I somehow built the Great Wall for failure gold. That was stupid, since there's now a large portion of land in the northwest for barbarian units/cities to spawn. Weirdest thing though, I could even have finished it
I think that building The Great Wall for failure Gold is a pretty strong move. It's more Gold than you'd get for Wealth, while building ANY type of "Wealth" build before you get Currency (which essentially boils down to building Wonders for failure Gold) is good in my books.
We're not playing a Pangaea map, nor do we have a lot of nearby Tundra that we won't be settling--I'm not convinced that completing The Great Wall really would have been necessary.
You appear to have some good spawn-busting going on, anyway and it's not too hard to spawn-bust quite a good portion of the nearby area. I was preferring to let the Barbs come to me, in the hopes of getting a couple of promoted units, and thus kept my minimal military close to home.
There isn't really any point to actually have the Great Wall, so I switched to a settler.
Okay, that's interesting. It appears that you do agree with me if I read a little bit further within your same message.
PS: As I'm writing this it occurs to me, that I didn't even switch to Representation yet
Well, if you haven't grown your Cities large enough yet and if you aren't running any Specialists yet, then it's not necessarily a bad thing, as you *may* have saved yourself as much as 1 Gold per turn in Civic Upkeep. Maybe.
Besides, it looks like your capital is busy pumping out The Great Lighthouse, so it may or may not be worth the investment to grow now and build that Wonder a bit later, versus completing the Wonder first and then growing past your pre-Representation Happiness limit.
Anyway, that's part of the value of pausing during play to have a series of votes--you can then have more time to reflect on your game and correct anything that you forgot to do.
I went after a bonus, TGW since stone was near by and I decided what the hell, lets do a small risk, interesting reward gambit.
Well, in your case, it seemed to be a decent idea. Essentially, you used The Great Wall to expand your City's borders, giving you a slightly-expensive, double-the-Culture Monument.
Although I don't like getting a Great Spy for my first Great Person, getting one for about your 3rd Great Person can be quite beneficial at higher difficulties like this game's Immortal level.
What pains me is I was hoping for a lot more barbs to level up from, unfortunately they aren't spawning, so it seems my continent must be very, very small
Well, stop spawn-busting! From your screenshot (although I could be wrong), it looks like you are spawn-busting, which is a bit of overkill when you have The Great Wall. Far better would be to "hide" your units within your Cultural Borders and then "pop out" every once and a while to check for Barb units... that is, if you want the experience that you say that you are after.
The real mile-stone was TGLH, which worked out ok for us
Good to hear! Hopefully, you'll have time to squeeze another Settler out of your second City soon, so that you'll be able to better take advantage of the extra Trade Routes.
As of turn 70, I am 3 turns from the GLH in my capital, and also 3 turns from writing.
Nice work! With Open Borders + The Great Lighthouse coming in at the same time, you'll be able to get an immediate benefit from The Great Lighthouse using Foreign Trade Routes.
Second city was settled on stone - seems like a good spot, no need to waste worker turns on querry, and no need for coastal without GLH.
That's a very good point! Waiting for Cultural Borders to expand over the Stone (an idea that I gave up on) and building the Road + Quarry does delay one's access to Stone by quite a bit, which may make the difference between getting or missing an early Wonder.
TGW seemed like a good idea, and I built it in 1t.
Of course, now you're just bragging.
Also, an awful whip on that stone city granary this turn, don't know what I was thinking there.
Maybe you got a little too caught-up in the competitive aspect of the game and wanted to show that you could squeeze out one... more... Building... ? Anyway, I think what is more important is that you have analyzed your play and have found an area where you could improve--doing so meets the primary goal of playing this game, which is emphasizing learning.
Turn 14: Start on pasture. Start on mining.
Turn 17: Pasture finished. Worker will start next turn on a farm due north of Istanbul. What did you guys do after the pasture? Im not quite sure of the best thing to do with my worker.
I played using a different tech path and build order, but what you wrote sounds correct. You woulnd't have had time to have researched Mining in time, while building a Farm at that stage of the game trumps building a Road, so it sounds like the right choice.
Turn 43: Erdine settled. I start on a worker. I wasnt quite sure what was the best build here.
That choice sounds fine to me. When in doubt of what to build, build another Worker (unless you've already passed your Unit Supply Costs, then at least think about it before a minute before going ahead and building a Worker
).
