Gazing at the stars from the thick jungle

[Seraiel]

It definately was the right choice to post it here. You won't get a lot more feedback in S&T forums anyhow, because the HoFers stick together and hold on to each other, in S&T nobody cares for the others and all just try to get advice for their game.
You also have to see, that we are the ones that must bring life to the HoF forums, otherwise they'll remain almost completely dead like before. Once people know, that the best writeups are posted in the HoF forum, players will come here more frequently and we might even win some of them over.

The argument, that one cannot or should not answer to a thread because one is newby, I don't understand. Ok, one doesn't want to look stupid, but asking questions is the first step to get rid of one's newbieness. The posters of the writeups look forward to giving answers, doesn't matter how trivial the matter is, they / we're happy if we can write something and help somebody.

The only advantage I can see with posting the writeups in S&T, is, that some players over there could be made aware of the HoF and maybe start on playing for HoF too. You just have to be happy with the little you get pangaea. Actually I found, that your thread already got quite much attention, it got posted in every day once you updated it. Look at my Replay #9, it's one of the most epic games I ever played and I played on Boreal because other uses wished for that, and still, nobody but you and UnforcedError cared. I had this discussion already with DMOC who also posted a writeup, from 100 people visiting a thread, unfortunately only 1 or 2 feel the need to write something.

If we really want to change something about that, then we must make aionwood install a feature for guest-posting, like with captcha or something, so that the bots won't flood this forum. If you all agree, I'm willing to make a case for it, though I believe it'd be better, if lymond or shulec would do so, because they're from the staff.

And just as I mentioned all of these people: WastinTime, lymond, shulec, pollina, shulec and all others, I expect more feedback from you all. pangaea and me bring a lot of life to these forums, it's your duty to let it not go to waste!

 

[ShiVvV]

I just have to comment on the lack of comments....

I've followed Pangaea's recent endeavors over the past couple of months quite closely and watching him improve, have success, get advice (mostly from Seraiel) IS exciting, it does inspire me/others to up our games likewise. For example, I've very recently been kicking around with using MapFinder, learning to use the rulebuilders, with the intention of attempting some Deity HoF games or gauntlets/challenges. None of this would have happened w/o the recent writeups and discussions.

I try not to be a lurker. I contribute little snippets of advice where I think it's of use. The thing is I know I just don't have the mastery of this game as many of you do--but I'm not horrible at it either. I play mostly the Imm/Deity BOTMs and enjoy them...but that isn't the place for good writeups and discussion really.

And I'm amazed at the quality of the writeups actually. They remind of presentations I'd do in an academic type setting. I can not even imagine the time that goes into them. Which is why I've never tried to really do one (other than an informal succession game I started about a year ago).

So...please don't think the time put into the writeups is not appreciated and don't have an effect on the readers. As you know Seraiel I loved your 'Mircomates replay'--had the usual detail and discussion that you always provide, plus was hilarious.

So....thank you both Sera and Pan.

 

[ShiVvV]

Oh...a minor thing about the screenshots you probably both already use. I think it's Shift+Printscreen that lets you tag the just taken screenshot with a name. It might make things easier as far as organizing them goes. But I'm sure you both knew this.

 

[Seraiel]

As you know Seraiel I loved your 'Mircomates replay'--had the usual detail and discussion that you always provide, plus was hilarious.

So....thank you both Sera and Pan.

The title reads "For my mates" and you're welcome .

 

[Pangaea]

Empire Overview at 1120AD

After the war with Russia, this is what the Empire looks like. I've labelled the most important cities.

Spoiler :

The Golden Age is now over, so the output from tiles is 'normal'.

There is enough to see what many AI cities are building, which is mostly military units.

Because the capital is in the NE corner of the map, I wanted the Forbidden Palace (which reduces maintenance costs) in the southwest somewhere, and Thebes was the best option at the time,
also because I wanted to take over the key Russian cities further west.

The National Epic is big to support many specialists, and the National Park city (not yet completed) has all its jungles. The Confucian Holy City is Shrined, and eventually the Wall Street
will be constructed here (Banks are going up), as well as Corporation HQs.

