MRG's Random Game of Randomness

[Lanzelot]

Also, it's probably not worth it time wise to optimize everything always.

That's right. One needs to find a balance between what is still fun and what turns into a tedious chore without much "return on investment".

My personal rule is:

1. I do it for the first 50 turns or so, when it still makes a big difference.
   (Optimizing your income from 8gpt to 10gpt means a 25% increase, and getting a crucial tech (like Philosophy) 25% faster can really be worth it. Optimizing it from 184gpt to 186gpt will probably not make much of a difference, but will probably cost you 10 extra minutes every turn... )
2. I try a bit harder than usual, when playing the upper difficulty levels.
   And Demigod is definitely a level, where victory is not guaranteed, for none of us. Ok, I feel confident that we can win this game, but it's not going to be easy and there is definitely also a certain chance that we will lose.

BTW, I would not have pointed out the above in a normal situation. But I noticed, that in our current situation, we just barely make the necessary beakers for finishing Philo in 3 turns: there are 83 beakers left, and we make 3x28 = 84 beakers. And we make -1 gpt deficit with only 1g left in our bank account. So we'll have to reduce the science slider from 90% to 80% next turn. The next player will have to work really hard to finish Philo in 3 turns. (But with the extra gold from KK and the new town that gets settled next turn, it will hopefully be possible.)

 

[Spoonwood]

BTW, I would not have pointed out the above in a normal situation. But I noticed, that in our current situation, we just barely make the necessary beakers for finishing Philo in 3 turns: there are 83 beakers left, and we make 3x28 = 84 beakers. And we make -1 gpt deficit with only 1g left in our bank account. So we'll have to reduce the science slider from 90% to 80% next turn. The next player will have to work really hard to finish Philo in 3 turns. (But with the extra gold from KK and the new town that gets settled next turn, it will hopefully be possible.)

If this makes for a large concern in one or tow of the weaker cities, one could hire a scientist or two until philosophy is completed.

 

[choxorn]

But, I don't always do it, and doing that late game with a huge empire to maximize score or get more production for culture makes for a serious timesink.

It also doesn't remotely feel worth it, because late game with a huge empire you'll probably win whether you're super-optimized or not.

 

[Spoonwood]

It also doesn't remotely feel worth it, because late game with a huge empire you'll probably win whether you're super-optimized or not.

In my military heavy games it's not so much that I have a huge empire in my opinion. It's more that I've been building units consistently for a while, making armies, and have a good kill-to-loss ratio, and city capture (or raze) that eventually leaves any opponent relatively weak. I mean it's not like most of my captured cities become productive powerhouses producing multiplicative masses of artilleries, cavalry, tanks, etc. Most of them produce settlers and/or workers which do help to pick up the pace by allowing for quicker, more targeted, military bombardment via specially placed towns and railroads. But, that probably could get handled alright with slower conquest or some settler/worker skimming from the core.

 

[choxorn]

1500 BC (Pre-Flight):

-We’re at 1 gold, -1 gpt, Philo due in 3. Can’t drop science at all without slowing down Philo, which is not ideal, but we are going to found a city next turn.

-Following Lanzelot’s notes in post #58, I rearrange one of Karakorum’s citizens, but to the river tile just NE of Ta-Tu rather than 2 NE so that Almarikh can work the tile 2 NE of Ta-Tu, and I then also move Tabriz’s citizen as he suggests. It sadly doesn’t help get Philosophy done any faster or get us more money.

-I note that Almarikh and Kazan are both 1 turn from finishing a build and due to have shield overrun- Through some experimentation I note that we can complete Philo in 3 turns by turning one of their extra citizens into a scientist and lowering the rate to 80%, getting +1 gpt, but that stops growth in either city and some of Almarikh’s money production is about to disappear when it finishes its worker, so that might not be the best idea.

-America and Korea will both trade us any one of their techs (Iron Working/Wheel/Mysticism/Masonry) for Writing, but not two of them, and America will throw in varying amounts of gold (13 with IW, 67 with the Wheel, I didn’t bother checking anything else), so that’s good to know for a couple of turns from now. I think I’ll wait until after we actually research Philosophy, just so America doesn’t get it from a goody hut.

-For Settling, I assume that one settler should build in place, but not sure about after that- I guess MRG's dotmaps on page 2 are still good, so on the river near the coast by Almarikh and then along the river to the NE of Almarikh?

 

[Lanzelot]

For dealing with Kazan's shield overrun, I suggest switching to barracks there. We could soon need a second one, this is going to be a military game...

Through some experimentation I note that we can complete Philo in 3 turns by turning one of their extra citizens into a scientist and lowering the rate to 80%, getting +1 gpt, but that stops growth in either city and some of Almarikh’s money production is about to disappear when it finishes its worker, so that might not be the best idea.

Regarding research, don't do anything this turn yet. Let the treasury go down to zero and then found the new town next turn. Then we see much clearer, whether we really need a scientist in order to fix the situation. Another option might be to leave the science rate as is, and hire a taxman somewhere for one turn in order to cover the deficit.

