Gator02 - Learning to Walk

bradleyfeanor · Feb 13, 2006

DJMGator13 said:
Roster
bradleyfeanor
Gator
Bede
Bezhukov
leif

Sounds good. When everyone is ready, just say "Go" and let me know how many turns to take.

Bezhukov said:
My main concern is the turns spent building Oracle are turns we can't work the high food bonus tiles without growing into unhappiness. Any chance of chopping Oracle in our second/third city to avoid this?

Yes, I would prefer to chop the Oracle in our second or third city. I suspect we will be finishing CoL and chopping it out around 1300bc, give or take a few hundred years. Although if we find more FPs, gold or gems around, it could be a good bit sooner than that.

Obormot said:
With bureaucracy, cottages and academy it is possible to discover machinery in the BCs. But i guess you'll also need astronomy if it is continents. You might also need some more advanced military tech later. Are you going to use great people to learn techs like bradleyfeanor did in 4otm2?

I was thinking it might be worthwhile to use some great scientists for techs enroute to Astronomy. Since we aren't philosophical in this game, I definitely would prefer a tech path that centers around great scientists, as the other kinds of great people will take too long to generate (Great Library is wonderful for cranking out scientists). If stone happens to show up nearby though, then a push for engineers like in my GoTM2 game would probably be a strong strategy.

bede said:
And I just realized that the hill town will give us pulled pork and cornbread, even better.

Yum. Although I'll take my pork another way: hamhocks and lima beans, turnip greens and bacon. The cornbread can stay as is. Good ol' southern fare.

lief erikson said:
Next builds are a couple of Quechua followed by a settler?

I was leaning more toward worker then Quechua until we grow to size 4, then worker, settler. But like Obormot says, it will depend a great deal on what terrain and AIs are around us. I am also a big fan of worker stealing when the opportunity presents itself. We have to be careful about that on a continents map though: we wouldn't want to alienate our only neighbor before we trade with them!

The 1300 Oracle date I listed above uses the following tech path: TW, Pottery, Mining, BW, AH, Writing, Meditation, Priesthood, CoL. After that I suspect we will want another worker tech or to head straight for alphabet.

Edit: I agree that sending the Quechua northward to find out more about the fresh water is a good idea, unless he needs to head SW to pop a hut just beyond the reach of our cultural borders.

Bezhukov · Feb 13, 2006

We start with Mysticism and can build our (dominant) UU right out of the gate. Why not settle in place, grab Buddhism, and build a couple quechas first? Since you guys aren't much interested in early chopping, an early worker is less crucial, and we may be able to steal a worker or two with the quechas or pop some techs from huts.

It's really interesting to see in this thread how the Oracle has become the new Great Library. It MUST be built despite our traits. Notice that the GL often provided multiple techs, sometimes as many as 10-20. Oracle? One. Overrated.

As for the limited commerce of coastal vs inland with cottages: this is quite often more than made up for by more lucrative trade routes. And coastal tiles require no improvement, freeing up workers for other tasks. Oh yeah, and you don't have to wait 70 turns of working them and multiple techs/civics to get max yield.

Bede · Feb 13, 2006

Bezhukov said:
As for the limited commerce of coastal vs inland with cottages: this is quite often more than made up for by more lucrative trade routes. And coastal tiles require no improvement, freeing up workers for other tasks. Oh yeah, and you don't have to wait 70 turns of working them and multiple techs/civics to get max yield.

Precisely why I like them later tather than sooner :wink:

bradleyfeanor · Feb 13, 2006

Bezhukov said:
We start with Mysticism and can build our (dominant) UU right out of the gate. Why not settle in place, grab Buddhism, and build a couple quechas first?

I don't mind trying this route if the others agree. Early Buddhism would be interesting.

Bezhukov said:
It's really interesting to see in this thread how the Oracle has become the new Great Library. It MUST be built despite our traits. Notice that the GL often provided multiple techs, sometimes as many as 10-20. Oracle? One. Overrated.