Then we move over to individual cities. I'll go through the national wonders cities first, before going through every one in the order in which they were settled or conquered. You can see that the empire is now transitioning into a economy with lots of workshops. More will come later, but it's a start. With basically grasslands everywhere and plenty of food, it's easy enough for cities to support them, especially now under Communism where workshops get +1 . Am building some banks to qualify for Wall Street, mainly where they are fastest to build as I'll run the slider at 100% for the rest of the game.

Sadly the top row of tiles don't show properly at this low resolution, but you should still see what is there, more or less.


Aksum - Capital

Cottages are coming along nicely, and I've put a workshop on the last non-riverside grassland to give the city some more hammers. Kremlin is getting built, again without stone. Soon I'll have stone hooked up, however, from the Russian territory. It will shave off a few turns.



Washington - National Epic

Making a bank here as it will get some multiplier action when running many merchants. Should perhaps have torn down the cottages. Some were started even before the city was conquered and are well-developed by now.



New York - Confucian Shrine

The Kong Miao

is making 29 per turn, which is boosted nicely with a market and bank. This city will become a money-making machine with Wall Street and corporations.



Thebes - Forbidden Palace

A great commerce city with all those floodplained cottages. Few hammers, but I'll eventually workshop the plains cottage and the last grassland. Built the FP largely with whip overflow due to few hammers. It's building Sistine now for failgold purposes.



Adwa - National Park

As you can see the National Park isn't completed yet. This city had few hammers too, so I had to use whip overflow to build expensive buildings like that. Whipping wonders (national and world) is less efficient than normal buildings or units. This is what the cities look when I loaded the save, but I believe I here changed hammers tiles into more specialists and then whipped the market next turn with (close to) max overflow into the NP.

You can also see that I have put up the first forest preserves next to the empty tiles. This is to increase the chance for jungle spread to these tiles. The city ruins have also been removed as otherwise jungle can't spread to it. Tried to remove the road too, but this was impossible. Eventually jungle spread to all three tiles, so I could get three more free specialists from forest preserves, for a total of 12.



Delhi

Put up cottages here intending to make it a commerce city, but then I ended up running scientists for those early GSs, so they didn't much developed. Am therefore turning it into a hammer city instead with workshops. It's actually a double Holy City from Gandhi's time, so if those religions had spread more in the beginning, it could have been a good Shrine and Corps city.



Gondar

The first city I settled besides the capital, but the 6th we own. Early warfare be pay off nicely Cottages on the FPs, but otherwise mostly workshops. Should have worked some different tiles here, but I chose to not "fix" the cities after loading the save, so people can see my mistakes. Probably did it like this to get up a bank quicker, then forgot about it. Or alternatively, to prevent growing into more unhappiness, then we captured more happy resources from Russian, and now it all looks a bit weird. Don't remember.



Lalibela

Not much to say here. It's running a couple specialists instead of crap tiles, and some military units where whipped out for the Russia war. One of few cities that aren't riverside, but it still has fresh water from the lake.



Addis Ababa

Building a bank here because it can get up quickly from many hammers. Doesn't really matter all that much where I put them up as the multiplier basically won't matter unless running merchants. Otherwise it has the basic infrastructure needed. The Stele isn't, but it comes from capturing Stonehenge.



Yeha

Like indicated by the label, this later becomes the Ironworks city. Lots of hammers from workshops, and a highly productive Levee.



Debre Berhan

Coal popped up on a mine, which boosted it a little. Otherwise not much to report. The city is actually working an unimproved tile here, but I don't recall if I went through all cities this turn and fixed that or not.



Adulis

This city has grown quite big and is working many workshops already. Plenty of food too. Almost hard to find city locations on this mapscript without at least 1 food source.

 

[Pangaea]

Empire Overview, continued

Too many pictures, apparently, so had to cut the post in two.



Qohaito

Another floodplain cottage city. You can see the barb city ruins. Would have preferred to keep that FP even if it meant another . Few hammers but otherwise a nice enough city. You can see btw that in for example this city and many others I'm building Wealth or Research to preserve overflow so they can be put into Factories that will be available in two turns. As Organised we get a bonus on Factories, meaning those really get put to good use.



