Dr kossin #27

Workboat! Need commerce!
I ran some tests (worldbuildered a similar start) and indeed a workboat first seems to be best here. Tokugawa is infamous for "having no economical traits" so let's give him a hand :)

The corn is not irrigated so working clams is better. Worker after boat. Research Mining>BW
Most likely the right approach indeed. Ag delays BW too long for 5 food.

Boat first, then worker. Question is, what then? More boats? How quick do you want to get those clams boated up?
Warriors for barbs and perhaps a second boat/settler.

If you go worker after boat, do you then go boat> settler? I'm guessing the city is at Pop 2 when the first boat is built.
That'd be a very slow build of a settler, relying almost exclusively on tree chops to get built not too slowly... not a big fan of size 2 settlers.

I can understand your reluctance to go for Archery, with the No Huts setting. Since I play with huts on, the extra investment put into Archery is usually inexpensive compared to the benefit it provides.

When you get your 2nd city, barbarian attacks will be more fierce, so you will need to be ready to defend your cities by then. In the interest of avoiding the situation of settling two defenseless cities, you may want to focus on building up your seafood resources now so that when the territory has been mapped completely, you can expand very quickly with good troops to protect your cities.
I probably will have a few warriors queued before the first settler to fogbust a bit and defend cities... it depends on AI proximity as well ofc.

Archery can be a choice but it's too early to say.

If I play this map, I'll start with Mining=>BW and Fish boat=>Worker. The first worker will be built at the same time when BW is finished. Then chop one more fish boat or two (one for clam another for scouting if the birth place is isolated.). Chop the first settler when cap is 4 pop.

If the map is crowed, Hunting=>Archery is probably not needed. If neighbors are far away, take Archery and in this case Agriculture is too good to skip.
I fully agree with this. It has yielded the best results in tests.

I agree with this plan. There are too many forests near the capital to delay BW. But every additional forest means one more tile that cannot be a Horse or Copper...which means greater likelihood that you will need Archery to defend your cities.
Oh how I wish to avoid Archery this time...

Basically you need at least to see city cross to decide. Maybe he got 3pigs in fog:).

Overall i'd go worker first. Close call but not having plain hill forest makes boat first a bit worse. [Unririgated corn and clams, imo, are pretty equal and fog shows unforested hills to be improved on mining.]

But that is just me. I am in general afraid to start with boats as these often cause delay in development...
I am doubting the presence of 3 pigs... at the very most there will be a plains hill sheep. (Only 2 tiles unforested, one being a flood plain and the other a plains hill). Plains hill sheep is pretty bad for food even though it has a good overall yield... I'd rather get a boat and have BW in hands I think.

I'm glad to see this opening being supported here. I used the exact same one in the current EC Willem game, but also whipped the settler after chops. It felt pretty strong, so I'd say go for it.
Aye aye!

My BTS doesn't work at the moment so I can't try the game. According to what we can see now:

1) If Agri=>Mining=>BW and Worker=>Workboat. t15 Worker. t22 cap = 2 pop.
2) If Mining=>Bw and Workboat=>Worker. t11 cap=2pop. t13 Workboat. t25 Worker.

Considering in Option 2 we can chop trees immediately with the first worker, in fact Option 2 is no worse in production and much better in commerce. (got one clam and the second in t29) 2 commerce from clams is crucial for Toku I reckon.

Moreover, in this kind of environment (much jungle), the biggest limit to expansion is usually Bar rather than hammers. To gain 2 commerce from clam and to beeline Archery is worth trying. (It depends how far they neighbors are as well of course)
Exactly... time the workboat with pop2 > worker > ??? > profit.

These are the hardest to determine. If it were irrigated/riverside corn, then worker first is obvious. But the wb-first crowd is tough to manage. You'd work the 1/2 while building the wb, right?
Not really. It's been shown that while building a wb, it's better to work either a 3:hammers: or 3:food: tile. dingding's plan might bring the workboat in a little slower than 1F2H but the worker will come out faster than a regular 1-pop worker working a clams.

1/2 means the tile with 1F2H?

If building workboat as the first unit, there are several choices. My principle is that the cap should grow to 2 pop when finish the boat. Options are:

1) Work on 2/1 tile till pop 2, t11 pop=2. Then two pops work on 1/2. t13 Workboat .
2) Work on 3/0 tile t6, t7 work on 1/2. t8 pop = 2. Then two pops work on 1/2. t12 Workboat.

