RB25 - The Golden Five

[ThERat]

for once I see the AI offering some resistance early on when the human wants to take their capital...how many archers were there initially?
I am sure you will eventually take it though, good luck

 

[T-hawk]

Researching Masonry killed the option to use Moses to lightbulb Civil Service, so we'll have to get there the slow way now. I'm not in favor of either a shrine or lightbulbing a religious tech. If we're going to spend any one GP towards economic production, an Academy in our best science city will pay off more economy than a shrine will.

I'd vote to make Venice our science city -- there's actually nothing about the city that would favor either merchants over science; and scientists are more useful because they can generate an Academy and multiply with it.

Persepolis is most certainly a keeper, with two food bonuses, iron, silks, and a river. Susa is not -- it has no food bonuses and we already have ivory and gems elsewhere.

Where does the Heroic Epic go? Cities 2-4 are not hammer-rich enough for it. It's either in Cornelia or in city #5 somewhere.

Venice needs to workboat up those clams sometime.

 

[Sullla]

As I said before, looks like a mixture of some good and bad moves. I don't want to do TOO much nitpicking, but one or two things probably should be mentioned here. For example:

Seriously, I changed my mind on letting Cornelia grow to pop 6. Instead I configured the tiles for production and commerce to drop 1 turn from both building the Swordsman and researching Priesthood. This action causes Cornelia to slightly starve.

Umm... this was not the best move. Driving the capital into starvation in order to pull a very minor increase in commerce and production doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It most certainly would have been better to get Cornelia to size 6 and park it there rather than starve it down close to size 4! (Remember, we don't have a granary there...) Anyway, that didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Kudos on finding Mansa and Isabella. We're NOT alone on a small island, wow! I thought for sure that we were going to be alone with Cyrus here. Why our previous leaders didn't find anyone else with the starting scout is an interesting question...

Researching Masonry cut off the ability for our Prophet to grab Civil Service. Now, that's an obscure and gamey bit of Civ4 trivia, and I'm sure Gusto didn't know about it, but the deed was done all the same. Now what are we going to do with this Prophet? (We're going to have Prophet #2 in just a couple more turns!) I know the Hindu shrine didn't sound like the most appealing option, but we might not have anything better to do with this guy!

I'm not going to lie, there were some strange decisions made in the fighting of this war. Pillaging cottages down to nothing brings in gold - but if we're going to capture the city in question, that doesn't make a ton of sense, does it? (This is one of the silly things the AI does, scouring the land clear of tile improvements. Even if the AI does successfully take a city, it then takes ages to stand it back up again.)

Next I don't know what came over me - perhaps it was getting too late, the Archer fight awoke my need for action, or I was in a blissful weedy state. I decided to attack Persepolis with two Swordsman and you can see what the combat odds and results were from each skirmish.

That was just silly. Those attacks were at longshot odds, and served little purpose. There's a reason why one of the archers in Persepolis is now City Garrison II!

I moved one Swordsman E of Parsagadae in hoping to lure an archer to suicide itself against it and thin city defensives. It's the current turn, two archers suicide themselves against the lone Swordsman and failed to kill him. There's only two archers in the city and I attack. The picture is the last Archer getting killed. Parsagadae is ours. We have our third city.

Yay! You show Cyrus who's boss! (AND it's the Jewish holy city too!)

I whipped the queued Library in Cornelia and configured it to max growth.

That, on the other hand, was silly. Cornelia can pull 15 shields/turn, for a library in just 6 turns. The whipping has resulted in an unhappy face which will stick around for another 9 turns. Whipping is a major asset, but you have to be careful not to overuse it!

Starvation diets, whipping libraries - what have you been doing to my poor city!

There's a nice stack of City Raider II swords that will probably be able to take Persepolis with help from another new sword or two out of Cornelia/Venice. The only problem? No Medic unit over there with them!

I'm not quite sure what happened with Healer, but we sure could use a Medic unit over there.

Still, all in all a good turnset (and VERY well illustrated! ) We obtained another one of our Golden Five, and are in good position to take Persepolis for city #4 in the near future. Strauss should aim to play 20ish turns too, which hopefully will see us grab the Persian capital. I expect us to go back to 10 turns each after that, but we'll play it by ear.

 

[Strauss]

Got it, will play tonight

 

[T-hawk]

There is actually still a backdoor way to lightbulb Civil Service. If we research Monotheism (we want Org Rel soon anyway), we can use two prophets to lightbulb Theology and then Civil Service. Need to avoid Monarchy to block off Divine Right after Theology.

I think that is still worth spending the two Prophets, because consider this -- we can only ever spend four Prophets towards golden ages, and with two early Prophet wonders in our capital, we're likely to generate more than that over the entire game. As a side benefit, we'll likely found Christianity, which if nothing else, gives the AIs fewer religions to quarrel over. Sistine Chapel might even be a nice wonder to have with our focus on specialists.

