Gator02 - Learning to Walk

[Bede]

Turn 79 (900 BC)
Ollantaytambo grows: 2

Turn 80 (875 BC)


Turn 81 (850 BC)
Pyramids built far away
Xi Ling Shi (Great Scientist) born in Cuzco

Turn 82 (825 BC)
Tech learned: Mathematics
Machu Picchu finishes: Settler

Turn 83 (800 BC)
Research begun: Monarchy
Machu Picchu begins: Quechua
Xi Ling Shi begins teaching at the Academy and we pick up another 20 beakers, that's 150% of the beakers produced outside the capitol. I could have used him for Paper but that's only 897 beakers.
Cuzco finishes: Academy
Short run the academy is worth a turn to Monarchy.

Adam spots incoming bogies to the north.

Cuzco finishes: Confucian Temple

Turn 84 (775 BC)
Cuzco begins: Granary
Tiwanaku grows: 3
Machu Picchu finishes: Quechua

Turn 85 (750 BC)
Machu Picchu begins: Confucian Missionary.

Turn 86 (725 BC)
Bogies reappear just as the settler and worker approach Painted Pork Cove. There are enough troops in the neighborhood to give the archer a warm welcome.

Our boys are beating on their shields just itching for a fight

Quechua defeats (1.44/2): Barbarian Archer who chose to attack across the river into the jungle rather than up the forested hill. In any event that was painless ("Suicide is painless...." sang the bard)

Tiwanaku's borders expand
Ollantaytambo's borders expand


Turn 87 (700 BC)

Put the whip on the library in Tiwanku. Lose one but will gain it right back
Tech learned: Monarchy
Tiwanaku grows: 3
Tiwanaku finishes: Library

Turn 88 (675 BC)
Corihuayrachina founded
Research begun: Iron Working
Tiwanaku begins: Aqueduct to set up for the Hanging Gardens
Corihuayrachina begins: Library
Ollantaytambo finishes: Work Boat

Turn 89 (650 BC)
Ollantaytambo begins: Work Boat
Corihuayrachina begins: Granary
With Monarchy learned start the winery at Tiwnaku. Then found Corihuaychina at Painted Pork Cove. Research is set to Iron so we can chop the jungles on the Indigo while studying planatations. Cuzco grows: 7 and will need to be managed to prevent unhappiness till the wine starts pouring in 7 turns or so. Machu Picchu finishes: Confucian Missionary and he heads off to do his missionary thing at Tiwanaku.

We still need Sailing and Calendar to take full advantage of the resources on and off the island. Then we can start the drive to Optics.

 

[leif erikson]

Nice turn set Bede. Our research machine is primed I see.

Its school vacation here and I'll be off with my kids until Friday skiing and doing various things. I won't be available until friday night at the earliest, so please feel free to give me a skip until then.

@Bede - Your screenies remind me of cape Cod. If that little river went through to the other side.... That Barb Archer looks like he's on Route 6 headed for Boston. No wonder he attacked, he couldn't get over the bridge.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Nice turns, Bede. I agree on Sailing/Calendar/beeline to Optics. We can grab alphabet while building our caravels.

Questions for Bede and Everybody:
When you used the whip on the Library in Tiwanku, did you get 60 hammers for the rush or 30? If you guys wouldn’t mind keeping track of that during your turns, I would find it very helpful. I would like to keep track of how many times we use the whip, how many hammers we gain and how many pops we lose. It looks like you only got 30 for the rush because the city currently only has 11 shields, but I don’t know for sure.

In Tiwanaku, wouldn’t it be better to work the pig pasture rather than one of the forest tiles and intentionally grow our city into unhappiness? (With the intention of whipping those unhappy people into an Aqueduct/Hanging Gardens?)

Do we need that Granary in the Capitol? I can’t think of any reason we would need it unless we plan on whipping there, and that seems a bad idea. Keeping the maximum number of citizens in the capitol working cottages seems more valuable.

