Cookbook #1 (Sally, Immortal)

[floydmcw]

@sampsa that spreadsheet is fantastic, thank you for making it.

Do we still need spoilers? Just in case we do:

Spoiler early Pottery :

I didn't go pottery 2nd but I did research it as my 3rd tech and have some cottages up. I vacillated a long time between Mining and Pottery on T9 after finishing Agriculture, and finally decided to go for Mining because of all that land up north. I was afraid of barbs, thought we might be isolated since no other AIs had appeared, and wanted the H4C1 PH tile as production for warriors.

As it turned out that wasn't necessary and Pot 2nd would have given us earlier cottages and 2-3 more productive worker turns (some roads in my save are idle turns while waiting for Pottery).

 

[krikav]

I didn't go pottery 2nd but I did research it as my 3rd tech and have some cottages up. I vacillated a long time between Mining and Pottery on T9 after finishing Agriculture, and finally decided to go for Mining because of all that land up north. I was afraid of barbs, thought we might be isolated since no other AIs had appeared, and wanted the H4C1 PH tile as production for warriors.
As it turned out that wasn't necessary and Pot 2nd would have given us earlier cottages and 2-3 more productive worker turns (some roads in my save are idle turns while waiting for Pottery).

Don't think we need any spoilers for spoilings sake, but it might be useful for readability.

I can't agree with you that mining is a good idea for defensive purposes. It's possible to 2 or 3-turn a panic warrior with just the aid of some 1F2H tiles.
In most maps (and certainly here I think) putting some beakers into mining more or less commits you to going straight for BW.

What really caught my eye in your save was the road between your cities, that is not necessery for connecting them as they are connected by the river and I feel that it is missmanagment of workerturns.
I don't like the choice of going through AH before BW either. I really like the pigs tile, but knowledge of copper trumps knowledge of horses and the possibility for early chops/whips are even more important than pigs.

Also minor nitpick, you are cottaging a tile that only Medina can use, not the capital. I would have chosen to improve most capital tiles first, that lone floodplain I might even farm further into the game.

 

[floydmcw]

Don't think we need any spoilers for spoilings sake, but it might be useful for readability.

I can't agree with you that mining is a good idea for defensive purposes. It's possible to 2 or 3-turn a panic warrior with just the aid of some 1F2H tiles.
In most maps (and certainly here I think) putting some beakers into mining more or less commits you to going straight for BW.

It's not so much for emergencies as trying to get a few warriors out early for spawnbusting / escorts.

What really caught my eye in your save was the road between your cities, that is not necessery for connecting them as they are connected by the river and I feel that it is missmanagment of workerturns.

Most of that is micro-opt, doing the 2-step where the worker needs to move two spaces and can put a turn into a road for free.

The PH road, as I noted, came from a few worker turns while waiting for pottery. I don't feel too bad about it since it looked likely to be a resource, and it allowed my settler to found Medina on the turn it was created.

Also minor nitpick, you are cottaging a tile that only Medina can use, not the capital. I would have chosen to improve most capital tiles first, that lone floodplain I might even farm further into the game.

Oops, micro-opt fail. I wanted to do a sweep of cottage-then-1-move but should have noticed that.

 

[Olafeson]

Good point actually. I’d take X plotting on Y rather than me over all the resource pops in the world.

On that note: I’m going to bed now. My votes are for my map, @sampsa ’s and @krikav . These are subject to change but I’m busy tomorrow so in case I don’t get back in time, I’ll have voted.

I think you can not vote for your own map.

 

[Major Tom]

This might be useful assessing risk to delay Pyramids. Maybe was panicking to force them after too many tries at deity.

I have compiled some statistics from my immortal games. This shows when the AI gets certain wonders and Lib, when I have not. It is standard settings, Fractal and random opponents (6+human). The games are played with the Better BUG AI-mod, but not sure if that better AI alter priorities towards those wonders (think not).

Item| MedianYear| MedianTurn| Std.dev (turns)| Earliest| Latest| Count
Stonehenge| 2280BC | 43 | 7 | 32 | 60 | 21
The Great Wall| 1800BC | 55 | 10 | 35 | 68 | 15
The Oracle| 1040BC | 74 | 7 | 57 | 84 | 19
TG Lighthouse | 800BC | 83 | 10 | 70 | 107 | 17
The Pyramids | 675BC | 88 | 11 | 72 | 114 | 17
MoM| 250AD | 124 | 12 | 98 | 135 | 18
TG Library | 400AD | 131 | 12 | 107 | 155 | 19
Liberalism | 1200AD | 180 | 20 | 150 | 214 | 12
End date | 1928AD | 348 | 22 | 314 | 392 | 14

 

[lymond]

Freakin’ great discussion!

