BOTM 28 First Spoiler - 500 AD

[Jbourne]

Another key issue is where to settle first. Sure, that location with 3 gems looks mightily attractive, but having a lot of floodplain villages is better.

That site is the best cottage site in the whole map. Pigs, Corn, 2 hills and 3 gems with many grasslands. There were not many such sites on this map. You could have 18 towns there and still grow. So why not start there? Most of the flood plain sites had limited potential coastal tiles or useless deserts or mountains. I have 5 mines and rest cottaged in that city. That way I can build all the needed buildings for happiness and health fast when needed and develop towns all the other times. I will build an academy there too. Hope I get to finish this game.

 

[kcd_swede]

The 100% intercontinental trade applies to the cities build on the other 2 landmasses. So getting about 6 cities, 2 on each land with GLH and harbors, you are talking about 3 trade routes with 3 gold easily. That is 6 extra gold per turn in each city for the price of 200 hammers. In less than 6 turns you get the money back. If no intercontinental trades available, then 6 coastal cities will take 17 turns to payback the 200 hammers. So conventional wisdom is right on the money.

Thanks for the breakdown on the estimated payback time. If I considered all that before starting, it might have led me to chase the GLH instead of the 'Mids - though it would all but require one to settle in place (or other coastal). I've never been disapopinted when I build GLH, so I agree conventional wisdom is valid here for GLH on isolated starts.

Had no idea we were isolated at the time I settled off the coast. Had no reason to expect we were isolated, nor to suspect that we would be able to build lots of coastal cities on lots of landmasses.

As I did not settle my capitol on the coast (but instead on the bronze to get the gems), I would have had to settle my second city somewhere coastal with a lot of forest to get this wonder, and then it would not have helped much in the very early game for me because capitol would see no benefit. (And in deity I do not expect much important game-deciding decisions happening in the late game ). Instead I settled 2nd city on stone (with tile overlap) to get the Pyramids. Without stone I would not have. Felt lucky to get it anyhow, as all of the early WW's were being spammed in far away lands.

Some choices must be made blind, and then based on what you see strategy must be adjusted to make best benefit of the situation you find yourself in. I think GLH would have worked awesomely in this game, and that the map script should tell you that you might get opportunity to take advantage of it, but that you had no right to expect it to work SO well. But there's a lot about this game that we had no right to expect, actually.

 

[budweiser]

I am dying to find out how the AIs behaved in other people's games. I also want to talk about how mine behaved. I went the settle in place, Great Lighthouse, route and I planned on it from the start because I figure that would be about the only wonder I could beat a diety AI to. The 'Mids just fell in my lap. I wonder if that combo led to the way the AI behaved in some way.

 

[Jbourne]

Thanks for the breakdown on the estimated payback time. If I considered all that before starting, it might have led me to chase the GLH instead of the 'Mids - though it would all but require one to settle in place (or other coastal). I've never been disapopinted when I build GLH, so I agree conventional wisdom is valid here for GLH on isolated starts.

Well if it means anything, I too settled on the spot you did against my friends advise and never even thought about the GLH since I do not play water maps. I only did the analysis after realizing there were many good coastal tiles and ...actually it was more like wept.

I am dying to find out how the AIs behaved in other people's games. I also want to talk about how mine behaved. I went the settle in place, Great Lighthouse, route and I planned on it from the start because I figure that would be about the only wonder I could beat a diety AI to. The 'Mids just fell in my lap. I wonder if that combo led to the way the AI behaved in some way.

My AI fought like mad men. I am smelling all agressive AI feast over there. But they are not teching any faster than me but the wonders they are building tell me that they have taken the war tech path. Anyways I am after a Domination VC. So let them fight amoungs themselves. I am heading to Rifles and nationalism. They can hate me for all I care. I am razing both AP city and the SoZ city and hope they are both the same city. That way, there will be no giving back cities per AP votes or no 100% war wearyness. I am sure I won't need the population to win just the land. (even if)

 

[RD-BH]

RD-BH, it seems that you are building workers and settlers at size one for too many turns. This will keep your civ in the dark ages for long time. By the time I built my second settler, it only took me six turns to build it because I let my city grow to its max of 7 population. You are hurting your game by not growing your cities. ...

Interesting, sometimes I've built at size 3, usually I just do worker/worker/settler/settler/worker/worker ... I need to investigate this.

Thanks for the insight 8)

 

[Ribannah]

I am dying to find out how the AIs behaved in other people's games.

