Help Me Place My Next Few Cities?

[bdubbs]

Hello Everyone! I've been playing a game that I randomed as Huyana Capac and I really like the start, I played through it once and won a space race victory but since it's a strong start I wanted to go through again and see if I could pull out an earlier victory.

The difficulty is on monarch and I have 2 game saves attached, Random1 is my current situation, around turn 100, 5 cities. Random is the start of the game. I have a good piece of the continent sealed off, but I'm not sure where to lay down my city sites, I felt like I was too spread out the first time, and too slow to occupy all that land.

Any advice on where to settle, or any particular builds / techs I should beeline would be great, thank you!

 

[elitetroops]

Maybe it's because you already played the map, but scouting is very poor. You have tons of unnecessary quechuas standing around, they should scout and fogbust the north east and scout your neighbors. Also, get exploring workboat out to check out those islands. You have GLH, which means that settling island cities would be a huge boost to your economy. I worldbuildered in a city on an island, your gpt at 0% slider increased from +58 to +68 and bpt at 100% from +93 to +110.

Still, I wouldn't have went for GLH strategy with this start. You have very good lands and marble. You could have easily oracled something strong here, like Civil Service. This would only require that you don't do so many unnecessary things. You have way more units than you need, still you are building archers. You've built barracks all over the place and are building more, even though it doesn't look like you are planning a war. There's a worker chopping a jungle that wouldn't need to be chopped for another 1000 years. Seems you selfteched archery and IW and all the rest of the ancient era. Trade for those techs instead. It also seems that you settled sites with jungle food early, for example those pigs in the south are better left alone until later. There was better spots available, like corn/phants up north and the gold+FP site.

I did a quick test to t100, Oracle CS and built Great Library, Parthenon coming in next turn. Failgold from Stonehenge and ToA has allowed me to keep slider at 100% pretty much the whole game. Might have done one or two turns at 0% before SH was built, but since then I never needed to drop it. Notice that I haven't even hooked up metals yet. No need to, Quechuas can easily handle any barbs that appear, so I prefer to be able to build those as long as possible. Tech order was AH->Fishing->Mining, then BW and Math, then PH->CoL->Oracle CS. After this Alpha and trade to backfill.

From here the easiest victory would be to chop MoM somewhere, grab the music artist for golden age, pump out a couple of scientists to double bulb Edu, then Lib MT and stomp the world. Probably grab Taj along the way as well to prolong the Golden Age. (Edit: oops, just noticed that Hammy can already research Music. In other words, I should already be teching it myself instead of Paper. Also, if cuir rush is the goal, then it could be better to not even finish Parthenon and grab the failgold when someone else builds it instead.)

 

[bdubbs]

Thanks for checking out my game, I finally had a chance to read through it carefully and check out your game save, I never really try to oracle CS because I know when I go up in difficulty and the AI start with 2 settlers I won't have that luxury. If I do build the oracle I take CoL because it's a more realistic goal that I'll still be able to go for at higher difficulties. That being said, I'm nowhere near that level of play, and it was awesome to see what a clean, efficient start looks like. My scouting as you mentioned was poor because I got lazy because I knew what was up in the northeast, as well as the islands in the northeast and the south east.

My first playthough I did build the oracle, and selected CoL for the reasons I already stated, and I ended up being the lone confucian the majority of the game, which was a huge mistake that kept me from tech trading, and put me into war with everyone on the continent at one point or another. Just for the sake of being different, and seeing a bunch of potential coastal cities the GLH stood out to me and is something I think remains an option in this game simply because it doesn't seem any of the other civs are in a hurry to build it.


I had a feeling I was being too cautious early with the unit building, but a look at your game really shows the power of good spawn busting and making the most out of your units, I'm curious though did you lose any Quecha in combat? I mean I knew I was overbuilding, but I was very surprised to see you only had the 4 Quecha, even though at the moment that's really plenty.

The aspect of my game that I'm the most uncertain about other than planning cities is tech trading, and failgold. I know I'm never going to get any great trades in terms of value, but I'm not sure what to trade and when. It's basically the same thing when it comes to failgold.

I'm going to try and replicate your first 100 turns when I get home later for the sake of timing the fail gold and trying to make more efficient use of my cities / techs, thanks for the input it was really helpful.

 

[Izuul]

It's good to try to trade for early techs that aren't crucial to research immediately, and also techs that the AI prioritize heavily. Prime examples are IW, Monarchy, and Feudalism, and then later the Guilds > Banking path.

 

[elitetroops]

I had 6 Quechua at that point of the game. Seems I didn't lose any in combat. The first Quechua got experience from a hut and was promoted to WM2, which allowed him to stay very safe from animals during initial scouting. Then I got the north spawnbusted quite quickly, AI scouts also helped with that.

Just because you oracle CoL it doesn't mean you have to become the lone confucian. Don't convert if your neighbors are all of a different religion. They will spread it to you eventually and then you can convert to their religion.

