Cookbook #2 - horrible difficulty
- Thread starter Fippy
- Start date
Maybe risky, what if I missed GW... The mine in the north should be canceled and start improving copper next turn. I think best spot for northern city is 2W of copper btw to be able to share river tiles with capital.
Swordnboard
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Krikav: Your reasoning on Bombay placement makes a lot of sense. Both the early production argument and wanting not to waste green tiles are especially convincing. Knowing that there's horse around could sway me, but I'll definitely consider it for my third or fourth.
Sampsa: a T32 GW is ridiculously fast (can be beaten by deity AI of course, but just about as good as you could possibly manage), so I don't think it's too big of a risk not to build any warriors. I've decided to be a little more concerned about the nearby barb city, though, since it basically precludes settling that nice, cottageable land for the immediate future. Anysense has made a really excellent observation IMO that construction should be the medium-term goal here, and having that land available might speed those dates along.
What do folks think about the Pyramids here? Lain has already made a lot of progress, others have expressed their intentions to put many resources into them, Qactus prefers GLH, I'm still wavering between ignoring them and trying to build them later in the copper city. Happy cap seems not too bad, considering furs, wines, chances for trade and religious spread. How many specialists we'll be running is a bit less certain to me. So many techs will happen before writing, and some of these cities will struggle to build libraries in a timely manner (especially if you chop like Sampsa did). Yet in the ideal research setup for many of the cities would involve 2 scientists even without rep. Also: does anyone have average deity dates for the mids? We should also consider that the warmongers are less inclined to build wonders.
Sampsa: a T32 GW is ridiculously fast (can be beaten by deity AI of course, but just about as good as you could possibly manage), so I don't think it's too big of a risk not to build any warriors. I've decided to be a little more concerned about the nearby barb city, though, since it basically precludes settling that nice, cottageable land for the immediate future. Anysense has made a really excellent observation IMO that construction should be the medium-term goal here, and having that land available might speed those dates along.
What do folks think about the Pyramids here? Lain has already made a lot of progress, others have expressed their intentions to put many resources into them, Qactus prefers GLH, I'm still wavering between ignoring them and trying to build them later in the copper city. Happy cap seems not too bad, considering furs, wines, chances for trade and religious spread. How many specialists we'll be running is a bit less certain to me. So many techs will happen before writing, and some of these cities will struggle to build libraries in a timely manner (especially if you chop like Sampsa did). Yet in the ideal research setup for many of the cities would involve 2 scientists even without rep. Also: does anyone have average deity dates for the mids? We should also consider that the warmongers are less inclined to build wonders.
Fippy
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I always looked at Pyras as much more than boosting food rich cities,
and would argue they are even more valuable for smaller ones.
Fish city in our game here, sure you can grow on water tiles but 2 rep scientists after library are better.
Imo they are perfect for 1 food cities with not much else during peace times.
For unit whipping, they give +1 forge (esp with Spi where we can switch between PS and Rep as we like) in all cities.
Again i think that's esp great for smaller cities, who will be happy if they can do just 1 pop whips sometimes.
Nice example would be the area west of Delhi, with no food resi but some river tiles.
Getting +25% hammers for whipping is huge when we grow back on regular +3 farms.
I agree with Sword that our early happy cap would be fine without them (might be different without furs), more never hurts ofc.
But later benefits are so huge, i would "pay" more than 250h (stone included) for Pyras if i knew i have enuf time.
and would argue they are even more valuable for smaller ones.
Fish city in our game here, sure you can grow on water tiles but 2 rep scientists after library are better.
Imo they are perfect for 1 food cities with not much else during peace times.
For unit whipping, they give +1 forge (esp with Spi where we can switch between PS and Rep as we like) in all cities.
Again i think that's esp great for smaller cities, who will be happy if they can do just 1 pop whips sometimes.
Nice example would be the area west of Delhi, with no food resi but some river tiles.
