RB6 - Island Hopping

[Arhiss]

Ok here goes!

IT -- Not much happens.

475 BC: Road completed near lyons as planned, sent one worker off toward deer. Set worker that was chopping near Rosette to making a road from the corn to the farm to it's SE. Plan is to have corn already hooked up and speed settler travel to the new site.

450 BC: Worker finished in Rosette; start on Barracks. Will let that run 1 turn, then switch to Granary and break out the The worker heads towards where white dot will be to chop. The 2 workers near Lyons are going to hook up the other deer there and do some chops in our "wasted tiles" section. Chariot Finished in Paris, leave unpromoted and sitting in Paris as a quick reaction force. If we want to move it elsewhere we can, but from paris, we have access to the road network to speed us on our way.

425 BC: Quiet. Switch Rosette over to Granary, start oiling the whips for future use.

400 BC: Toku sends more archers to stare at our "mighty fleet" off the shores of Tokyo. Rosette magically finds the wherewithal to finish Granary next turn. (wonder how that happened??)

375 BC: Paris finishes Axeman; starts on settler.

350 BC: Livy completes his work - "The most powerful civs". We rank 6th.

Confucionism is FIDAL. So much for rushing to code of laws for that. However it can perhaps serve as a jumping off point for something else. We're REALLY behind the 8-ball as far as tech goes.

Worker at Lyons starts on the last bit of road to hook up deer and connect him to road network. You'll also notice I'm very slowly bleeding our bank account dry trying to push some research. Will need to adjust science down again soon.

325 BC: Lyons completes granary, starts on Lighthouse.

300 BC: Cash reserves at 4 gold, dropping at 1/turn. Can still get a 1 turn advantage leaving it this way, but since we can't use gold to rush anything yet, and aren't near currency to use it in other ways, I'm "using" the cash to speed our reasearch that little bit extra. Rosette finishes barracks, starts on Archer (more military!).

275 BC: The latest forest chop has generated a 25 shield overflow for Paris's settler. Paris is also at max happiness, so could pull something similar to what we did with Rosette (use surplus, switch, whip, then complete).

250 BC: Paris completes Settler. Overflow plus shields will give us a lighthouse in 1 turn, with a 3 shield overflow. I'd suggest getting a library running ASAP afterwards (use the whip!) we need to catch up in the tech race.

Orleans completes lighthouse; starts on Archer (can veto, we can TRY for great lighthouse in 22 turns, though I'm not confident at all we'd get it). A forest chop that finished this turn dropped the archer's completion to 1 turn -- I'd say let the archer complete at this point.

The fishing boat is in place right outside of white dot, settler to arrive in 3 turns.

There are 2 worker's in the forest area that I'll leave un-moved so the next player has some flexibility.

Last thing I do is set research to 80% -- I've lost the 1 turn advantage, and now 80% breaks even for us. No more slow slide to bankruptcy!

 

[Arhiss]

Here's some info screenies:

And

And a shot of our Lands:

And finally the save:

 

[Garath]

The idea behind skipping the archers was that we'd build some Chariots. But instead of the second city cranking settlers, we built THREE (and a half) of them out of the capital and the capital hasn't even maxed its population yet? Wow.

I believe it was Two (and a Half), actually, since the one I left you was from Rosette, but I'll take the rap for that half. I've tended to undervalue libraries, forgetting that the science boost from the palace makes one in the capital high priority.

As to training Chariots, how was I mean to do that? I spent my ENTIRE ROUND hooking up the horses so you could! Rest assured, I had every expectation of that being the end of our gambit and that the next couple of players would build us some military.

All I could have built was more unpromoted warriors (well, and a barracks in the capital rather than that settler. I accept that one). Did you really want that?

As to the switch away from Alphabet, I knew full well that was a tough move. I think if it'd been ten turns earlier against the rest of the world like I seem to have thought it was, that could have been hailed as a great move, when you built the Oracle. Give me the rap for getting the boundary between supporting the previous player's decision and changing it wrong, not for not realising there was a decision to make.

I stand by my comment that the tech trading at Alphabet was (and still is) useless. I even carefully looked at the tech to make sure it didn't give us anything else as well. Had I registered that it led on to the Great Library... I might have made a different choice. My bad.

Oh, and one more thing:

None of you guys is going to survive on Monarch if this is the kind of military you are fielding at 750BC. Just giving you the straight story on that point.