For failgold, I usually don't spend turns building the wonders, just put occasional whip overflow or chops into them, then take off the cue. In this game I whipped capital twice early, both times I put overflow into Stonehenge and got it to 2 hammers from completion. 118 gold that early is really a lot, lets you tech very long at 100%. Later I got 300 gold from ToA, had put some chops into it in a couple of cities after marble was hooked up. When you're IND and have the resource you can turn one forest into 75. In capital with bureau one forest gives 90.

Tech trading becomes more and more important the higher up you move in difficulty. On monarch it's still quite difficult to get many good trades, because the AI techs so slowly. As a generalization, it's often good to stay in the upper part of the tech tree with your own teching and trade for the lower part. Of course not always, sometimes you might have a very good reason to tech the lower part early yourself. Like Izuul said, IW, Monarchy, Feudalism, Guilds and stuff like that you should mostly trade for. In general, when you pick techs, pick those that give you the most immediate gain. In the early game that's of course worker techs you need, then economic techs. Military techs don't give you any gain at all until you are going to war. Exception would be if you have dangerous neighbors that are very likely to declare on you, or if you need them for barb defense. Though with Quechuas you already have the best possible barb defense.

I played out the game. Lib MT 450AD, declare on Catherine 600AD and conquest victory 20 turns later 1000AD. Cuirs vs archers almost feels a bit overpowered... Failgolding Parthenon was a bad idea because those lazy bastards didn't build it until a couple of turns before the game was over...

 

[bdubbs]

Sweet, I think the reason I have been underutilizing tech trading is because I've been spending too much time researching popular techs to trade for, well that and the ai does seem a little slow on their techs.

Looking back at the game though I'm a little surprised you got the fail gold on ToA. Outside of stonehenge, the great wall, and the mids the ai civs don't seem to be prioritizing wonders much, and in your game nobody even started working on the mids yet, Bismarck had actually just started the GLH that turn.

How many more cities did you settle before you went to war? Other than the 6th city you had planned I saw a nice riverside grassland tile that would grab the wine and cows, and there's another coastal city spot that stands out to me that could grab those pigs and the fish. Neither seem like they would be very good for cranking out units though. I would probably settle the horses and cow up north, the cows and wine in the east and go at it with 7 cities.

Either way getting across that map and conquering every city in 20 turns seems like it's not the easiest feat. I would imagine you didn't need catapults. I've been getting caught up on the initial build order. AH and Fishing are given, but if you go straight for mining and bronze working then you end up with your worker sitting around doing nothing for what feels like forever. If I get the wheel first I can at least start roading towards my next city site, but that seems like a small gain for the 5 turns I would use researching the wheel.

edit: so I got the chance to try your start and I came up very short. The saddest part of that is I got fishing on my second turn from a w hut so I'm definitely missing something when it comes to build/tech orders. By turn 88 I had hardly had the chance to work any cottages in Cuzco, I definitely over whipped.

My opening was worker, work boat, work boat, 2 chop settler. My big concern was my worker having nothing to do between the pasture and bw. By the time the settler finished there was still a few turns left in the wheel so I moved the worker with the settler to build a pasture on the cows. Started a second worker in Cuzco that I 1 pop whipped, overflow to sh. Built a quecha in city 2 while I waited for pottery, then started a terrace that I 1 pop whipped (lost too much commerce whipping off the gold)


Techs were AH, popped fishing, mining, BW, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Masonry, Math, Poly, PH, CoL, Oracle CS

Since pottery isn't helpful at all until I can clear some trees-I think my only mistake in tech order there was masonry, I didn't need to have the marble hooked up until I was ready to start building the oracle so it really could have come after priesthood. It looks to me like you didn't do any whipping in city 2, and probably chopped that forest that you turned into a farm for your terrace.

Edit again: So I just realized you settled on the dye which changes everything, and I can see why, the extra commerce and happiness is a huge bonus early. It also opens up a riverside tile, and now I'm starting to see a case for pottery before bw. By going AH, Fishing, (popped a map the second time) Wheel, Pottery, Mining, Bw I can go worker, work boat, work boat, quecha, settler. I haven't tried playing it that way yet but I'm pretty sure I can build the settler on size 4 working a cottage and have a build a road to city 2.

 

[elitetroops]

Looking back at the game though I'm a little surprised you got the fail gold on ToA. Outside of stonehenge, the great wall, and the mids the ai civs don't seem to be prioritizing wonders much, and in your game nobody even started working on the mids yet, Bismarck had actually just started the GLH that turn.

Yes, failgolding also works better on higher levels when the AI actually builds wonders. The cheaper the wonder, the more likely the AI is to start building it early. They are more likely to pick a build the fewer turns it would take them to complete it. Stonehenge and Great Wall are usually the only safe bets for failgold that you know will be built very early. ToA is my next favorite after that, because it is usually the first marble wonder that is built (except Oracle, but that one is better to build yourself if you can). ToA is also a wonder I never want for myself. Failgolding mids is very risky, on monarch it can vary so much. Someone might build them 700BC, or it might be nobody gets them up until 500AD. They are so expensive that it takes a lucky RNG roll for an AI to start building it, especially if the AI doesn't have stone.

