Hammurabi - Immortal Cookbook
- Thread starter kossin
- Start date
Usual blah blah copy-paste below.
Voting is as usual, 3pts for the save you liked most, 2pts for the second and 1pt for the last.
Don't vote for yourself, it shows bias
Voting will last until everyone has voted, a clear winner has emerged or when the new round starts on Wednesday.
Shadows (marked as shadow or lacking save)
none!
Sets
Wafflecakes
Fierabras
CivConvict
GKey
drlake
Dhoomstriker
If I missed anybody, be sure to tell me - thanks!
Less submissions this time around, I'm assuming busy time and a more difficult round.
I think it's pretty clear that once an opponent is down, you don't always need to kick him in the teeth... go after juicier targets!
Voting is as usual, 3pts for the save you liked most, 2pts for the second and 1pt for the last.
Don't vote for yourself, it shows bias
Voting will last until everyone has voted, a clear winner has emerged or when the new round starts on Wednesday.
Shadows (marked as shadow or lacking save)
none!
Sets
Wafflecakes
Fierabras
CivConvict
GKey
drlake
Dhoomstriker
If I missed anybody, be sure to tell me - thanks!
Less submissions this time around, I'm assuming busy time and a more difficult round.
I think it's pretty clear that once an opponent is down, you don't always need to kick him in the teeth... go after juicier targets!
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Before you vote, I will say that I reloaded a lot. I was not reloading to change battle outcomes--that would have been pretty lame--but I did reload to redo a TON for Worker actions.
Had I stuck with my original and poor choices for Worker actions, the economy likely would have crashed several times, our units probably would have gone on strike, and thus the military advantage would have slowly disbanded itself away.
I kept trying to build Farms and Mines and then kept finding that this approach wasn't working economically. So, I kept going back and changing prior Worker actions to Cottages. Then, I would find that I could get even more Commerce if I reloaded, say, 2 turns prior and had 2 Workers double-up on building a Cottage so that a City that grew in size could have its new citizen immediately work said Cottage; or instead of building a Mine or a Road, I could build one more Cottage, etc, etc.
So, definitely take the results with a grain of salt. The battles and the war results were real, but the Worker actions were reloaded until they were nearly ideally executed to match what I SHOULD have been doing (but did not know better beforehand because I am still learning), which I now believe is to get as many Cottages up and being worked ASAP.
I actually lost MORE military units with this frequent reloading than the first time that battles were exectued, since I told myself that I had to "keep it fair" reloading-wise by fighting the same battles--even if it meant that the second time through a battle, we'd have worse odds because the first unit defending in a City survived without a scratch the second time that the battles were executed.
Interestingly, this approach of forcing myself to repeat battles, especially when the odds were not going in our favour the second time around, actually helped a lot, as it meant that I always ensured that I had an overkill amount of military units on hand before trying to take a City. So, even with terrible battle odds, the City capture would be effective, since we'd have overwhelming numbers of units before striking.
We all have different ways of playing the game and we all have our own compunctions about how we'd like to play our games, but I don't want to make any misrepresentations here. I am playing to learn, and to me, I learned a lot about how to better leverage my Workers in a militaristically-oriented game. But, if you do not like the fact that the game was reloaded in order to get the most of our Workers, even though it meant losing more military troops as a result, then don't vote for my save.
Had I stuck with my original and poor choices for Worker actions, the economy likely would have crashed several times, our units probably would have gone on strike, and thus the military advantage would have slowly disbanded itself away.
I kept trying to build Farms and Mines and then kept finding that this approach wasn't working economically. So, I kept going back and changing prior Worker actions to Cottages. Then, I would find that I could get even more Commerce if I reloaded, say, 2 turns prior and had 2 Workers double-up on building a Cottage so that a City that grew in size could have its new citizen immediately work said Cottage; or instead of building a Mine or a Road, I could build one more Cottage, etc, etc.
So, definitely take the results with a grain of salt. The battles and the war results were real, but the Worker actions were reloaded until they were nearly ideally executed to match what I SHOULD have been doing (but did not know better beforehand because I am still learning), which I now believe is to get as many Cottages up and being worked ASAP.
I actually lost MORE military units with this frequent reloading than the first time that battles were exectued, since I told myself that I had to "keep it fair" reloading-wise by fighting the same battles--even if it meant that the second time through a battle, we'd have worse odds because the first unit defending in a City survived without a scratch the second time that the battles were executed.
Interestingly, this approach of forcing myself to repeat battles, especially when the odds were not going in our favour the second time around, actually helped a lot, as it meant that I always ensured that I had an overkill amount of military units on hand before trying to take a City. So, even with terrible battle odds, the City capture would be effective, since we'd have overwhelming numbers of units before striking.
We all have different ways of playing the game and we all have our own compunctions about how we'd like to play our games, but I don't want to make any misrepresentations here. I am playing to learn, and to me, I learned a lot about how to better leverage my Workers in a militaristically-oriented game. But, if you do not like the fact that the game was reloaded in order to get the most of our Workers, even though it meant losing more military troops as a result, then don't vote for my save.
drlake
Emperor
OK, first some impressions...
CivConVict: 9 cities plus a settler in 8 more is good expansion, but ZY is about to settle between the Gold city and Babylon.
Worst Enemy of Justinian is a risky position to be in since he's the most powerful state. That's due to your state religion, which is only in one city. Was that a change in response to a demand? Tech situation is OK (117bpt at 100%, but -74g deficit), have Monarchy but not Math, working on Lit, I presume for the GL.
