Infinite City Sprawl 03 - Divine

[mystyfly]

Rolled a start. I picked the first I got (though I'm not complaining ). Should we for some reason (boxed by monty and shaka for example) be losing very early I'm fine with a reroll.

Pic (I moved the warrior as you can see)

What we have:
- lots of FPs, causing 2
- lots of riverside tiles + oasis are great for early teching
- -ressource in second ring (I don't like those in the BFC unless gold/gems/silver...)
- 3 hills
- 7 (?) forests
- lots of tiles for strategic ressources

Comments:
We're in the south of the map (again). Looks like there's quite some desert around and since some program improves starting-BFC's so that there is no desert tile there I say settle in place.
We might be able to settle several cities on the same river which is nice.
We can either cottage those FPs or farm them. I'm for farming since we won't be running CS that long (we'll switch when it becomes available and switch out when we get nat, remember, we're spiritual ). Also we need those GPs, and we need them EARLY.


About GPs:

We'll need (probabely):
GP - Conf shrine
GS - Paper
GP - Theo
GP - DR

Specs slots:
1 priest - temple
1 priest - cathedral
3 priests - shrine
3 priests - AWat
2 scientists - library

If we want to be on the save side, we delay the shrine, not the bulbs. Getting the USak is way more important than the AP as our production will be via whipping/drafting.

If we build the shrine first, we'll get a total of 6 slots early (shrine, temple, library). To fill them all (without starvation) we need pop 9 (4 ressources / HR req).
If we start with bulbing, we'll have only 3 slots and only pop4 to support them.

About bulbing:

Bulbing Paper early is hard. I type the list of techs the GS bulbs:

Spoiler :

writing - have it
maths - have it
sci meth - block it
physics - block it
edu - block it
pp - block it
fiber optics - block it
computers - block it
laser - block it
the wheel - have it
abc - have it
philo - *
chemistry - block it
fission - block it
fusion - block it
optics - **
paper

* We should try to block philo, if we don't, we need another GS. To block it we need to lack either CoL or Drama (no way) or Meditation. If we don't tech meditation, we can't bulb theo. I think we should bulb paper first, meaning we don't tech medi until the first GS arrives. We can run scientists in the capital and a priest (temple) later if possible.

** We should block optics as well as it is useless on this kind of map. We need to avoid compass or machinery so DON'T trade for compass until we bulb paper!!


I would settle in place, build a worker and some defensive units who scout and fogbust while waiting for priesthood to come in. Then we chop the oracle and get confucianism in the capital. The oracle is a nice GPP source. However we should run scientists ASAP to generate a GS first so we can bulb paper. Then we can use our next GP (a prophet hopefully) to bulb theo if the AI doesn't know it yet (somehow this seems very unlikely) or else trade for it with paper if possible. If we manage to get it we can try and chop the AP or else forget it. I think we don't really need it: most of our infra (granary + court) will be whipped before temple + monastery and temple are doublespeed so no big deal.
I think settling Bombay after the oracle is better here as I don't see a site as strong as delhi's and if we found it first, confucianism will be founded there (which we don't want).

BTW with our units we built earlier we should try to get our missionary a safe passage to one of the AIs who didn't adopt any religion yet so we have one side secured at least.

If you find something strange here point it out, I'm tired but wanted to give you something to discuss

Save:
View attachment ICS3 BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[mystyfly]

On the rules, I sugest that we can build cities in a larger gird (6x6 maybe)first and than backfill later. With settling just 3 tiles from the capital we might get boxed in quite fast (the deity AIs start with extra settler and they can really REX lile mad).

I like that idea. We don't really abandon the variant and the grid will still be pretty in the end (hopefully)

Keeping extra AI cities would be nice, but I think having multiple complementary girds would provide a bit too much mess (no nice looking map at the end anymore). Maybe only exception is the city with the SoL :-D

My suggestion:
A city that is off-grid can be blocking either one other site or 2. I say we keep 'em if we only block one other site:

Regular grid: ("X" shows where the cities initially were)
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City blocking 1 site:
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or
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City blocking 2 sites:
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(I'm not 100% sure in the last one...)

 

[r_rolo1]

your last example blocks 3 cities, not 2 ( get some )

I'm not a huge fan of bulbing... do we really need to bulb paper?

P.S How about steal a big deal of techs?

 

[mystyfly]

your last example blocks 3 cities, not 2

YOU get some . There is always one more "X" than sites blocked since the off-grid-city "offsets" one of the blocked sites BTW I'm all for getting some sleep now :yawn:. We'll continue tomorrow... Later today I mean

I'm not a huge fan of bulbing... do we really need to bulb paper?

I think we need to. Last game we selfresearched it and IIRC the USak was built before we even finished teching paper.

P.S How about steal a big deal of techs?

Again I'm no fan of this here. Our early hammers will go into the oracle and massively into settlers + units. Only relying on courthouse-generated EPs to steal techs is not that good and I don't often like to touch the slider. I prefer focusing our EPs already very early on the first target (the one we don't convert ) and keeping the EPs on the others so low that we can only see their demos.

