Cookbook #1 (Sally, Immortal)

[krikav]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback @sampsa!

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.

I have become more and more comfortable with growing into one or two unhappy faces if there is enough food (and a granary) to do it quick enough.
Being on a 10turn cycle 3-pop whipping settlers is nice. Only one turn to catch a forest with the settler is needed, so the granary can be utilized fully.

Yes, I do see that I seem to be quite behind in settling, this bothers me. @Fippy did give a thumbs up for pottery first, and I would be very eager to get an opinion on how this could be timed better.
3-4 cottages might be excessive? Should one perhaps switch to chopping once two cottages are done? I feel that I'm on the right track, but I took it abit to far.
Tempted to replay with a more conservative approach, and see if I can find a sweet spot between what I managed and what the chop-chop gang produced.

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.

I'm not throughoutly convinced about this wisdom. Swordnboard is certainly a very skilled player, but I see no value in itself by having more cities at a certain point. If the potential to catch up or surpass is there.
A city generates instantly roughly 4 Food/hammers at the cost of 1-2 commerce (3 if you don't have it connected). This is very nice but it is still nothing magical, this benefit need to be compared to other opportunities.
If the raw numbers at this point doesn't clearly indicate that more cities are better. I'm not eager to just say that the raw numbers are wrong because more cities is better.

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.

Well... An unimproved floodplain yields 1F+1C, a pig yields 4F. Thats about four times as good.
With such power tiles, whipping at low pop is very much doable.

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.

These are all very fair points.
Only thing I can think of is that horses around slightly tilt us toward music, but this isn't significant enough really, we will in all certainty get AH in time to make the choice of going for aestethics or not. If horses are anywhere near us, we will be able to get them in time for cuirs.
I do feel more comfortable with a few chariots, but you are correct in that they don't do a very good job against barbs. When they do kill an archer they are likely out of action for quite some time healing again, and they need to be full health to have good chances.

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.

Yes, I realized that my perception was abit skewed. I think that anyone who went BW first probably made a sound call to then postpone AH at least untill after pottery. Possibly even more.

 

[Fippy]

wow you guys are on fire, i lack time today but wanted to quickly say..very impressive

 

[krikav]

Out of curiosity I did a quick replay, turning to chopping as soon as BW was in. I like the end result much more than my original save.

Spoiler Krikav-Replay (not in competition just theorycrafting!) :

Here I don't have a mine, and not a almost-finished grassland cottage.
Population of capital is only 2 instead of 5, and the granary is not finished.
However, I'm still working all the important 3 cottages, and the second worker is already out and working while the first settler is done.

This feels much more solid.

 

[sampsa]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback @sampsa!

Enjoying the discussion!

I have become more and more comfortable with growing into one or two unhappy faces if there is enough food (and a granary) to do it quick enough.
Being on a 10turn cycle 3-pop whipping settlers is nice. Only one turn to catch a forest with the settler is needed, so the granary can be utilized fully.

This is indeed a strong approach to building settlers and I'm glad you mentioned it. Not sure if we have enough good city spots here though (well, one 3-pop whip can be madrassa though). I'm also assuming the plan is not to build Mids in the capital... But yeah, it's a fair point.

Yes, I do see that I seem to be quite behind in settling, this bothers me. @Fippy did give a thumbs up for pottery first, and I would be very eager to get an opinion on how this could be timed better. 3-4 cottages might be excessive? Should one perhaps switch to chopping once two cottages are done? I feel that I'm on the right track, but I took it abit to far.
Tempted to replay with a more conservative approach, and see if I can find a sweet spot between what I managed and what the chop-chop gang produced.

Yes, maybe 2 cottages and then chopping. Also I feel on deity two cities could be better than three at this point due to higher maintenance, higher tech costs (so more need for ) and way more severe barb threat.