Dhoom: I bow before your mastery of warfare! 8 cities, 4 (!) of them capital cities, 4 (!) settlers for expansion but you don't dare settle them IMO. At war with three AIs, but two of them are down to one city so not really a problem. Stonehenge, GW, and Buddhist shrine by conquest is awesome. Tech position is OK, Currency in 1 turn will help with the economy. Tech rate is OK (136bpt at 100%, with -86g deficit). On top in power, which no one else did.
Fierabras: 6 cities in the same basic location as mine, but you're about to lose the Fish/Iron location, which you didn't know about because you don't have IW yet. Worst enemy of Saladin, looks like you were getting ready for war. Tech situation is poor, doesn't look like you did much trading. On Lit, tech rate is OK (106bpt at 100%, with -50g deficit). Has a GS, which is a nice position to be in.
Gkey: 7 cities, about the same setup as a couple of us. 3rd in power is good, Persia is WHEOOHRN but at Pleased so probably going after someone else. On Lit, tech situ is the best of any of us, tech rate is a bit low atm (96 bpt at 100%, with -61g deficit).
Wafflecakes: 7 cities, so similar expansion. Worst Enemy of Peter, Saladin, and Alex (though no one cares about Alex) due to religion (I don't like the state religion when you only have one city with that religion). Looks like you were getting ready for war. Tech situation is poor, on Alpha with no trades possible (shouldn't be on Alpha, should be doing Aes for trade bait). Tech rate is pretty low (69bpt at 100%, with -51g deficit).
me: 6 cities plus a settler in 5, need to grab the Iron/fish site NW of Babylon ASAP. Power is low atm due to small cities (no Monarchy yet, just got Gold online). Justinian WHEOOHRN but his SoD isn't on our border so I'm guessing he's going after someone else. Tech situ is pretty good, with Currency in 8 turns at sustainable tech rate, good tech trade bait when it comes in, sustained rate is about as good as any of the saves (101bpt at 100%, but only 43g deficit).
So, voting...
1) Gkey. I'd find it easiest to play forward from this save, because it is very similar to mine. His tech situation is better, and the strategic situation (diplo, power) is favorable for moving forward.
2) CivConVict. Great expansion, but being the worst enemy of Justinian makes me nervous. Tech situation and rate is OK, and I like already having Monarchy.
3) Dhoom. I don't want to play from this position because I have no idea how to make it work, but it's a damn strong position and deserves a vote just for that.
CivConVict: 9 cities plus a settler in 8 more is good expansion, but ZY is about to settle between the Gold city and Babylon.
Worst Enemy of Justinian is a risky position to be in since he's the most powerful state. That's due to your state religion, which is only in one city. Was that a change in response to a demand? Tech situation is OK (117bpt at 100%, but -74g deficit), have Monarchy but not Math, working on Lit, I presume for the GL. Dhoom: I bow before your mastery of warfare! 8 cities, 4 (!) of them capital cities, 4 (!) settlers for expansion but you don't dare settle them IMO. At war with three AIs, but two of them are down to one city so not really a problem. Stonehenge, GW, and Buddhist shrine by conquest is awesome. Tech position is OK, Currency in 1 turn will help with the economy. Tech rate is OK (136bpt at 100%, with -86g deficit). On top in power, which no one else did.
Fierabras: 6 cities in the same basic location as mine, but you're about to lose the Fish/Iron location, which you didn't know about because you don't have IW yet. Worst enemy of Saladin, looks like you were getting ready for war. Tech situation is poor, doesn't look like you did much trading. On Lit, tech rate is OK (106bpt at 100%, with -50g deficit). Has a GS, which is a nice position to be in.
Gkey: 7 cities, about the same setup as a couple of us. 3rd in power is good, Persia is WHEOOHRN but at Pleased so probably going after someone else. On Lit, tech situ is the best of any of us, tech rate is a bit low atm (96 bpt at 100%, with -61g deficit).
Wafflecakes: 7 cities, so similar expansion. Worst Enemy of Peter, Saladin, and Alex (though no one cares about Alex) due to religion (I don't like the state religion when you only have one city with that religion). Looks like you were getting ready for war. Tech situation is poor, on Alpha with no trades possible (shouldn't be on Alpha, should be doing Aes for trade bait). Tech rate is pretty low (69bpt at 100%, with -51g deficit).
me: 6 cities plus a settler in 5, need to grab the Iron/fish site NW of Babylon ASAP. Power is low atm due to small cities (no Monarchy yet, just got Gold online). Justinian WHEOOHRN but his SoD isn't on our border so I'm guessing he's going after someone else. Tech situ is pretty good, with Currency in 8 turns at sustainable tech rate, good tech trade bait when it comes in, sustained rate is about as good as any of the saves (101bpt at 100%, but only 43g deficit).
So, voting...
1) Gkey. I'd find it easiest to play forward from this save, because it is very similar to mine. His tech situation is better, and the strategic situation (diplo, power) is favorable for moving forward.
2) CivConVict. Great expansion, but being the worst enemy of Justinian makes me nervous. Tech situation and rate is OK, and I like already having Monarchy.
3) Dhoom. I don't want to play from this position because I have no idea how to make it work, but it's a damn strong position and deserves a vote just for that.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Check out the following URL, which describes how to pull of an early rush--the document from the first message in that thread.
Near the end of said document, there are a few pointers about how to recover from the rush so that your game will go on to be a successful one.
Really, though, the biggest gain will be that as soon as we get Currency, all of our Cities (except Justinian's capital, which is isolated from getting Trade Routes) will get +2 Commerce.
