Deity Isolation Workshop (Stan/Norm/Fractal/NH/NE)

[Rusten]

The cottage plains vs grassland comment was meant as a general note -- not necessarily this game.
You might not have enough grassland tiles to fit in grassland workshops in addition to the grassland matured cottages.
Matured plains cottages are useful for space victory after first invasions. I'm not a fan of domination (boring). They become towns quickly with updated civics. They also vastly outperform a specialist during my 8T golden age (for cities not using GPP). I'm a fan.
Satsuma is never going to work any cottages. The tile is improved for Kagoshima. It's either starving -1 or on a turn of +2 with the farm on size 7 with 4-5 specialists depending.

Not sure what to think in terms of prioritizing pottery vs 4th city earlier. Too many factors to make a call without testing/calculating. I'm not going to argue that my decision is best, nor am I going to concede that it's better to do differently.

The hills cottages were only worked just before health cap, they didn't slow down growth a significant amount. And I don't understand why you think they're bad. Kyoto is not amongst the cities to be whipped. It will run these cottages all game. It will carry my commerce later.
The forests were originally saved for Chichen Itza, but that didn't pan out. Library makes little difference in Tokyo as it has 4 base commerce and only running merchants. On principle I agree, but chopping requires worker turns so it can be difficult to squeeze it in. If the only way to get the required worker turns is to make more workers then it defeats the original point of adding production as you've just put 60 hammers into a worker.

 

[Pedro78]

Satsuma is never going to work any cottages. The tile is improved for Kagoshima. It's either starving -1 or on a turn of +2 with the farm on size 7 with 4-5 specialists depending.

My bad, I meant Kagoshima. Let's say one merchant=4 (you don't have a library in Kagoshima, and have an Academy in capital+libraries in your commerce cities, so this makes sense). By working 1 grass cottage + 1 merchant, you're doing 04 (let's not count the commerce of the first cottage as it's the same in both cases). By running 2 plains cottages, you're doing 21 for 10 turns, then 22 for 20 turns, then 23 for 15 turns (let's say you reach Optics @T+45). You add in 16 and 8 for the golden age (only for the 2*PlainsCott). This means GrassCot+Merchant yields you 0180 and 2*PlainsCot gives you 96103 -- the Merchant completely outperforms the plains cottages here (as you don't really need early hammers).

I'm pretty sure that 4th city earlier is better. I only got Monarchy 2T later than you did, but I already had 3 size 5 cities + size 6 Capital by then (and 4 libraries).

The hills cottages were only worked just before health cap, they didn't slow down growth a significant amount. And I don't understand why you think they're bad. Kyoto is not amongst the cities to be whipped. It will run these cottages all game. It will carry my commerce later.

My point is that you don't need to remain under health cap. Neither do you need extra hammers (it's only good to have a forge by Astro time so you can get an Observatory ASAP). And you'll want to grow your capital as soon as you reach Astro & health resources trades -- it's much easier to grow on grass tiles. Now of course you can stop working all food negative tiles and work temporary farms instead, but there you're losing a lot of commerce by not working towns for many turns. I'd rather work the same grass cottages all the way through and WM the hills (it does really take a lot of time for a cottage to outperform a windmill). Compared to you I do lose a bunch of hammers pre-Optics (no big deal), but I have a stronger capital after Astro. It's ofc hard to compare our games because we played very differently.

Library makes little difference in Tokyo as it has 4 base commerce and only running merchants.

Could also have been running scientists and another city could have ran Merchants. Having a library would have allowed to get the second border pop @Optics and grab the whale, not polluting your merchant pool with artist points (not a huge deal).

On principle I agree, but chopping requires worker turns so it can be difficult to squeeze it in. If the only way to get the required worker turns is to make more workers then it defeats the original point of adding production as you've just put 60 hammers into a worker.

True. But that's yet another reason to go BW before Pottery -- cottages take a lot of worker turns and are usually not needed very early (not in this case -- my first cottage was up on T59, but I had 4 cities and it didn't significantly delay my Monarchy date). Not building early cottages allows for more chopping and quicker expansion (not saying it's always good).