I'm not throughoutly convinced about this wisdom. Swordnboard is certainly a very skilled player, but I see no value in itself by having more cities at a certain point. If the potential to catch up or surpass is there. A city generates instantly roughly 4 Food/hammers at the cost of 1-2 commerce (3 if you don't have it connected). This is very nice but it is still nothing magical, this benefit need to be compared to other opportunities.
If the raw numbers at this point doesn't clearly indicate that more cities are better. I'm not eager to just say that the raw numbers are wrong because more cities is better.

I am not saying that three cities is better than two cities because 3 > 2. I'm saying that it is better since is generates more, faster. Let's compare having two cities (cap, 1N of pig) to having three (cap, 1N of pig, ph 3N of cap). The third city costs 3 as can be seen from my spreadsheet (swordnboard, costs, -5 while 2-city empires cost -2) The third city is connected (1 tr) and working an unimproved floodplain 31, city center tile is 221. This city is breaking even in , so you win 32 for every turn you have it. It's pretty huge so it's very hard for 2-city empire to beat it, especially when the game progresses.

Well... An unimproved floodplain yields 1F+1C, a pig yields 4F. Thats about four times as good.
With such power tiles, whipping at low pop is very much doable.

This is quite unfairly put. At size 1, having a normal city center tile, working pig yields +6. Working unimproved fp yields +3. It's not four times as good. It becomes four times as good if we grow to size two and for some reason work a plains hill mine (then it really is +4 vs +1).

These are all very fair points.
Only thing I can think of is that horses around slightly tilt us toward music, but this isn't significant enough really, we will in all certainty get AH in time to make the choice of going for aestethics or not. If horses are anywhere near us, we will be able to get them in time for cuirs.
I do feel more comfortable with a few chariots, but you are correct in that they don't do a very good job against barbs. When they do kill an archer they are likely out of action for quite some time healing again, and they need to be full health to have good chances.

I agree that chariots bring some feeling of safety, but mostly two warriors do a much better job vs barbs.

 

[mscellaneous]

Thoroughly enjoying the discussion and comparing saves. My top 3 at the moment:
1. Swordnboard
Likes: 3 cities with a settler on the way, compact empire with all 3 cities connected, POT researched / AH postponed, fogbusters in place
Dislikes: Mids do not seem to be a priority (4th city destined to be coastal as there is a workboat in progress) 4th city on the way with only 2 workers, lots of unimproved tiles being worked

2.Gumbolt
Likes: 3 cities, compact empire with 2 cities connected, POT researched / AH postponed, Mids possible with stone in reach
Dislikes: fogbusting is a bit poor, risk of being overrun by barbs later on. Placement of Damascus, why 1N of pigs?

Note: while writing the above I have been going back & forth which of the two I consider best. Chose SNB in the end because of better barb protection and the 4th city could still be headed for stone.

3. Sampsa
Likes: 3 cities, compact empire with all 3 cities connected, strong 2nd city with pastured pigs next turn, 3 workers
Dislikes: AH instead of POT, lack of commerce might become an issue. Mids do not seem to be a priority. Fogbusting is a bit poor, risk of being overrun by barbs later on

 

[Swordnboard]

Olafeson brings up an interesting point on espionage points. In general, we put 4pts onto one leader to try to see research and facilitate better trades (qin seems obvious choice since Shaka is such a bad techer). However, AI also respond to your EP spending by spending points themselves, which in few-AI cases like this can totally offset the benefits. I attempted several permutations of EP allocation to try to convince Qin or Shaka to spend on each other, only to deem it impossible and settle on split allocation to see demographics of both.

My game was played with no ambitions on the pyramids, for what it's worth, so stone city was planned as #5 or maybe even #6. They're a nice wonder, but then again so are 2.5 early settlers. As sampsa points out, anyone who wants to settle the stone next can certainly do masonry instead of AH since no beaker investment there.

Also: @Fippy Fantastic choice of map! The PH edit was also a very wise move. Lots of discussion and variation here that we wouldn't see with a better leader, different map, etc.

 

[floydmcw]

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

13. floydmcw / decent to good

- 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.