General Thoughts
Those two scientists in the capitol should have gone back to working cottages immediately after building the academy. In the long run, cottages in the capitol will produce far more for us than specialists can. We probably won’t be producing anymore GPs in our capitol. When it looks like the capitol will grow too quickly the pig can be handed over to Machu.

I wouldn’t let the forest chop near our dye city complete until after our missionary establishes religion there. That will give us an extra 7 hammers.

We are very short on workers, so building a few more should be a high priority. We also still need to finish building cottages on the river for our capitol. He will need the whole river cottaged as soon as we have Dye connected.

I think we could benefit from 2-3 more cities as well. Hopefully, when IW is researched in 2 turns it will reveal a good new city spot. But assuming that doesn’t happen, I think these sites might be good:

We could found city 1 then city 2. An alternative would be to not found city 1, but replace it with two cities at the blue x’s. What do you guys think?

 

[Bezhukov]

I suggest settling on the pig. The city square gets three food for faster initial growth (and easier whipping), while getting all the resources.

The granary in the capital is a good idea as it increases the number of turns that Macchu gets the pig. As for workers - those are the biggest difference between "walking" and "running", in pretty much any version of Civ. We need n+1 at least, where n=number of cities. Chop them first at new city location please! I wasn't kidding when I suggested this.

Cori is going to be huge. Pls whip up a granary there before library. With the pig fueling the whipping, you won't regret it!

 

[Bezhukov]

Actually, settling on the horses will give us a massive city someday, with a nice mix of flood plains, food bonus, and hills. A fishing village can still be squeezed on the point later to farm GP's. The current map yields two very mediocre cities - if we're playing domination, we don't need to settle for those!

 

[DJMGator13]

Roster
bradleyfeanor - On deck & waiting for a refill
Gator - learning
Bede - just played - Pork and Wine
Bezhukov - up
leif - doing his Bodie Miller impression

 

[Bede]

Due to sudden computer failure I am off games until I get it fixed

Please skip until I check back in.

 

[Bezhukov]

Got the game, would like some dotmappish discussion before playing.

 

[DJMGator13]

Got the game, would like some dotmappish discussion before playing.

No rush to play, with Bede and leif currently away and Brad was suppose to have limited time this week.

City placement and number of cities are some of the things I have strugggled with in the practice games I've played. So I think some discussion would be a good way to fill some of the time.

 

[Bezhukov]

I've had good results with fairly tight on the first 3-5 cities, then pretty wide to grab resources, then filling in the gaps much later (after FP is built, all cities have courthouses to swallow the global bump in maintenance of each new city, usually biology so these mini-cities can get up to speed very quickly, having Statue of Liberty also helps a lot). If we are planning to go for domination, these "gap fillers" will probably never be needed as we'll control plenty of more fertile territory.

I'm thinking a city on the horse can use the pig and two FP's to work all the hills = a decent troop city. The dye city might also be a good candidate, but I'd like to go for windmills on those river hills up there to get the finance bonus, which also lets us cottage the river grass tiles (no farms needed) for an excellent all-around city.

We'd be better off stopping there (six cities is pushing it pre-commerce) I think until contact hopefully brings us foreign trade routes to boost the economy.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I've had good results with fairly tight on the first 3-5 cities, then pretty wide to grab resources, then filling in the gaps much later (after FP is built, all cities have courthouses to swallow the global bump in maintenance of each new city, usually biology so these mini-cities can get up to speed very quickly, having Statue of Liberty also helps a lot). If we are planning to go for domination, these "gap fillers" will probably never be needed as we'll control plenty of more fertile territory.

I think that is a good expansion strategy too. I usually do the same in games where I go deep into the tech tree and do not need the FP to be built on a second continent. I agree on never needing the “gap fillers” in this game, since we will be conquering cities that are more beneficial than those we could build by that date.

