HUI Game #1 - Pacal II

[Slvynn]

Scouting Cathy to see if she had copper. If she had copper and not you, holkan rush will be russian roulette, and consequently chopping 6-7 holkan and going ASAP would be the best thing to do, at least in my opinion.

bingo! , you are right, but also i'd build scout and scout more land for horses/copper too.
Anyways you will need HBR for Phants, so "Hope dies last" (Is it right built sentence? Its free translation from my mother language)

 

[shyuhe]

You can't have copper in your starting bfc because all of the tiles are specials or forests.

Pacal is expansive, so there is some merit in going with early workers. However, it sacrifices so much growth in your capital to do a second worker that it's just not worth it. You have three 5 food tiles and a 4 food tile as well. AH > BW here, as grassland cows are a great tile to work early. I wouldn't bother rushing Cathy - you can easily out expand her and kill her with elephants.

 

[Abegweit]

@Abegweit - I agree with Slvynn that what you said was a bit harsh. I'm not really sure that you intended it to be that way. I think the issue is twofold. 1) Bad grammar due to a second language 2) Second, and more importantly, having to rethink everything in that second language.

I'm not fluent in a second language but know some French, Spanish and German. It's definitely a flaw in American education that more emphasis on second languages (even third) is not focused on a children early, especially conversational. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, plus French, and can't speak coherently to anyone. It amazes me every time I go to Europe to see how well many Europeans speak English.

Spoiler Off topic :

I meant it exactly the way that I said it. Perhaps I should not have said it on this forum but I really didn't like to see see people giving him excuses to explain away his problem. He is obviously an intelligent young (I'd bet a lot of money on 'young') man but he clearly needs to learn how express himself properly. As someone earlier said, he needs to develop the capacity to write thoughts which actually flow from one to another, not to know when to use 'of' instead of 'from'.

I have plenty of experience working with people who are not fluent in English and without exception they (even those who write far less grammatically than he does) are quite capable of expressing thoughts logically and coherently, using real paragraphs and introducing ideas in a manner that flows from one to the next. As I said, I have little doubt that Slvynn writes exactly the same way in his native language, just a bit more grammatically. He is in denial of the problem and you are an enabler.

You next introduce another red herring. Despite what you say, the ability to express oneself logically and coherently is largely, although not entirely, independent from the language in which your thoughts are formed. Unlike you, I do speak a foreign language and I assure you that I was quite capable assembling ideas after another long before my proficiency rose to the level of his English. In this, I am no different from my friends I mentioned above and the numerous other non-native members of this forum.

Translating a thought is something quite different from forming it. For the most part, translation takes sentence by sentence. His problem is not the sentences on their own but rather the way that they are tied together and move logically from one to the next. Logic is not dependent on language.

As for why Europeans speak English while you are unilingual, it is simply a question of necessity. Given what the government has inflicted on your country under the Bush-Obama regimes, I think you need to brush up on your Chinese.

Two posts on this is already more than enough. This shall be my last.

 

[Slvynn]

Lets wait for michmbk testing results, loses are not that big, espessialy that bfc have 3 agriculture based resources, which needed for growth, and which used for rapid city growth, and not wasted for late anarchy/settler/2nd worker building. Topic is closed, things are in past, what is done - done , lets be happy with that.

@Abegweit.
(This is my last post on this topic as well)

Spoiler :

I am 28
Have good job.
Can write stories in my native tongue and make poems (funny ones) and people say me that they enjoy them.
I am specialist in my job.
I know 4 languages (of different origin, 1 mother toungue, one very good, other 2 is english and another one at same level.)
Often i do write things fast, and then checking myself and reediting post.

 

[JTMacc99]

You can't have copper in your starting bfc because all of the tiles are specials or forests.

Pacal is expansive, so there is some merit in going with early workers. However, it sacrifices so much growth in your capital to do a second worker that it's just not worth it. You have three 5 food tiles and a 4 food tile as well. AH > BW here, as grassland cows are a great tile to work early. I wouldn't bother rushing Cathy - you can easily out expand her and kill her with elephants.

I think we were looking for copper somewhere for city 2. Regardless, it was not to be, but I sure agree with doing the best we can to find out if Cathy has any. Need to do that quickly before that border pops again.

Take a look with what I was thinking about the build order to strike a balance between working the food, building workers/settlers, and growing the city. I said it with the idea of rushing the Russian, but it could be modified a little bit to work with your idea out expanding her and killing her with the Jumbos. (BTW: I currently don't see to much useful land TO out expand her. I like the spot directly between the two capitals, but then the next good spot would probably be just to the west of Cathy's capital. I would assume she would probably beat us to one of them.

