BtS 3.13: Infinite City Sprawl 02 - Cities 'n Conscription

Cities 'n Conscription - Victory at Rifling
Closed for signups.

This game will revisit the stunning success of ICS01 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=261986 , this time at a higher difficulty level.

Civ/Leader: Asoka [Spi/Org, Mining/Mysticism, Fast Worker, Mausoleum]
Size: Standard
Type: Inland Sea
Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Immortal
Other: Random events off (enough partisans and tower shields for me)
Version: BTS 3.13, regular (Unaltered gameplay mods okay)

Variant suggestion #1: ICS01: Every city must be exactly 3 tiles removed from another of our cities. This places all our cities in a perfect square grid, as tight as possible.

Variants it seems we won't be using:

Spoiler :

Variant suggestion #2: ICS01 relaxed: Every city must be no more than 4 tiles removed rom another of our cities. Diagonal steps count twice. This relaxes the restrictions, but still guarantees a lot of overlap and prevents us from rushing or efficiently border-grabbing.

Variant suggestion #3: No restrictions, but still forcing ourselves to play a ICS style. My goal is to eventually do this on Deity, but maybe not quite yet.

Roster
Zherak_Khan (CET, GMT +1)
stuge
mystyfly
ungy
shyuhe
r_rolo1

Regular SG rules apply.


I am going to try to whip out the start and post a turn 0 screenshot eventually. I propose a strategy similar to ICS01, building a strong capitol with limited expansion while doing an Oracle->CoL.

Q1: We want religions. We are going to want to get CoL and Theology first anyway, which are two religions, and seizing the early religions on Immortal can be tough. On the other hand, we need those religious techs somewhat fast anyway, so maybe we should try to get the benifit anyway.

Q2: Our gameplan focuses on seizing AP, SM and UoS.
Theology lightbulb with GPP from Oracle and a few priests? (First or second GP? We had second GP reasonably early in ICS01.)
Divine Right lightbulb eventually? (We need at least one, maybe two shrines.)

Else, we need to have a decent research towards paper (which was not a problem in ICS01) and a production powerhouse (to build those wonders).

Q3: How tight city-grid? I advocate a just-as-tight as ICS01, i.e. as tight as possible, unless there are some peaks, deserts, or maybe just some resources we don't want to found atop of. This is all about the power of ICS, so no slipping back into no-overlap mode!

Q4: General city layout:
We want 1 Great People/Prophet Farm, very possibly the capitol.
We want 1 Production powerhouse, very possibly the capitol, in part to build the three wonders, in part to settle GGs and build stuff we don't draft. (We can also chop wonders, if we have to.)
We want 1 GlobeTheatre, for drafting purposes.
We want a few, 2-5 Commerce cities, cottaged, to keep our economy going. These will in so far as possible be spared from drafting and whipping.

The rest of our cities are pure ICS-cities. Thus, they need, more or less in order of preference:
- Granary
- Courthouse
- SR Temple/Monastery
- Barracks

Cities with significant hammer output may also get a Forge. These cities should be regularly whipped and drafted. Improvements are pure farm and mine, unless low-food calls for windmills or similar.


Civics: We seem to be moving towards Repr/Merc/Slav/Nationalism/Theocracy, but Spi means we get to switch around.


The general idea is:
- Expand and get triple-wonder-religious-economy going.
- Get Rifling and Nationalism.
- Draft and win.

 

lurker's comment:

ICS does not require a square grid.... In fact ( as I already posted in the 1st SG ) the square grid is not optimal in terms of maitenance....

I'm interested in playing... reserve me a warming place in bench

 

/lurkermode on

Good luck, followed the previous game as well, great stuff

 

Reporting for duty.

Since it's a higher level, I'd go with relaxed ICS. Some flexibility with city placement is OK since our strat relies on lots of cities anyway.

 

Checking in...

In fact, I don't think the main reason for this grid is because of the maintenance... This has already been done by ruff and some others (don't remember, you too probabely , in the BUG mod game, domination with Toku). Our goal is to get a nice map
I'd like to have you join.

@ ZK:
I think we should stick to strict 3 tiles away rule, like in ICS01, so it's variant #1 for me.

I think it depends on the start. If we get a nice commerce square we might try to get one of the early religions. If we manage an early religion and the oracle > CoL, we should build a shrine with the first GP, otherwise bulb theo. I don't think bulbing DR is a good idea. In the last game, there was no big boost from Islam and I doubt this will change here.

Research towards Paper will be cottages backed up by (hopefully) two shrines.

Production powerhouse must be the capital, otherwise we're in trouble.

Settling on ressources isn't as bad, as we wouldn't be able to work those ressources anyway. Settling in a big desert is complete crap and not settling on peaks is clear I think...

