[BTS] Crashmon Shadow Game 2 :- Emperor

[krikav]

Of course we are going to need culture in that city to fight off Asoka, so do we need to look for Writing early and Library? Also when should we gift Asoka the stone

Culture in that city isn't necessery. It will get into a fight with a capital city for the floodplains just north of it, and those tiles I don't think it would be worth to fight culturally for.
The other tiles can easily be defended with just a single monument or some religion.
Catapults will ensure that city will have enough tiles in the long term.


Regarding stone, if TGW isn't built by the time you get masonry, I would want to put some chops and turns into that for failgold. Perhaps some into pyramids too, but once thats done just gift it to him asap.

 

[civac]

NW City should claim the northern first ring tiles easily with one culture expansion.

 

[coanda]

Every turn, cities give all the plots within their influence radius "plot culture" per turn.

They will add plot culture equal to how much culture per turn they generate (so if a city makes 5 culture per turn, all plots within its range gain 5 plot culture per turn), and a hidden "free culture" bonus for tiles closer to the city. This hidden bonus is 20 plot culture per turn for each step within the borders - so if the city has a cultural radius of 3 (100-499 total culture, "Fledgling" status) and makes 8 culture per turn, the tile 3S of it would get 8 plot culture per turn. The tile 2S would get 28 plot culture per turn, and the tile 1S would get 48 plot culture per turn.

This means that as soon as your city hits 10 culture and gets its first border pops, every "inner ring" tile starts getting an extra 20 plot culture per turn. Adding a library doesn't make a particularly big immediate impact on top of a monument for defending those inner-ring tiles - you go from 21 plot culture per turn to 23, which isn't exactly a huge swing. The primary benefit of the library in terms of tile defense would be getting you to "Developing" city culture (100+) earlier, so you start getting +40 inner-ring plot culture instead of +20. But it's going to take Delhi quite a while just to put more culture onto those tiles than a single solitary monument defending them - it would need to either get 500+ culture itself (for another border pop of its own) or something like a couple wonders with the 1000-year culture bonus. And you're planning on killing him with catapults, so long-term defense of those floodplains against his culture isn't really a concern.

 

[crashmon]

Turn 28

• Settler is Built
• Asoka has a worker I can steal

Spoiler Maps :

• Do I steal the worker (So I can build a 2nd warrior, which I have started)
• 2nd City, 1N of the Copper ?
• After warrior is built, then another warrior, or 3rd Settler?

 

[sampsa]

I'm not sure if you even could steal the worker, as pretty sure he's finishing the pasture next turn. Especially with a wounded warrior, in a game focused on learning, I see zero reason to worker steal.

So my opinion is unchanged, go NW ph-hill and worker next. If you really need a warrior, you should IMO 1T it (switch to warrior on the turn chop finishes) to avoid unnecessary partial growth. Growing to three is of low value as you don't have a decent 3rd tile. Heal SE-warrior and locate the best copper-city spot.

edit: I probably wouldn't switch to slavery, but up to debate. edit2: on 2nd thought, I'd switch to slavery now.

 

[lymond]

I find stealing workers to be highly educational myself

 

[sampsa]

Started a game to get a feeling of barb activity. Animals weren't still fully gone T40 and archers/warriors started to approach around T60, when some barb cities spawned, too. I mean yes when you play deity, you need to respect the barbs a LOT, but on emperor... BTW fighting animals is mostly unnecessary and also a bit bad, as every unit does spawn bust. Getting a warrior +1xp isn't worth much. I do attack wolves though when there is a very low chance to lose the unit and they are sometimes worth 2xp. Attacking lions at 50% for 4xp is also an idea to get a woodsman troll guy.

Even if you don't make getting an axe out a priority, it's out well before T50. Some well placed spawn busters and 1-2 axes are easily enough on T60 which is still a long way ahead. Don't worry.

 

[sampsa]

I find stealing workers to be highly educational myself

Perhaps, but how easy are we really making this? It's also something that could've been planned well before, with a wounded warrior I think even Asoka is guaranteed to try to take the stealer+worker out next turn, if he has an archer within reach.

 

[coanda]

In this situation the two tiles between worker and city are hilltop (you'll have vision from two spaces away) and forest (you'll at least be able to see if it was clear-cut), so you're very unlikely to be surprised by a road heading towards the pig that lets him get an archer from the city to punish the worker steal before you can get away. And an archer on top of the hill would actually be visible in advance. I'd attempt the steal on Emperor, and I'd attempt it on Deity in the exact same situation. It's true that it makes the game easier, but I also think it's simply the stronger choice regardless of difficulty; making stronger choices does tend to make the game easier.

