Cookbook #1 (Sally, Immortal)

[Fish Man]

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.

First of all these are good points, and I definitely agree with Cereal's tried and true guide of food on first ring, at least most of the time (even he said - exceptions do exist).

But I've slept on it a bit and I've made a decision on how to articulate my argument better. It's fine if you disagree; honestly, I'm not sure how I got to thinking this way either. But it's been my experience that it works on deity, for some reason, so maybe it's not completely meritless?

Anyways, the thing I have to say is this - the fish city make better use of early turns production-wise and in terms of tiles worked. The moment I settled the fish city, I was building something useful - monument, followed by WB. These are hammers put into a solid build queue that directly contributes to the goal of 1 thing: getting food. On the other hand, if I had settled pigs first, I would've been at a loss at what to build; nothing would've been really that useful to start on. Warriors? I have 4 already; at this point maintenance will start to kick in. Worker? 15-turn slog; not a fan of enduring that. Barracks? Hammers will all but decay by the time I get around to it after switching to granary -> library -> all the other builds that are coming up. And meanwhile it's forced to work unimproved tiles for at least the first 10 turns of its existence. So at this point in tech and worker turns available, pigs city can't really do much to pay back, and founding it later to cut these minimally productive turns will do far more for us when we consider what we get from fish city (much, much faster access to food).

So I guess my point here is, the fish city makes better use of early turns production-wise because it's automatically building something tangibly useful instead of having to twiddle our thumbs until pottery to start on a granary. It also can work a much more high-quality tile, grassland mine (I know, not the best, but better than most unimproved tiles for sure) - as opposed to having to wait for AH to actually get a decent yield (regardless of WHEN it was founded), and stuck growing slooowly at 3f tiles in the meantime. Finally, because it needs an extra 2 builds to get started, founding it earlier will make it be able to start on the essential infrastructure (granary, library, maybe lighthouse) sooner whereas the pigs city WON'T have any turns saved on building these important things if it is founded sooner because the techs necessary aren't in yet. Put simply, being founded earlier does a lot for the fish city but basically not much for the pig one, the fish city can build much more useful builds in that time, and the pig city cannot contribute much anyways until certain techs are in.

And with that, I rest my case.

 

[Swordnboard]

Anyways, the thing I have to say is this - the fish city make better use of early turns production-wise and in terms of tiles worked. ... On the other hand, if I had settled pigs first, I would've been at a loss at what to build; nothing would've been really that useful to start on.

What about a workboat? Nothing says you can't settle pigs->clams and have a WB ready to go for clam. I'm also partial to building workers at 1 pop, especially since Mecca's PH mine is currently not being worked, so maybe we could get one done in 12 or 13 turns instead of the full 15. I like the idea of the importance of fishing, but think that the best execution is probably something along those lines rather than investing in a monument in fish city.

As for the pyramids, @Undefeatable I'm quite partial to your conclusion. While pyramids with stone should always be considered and this is no exception, the long river and relative greenness of the terrain mean we can probably sustain a lot of REX without them. If we can get the mids without bending over backwards (meaning chop/build them in stone city that was settled 4th or 5th while not having masonry crowd out other critical tech), I'm all for it, but a lot of the saves that beelined the stone seem to take things a little too far.

 

[Swordnboard]

I will try working out how to make shorter & easier to read linkes, any tips?

You can anything you want inside the URL tags, as long as you have the actual url listed after the url= part. The BB codes page has a nice example.

 

[Fish Man]

What about a workboat? Nothing says you can't settle pigs->clams and have a WB ready to go for clam. I'm also partial to building workers at 1 pop, especially since Mecca's PH mine is currently not being worked, so maybe we could get one done in 12 or 13 turns instead of the full 15. I like the idea of the importance of fishing, but think that the best execution is probably something along those lines rather than investing in a monument in fish city.

As for the pyramids, @Undefeatable I'm quite partial to your conclusion. While pyramids with stone should always be considered and this is no exception, the long river and relative greenness of the terrain mean we can probably sustain a lot of REX without them. If we can get the mids without bending over backwards (meaning chop/build them in stone city that was settled 4th or 5th while not having masonry crowd out other critical tech), I'm all for it, but a lot of the saves that beelined the stone seem to take things a little too far.