I think GPFarm is not such a big priority, but NE should be in cap (GPP from wonders). If our land allows, we should have another city for military than the cap (where we settle the GGs) so that the cap produces more GPs.


We must be very careful to remain a nice power graph. As soon as we build the AP, we'll likely adopt a religion that no one shares. This makes us the target #1 (hopefully Izzy will be crushed by GK early on again ).

Also when we finish the Oracle, our second city will be founded. We should found Bombay asap and connect it that our early religion spreads there and Delhi probabely becomes a two-headed-hydra
Of course we need that early religion first. So let's hope for some commerce tiles.
If we don't get an early religion, there will be more religious tension between the AIs which isn't bad either.

 

Count me in again--I'd vote for the strict variant--if the starting land looks awful just reroll. I'm generally against fuzzy variants.

 

Checking in. I'd like to continue with the strict variant - I think it will still work on immortal.

I think we should look at oracling theology. The pre-reqs are monotheism + writing. If you tech poly --> priesthood --> writing --> masonry --> monotheism, then you can oracle theology. However this will push back the date that courthouses become available so it may not work as well. However, if we don't have a good commerce start, it's probably safe to just tech poly --> priesthood --> writing and oracle CoL, followed by the GP bulb for theology. I would prefer to not burn the first GP on theology if possible as it will delay the shrine date...

Regarding Q4:

We definitely need a Gprophet farm to get 3 (if we bulb theology) prophets. I wouldn't constrain it to the capital but it should be in the first 3 cities that we found.

Production powerhouse will probably be the capital. The bureau bonus is hard to overcome for a majority of the game.

Globe city will be key but doesn't have to be built super early. If we are under HR, you can whip catapults and overflow the Globe (while building 30 odd catapults). I think DaveMcW posted about this - I will try to find the link.

2-5 commerce cities sounds good. It depends on how much land we can grab - the more we grab, the more commerce cities we will probably need.

Barbs will be a slightly bigger problem than on emperor so an early detour to archery may be needed depending on the lay of the land. However I generally find that there is time to tech both BW + AH before barbs become an issue on immortal.

 

I think early tech path will be map-dependant so we might want to wait for a concrete start.

Every temple gives 1 priest slot.
Every shrine gives 3 priest slots.
That means that it's almost given that the capital produces GPs, which is not that bad: After the initial growing phase it'll build the Oracle where it has to max out hammers. Then it's settler spamming time. Then it might just as well run priests. That slows expansion but not THAT much. It also creates some gold to fund our expansion until the first shrine. For the first shrine, we must generate 100 GPP. A lot of these will be via Oracle. After the Oracle we might want to build a Temple first to grow some more and run the first priest. If it takes 5 turns until the temple is finished and we constantly run a priest it'll take (gpp from oracle and priest + 5 turns only oracle) (x*5)+5*2=100 => x=18 turns until the first GP spawns. This could be 3 more settlers.
From then on, we need 500 more GPPs for Theology and another shrine. If we found an early religion, we might consider building a christian shrine (so we need 900 GPP).
To get 500 GPP:
if we run 0 priest: 250 turns
if we run 1 priest: 100 turns
if we run 2 priests: 63 (62.5) turns
if we run 3 prieses: 46 (45.45) turns

I think we'll have to see how many priests we'll need to run but it is definitely up to the capital b/c of the slots and the Oracle.

BtW I think if we get confucianism we should try to get a safe passage to the nearest neighbour to get him a religion no one else has which should make our live a bit safer. This AI will also spread it around for us. Same with christianity, if there's still an AI without religion.

I remember having read that. But I think it takes very long (close to 100) turns until those cats and the GT is finished. Once we've got Drama, we should whip a Theatre there and start the GT asap. It won't take that long until we hit nationalism. We can also draft Muskets as city garrisons.

 

A note about Holy Cities:

I copied this from here, as it might be of importance or to keep in mind, if we want to benefit from later religions (Christianity, Taoism, Islam).

---

btw, khan, now in the first post in here, you spelled our leader's name correctly (unike in ICS01 ) but you now misspelled mine

 

Updated roster. I kind-of-added r_rolo1, and haven't heard anything from Betruger. I can't quite remember if he was interested in a second installment, but some fresh blood is always sensible. If he does show up, there is not any real harm in running a seven-man roster.


Game settings. Noteworthy:
- Asoka, Immortal, Inland sea with cylindrical world wrap, Standard size.
- No random events.


Start. Warrior moved SE, Settler unmoved. That is plainshillsgold, nofreshwatercorn and plainscows. Top border is end-of-the-world.


1: It seems we might want to run with the ICS01 variant. Reasons why I was airing other variants are:
- Less of a problem if strategic resources are wacky.
- Easier to work around weird terrain.
- Less raze-craze in midgame.
It worked out last game, though, so maybe we will stick with it.