The settler can found where it is. Midterm it will be a good coastal location, low corruption, high commerce. Good for a harbor and some ships, once it has 1-2 mined hills.

You can trade Writing one turn before we finish Philo. In the interturn, nothing bad can happen...
(Edit: or can there? )

 

[MrRandomGuy]

The taxman actually reduces our science output if hired in our capitol. It would be better (at least before the new city is built) to hire a scientist and reduce the slider to get the tech researched with the same amount of turns, but with an income instead of a deficit. I spent a little while experimenting between the two.

 

[Lanzelot]

Yes, the capitol should not be burdened with another specialist. It's our most important & most productive town. If at all, then the new town. (It doesn't matter that much, whether it grows in 10 or in 11 turns.)
However, I still hope we can get by without any extra specialist, e.g. with something like this:

1. Do nothing now, we still have 1g on the bank account...
2. Next turn the new town provides more income, so reduce the science slider by 1. (Don't be worried if that temporarily increases the remaining turns by 1!)
   
3. And in the final turn, we can safely sell Writing around, and the gold from America will cover our deficit, so we can up the science slider again. Hopefully bringing the remaining turns down to 1 again. And if not: as a last resort we can always hire a second scientist in New-Town or someplace where it hurts the least.

 

[choxorn]

Played 2 turns. Terrible News: The Byzantines beat us to Philosophy by 1 turn.

They also came up with Map Making at the same time as Philo, so I assume they were the first to get Philo and got MM as the free tech.

 

[choxorn]

Played a third turn to get Philo (but no free tech ) and trade Writing and Philo around for some techs and money. A big setback to not get to Philo first, but maybe we can recover?

Here's a tentative dotmap. I have Ta-Tu building a Settler right now because it's unhappy from crowding and it was at 19/20 shields on an Archer build, so some massive shield overrun there, but could go with something else if something else would make more sense.

 

[tjs282]

Regarding prospective Settlement, I like your Sites 1 and 3 (obviously! ), but now that I see 2 Fish near Site 2, I'd be inclined to move it 1W onto the Hills — that's still on the river, but gets both Fish immediately, rather than 1 Fish + 1 Whale eventually. Moving Site 2 would also free the Whale for exclusive use by Site 4 (eventually!), though I'm also not really sold on Site 4, except as an additional town towards unlocking our FP.

With 6 towns planted, and 2 more coming soon, we should probably also start thinking about that — but I can't remember offhand the OCN for a Large map (I know it's 20 towns on Standard, and I think it's 32 on Huge, so... maybe 24 or 26 on Large, i.e. we'll get the FP-popup after founding our 12th or 13th town?).

Regardless, before founding on your Site 4, I would still rather send Settlers to found NE along the river (no Ducts needed, and good growth potential and river-commerce, even prior to Republic and full tile-improvement), because one of those towns will likely make a good FP-site at some point — not to mention good rallying-point(s) for attacking our first target (Korea?) — so founding in that direction seems like it should have a higher priority than founding a(nother) dry coastal town (Harbour + Duct just to reach Pop7, plus a Courthouse for decent productivity, since it will be second-ring at best).

Related: Is the current Barracks-build in Tabriz just a placeholder? Food-supply is going to be something of a problem there (also Ulaanbataar), so a Harbour would seem preferable (and then Galleys rather than land-units?) — but for that we will need Mapmaking. Is there any possibility of getting hold of it anytime soon? Or, if we want to wait for Dora to sell her monopoly (and make it cheaper for us to buy/trade), is it worth switching Tabriz to a Temple/Granary already, to give us a bigger shield-bank buffer?

 

[choxorn]

Agreed on site 2, now that I think about it. America also has Map Making now, but they weren't remotely willing to trade it for Philosophy. Maybe when we get CoL someone will be willing to trade it?

I figured a Barracks would just be nice to have there, as we're probably going to eventually want one in most of our cities, but pre-building for a Harbor isn't the worst idea either.

 

[Lanzelot]

A harbor would indeed be more useful in Tabriz, but remember: we are militaristic, so harbors are 30s for us. If we start pre-building them now, we'll probably have lots of shield overrun by the time we get Map Making. (Still 14 turns to CoL, right? And then it is not yet clear, whether we'll get MM for CoL, as the AI values MM very highly: new unit, new building and a wonder, while CoL has only a new building. We can hope that other civs get MM as well and that our CoL will still be a monopoly, when we get it.)

But not sure, what else we could build there atm. Do we already have 2 curraghs going into both directions? (Of course the eastern coastline is already scouted, but a curragh might still find a crossing to another continent.)
A spearman might be another option, so we can finally send a "little stack" barb hunting.

So besides no luxuries, no horses and no iron, we also got no freetech now... That's a lot of nothing we got here... But we like challenges, don't we?

