Cookbook #1 (Sally, Immortal)

[krikav]

It is okay, i do not feel attacked. No hurt feelings over some forum discussion.
Also what is this abomination "appolagize" ? Yikes! I need to correct it : "I apologize".

Good to hear, and thanks for correction. I'm horrid at spelling even in my native languange.

 

[krikav]

Here, this:
Under other circumstances (marble, other techpath) bulbing maths also has the additional benefit of trying CS slingshot. Perhaps not viable in an early REX world tho.
Btw, like your enthusiasm on these forums

Yes, thats true. A bulb as a part of a oracle play.
I am an eager proponent of trying new things out. I have been doing that for as long as I played the game.
Here is one example of me in 2012
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/followup-after-great-lighthouse-gmerch-bulbs.451710/

In this thread, I feel that what you did is twofold, you tried to stand up against bullies. And you wanted to challenge us others to not be judgemental of something new and different, but rather use it for fodder to think and get our of our own tired old tracks.
Both which is very admirable intentions!

No hard feelings, and pretty please, do stay around!

 

[Major Tom]

I am also running low on energy so better relax for a while. Microing and map planning I like to pass for now. Now, get those other players involved promoting their saves. No one here are bullies so will follow you guys.

 

[krikav]

In case someone wants all (?) 16 saves in one bundle.

 

[Fippy]

Not an acceptable direction, we are writing a book not soap opera ~~
Okay, i have to be serious here..rules have been asked for, and here they are.

a) During discussion / voting phases, limit yourself to posting stuff about saves or Civ strats in general.
Personal questions, clearly thread derailing topics or even slight provocations should be avoided.

b) If you feel like something is wrong, you can talk with me via pm, and i will see how we best sort that out..
outside the thread.

c) If you did not start a personal level discussion, but feel directly involved, or quoted, or in other ways related,
do not reply. Chat with me via pm (or directly with those posters who adressed you), help keeping our thread focused.

d) How others vote is not your concern. Opinions should be respected, focus on bringing us your own points.
You can easily deliver your own views without comparing them to others, i know that sometimes quoting & relating posts helps,
but consider first if you really should do so this time.


I do this in my free time, and have nps acting as middle person if there are problems.
While this might look harmless at first, i have seen more than one promising idea / thread decease for not needed reasons.

Moods usually relax again after 1 day, but other players might lose interest and it's not so easily undone.
For that reason i added some guidelines (better word than rules really, not like i have mod rights..), and will keep a close eye on if they are being taken serious.
We have to be more sensitive here than in other threads, merci for your understanding.
Now let's get this one back on track please.

 

[krikav]

@Olafeson I notice that you give +points for "cottages on floodplains", I have attached a screenshot with how I would have developed the area around the capital if I played this game myself. I would like to hear your opinion and perhaps others.

Spoiler Regarding cottage/farm distribution close to the capital - and more general, 'what to do with a city with only a few stray floodplains?' :

I would have wanted to cottage everything in the capitals reach, since I think it already has enough food. The FP 3E of capital though, I would want to have a farm on. Since there are two PH there, which consume alot of food. I also probably would not build many science/wealth-multipliers in that pig-city, so I don't think cottages there are in order.

I see many (all?) saves with a cottage on that FP. So clearly there is something difference in thought here.
How do you reason when cottaging this tile? The extra food is no big deal? Another cottage in the empire is good, no matter if it's non-capital?

In my games, I do cottage alot of floodplains in other cities but the capital, but I tend to do this only if the city in question is suited to have at least about 4 cottages long term.
The stray floodplain here and there, I habitually farm, since I think food is more flexible.

 

[Olafeson]

I would like to hear your opinion and perhaps others.

Spoiler :

[For sure, but i did not think too much about it. If i see a floodplain and i have enough food surplus (+) in this city, i just put a cottage onto it. A riverside cottage is never a bad thing. especially when the city has enough food to grow to happy cap and in this case even enough food to work all tiles.

I assume you want to give all floodplains with cottages on the west of medina to capital mekka anyway. So you have left 1 Floodplain, 2 Plainshill, 1 pig, 3 grasslands, and 1 river plains tile. City + pigs + cottage FP already give +6 food surplus. When you want to work the mines and the plains hill you need 5 extra food. Still +1 food. So you have enough food to work all tiles in this city even without a farm on the FP, better get some extra commerce with a cottage.