 

[jatamixx]

Interesting indeed

For us lurkers it would be a blast if a couple of screenshots were provided

 

[krikav]

Spoiler Screenshot of Krikavs game T45 :

Granary in capital done 1 turns from done.
Forests that are chopped in other saves are still intact.

Good whipping (granary) and chopping potential paired with mature cottages (Villages in 2 respectivly 8 turns) will ensure rapid expansion can proceed without losing teching speed.

My impression is that this play will not only catch up with more agressive openings, but will surpass them.

But I would be _very_ glad to learn that this is suboptimal, since this is how I play and belive is best, it would improve my game to learn that it isn't best.

 

[krikav]

Very nice to see that the lurker community is interested! Hopefully this thread will lure some more of you guys out of the shadows.

Something that would be very nice is to get an overview of where everyone placed second city and third city. Anyone have some idea of how this could be presented?

 

[sampsa]

Very nice to see that the lurker community is interested! Hopefully this thread will lure some more of you guys out of the shadows.

Something that would be very nice is to get an overview of where everyone placed second city and third city. Anyone have some idea of how this could be presented?

I guess Fippy could do it, for example by taking a screenshot of the starting area after removing fog in the world builder and marking city spots with different colored dots.

 

[Olafeson]

@jatamixx

no problem i got you bro. Just gimme 10 minutes.

 

[Olafeson]

Olafeson / WOW what a civ 4 god, maybe the best save i ever saw. Should be Nr. 1 foh shuree!

Spoiler :

+ many improved tiles
+ good fogbust
+ third settler can be whipped in 1 turn
+ nice commerce

- only 2 cities
- maybe a bit too save, maybe a bit too slow with expansion

1. Sampsa / quite good (3th place for my picks)

Spoiler :

+ 3 cities
+ nice timing for fishing, 2 pop whip for Workboat is in time with tech.

- only 1 warrior, quite dangerous
- poor fogbusting

2. mscellaneous / very nice ( 1st place for my picks)

Spoiler :

+ copper pop on mine is huge
+ already exploration boat out
+ 3 cities
+ nice spot for the 3th city for fast pyramids
+ good fogbust
+ lots of improved tiles

- better go for 2nd city Medina 1 N of pigs for share Floodplains.

3. Olafeson / already posted above since i am a selfish prick

4. Wrathful / decent - good

Spoiler :

+ nice Rex (rapid fast expansion)
+ good fogbusting
+ 3 cities

- wasted a lot of worker turns to connect Damaskus to river, but did not provide traderotues
- has AH but no worker in position to improve pigs
- food first, better improve the dry corn at damaskus instead of roading]

5. Swordnboard / quite good (2nd place for my picks)

Spoiler :

+ nice fogbust
+ 3 cities with traderoutes and fresh water and 2 workers
+ all 3 cities well placed in my humble opinion.

- spy points on shaka and qin
- his second worker should betetr improve some floodplains

 

[mscellaneous]

My empire is so large I could not fit it in one screeny Look at that shiny WB!

Spoiler South :

Spoiler North :

Edit: Olafeson clearly has better Civ skills, capturing my empire in only one screeny. You should all vote for him!

 

[krikav]

This save I like because its up there by the wheat and stone. (Although it should have been 1E)

Spoiler Wrathful :

This one is nice because it creates a nice plains hill powered helper city, also with the idea of getting stone asap. Tigher empire = less cost.

Spoiler Gumbolt :

This is roughly the same idea, although it doesn't intend to get stone. It is however instantly connected by the river, which is very nice.

Spoiler Swordnboard :

 

[Olafeson]

From here on i also remove resource bubles and personal notes for better view on the map.

