P666-01 Fix the Trash Game

[Cosmichail]

Not lurking but have a comment for Armstrong.

I just want to thank you for holding up VQ008 for three days and then quitting. I hope you will be more considerate of these fine people playing in this SG.

Lurking

Sounds like an interesting variant and sorry to comment to Armstrong but I didn't appreciate his approach in VQ008

 

[Cam_H]

Sounds like an interesting variant and sorry to comment to Armstrong but I didn't appreciate his approach in VQ008

Cosmichail,

Thanks for the tip off ... I never trusted that Armstrong from the outset.

While I'm not making specific comments on what happened with VQ008 , I acknowledge that succession games work best with a co-operative and responsive team.

I guess we're in luck here that our turn-around time is about a week, and if someone doesn't participate, it's no big deal. For instance, we understand that Paul666's wife has had him chained to a pipe in a dark basement for at least ten days, so he's just skipped until the FBI finds him.

Chronic unexplained absenteeism however might get the treatment!

 

[pigswill]

In this variant a couple of absentees doesn't really make a difference. If you don't play you miss out the honour of the wooden spoon but you don't hold anyone up. If it got down to 2-3 players that would be more limiting but I don't think that's likely.
Having said that it would be courtesy to let other people know if you ain't available for a period of time.

 

[armstrong]

Why don't we just pass over this quickly. Cosmichail and I have played in a number of SG's, and this is something I'm sure will be sorted out soon. In any case, it's none of this thread's business... Our job here is to fix VuDu's game (and maybe get some revenge on that bear!)

 

[pigswill]

I agree. Back to the game.

 

[Cosmichail]

Cam H

I don't why (I had a good friend named Cam and he passed away some time ago) but I have been following your comments throughout civfanatics for some time now. Similiarly my friend Cam and you have the same kind of speech/intelligence.

You have a keen sense of humour and understand the game quite well. I apoligize for posting the comment about Armstrong here and he did try to post earlier in VQ008 but it didn't take. This caused a misunderstanding in VQ008 and other than that Armstrong is a good/prompt player.

ROFL about the Paul666.

 

[armstrong]

I don't why (I had a good friend named Cam and he passed away some time ago) but I have been following your comments throughout civfanatics for some time now.

I think it's the avatar - simply brilliant!

Oh, I played my turns, but just to make sure, are we playing to turn 80 or 81?

 

[Cosmichail]

Yeah I like the avatar too it's quite unique.

 

[Cam_H]

Cosmichail,

Thank you for your kind words.

You have a keen sense of humour ...

"Keen" is new … "Juvenile" tends to be the more common depiction.

I think it's the avatar - simply brilliant!

Yeah I like the avatar too it's quite unique.

Thanks again … (a.) I’m thinking of changing it to something a little more ‘Good Charlotte’ (some piercings and black eye shadow) but I feel that I’m stuck with Kublai Kahn as my canvas; wholesale changes to avatars can cause you to bamboozle other members on the boards. (b.) There are no degrees of 'uniqueness'; something is either unique or it is not unique.

Oh, I played my turns, but just to make sure, are we playing to turn 80 or 81?

To turn 80, which is 875 BC. Cabert and I each indicated '40 turns', but that was before VuDu's game of 41 turns was selected.

I agree. Back to the game.

Agreed. I’m looking forward to how this next Round is handled by everyone given that a six year old girl with a table tennis paddle could destroy our empire right now, so it's 'great' that we have the Mongols as neighbours.

 

[cabert]

i played my round too, and didn't go into any war yet...
I did some pretty stuff, but i think we're back into a strong position (tech lead, ressources, production capacity were my moto, to prepare for an easy war)

here is a turnlog and the save (a bit early, but i'm sure it won't give any spoilers to big time warmongers )

Spoiler :

We were short on population, short on cities, short on tech, too late to found an early religion, with no metals.

My goal was to perform a CS slingshot to recover in tech, then to get ready for a catapult/elephant rush (againt kublai kahn or any bold AI attacking us before we're ready).

To get up in population, i went for the highest food i could see = pigs+irrigated wheat alias pigswill's city, earning the ivory i needed for elephant rush.

