[PTW] New City Build Order, Worker Mgmt and Railroads

[Lanzelot]

The self imposed challenge was winning with mediocre land without conquering my neighbors

Oops, then I need to start from scratch, as that kind of contradicts the plan I have outlined in #76...
We would be comparing apples to peas here (or rather apples to chewing gum...)

I had played a bit yesterday, and deliberately let the AI settle close to me, because every town they settle means a settler less for me to build... (but of course not under that challenge...)
In 690 BC, you are ahead wrt number of total population (sizes of towns, workers and settlers all summed up): 30 vs 39.
Compared to your 14 towns, I had 9, but bigger ones, 4 of which had barracks and were producing horsemen at a 5-turn or 4-turn rate. (Another Barrack just finished, but did not yet contribute any horses.) So if we compare the stuff that both of us had already produced at that time:

• 13 Enkidus (plus a couple that were lost in the fights with the barbarians)
• 14 Horsemen
• 2 (very early) Curraghs (one of which got lucky in a suicide run and made it to the other continent, meeting Persia and the Mongols, which had not yet been discovered in your game, resulting in a couple of good trade opportunities)
• As a consequence of this (and also the higher commerce output), I am three techs ahead of you: CoL, Horseback Riding and Polytheism. And I have a bank account of 230 g, compared to your 147.
  You have 2 turns left on Currency, while I have 4-5 turns left on Republic. Then I would trade Rep for Currency and Construction (which both are already known) and enter the MA around 610 - 590 BC.
• 1 Granary, 5 Barracks (If I knew, I am not allowed to take AI cities, I would probably have built a second and even a third Granary or also a Library instead of those Barracks.)

This determines the plan for the next 5 turns: wait for Rep to finish (the Mayas are among the ones, who already know Cur. & Constr.) make the trades and then attack the Mayas (who very conveniently are already at war with the Babylonians to the north...) 4 more Horsemen will finish till then, so I can attack the southern Maya towns in two columns a 9 horses + some Enkidus for cover.
The good thing here is, that a) the Mayas will probably revolt, when I trade them Republic (even though they are already a Monarchy -- the AI always seems to revolt, when it gets a new gov tech...) and b) that I can use my Enkidus in combat without having to risk a despotic Golden Age.

Your game at 690 BC:

• 20 Enkidus
• 1 Curragh, 1 Galley
• 1 Granary, 2 Libraries

I have to say though, that my game was hurt by a pretty bad setback: I knew that with this kind of mediocre start position I would have no chance at all of getting the Republic slingshot on Demigod. So I went directly Alphabet --> Writing --> Philosophy, wanted to take Code of Laws as freebee and then finish Republic by hand. But 3-4 turns before I was able to finish Philosophy, the Mayas got it in 1675 BC!

Very unusual on Demigod. Previously I experienced that only on Sid, or with a bad start on Deity.
Did you go for the free tech, and if yes, did you make it?

So the basic summary would be:
- your approach resulted indeed in more population (30 vs 39)
- my approach had higher commerce (3 extra techs = ca. 700 beakers, and an extra 80g, though most of that probably comes from better trading opportunities) and more stuff produced (buildings and units with a total of 740s, compared to your 465s).

The question then is, will the extra units suffice to catch up on population? A war on Demigod is still a bit of a gamble, and with bad luck the plan could fail. My core, though, is now productive enough to produce replacements quickly, which can't be said about your core. If the AI decides to attack you now, it could also cause a major setback for you. (And you might have to burn your GA in Despotism!)

 

[justanick]

In 690 BC, you are ahead wrt number of total population (sizes of towns, workers and settlers all summed up): 30 vs 39.

This metric would benefit from also counting in the amount of city tiles. Building a settler takes 2 citizens, but founding a town gives only 1 citizen. One does however get the city tile which produces just like a citizens, if not better. And there is not even cost attached to it like food usage or limited happiness.

There is of course the cost of corruption. This makes spamming settlers not the best approach.

 

[SuedecivIII]

Oops, then I need to start from scratch, as that kind of contradicts the plan I have outlined in #76...
We would be comparing apples to peas here (or rather apples to chewing gum...)

I had played a bit yesterday, and deliberately let the AI settle close to me, because every town they settle means a settler less for me to build... (but of course not under that challenge...)
In 690 BC, you are ahead wrt number of total population (sizes of towns, workers and settlers all summed up): 30 vs 39.
Compared to your 14 towns, I had 9, but bigger ones, 4 of which had barracks and were producing horsemen at a 5-turn or 4-turn rate. (Another Barrack just finished, but did not yet contribute any horses.) So if we compare the stuff that both of us had already produced at that time:

• 13 Enkidus (plus a couple that were lost in the fights with the barbarians)
• 14 Horsemen
• 2 (very early) Curraghs (one of which got lucky in a suicide run and made it to the other continent, meeting Persia and the Mongols, which had not yet been discovered in your game, resulting in a couple of good trade opportunities)
• As a consequence of this (and also the higher commerce output), I am three techs ahead of you: CoL, Horseback Riding and Polytheism. And I have a bank account of 230 g, compared to your 147.
  You have 2 turns left on Currency, while I have 4-5 turns left on Republic. Then I would trade Rep for Currency and Construction (which both are already known) and enter the MA around 610 - 590 BC.
• 1 Granary, 5 Barracks (If I knew, I am not allowed to take AI cities, I would probably have built a second and even a third Granary or also a Library instead of those Barracks.)

