[BTS] Emperor help with Tokugawa

[Olafeson]

In my opinion best use for the early GS in a tech/expansion game like yours if you have a poor cottage capital and no other for example city
with floodplains/gold lots of rivertiles and cottages, would be to bulb philosophy after researching CoL. Usually you also found taoism this way.
Then you can tech with SE (Specialist Economy / bulbing) via pacifism / caste system.

Since you dont have great cottage tiles, as well as low tiles, best way is to work multiple specialists in maybe 2-3 cities and collect GPP (Great Person points).
Will help teching aswell.

I dont think building an academy in Tokyo would be a wise choice. Not enough .

It is never a good choice to bulb alphabet. The A.I. will always trade alpha away, so you can get it from them. Also wastes like 1000 possible bulb beakers ,
GS can bulb smth like 1300-1500 beakers, depending on the size of your population.

Bulbing math only viable in construction rushes with axe/cata or elephant/cata etc.

Both Kyoto as well as Osaka have lots of good food surplus and can easily work 4-5 specialists. If you dont get a religion from your neighbours just use taoism,
even on deity you usually are the first to Philosophy via bulb.

 

[Olafeson]

Regarding your plan to elepult Washington. Of course you, can it would be fun. On emperor no biggy, drag him throug the dirt and delete him from the map.
Other question, more important regarding efficiency.

Will this be the most efficient way to win the game? Lets assume following possibilities in possible future game.

1) Has he good land you want to capture? Food, wonders, resources rivertiles? Can you get techs for a peace deal that you need? You need to scout his territory.

2) If you spend your hammers on an army, you can t spend them on settlers/workers courthouses. So you leave A.I. time to settle more free land.
Maybe Hammurabi takes all the good land in the north, while you capture jungle/tundra land.

3) Maybe Mansa Musa sits on another continent with 20 cities and trades all game. Will capturing Washington help you now to win the game vs Mansa Musa later?

I would always consider these options when you still have land that you can settle for free.

 

[sampsa]

If you choose to elepult Washington, I wouldn't build a 6th city since it just slows you down. Only 6 invested in Tokyo so you can switch to granary, just 6h wasted, no biggie. Maths is incoming rather soon so I'd think which chops are urgent and finish only them (work boat is urgent!). So in that case it's just the fish-city and pig/horse, which I would actually settle 1N to grab the corn after border pop. I think going myst before math-mas-constr is best because of this.

I think the whole idea of Tokyo becoming a bureau cap is bad. It's a decent cottage city, but nothing great, weak and no chops left soon. Needs granary+library+palace, just not going to happen. I think the use of the first GS is between academy in cap and settling in cap (assuming elepult strategy). Settling is often a weak choice, but the earlier 1st GS is spawn the more attractive it is. Also, 2nd and 3rd are coming in a reasonable time frame (I think you should keep running scientists in Osaka and in cap). I do not know which one is best, but if you go for academy I'd save a lot of money before it. Elepult attack will be delayed, but you can certainly get away with it on non-deity.

Connect to Washington asap, for trade routes and religion spread (also hope that he goes for the missi-spam "strategy").

 

[Olafeson]

@sampsa

#if he settles his GS he will get 6 x1.25 (library) = 7.25/Turn.

-> 7.25 for the rest of the game every turn.

# if he builds academy. Lets do the math:

Base commerce Kyoto:

8 Palace + 2 - 4 commerce traderoute + 3 commerce seafood = 15 commerce capital + 50% academy = 22.5 at 100% research

->The academy results in 7.5 beakers when at 100% research.

# he bulbs philosophy (1246 on emperor)

-> instant 1246 beakers + monopoly tech + taoism + free taoism missionary + unlocking pacifism
not even accounting in here the beakers you will safe because you trade philosophy around.

I assume that would be at least around 1000 beakers in tech trading.

That can be a raw 2250 at minimum, all in only 2 turns. Bulbing and 1 turn later the trades. Not even accounting in the other benefits i listed above.

- Option Nr.1 settling the GS needs :

worst case : 1246 / 7.25 = 171 turns to generate same amount of
best case :2250 / 7.25 = 310 turns to generate same amount of

- Option Nr. 2 building academy in capital.

Building an academy for 7.5 beakers at 100% research only (even less when he has no currency). Not sure if you really wanna do this.

 

[Olafeson]

In my opinion only viable use of the first GS in this game is to bulb Philosophy. (In many games this is the best option from my experience).
Switch to Caste System and Pacifism and get out more GP.

If you want to use first GS for an academy you need a city with lots of riverside tiles (maybe even floodplains) that already have some cottages build on it. Maybe even gold or gems. Usually in the capital, occasionally in another city.

In almost all cases the early benefit in civ 4 outshines the long term investment. So bulbing is often time the best choice.

Settling a GS is almost never a good choice. The raw amount of beakers they can bulb is just too good.
You can settle Great Prophets if you want (+5 and +2 ). It gives a neat bonus to production + their bulbing priority techs are rather weak.
Maybe even settle Great Merchants (+6 and + 1), but most often you rather go for trade missions or bulb here.

A Golden Age with first GP can be viable later in the game, when you work lots of tiles with and that then receive a boost of +1 each.
But you need more cities for that and more pop. Also you need a place (or more) which can run lots of specialists for GPP during GA.

