RLC#1. Suryavarman of Khmer.

[learner gamer]

Some great points there @Soirana. Indeed, I have a couple of follow up questions for you or any other of the gurus who are posting in this thread. To be precise, given the point @pigwswill makes here:

I suspect that there's a body of thought that the optimum city development strategy is to identify a site for a very powerful capital (which benefits from bureaucracy of course) and then fit in other cities around it rather than try to fit in several average cities in the same area. This would certainly explain the dotmaps that have been suggested and the emphasis on 1N of rice as the next city.

(i) is it routinely the case that settling a commerce site (eg 1N of rice) is better than settling a hammer rich site (eg 1NW of rice); and
(ii) why are people preferring the commerce site here?

I ask – and it's of course directly relevant to @pigswill’s decision – because, having played a fair few emperor and immortal maps – I’ve found there are times when settling a hammer rich second city is better than settling a strong commerce site. Of course, the appeal of a commerce site is boosted by the bureaucracy civic...but there are times when I’ve found that a second city providing early hammers has provided more units, which have enabled the capture of an AI bureaucracy capital.

Why are people therefore generally preferring the settlement of 1N of rice (for commerce) over 1NW of rice (for hammers)? Is perhaps the bit I’m missing that much depends on the timing of your attack (as well as the type of AI capital you might capture, which is unknown here so in early in this game)...the more your first (or key) war(s) is (are) likely to come after civil service, the more you want to favour a strong commerce site over hammers. As an aside BTW, does this point also have any bearing on how far gamers are prepared to compromise surrounding cities to nab that ideal bureaucracy site?

 

[vranasm]

commerce even if it comes behind food and hammers is still valid concern in the early exploration phase.

you usually solve this in 2 ways

1) you have capital with commerce and settle cities which work commerce in capital while capital pumps w/s until capital can take over all tiles (happy cap)

2) your city 2 takes over commerce duty, while capital builds w/s even longer

As for at what size to build first settler, from my long experience size 3 seems to be good enough magical number because

1) you need only 3 tile improvements before starting to chop s/w, road city 2, build improvements city 2
2) you will most probably lack enough good tiles anyway (we talk here about 5+ tile yields)
3) city 2 is productive from the get go (it increases overall commerce output if connected by 3c basically paying for itself) so you want to settle it "very soon"
4) "very soon" otoh doesn't mean your city 3 should be too delayed.

size 2 settler is useful if you really really are blocked and are jealous, this is not the case.

Brennus is walled off with mountains and is highly improbable he will expand into your land too soon.

Btw we have here the clear problem of timing of tile improvements and wanting to start chopping.

So that's why the magical size would be most probably 3... corn (6), wheat (5) and copper (is it 6 again?) + chops for super strong start.

Didn't do math, but you maybe could have nice small 3-city empire around T45 if you stagnate on size 3 while chopping couple of workers and settlers.

 

[pigswill]

I've played another 20 turns taking me up to T50 (2000bc).

You've read from Soirana and vranasm how I should have played.

Here's what actually happened......

T30. Settler is in transit. Good time to revolt to slavery so I did.

T31. Hariharalaya (aka Hari) is founded on my original spot B, 1 below the rice. It gets instant roadless trade route to Yas and works oasis, commerce goes from 10>13gpt.
Now that I've got some expenses its time to start on this clever binary research (100% cash or 100% research) which I'm assured can save a few beakers, if anyone is interested in the maths I'll have to wait for one of the forum's mathematicians to explain it in detail. After one turn of fundraising I'll finish off AH at 100% research.

T34 AH>wheel, due in 6 turns at 100% research. Yas finishes worker and starts building warriors while growing pop.

T35. Hari pops borders and Brennus is blocked from peaceful westward expansion.

T40 The wheel is in, roads can be built. 100% cash for 1 turn then start on pottery.
Yas builds a third worker to make use of chop on a grassland hill.

Workers are busy working, a few warriors start heading north to explore. There are times when you wonder if it would be better to be isolated:

His scout was seen running around the north, no idea where Zululand might be.

T44. Yas hits pop 5 and starts a settler.

T48. We meet our first barbarian, a savage warrior who dies attacking our hilltop warrior. There's a barb archer down south as well, fortunately Gil's exploring archer has been blocked by our borders and will be its first target. Copper has been connected, start axe in Hari replacing part built warrior.

T49.Pottery is in. 100% cash before starting on writing. Whip an axe in Hari, whip settler in Yas. Barb archer kills Gil's archer lol.