From there, we take techs + Gold for Peace from each of Darius and Peter, one turn at a time. With Polytheism under our belt from the first AI that we get Peace with, we'll hopefully get Priesthood from the second AI that we extort techs for Peace from on the following turn, or else we will get it in trade from a different AI (or at worst, self-tech it) and then research Code of Laws.
Yes, Priesthood is an optional pre-requisite for Code of Laws, but if we can get the tech for free, it'll make Code of Laws 20% cheaper to research, giving us a significant bang for our buck (almost like having a free Library in every City).
Once we know Code of Laws, several of our larger Cities will be able to Chop and whip Courthouses, after which the economy should be a very strong one, with lowered Maintenance costs and several matured Cottages.
That said, it will probably be more fun for me to pick up from someone else's saved game, even if doing so means waiting until Construction in such a game before getting into many more wars.
CivConVict
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2010
- Messages
- 62
Couple of notes:
Fierabras: Like drlake said, you're losing the Fish/Iron city to Justinian. Also I'm not quite sure why you're building axemen in almost all your cities right now.
GKey: Solid game - probably the easiest to play from. Nice job relocating Corinth by the way, I wanted to do so too, but was afraid of losing the site to Darius. Also an A+ for exploration, something I always tend to ignore. It's too early to really specialise cities, but with some of them I don't have a clue what they're supposed to become. You're working cottages in nearly every city, but built an Academy in Athens, which is working a grand total of 2.
drlake: You appear to be losing the iron/fish site as well. Also I'd say you are running too many scientists. Especially Akkad isn't really suited for that.
Wafflecakes: When did the barbarian city near the gold spawn in your game? Because settling this site really should have been a high priority. Also that's way too many axemen if you just wanted to get that city.
Dhoomstriker: While it is the best played out game and I admire the fact that you kept your economy running despite all the warfare, I am not going to vote for it, because this strategy is extremely difficult to copy. There are so many things that can go wrong, not just economy-wise.
As for which saves I would prefer to play from:
(1 point) GKey - Because it's the most solid game.
(2 points) Wafflecakes - Because it's the most challenging one.
(3 points) drlake - Because it's closest to mine and I'm lazy. 
Fierabras: Like drlake said, you're losing the Fish/Iron city to Justinian. Also I'm not quite sure why you're building axemen in almost all your cities right now.
GKey: Solid game - probably the easiest to play from. Nice job relocating Corinth by the way, I wanted to do so too, but was afraid of losing the site to Darius. Also an A+ for exploration, something I always tend to ignore. It's too early to really specialise cities, but with some of them I don't have a clue what they're supposed to become. You're working cottages in nearly every city, but built an Academy in Athens, which is working a grand total of 2.
drlake: You appear to be losing the iron/fish site as well. Also I'd say you are running too many scientists. Especially Akkad isn't really suited for that.
Wafflecakes: When did the barbarian city near the gold spawn in your game? Because settling this site really should have been a high priority. Also that's way too many axemen if you just wanted to get that city.
Dhoomstriker: While it is the best played out game and I admire the fact that you kept your economy running despite all the warfare, I am not going to vote for it, because this strategy is extremely difficult to copy. There are so many things that can go wrong, not just economy-wise.
As for which saves I would prefer to play from:
(1 point) GKey - Because it's the most solid game. (2 points) Wafflecakes - Because it's the most challenging one. (3 points) drlake - Because it's closest to mine and I'm lazy. 
Fierabras
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2006
- Messages
- 1,120
I don't understand what's so important about the Fish/Iron location. I finished Aesthetics on turn 97 and was preparing for tech trading (Priesthood after Polytheism to open up Monarchy, although I was researching Literature by mistake). I was building Axemen, because there was nothing better to build and my thought was that I was getting behind in power.
CivConVict
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2010
- Messages
- 62
It's not really that important, but it's directly next to your capitol, so it costs very little and can yield a reasonable amount of commerce. The iron itself will probably only serve as a backup, since everybody seems to have his own source, but the fish could certainly be used for trading. Like I said, it's nothing game changing, but it would have been nice to have.
drlake
Emperor
Ditto, though I was more keying in on the lack of IW and any Iron source atm. Beyond that, I'm not sure building troops just to boost the power rating is a good approach, at least not in virtually every city. I'd go research instead, since pumping troops like that will tank your economy shortly unless you go to war.
drlake
Emperor
Heh, I guess that goes without saying.
Seriously, though, that is about as high priority a trade as they come for me, since it allows production of research and allows me to pull off more tech trades with the other AIs. I get the impression that tech trading is almost necessary at Immortal+.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
@drlake
- We have an Academy and almost have a second Great Scientist.
- I'm not sure if we're building Wonders to try and complete them, but my guess is that you are investing in the future potential of Failure Gold, which is a decent idea.
- It appears that you are doing your best to work within your limit of +1 Happiness by hiring Scientists everywhere.
- Building Research and working towards Currency are solid moves, given your approach to focus on Failure Gold instead of Military Units.
- Babylon is STILL working an unmined PHRiv For square, 100 turns later.
- The Gold City should be working a Grassland River Farm (you'll need to build one) so that the City can still grow while working the Gold.
- There is a Barb City to the NW of your Gold City. The AIs are doing their best to take it down, but if you send in your units from the nearby Gold City now, you may have a chance of being the one to capture it.