Just curious what you mean by "spy points on qin and shaka"? I didn't manage espionage at all yet, was there something I should have done? Assign all spy points to my first contact?

BTW I love seeing my game in German for some reason. "I'm not building a Bautrupp in my capital ... oh that's a worker."

 

[Olafeson]

Jesus Christ, my eyes are burning, my hands are ssssshaking. my back hurts. Guess it took a lot longer than 10 minutes to post all the T45 screenshots for the lurkers.
Time for a cup fo tea. Anyway my favourites are :

1. place : Mscellaneous
2. place : Swordnboard
3. place: Sampsa

Why i already stated some posts earlier in my T45 overwiev for all participating players. I think Mscellaneous with the copper pop and the very nice third city 1N of stone has played the best game so far. (Teach me Senpai)

 

[sampsa]

Just curious what you mean by "spy points on qin and shaka"? I didn't manage espionage at all yet, was there something I should have done? Assign all spy points to my first contact?

Pretty sure it's best to assign points on Qin, since Shaka is mostly useless trading partner (doesn't trade at cautious, goes for war techs and doesn't give them away even at pleased since AIs value them high and so on).

BTW I love seeing my game in German for some reason. "I'm not building a Bautrupp in my capital ... oh that's a worker."

After Bautrupp you should go for Kornspeicher (and attempt to pronounce it) since it sounds so cool.

 

[Olafeson]

Just curious what you mean by "spy points on qin and shaka"? I didn't manage espionage at all yet, was there something I should have done? Assign all spy points to my first contact?

BTW I love seeing my game in German for some reason. "I'm not building a Bautrupp in my capital ... oh that's a worker."

Regarding your question about spy points. I assume most of the expierenced players put all their spy points on 1 A.I. civ. Best would always be good "techers" like Mansa Musa, or maybe Justinian or Gandhi, etc

Or put the points on someone who does not put points on you. The benefit of spending all your spy points on 1 person is that you will sooner or later see what they research.
Therefor you can manage and plan your tech trading a bit better. Also if you want to use a spy to maybe steal a tech or change the civics or religion of an A.I. civ you will need a lot of spy points. If you spread all your points on all A.I. civs, you will not have enough spy points to perform a single spy mission or watch the tech of one A.I.

Then they will be a useless resource. As Sampsa mentioned different Civs have different thresholds for trading techs ( as also for all other things like trading resources and declaring war). Best example would be Mansa Musa always trades you techs. While Tokugaga does not trad you techs at all until you can get him to pleased.

Basically the most important part is to "watch" what one enemy Civ researches. Later it has e a lot of uses for spy missions too. So you need all your points on 1 enemy.

 

[Swordnboard]

Side note: Here's some worthless demographics screen information I gleaned in the first five turns:
No mansa or Hammurabi, no creative civilizations, two civs started with mining (including qin, so one more somewhere)

 

[Olafeson]

@Fippy

maybe it would be best to start a poll for the 3 favourites. This thread is already a bit crowded.

 

[Tonny]

@sampsa
The sheet helps a lot to get a quick overview of each player's progress. Great work.
It sadly doesn't say if anyone has whips in place.

@Olafeson & @krikav
Regarding your comments on my "idle" worker. It unintentionally chopped the forest. I only wanted it pre-chopped (probably still not the best choice, but ok...), but forgot about it. Still need to adjust to playing without Buffy.
This also implies that I wasn't going for the Fish spot. Crab is my choice.

@Swordnboard
I like your analysis. My intention was to get a "delayed" REX with workers already in place for roads towards stone and more chopping of settlers etc...

Spoiler Promoting my save :

Just explaining my postition on t45.
Mecca:
Settler can be whipped 2 pop or slowbuilt. Next will be settler for stone. Needs to be calculated what works best and how many chops.
Medina:
Can start on WB now for Crab with the help of a chop from the worker 1S.
3rd city is going for the Crab. Can borrow Corn from Mecca until Crab is online. What to build there? Worker slowbuilt? Or...?
4th city will get Stone. Can be settled around t52/53.
I'm expecting Masonry on t59 or if I skip Pottery on t52.