 

[r_rolo1]

Mr mystyfly:

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[shyuhe]

Good luck on the deity run guys! I'll be lurking over the course of the game (no civ for me now).

Oracle is a pre-req for the ICS strat (especially at this level). I would seriously consider rerolling if you guys don't get it. Although if there's an industrious civ out there, it's a complete crapshoot as to when the oracle gets built (I've seen mid 2000 BC's on deity). As for bulbing paper, I would avoid that... Paper is not a high priority tech for the AI normally - it was rather unusual that Louis went for paper so fast in the immortal game.

Good luck on not getting boxed in by the AI

 

[obsolete]

I have seen Oracle go up at 3000 BC.

I sense if you need to re-roll every time you fail this one thing, you may have to be stuck here for a very long time.

 

[ssmage]

Settle in place, if we move onto the plains hill we might settle on a resorce.
with the flood plains, Delhi should go settler first(diety bonus one), then warrior/at size 2 worker/arch/oracle and bombay once setted, warrior or archer/settler/archer

Tech path? hunt/arch/med/pristhood/writing/bw/take col
I think that's good pottery should go in there somewhere,but i'm not at good these yet
if we gotta bulb paper, we need to do a theo sling, and just tech masonry/mono after prirsthood or trade for it if they have alphabet (easy for dietys)

 

[mystyfly]

Oracle is a pre-req for the ICS strat (especially at this level). I would seriously consider rerolling if you guys don't get it. Although if there's an industrious civ out there, it's a complete crapshoot as to when the oracle gets built (I've seen mid 2000 BC's on deity).

I have seen Oracle go up at 3000 BC.

I sense if you need to re-roll every time you fail this one thing, you may have to be stuck here for a very long time.

In case we miss it and reroll, we can pick our enemies, taking only non-industrial, non-mysticism civs

Delhi should go settler first(diety bonus one), then warrior/at size 2 worker/arch/oracle and bombay once setted, warrior or archer/settler/archer

Settler first?!
Techwise I say agri > hunting > (AH?) > archery > poly/medi > priest > writing
Problem is we can't chop anything.
With agri first, we should go Worker > warrior (until archery is in) > archers (until priesthood is in) > oracle > settler. I don't want to have a useless settler sitting around. BTW we'll need a lot of cheap units anyway.

if we gotta bulb paper, we need to do a theo sling, and just tech masonry/mono after prirsthood or trade for it if they have alphabet (easy for dietys)

We can bulb theo as well if they don't have it or trade for it, just as I suggested. The AP is way less important (thou very nice to deny).

 

[ssmage]

Settler first?!
Techwise I say agri > hunting > (AH?) > archery > poly/medi > priest > writing

This is my first sg, so i'd not be good at the tech path yet.

With agri first, we should go Worker > warrior (until archery is in) > archers (until priesthood is in) > oracle > settler.

if start a settler that late, dieties whould be at 3-4 cities by then.

 

[mystyfly]

This is my first sg, so i'd not be good at the tech path yet.

It's not about SGing, its more about the level you play on, in SP. You play on emperor (you said) so this should be fine.

hunt/arch/med/pristhood/writing/bw/take col

this is the tech path you posted earlier. There's just agriculture lacking (which we need due to FPs). Apart from that, it's nearly the same as mine.

if start a settler that late, dieties whould be at 3-4 cities by then.

So what? If we settle bombay before, it won't be able to build a monument/worker because it won't be sufficiently defended. Barbs on deity are tuff! Also settling bombay would cause confucianism to be nearly surely founded there so we don't get our slots in delhi. After the Oracle is in we can go settler crazy.
Remember, the cities we have aren't that productive as "normal" cities as they're so close. It's just important that we can get several temples + monasteries up and have enought capacity to draft 3 units per turn.

 

[ZPV]

The Opening and the Oracle

I have seen Oracle go up at 3000 BC.

That's turn 25 I think/hope this is only possible with a lucky hut pop (or two)

If it goes this early, we actually have no chance of getting it.
I do think we need to do a harder Priesthood beeline than has already been proposed, if we really want to land the Oracle. Something like
BW > Med/Poly > Priesthood > Writing to build it hopefully around turn 45 = 2200 BC.

If it isn't possible to get the Oracle semi-consistently (given that we take liberties in other areas) then we should probably think about an alternate strategy.

I don't think we need Agriculture straight away because:
1) We have lots of 3 food tiles which can get us all the immediate growth we need. (OK, if we have river corn my mind can be changed)
2) Farms take ages to produce on floodplains (7 turns). We could mine a hill and chop a forest in this time I think.
3) Before building a library or temple, we can't hire specialists, and so we don't have to support zero-food-citizens (except maybe a solitary Plains Hill Mine)
If we want to go for a quick AH, I think we should go via Hunting because it opens up Archery (which we probably need if/when we don't have copper).
I've just realised Agriculture also opens up Pottery with The Wheel. I may have to rethink this.


