I play as a philosophical civ and find lots of floodplains early on, I'll probably go in this direction. It's like playing Civ IV on Bizarro-world: my capital and 2nd city are too close together, the science slider is about to drop to 0% and stay there forever, and I haven't built a single cottage. It's weird, but it's fun!

 

[UncleJJ]

It is going well, a very interesting game so far.

Try to be sure that the change to the Caste System will benefit your economy as a whole rather than just boost research for a short time. I'm thinking here that you have quite a few cities (and will get some more from Kyros) that are missing buildings that would be easy to whip in with Slavery but would take a long time to build normally. You don't seem to have a lot of spare food to run the Caste System effectively right now.

Also in your city shots you seem to using scientists (costing 2 food) when the city can grow by a further one or 2 pop. Unless you have an ulterior motive (like popping out a GP quickly) it is better to defer using specialists while you can still grow the city.

In Cologne which is a slow grower a granary is more valuable than the library and that should raise the health there too You seem to be low on health giving resources right now but conquering Kyros should eventually give you wheat, sheep and fish.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

2) Only run scientists off of 4+ food tiles. Don't use farmed grasslands. If this means you only have 1 scientist in a city, that's fine. Add the second when stagnating your city at the happiness limit.

This, I can believe - essentially instead of using the surplus food to generate hammers whipped you are using it to generate research and GP points. But are you doing with the flat and green, when you have space under the happy cap? Cottages, or pairing farms with grassland mines?

7) After your food tiles, your next priority for your cities is trying to get as much production going as possible (farms + mines).

I guess that's the answer to my question.

 

[Betafor]

While I know we are running a specialist economy, I must beg the question - Where are we going to set up our commerce/ cottage city. For those of you who dont know, this city will provide us with bundles of gold for upgrades/RUSH BUYING, matinance, ect, because the slider is at 0.

futurehermit, you said don't use farmed grasslands, only 4 plus food tiles. Can i revise that and say, IF it's not a production city, a workshop would be bad on the tile, you can farm TWO grasslands for a +6, with a -4 for pop upkeep, leaving 2 for specialist, same as if you had a +4 farmed flood plain, -2 for pop upkeep, and 2 for specialist

 

[Sisiutil]

While I know we are running a specialist economy, I must beg the question - Where are we going to set up our commerce/ cottage city. For those of you who dont know, this city will provide us with bundles of gold for upgrades/RUSH BUYING, matinance, ect, because the slider is at 0.

Ah, good question. Suggestions? One of the existing cities, or one I'll capture from Cyrus?

Unfortunately, his holy city is not in a great spot for this and will be choked somewhat by Frankfurt. Susa has a few tiles that would be good for this and several that won't, and I'll probably have to farm its floodplains to work the gold hills. Berlin and Pasargadae have a few grassland tiles, but not a lot.

I dunno, I think the Mongol capital looks like the best candidate for this--it's just a question of how long it might take to capture it.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Not a trade-off that is very convincing (on me). If I need the beaker output I can get that from adding a single specialist in any city (based on science buildings produced). The hammers I don't care about since this is a science, not production city. I think you're undervaluing what you get from rushing SoL. If, at the point this Wonder is available, you've got at least 15 cities that have a Library + one other science improvement, rushing SoL adds ~135 beakers per turn at a minimum. Multiply this by the amount of turns you would have spent building this Wonder normally and you're basically looking at a free tech.

I certainly wouldn't use the next GE (if we even get one) on Hanging Gardens though. Cabert pointed out that it's foolish to use GEs on Wonders that produce more GEs when the ROI is so small. HG is one of the safer Wonders to beat the AI to if you make an effort to do so and there are far more Wonders that would benefit from rushing, like Oxford.

Few points

1. Even a Science city needs some Production (such as ... for Oxford, a National Wonder/Monasteries/Univeristies/Lightouse/Health Buildings/Happy Buildings)

2. By Settling the Engineer, you get those beakers without having to take someone off whatever else they are doing, plus you get them in Frankfurt, which means that after Education it will be worth more than a Specialist anywhere else.

