Apocalypto

[Mikehendi]

1000 BC - 750 BC

I'm gonna let the screenshots do most of the talking. I took so much of them I had to remove the smilies from this post, because they count towards the 30 picture limit [imagine one of those laughing smilies here].

1000 BC

Spoiler :

Worker roads the rice to enable a trade route on or new city. Research is lowered to precisely finish aesthetics.

975BC

Spoiler :

Aesthetics in, Mutals settler completes for Red Dot (didn't overflow to worker BTW)

Mutal grows to size 5, then hire 2 scientists. Research is lowered to nada.

Chichens borders expand, which allows improving wheat and horse.

Barb warrior still guarding the hut

950 BC

Spoiler :

Holkan could take it.

So we maximize the odds by chosing combat I, and off he goes!

The Hindu missionary spam OB thingy works. Are those missionaries untouchable for barbs, or how the hell did they get through that jungle in one piece?

Worker goes from rice to make a road towards the pink dot (1W of the forest)

Chichen grows to size 2. Wait with whipping until almost half-full food bar.

925 BC ... ish!

Apparantly we have lurkers (thanks for letting us know you are reading along!), so I thought it would be nice to show a detailed slavery micromanagement special:

Spoiler :

At turn 75, Lakamba is halfway with building a settler. It currently has whip anger, so it is at its current happy cap

The turn the whip anger wears off, I micro to grow to size 4, while investing less than 5 hammers into a holkan, enabling...

a 2-pop whip for the holkan, which then...

generates massive overflow to complete the settler...

Overflow into worker...

Switch back to growth next turn, for 2 turns....

So that it can complete the worker build at max yield while the anger wears off...

after which it can grow back in the last 2 turns of whip anger, reaching size 4 again.

So in 10 turns, this small city produced half a settler, a full holkan, and a full worker! That's about (50+60+35)/10 = 14-15 hammers per turn! Not to shabby for a size 2-4 city! This is about as good as having ALL your citizens working 2f4h grassland copper tiles!!!

900 BC

Spoiler :

The road toward Pink dot will be finished when the settler completes next turn. (as suggested Pink dot is 1 tile more inland, forgoing the whales for grasslands + hills, which indeed does seem better)

Uxmal is settled. Have to choose between a 8-turn monument (working the forested plains), or a 10-turn monument (working the forested grassland). Since we're expansive, and can whip the granary at size 2, I choose the slower monument here.

875 BC

Spoiler :

Coffee break!

850 BC

Spoiler :

Don't convert yet. We could use the happy, so we might decide to self-convert before an AI asks us.

The granary is whipped!

825 BC

Spoiler :

Overflowing into a worker (we are a bit behind on workers), planning to grow a bit before completing him.

The HULKan has arrived at the puny barb warrior. Shall he slaughter once again???

Smmmmmmmashdownnnnn! He truly is invincible! He robs the dead body for 45 gold pieces!

Mayapan is settled, with the wheat it will be able to whip the monument in no time!

BAAAAAAAHHHHHH! says the sheep

A barb city has spawn in the jungle!

800 BC

Spoiler :

Coffee break! What, you don't think one coffee break every 75 years is too much, do you!

775 BC

Spoiler :

Forgot to put Chichen back to growth last turn, which put the worker above 30 hammers invested, so we no longer have the option to 2pop whip him. We probably should complete the worker at size 2 (with wheat and the horse, which will be improved by then)

750BC

Spoiler :

I didn't notice years where flying by this quickly, and accidentally played this turn instead of leaving the units unmoved, sorry for that. here's what happened

What's up with that, eh? Is the wood over there too soft to fabricate arrows?

Too many screenshots..... continued in next post!

 

[Mikehendi]

End-of-turnset Overview:

Cities:

Spoiler :

Should not grow to size 6 yet, unless hindu spreads and we convert. Academy and stellar research rates in 10 turns!

Spoiler :

Could switch from rice to cottage after worker, if needed

Spoiler :

IMO Complete worker at size 2 before growing further

Spoiler :

Could whip granary halfway size 2 (or at the moment it grows, since there are no good tiles to work yet)

Spoiler :

Sheep completes just in time to shave a turn off growth

City summary:

Spoiler :

Expenses:

Spoiler :

(EDIT: Masonry +) Literature is reachable in ~~9 turns if we crank up research now. I feel it's better to wait another 10 turns for the academy, before we push up the slider again though.