 

[Rusten]

I don't see the logic in both claiming that early production is not needed and also claiming that all forests should be chopped.

By those calculations working 2x cottages is better if you have a wonder to put the hammers into (which would usually be the case if you've teched to caste and have the opportunity to run merchants). In a vacuum a hammer is worth more than 1 gold (but isolation does change things). But yes, perhaps favouring plains is more of a thing to consider for games where you don't have caste available. I hate running specialists in cities where the GPP is irrelevant, but I can see it being stronger sometimes in isolation by looking at those numbers. Having 2 matured cottages over 1 is nothing to ignore long-term though.

 

[Pedro78]

I don't see the logic in both claiming that early production is not needed and also claiming that all forests should be chopped.

I'm not exactly claiming that all forests should be chopped. But I'm claiming that when you don't have anything relevant to do mid-game with your forests, you shouldn't refrain from chopping early on. There is a big opportunity cost to building a cottage instead of chopping into a Granary or a Settler (just examples). Chops are 4 worker turns for an instant 20. Also, as the first 4 cities basically "pay for themselves" immediately (or in very few turns for the 4th city), it's often good to settle these ASAP. Now of course it does all depend on the game, but in this one I think that chopping more in the (very) early turns would have benefited you.
What I meant by "you don't really need early hammers in iso" is that in isolation you have very limited build options - esp. for an inland city - none of which are very useful pre-Astro, so commerce/research/gold are much more important.

By those calculations working 2x cottages is better if you have a wonder to put the hammers into (which would usually be the case if you've teched to caste and have the opportunity to run merchants).

Except you're going to build CI in Kyoto (much more "natural" hammers) -- so you effectively don't have anything useful to build in Kagoshima.

Without Caste available you're almost always going to want a library in all your cities (as libs pay for themselves very easily before Optics), so you can just run scientists when you don't have any good tiles left to work.

I hate running specialists in cities where the GPP is irrelevant, but I can see it being stronger sometimes in isolation by looking at those numbers.

You also build very few non-river cottages in normal games, and 0 non-river-non-capital-plains cottages. And after first contact, iso games basically become "normal games". The problem is that you're going to stop working these plains cottages as soon as there will be something to build. And what good does a matured cottage do you on T200+ when it has hurt you for so long? Can just run a specialist, then build a workshop on the plains tile -- also useful for building units.

There are a few cases where I'd work plains cottages, though. First case is when you don't have CoL but have a city with huge food surplus (+8 or so). Second case is when you're FIN - in this case plains cottages outperform specs very quickly.

Btw do you often go for Emancipation+FS+cottage spam when going for space? Never tried it before.

Edit - and what about those YT LPs you've been talking about? I didn't forget

 

[Rusten]

I need some time to digest and consider, but it could be that running merchants over a cottage in the final two cities would be better.
I think you're underselling the value of matured cottages tremendously though. And it's not like a normal game after first contact because the cottage improvements are so near. If you already have a matured cottage, as opposed to having to start from scratch, it makes it more worthwhile to keep running it. There's less of a waiting period. On a vanilla tile you'd generally put a workshop or farm, but with +/- 50 turns already invested into a cottage the situation is different.
And yes, I like going "cottage" space.

I didn't play civ from summer until now more or less -- thus no videos.

 

[Pedro78]

I think you're underselling the value of matured cottages tremendously though. And it's not like a normal game after first contact because the cottage improvements are so near. If you already have a matured cottage, as opposed to having to start from scratch, it makes it more worthwhile to keep running it. There's less of a waiting period. On a vanilla tile you'd generally put a workshop or farm, but with +/- 50 turns already invested into a cottage the situation is different.

Depends on how much resources you will have to dedicate for the first war. If you have enough production already, you can certainly run an all-cottage city, whip Library+Observatory and not produce any units there (until you start drafting). In this case, matured cottages do indeed matter.

