Gator02 - Learning to Walk

[Bezhukov]

It's not just one less turn on a settler, its 20% less production on settlers/workers and 42% less on everything else every single turn!

Of course it will be a great commerce center in due time, but you're sacrificing our other commerce/production centers to get it there prematurely. We'll be able to hook up the other wine at the second city, so that's no big deal, but I'm mystified by your sanguinity about getting settlers and workers produced. Every turn we spend building a quecha is one we're not spending on a barracks, a granary, a settler, or a worker, so I'd rather get the quecha in 2 than 4.

Sure, chopping can speed things along, but it's not like we've got an endless supply of forests either...

 

[leif erikson]

Nice set Gator!
Hope you're feeling better....

Red x was problematic due to the dearth of resources nearby. Resources are all important for early cities, both food resources to get them up to pop quickly, and strategic resources to speed desired wonder builds or to get your empire defended from barbs. Flood plains act like mini-food bonus tiles, but actual resources are preferable. A city one tile east of the Incense would make a nice 5th/6th city, but will never support cottages due to lack of food. If we someday run State Property, however, it will be a pretty strong mill (wind and water) city.

Good point. Thanks.

I think we can still grow 1 more (to size 5), before we hit the happiness limit.

Yes, after size 5 we'll run into problems. just checked.

And what is a succession game wirthout a dot map. I created this one for us to have a look at. Feel free to move things around. I did not project any cities where we don't have full view yet, so it can change as we learn more.

 

[DJMGator13]

One of the problems I have had in my practice games has been when and how many cities to build without destroying the economy. Another thing I did in a few of them was to overbuild Wonders at the expense of more settlers. I'm real interested to see how we progress in this game.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

It's not just one less turn on a settler, its 20% less production on settlers/workers and 42% less on everything else every single turn!

What!?! No, we only lose the shields for the lenth of time between when you would have built the mine in your other strategy (turn 23, after you farmed the corn), and when we will build the mine, turn 33. That is ten turns.
During those turns we traded the following:

We lost 30 hammers over the number you would have earned.
We gained 10 food.
We gained 57 commerce.

That is just the face value comparison. It doesn't take into account our earlier extra citizen that came from getting 10 more food. It doesn't mention the fact that we have now started developing our cottages into hamlets that will increase our commerce advantage, or that our higher research rate will get us to bureaucracy/libraries and other goodies that will again increase our commerce/research advantage.

We are still going to end up with the same number of cities that you would have in your other strategy, we are just going to found them a few turns later. That is only a disadvantage for the first 2-3 cities (when maintenance increases will be low), and that disadvantage will be more than compensated for by the commerce/research base we are building in our capitol.

I am getting really tired of arguing the cottage thing.

It is my fault, I guess, as I am not as good at explaining things as, say, SirPleb was. But this is a better way to a faster victory given this start, of that I am confident.

That being said, I think we have gone a bit overboard on the quechua. A 2nd worker out chopping would have been more valuable than a 5th citizen. We are 3 turns away now, though, so we might as well grow. After that, we need a worker, a couple of settlers and another worker ASAP.

 

[Bede]

Quecha, worker, settlers, worker coming up.

I am much more comfortable with the fast commerce start, as opposed to the fast expansion/fast production start. I can see the merits of both and in this situation, alone on an island, the fast commerce start will serve us well.

Putting a cottage on the wine will help now and in the future, it is not like we have to contend for more wine unless a financial civ makes an early reach to Astronomy, and, besides, it is just the kind of "freakonmics" that appeals to my contrarian nature.

And let us all keep in mind that a "fast victory" is not the only one. The kind of victory that appeals to me most is the "astonishing", or perhaps the "stylish" where the unusual replaces the commonplace, and shock gives way to awe.

Then of course, I have been known to pull defeat from the jaws of victory, or to win by sheer bullheadedness.....

This is not the longest "got it" ever posted, but it is getting close.

 

[DJMGator13]

I almost switched that last quechua but I have been overrun with barb archers in some of my practice games. Especially when alone.

With all the forest by the marble, chopping the Oracle will not be a problem. We just need to get COL done in time.

BTW, I've started the Oracle in one of my games without the marble hooked up and got the benefit on the double speed in midproduction. I also like the new shield switch feature. I was able to delay completion near the end until I finished researching COL by building a warrior late in the Oracle construction. The down side of the new shield system is no more prebuilds.