I realize skewed-square grid is actually a bit more effective (though it's probably just a question of third decimal place), but it is a bit harded to visualize - well, less elegant.

2: Early game:
a) Delhi. Assuming ICS01 variant, we need to think about the repercussions settle-in-place has for all future cities. I think 1E will give us a nice horizontal lin of river-side cities, seize some hills and allow 3W to double up on Corn/Gold duty. If we wanted to move inland, we would need to go at least two tiles southwards.
b) Tech and buildorder. At Immortal, Buddhism and Hinduism is more or less roll of dice. I opt for Hindiusm->Agri, because: opens for Mono/Priesthood, shot at Hindu, allows for Warrior->Worker and Cornfarm->Goldmine. Buddhism is slightly cheaper, but doesn't open up Mono, which we need for OR/Theology.

We may still switch away from Hindu if it gets FIADL, and we should get AH (for cow) in time to get horses or go for copper.

I think we should found 3W/3E more or less ASAP. First city will net 2F2H3C by working grassforest (two traderoutes at 1, etc). I don't think Hydra-ambitions are worth it, because:
a) it stunts our growth
b) makes strategic resources even harder to grab
c) we don't need more priest slots
d) Banks and Wall Street come late. Building an extra grocer/market doesn't cost that much.


PS:
a) Do we have a variant option which gives a good ICS, but allows us to not raze eight out of nine AI cities?
b) If anybody wants any particular spot in the roster, i.e. not early or similar, shout out.

 

Tough to guess from this starting position. I would settle in place or 1 E (production monster). Settling 1E will guarantee that 3W and 3E are both on rivers and it looks like there's a fair amount of grassland around.

I would definitely tech polytheism first. Does anybody remember when research decay begins? I think tis' around 30 turns so if we fail to found Hinduism, we can tech agri --> AH --> BW --> archery (if necessary) --> monotheism beeline. However this screws up the timing for the oracle so we may need to re-evaluate our options after the polytheism --> agri --> AH shot.

 

I'd opt for settling 1E. Saves us a forest, among other things.

The early research plan above looks good to me.

 

I vote for settling 1E as well. We dont' have a 2/1/1 or 1/2/1 tile so we might consider spending some turns on the goldhill so we get Hinduism.
That capital will be a monster, two nice food ressources, lots of hills, gold for buerocracy and early expansion (until the first shrine). We'll have lots of forests in the immediate south we don't need to chop to get our capital rolling which we can spare for AP/UoS/SM but we should burn two on the oracle. If we miss that we're screwed (no religion, no courts, no GPP )

Settling 3W/3E sounds good. Right, hydra is not needed but nice and with those trade routs, there is a nice chance of natural spreading.

If you don't want to raze that many cities, ZK, we shouldn't play ICS
Probabely keep every city that fits the grid and settle the ones in-between later.

Now looking foreward to beating Immortal with ICS! Get the game rolling, Khan


edit:
Betrugers post after the game was finished:

 

I'm for 1E but I'm not too wild about working the gold hill. Seems at immortal if the ai goes for hindu u are lost anyway.

 

Checking in.....

I'm for 1 E too ( settling in place would not be bad as well.... )

I would not fancy too much about grasping hindu of budhism in Immortal.... we certainly need religions , but wild goose chasing the early ones may be a bad idea if we get some religious nuts in the game... I'm more for founding Judaism or Christianity than for one of the early ones.

A issue for later: most surely we'll need to move capitol later ( we're too much out of center. Should we try to push for the center or use the map border to protect our backs?

 

I would leave the capital where we found it - it'll be strong for commerce and production for bureaucracy. The big cost that we incur is # of cities, not distance for ICS. Courthouses help but capital location doesn't make much of a difference. Plus we can always build the FP (which I think we skipped last game).

I think working the gold has merit if we go worker first. But we want agriculture before we build a worker. Now that I think about it, I think we should skip the early religions and instead go agriculture (+ worker) --> AH. The worker can get the corn and gold online, followed by the cows. Gold should allow us to get to monotheism first if we want to.

 

Agree with shyuhe on the early tech path.

In our last game we built the FP but it definitely has only a very small impact.

 

I wind up going with my own gut feeling and the general consensus and found Delhi 1E. Comparing it to settle in place, the only other safe and reasonable alternative, we have, as far as I can sum it up:

Advantages:
- Save forest for chop
- 3W will be able to overlapwork corn and gold, instead of having 3E overlapwork plainscow
- Slightly better production (?, I didn't count hills actually)
- Guaranteed sensible cities for 3W and 3E.
Disadvantages:
- May lose out on fogged tiles in the east (though, with 3 revealed resources, this is rather unlikely)
- May found on resource (though, with 3 revealed resources, this is rather unlikely)
- Less border-exploration

Most likely not a gamechanging decision, but eeking out small benifits and minimizing risk is so very important early on.