3. If Rushing the SoL gets you 30 turn gain (700 is the hammers it will give you in a pop 10 city) and settling lets you get to Democracy 31 turns earlier then Settling will be worth one extra turn of that ~135 beakers per turn...

Plus if it also lets you get Banking/Education one turn earlier thats another +X research

Settling banks on the Now v. Later bonus (Of course there is also getting a tech, like Machinery/Guilds which is even more favored by that, but has fairly low yield)

The fact is all of those are all three potentially useful uses, and depend on when you get the GE and what it can do (ie techs to research).

 

[Eqqman]

Ah, good question. Suggestions? One of the existing cities, or one I'll capture from Cyrus?

To maximize gains in such a city you'd probably want to have it in your capital under Bureaucracy. This is probably going to involve moving the Palace since I don't see any exceptional spots in the lands you now have. Since you're in the lower half of the continent an eventual Palace move is probably a good idea anyway to save on distance maintenance. You may want to use a city you get from Kublai since he's in a greener belt and ought to have city spots that can support a lot of cottages in a single place.

 

[Betafor]

To maximize gains in such a city you'd probably want to have it in your capital under Bureaucracy.

Was just about to edit my post when i saw yours. Good idea.

Well, the problem is, the exact same tiles that would be good for a super science city would be good for a super wealth city, and you already have taken the prime spot on your bottom half of the continent. You have to either accept it will be not perfect, or go north after cyrus.

That being said, assuming you choose a southern financial city, i would choose Pardegarse(cyrus's second city, dont know spelling) over susa. Why? because it's quantity over quality. 5 cottages on grasslands will always triumph over 3 cottages on floodplains. The city also has iron for building thing like market, grocer, bank, wall street, ect. Situated in the middle of the bottom continent, it would be a good capital while you build forbidden palace in kublai's territory.

Of course, in all decisions, one person comes with the "crazy F!@#" option, and this one would be to build in the jungle and use the LOTS of fertile grasslands underneath the jungle. Yes, it requires work, but it all depends on what you are aiming for.

Choice A(pardegarse(sp)) gives you pretty much instant gratification, but is the worst long term option

Choice B (Kublai) takes longer, but more rewards/more cottages to mature/ more time/ more gold

Choice C (Crazy F!@#) Gives the best long term benifits, but the longest startup time(I'm assuming, being the warmonger sistuil is, and we are doing a specialist strat, that kublai will be gone before all the jungle is cleared)

And that's all i can do, give you the choices. I've been lurking the ALC games since egypt, and this was supposed to be the one i gave advice on, but we went specialist, and i end up in the backseat again. Someone with more experience should answer - "How long can you survive w/out a good commerce city" - or maybe better - "At what point should you have aquired a good commerce city" to help choose.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

I'll say this...I agree with you that the Colossus is a good idea. Just don't wait on it long...in my experience, the AI is often quick to build it...

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I find Cyrus to be a real jerk in Vanilla. Please cruch the little worm for me...

 

[Sisiutil]

Choice C (Crazy F!@#) Gives the best long term benifits, but the longest startup time(I'm assuming, being the warmonger sistuil is, and we are doing a specialist strat, that kublai will be gone before all the jungle is cleared)

A warmonger? Sweet, mild-mannered li'l ol' me?

I'm Canadian. We call it "peacekeeping". So did Civ II once you had the UN--I loved that...

 

[William III]

We call it "peacekeeping". So did Civ II once you had the UN--I loved that...

Question: Why do you need hammers in science cities? Is it not much more practical to that occasional building(at the moment you need only Lib. and Granary in Science cities; later add Monastery, Uni., etc.)? You only need 2 buildings/science city at the moment, so why bother getting up production???


William III

 

[cabert]

Question: Why do you need hammers in science cities? Is it not much more practical to that occasional building(at the moment you need only Lib. and Granary in Science cities; later add Monastery, Uni., etc.)? You only need 2 buildings/science city at the moment, so why bother getting up production???


William III

when you switch to caste system, needed for a SE, you don't have slavery anymore