I've got a couple of Monarch wins under my belt. To be sure, I've also got some losses, but I've won some, including the first one I played. And I assure you, I wouldn't have dreamt of running this thin on military with a land neighbour. But for damn sure I'd have built some had I had the ability to build more than regular warriors.

That concludes my comments to your comments, I guess. I'll comment on the two turnsets since then, but I'll do it in a separate post.

--Garath

PS: Possibly I've come across as disbelieving that you should correct me or unappreciative of the hints above. Believe me, that's not the case. I'm just trying to use the opportunity to respond to gain a completer understanding.

 

[Garath]

Hmmm... I didn't know about the multiple pop point whipping thing. I'll bear that in mind. Slavery is really rather powerful when actually used, isn't it?

Long and short of it, most of what you've said makes sense, Sirian. Now you've said it. Now why can't I think of all those things... Practice, that's it! I'm not getting enough practice! I must play more Civ4!

As to the plans for the west, I like the gambit, personally. It does look like more coastline over there, and we'd score a big coup if it turned out to be anything decent. One vote for settling on the sheep, with something there to try exploring ASAP.

@Arhiss: Good work following through, it looks like. Looks generally good.

Is the 'Most Powerful' listing done on military, or something else, does anyone know?

Ouch at the founding of Confucianism

Does that leave us with a run at Philosophy, or do we pretty much have to give up on religion until we meet more AIs? I don't have a complete enough picture of our technological situation (or, for that matter, have the entire tech tree in my head) to know that.

I might have more comments later. Now I have to go have a life that isn't entirely lived in computers, unfortunately.

--Garath

 

[Sirian]

Does that leave us with a run at Philosophy, or do we pretty much have to give up on religion until we meet more AIs?

Either way could work. We'll leave it up to the guys who take the turns.

Arhiss did a good job with all the chopping. I probably wouldn't whip the capital, though. It may cost more than it is worth, there. Slavery is best used at high food sites where translating some of the food in to shields is no big deal because the city will regrow the spent population quickly. At low food sites, it can be a net loser in most cases (though anywhere can gain from whipping a Granary or maybe a Lighthouse.)


By the way, I deliberately chose a leader with traits that aren't ideally suited for the map type we're playing. Between that and the lands, and apparently the competent opponents we're facing, this might be called "Noble Plus".


Can someone remind me if Zagaz is available this weekend? If so, he's up. If he said he'd be away, then Sadan is up.


- Sirian

 

[Thormodr]

Good luck guys. I hope there are some nice ice free islands within your grasp for settling soon. Oh and I hope you get some iron soon too

 

[Conroe]

Slavery is best used at high food sites where translating some of the food in to shields is no big deal because the city will regrow the spent population quickly. At low food sites, it can be a net loser in most cases (though anywhere can gain from whipping a Granary or maybe a Lighthouse.)

lurker's question: I've been practicing using the since reading your comments. Whipping is probably one of my more weaker areas in and now in as well. A couple of questions if you have a moment.

What is your definition of a high food city? I've always viewed it as a city that has at least 3 excess fpt (ala a single food bonus tile). Or are you looking for a much higher excess fpt?

Whipping a granary or lighthouse makes sense, since they help the city grow faster. What about courthouses? Lets say you're swimming in debt with the research slider down around 50%, would you consider whipping a courthouse to get your finances in order?

Thanks!

 

[Sirian]

A high food city (in my book) is one with two or three food resources. I'm talking 5+ surplus food per turn. (Rosette is a mainstream "high food city"). This typically means a coastal city light on shields with two or three seafood in range, but can mean a flood plains city or a city with irrigated rice and corn, or pigs, or any combination.

Cities with less than 4 fpt surplus should avoid heavy use of the whip. The reason they are low on food is because they are high on shields. If they are low on both food and shields, then that is a crappy location! You see some of those, but they will only be able to use the whip slowly. They can't do many of those three and four pop point "massive" projects. (The city has to get to size 8 to whip four pop points in one crack!) You can't just look at the food to regrow, but also at lost production from tiles you are no longer working. If you lose (for instance) a 4spt mine, then you will lose more shields in ten turns than you gained from the whip, PLUS the lost food! Don't do that.

Slavery is my preferred Labor civic on maps with significant water and coastline, which an Islands game will be. I prefer Serfdom for major land maps, as there are more plots to improve, more high-shield tiles around, fewer high food tiles around, etc. Caste System is a special case with many uses but none of them as simple as the Slavery/Serfdom dynamic. Yet even when I do plan to switch to Serfdom asap, I will still make a pit stop in Slavery when I make the hop to Hereditary Rule, and get what I can out of the whip where useful.


