NEWB1: Initial Expansion With Hatshepsut (credit to VoiceOfUnreason)

[Izuul]

Very rusty, after my sixth replay on map#3 achieved objectives T59 (noble warrior rush).

Is a rush within the rules?

 

[Yahya]

Is a rush within the rules?

I don't see why not. I intend to check the numbers on everything and decide whether or not rushing will help. It should, but maybe it's more economical in this case to avoid it.

I'm in the middle of calculating things, and this is what I have thus far:

• 4 Cities at Size 4
  
  This will require a considerable

  

  quantity. I need to calculate exactly how much because I want to learn in detail how all this works. As I understand it, on Noble difficulty at Normal speed a city takes 22

  

  to grow from Size 1 to Size 2, 24 to grow from Size 2 to Size 3, and so on. (Though every article I can find about city growth specifies 33

  

  , so I think that's either Epic or Marathon game speed. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)​
• 4 Improvements per city
  
  I'll calculate the cost of all my intended improvements in worker turns, including the movement. I need to learn to manage my workers far better.​
• 20 HP of Defenders (10 Warriors)
  
  Counting the 1 Warrior from the start, I need to produce 9 Warriors at 15

  

  each for a total of 135

  

  .​
• Library in Capital
  
  Simple build, 90

  

  .​

To accomplish the goals, I'm also going to require:

• 3 Settlers
  
  100

  

  each for a total of 300

  

  .​
• 4-5 Workers (I'll produce 5 to be most productive)
  
  60

  

  each for a total of 300

  

  .​

So that's a total of 825

to satisfy my build requirements. Some of that will come from food (settlers and workers), chopping, and rushing (once BW is in).

EDIT: I will also likely add at least one granary, for a cost of 60

.

 

[Izuul]

I think the exercise was probably intended to help players develop some basic skills that will help them move up to higher levels. A warrior rush doesn't translate to higher levels of civ. Granted there are already flaws with the exercise as there's no incentive here to build proper improvements, just fast ones, or useful military units rather than a bunch of warriors. Still, some of the concepts here do translate as there's an emphasis on micro and planning, and also a need to use both chops and the whip.

 

[Yahya]

Yes, I agree. The thing I like about this exercise is it removes any concern for moves after about T65 or so. This allows the player to focus on what really matters for the opening, developing a strong infrastructure.

My intent with working these exercises (and others, I'm sure), is that on Noble I can remove the AI's tendency to interfere with my learning the game and I can master the game mechanics.

Then I can work on warfare at higher levels (axes, cats, etc.) and then make the move upward from Noble.

Now that I've written that, I might have misunderstood your question. I interpreted pigswill's statement to mean that he was pop rushing the warriors, but you seem to have meant warfare, which isn't the point of this exercise.

 

[Yahya]

Okay, I just made a go at this using Start#1, and my first attempt was 79 turns. Not horrible, but I found a few things about the first attempt at this exercise.

1. Without a goal past the Library in the capitol, I ran out of things to build and research
   
   This caused me to build a lot of military and end up at 50% research, even while building research in my 4 cities.
   
   That leaves me with 6 workers, 10 warriors, and 6 axemen. Not bad for T79 (at least for me; I never build enough workers or military).​
2. I am 1st in the top 6 demographics and last in approval rate. Good signs.
   
3. I wasted a few worker turns here and there. Only once or twice was it unintentional, so that's a good step.
   
4. I founded cities based on their ability to grow and not to sustain production or commerce. This resulted in a crippling economy, but I would be able to recover in 20 turns or so.
   
   This also left me with my improved tiles needed to achieve the goals, but I needed to take workers off the food tiles to keep the cities at size 4 (I wanted to do that for this case; I could have let them keep growing, and that probably would have been a good idea.
   
   With 6 workers, I could easily have started putting down cottages, and if I were growing the cities my financial problems would have been nonexistent.
   
   Funnily enough, even though I'm starting to have those financial troubles I'm still in 1st place.​

I think if I continued this game, I'd start growing the cities, put down some cottages, and kill Caesar who's just to my southeast with only two cities. With my army on Noble I imagine it would be relatively simple. Some archers would probably help a lot though.

 

[pigswill]

Map3. T66. No rushing. Horrible game, horses not improved, copper not connected but at least I acheived the objectives.

 

[Ringo Kid]

I got about 70 turns on start one by researching pottery and bronze working so I could build a granary and cottages. After I developed the food in the capitol I chop/ rushed settlers and workers and built cottages. Because cottages build in fewer turns. Not really what you would do in a real game, but fun for this exercise. I think I could do it a few turns earlier if I worked it out more carefully.

 

[Yahya]

I'll be coming back to this, perhaps tomorrow night. I'm going to see how I do with Start#2.