The micro depends on the tiles as well.
Exactly. From the fog I'm reading 1F2H, 2F1H, 2H and 3F1C tiles (unless a forest grows to give a 3H tile) so the plan looks great.

I'm interested in those two bfc tiles that we can't see yet that don't appear to have trees. Could there be another resource 2N1E of the settler that might strengthen the case for worker first?
FP and plains hill. Seafood counts as 2/3 resource, flood plain as 1/3 I think and corn = 1. So 3 seafood+corn+fp = 3.333... there might not be anything else although that unforested hill is suspicious given the forest spam. Maybe sheep or bronze/iron?

I just posted at the end of #26 how you should do tokug next hehe

Just finished a game with him myself actually and although he is crap in terms of economic help, drafted rifles are killer with all those free promos. Hope to see them getting some good exercise here. :)

Coastal starts always irritate me a bit, I'm never sure quite how to time the wb/workboat production for optimum growth. Always seems slower than straight land worker-first start.
Yea, that was my feeling as well... but the worker doesn't have enough good things to improve... farming a flood plain takes so long too... better to chop a workboat and mine a hill.

A - you are incalculating fact that 2n1e is most likely FP? [which means one extra coin while growing on worker [which gets worked longer than building workboat]]
B- saying that chopping beats mines hammer wise is not exactly correct. Trees are not unlimited resource.
A. correct
B. Also correct. I guess short term vs long term is implied, but short term is more important right now.

I don't normally post, but I have done a lot of reading on these boards, which has improved my game to the point where I win less than half the time on immortal level. Kossin's inspired me to start getting my hat handed to me at the deity level, so I thought I'd shadow this one and post my progress along the way

Advice is greatly appreciated, but please remember spoiler tags, I've played a few turns here and I don't want to spoil Kossin's game
Welcome to the forums!
Can't look at the shadow now but I will sometime in the future. Glad to see your game is improving.

I don't know where to go from here, but I would bet you have some strategic resource in your BFC. Don't you start with at least one due to the map generator/balancer? I would bet Iron or Horses
No horses for certain. Iron/Bronze perhaps, we'll see.
 
Round 1

It turns out I have little time today so I only played a short round.

Kyoto was settled in place. The flood plains was out of range as was the corn so I had to stick to a 13-turns workboat+growth approach with some micro to get as much commerce as possible.
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I sent the warrior south... we're swarmed by jungle thoroughly with little commerce in sight.
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Seeing as south doesn't look fantastic for expansion, I send him east and find better land.
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There's a catch however... do you see the border top right?


Haven't seen Izzy in a while...
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She founded Buddhism in the city we could just see the edge of... those flood plains will be swarmed by her culture soon enough.


As a result, I send back my warrior south but this time I run into the English lady.
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The "good" one.
I don't know why but the Worst Enemy bug is back in this version of BULL.


On t13 a worker is started and will finish at the same turn that BW does... great timing!
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The revealed Mehmed finally showed up, I believe he his south of Liz.
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Interestingly enough, Elizabeth founded Hinduism.
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The jungle is gonna be hard to settle...


Upon completing Bronze Working... we are "blessed" with close copper.
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I improved the corn and stopped the round.

Here's a view of the neighborhood, not resized.
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Finally, the peaceweights and religions at work:
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I'm starting to feel this is a boxed in situation... food is crappy so far although I could use a bit more exploration along the coast. GLH could be useful but it's a bit of a detour now that I've spent research in Pottery. I can still see about 5~6 okay cities but there's also plan B and C...
Ivory for elepults or Copper for Axe rush... target is probably Liz because she's hated and has a low unit prob.

Whaddya think?
 
Oh you know what you need to do. Get Liz. GLH? bah, get Liz. I would try Axes, Unless you think you can scrounge up the commerce for cataphalts.
 
Spoiler :
When I made that map, I thought it was a bit funny that the two :):):):):)iest leaders were neighbors, although in this case one is controlled by a human.

I forget the map now, but I thought you would have a bit more room to work with. It's amazing how the AI likes to squish you. This looks tougher than I thought.

