bed_03 - RaR, Demigod, random civ

[LKendter]

"Above all I refuse to squeeze cities in later that push our developed cities down in rank corruption."

Of course, this is the opposite of the course of action I suggest.

I mention this only because of LK94 and a junk city that killed rank corruption for almost every large city. In addition, take a look at Bez1 and Leicester being shoehorned in near 500 AD.

My high difficulty-level approach since Civ I has been to make sure my tiles are worked, so you'll need arguments to change my mind, not just edicts - this is not an LK game!

Well let's make sure these arguments are settled on the dot maps. Otherwise, we will be real trouble this game.

Look, I've had very good results with using 1-3 high-shield low-pop cities to produce units while my main cities focus on producing a crushing economic advantage.

I am beginning to wonder if our play styles are incompatible. This is starting to smell like ICS. I don't care if ICS is really powerful or not. I consider ICS an exploitive play style and simply won't play it.

Once again I will stress the need for dot maps or this game will be a mess.

As for the preference for vet units, if we play a MIL civ, this is just not realistic, as our advantage comes at a time when barracks will not be widely available.

Unfortunately with RaR delaying the availability of barracks so long I have to agree with you on this one. My only request is once barracks are available that we stop produce regulars.

 

[Bezhukov]

Look, here's the difference between what I advocate and ICS. ICS sacrifices the long game for the short. In ICS, no infra is built at all. All shields go to overwhelming the AI with units. I'd think you would know from playing with me that I'm all about building infra. I'm just saying that better short-term planning/division of labor between cities will set us up better for the long game.

Just like setting up a settler factory is not a long-term strategy - that city will not just be producing settlers the whole game, so building a hill/hill city to crank early units is not either. But throw a worker housing in that bad boy, and you've got 2-turn champs to help you along through the first hundred turns of the game. At Deity level, we may well need the help.

I was not the one who founded Leicester, though I considered it. Were some of those desert tiles plains, I may have done so. The point is moot, however. If we do proper planning in the first place, we won't have swathes of 5-7 unworked tiles in our core in the first place.

 

[ThERat]

surely there will be heated discussion and agreements to disagree, just wait and see

did I promise too much?
guys, relax, we haven't even rolled a start. I played with bez for 2 games on RaR and I can attest he loves WLTK and insists on infrastructure . ICS was never an issue at all in those games.

 

[dmanakho]

no vote from dmanakho yet. I'll make final decision once I have 1.04 and start rolling starts.

I'll play anything... no preferences...

...and as for heated discussion here - i tend to agree with Bezhukov.
I don't feel guilty placing short term temporary city just to abandon it later if it allows me to reach my goal in the most efficient way.
But since i have had limited experience with RaR i will try to keep low profile and just listen and learn.

 

[Bezhukov]

Dman, I've seen you work - you're a more accomplished civver than I, after all, you were part of the magnificent 7+1! What a show that was!

If you think this was heated, you should meet my family! I like how LK speaks his mind, and am concerned that he not feel lonesome in doing so.

 

[sanabas]

I was not the one who founded Leicester, though I considered it. Were some of those desert tiles plains, I may have done so. The point is moot, however. If we do proper planning in the first place, we won't have swathes of 5-7 unworked tiles in our core in the first place.

Nah, Leicester was me. As were the LK94 & LK96 cities. The only one you can possibly persuade me was wrong was Neodakheat in LK94, which only picked up 3 tiles, and cost a few cities a shield or 2. The other cities I built all improve the empire they're part of IMO, long term included.

I've only ever used ICS late game on my borders to reach domination or 100k from free research labs/temples/monuments/etc, and I agree with LK, I don't like building temporary cities. Because unless temporary cities are within another city's 21 tile radius, abandonment will create unworkable tiles. Which I hate, as all the shoehorned cities we're talking about show.

Agree with Bez, more planning and consensus on city placement will make most of these problems disappear. In most aspects of the game, play style differences don't affect the next player that much, but city placement does.