From all the messages of Great Generals appearing and dying, I can guess what they are doing in my game.

 

[Jbourne]

Interesting, sometimes I've built at size 3, usually I just do worker/worker/settler/settler/worker/worker ... I need to investigate this.

Thanks for the insight 8)

A good rule of thumb is to let the city grow to use all the tiles with high yield. Say you have corn, wheat, Ivory and two hills as in this game, then to build a settler it will take you while working:

just the Corn; 6F+1H surplus at pop 1 =>13 turn settler
For corn and wheat (not irrigated); 8F+2H surplus at pop 2 =>9 turn settler
For corn, wheat and Ivory ; 7F+5H surplus at pop 3=>8 turn settler + 3 more commerce.

So if you can get the capital to have 13 surplus at pop 4 (add a mined hill) you can build a worker and a settler every 12 turn. Not bad ah?

 

[Ribannah]

That site is the best cottage site in the whole map. Pigs, Corn, 2 hills and 3 gems with many grasslands. There were not many such sites on this map. You could have 18 towns there and still grow. So why not start there?

Because:

(a) it is farther away;
(b) it's not at a river;
(c) you won't be working cottages until size 9 (or 6 if you ignore the 3 hills);
(d) you need Animal Husbandry and Iron Working;
(e) you need extra Workers to clear the jungle;

Most of the flood plain sites had limited potential coastal tiles or useless deserts or mountains.

(f) mostly, they have limited hammers until they grow large, so you won't have time to develop the floodplain sites anymore (or rather you will, because your game lags behind), while the gems city (I have it 1 tile east ie without pig, but with ivory and horse btw) will be able to catch up with emancipation.

 

[Jbourne]

Because:

(a) it is farther away;
(b) it's not at a river;
(c) you won't be working cottages until size 9 (or 6 if you ignore the 3 hills);
(d) you need Animal Husbandry and Iron Working;
(e) you need extra Workers to clear the jungle;



(f) mostly, they have limited hammers until they grow large, so you won't have time to develop the floodplain sites anymore (or rather you will, because your game lags behind), while the gems city (I have it 1 tile east ie without pig, but with ivory and horse btw) will be able to catch up with emancipation.

How long did it take you to build more settlers? In my game I have all those Flood plains cottaged/farmed (7food) and covered within my first 6 cities. Well that is not true there is one FP I have yet to claim to east. Of course I did not build Wonders. I had 2 gems working very soon and it easily compansate for the -3 gpt. There were plenty of tiles to work while waiting for IW. As a matter of fact, IW was a 2 turner when I researched it cause it was not a priority.

As for the emancipation: my civ will never see it and I do not think those mongers will either. After Rifles it will be all units for me. I do not think i will need too many cities either.

 

[BakeliteRules]

Premise: I am way over my head at Diety. Observation: I am alone and scared to death that I am about to be vaporized! Resolve: Build until the Huns make me bleed. Plan of Action: Build Cities until the Huns make me bleed.

Alone and building I have ignored Wonders but built scientists-galore! I am rapidly engulfing all my known continent/islands. Caravels tell me my foreign friends are a decade or more away (whew!). Is it possible they won't find me and I can live in blissful blissfullness? Hope so :>)

 

[babybluepants]

Haven't read through the whole thread yet...

What a bizarre game. I haven't met anyone as of 500 AD, so I don't know yet whether it was a general bloodbath/stalemate or if there's a JC-type holding 30 cities. Doubt any AI could be too strong, though. Our land is ridiculously generous, and their tech pace seems painfully slow for deity. The fact I was leading in land area with 3 cities circa 1500 BC tells the story. If they had any kind of reasonable start, I should have been dead last in that category.

Settled 1SE. In-place seemed better for REX, but I couldn't pass on the gems. The copper was unfortunate, as it meant I couldn't build cheap military police and had to dedicate my fifth city to just warriors later. I decided against fast expansion here and focussed on getting some economic techs early. IIRC, I got COL (and Confu) around 1200-1100 BC, CS in 500 BC and was a few turns into Education at 1 AD, when I realized I expanded so slowly I wasn't even in the position to whip 6 libraries, much less universities anytime soon. Then I spent some time filling up the tech tree. I swear I don't think I've self-teched this much by this date on Noble.

Didn't settle a coastal city until fairly late, instead going for prime cottage sites. As a result, I'm only just rounding the north island with a WB, and my first galley just got loaded with a settler+worker.

