NC276 Emperor Shadow Game

[konata_LS]

Your situation looks good so far!

As @ krikav has pointed out, if you don't work the water tile for the early 2 , Fishing could have been delayed for a while.

Your scouting looks decent. When I played this (back in the old days when I struggled at Prince ), my scout went to NW first and saw the gold. That's why in #18 I said I went for Agri-TW, because I settled my second city to grab gold and needed the Wheel to connect the two cities. With from Gold mine, Fishing became less urgent. That was at Prince anyway. At Emperor, that gold city may be too far from you capital, and the Sheep + Crab spot would be better for your second city.

If I were you, I would build a Warrior and second Worker after the Settler. Warrior to fog bust the Gold/Wheat area, and two Workers chop another Settler.

 

[Fabled]

We're up to T40 now. We need to pick the next tech and the next city sites.

Spoiler Micro and screenshots :

I don't know if I got here in the most effective way, but I did a lot of tile micro to try and make the most of the lake commerce. We grow to pop 4 on the lake:

At pop 4 we use the lake and forest tiles to get the warrior to 14/15 and then overflow as many hammers into the settler as we can:

Now we hardbuild the settler with the large yield tiles and the lake:

We switch back to the lake to work the settler to 68 / 100 hammers:

Then we revolt into slavery and 2 pop whip the settler. We finish the next turn with 130 / 100 hammers, which let's us power out a workboat next turn. After scouting the northern peninsula our worker has been chopping the forest 2N of Berlin, and that chop finishes in time for the next workboat to be a second 1 turn build. Hamburg is settled one turn later than with the "hard build settler on 3 pop" plan, but in return we get overflow hammers and workboats. Worth it!

Berlin regrows to pop 4 on a warrior, which stays for military police. Hamburg grows onto the clams tile, so Berlin is back to working the lake while we wait for the sheep pasture to finish. Here's our map at turn 40:

And here's a details view of Berlin:

The big choices now are what to tech, where to send the settler from Berlin, and what to put the 2 pop whip overflow hammers into. I think we've grabbed all the major worker techs, and I'm feeling good about our space to peacefully expand, so I think we can skip military rush techs for now. In my mind, the candidates are writing > sailing > the wheel > mysticism > masonry. I would normally autopilot writing into math here, but let's try and think about this more carefully. Writing for libraries, working towards an academy in Berlin, is the most natural play to me. Sailing into masonry into the great lighthouse is also an option, although I worry we're too late to try that. Maybe if I reload the last save and skip animal husbandry we would have a real chance? I might try that if folks think it's a reasonable option. The wheel would just help us use worker turns, although we can pre-chop forests for a while so that's not an immediate priority. Mysticism would be looking ahead to monuments for our dot map, which again isn't an immediate priority. I like the reload great lighthouse attempt the most, followed by writing.

I've adjusted our dot map a bit to grab all our strategic and food resources in the next two cities, although we'll need libraries / monuments to really make these sites work. Both sites have access to a food tile from the moment they're founded, so I think they'll work well enough. It's a shame to have the 4th city 1S of the plains hill, but I haven't found a site for a 5th city to claim the pigs that grabs any land worth having. I'm looking at the banana / rice / sugar cluster for a 5th city, but there's enough jungle that maybe I'll wait. I like the core territory here, but outside of the first 4 cities I don't like the land at all.

 

[krikav]

@Fabled From what you did, I clearly did not explain the trick I had in mind good enough. I probablh have to show with images (might have time later today).
But that trick with the warrior is suposed to gain a turn since you can get overflow and still reach pop4 the desired turn and then starting the settler. Here you reached pop4 and THEN finished the warrior, this way you lose a turn no matter what.

Working the lake during the settler you can do if you accept say a turn slower settler, or if you don't accept that you can work the lake for part of the time and then transitioning to a 3 foodhammer tile when you would start to lose a turn if you continue with the lake.

Revolting before the settler is done was probably wrong. Revolt during settler transit is almost always better.
There is some merit in trying to get overflow to finish the boat, but thats a trick that is better suited in cities that are very hammer deprived and have alot of food.
Here we have a 2 hammer city center, and the 5 hammer tile with the stone, so I doubt that you have to optimize for hammer overflow to get the workboat out efficiently.
In other words... You executed a very useful and powerful technique well, showing you got a clear grasp of how it's done. But you did it in a circumstance that didn't call for that technique.

No time just now to go into more detail, but I want to show that early pop3->pop4 warrior yadda yadda stuff more clearly later, and also look at what happend after T35 and giving you feedback on that as well.

 

[krikav]

Oh, I started the game now and came up to T22 and then I realize that the food bar isn't 0/26, it's 2/26.
That makes the point I was trying to make entierly irrelevant. There is no freedom of action to speak of, with regard on how to reach pop4, the two corns and the third tile have to be a 2F tile for 3 full turns.

