ALC Game #8: Alexander/Greece

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I like the research order of Agriculture followed by Bronze Working

Well, you need to slot Mining in there somewhere first....

I'm not sold on Agriculture right now. Yes, the corn is sitting right there, but you aren't particularly close to having a worker ready to go, you don't have health issues right now, you don't have any good ways to convert the excess of food to something valuble, so there's no particular urgency. Note that fishing means you can get Pottery before Agriculture.

If you are going Worker first (still interesting), then you can build the worker in 15 turns, then chop the boat in 4 more, mine the plains hills to convert the food to hammers, get a farm built and kick out a settler at size four or five. That would suggest Mining -> BW -> Agriculture.

The play I think really needs some thought is to rush to a library. What's the fastest way to get two specialists running?

 

[Eqqman]

pigswill, I liked your idea in the pre-game thread of bowing out of Prince with a bang, so yes, I'd like to try for the earliest win with the biggest score possible. Now, how to achieve that...?

Well, unless the Scouts or the 1st border pop reveals something more promising, I think the surrounding terrain rules out a MC/Pyramids shot. I don't see a good location for the 2nd city within 3 tiles of the capital yet. Maybe to the south, but with all that desert on either side, I doubt it.

Nevertheless, Alex is Philosophical, so some attempt at a Specialist Economy makes sense. If the surrounding terrain turns out to be more of the same--plains and desert--it will be hard to run too many specialists, though. So some sort of hybrid economy may be necessary.

I'll make a final decision once more terrain is revealed and everyone weighs in, however.

If the main thing to shoot for is a fast win, then I'm not convinced that specialists will be the way to go. Unless Stone pops up in a very convenient location, making the Pyramids is going to take hammers that could be better spent building your first army. Being Philosophical though you will want to run some kind of specialists, either just fill up Libraries in every city to focus on getting GSs to bulb techs or have some running priests or both. GPs you can settle.

I would focus on making Athens a production powerhouse as soon as you can and move down the tech path to Guilds. Try to complete Oracle and claim Metal Casting, but this time without such a rush to get the Forge done. Allow the GP to come first so that you use him on Civil Service and use the GE on Machinery instead of Pyramids. You're then left researching Monarchy, Code of Laws, Feudalism, and Guilds. Finish with Animal Husbandry + Horseback Riding or Alphabet to try and trade for one or both of them to open Knights. You use hereditary rule instead of representation to get unlimited growth in Athens so you're squeezing out as many hammers as you can. Your second or third city can focus on cottages to help with the tech rate, although Athens has enough grassland to support a few in addition to Workshops. With a higher max pop in the capital you won't have to decide quite so much between making hammers or commerce.

Keeping everything you capture will probably be impossible so you'll be doing more razing than usual. I'd also change your pattern of fighting one guy until he's finished off. This hasn't done much beyond leave you with opponents who are progressively tougher to fight. Try expanding more equally against everybody who is on your continent. You'll be more likely to have to deal with the annoying situation where the AIs are replacing razed cities, but at least that's 100 hammers that didn't go into military units to fight you, plus it draws defenders out of a city. Of course, if you're the far north guy you may not have much choice unless you use Galleys for a sneak assault. Start using Cease Fires more often so that you're not getting too slowed down in intervals of peace. With what we now know about War Weariness, you can probably declare war on an opponent long before you're ready to attack them offensively. Get them to send their troops into your land so you can kill them without creating unhappiness.

Regardless I would look at Mining-> Bronze-> Agriculture as an opening tech path. Since you are getting a delay in development by making the Workboat you will want to use slavery to speed up production of the Worker and you won't have any problems getting growth to size 2 if you make Workboat-> Scout-> Worker.

 

[Eqqman]

If you are going Worker first (still interesting), then you can build the worker in 15 turns, then chop the boat in 4 more,

Unlikely since you can seldom finish Mining + Bronze in 19 turns on these settings without extra commerce. But the Worker can keep himself busy on a Mine while you wait.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Well, he should have the corn improved by the time he starts his first settler, IMO. As for sites....I see Silk and a floodplain. Not terribly impressive, but the river offers hope at least. Well, all the more reason to take land from your "friends" waiting in the fog somewhere

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I'm personally in favor of Ag first, just because that food can be put into getting more pop for whiping once you Do have BW or for more rapid production of Settlers.

 

[pigswill]

If Sisiutil goes workboat first then he gets it in 10 turns with no growth; then switches to clams which gives added research while building scout/warrior to grow to pop2 then this is probably going to take 16/17 turns at which point he'd be getting close to bronzeworking (if beelined) so could then look at whipping scout/warrior while using overflow to build worker and researching agric then grow away unhappiness before building settler.

 

[carl corey]

If Sisiutil goes workboat first then he gets it in 10 turns with no growth

8 turns, see his images in the "round 0 continued".

 

[pigswill]

Yup, forgot to include hammer for capital.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

The corn right now is less of a priority than it might be otherwise because of the second food resource and the fact that it is not irrigated, so will only become a 5 tile.

The floodplains to your east hold some hope for city-sites, I'd suggest moving the scout 2SE to the forest to properly investigate, then 2SW to the grassland hill for optimal efficiency! Or divert if you see something awesome near the forest. We'll know next turn.

Looks like your start-location got sandwiched pretty good. I suspect and I hope though that the southern desert-areas are actually rather thin so that you can settle accross them in the sweet, sweet Edge-of-Jungle lands. Otherwise plan your expansion along the hammer-rich northern fringe.