No wonders at all, unfortunately. I briefly toyed with the idea of Oracling COL, but the Oracle went in 2000 BC in my game. That sort of flicked a no-wonder switch in my head and I haven't even thought about them since. Stupid, as GLib and Parthenon are still available.

Stats @ 500 AD
9 Cities, 44 Pop (very liberal whipping - so much extra food & ), 9 Workers
275 bpt @ 100%, 198 bpt @ break-even
Education finally complete in 4t, after a long delay.
Approximate tech path (don't quite remember): Basics / Writing / Myst-Medi-PH / COL / Math / CS [500 BC] / Alphabet (for Currency discount + unlock Philo bulb) / Currency / Filling in Fish-Sail-AH... / Philosophy (bulb) / Paper [100 BC] / Part Educ / Poly-Mono-Monarchy (civic switch time) / MC / Aesthetics / IW / Literature / Compass / Machinery / Finish Education. I'm probably forgetting something... I don't have Construction, Calendar, Drama, Music or Optics yet, but I think everything else to this point.

I really need to get NE and OU up soon, tech Optics to go meet some psychos and get going on the expansion asap. Honestly, don't even really know how to settle this much land... I was enjoying it initially, but it's starting to seem too easy for a deity GOTM. Having said that, I will now proceed to mess it up royally, ofc.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Anyways I am after a Domination VC. So let them fight amoungs themselves. I am heading to Rifles and nationalism. They can hate me for all I care. I am razing both AP city and the SoZ city and hope they are both the same city. That way, there will be no giving back cities per AP votes or no 100% war wearyness.

That's the way to deal with the AP! I am so glad that Civ V is dropping religions and their cheesy VC. Speaking of VCs, has anyone done the tedious business of counting tiles to see how our homeland and islands stack up in terms of land percentages? It's not that I'm too lazy to do it myself, you understand.

 

[Jbourne]

Speaking of VCs, has anyone done the tedious business of counting tiles to see how our homeland and islands stack up in terms of land percentages? It's not that I'm too lazy to do it myself, you understand.

. I was going to do this last night but did not have time to do it. I think we will likely have 60% on the local lands. Anyways, my plan is to go on an expansion spree.

 

[Htadus]

Because:

(a) it is farther away;
(b) it's not at a river;
(c) you won't be working cottages until size 9 (or 6 if you ignore the 3 hills);
(d) you need Animal Husbandry and Iron Working;
(e) you need extra Workers to clear the jungle;
(f) mostly, they have limited hammers until they grow large, so you won't have time to develop the floodplain sites anymore (or rather you will, because your game lags behind), while the gems city (I have it 1 tile east ie without pig, but with ivory and horse btw) will be able to catch up with emancipation.

(a) Your second city was only 3 tiles closer than the 2 gem site. Two gems in the early game trumps any 3 or 4 commerce cottage tile in a city and 3 extra food let me hire two scientist and it gave me my Academy scientist fairly early.
(b) Rivers are sweet but at most any city site in this game can provide you with no more than 9 extra river tiles and there were not many of them either but most of them did not have good workable tiles like the 20 in Gem city.
(c) I had two mines, 2 cottages, farm and 2 scientist in that city at 7 pop. And I am sure those 2 scientist were giving more bulbs than some of the villages you likely had at the time.
(d) yes, eventually
(e) Yes eventually
(f) It sounded like the cities you placed by the FP had plenty of hammer potential for what buildings you needed. Even when fully developed that potential is not very going to change that much with or without dikes(?) and US. And how many building do you really need to build there any ways? Capital and two other real production cities can build all the units and parts you need.

 

[Ribannah]

Do the math.

In 500ad, my Pasargadae (13 river tiles, 10 pop) has 1 pig, 1 river gems, and 2 towns and 2 villages on floodplains, and more river villages and hamlets. That is way more gold (even not counting the extra pop) and even 1 more food than your gems city on 1 pig, 1 corn, 3 gems, 2 cottages. It is also 3 tiles closer, so it was settled quicker, and then started to grow fast immediately.

Oh, I need (nearly) all buildings in all cities, eventually.

 

[wiley15]

Definitely not meant as a boast since I am only playing Adventurer (and in the previous GoTM I was destroyed). But does everyone have a big lead on the AIs, I think I'm currently around 1600 to 800 on the ones I've met. I imagine this is a common occurrence but curious.

 

[adrianj]

First Spoilers often have a line something to the effect of: Please do not discuss any AI not reachable by galley. I notice that isn't present in the first post of this particular spoiler - Niklas preferring to ask "How did you get along with your, um, neighbors? Has there been any contact yet?"