 

[Lanzelot]

3 would be a nice spot for a FP, but with 5 mountains and 4 deserts in the BFC, it'll only be size 10, maybe size 11 at most, if it steals the plains tile from Kazan. (But Kazan doesn't have that many tiles either, being so close to the Capital...)

 

[MrRandomGuy]

If it gets to be bad enough we could take drastic measures and set the science slider down to 0 then just buy techs from other civs and aim for a diplomatic or space race victory. Diplomatic would probably be wiser. I've used that strategy before, but not sure how well it would work on a higher difficulty level like Demigod.

 

[choxorn]

A harbor would indeed be more useful in Tabriz, but remember: we are militaristic, so harbors are 30s for us. If we start pre-building them now, we'll probably have lots of shield overrun by the time we get Map Making. (Still 14 turns to CoL, right? And then it is not yet clear, whether we'll get MM for CoL, as the AI values MM very highly: new unit, new building and a wonder, while CoL has only a new building. We can hope that other civs get MM as well and that our CoL will still be a monopoly, when we get it.)

Right, I forgot our Harbors were half price. We could build a Barracks and then pre-build a Harbor, I guess?

But not sure, what else we could build there atm. Do we already have 2 curraghs going into both directions? (Of course the eastern coastline is already scouted, but a curragh might still find a crossing to another continent.)

We do, the 2nd curragh finished building a couple of turns into my set and I'm sending it to explore the other way as the first Curragh

 

[tjs282]

We could build a Barracks and then pre-build a Harbor, I guess?

If a prebuild would overrun before we get hold of MapMaking, then (assuming that we have the free-unit capacity to spare?) I think I'd rather just have a couple of Archers (plus maybe a Spear to guard them) to go and bust fog and/or Barbs down south.

Getting reg-units built and then promoted vs. Barbs would also be cheaper than building a Barracks — and I wouldn't build both in Tabriz, at least not this early (in my solo-games, general build-policy prior to Republic/Pop7 is "Harbours only on the coast, Barracks only inland")

 

[choxorn]

then (assuming that we have the free-unit capacity to spare?)

We're a few units shy of the support limit right now and will have a couple more cities soon, so I can build more archers and maybe a spear.

 

[tjs282]

with 5 mountains and 4 deserts in the BFC, it'll only be size 10, maybe size 11 at most, if it steals the plains tile from Kazan.

If I've counted right (I find it really hard to visualise BFCs without the map-grid!), we can irrigate the 2 Plains to the SW, the 2 Grass to the SE (after also chopping the Forest — into a Courthouse?), and the 2 Floods to the NE, and those 6 worked tiles plus the town will yield 20 FPT — under Republic. So adding another 6 assorted 1 FPT tiles, which looks feasible (Does Site3 get 2 Hills?) would give us 26 FPT at Pop12.

We could therefore even leave that Plains tile to Kazan, and work a Mountain with the 12th citizen in Site3.

Almarikh already has 8 Grassland tiles and one Plains (= 26 FPT if fully irrigated) to the NW, that aren't usable by KK, Kazan, or Site3, so it shouldn't be affected by losing the other Plains, either. Of course, once it reaches Pop12, Site2 (and Site4) will be forced to work mainly Coast/Sea tiles (and slow-build boats?), but that's still a fair way down the line, since we will presumably not be fully irrigating our core Grassland until after our GA, and/or we have the spare Worker-power to road and mine the surrounding Mountains.

But I don't think we need to insist on making Site3 our FP-town. This is a Large map, so the FP-town could probably be 3rd-ring (at Cx(x)xC), and still achieve a reasonable build-speed once it has a Courthouse (which we would want in our FP-town anyway) — especially if we focus on expanding NE, and hold off on further Settlement S/E (apart from Site1!) until after the FP is completed, e.g the Hills/Floods 2-3NE of Choxorn's Site 3 might also offer a potential FP-location.

 

[Lanzelot]

Agree with tjs282: barracks and harbor are overkill this early in the game. Either the town builds units or ships. (And that's an "exclusive or"...)
So perhaps another archer, then a vet spear from a barracks-town, and off we go barb hunting.
(Barb hunting is the best way to promote our units and earn a bit of money to speed up research.)

After your calculations I like Site3 as our future FP site a lot... Perhaps we should then even give it priority over site2? There is a lot to do, in order to get the FP quickly: usually I give the intended FP site a courthouse, temple and marketplace, then push it to size 12 asap and then even a more or less corrupt city can do the FP in around 20 turns. Here, as we don't have any luxuries, we might skip the market. But we don't need to decide that yet.

Regarding the suggestion of going Diplo or Space: nah, we'll have Keshiks eventually, that'll be much faster than going all the way into the Modern Age. Missing the free-tech is not a catastrophe: we'll reach Republic about 14 turns later, but probably still earlier than most of the AIs, and we know how to leverage the power of Republic much better than the AI. Our research will be strong enough to get us to Chivalry in time, and by that time our production capacity will be stronger than that of the AI, despite the 30% discount they get on everything... We just need to develop patiently and avoid too early conflicts.