Blackhat HOF thread

[BlackHat]

I'm not a regular poster, but I've lurked on the forums for quite a while and been interested in the HOF recently. I know these forums are pretty bare these days, so this is mostly just for myself, but I've seen a few things that haven't been mentioned in other HOF threads.

I tend to enjoy milking, so a smaller histographic game seems like a good place to start. While the huge maps are obviously quite well populated for Histographic attempts, and Tiny maps have seen some action, the mid level maps are quite soft at the top compared to the benchmark set by the huge maps. I pulled the top histographic attempts from every table and adjusted based on Bartleby's research for domination limits and the level bonus to normalize the values relative to the other scores and find places that I could improve on.

(As of 12/8/2016)

I've personally milked a game to about 2.07 on this scale, so it's safe to say that anything under 2 comes as a soft target that can be beaten by a mediocre player on a good day. Of course winning is a requirement to join these tables so those "0" Sid slots are out of reach at the moment.

 

[BlackHat]

The small Regent map looks like a fun and achievable target so I set up the standard map for such things and select the Maya.

I wanted a strong AI that can do some research for me if at all possible, or at least get me bonus techs. I went with Greece, Korea (commercial), Russia (goody huts), Sumeria (agricultural) and the Ottomans (shrug). I'm really not sure if it's best to try to help the AI grow to cover territory or keep them small and use my own settlers. In this game the AI expansion definitely hurt me, but I think that's more about my execution, map and attachment to overwhelming force than a universal truth of CivIII.

Didn't have mapfinder on my mac, so had to generate random maps until I found a start that looked OK without respect to the dom limit. As of right now I'm on pace for about 6600 points in 1020 AD with significant pop growth to go. Still don't know my Dom limit. Most landlocked cities are just now running out of tiles for citizens to work, and the specialists and fishermen aren't going proper yet. The overall story isn't that interesting, so I won't give a blow by blow, but there were some interesting problems and observations along the way.

One is that the land came split into four islands. I think this is an automatic abandon for most, but I'm not sure. Abandon criteria are rarely discussed in HOF threads. It wasn't a huge problem for settler expansion since I got MM about the time I ran out of room at home, but it was hugely detrimental for military campaigns. I had to go through two ferries to get my military to the first battle site, then teleport them back to my capital before ferrying them to the second continent. And it was brutally difficult to arrange disconnect-reconnect to get a DOW. What is your standard for abandoning a histographic map?

Another was a severe lack of cash. Most high level strategies seem based on crazy gpt from powerful AI's early, allowing aggressive research AND massive shield purchases for military and infrastructure builds. I was able to execute a Leo aided mass horse upgrade to cavalry, and a little disconnect reconnect for horse-cavs but it required several turns of reduced science to collect gold, and I still only got around 25 units out of it. Fortunately that was more than enough. I will plan it better next time, but it was very difficult to execute properly. And I was only able to start buying buildings in earnest after I got RP and could shut down research. You know, right when I got CE's to build infrastructure in corrupt towns. Overall, this limited me from building both military and properly utilizing my non core pop growth for workers and settlers early, and forced me to wait to develop non core towns.

Militarily I should have avoided cannons entirely as they just weren't useful against a regent AI, cost me gold, and diverted production. I also built ME's, who took out one AI before cavalry made them more trouble than they were worth. I think next time I will get to chivalry ASAP, do a mass upgrade to knights for full price (shutting down research as long as it takes) and just go hit their spears. How does everyone else handle lower level wars like this?

 

[BlackHat]

I made another mistake in handling the lower number of opponents on a smaller map. From Spoonwood's huge games I think it's clear that four sources of war happiness for the duration of the game are beneficial to score, Which means you can eliminate at most 1 AI.

In the huge game threads I usually see players aggressively eliminating civs ASAP so that their citizens aren't prone to culture flips, and won't be angry about war with the mother country. They then raze and replace with any civs they plan to keep around. Fortunately flips aren't a big deal on Regent, but the unhappiness is a real issue if I plan to stand at war. I think I chose the worst of all worlds by keeping the cities but starving them to 1 pop before starting growth. That left me with no choice on city placement (though some were pretty good) and delayed growth for those cities. Next small map will be raze and replace, but that means there's no benefit to fast growing AI's. Sumeria and possibly the Ottomans and Russians will be out next game, replaced with slower growing scientific civs like Babylon and Germany. Hopefully the research pause after knights will allow some settler purchases to make up the difference before sprinting to RP and Sanitation.