Matara

Due to being on the Russian frontline, this city contributed some whipped troops, hence the relatively large whip counter.



Hawulti

Eventually I settled this city to help develop cottages for the capital, and grab a few more FPs. Didn't do all that much in developing cottages for the capital as Aksum was quite big early, but it helped a little. This city is very close to the capital (and we're in SP anyway now), but it's still important to get up a courthouse in preparation for maintenance costs skyrocketing with corporations.



Massawa

This was a potential National Park city, but the other had more hammers, so this is turned into a pure city instead. For the moment I've mined the rice as it's a lousy food resource on a hill, but it will be farmed for Cereal later.



Fasil Ghebbi

On seeing the plains hill mine being worked, a certain someone may react , I should have worked two scientist instead, particularly as we are running Representation. May have fixed this before hitting Next Turn, but I don't remember as it's been several weeks since I finished the game.



Zeila

City grabs a Cow more for . As with a fair few other cities, I'm preserving overflow hammers from whipping the Levee so they can be put into a factory.



Berbera

Had to put this city here due to Shaka settling too close to where I wanted it, but no biggie, it's still a fine city. Grabs sugar too, which for the moment at least, is our only one. Needed infrastructure isn't ready here yet, because the city is recently settled. Due to all the rivers it's better to put up a Levee before a Factory. Better than a Forge too actually.



Harar

Lots of rivers and plenty of food. Good hammers city eventually.



Kaskase

You have probably noticed already, but Biology is in for +1 for all farms. Easy to see for FP farms as they get that nice-looking bread. Many jungles to clear yet, but this city will be workshopped too. In this game I didn't bother with water mills, but plenty of rivers for putting up heaps of water mills if one goes down that route.

If you do want to go down that route, then here is a micro trick. A watermill can only be built on one side of a river, not both, and they can't be built on the outside of a bend in the river (like west of the city itself). If a watermill can go in several directions, it's random where it's put. Therefore, to ensure as many water mills as possible, you first construct the mills where it can only face in one direction. Here that is for instance 1E of the Dye. Then you can put a water mill south of that one afterwards, and that water mill will be facing east, so technically you have water mills on both sides of the river. If you did the one SE of the Dye first, you could have risked that one facing north, meaning you couldn't put a water mill on the tile 1E of the Dye. The "both sides of the river" is still in place, however, so you can't now place another water mill (in the neighbouring city) on the tile that now contains a farm, 1N of the city to the east in the screenshot.

Hope that made sense It's easy once you get used to the logic, but probably looks complex when written down.



Addi Galamo

These newer cities still have many jungles to clear, but this one has got two workshops already. Hopefully changed that hated spy specialists to a scientist. Really wish there was a button to ban those bastards empire-wide.



Tokonda

Another gem here, plus copper that will come in handy with Mining later on.



Rostov

Over to more spoils of war: Rostov. Bonkers amount of food here, plus another surely cat-inspired Shrine Certainly a good addition to the Empire.



Kubar

A filler city north of the capital to fetch another marble and iron resource.



Tegulat

With the founding of this city in the south-east corner, I have filled all our interior with cities. Coal and oil popped up, which was nice, though I won't be improving this oil due to it having a road from yet another awkward barb spawned city, and I don't want yet more from Oil. If the road wasn't there I could have improved it.



Novgorod

Back to Russia again, and here we have Novgorod. It's currently heavily culture pressed from the fact the southern Russian city still exists, which is why it was a pain the AP resolution aborted the war. We'll need to do something about that...



St. Petersburg

Peter was a little upset when I urinated on the city walls, but when a man's gotta go...
Unfortunately only the granary survived (which was spared from liquids), so lots of infrastructure to build here.



