Nero04: Skipping some levels? It's training day

[BeefBayford]

So would I need to check every turn to see if their price is lowering in order to see if they are researching Lit or not? Seems a tad tedious, is there anything on MapStat or CivAssistII to help with this?

 

[Whomp]

Definitely check mapstat every turn. It's really up to you on the trade. In a case like this I'm willing to hit shift-d just to see if the price has changed. Tedious maybe but it's a few turns tedious. Another tech may pop up on mapstat since the Brits or Vikes have researched it and then everything changes. This may be the chance to get 3 new techs for lit.

 

[nerovats]

Increase science. We have enough gold to run on deficit for a long time.
Please, stop building warriors in Madrid.
Philo won't give us anything. Would pick something else. What can we trade lit for, ask whomps questions. MM would be nice to have, we should make more friends. HBR is only usefull when we find horses, low chance as there's not that much terrain supporting them. If we get the MM for lit and 10 gold we won't get HBR for 35 gold + lit too as the value will drop.
There's no way of telling what the ai will reseach but they do have a favoured path, which does not include lit.

 

[BeefBayford]

I know your concerns about building warriors but I had a good reason on this occasion, plus we have iron for sure now so we can always upgrade our warriors.

I'll hold on to Lit for the time being then and switch research, CoL perhaps?

 

[nerovats]

Sound better, will lead us to republic.
Don't have time to look at save now to be for sure, but it's most likely the best choice.

 

[BeefBayford]

Well I'll try and complete my last few turns tonight, if not it will be in the morning.
I'm glad you don't wanna see the save, because I haven't posted it
EDIT: We don't have Masonry, which leads to Mathematics, shall we take that or just wait until it can be traded?

 

[nerovats]

And math leads to currency. Can wait a bit then cash in on lit getting masonry, math and probably something else. Keep science at max, which is 100% - lux rate, no taxes.

 

[BeefBayford]

Turns 6-10 complete, here's how it went:

6) 1100BC
Economy set to 0.8.2, CoL in 12, -2gpt
IBT:
BarbHorse appears near Seville.
7) 1075BC
Warrior in Toledo moves to cover Seville whilst Seville warrior covers worker. Murcia founded to SW, begins Barrax.
IBT:
Iron connected! BarbHorse lands on mountain.Eng and Vik now have Masonry.
8) 1050BC
Madrid; Settler->Settler
Ivory City; Worker->Spearman?!
Barcelona switches from Archer to Swordsman. Settler heads towards incense.
9) 1025BC
Salamanca; Worker->Spear?!
Seville; Worker->Worker
10) 1000BC
Warrior in Ivory City moved onto mountain to prevent a Barb invasion from the galley. Most workers irrigate.

CoL in 7, $31-2gpt.
I was planning on settling the white spot on the following screenshot. (All screenshots courtesy of Screen Hunter

Here's the latest Military report:

SAVE

The next player should feel free to change my build queues, I wasn't sure what to build in the towns where Spears are in the queue, this needs some discussion.

Azzaman333-on deck
CommandoBob-in the hole
BeefBayford-just played
Hawk Chieftain-UP!

 

[CommandoBob]

(Post #195)
We've already got enough warriors to do all exploring we want. If there's no iron they will be useless very quickly. Otherwise we could upgrade them to swords.

We have enough? How do you determine that?

It's most often best to keep cities to their job, madrid should not have build the warrior but stick to settlers.

That warrior was a one-time event. Madrid went back to settlers soon after that.

We need workers seville can be worker farm, that's good. Let the 2 cities north also build a worker, and we're ok on this in half a turnset. Then switch to barracks and get an army.

Seville = worker farm, OK. The north cities, OK, just seems that they would be slow builders.

There's no use in connection the 2nd ivory for being a lux as we can't trade yet. It is one of the better tiles for ivory city, improve it but not for connection the ivory.

I was not sure about that 2nd ivory. It was taking advantage of the fact that the workers were close at that time so improve now and not later.

Aren't we forgetting about the incense?
Markets won't make people happier until we get our 3th lux.

Incense, yep, I forgot.
Markets really work at 3 luxuries, I did not know that.

What about science? Aim high to be able to sell/trade it for lower tier techs. Go on max or min not inbetween.

What do you mean by 'Go on max or min not inbetween'?

 

[Whomp]

Not only do markets help with happiness but they also help multiply gold. Gold means higher research.

@CommandoBob Nero is saying that either you run research at min (10% or scientist) or max (whatever you can go to without going broke less lux cost)

 

[nerovats]

As mentioned I was playing on my own too. Didn't mini-manage at all and had about the sam bad luck as the team. I disbanded a settler to compensate for the team's decease, and a barrack got ransacked by barbs 1 turn before completion.

Summery my save:
Techs: I'm up masonry, pilo, CoL, Myst, HBR. Republic in 25.
511 gold -3gpt
units: 1 settler, 4 workers, 3 reg, 1 vet warrior, 4 vet archers
6 cities
23 pop
Madrid settler in 1

Summary team:
Tech: down a lot, CoL in 7
31 gold -2gpt
units: 1 settler, 5 workers 2 slaves, 8 reg, 1 vet warrior, 1 vet archer
7 cities
17 pop
Madrid settler in 4

Team is down lot of tech and lot of gold.
Team does have more workers ( 2 effectively), but both team and me have just 1 citizen on a non improved tile and 1 on the lake.
Team has 1 more military unit, but poor quality, mostly reg warriors, compared to my 4 vet archers.
I'm down 2 turns for city building because I choose to build a granary in Seville otherwise I would have had an extra settler 5 turns ago, and be in the lead in this too.
Also I've got a complete map of our home continent thanks to the vikings and English. I edited picture not to spoil the fun.