 

[Quintillus]

Welcome to CFC !

Glad to see someone new in this forum; it has indeed been pretty quiet lately. I'm definitely more of a lurker in this sub-forum myself, submitting a game every couple years (including last month), but it's exciting to see the approaches taken to improve on previous scores, and there's been some progress in that area over the past few years.

Going to have to ask about a couple of the acronyms though - RP clearly isn't Right of Passage, not sure that MM is Mausoleum of Mausollos, and ME doesn't quite match up with Medieval Infantry. Granted, I'm not the best with acronyms around here; have too many to keep track of just at work to know every Civ one too.

I'm not a high-level milkrunner, but from what I do know:

- Horses a very popular for rapid early expansion. Lanzelot recently completed the Monarch Maya GOTM with an army consisting almost exclusively of 200+ horses, and it's rare to find a higher-level player.
- Artillery, of any sort, tend not to be popular due to their slowness. Artillery (the Industrial Age unit) is probably the most popular, since its range helps counteract its slowness, and that and its damage means you can stop essentially any AI with enough of them. But I suspect you'll want to have your expansion wrapped up well before that, with Cavalry likely being the last mainline unit.

Appreciate the writeups too, it's always interesting to see how players take on challenging games.

 

[BlackHat]

Thanks for the welcome and good to meet you Quintillus!

MM = Map Making
RP = Replaceable Parts
ME was indeed a thoughtless reference to Medieval Infantry. That's embarasing.

Most of my understanding of histographic attempts comes from Spoonwood's Mayan Mayhem thread, where he built and used a significant stack of cannons. But that was versus a Diety/SID AI, and obviously that's a different situation than I was facing. I mainly built them in corrupt cities that couldn't justify barracks, but that was still a mistake. Should have made regulars or settlers. A subtle difference on a lower level small game is that there's no need to aggressively leader farm like Spoonwood did, since a few good units can do the heavy lifting of armies.

I'm not sure I've ever executed a early rush of any kind. Goes back to that addiction to overwhelming force. Ozymandius domination wins with the Celts are especially impressive. I open his mid game saves and immediately close them in confusion, wondering how the heck it's possible without cheating. So many cities.

Currently this game is at 1355 AD and the score is 3979. Per turn increases extrapolate to a score around 8240, and there are a few specialist slots waiting on growth, plus some sea squares targeted for expansion. I'm hoping to reach 8300, which would end up being about 2.08 on the scale I used for the table above, but either way it's a successful result. Unless I make a mistake on the domination limit it will easily take the number 1 slot from the old 6110. Currently I am 4 turning Combustion with only specialists.

My core island:

I should probably abandon the area entirely, but there is just too much infrastructure there. Maybe now that everything else is running well I can spit out some settlers and make an insta-city elsewhere to replace 01 and 02. You can't see them but there are three oasis by my capital that made the start viable, and 02 to the south was a 5 turn with the wheat on a floodplain and several forests.

One tactic employed heavily is blocking poor terrain with cities gifted to the AI:

I'm sure some games have used it but I personally haven't opened any games in the HOF with the technique. Culture flips triggering domination have been mentioned as a reason to avoid it, but you get a choice to "rebuff the rebels" so that concern seems misplaced. This has allowed me to be especially aggressive in pursuing sea squares in locations like the above. The poor food production inland would not allow me to expand to the 2nd and 3rd cultural influence level without covering a substantial amount of terrible land. Not that the coastal land is good, but the sea squares more than make up for it. I need to add a city 2 SE of 1405-2D as well to save 2 squares. In this game I chose to 'befriend' Sumeria and give them cities to block, while using the other opponents for war happiness, mainly because Sumeria has the most citizens in my cities. My minimap shows AI walls in several places:

It probably goes without saying that I would not use this method so extensively with higher level AI's, or would use more than one civ to keep them divided.

One surprising thing about this arrangement was that optional techs started showing up from the AI recently, presumably the result of 50 turn gambits. I've gotten Navigation, Communism, and Fascism since gifting them all to the industrial era. Not that those are very useful, but better to have them than not. And they may be required to research future tech.

 

[superslug]

Ozymandius domination wins with the Celts are especially impressive. I open his mid game saves and immediately close them in confusion, wondering how the heck it's possible without cheating. So many cities.

Welcome to the Hall of Fame! It's always nice to see a new player after all this time it's been open for business.