 

[mucco]

Sorry, but I feel I'm missing something: either I don't know something basilar, or am I doing wrong math, because the discussion over great persons that you, Sullla and T-hawk, are having, is scaring me VERY much, so I'm posting to understand this. Am I getting the mechanism of GP production wrong, or I'm undervaluing our future GP power?

Anyway, here's my math:

We're going to have Prophet #2 in just a couple more turns

That's not a couple more turns: it's 2000 GPP more if we use a GP outside golden ages! Think about it: we need 14 GPs in total for GAs, if we burn one on a shrine we'll need 15 overall. How much does the 15th GP cost? 2000 points.

There is actually still a backdoor way to lightbulb Civil Service. If we research Monotheism (we want Org Rel soon anyway), we can use two prophets to lightbulb Theology and then Civil Service. Need to avoid Monarchy to block off Divine Right after Theology.

I think that is still worth spending the two Prophets, because consider this -- we can only ever spend four Prophets towards golden ages, and with two early Prophet wonders in our capital, we're likely to generate more than that over the entire game. As a side benefit, we'll likely found Christianity, which if nothing else, gives the AIs fewer religions to quarrel over.

Aaaagh! 2000+2200=4200 GPP!

Are we really going to generate so many GPP in our game? The two prophets we'll be using to lightbulb CS will make the total GPP amount increase by about 36% .

Please explain me! Thx!

 

[Gusto]

I appreciate the feedback and looking forward to read comments from mucco and Strauss.

Researching Masonry killed the option to use Moses to lightbulb Civil Service, so we'll have to get there the slow way now.

I’m laughing at myself because it was my good intension to make available in Strauss turn set a few wonders he could choice to start building. Play and learn.

I'd vote to make Venice our science city

Venice will make a great pure GP farm. I’ll flow any way on this.

Venice needs to workboat up those clams sometime.

I already did it and forgot to mention it in my original posting. I later added a comment at the bottom.

Umm... this was not the best move. Driving the capital into starvation in order to pull a very minor increase in commerce and production doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It most certainly would have been better to get Cornelia to size 6 and park it there rather than starve it down close to size 4! (Remember, we don't have a granary there...) Anyway, that didn't make a whole lot of sense.

When my turn set was completed and I was looking through my notes and screenshots, I realized I made one pure blissful weedy move in attacking Persepolis. I was going to use a weedy smiley theme for my report, to give readers a good chuckle by my own self-mocking. I didn’t because I max the image inclusion total with my screenshots. No theme report. Anyway, for a little taste, it would have started “I called

and asked him to come over for an all night turn set. He said sure and would bring from .

arrived and hooked him up. We’re staying up all night and here goes my first SG turn set.”

Anyway I wanted to build two Swordsmen in Cornelia (and two in Venice) to complete the Swordsman Brigade and attack Persepolis. However I wanted to start building the Oracle in Cornelia so it wouldn’t fall to the AI. The AI builds the Oracle in-between 1000BC and 0AD which was the time frame I was playing. My action was a decision in how can I build two Swordsmen faster to get started on the Oracle sooner. I figured out how to squeeze more production out of Cornelia at the cost of starving it. I never intended to starve down Cornelia to pop 4 and was watching it like a hawk. Cornelia does have a Granary. The action reduced the Swordsman build to 3 turns from 4 turns. The research reduction was an added benefit. I really didn’t intend to reduce research. Now Cornelia could build two Swordsmen in six turns and start the Oracle sooner. The Oracle start perfectly timed with the delivery of the 40 hammers from tree chopping. The workers never had to idly wait for the city to start chopping. On the turn Cornelia received the chops, I maxed growth the city to increase the food reserves enough to put Cornelia back in a starving max production state to complete the Oracle in 6 turns and not starved down to pop 4. After the Oracle build, I maxed food the city and it grew to pop 7 in 6 turns. I saw the series of events as a perfectly timed domino effect. I will inform the team if I want to use a starving max production tactic again.

That was just silly. Those attacks were at longshot odds, and served little purpose. There's a reason why one of the archers in Persepolis is now City Garrison II!

The City Garrison II Archer was already in the city before I attacked. I fortunately have it displayed in the screenshot with all the colorful circles and lines. The city garrison picture was captured before I attacked. As I said, I don’t know what got over me. It was very silly and I deserve to be roasted.

(AND it's the Jewish holy city too!)

I didn’t notice it was the Jewish holy city when I captured it and why I never said a word about it in my report. On the diplomatic side, Mansa is Jewish if we want to play this angle in diplomacy.

 

[T-hawk]

Aaaagh! 2000+2200=4200 GPP!

It's not quite so much if we get a few of the free GPs available on the tech tree. But yeah, you're probably right, spending two prophets for CS probably isn't a good idea.