I have to agree that Iz or Liz may have to go soon.

Is IW a priority here?

edit: the smilies hide a word for a female dog. I'm surprise the forum doesn't allow that other than to prevent some calling someone that...ha


what tiles did you work to get the workboat out. 1coastal plus a 1F2H?
 
I would go with the rush too, you have aggressive for a reason :D. There is really not enough land there for 3 civilizations. I guess on this level a 2 civ rush is out of the question? Well you can always see how it looks after the first one :D.

I had not realised such a congested start was so common with fractal maps. Had something like that recently and thought it was a bit strange, but clearly they are not so rare. You did say you did not want an isolated start :D.
 
I'd say if you rush, rushing Izzy probably makes more sense, since it looks like that would keep you a bit more compact - you'd probably have all the land north of the jungle. Mehmed and Liz hate each other, so odds are they'll get into a war together. Depending on timing, this seems like the sort of map you could axe rush Izzy, then elepult Liz with Mehmed's help. That being said, I've never tried Deity, so for all I know, after axe rushing Izzy, Liz will already have rifles or something like that.
 
The double oasis site is a pretty nice spot for a city. So is the riverside ivory one. I'd go to war with elephants since it'll probably be about the time that one of the other two leaders declares on Elizabeth.
 
Axe rush on Izzy would be effective and score you more palpable land. Adopt Hindu and hope liz doesn't capitulate Mehmed. She may not have as much land if he is indeed south of her. Scouting her land while preparing axes will give you an idea of how big of a juggernaut she will become, barbs will be pretty much non existent. You can probably take liz out with cannons and rifles post liberalism if you go this route.
 
This seems like a tough game, boxed in early, low commerce and lack of economic traits.

It is very easy to lose steam with an Axe rush on Deity, normally heavy casualty is expected without siege. Normally need at least 10 Axe + 1 spear before a DOW.

I would suggest to set up 4 cities and a strong economic base first, get library, cottages up. train some Axe if there is barb city around. Settle the Gold/copper if you can beat Izzy to it, then Ivory city, then 2 oasis city. Possibly a war against Izzy after Civil Service with Cats/Phants/Melee.
 
Good map. I'd like to play this game coz I love Toku, but my BTS doesn't work for the moment.

I think an attack with Catapults+Elephant is more profitable than an Axemen rush. I mean an early Axe rush is as feasible as a Catapult one, but we'd better leave some time for Isa to build the shrine, some wonders and plant some cottages in her FP. Then we harvest.

The same with Elizabeth. We can leave her to chop the jungle and develop the southern area. We harvest with Samurais.
 
Potential problem: If Liz spreads Hinduism to Mehmed, he'll convert and they'll become buddies. Mehmed is a HUGE unit spammer, so war has probably gotta be averted with him for a bit - he's very religious though, so converting to his faith is probably necessary at some point.

That leaves Izzy - decent unitprob, absolutely hates/detests those not of her own religion.

With two holy cities pressing culture, and Isabella will likely look to found Christianity as well via bulbing Theology, meanwhile Lizzy loves to go Code of Laws and found Confucianism and Taoism - I'd say you're in for a rough ride.
 
Oh you know what you need to do. Get Liz. GLH? bah, get Liz. I would try Axes, Unless you think you can scrounge up the commerce for cataphalts.
We'll see... the jury's still out on where to go.

what tiles did you work to get the workboat out. 1coastal plus a 1F2H?
A combo of 2F1H, flood plains to grow to 2 and then 2x 1F2H.

I would go with the rush too, you have aggressive for a reason :D. There is really not enough land there for 3 civilizations. I guess on this level a 2 civ rush is out of the question? Well you can always see how it looks after the first one :D.

I had not realised such a congested start was so common with fractal maps. Had something like that recently and thought it was a bit strange, but clearly they are not so rare. You did say you did not want an isolated start :D.
Isolation on Deity, I think, is even harder than normal Deity unless you have great land. As long as I can get 6 cities (through war or expansion)... pretty much every victory is possible. Harder yes but @6 cities further military expansion isn't too bad come Renaissance/cannons. 2 civs with an Axe rush is hard on Immortal at normal speed... Axe rushing 1 civ on Deity is even harder imo, provided they have metals.