Agree with stone thing - personally don't think mids are right play here. A classic situation where they WOULD be justified is @Lain 's recent Ragnar LP; a ton of food but no luxes, AND good production to build it without throwing away 20-25 turns. By a ton I mean at least +10 food for a couple of cities, or 2 resources. This map barely has +6-ish food for the capital, +8 for pigs city, which is the highest-food city on the map possible so far. Both cities are barely able to run 2 scientists and still grow...and that's it. Pretty much no other city can benefit much from rep. So are we sure we want AT MOST 24 beakers per turn (eventually), probably less than 20, from a 250-hammer investment that requires throwing about 100 beakers and 100 hammers to the wind as well, and also increasing our costs by an IMO exorbitant amount (stone city ain't cheap ya know)?

I hadn't thought of getting a WB from the pigs site by working the mine (is it in working range? I forgot or maybe it was an oversight...). Nor of getting a worker via said mine. But I actually like to build work boats as close to the targeted improvement destination as possible, to cut down on maintenance costs during transit. And it's a long sail from pig city to fish city if we build the fish WB at the pig site, and an even longer wait if you don't time the border pop right. As for the crab city - it should get its own WB, because otherwise, there's not much for it to build. Sometimes I'd like to not build things too fast because if we run out of things to build then we're essentially throwing the additional hammers in the wind or worse, increasing unit maintenance, when we could've prioritized another yield over hammers, or built things in a different place. Still - these are valid critiques!

What if we tried voting for 3 different approaches instead of 3 optimizations of the same approach? One person going for mids (and I'm all for seeing how that would play out despite not really thinking it's for the best), one with the meta 3 city spots (cap, pigs, crab), and one with an unorthodox city spot (totally not shilling for myself here) or perhaps even 2 cities but better developed w/ pottery first?

 

[Major Tom]

What if we tried voting for 3 different approaches instead of 3 optimizations of the same approach?

Think this is a very good idea. Let us see how different strategies play out, not different micro approaches.

Edit: Perhaps need to change voting system from points to Best in category x,y and z.

 

[krikav]

Think this is a very good idea. Let us see how different strategies play out, not different micro approaches.
Edit: Perhaps need to change voting system from points to Best in category x,y and z.

I tried to mention that there will be the tendancy for groupthink:

I think it's a good idea to strive for depth and variety! It can also help us to avoid falling into groupthink and just voting for an approach similar to the one we played ourselves, because we think it's superior.

I'm not sure that this can be solved with voting though. As it is now I think that the best approach is just for people to vote for the saves they think performed best and then we take it from there.
If it turns out that we get 3 saves with the same strategic approach but with just slightly different micro, I think the best solution would be for non voting participants @lymond @Fippy @elitetroops ? Choose a runner up or two, based on their judgement of how conductive their continuation will be.

 

[krikav]

I just noticed that Swordandboard updated his earlier post, with genereous analysis of each save, just in case someone (like me) missed this:
Post #77
Special mention for MajorTom & Gumbolt, your PH-city that grabs stone makes him envious!

I liked SnBs settling by the river more, but "What do I know".

 

[sampsa]

I think elitetroops's answer to Undefeatable is spot on. First 3-4 cities should contribute as much as possible as fast as possible. If you choose to go for a weaker/slower site first, you are going to have a lot to prove.

Agree with stone thing - personally don't think mids are right play here. A classic situation where they WOULD be justified is @Lain 's recent Ragnar LP; a ton of food but no luxes, AND good production to build it without throwing away 20-25 turns. By a ton I mean at least +10 food for a couple of cities, or 2 resources. This map barely has +6-ish food for the capital, +8 for pigs city, which is the highest-food city on the map possible so far. Both cities are barely able to run 2 scientists and still grow...and that's it. Pretty much no other city can benefit much from rep. So are we sure we want AT MOST 24 beakers per turn (eventually), probably less than 20, from a 250-hammer investment that requires throwing about 100 beakers and 100 hammers to the wind as well, and also increasing our costs by an IMO exorbitant amount (stone city ain't cheap ya know)?

I've really grown to dislike most wonders as my game has improved over the years. However, you are severely underestimating Mids. Value of Mids is not "at most 24 beakers per turn eventually" on this map, no no no. Biggest immediate gain by far is +3 which our empire can use to whip efficiently. Rep is nice, sure, already +7,5pt for working on the first GS (to bulb philo?), but nothing spectacular.