I'm thinking a city on the horse…We'd be better off stopping there (six cities is pushing it pre-commerce)

I wanted to give a simple dotmap discussion like Bez asked for, but then I thought a lot about his statement that I quoted above. He’s right: we can only afford to have six cities right now without slowing our economy and research. This led me to analyze the reason why this is so. It turns out that the reason we can no longer expand is because we are not running Caste System. I didn’t mention this in our earlier discussion on the Slavery/CS civics, because I didn’t realize it was a factor until just now: and it’s a Big One. As it turns out, the ability to continue expanding is a greater benefit in this game than all the other benefits I mentioned CS having. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a bit of writing to explain why this is so.

As Bez mentioned, going over 6 cities right now would strain our economy. If we went to 8 cities, then we would probably be looking at a science slider at 60%, and if we founded 10 we would probably be looking at a 50% slider. We don’t want to do that, of course, because we would be losing all those “bonus beakers” in our capitol as I mentioned in a previous post. We can’t afford that short term loss in research, because it would lead to later contact with the AIs, and also losing some of our tech advantage by the time we are ready to attack (around Astronomy). The problem is that we need those extra cities pretty soon, because once the cities are large they will be a boon to our economy, research and production, helping us get to Astronomy that much sooner.

Once we make the switch to CS, we will no longer have this expansion problem. We should be planning to found 3-5 more cities right now. Personally, I am thinking 5, but if expenses rise too high we may wish to stop at 3. As for city locations, I would choose a spot by each of the three remaining fish, plus one city on the plain/hill 4E of the capitol and one city on the desert hill 1E of the horse by the floodplains. All of these cities except one are coastal, which means they could pay for themselves at size 3-4 and start turning a profit afterward (because we are financial and coast tiles yield 3 commerce). Here is how we can found those cities in CS without lowering our science slider and losing research:

Machu, Olly and Tiwanaku will each be able to support 1-3 merchants soon because they will reach the happiness limit. At that point we could run at 100% science and still be making extra cash from the merchants. Those three cities will also build the workboats for our new fish cities. Each new city would run an artist for 3 turns to expand its borders so it could work all food bonus tiles. As soon as each city is working all available food bonuses (size two for three of the cities, size three for the two others), the next two citizens born would become merchants. We would be losing a bit of growth in these cities because of this, but extra cities that grow slowly are definitely better than no extra cities at all. If we founded these extra cities in this fashion, our science slider should remain at 80% or higher the whole time.

We are currently only losing about 6 bpt by running slavery, so there is certainly no reason to switch to CS at present: the ability to pop rush will be more valuable than those lost beakers. But after we found the next 1 or 2 cities, I suspect it will be advantageous to switch. With that in mind, I’m still not sure we need granaries. I know they will help us grow back faster after pop rushing, but if we are only able to pop rush in our cities one or two times before we switch to CS, I don’t think we would get enough benefit to justify them.

If we could manage to pop rush a courthouse in our Dye city before we switch to CS, it would be very helpful (that city will become particularly expensive as we found additional cities). Maybe a good time to found more cities and switch to CS would be right after we get that courthouse. What do you guys think?

The reason I don’t particularly like the idea of founding a city on the horse is because I would prefer to found 3-5 more cities, and I think the strongest of those cities would be one which claimed the pig, fish and plain hills: it could generate a lot of commerce very quickly (or run lots of merchants). A city on the horse would have lots of overlap with the pig city and would also lose the horse tile. That is why I thought the desert hill 1E of the horse might make a good alternative.

The dye city…I'd like to go for windmills on those river hills up there to get the finance bonus, which also lets us cottage the river grass tiles (no farms needed) for an excellent all-around city.

Sounds great. I wish we could get another great scientist generated quickly, because such a commerce powerhouse would really benefit from an academy. I don’t think it is worth it to continue working those scientists in our capitol though: we would generate a lot more research by putting them on riverside cottages.

