[BTS] Immortal SG

[Pangaea]

Played to T36, when both AH and BW is in. Won't play further. It's not my game

Spoiler :

The land is indeed quite crap, but the north does look more promising than first imagined. Not just jungle, and I saw a corn further north, so maybe something there is viable. But yeah, rushing Stalin would be nice. Not sure you can really do that with Chariots on Immortal, but maybe it would have worked out with Wheel earlier, or now by heavy chops (after Wheel). Otherwise we can try to develop a bit more, and do it with HAs.

Kinda bad luck with copper and where I placed New York. But it was autoconnected and has its own food after Calendar, so it was a good call based on what I knew at the time I think. Though I always get a little hesitant when the game suggests the same spot

Spoiler :

 

[Condorski]

Iron Copper Horses and Ivory Chances

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

TMIT vs Duckweed. Fight. *Battle ringbell*

Okay, seriously, I let here code strips to those who are willing to interpret these or maybe I shall redirect DanF5771 to this matter.
And IIRC, Duckweed did some code diving in the past(a post in one of those deity threads he linked to me), so he wouldn't have any problem to decode the stuff I guess.

In XML>Terrain> CIV4BonusInfos.xml

Copper

Code:

<iPlayer>50</iPlayer>

<iTilesPer>128</iTilesPer>

Horses

Code:

<iPlayer>100</iPlayer>

<iTilesPer>256</iTilesPer>

Ivory

Code:

<iPlacementOrder>5</iPlacementOrder>

<iConstAppearance>50</iConstAppearance>

<iMinAreaSize>3</iMinAreaSize>

<iMinLatitude>0</iMinLatitude>

<iMaxLatitude>40</iMaxLatitude>

<Rands>

<iRandApp1>25</iRandApp1>

<iRandApp2>25</iRandApp2>

<iRandApp3>0</iRandApp3>

<iRandApp4>0</iRandApp4>

</Rands>

<iPlayer>100</iPlayer>

<iTilesPer>0</iTilesPer>

<iMinLandPercent>0</iMinLandPercent>

Iron

Code:

<iPlayer>100</iPlayer>

<iTilesPer>128</iTilesPer>

I think those parts are the crucial ones. The ivory case looked different, so I took a bigger part, but the max latitude (40) more or less defines its rarity. Starting the very northern part means perhaps no access at all on ivory in cases no AI is willing to share that strat. resource.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abegweit

I interpret this to mean that Horses and Copper have a likelihood of 50 (%?) of appearing in an area of 128 tiles while Iron has twice the likelihood over twice the area. Effectively, all three have the same likelihood but the iron may be further away. I think that corresponds with my experience.

 

[scheines]

Wow. Lots of replies overnight! I reloaded from start and played AH first since it seemed to be the popular choice. And, further thought made me agree that 3 good, food heavy tiles is the way to go.

Spoiler :

OK, so jumping ahead a bit, on the replay, the worker did rice -> pig -> cow -> horse. Had there been no horse, we are out of luck with an idle worker, but I still feel that 3 improved tiles beats 1 and chopping.

I got unlucky losing a warrior on a hill to a panther, so I grew to size 3, making 2 warriors. Then I made a settler, and I mapped out some tentative city sites below:

• 1NE of rice: natural progression toward the other AIs we met, shares food with capital
• 1S of cow: same story as above, but a weaker food tile to share. I also thought that 2E of cow wouldn't be bad, so we can expand toward Stalin. This approach would also be more flexible, since Stalin might settle near that horse and mess up the far south crab city. This also allows us to share cow OR pig. As I type this up, I like that better. Thoughts?
  
• 1NE of crab: seafood + lots to chop, but Stalin might mess with this placement. If necessary, we could also do 1NW.
• 1SE of cow (way up north): food, river (connected after another border pop, right?), etc.
• The "s, later" city: definitely for settling once we have caste
• The "s?" city. I didn't go that far initially so I could make a round of my capital, but I am hopeful there is another seafood around for backfilling later. This placement is very rough, pending us finishing checking out that area.

