King Younk's Questions thread

[5tephen]

There are a lot of barbarians on this setting! Good for farming XP and keeping AI in check, bad if you get overwhelmed…

 

[Gumbolt]

The main issue with people playing along will be huge map and mararthan settings. The last one being the main issue stopping most from playing map. Plus KY will play to late game in about 2-3 posts and move to a new game.

Barbs are not an issue if you have copper. If you start near tundra at top of maps this could be annoying. KY usually builds GW and mids. With a stone start he would likely do this. So barbs not an issue unless one of the 17 Ai build it.This can be very random with so many AI.

He needs to learn what to do once he controls his continent as I don't think he has done many naval invasions. Quite often come 1000ad he is behind on tech. He mainly plays for fun. He won't do half the micro you might do on a game.

I might try the shuffle settings. I am not against huge maps just I am playing standard speed on immortal. I know if I start near copper/horse or double gold it might be too easy given my attacking nature.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

I’m somewhere between T200-50. Just teched alpha…

 

[5tephen]

I’m somewhere between T200-50. Just teched alpha…

Cool. I'm quite enjoying the funky settings. Will post a write up about this time tomorrow - have to sleep now. I think I'm around T300 - you may well have hit alpha earlier than me.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

Cool. I'm quite enjoying the funky settings. Will post a write up about this time tomorrow - have to sleep now. I think I'm around T300 - you may well have hit alpha earlier than me.

It is fun. I don’t think I’ve ever been as shocked by the three times table though. Twelve turns for a pasture?! I’ll try to post this weekend.

 

[AcaMetis]

It is fun. I don’t think I’ve ever been as shocked by the three times table though. Twelve turns for a pasture?! I’ll try to post this weekend.

Just wait until you start trying to build plantations over jungle tiles . There's a reason why standard practice on Marathon is double/tripling up on Workers.

 

[King Younk]

I really like this philosophy - these days I always choose Pangea, NHNE, random civ, all other settings normal and play the map - despite repeated losses this is slowly making me better. Just to put it out there, this was the first and only continents map I rolled so maybe this is the map we got?

I am unable to play this weekend but could upload progress so far on the above map - have played to around T200. Would that be any good? Could probably play a bit next week with regular updates but a map this big will take me a while to complete.

Given the time commitment that comes with your preferred settings of marathon/huge I wouldn’t play a completely random land mass; something really fragmented like archipelago would take me forever with micromanagement.

For me, this isn’t about winning or losing, just getting a taste of some very different settings and hopefully using that to learn some lessons that I could take back to my normal play.

Would happily play if you roll a map script that guarantees reasonably big land masses (e.g. custom continents, random number of continents), no huts, no events, normal sea level, normal climate, all other settings normal aside from marathon, huge (which we can discuss whether are abnormal settings or not!)

Finding a map we would both learn something from might not be possible so no hard feelings if a map that would suit me doesn’t work for you.

I don't really care - I like the Great Plains map, though I haven't played one in a while. Also I drive the Great Plains for work regualarly, so it's mostly sentimental value. You pick, but I do prefer Marathon.

I have a game as Korea going that I'm not going to win, though I feel I have governed well, if it were reality, haha.

Spoiler :

Anyone think they can salvage this?

 

[5tephen]

There's a reason why standard practice on Marathon is double/tripling up on Workers.

I didn't know this but reached this conclusion myself! Worker management seems slightly more forgiving of mistakes than on higher speeds too as for example losing a turn moving on a forest from a poor route choice loses a far smaller proportion of the time taken to improve to cottage a floodplain than it would on faster speeds.

Spoiler Write-up to T289 :

I settled in place for the plains hill hammers with some green river tiles, pigs and cows. AH for food. Seeing we had a lot of land with tundra and stone, mysticism -> mining -> masonry for TGW and Pyramids.

