general strategy

[topas]

I missed this thread for quite some time... so I created it

This thread shall cover the discussion of our main goals and how we want to archieve them. Basing on the discussion here we can hopefully distill our next moves/production/research/diplo efforts more easily. Doing so we don't need to go into great details here because these will be covered by the other specific threads.

I will try to give the discussion a starting point here:

situation:
- we don't know any other team, but Sullla promised at least 1 team contactable by land and all teams contactable via land/galleys
- our capital does not have great growth tiles. (the other teams have at least 1 tile with 6 food -> irrigated corn, pigs,... while our best growth-tiles are clams and not-irrigated rice -> all other teams can grow their cap more easily in the beginning)
- besides clams there is no real early commerce-tile available (the other teams have more (or at least equal) commerce yield compared to us
- given that we are 1 of 2 teams with exp-trait and we are only pop2, we are probably ahead in number of workers.
- no religions have been founded
- no wonders have been constructed


(my personal) goals 'til ~0AD (turn 115(?))
- get 5 good cities running (+/- 1 depending on economy, potential wonder-race, availability of useful city sites)
- get our first GP out (best would be a scientist or a prophet)
- explore all landtiles (+coast) within 20 tiles of CERN
- identify strategically important chokepoints to defend our lands (might need to be settled quite early even if they are expensive)
- get contact to the other teams (at least to all our direct neighbors and some kind of an explorer on his way to make contact to the missing teams)
- grab a religion (best in second or third city)
- get some military up for barb defense and to defend against a potential rush
- get pottery, AH and IW. (for further research we can hopefully find another team to cooperate)
- get some kind on metal (copper or iron) hooked up.
- generate foreign trade routes asap
- raise happiness-limit by 2 or 3 (to 7 or 8 potential pop in CERN) by connecting resources (gems, ivory)


How could we do this?
Exploration:
- Ari should keep exploring the far east. This is the first area, where I expect a contact.
- Pyt should explore the south after healing. (South of the rice there is a nice early chokepoint I want to know more about.) Further this direction seems to be the second potential area to find another team.
- our 3rd warrior should explore the area betwenn rice, gems and ivory. Probably I'd like to have him fogbust and/or escort our settler afterwards.
- We should check for more seafood and especially islands west of CERN.
- Do we know how the world wraps? I didn't see anything precise, so the map could be a cylinder or a donut... In case of a "donut"-world we might find another team in the north as well...

Expansion:
- We need to get our cheaper workers and settlers out fast. Our second city should be capable of building workers/settlers pretty fast, so that CERN has time to grow and start working cottages early.
- To me there are 2 positions that I find very tempting to settle first:
1.) west CERN: Depending on the exact position we might not need culture there in the beginning -> no monument; have clams to grow early; early commerce to fund the city; cheap maintainance; does not need defense initially -> no early unit to defend neccessary; can work clams+2mines without MP quite fast and then build workers and settlers
2.) SE of CERN at the rice: better in the long run, but will probably need early culture and defense. Might be a frontier-city for a long time, so it's position will probably not be ideal for a fast start.
- I'm leaning towards settling 1.) first in case our 3rd warrior does not find copper and a gorgeous city-site between ivory and rice, because it's cheap and is good for rexing porposes.

Research:
- now: The Wheel -> Pottery (~14 turns; # of turns are all estimations with our current research rate)
We need some early cottages in CERN to get our research going and the cheap graneries to compete in capital-growth. Further our cheap graneries are huge to get the other cities going.
- then meditation/polytheism (~10 turns)
Hopefully we can grab an early religion here, but I think we'll have to gambel a little as I think another team will found the first religion.
- then hunting or IW (depending on where we settled our second city; (need to chop jungle (for gems) or the camp on the ivory))
- next go AH/IW for the 2nd visible strat. resource (if we have no copper available)
- after that we should go for writing, priesthood and the missing worker-techs if we need them.
- Priesthood could also be the next target after a religion, if we grab a religion with medi/poly. Because if we get a religion we might have a shot at the oracle, but we'll have to decide that in ~20-25 turns (=after (or some turns before) medi/poly).
- after writing we should have some contacts and find out what the other teams research and what we can research best (alpha for tech-trade or math->construction (catas+our UB) as trade baits to get alpha+..., CoL,...)