Production: Worker->Warrior for growth -> ?
Research: Agri for corn->Husbandry for cow and horses -> ?


Buddhism is FIADL at turn 9. We had an estimated 11 turns on Buddhism at turn 0 working corn, meaning we would have lost the raze. Working gold mine would have increased commerce from Palace+Centre to Palace+Centre+Gold = 8+1 to 8+1+2.

Increasing reserach from 9->11 should in theory decrease turns from 11->9. If so, gold might actually have been the difference between winning and losing Buddhism, though I suspect rounding will work against this calculation.


Hinduism is FIADL at turn 15. We had an estimated 14 turns on Hinduism at turn 0 working corn, meaning we would have won the raze, regardless of whether or not we were working gold. No real regrets, though, getting corn online is a big deal.

Had I been going for Hinduism, which was my original plan, we would have won Hindu at turn 14 and finished Worker then next (15th (?)) turn. He would have had to mine gold while Delhi worked gold, while teching Agri to get Corn going. For a number of reasons, this doesn't seem logistically sound.


Our Warrior, who has been exploring southeasternly pops BW from a hut. I had to stare at the popup for a good fifteen seconds to believe it, then there came another minute of considering the repercussions. Later SS will detail the location of strategic resources.


We meet with Frederick and sign peace. He is to our east and has a mined Copper in this SS. Doesn't seem roaded, so he probably doesn't have the actual tech. If somebody could fill me in on Frederick's personality, it would be helpful. He is Phi/Org.


(Note: SS displays Ice 2N of Delhi. This is not correct.)

I stop at turn 24 for a number of reasons. Let me first note the 1turn prechop outside of Delhi. Worker first went to farm Corn, and after finishing, I wanted him to mine the gold. However, sending him directly to the gold would end his turn (1 move to Delhi, 2 moves onto hill). I instead send him to the forest to chop, canceling the command and redirecting him to the gold. We get the gold mine just as fast, but in one turn of prechop for free.

Current state of India:
Tech: Mining, Myst (intial), Agri, AH (research), BW (hut).
Treasury: 105 (two huts)
Units: Fast Worker, just finished with gold, Warrior, exploring SE, Warrior (due in three turns from Delhi).
Improvements: Cornfarm, goldmine


1: Delhi
We can change citizen from gold to grassforest. Thus, instead of Warr(1), size 3 (1), we get Warr(2), size 3 (2), setting us perfectly up for some settler builds.

2: Tech
We already have the strategic resource-techs. I dearly hope to avoid Archery, but we have not found any claimable copper/horse yet. I suggest researching Poly, which opens up for Judaism (which we should win) and also Priesthood for Oracle (which we should also win). Oracle is very buildable/chopable in Delhi.

One thing which has annoyed me in test games is that I land religion and Oracle in different cities. This makes prohpetfarming more difficult. You cannot get the Shrine/Oracle/Priestslots in the same city, and have to either run heavy priests in holy city or do slow prohpetfarming in Oracle city. Slow prohpets are in conflict with our AP-rush, because we aren't able to both bulb Theo and get a shrine at 5GProphPoints/Turn.

The only way to stack HolyCity with Oracle, is to get more religions than cities (Judaism and Confu at two cities, Judaism at once city), or, possibly, to chop Oracle outside of Delhi.

3: Exploration
We need more recon around Delhi, where we will actually be founding cities.



Immediate goals:
- Oracle -> CoL or Theology
- Getting copper/horse -> Barb defence
- 3E, 3W and 3SE are all looking like good cities. We may want to expand towards Frederick. 6E might very well be good city.
- Judaism, if possible


PS: Random events are turned off. Cylindrical wrap is turned on. We are playing Standard Inland Sea. The Inland Sea is the salt-water body to our S.


Zherak_Khan (CET, GMT +1)
stuge
mystyfly
ungy
shyuhe
r_rolo1

 

looking nice. We can't decide whether to found 3W until we get a better picture of this area. If there is copper in 6W's BFC, we definitely go in that direction.

@ZK: I don't understand what you mean by religion and oracle in the same city. We should finish monotheism before the Oracle and the cap naturally has more pop. If the settler is in place 1-2 turns before mono completes, we could wait with settling.

I quoted VoU's article about religions. He writes that the more religion the city houses the less chance there is that the city will become the holy city and the more pop it has the better chance for a holy city. So if we want two religions in Delhi, we should settle 3W or 3E for river-connection which gives immediate commerce, connects our ressources faster and there is a chance that judaism spreads there on its own, which makes confu in delhi realistic I guess.

 

I'll try to find us some copper.

If there isn't lots of land to the west, we'll end up going through Frederik. We won't have to worry about him early on. He's pretty easy to get along with.