Getting +25% hammers for whipping is huge when we grow back on regular +3 farms.
I agree with Sword that our early happy cap would be fine without them (might be different without furs), more never hurts ofc.
But later benefits are so huge, i would "pay" more than 250h (stone included) for Pyras if i knew i have enuf time.
This is very interesting play. High risk, high return. I should try that more often, my save lost 2 fogbusters so crippled out of the gates, where the return was limited for having them warriors. If either approach fails, ragequit. Sampsas play has the benefit of greater return for the risk.
Swordnboard
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Yeah, that's definitely something you can do. Especially for HOF games that are on the short side, taking a few risks is fine. Bad luck happens. Before you ragequit, though, see if there's anything you could have done in hindsight or on a reload (for example micromanagement to complete the wonder a bit earlier, espionage/scouting info, different fogbusting techniques, maybe running away from barbarians instead of fighthing them). Oftentimes these hindsights translate into better foresight for future games. Of course, sometimes (esp. on deity) you've played close to perfect and still get crushed by bad luck.
Fippy, I agree on the mids helping small/mediocre cities, both in rep and police state. Also agree that I would invest 250+ hammers given enough time. But not sure what the timeframe is. Would I be willing to complete them by T60 (Lain-Level commitment)? T70? T80(Sampsa-Level clearcutting for other things)? Taking stock of my save quickly, I could see the mids coming naturally around T70 from Bombay, with the only substantial cost being lost turns of working cottages. Definitely not safe, but I'll probably take a shot.
I don't fully understand what value you see in pyramids in this setting.
Since so many seem to be keen on them, I'm obviously missing something, help me out!
Is it only because of the nice bonus from police state, which is nice no doubt about it, but the city I have in mind might whip maybee 8 units during the course of a game if it's lucky? With police state thats 10 units.
Mediocre cities can't really run many specialists, so I often find myself with alot of such cities with quite a few GPP at the end of games, but since they where not able to run enough of them, they never got to "their turn" spawning a GP.
So the GPP they generate is more often than not worth nill.
2 specialists is what a city with say clam as food source can support (w/o grassland farms), and rep then gives 6 beakers in total, likely not more since such cities don't build libraries too often.
Happy cap is also of no issue in such cities, at least not when you get a few resources. Perhaps if we are talking very early game?
I wasn't too excited about pyramids in the other CB game (something I'm reevaluating now) and here I'm even less excited.
Since so many seem to be keen on them, I'm obviously missing something, help me out!
Is it only because of the nice bonus from police state, which is nice no doubt about it, but the city I have in mind might whip maybee 8 units during the course of a game if it's lucky? With police state thats 10 units.
Mediocre cities can't really run many specialists, so I often find myself with alot of such cities with quite a few GPP at the end of games, but since they where not able to run enough of them, they never got to "their turn" spawning a GP.
So the GPP they generate is more often than not worth nill.
2 specialists is what a city with say clam as food source can support (w/o grassland farms), and rep then gives 6 beakers in total, likely not more since such cities don't build libraries too often.
Happy cap is also of no issue in such cities, at least not when you get a few resources. Perhaps if we are talking very early game?
I wasn't too excited about pyramids in the other CB game (something I'm reevaluating now) and here I'm even less excited.
Fippy
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Well they are a "make miracles happen" wonder, without any real expansion land wonders become more interesting.
While 2 Engi points might not look like much i.e., they (unlike others like priest or Spy, thou all can have some uses) are usually very interesting.
An ideal scenario for me would be bulbing machinery, i removed Ivory cos Jumbos make war planning easy imo.
X-Bows are really strong if you cannot have Elepults (somebody remember those AZ various unit rush videos?),
warmongers will have decent melee units and outclassing them would be something.
Agree that rep scientists dun look game changing, but if you add their extra beakers you could argue okay..helps getting MC too i guess,
if an Engi for Machinery arrives.