Since we're not creative, i went for stonehenge early (2 chops!) and for confucianism. 1 religion+free obelisk = 2 cpt.
I didn't set a state religion, so that any religion entering our borders would give us culture. It didn't happen much though in my round, but i'm confident those 2cpt will prove useful on captured cities.

I am pretty confident about the ability to "slow rush" (= bombard, then attack, too late for a real rush without catapults IMHO) all our neighbours in the next round, with catapults, macemen (since i have settled a city next to copper) and elephants. No iron yet = no swordsmen. But who needs swordsmen when you have macemen ?

Spoiler :

turn 1 : started a warrior, checked tile (no s here ) used, checked units (changed mining to roading on the hill, set the cottage worker on roading too), sent settler to gold hill
turn 2 : built road on hill, sent settler 1 nw (1 move left, but didn't know where the bear had gone)
turn 3: sent settler 1 NE on the elephant, saw the bear so moved away (on the woods to the ne), both workers on a road in the grassland nw of the gold)
turn 4: sent settler W, on the pigswill city site(by the way, how did i not see how good this city was, when i opened the save? ) = captured the bear (he couldn't move once he was in my cultural borders), roaded the elephant.
turn 5: discovered archery, set research to mysticism (going for CS slingshot), berlin now size 2, so send the workers to finish gold mine, set pigwill's city to build a granary
turn 6 : send the workers to camp the ivory, set pigswill to work the ivory
turn 7 : warrior finished in berlin, set the city to build archer, workers finish the ivory camp. Warrior goes s,SW to explore/fogbust
turn 8, workers build road on the wheat crazyeye: should have improved the tile before!), warrior moves W on woods hill
turn 9: mysticism discovered, set research to meditation (still on the CS path), warrior goes NW on hill, workers start farming the wheat
turn 10 : warrior goes Nw on hill
turn 11 : warrior goes W on woods hill, sees copper, workers finish the farm. I set pigswill to work the wheat, berlin now size 3 works corn + gold mine + silver mine
turn 12 : warrior kills a wolf, not even hurt ha ha, so moves SW on another woods hill, workers move to the forest E of pigswill, setback pigswill to work the camp, to finish the granary. The bear is gone!
turn 13 : pigswill's granary is finished start stonehenge, berlin finishes archer, starts another granary. Meditation discovered, start researching priesthood. Sent archer to pigswill and warrior further sw. workers build a road on the forest
turn 14: warrior moves S, set pigswill (should have left hambourg, i'm getting tired of this), workers start chopping
turn 15 : archer in pigswill, warrior moves back north, worker complete chopping (30 hammers to pigswill)
turn 16 : priesthood discovered, research to AH, pigswill size 2, works the wheat and the ivory, warrior moves N, workers move W of pigswill
turn 17 : berlin finishes granary, starts archer, warrior moves N (general direction = only on woods, hills, ...), workers start chopping
turn 18 : workers finish chopping, one moves to the gold hill E of pigswill, warrior still heading N, switch berlin to barracks
turn 19 : AH discovered, start research on writing, Isabella found me, worker 1 starts road on hill, worker 2 starts a road on the pigs, barb warrior next to our warrior so i fortify our in the woods and berlin switches back to archer
turn 20 : our warrior defeats barb warrior and earns himself a combat promotion (we'll need a medic soon, i think), i let him heal on the spot. I pop rush stonehenge in pigswill (for the culture).
turn 21 : after stonehenge, i start oracle in pigswill. worker one and 2 start a mine E of pigswill.
turn 22 : berlin finishes archer, 1 turn before growth so i let it work on barracks. warrior moves NW on woods, archer fortifies in berlin
turn 23 : writing discovered, start on CoL. culture expansion in pigswill. I send both workers to the pigs and start a pasture. warrior moves W on plains(not NW, because there is fog there, and i'm in the open). Berlin now size 4 works corn + gold + 2xsilver, and starts a settler. Did i mention pigswill was immediately back to size 2 thanks to the granary? I open borders with isabella (to let her religion come in).
Turn 24 : warrior moves NW on hill, sees horses. I open borders with kublai (to let religion come in)
turn 25 : pisgwill now size 3, works the wheat, the pigs the ivory. warrior moves NE, workers move to the gold.
turn 26 : workers start a gold mine, warrior moves NE
turn 27 : pigswill now size 4 (that was fast!), works wheat, pigs, ivory and gold mine (CoL in 7, oracle in 8 ) warrior moves NE into the woods.
turn 28 : workers move to gold n°2 (should have done the other mine before ), warrior moves NW into the woods.
turn 29 : workers build road on gold n°2, warrior goes back S for fogbuting the copper site
turn 30 : pigswill now size 5! works wheat, grassland woods, pigs, gold mine, ivory.
turn 31 : gold mine 2 finished, pigswill works pigs, wheat, gold x 2 + grassland forest (i don't want oracle to be built before CoL is researched)
turn 32 : my workers spot a barb warrior, they move away to a grassland next to the river
turn 33 : berlin finishes settler, back to barracks. Berlin works gold, corn, silver and a farm, to grow. Settler moves Westwards. Workers build a road. Col in 1
turn 34 : confucianism founded in pigswill, now size 6! Oracle due next turn . settler moves Westwards. the warrior moves in the open to bust the fog for the settler. The confucianist missionary is sent Westwards, to give the new city some culture. I didn't switch to confucianism, since we don't need a religion war, just now. workers start a cottage.
teching towards mathematics.
turn 35 : oracle is finished, chose CS as free tech (first time cs slingshot for me: open some champagne!), pigswill starts barracks. settler moves to crazy "one tile from coast" spot (it's the best i can do there, as far as i know), warrior is already there, missionary not far behind. I revolt to bureaucracy.
turn 36 : hambourg founded, starts granary, workers continue road building
turn 37 : missionary arrives in hambourg
turn 38 : workers build road
turn 39 : barracks finished in berlin, library started, workers build road