I'll continue to play on the early micro up to ~T35 and see what I would have done.

 

[krikav]

Took a glance in the original post and it seems I was inclined to go for 2 workers before settler here.
That was probably because I was afraid of barbs and wanted to be ready to chop out warriors if needed. Settler first is almost certainly more productive here.

Spoiler T33 :

At the T22 I thought it was 4 turns to pop4 and that there was some freedom of action to at 1 turn prior to reaching pop4 finishing the warrior and rolling some overflow into a settler thats started at pop4.
This wasn't the case, one must work a 2F tile with the non-corn-tile all 3 turns here to reach pop4 in 3 turns.
You can emphasis production by doing 3 turns of 2F1H into the warrior, loading up with production. But I think it's better to go with the commerce and reach BW faster.

At pop4 I still choose to work two lakes instead of some tile yielding 3hammers toward settler each turn.
So each turn I lose 2 hammers into the settler, but gain 4 commerce for that.

Once the stone is done, I take the opportunity to finish the warrior. Here one could work a 1F2H tile instead of the lake, gaining 2 hammers overflow that would go toward the settler. But I prioritize getting 1 more food into the food bar, and 2 more commerce.

3 overflow from the warrior build.
The 5H stone is so good that it's way preferable over another lake while building settler.

Now, since BW was in the turn it was, the chop lands in time to compensate for aaaaaall the hammers that where traded away earlier for commerce.

Revolt in transit.

Screenshots for T34 -> T40 comming up.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T40 :

After the revolt. Working these tiles yields a boat in 2 turns.

The new city is tasked with an important task:
* Reach pop2.
* Get 30+ hammers into a worker.
* 1pop whip a worker asap.

The worker finishes a chop for the second boat. This might be really greedy, likely more warriors for added safety is sound play rather than an another boat.

Now, while the boat is in transit, the food surplus in the city is lower than it will be next turn. So this is a good turn to put some hammers into a settler.
Holding the stone in a tile while trying to grow is very heavy, but when doing workers/settlers it's light as a feather.

Second boat is done and capital takes all food to grow. The stone is dropped like a hot rock.

Second city can reach pop2 with the unimproved sheep.
Careful calculation might cause this tile distribution to be ruled as a mistake. Maybe capital could be content with a lake tile and instead let Hamburg keep the corn so that it will again reach pop2 faster after the worker whip.

At pop2, the city puts one turn into a worker at 5 hammers.

Then another 5, and 20 from a chop, 5+5+20 equals the magical 30!

Capital is steamrolling ahead to pop6 to do a 3pop whip.
With this much food, trying to stick to 3pop whips is probably good.

The whip timing of this settler I'm unsure of, maybe working the settler 1-2 turns before whipping it is best since that way you work more good tiles longer.
Or maybe it's better to just whip it right away and settle a new spot sooner.

From here and onwards, care should be taken so that the crab+corn thats reachable from both Berlin and Hamburg should be used for growth at all turns.
Berlin/Hamburg should take turns stagnating on workers/settlers in an alternating fashion, so that when Hamburg is either putting hammers into, or whipping something, Berlin holds the corn+crab at those turn and growing with them.

 

[civac]

@Fabled: I'd go for Wheel and plant the settler 1SE of the copper. Bring some warriors.

My tech path would be Wheel -> Pottery -> Sailing. Sailing for internal 2 yield trade routes. Writing afterwards.

 

[krikav]

@civac Which city would you settle offshore? #4? #5?
Early sailing does look very tempting with half-price lighthouses, seafood and lakes.

I too like a city SE of copper, that would grant axes quickly. Make sure to build enough warriors for MP and some fogbusting prior to hooking up copper though since Freddy starts with hunting connecting copper takes away the possibility to build warriors.

 

[civac]

Depends on the quality. My intuition doesn't really work on these settings. Usually it would work out in a way that Sailing would be fairly late anyway due to quick expansion and the first island city would be city 8-10. But I don't think that applicable here. I'd try to settle cities at the copper, sheep/gold, pigs/wheat, rice/horses first if any of them are contested. In a way they are all more important.

 

[Fabled]

I think I'll reload the T22 save, try the turbo growth strats from Krikav, and tech bronze working -> sailing (instead of animal husbandry). Lighthouses look really good, and maybe the great lighthouse is still a viable play.

 

[krikav]

I can't remember, but I think I went for AH before sailing when I played this map.
But do try from T22 again. I think the revolt before settler was done was an error for example.

And sorry for leading you astray with the ramblings about the warrior overflow that wasn't even applicable.

 

[Fabled]

No worries! I was confused for a while but your screenshots were helpful, thank you.