developing CERN (and other cities):
- CERN will have to take most of the worker+settler-duties in our empire.
- We should try to get our 2nd and 3rd city asap so they can take over some of these duties for CERN. To do so it might be wise to whip in CERN here and there.
- When 2nd (or 3rd) city can take over the rex, CERN should grow to max and start working cottages.
- before 2nd and 3rd city are able to build workers/settlers/units (after a fast (whipped) granery), I don't think it's useful to grow CERN above pop4. (Most probably I would even stay with pop2/pop3 most of the time.)
- With writing discovered we should build/chop/whip a library fast and run 2 scientists asap. An academy in CERN is a huge boost to our research and we should utilize it as early as possible.
- While our 2nd and 3rd city should become production-cities, our 4th city needs to be a commerce-city, where we start spamming cottages right from the start.
- It would be great if we could avoid building initial monuments in the cities (via religion; best be founding religion in 2nd (or 3rd) city), but it will not be worth to delay culture-pop if we sacrifice working one or more great tiles in the second ring. (Note that 3(?) monuments enable Statue of Zeus, which can be built fast with ivory.)
- I think we'll need 2 or more likely 3 cities if we decide to race for a wonder in 1 city, without falling back in expansion too much.
- I suspect that we'll find iron or horses on CERN-6... (It's just a feeling, but I think there are some small hints.)


Ok, as stated above: This is just a starting point. Feel free to comment an any point mentioned or not yet mentioned.

 

[DaveShack]

Why wouldn't this just be the next entry in the plan thread?

 

[topas]

Why wouldn't this just be the next entry in the plan thread?

I thought the plan thread was just our MM plans

If we gather all this mid- and long-term strategies in the plan-thread, maybe you could move my post there and delete this thread.

 

[topas]

...one last try...

Our situation is definately not easy. We are trailing in food, production and commerce. (Certainly our lands didn't really favor it, but we have to cope with it...)

My plan for the next ~20 turns would be
- to setup 2 or better 3 more cities (chop/whip settlers)
- research IW (->gems, iron, banana) and then sailing
- get 2 or 3 units that are stronger than warriors for upcoming barbs
- further we need maybe 1 more worker after the next 1 or 2 settlers
- (after sailing CERN and Peri need lighthouses in CERN and Perimeter rather fast)

Why I think so?
Our current cities and our resources won't let us close the gap easlily...
CERN's (regular) production and commerce isn't enough for to carry our empire right now due to lack of happiness-resources and great tiles.

So, in the next 10 turns I would forget about short-term commerce gains and aggressively settle at lest 2 more cities.
The first one should be banana-9 in about 7 turns from now. It should chop a granery (enough forrests in the east) and grow into working riverside-cottages. When we are settling it, we are about 1 or 2 turns from IW. With IW in, we irrigate the banana and work the banana-farm for growth. With some time (~15 turns) it has grown to pop5 with banana-farm and 4 riverside-cottages. (After the granery and the banana-farm are finished, we can mostly forget about the city: 1 worker constantly builds cottages and city builds something (maybe WB for fish+pigs?)... but no excessive whipping!)
The second city should be fish+pigs after that. This will be a fast-growing production city. The banana-city already closed the gap before. We chop/whip a granery in it asap and then grow it to happy-cap and work mines. This city can build military while growing and at happycap take over building settlers/workers for the east (floods), so that CERN can focus on library, lighthouse,... better.
During these ~20 turns CERN should build/whip at least these 2 more settlers. As long as our happycap doesn't allow CERN to grow to pop7 or 8, the yields from constantly working 5/6 tiles are smaller than the yields from whipping (with the granery). (If we find iron in BFC (in ~8-9 turns), we shouldn't whip below pop3 -> at least work clams, rice and iron) While growing CERN should build a military unit (holkan, axe, archer) for defense at our eastern border. In 15-20 turns other cities (Peri) should be strong to take over worker/settler-production. By that time CERN should be able to grow while building a lighthouse and a library.
Perimeter should grow to happycap now. Whenever CERN doesn't need the rice for growth, Peri should take it to speed up growth. After the current warrior we should build another military unit (holkan, axe, archer) here to defend our southern border. As long as Peri can't work 2 food-resources I would not whip the city. After sailing a lighthouse will be beneficial, but we should skip other buildings here for a while.
"Mutal" should grow and build a granery. Maybe working a mine instead of the cottage (whenever CERN can work the cottage without much loss) would be good, so that we get the benefits from the granery earlier. After the granery Mutal can build a warrior for MP-duty. Then we should also start working the farm to speed up growth.

