HUI Game # 4 - Justinian

[learner gamer]

Mediocre land alert. Time to stop methinks.

Having looked a little more at the save, I have to agree with UWHabs - it makes me but the horse city goes on the horses IMHO. It's a pity because I think the only worthwhile city to the SE of Constantinople is NE of the sheep (to get the FP and corn as well) - and that means wasting two forested grassland tiles in between the two southern cities (and they look to be valuable given how brown the map is.)

Will get working on (what'll be left of) the dotmap ASAP - although if you decide to play on Shafi, there are obvious sites including the (coastal and riverside) northern corn and jumbos, the cow and dye (NE of cow) and maybe a less obvious city 1E of the eastern oasis that also gets the gold and a FP. To the west, I'd be inclined to settle 1NE or even N,NE of the wheat (the AI has E of the wheat IIRC) to lose a peak or two and pick up some greener tiles. All that said, there looks to be a very juicy site 1W of the NW dye to get cows, rice, gems and dye....mmm!

Suffice to say that it's not the easiest dotmap I've come across by far.

BTW, in view of the need for a WB and the fact that horses can take care of the barbs, how about swapping masonry for fishing before moving onto writing?

 

[Shafi]

Yeah sucky land, well i guess i'[ll just kill Izzy and take her capital to make up for it I'm not a war monger you know it's just out of necessasity .

BTW - i wont be playing today, probably next round sometime tomorrow, will wait to see the dotmap you come up with + see if we get more feedback since the choices / map is not the easiest.

 

[learner gamer]

(Very) preliminary dotmap attached. All advice is particularly welcome. Whilst I think the general areas of the city sites are OK (although please feel free to prove me wrong ), I'd really appreciate feedback re: suggestions for alternative layouts that eliminate some of the wasted tiles (of which there are a few to the SE and E in particular with this layout.) Thanks as always.

Edit: Shafi: saw your post as I made mine...as you can make out from the language used, I echo your thoughts completely.

 

[learner gamer]

Just for completion, the attached file suggests an alternative layout which might appeal. To aid the comparison to my original, I've shown how city C1 could be shifted to A1 and how the city SE of Constantinople (labelled C2 / C3) could be split into two separate cities (labelled A2 and A3).

Any chance the good folk on here could take a look and let us know which they prefer, or let us know where improvement could be made? Thanks very much in advance to those who offer their advice.

 

[Shafi]

Well, I tell you what folks, after the rocking game I had with Sully this really seems like hard work, anyways some tense moments, still managed to settle a decent amount of land, here’s the report.
Switched research to Fishing straight away and also switched the build in the capital to Granary for one turn after which we set it back to worker. We finish Fishing and go back to Masonry and then research Writing next. Finish building worker and whip a chariot and then build a settler next. We finish researching Writing and begin on sailing next. We also meet another neighbor,

Spoiler :

We finish researching sailing and research Mathematics and then IW next. Judaism spreads to us …

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But I don’t convert yet, I decide to wait a little longer, besides Boudica is of a different religion and I need to be careful of her. We meet another one of our neighbors …

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We finish IW and we have access to Iron. W begin researching Currency and we also make the following trade with pacal,

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Roosvelt asks us to convert to Judaism and we oblige, Mehmed converts soon after and now I have Izzy, Roosvelt & Mehmed as religious buddies.

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Izzy begs for Math and we oblige, we finish researching currency and begin on calendar next.

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Of course I gave in to both of them like a wimp since I don’t have a military top speak of, and since we have already given away currency to two of the AI, I decided to get something out of it while I could and traded it to Roosvelt for Poly + Meditation + Archery.
We also happen to …

Spoiler :

Get the GLH in horse city. We finish Calendar and begin researching CoL next, we also trade Currency to Izzy.

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We generate a GS and use him for an academy in the capital, we finish CoL and begin researching CS. I decided to stop here and get your advice on how to proceed, the tech situation …

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Some opportunities for trade, since I just picked up CoL. And the power ratings,

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As you can see, I am still the wimp and a very nervous one, Boudica and Mehmed make me very nervous! The demographics screen,

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And of course the world as we know it,

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So, there you have it, all in all a lot tougher than the last game, we have got ourselves some land, we now need to keep ourselves out of trouble and get ourselves a tech lead to launch from, so far I have not had any stratergy in mind, my focus was only to get some decent land blocked out, so what should be our plans from here?

 

[UWHabs]

Was it really worth it to build the great lighthouse for 3 coastal cities?

 

[Shafi]

^ nope. I realised that later, but actually when i started out on it, i had planned at least 2 more coastal cities, one of which i am yet to settle and the other spot which got taken by Mehmed + I think Izzy's capital is coastal and i had some thoughts of taking that early, anyway i should have just changed the build somehow i just seemed to have missed a trick there, not a good move, could have had a decent military with those hammers.

 

[learner gamer]

... could have had a decent military with those hammers.

Or maybe even a worker or two. Will take a more detailed look at the save later but, for now, well done on getting out all those cities (although obviously Nicromedia's under a little cultural pressure. )

What I want to know in the meantime is where was all the advice in the interim from the good people on these forums? Was the request for help perhaps too polite, the map too tricky advise upon, or is it that civvers have RLs after all?

Edit:

No, we don't have real lives, just jobs that occasionally require some attention.

