Just a random map

[dutchfire]

Something to keep an eye on, there's supposed to be 6 more Dutch cities that you haven't uncovered (city number went from 11 to 5 when you declared war). That's quite a large number.

 

[Rusten]

Ooh ! Right ! I've got the scout on that !

Spoiler :

Didn't realize it. Didn't even consider him a potential target.
Do you mean you went after him first ? Possibly with mounted units to make up for the distance ? (Horse Archers ?)

Sounds interesting. Did he build the GLH in your game, too ?
I'm not going to switch targets right now. I think Hannibal is far away and Willem... well, he's a fine target for me. He's close, land is green. I can get workers. Following up with Pericles is, at least, credible...

Actually, in the last pipe dream I had about this game, I went :
Willem (bribing Justin), Pericles, Justin, Friendly Hannibal + Mansa, found Sushi corp, explode...

Spoiler :

Yup, I sure did! I can post some pics later.
But in my game Hannibal settled all the way to the gems spot (not a barb city) which made it all the more natural to attack him.
Willem built the GLH (he's next on my list).

 

[Rusten]

T109

Spoiler :

I was able to trade a lot as well, although I had to wait a long time for MC and especially machinery. Had to self-tech CS and 1T of 100% machinery, but that was about it. Was banking gold for a long time after completing CS.

As mentioned I notice just how weak Hannibal was and decided to attack sooner rather than later.
Scenarios:
a) He gets to Feudalism and longbows before I attack:
-Still worthwhile. He has expanded towards me and I can take out his border cities (gems etc) without difficulty as they will be weakly defended with low cultural defense. Sign cease fire when initial attack peters out and re-go with siege ---> Engineering is a priority for both finishing him off and movement (distance to capital).

b) He trades for ivory with Willem and gets WEs:
-Still worthwhile. His border cities are extremely unlikely to have WEs (they will be at the core far away) and I can simply sign a cease fire when it suits me. I will grab his first cities without effort.
Counter-measure: Trade for his resources whenever they are available to reduce the chance that he can trade with Willem. I had a gold for spice deal for instance which only benefitted him in happiness.
--> Engineering is a priority for both finishing him off and movement (distance to capital).

c) He gets neither Longbows nor WEs:
-Extremely cost-effective. The easier cities will have attack odds of 66% and higher.
--> Engineering is a priority for movement (distance to capital).

With trebs the leftover HAs will still be useful against the next target AI.

--> I decided to self-research Engineering after trading for Machinery (too much of a priority to trade for).

As speed was of the essence only London found the time for a barracks. Easily worth it as it was churning out 1 HA/t with timed chops.

I DoW T98 -- taking a city and 4 workers in the process and a 5th the turn after.

This is the area which I would capture under any scenario (Sicca, Thapsus and Hippo were the priority -- all of which are on flatland). Hippo has 3 great food resources (fish barely visible) and is size 9 -- gimme!

By T109 most of Carthage belongs to me, but he has longbows now and so my wave of attacks come to an end. Time for a cease fire.

 

[Pedro78]

Wew HAs vs flatland Archers is pretty deadly

Do you think you can get a pre-T200 space landing from that position? (seems awfully early but things can go really fast)

 

[Rusten]

That would be nice, but would require very precise play. Not sure I will have the required patience for 'just a random map'. An early to mid 15xx landing doesn't require all that much, but speeding it up from there into the 1400s gets really tight.

Definitely off to a good start though!

 

[Rusten]

No need for war prep -- will attack the Dutch almost immediately after. The first trebs and maces are already out.
Yes at tech pace -- I look set for Liberalism (currently holding a monopoly on paper).

Looking forward to your updates.

 

[jatamixx]

At least you are impervious to a hypothetical jewish AP resolution

After the hindu fight for supremacy is settled, may I suggest you getting Astronomy > capitulate the supposedly isolated AI > ? > profit ?

 

[Rusten]

Hannibal and Mansa -- name a more iconic duo.
I assume they're friendly towards one another in your game? They seem quite the pair -- even leaving people like Pericles (with a great start) and Willem so far behind.

Good thing I nipped that relationship in the bud.

 

[Rusten]

We're PHI, so the National Epic has less value than usual but it's still an important building to complete. Next, Warwick will have to unlock specialist slots (Market).

Do you have Drama? Theatre is a superb building for GPP when you're not running caste. Only 50 hammers which is affordable for low-prod cities and even gives +1 happy here.

Close call on Liberalism.

 

[Rusten]

Liberalism is not a big deal indeed. I was actually planning on going the lower route (guilds-(banking)-gunpowder-chemistry-steel) for synergy with the UB and massive empire warfare and possibly skipping Edu+Lib in the process. Willem built the mids so merc+rep was also a goal. However, for some reason nobody wanted to research guilds (only Willem, with whom I was at war) so I ended up lightbulbing Education over starting a GA. The way it's played out I will probably go MT rather than Steel because I could trade for Nationalism, and SP workshops over merc+emancipation cottages. Mansa Musa RNG at its finest.

 

[Rusten]

Yes, I teched Engineering all by myself.
I do have a shrine (soon). Willem has been kind enough to spread christianity to most of my cities in addition to constructing the shrine.

SP workshops are so much quicker to set up that I feel they're almost always the best choice -- even with a financial leader. Maybe I'll try cottages here just to have something to compare with. Perhaps I should target printing press to lure Mansa towards Democracy.