Back in my day, they used to tell me you can't build this (or any other wonders) on immortal because it would cause you to lose.
True story....
Back in your day, huh? What did they call you before you became "obsolete"?
6 workers
2 cities, 1 settler about to settle, 2 more in 4 turns.
Sounds pretty good in terms of the number of Workers and Settlers.
to block gilga, you can rely on the city no 2 tiles range... If you notice the lil barb city down south-west, I will have to attack cross river >.>
Well, at least that Barb City will block Gilgamesh from settling within a 2-square radius of the Barb City...
Besides, attacking across a River, while it may net you more military losses, may give your units an extra Experience Point per combat victory. Maybe.
I am assuming that you've built The Great Lighthouse already by this comment, since you are currently building The Pyramids in your capital in the screenshot.
edit: now i realize my fourth city is in a pretty crappy location
While that may be, it can at least work three Cottages for the capital. It could be argued that having a 4th City when you build The Great Lighthouse gives you an immediate benefit of an extra Trade Route per City, and it is close to the capital for low Maintenance costs, so it is not a total wash. With Farms from Civil Service, it could feasibly work both Hills and the capital's three future Cottages all at once.
Settled in place. Tech path Ah, Min, BW... Still have plenty of forests to chop. Which should have been pre-chopped but haven't.
Yeah, that's a bit disappointing. You picked up early Bronze Working, which could have been a very strong move had you started chopping out a Worker army, given that we are Expansive and that Forest Chops are therefore "extra valuable" when building a Worker.
Gil... knows at least one other civ from the lack of espionage points so more AI around.
Good point. I noticed this fact once I started being able to see Gilgamesh's Research but it appears that you were on-the-ball and noticed the Espionage Points differential proactively.
Edit. Could have done with a few more turns as didn't want to stop.
Well, sometimes taking a pause can allow us to regroup... like your realization about your lack of Chopping being something that you could start to correct as of Turn 71, instead of not thinking to do so until the game was almost over.
lack of BUG Mod is more of a problem for me
It doesn't take too long to get it installed, if you have the inclination to do so. The great part is that you can do so from any point in time and can pick up from wherever you left off in your previous saved game, since the saved games will still be compatible.
have begun to realise that the low happy cap at higher levels can mean that raw hammers are preferable to the combination of early cottaging and relying on the whip (of non-cottage tiles) for production.
While building Farms on Flood Plains can be a strong play, particularly in non-capital Cities, here it seemed like we already had sufficient Food.
I wasn't very enthused about working a 4 Food + 1 Commerce Flood Plains square when we could have a 4 Food + 2 Commerce Clam square to work in its place.
Still, laying down Farms on the Flood Plains is not a bad move and can pay off once we get more Happiness to more consistently use this extra Food (say, from Representation).
An alternative use for a Flood Plains Farm without a ton of extra Happiness would be to whip a lot using our cheap Granaries to make the extra Food from a Flood Plains square all that much more valuable.
Capital finished warrior (working pigs, clams and mined plains hill) and built another whilst growing onto (what would become a farmed) FP.
That approach sounds like a good play for getting your capital ready to be a Worker-pumping and Settler-pumping factory.
Noticing that the GLH still hadnt gone by that stage, I put the next turns production after the lighthouse got built into the GLH, because I recall reading somewhere on the forum that the AI scans everyone to see if anyone has started a wonder before deciding if an AI will build it. With that in mind, I thought that if the GLH hadnt actually been started yet, this might delay them building it. At worst, I thought doing this might give me some failure gold.
While I am uncertain if this "partial pre-building" tactic actually works, it sounds like you executed it in a pretty logical manner.
Once the mids came in, I recommenced building the GLH again, at worst, this will provide some failure gold. I also revolted into slavery and representation; I wonder however if this shouldve been done after I finished making my run at the GLH.
Without looking at your saved game, I would tend to think that if you are still just getting started on The Great Lightouse, it will probably be beneficial for you to grow to Size 6 or greater using your Food-based squares and then switch back to working the Mines plus some Food-based squares. That way, you'll still be able to get full production output and grow the City slowly at the same time. In this way, the switch into Representation will have proven to have been a worthwhile move.