T50. Yas settler>granary (1 turn). Hari axe>spear(1 turn). As usual part built warriors get automatically converted to spears with hunting and BW. Settler heads north.

Here's an annotated map of the civilised south:

And a screenshot of the not very civilised north.

When there's something strange in the neighborhood who ya gonna call? Spawn Busters!

Here's a save (sans annotations):

 

[pigswill]

Some thoughts on the game so far.

Couple of unusual things I've noticed. The first is that we've got to 2000bc on monarch and not a single wonder has been built. I usually expect Stonehenge or Great Wall to have been built somewhere. Its possible that the AIs are all competing for the pyramids. Second thing is religion. Buddhism got founded at pretty much the standard date but Hinduism not until 2900bc and Judaism still hasn't appeared. Maybe we'll discover Spain on a Lake With a Triple Headed Hydra! .

I've just about managed to get spawnbusters out on time, northwest is covered by Sumeria so shouldn't see too many barbs from that direction. Brennus has finally settled another city and cities are much better at spawnbusting than units (4 tiles in each direction iirc) so shouldn't see any more black barbs from there. The north east is still vulnerable so I'll send an axe or two up there to protect the warriors.

The immortal deities have been observing from Olympus and in between dispatching thunderbolts have pretty much said "Found Your First City North of the Rice". I hope I don't get chained to a rock with a vulture nibbling on my liver, it sounds very unpleasant. I guess my thoughts were/are to get the first founded city immediately productive and south of rice seemed to be best available spot for that purpose, in the medium/long term it also makes best use of the tiles to its south.

One south of rice means I can't settle 1 north of rice but I can build a city 2 north of rice. 2N iirc gets 6 FP instead of 7 but also gets 5GH instead of 3GH+PH, maybe 1 or 2 fewer riverside tiles but its still a very solid city (and keeps water, rice and horses).

On the subject of cities I'm really very tempted by the west coast site that gets fish, clams, cows and rice, it even has a couple of PH tiles and looks a very strong candidate for a GP Farm (or GT whipping machine).

 

[pigswill]

Looking forwards.

Long term strategy is space win. Its a lot easier to win space with 20-30 cities than with 5-6. So the medium term objective is to get 20+ cities in a reasonable time frame (certainly before 1500ad) and still have an economy.

So far we've met Brennus to the south east who doesn't appear at this point to be a major rival. We've also met Gilgamesh to the north who has the potential to be a rival and Shaka who's somewhere and can do surprisingly well if he's given enough space.

At some point we'll likely be going to war to acquire enough cities for our long term victory objective and so the question becomes when, who and with what.

As this is a continuation of the ALC series it might be relevant at this point to consider Sury's strengths and weaknesses. One thing he isn't really designed for is early rushing, you can of course axe rush with any leader but its not really playing to Sury's strengths (particularly with no ivory for his UU). I reckon that Sury's major strength is in early rexing, granted he's not imperialistic for cheap settlers but the major constraint on early rushes (particularly in low commerce starts) is economic. Sury can whip granaries cheaply, grow a bit, whip a library cheaply and a city can be running a couple of scientists while it would still be starting a library with some other leaders.

If this is a valid analysis then the next part of Per Terra Ad Astra will be focussing on a rex and probably going for a standard lib cuirassier rush later in the game.

 

[learner gamer]

The immortal deities have been observing from Olympus and in between dispatching thunderbolts have pretty much said "Found Your First City North of the Rice". I hope I don't get chained to a rock with a vulture nibbling on my liver, it sounds very unpleasant.

Funnily enough, for all the debate, I wouldn’t overly worry about not being 100% optimal re: city locations. As gamers such as @AbsoluteZero have illustrated all too well, settling cities 100% optimally can be far less important IMHO than doing things like whipping them down to insta build an army when an attack window opens. That settling debate reminds me BTW....I’d really appreciate answers to my earlier 3 questions from some of the gurus out there.

Re: west coast. FWIW, I’d settle two cities (i) rice / wine and (ii) clams / fish / grassland cows. Obviously also worth checking to see if there’s any other seafood in between clams / fish beforehand.

Re: wonders. I see stone NE. If they are going that late, what are the chances of you nabbing a late mids? Would solve the happiness problem, no?

Re: worker micro. Not sure why you have two workers mining a grassland hill near the capital (since you’re not in any danger of working an unimproved tile yet). Meanwhile, Hari is getting close to happy cap, so I’d take at least one of those workers (and maybe have the other chop forest and then mine to get the hammers from chopping earlier) and have it / them roading to and connecting the furs.

