P666-01 Fix the Trash Game

[cabert]

armstrong,
i'll open your save tonight, so i can have an opinion.

Spoiler :

The cheap forges are on my mind too (to be precise, i hinted to them already before the game started), but i went straight to cat/elephant rush.
With barracks already built, and lots of population to whip i think i did exactly what i intended (the copper is a bonus, i thought i wouldn't be able to get any metal).
I think you're wrong about not needing cats. Kublai is creative!
In my game, i'm a little down on power, waiting for copper to start building explorers (axemen) and for cats/elephants to start building a conquering army. I decided against more exploration, seeing that kublai and isabella were expanding/exploring like crazy = no need to fogbust (only to the west, which i did by building the copper city). That leaves the south (tundra/snow) for barb popping, but with cultural expansion from stonehenge and religion (which i already have, confucianism is cool) the barbs come from far away = many hills to send an archer to.

edit :
you're wrong about how the granary works!
the granary stores half the food you earn from the moment it is built. Nothing more, nothing less. So there is no point stopping growth, even for one turn. (well, you "win" half of one turns food, but lost more because you stopped the growth)

 

[cabert]

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.

Tell me how it goes!
i did some simplifications (does this word exist?) so you may not notice every small difference (like pigswill's city growing back to size 2 at a point i didn't write).

I didn't build another worker so i managed very exactly (with few moves, although not 0), and that's the decisive part. At a point i had more pop than useful tiles so i pop rushed stonehenge : the city had room to grow again and i got the culture to expand just in time for my workers to build the pasture, so pigswill's city could always work worthwhile tiles.
Berlin was harder to manage since i had to switch between growth tiles/silver mines. I never have this much of juggling to do in my own games, but this was fun, and i tried to write it down as good as possible.

And post your own game (not a copy of mine please )!

 

[armstrong]

Spoiler :

With barracks already built, and lots of population to whip i think i did exactly what i intended (the copper is a bonus, i thought i wouldn't be able to get any metal).

Exactly! I see what you're shooting for. The Metalcasting slingshot doesn't make sense if you're going to attack first with elephants anyway, as the point of it is to bring you closer to macemen. On the other hand, I think if you look at my city placement you'd agree that for your goals it's better - you'd have more production, same happiness resources but more health, closer cities to the frontline, better long-term prospects, and you'd have also saved a lot of turns in worker development. (Funnily enough, for my goals your cities are better! )

On another hand, however, if you have metal I think it's better to go for Machinery rather than Construction (not necessarily now, since you already have Math researched.) It wouldn't have taken much more time, and:

I think you're wrong about not needing cats. Kublai is creative!

I disagree Cultural defenses matter a lot more when the battles are close, but with macemen, these battles aren't close. After the first city (which will be on flat land and 20% culture so it's easy) you'd have two CR2 macers leading the pack.

The worst case scenairo outside the capital is (which would be uncommon):

CR2 mace vs. CD1 archer with 40% culture on a hill = 3.1 vs. 2.1

Combat2 Elephant vs. CD1 archer with 0% culture on a hill = 4 vs. 3

Even with the culture, you're still looking at 90+% odds with the maces. You don't really need the cats with macemen until you get down to the capital, and even then they're unnecessary if it's not on a hill, or you're willing to risk a mace or two.

Elephants are my favorite units, but they're more expensive than macemen and not as good for attacking cities. You get cats as well with construction, but you wouldn't need them if you had gone for Macemen.

you're wrong about how the granary works!
the granary stores half the food you earn from the moment it is built. Nothing more, nothing less. So there is no point stopping growth, even for one turn. (well, you "win" half of one turns food, but lost more because you stopped the growth)

You're right! I should read that article in the Strategy Articles section on it. I thought I had a it figured out.

 

[pigswill]

I've never really figured out granaries either. Live and learn. Simplification is certainly a word.