Moscow

Pretty poor city for a capital to be honest, at least on this mapscript, but still a nice addition, with yet another Shrine. It also contains Stonehenge (can barely be seen in the screenshot), plus an Academy, which is always pleasant to capture. Three settled specialists too. Thankfully lots of buildings survived here.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -​

That was one hell of a run-down, but hopefully your keyboard has survived your head hitting it after the brain shut down to sleep I hope it gave some insights into the transition to a hammer economy. It's fairly straightforward on this mapscript I guess. More or less "build workshops everywhere".

 

[elitetroops]

If you do want to go down that route, then here is a micro trick. A watermill can only be built on one side of a river, not both, and they can't be built on the outside of a bend in the river (like west of the city itself). If a watermill can go in several directions, it's random where it's put.

Actually, it's not random. The order of priority should be S-W-N-E, according to Izuul: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12982663#post12982663

Oh, and keep up the good work! Very interesting read!

 

[Pangaea]

Actually, it's not random. The order of priority should be S-W-N-E, according to Izuul: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12982663#post12982663

Oh, and keep up the good work! Very interesting read!

Thanks for the encouraging words, and that is very interesting about the watermills. Makes it more difficult tbh, as it would be easier to just keep the stuff I mentioned in mind. Saw it mentioned somewhere, maybe in that thread, that it was random, but I guess not.

 

[Seraiel]

Very nicely detailed clearview [emoji3] .

I wonderes, why you didn't simply Workshop the Oils. Like that you get an extra Hammer without improving the resource [emoji3] .

Also wondered where all the Cottages are. Did you build WSs over them, even though there still were tons of unimproved Jungle?

Sera

 

[Pangaea]

Very nicely detailed clearview [emoji3] .

I wonderes, why you didn't simply Workshop the Oils. Like that you get an extra Hammer without improving the resource [emoji3] .

Also wondered where all the Cottages are. Did you build WSs over them, even though there still were tons of unimproved Jungle?

Sera

I improved some oil that remained unconnected. That oil in the south I either left alone or workshopped, but don't recall now.

Didn't cottage everything, so to speak. Had some cottage cities, and then workshopped more or less everything else. I did workshop over some cottages, in Delhi for instance, as they never got worked anyway, and at some point I decided to make it a hammer city instead. Do you think I should have had more cottage cities?

One thing I should have been better at is getting out even more workers early. At some point I one-turned 10-15 workers, but for much of the game I had a little over 1 worker per city, which isn't enough really on such a jungled mapscript.

 

[Seraiel]

You're right, 1 Worker / city doesn't cut it on Rainforrest.

I couldn't look too close at everything because I'm still viewing from my Handy, but I thought I had only seen very few Cottages and very many Workshops. Workshops become good very late with Chemistry, then build them ofc, but before that, you should Cottage everything as hard as possible in a Space Race. Maybe I'm overestimating the size cities reach 'til then, I would have suspected at least 8-10 Cottages / city with so much Food.

 

[Pangaea]

Went through the pictures, and only 3 cities are pure cottages cities. But at least a handful others had a few cottages that were too well-developed to tear down. Looking at the save for this turn, I had 27 Villages and 14 Towns, with a few coming from the recently captured Russian cities. Decent enough count I suppose, but could perhaps have had a few more pure cottage cities. Certainly wasn't a lack of rivers on this map. But I felt it was pointless trying to develop cottages in the cities were founded quite late, so these were workshopped.

I have little to compare with, but the research at 1120AD was 1313 , which is hopefully okay. Of course that will spike up a great deal later on when a lot of the cities are building Wealth/Research boosted by hammer multipliers.

Look forward to your computer coming back from SNASA . Maybe you can offer some more points about where I can improve It's a difficult balance to get right, because there is so much going on, and so much to pay attention to.

 

[Seraiel]

I wished I could give more or better critique, but the Cottages was thing that caught me, together with the russia war being too late. Maybe once I got my PC back from SNASA I can look at the saves.