Re: future strategy. IMHO, we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little. I agree re: the REx but, before thinking about things like cuirassiers, I’d be more inclined to keep it simple and prioritise exploring to reveal more of the map first. After all, from what we can see, you’ve spawned between two (admittedly second tier) warmongers in Gligamesh and Brennus – and we’ve yet to see where Shaka is. Depending on how things like religion spreads and pre-game diplo RNG rolls have fared, you may yet get an opportunity to wage war pre-cuirassiers...or even be on the end of a DoW before then.

Re: espionage. Any thoughts re: focussing your EP?

 

[Revent]

Looking forwards.

Long term strategy is space win. Its a lot easier to win space with 20-30 cities than with 5-6. So the medium term objective is to get 20+ cities in a reasonable time frame (certainly before 1500ad) and still have an economy.

So far we've met Brennus to the south east who doesn't appear at this point to be a major rival. We've also met Gilgamesh to the north who has the potential to be a rival and Shaka who's somewhere and can do surprisingly well if he's given enough space.

At some point we'll likely be going to war to acquire enough cities for our long term victory objective and so the question becomes when, who and with what.

As this is a continuation of the ALC series it might be relevant at this point to consider Sury's strengths and weaknesses. One thing he isn't really designed for is early rushing, you can of course axe rush with any leader but its not really playing to Sury's strengths (particularly with no ivory for his UU). I reckon that Sury's major strength is in early rexing, granted he's not imperialistic for cheap settlers but the major constraint on early rushes (particularly in low commerce starts) is economic. Sury can whip granaries cheaply, grow a bit, whip a library cheaply and a city can be running a couple of scientists while it would still be starting a library with some other leaders.

If this is a valid analysis then the next part of Per Terra Ad Astra will be focussing on a rex and probably going for a standard lib cuirassier rush later in the game.

Yeah, a Cuir rush seems pretty feasible I think providing you can get yourself horse and iron.
Thing to bear in mind: Giggles and Shaka can be very annoying AI as they can declare on pleased so you may need to build some military up in case.

Sending a workboat to scout around the continent will also be good idea I think.
Happiness issues should easily be solved by the 'Mids since you have stone. Also, see a lot of locations where you can build decent coastal cities. Maybe might be worth investing in GLH for extra commerce pre currency to boost your rapid expansion that you plan.

Your point about cheap libraries, if you go for the mids and beeline code of laws, you could pretty much farm everything you can with all those tiles that have freshwater access and running rep/caste, use lots of specialists to fuel your research. Then when its time for war, you could switch to slavery and go for lots of whipping since the cities will grow back pretty fast from the farms.

 

[pigswill]

No major criticisms of the proposal to rex away so either people agree or they think I'm a hopeless case who just rejects good advice when its posted. [This is not strictly true and I'd already committed to a pop 2 settler before the advice came in. Maybe if I'd left the settler a bit later and gone for wheel before AH to get some roads built I would have settled differently.] The turns are now played however so its time to move on.

We have a settler and 2 options for next city. There's 2 north of rice which is indeed very nice and there's also the north west fishing city (1E of clams) which is also very nice. There is a risk that Gil may nab the fish site if we go for rice city first, on the other hand fish city will need fishing fairly soon or wait 5 turns for a border pop and work the riverside rice.

Of these two options I'd go for fishing city first, Hari can start on a settler for rice spot after the spear while Yas grows on another axe before churning out another worker or two. As for mining the grassland hill my rationale was that Yas can stabilise at pop 5 working wheat, copper and hills for max production of axes and workers which leaves the cows and corn for Hari to put into settlers.

There's also the issue of the next tech after writing. As we're not going for an early rush I'd probably go something like writing>fishing>alphabet>myst and hope to pick up stuff like sailing, IW and religious techs from alphabet.

 

[learner gamer]

Re: west coast. FWIW, I’d go 1E of clams and 1SE of rice. Although the latter is food poor (=> excuse for a baray), it gives you two decent coastal city sites. Others may prefer E, SE of rice on the plains hill one off the coast.

Tech path looks fine....the key is that fishing arrives before / as you settle clam / fish / cow city for a WB as first build. You may even be able to trade for mysticism at this level.

As for mining the grassland hill my rationale was that Yas can stabilise at pop 5 working wheat, copper and hills for max production of axes and workers which leaves the cows and corn for Hari to put into settlers.