Spoiler :

Armstrong: while machinery is one half of maces and metal-casting a good step towards machinery as well as forges providing happy faces there's still Civil Service, which is fine if you pop a Prophet, not so sure what happens if you pop a GE

 

[cabert]

There are 3 submissions right now, it's a bit early to compare.
Cam_h did play, he'll submit his game soon, i hope. He implied going a radically different way, so we're going to see a large variety of "monarch level" games. I hope our "prince level" partners don't get shy and try it out too!
I'm sure vudu can continue her own game with some good recovering strats.
I'm also sure mice or wIII or Petrucci's games may show some interesting variations. It would be great to see a "downer" skyrocket us back

 

[cabert]

I'm not so sure I'd rate VuDu's as the "trash" game. William III's execution and luck was definitely better, but I'm not sure if, strategically, an early war is the best idea in a start like this...

what do you mean?
did you open every save game?

Do you mean my game is the trash game
I was in a crippling (for him) war with kublai (and missed kublai's worker on top of it!, darn creative leaders!), and i'm pretty sure i could have killed the bugger in the next 40 turns (i had copper, he had only one unimproved city, i had loads of forests, he could not even send out a worker)

Going to war early is often a bad thing... for the AI!
The AI goes into war mode, so forgets about wonders/religious techs...keeps workers at home...
After a long uneventful fake war, the AI is ripe for a short real conquest war (no mercy).

Do you mind to develop your point?

 

[Cam_H]

"Radically different"?

Try "Radically awful"!

Thorough scientific analysis completed ...

Spoiler :

(Image removed - server space - did contain data indicating Cam had one more city and access to Iron)

OK - so after such a lenthy consideration of all the data, it's pretty apparent who's game is the best.

Spoiler :

I'm in hiding until we see some activity from Mice, VuDu, William and Petrucci (and Paul?).

 

[pigswill]

Cabert: re early war. Going from your first save you could have continued your war against KK. In this situation you'd have gone for a metal city next; built some axes; yes you'd have taken KK out but you'd only have acquired one city in the process, probably missed out on oracle; you'd have more space for subsequent expansion but you would have been trailing. Wouldn't have been the trash game but would it have been the best? I say all this in the knowledge that comparing our two games you are ahead of me.

 

[armstrong]

what do you mean?
did you open every save game?

I thought I did, but I must have missed yours. I'll go take a look.

Do you mind to develop your point?

Not at all. Let me take a look at your save first, though.

Edit: Actually, pigswill says more or less what I was going to say just above. By "early war" I was talking about fighting with axes and swords, as opposed to elephants and maces. I don't know if that was your intention, or if your intention was to just stealing a worker and cripple Khan. In this case, though, I wonder if that would be a good idea? When Kublai gets steamrolled coming up, the more cities he has the better...

Edit #2:

Actually, if you want to find out, you could just play the 40 turns out and compare it to your 40 turns from VuDu's save. I'd be kind of curious to see how it turns out, actually.

 

[pigswill]

Usually for me early war means axes or axes and cats but I'd rather acquire more than one city having gone to the expense of building up a stack.

Be nice to have some contributions from our Noble Princes; both in the discussion thread and maybe even some saves. Edit: comments do not have to be limited to awestruck admiration (ROFL) but questions, observations and even (gasp) criticism.

 

[VuDu]

I found myself unexpectedly flustered in this next round. While obsessing over areas I don't usually focus on, I somehow managed to overlook a couple of big things that I normally have no problem with. I guess that's from being under a microscope .

Spoiler :

Built a granary while waiting for archery, then built archers and settlers, chopping a few forests along the way. Founded Hamburg and started working on a granary until the oracle was available to build, for CS slingshot. I completely spaced and should have built stonehenge first, but didn't realize I missed it until I thought if I switched, I might miss both.

Sent some archers out exploring. Met Isabella. Founded Munich and started a worker there. I accepted requests for open borders from Isabella and Napoleon, then a bit later Kublai. Napoleon demanded a gold resource and I turned him down.