Also, the unexplored land to the East of OUR capital has a Wheat tile and sure looks like the kind of place you might find copper. I'd take a look at it before making any decisions on the second city site..

 

[shyuhe]

If you're going to rush, tech BW -- hunting -- AH -- wheel. Build/whip a worker at size 2 then barracks then holkan (6-8ish depending on the time frame). And build a road to Moscow.

If you're not going to rush, BW -- AH -- wheel -- pottery with a massive rex. Grab the ivory first, then the rice/ivory in the jungle.

It's unlikely that Cathy has copper given her starting location. But doing a rush here probably won't be a good learning experience.

 

[Slvynn]

btw i completely agree with both last and previous post of JTmacc99.
Further expansion and neverless finding strategical resource is the key, if not you can beat cathy in expansion speed.
If she have no copper then holkan rush is viable option, 12+ holkans and she is yours
(hehe now people saying that bw/2nd worker is good option, i knew that.) Rushing can be good, Just wait, sometimes she found religions
It all depends what resources she have (if horses then i'd rush actually because you will be sure that some chunk of her production gone for chariots and not for archers, if copper i'd wait for jumbos or look for horses )
Also scouting is very important

 

[shyuhe]

(hehe now people saying that bw/2nd worker is good option, i knew that.)

Early BW here was not a good option. But since the beakers are already invested, you might as well make the best use of them (i.e., whip, chop, and metal units).

 

[Abegweit]

Bad news about the copper, which makes the decision to go for BW look all the worse.

Worse news. Cathy is creative. You are about to run into 40% culture very soon so I think that the Holkan rush has to be taken off the table. I've never tried one but I sure am not optimistic about success in these circumstances.

If we forget the rush, that leaves Shuye's alternative of a mad REX. Grab the two phants spots ASAP. Use your current warrior to explore to Cathy's right and the new one to check out the backfield. You should have enough space for about six cities, which will suffice until construction. Cottage up. Fortunately you have two or three locations, although the Rice/Phants spot will be under considerable cultural pressure.

Use your current warrior to explore to Cathy's right and behind. The next one can go to the backlands. Tech order AH-TW-Pots-Hunting. You still need to find Copper or Horses for defense. Cathy is a back-stabber and Holkans are useless against metal units.

 

[UWHabs]

Early BW here was not a good option. But since the beakers are already invested, you might as well make the best use of them (i.e., whip, chop, and metal units).

Actually, in this case, a 2nd worker wouldn't be bad to help chop out a rush. The thing is in your average map, you don't need to rush, and thus you can use food to expand out. If Cathy wasn't there, 2 workers off the bat would be horrible with wheat, cornX2 AND grassland cows. That's an amazing early settler pump that you want up ASAP in a rexing game.

 

[roberteriksson]

Itching to get my hands on this, can someone assist us in how to attach the WB save?

 

[lymond]

Here's a WB save I created from the OP's original. I hope it works for everyone, as this is the first time I've attempted this on the this forum.

 

[Abegweit]

Actually, in this case, a 2nd worker wouldn't be bad to help chop out a rush. The thing is in your average map, you don't need to rush, and thus you can use food to expand out. If Cathy wasn't there, 2 workers off the bat would be horrible with wheat, cornX2 AND grassland cows. That's an amazing early settler pump that you want up ASAP in a rexing game.

This is a fair point. However the second corn makes it even less urgent to get BW. The main advantage of the second worker is really to get the new cities off the ground. This is important, of course, but not so much as the REX and AH first is better for that. However, all this is bye the bye. Given the situation as it is, the next build should be a chopped worker.

Itching to get my hands on this, can someone assist us in how to attach the WB save?

You need to zip it up and attach that. The forum doesn't allow attaching WB saves directly.

Edit: xpost with lymond who, I see, has already done the deed.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

I went with a worker/warrior/warrior/settler/worker path and was fortunate to pop AH from the 2nd goody hut while still studying mining. BW after that for land choppability.

I believe taking this path setup getting cities 3 and 4 out much quicker (not to mention the good luck from the hut) which was important in cutting off Cathy, or not allowing myself to get penned in.

 

[Abegweit]

I went with a worker/warrior/warrior/settler/worker path and was fortunate to pop AH from the 2nd goody hut while still studying mining. BW after that for land choppability.

I believe taking this path setup getting cities 3 and 4 out much quicker (not to mention the good luck from the hut) which was important in cutting off Cathy, or not allowing myself to get penned in.

