BTS 3.13: Infinite City Sprawl 01 - Manhattan Empire

3W is not much better of a production city than Vijay. Vijay has grassland copper + 2 plains hills. 3W has max sheep + grass hill + 3 plains hills. I think it's more important that we grab land as our ability to plant cities far away is nerfed in this game.
 
I'm also not a big fan of settling 3W now.
I'd rather claim some new land--another possibility is to go 6n3E for the gold and then 6N6E for the other bronze.

As for working hammers-commerce, we can only do that once we have currency.
 
Everybody is either annoyed or cautious with Wang - we really should have ditched OB when Alex asked us to...
Well this is before any religion spread so nobody is pleased yet with anyone.

I was thinking we'd want to trade with Wang soon but you could still very well be right.

Anyone know how long before the AI talks after you close borders?
 
If you close borders on your own, then I think it's around 10 turns or so before they'll reconsider. If you "stop trading" by an AI demand, it depends on the civ you stopped trading with. Wang's refuses to talk delay is moderate. I don't know the exact number but I'd guess 20-30 turns?
 
20-30 turns is huge. We want to trade techs with that guy
 
I struggle to understand the reasoning behind snake-settling. A lot of people seem to be in favour of seizing land, which does make a bit of sense, but one of the special things about ICS is that land is not as much of a limitation as economy - particularly early game.

Essentially, the idea of ICS is to sacrifice long-term strength (large, no-overlap cities are more efficient than small, overlap cities because of multiplier buildings and wonders) for early game benefit (health/happiness caps means no-overlap cities are not going to use even a third of their tiles, multiplier buildings and national wonders are not a big factor, whip and later draft is awesome, less distance upkeep).

I think snaking -> backfilling is counterintuitive to what we are trying to achieve: the strongest possible economy/city as fast as possible, to support as many cities as possible as soon as possible.

My thinking is essentially that it is a lot easier to make 3W to pay for itself (in terms of production and commerce) than something like 9N3W. Workers will have less distance, trade routes will sort themselves out, upkeep is lower).

If that is true, then going for the close cities, then to settle the more far away is stronger. Remember, a city does not have to be spectacular to pay for itself:

50% maintenance (Courthouse), low distance (ICS), low civic upkeep (Organized), eventually 2 multipliable coins from religion, 1 commerce from centre, 0-8 commerce from river tiles, 2-6 commerce from trade routes. In addition, each of these cities are going to be slaving, drafting and hammering like nobody's business.

In my understanding, this is the whole 'point' of Civ4ICS.

It is reasonable to worry about becoming boxed in by AIs, but I don't think this will happen all that soon, and we are planning to conquer with vengance. This should not be hard with our insane production.

This is just a friendly post explaining my views - I am extremely open to hearing other thoughts and considerations, and I am by no means demanding that the game plays out this way, but it does seem like a good idea to try to unite our visions.

Does somebody have anything quantitative on how important distance will be for upkeep costs, assuming Courthouses and Organized?

[General idea: I think we should try to cottage-spam a single city, maybe 6N, and eventually move our Palace to it, plus make it research centre. This city should be allowed more tiles than the average city. A good cottage city will increase our city-allowance.]
 
ungy said:
I'd rather claim some new land--another possibility is to go 6n3E for the gold and then 6N6E for the other bronze.
:agree:

shyuhe said:
Everybody is either annoyed or cautious with Wang - we really should have ditched OB when Alex asked us to... Am I the only one who opens F4 when the AI comes with a demand before deciding? As long as you click exit (not hit esc) when closing out of the F4 screen, you can check diplo before you decide.

good to know... :mischief:

shyuhe said:
Everybody is either annoyed or cautious with Wang - we really should have ditched OB when Alex asked us to...

A techwhore w/o trading partners/friends doesn't take off that easily. So if Wang is disliked by everyone (also by us) we still shouldn't be fearing him but watch him closely what he's up to (espionage really is fun:))
Alex definitely is the more dangerous neighbour. Just try to get on his good side.
 
I struggle to understand the reasoning behind snake-settling. (...)
My thinking is essentially that it is a lot easier to make 3W to pay for itself (in terms of production and commerce) than something like 9N3W.

Extacly! You nailed it.

However there is a point in the game where maintnance from number of cities exceeds maintnance from distance to palace.
When that happens it'll be a good idea to settle optimal sites even if they are far away.

ungy said:
As for working hammers-commerce, we can only do that once we have currency.