It can still be done with one prophet, if we avoid Monarchy until somebody else researches Theology (the AIs prioritize it because it founds a religion) and trades it to us (CoL or Metal Casting as the trade bait.) If we can somehow work it out to spend one prophet on CS, I think that's still worth it. Remember any prophets beyond four are useless for GAs and I think it's likely we'll get more than four, so we can spend one.

(Also consider that slingshotting CS is a good way to boost our economy so that we're competitive in actually getting those free GPs. If we spend one to make one, we come out purely ahead.)

 

[Gusto]

for once I see the AI offering some resistance early on when the human wants to take their capital...how many archers were there initially?

There were initially three archers and I completed the attacking stack with seven swords - two per archer and one for good measure. Figured if the city had four archers than the remaining three/four swords should take it out. There was five archers when I arrived and the archer that popped out was the sixth. Persepolis was well prepared. It sucks when a plan doesn't come together however it was a fun challenge to handle.

 

[zakalwe]

There is actually still a backdoor way to lightbulb Civil Service.

Good point, although Mucco certainly has a point as well about the escalating costs in terms of GPPs. However, if you end up getting more than 4 great prophets the extra ones will essentially go to waste unless you use them early on shrines/ligthbulbing. On the other hand, if you spend a couple of prophets early you don't have to get 4 additional ones; you might for instance get 4 merchants instead.

Early Bureaucracy would obviously help get more wonders into play (and earlier) so some of the "wasted" GPPs would be recouped, if not all. If you want to be more conservative you could also consider self-researching Theology as well and use a prophet for Civil Service only. That would still be a relatively fast way of getting there.

 

[T-hawk]

There was five archers when I arrived and the archer that popped out was the sixth. Persepolis was well prepared.

ahem...

2) We don't need 8 swords to take Cyrus' capital unless it's on a hill. 5-6 should be plenty

Monarch AIs aren't quite the pushovers you seem to think they are...

 

[Gusto]

It can still be done with one prophet, if we avoid Monarchy until somebody else researches Theology (the AIs prioritize it because it founds a religion) and trades it to us (CoL or Metal Casting as the trade bait.)

Let me add to this that Mansa is Jewish and we own the Jewish holy city. Anyway we have a jewish city and could switch to Judaism to start improving relations with Mansa. Monotheism, for Organized Religion, will allow us to build a few missionaries to send to Mansa to further influence him. We know how much Mansa loves to trade techs. The only problem is Izzy border is blocking land access to Mansa. I know how to resolve this. We could build a galley to ship them if her borders don't expand in to the water tiles - east coast yes, west coast unknown. If there is no water route, we'll have an attacking stack already built.

 

[Gusto]

2) We don't need 8 swords to take Cyrus' capital unless it's on a hill. 5-6 should be plenty...

2) We don't need 8 swords to take Cyrus' capital unless it's on a hill. 5-6 should be plenty

Persepolis has 4-5 archers defended at all times and is obviously building archers all the time with all the Whack-An-Arch I encountered. So figure 6 archers when Strauss attacks the city, he'll need 13-14 swords to take the city figuring two per archer and 1-2 for good measure. At least it's being constantly reconned so if the city has 3-4 archers from attrition than Strauss won't have to build so many.

 

[paleman]

lurker's comment: I'm sure there's someone out there can speak to the actual mechanics behind this, but I've noticed the AI tends to go with roughly one defender per every two pop points (except at the founding of a city, when it'll sometimes have two defenders from the get-go). Persepolis was size 8 with 3 archers when the open borders spy was before the city, at which time it was probably working on its 4th. By the time the army arrived, it was size 10, so 5 archers was maybe to be expected. The 6th and future archers would be the proverbial "gravy" archers, with your pillageable improvements or vulnerable units being the mashed potatoes.

 

[Double Stack]

You might want to also try and get Philosphy for Pacificism early. Pacificism gives a +100% for GPP in state religion city. Couple that with Fredrick's leader trait, you could easily get a lot of GP.

 

[sunrise089]

Lurker's Comments/Questions:

Nice idea for a game, I've subscribed to the thread, but I have a few questions.

I've found tha reading these sort of threads makes me a better Civ player, and indeed I have moved from a Noble player to a Monarch player in a month and a half, mostly in thanks to things I've read here. So I'd like to say reading things so far has helped me learn even more about the game, but sadly that isn't the case.

First of all, this is the first RB Succession game where I don't really get the premise. Considering the skill of the players involved here, where is the real challange? Does aggressive AI make things much harder? Or maybe that fractal map, whatever that is? Seems like the main twist is having to generate 12 GPs, but even in my games I generate AT LEAST 1 engineer, 2 scientists, 1 merchant, 2 artists, and 2 prophets. That's 8 right there, including the difficult to get engineer. You guys can get at least 2 free GPs through Music and Fusion, plus maybe other techs I'm forgetting. Seems like with all the wonder production this would be an easy culture win, much easier than Sulla's true culture challange.