Maybe Tiwanaku would be a good place to try to generate another GP instead, since it is already getting Priest points. If it could get a missionary soon, it could switch to a temple to increase those with a Priest. Once it reaches the happy limit, it could also run a scientist or two until it generates a great person. We could use either type of GP right now, either a second academy or a shrine would be very helpful.

@Bez: When I was scrolling through our cities, it seemed to me that Tiwanaku should work the pig instead of a forest in order to overgrow its happiness limit and pop rush something expensive as soon as it is happy again. Is that what you will do with that city, or will you let it grow slowly? (I’m still trying to learn how we can work slavery to maximum advantage.)

 

[Bezhukov]

It's tight with as little happiness as we have. One thing I'd like to keep slavery for is whipping markets, as they'll also help happiness and they're very pricey to build, especially if you're planning to have all our citizens working as merchants instead of working the land.

With the pig, you generally want to whip something expensive to give the city time to let the unhappiness wear off as pop grows back, but we lack the tech for those options at present, so we could just run scientists there until we get them.

I really don't understand the aversion to granaries. We'll need them for health anyway, and if we're trying to grow while using merchants, we'll REALLY need them.

In general, I think the merchants to support high research rate in the capital is suboptimal for a financial civ with the bonus it gets on each tile worked. Maybe if we had grassier terrain, but as we have lots of plains and hills to soak up the extra food, I'm leaning toward going for wonders in Tiawanku.

If we whip/chop a library in the southeast seafood town, it would be ideal for scientists.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

RE: Markets.

I can certainly understand the appeal of markets for happiness and money, but I don't think it would be worth the trade off we would have to make in order to use Slavery for rushing them.

We won't have the ability to rush Markets until we research Optics and can trade for Currency. If we wait that long to switch to CS, then that means we would be faced with building a military force with only the current 5 cities we have plus 1 more. I don't think that will be enough to raise an effective assault force. Also, if we stay at six cities and pass up all that commerce we can get from coast tiles, it is going to take us far too long to reach Astronomy and even begin the invasion.

Also, I do think Tiwanaku has the option of whipping some expensive items: Aqueduct, Hanging Gardens, Courthouse. The Colossus and Great Lighthouse will be options soon too.

 

[Bede]

If I recall the map correctly, the several things we are short of are market luxuries, so markets for happiness would be a non-starter for this nation. We do have calendar luxuries, though, especially dyes, so the building we could really use for happy faces is a theatre and the culture budget.

If we could manage to pop rush a courthouse in our Dye city before we switch to CS, it would be very helpful (that city will become particularly expensive as we found additional cities). Maybe a good time to found more cities and switch to CS would be right after we get that courthouse. What do you guys think?

This would fit well with using the forests and population at Tiwanaku to hurry along the Acqueduct, Gardens and Courthouse. When I built the town I vacillated between starting a courthouse or library and picked the library.

As for granaries, I see no reason not to build them, though I see no reason to rush them. They do make nice placeholders while the town is growing out of whip unhappiness and then when you are done with the whipping projects they help get the population back to natural limits more rapidly.

On urban planning I am probably the last person you might want to consult but I can see the logic in both plans, though brad's plan looks like it might have longer legs.

 

[Bezhukov]

I'm still not grasping how cities grow while running merchants.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I'm still not grasping how cities grow while running merchants.

I'm not suggesting turning all surplus food into merchants, nor will we need to. We won't have to run them all game either. We will only need them until around the time we get Optics and caravels. If we have 1-2 merchants going in most cities (or a lot of merchants in 2 cities which is what I prefer) then that will take care of all our expenses and allow us to run at 90-100% science. The city founded next to the pig and fish, for instance, can do the following for us:

Start off working the pig, grow to size 2 in 4 turns. (will probably take a couple more turns to actually irrigate the pig and grow).
Start working the fish, grow to size 3 in 3 turns.
Hire a merchant, grow to size 4 in 4 turns.
Hire a merchant, grow to size 5 in 6 turns.
Hire a merchant, grow to size 6 in 10 turns.
Hire a merchant. Now at +1fpt so he won't grow anytime soon.