I finished turn 39, and discovered mathematics, pigswill is now size 7 (happiness cap!), confucianism has spread to berlin, and i set research to masonry, berlin is now size 5, works 3 mines, corn and farm. It's growing slowly, but still growing. We could rush the library there for 2 pops, but it would be a bad idea : slow growth, and highly productive tiles + library will be finished in 6 turns, just in time to start axemen. Hambourg will grow faster when the tiles will be improved, but right now it's a bit slow. Pigswill's city will finish barracks this turn, and can start on a temple just after that (to gain one happy!). It should be finished in time for axemen bulding.

One more thing : we are down in power, and Nappy just loves to strike powerless civilizations... I didn't give him open borders to avoid bounty counting, but i fear he's going to attack anyway. Could give us some free xps...
One more thing 2 : isabella is kublai's worst enemy. And i opened borders with both

edit : i did send a warrior straight to the west but it's what i did in my first round too! Kublai to the east, tundra to the south, some exploration done to the north, it seemed to me the right thing to do + fogbusting was necessary. I don't feel cheating there (and i didn't send the settler straight to the unknown copper site!).

 

[pigswill]

Fools seldom differ (worth comparing my version to Cabert's).

Spoiler :

Started by chopping for a couple of warriors; sent one off to Hamburg ; kept other in Berlin. Produced a few archers for exploring/ fog-busting. Vanilla CS slingshot (1000bc which was cutting it fine); founded confucianism in Hamburg in the process, put Oracle in Hamburg to keep all GP points in one place; with CS slingshot I'd use Prophet for Shrine. Roaded towards western copper, got it established; built another worker somewhere along the way. I also managed to do a reasonable bit of exploring.
In terms of overall strategy its kind of obvious that the mongols ain't going to last long because that's they're the obvious first target. Then its a matter of picking sides between Bella and Nap, neither of them wonderful choices but we could have had Tog and Monte.
I'd probably be looking at another city to the north west before thinking about war.
In terms of city specialisation Berlin is not the long term capital; too remote and not going to be either huge commerce or production monster. Later on I'll be looking for a site further north to turn into a cottaged science monster capital. What Berlin may well be suited for is a GP Farm, probably aim for something slightly different, farm grasslands obviously then alternate between mines for wonder building and specialists between wonders. Hamburg is going to be the long term money city, aim to put a shrine there, spread confuciainism and eventually wall street so its another city I want to keep primarily farm/production. Munich is going to be the whipping post for troops, its got two good food and a production tile, it'll never get big but should get big enough to whip out units; needs granary, barracks and forge (for metal happy as well as production bonus).
I tend to go for tech trading as much as poss. This will mean avoiding AI preferred tech paths.Casual observation suggests that AI tend to go maths, currency, calendar, monarchy, feudalism, guilds, banking as favourites in classical/medieval times soI'll probably go along the top (alphabet, lit) then along the bottom (metalwork, machinery, optics) which should give me enough trading material.