I'd say if you rush, rushing Izzy probably makes more sense, since it looks like that would keep you a bit more compact - you'd probably have all the land north of the jungle. Mehmed and Liz hate each other, so odds are they'll get into a war together. Depending on timing, this seems like the sort of map you could axe rush Izzy, then elepult Liz with Mehmed's help. That being said, I've never tried Deity, so for all I know, after axe rushing Izzy, Liz will already have rifles or something like that.
Good point... her land does looks fair with all those fp's. I need to see which way the diplo goes with Mehmed. In any case, once I get him to Pleased I won't have to worry much.

The double oasis site is a pretty nice spot for a city. So is the riverside ivory one. I'd go to war with elephants since it'll probably be about the time that one of the other two leaders declares on Elizabeth.
There are some okay spots for cities sure. I can even share food from the capital to get a few extra satellite cities for production. I'm only worried about running into LBs with Elepults.

Axe rush on Izzy would be effective and score you more palpable land. Adopt Hindu and hope liz doesn't capitulate Mehmed. She may not have as much land if he is indeed south of her. Scouting her land while preparing axes will give you an idea of how big of a juggernaut she will become, barbs will be pretty much non existent. You can probably take liz out with cannons and rifles post liberalism if you go this route.

This seems like a tough game, boxed in early, low commerce and lack of economic traits.

It is very easy to lose steam with an Axe rush on Deity, normally heavy casualty is expected without siege. Normally need at least 10 Axe + 1 spear before a DOW.

I would suggest to set up 4 cities and a strong economic base first, get library, cottages up. train some Axe if there is barb city around. Settle the Gold/copper if you can beat Izzy to it, then Ivory city, then 2 oasis city. Possibly a war against Izzy after Civil Service with Cats/Phants/Melee.
Axe rush is a gamble yes... I could lose the game right then or secure good enough land to give me a real good shot at winning. The 4-cities setup for catapults works well but mostly if I can attack before Longbows.

Good map. I'd like to play this game coz I love Toku, but my BTS doesn't work for the moment.

I think an attack with Catapults+Elephant is more profitable than an Axemen rush. I mean an early Axe rush is as feasible as a Catapult one, but we'd better leave some time for Isa to build the shrine, some wonders and plant some cottages in her FP. Then we harvest.

The same with Elizabeth. We can leave her to chop the jungle and develop the southern area. We harvest with Samurais.
I like this plan a lot. Izzy is a tougher opponent than Liz by far so Samurais should be able to take a good bite out of Lizzy later, even if a little bit at a tech deficit (nothing cannons can't handle).

Potential problem: If Liz spreads Hinduism to Mehmed, he'll convert and they'll become buddies. Mehmed is a HUGE unit spammer, so war has probably gotta be averted with him for a bit - he's very religious though, so converting to his faith is probably necessary at some point.

That leaves Izzy - decent unitprob, absolutely hates/detests those not of her own religion.

With two holy cities pressing culture, and Isabella will likely look to found Christianity as well via bulbing Theology, meanwhile Lizzy loves to go Code of Laws and found Confucianism and Taoism - I'd say you're in for a rough ride.
Thanks for the heads up!
I'm not planning on fighting Mehmed any soon fortunately. But one of Izzy or Liz has got to go... or both for that matter.

Let's see what I can conjure up for this round...
 
Round 2

The plan for the round was to expand to 4 cities and get some trading going while heading towards Construction.

Before I could even settle my second city, Isabella completed the Oracle, and what's more, in her Holy City...
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That's going to be culture hell!


Shortly after, not to be outdone, Elizabeth gets Stonehenge in London.
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I settled Osaka to grab Ivory+Copper. While it has no food resource, it can grow on farmed grassland for a while.
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A surprise visitor showed up in Jaoa... who appears to be intercontinental. I divert some research into Sailing and send a workboat to find him.
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Here's the first conversion of the game:
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Ugh... tough luck I guess.


Izzy was a good help in trading happy resources at least. Her culture is annoying as hell.
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After Pottery I went for Writing and opened borders with Izzy, expecting free border pops. I wasn't disappointed. You can also see I settled the double oasis city.
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I got my 4th settler just in time to the sheep-wheat location. And now I'm pretty much boxed in. I could theorically plant 2 more cities, one borrowing clams from Kyoto and the other taking Corn from it.
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The trade chip was, as often is, Aesthetics.
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By 500BC, I've just spawned my first GS. I used him to make an Academy and help researching the next few techs for some land grabbing.
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That's where I stand now. I've explored Isabella's land. She already has Longbows of course but moreover she has Ivory...