How many more cities did you settle before you went to war? Other than the 6th city you had planned I saw a nice riverside grassland tile that would grab the wine and cows, and there's another coastal city spot that stands out to me that could grab those pigs and the fish. Neither seem like they would be very good for cranking out units though. I would probably settle the horses and cow up north, the cows and wine in the east and go at it with 7 cities.

I settled Horse+Incense+Clam northwest and double fish+pigs on the island south of pigs. The island city wasn't that useful, but it built triremes to fend off barb galleys, so at least some use... In a longer game it would have been a lot better. Great GP farm that could have worked 7 specialists in Caste/Paci without starving (or more while starving). Would have been great for pumping cuirs as well, food>hammers when it comes to production because of the whip, but I couldn't bother with the hazzle of shipping cuirs to shore from there...

Either way getting across that map and conquering every city in 20 turns seems like it's not the easiest feat. I would imagine you didn't need catapults.

No no, not conquer every city. Take capitulation as soon as possible and then gift them their cities back. The only city I kept was Moscow because it had the Pyramids (for Police State). Cathy for example, I declared 600AD, took one city that turn. Next turn took Moscow+one more city and she capitulated, so war was over the next turn after I declared.

Absolutely no catapults. The point with mounted warfare is being fast. In this case only 2 AI had Feudalism, so odds where mostly in the 90%+ range even against their top defenders. Longbows aren't a problem either. You might have losing odds if they are on a hill with heavy cultural defenses, but some losses are always expected in war. In total I lost 11 cuirs while conquering the world (built 49).

War strategy for final cuir war is quite straight forward. Set all cities to produce nothing but cuirs. Check them every turn if they can 2 pop whip. If yes, check if it can still next turn with better overflow. If no, whip. Then sometimes some minor micro adjustments to see that they don't go over 54 the first turn of putting hammers into a cuir (1 pop=45 hammers with forge+PS). By the end of the game all of my core cities were looking at 30-50 turns of whip anger.

Edit again: So I just realized you settled on the dye which changes everything, and I can see why, the extra commerce and happiness is a huge bonus early. It also opens up a riverside tile, and now I'm starting to see a case for pottery before bw. By going AH, Fishing, (popped a map the second time) Wheel, Pottery, Mining, Bw I can go worker, work boat, work boat, quecha, settler. I haven't tried playing it that way yet but I'm pretty sure I can build the settler on size 4 working a cottage and have a build a road to city 2.

Yes, settling on the dye is the key. You don't get happiness until calendar, but a 3c city tile for capital is a huge early boost. If you don't settle on the dye you should probably cottage it early.

I built settler at pop 3 working cows+double seafood. Finished BW just before settler was out so that I could revolt to slavery while settler is moving. This is often the best time to revolt, as the anarchy has no effect on your second city (doesn't delay production of settler and you are back in business by the time second city is settled). Tech order is the one you described. I did get Hunting from a hut though one turn before I completed AH, which would have given a 20% boost to my AH beakers that last turn, so maybe 2-3 extra beakers from that.

I didn't tech masonry or hook up marble before building the Oracle btw. Oracle is so cheap even without marble that teching masonry would only delay it. If you are Oracling CS, there's lots of time to get the Oracle ready for completion between PH and CoL.

 

[bdubbs]

So after a couple botched attempts due to poor timing, miscues and all that I've got a start I'm very happy with. In my game Cathy settled the incense and horses already, I plopped a city down on the desert tile and I might actually have a chance at winning a horse and clam tiles, but I'm still going to settle the horses and cows north of the floodplains city in case that doesn't work out well for me. The barbs settled on the exact spot I wanted to place my city that grabbed the cows and wine, they finally grew to size 2 so I'll be taking that city soon.

I messed up the trading, but I get the idea of how it works now. I could have traded cathy alpha for archery and sailing and then traded jiao alpha for IW. I ended up trading jiao alpha for sailing and archery, couldn't get IW from cathy, and couldnt get anything for alpha to hammurabi (he must have almost been done teching it himself) and had to trade him math instead.

I got monarchy for calendar though, which seemed preferable to trading CoL from a strategic standpoint. I'm not trusting the ai for much failgold so instead of parthenon I'm a little more than half way through MoM. I wanted to wait and trade for calendar, good right to aesthetics, but I needed the extra happy faces from the dye, the silk, and the incense and I don't think I would have gotten it very soon otherwise.

Thanks for all the help, I definitely learned some useful stuff

edit: finished the game, conquest victory with cuirs, came late though. I couldn't finish the game until about 1540 AD, so definitely room to improve.