Please be careful with using the word 'cheating' though, even if just used casually and without intention of making an accusation. I certainly understand what it's like to open a better player's files and wonder how in the world they do things, but please remember that Hall of Fame games are vetted thoroughly against a robust set of standards and rules.

In terms of any game you open that has a number of cities you might not understand, I would encourage you to look at the 4000bc files and check out the terrain around where they start. Two or three 4-turn settler pumps, getting a settler out of a goody hut, the Pyramids, and an Agricultural civ can do some amazing expansion.

 

[BlackHat]

Please be careful with using the word 'cheating' though, even if just used casually and without intention of making an accusation.

I understand where you're coming from. I actually very much meant the statement in a "If I randomly saw this I would call BS, but know he really did it because it's in the HOF" sense, but I can see how it reads as a semi-accusation. It's not and I have zero suspicion of any game in the HOF. I will avoid such statements in the future.

 

[superslug]

I never felt you were making an accusation. It's all good.

 

[EMan]

Welcome BlackHat to the Civ3 HOF. Like 'slug here, I've been around the HOF a long time and while milking Huge maps also takes a long time, I find it a lot of fun and very thought-provoking.....Always room for improvement..........Still learning new stuff, even after about 15 years!

If you want to get a more detailed idea of how HOF players' Milk games progress, download the utility program CRpViewer. It will show you their map, game score and other useful stuff for every turn in their game.
When I'm taking on a top player's Histographical Record (Milk game), I compare my score with his/hers every turn.

 

[EMan]

What is your standard for abandoning a histographic map?

If you use the aforementioned utility program, you might be able to figure the answer to this question, at least as it pertains to my games.

The concise answer is: If I don't get a Scientific Great Leader (SGL) upon discovery of my first technology, in order to rush The Pyramids, I abandon the game!

 

[BlackHat]

Thanks E-Man! I needed the reminder. CRP is obviously popular, but I had never installed it on my mac. I got it working in a VM and see that mapstat will be very helpful for future management, and I'm surprised how seamlessly it works across platforms.

CRP that my map has a domination limit of 1202, which is in the bottom 5% for small arch maps according the the aforementioned research by bartleby. It's currently 1810 AD and my score is 6546 with a projection somewhere in the 8400's. It sucks that my limit happened to be low, but it also means I'm a lot closer to making the most of my map than I thought.

Sigh. This just took a bad turn. I noticed that I hadn't seen a cultural conversion all game and checked my settings. Yep, somehow cultural conversions were turned off. Sigh. At least it was a decent game.

I may try a conquest game to work on early warmongering.

 

[superslug]

There's a 4000bc checker when you log into the HOF. You can upload your starting turn save file to it and make sure all your settings are HOF legal before getting too far into your game.

 

[BlackHat]

Thanks slug. I was vaguely aware of such a tool, but just assumed my settings were correct. This next one has already passed the checker.

I decided to try the Iroquois on a large Emperor map targeting conquest to work on my early warmongering abilities. Mainly because that map had open slots and a larger map would force me to extend the fighting. 80% pangea and mostly down the middle for the other map settings plus barbs at none and aggression at standard. I wanted slow growing tribes without a great early UU which led me to England, Korea, Byzantines, Germany, Babylon, and the Mongols.

Mapfinder was looking for lots of food bonuses and fresh water, so the 4 cow start was expected but nice:

The start required me to move off a cow, but it was worth it. I'd never realized how powerful forest next to food bonuses can be until the 4 turn factory that only needed two or three tiles improved. The other two cows plus a forest fed my second city to the east, while the third used forest and the wheat. The target was to hit 10 cities ASAP then start building Chariots/Mounted Warriors and go. I wound up with 14 or so. After researching the corruption mechanic it seems like for a handful of cities distance corruption is the primary factor and that a tighter build was more efficient.

The tech strategy was to avoid speeding the pace for any reason since it would shorten the effective age of the mounted warrior. The vast majority of 'research' came from pillaged roads that were caring english Ivory. Which was convenient because it let me build the knight's templar with about 11 golden age turns. Speaking of golden ages: with the core of my production based on forest and an early trigger with the MW, I've never seen such an irrelevant GA. Still not sure if that paid off compared to building 7 MW's earlier, but it works. From the start I researched The Wheel aggressively to find horses, and I think WC came by trade before HBR could begin. After getting some beakers in I slowed it down until I had about 20 chariots and enough gold before finishing the research. From there I stockpiled gold most of the game. Mounted warriors slowed everything to a crawl once wars started so ultimately feudalism was never an imminent threat.