Once I got CoL, I checked on the oracle and was horrified to see that my worked tiles were switched in Hamburg and the oracle was still many turns away! I started researching alphabet in the meantime, and will probably miss the oracle too. I rarely micromanage my city tiles, so I don't know if the switching around (after the intentional switching) was something I did accidently or if the city manager 'helped' me.

I'll be back tomorrow to see how everyone else did.

 

[armstrong]

I found myself unexpectedly flustered in this next round. While obsessing over areas I don't usually focus on, I somehow managed to overlook a couple of big things that I normally have no problem with. I guess that's from being under a microscope

Just make sure you're having fun

Spoiler :

Once I got CoL, I checked on the oracle and was horrified to see that my worked tiles were switched in Hamburg and the oracle was still many turns away! I started researching alphabet in the meantime, and will probably miss the oracle too. I rarely micromanage my city tiles, so I don't know if the switching around (after the intentional switching) was something I did accidently or if the city manager 'helped' me.

The city manager on by default, and he will turn off if you manually change a tile around... did you accidentally click a tile twice and turn someone into a citizen? I have a tendency to do that occasionally...

Somewhat unrelated, but one thing that alot of folks don't know is that even if the city manager is off, you can use the emphasize buttons. The city manager won't mess with existing tiles, but if the population changes he'll assign the new population (or remove the lost population) by following the guidelines of the buttons. I usually have a lot of cities that look like this:

This is really helpful, because if you emphasize food the city manager won't assign specialists in towns you don't want to run them in. Usually, once I have a city working the tiles I know I want it to work, I'll just emphasize food and production or food and commerce based upon its specialization... this cuts down on 95% of the MM I would otherwise have to do to be content with my cities

Another trick that helped me to stay on top of my cities is to use the "+" and "-" keys to cycle through them. If you open up the city screen, pressing "+" will move on to the next city's screen. This makes it really easy check up on all your cities every once in a while to make sure the city manager didn't decide to do something stupid.

In the early game, I'll do this fairly often. Later on, I'll do it pretty irregularly, generally when something big happens (civic switch, Golden Age, end of a war, etc.) In an SG, I'll generally do this almost every turn if I'm not distracted by war

 

[mice]

Here's mine. It's pretty unexceptional. As the save to be chosen is the best, I wouldn't bother looking too hard at it.

Main thing is, I'm enjoying this thread very much

I wouldn't mind if ,on the upswing turnset, the Noble/Prince players didnt submit. It means having less to analyse. On the downswing turnset though to get the Mon/Emp players saves is great for learning. Just a thought to make it simpler.

BTW could someone remind me who votes on this turnset ?

People who open the save may notice a worker building a road into the darkness(copper) Oops. As I knew my save wouldnt be selected i didn't worry about this too much. In the trash game turnset I will play honestly.

 

[cabert]

Here's mine. It's pretty unexceptional. As the save to be chosen is the best, I wouldn't bother looking too hard at it.

well, it's the same thing as what you say about Mon/emp playing downswing. It's about learning. You just can't feel the difference if you don't play.
In the first turnset, i didn't even open cam_h's game, since his description told me it was not bad. Maybe not the best, but who cares, when you look for the worst?

Main thing is, I'm enjoying this thread very much

same for me!
i always look at this thread first thing in the morning

I wouldn't mind if ,on the upswing turnset, the Noble/Prince players didnt submit. It means having less to analyse. On the downswing turnset though to get the Mon/Emp players saves is great for learning. Just a thought to make it simpler.

Beware of one thing (i don't know if it's true for cam_h, pigswill or armstrong when he'll have a chance to play a downswing), i played the "down" part only to get a feeling of the game, giving little thought and very little strategy. I felt so bad about it that i started again afterwards to see if i really was this bad (and i'm not, second try was much better with a copper city built + a free worker from kublai + more exploration + better techs, but i submitted the first go anyway)

BTW could someone remind me who votes on this turnset ?

AFAIK, everone in the roster votes. You can't vote for your own game, though (pigswill proposed this, and i think it's the best solution)

edit : before the vote, we wait for our Grand Master to post his save and declare the round over, i think.