Here's a non resized view of the world.
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Techs
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Interestingly enough, Liz is lacking Feudalism still. She could make a good target but it's a bit risky.


Diplo
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Liz is the least liked leader here. She'd make a good target but our border is pretty darned long... hard to defend everywhere at once. I'm also worried about Liz's tech pace with all that green land she appears to have.


I've never done a catapult based war on Deity, yet, so I'm not too sure how well (or probably bad) this'll go. Fortunately, Samurais can lend in a hand somewhere down the line.
 
Tough land. Maybe scout Elizabeth to see where her metal sources are? Although it looks likely that she'll get elephants soon after or before you, so it'll be an ugly war. On the upside, you'll probably pick up some partially cleared jungle cities. You may also be able to hole up defensive with protective archers while you attack west to grab her jungle resource cities.
 
Haha, Izzy founded Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity. With three shrines, that's some monster gold she's generating...maybe Mehmed can be persuaded to lend a hand...

I mean, I think Lizzy may be softer, but Isabella is going fullbore religion at the moment - well...if she decides to war against the infidels she may start unit spamming...

tough fork...
 
I don't see how many units Isa has got. It seems she's quite easy to rush with catapult+elephant judging by her land size, but I guess some points may have been missed so the war will be more difficult than it's supposed to be:

1. EP hasn't been 100% put on Isa, so we can't see her research or afford a revolt.

2. Mehmed is the only guy who can give you a hand in the war against Isa, and he can be bribed at the attitude of Pleased. So the first tech trade should have been, if possible, Aesthetics<=>IW from Elisabeth, saved it or given it for free to Mehmed to improve relation.

3. The first GP's timing is inadvisable. You've already got the first GP at turn 95, that means if you want to use the second one to bulb Philosophy (for bribery) or launch a GA (for war preparation), you need to wait for another 34 turns. That's a bit late for a Catapult rush. I guess two cottages have been delayed because of the early GP as well.

Maybe Shwedagon Paya will be still available if you beeline Meditation now. That will unlock Theocracy which you may need in the preparation for a classic or medieval warfare. Luckily you have enough trees to chop it out.

On the other hand, it's not wise to touch Elisabeth. I'm pretty sure she'll bribe Mehmed to DoW us the turn we DoW if we do it.
 
It seemed you were tender with those trees in capital and not aggressive enough with chopping out the settlers. There should not be much problem to settle 5 decent cities here.

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I shadowed a bit yesterday, chopped/cottaged all river grassland in capital early and was able to get the banana (share corn) site, I can actually use this as the NE/Globe city later since capital has enough food to run all cottages; and the iron site (planted a city there to grab as much grassland and luckily Iron popped)

The sites in the jungle were actually better than the sheep site. But I had a barb city near sheep and was quickly captured by Izzy.



It s a bit hammer poor and food poor. You ll need to go all out to build out an army. AP hammers would help. I would go after Izzy first, prepare to face her alone as you dont have the tech edge to bribe. Ideally expand to 6 cities, depending how well the war goes. Engineering will be a priority after Samuri.
 
After your first screenshot I thought you would axe rush, that was what caused me to decide on it. Since the early shrine would come in about the right time for an attack and I was able to see how good a city it was with my scouting. Obviously at deity you'll only get a couple cities, but its a shrine + a capital and I didn't know quite how hemmed in I'd be at the time.

Looking forward to the comparison if you can put the hurt on Isabella. And I second the EP comment, I've been stealing a tech in every game recently by always focusing on the first neighbor I meet.
 
Cats/WEs war is doable in deity even against Maceman/LB. You need to totally focus and start the war preparation as early as possible and use all the tricks to maximize the units production. Prechop and save the forests, especially in capital to anticipate bureo bonus. Grow the cities and whip them without mercy when cat and WE are available to build. SOD of 30~40 units is needed in the beginning.

I made a successful war in a similar situation (4 city empire). It's my 1st post in the forum and I consider it one of the best game I have played so far.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7738856&postcount=79
 
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