In 900 BC we were finally ready for war, with 20-30 MW's in place. The world:

I had to choose between Korea to the south and England to the north, and there are a lot of pro's and cons for each in this situation. England would have required me to send my army far away from the long term problems in Germany and Mongolia, and lies much closer to my production centers. By the time Germany was finished, my core should have capacity to make a second horde for england. Korea was barely a challenge and they were no more in 800. Next were the Byzantines on the other side of an arid valley. The first city was captured in 710 and the remaining four core cities were taken by 590. At that point we made peace with the crippled Byzantines rather than crush them completely. This proved problematic as they resettled several cities in our travel corridor and generally spread an effective military again, but my primary concern was to deal with the mongols and germans, both of whom were the most powerful civs on our map from the start and seemed to be progressing fast. The preparation for war:

That was all we knew about the german and mongol front at that time. Notice the Byzantine Spear-settler stack headed to mess with my road network. There were quite a few units healing or moving to the west as well.

Germany and Mongolia were an inspired match because they wound up next to each other at the opposite end of the map. Of course they were throwing endless streams of pop rushed archers at each other when I arrived. Good thing neither was near me. I first declared war on Mongolia to take that city near the Byzantines, but for some reason decided that Germany was the bigger threat shortly thereafter. I think it was tech pace. Neither had iron, though it turned out they both had access but had not hooked it up. So I went north and gutted the german core ASAP before getting peace, receiving 2 cities and turning south in 230 BC.

Mongolia proved to be the toughest opponent, both because they had hooked up iron and made about 8 swordsmen and because I stopped making units. Sometime near the beginning of the war with Germany it became clear that only 5 civilizations lived on my continent. There was no chance for a decent conquest date, but the island was pretty big so the gears shifted to make this a domination game. That led me to shift from MW to settlers in core cities and to get to republic ASAP to allow cash rushing in corrupt towns and handle the longer game. The end result was very few reinforcements throughout the Mongolian war, and a lot of pauses for healing. By the end of the war in 70 AD, my two armies were the only units I really trusted to power through a stack of spears. If a healthy army wasn't there an assault was very worrisome.

Once Mongolia was finished the game was pretty straightforward but incredibly stressful. It felt like each turn took forever, and that I would never actually finish these civs off. ROP with Theodora to speed up movement, ROP with Germany to position units. Rape ROP with germany and take all 4 cities in 1 turn. Rape ROP with byzantines and take 5 cities on the first turn. Rush every possible unit to get to England ASAP.

I wasn't very scientific about the plan to get to 66, only confirming it could be done with my island using mapstat. I decided to use temples to fill in gaps instead of spacing settlers closer. This plan became even simpler when England started on ToA in a town near the border. Based on this I waited until it was completed to declare (really it only delayed the war 2 turns) and a turn later the ToA was mine in 330 AD. But there were so many settlers from excessive rushing that they could fill in gaps in most places and the additional space in England put me over the limit in 350AD. The sledge swinging warrior declares me "Hiawatha the magnificent" and if accepted the game will chart as the 6th game on the Emperor large domination chart.

Overall it was a very fun experience that challenged my tendencies on early warmongering. I might try it on monarch without a UU civ just to see how it works with mortal units. It officially took over 18 hours, but that's not remotely reflective of the time I really spent on it. 2 year olds have a way of keeping you from focusing on a task...

The reflections from this:

• Would I have finished faster had I known it was a dom game? maybe. there would be a continuous settler pump, and research would have pursued republic sooner. But who knows? That would have reduced cash and MW availability.
• Kill or cripple? I settled for crippling AI's and rushing to hurt someone else, and it worked, but it also left me with a lot of places to be and things to do.
• Religious opponents for dom wins - none of my continental civs were religious, but I wonder if a civ with cheap temples would save time building cities to replace autorazes.
• I built a ton of workers from cities with nothing else to do. Which is better for quick games - a worker or a regular MW?
• Use a dotmap and figure out what you need to build. And saving a few settlers isn't worth waiting until temples in corrupt areas. And don't be tempted to plant the first filler settlers in the areas next to your core out of lazyness. Send them to the other end of the world first to save time at the end.

 

[lifetap]

I've tried searching..