Settled second city north along the river for a bunch of cottages - just one grassland cow for food but I figured with the capital's great production and no amazing alternative spots nearby the main priority was some commerce to get an economy up and running and secondly to get a library ASAP to try and get a GS before the wonders in the capital gave me a Great Spy/Engineer - sadly I was one turn too late - settled my great spy in the capital as I thought a golden age might not be that great at this point and given Pacal's tech rate it's doubtful I could steal much useful off of him and it seems like there's plenty of turns left to accumulate science/spy points from the settled specialist. Will make absolutely sure the next two great people are scientists though for bulbing astronomy.

TW -> pottery -> BW -> maths -> fishing -> alpha -> sailing -> meditation -> priesthood. Ready to trade for monarchy in 3 turns when Pacal gets there so I can get some wine hooked up for more happiness and going calendar as I'll need it for astronomy and want the incense online but in retrospect should have been delayed as it's slowing down my optics date. Have slowly got up to 5 cities which is possibly overexpansion. Will go for a sixth soon as need a second coastal city up and running in time to get out a second caravel as soon as optics hits. Will have to manually tech to optics then bulb astronomy. I have 899 hammers in Hanging Gardens so some nice failgold coming - probably much later given TGL didn't go until fairly recently. Can't recall if Pacal plots at pleased but am keeping an eye on him and don't think war would be too problematic if it came soon but would prefer wipe him out post astronomy. I'm thinking I might be able to lib scientific method and go early communism before total war...

I've never seen so many barbarian axes and spears. Pacal had a really rough time after I built TGW. I tried to build a road into his empire around T200 and hadn't even considered there would be barbs next to his cities and lost a worker . I do nearly have a level 4 axe though and I can get a really bad marble and whale tundra city once I have intercontinental trade routes to afford the city so I can get HE up and running.

Spoiler State of the empire :

Spoiler Tech :

@King Younk I don't have time right now but I'll try and put up a great plains map later on.

 

[Gumbolt]

Barb issue are one of the downsides to huge maps. I think low food maps can nerf the Ai too. Most Ai should have writing by 610bc? I know science can be a bit slower on huge maps and perhaps the Ai start with fewer techs.

As for KY save. You lack ambition. So many small islands and the Ai have just spammed cities. You don't win huge maps by sitting on 8-9 cities. Colonial costs would of been a pain here. Naval assault on Persia too late. Cottage economy makes it much harder to build armies.

I did look at shuffle maps but at times they seem to start some AI on small islands which makes them sidelined from start.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@5tephen

Spoiler :

I played on a long way yesterday morning. I’ll post a write up later but our positons look similar (for now). I had an extra city at that stage but you’re ahead in tech.

There are a couple of big differences. First, you went for the Great Wall and I didn’t. The barbs were easy to deal with; I’ve killed about sixty (including animals) for the loss of one warrior to a bear. However, my unit cost was been between five and ten for a long time. In terms of optimal play I think the Great Wall is the right call. Although, if it hadn’t been for the barbs, I’m not sure what I’d have done each turn

The other big difference is you’re going astro bulb whereas I am just about to tech COL and bulb philosophy on route to libbing it. I think it’s pretty clear that double bulbing astro is the right play. Astro is massive. I knew it would make a big difference but I underestimated just how much. In a “normal” game, I’d not be so focused on meeting the other AIs in semi-iso with Pacal. That might be a mistake even in a normal game though.

I think you’ll be in a much better position than me by the time you get to turn 400 or wherever I am now even if there doesn’t look to be much in it at this stage.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

T450

Spoiler :

I can't remember exactly what happens but in summary:

Neighbours: just Pacal pre-astro and a whole lot of barbs.

Tech path: AH, mining, BW, fishing (mistake), pottery, masonry, sailing, writing, alpha, mysticism, meditation, priesthood, COL (founded confu), maths, philosophy (bulbed and founded Taoism), metallurgy, CS, currency, machinery, calendar, compass, optics, paper, education (double bulb), lib and took astro. Currently teching nationalism to build Taj with great engineer.

I got monarchy, hunting and IW from Pacal in trade.

