LK154 - CCM - Bablyon

[Northern Pike]

Rat, good to see that you're watching. Don't worry, we didn't wait too long.

 

[Northern Pike]

View attachment LK154-NP-475AD.SAV, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

225 (0): We've done an excellent job concentrating our attack units against Russia, and we can't get tricky and attack Yakutsk before Yekaterinburg now that the former is held by the Vikings, so there's no reason to wait. We'll move our SoD to the border now and strike next turn.

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Nineveh theatre --> swordsman, Nineveh apprentice, Nineveh slaver, Assur swordsman --> swordsman, Eridu National Symbol --> granary.

For the lurkers, a swordsman in CCM is 3-1-1, not 3-2-1.

The Indians, plainly not on our continent, build World Religion Hinduism. The Mongols build Hunnic Storm.


250 (1): We declare war on Russia in an orderly and correct fashion , and move a SoD of 35 next to Yekaterinburg.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

The Enks in our SoD absorb two attacks from Russian chariots, producing one loss and a redline/retreat (0-1).

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Ellipi temple --> theatre.

The people of Nineveh are upset by a propaganda campaign. So someone has money to burn, even this early. What is propaganda in 250 AD--mean graffiti?

The Indians build Ganges Pilgrimage.


275 (2): We take Yekaterinburg, held by two spearmen and two chariots. Since the town is walled we commit our catapults, and unfortunately we lose one (4-2).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We re-name the ugly-sounding Yekaterinburg Cathyton.

We connect Cathyton to our road network with a one-turn roading team.

In skirmishing around Cathyton we pick off a chariot, two spearmen, and two archers (9-2).

Two Russian charioteers fall at the walls of Cathyton, while one slays an Enk (11-3).

The Russians move 27 units in three stacks adjacent to Cathyton, so the serious fighting will begin next turn.

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Nineveh swordsman --> swordsman, Assur swordsman --> swordsman, Akkad slavery --> Great Iron Mine (later changed to marketplace).


300 (3): Almost all the Russian units at Cathyton whose attacks we fear (chariots and catapults) are in one stack of fifteen covered by five spearmen. We grind up the spearmen for the loss of two swordsmen, then slaughter four catapults, four archers, a chariot, and a warrior without further loss (26-5). We gain three promotions to elite and one of our slavers takes a slave.

We wipe out a small stack of two archers and a spearman, also adjacent to Cathyton (29-5), and gain our first Great Leader of the game, Agum. As usual the possibilities for a Leader in CCM aren’t very exciting, unless one of the better Small Wonders is available, so he just rushes a marketplace in nearby Akkad.

A Russian catapult fells one of our Enks, but that’s the only attack at Cathyton (29-6).

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Akkad marketplace --> Great Iron Mine, Uruk slavery --> temple.


325 (4): The Russians have moved away from Cathyton, and we need to let more Enks catch up with our SoD before we advance, so nothing much happens.

We’re listed as average relative to Russia, meaning we’re close to strong, since the average range is narrow.

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Babylon training chariot, Assur swordsman --> swordsman.


350 (5): The Russians have returned to the gates of Cathyton, so we massacre seven swordsmen and seven archers for the loss of two swordsmen (43-8). Our slavers claim two slaves.

The Russians scrape up another 49 units from somewhere and move them within two tiles of Cathyton. Their war with the Vikings certainly doesn’t seem to have depleted their armies much. We’ll obliterate the new wave, but the fighting will delay our advance on Smolensk.

Babylon Enk -->Enk, Nineveh swordsman --> swordsman.

The propaganda directed against Nineveh has worn off.


375 (6): We attack the right wing of the Russian line near Cathyton, smiting eight archers and seven spearmen. We lose three swordsmen and a chariot (58-12).

We redline/retreat two attacks by Russian fast units.

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Assur swordsman --> swordsman, Ellipi theatre --> Enk.


400 (7): We bring the northern furs online by founding a colony with a Russian slave—just in time, as our wines deal with China runs out, and I don’t want to spend gold to renew it when the trade position is so difficult.

In continuing combat at Cathyton, we flay six archers and five spearmen for the loss of a swordsman (69-13). We take one slave.

The Russians are down to one large stack (that we can see) in front of Cathyton. We’re now listed as strong relative to them.

It turns out that archers against Enks behind walls is one of those sweet spots where the AI will attack, but has no chance. Eleven archers try to storm the walls of Cathyton and eleven fall back dead (80-13). The repeated attacks on our Enks produce promotions until we gain our second GL of the game, Sumuabum [!].