During the first phase of churning out we should be able to run a total of 10 specialists per turn already in pigs+farmed fp(+8) and crab+corn(+8 with a lighthouse) while capital works the cottages (assuming we build them! It's also a possibility to farm most of the fps). I'm always slightly starving in this phase and that's only -2 per city. Fish city is a bonus, 3 spec there if the city is mature for it. Even disregarding +25% bonus from library (madrassa) it's at least 30 per turn, so I don't think your assumptions are accurate. Anyway, it's not even important, because the value of Mids does not equal to rep bonus for running specialists. It's a total of early , rep -bonus and the ability to run police state later.

If it turns out that we get 3 saves with the same strategic approach but with just slightly different micro, I think the best solution would be for non voting participants @lymond @Fippy @elitetroops ? Choose a runner up or two, based on their judgement of how conductive their continuation will be.

I think some kind of jury is a cool idea. This is the first re-installment of the series so the format can be developed. I'd like to see this game go quickly into the next turn set so that people don't lose interest (btw thanks for all the participants, amazing that there are so many players!).

 

[Olafeson]

But I actually like to build work boats as close to the targeted improvement destination as possible, to cut down on maintenance costs during transit

We play on immortal here, i do not think that you will pay unit costs till you get maybe 7 or 8 units with 3 cities already. If your capital has higher pop you can have surely like 8 or 9 free units. Just tested it if you have size 2 capital after i whipped it down for no reason and size 1 medina and damaskus you can have 8 free units. That is a lot already, and it is not the end of the world if you lose 1 or 2 gold due to unit mainenance costs. Getting the workboat from a different city and sail it over in a few turns to arrive exactly when you settle the spot or get the border pop is often times the better play.

 

[Gumbolt]

It's not a huely over powering map for mids for science. Most cities have 1 food resource. However can you see 1 happiness resource we can use early on? So opening up civics like rep will save us going to monarchy.

My save is plagued with barbs in the fog. 1-2 archers and a warrior. When you explore too much you lose time on fog busting. Also people who settled the southern fish city will find it harder to fog bust using city culture. I think the wheat city with stone and horse looks strong.

Misc with copper pop and a city already settled for horse/wheat/stone site is strong as it will avoid many barb issues. I too like the exploring workboat.Too many roads here Unclear if some were to save worker turns.
Wraithful has not settled this city where I would of placed it. Plus worker turns on roads early on is usually bad.

I suspect Fippy intended us not to have copper. She does love her Riders of Rohan!

Do we value cottages now over land grab?

I do like the idea of using Phoenix Rising team members as a jury. *cough cough*.

Krikav has done well on cottages. I don't get why you would not work that pigs resource? 5-6f on a food poor map? I don't see the Ai being research heavy here. Shaka and China? Nope!

It's also interesting looking at the power rating. Highest for AI seems to be 81k. Some saves also have wonders completed.

Fogbusting up north. You only really need 2 warriors for this. xxoxxxxoxx. o=warrior. x=land. Of course how important is it to have these in place early? This is the big advantage to anyone who settled the stone site early.

Will have a bit more think on this.

 

[Fish Man]

I think elitetroops's answer to Undefeatable is spot on. First 3-4 cities should contribute as much as possible as fast as possible. If you choose to go for a weaker/slower site first, you are going to have a lot to prove.


I've really grown to dislike most wonders as my game has improved over the years. However, you are severely underestimating Mids. Value of Mids is not "at most 24 beakers per turn eventually" on this map, no no no. Biggest immediate gain by far is +3 which our empire can use to whip efficiently. Rep is nice, sure, already +7,5pt for working on the first GS (to bulb philo?), but nothing spectacular.

During the first phase of churning out we should be able to run a total of 10 specialists per turn already in pigs+farmed fp(+8) and crab+corn(+8 with a lighthouse) while capital works the cottages (assuming we build them! It's also a possibility to farm most of the fps). I'm always slightly starving in this phase and that's only -2 per city. Fish city is a bonus, 3 spec there if the city is mature for it. Even disregarding +25% bonus from library (madrassa) it's at least 30 per turn, so I don't think your assumptions are accurate. Anyway, it's not even important, because the value of Mids does not equal to rep bonus for running specialists. It's a total of early , rep -bonus and the ability to run police state later.