Settling all of these give us 7 cities, and some good flexibility if Stalin encroaches. My thinking is that we do 2E of cow, then 1NE of rice, then the crab city to lay claim to some key cities, then we have some leeway to backfill, or grab the second cow (depends if an AI is close in that direction too).

Techwise, finishing BW, then going straight to wheel, pottery, writing seems in order. No use for archery because we have chariots, and there seems to be AIs in close proximity.

 

[ZPV]

Well I did do some code diving for the iron/copper/horse issue - hope this makes sense:

Spoiler Map generator info for default map scripts :

The map generator first generates the terrain and adds rivers, lakes and features (forests, jungles, floodplains)
Then it adds non-unique bonuses (resources) one at a time using the following algorithm (ish):
1. Calculate how many of the resource to place:

This is NumEligibleTiles/TilesPerResource (rounded down) + NumPlayers*Resource%PerPlayer/100 (rounded down)
Multiply this by a weighted random number (between 1 and 1.2 for Iron, Copper and Horse) and round down.​

2. Start picking tiles at random. If the tile is eligible (the right terrain type, non-riverside*, not too close to another instance of this resource or another similar resource), place the resource; otherwise skip the tile and try somewhere else.

*A river could be added later by the start normalizer, but it wasn't there when the Iron/Copper/Horse was placed.

Spoiler Eligible tiles :

For Horse, these are Tundra, Grassland and Plains flatland, non-riverside.
For Iron and Copper, these are Tundra, Grassland, Plains, Ice and Desert; flatland and hills, non-riverside.

None can be within 4 plot distance of another one of these resources (i.e. 60% city culture is 4 distance from the city). This means the only way a city can spawn with two of these is if they are at opposite corners of the BFC - a "double knight move" is 5 plot distance.

They also can't be within X plot distance of the same type of resource (6 for Horse, 7 for Iron, 0(!) for Copper).

There are also some rules about not appearing on tiny islands etc.

Spoiler Spawn rates per resource :

Iron spawns at 1 per player + 1 per 128 eligible tiles
Copper spawns at 0.5 per player + 1 per 128 eligible tiles
Horse spawns at 1 per player + 1 per 256 eligible tiles

The number of eligible tiles is recalculated after each type of resource is placed. The order is
Iron -> Copper -> Horse.

In practice, this will generate roughly 11 Iron, 5 Copper and 8 Horse on a standard 7-player Pangaea map.
So the likelihood of a Horse on that tile is certainly more than one third, but hills, deserts and ice would have to make up an awful lot of the map (i.e. an equal number of tiles as flatland grass/plains/tundra) to push it up to 50%. My feeling is there usually aren't quite that many of them, but it isn't a million miles off.

 

[Fippy]

Bit confusing why you improved Rice first.
Pigs are even 1 worker turn quicker, and Rice can be kept as 3 tile longer (only one unimproved).

 

[scheines]

AH isn’t done when the worker gets out

 

[Fippy]

Hmm it should be 1t left on AH when your worker comes out, fine for moving on the hill first.

edit: Governor should auto-switch to Rice thou, even if you forget.

 

[scheines]

I think mine was 2. Perhaps I’ll check if I forgot to work the rice as soon as I could?

 

[Pangaea]

Am also confused why you did rice first. It's perfect timing if you just let the governor do its thing. The worker is out 1 turn before AH is done, and you need to move on the hill anyway. Then to the cow next. Then the horse. You may want to check up the spoiler I wrote about playing for the first 30-35 turns.

Since what we know about the land so far isn't really all that nice, I like the idea of HA-rushing Stalin. He's quite close and presumably has better land (or better surroundings). It's fine with 3 cities for a HA-rush, some say it's ideal. With that in mind, you want forests. Think I like the game spot actually, 2N of rice (or maybe 1S of sugar, to get the western rivertiles for later). It's auto-connected, and those 2 extra is a fairly big deal that early (we have no other commerce to speak of here). Where you placed it could work too, but won't be auto-connected, but does have calendar-food for later. Then probably the crab spot tbh. Lots of inner-ring forests there, and food, plus on the path to Stalin.