People who open the save may notice a worker building a road into the darkness(copper) Oops. As I knew my save wouldnt be selected i didn't worry about this too much. In the trash game turnset I will play honestly.

yes, it's about the same as my "down" submission. Not too much focus on it

I rarely micromanage my city tiles, so I don't know if the switching around (after the intentional switching) was something I did accidently or if the city manager 'helped' me

it's the governor! beware of this guy
Armstrong gave pretty sound advice about this. My way of doing things is to check a city after every change (growth/expansion/tile improvement).

Usually for me early war means axes or axes and cats but I'd rather acquire more than one city having gone to the expense of building up a stack.

my first war is usually a "worker war" to cripple badly a neighbour.
I'd rather fight archers than keshiks

 

[Cam_H]

edit : before the vote, ...

Still waiting on William III?

OK, there's a lot to digest, and I haven't had a good look at the other games beyond 'cursory'. I can tell though that my game has both good strengths and bad weaknesses by way of comparison with others.

I wrote the spoiler below last Sunday, but since then Cabert has outlined some terrific ideas on reporting, so I’ll take them on board for a later post.

Spoiler :

In a nutshell …

Peaceful development with a few chops and a fair amount of whipping. Conflict likely to be in the late-Classical era.

Mongolia!

Mongolia’s access to Copper is of clear concern. Furthermore, if they have Horses, they will probably bee-line Horseback Riding and we will have Keshiks ‘all over the shop’. Kublai Kahn’s Creative trait is also unhelpful, as his border expansion has already caused problems with our optimal city placement in terms of access to resources at the fringe of the fat cross. We will need Copper for Spears at worst, however I think that the Iron-based Medieval units will be crucial, and therefore Iron is the way to go.

Food Plan for Berlin

Some planning required for Berlin so all tiles are eventually worked. I propose the following, that I believe will allow for even growth: Blue =farm, Pink=cottages. I guess that this is just an illustration of city planning and taking into account food surpluses and deficits. I opted to keep four forests, despite our expansionist trait – others may disagree.

(Image removed - server space - indicated a food count for Berlin)

My game

I was able to found Hamburg without Barbarians killing the unescorted Settler. It is river-connected to Berlin and with a few hills and a Rice tile (unfortunately later consumed by Mongolian cultural border), should make a decent production city. Bonus being that it is founded on a plains hill (good protection plus an additional hammer).

Granary built in Berlin with the help of a chop while food is emphasised. Switch research to Mysticism and build (assisted by two chops) Stonehenge, partly to counter Kublai’s cultural expansion. As no Masonry so far, Stonehenge could allow a Great Prophet slingshot. Given our great science in Berlin, The Oracle was a less attractive option to me.

Finished off Archery for basic protection - and as a prerequisite to Horse Archers if this is the best we can do given the possible lack of strategic resources. Iron Working was next for Spears to eventually counter Keshiks. Some Iron was found to the east. Animal Husbandry for Horses and pastures (Pigs to north).

Kublai eventually discovers Bronze Working.

We take a Barbarian city with two Archers where I had originally intended to put Hamburg, while settling Munich near the Iron resource to the east.

Metal Casting is being researched. Our cheap forges will clearly provide much productivity and happiness.

There’s still quite a job to do in terms of tile development. Berlin and Hamburg are each on Workers while recovering from some whipping. Berlin has a Library, Granary, and Barracks, while Hamburg has a Granary and Barracks.

Due to lack of units (and Horses), exploration has not been as thorough as it could have been.

Peace with everyone (no stolen workers as we were simply too weak to deal with a conflict). We have met Spain, and opened borders with Isabella. I would use her as our ally, and hope we get some Buddhism into our empire to strengthen this relationship. Hopefully Napoleon gets Hinduism before Buddhism so the two northern tribes will be fighting each other.

Score - #1 by ‘not much’.