I think some kind of jury is a cool idea. This is the first re-installment of the series so the format can be developed. I'd like to see this game go quickly into the next turn set so that people don't lose interest (btw thanks for all the participants, amazing that there are so many players!).

My point is that pigs site can't really contribute in any meaningful way even if it was founded like on like turn 10, because I don't have AH and pottery (maybe fishing was the wrong thing to go for but I don't think so in this case). Whereas the fish city can contribute as soon as it's founded to its eventual payoff. So pig city being founded on turn 30 vs 50 makes little difference because that city will be just "idle" for 20 turns, but fish city founded 20 turns earlier means 20 turns earlier that it gets its food. Getting all the techs we need is proving difficult because we needed BW as well for obvious reasons.

I like your point about the mids. Hadn't thought of it that way. However, my counterclaim to that is that there's...really not much to whip. After a granary + madrassa it's just settlers/workers, and even those shouldn't be produced in excessive quantities because spamming cities before we have currency is a great way to tank the economy (I'm thinking 5, AT MOST 6 cities before currency unless we do something funky). Also...this is quite a food-poor start by my standards. Except for the pigs city and maybe the capital, by the time cities grow back 2 pop the whip anger would've probably mostly wore off anyways. So for whipping is not that big of a deal IMO. And running 2 specialists already pretty much all but stagnates 2 of the city sites that we have. Police state - interesting. Would increase our cuir/cannon army by 25% when the time comes, which we'd definitely need against Shaka.

Crazy idea: Shaka/Qin are bad traders anyway. Go for astro bulb and then lib cuirs -> take over continent -> continue from there? How to handle plotting though...

 

[krikav]

Regarding pyramids, I have also gotten more and more into the idea that the most wonderful wonder in this game is an early and technologically superior army or simply a larger empire earlier... But pyramids are really nice, and with spi they open up so many possibilities.

Rep is nice, but there are other possibilites as well, not applicable in this map, but sometimes HR can be better. For example if you have a city with very much food (Like 2 pigs+corn or such) then you can put that city on a very tight whip schedule and keep it productive by letting the army you whip stand there. (ofc that city is toast once you move out your army, but a gift-recapture trick is possible, or if the good tiles can be handed over to other cities.
Even if HR isn't on the table, the happy from rep is enough to avoid going down the religious tree at all, and thats quite alot of beakers saved!

And police state is a wonderful civic. The equivalent of a free forge in every city, start counting those hammers and you get the point. It's simply yes please!

I don't know myself, but perhaps there is some trick to pull with early US as well?

 

[Gumbolt]

With Shaka you can be pretty sure he will declare on someone pretty early. His UU will be great over that jungle. Too soon to be plotting cuirs.

 

[krikav]

Krikav has done well on cottages. I don't get why you would not work that pigs resource? 5-6f on a food poor map?

I finished AH turn 45, hence no piggies improved.
Worker is in bad position due to sloppy micro. At least 2 turns late, and if one decides to finish that last grassland cottage it's 3 turns late for the pigs. Not something I'm proud of!!

 

[Fish Man]

With Shaka you can be pretty sure he will declare on someone pretty early. His UU will be great over that jungle. Too soon to be plotting cuirs.

Problem is Qin's peaceweight is just so low...they're like best buds from the start. On the bright side it's unlikely we'll be a land target before Qin so I guess it's almost a darn coin toss until then...my suggestion is gift resource + OB as soon as possible and then beg immediately when he starts plotting, every time?

 

[krikav]

Do we value cottages now over land grab?

Since it's all but guaranteed that some save with rapid expansion and a lagging economy such as sampsa or SnB is going forward I'll go for one of those for the next turnset since I think I learn most from that.