That should give you 3 cities that have good enough food for whipping, plus a lot of forests for chopping out a HA army. Stalin may have metal ofc, but HA can deal with that, especially if you hit him early enough.

One thing that is really nice with this map is that you have a capital filled with green power, which you can turn into an army pretty easily.

 

[scheines]

I’ll avoid the spoiler until I’m decently past it just in case. I’ll have to revisit the AH and worker timing; I probably won’t restart from there, but I am curious to see if I missed something to mess my timing up.

I agree on a HA rush, tentatively speaking. We will see how things look. How would your tech path look for that? I think I would go wheel, pottery, then hunting, archery, horseback riding. Would wanna do the war techs last in case I change my mind. I think writing would be nice so we can scout, but if speed is an urgency, writing seems a like a luxury.

 

[Pangaea]

Think I'd go wheel-pottery first at least, to have an economy. Takes a while to get to HBR, and it's nice land for cottages.

Tried a shadow and was going to do just that, but it kinda went a different way, and I ended up with chariots instead. Felt like I played poorly, had nothing else to build, so figured "Let's try chariot rushing instead" and then went all-in.

Don't read until later, as this is from 900BC.

Spoiler :

Russia doesn't have fantastic land either, but it is what it is. I went Wheel-Pottery and lined up HBR. But jeeze, that would take a while. And I have nothing else to build, except a granary (barracks were more or less up already). So between chariots and a million warriors (or settlers we can't afford either), I started to chop out chariots. Because Stalin only bragged about archers, and a while later chariots. Attacked with 11 chariots in 1320BC. Odds were terrible at 12% (and we have 10% withdraw) because despite being flatland, the bugger had walls. Next two cities were on hills, much worse, and one of those too had walls. Not great. But we had the numbers to power through. Last city had some barb problems, which may have helped. Two of the archers were slightly damaged. Even so, two Combat3 chariots lost at 45%, which was disappointing. Expected one of them to survive.

Spoiler :

First chariot moved south of his border, but with some fog-gazing the NW corner looked better, because there is a naked tile next to the city centre, which meant we could invade, and then attack the next turn.

Poor odds, but as long as we damage the archer, the next guy should have a chance. One of the chariots didn't scratch the defender, but the two others did. Then we won.

Needed to heal up and get more chariot before the last push, also because I saw from fog-gazing that it was another hill city, and naturally I didn't know how many archers were there. Bad combat luck really, as both Combat3 chariot died, but we took the city and wiped out Stalin, and then cleaned up the two barb archers that were camped outside the city (one of them busted a farm instead of suiciding).

Settled a city further north as well. Unfortunate that 3 dyes popped up outside the BFC, but may have placed it there anyway, with both food inner-ring, though 1E wouldn't be bad due to wet corn.

Russia has poor food for some reason, so the land conquered is far from great -- but we have ivory, marble and another horse, so in that regard it's okay. Felt like I played poorly, or at least it's awkward when there is nothing to build. At least have Writing now, so whipped out a capital library and New York is on it too. Looks like a rough map really. So much land that is hard to develop. Ocean west, jungle north, desert east, ocean south again. Some fish, but both in second ring. Then more jungle north of Russia, and no food in sight until Calendar (besides second-ring pig in Moscow).

I'm sure things can be improved on this, as it felt awkward throughout, but hopefully it has some value after all. It is nice to kill off an AI that early, and 7 cities by 1000-ish BC is nice too. Expensive, but the economy will recover.

 

[scheines]

To 2000 BC:

I am really struggling to cut myself off at 10 turns, but I forced myself to stop here.

Spoiler :

So I initially planned to take Pangaea's advice and settle 2N of the rice for the free trade, but the copper changed my mind. Though, that makes me wonder, how'd you get the settler that much faster? I suppose that is the effect of going pig -> cow -> horse -> rice? And that decision was made based on total additional yields (4 food on pig vs. 2 on rice)?

For my worker I elected to chop. I considered mining the copper first, but figured it won't get use until that city is size 2, and I'd like to road on the way back. In anarchy for slavery while settler is moving.

