[BTS] Saved Game - What to do here?

[LincolnOfRome]

At around 1 AD, I always seem to be in a quandary about what to do. In this game, I bulbed Maths with a GS and rushed Boudica with horses. I left her one poor city and gave her peace for Construction, Monotheism, and Priesthood. I'm on my way to Currency.

Should I elepult rush Ghandi or Wang Kung at this point? Should I just stay in the territory I've grabbed and build my cities big under Monarchy and Calendar? I could even go culture at this point and found one or two of the remaining religions.

I'd love to hear what other another player would do at this point. I have attached the save.

 

[lymond]

Guess I can help a fellow Virginian, but need to know the mod

 

[LincolnOfRome]

It looks like Beyond the Sword v3.19 and no mods are loaded. Are you having trouble opening the save?

I've added the starting save.

 

[lymond]

Ok..I opened it. You have Locked Modified Assets on, which means folks need like assets. I had BUG in custom assets and BULL DLL, so I switch those out....lookin'

 

[lymond]

Ok..

You need to right your economic ship here. Forget all builds for the moment (especially Archers! ugh), and build Research in all cities. Move the units with movement back into borders to reduce maintenance - you can move all in next turn.
Use GS on Academy in Mecca.

Adjust cities to max commerce and/or hammers without starving.

Adjust slider and you should be able to get Currency in 2 turn while having enough gold to finish it.

My assumption was that Currency would put you into the black by building wealth until you get Sailing. However, when I played a coupla turn Gandhi had well over 200g - prolly fail gold from sumthin, so I traded Currency for all the gold and Fishing. Started Monarchy knowing I could trade Mono and PH to Wang for Sailing the following turn. This'll open trade routes to Korea via the river.

New workers can hook up trade network to captured cities.

So...some pointers:

I think you did ok with the Boudi war. You got some cities and have a good base to do whatever you want. However, you really need to focus early on hooking up foreign trade routes..that'll help you a lot and put you in less a bind you were here.

Focus cottages over mines, especially river grass cottages. (In Mecca, I'd even consider cottaging river grass hills instead for Bureau later)

With Currency now, trade routes, and more cottages you should be fine economically to do whatever you want here. Plus the occasional gold trades and resource trades. It's really up to you how you want to proceed.

edit: Why build Archers?!! If you are building them for MP build warriors instead. You don't need to connect the iron yet anyway.

Phant/cats against Wang or Gandhi would work fine after getting economy set.

Do you use BUG?

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Thanks for your help. There's always a way out of an economic crash. I did some trades with Gandhi and I am out of economic peril and running Monarchy. Foreign trade routes are online and I opened borders with Boudica. Gandhi switch to Confucianism. I am building more workers to develop conquered lands. I am researching calendar and hope to trade with Gandhi for CoL.

Sorry, I missed you saying not to connect up the iron and now see it. Warriors can save some hammers.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Ok..

You need to right your economic ship here. Forget all builds for the moment (especially Archers! ugh), and build Research in all cities. Move the units with movement back into borders to reduce maintenance - you can move all in next turn.
Use GS on Academy in Mecca.

Adjust cities to max commerce and/or hammers without starving.

Adjust slider and you should be able to get Currency in 2 turn while having enough gold to finish it.

My assumption was that Currency would put you into the black by building wealth until you get Sailing. However, when I played a coupla turn Gandhi had well of 200g - prolly fail gold from sumthin, so I traded Currency for all the gold and Fishing. Started Monarchy knowing I could trade Mono and PH to Wang for Sailing the following turn. This'll open trade routes to Korea via the river.

New workers can hook up trade network to capture cities.

I did similar trades. I traded alphabet for fishing and gold, then I traded currency for monarchy.

So...some pointers:

I think you did ok with the Boudi war. You got some cities and have a good base to do whatever you want. However, you really need to focus early on hooking up foreign trade routes..that'll help you a lot and put you in less a bind you were here.

Focus cottages over mines, especially river grass cottages. (In Mecca, I'd even consider cottaging river grass hills instead for Bureau later)

With Currency now, trade routes, and more cottages you should be fine economically to do whatever you want here. Plus the occasional gold trades and resource trades. It's really up to you how you want to proceed.