1. but what is HoF really?
2. Highest points (in-game points? where in where the warrior smashes the bell? or is this the victory point scoring?) and fastest finish (year finish or the hours putted in?)

 

[superslug]

What is the HOF really? This: http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ3/index.php (I think some of the old links we were used to didn't make it with the forum transition.)

It's a combination of highest point finishes for milk runs to 2050 AD and fastest finishes by dates for all other victory conditions, where score is then a tiebreaker.

 

[BlackHat]

After having so much fun with a pure war game I figured it might be cool to try a pure science game. Tiny 60% Pangea map playing monarch with the Sumerians vs the Koreans, Greeks, and Byzantines. no barbs, wet, warm 5B. Mapfinder looked for 2 cows and water, and after about 15 maps I finally popped a pyramids SGL on Ceremonial Burial. I kept researching through the religious side of the tree until I found the other tribes and writing popped up. After trading for writing I got the Republic slingshot and revolted. I think a few AI’s researched lit and map making, but this was the last help they would be with actual research. Gifting my opponents into the Middle ages yielded all the first level techs and I obtained Invention as my own tech. I gifted that to the AI before starting down the Theology branch hoping someone would research gunpowder before I needed physics. They researched chivalry instead. Useless imbeciles. Even so, the Middle ages went fantastic, with 4 turn research for most techs, and my pick of science wonders. I entered the Industrial age in 30 AD. That SGL is crazy powerful.

I built Cops in my capital timed to finish right at the start of the IA and trigger a golden age. The only problem? Cops only triggers for expansionist civilizations. Sigh. The bad thing was that Newtons was available to switch to. The worse news was that I seriously botched the free tech procedure. Once again all three techs showed up when I gifted the AI up to the Industrial Age. But this time the prices were absurdly high, and I had to mortgage the farm to buy steam from Korea. Then the Byzantines were equally proud of Medicine and treated my steam like a worthless rag so I remortgaged everything again. Then Korea would give maybe a third of the GPT back to obtain Medicine. And Nationalism could not be bought for any price, including the two other techs and all my remaining GPT. But I figured “No problem, I’ll just get my free tech and buy the GPT back with that and everything will be great.” Only my free tech was nationalism. And the AI had traded it after I exited “what’s the big picture”. So two thirds of my economy was going to Korea, I had no lump gold, and had to set research to ~30% on electricity. I think it took 15 turns, after which I was able to use it to buy most of my gold back from Korea, plus some of my GPT and restart full speed research. War was considered, and I actually went ahead and ruined my rep by cutting a trade route with the byzantines to get back 45 GPT, but I was simply not prepared to deal with a military campaign against an AI deeply intertwined in my territory while trying to save my rep for a vote. And had I had a golden age it probably would have saved at least 7 turns on my finish date, and possibly 10. Instead I got Newton's right after finishing electricity.

The Korean "front" in 320 AD

Towards the end of the Industrial Age it became clear that I had failed to plan my UN prebuild properly. My capital and adjacent forbidden Palace cities were the big shield generators, and the only cities that could make 1000 shields fast enough. But neither of them could build the palace. I had Universal Suffrage available, but that leaves me 200 shields short. I’m pretty sure I entered the modern age in 690 AD, but at that point had 5 turns left on the UN. Taking it all the way to space was considered, but either way it was going to be 2nd place in the table. In 730 I declared war on Greece and signed everyone in - but forgot that half my luxuries come from or through Greece. After dealing with the riot in the capital I won the election in 750 AD, good for second place if accepted. That’s pretty encouraging given the mistakes I made along the way. Change my free tech from nationalism to electricity or Industrialization and my date improves by 15 turns, and combined with a properly timed golden age I could have approached (but not beaten) Spoonwood’s 550 AD date.

I fear that “If accepted” may be an issue though. If you notice, I said I got my GPT back from Korea using electricity. But I forgot that my obligation expired in 6 turns, and the new deal was 20 turns. Once I realized this mistake I gifted lump gold to Korea (the debtor) every few turns so that they could pay back to me, but I think I forgot one or two turns and let them hit zero. In the thread where gold creation was discussed the final conclusion was that it was the players responsibility to keep from generating free gold no matter what, but this is a good example of just how easy it is to do even without intentionally exploiting anything in the game mechanics. I only bought a tech with whatever it took then sold another tech for whatever they’d give. Yet I can also see that this is an exploitable mechanic in a non research game, since a player could easily gift big GPT to an AI and repurchase the accumulated lump gold with techs before finally asking for all their GPT back on the final turn of the deal. But this is certainly not game breaking like the original Emsworth Agreement, and is less exploitive than the disconnect-reconnect practiced at higher levels. Anyway, if the game is rejected due to creating free gold then I understand and accept the result, though I can’t promise to like the rule.