But i think the difference is really minor here. If you want to farm the Floodplain you grow a bit faster and you can run a scientist or whip a little bit better from this city.

 

[sampsa]

On farms/cottages

Spoiler :

I farmed 2 of capital fp and cottaged one, and farmed pig-citys fp. I agree with krikav that it's rather clear pig-city fp should be farmed as that city is a great candidate for getting out at least one . Plains hills are not important and should be ignored in general. Why I chose to favor farms instead of cottages in capital fps is due to Mids (not only high -cap, but also representation). A farm can support half a specialist, which under rep beats a cottage IMO, at least without bureaucracy. At least for me it was/is unclear if it's a good idea to aim towards astro before CS or not.

I think if a city has both fps and green grass river and you know you want some farms, fps should always be farmed because it's optimal to grow first, work cottages then.

edit, specialist vs cottages epiphany

Spoiler :

I just realized something. While it feels intuitive that getting 1 more is the value of half a specialist, it really isn't that simple. In my save there are 2 farmed fps they can support an extra specialist compared to 2 cottaged fps. So 4+4+0. However, cottages are 3+3+2(a grassland cottage!). They are even in food, so they should be compared, not just give an extra pop to the specialist route (although it does reaches higher size a bit faster).

So a specialist needs to beat not two, but three cottages. Well, it does clearly beat 3 unmatured cottages (2+2+2) when farms+rep spec is (1+1+6) (even ignoring library bonus). But cottages will catch up quickly, and then there is bureaucracy which strongly favors cottages. However, the main benefit of running specialists has always been , but it's value is not easily put into a mathematical formula. If we value a GS at ~1500, the first 100 points are worth 15 and a specialist generates 3-points so +45 per turn , but then it goes down rather quickly. And obviously cottage-routes aren't ignoring ... So maybe it would be fair to say these -points will lead to the birth of 5th , making the cost 500-points. Still, that's 3*1500/500= +9 extra for the scientist. I know, these are all just assumptions that might be inaccurate, or at least depending on a number of factors.

No definite conclusion, except that running specialists that don't lead to the birth of is in general bad, even under rep (but I guess everybody knew that already). Cottages are good, because they don't lose food!

 

[Fippy]

I should bump the save game list sometimes i guess? Saves
..and ofc Krikav's zip https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/t70saves-zip.511669/


After looking at all saves, 2 interesting or surprising ones (for me).
@Powerfaker could succeed in grabbing GLH. Do you plan using the shared Mecca forest, along with Granary overflow for +~60h? Or will that one rather go into securing Pyras?

@DrakeD you are chopping outside culture borders for Pyras Not bad imo, 13 vs 20h..all that matters there are Pyras and Rep, no happy resis is very crippling early.
Mecca looks nice, good failgold coming too. I would certainly not complete tgw there, you can already see Shaka borders so barbs should die out.
Did we have a save with Baghdad 2nd ring pigs? City should def be on green hill instead. I find this unfortunate, cos your game looks really good overall imo.
Pyras look as good as done, after you whip granary for overflow and finish chops. Very good fog busting posis, you show great skill in many areas.

 

[Gumbolt]

Are we voting yet?

 

[sampsa]

Are we voting yet?

I'd like the game to move on asap, but there are so many saves and it's increasingly harder to assess them as games take different strategical paths...

 

[Gumbolt]

I think you just have to pick the 3 you would most like to play. Agree game could go in any direction. I think a deadline should be put on voting. One way or another war is likely coming. With Shaka this is a guarantee.

 

[Fippy]

..sigh whatever, i will tomorrow think about how i far i want to go here.

 

[sampsa]

What did i say about some thread discipline?
a) yep ofc you can vote already, one look into rules or so would have confirmed that
b) your votes should try to reward those who played well, or creative (and well..!)

Clean this up if possible.

No idea who did what wrong and what should be cleaned. I'll just clean my room now and hope it's enough.

 

[krikav]

I haven't talked about my save yet?

First of all, I did choose this save because it was the one that was furthest away from my own T45 save to challenge myself and push me out of my comfort zone.
Thus I have felt abit uncomfortable and I am not 100% confident in my position.
I have tried to push an agressive expansion with little regard to wonders and commerce to it's limits and I'm very satisfied with how well I executed this.
I have learned alot and have since incorporated this style of playing in a few offline games of my own.
Thank you cookbook!!