 

[leif erikson]

I am also satisfied, even though I'm a noob, that the strategy we are using is good for this situation. I also understand and appreciate Bezhukov's point that not all games are going to be like this one. I am learning that in Civ4, one must look deeper into the situation to figure out how they intend to proceed. Once you start, it isn't always easy to change horse, as it were.

We are on a road and perhaps it is time to look ahead for the obstacles that we'll face rather than looking back at what we've already navigated?

Good luck Brother Bede, may your road be smooth!!

 

[bradleyfeanor]

And let us all keep in mind that a "fast victory" is not the only one. The kind of victory that appeals to me most is the "astonishing", or perhaps the "stylish" where the unusual replaces the commonplace, and shock gives way to awe.

That does sound appealing, but I'm afraid my current strategies are all about speed and planning every move far in advance. I adore competing in the GoTM. But I would like to become a bit more flexible in my Civving. I really enjoy reading a very creative SG or RBCiv thread, and would like to play a bit along those lines as well.

I also like the new shield switch feature. I was able to delay completion near the end until I finished researching COL by building a warrior late in the Oracle construction. The down side of the new shield system is no more prebuilds.

[Ramble about various topics]I like the ability to switch production as well. We didn't use the "growing while building a settler/worker" strategy in this game (yet), but that can help a bit in some games.

I also like the ability to switch research without significant penalty. There are a few points in the tech tree where this can be used for a slight advantage. When researching Liberalism (which gives a free tech), for example, you can research until only one turn is left, then switch to researching other techs. In that way you can delay getting your free tech until you see an AI with both Education and Philosophy, the techs required to research Liberalism. That allows you to chose the most expensive tech possible for your freebie.

Unfortunately, there is also a bug in cIV regarding the foreign advisor. Sometimes an AI will not have certain techs, but when you go to the advisor screen it will appear that they have them. For example, you might go to the advisor screen and it will show that Theology is not a trade option, yet you know the AI has monotheism and writing (the prerequisites). This would normally indicate that they also have Theology. But a few turns later, all of a sudden you do have the option to trade that AI Theology. This can result in trading away techs that you shouldn't if you aren't careful. Hopefully, it will be fixed in a future patch.[/Ramble about various topics]

We are on a road and perhaps it is time to look ahead for the obstacles that we'll face rather than looking back at what we've already navigated?

First stop, chopping settlers: we must get more cities founded.
Second stop, library: hire two scientists in our capitol, work the corn, wine/cottage and FP cottage with our other three citizens. We will have a Great Scientist/Academy in 17 turns.
Third stop, Oracle/Civil Service: revolt to bureaucracy, caste system.
Forth stop, Confucianism: get an extra happy citizen in the capitol, and another one by building a temple. The Oracle city should also build a temple and hire a priest to start working toward a great prophet/confucian shrine/or free Divine Right (Versailles).

After that I think we should head more or less straight for Optics. We have a good shot at reaching the AIs before they all have alphabet, and we might reach them before any of them get it if they aren't all packed together on the same continent. I think attempting that should be a priority. Once we reach them, we may have to drop out of Confucianism for a few turns in order to be able to trade, but it might enable us to trade them wortheless techs for a few good ones like calendar, math, currency, etc.

We have a few unit production options after researching Machinery but before Optics. We could build up Missionaries to load on our caravels and push toward a few allies and a diplo victory, or we could start amassing City Raider II Macemen for upgrade to a Grenadier conquest once we have Astronomy/galleons.

Personally, I would prefer to crank up some Black Sabbath, down a few bottles of cab as we saddle up the War Pigs, and go crack some heads.

 

[Bezhukov]

Your math is off, Bradley, as the high food/production start would likely have worked/developed high food tiles to get up to max pop much quicker than the cottage plan, at which point you switch to high production/high commerce. But since we lacked BW, we couldn't get the quick second worker, and lacking the worker, we lacked the mine, lacking AH, we also lacked the option of hypergrowth.

Until one reaches max pop, the mine is only worked while one is stuck not growing, i.e. building a worker/settler. Once max pop is reached, you then reoptimize for max production/commerce at zero growth, switching over citizens from forest tiles to cottages as they (quickly) become available at this point.

The worker techs are not expensive enough to need a crash course in commerce to obtain in a timely fashion due to the eight free commerce from the capital and the free commerce from rivers. And the over-expansion financial crunch doesn't hit until you get 15-25 citizens (if one grows one's cities well), not at 4!