(Image removed - server space - empire screenie)

 

[cabert]

Still waiting on William III?

well, he has one day left before submission, but i won't have any connection this weekend (My provider must be dead) at home, so i'll open every game already posted and vote on monday, if you all can wait this long, and hopefully wIII's game won't be the best, since i won't see it

OK, there's a lot to digest, and I haven't had a good look at the other games beyond 'cursory'. I can tell though that my game has both good strengths and bad weaknesses by way of comparison with others.

It's really different, that's sure! Will be hard to judge!
I must say i like your game better than mine, on a general basis, but in this particular situation i think pigswill's and my game are better. More about it in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Mongolia!

Mongolia’s access to Copper is of clear concern. Furthermore, if they have Horses, they will probably bee-line Horseback Riding and we will have Keshiks ‘all over the shop’. Kublai Kahn’s Creative trait is also unhelpful, as his border expansion has already caused problems with our optimal city placement in terms of access to resources at the fringe of the fat cross. We will need Copper for Spears at worst, however I think that the Iron-based Medieval units will be crucial, and therefore Iron is the way to go.

did you forget that elephants are +100% vs mounted?
we need not fear keshiks if we have ivory and construction. That's exactly what i did : grab and camp the ivory and tech towards construction
But i must say getting iron is a very good thing. You did a great job there!

Food Plan for Berlin

that's a bit of a spoiler!
I think you forgot the +2 from city center, didn't you?
+ you don't need to worry that much about berlin when it's size 20. I don't think it will grow that fast (even though happiness cap will be blown when you have a forge and a few religions)

My game

I was able to found Hamburg without Barbarians killing the unescorted Settler. It is river-connected to Berlin and with a few hills and a Rice tile (unfortunately later consumed by Mongolian cultural border), should make a decent production city. Bonus being that it is founded on a plains hill (good protection plus an additional hammer).

same for me, but different city
Without the rice it's a city, don't you think?

Granary built in Berlin with the help of a chop while food is emphasised. Switch research to Mysticism and build (assisted by two chops) Stonehenge, partly to counter Kublai’s cultural expansion. As no Masonry so far, Stonehenge could allow a Great Prophet slingshot. Given our great science in Berlin, The Oracle was a less attractive option to me.

well, i think you're wrong there (first time i disagree with you ): we're an industrious leader, not a philosophical one. It's easier to build the Oracle for teching AND GPP than waiting for Great Prophet from stonehenge alone.

Finished off Archery for basic protection - and as a prerequisite to Horse Archers if this is the best we can do given the possible lack of strategic resources. Iron Working was next for Spears to eventually counter Keshiks. Some Iron was found to the east. Animal Husbandry for Horses and pastures (Pigs to north).

You obviously don't like elephants

Kublai eventually discovers Bronze Working.

We take a Barbarian city with two Archers where I had originally intended to put Hamburg, while settling Munich near the Iron resource to the east.

that's either a lucky shot or really well done!
Here you earn the best city site i've seen for a long time, without building the settler and without entering any war!

Metal Casting is being researched. Our cheap forges will clearly provide much productivity and happiness.

with the oracle (see armstrong's game) you'd have metal casting already

There’s still quite a job to do in terms of tile development. Berlin and Hamburg are each on Workers while recovering from some whipping. Berlin has a Library, Granary, and Barracks, while Hamburg has a Granary and Barracks.

you'll need those workers in Magyar!

Due to lack of units (and Horses), exploration has not been as thorough as it could have been.

still better than mine

Peace with everyone (no stolen workers as we were simply too weak to deal with a conflict). We have met Spain, and opened borders with Isabella. I would use her as our ally, and hope we get some Buddhism into our empire to strengthen this relationship. Hopefully Napoleon gets Hinduism before Buddhism so the two northern tribes will be fighting each other.

that's not very likely : Napoleon is nowhere in sight, so he very likely is north of isabella. Kublai isn't a big religion fan, while isabella is. I bet 20:1 Nappy will be buddhist if he doesn't found confucianism (which you didn't found!).