The second warrior is not needed. One gets you to size three and that's enough for the moment. I would agree with the worker after the settler if it weren't for the urgent need to snatch city spots. In cases like these, the new cities have to make do on their own. The capital should build one settler after another, inserting warriors into the queue when it's time to grow another step.

I'm confused about the Mining research. Don't you start with it?

 

[michmbk]

As promised, here’s a comparison of the two starts discussed earlier in the thread (worker/worker, chop settler while alternating between settler and warrior vs. worker/growth/then worker/settler) – I played 40 turns very quickly (interrupted by dinner, steak…mmmmm). I set the opening warrior on autoexplore for simplicity. First important thing to note – the expansive bonus is meaningless until an improvement is built, as we have no 3 hammer tile in the BFC – that’s a significant delay (3 turns) in getting out the first worker, and may cause a slight delay on the second worker in the worker/worker start. Anyway, on to the comparison.

First, using the worker/worker start, here’s a summary in spoiler.

EDIT - Screens removed since there's so much concern about posting map information, even in spoiler. I've played a lot of forum games and typically in forum games we've always posted map info in spoiler for that reason, but if it causes concern to even have it in spoiler, easier to just take it out.

Spoiler :

Started on a worker – 15 turns because the EXP bonus doesn’t help when there’s no 3 hammer tile.

Tech path was AG/BW/AH/Hunting

Finished worker, then another worker while improving wheat (4F1H1C). Then started the corn farm until BW. Once BW came in, revolt to slavery and I chopped the second worker. Then alternated warrior/settler, so the trees all went into the settler. At turn 35, settler was out and 5 forests total were used. The settler was completed on turn 35 and started moving down south. One worker goes with him, one stays to start the pasture (a 4F2H tile). Turn 40, we have two cities, a size 3 and size 1 city.

Second, the worker/growth approach, which is more the approach I would typically use.

Spoiler :

Again, a 15 turn worker, followed by warriors to size 3.

Tech path was AG/AH/BW/Hunting

Worker improved wheat, then cow, then the two corns. I opted to grow to size 4 before worker to work 4 improved tiles. At size 4, went worker/settler. The second worker chopped one forest to aid the settler production. The end result, at turn 39 the settler was finished, 4 turns later, and the speed of the next worker (3 turns) or settler (6 turns) build is significant in the comparison of the starts. Turn 40, I ended, with Mutal at size 4 and starting to quickly produce another settler.

My analysis of the two starts:

Spoiler :

So I’m 4 turns behind in the growth approach with the settler; however, I have more forests, and my second settler is going to be much, much faster – 6 turns from turn 39. In the worker/worker start, it would be 9 turns from turn 39 to get a second settler out (since the city would only be size 3), and I sacrificed 80 hammers of forests to shave 4 turns off the end result.

Slightly higher tech rate in the worker/worker start, but slightly less gold as well due to maintenance - I call those a push. Both of those will even out in a turn or two once the second city is settled in the growth approach.

With the growth start though, Mutal can be a mass worker/settler pump faster, and I could beat Cathy to the horse site to the south, and perhaps fully block her from the north. Also, I could have settled city 2 in this example near the horse, and used my forests to mass chop chariots – the first example already used most of those forests. I have more flexibility here IMO under the growth approach with my ability to either mass chariots, use Mutal as a worker/settler pump, or save my forests until after math for even more bang for the buck.

That’s always been my issue with worker/worker starts – I agree they typically get the second city out faster, but I think it also means the third, fourth and fifth cities are likely slower - in this example, the third city would definitely be slower, and it'd take a bit longer to make Mutal a worker/settler pump.

To me, it does seem to illustrate that in this case, neither of the above starts are significantly better than the other – it actually seemed pretty close here, and on monarch, either of the above starts should easily be successful. Personally, I would be very reluctant to give up all those forests for simply a four turn advantage in settling the second city – it’s not like the second city can even be cottaged yet since I don’t have pottery, so it’s not going to add major benefits until pottery anyway. That's 80 hammers given up for only a 4 turn improvement in speed of the settler. The only reason to rush it is to beat Cathy there, but I think in either case we'd be successful in accomplishing that.

Slvynn seems to believe in it, and it may well work in some cases or even in all cases for him - just based on what I've seen when i've tried it, I'm not a fan. But hey, if we all had the exact same playstyle, this forum sure would be boring. I played out the growth start a bit, and beat Cathy to the horse site, and was quickly in a position to mass chariots and take Moscow. Probably could have done the same under the other start too.

Saves attached below.

 

[Abegweit]

Warning: there's map information in the spoiler. The post should be altered to remove this; it's pretty irrelevant to the points being made anyway.

