Harvshepsut of Egypt (NOT Earth 18)

[Harv]

I did not write down what did, but this time, it took me to Turn 70. I let Thebes grow a bit and whip the Barracks, then kept building War Chariots, DoW when I saw the Archers defending the settler for the worker steal. They had about four defenders and I let the war chariots build. I attacked with 10 War Chariots against 5 Archers and got some lucky rolls. The second city did not last much longer.

Spoiler :

Maybe I can get this done a few turns earlier like you did.

Added:
I loaded the T35 save I posted earlier, founded Memphis on Turn 37. Instead of whipping the Granary, like what I did before, I whipped the Barracks. Looking at my autosaves:

Turn 52 - 1 Barracks, 4 War Chariots
Turn 56 - 7 War Chariots, DoW Zulus, kill 2 Archers, steal Worker
Turn 60 - 2 Barracks, 10 War Chariots
Turn 64 - 12 War Chariots, attack on Ulundi, auotsave attached.

WC1, C2 vs Archer, 6/7.05, 28.3%, lost 1.9/3
WC4, C2 vs Archer, 6/7.05, 28.3%, won 4.0/5
WC3, C1 vs Archer, 5.5/7.05, 23.9%, won 3.9/5
WC6, C1 vs Archer, 5.5/6.15, 31.3%, won 0.8/5
WC7, C1 vs Archer, 5.5/xxx, 74.0%, retreated 0.2/1.9/3
The last two battles were trivial.

We had two war chariots to spare, reflecting two battles that we probably should have lost, so 10 versus 5 is pretty marginal.

 

[krikav]

Wow, haven't looked in this thread for a while, but it looks like you guys have had quite a adventure!
Gold star to @Harv and @Gumbolt !

 

[Harv]

I thought I made a mess of it, starting from the top so many times. It all started when I posted a start on a Thursday evening. This meant I started playing on a weekend and my turn sets were too long.

Next time I will start on a Sunday evening. Then I can spend Monday thinking about how to start.

I should also look at why I was researching Iron Working. I think mathematics would have been better, preparing for peace in a war. I can check out when I did it.

Added: It also looks like Masonry and Sailing are doing little for me right now and all those beakers could be in Mathematics. I will experiment with that as well.

 

[Gumbolt]

Looking better. Your only 5 turns off my Zulu date. You really wanted to have the stone up and running by now. Too many roads built when stone should of been worked. I had 6 workers at 1400bc. 3 captured near Zulu.

You definately want masonry to build mids. You have all that forest in his capital to chop. You can get fail gold from a second city building mids too.

Your definately ahead from some of your earlier attempts. War Chariots are pretty strong early units if the AI lack metal.

 

[Harv]

Zulus Destroyed - Take 2

This one took slightly longer. I tried to get Mathematics before Sailing. Hindsight says it was not such a good idea.

Spoiler :

We DoW'd earlier, because I saw an easy worker steal and an easy kill.

As luck would have it, Shaka decided not to protect his other worker.

He did not want to present me an easy target of Archers and Settlers, and we moved around to look for the last worker and settler. More luck came our way. When we returned, we found only a few defenders instead of a big stack.

We still lost 3 War Chariots taking Ulundi.

It turned out they decided to found a city to claim the copper.

But it was too late.

We lost 7 War Chariots in this campaign. The upshot of that is we are not as bankrupt as we were before. We also have Mathematics and almost have Sailing. I might have preferred it the other way around.

If we had Sailing, then I could have started on the Great Lighthouse in Thebes and worked on the Pyramids in Ulundi. Instead, we are about halfway to the Pyramids. We also could have used that river to connect Ulundi and claim the elephant. Maybe we build the Great Lighthouse in Mgungundlovu instead.

This one appears to be Turn 73 instead.

Added: .....and it appears I have forgotten to research Hunting in this run. It is about a two turn fix.

 

[Harv]

Post-Zulus, Session 1
to Turn 81

I forgot to take pictures. We started rebuilding the war chariots and economy after the war and sent a few of them exploring the rest of the continent. Covering up mistakes, we finished research on sailing and hunting and got a happy cap of 5 or 6 - or 4 with whipped cities.