Right now, we don't need more workers.
(CERN needs no more improvements until it can grow up pop6/7, Peri needs only cows-pasture in ~10-15 turns, "Mutal" needs at most 1 worker to improve the lands, because of its slow growth.)
After settling the next (1 or) 2 cities we should build another worker, but before we don't need them...

Concerning barbs
We have lots of forested/jungled hills at our borders. We should be able to stop the first barb-archers there even with warriors. (...though we havn't seen any barb-archers yet...)


Wonders/longterm strategy
We might have a shot on the GLH, but it'll be a gamble...
Another option would be a race for the apostolic palace, which is extremely great, because of the added production. (-> theo)
3rd wonder that comes into my mind are the Hanging Gardens. (+1pop, +1health, GE-points!)

... but we have to focus(!) on one if we want to have a decent shot.

 

[peter grimes]

Thanks for putting this together, Topas

I must admit I haven't been able to devote as much time as I'd like to this game - and now that diplomacy is underway I've had to focus more on that. One thing that I've noticed from other games like this: when very few people post, it seems like nobody's interested, even if there are 15 people reading every update. My suggestion: even if you agree with everything that's being planned, Speak up! Just write something quick like Looks Good :thmbup: - that way everyone can see that there is still participation.


As for the details of the Plan For Growth:
In general, it seems like a solid strategy. The only thing I worry about is that we won't have enough defense. There are quite a lot of fog tiles that could spawn barbarians. Every time we push into the fog, we may encounter 2 or 3 barbarians wandering around. That could really hamper our efforts at expanding into the fertile lands north and east of us.

I'm not the best MMer, so I don't have much to add there. I will say, however, that our lag in GDP and Production is related to our small population. So I don't think things are quite as bad as they may appear on the surface - especially if we are maximizing the whip

I'll try to check in on the game later on today, and offer more opinions (whether they are welcome or not )

 

[Hummel]

I follow your suggestions, topas.

Cern has to build right now two settlers (with the wood). The settlers must found cities that have power from the momemt they were built. I would take the pig-city and the grassland-hill between cow and elephant.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=201749&d=1233144461

This new citys have to build monuments/granarys and then settlers/units.

 

[peter grimes]

Ugh - I really hope we can avoid Monuments... I'd much rather chop a library - the monument seems like a waste of precious early hammers to me

But I like those settlement spots. I can't wait till we get up to those floodplains!

 

[DaveShack]

Yes, expansion is good.

I never chop on purpose, rarely MM (just emphasize food or production and leave it), and whip only when the city is unhappy and the lost population are the ones who would have been unhappy (and not working) anyway. So I'm pretty much useless for that part of the discussion.

 

[topas]

Dave
It's rather easy to find a way once you know your goal

all
Finally we get some discussion going, that we should have had 30-40 turns ago... keep it going.
(I hope to find some time to reply on the above posts tomorrow)

 

[peter grimes]

I'd love for us to shoot for a wonder, if for no other reason than to deny it to someone else.

Obviously there are priorities that must be taken in consideration. The way I see it (and I may be wrong - so please speak up!):

Priority #1
More cities. That means settlers.

