Improving on Monarch level

[Todelotti]

Giggles capital had nice food, build a theater there and produce the Globe, the city is better than Birka and we haven't invested in the GT yet.

Seraiel, does that (see screen) change your plan to build the Globe Theatre in Uruk? Would it make sense to improve commerce/beakers in that city instead of food to leverage this second Academy, for example?

 

[Todelotti]

When you open the log (upper left corner) you can see what chances galley had. If I'd have to guess, I'd say something like 2% ^^

Barb Galley against my Trireme was 4.4% combat odds!

 

[Seraiel]

An Academy is always a good reason to specialize the city on commerce. In that one you also definitely want to run Specialists, because it is a superb GP farm with the the ToA and the GLH.

Great that you got the GLH btw., you should have noticed the increase in GNP immediately, as you got quite a lot coastal cities. Maybe it's difficult atm.
though, because you're in wat with BK and Giggels, so you maybe have some internal TRs instead of foreign ones.

 

[Todelotti]

Now the MaxOverflow thing: The University in Nidaros has reached 2-pop-whip now. Is it correct that MaxOverflow for 2-pop-whip is reached when the yellow marker is IN the green rectangle and I would change production to the Market at exactly that turn?

BTW: What about a Grocer instead of a Market? I have more health than happiness problems.

 

[Seraiel]

The yellow tick mark indicates when 1 less pop will be needed, so you need to stop 1T before you pass it.

Choose the Grocer for the Market and the Market instead of the Temple. Then you even whip 3 must have buildings in your capital.

 

[Pangaea]

Aye, if you're just to the left of one of those tick marks, you get (close to) max overflow. If you're just to the right of it, you can whip for one pop less, but you barely get any overflow. So it depends on what you want. In this case, however, you want to be just to the left of a mark, so you get a lot of overflow.

 

[Todelotti]

OK, but which part of the bar must be left of the yellow marker? The gray-blue production progress bar has those 2 parts: The left part (a little lighter in color and with yellow rectangle in my screenshot) or the shorter right part (a little darker in color and with green rectangle)? I thought the right (green rectangle) part indicates where the left part will be at the next turn. Or is that wrong? If it's right then the ideal overflow should be when the yellow marker is exactly IN the green rectangle.

 

[Seraiel]

OK, but which part of the bar must be left of the yellow marker? The gray-blue production progress bar has those 2 parts: The left part (a little lighter in color and with yellow rectangle in my screenshot) or the shorter right part (a little darker in color and with green rectangle)? I thought the right (green rectangle) part indicates where the left part will be at the next turn. Or is that wrong? If it's right then the ideal overflow should be when the yellow marker is exactly IN the green rectangle.

Right and wrong.

You're right, that the production-bar has an indicator for the hammers addet this turn (so where the production bar will be next turn) .

Perfect is though when you're 1 hammer away from the tick mark. Remember, the tick mark doesn' show when you have max OF, but when you need 1pop less. If you reach the yellow tick-mark, you'll get a 1pop whip without any OF in this case.

 

[Todelotti]

Perfect is though when you're 1 hammer away from the tick mark.

OK, of course, I see. But - unless I am lucky with my tile setup - I can reach such a perfect overflow only if I reconfigure the worked tiles somehow (for example working a mine instead of a windmill or the other way around or something like that). We don't want to drive the micro-management that far, do we?

 

[elitetroops]

When setting up whips with max overflow, you'll often want to micro the tiles a bit to get as close to the yellow line as possible, ideally one hammer away, as Sera suggested. Sometimes you would be barely crossing the line in one turn. Then you can swap some hammer tile for a food tile to be able to put one more turn into the build and get closer to the yellow line without reaching it.

 

[Seraiel]

OK, of course, I see. But - unless I am lucky with my tile setup - I can reach such a perfect overflow only if I reconfigure the worked tiles somehow (for example working a mine instead of a windmill or the other way around or something like that). We don't want to drive the micro-management that far, do we?