My point is that the city will be useful immediately, and later if we ever run into money trouble, it will have the option of building wealth.

As for now, we need hammers more than commerce.

As for later, we'll have currency to make that conversion if neccesary.
 
The main focus of this round was dealing with barbs. Thank goodness for Axes is all I can say. We'd have zero improvements left if we had to rely on archers to evict the buggers. A village near Bombay came pretty close to being pillaged, even so. Thankfully the barbs dispersed at that point.

I got iron working from Cyrus by first gifting him polytheism and then next turn offering meditation, priesthood and monotheism for IW. I didn't ask something like archery for poly, since it would have needlessly raised the WFYABTA counter. Iron was discovered four tiles east of Delhi.

Genghis told us to cancel deals with the Koreans. I didn't comply, because I wanted to preserve trading options with Wang. After this I immediately canceled our OB with Wang. Had I been smart and done that without prompting, we wouldn't have a negative with Genghis. :(

We got lots of natural religion spread, so that confu missionary is still unused. Should we arrange an escort and send him to an AI capital?

Due to the barb problems, I ended up settling 3W. Delhi will soon complete a new settler. Our military is a bit stronger now, so we can branch out.

We have two more workers but there's still lots to do. If you can spare the time, develop some kind of a road network. It'd help immensely with barb defence.

Delhi is running a prophet, so we'll get our first Great profit in about ten turns.
I didn't go OR, because the religion scene is still uncertain and I didn't adopt a
state religion.

Builds this round: Some granaries, couple temples, couple barracks and many axes.

Here's an overview shot.

 
Got it.
edit:

crossposted with stuge. If there is some thiscussion until later that day, I'll play & post later, otherwise tomorrow.
 
Extacly! You nailed it.

However there is a point in the game where maintnance from number of cities exceeds maintnance from distance to palace.
When that happens it'll be a good idea to settle optimal sites even if they are far away.

The only problem with this approach is that the far away sites may be filled with AI cities at that point. I don't like warring unnecessarily so I always try to land grab in the early game. I don't mind playing either way though (sprawling around the capital or snaking to land grab). If we're going to sprawl, then we should go settle some cities to the east.

I vote 6N-3E to get gold, then 3E for iron.
 
The only problem with this approach is that the far away sites may be filled with AI cities at that point. I don't like warring unnecessarily so I always try to land grab in the early game.

Normally I also do that, but in this particular case AIs are far away, and our settling options are limited.



Nice turnset, good job dealing with those barbs!

Now that we have IW, I vote for settling 9N. It's the strongest spot available with pigs + gems. Shame it has lots of desert tiles.

As for later city sites, the lands in the west look better to me commerce-wise. Especially 6N-6W and 6N-9W. Long term they seem strongest, but on the other hand that gold city would give us more immediate benefits, so it's a tough call.

Iron is definately a must.
 
GP in Dehli is due in 1. Should he build Buddh or Confu shrine?

Our empire can support some more cottages, our cities are at/very near happy cap so probabely cottages over some FP farms?

I think Gold spot to the east and then on to get a second copper. Alex doesn't have copper but probabely iron. We can trade him copper for a high prize.

I can play now but there is no team cosenus (yet), so I'll wait some more hours.
How many turns have you been playing?
 
Buddhist shrine first. Delhi has more production and will be able to build a market faster. We can burn the second GP on the Confucian shrine (shouldn't take too long).

edit: now that I think about it, it doesn't really make a difference. The luck of one of the two religions spreading can't be controlled so I wouldn't worry too much about it at this point.
 
The early turnsets have been roughly twenty turns I think. However, later turnsets are effectively longer because of more to do. Something in between 10 and 20, trying to stop at some interesting decision is usually sound.
 
Looks like we're progressing nicely.

I'm out of town until 2/24--so I either need a skip next round or to go to the back of the roster.
 