On the other hand:

Spoiler :

Cabert's game is clearly ahead of mine by every measure. Main differences were getting stonehenge, early AH and pottery. Interestingly demographics gives Cabert more soldiers yet I have more units, esoteric bonusses for techs and pop account for this; there's a thread explaining it all. Hopefully one of the proper monarch players may know the link.
Looking at Cabert's save and hearing his commentary I guess he's heading towards a fairly early war and thus teching towards construction. My preference at this point is to hang on a bit longer (its only 800bc so we're not running out of tim); bit more infrastructure; trade some tech and then go for war. Can't really comment on anyone else's game until they're posted.
Edit: Now I get to comment on Armstrong's game. MC oracle is more powerful than CoL oracle but less powerful than CS oracle in terms of free beakers; its also less of a gamble generally and gives you forge for GE points so you could argue either way. I'm not convinced by his desert gold city, even with the food tiles its likely to be a bit of a hybrid; too good for whipping coz of the gold but not enough growth potential to be a supercity; as well as the desert tiles there are quite a few plains tiles as well. My overall verdict would be its as good as mine (tho different) but not as good as Cabert's. Good point about timing when starting granary.Edit: ok as Cabert pointed out, not such a good point. Well, what do I know? I'm still a beginner.
Vudu's game. City placement similar to Armstrong, slightly stronger IMHO. If oracle 1000bc is a bit of a risk then oracle 500bc is a bigger risk tho ok if it comes off. Vudu it seems that you have good ideas but need to speed up their implementation (I'm the same). Because of speed of development not the strongest game this round.
Mice's Game: Over-modest self-appraisal. CS slingshot, 2 cities with 2 settlers almost done. Did play a couple of extra turns and building roads into darkness? An act of faith? Not taking it seriously? Slightly behind the pack, but not miles behind. IMO Would have been closer if Mice had played the round a bit more seriously.
Cam-H: Ahead on number of cities and got iron. Didn't go for oracle thus trailing on tech. Expanding towards the enemy. Munich/ Hamburg slight overlap and competing for a couple of grassland tiles. Didn't get marble in BFC but available on first expansion. Not totally convinced on city placement to be honest but east half of continent is more difficult to dotmap.

 

[cabert]

Fools seldom differ (worth comparing my version to Cabert's).

do you mean you build your city again, in the same spot???
Strange game
I'll open your save as soon as possible, to see those tiny diffences.
I found myself short on workers, but rich on GProphetsP. Not my usual game at all!

I must say i have a lot of fun with this variant.
I had some minor computer problems, and some major issues (i played 80 turns, then remembered i had to post something ), but i found the turnlog "work" very useful for permanent thinking (not forgetting what i was doing this time! + keeping in mind the strategy i was trying to follow)
I can't wait for the next round

 

[Cam_H]

Cabert and Pigswill,

I haven't had a chance to look at either games (I am still at my weekday work locale) but I've gone in a different direction. I can see some comparative strengths in your games in light of the options you've pursue with things seemingly going as planned.

Thank goodness we don't have to pick the trash game this round ... I feel very relieved, as I've taken an alternative slant that might be judged as (or far less likely ... who knows?).

 

[cabert]

Cabert and Pigswill,

I haven't had a chance to look at either games (I am still at my weekday work locale) but I've gone in a different direction. I can see some comparative strengths in your games in light of the options you've pursue with things seemingly going as planned.

Thank goodness we don't have to pick the trash game this round ... I feel very relieved, as I've taken an alternative slant that might be judged as (or far less likely ... who knows?).

i was thinking of the vote...
it's not time yet, but i have the feeling our prince/noble partners will need some insight to judge our games.
My turnlog is a bit dry, and although i tried to explain the whys and hows, it doesn't strike me as very clear.