Growing to happy cap sounds like a good plan but consider this: at the beginning of the turn you could’ve had just one worker chop the forest and then mine the grassland hill. That would still have finished the mine as you grew to pop 5. Meanwhile, your other worker could’ve been roading into and putting a camp on those furs to raise the happy cap earlier, for the benefit of Hari. In addition, ordering your worker to chop the forest first and then mine the hill would’ve given you the hammers from chopping the forest four turns earlier.

Re: tile micro. Small point but you may want to consider having the capital work the corn (and Hari the grassland cow) for this turn to grow to 13/26 in the capital and give you fractionally more food stored in the granary when you grow to pop 4.

 

[pigswill]

Re micro. Good points re double workers on mine and also extra food for capital's granary. Still thinking about WB first in fish city, we'd need to swop to fishing this turn which would delay writing by 4 turns but I'm probably not thinking of building a library in the next ten turns anyway. I'm too tired to do the math at the moment.

 

[learner gamer]

Still thinking about WB first in fish city, we'd need to swop to fishing this turn which would delay writing by 4 turns but I'm probably not thinking of building a library in the next ten turns anyway.

Funnily enough, I was going to ask about that: whether you're actually going to be building a library so soon. This takes me to one other point re: tech to throw out there. I notice Brennus looks to have settled the stone and incense spots. How long do you think you've got to settle that island (which would require sailing and a galley)? We don't know for certain ofc because we don't know how much land Brennus has to settle in his area. Perhaps it might be worthwhile building a scout post writing (and OB) just to check? Or have you seen his WBs in the vicinity of the island (ie. so you know he knows the island is there)?

 

[pigswill]

Another 9 turns played, another decision to make. But first an update.

1920bc Judaism founded, a bit later than usual.

1880. Brennus proves he is indeed spiritual and charismatic by adopting Judaism. Gil and Shaka remain agnostic for now.

1840. Fishing is in, swop to cash.

1800. Angkor Thom (AT) is founded on the west coast sushi spot. Expenses rise quickly.

1640. Started exploring north, not much to report yet. Hari's produced a settler, but where will she go?

I like the northern spot though it'll be expensive and annoy Gil considerably. One of the nice things about expansive/creative is that saving 70h on granary and library is effectively 2 free axes. This may become relevant...

While Hari was building the settler Yas built another worker, an axe which killed the south barb archer and has just finished a WB to explore horse island before heading towards AT. Workers have finished Yas' mine and Hari's cottage, road finished to fur which will be camped in 2 turns, another is roading towards AT while fourth is chopping towards AT's WB.

Economy is beginning to struggle but at least fishing allows us to work some water tiles, still amassing cash to finish off writing:

A tricky balancing act will be required to pinch enough land without totally ruining the economy but once writing is in I can always run scientists on 100% cash.

I'd kind of forgotten about espionage, just remembered to fiddle this a bit to at least get some idea of Gil's and Shaka's demographics over the next few turns.

 

[Kid R]

I think trying to pinch land by blocking far north and then backfilling would be a mistake here. We would be struggling economically for a long time and with these neighbours run a very high risk of getting DOWed and bogged down in a costly defensive war.

I would take horse/cow/hills on the blue circle, a floodplain city with at least 1 hill to build stuff say 1NW of your mark, and your rice/forest/wine, then consolidate a nice tight empire. Try to keep a good tech lead and bribe shaka to attack gil. Judging by the score brennus looks cramped so he seems a good first target if the others stay busy, or if gil is fighting the other side we might take some of his cities and leave brennus till later.

 

[pigswill]

I'm still about 10 turns away from writing at the moment and every new city founded would delay this further. Once writing is in if I can get libraries and 2 scientists going soon enough then the beakers from specialists would pretty much balance out city maintenance cost.

I'm aware of the cost of expansion but also aware of the cost of letting Gil and Shaka grow unhindered though bribing one against the other may well slow them down enough.

It may be worth not settling another city until I've got writing and I've got a bit more exploration done and then explore the options.

 

[vanatteveldt]

I think a city near the cows can function as your northern border for a long time. It would be good to create a strong production city there, which should be possible with the cows, horses, and hills. Problem is food: grass cows give some food but not enough to run mines of. Rice is nice but dry rice on a jungle tile not so much. So, you need to farm flood plains for food. Blue circle spot puts the cows in the second ring (something I dislike in border towns; Sumeria can build next to the cows and it will be tough to keep them, although it is nice that you are creative) but seems to be the only place that combines horses, cows, hills, and floodplains. 1N puts cows in first ring and has 2FP but loses the horses, but a city on the riverside PH west of the horses can become a nice production city as well with horses and hills fed by wet rice and a grassland farm. Not super but nice enough.