I went COL with the intention of founding confu or, failing that, bulbing philosophy, to found Taoism, mainly to get Pacal to friendly along with a city gift. Not sure it was worth it given how little I got from him in trade. I think monarchy is one of the techs that the AI always trades so I basically got IW and a 100% guarantee that he wouldn’t attack me out of it. I suspect double bulbing astro would have been better, I just didn't realise how poorly even an AI like Pacal would tech. I could probably have used lib to get steel.

I went metallurgy pre-CS because I wanted to see if you could meet anybody through the small island chain in the north east. I doubted it but it felt worth taking the chance and Pacal has somehow met other AIs pre-optics (?). I also wanted to clear the barb galleys so I could get the double crab ice island for overseas trade routes. Given this I probably should have gone currency before civil service. Actually I should have done because I’m sure currency helped more and it’s cheaper. Selling techs to Pacal and trade routes were definitely more help than bureau with a size ten capital owing to a lack of happy and health resources.

Wonders: Having gone COL and philosophy I went down the lib path to get astro. I also fail golded Chitchen Itza and ended up accidentally building it. Oops, the perils of a lot of turns during which nothing happens. Although given that hardly any of the AIs have COL, I probably needed to do it myself.
Obviously I built the pyramids and denied the Sun King his rightful place as absolute monarch. Rep has been a massive help. The happiness was super helpful given no religion until COL and no luxuries until monarchy, calendar or optics. I’ve also pretty much been in caste since I got philosophy so could go pacifism too. There are a lot of forests for production and not much that needs building so whipping is not super helpful. Also, there’s not loads of food and the key thing has been beakers to get to astro.

I made a play for the great lighthouse after the pyramids. The pyramids were obviously more important and I didn’t want to lose them. The great lighthouse would be awesome mid-game but isn’t that exciting with only one other civ contactable pre-astro. Also, I didn’t know about the islands at this point. I got pretty close to finishing it but missed out. I think the fail gold got me to writing though. I might consider attacking whoever has it as my first post-Pacal target.

I didn't go great wall because it would have delayed the pyramids and rep. Also, I don't like great spy points and I thought I could fog bust effectively so I wouldn't need it.

Early game and expansion: SIP. 42 turn animal husbandry was a surprise. I decided to go warrior first because finishing a worker and building roads or partially farming a wine tile didn’t seem as useful as a head start on fog busting. I worked the riverside wine tile to get AH a bit quicker rather than the unimproved riverside plains cow. After finishing the warrior I switched between the cow and the wine to get the worker out the turn AH finished. In retrospect I think I should have gotten a worker out and started farming the wine tile. Fog busting could have started later because it’s just animals for ages and they’re not a big problem given they never enter your cultural borders.

Once AH was in, I pastured the pigs and the plains cow. On normal speed I wonder if I’d have improved the cow first because I could finish it a turn earlier. Not sure. Here the saved turn is pretty inconsequential. You can be incredibly negligent with worker management on marathon it seems.

I then built warriors and started roading to my second city spot on the river to the west 2E of the grassland cow. I should have farmed a wine tile first as I finished the road well before the settler which I built at size five (I think). I improved the copper next and then started chopping. I had unit cost and couldn’t run 100% research every turn even before building my second city and getting BW but I really wanted to fog bust effectively. I managed to lockdown the whole of the map except the tundra to the north before warriors started appearing and I had a couple of axes by the time archers started coming from the north.

The barbs weren’t really a problem because copper meant archers and spears were still easy kills and I got horses before axes started appearing. I've killed about sixty including animals for the loss of one warrior. The issue really has been paying unit upkeep for this little army.

I settled the SE grassland cow next to get in position for the great lighthouse. I then chopped the pyramids and then sent my army of workers down to chop out TGL but missed it. I then went for the SW fish to block off Pacal. Then it was the horse and plains cow to the east of Paris, I settled the cow second ring to share cottages with Paris. I then settled Marseille north of Paris to share the cow and work some cottages near Paris. I then stayed on these cities until alpha. Once I had alpha, I slowly settled the wheat and rice cities to help with health problems.

