Hammurabi - Immortal Cookbook

[drlake]

@Dhoom

Spoiler :

I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at with the possible moves for the settler. Are you suggesting moving to something besides one of the PHs to scout, with the idea that if it doesn't look promising you can always move there or back to SIP (though I can't imagine doing this) on the third turn?

My inclination is to move the warrior 1N to see that part of the BFC, and then if nothing there indicates a need to SIP or in that area then move to the PH on the river.

On VCs, I'm not a big fan of cultural games. They seem boring to me, and don't leverage our traits well. I'd be more inclined to go for conquest/domination and accept a diplomacy if given one.

I've had little luck with worker stealing, personally. It always seems to cost me more than its worth, but I'm willing to consider it if granted the opportunity. I do favor a rush if one is feasible, as I noted in my initial post.

I tend to conserve forests, personally, unless I need the production surge (such as for wonders). That said, why would you want to clear cut this area? The plains tiles in particular aren't exactly improved by cutting them, so why do it? I'd clear off the grasslands when I needed them for farms or cottages, and the hills for mines, though.

Tech path is about what I was thinking as well.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@drlake--Still discussing pre-play strategy

Spoiler :

I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at with the possible moves for the settler. Are you suggesting moving to something besides one of the PHs to scout, with the idea that if it doesn't look promising you can always move there or back to SIP (though I can't imagine doing this) on the third turn?

Essentially, I suggested moving to a "centralized" location on Turn 0, so that we could have a ton of possible locations to move to on Turn 1. Since most locations have a Forest, Hill, or are two-moves away, we won't be able to settle until Turn 2 using this method.

However, a lot of possible settling locations become available. We'll also give the Warrior time to see if there is Seafood available on the Coast, since you can see 2-squares worth of distance across water.

A picture should help to illustrate what I'm getting at:

Note that we could equally be able to settle in any of those locations on Turn 2 by moving the Settler on Turn 0: W PCow, NW some kind of Forest.

My inclination is to move the warrior 1N to see that part of the BFC, and then if nothing there indicates a need to SIP or in that area then move to the PH on the river.

And that's a potentially strong move, moreso if Seafood appears. I was simply suggesting a way of spending 1 more turn to be able to check for certain if Seafood is there, and if not, then to offer us more information and to open up more possible settling locations.

On VCs, I'm not a big fan of cultural games. They seem boring to me, and don't leverage our traits well. I'd be more inclined to go for conquest/domination and accept a diplomacy if given one.

Okay, fair enough. Given those Victory Conditions, I would be inclined to ignore the idea of "having" to settle on a River square.

I've had little luck with worker stealing, personally. It always seems to cost me more than its worth, but I'm willing to consider it if granted the opportunity. I do favor a rush if one is feasible, as I noted in my initial post.

Thanks for the additional feedback.

I tend to conserve forests, personally, unless I need the production surge (such as for wonders). That said, why would you want to clear cut this area? The plains tiles in particular aren't exactly improved by cutting them, so why do it? I'd clear off the grasslands when I needed them for farms or cottages, and the hills for mines, though.

Well, maybe "clear-cutting" is too strong a term--what I meant to say was that I'd first cull the Forests and plan for potential Forest regrowth. As the game progresses, probably during the second turnset, I'd be willing to chop most of the remaining ones, though.

Tech order roughly: AH > Mining > [Fishing if needed] > Mysticism (border pops) > Archery (Bowman UU) > BW (might move earlier to chop forests)

Don't forget that if you want Archery, you'll also have to slot Hunting in there somewhere. The fact that you have to research 2 techs just to get Bowmen does make them seem a bit less desirable to relatively-beeline for (well, a beeline compared to when you'd get Archery in a normal Immortal game).

If you really want to rush an AI, it would likely be better to aim to get a Chariot or an Axeman out to pillage the AI's source of said Resource. The problem with that approach is that the Bowman's bonus against Melee units becomes useless in an initial rush, unless we're up against Sitting Bull or Monte--basically, an AI that can build Melee units without a metal Resource.

Hence, I would be inclined to skip early Archery if I wanted to rush and might only get it if I did NOT plan to rush and wanted some good rush-defence.

 

[Fleme]

Oo this came up fast.

Pre:

Spoiler :

I'm most likely going to be miserable on normal speed but I can't wait to give it a shot later on tonight. SIP looks horrible as I'm no fan of that plains food at all. Good production potential though, but requiring quite a bit of effort.

