dd2 - "The resourceless Commander"

[Sir Bugsy]

As I was writing that I was thinking that diplo might be off the table. Thanks for keeping me straight tao!

Samurai are going to be very difficult to face. I can see the end game being elephants and rifles against Modern Armor we need to get to Chivalry ASAP.

 

[tao]

Originally posted by Sir Bugsy
we need to get to Chivalry ASAP.

IMHO not at all. We need a terrific production base by the time chivalry becomes available. And we are far from having it. Read my previous comments.

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by Sir Bugsy
Samurai are going to be very difficult to face.

lurker's comment: The best attacker you will ever have is 4. Samurai are 4 defense. You are going to want to severely hurt Japan before they get Chivalry and make sure you take their iron while doing so.

You will need to really take it to the AI before rifles. After rifles (I hope it doesn't come to that) Longbows may be your best unit because they are the cheapest 4 attack unit you can make. With that said, you are on your way by building up archers now. Not to mention the fact that the archer path is your only upgrade available until rifles. (which we've already said you don't want to get to)

If you realize that you will be entering the post rifle age, catapult builds would be fine because you can upgrade them to artillery. That will be your only chance to whittle through rifles and infantry in large core cities.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Thanks for the insight CF. Arty not needing a resource was not downloaded into my brain. I was think we would just have cats for the rest of our life. I went back to check my Civ3 datasheet to see if there was anything else I didn't have loaded. Nothing else

So what is our immediate plans? Obviously we want to continue clearing the &^%* jungle so we can get a productive core. The more I think about it, tao is absolutely correct. We have to have a very strong, productive core. A second won't be bad either.

Do we go after the Americans in 10-20 turns?
Do we revisit war with the Iroquois about that time?

Or do we attempt a transcontinental war with the Japanese to put a damper on their progress? Probably not for another 50-100 turns.

 

[eric2075]

I got it. I'll play tomorrow after I get caught up with our progress and our plans. Do we want more marketplaces?

I guess I have bad habits about mining. I tend to mine all grassland unless the town isn't growing at all. Also, I irrigate all plains.

 

[gormdragan]

Here are some of the things I consider before I decide to mine/irrigate:

(1) whether it generates waste (shields and food do not carry over)
(2) whether it will be wasted by corruption (not easy to tell, play around with citizen working squares to figure out)
(3) increase growth rate when city is small
(4) reduce growth rate to zero when city has reached max pop (typically 12 for early game)

I think there are additional things to look out for. Since I am a newbie, the rest of the guys can probably provide better info (lurkers too).

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by gormdragan
Here are some of the things I consider before I decide to mine/irrigate:

Your list is pretty comprehensive. I'll add these:

• Is there a way to get irrigation to the rest of the cities, even if they don't need it right now? (Don't have a border of mines when when you could make a checkerboard for the same production.)
• Irrigation is faster than mining so always irrigate plains before mining grassland.
  
  (lurker too)

 

[eric2075]

Preturn - Change tax collector to scientist and start 40-turn Engineering gambit.

IBT - Bangalor archer > archer
galley was lost
2 Aztec settler teams heading north through our territory

90BC (1) Sending units toward Washington.

IBT - Madras settler > worker
Karachi catapult > worker

70BC (2) workers working, send units toward Washington.

IBT - several foreign settlers around, I don't know what spots will be left for us.

50BC (3) MM Madras to grow in 2 and complete worker in 2
MM Bengal to grow faster and still get worker in 1
Hurry market in Delhi for 52 gold

IBT - Delhi market > temple
Hyderabad archer > archer
Bengal worker > worker


30BC (4) Pune founded, starts temple
I would like to rush some barracks instead of building reg. troops

IBT - Madras worker > worker
Karachi worker > barracks

10BC (5) Aztecs have founded Tula near where I was sending settler
MM Lahore to get more food

IBT - Indus worker > worker

10AD (6) ***Dumb question alert*** If Madras is size 5, grow in 1, worker in 2, is it
preferable to rearrange tiles so it's grow and complete in 2 in order to not
grow too fast? That's what I'm doing. I'm trying to understand MM better,
but some of it escapes me. Conversely with size 4 Bengal, make worker take
one more turn so city will still be size four when it completes.

IBT - Aztecs demand territory map, 56 gold. He gets it.
Dehli temple > spearman
Calcutta Temple > archer

30 AD (7) rush aqueduct in Kolhapur for 256 gold

IBT - Madras worker > worker
Bangalore archer > archer
Kolhapur aqueduct > spearman
Bengal worker > worker

50AD (8) sorry, been forgetting to sell maps, got about 19 gold this time
we have a nice stack on the mtn. near Washington now
MM Dehli, get a little more commerce, still grow and build in 1

IBT - Dehli spear > spear

70AD (9) Just beat the americans to the spot, New Delhi founded near chokepoint.