I should have lurked more, I missed another RaR starting. Doesn't matter. With the next LK being space, as soon as 1.04 appears, I'm starting my own 5CCC+.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

lurker's comment:
Nice discussion...
My POV about RaR city placement:
Note I am a "1st-ring Fanatic" in unmodded. About every second city there will have all 20 tiles (and the capital + FP city, which I usually build ~3rd ring). And I'll NEVER cram in a city here.
For RaR, my strat is pretty different. Three reasons:
1) Your best late game cities can hardly grow early on (Mountains)
2) Lots of corruption (better: waste!) reducers and OCN modifiers
3) Specializing cities is required.

Because of 1), I quite often place two cities CxxC (or even CxC in the orthogonal directions). Usually one of those is coastal/mountains, and the other one grasssland/plains/jungle. Before RR/Fisheries, the second city will be useful, while the other one is a mediocre fishing village; later situation reverses, and the grassland city will skim of Workers/Settlers/cheaper units.

Then, what's your core in RaR? To me, those are 4 or 5 cities. Capital, the FPs, the IP if it happens to not be in a FP city. Aside from the first one, I prefer to build the FPs in former AI capitals/wonder cities, btw.

Corruption:
There are countless ways to fight waste - all CH equivalants, WLtKDs. And if everything fails, get up another production booster unless city XY makes a useful # of spt. It really doesn't matter to me if founding a semi-useful filler city costs another city one out of ~67spt. There are enough unit choices for this case.
Corruption is a completely different issue. A city that is about 70% productive is often enough 70% corrupted still. And that's why specialization matters: Your income/research comes almost entirely from the capitals and coastal cities. And those coastal ones makes so much gpt, it doesn't matter that much if they're 30% or 25% corrupted if that means you can get up one more of them.
Bottom line:
For me, there is no strict city placement sceme in RaR. 'Read the Terrain' is what really rules. Cramming in an all plains/grass city is pointless. But another size 5 military producer at 15spt without much work is worth it to me. Or a town that grabbs 5 more coastal tiles.
Unmodded= Your first ring cities will provide 90% of everything
RaR= A 3rd ring coastal city will provide more commerce than a first-ring landlocked/no bonus metro.
In fact, I recently discovered the power of Feudalism (sic!) in RaR - since I hardly have more than a couple of cities anyway...

 

[Bezhukov]

Good points, Doc and Sanabas,

I had forgotten, but I have in many of my best games stuck in cities to grab unworked tiles in the mid to late game (once waste is under control - around Supreme Court, or when I'm getting WLTK day consistently). It really isn't that bad a corruption hit, and the units these cities produce allow my other cities to develop better.

 

[bed_head7]

I haven't seen you give an ETA for 1.04 anywhere else, which probably means I haven't looked hard enough or there isn't one. Either way, I run the chance of annoying you, but DocT, is there any update on when the 1.04 will be available?

 

[LKendter]

I vote we bag the 1.04 wait. I already gave up for LK97.

 

[bed_head7]

I am on the fence at the moment. I'd like to get it going, but I do have eight games at the moment so I am not in a huge hurry. Of course, with two players leaving in a month, we need to get it going. So....

Votes to wait:
1 - bed_head7

Votes to start:
1 - LKendter

 

[romeothemonk]

I say give them until next monday.

 

[LKendter]

We shall see where everyone else votes. For me, I hate keeping a slot filled for a inactive game.

 

[bed_head7]

LK and I have manually installed 1.04. It took 10 minutes and was simple. Would everyone else be willing to do this?

Here is the page with the files and instructions (I don't know how to link to a single post).

 

[ThERat]

ok, will try that too tonight

question: does it affect the current games? or no issue?

 

[romeothemonk]

upgraded here.

 

[dmanakho]

I have upgraded my version

 

[bed_head7]

Okay, that makes all but Bezhukov. I have started generating starts, but I did probably 25 without finding one anywhere near the caliber of the last start, which was good but not outstanding. All settings are random except for map size (standard) and difficulty level (deity).

 

[Bezhukov]

I've got the update. Let me know when the game starts.

Good starts often depend on the civ - some civs can't see the good resources.

 

[LKendter]

Good starts often depend on the civ - some civs can't see the good resources.

Take a look at LK98 - we had no clue about the killer sheeptown at the begining. Not to mention camels showing up. If you really want a good start pick the traits that show additional bonus.