I think it would be more accurate to call the Oracle the new philosophy/republic slingshot. And it doesnt have to be built, but if you look back through the thread you will see that others expressed interest in trying this route. And yes, it is a very popular strategy. Quite powerful too: I wouldnt call 1200 beakers of instant research a small thing, especially when you add in the extra 50% shields and commerce for the capitol that you get for early bureaucracy.

Bezhukov said:
As for the limited commerce of coastal vs inland with cottages: this is quite often more than made up for by more lucrative trade routes. And coastal tiles require no improvement, freeing up workers for other tasks. Oh yeah, and you don't have to wait 70 turns of working them and multiple techs/civics to get max yield.

More lucrative trade routes? You call 2 or 3 commerce as good as 5? not having to wait 70 turns of working them and multiple techs/civics is not a valid statement regarding cottages vs. coast tiles at all. Coast gives 3 and without the colossus will always give 3. The cottage matches that 3 from the moment you build it. When you work the cottage, the extra commerce you get is just gravy. Why work a tile that gives 3 commerce when you can work a tile that gives 3 to start with and could later provide 9 commerce plus a hammer???

DJMGator13 · Feb 13, 2006

I was playing a practice game and got 3 FP's for the first city. The commerce is awesome with cottages on all 3 of them. With a welltime Wonder build I completed The Oracle in 1280BC, without marble. I actually had to slow down the Oracle by building a few quechua so that I could complete COL first.

This is the first game I got the CS slingshot. I moved the settler to a plain hill. I popped The Wheel from a GH, all other techs were researched. Here's the log.

Spoiler :

DJMGator13 · Feb 13, 2006

Brad if you're ready why don't you kick us off and take the first 20 turns. It looks like the standard 20/10 start is still being used.

I'd like us to take good notes so that we can discuss some of the moves.

BTW, here is a link to eotinb's autologger program. You can use it to log player comments as well. My post above shows the results.

bradleyfeanor · Feb 13, 2006

Cool practice game! Although I think you ate up all the good hut luck by popping TW. Now we're destined for barbs. :lol:

It would be nice to know what your economy/research was like before and after revolting to bureaucracy/caste system.

I'll be happy to go ahead and start, but I'm not entirely sure which moves the team wants me to go with yet. Do I plow ahead with the hill site/cottage strategy or go for a coastal buddhism shrine?

I would love to use that Autologger (and several other mods), but I don't want to take a chance on something messing with my GoTM3 game. I'll just use MSWord for now if that is ok.

Bede · Feb 13, 2006

Hill and cottage would be my vote.

DJMGator13 · Feb 13, 2006

Popping the Wheel was lucky, this is what I got later in the same game.

Here is a look at the economy after the Oracle but before I revolted, so no Confucanism, no Caste and no Bueraucracy.

Here is a look after the revolt to all 3. I made the mistake of changing religions when prompted and had to wait another turn to select the civic changes. I also mm the city for food and GP which increased the research as well.

Research beakers increased from 23 to 37.

leif erikson · Feb 13, 2006

Bede said:
Hill and cottage would be my vote.

I concur.

DJMGator13 · Feb 13, 2006

Stupid question:

How do you set the autosaver to save after every turn? I read it somewhere and now I can't find it.

@Brad - After what I saw in that practice game, I think the plain hill is better.

bradleyfeanor · Feb 13, 2006

My god, you had gold too! What a start. Now with that start mining is indeed the tech to research before pottery.

Thats three (including me) in favor of the hill cottages, so I'll play now.

Edit: make that four (crosspost). I can't remember the name of the entry for sure but I think it will say autosave=4 in the ini file. Just change it to a 1.

Methos · Feb 13, 2006

DJMGator13 said:
How do you set the autosaver to save after every turn? I read it somewhere and now I can't find it.

lurker's comment: Open your Civ4 ini file that is found in My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4. It's towards the bottom half.

DJMGator13 · Feb 13, 2006

Methos said:
lurker's comment: Open your Civ4 ini file that is found in My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4. It's towards the bottom half.