Edit: played it out to space for fun and launched in 1070, only 9 turns after the number 1 slot. Should have waited I guess. Also the game was accepted. Thank you Slug!

 

[BlackHat]

Played the same settings again to see what can be improved.

What's the SOP for Literature on these games? I've been letting the AI research it, but that leaves it pretty late sometimes and could backfire if they don't cooperate. Do people generally self research it early?

Research was 4 turns for literally everything from the start of the Industrial Age in 130AD, but a 690 BC save shows 6 turns for astronomy with 100% research. By the time TOG came in 4 turning was easy, so the golden age was delayed as long as possible and kicked it off with 1 turn left on Refining. But honestly it was mostly irrelevant. Free tech luck was as bad as it gets early, with only 2 required techs on the first two transitions. Both times one tech showed up for 2 AI's, and both times I popped the most useless option possible with Chivalry and Nationalism. The AI helped by researching Invention or Engineering (maybe both) plus Lit but it was not great overall.

It seems like the final date is nearly set once you enter the IA, which makes me question the aggressive REX phase. That same 690 BC save shows this for my core:

There's just not many citizens to make beakers there. This was right after settlers were shut down, and it wasn't long before we were 4 turning through the rest of the middle ages. The science slider was at 100% for maybe 5 turns after the next age change, and specialists were never close to maxed out. The correct solution is probably to build the MoM to trigger a golden age right after getting to Republic, which would let a city grow early as well.

In addition to the first SGL on Ceremonial Burial three more showed up over the course at the end of the middle ages and beginning of the industrial. I was under the impression that you could only have one at a time, but apparently three can stack up. After Newton's completed one rushed Bach's and another Sun Tzu's. But Sistine, Leo's, and Universal Suffrage were all still available and I really wanted to try building ToE in the Modern Age where the techs were more expensive. That meant breaking the cascade before discovery of Scientific Method. After Sistine completed somewhere we got an ROP with Korea and their Leo city was railroaded and mined to optimize short term production and shave about 3 turns to completion. Don't worry, did them another solid by irrigating every mine once they got done. The SGL built Universal Suffrage 10 turns before research started on SM. I'd hoped the AI would research it but they were all like "LOLZZZ" and researched Navigation, fascism, and music theory.

The luck finally turned going into the Modern Age when the AI drew and traded three different techs, allowing me to get a fourth and pushing the best possible finish date to 950 AD, 3 turns before the number 1 slot. Everything went perfect, with major production in 6 core cities to build space ship parts and taking the two most expensive techs from TOE in Miniaturization and Robotics. Learned satellites in 950, swapped the palace to thrusters on the interturn and launched.

 

[Spoonwood]

Hi Blackhat,

Congratulations on your latest games and victories! I've always researched literature in my science games, except maybe the spaceship game I played on a Sid standard map. I wouldn't have even had played that map, since the plains cow gives you less food early than a grassland cow. But, you bested my date, and there is no arguing with success!

With respect to histographic games, I've studied Drazek's recent 93k game. I haven't used the technique of having 1 turn work pumps as Drazek has, but it looks very powerful. I recommend studying his 10 AD save to get some idea of this. If you try one turn worker pumps in the future, there exist some combinations worth knowing about. One combination before railroads is simply an irrigated grassland cow, several irrigated grasslands, and a mined hill at size 6 in a city where none of the first 10 shields will get corrupted. There's a combination like that in Drazek's capital city of Chichen Itza, but he doesn't have it set up for that. 2 irrigated cows and some irrigated grasslands and a hill can also work. And those just make for some examples. You just need to have 10 food in the city and 10 uncorrupted shields *when* the city grows to the next size. So, a mined hill might really come in handy, and potentially a hill with iron could work out as very handy. Feel free to discuss this or post a screenshot with some city where you might think about doing this in the future.

Also, I feel honored to have my games looked at read! Thank you!