Comments:

The growth test is similar to the one I performed, the main difference being that I did not want to take the second corn into account since it was not known at the time. Because of the need of REX, I think that it's better to stop at size three anyway and pump out at least 2 settlers without any additional workers. This saves turns on the first and second settlers at the cost of slower development of the new cities. It is really important to grab city spots before Cathy gets them.

There is yet another way to play this position when starting AG-BW, which is to chop the second worker at size two and then let the city grow again before starting the settlers. This works better than chopping out the settler at size 2. It only kills one tree and sets up a pump nicely at size 3 (soon to be more). As such it's the way that OP should continue from his position. Because there are two workers, the capital will be developed rapidly and the workers can then go off to develop the new cities.

 

[Shafi]

You can't have copper in your starting bfc because all of the tiles are specials or forests.

You have three 5 food tiles and a 4 food tile as well. AH > BW here, as grassland cows are a great tile to work early. I wouldn't bother rushing Cathy - you can easily out expand her and kill her with elephants.

We were actually looking for Copper for a 2nd city. Yeah i was thinking Agri / AH when i first saw the map as well, but i am sure we can get AH by the time the wheat and the 2 corns are done + BW meant we either find copper if not we tech hunting and build holkans. It seemed less of a gambit than teching AH.
Given the situation i am glad we did go BW cos the option of a quick Holkan rush is open to us.
Out expanding Cathy does not look all that easy to me. Shoulod we then set up city 2 to the west of cathy for the rice / jumbos site? and then put city three between the capitals? I dont see any other room for new cities unless we expand to the south of cathy in to the unexplored land.

I

Also, the unexplored land to the East of OUR capital has a Wheat tile and sure looks like the kind of place you might find copper. I'd take a look at it before making any decisions on the second city site..

Very valid point and thats where are our new warrior will go.

It's unlikely that Cathy has copper given her starting location. But doing a rush here probably won't be a good learning experience.

Well i dont know if i would say that, wats the best plan that would set the game up from here on? Besides i am still uncertain on the rush with Holkans? Now if i had copper well then rushing her would be a definite plan.
Given my skill level i feel my cances would be better with some kind of a rush. But i understand what you are saying, being able to Rex very fast i'm sure is an important skill at the highest difficulty levels.

Rushing can be good, Just wait, sometimes she found religions
It all depends what resources she have (if horses then i'd rush actually because you will be sure that some chunk of her production gone for chariots and not for archers, Also scouting is very important

Well, Lets ope shes founded a religion and built some chariots then shall we

Bad news about the copper, which makes the decision to go for BW look all the worse.

If we forget the rush, that leaves Shuye's alternative of a mad REX. Grab the two phants spots ASAP. You should have enough space for about six cities, which will suffice until construction. Cottage up. Fortunately you have two or three locations, although the Rice/Phants spot will be under considerable cultural pressure.

I think the BW option was not too bad at least we still can go for Holkans, the risk wit AH would have been if we did not have horses .... well then nothing.
Do you think that kind of Rex is going to be more doable than a rush? If everybody is convinced i might just try it, but i must warn you all i am more of a do it with the military kind of guy.
There seem to be only 3 good city locations right now, so if we are going for a Rex anyone want to do a dotmap? we will need to explore the map more for that wont we?

Problem is i need to make a decision now, if i am going to rush,

1) Next build Worker / Barracks
2) Research Hunting / AH / Wheel

If Rexing

1) Next build Warrior / Settler / Worker
2) Research AH / Hunting / Wheel / Pottery

Would you agree? and we would need to start down one of these paths wont we?

 

[Shafi]

michmbk - Please remove the maps from your last post.

Thanks
Shafi

 

[TheMeInTeam]

An improved cow is a 6 yield tile. Compared with working an unimproved tile and chopping, it takes it 7 turns to overtake a chop that goes into anything but a worker or granary (which we won't get in the cap this early) for expansive. It still takes less than 10 to overtake chopping into an EXP worker!

On top of this, AH opens up the most common and arguably best early-game rush resource for faster speeds (horse).

Considering it takes > 10 turns to research BW OR AH, then improve the tile, you're going to have to do a hell of a lot of chopping to beat just working the cow after the first very few turns. I can tell you this without even looking at michmbk's spoilers, though they just confirm it. The payback on the cow is too fast to make chopping compete.

The growth test is similar to the one I performed, the main difference being that I did not want to take the second corn into account since it was not known at the time.

It's reasonable to account for it since it would be known the instant he settled, before a single beaker was invested.