I do have HE shortly which alleviates the need for military production everywhere. Cottage game it is.

Obvious offshore cities are being settled.

 

[Pedro78]

I don't really understand the purpose of this new map. One of Gandhi's biggest advantages over Lizzy is that he can bulb Engineering, and you give us a fishing start
(And that start is much weaker than the Lizzy one)

 

[Rusten]

I didn't notice you posted here instead.

And the joys of stacking mutalisks.... aaahhhh
What is then the civ 4 equivalent of the overlord (to enable the stacking)? The Great Medic?

 

[dutchfire]

I've got the impression that you're doing lots of long-term investments at the moment. Settling overseas, settling the gems in the middle of the bloody jungle, working cottages in the recently cleared jungle, and the war. I personally prefer to go a bit more all-in on wars. Here you've given Willem a lot of time to build up his defences and this is making the war a lot more expensive. The 50 AD screenshot shows two defenders in Maastricht, with a swordsman at the top. Wouldn't an extra unit or two going to Maastricht at that point be more valuable than the settler you've build for the gems? In terms of shortening the war, avoiding reinforcements and in terms of short and medium-term pay-off.

This is also visible in your tile improvements. A city like Canterbury might have had a few farms and just be whipville for some time to produce an army that would have given you another city by now.

I appreciate that this is all said with hindsight and that this makes it easy to comment.

 

[elitetroops]

Very interesting game! Obviously you are doing very well, so it's hard to criticize anything.

I notice you build way more cottages than I do. Lately I've completely stopped building them outside of capital. Maybe this is a difficulty level thing? I've found that on immortal going farms and units for an all out conquest economy is the most efficient, regardless if I'm heading for space or domination, but that might not work as well against the tougher deity AI? If I ever feel like playing more deity, I'll keep this in mind.

 

[intutama]

Writing in 2 turns. This is actually very neat. I have +40% research multipliers towards Writing (Pottery, AH) and 0% towards Mysticism (no pre-requisite) :
Next turn, I'll need about 1 beaker to complete Writing and the overflow beakers, as far as I know, will retain the research multiplier. I'll be getting a 3rd of Mysticism on the cheap.

I haven't read the whole thread so sorry if it has been cleared before, but yesterday I tried using this trick and from my tests the behavior is as follow:
- The invisible +1 BpT (which is the reason why you can't get 0 BpT) is added before multiplication, so an indicated 9 BpT (in the top left hand corner in CIV IV BUG) is in fact 10 BpT, when boosted with +20% will become 12 beakers.
- OF from non-boosted to boosted tech -> the OF is boosted
- OF from boosted tech to non-boosted -> the OF is limited to your indicated BpT on completion turn (the rest is lost).
- The OF is multiplied when working the new tech, so when completing a pre-requisite tech into a following tech the OF on turn X will be boosted on turn X+1

Examples from the beginning of the game with an indicated 9 BpT:
Completing Fishing(+0%) into AH(+40%) with 10b OF results in 14b in AH.
Completing AH(+40%) into Wheel(+0%) with 13b OF results in 9b in Wheel -> because we have 9BpT on completion turn, 4 OF beakers are lost.

So to optimize beaker production is seems like you should maximize OF from non-boosted into boosted, and limit the OF to your BpT when completing boosted techs.

 

[sampsa]

So to optimize beaker production is seems like you should maximize OF from non-boosted into boosted, and limit the OF to your BpT when completing boosted techs.

If I understood the previous sentences correctly, I think this conclusion is wrong. IMO the correct conclusion is that it doesn't matter, since the amount of put into a tech remains exactly the same notwithstanding if there is, was, or will be overflow. Exactly the same as with .

 

[intutama]

One could imagine lowering the science slider when completing a boosted tech in order to prevent lost overflow and get some money instead. I can't come with other scenarios however.

 

[elitetroops]

One could imagine lowering the science slider when completing a boosted tech in order to prevent lost overflow

Sampsa got this right. It doesn't matter, you do not lose anything. Overflow is carried over as base beakers and the relevant multipliers are then applied for the next tech. They are no different to beakers put directly into the tech.

 

[intutama]

Ok it took me a while to understand but you're all right, it makes no difference what you do with the sliders since whatever amount of money you accumulated on turn X by working at less than 100% science will be converted back to science at turn X+1 at the same rate.

One situation where this is not true is if the gold-to-beaker conversion ratio changes between turn X and X+1, for example you complete Oxford on turn X+1. In this case whatever money you saved on turn X will "convert" into more beakers at X+1. Naturally in this case you probably have been saving money at 0% science while waiting for Oxford to complete anyway. However your ratio might improve in other ways (you complete some libraires, AI discover the target tech...) so maybe it would be better to always limit overflow to a minimum, as there are chances that on the next turn your gold-to-beaker ratio will improve.

Naturally on the other side it might be better to work 100% science this turn, if on next turn you complete Wall Street so you'd have to predict your gold-to-beaker ratio each time you complete a tech and act accordingly... I'd rather stay with the "science only 100% or 0% method" (I never understood the math behind this rule either looks awfully like a rule-of-thumb for the rule I discovered... or re-re-discovered )

Sorry to derail this thread, hopefully I haven't said something so idiotic as to completely derail it again