State of the empire at T70

Spoiler :

Spoiler Screenshot overview :

My save has 6 cities and 4 workers and is the only save where the fish city is complete with borderpop and improved fishes.
2 cities have granaries and 3 more will have granaries within 5-6 turns. The sixth city (stonecity) will probably focus on pyramids.
The empires population will grow dramatically from here.

Capital is set up with whips for overflow, with a worker at 29/60 and a settler at 33/100.
All cottages are focused within the capitals reach, with the future goal of a bur-cap.

Two workers are up at stone-city and could quarry first, although I would improve wheat before stone (food first!).
A monument is finishing next turn in stone city, to get more forests under culture, and also grab the horses.

I have not rushed to get pyramids in any way. I think there is still plenty of time.

Spoiler Why? :

@Major Tom posted some data for when wonders are built indicate that T88 is the median turn for when pyramids are build.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/immortal-wonderdates.611664/
I assume that in this dataset, stone is evenly distributed among AIs and the players.
This game we are playing, however the human player have one of the available stones which reduces the likelyhood that an AI will build pyramids easily. So I judge that the likely construction date is after T88.
And T88 is still plenty of time.

If I was to continue from this save in the same manner I would...

Spoiler :

Start to whip agressively, first granaries as soon as possible when food bar is close to 50%.
I would let cities grow to unhappines and make 2-pop whips of workers primarily (can't have too many workers when there is jungle around), and in some cities that are suited 3-pop whips (likely capital & pig-city).
I would time the whips so that I get one overflow per turn, which I would put into pyramids.

I would continue to expand agressively, slowing down only if I start to get too deep into negative GPT.
My luck with barbs continued here, and I have two barb cities up in the jungle. I would try to settle cities in sensible locations close to these with the intent of chopping out madrassas and culture-flipping them.

If I win pyramids, failgold will go into beelining CoL for rep specialists, if I lose the race I think alfabet is the safest bet, to be able to build research and possibly trade for IW and clear the jungle.

 

[krikav]

I am looking through all saves in more detail, and I have found something I think is very odd.
Alot of saves are not working the pig (or some other food tile) and instead working other tiles such as unimproved PH, or forested plains tile.
Am I missing something here, because I think that is really taking it too far when it comes to being afraid of unhappines!!

Reasoning:

Spoiler :

If you get one unhappy citizen, that citizen is going to cost you 2F/turn. I.e the citizen is going to eat 2F, but it won't do anything for you. However if you start to build a worker or settler, due to a bug(?) the unhappy citizen will NOT eat any food. So that unhappy citizen is not costing you anything.

Also, if you are working a forested plains tile, you get 1F2H, compare that with 6F and you can say that it's like you are losing 3 H/F per turn. Thats worse than the loss of 2F you get from an unhappy citizen.
Ofcourse, sometimes you are desperate for those extra hammers, but not working a 6F tile is something that you should only do for a turn or two, under very special circumstances.

 

[sampsa]

I agree krikav, the most common mis-micro I see is working weak tiles instead of working best tiles and allowing short-term unhappiness.

 

[Fippy]

In light of yesterday events, me getting more upset than i should have, and an overall slow progress
this round will be skipped

You can pick any of our 16 saves as result.
Saves

Timeline & setup
Please play until turn 110, where you can save & post your game.
Closes on Monday 17th (6 days)

I hope those who would have liked to contribute more this round will not be angry.
If you did not play this time, you may join now.
Please see my starting post if you have questions on rules etc (can always ask me too).

 

[krikav]

To be honest, I think it was incredibly difficult to make objective judgements of all the different saves. I'm pretty glad that I didn't have to place a vote.
Hopefully it will be easier to place votes at T110!
Continued with my own save. Not because I think it was better than other saves (it wasn't), but because I think it was different enough from the pack.

Best of luck everyone!

 

[Fippy]

Nice to hear Krikav, yep we will try putting the turn 70 "experiment" behind us i guess.
On t40 things were easier, games are still rather small at this point, but many interesting topics with initial settling & teching.
T110 will most likely include wars (or preparing for them), and hopefully you will find comparing games easier there.