IBT - Trade maps with Iroqouis.
Punjab spear > spear
Dacca spear > barracks

90AD (10) hurry aqueduct in Bombay for 84 gold

We have 24 workers, 11 warriors, 15 archers, 12 spears, 4 catapults
Sorry GK I didn't build any cats.


save

 

[eric2075]

I meant to start some marketplaces after aqueducts. After thinking about it some, I think we could start sending some of our units north to get ready for our northern neighbors. America looks pretty weak.

 

[tao]

Just some thoughts from having a quick look at the save:

We are about ready to attack America. In 2-4 turns the 2 archers we build in Chittagong and Calcutta can kill the archer guarding the settler giving us 2 more slaves. Probably our archer pair near Philadelphia will enslave 2 more workers.

I would not build the worker in Indus. I would switch Bengal to settler to claim the wheat in the west. Working the bonus grassland in Jaipur speeds growth by one turn.

We want a road to China to trade them technologies for gems. The future slaves could help.

We want to finissh the Aztecs (get The Pyramids)! Thus no units to the north.

 

[gormdragan]

Originally posted by ControlFreak

• Is there a way to get irrigation to the rest of the cities, even if they don't need it right now? (Don't have a border of mines when when you could make a checkerboard for the same production.)
• Irrigation is faster than mining so always irrigate plains before mining grassland.
  
  (lurker too)

• 
  
  Thank you CF for your valuable input.

 

[tao]

Two more points:

eric2075 gets the first paddle of the game for starting road on horses. This is a violation of our rules; change to irrigation.

We should bring 2 settlers along w our troups in case puny American towns are auto-razed. We want to claim the furs of New York and we have to deny Boston iron to the Aztecs.

 

[eric2075]

Oops, my bad. I don't know what I was thinking. I kept wanting to hook up iron but remembered not to. Actually, I thought we decided having resources connected was ok if we didn't use or trade them.

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by eric2075
10AD (6) ***Dumb question alert*** If Madras is size 5, grow in 1, worker in 2, is it preferable to rearrange tiles so it's grow and complete in 2 in order to not grow too fast? That's what I'm doing. I'm trying to understand MM better, but some of it escapes me.

Here's my take on MM:
The game has built in waste for each growth and each build because it doesn't let you carry over food or production. If you need 1 food to grow but you're making 5 food per turn the extra gets wasted. If you need 3 shields to make your spear, but you're making 20spt, that 17 shields go down the drain. MM attempts to reduce your waste to zero.

To do this, your city needs to keep an eye on what each build and growth need to finish. If you need 4 more * to fill the bin but your making 3 per turn you will waste 2 completing it in two turns. It's usually OK to check in on a city when the main screen indicates it has 2 turns to go for either growth or build. Checking more often increases your possiblities.

Things To Do:

• If you can grow in 1 turn instead of 2 do it. Food is your civs limiting factor and growth should always be maximized. In your initial example I would have not slowed growth down.
  There are a few exeptions to this rule.
  
  1. If you have a settler/worker factory, you don't want to grow to size 7 earlier than your build finishes or else you'll empty the granary.
  2. If you will build you're granary next turn, you don't want to grow next turn also. Growth is processed before builds and growing empties the food bin. Set your growth to 1 turn after your granary so when the granary gets built, it will be filled with food and start working immediately.
• If you are going to waste a bunch of shields because you are 1 shield short of building in 1, see if you can swap a 1-shield tile for a 2-shield tile to get the build 1 turn early with no waste. Note that the trade off for this is usually less food per turn.
• Build cities a little tighter in places that they can share bonus tiles, especially food bonuses. MM is all about chosing food OR shields (If you can have both food AND shields why wouldn't you be doing that all the time?). If a city is working the shield tiles (forest,hills) and not the food tiles (cows, wheat, irrigated grassland) then another city could grab the left overs and benefit for a turn. This is an important point! If you are just switching from food to shields without letting another city work the food tile you haven't reduced waste. You're still wasting the potential food from that tile since you aren't working it at all.
• Get cities to good spt numbers for you builds. Since all builds are a multiple of 10, try to get your cities to 5, 10, 15 or 20...spt. Having them there helps with short rushing (another topic) as well as no waste building. If you can't get to 10 see if there are other multiples that work for the item you're planning on building. Muskets are built with no waste at 6 and 12spt, knights with 7 and 14spt. Getting good multiples means you don't HAVE to MM. (Your checks on the 2-turns-left turn always show a perfect build with no waste.)
• Get cities to good food per turn numbers. Note that there are some typical growth scenarios. Without a granary, growing at +2, +4 or +5 food will waste nothing. Growing at +6 food will waste 4 food on growth. See if you can get it to +7food (grow in 3 instead of 4 with only 1 food wasted). With a granary, +2 or +5 food are best. If you have more food than +2 but can't get +5 see if you can get a +3, +3, +4 pattern.
• Remember that you get an extra citizen's production on a growth turn. If you city says 1 turn to grow, growth will be calculated before production. The added citizen will be assigned by the governor to the most important tile. (On PTW 1.21 the govern will assign a food tile until the city is at +3 food. Once at +3 food, it will assign the tile with the most units (add food, shields and gold). If there is a tie, the governer will chose whichever you have prioritized in the governor option screens. If you've not prioritized, I think it will chose the most shields. Some cases (worker builds are a good example) you can have a Grow in 1, Build in 2 displayed on the main screen but still complete the build when you hit enter because the production from the added citizen completes the shield bin. Note that's why I tend to favor +3,+3,+4 food on the granary filling.
• Adjust cities that are maxed out in size down to 1 or 0 fpt if you can get extra shields in doing so. If you can't get extra shields, leave the growth and skim workers when the food bin is full.
• Remember the gold. On builds where you can't gain food or shields see if you can work a river tile or a luxury tile or a roaded tile instead of the +1food or +1 shield tile.