 

[BlackHat]

Spoonwood! I didn't know you were still around. You deserve the honor. Those games and their write ups are the most informative resources on CFC for advanced play I've found. I think it's because you discuss so many "failed" ideas that hint at the deeper mechanics of your strategy rather than just saying "this is what I did" and leaving us to wonder how you arrived at that conclusion, or what failed along the way. You're openly introspective, and that does a better job of teaching how to think about civ rather than just how to play it. Most strategy articles are just a formula. Anyway, thank you for the time you put into the write-ups. They're the number 1 reason this thread exists.

It never really occurred to me that I needed more food for the capital once you get to 5 food for this kind of game. Do you typically water cows and share with a second city?

I've not looked at Drazek's game yet. Interesting concept. And after playing science games it would seem extremely helpful there as well. Seems like a rare combination though. Of course I once thought 4 turn settler factories were like lightning strikes. Sandboxing on the tiny map from last game only the capital can do it due to corruption:

Obviously a huge map would be more forgiving with the lower corruption. But is a 1 turn factory that critical? It was easy to make 5 - 2 turners from the same game with about 15 turns of work. For instance:

and

and

>50% waste, but so close. Maybe a 2.5 turner?

Actually...

I guess the question is, what is more valuable: the capital (and 3 bonuses) or two ~50% corruption cities? Or would it be best to place a city on the plain S-SE of the capital?

Nope. 1 short on shields. Damn tiny map corruption.

Interesting exercise. Do you think 2 turners would work better than 1 turners? On a huge map you could have a core of 5 or so big productive cities making settlers/horsemen, and another 15 to 20 worker factories at the next level with much more forgiving terrain requirements.

 

[Spoonwood]

Thank you for the kind words BlackHat!

Do you typically water cows and share with a second city?

I do typically water cows in Depotism. I don't recall sharing squares between cities much, but I've done it occasionally, and it can help.

I haven't used 1 turn worker pumps in fast research games. I've barely started thinking about them. I can't vouch for their effectiveness for that sort of game, especially with a tiny map. The key question for that seems how much science do you lose by running a 1 turn worker pump in that city vs. how much science you gain elsewhere from having those workers... and potentially how much more gold do you have to pay for those workers, if gold makes for an issue.

So your capital actually looks rather interesting for 1 turn worker pump. With enough railed squares it would also work as a 1 turn worker pump from say size 11 to 12 with rails also in addition from some sub-7 size. That would make for 11 worked squares working commerce for science, though you'd want to find some way to still build a library, university, keep the citizens happy enough, and possibly build Cope's, Newton's, and potentially SETI (maybe a research lab, though maybe not). That would mean that the city wouldn't produce something else. However, with a basic railroad network, workers would immediately get to a useful spot.

Adding 2 food for each tax collector and dropping out those citizens I see you considering a size 6, 1 turn worker pump. That might make for the best set-up for some game. But, as a question for you to consider, how small could the city be and still be a 1 turn worker pump?

Obviously a huge map would be more forgiving with the lower corruption. But is a 1 turn factory that critical? It was easy to make 5 - 2 turners from the same game with about 15 turns of work. For instance:

That's interesting. I can't tell how small the city could be and still produce a worker every 2 turns in that spot, because of corruption.

>50% waste, but so close. Maybe a 2.5 turner?

Looks definitely more like a city that can use a courthouse.

Nope. 1 short on shields. Damn tiny map corruption.

Did you buy the granary and test that? I see 9 blue shields every-turn. But, there exist more shields than meet the eye every single turn for a city that grows every single turn.

For instance, here's a 1 turn worker pump in my capital from another hypothetical game with this set-up:



Now, I can't quite tell, because I don't remember the corruption numbers for a tiny Monarch map. But, I reason as follows:

1. You have 9 blue shields at size 6 and 10 food, working 2 hills, and an irrigated wheat.

2. So, we drop the city to size 5, take away a hill, and mine the irrigated wheat.

3. We took away one of the squares producing one food and mined one of the squares but need two less overall food to the population drop.

4. So, that's still 10 extra food a turn.

5. We lost three blue shields with the hill and gained one from the mined wheat.

6. That makes for 2 total shields lost, so you would have 7 visible shields and 10 food at size 5.

Now, assuming that the 11th shield doesn't go corrupt, that would make for a 1 turn worker pump in that city at size 5. But, if the 11th shield would go corrupt, then since you already have a red shield, it won't work out as a 1 turn worker pump.

That all said though, can't you get two shields from the forest upon growth in that city for a 1 turn worker pump at size 6 with your set-up there?

I suggest that you go back and look at the capital again and try to figure out how small it could be and still function as a 1 turn worker pump.