The Canadians demand 61 gold, which we provide, though it’s painful when a few pennies could determine whether we can get Monarchy.

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Nineveh swordsman --> swordsman, Ellipi Enk --> Enk, Cathyton National Symbol --> slavery (Cathyton already has a granary and a marketplace built by the Russians).


425 (8): I think we’ll just hang onto Sumuabum for six turns until we fifty-turn Religion and he can rush the 300-shield Golden Mosque. This would be very passive play in C3C, but in CCM, where rushing the expensive Small Wonders is almost the only important function of Leaders, I think it makes sense. Also, the Russians seem gassed, so we may not have many more opportunities for elite victories in the upcoming turns.

We need a healing turn before we make our move on Smolensk, so we just mop up two archers, a spearman, and a catapult on the Cathyton battlefield (84-13).

The Russians will give Republic for peace, but of course we aren’t interested.

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Assur swordsman --> swordsman, Ellipi Enk --> Enk.


450 (9): In a tough battle to clear our road to Smolensk, we bludgeon two spearmen and an archer but lose two swordsmen (87-15).

We move a stack of twelve next to Smolensk, with the help of our one-turn roading squad.

The Vikings demand 62 gold, which we have to grant them.

Babylon Enk --> Enk, Babylon clan, Nineveh swordsman --> swordsman, Ellipi Enk --> Enk.

Cathyton gets a welcome cultural expansion.


475 (10): We storm Smolensk, garrisoned by just two spearmen, without loss (89-15). We capture a worker. The Vikings—who haven’t seemed very active in the war, on the whole—were attacking from the other side, so we got there just in time.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We link up Smolensk to our road network.

We continue to clean up the situation around Cathyton, pulverizing eight spearmen and an archer for the loss of a chariot and a horseman (98-17).

Fourteen slaver victories this round yielded four slaves. We cooled off after a hot start.

Eleven elite victories this round produced two Great Leaders, one on a defensive victory.

 

[Northern Pike]

The front:

 

[Northern Pike]

The home front:

 

[LKendter]

The RnG is really cruel at times. In our world map games where we can get armies, getting a leader takes forever. In CCM when leaders have a lot less value, we get 2 quick ones.

ROSTER:

LKendter (up)
Greebley (skipping until I see a post from him)
Jersey Joe (on deck)
Elephantium
Northern Pike

 

[Northern Pike]

The Russians still have five cities, but barring a miracle they can’t have much of a field army left. The main challenge now in that campaign will be beating the Vikings to the Russian cities, whose locations we know only approximately. The Russian city east of Smolensk looks likeliest to fall to the Vikings, so we should drive quickly in that direction; our roading team is in the area to speed things up. I’d say that we’re strong enough now to split our forces and simultaneously push southeast from Cathyton towards the (presumptive) Russian core, but that’s a question of how the next player prefers to conduct offensives.

The question of whether Religion will have trade value when we discover it in four turns is hugely important. In the best case, the Chinese, French, and Mongols, who have Monarchy, still won’t have Religion, and won’t have researched so much of it that they don’t value it. In that situation it should be possible to trade for Monarchy, and if a second known civ doesn’t have either Religion or Monarchy, for Republic, and we’ll be out of the bottleneck. If we can’t make the trades we need to, we may face Sid-level backwardness—which would be an interesting challenge, anyway.

Once we have Monarchy, we mustn’t switch governments without working out the financial implications. We have very few tiles that would gain more commerce in monarchy, whereas our already large unit costs would go through the roof, so a premature switch to monarchy could put us far in the red.

Our settler in Babylon will make its first move next turn. Escort units are collected there. I’d suggest that the settler head for site Three on the screenshot above. It’s too bad that we’d be settling on BG, but there’s no other way for the town to claim the wheat while avoiding overlap with Assur.

Sumuabum is sampling the pleasures of Babylon until he rushes the Golden Mosque in four turns.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Been a long time, since I played CCM, does the Great Iron Mine work as a harbor? IOW is it one of the builds you need to use on other continents or am I confused again? Do you require one of those on the mainland to complete the trade connection?

I used to know this stuff, but getting too old to keep track of all the games.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Lurker:

Been a long time, since I played CCM, does the Great Iron Mine work as a harbor? IOW is it one of the builds you need to use on other continents or am I confused again? Do you require one of those on the mainland to complete the trade connection?

I used to know this stuff, but getting too old to keep track of all the games.