Priority #2
Units to both protect the settlers on their way to founding the cities, as well as protection from the inevitable barbarian incursions.

Priority #3
Workers to improve the cities (it has been mentioned that we have enough for the short term.)

Priority #4
Trait enhancers: Libraries (leveraged by Financial), [other enhancers]

Priority #5
Wonder?? I'm not familiar at all with the Apostolic Palace. I understand it's the Pyramids of religious civics (which seems very useful), as well as the UN of nations of our religion (which seems useless in MP). Hanging gardens could really help us - we're looking at a lot of Flood Plains in the north...

Priority #6
Shrine. I find shrines to be fundamental to the financial health of my economy; obviously this is less important with a Financial leader, but still quite useful. Getting the shrine early in the game means the religion has all those many more chances of spreading to our enemies' neighbors' cities.

So in further discussion here, let's make sure that we know where every settler is going to go, and what that city's purpose is. This will keep us from responding to events erratically, and help us become masters of the universe! We are, after all, the Mad Scientists, right??

 

[HUSch]

Peter
1. There are no bonuses for libraries
2. Shrine is good, but for that we need a temple and priest there or an religious wonder
But you are right, we 've priorities at , mostly for the expensive units.

 

[peter grimes]

I didn't mean that we have a bonus for building a library. What I mean is that because we are financial, our libraries have more commerce to use normal. At this point in the game, it's quite a lot more: +50% (+1 commerce on every 2 commerce tile). It's important to maximize this effect early. Later on, the effect is not as large.

 

[topas]

Some thoughts about wonders:

The right wonder(s) can be the difference in a game ... getting a wonder and leveraging it's bonus is a tremendous gain for a civ ... while losing a wonder-race is mostly big set-back.
-> We should certainly go for a wonder at right time, but we should increase the chances to get it to the best of our possibilities...

There is no industrious civ, so a wonder-race is more open than in other cases.
Having the right resource for a wonder, will give a team a very good chance of succeeding.

Right now our expansion seems more important than wonder-building...

As mentioned earlier, there are some wonders, that I think could make sense, but on some of these we probably have only a little chance:

- Hanging Gardens: great wonder, but Cav will probably go for math after monarchy. They should have a better chance, because they can start significantly earlier. We don't have stone... -> think we'll be a bit late...
- Pyramids: great wonder, but very expensive and we are not industrious and have no stone... -> probably not worth the tons of hammers
- Great Lighthouse: great wonder (one of my favorite wonders), some synergy with exp-harbors, favors coastal cities; We'll have a headstart on Cav and Kaz, guess SAN won't race for it, because they already invested hammers in the oracle lately and might preferably shoot for the colossus later with there early MC (via oracle), Sat might be a competitor because they are org (-> cheap lighthouse) and expand rather slow 'til now (maybe they already have a wonder in production?) -> reasonable chances to get it...
- Apostolic Palace: great wonder (besides the GLH my favorite); If we go for theo after IW and sailing (trade for masonry and go mono->theo), we might have pretty good chances, because Cav and Kaz wouldn't shoot for theo, if we go for it (alliance), Sat and SAN might be more likely to go for buerocracy (-> CoL -> CS) and economic techs, that we can pobably get from Cav+Kaz. (We should check, when SAN gets its oracle-prophet, to be sure to don't overtake us in the wonder-race (as it happened to Cav with the oracle)) -> pretty good chances if we beeline theo

Personally I would favor The Apostolic Palace (or The Great Lighthouse). (AP gives prophet-points, which we could support with a priest, to get our shrine)


for peter
The Apostolic Palace enables diplomatic votes among its members (=civs with at least 1 city with apo-religion). There are possible votes on trade embargos, DoW on non-members, OB, stop fighting against brothers in faith... (ignoring an apo-resolution gives some unhappy faces in cities with apo-religion. These votes are a little like the UN votes, but not everybody can/will participate. (There is a chance for a diplo-victory, but it's probably not archievable in MP...)
... but what I like a lot more is: Religious buildings of the apo-religion give +2! So temples and monastries (and cathedrals, shrine) give FREE production on top of their usual benefits. -> Basically our cities can get 4 free base-hammers with temple and monastry, which is really nice...
I guess the other teams might like having the apo-religion in their empires, which could increase our revenue from a shrine

will post reply about further expansion later...