Apologies for not waiting a very long time for input, but I'm quite busy the next 2 days (had today off), I didn't want to delay it that long.

EDIT: Of course I didn't include the save

 

[nocho]

Apologies for not waiting a very long time for input, but I'm quite busy the next 2 days (had today off), I didn't want to delay it that long.

I was just going to comment something on the last save, but that won't be necessary anymore! Seems you did a good job, certainly no lack of screenshots there.

 

[nocho]

I think we can indeed wait for the academy before cranking up the slider. There's no real hurry in getting literature yet. We should discuss where to put GLib (assuming we want it) and NE. As I advocated a library in Lakamha which still isn't there and hasn't even been started yet p), I'd say to put both there. Foodwise it's the least bad of prospective NE places and post 200AD it at least has some forest to chop and mines to help build along both buildings.

 

[vranasm]

if the plan is to get TGL then I feel we should crank the slider up before academy arrives.

Will have to check the save and will do this evening for more accurate comments, but we could even invest some hammers into Parthenon, ToA if it's still up.

Investing few turns into Alpha should be beneficial too.

As for whipping the monument in sheep+wheat city, honestly I don't see any benefit to do that... border popping for tiles we can't improve doesn't hear right. We basically have all tiles we will work until 200 AD already in BFC of the city (that means wheat, sheep and forest tiles). We could even abandon the monument idea, queue library and 3 pop whip it into granary.

I don't like 1-pop granary whips with expansive, usually doing reverse (aka 2-pop whip worker for 58 hammers into granary), but don't want to start flame wars over this.

As for switching into hinduism... it has 2 aspects
1) we can get relationship boost after we get asked - which is nice, but it's unreliable source
2) we can start milking religion relationship asap and get AI's to pleased.

Problem here is Monty, which isn't hindu and is basically freak. If he by accident founds Juda or Conf we're into troubles with our diplomacy plans.

As for the barb city... WTH? Too bad the city is so far away and full of jungle... maybe I should prepare some small stack of holkans though.

 

[FiveRings]

Thank you, Mike, it was a pleasure to go thru your report!!

Oh, those coffee spoilers!

 

[FiveRings]

Investing few turns into Alpha should be beneficial too.

[...]
I don't like 1-pop granary whips with expansive, usually doing reverse (aka 2-pop whip worker for 58 hammers into granary), but don't want to start flame wars over this.

[...]
1) we can get relationship boost after we get asked - which is nice, but it's unreliable source

V, could you, please, elaborate more on these, please, or at least the 1st and 3rd ones, and especially the 1st one, whenever you have the time and, of course, if you feel like doing it (in spoiler might be perfect, as it seems everybody else on the team - and most of the lurkers, I guess - should be perfectly clear about the y's).

I like your persistence in keeping it lean...!

 

[vranasm]

V, could you, please, elaborate more on these, please, or at least the 1st and 3rd ones, and especially the 1st one, whenever you have the time and, of course, if you feel like doing it (in spoiler might be perfect, as it seems everybody else on the team - and most of the lurkers, I guess - should be perfectly clear about the y's).

I like your persistence in keeping it lean...!

we could trade aesth for alpha 1:1 if we invest enough into alpha (the AI knows how many beakers we get out of the trade and since alpha is the same cost as aest, the AI wants to get upper hand in trade. Don't remember the numbers, but let's say alpha and aesth are both 536 beakers, if we invest ~80 beakers into alpha we trade 536 beakers tech for "456" beakers tech... AI likes such trade... not sure how the desired difference is calculated, but AI always wants the upper hand in the trade, how big can differ AI by AI.)

Unreliable in the sense that we don't know how long the AI will take to ask us to switch, other thing being if even it will want to switch us. Some AI's are reluctant to ask this.
If we accept the demand we get "+1 you accepted our state religion" or something like that towards them.
Otoh if we adopt the religion right away we start the turn timer for their "+X we share religion" modifier. Depending on AI the +X can vary from 1-8 (izzy, charle both get +8, HC gets less though) and of course the switch point into "pleased" is important.
We should get +1 for lasting peace, +1 for open borders and then at least +1 for religion. With some AI's it can mean pleased right away on some difficulties.
With these two I am not sure and too lazy to check ;-).

I think if we don't get the demand in my TS, we should probably switch ourselfs.