You had 40 Cottages you wrote. I looked it up, you had 30 cities, that's only 1.3 Cottages / city! I'm guessing, that you started to specialize your cities on hammers to early. You wrote, that you already worked 3 hammer workshops during the GA with Caste, that means you built WSs that regularly had 1 hammer!
It's important that you learn how powerful hybrid cities are. Don't think “this is a hammer city or this is a cottage city“ . Think “Cottages are the best Improvement I got atm., let'sbuild them everywhere“ and then, when you have Chemistry you think WSs are more powerful, let's build them on all tiles that don't have cottages yet“ . Once you improved every tile then, you go around and pre-build WSs everywhere, even on Towns!

Try to think “this gives me the best advantage now and also for the next 20T.“ If a city is small even a Farm is the best tile. Don't build things that are good in xxx turns, and when you know you got too few Workers, focus on them. 1W +1 for the capital is a pangaea rule, Rainforrest needs many many more, an Spaceraces in general need many Workers, because of whipping only little and running caste if possible.

 

[Seraiel]

Also: if you want to know if your research was good, go to the HoF and look at the best other games. Personally, I have no idea if 1300 bpt are good at that time. I only know, that in my cathy epic spacerace, i think i conducted 4k from only half the cities in the end.

 

[Pangaea]

Those early workshops were just worked during the GA to get a bit more hammers, and I didn't have many of them. No point building workshops until Chemistry, but it doesn't hurt to build a few in preparation either. At least that was my thinking.

When you put it like that, 40 cottages for 30 cities and 1.3 per city, it sounds very little. I loaded some other games and compared though, and it seems okay, I actually have more than all but one of the games I checked. Research seems okay too, although I have an 'advantage' there as the saves I checked were mostly from 1000AD, so I'm some turns ahead at 1120AD. So I'm still a little unsure if I made a mistake by not building more cottages or not. The date turned out good in the end after all, but it could of course be that I should have built more.

As for hybrid cities, a few of my cities were that, in that they had a few cottages but also workshops later on. Most cities were probably transitioned into pure hammer cities however, as that is important for space races.

As I continue the Writeup, hopefully these questions can be answered eventually via feedback.

 

[Seraiel]

It would be nice, if you could look if my Marathon 11xx Spacerace has more Cottages at 1 AD. I'm not sure I submitted a 1 Ad savegame, but if I did, it could compare well to your 11xx savegame, as 1 Ad on Marathon is very much like a thousand years latee on normal. I think I also had about the same number of cities then.

 

[Pangaea]

It would be nice, if you could look if my Marathon 11xx Spacerace has more Cottages at 1 AD. I'm not sure I submitted a 1 Ad savegame, but if I did, it could compare well to your 11xx savegame, as 1 Ad on Marathon is very much like a thousand years latee on normal. I think I also had about the same number of cities then.

There wasn't a 1AD save game, but a 500AD one, which is turn 400. I checked out that one, and you had 14 villages and 2 towns (no lesser cottages). 37 cities there, so a bit more, and you're making almost exactly 2000 . Very high up the tech tree, though, so not sure how comparable it is. Looks like a fantastic game!

 

[Seraiel]

That game was perfect, except that I didn't know about Exec Failgold, which costed me at least 200y . 500 AD can not be compared to your game unfortunately, but if I had so few Cottages, I was mistaken with suspecting you didn't build enough.

So very gg from you except for the Peter part . Looking forward to future updates and some more Comments from everybody .

 

[Seraiel]

I just remember something I wanted to write earlier already but then forgot: In Space Races it can be very valuable to switch to US for 5T during a GA to rushbuy the WS and whatever gives great benefit (i.e. the NP too) . I use this tactic in almost all of my Spaceraces, usually once I get Universities and then with Corporations.

 

[Pangaea]

I just remember something I wanted to write earlier already but then forgot: In Space Races it can be very valuable to switch to US for 5T during a GA to rushbuy the WS and whatever gives great benefit (i.e. the NP too) . I use this tactic in almost all of my Spaceraces, usually once I get Universities and then with Corporations.

Nice tip, thanks. Can imagine that's useful, particularly if you happen to be in a GA and working on both WS and NP at the same time. Or you are Spiritual.

With that clarification about cottages, I can probably put the doubt to bed. From the games I checked out, I was probably already in the upper bracket in terms of cottages tbh.