6. Tonny / in my opinion not too hot (but what do i know)

Spoiler :

+ good fogbusting

- one worker idle to the west
- not so many improved tiles
- goes for fishing i don t like that choice so much

7. Krikav / in my opinion not too hot (but what do i know)

Spoiler :

+ at least no barb archer about to run rampage yet

- no fogbusting
- only 1 warrior and 1 worker
- AH but no improved pigs

8. Anysense / did play until turn 48 by mistake and is not for vote

9. 6KMan / pretty decent

Spoiler :

+goes for archery for extra barb safety
+ decent fogbusting

- not so many improved tiles
- no pottery yet
- has spy points on both qin and shaka

10. Major Tom / in my opinion not too hot ( but what do i know)

Spoiler :

+ has potential for pyramids

- only 2 warriors
- do not like the place of medina, would need border pop for stone, has no fresh water, needed a road for connection, also has no own food resource.
- wasted worker turns for a cottage on a grassland tile, betetr use it to cottage the floodplains for capital

 

[krikav]

Tonny does have the pigs improved, that is very nice.
The worker probably just finished chopping the forest that was there. The settler can be whipped this turn, probably with the intent of settling that fish spot (since worker was chopping it).

 

[sampsa]

Thoughts about fishing:
Having workboats for scouting and possibly finding AIs is something in favour of fishing that I did not consider. In almost all my coastal starts I send out one (or sometimes two) wbs out in different directions. A very reliable way of scouting.
Here however we didn't start coastal so that possibility was not on my radar. Not good!
Getting early trade routes is nice, but at best it's 1c per city at this stage and sailing feels like aeons away.
The fish site is for much later, and the crab site hmmm... Well in my situation I'm one turn from completing the granary and then the value of that corn is doubled in the capital, having to lend it out for the crab site is not tempting, at least not in the stage I am in in my save.

Indeed, it might be a bit early for scouting workboat.

From my save, likely continuation is to whip the worker and then finish the granary, then chop out two settlers with the two workers.

Yes, but a granary does not speed up chopping. In fact, every turn spent putting into a settler/worker with a granary makes the granary moot. For this reason I'd like to always whip them after granary, but with this -cap whipping lots is not easy. Thus granaries are just not very good here.

I guess the biggest issue in your save is how much later your settlers are out compared to some other saves.

Something that is not considered in the spreadsheet is cottage maturation, something that I find very important.

Indeed, I probably would have added it if I had felt like there is not enough info. Anyway, I feel is overvalued in the spreadsheet when calculating raw empire outputs. I share Swordnboard's view that saves with 3 cities are quite significantly superior to saves with 2 cities and raw numbers at this point don't reflect it very well. The sooner you found cities the sooner they start to generate all three , and for you.

Also interesting to hear arguments against AH.
I can't help but thinking that the value of a 6 food tile is underestimated. Chopping non stop in an endless forest yields you 5H per turn. While a pig yields you 4F (equals aprox 8H with a granary and heavy whipping). Could be that I'm thinking abit too long term here.

Yes, you are thinking rather long term, but also saying that pig yields you 4 is not entirely fair IMO. It's 3better than an unimproved floodplain (and 1 worse). We don't really have the -cap to allow heavy whipping, but certainly that time will come after Mids.

Also, with a copper no-show the information about horses is crucial imho. How else can we make a long term plan?

I care very little about horse at this point for many reasons. Chariots I view rather useless against barbs, as they can't very comfortably attack archers, so I'd rather just fortify warriors to forest. We are not HA-rushing through the jungle. At this point we don't care if we attack with cannons or cuirassiers, it doesn't alter our early play at all. And if we have horses south of jungle, nobody is stealing it from us.

We get a 20% discount for AH since we know AG, something that we don't for fishing (no pre-req) so AH is "only" 2x the cost of fishing.

The cost for AH is considerable though, and seeing all different saves I start to think that the tech path of ag,min,bw,ah is abit to slow commerce wise.
Getting pottery and laying some cottages down is probably more crucial than getting horse-info and bringing the pigs online.

And if you go for pottery after bw, fishing is almost for free.

Yes, I think it's fair to say AH costs roughly double of what fishing costs. Since you went pottery first, your empire can deal with the cost of going AH better than saves that went agri-min-BW.

@mscellaneous I start to like your position more and more.

 

[Olafeson]

Tonny does have the pigs improved, that is very nice.
The worker probably just finished chopping the forest that was there. The settler can be whipped this turn, probably with the intent of settling that fish spot (since worker was chopping it).

Probably, that makes it a decent play. Still i think settling the fish spot over there is bad. Needs border pop and a workboat. This city can be settled later, since it has nothing else to offer besides the fish. I also do not like the wasted hammers from chopping outside of your BFC and the wasted worker turns just for some hammers between 10 and 20. At least thats my opinion.