I see a lot of the veteran players chose to have stone in the small cross and thus forgo having any food... Is having stone worth it? I think settling there really kills some later cities.
Settling immediately next to the Stone is worth it if you plan to use the Stone.
On this map, we had so many techs to research that skipping early Mysticism made sense. On a different map with a different set of Resources or a different set of starting technologies, it might make more sense to tech to Mysticism (or maybe you'll start with it) and then chop out a Monument. Here, though, if you wanted the Stone early, you'd either have to forego a different tech for a while in favour of Mysticism or else settle immediately next to (or on) the Stone.
I'm not sure what "later Cities" get killed by settling next to the Stone. Having looked at a couple of other people's maps of the SE peninsula (I hadn't revealed all of the Seafood down there in my game), I don't really see how an extra City could be feasibly and usefully squeezed-in just because someone chose to settle right next to (or even on) the Stone.
I have to say I am really sorry I didnt get those mids and so many forrests went without stone bonus because of poor scouting I settled the stone in a bad way... I am sure I would have the mids... well I don't.
Are you saying that an AI beat you to building The Pyramids? If so, that's relatively early, even for Immortal level difficulty. That's definitely some rotten luck to have to deal with.
I even had to switch to slavery for whipping that monument (otherwise I wouldnt switch and wait for switch to rep to have 1 turn anarchy for 2 civics)
One turn of Anarchy to switch into Slavery pays for itself pretty quickly if you whip even a modest amount. So, I wouldn't worry too much about this lost turn, unless you revolt into Slavery and then don't whip at all.
Production: Warrior (partly), Fishing boat, fiished warrior,settler, worker...
I considered doing so, but with a Flood Plains square available to us, I decided that I could grow to Size 2 while building the Work Boat, intead of while both building a Warrior and a Work Boat, so I went with Worker first.
It also looks like you got Bronze Working relatively early but have yet to put Mines down on the Forested Hills square for the capital, leading you to whipping without a Granary in order to use up your capital's extra Food, if I am not wrong. Earlier Mines might have helped your empire a bit more, but those might have required more Worker turns, Worker turns that you didn't really seem to have since your first Worker came so late.
While Warrior -> Work Boat -> finish the Warrior isn't necesarily bad, I think that it would have been preferable to have built a Worker next, before your Settler. If you don't have a Worker, then settling a second City only really becomes useful if that second City can work some "initially-good" squares, like a Forested Spice or a Flood Plains square. Otherwise, in the balance, I'd suggest building the Worker before the Settler, so that the Worker could have at least been building one improvement during the total time that it takes to complete both a Worker and a Settler.
I built TGLH and I'm about 8 turns from the 'Mids. I have two cities settled and two settlers in the queue. I have a unit up to 6 experience points.
Sounds pretty impressive. Getting those Settlers out for the extra Trade Routes from The Great Lighthouse should become a priority, so I'd even suggest that you keep Chopping Forests (into the Settlers) after The Pyramids are complete.
(just shadow)
got Mids at T62, probably should have whip library in capital but I decided on slow build (4T) then I would work 2 scientists with rep (already switched)
Sounds pretty good. Where did you end up settling for the Stone in your second attempt? Did you find that the location change (if you made a change) helped you out a lot?
Looks like I've had a very similar approach to a few other people, albeit far less efficiently. Nearly built mids, was heading for GL after that.
By GL, I am assuming that you mean The Great Lighthouse, as opposed to teching straight for The Great Library.
If so, why does it look like in your first screenshot that you are still completing Sailing on Turn 70, but in your second screenshot, it shows that you have switched to Writing on Turn 70? You'll certainly need to first complete Sailing if you want to build The Great Lighthouse and you'll want that tech quickly, since it looks like The Pyramids are almost done.
While the monument finished for the border pop, I built a settler and some work boats in the capital to get the third city going. Once the stone was in, Capital started Mids after a worker whip. Workers are chopping that in now. Second city made the fourth settler.
That's some pretty impressive expansion, both in terms of Cities and Cultural borders. Nice job in getting up Work Boats for your 2-Seafood City!