I'm going to go for the blue circle as stupid as that usually is. If nothing else, atleast the city will be coastal.. Not sure coastal means diddly on Pangaea thought but I've made up my mind!

I'm not much of a pregamer tbh, will just play and see where it leads.

 

[vranasm]

wow that was quick.
May I ask why we spoiler pre-play discussion? Spoilered should be reports from people who already played and non spoilered our discussion.


My actual thoughts about the start and how I would do it.

Well I am no fan of plains cow as food source and unirrigated wheat too. That certainly is complication. But did someone try to calculate the number of grassland riverside tiles? yeah we're looking on at least 8! 1 of them will be farmed after CS for sure, but still with 7 grass riverside tiles, which will produce hammers from chopping and we are arguing moving away? This will be monster after bureau I tell you!

I am not fun moving to coast on pangea map, I understand the concerns of food... but for example there could be clams/crabs as food source...they are not that much better then wheat. As I see it a lot of people want to waste 1 turn for checking if there is fish which is the only type of food that give us advantage and since we have no fishing delays our start anyway even if there is.

Actually I see everyone wants to move warrior to reveal already guessed tiles... well I differ I would use the unforrested PH SE of warrior to see more surroundings.

So that's how I would do it ;-).

 

[Nothingontv]

I'm happy it's normal speed, epic is just too difficult for me since i never play it.
I won my first immortal game last week so i will give this a try (and hopefully stick with it this time).
Haven't had a lot of luck with Hammurabi so far.

About the starting location: I wouldn't settle towards the coast myself, especially since this is a pangea map. There won't be any AI's in that direction so there shouldn't be a problem to settle that spot later.

@Kossin I never thought about looking at a square next to water to see if it's fresh water or sea, still so much to learn for me .

 

[GKey]

Some more to consider:

Spoiler :

The main concern in SIP is average food. At size 4 we will work PWheat + PCows (5 surplus food), that way if we want working 2 PH mines, we will have only 1 surplus food. So we will need make painful decision: pull production or let cap grow. Whipping will be much less effective too. I find it crucial to check for seafood. So moving settler to 1 of North hills looks most relevant.

In addition abundance of forests makes our chances for oracle pretty high. But we can't afford wondering around too much. So we have a chance to make good guess by moving on 1 of these hills, wasting only 1 turn. And giving this picture:

Even moving warrior 1N on hill will not reveal possible seafood location.
There should be resource in 1 of these locations SWW and NNE. These are not hills so it must be horses/copper/iron. That way I vote to move settler NNW:
+Good observation of sea, PH to settle, possible resource in BFC, at least 5 forested riverside grassland.
- Lose river.

Regarding victory condition, I think it's too early to decide.

Same goes regarding early rush/worker steal.

How about we vote for settle location, settle, play for 10-20 turns and continue discussion after we have scouted a bit? Meeting Monty/Shaka on second turn might be important.

But before we settle let's just move this warrior 1N, since everyone is pretty much agreed with that.

Let's move warrior 1N and start count votes for settling. Otherwise it will take ages.
Presence/absence of seafood will sure affect tech path too.

 

[GKey]

@Nothingontv
These spots are 2 tiles away. You will lose them if SIP.

 

[Nothingontv]

@Gkey

We don't vote for where we settle do we? As far as i understand it we vote after 50 turns.

 

[GKey]

@Nothingontv

Last cookbook some of participants including myself mentioned that

It's hard sometimes not being in the mind of the person who submitted the winning save

That raised idea of having discussion on main aspects of the turn before playing it. That way we will have less trouble adaptation to winning save.

Of cause it's up to you if wait for consensus or not. It can take long if ever.

Personally I'm going to play in the way supported by majority of participants even if I disagree, means yes I will count votes and play as been proposed by most.

 

[Fleme]

If the guess is that there's a resource in that tile 2N1E then that would make settling 2N or 2N1W possible. It will lose fresh water but in turn might have what that blue circle is implying and the guessed strategic resource.

I should probably smack myself for even considering doing what the blue circle suggests as it rarely is the best call but given the spot that the settler starts, 2N1W or 2NW seem like attractive options to me. Starting on a plains hill alone is a great boon even if there's nothing else riding on that spot (other than the coastal thing).

2N1W directly might be a reasonable call assuming we're aiming for a wellrounded capital. I mean, it has production in the hills and plains cow plus has the possibility of a hidden resource in the assumed tile as well as the fact that it has plenty of riverside grass for cottaging should it go to that - it has access to rivers both due southeast and southwest.

