My first "public" game

[Thalur]

Back to Round 1: to 3520BC (turn 32)

Round 2: to 2725BC
A fairly uneventful round this one. I followed your collective advice and swapped the settler for a warrior in the build queue. This let Istanbul grow while I farmed the two corn tiles. I decided to let it grow to size 3 before building the settler, so while I was waiting I started building a barracks after the warrior finished.

Meanwhile, my exploring warrior was rather successful. He popped three goody huts, giving a total of 2 warriors and 34 gold, and found the Egyptians:

(the warrior in the screen shot was one of the free ones).

It looks like I've mapped out nearly the whole continent, with just the NE corner remaining. I've also only encountered the Egyptians here which means we are almost certainly alone with them. Is this good or bad?

As you can see, I've finished researching Bronze Working and started on Mysticism (to get the Oracle). It turns out that the only two copper tiles on the continent (so far) are 1) next to his capital and 2) on the desert tile near my capital:

Lucky him, not so lucky me as it will take two culture expansions to be able to get at my copper tile (unless I build a city to grab it). Ramesses is also ahead of me in tech - I saw him researching pottery before, and now he is doing polytheism (though perhaps he doesn't have BW). All of this leaves me in a bit of a weak position.

If anyone is interested in seeing the whole map so far, look here.

Plan:
First up, I have to place my second city. I'm torn between Jet's #2 and #3 spots and my blue spot. I appreciate the strength of Jet's #2 spot, but I'm concerned that it will be slow to grow early on. On the other hand, the other two offer little improvement - they grow fast but there's not many good tiles to work with. I also desperately need more commerce as I'm only getting the base 9 beakers per turn for the city tile. This means I either need to place my second city in a good commerce spot (Jet's #2) or research fishing next to let me use the lake tiles for commerce.

I think I now need to decide whether I'm going for the Oracle/MC slingshot or not.

1. If I settle my blue city (SW of the pig), I can share the improved corn and mine squares with Istanbul to grow rapidly while I research and build the Oracle in Istanbul. The big benefit is there should be no upkeep penalty (?) and I get fast city growth. The downside is there is no additional commerce to speed research and I get a big overlap between the two cities. This is probably the best bet for Oracle/MC.
2. If I settle the spice city it will be slow to grow unless I can grab the pigs tile (which will also require AH?) by building/chopping/whipping a monument in either city. On the plus side settling here will boost my commerce which will speed research, on the down side there will be an upkeep penalty, the growth will be slow initially (cf. option one), and there will be a low health limit until iron working. There are lots of trees at this site, so chopping out a forge quickly will probably be achievable. This is probably the best site for a non oracle/mc path, and the second best for oracle/mc
3. If I settle in Jet's #3 spot, I have to build a monument to grab the pigs tile. Its also going to take a lot of farming to get the growth up. On the plus side, it does have a few trees, so chopping a forge isn't out of the question.

On marathon, the Oracle takes 450, the Pyramids need 1500 and a forge needs 360. I easily have enough forests to chop the Oracle in my capital, and/or to chop the forge in my second city, presuming I can get enough workers to do it quickly enough. This means the only speed limitations I face are getting the necessary techs and generating a great engineer. At my current tech rate (9/turn), the techs require 116 turns (Meditation 336 -> Priesthood 252 -> Pottery 336 -> Masonry 336)
---> Thats odd, the science page says Pottery and Masonry take 28 turns and Meditation takes 34 turns when they all need the same number of Is this because other civs have researched them already?

So, I think its definitely still do-able, but I need to speed the research along as much as possible, and get lots of trees pre-chopped in preparation (particularly for the forge). I've just read on these forums that my first GP will take 300 GPP. If the GPP rate of an engineer doesn't change with the game speed, this would take 50 turns, which basically means that if I don't insta-build the oracle and the forge, I'll have some spare .

Bah, I think I'm rambling a bit now; it must be time for bed I'll decide what my conclusion will be tomorrow

Forward to Round 3: to 1770 BC (turn 173)

 

[Jet]

If I settle the spice city it will be slow to grow unless I can grab the pigs tile (which will also require AH?) by building/chopping/whipping a monument
Or the Oracle.