Alpha made a huge difference even though I hardly got any trades because I found I had nothing to build. I’d pretty much replaced all my city garrison warriors with axes because I had nothing else to build. I was actually stronger than Pacal for a long time which was really unusual and meant I didn't have to worry about being attacked even before he got to friendly.

I eventually settled the double crab island once I had currency. I didn't realise that a barb city on the north eastern peninsula blocked the trade routes so I had to get some swords to raze it. That delayed things a bit.

Then I hit end turn a lot and got to optics and then astro. I met the AI and wow are they backward. Some of them don't even have alphabet and COL was still a monopoly tech when I first met them. With resource trades I can run a 100% science and still make money. It still takes an eternity to tech anything though.

I've also begun to realise how long it's going to take to kill them all.

 

[Lennier]

Barb issue are one of the downsides to huge maps. I think low food maps can nerf the Ai too. Most Ai should have writing by 610bc? I know science can be a bit slower on huge maps and perhaps the Ai start with fewer techs.

AIs on huge maps start with same techs as on other sized maps (for a given difficulty level).

 

[5tephen]

@Mr_Trotsky Very similar experiences playing this - 42 turn animal husbandry blew my mind and the ability to be negligent with worker management made me smile. The optimist in me says that once I start attacking the AI are going to fold like a pack of cards but getting the setup in place to start the attack takes an eternity.

Spoiler Update to T456 including major post-astronomy spoilers :

The tech pace from the AI is awful. In the end I decided to put Pacal out of his misery and gifted him writing just so he'd have access to high enough value techs that I could trade for monarchy to improve the wines in preparation for astro. Egytpian civilisation destroyed 1 AD - never got to meet them!

Spoiler Gifting writing :

Spoiler First contact - not sure why I can't talk to Ragnar yet... :

Had to slow tech optics and was behind on my great scientist points (a major mistake on my behalf) so took me longer than I'd hoped to get astronomy but since then have been drip feeding the AIs tech for cash and running research at 100%. Picked up code of laws immediately post-astronomy and went civil service to chain irrigation - by this point new cities are breaking even fairly soon after being built.

Spoiler To call these AI cavemen would be an insuolt to cavemen... :

Spoiler Economy pre-astro :

Spoiler Sweet, sweet post-astro trades :

Spoiler Are you serious? :

Spoiler State of the empire T456 :

 

[5tephen]

Spoiler State of the economy T456 :

Spoiler Tech trades and tech tree T456 :

Spoiler Next steps :

Spoiler :

There's a long way to go in this game. I think it's pretty clear I'm going to win but I suspect it could be won a lot quicker than I will achieve. Plan is to use HE and beuaurocracy 1 turn HAs in capital for 40 turns or so, upgrade to cuirraisiers and take out Pacal maybe before anyone even meets him... After that I think I'm going Khmer - they've got great land and are probably the biggest threat.

I should get Taj Mahal for a second MoM powered long golden age. Tech wise I'm going printing press for a commerce boost, then all the techs I need for cuirraisiers maybe bulb some of scientific medicine and lib communism - I think that's probably possible with the current tech pace - I'm being very careful not to move the AI towards optics as I think it's a fairly major advantage that they've not yet met each other. From a military perspective it would of course be better to lib military tradition but I'm not sure if trying to paint the map purple without communism will result in bankruptcy and don't want to lose the game this many hours in!

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@5stephen

Spoiler :

Looks comparable. I was slightly ahead in tech - paper, education and lib - probably because I had pacifism for a long time so I’ve used up a lot of the early great people as well as the lib free tech already. But you have more cities and a higher beaker rate than I did.

I’m jealous of the MoM. It’s super powerful on huge maps but was gone by the time I got calendar. You’ll get a lot out of those early great people. Probably more than I did with bulbing down the lib path.