An academy is viable in for example games where you plan to tech to Steel or Cuirassiers for your attack. Maybe even going for culture or space wins.
Then you will benefit from the long term investment, !when you have a good bureaucracy cap!
Even more in isolated games where you have no trading partners and need to selftech everything.

 

[Tonny]

GS options:
Settling -> No. Was never an option.
Golden Age -> No. Was never an option either, but I mentioned it before just to get the discussion going and gaining information for future games.
Academy -> No. Not enough commerce in cap or elsewhere.
Bulb -> Philosophy in the future. Yes. (Mentioned Alpha only to show what the first possible bulb would be)
I'll keep the gs dorment for now.

Elepult vs peaceful expansion:
There is still a lot of "free" land to settle. Up to 10 more cities with 6 of them having easy access to a food resource. Gold, Ivory and Wine (needs Monarchy) on the go for 3 happies. Cities near the fp's can cottage the lot and cities near the westcoast can work scientists.
Teching: Mysticism-Math-Currency-CoL
Or Elepult as described in previous posts teching Mysticism-Math-Construction-HBR. I need to scout Washington to know what I can gain.

I mentioned before that I liked the idea of Elepulting Washington (learning purposes), but now I don't like it anymore. Teching will be slower and I will end up with less cities and tradingpartners.
Furthermore as Washington is Buddhist and Hammurabi doesn't have a religion yet, this continent can be peaceful for the rest of the game (or when I decide to rush them anyhow). Let Wash do the hard work of clearing the jungle and spreading religion everywhere. Hopefully a shrine too.

Wonders:
None... I don't have Marble/Stone and I'm not Industrious.

and pig/horse, which I would actually settle 1N to grab the corn after border pop.

Good idea.

 

[sampsa]

I hear you, Tonny. You didn't understand what going for elepult would mean, as it's a very committing strategy. It's a strategy that doesn't need GS, since bulbing philo is nowhere on that tech path and you should be settling the first GS, something that might feel bad, I guess depending on how experienced you are with the game.

Olafeson, I feel you are slightly missing the point. Simply comparing "how many does this usage of GS produce" might lead you astray. The correct question is IMO "what is the best usage for GS if I choose this strategy?". Getting a GS certainly influences what strategy you should choose, but obviously it's much more complicated than that. How do we estimate the value of an elepult attack? If I over-simplify it, I'll just say that you win cities worth of x and y at the price of z invested in units. But of course, you just can't do that. You need to compare it to the benefits of another strategy, something that is extremely hard.

There are some rather obvious flaws in your analysis. The value of academy is not capped at 7.5 @100% slider, it will go up a lot. You are forgetting all the pre-requisite bonuses (mostly +20%) that favor manual research. The biggest strength of manual research is flexibility, you can research whatever you want (meaning mostly that you can go for war techs asap, something that bulbs are not able to easily do). Remember that all this is coming from someone who very rarely settles .

Also, like I said, there are other GS:s incoming. They can bulb philo later, settling a GS or building an academy doesn't close any doors. Also, this is emperor so I'm not sure how much trade value you get from two weak AIs...

I guess I need to shadow this.

 

[sampsa]

T68:

Spoiler :

Agri-min-BW-pot-writ-hunt-(math). Whipped first settler 6->3, favored 22 tiles over 3 or 21.

2nd city T38, chose 1E for instant access via coast. Didn't go library here, just granary intending 2-pop whips.

Capital is usually the best place for library due to palace . Granary is not of much use for now with this much food. Btw academy will be +11 with these tiles/specs.

3rd city founded T51, chopped granary first then grow on cottages, library later.

4th city T62, had boat ready for instant growth. Whipping granary asap.

Not settling more cities pre attack. Have played on a bit and elephants are an overkill on this difficulty level, just going axepult as you can start warring earlier.

One axe was enough barb defence for a long time. Barbs seem strange on emperor (vs immortal). They don't like founding cities and more metal units spawn on emperor for whatever reason.

 

[Tonny]

Wonderful @sampsa for shadowing this game. I will use your game to compare it with mine.

But first I'm going to play mine.

Game plan

Techs: Math-Currency

Cities: Fishcity first and 1N of Horse second. I will build the settler at Tokyo for a city near Pig/Wine.

Kyoto: WB for fishcity, growing to size 6. Keeping this city focussed on commerce.
Osaka: Settler first, then 1 or 2 Axes. I will keep the scientists there to fuel my research.
Tokyo: Finish Settler slowly. Then Library with the aid of 1 chop and a 2 pop whip.
Fishcity: Nice production here. First build Granary, next units/Barracks. Later Wealth when needed.
1N Horse: Nice production here, can borrow Pig too. Granary/Barracks/units and later Wealth when needed.
Pig/Wine: Can start on FP cottages and Pig. Library here.

GS: Academy in Kyoto

 

[sampsa]

Your plan sounds good, and I approve your choice not to go for early war, as it might distract your learning process due to game becoming harder to balance between maximizing for units and taking care of .

 

[Tonny]

Played up to t89 and researched currency. A more detailed update coming soon.
Quick question. When is Alphabet likely to be researched by AI on emperor?