The Monty situation is puzzling. 700 BC is close to him getting ideas and still no religion...
I think there is good chance Monty went for hindu too, he usually does, but HC was first. In a sense probably bad luck, but Monty is such freak that he would attack us anyway... I hope he chooses SB though... SB has bad peaceweight.

 

[vranasm]

this is an got it and PPP post:

techs

As mentioned earlier I would go full tech power and tech polytheism and literature, the TS should stop after achieving the Literature tech - it should be ~8 turns of play

I could add Masonry after Poly making the whole TS 10 turns and we should have connected marble for the bonus.

builds

Mutal - MM for few turns from FP cottage to grass cottage, finish holkan, start on settler

Lakamha after worker grow on holkan and then probably worker

Chichen itza - slowly work on the library
Uxmal - continue with the monument and granary
Mayapan - switch from monument to library

religion

Will not switch, but if the demand comes switch asap

workers
very tough to find job for them

sheep should be connected and we could generally use more roads

I could road towards north east

Border pop in uxmal will be next TS, so I can't even do something reasonable around there.
first 3 cities have enough improvements

barb city with warriors

I would move there our holkan to watch the situation, so some AI doesn't land lucky shot.
I don't see me building much military though.

 

[Sengir]

Tech masonry as well at full speed, don't see a reason why we wouldn't tech that next.

Not sure about religion, I think I'd switch asap. Monty is pretty far away, and I highly doubt that he'll target us first as he has closer neighbours. Even if he does, we should have ample warning. Waiting a turnset isn't too bad though.

The rest sounds good.

 

[lymond]

Nice report, Cupcake....although a bit disappointed that no visual aides were provided for the coffee spoilers Very productive set.

We might want to hold off on Masonry as we might be able to trade for it.

not sure why we are hoarding so much gold though.

 

[vranasm]

Nice report, Cupcake....although a bit disappointed that no visual aides were provided for the coffee spoilers Very productive set.

We might want to hold off on Masonry as we might be able to trade for it.

not sure why we are hoarding so much gold though.

the trade for masonry was my initial thinking, but at our current 100% rate it's 2 turns and I would say "only".

There is couple of problems with trading masonry
1) WFYABTA
2) Alphabet
3) AI's willing to trade Masonry

Right now don't remember if AI's already have or not alpha, will have to check, but 2 turns of research is almost nothing and I think we could do Poly->Masonry->Lit

ironic enough it should sync with the GS coming in capital. I like when at least some things sync in an empire ;-)

 

[Mikehendi]

No AI has Alpha yet. Even on monarch they usually have it by 1000BC, where "they" is equal to HC in this game)

The gold hoarding is to be able to run 100% science through academy for a long time (and we have no direct tech needs).

 

[Norvin_Green]

I also noted that SB is Monty worst enemy. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

 

[nocho]

Lakamha after worker grow on holkan and then probably worker

.....

workers
very tough to find job for them

Given this apparent contradiction, I'd really rather see that library built in Lakamha. Whether you build it or not, I promise it'll be the last time I mention it.

Otherwise I'm fine with the plan.

 

[vranasm]

Given this apparent contradiction, I'd really rather see that library built in Lakamha. Whether you build it or not, I promise it'll be the last time I mention it.

Otherwise I'm fine with the plan.

well we have 2.9 workers so I thought building 1 more won't hurt... especially if we are going to build another settler...

could readjust of course... I think we need to look into the happy cap issue though...

roading towards ai through the jungle seems like option for workers.

 

[nocho]

The gist of the post is meant to be pro-library, not anti-worker... Haven't seen the save since just after Mike posted it so can't remember, but maybe a worker can be had from the cap? Or it can wait a bit? Also if they really have not much to do until 200AD better to focus on infra first, generally speaking.

Silly OT: It just occurred to me that next month you're 10 years on CFC... Are you gonna throw a party?

 

[vranasm]

The gist of the post is meant to be pro-library, not anti-worker... Haven't seen the save since just after Mike posted it so can't remember, but maybe a worker can be had from the cap? Or it can wait a bit? Also if they really have not much to do until 200AD better to focus on infra first, generally speaking.

Silly OT: It just occurred to me that next month you're 10 years on CFC... Are you gonna throw a party?

well the purpose of settler and worker builds (settler in cap, worker in city 2) is more about stagnating on happy cap then anything. We really should start to do with it something... 700BC and no clear outlook for happy issues.

yeah sure...here is :cookie: and some ;-)

I wasn't much active after registering, to be honest I even can't remember I registered here lol... came back like 2-3 years ago and wondered "WTH password I have here"... I think I even tried to register first and was "WTH who took my nickname?"