Is this because other civs have researched them already?
Maybe a 3% discount if Ramses knows them, but mainly a 20% discount per prerequisite tech you know. Technology Research Explained

 

[DaveMcW]

2nd city must grab the northern corn, since you won't have Animal Husbandry for a long time.

Using the Oracle for a border expansion is a nice idea.

 

[redmosquito]

Its too late but I would grow my capital to the happy cap first for a quick and aggressive expansion towards ramesses. why dont people do it

 

[DaveMcW]

Its too late but I would grow my capital to the happy cap first for a quick and aggressive expansion towards ramesses. why dont people do it

Personally I would have warrior rushed Ramses.

But I assume anyone playing Noble wants a more balanced game.

 

[Thalur]

If I settle the spice city it will be slow to grow unless I can grab the pigs tile (which will also require AH?) by building/chopping/whipping a monument
Or the Oracle.

Is this because other civs have researched them already?
Maybe a 3% discount if Ramses knows them, but mainly a 20% discount per prerequisite tech you know. Technology Research Explained

Thanks for the link - I thought it might be something like that, but I didn't know the details. Border popping with the oracle looks like a great idea which will definitely save me time.

2nd city must grab the northern corn, since you won't have Animal Husbandry for a long time.

Using the Oracle for a border expansion is a nice idea.

Where would you put a city to grab the northern corn? As far as I can see, getting the corn in the unexpanded radius isn't a good long-term position. Sticking it midway between the corn and the pigs gets both once the borders pop, but its hard work until then. Maybe if I chopped the Oracle there it might work... I have 61 turns to go before I get the required technology which should be enough time to pre-chop some forests, so long as I make sure I pre-chop the ones for the forge first. Or I could wait for growth and rush the forge and pyramids there instead... It might work out as a better production city than the spice one, which is clearly going to be very commerce oriented, so perhaps specializing the cities like that is worth while?

Its too late but I would grow my capital to the happy cap first for a quick and aggressive expansion towards ramesses. why dont people do it

The capital isn't that far off max - after the next growth (in 9 turns) I'll have to put a warrior in there to get any more pop. And normally I would go for an axe rush (or similar), but I'm trying to focus this game on learning how to do a good SE (if I can - the terrain seems to be conspiring against me)

Personally I would have warrior rushed Ramses.

But I assume anyone playing Noble wants a more balanced game.

As above, I'm on Noble because a) I'm not very good (yet) and b) because I want to learn economy without getting steamrollered by the AIs

On a completely different topic, does anyone have any suggestions of where I can put a super science city? I think the largest food surplus that I can get is in my capital. Is one even necessary to have a super science city to run an SE? Or should I abandon the SE idea and go for a good old fashioned hybrid?

 

[Daedal]

Personally I would have warrior rushed Ramses.

But I assume anyone playing Noble wants a more balanced game.

....

Noble is as good a time as any to start playing the aggressive early game. I don't think Thalur can pull off a warrior rush before the AI gets archery, but the same effect can be achieved a bit more conservatively.

Declare war on Ramesses now or whenever a worker becomes available for the steal. Make sure that copper doesn't get worked! Keep Ramesses in check by hanging near his city (in the forests) with your warrior. You'll need to hook up your own copper and crank out axemen. Send a stack of 5-6 axemen at Thebes. You'll then be isolated on your continent, but with an enemy capitol and no AI bonuses at noble you'll be in a great position to run away with the game.

EDIT: Just noticed you don't want to do an axe rush... okies. But it's not mutually exclusive to running a good SE.

 

[Zanttu]

I've also only encountered the Egyptians here which means we are almost certainly alone with them. Is this good or bad?

Well, usually it's mostly bad if you have only 1 neighbor. That's because you won't have a tech trading partner (The AI doesn't trade away tech if he considers he has a monopoly on that tech, and if the only other civ he knows is you then he always has a monopoly on techs you don't have). Especially on higher levels it's impossible to keep up in tech race without good tech trading partners. But since this is noble level, you should be able to tech fast enough without trading before meeting the other civs. Also, you have a lot of room to expand, since it's a big continent and only 2 civs. And if/when you declare war on him, you don't get the -1 diplo modifier for "declaring war on a friend". So having only one opponent for the early part of the game makes the diplomacy pretty easy, you either are buddy-buddy with him (which I don't see as a very good idea, since he won't trade techs and is on your expansion route) or you are enemy of him.