Thebes finished building the Pyramids. Continuing with the wonderspam, I might as well go ahead with the Great Lighthouse. I think the Great Lighthouse / Colossus combination will work well being isolated a little bit. Soon we will be ready for more settlers. This might have been a better idea than the great lighthouse.

Research - We are now working on Currency. I hear it is one of the places to go for broken economies. Then I am thinking Code of Laws to finally get into the religion game. I might also do well to check up on bulbing paths are available, but I don't see myself ready for specialists soon.

I should fix that pig iron mine soon. We are probably ready to build a pasture.

Republic still seems to be the obvious choice, for the free happiness if not for the free research from specialists. Code of Laws would also open up Caste System for then not running Slavery.

 

[Gumbolt]

You have too few cities. I would whip a settler in your capital at size 6. That double sea food city should of been settled before mids. That site can run cottages for your capital.

I don't think you need The Great Lighthouse. Your really late building it anyway.

You need 8 or so cities by 1AD. Youir capital should be focused on growth after you whip the settler. I would of been running that lake tile for growth. I would also pasture the pigs as you need the food for growth.

Why are you building a galley? You want workboats for the new city?

I would also build a sheep/2xdeer city. There is a lot of river tiles there worth cottaging.

I suspect there is also good land up north not settled.

I would probably whip 1-2 more workers. You have a lot of forest to be chopped here. You also need to consider if your going to build cottages in your capital.

Don't forget to switch to Rep!

 

[Gumbolt]

Played on to 850bc. Mids in Ulundi. Capital has whipped 2 settlers. Memphis will whip another in due course. Albeit I want scientists. Heading for optics route to meet other AI. Could easily do aesth route too. Probably should be teching hunting right now.

I think with 4 workers it would of been harder to do this.

 

[Harv]

Post Zulus, Session 2
to Turn 89 / 650 BC

We will see how many decent cities we can build by 1AD, which is Turn 115. With your feedback in mind, I forgot about the Great Lighthouse and the Parthenon and the Great Library and the Colossus and focus on claiming all the land in the island we just won from the Zulus.

Turn 82 / 825 BC - Somebody built the Oracle. We were not close to winning that race. It turned out a couple of turns later we were not going to win the Great Lighthouse, anyway. I guess I was thinking it would help finance all those cities I wasn't building along all that coastline.

Turn 85 / 750 BC - We had a stroke of luck!

Spoiler :

We now have a silver mine! In terms of luxury resources, we are still what the random event generator considers to be "poor." We have ivory and now silver. We will have spices with calendar and maybe whale with optics. There are some events that can generate a resource if you have fewer than four luxury resources.

Turn 88 / 675 BC - We finally built Heliopolis to claim those seafood resources. This was the city that was supposed to be built before the Pyramids. Now we have it.

The next city, I think, should go right about here.

Turn 89 / 650 BC - We finished researching Currency.

For the next city, I am thinking just southeast of the green hill, at (4,-4). It struggles an extra five turns to expand the borders to cover the food sources. This is worth about 10 food. When it expands, it will capture the two deer, for 4f + 1c each, equivalent to a flood plain farm, not much, but something. The sheep on the hill isn't really a food source, either. I think it will get 3 food, 2 hammers, and 1 coin.

The alternative is (5,-5). We can start working on a deer camp right away. The drawback is it is further south and takes a green tile and gains a bunch of frozen tiles. Eventually, it can give away some of the food sources. So far, I think I'm looking at a food surplus of 7, maybe a little bit more.

The settler is being built in Thebes. There is probably no point in slow building it. Now that we have Currency, I might do better to build wealth in Thebes to let it grow to the healthy cap, then whip the settler.

Northwards, I don't have a good site for a city up to the jungle. In the jungle, it is wherever we find seafood resources.

Research, I picked Code of Laws, but paused the game here. It gives Caste System, which does not much good. It might also pop a religion. Calendar would give us that spice. Iron Working would give us that jungle land. The Arts route would give us a couple of wonders and a shot at a free great Artist and more distractions.

In the mean time, I will mess with FFH2 and a couple of others. It looks like short turn sets here.

 

[sampsa]

@Harv some comments after looking at your save.