 

[lymond]

Just noting that 1SE of copper looks like a great spot

 

[pigswill]

I've been playing this a bit and decided to settle second city (aka first settler) between copper and gold. Its not compulsory to overlap your first city with the capital. Expand first, backfill later can be a valid approach.

 

[Fabled]

Wouldn't you generally prefer overlapping your second city? It seems to me that cutting down on transit time and being able to work improved tiles from the moment the city is settled would be a huge boost now, and without a specific reason to do otherwise a boost now is more valuable than a boost later.

 

[krikav]

A close and overlapping second city is the norm, but it's not always best.

The most common situation where we deviate from such a strategy is when there is a superb city that is possibly contested.
Also... A case can be made for getting copper in second city and utilize that to fend of barbs.

But I like a close second city here better.

 

[Fabled]

Back at this again. Returned to the turn 22 save and played up to turn 54, we have 3 cities down and have nearly finished the great lighthouse.

Spoiler T54 :

Berlin works the lake growing to 4. We work 2 lake tiles until the stone mine finishes, then we work the mine instead of a lake tile. When bronze working finishes, we switch back to working 2 lake tiles to finish sailing faster, and chop a forest to finish up the settler.

After the settler we put the overflow into a work boat and start back on the stone mine. This is also where we revolt into slavery.

Turn 34 we settle Hamburg, which builds a warrior while growing to 2. Berlin finishes the work boat, puts a chop into a second work boat, finishes the warrior for military police as it grows to 5, and then finishes the second work boat. We switch between lake and forest tiles to get enough overflow on the second workboat to finish one more warrior before sailing is ready.

After this, Berlin hard builds a lighthouse while working corn / corn / clam / stone / lake. At pop 2, Hamburg hard builds a worker on sheep / crab and then whips the last 30 hammers.

The lighthouse in Berlin finishes one turn after it grows to 6. We put one turn into a settler and then 6 -> 3 whip to finish the build. We can work the lake instead of stone here for extra beakers, since we're not super concerned about hammer overflow (this is a mistake, but I only realize that now while I'm writing the report).

With the 3rd city on the way, Berlin can grow back on the great lighthouse. We take this opportunity to chop out the forests in the neighborhood. At 2 pop, Hamburg again starts a worker in preparation for a 2 -> 1 whip.

Our situation at T54:

We've secured both classical strategic resources, our food situation is amazing (lighthouse lakes are better than I realized), and I think the great lighthouse will supercharge our economy for the foreseeable future. We'll need a few inland cities - wheat / gold looks like a good spot - but we can start settling south along the coast. 2S of stone looks like another good spot. Would 1S of horse get the great lighthouse trade routes? Not sure how the game treats lakes vs coast, especially since Berlin is a canal to the open seas.

I think the tech choice here is between the wheel and writing. The wheel gives our workers more filler to do (although we've set up internal trade routes via sailing) but writing lets us start turning this amazing food surplus into great scientists. I'm inclined to go writing here personally, since I don't anticipate military issues yet.

 

[krikav]

1S of horse would not be considered coastal I think, even though you would open up a canal to the sea.
Looks like you did some good micro this time around!

I don't think I would have chosen a lake tile 2F2C above the stone tile 5H while building a settler as you did to reach sailing faster. You lost some nice overflow there that would have finished the boat(s) faster, and you likely had to swap to the stone once you where done with the settler this way. So a slight missmanagement of tiles there I think.

2S of stone I'm almost certain that I settled too, perfecly good spot.
With GLH, you really should focus settling that offshore city soon, and likewise prioritize getting OB with the Ais and finding connections to them.

NE of the gold would be coastal, and would have a easy time getting a monument up for the sheep due to the copper., and would get the gold right away. I would try to get wheat+pigs in the first ring of a city I think.

 

[civac]

The city NE of the gold should have sheep in the first ring. That's where I would put that city as well. Then the pig/wheat city. The latter is a stronger city but it seems you need the happiness boost from the gold as soon as possible.

 

[Fabled]

I played through T100 yesterday but forgot to document, I think I'll throw away that save and do it again. There's no point in a shadow game if I'm not writing detailed reports and actually learning something from it!

I got some practice in setting up good whips - mostly 4 -> 2 making double axemen and 6 -> 3 making fast settlers - but I've had trouble consistently finding good builds. I probably need to pick up infrastructure techs earlier than I did.

I ended up teching writing, math, aesthetics, currency, and mysticism in that order. I think aesthetics was wrong, I was hoping to trade for alphabet but only Churchill went alphabet and he wasn't willing to trade. An earlier mysticism would have helped some border troubles with England as well - I lost control of first ring wheat / pigs. Maybe writing, math, mysticism, currency is better for the retry? I'll aim for a shorter set of turns in any case.