Why not? Microing cities on a turn to turn basis is what makes pros different from casuals. It depends on you TL, all of those things, including the whip-stacking cost time. If you're ok with needing up to an hour / turn, then you'll even make it to Deity. If you just wanna have fun and bash some AIs on Immortal, you are probably already ready for that and don't need to learn much more.

 

[Todelotti]

When setting up whips with max overflow, you'll often want to micro the tiles a bit to get as close to the yellow line as possible, ideally one hammer away, as Sera suggested. Sometimes you would be barely crossing the line in one turn. Then you can swap some hammer tile for a food tile to be able to put one more turn into the build and get closer to the yellow line without reaching it.

OK, I'll try that when I come close to the tick mark. And save the game before clicking red...

If you're ok with needing up to an hour / turn

I believe we had some turns already I spend half a day with, haha!

 

[Todelotti]

Turn 164 - 1040 AD

- The war with Gilgamesh is over. He is eliminated. The war with Charlemagne is still going on.
- I kept 4 of Gilgamesh's cities (so I have 11 cities now) and razed 1 city.
- The losses are moderate. My remaining army consists of 14 war elephants, 6 catapults, 2 axemen, 1 horse archer (plus city defenders and fogbusters)
- Oxford project: University in Nidaros prepared for 2-pop-whip. Grocer started. 2 other cities are building universities. 3 are building Forges (one of them already has a Library).
- Research: I have bulbed Printing Press. Then researched Guilds and traded Guilds for Engineering with Mansa. After that I finished Printing Press. I'm now building Gold to run to Chemistry with 100% research. Chemistry should be finished in about 6 turns. After that I can complete Liberalism and pick up Steel as the free tech. All in all I should have Steel in 7 or 8 turns.
- After Engineering Mansa went for Divine Right which he has finished this turn. I don't know yet what he will research next.
- Zara has Optics but doesn't trade it yet.
- Still nobody has Paper.
- 9 turns until next Great Person in Uppsala.

Two immediate questions that are important before I finish this turn:

- Charlemagne accepts a 10-turn-peace treaty (and puts 70 Gold+Map on top). Should we agree and focus on economy first and then consider to declare war again when we have cannons? On the other hand he doesn't have Guilds yet, so no Knights and it might be possible to capture 1 or 2 cities with my current army.

- Mansa has 870 (!) Gold available (probably failgold from Sistine Chapel that Ramesses completed and from a trade Engineering for Gold with Zara). Is it worth to offer him Gunpowder for the Gold?

Attached is an image of my current territory and a game save.

 

[Seraiel]

Seriously, Ramesses has 17 cities?

I'd stay at war with BK. He has no Landcraps yet, so he has nothing to stop your Elephants. Notice how superior Elephants really are? ^^ Once you have Cannons, nobody on that map will be able to stop you, because Cannons are probably the strongest unit in the game. They tear down defenses even if one only has few of them, and when attacking, they leave nothing but pieces of enemies that can be easily killed by almost any unit.
BKs Marble city in the south is also just what we want and what we need before we get Nationalism and want to build the Taj Mahal. I think it's gomma be some time 'til then, so you can take the cities otw.

Mansa having 900 is great, definitely gice him Gunpowder for that, it'll pay for complete Chemistry and probably also great parts of Scientific Method, which you should get next, because the next game-changer, Communism comes right after it. Just concentrate on getting the Universities as fast as possible and also try to find a way, how you can get out 3-4 Cannons and also upgrade the Catapults that are still left then.

One important thing you must know: AI Masters usually give all their techs to their Vassal. The Vassal doesn't give his Master his techs though, so Ramesses probably will become more and more backwards, apart from that he has an insanely large empire which makes him very powerful.

 

[Pangaea]

Pretty sure it's 10 cities, plus the 6 for Mansa.

Yes to selling Gunpowder from me too. That's a LOT of money, and it will power you through Chemistry, and maybe allow you to upgrade some catas too. I'm always a little unsure if that is worth it, however, because upgrading catas to cannons is very expensive.

Congrats with the war btw. Sounds like it has gone very well, and continuing it now against Charlie is a good idea. If you can get a few cities that is great. If you see that you can't breach through, you can cease fire or peace treaty and come back later with cannons. Cannons are fantastic. Against such weak units, you'll witness complete ownage

 

[Todelotti]

He has no Landcraps yet, so he has nothing to stop your Elephants.