- I am not a fan of doubling-up Workers when they have to expend a movement point to do so. For example, there are 4 Workers on the PHIron square to the NW of Athens. What you could have done was have 3 of those Workers perform another nearby action (chopping the PFor Road square NW of Athens, for example), while 1 Worker climbs the PHIron hill. That Worker can build a Road, after which his buddies can join him 2 turns later without losing 3 full Worker actions.
- I would say that there is a good chance that we are Justinian's war target, which might not be a bad thing, as long as you get another defender or two to our border City of Babylon, before he attacks. Fighting a defensive war mid-game can often work to your advantage more than fighting an offensive one can, at least diplomatically.
@Wafflecakes
- Good idea to keep exploring the AIs' lands.
- It appears that you are mostly using your limited Happiness to work Cottages, which is a decent approach.
- You've got a good start on getting a Great Scientist, but unfortunately you stopped producing him. I'd suggest finishing off the production of that Great Person ASAP.
- Thanks to keeping Alex alive, you have secured the Wheat Resource in your Gold City, since Peter was discouraged from building a City closer to the Wheat as a result of where Alex put his City.
- Justinian will trade us Wine and Ivory. Let's take them! Settle the Fish + Iron, improve the Iron, and THEN go back to building Axemen if you so choose.
- You have no Happiness Resources and yet most of your Cities are 1 turn away from growing into Unhappiness or just grew into Unhappiness last turn. While it is nice that you have sent 10 million Axes towards the Gold City, to ensure that you get it, I'd suggest sending 10 million Workers there, as getting that Gold mined ASAP is going to be critical, with almost all of your Cities about to suffer from Unhappiness. That is, if you were playing forwards without following my above advice of trading for a couple of Happiness Resources.
- Did you self-tech Iron Working? If yes, I would suggest that your strategy should have been to have pre-build a Settler, so as to be able to Settle next to Iron as soon as it revealed. Beelining Iron Working on Immortal can be a dangerous move tech-trading-wise, since the AIs will almost certainly research that tech before you can trade it to them, UNLESS you have a plan for employing the revealed Iron, such as hooking up Iron ASAP and using it to leverage some Swordsmen against an AI who has Cities that haven't expanded their borders too much or who does not have access to any Strategic Resources.
- The Worker at Akkad should probably build either a PRiv Cottage or a GH Mine before it builds a DesH Mine.
- Having no Foreign Trade Routes hurts your economy. I would suggest that you create a Road connection to an AI ASAP.
- I am not sure that I understand why you have Open Borders with everybody. Opening Borders with an AI should be a strategic decision, not something that gets done automatically as soon as you or they learn Writing. In this game, you have "picked sides" by going Buddhist. That's fine, but it means that you should probably close your borders with any AI that has a Buddhist AI as their Worst Enemy. Yes, you won't get +2 over time for sharing Open Borders, but you also won't be accumulating so many negative "You Traded with our Worst Enemy" Diplo modifiers. The only "good" thing that has come out of the situation is that you are now the Worst Enemy of THREE AIs, so they will stop asking you to stop trading with someone else--since they don't hate anyone more than they hate you! Of course, that means that you are Public Enemy #1 for those AIs...
@Fierabras
- Okay, yes, getting the fun of trading around Aesthetics is a nice situation that you have left for us.
- Good job in getting Wine in trade, giving us some extra much-needed Happiness.
- Buddhism is well-spread in our Cities, too, although that could just be luck instead of you manually spreading the Religion, but we're getting some extra Happiness from that fact, too.
- Nice job in pairing up a Great Scientist with several Cottages in our capital. @Others: With so many people extolling the virtues of our capital location as one that is great for Bureaucracy, I am surprised that so many players voted for an "in place settling" game and then turn around and keep talking about moving the Palace. Why move the Palace? Settle on the Coast in the hopes of Seafood for a Great Person Farm and in THAT CASE consider moving the Palace. If you stay in place, work on improving those Cottages! Don't mix strategies!
- Unfortunately, Justinian will only give us cheap techs for Aesthetics, which means that he will likely learn the tech within a few turns. That means that we will have to partially-tech Alphabet, get Alphabet in trade from Zara, and then probably only have Darius left as a trading partner for Aethetics. Saladin hates us too much to trade with us, Peter has been alienated by you agreeing to stop trading with him, Alex is dead, and Justinian, as I said, will likely have learned Aethetics or almost all of it by the time that we can get Alphabet from Zara. It's not the end of the world, but you won't get as much value out of Aethetics as you could have had if you had put your research towards Alphabet immediately after researching Aesthetics and then checking every turn to see if an AI would trade Alphabet to you.
- Who do you plan to rush with those Axemen that you are "somewhat" building? I say "somewhat," because Athens seems prepared to build one Axeman and then The Parthenon. It's a bit late for a rush, so to make it work, you'll need to pump units from as many Cities as possible, including Athens.
- Having no Foreign Trade Routes is hurting your economy.
@CivConVict
- You are set up to hopefully eventually steal the Wheat from Peter for the Gold City, with the Library pumping out Culture and a follow-up Monument being built. It is also good that you are working a GRiv Farm there.
- Nice work in leveraging Research as a build item, since your game is clearly not oriented towards fighting a war.
- Let's just hope that Mr. Hates You a Lot Justinian doesn't decide to go to war with you. Still, it is a point in your favour, since the rest of the world shares a common Religion with you. That situation isn't stopping Justinian from trying to garner Religions allies, though, as I see that he has 2 Buddhist Missionaries in Peter's territory by Peter's Wheat + Gem City.