The bottom line is you can't specialize your cities when you have only one.

"And let us all keep in mind that a "fast victory" is not the only one. The kind of victory that appeals to me most is the "astonishing", or perhaps the "stylish" where the unusual replaces the commonplace, and shock gives way to awe."



Perhaps we should first master the common, lest we trip over our cape...

 

[Bezhukov]

In the non-hypothetical case (researching wheel, pottery first, as we did), we could have worked high growth tiles while making the quechas and growing out to max pop, preparing the mine in the mean time instead of the plains tile. Then once we reached max pop, more quickly than we if fact have, we would be in a position to produce what we need now much more expeditiously. We would just now be building the wine cottage then moving a citizen from a forest tile to work it, sacrificing a marginal hammer for commerce, instead of half our productive capacity.

And given the decisions of the team, its clearly not you who have difficulty expressing the value of your preferred approach, but I.

See:

http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_adventure4_1.html

for a more persuasive explication.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

In the non-hypothetical case (researching wheel, pottery first, as we did), we could have worked high growth tiles while making the quechas and growing out to max pop, preparing the mine in the mean time instead of the plains tile. Then once we reached max pop, more quickly than we if fact have, we would be in a position to produce what we need now much more expeditiously. We would just now be building the wine cottage then moving a citizen from a forest tile to work it, sacrificing a marginal hammer for commerce, instead of half our productive capacity.

I think the most convincing way for you to show us how far behind we are by working the wine tile would be to take the initial start file and play the first thirty turns as you would have played them. Then we can look at the file and quantify it. Just be sure not to explore anything we haven’t explored yet or pop a tech from a hut, which would throw off the comparison.

If I have been wrong in taking this approach, then I will happily admit it and say “Thank you Bezhukov for making me a better cIV player.”

Edit: oops, we can't do that yet. Wait until we have researched BW. We don't want to find out where copper is prematurely.

Edit #2: Well, I guess we can do a comparison game if you want to show us how things would have gone by taking the same research path that we have taken but by working different tiles. If you want to show us that strategy, then please go ahead. But if you want to show us the superiority of your other tech path strategy, we should wait until Bede finishes his turns and we know where copper and horses are.

 

[Bezhukov]

The frustration in my posts is due to my being out-of-town with internet access but no CivIV, so I'm not able to test things out.

I'd guess that due to the food richness of the start, missing AH was no big deal, and that getting pottery first may actually have been the right call there. However, missing the early chops, unfortunately (in my book chops should cause temporary unhealthiness like whips cause unhappiness - they're too good), was probably suboptimal, as we're not hammer rich, and working 1/1/4 tiles over 0/4/0 tiles, while good in the long run, will slow you down significantly in the short. I get the sense you've played a lot of OCC.

On the other hand, especially at epic speed, I've noticed a little more tech lag than I'd like in my openings, so some happy medium between our approaches would likely be best.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

And what is a succession game wirthout a dot map. I created this one for us to have a look at. Feel free to move things around. I did not project any cities where we don't have full view yet, so it can change as we learn more.

Yeah, dotmap! (Although I think this one is technically a "square" map). I like the city 3 spot. It is going to cost us in distance maintenance, but we really need another production city. That’s a good one with all those hills and forests. Hopefully, copper will pop up somewhere closer and give us an alternate high production spot for city 3.

I would prefer a location that has overlap with the grasslands and plains of the capitol for city 4. The locations S,S,SE; 3E; or W,W,SW of the capitol look like possibilities, but we need to uncover those last bits of fog before we know which is best.

One or two “satellite cities” that overlap the land of the capitol could be very helpful in this game. Early in the game, the satellite city can develop cottage tiles on those it shares with the capitol. Then later, when the cottages have developed, they can be transferred to our growing capitol, and the satellite city can switch to working the coast.

That will enable us to take full advantage of the bureaucracy, library, monastery and academy we will have in the capitol. They will give us (approximately, due to cIV rounding) 2.77 beakers for each commerce we can generate. If we end up going all the way to universities/oxford/observatories in this game, then we will get a return of
4.87 beakers for each commerce.

Speaking of how far in tech we plan to go in this game, I think we should decide what victory we want to go for soon so that we can determine our tech path and great person plan. Our victory goal will also determine where cities after city 4 should be placed. If we plan to head for an early conquest or domination for instance, then high production sites should be the big priority. If we plan to play a longer game like space, then we will need a mix of production and commerce sites.