Bear with me as I'm no normal speed player but how many turns can you waste looking for a spot? I don't mind using a few turns determining my spot on marathon but this is obviously a different ballpark.

 

[vranasm]

well generally you should settle on T0 or T1... going for T2 should be really something that makes you "wow"

settling on PH has its merits to "waste" 1T, question is what you pick up to the west

I think we really are in the north part of world so moving settler north is moving the wrong direction ;-)

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Bear with me as I'm no normal speed player but how many turns can you waste looking for a spot?

All I was suggesting was that you could take some of the guesswork out of the decision by using up 1 additional turn. For example, you'd know for sure if there was any Seafood to be had for any of the 2N, NW + N, and NW + NW locations without having to commit to moving there and with having more info of the surrounding area to help you pick an in-land location to settle should the sea prove to be barren.

I think that most people seem to want to move to the Coast in hopes of finding Seafood.

Consider the following: if there is no Seafood there, isn't settling somewhere else where we can get more Riverside squares better than just getting Seafood-less Coast?


Whatever. Sometimes it's more fun just to finesse a guess and hope that it pays off. If that's how most people are going to approach the start, then we will likely end up settling in many different locations. That's fine, but it means that GKey's point about people playing different games from each other will hold true.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, as we might end up continuing from one of the games where the person got the luckiest of starts. You just can't play that way for real in your own games, and in your own games will either have to start a new game if you don't like your finessed guess, will have to lose another turn without having as much info as you could have had by intentionally spending that turn up-front, or else resign yourself to replaying the start.


I guess it depends upon your goal. If you're the kind of player who likes to play Hall of Fame games, where you'll just start a new map if you don't do well, then riskier play pays off, as you'll discard games that you don't do well in.

Similarly, if you have no compunctions against restarting on a map that you didn't do well on or don't mind occasional reloading, then you can finesse the start and if you don't like your guess, you can just reload from Turn 0.


But, if you want to play forward from whatever you're given, then I have simply presented a way that would give you a capital location which you'll be a lot happier with for an investment of 1 additional turn (or 2 if you decide that in-place was better afterall--but, if you'd still planned to move anyway and after that first turn had decided to back to in-place, then deciding to go back to in-place using my suggestion is really only 1 extra turn spent).


I don't mind following the crowd, as GKey plans to do, but I also don't expect everyone else to do so. Play your own game, but stating a few decisions up-front can help GKey and me to copy the majority.


Still, we could end up having more players chosing to move somewhere, GKey and myself "copying," and then leaving the players that do something differently stuck with having to play forward from a game possibly quite dissimilar from their own.

It's not an issue for me, as I'll play from whatever position, and I don't even mind playing from a "not the best" saved game, but not everyone will be fine with this approach, so the best that I can offer to do is what GKey plans to do and go with what the masses plan to do.


The less plans that we talk about in advance, the more likely that us "copiers of the masses" will end up doing something differently that other players might not like.

 

[Yoshi1]

Analyzing so much early would give me a headache
I would consider it much more fun if peeps just play how they think it is good, and post saves to compare, without thinking to much about if the micro management was 100% perfect.
Civ tends to be a game for me where the excitement fades the longer a game runs, or in this case the longer the whole thing is dragged along.

 

[ahcos]

well, as this might be the right attitude for a shadow game or some other random forum game, this is the immortal cookbook, so discussion is a) wanted b) needed in order to improve players gameplay. i bet there are alot of players lurking and reading the posts better players make with interest.
personally, i analyze pretty much myself, but i rather do it by comparing my current situation to what i've experienced in games i've already played. not too much with numbers and stuff, but i appreciate everyone who does the math because this way you get hard facts and can use the sum up for your advantage.

 

[drlake]

Analyzing so much early would give me a headache
I would consider it much more fun if peeps just play how they think it is good, and post saves to compare, without thinking to much about if the micro management was 100% perfect.
Civ tends to be a game for me where the excitement fades the longer a game runs, or in this case the longer the whole thing is dragged along.

The purpose of this game, as ahcos mentioned, was to help some of us improve our gameplay. That's why from the initial post, discussion before turn sets was encouraged. In the last two IC games, we did longer turn sets and there was little pre-discussion, which I (for one) found made it more difficult to play because I didn't understand what had happened during some of the longer turn sets, why it worked (or didn't), and how to build upon what was there.