How would you have proceeded? I had great overflow from another warrior, so I chose to chop once into a settler. Working the riverside is meh, but I didn't want to whip away improved tiles. I flirted with building a barracks too, but decided the settler is going to benefit me sooner, so I should wait on the barracks to grow on before I whip.

Boston is settled by the clam so we can get access to their clam chowder []. I liked the advice to skip over the cow city. I am a little unable to articulate why sometimes we share food on early cities, and sometimes we don't. But this just feels right to settle here vs. on say the desert or the other 's' tile, perhaps someone knows why

I opted to build the boat ASAP via a plains forest.

And here is everything, at T50. As you can see I had a worker improve the copper, road on the way back, and then start linking up horses, then pigs + cow on the way to Boston. Normally, I would skip the resources for now, but they're all on optimal roads anyways. Only use for workers seems to be to road everything up real good, then I can cottage a few tiles before I lay down some cottages. I am a little rough around the edges on philosophies surrounding whipping away cottages, so any opinions are welcome there.

I didn't hit on this before, so:

• Washington grew to 5 on a barracks, then I whipped down to 3 for a 3rd worker. I think 2 more might be about right? I have lots of chopping to do, otherwise I'd have say 4 is enough. Next is a few chariots: the barb archers are starting to heckle me a bit.
  
• New York built a worker -> barracks.
• Granaries get going as soon as we hit pottery.

For tech, nothing has changed (hunting -> archery -> horsies).

PS: What turn can barbs enter culture? Regardless, that archer is about 1/2 hp after killing a warrior on a hill (again ), so I should be OK. I think I botched my warrior pathing by going S, S, SW from Washington (to the hill) instead of to the adjacent forest. Unfortunately I think of these things as I type these posts instead of mid-game lol

 

[coanda]

Barbs entering borders is controlled by total number of cities, and total number of living civilizations. More than two cities per living civ, they'll start entering borders. More than three cities per living civ, they'll be more aggressive about it (gather from further away to do so, raid deeper within borders). The exact turn number varies from game to game, because some games AIs expand faster or slower. Since you, the human player, have three cities already, I'd consider it pretty likely that the average Immortal AI has at least two by now. So barbs are probably a threat even within borders.

Incidentally, that's The Great Wall in Moscow's cultural borders in your last screenshot. That'll be a nice little bonus assuming you go ahead with the horse archer rush plan and it doesn't fail miserably.

 

[Fippy]

So I initially planned to take Pangaea's advice and settle 2N of the rice for the free trade, but the copper changed my mind. Though, that makes me wonder, how'd you get the settler that much faster? I suppose that is the effect of going pig -> cow -> horse -> rice? And that decision was made based on total additional yields (4 food on pig vs. 2 on rice)?

Great to have that comparison imo, shows how many turns can be squeezed out early with good worker handling.
By going Rice first you did put your worker too far from pigs & cows (he got blocked by forests and hills) + Rice was your weakest tile for settler building cos farms take 5t.

Your chosen city spots aren't bad, but they put some pressure on commerce potential (they bring in nothing).
With your Cap being so highly productive the correct choice would have been settling N/NE on the river first,
where you get an auto-traderoute and cottage potential.
With AH + BW first it's very important that you take care of commerce, esp. if you are looking at HAs.

 

[elitetroops]

Grabbing the copper is not too bad. If really lucky that would have been Stalin's only source of metals and a HA rush will be a walk in the park. Why road the copper though? You plan to use chariots for barb defense and HAs for first war. Not connecting metal would allow you to keep building warriors for cheap HR happiness later. Road on cow also doesn't seem needed this early. Connecting Boston would be good, but I'd rather do it with a straight diagonal path from cap. That road will later allow our HAs to take the shortest path to Russia. Even better use for these early worker turns you don't know what to do with would be to prechop.

 

[Pangaea]

A couple points:

• Try to take care of your surroundings by fogbusting the land. A single warrior in the south fogbusts that entire area, and the archer we see in one of the pictures cannot spawn. A warrior further north can do much the same, and there are some nice jungled hills.
  