Maybe these ideas were discussed in a thread on RD's own forums? If you guys did talk more about leader and map selection over there, or about choosing the difficulty level or the agressive AI settings, does anyone care to provide the link?

Also - why are you even considering lightbulbing techs with those prophets? Is that really a viable idea at all? At this level, I expect players of your caliber to have a large tech lead, but the possible academies the Great Scientists could produce later seem like a far more beneficial option than taking Theology with a Prophet.

Finally - why Venice for the city name? I got the original idea - calling it Venice since it was going to be a bad location, but the location changed. (Yes, I know this is a very minor point).

 

[Strauss]

Discussions at the RB forums

The biggest challenge is the 5CC (5 City Challenge). The 'problems' we'll see with this variant:
- less cities, so less research. This means it will be harder to get to Music, Fusion and Economics first, and to get later Wonders like the Taj Mahal. We won't be able to get all of them at this level!
- more difficult to wage war on other civs, since we won't be able to obtain any outposts
- more space for the AI to settle, making them more powerful

Also, getting the GP's you want at the right time is more difficult than it sounds. I have often seen Great Prophets pop up when the chance for the required Great Engineer was over 75%

 

[mucco]

Lurker's Comments/Questions:

Nice idea for a game, I've subscribed to the thread, but I have a few questions.

I've found tha reading these sort of threads makes me a better Civ player, and indeed I have moved from a Noble player to a Monarch player in a month and a half, mostly in thanks to things I've read here. So I'd like to say reading things so far has helped me learn even more about the game, but sadly that isn't the case.

First of all, this is the first RB Succession game where I don't really get the premise. Considering the skill of the players involved here, where is the real challange? Does aggressive AI make things much harder? Or maybe that fractal map, whatever that is? Seems like the main twist is having to generate 12 GPs, but even in my games I generate AT LEAST 1 engineer, 2 scientists, 1 merchant, 2 artists, and 2 prophets. That's 8 right there, including the difficult to get engineer. You guys can get at least 2 free GPs through Music and Fusion, plus maybe other techs I'm forgetting. Seems like with all the wonder production this would be an easy culture win, much easier than Sulla's true culture challange.

Maybe these ideas were discussed in a thread on RD's own forums? If you guys did talk more about leader and map selection over there, or about choosing the difficulty level or the agressive AI settings, does anyone care to provide the link?

Also - why are you even considering lightbulbing techs with those prophets? Is that really a viable idea at all? At this level, I expect players of your caliber to have a large tech lead, but the possible academies the Great Scientists could produce later seem like a far more beneficial option than taking Theology with a Prophet.

Finally - why Venice for the city name? I got the original idea - calling it Venice since it was going to be a bad location, but the location changed. (Yes, I know this is a very minor point).

About GPs: first of all, we'll need 14 of them, and although there are four available in the tech tree (if I'm not mistaken), it's unlikely that we'll get all of them. As T-hawk said, monarch AI is no pushover, and we'll have to compete with only five cities. The disadvantages of this have been explained but Strauss already.

Also consider that spawning the first great persons is quite simple, and things get increasingly difficult as we proceed past the '10' mark. Making 8 GPs will need 3,600 points, adding two more (that will be the best case, with four "tech GPs") means 1,900 GPP more. It's more than half the amount for the first eight! Another one (in case we miss, say, music) will need additional 1,200 GPP, and so on.

The wonder production could decrease, as we get less competitive in science. I don't know if this will ever happen, as we have great players here, but I'd have many many problems keeping up in such a SP game.

And when we'll have produced all the GP we need, we won't have won the game at all! In fact, bending our economy towards great person production could damage us or at least slow us down. If civs like Mali manage to get away in tech, it could get rough. For that matter, I'm also a bit against the religion run, as some variety between AIs could spice up things between them.

About Venice: the origianl idea was indeed "the great city in the bad place", but there are some other reasons for my choice. First of all, it was on the sea, and as our second city, it was likely that it would become our strongest sea city (Venice dominated the Mediterranean for centuries). It had fish, which was the base of the first economy of that city, and it had a good chance to build those sea wonders that provide merchant points, and you know how Venice has been known in the middle ages as a city of merchants. About the lousy place... if now it's a good one, I can always say I have founded it on a jungle tile! And finally, since Sullla chose a name which described part of himself (a tribute to his name, in the case), I decided to pick something that could represent me as well (one city for each player, right Sullla?). I live about 300 km (200 miles) away from Venice, and that city has had a big influence in the area I live, so I felt it was the right choice.

 

[sunrise089]

Thank you both for the informative responses.

 

[Strauss]

Okay, I've played my turns. The report will be up soon. It's been an interesting turnset, so it deserves an interesting report.