Whether he can pull it off is more up for question; as you note, it'd take two turns for him to get there and the worker is finishing the pasture next turn. So he can only pull it off if the worker either lingers another turn on the tile starting a road afterwards, or moves east onto the hill forest next to it to start chopping that hill. Worth moving the warrior into position in case you get lucky and the worker starts on one of those two projects next. Worst case, nothing really lost; best case, free worker!

 

[NightOnEarth]

BTW fighting animals is mostly unnecessary and also a bit bad, as every unit does spawn bust.

Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by this? Are you saying that animals themselves are spawn (fog) busters - no new animals/barbarians within a two tile radius? Now this would be a lesson to be remembered.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa
Thanks for doing the work and jumping in to assess barb situation.
I think I was the one who vented my worry about it, but that was from my experience which isn't really applicable.

 

[NightOnEarth]

I would probably save a forest and kill a riverside grassland by setling 1N of copper, to get that peak inside culture and light up some of that ice.

The range of visibility could be of interest when scouting and could reveal something interesting with a cultural border pop-up. I understand that the peak near the copper would greatly enhance the range of visibility, when inside culture, and does its share concerning fog busting. But how does it work exactly? What determines if can can look 1 tile far or two tiles?

 

[krikav]

Peaks can see very far away (3 tiles..?) and barbs can't spawn on visible tiles. So getting peaks inside culture can be very beneficial sometimes.

Visibility is quite complicated and not really that intuitive in civ4. And not something I have a full grasp of.

But basically tiles are assigned a height, and units standing on, or tiles inside culture that are of one height can see over tiles of a lower height.
Thats why you can see far over water when standing on flatland for example.
Think it's water=0, flatland=1, hills=2, peaks=3. But forests play a role too, obscuring view.
Then we have oasises which seem to obscure all view all the time.

 

[civac]

Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by this? Are you saying that animals themselves are spawn (fog) busters - no new animals/barbarians within a two tile radius? Now this would be a lesson to be remembered.

All units including other barbarians units spawn bust.

 

[sampsa]

Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by this? Are you saying that animals themselves are spawn (fog) busters - no new animals/barbarians within a two tile radius? Now this would be a lesson to be remembered.

All units including other barbarians units spawn bust.

This. This is also why you shouldn't fight barb warriors if there is a chance to avoid it, they prevent barb archers (and later spears) from spawning if left alive.

 

[NightOnEarth]

This is also why you shouldn't fight barb warriors if there is a chance to avoid it, they prevent barb archers (and later spears) from spawning if left alive.

It's most probably my limited experience, but as soon as I have axes (and a well connected network of roads between my cities), I regard barbarians coming to me as source of xp. This especially comes in handy for a charismatice leader like Churchill.
Of course things may change on deity and above.

 

[krikav]

It's most probably my limited experience, but as soon as I have axes (and a well connected network of roads between my cities), I regard barbarians coming to me as source of xp. This especially comes in handy for a charismatice leader like Churchill.
Of course things may change on deity and above.

I agree to a certain extent. Once you have strong units like axes, you likely want some barb action.. Possibly.
What I mainly is looking for is one unit to lvl4 to unlock heroic.
To level up multiple units on barbs is not something I do often. Why?

* Because it's not so common to get use of these axe veterans. If attacking with catapults it doesn't matter much if your axes are 3xp or up at 6xp.
And if you are attacking with cuirs/cannons etc, then the xp level of your axes are completely irrelevant.

* I don't have enough units to keep a comfortable fogbusting network up, so I get spawns from a desired location at the same time as I have enough military police, and have enough units to fight&heal comfortable.

* Randomness, say I lose one axe to a barb archer... That can quickly escalate to a highly undesirable situation.
95% of the time you gain some xp which gives you a small benefit, but 5% of the time your empire can spiral into chaos.
Quite often that risk/reward analysis isn't worth it.

 

[sampsa]

Yes, when you have axes or some other way to kill barb archers, you should harvest easy xp when available. On axes xp are more valuable than on warriors anyway. Agree with krikav though, an extra lvl on an axe won't change the war really.

 

[coanda]

This is also why you shouldn't fight barb warriors if there is a chance to avoid it, they prevent barb archers (and later spears) from spawning if left alive.

They do that in two ways, too! They directly block out a 5x5 box around them, like any other unit does. They also count towards the continent's barb-unit-cap; every turn the game figures out how many units it is below that barb-unit-cap and adds 25% of the missing barbarians to random acceptable spots on the continent, so if you leave 4 extra barbarians alive on the continent that means about 1 fewer barb spawning per turn.

 

[crashmon]

Turn 30 Decision time

Do we steal the worker.. I am thinking yes, as I can always build more warriors, and I can chop out 3rd city quickly for the copper

Spoiler India to North :