• That said, because Stalin built the Great Wall, you would probably get some barb problems anyway, because they will obviously ignore him
• Did you consider to send a worker down to the crab city to chop out a workboat? The city can be roaded later, and as elite said, it's best with a diagonal road straight down there, which the HAs can use when you declare on Stalin (depending on where he has expanded by then ofc).
• I agree that getting out some more workers is a good idea. They can lay down some cottages, and (pre-)chop. Next turn the capital expands borders, so then the copper city can get that hill, since it doesn't have much else going for it right now.
• Also a good idea to get out some chariots for barb defence, or maybe an axe or two. When the barb situation is under control, a chariot can scout your surroundings, and Stalin once you have open borders.

Also worth to keep in mind that you have the option of going for an Axe-rush instead of waiting for HAs. Reckon it's best to try to build up an economy first, though, instead of going all-in for a rush that may not succeed. Chariots and Axes can definitely fail on this level. Focus on efficient worker management and tile improvement.

The crab city is quite expensive, but you may still want to expand a bit more here before HAs. For example, a city 1S of the sugar can help develop cottages for the capital, and will have its own food post-calendar. No food right now since the copper city needs the rice more I suppose, but as long as it can develop/work some cottages, the city would still be beneficial. Auto-connected too, and is okay positioned for another city further north later (cow region).

 

[lymond]

schienes - please put pics in spoiler tags. It helps with page loading..thanks

 

[scheines]

Great points everyone. Going to back it up a bit with the below tweaks:

• Settle NY as proposed on the river
• Road on the diagonal
• Chop that work boat

I will save my current position off and maybe play the first attempt back at some point. I especially want to see what kind of a butterfly effect a few small tweaks can have on our declare date. Should be fun.

Spoiler To T66 :

OK, so on the rerun, I settled NY as proposed. Thing is, I now have even more worker turns since no copper or long road to make. I pre-chopped 1SW for the granary, but then opted to road before finishing since pottery wasn't in time. I figured I will need to road to Washington anyways?

Boston gets going a bit thanks to a chop into the work boat and granary. How would you handle this city? I want green tiles with cottages for commerce so I can tech a bit faster, but I feel like I am chopping away all my forests before I even get to HBR.

Another miscellaneous call out is my unit expenses. Any opinions on where I should start deleting warriors in favor of chariots / archers?

So to recap the turns as a whole:


Workers did a bit of roading:

• Washington to Boston for trade routes
• Horse for chariots
• NY to Washington because I will need it for war so I can make HAs. I jumped the gun on this since I already had trade routes, and gain nothing from this, but at the time my only other option was to pre-chop?

Aside from roads, I chopped out a work boat and granary in Boston, and am working to get a few cottages going to help with teching.

In NY / Washington there was clearly a lot of cottaging going on. After the tile with the workers shown below I need 1 more before my cities would reach happy caps. I don't want to chop anymore though, so perhaps a riverside mine for NY would be a good compromise?

Techwise, I wrapped up hunting -> archery, and am now at a standstill for a bit. Is my intuition correct that writing is too much of a luxury on these difficulties if I want to rush early? If I were to go for it, maybe it should've been after writing so I could whip some libraries and run scientists in a city like Boston, where I wanted to save my forests?

I am about ready to start HBR, but not quite. I lose 11 gpt and need 11 turns to reach it, so after next turn and another improvement or two, we should be all set.

Where do you all land on next builds? I am spending money on any additional units I make, which makes me feel like I am just replacing warriors at this point. Not totally worthless, but maybe not the best use of my time? I don't really think I need any more workers, and settling anywhere else will just slow my teching. Which makes just replacing my units with better versions seem like the best option out of some not great ones.

 

[lymond]

NY and Wash were connected by river so no road needed

 

[scheines]

Yep I know, I know. I figured I will eventually want them for faster travel to the warfront.

That first screenshot is where I did the roading - I couldn't finish the chop because I'm waiting on pottery so it can go into a granary. Should I have just pre-chopped more?