It's a bit slow indeed... but has potential. A bit different...

 

[sampsa]

Side note: Here's some worthless demographics screen information I gleaned in the first five turns:
No mansa or Hammurabi, no creative civilizations, two civs started with mining (including qin, so one more somewhere)

Nice that you mentioned, as I also did some demo screen nerding:

Spoiler :

No AI that starts with wheel. This cuts off Justinian, Egyptian leaders, French leaders, Toku, G/K Khan, Ottomen and Gilgy. I think this is somewhat relevant as not having Ramesses, de Gaulle nor Louis improves our chances on getting Mids.

1-2 charismatic leaders. Many coastal capitals.

Also, early religions went really early so two AIs start with mysticism. Possibly Inca is a threat on Mids...

 

[Fish Man]

Alright, I'm awake and alive (at least for now. I mean I'm awake for now. I do certainly think that I'll stay alive for much longer), and it seems there's some really interesting discussions going on!

I'm going to try to defend my love of all things fishing-related, which was evidenced by me settling the clam and fish sites first. As well as my delay of pottery. All will make sense in time, I swear.

First of all, let me be clear: I don't intend to go for mids. You can count that for or against me, but in my opinion, this map just doesn't have enough food to justify throwing 250 hammers and maybe settling/teching suboptimally for early rep. Think about it - within a 10-tile radius of the capital there are a total of 4 decent food sources. Flood plains doesn't really count since even farming them gives a meh surplus, and there's not a lot of cottage real estate for such frivolous improvements. So masonry is a non-issue, and I'm not settling by the stone first because of that.

That being said, then, granaries matter less for me. The happy cap is gonna be low for a long while, leading to less need for growth and less capacity for whipping. So the pottery delay isn't as debilitating in that regard. Also, yes cottages should go up ASAP but pottery will take 5-6 turns with this tech pace to get, which means they're in the very near future anyways. I guess I took a page from @sampsa in that Lizzy game that we both seemed to have abandoned a while ago (can't play everything I guess) in just forgetting about cottaging and REXing to 3-4 cities in the first 50 or so turns. After all, @krikav is right in that the earlier we get cities up and improve their food, the more we can snowball. It's sorta like agg in my point of view - the amount of f/p/c you earn from settling a city X turns earlier is not the yields from the first X turns of that city's existence, but the yields and benefits of the city from the last X turns of the game (similar to how free combat 1 is worth whatever XP the next promotion down the line costs, not just 2). So, with that in mind, I feel confident that skipping granaries or cottages in favor of getting cities up ASAP was the better play here - no offense intended to you 2-city folks.

Additionally, I feel like I'm the closest to getting the crab city in a workable state. 1 turn away from a work boat, at which point that city can either start on a worker (that it finishes with 1-pop whip) or another WB for exploration. Not only earlier food, but also that city will start paying back its hammers pretty quick.

OK. So now I'm gonna justify my settling spots and worker turn usage which many people understandably find suspect. The reason I settled by sea resources first is because fishing is cheap, gives discount on pottery, AND opens up food for 2 city spots instead of just 1 like AH. Additionally, fishing resources take the longest to improve, so the sooner we can get them online, the better. This means that, yes, it'll take 12 more turns for the monument fish city to reach its food. But the pig city will only take 4 worker turns to improve food, so getting it set up is something we can do anytime. If, then, there is a 15-turn delay between the fish city settler and pig city settler, settling the fish city first will give us a 7-turn delay from when it can work food to when pig city can work food. But settling pig city first will give us 23-turn delay until both cities can work food. I guess the point I'm trying to make is, within reason, I have a philosophy of settling food spots that take longer to become productive, because easily-improved places "lose" less turns relatively if they are settled later, since they're so easy to set up and become productive at an earlier stage of the game than if a city needing a culture pop would've been built at that time. Sounds convoluted...but it makes sense to me, at least. So yeah, that's my "fishy" rationale, if you can call it that.