 

[leif erikson]

Yeah, dotmap! (Although I think this one is technically a "square" map). I like the city 3 spot. It is going to cost us in distance maintenance, but we really need another production city. That’s a good one with all those hills and forests. Hopefully, copper will pop up somewhere closer and give us an alternate high production spot for city 3.

I figured I was a little early. But I haven't had much to say so thought I would throw something out we could look at. After Brother Bede's turn we may be able to create something a little more complete.

Speaking of how far in tech we plan to go in this game, I think we should decide what victory we want to go for soon so that we can determine our tech path and great person plan. Our victory goal will also determine where cities after city 4 should be placed. If we plan to head for an early conquest or domination for instance, then high production sites should be the big priority. If we plan to play a longer game like space, then we will need a mix of production and commerce sites.

There is much I need to learn and appreciate this opportunity to play this game. While I have no requirement for a particular victory condition, I would like to play this game with a slant towards GOTM. That means, to me, a strong military component.

In test games, I am having a difficult time getting a significant military built before the AI comes to see me with a wave of units. This means balancing number of cities, economy, maintenance and military. Either that or I find I can conquer but then am unable to support what I've conquered and get killed by maintenance. This means no research and then getting clobbered by Knights and Cavs while I'm playing around with a huge army of Swords and no gold for upgrades.....

 

[Bezhukov]

"In test games, I am having a difficult time getting a significant military built before the AI comes to see me with a wave of units."

The best way to prevent this is to gently suggest some other directions that wave might be better employed...

 

[leif erikson]

The best way to prevent this is to gently suggest some other directions that wave might be better employed...

Well, I have been working on my diplo skills as well. The problem I have run into there is the friendly AI's generally like their palms greased and I, generally, have no gold and, because of my mismanagement, am behind in techs. So, no grease, no play, I lose!!

I suspect that I am not the only one with this affliction...

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I would like to play this game with a slant towards GOTM. That means, to me, a strong military component.

Hmmm. "Strong military component" doesn't really narrow down the research and game strategy options, although I would interpret "GoTM slant" to mean either going for a very early win or a high scoring win. I can think of a few types of game that would have a stong military component:

1) Earliest possible domination/conquest
2) High scoring domination/conquest
3) A hybrid type of game, where we go for a culture, space or diplo win, but do lots of fighting along the way

Shall we vote on these? Or would others like to make some additional suggestions?

If we go for earliest domination then I think we will be researching to Chemistry and Astronomy then turning off research. We won't need education or anything like that.

If we go high scoring then we have to get to biology, so we will probably want to research through liberalism as well.

The hybrid category can't really be narrowed down on research yet of course. We would have to decide which type of victory first.

 

[leif erikson]

Hmmm. "Strong military component" doesn't really narrow down the research and game strategy options, although I would interpret "GoTM slant" to mean either going for a very early win or a high scoring win.

I wrote that as I think some folks may be weary of fast domination or conquest. As someone trying to learn, I think that I will pick up points no matter what we do. I wish for others on the team to enjoy the game and not have to play it for what I may wish for.

Another option may be to agree on a victory condition the team would like to play and, as a part of it, make a goal reaching a point close to the domination limit on our way to that victory? I suppose that would be your hybrid solution. Generally, that is the way to a higher score anyway in any victory condition. In reaching for the domination limit, we will need to war and thus balance the different components of the game.

I hope that helps narrow down what I meant to say?

 

[bradleyfeanor]

...make a goal reaching a point close to the domination limit on our way to that victory? I suppose that would be your hybrid solution. Generally, that is the way to a higher score anyway in any victory condition. In reaching for the domination limit, we will need to war and thus balance the different components of the game.

I hope that helps narrow down what I meant to say?

You make an excellent point. Reaching for domination but going for a late victory, like space or culture, would definitely expose everyone to more aspects of the game and provide more learning opportunities for all of us. I like that idea.

And that did help narrow things down some. We still need to decide on space, diplo or culture though. We absolutely have to decide whether culture is in or out in order to know where to found city 3.

 

[leif erikson]

You make an excellent point. Reaching for domination but going for a late victory, like space or culture, would definitely expose everyone to more aspects of the game and provide more learning opportunities for all of us. I like that idea.

Thanks.

I think I will let the rest of the team weigh in and see where that takes us.