- The other good part is that Justinian has built some nice, capturable Wonders. He'll definitely make for a good war target... whenever we find time to build an army (after Construction? Watch out for Justinian's War Elephants then).
- Zara will trade us Sugar. Let's take it!
- It kind of sucks that the Fish + Iron City got settled on the Iron, as the Iron will contribute zero bonus production to the City that way, but presumably you settled the City before Iron was revealed, so what can you do?
- I understand that Apache isn't working any improved squares, since it looks like you recently captured it (but at least 5 turns ago, since the Axeman stationed there has the full Fortification bonus), but Corinth is drastically under-improved. If anything, CORINTH should be the City that is generating a Great Scientist--or even wait to grow the City until after your Deer is improved and work the Mines for now. Even do both--work the Mines and hire 2 Scientists while leveraging your stored-up Food--at least until the Deer is improved and ready to be worked.
- You still never went ahead and built Mines for Bablyon--okay, you appear to be working GRiv Cottage squares, but what about all of the turns in between? How long were we working an inferior PHRiv For square?
@GKey
- Nice focus on getting Happiness Resources!
- Good job on getting some Mines going for Babylon. If you want to build the Mausoleum of Maussollos, you'll want to work the Mines to give you the best chance of completing it first.
- Good idea on spreading our Religion around. If we're going to sit in Organized Religion, we have to make that fact worthwhile by having our State Religion exist in more than a single City.
- The Tech situation is pretty good.
- We might get lucky and see a war between Peter and Darius. In anticipation of that possibility, I would suggest getting the majority of your troops on their borders. Getting a Spearman or two in a border City next to Darius would also be wise, in case Darius decides to attack us, instead of Peter.
- With so many AIs knowing Monarchy, our window of warring with our current technology units has all but disappeared. We'll likely have to wait at minimum for Macemen + Catapults before being able to go to war on our own (if Darius attacks Peter or us, though, we might be able to fight a successful war though).
- I'm not sure what's going on with The Pyramids--are you trying to build it to get Failure Gold? If Failure Gold, why are we building The Pyramids without Stone when we could be building a different Wonder that could get a production bonus from a Resource? If we DO want to complete The Pyramids, why are we building it in a City that has extremely weak production?
- An Academy in Athens wouldn't be a great move, except for the fact that you are lucky enough to be working a Gem Mine there. As it is, since there is little focus on Cottages in what is "supposed" to be our in-place Bureaucracy capital, it's not a terrible move, either--it's just kind of mediocre. Building more Cottages in Athens should become a priority.
- I do not understand why we built a Monument in the Fish + Iron City before buiding a Work Boat there. A Monument can be easily whipped once you are working an improved Fish, while the only real square of value that we can get from expanding our borders there is the Whale, which we can't even work until we have learned at least 4 more techs.
- If you aren't planning on going to war, why are all of our Military Units stationed in a single City under Hereditary Rule? Sure, you have some surplus Happiness Resources, but Athens, for example, could shortly outgrow its Happiness cap. Can we consider spreading around our Hereditary Rule bonus a bit across multiple Cities?
My votes
GKey = 3 points
drlake = 2 points
CivConVict = 1 point
- We have an Academy and almost have a second Great Scientist.
- I'm not sure if we're building Wonders to try and complete them, but my guess is that you are investing in the future potential of Failure Gold, which is a decent idea.
- It appears that you are doing your best to work within your limit of +1 Happiness by hiring Scientists everywhere.
- Building Research and working towards Currency are solid moves, given your approach to focus on Failure Gold instead of Military Units.
- Babylon is STILL working an unmined PHRiv For square, 100 turns later.
- The Gold City should be working a Grassland River Farm (you'll need to build one) so that the City can still grow while working the Gold.
- There is a Barb City to the NW of your Gold City. The AIs are doing their best to take it down, but if you send in your units from the nearby Gold City now, you may have a chance of being the one to capture it.
- I am not a fan of doubling-up Workers when they have to expend a movement point to do so. For example, there are 4 Workers on the PHIron square to the NW of Athens. What you could have done was have 3 of those Workers perform another nearby action (chopping the PFor Road square NW of Athens, for example), while 1 Worker climbs the PHIron hill. That Worker can build a Road, after which his buddies can join him 2 turns later without losing 3 full Worker actions.
- I would say that there is a good chance that we are Justinian's war target, which might not be a bad thing, as long as you get another defender or two to our border City of Babylon, before he attacks. Fighting a defensive war mid-game can often work to your advantage more than fighting an offensive one can, at least diplomatically.
@Wafflecakes
- Good idea to keep exploring the AIs' lands.
- It appears that you are mostly using your limited Happiness to work Cottages, which is a decent approach.
- You've got a good start on getting a Great Scientist, but unfortunately you stopped producing him. I'd suggest finishing off the production of that Great Person ASAP.
- Thanks to keeping Alex alive, you have secured the Wheat Resource in your Gold City, since Peter was discouraged from building a City closer to the Wheat as a result of where Alex put his City.
- Justinian will trade us Wine and Ivory. Let's take them! Settle the Fish + Iron, improve the Iron, and THEN go back to building Axemen if you so choose.
- You have no Happiness Resources and yet most of your Cities are 1 turn away from growing into Unhappiness or just grew into Unhappiness last turn. While it is nice that you have sent 10 million Axes towards the Gold City, to ensure that you get it, I'd suggest sending 10 million Workers there, as getting that Gold mined ASAP is going to be critical, with almost all of your Cities about to suffer from Unhappiness. That is, if you were playing forwards without following my above advice of trading for a couple of Happiness Resources.