But pigswill didn't even give a turnlog!
I can't open the game right now, but i have the feeling the differences may be very small (maybe as little as a worker more for pigswill, and stonehenge more for me).
I don't want to be selected just because i explained more/better what i did, same for cam_h, armstrong or any other ("prince" players are welcome to give it a try!) submitting a game!
I don't want the best writeup to be selected, i want the best situation to be explained and selected.
In the first round, i missed the very good move on pigswill second city!
I just didn't see the ivory in the fat cross, because in the early game i went for copper. But i know the value of ivory (i even started a thread about it a while ago : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=174263)
I saw it when he answered my illthought assumption that this was a bad spot!
Well, i must say i didn't look hard at his game because he obviously was in the leading pack with a clear strategy, so i looked harder at low teching games that were more likely to be selected. But still, i have missed an important strategic option he had opened early.

I'm writing all this because i like this game so much already and i want it to be :
- instructive
- fun!
The fun part i get because i will face situations i would never have provoked by myself. The instructive part is in the posts!

Please all, put your knowledge in the writeup, state what you did and what for.

I'll correct my own writeup to add some strategic level input.
I hope every submission will include at least :
- general strategic vision
- situation statement = what can be done easily from there
- long term thinking = how some moves enter the general strategic vision.
If we follow those 3 things, i have the feeling that our games may be better evaluated and have more instructive value.

 

[pigswill]

Good points Cabert. I'll expand on my write-up; I must admit (probably because I've been playing a lot of Succession Games (SGs) recently) that I've gone off the round by round account though they should still be available by turn log (control T) from the save.
Something that's even more interesting is that I copied your strategy from my 2400bc save and it worked out worse than the same strategy from Vudu's save (so maybe mine was the trash game).

 

[mice]

Cabert, I really appreciate the long turn log. I'm replaying the game from 2400BC following your moves, mainly because of the great development of Pigswill (city).

The difference between a good 40 turns and a great 40 turns seems to be in the details, which all add up to a much stronger situation.

 

[cabert]

Good points Cabert. I'll expand on my write-up; I must admit (probably because I've been playing a lot of Succession Games (SGs) recently) that I've gone off the round by round account though they should still be available by turn log (control T) from the save.
Something that's even more interesting is that I copied your strategy from my 2400bc save and it worked out worse than the same strategy from Vudu's save (so maybe mine was the trash game).

certainly not ! You had a lot more techs available at this point, the city was already there, defenders were there too...

maybe you didn't rush things like i did?
I'm a slaver! You will rarely see one of my cities without unhappiness from the whip!
I often have 2 or 3 unhappiness from the whip in conquered cities.

edit : i openened my save again (to compare with pigswill's) and saw i didn't whip anything in the last 10 turns! For my defense i must say that berlin has so much good tiles it would be a bad idea to whip it under pop 5. For the second city, i kept the pop too because there was no needed item right now but in the next few turns it could whip either a catapult or an axe, or even an elephant.

 

[armstrong]

I'll post a detailed report up this evening. I took pretty good notes, but given the nature of this game I also want to put together something pretty comprehensive on why I opted for certain strategies. I went a (fairly) different route than pigswill and cabert, so I'm curious to take a look at the other the saves. At least from how things look on paper, I don't think I'm going to have the best fix - but there's going to be a lot of intangibles to weight and dissect, I think. This will be fun.

 

[armstrong]

Phew. Yikes, I just finished writing my report. I think it might have crossed the thin line that separates thoroughness and incomprehensibility. I'm going to go see how much I can tighten it up, but here's my save to take a look at (on paper, looks much worse, but I make a case for it in the report )
That report - with the three things cabert asked for - will come later tonight.

Executive Summary

Spoiler :

The plan was Oracle slingshot to Metalcasting for +2 happy forges. Hire engineer right away to speed up GP, either prophet for CS or engineer. Head towards Macemen and use the +happy from forge, ivory, metals, religion to whip the bejeebus out of our cities.

The big wrinkle (though I kind of knew it anyway): no iron or copper! Khan stole the only two spots I (playing fairly) knew of. I'm set to have macers by 600 BC or so if I got a great prophet (or Pyramids as consolation), but alas, no dice without iron or copper. Still pretty strong I think.