East I would place 1W or NW of blue spot. You sacrifice a FP but put more in the BFC and lose mainly ocean.

A final city that you will probably not build could go 1N of the warrior to get stone, rice, and silk and function as a buffer zone / round off the borders.

 

[pigswill]

So I played up to writing (a mere 8 turns to my surprise) without settling another city but explored a bit further. Once writing was in I had a word with Gil who greeted me with the spine-chilling words "fear my archer" . No 'fear my horde of vultures'? Maybe, just maybe he doesn't have copper or horses. While its likely that he'll have iron somewhere in his empire it does buy me some time before he's in a position to attack. He's also limited to 3 cities at the moment and seems to be surrounded by jungle.

But what about Shaka? Interesting indeed. Turns out he's not a neighbour at all (though he could still decide to march a stack through Sumeria just to be a nuisance).

Coast to the east and north east, junglified (maybe that's not a proper word) to the north west. Brennus hemmed in to the south east still on 2 cities. I reckon that this may be a situation where I can rex and backfill and still be in a position to fend of Gil or Brennus.

By the way, the first and only wonder of the game so far has been built: Stonehenge in 1480bc. Seriously weird.

I'll post a save, just about here:

 

[learner gamer]

IMHO, the need for commerce / beakers means you need to focus on (i) settling commerce generating sites and (ii) running a couple of science specialists. The latter is slightly complicated by a slight worker shortage IMHO.

FWIW, I’d settle @Kid R’s spot 3N of rice next (assuming you no longer want 2N of rice). Others may prefer 1W of that spot for more hammers.

Question: which city will be your (long term) GP farm? Hari?

IMHO, capital goes worker > library. Worker can help out roading to city 5 (which I’d place 3NE of Hari to get one plains hill in the BFC EDIT: assuming the wine spot's not under threat ofc) or be a dedicated chopper around the capital.

 

[pigswill]

Thoughts on settlement:

I'm thinking of AT as GP farm with 3-4 food sources. Hari will probably languish in the long term as Yas will use the corn and cow to grow into a proper capital once HR is in for happiness.

I'll probably continue WB's voyage north, AT can live without clams for the moment.

Fair point re more workers, I guess Yas will have to live without a library for a while longer.

 

[learner gamer]

City #4 suggests you’re very much a fan of VoU’s mantra: claim more than your fair share of land.

FWIW, I’d avoid city #4 like the plague. Two creative leaders that close together is only going to cause unnecessary border tension IMHO. And with Gilgamesh being PRO, it’s not exactly going to be easy trying to counter any DoW he might make.

IMHO, city #4 goes either where you’ve labelled city #6 or 1N of it. Grabbing those cows makes a very, very strong case for 1N IMHO.

City #5 goes either 1N or 1NW of where you’ve marked it (depending on how many sea tiles you want in the BFC...perhaps a Moai site with stone around?). Without hammers, that city will struggle for some time IMHO.

Other city sites look fine.

Not sure about AT being the GP farm. IMHO, it lacks the food to be a great GP farm...unless you’re planning not to work the surrounding tiles / hills? IMHO, it’s a very strong hammer site. Take another look at Hari...it has plenty of food (and can borrow more from the capital if needed). Talking of Hari, my inclination would be to finish settler > library > granary. That city has so much food at this point, it can easily 2 pop whip (thanks to CRE) a library, with big overflow into a granary (thanks to EXP). Two pop whipping the library will also help prevent going over the happy cap...and you can control regrowth by running science specialists there. That will leave your capital as the worker / settler pump, which it looks well set for at the mo with all those hills. One dedicated chopper and a production line that reads worker > settler > worker > settler (wth a library at some point when you get big overflow) and you’re set IMHO.

 

[pigswill]

I'm not sure that I completely share your viewpoint on this. I agree that two creative civs are going to have overlapping borders and the risk of close border tension. Where I disagree is that avoiding city 4 will remove border tension. I think that if I don't settle there then Gil will take the site instead and we'll end up with the same border tension except that he'll have an extra city (effectively an extra 2: +1 Gil -1Sury).

As I've said before (post 96) Gil's development is going to be hampered by jungle which will slow him down (and another reason not to give him non-jungle sites).