First thing that I see is that you are slow building workers/settlers. This is in general a mistake, after the city has a granary they should be always whipped if possible. This is due to some simple math (so simple that even I understand it ). Slow building transforms one into one . Growing from say size 5 to 6 requires 16 (food bar is 30 long, but with a granary there is already 28/2=14 when growth happens). This 16 can be transformed into 30 by whipping. This has many implications. One is that plains hill mines are quite bad, because they are costing 2 and because whipping is transforming -> at an excellent rate, losing food is bad. You can run some tests or do some math and I'm sure you'll reach the same conclusion. Very often I don't build any mines, though grass mines are ok.

Another thing I see is that you are not chopping and putting your worker turns into connecting health resources. None of your cities is so connecting these could wait. Expanding faster is much more important. uMung doesn't need a lighthouse (though maybe Shaka built it?). Next city to grab ph sheep and 2*deer looks good.

 

[Harv]

My general question is what to build between whips to grow the city.

Units - I think we have enough right now, since we have an island to ourselves, the only threat comes from Barbarians who might start showing up with Spears soon. We will need that copper from that city we burned. So it would probably take two WC to take out a spear with luck.

Work Boats - There is already one fish tile near the jungle where will will find another spot for a city. There will probably be more.

Buildings - They always get attention for being a waste of hammers.

Wealth - We can finally build wealth.

Thebes - has 8 turns of whip unhappiness and can grow a few sizes before running into the healthy cap.
Memphis - can whip the worker. It goes back to size 3. The worker might start cottaging nearby.
Ulundi - has a whole bunch of forest to chop and nothing to build. It can also whip the worker.
mBgungundlovu - has a whole bunch of forest to chop and nothing to build. It can grow to 6 and whip a settler.
Heliopolis - has a decent food surplus and needs to grow. It looks like it was founded yesterday.

Other city sites:
6. The spot we mentioned before claiming 2.5 food resources for a surplus of 7.
7. One along the coast to the southeast of mBgungundlovu can claim one more deer and share another.
8. Southwest coast to share deer with #6 and use the stone quarry.
9. Northeast coast. There is a square I will go explore and check. It can also share the pigs with Ulundi.
10. Up the jungle by the fish. We have not determined the spot.
11. A pointless city to claim the copper and Zulu ruins.

A few more up the coast will gradually bust out the barbarians and claim the island.

So yes, I have been a bit slow building the settlers and workers after the Zulu war. I was not sure what to build in between and working towards currency.

 

[sampsa]

Before you can build wealth, just build what is the least bad thing. You will probably eventually need barracks... Of course, you should prefer failgold when possible or a warrior if you think you will need it. I wouldn't settle copper, it's just too weak of a city. One of your biggest priorities should be optics to get some tech trades.

 

[krikav]

Not speaking about the current game, but just general:

Sometimes you simply are in a situation where the value of hammers is more or less zero.
It's important to regognize this and to adjust tiles accordingly.
That lovely 2F4H grassland copper should not look lovely in your eyes in such a situation, the 2F2C coast should look nicer.

Just because one has good hammer tiles doesn't mean that one is forced to use them.

 

[Gumbolt]

You could probably get some nice fail gold from hanging gardens. You need to be whipping 2 or so more settlers here.

You don't want Moai Statues. Granary/Library instead? 125 turns for a wonder is too long.

Agreed workers/settlers should of been whipped once enough hammers allowed.

Agree above about use of roads. Workers should mainly be chopping and building cottages now. That or prepare food resources for new cities.

Tech route? Beeline optics to meet other AI? That or abuse marble and great Library?

With rep you can get some sweet science from specialists here.

 

[Harv]

Post Zulus, Session 3
to Turn 98 / 425 BC

With currency comes wealth building, so that provides a bottom value for the hammers if I am running out of uses for them for some strange reason. I shifted to Thebes for wealth building, because that made a lot more sense than slow-building a settler. The same applied to Memphis. Ulundi started on a warrior. I eventually realized that I was going to need those war chariots for barb busting. mBgungundlovu will also build a Warrior. That leaves Heliopolis stuck building who-knows what for the next 124 turns.

mBgungundlovu grew to 6, then whipped a settler and built a city in one of the most pointless locations I could think of.