I can't remember if I even had contact yet by 500 AD, but it was fairly plain to see from the demographics screen that we were ahead. This map is most unusual in that the map maker basically removed all AI presence from our part of the map and presumably packed them in tight on the other continent(s). We have oodles of room to expand and grow, so it's not all that surprising to be ahead in score even with the Diety saves.

Welcome to CivFanatics Wiley15

 

[Htadus]

Do the math.

In 500ad, my Pasargadae (13 river tiles, 10 pop) has 1 pig, 1 river gems, and 2 towns and 2 villages on floodplains, and more river villages and hamlets. That is way more gold (even not counting the extra pop) and even 1 more food than your gems city on 1 pig, 1 corn, 3 gems, 2 cottages. It is also 3 tiles closer, so it was settled quicker, and then started to grow fast immediately.

Oh, I need (nearly) all buildings in all cities, eventually.

Sorry you misunderstood me. My gem city start growing after it gave me the GS and I had all three happy metals connected and had a forge built. Sadly it appears that I used it to pop rush two of my settlers there and the city was only at population 9 at the 500AD cutoff and working 3 gems, a farm, mine, 2 towns and 1 village and a hamlet. So I am pretty sure It is doing OK. We can campare the benefits at the end of the game.

As for your Pasargadae city site, that lot is still va**** at 500AD in my game. For some reason or the other, I have a problem building workshops over mature cities. So since I have considered this site to be my future IW city, I chose to build my cottage cities first. I think I am going to like that with 15 workshops, 2 mines, pigs and a gem mine. Actually I might workshop the gem mine too and may be the pigs but I am not sure about the health issues. Combine that with SP, dikes, and IW, it might make a fine space ship factory. Of course if I get another GE, I might take the other route.

Oh yeah. First thing I am doing is to build that city now and farm everything while building the few needed building. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Mutineer]

Settle in place. I actually move scout left on forested hill to check may be there are more sea food, but no. I consider more food more important then gems, in addition sea food with commercial leader provide only slightly less commerce, but lot more food.

Move scout south, walking try all this floodplain and not meting anybody. Found edge of south island, thinking opponent on separate land. Move scout north, found edge of north island. Well, we have a huge continent by myself. Thanks god no barbarians, or it would have been nasty.

build order was worker-fishboat-fishboat- settler-warrior or( warrior-settler) do not remember

With no barbarians one does not need military, send boat to north island...

Bah. no one there and no one come from south... hmm...

research went aproximatly
fishing-mining, well, mysticism, massonry-potery-BW

Reason was: If I can get stonehenge I can mach faster expo, so road to stone and settle on it.
Which I did 2560BC, and it was build next turn.. dammit, I got only 20 gold out of it, well, reseach to 100%
Animal saling-AH-writing
2080 gem city
I was whipping settler trowing overflow into GW.
GW do not need with no barbarians, but I want fail gold.

1960 GW was build, netting me a lot of gold.

Great light house was next in 1200BC,
Haden garden - 900BC
after that city/worker spamm.. spamm... spamm..
400 BC I got GE with I used to build MM in 375 BC

1 AD I had 11 cities.

125 AD taoism by self reseaching after CS,
475 AD I got GA with I used for golden age
500 AD AW, and I run 3 priests for golden age/pacifism GP generation.

On 500AD I had 15 cities on main land and full south island owned by my liberated vassal Saladin on 4 cities.

I was waiting when darn oversea AI will show up, so was trying to fill all land as fast as possible.

 

[Ribannah]

As for your Pasargadae city site, that lot is still va**** at 500AD in my game. For some reason or the other, I have a problem building workshops over mature cities. So since I have considered this site to be my future IW city, I chose to build my cottage cities first. I think I am going to like that with 15 workshops, 2 mines, pigs and a gem mine. Actually I might workshop the gem mine too and may be the pigs but I am not sure about the health issues. Combine that with SP, dikes, and IW, it might make a fine space ship factory. Of course if I get another GE, I might take the other route.

Oh yeah. First thing I am doing is to build that city now and farm everything while building the few needed building. Thanks for the reminder.

Expect health issues.

My Pasargadae is the intended location for the Temple of Solomon, Wall Street and the corporations. Iron Works goes into the capital (with Oxford), since I plan to stay in Bureaucracy and I can build the Space Elevator there. The National Epic will be combined with the National Park, probably on the sw island where so far I have saved the forests.