In 27 turns (around the time we get Optics) the city would have virtually no infrastructure, admittedly, but he would be making 12gpt and 4 bpt. He would be paying for a large chunk of our maintenance costs all by himself. He would also have 168 GP points toward a Merchant. We could load that Merchant onto a caravel and use him for a trade route, at which point we would not need to worry about money again for this entire game. All the merchants in the empire could be switched over to mines in order to maximize troop production. Or, they could be switched over to high commerce tiles or scientists that would race us along the path to Astronomy.

 

[Bezhukov]

"He would be paying for a large chunk of our maintenance costs all by himself"



12 gpt about pays for the cost of having this extra city, and maybe the cost of the CS civic. Each extra city means:

A. more maintenance in EVERY city
B. higher civics cost for every civic that has an upkeep (i.e. not slavery)
C. higher inflation

The great merchant generated means that every prophet, engineer, or scientist we might want just got twice as expensive.

For this we're burning two food bonuses that could support an actual productive city, and given that swath of desert hills to the east, we need all the food we can get. I'll admit that the fish is hard to reach - I'd support a fishing village to work it alone sometime after our economy doesn't suck so bad.

Given that we're financial, have a lot of dry land, and are evidently isolated, the appeal of CS city spam is limited.

I can see a hard-core OCC-type run for Optics, but the early city spam loses me.

 

[Bezhukov]

"at which point we would not need to worry about money again for this entire game."



When I play financial, the AI's the one who has to worry about money! The huge quantities effortlessly generated by a mature financial economy are scary, and not to the financial civ!

 

[leif erikson]

"He would be paying for a large chunk of our maintenance costs all by himself"



12 gpt about pays for the cost of having this extra city, and maybe the cost of the CS civic. Each extra city means:

A. more maintenance in EVERY city
B. higher civics cost for every civic that has an upkeep (i.e. not slavery)
C. higher inflation

The great merchant generated means that every prophet, engineer, or scientist we might want just got twice as expensive.

But is the trade-off here production capacity to push out an Army of invasion? This has been a hard thing for me. How to keep the economy alive to research yet build production capacity to produce units.

I hear Brad saying we have 25 to 30 turns to Optics, so don't we need to found and grow sufficient numbers of cities, that will help contibute to the economy, to build enough units, ships, etc. to be able to take another continent?

 

[Bezhukov]

"so don't we need to found and grow sufficient numbers of cities"

Yes. I'm arguing that the sufficient number is six, and that fishing villages running merchant specialists do little to add productive capacity, steal food from the cities that need it to work productive tiles, add to our upkeep/maintenance costs, and deprive us of the civic needed to establish basic infra.

Brad's strategy is a sound one in general that doesn't happen to fit well with this particular situation. To wit:

Financial trait favors working more tiles to get the commerce bonus, instead of running specialists. Brad is correct that this is offset by the 75% advantage that the capital enjoys on research vs tax, but if we need to establish a productive base, as we do, I'd lean toward minimizing expenses, by going for city quality over quantity, than trying to boost revenues by neglecting the land.

Dry land favors using food bonuses to work that dry land (note:it also means more hammers for units/infra/wonders though) instead of using them to support specialists.

Isolated start means lack of easy income from pillaging/city conquest and increased need to develop infra/cottages in the cities we have to develop an advanced economy. Slavery is great for jump starting early infra/growth, and cottages need to be worked to be developed; if citizens are employed as specialists they are not working cottages.

I can be convinced otherwise, Brad's focus on early commerce in the captial is one that I now appreciate, and has helped my openings in the couple games where I have tested it (thanks Brad), but these are my concerns.