Settled 2 cities by splitting up pigswillville's land, one a commerce city or GPF and the other a HE production site (unless Khan has a better one, in which case just a generic military city.)

In game notes

These aren't that informative, but will give you a glimpse of some of the things I'm thinking about as my strategy evolves, or some little MM things, stuff like that.

Spoiler :

Pre Turn
Our research has been slow, but it's been focused on useful techs - we have BW, Pottery, etc. Rather than build an escort right away for our settler (as I imagine most folks will)

I'm going to build a Granary to speed up growth. We're expansive, so it's cheap, and it gives us time to research Archery to escort the settler. It's not safe to send that family out with just a warrior, since we have a bear around.

Also, just before the city grows I work the silver mine to stop the capital from growing.

Why? Because if we grow after we build the granary, it's worth half a population! This lets the granary be built the exact same time archery comes in.

Turn 45
We have our granary and the city is set to grow to size 2. Start on an archer who's going to get the help of another forest chop. Our second worker moves to chop again, it should come in 1 turn later in time to spillover onto a third settler.

KK has just settled a second city, to get bronze (!) so the first settler is going to be sent to the two gold/wine/cow/rice site. Third settler will grab the tuskers and wheat+pigs. I'd settle wheat pigs first normally, but I don't want to let Khan grab the two golds.

I'm planning on clear cutting the capital - we're expansive, which means we get +3 health and cheap granaries - and we'll grab all three grains with our first 3 cities! That's +9 health in all cities, it's not going to be an issue The plan is to use chops to build a third settler while letting the city grow building archers to protect our empire.

Turn 53
Second archer moves to third city site. One worker goes to the second city to hook up rice.

Start on a 3rd archer to explore west. As to the decision of west, we seem to have some good city spots in that direction, and we've blocked Khan as well as we can now. But, in general, the real prize is that big grass river valley and the gems to the NW... +2 more happiness in all cities with forges, and dozens of cottages!

Turn 56

Berlin grows to size 4, finishes archer and goes to finish chopped settler. Work all 3 metals while finishing breeding the settlers. Oracle might be tight, and we're going to lose two turns to get the 3rd settler out, but I think it's worth the risk.

After Priesthood, research is set to IW... we need something to make swords out of.

After Settler, I keep Berlin stagnating at size 4 working all 3 metals to speed up Oracle... it will only take 10 turns, less with the chops.

Turn 65
Wow. Well, knew it already, but I wasn't "expecting" not to have any iron near when IW comes in. One spot is out there, but I don't know if I can beat Khan to it. It also has marble for GLib. If not, we'll need to explore more.

Turn 66
I hear the "ding" - did I miss the Oracle? No, Judaism has been founded. Phew.

Turn 67
Berlin starts on a forge. Switch from a mine to a farm to grow the city. A forest chop will finish the forge.

Khan took our iron site, so we need to find a metal. Hire an archer to explore - we'll want a few fog busting too so a stray axe doesn't pillage us before our elephants are in.

[ed. I actually don't think it's necessary to find metal now, just hold off the barbs until elephants come in and stamp Khan. I've only seen 2 barb warriors so far.

I kind of got into the game at this point and stopped commenting, but I hired an engineer as soon as the forge was built. I should have researched AH earlier, as it set back both my second and third city. Had a smoke move starting to build an Obelisk in Munich that wasn't necessary.]

 

[armstrong]

Okay, here is my (excised ) report. I hope you like reading...

I split it into categories to make for easier browsing. Really, if you're the type to get glassy-eyed, "Notes on General Strategy" and "Final Thoughts" are where to look. The junk in the middle and the end ain't so critical, but it's there for those who want some more nuts and bolts.

Notes on general strategy

Spoiler :

Being Industrious means we get cheap forges, and with two metals, that means we can get 2 happiness on the cheap. That's a great deal, and so the focus is early Metalcasting. We also have a ivory and wine in range of our cities, as well as two more gold for more happiness.

One of the problems with getting early Macemen is the time it takes to build up an army of them. However, by focusing on happiness and forges, we can whip cities multiple times in a row - who cares about accumulating some unhappiness when you have this much? With two high food cities focused on that (and the bureacratic capital focused on growing as large as possible and working river cottages to support it all) we can quickly field a huge mace/cat/elephant army sufficient to conquest our continent.