Thanks, I looked there yesterday and completely missed it. I was changing the settings for the flying camera.

bradleyfeanor · Feb 13, 2006

Sorry it took me a while to get my post up. I just moved and I am temporarily in dial-up internet hell. Shouldn’t be long before broadband is back though.

First 20 turns, 4000bc—3200bc

Summary
We are buried in pork and wine. In fact, the latter should probably be a health resource in this game. If we don’t research monarchy soon, our civ will go extinct due to pork-induced coronary failure.

Oh yeah, and we are probably alone on a small island. :cry:

4000bc, move NW, SW to hill.
3960, found Cuzco. Start a worker and TW.
3760, borders expand, revealing more FPs to our west and snowy trees to the south

. At least there is a fish down there.
3640, the first animal, a lion, appears
3600, get TW, start Pottery
3480, get Worker1, start Quechua2. Worker heads to corn to farm it.
3280, farm complete, head to FP to cottage it.
3240, get Pottery, start mining. Hinduism founded in distant land.
3200, we grow to size 2 and I leave all decisions for Gator. Hopefully he won’t make Spurious ones. Yuk yuk yuk.

Our group seems fairly knowledgeable in Civ3 if not necessarily cIV, so I will not get into the reasoning behind every single warrior move. Like in civ3, I just tried to maximize the amount of territory I revealed by moving diagonally as much as possible and utilizing hills. Although sometimes I will take a route that uncovers a bit less territory in order to stay on defensive terrain (forests and hills) in cIV.

The warrior (Adam) took the following route: NE (spot 2 wine), NW, spot 2 FPs and saltwater to the west, NE, NW, NW, SW. I turned Southwest here because it looked like it might be a small peninsula (which it is). I didn’t want to have to return with another quechua in order to uncover it. Good move, because we finally spotted a hut (and a pig and another wine). Adam continues NW, SW, pop 35g from the hut, spot fish. Adam heads NE, E, E, NE to get back to the fog. Spot Dye, move NE, E. Lion is next to us, it attacks and dies. Adam has 1.2 hit points (hp) and 1 experience point (xp). Move SE to forest/hill to heal. In 3240bc a panther appears, but I stay fortified on the hill, hoping it will attack and give us another xp. That is exactly what happens, leaving us with 1.2 health before the promotion.

Here are a few screenies:

The Northlands:

The Southlands:

The red x might turn out to be an interesting site for a second commerce city, and the blue x’s might be good sites as well. We really need to know more about the SW and the East though, as well as where copper is. If we are indeed alone, then we will definitely need to secure copper or iron before the barbs get axemen. We will also want to have lots of quechua posted strategically in order to prevent barbs from appearing.

Once we have copper hooked up and have a few axemen (or just lots of quechua), I would let some “premium” sites sink under the fog in hopes that the barbs will found a city for us. By “premium” I mean sites that claim 3 or more resources. Barb cities like to appear on those spots and they would save us from building a settler.

It looks like there is a large forest to our east. Hopefully it will turn out to have a food bonus or two as well, which would make it a good place for an Oracle city.

We definitely seem to be a bit hammer-poor with this start. I guess that is ok. If we are indeed alone, we don’t need that much production, but as much research as possible to get off this rock. Which means the cottage/Oracle strategy was a good choice.

Shame we didn’t grab Buddhism. Unless I somehow missed the message, it is still undiscovered. That would have allowed us to start working another river/cottage or two.

Thoughts on the immediate future:
Would probably promote Adam with Wood I (since he is an explorer) and explore northward up the east coast.

Would send Quechua 2 east rather than south or west, because he will ultimately be able to uncover more land/have more hut possibilities I think. I suspect there isn’t much land to the SW, although I hope I am wrong.

Would put our new citizen on the FP instead of the wine in order to grow sooner.

Work1 would cottage the FP then cottage the wine then mine the plain/hill.

I would keep building quechua until we grow to size 4, and are able to work 2 cottages, the corn and the plain/hill. Hopefully we will also get the pigs pastured soon after so we can switch the citizen from the mine to the hill when producing settlers/workers.

I don’t think I would make any changes to the tech plan I listed earlier.