Finally proudly posting my first ever SG report :smug:

In short: I founded one city, near that gold. I built a settler and another will be due in 2. Also I built the Buddhist shrine in Delhi. We learnt the ABC. I spent all the remaining time researching Currency. And there even was some action between the other civs as well oO


Inherited turn - 500 BC

I change nothing except moving an unmoved Fast Worker…

Turn 1 - 476 BC
GP builds shrine in Delhi
Hire second priest specialist to get GP earlier (specialist + Oracle + shrine = GP in 22)


Turn 2 - 450 BC
Varanasi: Granary > Barracks

Turn 3 - 425 BC
ABC is in, start researching CoL for markets, +1 trade routes/city (and we have 6 of 'em at the end of my set). I don't think we'll need to build Wealth, economy looks okay.
Delhi: Settler > Fast Worker


Turn 4 - 400 BC
Vijayanagara: Barracks > Axe
Pataliputra: Conf. Temple > Conf. Monastery

IBT
Alexander adopts Hinduism

Turn 5 - 375 BC
… moving settler

IBT
Confucianism spreads in Tarsus (Persia)
Genghis Khan declares war on Isabella :eek:


Turn 6 - 350 BC
Pliny tells me that we're the most cultured ones.
I found Agra in Gold Spot, 3E of Pataliputra



Turn 7 - 325 BC
Delhi: Fast Worker > Settler
find Korean borders

IBT
Gilgamesh demands CoL -> no way. We still have a monopoly on it. This is the only tech known to any civ that the Sumers don't know yet.

Turn 8 - 300 BC
Vijayanagara: Axe > Axe
find Sumer borders east of India

Turn 9 - 275 BC
Bombay: Conf. Temple > Bud. Temple
Pataliputra: Whip Conf. Monastery to get rid of angry faces there

IBT
Genghis Khan demands to DoW Izzy - no way. No need to upset the whole hindu block just for you, dude!
GK takes the Jewish Holy City. From the partisans event I see that it was Cordoba. AFAIK this is very bad, it means that EVERY time somebody razes a city in the game, partisans will spawn :(



Turn 10 - 250 BC
Pataliputra: Conf. Monastery > Settler (so it'll grow again exactly when the whip anger fades)

IBT
Gilgamesh adopts Hinduism

Turn 11 - 225 BC
Varanasi: Barracks > Bud. Temple
Vijayanagara: Axe > Axe

Turn 12 - 200 BC
… nothing worth mentioning going on

IBT
The Greeks capture Estruscan, that barbarian city N of India.


Turn 13 - 175 BC
Ctrl + A finishes mine on Iron instantly (E of Delhi) so:
Delhi: Settler > Sword :)

Turn 14 - 150 BC
Vijayanagara: Axe > Sword
Some random events occur: A volcano near Pataliputra destroys the wheat farm and Persia and Spain get -1 with each other.


Some things:
Genghis Khan is the only one who would trade resources to us - Pigs and Cows.
If Izzy comes asking us to DoW GK, how will we react? I think we should accept. GK shouldn't be a risk in this game. There is Gilgamesh and Alexander on one side and Wang Kon, Cyrus and Izzy on the other side between GK and us so I don't expect an invasion. Since GK got the Jewish holy city, he'll likely stay jewish. So Alex will soon attack him I think (they must be neighbours). GK won't survive that long a two-front war. So some "free" diplo with Izzy and eventually Alex (if we stay in war that long) will come in handy. There has been no GG emerging. IIRC the only great people beside our GP was a GS in Persian lands.
There is one Settler currently in Bombay, still unmoved. I think he should go to site A I marked on my map as I revealed another (junglecovered) gems-source. This city will have 2 Gems and Pigs in its BFC. And it will be relatively safe to get there. Our western border is safe as well atm, while the eastern border could use some support. In Pataliputra is a settler due in 2, who could claim that second Copper source, when the situation is under control.
We still have that Confucian Missionary. I have no idea what to do with him? Use him to pop city A's borders soon so we can hook up Pigs and that second Gems sooner??
GP in Delhi is due in 9 turns. Currency at current rate in 7-8 turns.
Our economy can easily support some more cities. We can also get some money from razing those barbarian cities. Also that Confucian shrine will support another 2-5 cities soonish.
Now, we're at -3/50% or +2/40%, no courthouses have been built.
We won't need to build up an offensive force until we run out of places to settle which won't be soon.
I managed to stay cautious with every civ.
Techwise we're doing very well. CoL still is a monopoly, and no other civ but Persia and Sumer know Alphabet. Although most (4/6) know Mathematics by now.

Make sure you chop forests before you settle a new city on a forested tile!
I suggest expanding further eastwards next, after Gemsville.

'State of the world' screenshots:
Spoiler :







and the save:
View attachment ICC01 BC-0150.CivBeyondSwordSave

I believe the capt'n 's up :p
 
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