- Did you self-tech Iron Working? If yes, I would suggest that your strategy should have been to have pre-build a Settler, so as to be able to Settle next to Iron as soon as it revealed. Beelining Iron Working on Immortal can be a dangerous move tech-trading-wise, since the AIs will almost certainly research that tech before you can trade it to them, UNLESS you have a plan for employing the revealed Iron, such as hooking up Iron ASAP and using it to leverage some Swordsmen against an AI who has Cities that haven't expanded their borders too much or who does not have access to any Strategic Resources.
- The Worker at Akkad should probably build either a PRiv Cottage or a GH Mine before it builds a DesH Mine.
- Having no Foreign Trade Routes hurts your economy. I would suggest that you create a Road connection to an AI ASAP.
- I am not sure that I understand why you have Open Borders with everybody. Opening Borders with an AI should be a strategic decision, not something that gets done automatically as soon as you or they learn Writing. In this game, you have "picked sides" by going Buddhist. That's fine, but it means that you should probably close your borders with any AI that has a Buddhist AI as their Worst Enemy. Yes, you won't get +2 over time for sharing Open Borders, but you also won't be accumulating so many negative "You Traded with our Worst Enemy" Diplo modifiers. The only "good" thing that has come out of the situation is that you are now the Worst Enemy of THREE AIs, so they will stop asking you to stop trading with someone else--since they don't hate anyone more than they hate you! Of course, that means that you are Public Enemy #1 for those AIs...
@Fierabras
- Okay, yes, getting the fun of trading around Aesthetics is a nice situation that you have left for us.
- Good job in getting Wine in trade, giving us some extra much-needed Happiness.
- Buddhism is well-spread in our Cities, too, although that could just be luck instead of you manually spreading the Religion, but we're getting some extra Happiness from that fact, too.
- Nice job in pairing up a Great Scientist with several Cottages in our capital. @Others: With so many people extolling the virtues of our capital location as one that is great for Bureaucracy, I am surprised that so many players voted for an "in place settling" game and then turn around and keep talking about moving the Palace. Why move the Palace? Settle on the Coast in the hopes of Seafood for a Great Person Farm and in THAT CASE consider moving the Palace. If you stay in place, work on improving those Cottages! Don't mix strategies!
- Unfortunately, Justinian will only give us cheap techs for Aesthetics, which means that he will likely learn the tech within a few turns. That means that we will have to partially-tech Alphabet, get Alphabet in trade from Zara, and then probably only have Darius left as a trading partner for Aethetics. Saladin hates us too much to trade with us, Peter has been alienated by you agreeing to stop trading with him, Alex is dead, and Justinian, as I said, will likely have learned Aethetics or almost all of it by the time that we can get Alphabet from Zara. It's not the end of the world, but you won't get as much value out of Aethetics as you could have had if you had put your research towards Alphabet immediately after researching Aesthetics and then checking every turn to see if an AI would trade Alphabet to you.
- Who do you plan to rush with those Axemen that you are "somewhat" building? I say "somewhat," because Athens seems prepared to build one Axeman and then The Parthenon. It's a bit late for a rush, so to make it work, you'll need to pump units from as many Cities as possible, including Athens.
- Having no Foreign Trade Routes is hurting your economy.
@CivConVict
- You are set up to hopefully eventually steal the Wheat from Peter for the Gold City, with the Library pumping out Culture and a follow-up Monument being built. It is also good that you are working a GRiv Farm there.
- Nice work in leveraging Research as a build item, since your game is clearly not oriented towards fighting a war.
- Let's just hope that Mr. Hates You a Lot Justinian doesn't decide to go to war with you. Still, it is a point in your favour, since the rest of the world shares a common Religion with you. That situation isn't stopping Justinian from trying to garner Religions allies, though, as I see that he has 2 Buddhist Missionaries in Peter's territory by Peter's Wheat + Gem City.
- The other good part is that Justinian has built some nice, capturable Wonders. He'll definitely make for a good war target... whenever we find time to build an army (after Construction? Watch out for Justinian's War Elephants then).
- Zara will trade us Sugar. Let's take it!
- It kind of sucks that the Fish + Iron City got settled on the Iron, as the Iron will contribute zero bonus production to the City that way, but presumably you settled the City before Iron was revealed, so what can you do?
- I understand that Apache isn't working any improved squares, since it looks like you recently captured it (but at least 5 turns ago, since the Axeman stationed there has the full Fortification bonus), but Corinth is drastically under-improved. If anything, CORINTH should be the City that is generating a Great Scientist--or even wait to grow the City until after your Deer is improved and work the Mines for now. Even do both--work the Mines and hire 2 Scientists while leveraging your stored-up Food--at least until the Deer is improved and ready to be worked.
- You still never went ahead and built Mines for Bablyon--okay, you appear to be working GRiv Cottage squares, but what about all of the turns in between? How long were we working an inferior PHRiv For square?
@GKey
- Nice focus on getting Happiness Resources!
- Good job on getting some Mines going for Babylon. If you want to build the Mausoleum of Maussollos, you'll want to work the Mines to give you the best chance of completing it first.
- Good idea on spreading our Religion around. If we're going to sit in Organized Religion, we have to make that fact worthwhile by having our State Religion exist in more than a single City.
- The Tech situation is pretty good.
- We might get lucky and see a war between Peter and Darius. In anticipation of that possibility, I would suggest getting the majority of your troops on their borders. Getting a Spearman or two in a border City next to Darius would also be wise, in case Darius decides to attack us, instead of Peter.