That's why for this IC we decided to change the format (you can see the discussion in the previous IC thread) and go to shorter turn sets with pre-discussion encouraged.

@vranasm

3-Players are strongly encouraged to contribute their thoughts in spoilers as well, before reading the other spoilers. Half the work of Immortal is planning while the other half is playing it out

 

[CivConVict]

I'd settle in place. There's enough grassland to go with 1x4F and 1x3F. If there is more food around chances are we're gonna need it in the next cities anyway. Besides, there's really not much point to a seaside capitol on a pangea map.

 

[drlake]

@Dhoom

OK, I get what you mean regarding scouting possible city sites and the forests. Also good points regarding tech order and an early rush option.

 

[Fleme]

Since it's in the merit of comparison and discussion (of the first 50 turns), I've decided to settle 2N1W to see where it goes - for better or for worse. Will download the game now and post my first segment shortly.

 

[Fleme]

My first 50, to 2000 BC.

Spoiler :

Boy, is normal different from Marathon or what?

Anyhow, 2N1W reveals this:

Not just +1 food but 2! Excellent. I'm just disappointed at the loss of fresh water because that not only means losing 2 health but also the later access to levees. Well, the Garden does make up for the health loss and playing for early rather than late is like putting money in the bank anyhow. It's not like this is a low production site - on the contrary.

Turn 5, challengers show up:

Now, it might be just me but is ORG/AGG not screaming for rush to you guys? I for one will plan on one and given that the enemies are this close (rough estimate at this point was 10-15 tiles given how fast scouts move and how fast warriors do.) Agg for augmenting those axes, org for recovery. Simple, effective.

Turn 7, border pop time:

Now, this is rather disappointing as at this moment I realized that my save probably won't be able to compete with those that went for 2NW because those saves will have the fish available for settling while I created a "failfish" in my save.

Turn 13, do I dare, do I dare?

I dared. With Justinian so close I decided that it would be well worth it to take one worker now to hasten his demise. It also seems that he is the only AI living in that direction which in turn would mean securing a respectable slice of land just for ourselves. The terrain we start in is poo.

Anyhow, my convoy ran into a predicament en-route back home in the form of a bear. I decided to gamble and sent the worker into the dark:

Paid off.

Rewinding 2 turns, the event of AH came up with this:

5 specials and just a huge base of production available at Babylon. I'm really liking my call so far. Size 5 it can work on Sheep, Cow, Wheat, Horse and a Plains Hill for 14(15, mined) and still have a food surplus of 2.

Workerstealer moves to inspect Constantinople from a forested hill:

He doesn't have fresh water either Anyhow, non-protective and flat. That city will be rushed.

Having just finished BW and popping copper close by, Akkad went to be settled on it.

Don't wanna waste turns mining and roading it (although I am wasting turns roading to Akkad - had hoped copper would be towards Justinian and had started roading there. That road didn't go to waste as it will help the rushers get into place faster but anyhow, roading Akkad was next on my agenda.)

Then moving on to t50. I also settled Dur-Kurigalzu as both a staging area for the rush and to deny Justinian access to horse. For now he does not have metal nor horse and is very susceptible to a rush.

Land around Justinian is pretty sweet with swine all over the place and lots of green to cottage. Too bad he sucks at placing cities.

Diplo:

Justinian is willing to talk peace if that's necessary. I took a -1 hit from ZY by declaring but since Saladin elsewhere founded Hinduism I'm pretty sure that there's not going to be any problems from anyone for taking out the heathen Justinian. The terrain we have is so horribly bad that we just need to migrate to Byzantium in my opinion - on the other side you have Alexander who will put up more of a fight and due south ZY who would also be a rushing option but in my game I opted for Justinian since I found him first.

2 Axes with 2 more in production
1 Chariot
5 Warriors
2 Workers
3 Cities

2 Barracks

Techs went AH-Mining-BW and is now working on Mysticism.

As a concluding comment I'd like to point out that I'm really bad at judging my game because like I said, I play only marathon. I have no idea what kind of numbers I should be having at this point so any and all feedback is more than welcome.

 

[Fierabras]

Let's move warrior 1N and start count votes for settling. Otherwise it will take ages.
Presence/absence of seafood will sure affect tech path too.

I agree with this plan. If the NE resource in GKey's screenshot is hidden (meaning it will be horse/copper/iron), I'll move the settler to hill 1. Otherwise to hill 2 to get riverside.