 

[peter grimes]

One other point about the Apostolic Palace - I was wrong earlier when I stated that it gives all religious civics - that's the Swedagon Paya.

 

[topas]

So, looks like we agree on further fast expansion...

I looked onto the map and tried figure out a good strategy, which cities to found.
To me it looks best to found the these cities next:

1.) banana-9
Chop granery first, then chop other forests into a settler+worker for fish+pigs. After granery the city can grow while building a warrior or holkan and just switch on settler/worker for the chop-yields.
In ~8 turns we'll have IW. Then we can irrigate the banana for growth.
This city is a great commerce-city and should grow into some riverside-cottages and not be whipped excessively.
Settler: next one from CERN
Worker: Archimedes can start on road (on banana) now and then pre-chop a forrest or build a riversite cottage until the founding of the city. A second worker (Eupalinos or new worker?) can help in a couple of turns.
Defense: For the first 2-3 turns we can send the CERN-MP, because CERN is (hopefully) whipped until a holkan from CERN takes over.

2.) fish+pigs
Chop granery, improve pigs, get culture (religion, monument or library)...
Great growth with fish and pigs, good production,...
Can build/chop military/worker/settler. (esp. settler/holkan/worker for floods)
Settler: chopped in banana-9?
Worker: to be decided (probably one worker from banana-9, which is replaced be a new worker from CERN or Peri)

3.) ivory-6
We can chop a granery there asap and the build another holkan (perhaps barracks before?) to grow, while chopping the other forrests into a worker or settler.
There is no need for culture in the beginning.
This city can become a production powerhouse after CS (chain irrigation).
We should have traded for AH by then.
We can connect the ivory soon, that allows us to finally grow our cities more.
We'll need a holkan to defend it, because it isn't covert as much as our other cities.
Settler: chopped in banana-9 or fish

4.) floods/cows in the south
Great commerce-city, which can enable TR with Cav. Some chops quick start available.
... need to talk to them to claim the site soon...
Settler: 2nd settler from CERN?
Worker: to be decided...
Defense: needs a holkan for safe passage of the settler; city should be rather safe, because of mountains, coast and some Cav-culture-fogbusting; Holkan could be built in Perimeter after the warrior.


This is an old screenshotof the east:
(The banana-city is 1 tile south of the current dicussed site.)

 

[topas]

HUSch raised the point of converting to Hinduism, when the next settler travels to its destination.
I also think that this would be a good point to convert.

The (instant) advantage is, that CERN and Perimeter can grow 1 pop bigger.
While the settler is on its way, we also do not lose a turn the 1 turn of growth.

 

[HUSch]

The sequence is bananas, floodplains/south, pigs/fish, ivory.
And all settler 'll be build in CERN; we chop now the last forrest there, what is the idea of time for that.

 

[topas]

I think pigs/fish and/or cows/ivory can be settled with settlers from banana-city (chop forests into worker+settler after the granery) and the earlier founded of the to.

btw
Perimeter will be able to help with settler/worker/holkan-production in a couple of turns.

 

[DaveShack]

Again with not settling the ivory. We need it to raise the number of and thus increase population.

 

[topas]

Dave
-> happycap
I also think we need to raise it, but you need at least pop6/7 to get as much return from working the tiles than from whipping.
Additionally it's not so useful to prevent CERN from growing.
I would whip one more settler in CERN in 3 turns and then adopt Hinduism and grow CERN to pop7 rather fast.
Happycap is 5 right now, with hinduism, gems (in ~10 turns) and ivory it'll be 8. Growth from pop2 to pop5 will take ~6-7 turns. When the gems are mined, CERN will be about to growth to pop7.
The timing seems quite good...