- With so many AIs knowing Monarchy, our window of warring with our current technology units has all but disappeared. We'll likely have to wait at minimum for Macemen + Catapults before being able to go to war on our own (if Darius attacks Peter or us, though, we might be able to fight a successful war though).
- I'm not sure what's going on with The Pyramids--are you trying to build it to get Failure Gold? If Failure Gold, why are we building The Pyramids without Stone when we could be building a different Wonder that could get a production bonus from a Resource? If we DO want to complete The Pyramids, why are we building it in a City that has extremely weak production?
- An Academy in Athens wouldn't be a great move, except for the fact that you are lucky enough to be working a Gem Mine there. As it is, since there is little focus on Cottages in what is "supposed" to be our in-place Bureaucracy capital, it's not a terrible move, either--it's just kind of mediocre. Building more Cottages in Athens should become a priority.
- I do not understand why we built a Monument in the Fish + Iron City before buiding a Work Boat there. A Monument can be easily whipped once you are working an improved Fish, while the only real square of value that we can get from expanding our borders there is the Whale, which we can't even work until we have learned at least 4 more techs.
- If you aren't planning on going to war, why are all of our Military Units stationed in a single City under Hereditary Rule? Sure, you have some surplus Happiness Resources, but Athens, for example, could shortly outgrow its Happiness cap. Can we consider spreading around our Hereditary Rule bonus a bit across multiple Cities?
My votes
GKey = 3 points
drlake = 2 points
CivConVict = 1 point
drlake
Emperor
Thank you. Yes, I was building the wonders primarily for failgold, though I wouldn't mind getting the Parthenon if it comes in. I originally started the 'mids that way too, before I had Alphabet IIRC. I didn't want to build more units at the time, because I was already close to being in strike.
I'm running scientists everywhere because I didn't want my cities to grow beyond the happiness cap, as you suspected. I literally just hooked up the Gold the turn before, raising the happiness cap, and did not adjust to that since I wasn't sure whether I should stick with the Scientists until finishing Currency.
I missed the unimproved tile at Babylon. I haven't yet put worker actions beyond the road and mining the gold into the Gold City, but farming the grasslands would be up next.
I blew it when I moved so many workers to the Iron. I hadn't thought of the wasted turns, and was so excited to get Iron into my cultural borders (Athens just popped) that I overreacted.
Hmm, good point on the other barb city. I was thinking losing it to ZY was a foregone conclusion, but that's not necessarily true.
OK, if I/we play forward from my save (doesn't look likely) I'll reinforce Babylon just in case Justinian gets feisty.
I'm not sure I understand your point about Open vs. Closed borders here. You seem to be saying that if you don't have Open Borders with an AI, you can't get negative "you traded with our enemy" diplomatic hits from that AI when you trade with their enemies?
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Try it out. What you'll see is that an AI will try repeatedly to get you to Open Borders with them, assuming that they don't hate you too much to do so.
SOOOOOOOOOO... instead of an AI asking you to stop Trading with their Worst Enemy, they will come to you asking to Open Borders with them.
This request for Opening Borders with them will REPLACE other such requests that they might have made. I'm not sure if they can still ask you to stop trading with others, but if they can still ask you to stop trading with others, they'll ask you to do so a lot less frequently, since they will be so busy with asking you to Open Borders with them.
Once you Open Borders with an AI, it's like you have "accepted" them into "your club," and once they have their foot in the door, they can be as noisy and cantankerous as they want about other members that you have allowed to join "your club." But, if they aren't a member, they'll spend most (all?) of their time begging you to join your "awesome club," instead of complaining about who the other members are.
Yet another tidbit that was worth the price of admission...
Civconvict: Very large and solid. Looks like Zara going to settle that desert hill SE of Dur-Kurigalzu (that was exactly the reason why I settled it 1S of yours, while it was asking to be settled on that plain hill). Very good save, no doubt.
Dhoomstriker: Total war. (Well, almost total
). Amazing performance, you should place your turns on youtube.
Dont understand what your plan was. War to the end, while we dont have siege and sufficient production at home? Cow/copper site not settled, so all units will come from Babylon, but it needs to work cottages to keep us afloat.
By hitting Peter and Darius you secured to yourself half of the continent. Your save would be the best if you did not attack Justinian after that. My guess you got no choice: needed gold from pillage/city capture. Constantinople with 2 workable tiles, surrounded by enemy territory not worth it IMO even with 5 gold shrine. Justinian is still strong and way more advanced then we are, so we need keep pumping troops and send them there to defend city and attack Thessalonica, with all tiles pillaged. Signing peace at current situation would not be good too IMO.
Almost all techs we can trade now for peace. Forget about tech trading after that.
After all this hard work you have done, I dont see advantage of situation besides having St.Petersburg and Moscow 2 excellent cities and Peter and Darius been crippled. Btw Athens is even better city (and closer to our capital), if it could use its pigs.
May be earliest possible conquest/domination is possible here and it would be nice if you could shadow your save and share results with us.
As I see it, we got no choice but keep fighting without sufficient income and production. This save is no doubt a most interesting one.
Drlake: Peaceful. Currency in 8, good job with building research.
6 cities, 7 workers, settler in Corinth in 5turns. Babylon works forested plain hill losing 1H1C per turn, while 3 workers going to mine iron. Fish iron site not settled. Good and promising save.