The fastest way to get Metalcasting is through an Oracle slingshot, so I intended to do that. Really, I don't know (or care) if this is the best way. I tried exactly this with Bismarck on GOTM8, and wasn't too pleased with the results. However, I think part of that was due to general bad play in the early going. I knew someone else would go for the CS sling, so what better time to compare the two than now?

One of the things about early forges, too, is that you can set a city to run an engineer to speed up your first GP considerably. If we build the Oracle, then quickly build a forge, we have a less than 50% chance (but still decent) of getting a Great Engineer in our capital about 18 turns or so after the Oracle is built. If we get lucky, that should be enough time for the Pyramids. A prophet instead can be saved to research Civil Service, making this almost as effective as a CS slingshot and a really nice "win-win."

The plan is for the capital to be research-focused. It can grow to a huge size, so early bureacracy is also important to work those cottages and metals. This will be the commercial engine that drives our conquests, which will be based upon heavy use of slavery to build the initial force.

How did that turn out?

Spoiler :

Well, not as well as planned. The main problem right now is that lack of Copper or Iron. I researched IW, "assuming" that there would be iron nearby that we could grab - I've never had a situation where I've been unable to secure it easily. However, that's not the case here. The only iron we see was taken by Kublai Khan about 10 turns before I could have gotten my fourth settler to the city. Not waiting to found the third city until I knew where the Iron was at was a crucial mistake. Right now, we have no knowledge of where any metal is (though, we do have an explorer near the "unknown" copper.) This is not terrible - we can defend ourselves with archers for the time being, and can research Mathematics -> Masonry (must wait to see if Great Prophet spawns first) -> Construction and take KK's iron with just Elephants and Catapults. If we quickly whip a force out, we can secure KK's iron city in time for Machinery to come in without missing much of a beat. Of course, if we find our own source of Copper/Iron first we can take that as well, but I think this route is better anyway.

How does it compare to the other games? Part I - Tech rates and techs known

Spoiler :

First off, I'm going to consciously be (mostly) advocating my game, at least initially. This is simply to highlight the advantages of my game that I saw and that others might have missed. Don't construe this an an endorsement.

In terms of both research rate and production rate, I'm behind cabert's game. I'm also behind pigswill's game in terms of research rate. Because of this, I'm going to compare my game mostly with cabert's (since I agree with pigswill's assessment that cabert's is the stronger of the two (?) CS slingshot games.)

The lack of research rate is a direct consequence of not doing the CS slingshot. However, it's important to realize the benefits of having either a Great Prophet or Great Engineer coming along in 11 turns. In the more likely case of a Great Prophet (and it can be tweaked to make the odds better by stopping the engineer for two turns) that's over 1000 free beakers. In fact, breaking it down, I'll compare it to cabert's game.

cabert's game has: Mathmetics, Civil Service, Code of Laws
armstrong's game has: Iron Working, Metal Casting

Which, from my perspective, looks pretty bleak. But..

cabert's game will have Masonry->Construction in 9 turns, and could have IW & Metalcasting in 12 more (probably 11 due to spillover) so in 20 turns he'd have elephants and have the other techs.

armstrong's game will have CoL in 1 turn (guaranteed to found Confucianism), Mathematics in 7, CS and Polytheism in 13-14 (if a Great Prophet is born!) with half of Alphabet researched, and Masonry & Construction in 24 (with spillover, probably 22 turns)

So tech wise, they're pretty close. Both games will have a library in their capital soon, speeding up research (with more benefit to cabert) but my game will gain bureaucracy too in addition, which should be enough to shave the two turns difference between the techs, giving my game about half an Alphabet tech lead. However, crucially, cabert's game gets his Construction earlier to start the elephant and cat build up, and it's not a given that he'd want to research IW right away since he has copper (though MC would be logical for forges & prereq to Machinery.)

On the other hand, if a Great Engineer comes along, it can be used for the Pyramids if they're not built before 500ish BC. Representation isn't the civic to switch to here - it's Police State for the military build up as we have plenty of happiness anyway, and won't be running many specialists for a while with this much metal to work. Combined with the extra happiness of forges giving us two more whips, this means that army will be built much sooner. A +50% bonus to building troops is nothing to laugh at, especially with a in hand.