He has. I can see one in Florence.

BKs Marble city in the south is also just what we want and what we need before we get Nationalism and want to build the Taj Mahal.

Hm, I believe you mean the Marble in Mansa-Country. The yellow colors are very similar, easy to mix up. In can't see Marble in Holy Rome land. I don't think BK has Marble.

BTW: Ramesses has 10 cities and Mansa has 5. Ramesses is spitting wonders at the moment: Apostolic Palace, MoM and Sistine Chapel in short sequence during the last turns.

 

[Seraiel]

Hmm, that's not great. If BK has Landcraps, you gotta wait for Cannons, otherwise losses will be too high. Now that you got for research, that should be np.

Ramesses building the AP is great, then the AP is jewish and we can build nice 2 givimg AP Temples, though I don't know if we can build them fast enough, we're already lagging behind with Forges and Universities for a reason I don't know myself, maybe we're just advancing too fast through the tech-tree, we did bulb a lot and research costs on Monarch are much lower than on Deity.

 

[kevtrev]

Now the MaxOverflow thing: The University in Nidaros has reached 2-pop-whip now. Is it correct that MaxOverflow for 2-pop-whip is reached when the yellow marker is IN the green rectangle and I would change production to the Market at exactly that turn?

BTW: What about a Grocer instead of a Market? I have more health than happiness problems.

Calculating when to whip and what the OF will be is easy, if you don't mind doing a little math

First work out the value of a 1-pop whip
Hover the mouse over the hammer icon shown in your image. This will show you base production and modifiers. In your case the modifiers are (I think) +25% from OR and +25% from forge. That means a whip is worth (1+.25+.25)*30 = 45

Now work out optimal number of for max OF
Your whip is worth 45 . The university costs 200 . You want to 2-pop whip, which means you want to be 1 short of a 1-pop whip
That means you should invest 200 -(45*1 + 1) = 154

Now calculate OF
You know the whip will give you 44 , because that's how you set it up. You're whipping 90 when only 46 are needed. (Here's what the calculation looks like: 2*45 - 46 = 44).
Now add on the production for the final build turn after whipping and you have your OF.

Obviously the numbers change when you have different modifiers, are building different buildings, and when you can't / don't micro it to exactly 1 short, but the idea is the same. Hope that helps for next time! or ?

 

[Todelotti]

Calculating when to whip and what the OF will be is easy, if you don't mind doing a little math

First work out the value of a 1-pop whip
Hover the mouse over the hammer icon shown in your image. This will show you base production and modifiers. In your case the modifiers are (I think) +25% from OR and +25% from forge. That means a whip is worth (1+.25+.25)*30 = 45

Now work out optimal number of for max OF
Your whip is worth 45 . The university costs 200 . You want to 2-pop whip, which means you want to be 1 short of a 1-pop whip
That means you should invest 200 -(45*1 + 1) = 154

Now calculate OF
You know the whip will give you 44 , because that's how you set it up. You're whipping 90 when only 46 are needed. (Here's what the calculation looks like: 2*45 - 46 = 44).
Now add on the production for the final build turn after whipping and you have your OF.

Obviously the numbers change when you have different modifiers, are building different buildings, and when you can't / don't micro it to exactly 1 short, but the idea is the same. Hope that helps for next time! or ?

Great details! Thanks, I will use that next time! One question: Does the 50% Bureau bonus for the capital count for the whip hammers so that a whip is even worth (1+.25+.25+.50)*30 = 60 ?

 

[Pangaea]

Great details! Thanks, I will use that next time! One question: Does the 50% Bureau bonus for the capital count for the whip hammers so that a whip is even worth (1+.25+.25+.50)*30 = 60 ?

Yes it does, and this has messed up my whips soooo many times

Also keep in mind that when you get for instance 44 overflow into Oxford with access to Stone, those 44 turn into 88

Hmm, I guess they get multiplied by OR and Forge again too? Suddenly a little unsure now, but I think so.