I can see that I should have been ready to settle more post astro. Again, I underestimated how strong it would be. Even the ice city I founded for the marble was an immediate net positive in terms of commerce.

Did you win music? It dawned on me that I could perhaps have won that post-astro. Not sure if I actually could have or not but the AIs were super backward and I should have considered it.

One interesting difference between our games is how much smaller Pacal is in yours. I think he may have suffered with you building the Great Wall

Another difference is that because I had paper, I’ve basically sold no techs because I can get all of the AIs cash from selling my map. It has also made the diplo situation simpler. I have plus four fair trade with pretty much every AI from selling my map and I think it’s a reasonably enduring fair trade bonus as well because my map was worth so much.

Diplo has also been made easier (at least for now) by the fact that there aren’t enough religions for each island so my religion has spread to four or five civs (and one has my minority religion). Therefore, they all love me because of shared religion and fair trade.

One thing I spotted from your game is that you’ve spent about six hours longer on it than I have. l normally play really slowly (or at least I feel like I do) but I’ve spent less time getting to 1100AD in this game than I have in the Alex NC game. This has resulted in me accidentally building two wonders and forgetting to go into free market despite going for economics with the specific purpose of immediately triggering a golden age with the GM and switching I’ve played on a bit. Have you still managed to find the stamina to micro a bit?

I may as well be playing no tech trading most of the time because the AI doesn’t have anything I need so I don’t need to monitor the tech situation and most of my cities have just grown to their potential and are just working rep great people. I’m basically just hitting end turn after exploring with caravels and selling my map every few turns while I tech to cannons.

My plan is cannons plus medieval for Pacal while teching to rifling. I suspect I’ll go communism next but I’m not sure it’s that important. My plan is to vassal civs and then return their cities. This is because: i) I don’t want to have to manage 100 cities; ii) I want to avoid weak vassals because it reduces the average power on the map and makes it harder to vassal the stronger civs; and iii) I don’t think I’ll need the production because I don’t think I’ll lose many units.

The other reasons for cannons is speed. I think speed is achieved by using the same army to vassal multiple AIs which means not taking losses so you don’t have to build more troops and transport them. I worry that cuirassiers die against longbows and you’ll need to reinforce. Or is your plan cuirassiers for Pacal and then siege for the Khmer?

Also, steel is on the way to railway and combustion. Both of which will speed up conquest. Transports make it quicker to get to distant islands. Railway means troops can get to transports quicker and machine guns are also useful because, even if the AI gets to rifling or grenadiers, you land with one machine gun and they won’t attack the stack and will just sit in the city waiting to die.

When I say speed, I primarily mean reducing the number of hours to complete the game. I can imagine that cuirassiers could take most of the map in fewer turns. You vassal a civ; whip the captured cities down to two pop and then liberate them; repeat. I just think it’ll require more clicking. Also, two mover speed doesn’t make that much difference given the massive window you have to leverage a tech advantage. In my game, where I’ve saved Pacal from the barbs, and I think he might have been the next best techer, he needed about forty turns for astro.

 

[5tephen]

@King Younk
Here's Genghis Khan on the great plains. I need to complete the other map and a noble's club game but let me know if it looks OK and I will make some time to play it.

 

[5tephen]

@Mr_Trotsky

Spoiler :

Your tech situation is a lot better - I think the benefit of early paper has been worth it - I have tried not to give away good tech but clearly have raised the global tech pace.

I did win music - there was one other AI who could have teched it but I suspect the AI overexpands and tanks there economies on this size of map - the tech speed was glacial.

Diplo I've kind of ignored as nobody can reach me and I have anticipated being a superpower by the time it becomes relevant but maybe this is a mistake.

Micro has to be abandoned to some extent with this many cities for this many turns but I have been fairly careful with my failgold and have made an effort with great people - but even then haven't done as well as I would have liked. I've been checking for resource trades and tech trades every turn - initially targeting sales of 200 gold, then 300, now up to 500 before I'm interested. Golden ages still take a fair bit of micro.