I'll have to go into a discussion with these guys on how they usually handle that problem.
Going on from my save, the 3 cottages in the capital will be enough to sustain a long phase of expansion while they continue to mature, with no need to build roads or any more cottages in any other city. This approach I am comfortable with.
But how to handle this in a more lean empire I'm less familiar with. Probably need more cottages since they are less developed? Do you put a hold on expansion after the initial 4-5 cities? Need some handholding or I'll probably just tank my economy completely in the next turnset.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think the jungle is the main limitation on expansion. Most of cities by capital will have low upkeep as 2-3 tiles away. I know Pedro values early expansion and working of key resources first. In this instance I think most of the cities we would target should be safe from AI for a while. I didn't mind your approach as early pottery has it's uses. I get the sharing of resources with a helper city for cottages. If we aim for mids maybe cottages will hold less value here? I still think we would likely stick with a bureau capital? That river is too good to ignore.

 

[krikav]

My point is that pigs site can't really contribute in any meaningful way even if it was founded like on like turn 10, because I don't have AH and pottery (maybe fishing was the wrong thing to go for but I don't think so in this case). Whereas the fish city can contribute as soon as it's founded to its eventual payoff. So pig city being founded on turn 30 vs 50 makes little difference because that city will be just "idle" for 20 turns, but fish city founded 20 turns earlier means 20 turns earlier that it gets its food. Getting all the techs we need is proving difficult because we needed BW as well for obvious reasons.

I think you are making some mistake in what you classify as productive.

You say that the fish city does something productive when it is producing a monument. I have a hard time accepting that.
That monument is built only to bring that fish city to the initial state of pigcity. It's a necessary evil, an investment sink that you have to go through to eventually make the city productive.
Alot similar to clearing jungle to make jungle cities productive.
Clearing jungle isn't something that I see as productive, and I'm not rushing into the jungle asap after IW either.

 

[elitetroops]

Anyways, the thing I have to say is this - the fish city make better use of early turns production-wise and in terms of tiles worked. The moment I settled the fish city, I was building something useful - monument, followed by WB. These are hammers put into a solid build queue that directly contributes to the goal of 1 thing: getting food. On the other hand, if I had settled pigs first, I would've been at a loss at what to build; nothing would've been really that useful to start on.

This thinking is also a bit flawed. In the early game your main goal is expansion. A city building something that only helps the city itself get productive contributes nothing at all to expansion. It is basically a delay until the city can contribute to your main goal. Fish city needs to invest 30 hammers more than pigs city until it can be of any help at all. Again, I haven't played this map myself, but I find it hard to believe that there is nothing useful to build this early in the game. Putting hammers into barracks is often a good idea if you plan to war somewhat early. Sets up a nice 2 pop whip for later. More warriors are always welcome for more fogbusting and later as MP. I don't think you are running into the free unit limit just yet. And as someone mentioned, you could start on the workboat that later is used to improve fish.

If you improve pigs immediately, it will take the city only 6 turns to reach pop 2. Then it can continue growing or maybe start on a worker, while also helping capital grow cottages. This is where it really starts pulling ahead of fish city. Fish takes much longer until it can contribute anything meaningful.

Edit: Xpost. Well said @krikav

 

[Fish Man]

I think you are making some mistake in what you classify as productive.

You say that the fish city does something productive when it is producing a monument. I have a hard time accepting that.
That monument is built only to bring that fish city to the initial state of pigcity. It's a necessary evil, an investment sink that you have to go through to eventually make the city productive.
Alot similar to clearing jungle to make jungle cities productive.
Clearing jungle isn't something that I see as productive, and I'm not rushing into the jungle asap after IW either.

Hmm...seems like we have fundamentally differing ideologies on what's productive. Anything that increases yields and output is productive in my books, even if it's something that's needed to get a city out of a "hole" compared to what we think the level of a "normal" city should be at. If we avoid settling good spots because the initial state of the settle might be a bit rough around the edges, I think that unnecessarily confines our options a lot and underestimates how good a place really can be with just a bit of investment put into it.

And yes - I see clearing jungle as very productive. I think that's why I teched faster in NC 200 (besides knowing the map because I made it, and skipping Oracle trap) - I wasn't afraid to self-tech IW and jump straight into the jungle, because underneath that jungle were juicy 2f3c green riverside cottage tiles. Here, I would rush into jungle the second I got IW too. Over twice the amount of riverside tiles? 2 freakin' gems? That'll more than double our commerce with just 2 dozen or so workerturns (which actually isn't that much if you have a lot of workers).

@elitetroops Problem is I can't improve pigs immediately if I chose that as my 2nd/3rd settle. As for cottages - no pottery yet. Maybe I should've gone AH after BW?