Edit: If we are alone, I would think before popping a hut. If we are only a few turns away from researching a tech, wait to finish research before popping it.

The Save

DJMGator13 · Feb 13, 2006

Looks good, the red X does look interesting for a commerce city. I won't play until tomorrow night, so that will give more time for comments.

Your earlier tech list has BW, AH, Writ, Meditation, Priesthood then COL.

I'm not seeing any marble yet. So the Oracle will need to be chopped.

Edit: If we are alone, I would think before popping a hut. If we are only a few turns away from researching a tech, wait to finish research before popping it

Because unlike C3C you can pop the tech you are researching, I found that out in the test game.

Bede · Feb 13, 2006

:woot: the game is afoot. Looking good, if a trifle bland for some (no early enemies), but we will get a real opporunity to work on development skills.

Bezhukov · Feb 13, 2006

For reference purposes, the alternative I was suggesting would have unfolded something like the following:

Research Mining, Bronze = 22-25 turns, during which build worker (12 turns), 2 quechas (the remainder while growing to two), start second worker (chopped) when bronze comes in, follow with settler (chopped), settle by fish, chop worker there, whip workboat, then granary (assuming research went bronze->AH->wheel->pottery, capital builds quechas for scouting while growing to four, then powers out two more quick settlers using pig+corn+FP, and chop workers at each city site.

Next tech is writing, with libraries chopped/whipped expeditiously to get border pops/better research, including capital to take full advantage of free commerce. Then sailing for lighthouses and coastal trade. Then alphabet, drama/lit, then return to pick up religious techs, then trade for math/metal/monarchy/currency.

Once cities, including capital, hit max pop, then switch citizens to cottages. Create a scientist colony if necessary, or go for Great Library if marble available. Beelining to drama allows cities to grow out using the culture slider (with theaters, 2 happies per 10%), as is common in high level civ3 play.

The cottage debate was a bit academic in this situation because FP's are the only non-bonus tile that begins with 3 food/hammers that can also be inproved right away, and the start was very food rich. In a non-food rich start or where the tile in question is non-FP, early development can be severely retarted if a cottage is worked in lieu of growth in the very early game (before 4 cities are founded).

I will typically have 7-9 tiles improved for a 4-6 pop capital so I can switch between growth mode and commerce mode as appropriate, with the cottages coming after the initial farms/bonus improvements.

bradleyfeanor · Feb 13, 2006

That is a good expansion plan. If we are indeed alone, however, this oracle/commerce-rich capitol strategy will get us to optics and foreign contacts earlier, so I am glad we chose it. We will also be able to get our military techs researched sooner--and that will be very important if the AIs are all grouped together on a big continent. Hopefully, we can reach them before they get Alphabet and start trading with one another.

I have to ask:

Bezhukov said:
The cottage debate was a bit academic in this situation because FP's are the only non-bonus tile that begins with 3 food/hammers that can also be inproved right away, and the start was very food rich.

If the cottage decision was Academic, then why in the @#$% did I have to beat that horse until it was black, blue, bloody and dead!?! Were you just being cantankerous? :spank:

Bezhukov · Feb 13, 2006

This game is called "learning to walk", and I guarantee you that if the lesson this team learns is "get cottages ASAP", they will struggle in many other situations. My goal wasn't so much to beat a dead horse as to provide an idea of the different issues involved in the early game decision-making process.

I've seen too many SG's that wrapped up with a losing team wondering, "gee, how did we fall so far behind the AI?" As has always been the case in the Civ series, the early turns are the most crucial, and those turns go to the civ that gets the most citizens working improved tiles. I still say three citizens working cottages/coasts beats one working a village.

Secondly, nearly every SG I read, regardless of traits, features people going for the Oracle, which requires grabbing a couple techs at first/second known prices that I like to come back and pick up at last, thereby delaying other very pressing priorities, overpaying for the religious tree, and spending 200 very early hammers that could buy 2 settlers, 3 workers, a library, granary, temple, etc, etc... I know, beating a dead horse, but the seed of doubt needs to be planted for those situations where Oracle-fixation can be deadly

Gator02 - Learning to Walk

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