My screenshot:


Teams screenshot:


I'd like to hear from you what you think about the differences. What should have been done different to get better result. To remind you this is just 60 turns as we both started form the same 3000BC

 

[BeefBayford]

My word! I cannot believe there is that much of a difference!
It's difficult to identify where we've gone wrong, but there must be a lot of things that can be changed. I'm sure you're going to enlighten us though

 

[Hawk Chieftain]

Got the save, will play tomorrow morning.
Let me know what direction you think I should go.

 

[CommandoBob]

It's difficult to identify where we've gone wrong, but there must be a lot of things that can be changed. I'm sure you're going to enlighten us though

No, we need to figure this out on our own. nerovats did better than the team, which is expected. He is the teacher, we are the students.

We are behind in tech, and this is my fault, for buying the English workers in my first set of turns. That drained money from our treasury we could have used to buy techs. I thought I was wise, but turned out to be foolish.

Learn from my mistake. And that mistake was - poor communication. Instead of trying to be the hero, I should have stopped my turns, described the situation to the team and awaited the team's input and decision. But I did not, and the unexpected result (unexpected to me, that is) is that we are behind in techs.

However, we have survived far enough in this game to begin making plans on how we are going to win. nerovats has been planning how to win since 4000 BC; we, or at least me, have been more concerned about surviving than planning. If this were my first single-player game at Emperor, I would just feel good about still being in the game at this point. And that would be because my focus would be on surviving, not winning.

We must unerstand that we can win this game with a Space Victory; we need to plan how we are going to do that.

Any ideas?

 

[BeefBayford]

Like you said Bob, we're all here to learn, it doesn't really matter that we made mistakes, the most important thing is that you've begun to identify them for us.

The buying workers early may have put us back financially for a bit, but I don't think it was such a bad thing, you just maybe payed a tad too much for them, but with good intentions.

Nero is way ahead of us but if we focus this game is definitely winnable. In my opinion, once we have 10-12 swords to cover our backs against any threat, we can build up a bit of infrastructure (markets, libraries) and then a switch to Republic ASAP. I think once we have the republic tech it will be a monopoly for us so perhaps thats where we should aim tech tree wise.

 

[nerovats]

No, we need to figure this out on our own.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do, not telling what to do but trying to push in right direction. Now I want to see what could have been better, not buying the workers would have helped, but there were several other events which where not the best choices according to me. I'll give you guys some more time to think it over then post my thoughts. In hindsight I should have kept a exact turnlog, but I still have the bigger events in my head.

Back to the future. Where do we go from here. The request was space, so we need to learn stuf. Not neccesarily conquer the world. If we keep the AI alive they can do some research for us. In conquest scientists yield 3 science a piece which is very helpfull, then one can grow corrupt cities and turn as much civilians into scientists as possible. It's even possible to keep the slider at 0% science and still research at the minimum 4 turn/tech. Here we only get 1 science. So what to do?
There's room to settle, a lux to grab, warriors to upgrade, land and sea to explore, now friends to make....

 

[CommandoBob]

snip.. In my opinion, once we have 10-12 swords to cover our backs against any threat,...snip

Are these swords to keep our people in line or for pointy-stick expansion?
And related to that: How should we garrison our cities?

I think we need to expand (duh!). I would think that we would need 10-12 cities before we would be able to begin and sustain a military venture against the Purple or the Orange. We may not need to go to war with anyone (doubtful, but possible), but as we all know, we must be able to protect ourselves. A dozen swords is a good start.

We have not moved to the Incense in the east. I think we have forgotten about it. It is a long way away from our core and the way is difficult to road. I think we should send at least a settler/warrior/warrior group to claim that incense. That makes it ours. I would consider maybe a two-worker work group, suitably protected, to build the road to Incense City in a 'reasonable' time.

And yet I think our main expansion should be towards the Purple and the Orange. The land is more open in that direction than towards the east.

 

[BeefBayford]

Just a quick question, on a matter which still confuses me; which tiles when irrigated in Despotism will NOT give a food increase? I know that a grassland tile doesn't but are there any others?

 

[BeefBayford]

Are these swords to keep our people in line or for pointy-stick expansion?
And related to that: How should we garrison our cities?

I think we need to expand (duh!). I would think that we would need 10-12 cities before we would be able to begin and sustain a military venture against the Purple or the Orange. We may not need to go to war with anyone (doubtful, but possible), but as we all know, we must be able to protect ourselves. A dozen swords is a good start.

We have not moved to the Incense in the east. I think we have forgotten about it. It is a long way away from our core and the way is difficult to road. I think we should send at least a settler/warrior/warrior group to claim that incense. That makes it ours. I would consider maybe a two-worker work group, suitably protected, to build the road to Incense City in a 'reasonable' time.

And yet I think our main expansion should be towards the Purple and the Orange. The land is more open in that direction than towards the east.

Some good points brought up there Bobby! I think nero mentioned somewhere earlier about the AI gauging your power by the attack value of our units. Just for that reason alone swords are a good idea.

Usually in my solo games I would only declare war when there is no more room for expansion. Obviously this isn't always best depending on circumstances but I think since we're going for Space it isn't necessary to wage a war too early. OTOH we need to hit the Viking before they get hold of Berserks otherwise they'll really punish us.

 

[CommandoBob]

If we have a war with the Vikings, we will need to over-garrison our coastal cities. The Viking UU is a very early Marine unit and can attack cities from boats. I forget what it resource it requires and the tech it needs to be built.

I know our UU is a replacement for the Explorer and requires no resources. I forget the tech, though.

Has anyone checked F10 (the space race screen) to see who shares this world with us? We know about the Vikings and the English. The Ottomans built the Oracle, I think. We want to know if any Scientific civs exist with us. We do not want to hurt them until much later in the game.