How does it compare to other games? Part II - City placement and development

Spoiler :

cabert's first two cities are larger than mine (by 3 population total) and his second city is much more developed than mine. In terms of buildings, he has an extra barracks (and another due in 1 turn. My third city lacks the obelisk his third city has from Stonehenge, but I won't need one as either that city will found Confucianism, or Hamburg will and can send it's missionary over there. In fact, I started one which was a move, wasting 6 hammers in the process. Oops.

On the other hand, I have a forge completed and a second one almost done in my second city, and can whip a granary in my third city next turn. Furthermore, my game has an extra worker a completed road network in all of the cities, and more improvements in my third city. Both of cabert's workers are tied up with getting the bronze online (something I didn't need to worry about ) for the forseeable future, which limits the growth potential of Pigswill's City and Berlin.

His military is less well-developed than mine, with an extra warrior but two less archers. He will get axemen online sooner than I will, however. I've spotted some barb warriors already while he hasn't, but I have a couple of archers out fogbusting/exploring.

As for city placement, I think mine is stronger. He mentioned making his second city a GP farm, and while it's a fine city it won't make a good GP farm. Even with everything farmed, it can only run 4 specialists pre-biology and still work it's two gold mines. It does have solid production to build wonders, however, if it neglects running specialists. It seems to be to me that it would make a much better Heroic Epic city.

My two cities, on the other hand, split the land shared between cabert's second city, allowing me to have a solid Heroic Epic city and a very strong commerce city or GPF.

Final thoughts

Spoiler :

I'll need to see all the other saves and comments before I can judge the games, but right now I see significant advantages to both approaches. For the goals of this game - fast conquest - my approach gives a slower start to the troop build up but can execute it much more quickly. It will achieve tech parity if a Great Prophet is born, or else it will have the advantage of getting the Pyramids at the cost of CS.

I think that my save would be the better position if I had waited for IW to settle my third city - I could have beat KK to the Wine, Marble, Iron city, and settled my 4th in the high food - grass river area, which would be significantly stronger for this approach because I could skip cats initially and get straight into whipping Macemen, as cats won't be necessary for any of Khan's cities except, perhaps, his capital. Unfortunately, I gambled on the Iron and got burnt.

On the other hand, I think cabert and pigswills' games have room for improvement, too. I think they'd be in a stronger position if they had settled the cities as I had done. cabert is going to get Construction at about the same time as his axers come in, so there was no need to rush for the copper in a bad location (distance penalty, 6 tundra, 3 water tiles and no lighthouse.) Ultimately, I think a hypothetical game - CS slingshot + my (or better) city placement + early Construction & elephant/cat rush - would be the strongest of them all so far.

Which never once occurred to me until I start comparing the saves, which just goes to show you how much you can learn from games like this! and thanks everyone.

Looking ahead for my game

Spoiler :

If I were to continue playing my save, I'd scout around a bit for a decent metal site. If I found one close enough that I could grab it in a reasonable amount of time (i.e., have it up going in 11-12 turns) I would, if not I would just plan on pressing on with Elephants and Cats to take Kublai's iron and not expanding beyond my current 3 cities, focusing instead of some archers (for defense during the push to construction, and later, as garrison troops for conquered cities or military police for HR, a library in Berlin, a forge in Munich, and barracks in all cities.

I will research Mathematics followed by Polytheism and (some of) Alphabet.

In 11 turns, when the Great Person is born, if it were an engineer I'd switch research immediately to Masonry and send the person to Munich if the Pyramids have not been built yet. If they have, I'd debate about it a bit. If it's a Prophet, he'll discover (most) of CS and I'll finish researching it. After that, research goes directly to Construction for elephants and catapults, then priorities are Machinery, Alphabet & Literature.

If I do end up building the Pyramids in Munich, I will specialize it as a GP city to take advantage of the Great Engineer source and Representation (though I'll switch to Police State first for the military buildup, then to Representation when the armies are built and maybe Caste System for artists/merchants in new cities.) If not, I still might make it a GPF, I'd have to decide.