- Sirian

 

[Arhiss]

Not having looked at the savegame recently, I don't know offhand if we have any of the prereq's for one of the other religions. I know that it's fairly easy to have the req's for Theocracy for example. If we had anyplace that was slowly making GPP's (no early wonders making Great Prophet points for us unfortunately) it could be possible to speedily get one of the more expensive religions.

Mostly I'm just musing aloud -- we don't have the setup to try to rush a religion at this point in the fashion described above, but I'm wondering if we need to 'set ourselves up for success' in some fashion in order to have a hope of founding a religion of some sort. To be honest, I've not played a game yet where I wasn't the founder of at least ONE religion, so I don't know how much of a handicap it would be going completely religionless.

Out of my musings one can draw a couple questions:

• Do we need to go after a religion at all this game, or is it not a significant handicap to go only with religions acquired from the AI's?
• Is our current tech handicap as big a deal as I am making it out to be in my mind?

Thats about it for now, back to waiting for the next player to take their turn!

 

[Sirian]

Sadan sent me a note saying that he has to pull out of RB6 due to heavy workload. So I'm moving him back to the Alternates roster. zagaz appears to be away, so we'll skip him this round. I'm moving weakciv to the regular roster. (All these roster moves... Now you know why I have Alternates on standby! New players sometimes don't realize what they are in for until they get going and see how much work it is. And sometimes people just have unexpected developments that pull them away.)

weakciv, you're up now, bud!


RB6 ROSTER:

Sirian
Arhiss
Zagaz -- skipped this round
weakciv -- UP NOW!
Garath -- On Deck

Alternates:
* rabhison
* Sadan


- Sirian

 

[weakciv]

ok im at work now. I will download and play tonight.

 

[BeefontheBone]

If you need another alternate, I'm available. I am playing another SG, but it's the same one Sadan was

 

[weakciv]

Ok first off, it is interesting to be in a game situation I did not create. I like the challange.
Let's just hope I can contribute effectively.

Inherited turn:
review situation.
wow difficult choice where to go from here. I want to try to boost our Research rate.

I hate MM but I manually configure Rosette to slow growth because they are at max happiness.
Still gonna fill food box in 5 turns but gets us 2 more beakers.
I whip the lighthouse at Lyons because it will grow back quick. ( not on epic, not on epic, not on epic )

Looking and Thinking, Thinking and Looking.
Bingo! I'm going to get (not try, succeed) the Great Lighthouse in Paris by the end of my turns.

I move the 2 inherited workers towards Paris (thank you btw) to start work on Mine and chops.
80% research is now +1gpt

Turn 1 (225bc):
I hate missing barracks ... so ...
Paris completes lighthouse starts Great Lighthouse
Orleans completes archer starts barracks
Lyons completes lighthouse starts barracks
white dot worker heads on mission to camp eastern deer

Turn 2 (200bc):
Founds Rheims at land white dot and begins lighthouse
workboat makes fishing boats at fish near Rheims
still happily blocking Tokyo. (watching and waiting for a Japaneese navy)

Turn 3 (175bc):
forest chops help Paris and Rheims

Turn 4 (150bc):
I believe a religion will help us greatly in the happiness department. We only missed code of laws by 4 turns so I begin on meditation (3) the pre-req for Philosophy. I know it is expensive to look to Philo now but I think we can get it.
Of course it may just be

Classical Era (code of laws completes) starts meditiation.

Caste System will not help us much right now because we are not able to afford many specialist now so I do not begin revolt and stick with Slavery.

Archer complete in Rosette, mannually adjust Rosette again to give us another hammer to start library. (grow in one turn now I will allow because the unhappy from a previous whip is gone.)
I do not promote the Archer as we are not in any real war and I dont want to force it into a city defender ... yet

Turn 5 (125bc):
Change to avoid growth in Paris because it is at its happy limit. This changes Great Lighthouse production from 6 to 5 turns and makes growth stagnant.
Change to avoid growth in Orleans because it is at its happy limit. This Changes Barracks from 7 to 5 turns and stagnant.
These choices end up changing the 80% reseach to -1gpt. We have 10g though so we should be good.

 

[weakciv]

Turn 6 (100bc):
umm. Mine done near Paris.

Turn 7 (75bc):
Meditation complete begin Philosophy.
Rheims expands
Chop completes near Paris dropping Great Lighthouse to 1 turn.
Adjusts Rosette again (at max happy again) to slow growth to 6 turns but maintains hammers.