I do like cottages. I see your point. Earlier sailing and some scouting would have paid for itself by now. Is this game still salvageable for a better than mediocre score?

edit: Why build Archers?!! If you are building them for MP build warriors instead. You don't need to connect the iron yet anyway.

I had a lot of barb action and warriors don't defend against spears/axes well. Now that Wang has moved closer, I probably didn't need an archer there.

Phant/cats against Wang or Gandhi would work fine after getting economy set.

I seem to be slow in learning when to optimally time those attacks.

Do you use BUG?

I most often play with BAT 4.1 as a mod. I play the games of the month, so I load the Buffy mod. I thought it would be easiest sharing a game with no mods or assets with the community. Anyway, I usually end up in the bottom of the pack on those games of the month and want to up my game a little bit. In the past, I have wiped out my adversaries and haven't taken advantage of the techs they can give you once you've taken them down to where they are no longer a threat. This game, I did sue for peace with Boudica for a few nice techs rather than completely wipe her out. That was a smart move I wouldn't have made in the past. Another difficulty is timing on later wars after the initial rush.

I didn't realize that locking assets would cause problems, but I do that to keep myself from goofing around and cheating by deleting inconvenient barbs.

 

[lymond]

I do like cottages. I see your point. Earlier sailing and some scouting would have paid for itself by now. Is this game still salvageable for a better than mediocre score?

Salvageable? I think you are in a very good position on this level. Could it be better, sure? But you are in a pretty good position to dominate your continent and take on the other later, if you desire.

I seem to be slow in learning when to optimally time those attacks.

Got Phant? Attack!

I most often play with BAT 4.1 as a mod. I play the games of the month, so I load the Buffy mod. I thought it would be easiest sharing a game with no mods or assets with the community. Anyway, I usually end up in the bottom of the pack on those games of the month and want to up my game a little bit. In the past, I have wiped out my adversaries and haven't taken advantage of the techs they can give you once you've taken them down to where they are no longer a threat. This game, I did sue for peace with Boudica for a few nice techs rather than completely wipe her out. That was a smart move I wouldn't have made in the past. Another difficulty is timing on later wars after the initial rush.

I think the peace with Boudi was a good idea to nab some techs. It really depends on what the target has to offer at the time vs. just getting their land or eliminating them anyway.

See below, but you did nothing wrong using an umodded save. Just the LMA cause issues for me.

I didn't realize that locking assets would cause problems, but I do that to keep myself from goofing around and cheating by deleting inconvenient barbs.

Yet you have "random seed" on ... Really the problem was on my end since I had BULL DLL active, which I often do. But for forum games it's best no to use LMA if you can. You can install BUG/BULL in custom assets which does not actually load a mod, and folks can play with or without it active. (I play most of my games with BAT like you, but keep a version of custom assets with BUG in case I need to look at forum games)

 

[Gumbolt]

Your paying 13 gold a turn unit costs. 3 gold a turn for supply for units out of your borders. You could delete units unless your planning a further war.
You need fishing/sailing for foreign trade routes. Either self tech or trade. THis gives 2 commerce a turn from each trade route.
You need currency for 2x trade routes.
Otherwise warfare for capture city gold.
Scientists in capital could run cottages if short of gold.
Not sure how Lymond is getting currency in 2 turns.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Your paying 13 gold a turn unit costs. 3 gold a turn for supply for units out of your borders. You could delete units unless your planning a further war.
You need fishing/sailing for foreign trade routes. Either self tech or trade. THis gives 2 commerce a turn from each trade route.
You need currency for 2x trade routes.
Otherwise warfare for capture city gold.
Scientists in capital could run cottages if short of gold.
Not sure how Lymond is getting currency in 2 turns.

I think you are commenting on an older save. If you check the AD 100 save, I did get currency in two turns . It was doable by maximizing building research and maximizing commerce tiles worked as Lymond suggested. I also have sailing and monarchy now and all foreign trade routes are open.

Yes, I plan to continue warring. I plan to build elephants and cats and attack Wang. I would like to see if I can improve relations with Gandhi so he trades techs more freely.