It is interesting that you chose to settle your 4th City inland, while playing from others' games where people built The Great Lighthouse would likely force us to settle a City in that area on the Coast. Since it is going to take a long time for you to be able to Chop the Jungle on the Pig square, I would even suggest that settling 1E of where you put City 4 for 3 less Peaks would make for a great long-term location, such as for a Space Race Ironworks City. Where you settled will still work out, but we'll probably have to capture a City off-continent for our future Ironworks City.
I put off fishing because I didn't really need it at, as health wasn't a problem, I had ample food, I wasn't going to be going for the GLH and I'd just be cottaging the FP's later anyway.
That approach sounds reasonable. However, I notice that you are building a Road between your capital and the City to the NW of there. Those Cities are already connected to each others' Trade Network (you can tell by the icon that looks like 3 cycling arrows on the City Centre's square). So, what you really need is a Road between that City to the NW and the City far off to the west; either that, or wait for Sailing.
As you can see I have two cities currently building libraries, and will run scientists when they're finished.
Very nice! It sounds like you managed to get Writing early due to your short-term delay in going after Sailing and are doing your best to take advantage of this fact.
Really? I always thought that at least one person had to have sailing, much like the same way it is with astronomy, as it wouldn't make much sense to say that he could trade with me but me not him.
Oddly enough, it does mean that he can send his ships laden with cargo to your ports and make a killing selling his cheap trinkets to your people and then buy up whatever junk he can find in your ports and sell that same junk back to his own people for another killer profit.
Only if you build trading boats of your own (a concept which happens automatically when you learn the Sailing tech) can you feasibly do the same thing back to him and break the monopoly of his traders.
As such, when you Open Borders with him, he'll be getting Research-enhancing Trade Routes from your Cities while you'll be stuck with your own Domestic Trade Routes until you learn Sailing and can open up Foreign Trade Routes of your own.
I got failure gold for Stonehenge, build TGW
It is too bad that you weren't able to do the opposite of the above, as I think that Stonehenge will be of more value than The Great Wall from what we have seen of this particular map.
Still, nice work in getting out The Great Wall and The Pyramids!
I got a barb archer to the south spawn busting barb galleys for me.
That's a pretty creative use of The Great Wall!
The cottages mean we're close to MC..
Nice work on the tech pace! When I first read that comment, I thought that "he couldn't possibly mean Metal Casting," but yes, sure enough, it looks like your Cottages have paid off nicely!
Workboat is out giving us very valuable trade routes with the Great Lighthouse.
Actually, it's probably this factor moreso than the Cottages (although the Cottages won't hurt, especially when you get Bureaucracy) that is giving you a good tech pace.
knock out a couple settlers before the colossus
Definitely get some more Settlers out. With The Great Lighthouse and access to so many Foreign Cities, it'll take a while before you will want to stop spamming Cities.
It sounds like you did a pretty good job of balancing Wonders with expansion, getting 3 Cities.
I finished the Great Wall and am 3 turns from the Pyramids. I also put some hammers into TGL
It sounds like you're off to a Wonderfilled start.
I've also almost got a Galley finished, for scouting.
There's a pretty neat idea. You should remember to send a unit in that Galley, so that it can explore islands or other land masses that the Galley encounters, especially with The Great Wall in hand to help in "watching your back."
Slizský slimák;9942625 said:
What have I done well (at least in my opinion):
1) the Great Wall and Pyramids built, the Great Lightouse coming in 18 turns
Nice work. As a suggestion, I would say that you could build a Granary in your capital and then grow the City, using Representation for Happiness purposes.
Since you don't NEED the Lighthouse in the capital immediately, as you are building The Great Lighthouse in a different City, the capital's Lighthouse can wait until after you build a Granary there.
Slizský slimák;9942625 said:
2) the second city will not grow until the Great Lighthouse (and the subsequent boarder pop),
3) not researched mysticism yet,
Well, at least your second City is working improved squares at the maximum City Size possible given the current Cultural Borders' status.
Even if you had Mysticism, it might be better to just keep building The Great Lighthouse in City 2 instead of switching to a Monument then waiting for borders to expand, then waiting for Workers to improve the Grassland Pig, and then working the Grassland Pig instead of a Hammer-heavy square in the last few turns of building The Great Lighthouse. In other words, I don't think that it is a mistake for you to have ignored Mysticism, given the current situation as it stands.
Depending upon where you settle your 3rd City, you might or might not even need immediate access to building a Monument.