 

[Thalur]

Back to Round 2: to 2725 BC (turn 85)

Round 3: to 1770BC
This round was a lot more eventful than the last one, as you will soon see.

I started off by moving the three warriors I had near Thebes up to the borders to see if I could grab a worker. I also had a quick revolution to introduce slavery while my settler was walking to my chosen city site. When I finished researching Mysticism I started on Meditation. I decided to build the spice city as my second city because I desperately needed more commerce, both to speed my research and to offset the costs of the second city. 3 turns later, I founded the city of Edirne on the banks of a river:

I worked the riverside grass tile to get the food and the commerce. I didn't bother with hammers as I want this city to grow, not build stuff. I think my plan here is to cottage up to get as much commerce as I can, then move the capital to here to benefit from bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, my warriors were getting restless but my waiting had paid off: Ramesses had left an undefended worker on the borders of his land! Needless to say, a short and blood-less war ensued:

And just as I get started, look who turns up! He must have heard the sharpening of ... clubs, and the smell of imminent bloodshed. It took me a long while to work out where he came from (see later on) as I can't see any of his units anywhere.

The skirmish (it wasn't big enough to justify calling it a war) went well - he didn't even fight back. I grabbed the worker and pillaged all of his terrain improvements before getting a ceasefire. That should set him back a good few turns .

The fighting over, I resumed my exploring, and it wasn't long before I found Ragnar:

He had been hiding out near the north pole, presumably hoping to get presents from . I'm surprised I didn't find him sooner, but maybe he doesn't go in for exploration so much.

While this had been going on, I let Istanbul grow to its limit and then built a worker and a settler. This worker, along with the one I captured from Ramesses started pre-chopping the trees for my third city (where I decided I was going to build the forge).

Once Meditation finished researching, I started on Priesthood for the Oracle. When Priesthood finished, I switched to Pottery (the final pre-req for Metal Casting) and started building the Oracle in Edirne. I'm not sure why I chose to build it here, rather than in Istanbul; I think the reasons for building it here are a) it allows me to use Istanbul to build useful things quickly, b) it gives Edirne a source of culture without me needing to build a Monument there and c) Edirne's low production wasn't an issue as I chopped and whipped most of the required hammers. At the moment I don't think it was a mistake: I could have finished it quicker if I'd built it in Istanbul, but I wouldn't have pre-chopped enough for the forge if I had. If it turns out I miss the Pyramids then this is the most likely cause.

When the settler finished building, he wandered up, and Ankara was founded:

This is where I'm going to build the forge, and hopefully the Pyramids. After the settler, I queued up a couple of workers to chop trees for the Oracle in Edirne.

In 1990 BC, I came 5th in a list of the Most Advanced Civilizations of the World. Ragnar came 2nd, and Ramesses was nowhere to be seen. It looks like my early pillaging paid off . This was a step up from the culture list from 2490 BC where I didn't figure but my rivals got 2nd and 3rd. Well, my comeback wasn't long to appear (well, 170 years, but thats not long )

Needless to say, free Metal Casting ensued, and Ankara began construction of the forge. At this point I had pre-chopped and roaded 6 trees, which I set to chopping with my two workers. 6 chops and a whip later and the forge was built. It turns out there was a small problem here: I hadn't chopped enough trees to get away without a whip. At the time I didn't think much of that, but one turn later I realized my mistake:

The whip had reduced Ankara to 1 pop, so with the engineer specialist there was no one left to grow the city. This is a bit of a problem as it means Ankara will still be size 1 when the great engineer appears, which means he might not generate enough to complete the Pyramids here . Not the end of the world as I can rush it in Istanbul instead, but it is a bit of a pain. Doing the maths now, I'm sure I would have had time to finish the forge without whipping and still get the great engineer, but when I was playing I had the 6 turns figure in my head, which of course is for normal speed. On marathon speed I think its more like 23 turns to build the forge, and I did it in 4.