Spoiler :

That plume you see is money going up in smoke. Right now, the new city is a money loser. The cost is 4.3g, plus another 1.5g to the maintenance costs of the other cities for a total of 5.8g. The city generates 3 commerce, so the net loss is 3g. It produces 2 food and 1 hammer and the hunting camp will be up in four more turns.

I started producing a lighthouse. We can chop that up in about 15 turns. That will leave 2 forest tiles next to the hunting camp. Is there a chance a forest will spread to the hunting camp if I leave the other two alone?

Does this city even need a granary? I wonder if I can skip the granary and build a library after the lighthouse and run on the deer tile, 3 coast tiles, and 2 scientists. A food surplus of 4 is not going to buy us much in terms of whips. The library comes next and I don't see this city building much else after that.

It will need a cheap defender, eventually.

Maybe there is a curse on my cities named Elephantine.

This city is a bit better.

We can get to a food surplus of 9 at size 3.

I think the rest of the locations in the south are fill. I'm pretty far away from the iron to claim that. I can place a city almost as pointless than Elephantine to claim it. We should also have that copper soon.

The next cities will be going north. There are some spots in the jungle close to fish to get an early start. It will take a while to clear all that jungle. There is also a very good city spot near the northern tip of the island. I might do well to just send a settler and worker straight at it and that should also finish the job of busting the barbarians.

 

[Harv]

Post Zulus, Session 4
to Turn 105 / 250 BC

Turn 101 / 102 - Most likely, Stonehenge spawned a Great Prophet to found KV.
Turn 104 - Somebody founded Christianity.

Over here, we built a couple more cities.

Spoiler :

This one stole all the food from Ulundi. We will probably give it back when they can access the fish and have some basic buildings up.

I had to grab this one. It gets the fish and the pigs and some horse. It's very far away, but I think it will turn out nice. We just have to deal with those barbarian archers.

Maybe that hut will pop something nice!

The economy still seems fixable, but not yet crashed. Research is taking a long time. That might have something to do with running as a republic for 25 turns without running a single specialist.

There are still two more city cites to claim the fish on the mid part of the land bridge to Giza. Would we be able to settle them now, or should I run some scientists and regrow the research a bit?

I'm also starting to regret a little bit not researching calendar.

 

[sampsa]

@Harv You are right about Elephantine, it's a bad city. Any fish-city would have been better. I think you are also mishandling the city. There is no seafood, so working water tiles is not good, so a lighthouse is not good. I think the best treatment would be to build only a library and stagnate at size 3 with deer+2sci. You are not running scientists anywhere, which I think is a rather big mistake. Running specialists is the main reason to build Mids... For example Memphis and uMung would be good candidates for this. Thebes to less extent because of engineer "pollution". You really want two scientists so that you can bulb astro.

 

[Harv]

I guess I was trying to get cities up. It looks like there are two more, then a bunch of jungle to clear.

If I get a great engineer, then I can bulb machinery and be on the way to optics - or I can build a wonder. Which is better?

The great scientist can bulb alphabet and I don’t think that is as strong.

Added: I looked at the last picture and if I run two scientists right now at turn 98, we can have our first great person in 8 more turns, with a 52% probability of engineer, and 48% probability of scientist.

 

[sampsa]

Machinery bulb is certainly OK, forgot that you could do that. Or wait, how much does it cost on monarch? Scientists will bulb astro once you have optics and alpha, aest, math, calendar (which you can get via trade even on this level I presume). You can't have access to philo bulb (so no CoL+medi) or paper bulb (CS), from the top of my head.

 

[Harv]

Also all the consideration of economic propositions is making me reconsider the value of various tiles

One trap I was in previously was on a hill, you can typically make a mine, farm, or cottage and I assumed them to be equal. The cottage gets one commerce now, one in ten turns, one in 30 turns, and one in 70 turns and I had the assumption that they are equal when obviously they are not.

So I had:
1 food, 2 hammers, 4 commerce

Now I have:
1 food, 1.5 hammers, 2.25 commerce

....and that’s based on a guess over the future value of the cottage. It’s kind of complicated to evaluate and changes as the cottage gets worked, but that’s part of the fun!

In other news, this makes running scientists look much better.