IBT:
Toku seeks peace. And well why not. We got our work boat back and wearieness will begin soon (i think) so i agree.

Turn 8 (50bc):
Great Lighthouse is complete and ours. Coastal trade routs will help as soon as we know more civs or found more cities.
Um thought I had a screen of it but I dont. Just use your imagination. Ya, thats it.

Paris begins Axemen (we still need military but I didnt see any big advantage to over building on my round)
Worker begins camp near Rheims
Paris worker moves to create mine on hill near Orleans

Turn 9 (25bc):
um. Starts mine near Orleans.

IBT:
Toku completes Pyramids.

Turn 10 (1ad):
Axe done in Paris starts Library. Maybe change for more military. Next person can override if needed.
Baracks done in Orleans starts on Library. Maybe change for more military. Again override if needed.
Leave axe unpromoted but begin moving him toward Rheims. I forgot to provide defence to that city. Not something I ususally forget and I almost started my entire set of turns again just to correct that issue. But I decided that would not be the answer.

I set the govenor back on in Rosette and then whip the Library complete. Rosette can handle the whip because of the food it brings in.
I bump research up to 90% so we can run a few turns at deficit research this cuts 3 turns off of research but some of this may come back. Libraries may allow us to stay at or near 90%.

We should begin courthouses soon.


I would say that this is a small square of coast that is 1 ocean space away from our coast space.

I forsee a future of taking over this city. But alas I just couldnt pull the trigger to pump out military. (not yet)

Here is just some Demographic info

:train whistle: NEXT!!!!!!!!

 

[Sirian]

Built the wonder! Great work.

Garath is up.


- Sirian

 

[Garath]

Got it to play in a couple of hours.

 

[weakciv]

*** Note to self ***
Re-size images before posting ......

 

[Garath]

Right then, what have I got?
I've been handed a 5-city empire that's barely losing money at 90% research. It's in Slavery as the only non-basic civic.
Rheims has no defender. but Paris has a spare, so I can afford to send one over.

Looking at the Demographics, we're now first or second in all three production categories
but still dead last in soldiers, and only middling in Land Area and Population. The aims for my turn are therefore clear: Expand the civ both outwards to more cities (the economy can support it, and upwards isn't possible without more happy), and Build More Military.

I particularly want to get that gambit city on the sheep settled, if I can, or at least set it up to be done as soon as possible.

I've been handed a long run on Philosophy, so I shouldn't have to think too much about tech on my round, but hopefully I should be able to speed it up a bit, with Libraries completing in Rosette (just whipped) and Orleans, which I intend to whip once it has a turn in, as it's maxed on happy with little production.

Whipping Paris doesn't look so tempting, as it would lose quite a bit of production while it regrew. Since everywhere else appears to already be on infrastructure, I decide to build a couple of units out of Paris before going back for the library. Archer selected.

Turn 1(25AD):
Rosette: Library -> Settler (it's maxed on happiness at size 4 due to the whipping, and can build it in a mere 6 turns due to all the food surplus.
In other news, Tokugawa adopts Representation, making use of the Pyramids shown in weakciv's screenshot.

The galley is coming home, but will take a while to get anywhere useful.

Since we've got at least one, probably two islands to settle and will want something to explore the possible route to the west, we'll want another galley at some point. I'll see if I can find time to build one at some point.

The second camp is started near Rheims, once those complete it should be a pretty solid city. It'll have exceptional food, and actually decent production as well from the camps.

I find that whipping the library in Orleans would cost 3 citizens, so I can't do it. I'll check it every turn and whip it at two, since all they're doing at the moment is being citizens. It should also speed up once the plains hill is mined, which is under way.

I notice that weakciv did, in fact, send a unit to be a defence for Rheims, an axe is on its way. Ah well, two units will do as well as one. On going back to his report to check what that axe was doing, though I notice this:

Leave axe unpromoted but begin moving him toward Rheims. I forgot to provide defence to that city. Not something I ususally forget and I almost started my entire set of turns again just to correct that issue. But I decided that would not be the answer.

You can't do that. You get one playthrough. Reloading (one turn) for a misclick, maybe. But nothing more, and never for a mistake of judgement rather than a physical mistake. It's the same way we all play, without spoiler knowledge of what might happen, or what went wrong, to change our judgements.