I think there is at least one more resource in our BFC (floodplains don't count according to the map generator)- otherwise we would have a forest-heavy start. Since we don't know where it is, I think we should settle in place.

Lightbulbing
I am unconvinced about LBing Paper. I think it would be faster to lightbulb Theology and self-research Paper (otherwise we have to research CS first, which takes longer than paper) if speed to the per-religious-building wonders is what we are aiming for. We certainly won't be able to build AP if we LB Paper first, and if we are first to Theo, this might discourage others from researching it, so we have longer before someone else gets Paper.

If any of this seems obviously wrong, or you would just like to contradict me, please do so

 

[mystyfly]

@ZPVCS...
I'll compare some different tech paths in a sec (ingame, where I see how long it takes to research them)

ATM I think Hunting > AH > Archery > medi/poly > priesthood > writing. I don't think we have the time to reasearch BW tbh.
With this techpath we should probabely go warrior > worker > warriors/archers

I am unconvinced about LBing Paper. I think it would be faster to lightbulb Theology and self-research Paper (otherwise we have to research CS first, which takes longer than paper) if speed to the per-religious-building wonders is what we are aiming for. We certainly won't be able to build AP if we LB Paper first, and if we are first to Theo, this might discourage others from researching it, so we have longer before someone else gets Paper.

I seem to be the only one liking to bulb paper.
If we selfresearch it we'll have more GPs. We should probabely bulb theo with the first, the build 1-2 shrines (conf + christianity eventually) and then bulb DR.

If any of this seems obviously wrong, or you would just like to contradict me, please do so

I'm glad we have some discussion going

 

[ZPV]

My point was to tech BW instead of Agr, AH, Hunting, Arch.
Edit: and have the worker mining and pre-chopping


If this gets us killed by the barbs, then it is a nono.

 

[r_rolo1]

We'll need BW , and probably we'll need it soon ( I would not be surprised if we needed to chop oracle or the 2nd settler to have a fighting chance.... )

 

[mystyfly]

I've made some calculations and should they prove right, we'd finish the oracle on TURN 52, by teching Hunting > AH > Archery > Medi > Priest. I don't think we can avoid archery as I don't want to gamble on horses/copper. If we don't get either of them we can only build warriors and if we get one of them it's most likely not on the river meaning we'd need the wheel as well. I don't know about switching AH with BW, I'll give it some thoughts.

 

[ssmage]

You like your paper bulb myst, but it looks to hard to happen in diety without major drawbacks, So self teching paper and bulbing philo/edu looks better.

Swapping AH for BW looks good and gives us and we can't get slaves revolts due to no events, so it seems like the best thing to do.

 

[mystyfly]

Now, if we switch AH for BW, we manage the Oracle (with lots of chopping) on TURN 48.

...

Problem only is that writing just finishes on turn 51.

For me AH clearly wins. Without the forests (5) Delhi has a health cap of 4, so it breaks even healthwise on pop2
If we go the AH-route, we'll get the Oracle one turn later but spare our forests for settlers (though be careful and leave some)

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Well some top of mind thoughts re Deity

1. You cant afford to be too weak miltarily or you will get Barbed or Declared on by a Deity AI so..

2. BW will delay Priesthood to such a degree that we will be very lucky to get the Oracle so I think has to be ruled out for the early tech path leaving us with

a) Gambling on surviving with Warriors and doing the Staright Oracle beeline with AG, AH, Preisthood Beeline or. The problem with this is we will be swamped by Barb Archers before the Oracle is built
b) Slipping in Hunting - Archery, I would guess first as then we are buidling Archers a.s.a.p. Here we are in real danger of losing the Oracle but seems the only shot at the Orcale that might succeed unless we find Copper in our BFC (on the river) which would be very unlikely.

So I think we have to
i) Take the Archery route, building our Worker first
ii) Prey for the RNG not slipping in Spiritual or Industrious AI's that nab the Oracle.

Ralph

 

[obsolete]

Quote:
Originally Posted by obsolete View Post
I have seen Oracle go up at 3000 BC.

-- That's turn 25 I think/hope this is only possible with a lucky hut pop (or two)

Let me lay the facts out for you...

The Deities get an extra settler, so they will plop down right away at any marble. The deities get a free worker, so they will hook it up starting turn 1. The deities get numerous free techs at the start, so they have a big jump on you tech wise towards oracle.

Oh, and don't forget their extra scout, and archers. They'll find it very fast, don't you worry....

Or.. be very worried actually.

Hopefully, the marble-cluster algorithm keeps those in way off places, but I think you are still putting in too much faith in thinking by adding a no-industrious civ CHEAT, that things will be ok.

Sometimes, you will get the oracle in time. Perhaps when barbs (which come VERY early) give the AI a little bad timing or something... Or maybe a war breaks out by turn 10, etc.