@zizzeus, so do I! It’s just that my ability to undertake it recently has been scuppered by the need for surgery and now physio! Sorry to see you taking my point so personally (after all, it did, unlike your post, have a attached.)

Edit #2: Shafi:

Spoiler :

Long story short: zizzeus’ post, as well as one or two others in other threads, means I’m going to curtail my involvement from this point on...not that you need my help anyway! (All that said, this move was inevitable ahead of mid January when, assuming physio goes well, I’ll be returning to my job.) Thanks very much for posting your games...I’ve learned a terrific amount by following and I’m sure so have many others. Happy civving and all the best for Christmas and the new year to you and your (newly expanded ) family.

 

[zizzeus]

No, we don't have real lives, just jobs that occasionally require some attention.

One thing I had to stop doing when making the move to Immortal was caving to every single tech trade opportunity. You have a limit on how many trades you can make once somebody knows you (it's different for each leader, ranges from 5 for guys like Alex up to 15 for Gandhi, Willem, etc. Mansa is the only leader at 20). After that, they won't trade with you (we fear you are becoming too advanced - WFYABTA limit some speak of) until they forget about the trade. This doesn't matter at lower levels because you don't need to trade mid game, but at higher levels can really thwart you.

I noticed you traded for Poly, Med, Archery, Priest, Mono. Those are probably the 5 cheapest techs in the game, and now you won't be able to trade with some leaders for many years. Every trade counts against EVERYONE, not just whom you traded with.

So, save those techs for something worthwhile, even if you have to tech part of it yourself, or give up two techs for one. Counts against their limit too I believe. When trading a tech to two leaders in one turn, trade it to the lower limit leader first, just in case. There's a thread somewhere that has all the leader's limits.

Z

 

[zizzeus]

I'm not done.

If not building the AP, I'll go a whole game without having monotheism, and if I don't have camps to build, hunting as well. AIs will offer this junk, and I delete it every time so it doesn't count against the limit. Archery too unless I think I need it and then I'll have it before Alphabet.

Maybe, at the end of the game, if they have no tech for me, and no map, and no gold, and I'm tired of thinking I'm behind in tech when it's just Mono, Theo or Divine Right in their column, I'll make the trade. Maybe. Usually not.

 

[Shafi]

No, we don't have real lives, just jobs that occasionally require some attention.

One thing I had to stop doing when making the move to Immortal was caving to every single tech trade opportunity. You have a limit on how many trades you can make once somebody knows you (it's different for each leader, ranges from 5 for guys like Alex up to 15 for Gandhi, Willem, etc. Mansa is the only leader at 20). After that, they won't trade with you (we fear you are becoming too advanced - WFYABTA limit some speak of) until they forget about the trade. This doesn't matter at lower levels because you don't need to trade mid game, but at higher levels can really thwart you.

I noticed you traded for Poly, Med, Archery, Priest, Mono. Those are probably the 5 cheapest techs in the game, and now you won't be able to trade with some leaders for many years. Every trade counts against EVERYONE, not just whom you traded with.

So, save those techs for something worthwhile, even if you have to tech part of it yourself, or give up two techs for one. Counts against their limit too I believe. When trading a tech to two leaders in one turn, trade it to the lower limit leader first, just in case. There's a thread somewhere that has all the leader's limits.

Z

WoW! Thanks!!! I had no idea that there was such a limit.

 

[Shafi]

@lg -

It'll be a shame not to have your regular analysis of every round, since if not anything else it at least tells me what i need to think about and which areas need to be focussed on. Thanks a million for the contributions on the other three games and hope you'll still have time to sign in and post on the HUI games from time to time!
Oh and of course and a to you and your family too!

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

A stupid question:

What does HUI stand for?

 

[Shafi]

Help Us Improve

 

[kossin]

So hopefully this will help both me and others who just read the game threads or who play shadow games improve hence i will be calling it the "Help Us Improve" (HUI) series.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Thanks guys. I sometimes skip crucial information.

 

[kossin]

Some critique:
Workers = 5, cities = 7

Focus on food, don't forget the basics!

Constantinople: Jewish Monastery isn't adding much given your slider. Market would have been more useful here.
Thessalonica: get a workboat - this has the potential to be a great city
Adrianople: hammers or commerce? Looks like commerce right now
Antioch: Lighthouse! Not a library, what's it gonna do for you? The second border pop is quite a bit away.
Nicomedia: really not sold on this city, given how late and culture pressed it is. It has no food in its first ring so it's gonna be hard to beat Mansa to them Culturally (chop chop the forests)

You're stuck in jungle - get 2 worker/city for those cities and 1 for the others, I'm thinking about 12 workers. Go farm heavy once CS comes in and focus on getting a higher happy-cap.

Trade cows for gpt, they're not really helping right now.

Don't worry about Mansa, he's a wimp, should he ever go in war-mode you'll have plenty of time to build units.

Izzy does DoW at Pleased but with religion it should be ok. Sulei doesn't though.

You need to scout more, there's still a LOT of fog, for example south of the capital there could be a seafood in the fog.

You can trade for Monarchy/Construction if you'd like with Izzy/Boudi without penalties. Also, now that the religious block is decided, stick to your friends and go against the others. Izzy might go Friendly so there would be no more fear from WFYABTA.

But most important... MORE WORKERS! and no more shinies