Turn 2(50AD):
Paris: Archer -> Archer. I send the newly built one off towards Rosette to meet up with the settler under production.
Rheims finishes Lighthouse. I want to build a worker here, since it's only 6 turns at size 2, but it'll grow next turn, pull in the other soon-to-be-camp and finish even faster. I put one turn on the Granary so it can be whipped or returned to later.

Turn 3(75AD):
Lyons: Barrack -> Spearman. We don't seem to have any, and Tokugawa is probably entirely capable of sending over horse archers.

Camp finishes at Rheims. I order the mining of its plains hill for when it gets to size 4, and switch it to Worker as I said (due in 5).

Turn 4(100AD):
Paris: Archer -> Library. This one I leave in Paris. I feel I can afford to let it build infrastructure, especially some as useful as a Library, since I now have another city building units.

Turn 5(125AD):
Nothing interesting. I'll therefore give you a shot of the lands as a whole:

Hmm. I say nothing interesting. What I mean is I whip the Library in Orleans for 2 pop, one of which will regrow immediately.

Turn 6(150AD):
Orleans: Library -> Axeman. Thanks, whoever built the Barracks in most places. Overflow means that'll only take 4 turns.
I send a worker back over to the West, since the new city will want connecting, and a head start on the Camp down there at the last good city site on our island (the dot 4 due south of Rosette)

Turn 7(175AD):
Rosette: Settler -> Settler. One good site to claim, the city still can't grow anyway, and we should build the settlers from the massively high food city.
Growth at Lyons gives us 1 more gold, temporarily leaving us breaking even at 90%. Never fear, though, I'll soon found another city and put paid to that!

Turn 8(200AD):
Rheims: Worker -> Granary (for real this time). I have it on more growth than production right now though since I've returned the horse tile to Orleans, at least while it's building military. Rheims can be left to grow out to 5, which it'll do PDQ with all that food, and then either whipped or set back to higher production at your will. That should be the last worker we need, too.

Turn 9(225AD):
Orleans: Axeman -> Archer.

Turn 10(250AD):
Lyons: Spearman -> Library. I'm not certain about that choice, though. (EDIT: second thoughts: Fishing Boat for the new city is probably better. The Library'll take too long as is.)
Tours founded in the gambit location, starts Lighthouse as the sea will provide its only 2 food tiles, and Creative will expand the borders well enough to attempt the crossing on its own.
That forces the turning down of research to 80%, at +1gpt.

Post-game analysis and save in next post due to image limit.

--Garath

 

[Garath]

The state of play:
The West:

You see there the new city, the defences both in and heading to it (nobody required to bust fog anymore, the expanded borders cover it now) and the worker that's just finished the first road heading off in that general direction. I've left another just SE of the corn in the north ready to head down to do things in that area as well.
You also see the galley that's been beelining over here my entire round. It should reach the potential crossing almost precisely as the Creative trait expands the borders at Tours.
The settler at Rosette is due soon, I believe the plan was for the location marked as Green Dot on that picture, leaving us with only one half-city left to found on our main island after that (at Orange Dot). There's no defence in place for the settler yet, unfortunately, but none of the cities have fewer than two units now so it should be possible to find some.

The East:

There isn't actually so much to tell about this one, it just lets people keep a good general idea of our current state.

The Demographics:

As you can see, I've managed to make some progress on the army size, though we're still low down the table (behind Tokugawa, not that that's a surprise). I haven't managed as much difference on the land/pop as I'd hoped, but I guess there's only so much one can do in 10 turns.
More notably, though, we've lost out on GNP. I'd guess that's because the AIs are starting to get cottages up and running, whereas we don't have the lands for it. We may need to push for the Colossus, if we've still got time to get it, as well as expanding to some better lands.

General thoughts:
Rosette's whipping unhappiness should run out this turn, so once the settler finishes it's a blank slate for you, Sirian.

I didn't find the time to build that Galley, but it's not needed yet, and either Orleans or Paris can do so fairly quickly when it's wanted.

There are still 11 turns on the Philosophy run, my 10 only took 12 off that. There are more libraries unbuilt, so it should finish on Sirian's turn. Taoism is still available.

I think there were more things, but unfortunately I failed to note them down and can't remember what they were. I might just be being paranoid, though.

--Garath

 

[Garath]

And the save.

On another note, I'm going home to my parents' for Christmas from tomorrow until just before New Year, and they don't have a computer capable of playing Civ4 there. (all Macs.)

Therefore if the game's still going over the holidays and gets back to me before then, I guess I'll have to take a skip. I'll still be online to discuss, so I'll let you know if the above isn't the case.

--Garath

(EDITed to actually include the save. )