My plan was 40 or so cuirassiers against Pacal, wipe him out and hopefully have 100 or so ready for the next target. Khmer was the original plan but have been reconsidering overnight as could see some advantage in getting Huayna and Victoria as vassals to keep pushing the tech - with enough vassals UN is probably the quickest route to victory - and neither of these AI are likely to be really powerful. Airships have previously been recommended to me as a way of keeping cuirassier attacks going so I might try that. I love cannons but they do move slowly - perhaps I've undervalued the reinforcement speed as you say.

I would say the amount of real life time taken for both of us to tech where we need to be is the main concern now. Medieval stuff will be fine for Pacal but you probably still need 130 turns to get rifles as well as cannons and then there's producing the units? Whereas for me I've played on a bit and am nearly able to lib communism but physics is still 40 turns away...

I agree railways will be game changing in terms of reducing my effort.

 

[pigswill]

Interested to see how your games turn out. Looks like the AIs have been rexing busily and most of the land is now taken, maybe tech pace will speed up once the AIs start to focus on growth rather than expansion. If you're lucky they'll turn their attention to fighting each other.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@5tephen

Spoiler :

Nice to have won music. It just didn’t occur to me until too late that it was even plausible post-astro but, as you say, the tech pace is glacial. As @pigswill says, it’ll be interesting to see if it picks up.

On cannons, I don't think they’re that slow on a water map. Most of the cities we take will be coastal so you get the speed from the galleons. It’ll only be for some of the really big AI that you need to venture inland.

Agreed that airships will help a lot. Bombarding city defenders makes a big difference to the odds for the first attacker. I find it’s a noticeable improvement even with cannons. They’ll also be super helpful for scouting out targets which is difficult on a map this size and each new one you build can be brought up to support your attack and contribute within two turns.

Regarding vassals and teching, my thinking is the reverse, I want to cap them and then direct them to techs they can just trade for or direct them to change tech just before they complete their current research target. I don’t see them helping me much - either through teching anything I need or providing any competent military assistance - so I just want to stop them helping the world get to rifling.

On diplo, I haven’t paid much attention for the same reason and I don’t think it really matters. It’s more that I was surprised to see so many green and yellow smiling faces. Not sure about diplo victory, I thought the challenge was coronation as world king and kings are not elected

 

[5tephen]

Spoiler Thoughts :

I only played a couple of turns yesterday as I got stuck with what to do. Having spent 12000 gold changing 40 HAs into cuirassiers Pacal immediately offered to peace vassal which was not part of the plan! Having thought about this yesterday and over the night, I have concluded that maybe we’re aiming for vassals too early? I'm not sure on a huge map whether a 9 city vassal has any relevance or whether this is like taking a 2/3 city vassal on normal?

My other problem was I realised too late prompted by @Mr_Trotsky was that I had nowhere near enough cuirassiers to go intercontinental and lacked the production to solve this in a timely enough fashion so all my cuirassiers were a bit useless . @pigswill made me worry about tech and military power too!

Which brings me to my proposed solution. Reject Pacal as a vassal; I need his land for workshops for units and research and I can turn my otherwise worthless cuirassiers into cities. Build musketeers for future infantry upgrades and go frigates and cannons taking along whatever’s left of my cuirassiers and musketeers for now. Don’t go Khmer yet as risk of a quagmire with likely Shaka and another coming in on his side. Take Victoria, Sitting Bull and Huayna instead but no vassals yet, just elimination - I need more land for workshops still and maybe need to consider diplomatic consequences of too many vassals and motherland anger. I also think taking out these guys will also prevent escalation of the global tech pace.

I’m not sure AI on AI wars are in my favour @pigswill - if Khmer end up with a vassal or two they’re going to be monstrous.

Lastly I don’t know what I was thinking with diplo victory suggestion ! Completely incompatible with world king - the grind of this size map had me a bit despondent but if I'm going to play this and maybe one other mara/huge map ever then I want to make it count