 

[sampsa]

Self-evaluation is tough. I'm the only one to be working on a fourth settler, which surprises me since I think settler #4 is more important than worker #3 for those who didn't settle wheat/stone. Pottery before fishing loses (130/1.2 - 130/1.4) = 15 beakers. This loss is relatively small, and allows my third city to start a granary and whip (for 22f = 30h) rather than hard-building a worker, which mostly offsets the beaker loss in my opinion. To be honest, I thought I would build a cottage or two, but the hammers just seemed more important. I'm really happy about the settle location of my third city, the emphasis on chopping and settlers, and the general timing of things.

Like I said before, there is a lot to like in your save. Since 4th is claiming stone, maybe fishing could be delayed in favor of masonry? At least I think 5th going for stone is a bit late. I don't like going AH now, so glad that you don't have invested in it. Losing 15 by going pottery before fishing is quite a lot IMO. I don't really see why putting into a granary compensates anything . You could put into a warrior or stonehenge, even if you plan to 1-pop whip worker at size two with the help of a chop (as I understand). Or if the point was to 1-pop whip granary, you have enough time to invest that 30 at size two.

edit: liking the analysis by Olafeson (but what do I know).

 

[Olafeson]

So much for the 10 minutes, takes more time than i thought.

11.Undefeatable / do not like it too much ( please don t beat me senpai)

Spoiler :

+ 3 cities
+ nice fogbusting

- only 1 worker
- not many tile improvements
- a lot of worker turns invested into roads. It only provides 1 commerce , a cottage on Floodplains on the other hand would provide a lot more for less worker turns.
- damaskus with the need for a border pop, will take time to be a good city.

12. Samuel_996 / pretty good (very similar to my approach)

Spoiler :

+ good fogbusting
+ a lot of tile improvements and cottages
+ another settler and worker in production

- like my approach maybe a bit too save and rather slow

13. floydmcw / decent to good

Spoiler :

+ good fogbusting
+ a lot of tile improvements
+ lots of cottages for teching power

- spy points on qin and shaka
- maybe BW a bit too late
- it is time to get (whip) a 3th settler i think, the 2 cities have combined enough tiles to work already.

14. gumbolt / i do not like it so much (please forgive a senile old dude)

Spoiler :

+ 3 cities and 2 workers already

- poor fogbusting, not enough warriors
- i really dislike the placement of Medina and Damaskus. I see no benefit in settling a city without a resource in the first ring like you did twice. Both cities need a monument and the 10 turns for a border pop before getting the stone and the pig.
- also it is a bit too early for granaries better get 1 or 2 more settlers and another worker and then just whip them 4 to 2 population. I can not see any advantage in building a granary in Medina at size 1 for 2 turns with no growth.
- if you want to grab the stone better settle 1 N of the stone and get that dry corn. Then you also don t need to put 30 hammers into a monument and wait for border pop, then also 4 turns for roads and another 8 for quarry i think. It takes ages. By the time you start the pyramids they may be gone soon, even on Immortal.

15. Powerfaker / the brave explorer, still not my style of play

Spoiler :

+ the legend warrior, battled his way through jungle and desert to annoy our friend shaka and steal a
worker
+ improved FP

- i think it was too risky to walk over 30 tiles with a warrior just to find shaka and qin
- better use him to fogbust and later for city garrison, you was beyond lucky you did not lost him.
- you can not steal a worker there anyway, he would take ages to go back.
- poor fogbusting
- very late BW, and no archers, if a barb archer would enter now he could smash all your tiles.
- wasted worker turns for the roads between mekka and medina and the pigs.
- as always i do not see a reason to grab the clam spot so early, it has really minor benefit.
- Better go for the stone or the PH 3 N of Mekka.

16. c^3 / not my cup of play ( but i am also senile and i think tokugawa is the best leader in the game by far)
also Chichen Itza (Chicken Pizza) is a wonder i like to build every game. ( even without stone ). It
is just too good to be missed.

Spoiler :

+ possible to get very early Pyramids
+ good fogbusting

- medina really has nothing else to offer than the stone. It can not grow.
- better settle medina 1 N of the stone and get the corn and later the pigs after IW
- you work 3 unimporved tiles in your capital. Time to whip another settler.