So thats where I finished: 1770 BC, much further ahead than I was expecting, and only a couple of mistakes, hopefully neither of which will be game breaking.

 

[Thalur]

State of the world:
First off, the map so far:

Ragnar is in the north east corner of the continent, up in tundra land. Unless its hidden in the last few tiles I haven't revealed, he doesn't appear to have any copper. There must be something there though as he doesn't have any resources in the bfc that I can see:

Ramesses had a much better position however. I don't know if he's hooked up the copper yet - last time I could see his research he was doing Animal Husbandry, and I haven't seen him do either Mining or Bronze Working. My map of this area is quite old, so he may have built a second city by now:

My lands are looking quite good at the moment. I have three cities down, and another on the way, which is rather unusual for me. I'm building two cottages and a mine by Edirne, and a mine and a road by Ankara. Once the cottages are done I need to get back to improving Istanbul's tiles. My military is very weak at the moment, just one warrior in each city.

A quick run through the cities:
Istanbul has reached the happy cap, and is crying out for some terrain improvements. Mines on the hills are obvious, getting hold of fishing is probably a priority so that I can work the lake tiles, but I'm unsure what to do with the plains and grassland tiles. As I'm trying for an SE at the moment, this looks like the best spot for a super science city so far, which means I need to concentrate on getting more food. Fishing and a lighthouse gives a surplus of 3 on the lake tiles (overall) and I can farm the tile north of the corn to give one more. Civil Service will allow farming a couple more tiles, giving me a total surplus of 13, allowing up to 6 specialists.

Edirne is doing well. I managed to get the Oracle here, so the borders should grow in 33 turns. My goal is to turn this into a commerce city, and perhaps move the capital here to take advantage of Bureaucracy. I'm currently building cottages on two of the grassland/river tiles, and a mine on the hill with the road on to the north. When Animal Husbandry is done I'll grab the pigs to get a good food boost.

Ankara is a bit of a problem, really. Because I messed up building the forge, its stuck being stagnant for the next 50 or so turns. I can either put up with this, or I might be able to quickly build a forge in Istanbul to take over the GE points production. I don't want to do that though as it means throwing away a load of that could be better spent building me an army or expanding more. When it starts growing again, my plan is to make this into a production-heavy city. 6 hills in the BFC should eventually make this a good place for army/wonder building.

My tech screen is fairly predictable - just what I need for the oracle and the pyramids. At the moment I think my priorities are to get Animal Husbandry and Fishing to grow my civilization, and then push on up whichever side of the tech tree suits me better. This will probably be the top rather than the bottom as I want to get the Great Library. This means my best bet is probably to go for Writing then Alphabet to trade for the techs I want. I'm also considering Iron Working to see if theres an easier to get to source of Iron, as the copper is in a rather awkward spot.

The domestic screen holds no surprises. Istanbul is way in the lead on production (no food because its making a settler), while Ankara is struggling at the bottom because it has no population.

My score isn't to bad - I'm managing to stay ahead of the other two. The oracle/MC trick gave me a nice big boost, and I think having three cities is a help here as well.

The Gold plot (top left) shows me keeping up with the others, though Ragnar appears to be significantly better, presumably lots of sea tiles and possibly a sea resource is helping him here. I think hes also ahead of Ramesses and I in the tech race. He likes me (+1) so he might make a good tech trading partner.
The production plot (top right) shows me significantly ahead (mostly from all of the chopping I did?). Ramesses doesn't look like hes much of a builder, but Ragnar looks like he just built something quite big. Its about the same time as I was building the Oracle, so perhaps the big drop off is because I beat him to it? It matches up with a big jump in the gold graph as well.
I'm also ahead in the food graph (middle left), no doubt helped by the two corn, and by having three cities.
The power graph (middle right) is a bit odd. I can't account for the big jump in my power around 3000 BC, and it looks like Ragnar might be gearing up for a bit of a scrap. Ramesses is being very meek at the moment. I don't think hes going to last very long (particularly since we don't get on too well )
Culture (bottom left): Ramesses has clearly done something to get culture. It looks like about when he founded Hinduism (2530 BC). My culture has just started to go up, thanks to the Oracle.
The espionage screen is interesting (bottom right). It looks like Ragnar and Ramesses are using the slider, Ramesses at 10% and Ragnar at 20%. This has got to be hurting their science a bit, though Ragnar doesn't appear to be suffering for it. I'm decidedly behind in the espionage - I can't even see what either of them are researching at the moment.