The Great Iron Mine is one of the depots which periodically products a "wagon train" which can be exchanged for gold in the Capital.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Nicely done NP, looks like you broke the Russians back. Hopefully we can trade for Monarchy when we get Religion.

 

[Northern Pike]

Vmxa, yes, the Great Iron Mine is one of the cheap resource-based Small Wonders that provide a trade link to the capital. But since it becomes available so early, and also has the useful quality of giving an extra 50% of tax output, there's no reason not to build it at home. Plenty of other trade-route Small Wonders are available later.

 

[tjs282]

The home front:
*snip*

I hope the team will forgive an Emp-level lurker (who's never played CCM) for intruding here, but I'm curious why you would choose to place a 2nd-ring city just there? I realise that in CCM you want to go for minimal/zero-overlap between BFCs, but that position still seems to 'waste' an awful lot of territory. I annotated your screenshot (done in Preview for Mac, so I didn't have the option of adding BFC-outlines), putting red circles on tiles just outside the current CityThree-site's BFC, that would effectively be put out of use if you founded on the marked spot (yellow circle marks BFC-overlap with Eridu):



So might it be worth adjusting the CityThree-site?

• Moving it 1SW puts it on Grass rather than BG (good), and gets a BG and Forest that no city can currently use (good), but also gets a 2-tile overlap with both Assur and Eridu (bad)
• Moving it 1SE still puts it on a BG (not ideal), with a 1-tile overlap with Assur (not ideal), but gets 3/4 of the unused Grass towards Nineveh (good)
• Moving it 1E puts it on Grass rather than BG (good), on Coast (good for food+commerce, at least with a C3C-Harbour...), gets the Fish and 2/4 of the unused Grass towards Nineveh (good), with no overlap with Assur (good), but wastes another BG+Grass near Eridu/Ellipi (not so good)

Moving the CityThree-site 1(S)E would also leave (more) space for another town up near the Furs, albeit one which would eventually be food-poor due to the Tundra. The coastal Forest-Tundra (if CCM allows founding on those tiles?) 1NW of the Furs would get a Whale and a 1-tile overlap with CityThree (in the 1E position); the Grass 1W might also be OK (would get the Deer, but also have a 2-tile overlap with Eridu and a 1- to 2-tile overlap with CityThree)...

Feel free to -- or better still, explain why these suggestions make no sense for CCM...

 

[Greebley]

My main computer is down and out. I need a skip until I get back a working environment to run civ.

 

[Northern Pike]

or better still, explain why these suggestions make no sense for CCM...

I enjoyed your detailed analysis a lot. My basic response is that the things we have to consider in choosing city sites are very different in CCM than in Conquests. Specifically:

1. The idea of wasted core tiles is valid in C3C, where the number of tiles that can be put under the command of uncorrupt cities is limited. But in CCM, the situation is reversed--given the sharply reduced corruption and the limited supply of (autoproduced) settlers until late in the game, and also the easy growth of cities to their maximum size, the important thing is to give each city twenty tiles to itself and include as many bonus resources as possible. The process is city-driven rather than tile-driven, and the question of what tiles we don't use isn't very important.

2. About half of the tiles you designate as wasted are grassland tiles without BG. In CCM, where workers are another intentionally limited resource for the decisive part of the game, we don't much like tiles that require so much work to be productive--five worker-turns for a road for a civ that isn't industrious, and then twelve more for a mine, a commoner choice than irrigation. So we don't mind leaving some of these tiles unexploited.

3. Apart from one or two necessary coastal cities, we prefer to avoid water tiles other than whales, too. In a mod where it's reasonable to get cities to their maximum size early in the game--in this game, the Incas have their capital at size 27 already--every water tile is a deduction from a city's eventual shield production. It's not like C3C in which if a town has twelve land tiles to work, that's enough.

4. You're right to single out the one tile of overlap with Eridu--I just didn't see it. Due to my struggles and experiments before I could get CCM 1.8 to work, for the first time in my life I'm playing Civ on a small laptop screen rather than a large monitor. That's my excuse, anyway.

So while I certainly like my own location less now that you've pointed out the overlap, in the light of the above principles I think your suggestions suffer respectively from an unacceptable amount of overlap, the sacrifice of a BG tile for undesirable grassland and water, and the sacrifice of two BG for, again, grass and water. The overall theme is that you aren't accounting for how much we value BG in CCM.

On balance, then, I think that my site Three is still the best available despite its demonstrated flaws. But I'll put forward for discussion Four in the screenshot below, which isn't bad now that our line of irrigation has reached the area.

In any case, thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify and record what I think about city placement in CCM.