So overall those bonuses add up to something, while an interesting counter question would be..why not Pyras, are we excited about what we have without them?
Good question, Sword.
We have 5 warmongers here (AI number was confirmed in my starting post), on a small map.
While those guys are less likely to build wonders, they may run out of settling space (1 extra AI, regular number for small would be 4).
Will they start plotting war, or does one have a good prod city, stone, and starts Pyras?
Who knows ~~
While 2 Engi points might not look like much i.e., they (unlike others like priest or Spy, thou all can have some uses) are usually very interesting.
An ideal scenario for me would be bulbing machinery, i removed Ivory cos Jumbos make war planning easy imo.
X-Bows are really strong if you cannot have Elepults (somebody remember those AZ various unit rush videos?),
warmongers will have decent melee units and outclassing them would be something.
Agree that rep scientists dun look game changing, but if you add their extra beakers you could argue okay..helps getting MC too i guess,
if an Engi for Machinery arrives.
So overall those bonuses add up to something, while an interesting counter question would be..why not Pyras, are we excited about what we have without them?
Good question, Sword.
We have 5 warmongers here (AI number was confirmed in my starting post), on a small map.
While those guys are less likely to build wonders, they may run out of settling space (1 extra AI, regular number for small would be 4).
Will they start plotting war, or does one have a good prod city, stone, and starts Pyras?
Who knows ~~
Xbows against this crowd sounds really nice when you mention it!
I haven't really looked at the bulb-paths for engineers, I did go for a machinery->engi bulb in NC197 gilga, but that was with a scientist. Here we have fishing so that can't be done.
Counter question is nice. Not sure what would be a better alternative. My usual answer of "more settlers and workers" is not convincing here!
250 hammers is 7 axemen which is also a pretty nice wonder, but there doesn't seem to be an AI really close by.
I haven't really looked at the bulb-paths for engineers, I did go for a machinery->engi bulb in NC197 gilga, but that was with a scientist. Here we have fishing so that can't be done.
Counter question is nice. Not sure what would be a better alternative. My usual answer of "more settlers and workers" is not convincing here!
250 hammers is 7 axemen which is also a pretty nice wonder, but there doesn't seem to be an AI really close by.
Tonny
King
My votes:
3 points go to Swordnboard
2 points go to lymond
1 point goes to Lain
3 points go to Swordnboard
Spoiler :
2 points go to lymond
Spoiler :
1 point goes to Lain
Spoiler :
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Swordnboard
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Not sure if this is a question (I haven't whipped or entered slavery yet), or a suggestion (don't think I would want to whip given the suspect food situation of Delhi+Bombay both subsisting on the clams at the moment). At the same time, I tend to underutilize slavery in the early game, so curious to hear from anyone who has whipped up to this point.
Not for India! We can see that Lain has only prechopped flatland forests, so fast workers can move and chop at the same time across that terrain.
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Tonny
King
Indeed, forgot about that when posting this. Edited that crossposting.
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Yeah, it's quite the opposite of lost worker turns. Lain is making the most of the fast worker turns (really main reason it is such a great UU) doing the pre-chops. Plus, he can time the chops as he wishes. It's really very much why India is such a strong Civ and particularly strong warmongers (human).
Hey ! Come on, Lady Fippy ! Do not be so harsh towards Great Spies and Great Prophets. They are super cool GP
. I personally love all early Great Persons. And i take all of them with equal love. They spice up the early game so much.Also would be cool if you guys could post a screenshot of your empire. Somehow i did mess up the buffy mod installation again. Would love to lurk this game.
Fippy
Mycro Junkie
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OlafesonI guess book #1 showed that we shouldn't have too many days between turnsets,
so i will set a final voting date of Sunday 16th with games and fun resuming on Monday.
Players who may (not must) still vote: @mscellaneous , @krikav , @Swordnboard , @Major Tom , @Qactus , @c^3 , @Gumbolt , @MeowZeDung , @Anysense