Last picture: the demographics screen:

Well, I'm top in production and joint equal in the most land. I'm a very distant 2nd in the population stakes, average crops and gold. The thing that stands out (badly) is that I'm 7th out of 9 in military. I must look like a tempting target to Ragnar, maybe thats why hes building an army?

What else is there? Istanbul is 4th in the great cities list, Thebes is 2nd. Stonehenge and the Greate Wall have been built, but I don't know who by. My economy is strong but a bit messy, my army is pitiful (3 warriors) and I have 3 cities with one more on the way.

Plan:
I have no real plan at the moment, its something I'll have to thing about before I next play. I need to improve my military significantly, boost my commerce and decide where to place my fourth city. I think I need to start paying attention to diplomacy as well, and do a bit more exploring (with my new military). I'll try and post tomorrow with a bit more detailed plan, though as always everyone's input is greatly appreciated.

 

[Thalur]

The plan:
First of all, I checked in the world builder and a great engineer should be able to build the pyramids in a pop 1 city, so that concern is eliminated.

Now, I think its clear that I need to build my military up. I need to be able to keep tabs on the other civs' progress, and I need to stop looking so weak (to Ragnar at least). Therefore, my plan is to pause construction on a settler in Istanbul and start churning out military units. By letting Istanbul grow again I will gain an unhappy guy, but I'll be able to whip without hurting myself too much (I still haven't got a granary!). I reckon I'll probably want a settler in time for AH so I can grab some horses if possible. That means I can build 5 warriors and still have time to whip the settler out. Once the settler is done, its a granary then a forge until I can get axes/swords/chariots.

My plan for Edirne is to let it grow to size 3, then work some hammers to get the granary finished. A barracks, forge and military units are then the order of the day until something new comes along.

Ankara is obviously going to do nothing but produce GPPs for 50 turns. The alternative (building a forge in Istanbul and running the specialist there) would require lots of very fast chopping and whipping to get it done in time, and I don't think its worth the risk or the loss of pop/trees. Would linking up the road to Istanbul generate 1 commerce like the link between Istanbul and Edirne does? If so, that would offset most of the cost of the city.

My end goal is to make Ankara a big production city for army building and maybe a few wonders and great engineers. I think Istanbul will end up being a super science city, unless anyone can suggest a better place? Edirne has lots of commerce, so I plan to cottage it up and make it my capital to take advantage of Bureaucracy. Unless horses show up somewhere I don't have access to yet, I think my next city will be 1W of the two incense to the east of my "empire". That would get me 12 commerce and 10 food from just 4 tiles, which would make a good alternative commerce city to Edirne. Two such cities would probably serve to bankroll my empire for quite some time . Building there also has the benefit of claiming more territory towards my neighbors, as I get the impression its important to grab as much land as I can.

I'm rather unsure how to proceed diplomatically. I've pissed off Ramesses and Ragnar likes me, which is the opposite of what I would normally expect. Sharing with two AIs presumably means they will be more willing to tech trade? So long as I don't exterminate one or other of them Should I aim my research at getting writing and alphabet so I can tech trade or should I concentrate on researching the techs I need first, and tech trade later for more valuable stuff?

Speaking of research, as I see it my shopping list for tech is the following:

Fishing so that Istanbul can start using the lake tiles,
Sailing so that Istanbul can build a lighthouse to help with ^,
AH to get pigs hooked up, and to find horses,
IW to get iron and swordsmen,
and Writing to get libraries for science specialists.

Well, having just written that out, writing seems to be the way to go (as I want my science to mainly come from specialists). That would naturally lead to alphabet and tech trading. It also puts me closer to the great library, calendar (for the spice), construction for catapults, currency for markets and code of laws for courthouses.

So thats my plan for now. As always I'd love to hear any comments, criticisms and encouragements any of you are willing to give. And if anyone has questions (like why did I do this or that?) I'd be more than happy to answer them (this is supposed to be all about learning, after all).

Thanks for listening