 

[nocho]

well the purpose of settler and worker builds (settler in cap, worker in city 2) is more about stagnating on happy cap then anything. We really should start to do with it something... 700BC and no clear outlook for happy issues.

yeah sure...here is :cookie: and some ;-)

I wasn't much active after registering, to be honest I even can't remember I registered here lol... came back like 2-3 years ago and wondered "WTH password I have here"... I think I even tried to register first and was "WTH who took my nickname?"

Nice, czech beer! Must be pilsner I guess.

Funny, we reactivated around the same time then... I discovered the site in 2003, was active for some time, but then had a major break for 4-5 years. I did take a new identity though when I came back.

 

[vranasm]

The round is played

Switched only the build in the 4th city to library.

2 turns later Poly comes home

Spoiler :

725 BC Monty switched into Juda

Spoiler :

not welcome news, but SB starts to hate that guy...

Another 2 turns later Masonry is home

Spoiler :

I let our hero guard our outern borders

Spoiler :

since i basically forgot what is the plan with him

T92 Monty comes with this demand

Spoiler :

ok this is pretty tricky if I should give in... he obviously hates SB, he has red fist i didn't saw last turn, but against who is he plotting?

When he comes into fist mode he can't change the DoW target...
Glance screen before decision

Spoiler :

I decide against giving in.. he already chose the target...

Spoiler :

yeah of course...few secs later the same demand but reverse

Spoiler :

we really got „nice“ neighbors on continent I tell you...

I decide not to give in even with SB...

We maybe should close the borders though (shouldn't bring negative modifiers...) now I am sorry that i was for opening them in the first place...

You will realize I let Lakamha grow into unhapiness. Queued worker, we produce there 19 hammers per turn into worker, so I will have to adjust next turn to meet 29 max at the point literature comes, then we can 2 pop whip lakamha into Toa or Parth (since I realize we don't have there the library nocho so much wanted :-D). (edit: I screwed up!!! we're expansive and the point is not 29/60)

Spoiler :

As it seems we will have to build TGL in capital once the GS comes in.

Btw no one still has Alpha...

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Next turn there is war! Monty x SB

Spoiler :

Yeah enjoy the journey guys... if you please you can war for next 2 thousand years...
uff ;-) happy I didn't give in.

I micro Lakamha to get us to 29/60 worker with 19 stocked, 10 coming into worker

Spoiler :

I exchanged our hero with some holkan from lakamha and he is on the way to capital.

Next turn the Literature comes, 1T sooner then anticipated

Spoiler :

I prequeue Alphabet for at least few turns.

We have 2 holkans at the warrior barb city.

As it seems capital is the only city which can build TGL

Spoiler :

we can't whip the settler though and it will také some time to whip the settler with 29/100. We should be able to draw out the scientists into field next turn.

Lakamha is ready for the massive whip

Spoiler :

with 29/60 into Parth or ToA, TGL is not available there :-( (edit: I screwed up!!! we're expansive and the point is not 29/60)

Chichen Itza will start to lose hammers in worker

Spoiler :

but since it's 32/60 it maybe is worth the thought to work 3 turns cottages on library and then 2-pop whip worker into library

Uxmal will expand borders in 5 turns, there are 2 workers nearby to start on the farms

Spoiler :

other then that I would continue on slow building granary, as you can see I queued up there warrior before granary for MP duty

Mayapan will be soon size 4, working on library

Spoiler :

and should whip it when the time comes, ideally into granary

As for techs... no one has alpha... it will be tough war for SB with Monty...

Diplo is turning out the way it could be anticipated with warmonger and peacemonger on the same continent, but nonetheless it looks like we will lose steam compared to other continent.

Wonder screens suggest, there will be someone strong with budh happy fest

Spoiler :

not welcome situation

Demographics is pretty worrying with us last in food

Spoiler :

and land is bad too...

Well that's it from me...
next player has to decide which way we will go with wonders and how to get the ones we want up and where... I layed out my view on this, but have to say that I am not happy with the outlook on those wonders...

edit: if anyone wants to replay my last 2 turns of the lakamha screw up... feel free to say so... I should have whipped 1T sooner, wouldn't change the techs etc, but we would have massive OF now going into Parth or ToA :-(
now we have only 1 pop whip... almost feel like switch into library, grow to 6 and 3-pop whip library into TGL.