 

[uncarved block]

Sisiutil, do you think it might be worth a couple "lost" turns with the Scout to see just how far that Tundra extends, and what kind of ocean resources are out there? The land five squares east is going to be the same when you get back, and the map generator seems to like hiding goody huts in the midst of otherwise lackluster terrain. If that Tundra goes two more squares north, I'd say there's a good shot at there being a hut up there. I'll let the more experienced hands weigh in on the chances this might deprive you of a hut elsewhere; from the last couple ALC games, I'd say the chances are pretty good there's another civ fairly close by. Since you're around 20 turns or so away from building a second city, I think you'll get the whole area around you scouted out handily. YMMV.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Unlikely since you can seldom finish Mining + Bronze in 19 turns on these settings without extra commerce.

Ouch, right. So if you go scout -> worker (a common opening in my games) it comes out about right, or if you go boat->worker.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I like getting Bronze early. Finding Copper will help decide on where to build the second city.

I vote along with Mining->Bronze Working->Agriculture->The Wheel (if you don't have it already...

 

[Sisiutil]

Sisiutil, do you think it might be worth a couple "lost" turns with the Scout to see just how far that Tundra extends, and what kind of ocean resources are out there? The land five squares east is going to be the same when you get back, and the map generator seems to like hiding goody huts in the midst of otherwise lackluster terrain. If that Tundra goes two more squares north, I'd say there's a good shot at there being a hut up there.

Well, since it looks like an additional Scout is in the works, given the build orders everyone is recommending, I'll probably send him up there. I agree that the tundra looks like it may be extensive (barbs--oh joy), so that means a goody hut or two.

However, the crucial thing is to map out the surrounding territory so I (a) know where the crucial resources are and (b) can better plan out my future cities. Remember that by finding goody huts in the territory between myself and other civs, I deprive my competitors of them, if nothing else. Since I have a fast-moving Scout, that's yet another way to take full advantage of him.

Okay, I'm convinced--Mining -> BW -> Ag it is. (Thanks, VoU, for reminding me of the prereq. That's what I get for playing as Rome, Russia, or England in most of my offline games...) Builds will be Workboat, Scout, Worker. The Scout, meanwhile, will continue going clockwise as planned.

Tune in tomorrow for the next round!

 

[carl corey]

Sisiutil, one question. Isn't the tundra part still going to be there when you come back? I'd much rather explore a little more toward other civs and leave the useless part of my back yard uncharted. I think you can move a scout up there at one point anyway, but why an early one? If you don't go for an early Iron Working it's pretty sure that you won't build a city up there anytime soon. You'll probably run into a civ on the East, then into jungle in the south, and I don't see much reason to explore there, since you'll be slowed down and any civ that started there has a huge time advantage over you, so finding goody huts in the jungle is a long shot anyway.

Oh well... I guess we're sending you conflicting advice once again! Hurray for team spirit!

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Isn't the tundra part still going to be there when you come back? I'd much rather explore a little more toward other civs and leave the useless part of my back yard uncharted.

I tend to agree. If you aren't planning on making another scout, then there's an argument to be made for heading up there now while it's on the way to see if there are any goody huts or useful resources (silver, furs, etc.) to be claimed. On the other hand, if you're going to churn out a second scout as one of your first two builds, let that guy take care of the tundra. Send the first scout towards higher priority areas.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

I've been lurking since Qin Shi Huang (mainly because I've had nothing to contribute until now), and with Alex I was going to suggest a MC slingshot with the Oracle, and run an Engineer from a Forge in another city. This way, you get a guaranteed GE and GP (from the Oracle), which you can use to research Machinery and Civil Service (after CoL) respectively. This will give you Macemen a lot earlier than usual, and CR1/2 (after battle XP) and Combat 1 Maces won't need Catapults to rip through cities defended by Archers. This way you can miss Construction for a while.

The main problem I see with this is that Macemen are quite expensive that early in the game.

Anyway, keep up the good work Sisiutil!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That actually seems like a neat thing to try... biggest disadvantage I see is the CoL Cost. But it wouldn't have to be like the Pyramids gambit, where you need to get the Forge X turns after the Oracle, since you want Both of them.

 

[Eqqman]

That actually seems like a neat thing to try... biggest disadvantage I see is the CoL Cost. But it wouldn't have to be like the Pyramids gambit, where you need to get the Forge X turns after the Oracle, since you want Both of them.

My experience has been that it turns out almost exactly like MC/P. The problem is that you have no further way to increase the supply of GE points, so you have a long gap between the production of the GP and GE if you allow the GP to come first. If you can make the GE come first, then you can often speed things up by running a priest (or more than one, if you're really lucky) in the Oracle city to get the GP out. The best you can do otherwise is to get things timed out so that you have just less than 100 GPP in the GE city when the GP appears so that you still only have ~100 GPP to go, but even waiting this long is excessive in my view. Especially if you tried this w/o Philosophical .

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

Well, there's be no other way to increase GP points either unless you happen to get a religion in Athens. As long as you get the Engineer running eight turns after the Oracle is finished, you get your GP with 96 GE points in the engineer city, which is what I think you're suggesting, that gives you a GE 18 turns after the GP. I don't play Standard speed so I can't say if that is long or not.

 

[pigswill]

If you beeline CoL you still have a chance of founding Confucianism; its basically the same odds as a CS oracle slingshot except you don't have to time oracle to coincide with discovering CoL.