Things Not To Do:

• Slow down growth just to prevent wasted food. For example, don't give up +7 food in favor of +5 food just because you will end up wasting 1 food on growth.
• Slow down growth just to build faster. If your city is not at max size then grow has priority. Don't worry if you don't have enough improved tiles for your workers to work. Don't worry if you need to raise luxury tax. You need to grow as fast as possible. Growing gives your city another productive tile.
• MM beyond your tolerance. Some people just don't enjoy it. While it is important to do, it's not necessary to the point that you make yourself hate the game. The other problem is that it takes you longer to finish your turns (my problem) and can push your games into the 70hours+ range. (help me..I can't stop MM)

I'm sure I missed things but those are my 2 cents (or a dime maybe).

 

[eric2075]

Wow, thanks CF. That's a lot of useful information.

edit - By short rushing are you referring to cash rushing a build after it's had at least one turn of production?
I have won some Emperor games when I'm able to make myself MM very carefully during the entire ancient era. Otherwise I usually can't. I never MMed before at all until recently, so I still have a whole lot to learn. It can actually be kind of fun when I'm in the mood for it.

 

[Gengis Khan]

Gengis
Eric-(Just played)
Bugsy-UP!
tao- in the circle.
gorm- on the bench

Shortrushing is cashrushing a cheap unit to avoid waste. Say you're building Muskets which cost 60 shields, in a city which produces 51sh/pt. Instead of wasting 42 shields and producing one every 2 turns. You could cash rush a worker from the start for 80g, then switch to the musket which would complete in 1 turn & waste only 1 shield.

Unrealistic example, I know, but it gives you the idea.

 

[gormdragan]

Thanks alot CF for the information, great stuff

 

[ControlFreak]

Rushing fills the shield box. That means ALL of the cities production is wasted for that turn.

Short rushing is rushing something with a lower build cost that your desired build, then switching to your desired build. This gains you some shields for your gold payment but also leaves space in the bin for the cities production.

A great example of the usefullness of this is a city that is making 20spt and has 35 out of the 60 needed for a granary. It would build the court in 2 turns at a waste of 15s. Rushing it would cost you 100g for the 25s and you blow the 20spt of the city. Short rushing a longbow (40s) costs you 20g for the five shields. Then switching the longbow to the granary leaves you 40s in the bin, 20spt so the granary completes next turn.

Short rushing works best for towns that have 10 or 20spt because all builds are multiples of 10. Note that a 10spt could rush a musket and then switch to knight due in 1. To short rush a knight in a 20spt, you would need to rush a settler and then wait two turns to get the knight. Since you don't want to rush on the first turn, your short rushing the settler would have to be on turn 2, gaining you 10shields more for 40g and then still wait for two turns.

If your city makes 7spt, then your goal would be to rush something that is 20s less than your target and wait 3 turns. You can do the math on the other possibilities. Note it's harder to do if the city has all it's infrastructure as there aren't good short builds.

 

[eric2075]

Very clever. I've seen that mentioned but I didn't know what they were talking about. You ought to do a TDG CF .

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by eric2075
You ought to do a TDG CF .

I really want to but my time is limited. Plus, I really don't have that much experience in War, Modern Age and a lot of other things. I'm only really good at the early game and Micromanagement.

I am thinking about turning these last couple of posts into an article for the war academy though. What do you guys think? Do you have anything else I should include in it? (Questions or Answers I've missed.)