The other part ties into my methodology of efficient REX, and that's - make sure I have just the right number of workers always. I have only a single worker now, but that's efficient because I chose fishing and so the worker just has the right amount of tasks to do, not too much, not too little. After AH and pots I'll build another worker or two to help with cottaging and chopping, along with improving the pig spot. But for now, since I settled the fishing spots, I had the ability to pour less hammers into workers while still not suffering that much for it. So IMO, the lack of workers is not really a big issue, at least for now. If push comes to shove, whip one from...anywhere.

Also - the fish spot is stronger than y'all give it credit for IMO. It can work 3 plains riverside cottages, which is normally meh, but with such a strong food source and low happy cap are considerably alright, all things considered. Plus you get to grow them for the capital. OTOH, settling the stone/wheat gives basically 2 actually good workable tiles until SP kicks in and you get caste workshops which are wayyyy late. If not going for mids, which I am not, that's a 5th city spot at best.

Future plans...I intend to 2-pop chop-whip a settler in my cap ASAP. That goes to pigs. Then probably chop a worker. Fish city gets monument + WB. Crab city will 1-pop whip a worker. Fogbusting is fine; we have enough warriors for now.

So yeah, that's my PhD dissertation on why fish and crabs taste better than pigs, and why pots aren't as important as you think .

Today took a lot out of me so far. I'll vote later and NC might be delayed some more but in the meantime good talk and keep it coming!

PS @Fippy whoops didn't read the voting rules...I guess I was paranoid that it would be as dumb as the American election system, like "you only get 3AM-3PM PST to vote and if you don't cast your ballot by then TOO BAD", glad we have a few days at least Will give me more time to think.

 

[sampsa]

Damn you Undefeatable, just I was planning on getting some sleep. Not going for Mids sounds preposterous. Need to think about it.

 

[krikav]

@Undefeatable Msc has the crabs improved already, so you didn't win that race. It does look like you will finish second though.

I don't really see why the food wouldn't be enough for mids here, running two scientists only require 4 food. Even the city with a lone crab can muster that.
That being said, I'm not in a rush to get mids either. It's nice if you get them, but its equally nice to get some failgold.
The stone/wheat/pig/horse site is good even without considering hooking up the stone!

I would want to settle one more city close by, probably on a PH just north like Gumbolt/SnB. But after that it's the stone city thats goal. With more mature cottages there is no need to hold back expanding at all.

What I really like about your save is that it's different, and every time something is different there is an opportunity to learn.

 

[Olafeson]

@Undefeatable

i think you have some flaws in your early game strategy. It is nearly always the best choice to settle cities with food resources in the first ring. Seraphiel did write a very nice guide about it on the strategy article forum. It is a quick read and very helpful. I put my opinion why i consider your save one of the weaker ones in spoiler. I hope we can get to an agreement since you also have valid points and i can quite understand your logic, but i think it is just not the best way to play out the early game.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-2-case-studies-city-placement.546356/

Spoiler :

I think mscellaneous already works the clam for a couple of turns in his save. Also i dont understand why a fishing resource should take a long time to improve? Just 1 pop whip the Worboat at size 2 with 1 hammer into it. In my book that is the fastest it can get. The fish spot would be a place that i would settle with caste system, when i reach CoL. Just assign an artist for 3 turns and you don t need to spend 1 pop or 30 hammers for a monument. 1 pop whip would take 11 turns at +2/Turn. With working the mine (as you do) you need 8 turns. And you put in 5 worker turns to just get the mine up, and 4 to road it.

The pig city would be connected immidiately due to river. So no need for roads. Besides i think it would be better to cottage the floodplains instead of the plains tiles north of the capital ( which only provides +1 over plains forest anyway). A plains tile is just not very valuable until you get some techs later in the game.