Fierabras: Unhappiness could be whipped. Every turn you do not make tech trade, you risk losing it. Youd better put one turn into Alphabet and trade for it as well as for IW and others. That way you could discover iron and settle it. Its not too late though. Well, as you said, you made it little open-ended, which is good approach too.
Wafflecakes: Looks like you try avoiding overlap by city placement, which is good but in current case Dur-Kurigalzu became productive late without cows and copper in its initial ring. Lucky that gold site was captured by barbs and not by Peter or Zara. As been mentioned by Civconvict it is a top priority site. Akkad placement secured some land for us and we can steal that iron from Justinian. Many forests left near Babylon, which give us potential for future wonders. Very decent save.
Votes:
Civconvict
Dhoomstriker
Drlake
Dhoomstriker: Total war. (Well, almost total
). Amazing performance, you should place your turns on youtube. Dont understand what your plan was. War to the end, while we dont have siege and sufficient production at home? Cow/copper site not settled, so all units will come from Babylon, but it needs to work cottages to keep us afloat.
By hitting Peter and Darius you secured to yourself half of the continent. Your save would be the best if you did not attack Justinian after that. My guess you got no choice: needed gold from pillage/city capture. Constantinople with 2 workable tiles, surrounded by enemy territory not worth it IMO even with 5 gold shrine. Justinian is still strong and way more advanced then we are, so we need keep pumping troops and send them there to defend city and attack Thessalonica, with all tiles pillaged. Signing peace at current situation would not be good too IMO.
Almost all techs we can trade now for peace. Forget about tech trading after that.
After all this hard work you have done, I dont see advantage of situation besides having St.Petersburg and Moscow 2 excellent cities and Peter and Darius been crippled. Btw Athens is even better city (and closer to our capital), if it could use its pigs.
May be earliest possible conquest/domination is possible here and it would be nice if you could shadow your save and share results with us.
As I see it, we got no choice but keep fighting without sufficient income and production. This save is no doubt a most interesting one.
Drlake: Peaceful. Currency in 8, good job with building research.
6 cities, 7 workers, settler in Corinth in 5turns. Babylon works forested plain hill losing 1H1C per turn, while 3 workers going to mine iron. Fish iron site not settled. Good and promising save.
Fierabras: Unhappiness could be whipped. Every turn you do not make tech trade, you risk losing it. Youd better put one turn into Alphabet and trade for it as well as for IW and others. That way you could discover iron and settle it. Its not too late though. Well, as you said, you made it little open-ended, which is good approach too.
Wafflecakes: Looks like you try avoiding overlap by city placement, which is good but in current case Dur-Kurigalzu became productive late without cows and copper in its initial ring. Lucky that gold site was captured by barbs and not by Peter or Zara. As been mentioned by Civconvict it is a top priority site. Akkad placement secured some land for us and we can steal that iron from Justinian. Many forests left near Babylon, which give us potential for future wonders. Very decent save.
Votes:
Civconvict Dhoomstriker Drlake
Yamps
Deity
@Dhoomstriker 
many implications there about OB...
The main reason not to open borders with civ A is that you prevent your friends that hate civ A to ask you that. (If you refuse, your friends won't like it and if you do, civ A won't like it even more.)
You won't get the negatives for trading with worst enemies from open borders, that's worth almost nothing for that.
I'd assume that each demand has its frequency (probability each turn) independent of other demands, but that's sth to check in the code.
Also, are AI demands to stop trading limited to worst enemies only?
many implications there about OB...The main reason not to open borders with civ A is that you prevent your friends that hate civ A to ask you that. (If you refuse, your friends won't like it and if you do, civ A won't like it even more.)
You won't get the negatives for trading with worst enemies from open borders, that's worth almost nothing for that.
I'd assume that each demand has its frequency (probability each turn) independent of other demands, but that's sth to check in the code.
Also, are AI demands to stop trading limited to worst enemies only?
Would be nice to have expert analysis from deity guys (may be after Wafflecakes votes).
Regarging academy in Athens: very questionable move, agreed. But Athens has better science potential then Babylon, it will grove faster -> work more cottages faster while running specs. I was consider keeping that GS for after I get CoL/drama and bulb Philo, but we might have another GS by then (in 22 turns in Babylon).
@Dhoom
I've made 1 turn detour into fishing after I got Aesthetics, so we already got monument by then. Pyramids sure are for failure gold, other wonders became available after Aesthetics and ToA was already in progress in Babylon. I want our food average Babylon finally grove and work specs/cottages, MoM will be there by chopping very soon, Parthenon is next. GLib/NE will go in Athens. Not sure where to place HE though. As I mentioned I have plans for war. I intend hitting Zara in next 10 turns with axes chariots and couple of spears. He is lightly defended. Peter got construction, but if Darius attacks him I will join in.
Regarging academy in Athens: very questionable move, agreed. But Athens has better science potential then Babylon, it will grove faster -> work more cottages faster while running specs. I was consider keeping that GS for after I get CoL/drama and bulb Philo, but we might have another GS by then (in 22 turns in Babylon).
@Dhoom
I've made 1 turn detour into fishing after I got Aesthetics, so we already got monument by then. Pyramids sure are for failure gold, other wonders became available after Aesthetics and ToA was already in progress in Babylon. I want our food average Babylon finally grove and work specs/cottages, MoM will be there by chopping very soon, Parthenon is next. GLib/NE will go in Athens. Not sure where to place HE though. As I mentioned I have plans for war. I intend hitting Zara in next 10 turns with axes chariots and couple of spears. He is lightly defended. Peter got construction, but if Darius attacks him I will join in.