I like your game!
Must find some "scientific" way to weight your lack of tech (Metal Casting/CoL) and religion against your advantage in city numbers and grabbing iron. Is Oracle already built somewhere else, or can you still build it?
I think you could build it in hambourg for culture, grabbing machinery!

 

[pigswill]

I've been opening games and writing comments as they've been posted (second spoiler in post #71) so I'm not going to rewrite here I'm afraid. Post 71 also contains my apologia.
I'll wait for any last minute entries (Petrucci? WilliamIII? Paul666?) then post my overall conclusions and vote by Sunday.

 

[cabert]

hey, cam! you changed your avatar!
Will you get mad at me if i say i liked the former one more?

 

[pigswill]

Cam H: Like the new version, slightly sinister and slightly camp rather than passe 'new romantic'.

 

[Cam_H]

Cabert,

Thanks for your awfully quick and insightful reply.

Pigswill and Cabert,

Thanks for the thoughts on the avatar! I'm not sure if I prefer Paul Stanley or Lil Billy (that was the idea anyway!) myself. The new one looked great as a full-sized image but lost a lot in translation when it went down to 70 X 70.

I guess I should tag this blurb on my game w.r.t. Cabert's views with spoilers for William's and Petrucci's sake ...

Spoiler :

well, he has one day left before submission, but i won't have any connection this weekend (My provider must be dead) at home, so i'll open every game already posted and vote on monday, if you all can wait this long, and hopefully wIII's game won't be the best, since i won't see it

I would like to wait a day - everyone's been posting early imho.

did you forget that elephants are +100% vs mounted?
we need not fear keshiks if we have ivory and construction. That's exactly what i did : grab and camp the ivory and tech towards construction
But i must say getting iron is a very good thing. You did a great job there!

I still fear them ... we're not far off Machinery and while we are not China, I'd still like Crossbows ( ... let alone Maces).

that's a bit of a spoiler!
I think you forgot the +2 from city center, didn't you?

I think that 'food counting' is an important tool to bear in mind. I can't tell you how many games I picked up a few months ago 'from another forum' where people thought that 'cottage spamming' meant putting cottages on every tile possible, only to find that their growth stagnated and they; not only couldn't work the cottages, but they had blocked off a lot of irrigation chaining possibilities. 'Yes' - in some senses a spoiler, but it's an important and occasionally overlooked part of good play.

On the +2 for the city centre ... errr ...

well, i think you're wrong there (first time i disagree with you ): we're an industrious leader, not a philosophical one. It's easier to build the Oracle for teching AND GPP than waiting for Great Prophet from stonehenge alone.

I don't feel that I'm 100% wrong here, but more like 50% wrong!

Priesthood is not where I want to go tech-wise, and I think that we could easily pick the cheap religious techs up as give-aways in a later trade with someone like ... Isabella ... while at the same time The Oracle would act to distract resources away from Settlers and Archers, which is what I think was needed in these turns. With the Silver+Silver+Gold+Cottages in Berlin, I'm thinking that our tech' rate will be more than good enough to keep up with the AI, and I suspect we are the tech leaders without The Oracle anyway.

I also have an inclination not to become Wonder-obsessed in this succession game. If this is to be largely a 'community education thing', then Wonder addiction is one aspect that I'd like to address.

You obviously don't like elephants

Well, not so excited when they're up against fortified Spearmen with at very least the Combat I promotion - and Mongolia has both Copper and Iron. Or shouldn't I know that?

that's either a lucky shot or really well done!
Here you earn the best city site i've seen for a long time, without building the settler and without entering any war!

I was >50% on taking the city ... but I was more than a little pleased when I first saw those black borders, and even more pleased when the garrison turned out to be Warriors and not Archers.

you'll need those workers in Magyar!

'Yes'! One Worker was heading there, but I decided to start on the Iron instead.

Is Oracle already built somewhere else, or can you still build it?

We have the only Wonder (Stonehenge).

I think you could build it in hambourg for culture, grabbing machinery!

The Hamburg thought crossed my mind - even possibly Berlin so I don't contaminate any Great Person pools further?