This determines the plan for the next 5 turns: wait for Rep to finish (the Mayas are among the ones, who already know Cur. & Constr.) make the trades and then attack the Mayas (who very conveniently are already at war with the Babylonians to the north...) 4 more Horsemen will finish till then, so I can attack the southern Maya towns in two columns a 9 horses + some Enkidus for cover.
The good thing here is, that a) the Mayas will probably revolt, when I trade them Republic (even though they are already a Monarchy -- the AI always seems to revolt, when it gets a new gov tech...) and b) that I can use my Enkidus in combat without having to risk a despotic Golden Age.

Your game at 690 BC:

• 20 Enkidus
• 1 Curragh, 1 Galley
• 1 Granary, 2 Libraries

I have to say though, that my game was hurt by a pretty bad setback: I knew that with this kind of mediocre start position I would have no chance at all of getting the Republic slingshot on Demigod. So I went directly Alphabet --> Writing --> Philosophy, wanted to take Code of Laws as freebee and then finish Republic by hand. But 3-4 turns before I was able to finish Philosophy, the Mayas got it in 1675 BC!

Very unusual on Demigod. Previously I experienced that only on Sid, or with a bad start on Deity.
Did you go for the free tech, and if yes, did you make it?


The question then is, will the extra units suffice to catch up on population? A war on Demigod is still a bit of a gamble, and with bad luck the plan could fail. My core, though, is now productive enough to produce replacements quickly, which can't be said about your core. If the AI decides to attack you now, it could also cause a major setback for you. (And you might have to burn your GA in Despotism!)

I didn't even bother with philosophy, by the time I got to writing the Romans had philosophy (1625BC). So it looks like, for one, your strat techs a lot faster than mine. It wasn't a relevant factor here, we both traded fine into the medieval era, but for cases where it's borderline whether you'll make philo, your strat can really help out. You could also convert that into gold

You can go for an attack if you want, the challenge was just for me. You can't do the staple cheese here (great library and then upgrade a billion warriors). I'm curious how long it will take you to recoup the city spots you gave up. Will you quickly take them and have a big mass of military units to push forward with? Or do I have the tempo advantage, not getting bogged down with war.

The comparison will only really break down late on, (middle of the medieval era maybe) when I would have gone for an attack if I could. Until then I wasn't ready though.

In regards to if they had attacked me, I think I was in half decent shape. I could slave a bunch of swords and make some military alliances. Losing a city or two would be bad, but not devastating. I would be forced into a despotic golden age though, you're right.

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, I tried again, this time I built a second granary and went more for expansion, less military. Again I have 9 towns, like last time, but 35 (instead of 30) total population. The 690 BC stats now look like:

- 14 Enkidus
- 5 Archer, 3 Swordsmen, 2 Horsemen
- 2 Granaries, 2 Barracks
- 1 Galley, 1 Curragh
For a total 635s. The difference to the previous attempt (740s) is mainly due to "good luck"...: This time I got Philosophy first and took CoL for free, getting Republic much earlier, so I'm currently in Anarchy. If it weren't for that, some more stuff would have finished by now: 1 Harbor and a catapult getting me again in the 700 range. And I would also have settled a 10th town by now, but the settler didn't finish due to anarchy.
So this attempt looks much better. Due to the free tech, I have now two additional techs (Republic and Currency) a bigger bank account (359g) and will start catching up big time, once I get out of anarchy.

The decisive factor here may have been an early war between Romans and Mayas, which slowed them down, so that neither of them finished Philosophy. Chichen Itza at this time is only size 6 instead of size 13, a sure sign they are in trouble (war weariness, pillaged lux resources). Also Construction has not yet been researched by anybody, the AI is definitely slower this time.

I had continued my first attempt for a while, but then scrapped it, when it became clear that the strategy I chose (early horsemen rush) was clearly wrong. The start position we got here is too weak for that, and additionally our direct neighbor, the Mayas, are the power-house of this game, so the attempt was doomed to failure. I had been able to take the first two towns easily, but by the time I was ready to attack the third, they had suddenly finished the Great Wall, and their cities were now protected by Pikemen! Game over... (Well, the game is probably still winnable, but not the easy cruise I hoped for. Palace jump would have to be delayed for a long time, probably even until after Cavs?!)

 

[SuedecivIII]

Excited to see how it progresses. 4 turns left on your anarchy, I'm a little anxious about those gems. The mayans have a settler near, you might want to bring over some units to "shepherd" him to a different spot.

I think the philosophy pick-up really served you well here. In my save at the same time, the mayans are already sending boats. I think map making might have been their free tech, so not only does philosophy give you a bonus tech, but it also slows down the AI to our benefit.