I think you should have worked the forest on the plains riverside tile for 3 turns while chopping it. Then it only takes 4 turns for monument , and you do not need to build a nonriverside grassland hill mine. The fish spots also can only work their food resource and are only useful to whip workers or settlers from in the beginning of the game. I would only use these spots to get a GS , just a granary and a library and work 2 scientists.

The riverside plains tiles can also be worked witha city 3 N of the capital. Together with the pig city all riverside tiles could be cottaged and grown for a strong capital at CS.
Its also wrong that the city 1N of the stone can only work 2 tiles. it can work a farm too with the lake and later with IW the pigs. You don t need to go until Communism.
If you go for Caste system at CoL you only need 4 or 5 turns to get a border pop and work the fish. Workboat will be chopped with math or whipped from medina. It just takes too long to pay back in the early game. Pig city can share FP rigth away, don t need monument and can also work a mine.

My play would have been to settle the clam with writing. And the fish with CoL as 4th or 5th city maybe even 6th city.

Another mistake is that you are now 2 turns away from AH. But you don t even have a settler in production for the pig spot. At this point better go for Pottery first, so you can start to use cottages


Overall i think you lose in early game speed if you invest so much into the fish spot, you delay the cottages on the riverside FP which we all know are the best tiles to work and cottage. Youa re not wrong if you go for the food city firsts. Food is king, but i think all the fish city can provide is to produce workers and settlers and whip them at size 4 and grow back. If you get library there it would be stonger to work 2 scientists. So these spots can wait till writing.

 

[elitetroops]

I have a philosophy of settling food spots that take longer to become productive, because easily-improved places "lose" less turns relatively if they are settled later, since they're so easy to set up and become productive at an earlier stage of the game than if a city needing a culture pop would've been built at that time. Sounds convoluted...but it makes sense to me, at least. So yeah, that's my "fishy" rationale, if you can call it that.

I disagree with this line of thinking. Especially in the early game you want to settle cities that become productive as soon as possible. In your example you mention fish takes 12 turns to improve, while pig takes 4. If we only consider those resources (haven't studied this particular map closely yet), then settling the pig first gives you a productive city 8 turns earlier, meaning that city can give produce a worker or a settler 8 turns earlier. 8 turns earlier worker means it will always be 2 improvements ahead, 8 turns earlier settler is a huge deal. As with everything in this game, early gains are way more valuable than later gains. Besides, if we look at total food produced, fish first will probably never be ahead of pigs first, so there isn't even a later gain to be had.

Looking quickly at the map, I'd agree with Olafeson. Fish city should rather be delayed until later in this case.

 

[floydmcw]

After examining all the saves (whew!) here are my votes:

#1: Tonny. 3 workers, 3 warriors in an efficient spawnbusting band up north. Good science, 5 techs already and pottery next turn. 3rd settler out soon.

#2: Olafeson, went for cottages and has very good beaker production. 2 workers, 4 warriors. (Seeing these saves taught me to ease up on warriors a little, my save has 5 and 2 of them are in cities where they are not needed.)

#3: Sampsa. I want to see what will happen with the bare-bones empire with a lot of cities and workers (his save has 3 of each), but little military or improvements. 1 warrior might be a problem soon but more can probably be chopped or whipped.

---
Honorable mention:

Mscellaneous, solid effort (3 cities and seafood with a bonus exploring WB) but science rate a little low. That copper pop was great of course. This probably rates to be in the top 3 on merit but I wanted to choose saves with different approaches.

Swordnbord, this is roughly the same as Sampsa's with one fewer worker (and in consequence, almost no improvements) and just a little better science.

6K man, 3 workers and 4 warriors. Not sure what hunting is for.

Powerfaker: I like everything about this save except the exploring workboat (do you really need it given everything your worker has mapped?). And the nagging feeling that you want to steal Shaka's worker. Please don't anger Shaka.

c^3: I'm not sure Medina was well placed, and your science rate is slow, but you do have stone hooked up and this game could get interesting.