However, having one city not producing any units will put even more strain on your unit-building cities, and you'll have to deal with it. Before first contact you don't know how many units you'll need, and late(ish) plains cottages don't beat running a specialist pre-Optics. IMO running a specialist and workshopping the tile later is a much more versatile option than working a plains cot all the way through. Not even counting the fact that Caste-workshops beat towns in most cases (with forge, 4base=6 which roughly amounts to 8-9 when you have a bureau cap with a 100% research multiplier -- much better than a 5 town).

I'm not saying that plains cottages can't be worth it, but that even in iso there usually are better options.

 

[Fippy]

We could play a succession deity Iso game, as seen in the other thread

 

[Revent]

We could play a succession deity Iso game, as seen in the other thread

I like the idea. My skill is probably not quite at the level to join in but I could volunteer as map maker if you wish and will be an active spectator

 

[Fippy]

Am sure you can / should join in if you want
Main goal is having fun, not playing perfect imo.

 

[Lain]

I am in. What detail of discussion do we want ?

 

[Fippy]

I could imagine discussing lots of things
Where we settle cities (and which are worth getting), tech path, anti-barb, look of cities (cottages where, specialists mainly here?).

No need for super detailed micro ofc, but worker actions for example can be interesting cos it's always questions we ask ourselves.
Yup i think that's the best guide line, all those questions we want to share with others we can ask & discuss.

 

[Fippy]

Oh and ofc we have to pick what kind of map (poor, average?) before starting ~~
Leader too, any traits we want to try?

 

[Pedro78]

We've never played Pacal. Great traits for iso and Holkans make it easy to deal with barbs. Plus I'm sure there will be more people willing to play Pacal with a decent start than Toku with crap land

Otherwise I've rolled a super-cool Monty iso last week (might scare people off). I don't really feel like playing iso for the next few days but I'll certainly get back to it.

 

[Fippy]

Well depends on how we want to do this, our "core" here enjoys beating harder maps more than FIN leaders and stuff like that cos we can learn more, and decisions are tuffer.
If we hope for a larger player pool with others joining, leaders like Pacal would be fine.

 

[Pedro78]

our "core" here enjoys beating harder maps more than FIN leaders and stuff like that cos we can learn more, and decisions are tuffer

That's not really the reason why I like playing hard maps. I find decisions to be tougher on "easy" maps, because you've got so many more possible choices. What I like with "hard" maps is that bad decisions backfire in a much more noticeable way, and once you're done playing the game it's much easier to spot what you could have improved here and there. I find rich maps much more stressful than poor maps.


However, if we're going to play a succession game, I think that the more people will join, the more fun it will be. So I really don't mind playing Pacal (or another great leader) in this case.

 

[Fippy]

Okay let's set up a Pacal game, if everybody agrees?

We would be happy to have you play @Revent, but if you prefer watching you can ofc create a map for us yup.

 

[Revent]

Okay let's set up a Pacal game, if everybody agrees?

We would be happy to have you play @Revent, but if you prefer watching you can ofc create a map for us yup.

If you are lacking players, I'd be happy to join with occasional turnsets as life has made me a lot busier suddenly than I had anticipated.

If you've got enough, I can load up some maps and check to make sure they satisfy your requirements and are also playable.

 

[Fippy]

Pedro, Lain and me so far i think.
Shout if you would join, others reading

 

[Pedro78]

So how do we organize this? Without being too restrictive (read "annoying") with rules, I'd prefer if we discussed most moves before playing, especially early on, and played fairly short turnsets (10-15 turns?)

Would be nice if more players joined us (having at least 5 players would be pretty cool). I remember a few deity players periodically posting here that could certainly play along (I won't say any names )


Edit - And @Revent ofc you're welcome to play with us, even if you only play a few turns

Oh and @ whoever removed the christmas hats -- pls put them back on, smilies are ugly now lol

 

[Fippy]

I was already missing the xmas smilies too ~~

Agree on shorter turnsets, we get the chance for more discussion.
Normally i stop even sooner if i have questions that i forgot, and think it's important (or just a new idea).

No need for rules i think, if everyone wants to play without reloads on mistakes for gotm / HoF feeling we could do that, but am fine either way.