Yes, the scientists in the capital need to work cottages for gold and growth. Meanwhile. I should probably turn the Jewish holy city into a GP farm and build a lot of cottages in Boudica's former lands.

Based on the 100 AD save, any optimal strategy for warring Wang? He bothers me with his rapid rexing. He will have elephants and catapults (hwancha) soon (if not already) and may be too strong unless I strike soon. OTOH, there is a real danger in falling behind tech-wise in a long war.

There is a wheat/pig/marble city site to the south of the capital I would like to settle. If peace is the most optimal strategy, then I should do that. Peace is seldom the best strategy though.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Doh, I really need CoL ASAP. Running a spiritual leader and not having CoL by now is really bad on my part. India has the ToA. I should have been popping out those GM's by running caste. Though calendar might be nice, I should probably switch research to CoL. Gandhi may not be willing to trade. CoL also puts me closer to CS.

Am I on the right track? Let me know if running warring with Wang while running caste for GM's is realistic at this point.

Another thought--wiping out Boudica will end the "yearn for motherland" unhappiness. I should do so as soon as I can. Here current capital has no food resources, so I should raise it.

 

[Gumbolt]

Sampsa would say you should really only run scientists in golden ages. Better to grab huge swathes of land. Running scientists in capital was not great as you wanted to grow this.I made my previous comments just before going to bed so didn't look at research.

Tolosa should be running the corn.

If you plan to build Hanging gardens you need to chop it asap. Fail gold might be better given how weak your economy is.

You are losing a lot of city sites around your capital which is a shame.

You have a stack of HA doing nothing now. You can build phants and pults. A few captured cities will help your gold balance. There is a barb city you could of captured too.Use them or delete? They are costing you 12 gold a turn.

Your capital and second city should really have a granary by 100ad. No wonder they are still size 5 and 7.

Much that could be improved here.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Sampsa would say you should really only run scientists in golden ages.

Let me try to sort this out with logic. Specialists produce great people. Great people produce golden ages. If you don't run specialists, do you wait for the Taj Mahal golden age to run your first specialist? Without running specialist, you are going to have very few golden ages (unless you are a wonder whore).

Better to grab huge swathes of land. Running scientists in capital was not great as you wanted to grow this.I made my previous comments just before going to bed so didn't look at research.

Tolosa should be running the corn.

Why would I want to grow unhappy citizens? I just acquired monarchy and my first two cities are at their pre-monarchy happiness cap. For instance, Medina could grow to seven (5 default happy + 1 for ivory + 1 for temple). Most other cities had a five happiness cap. My recently captured cities had a three happiness cap, or even two if they did not have a trade connection to my one luxury resource. The scientist helped me to not grow past the capital's seven happy. Great scientists produced by science specialists are useful too. Early libraries running scientists are great for speeding up technology.

Now that I just switched to Monarchy, I can grow a little bit. I'll switch my scientist to working cottages this turn.

If you plan to build Hanging gardens you need to chop it asap. Fail gold might be better given how weak your economy is.

The Hanging Gardens, whether fail gold or built, will be fine either way. I have stone, so I'll build any stone-based wonder for fail gold. My cities are small, so It'll help if I actually build it.

You are losing a lot of city sites around your capital which is a shame.

How am I losing city sites? I appreciate that Wang is building my future cities for me. I wish he would place them better though.

You have a stack of HA doing nothing now. You can build phants and pults. A few captured cities will help your gold balance. There is a barb city you could of captured too.Use them or delete? They are costing you 12 gold a turn.

My horse archers aren't even fully healed yet from taking Bibracte, but I had better declare war soon. I will divide my horse archers into three or four groups to pillage his land of all ivory, copper, iron, and horses first. While my horses are doing, I'll build elephants and catapults. I may even be able to pick off some of the smaller cities. Then I'll bring my elephants in to take his cities.

Your capital and second city should really have a granary by 100ad. No wonder they are still size 5 and 7.

Much that could be improved here.

My city size was limited by having one religion, no monarchy, and only one luxury resource. It had nothing to do with not building a granary. I just acquired monarchy in trade with Gandhi for currency. Until now, it was all about bulbing mathematics and chopping horse archers.

Everything is an opportunity cost. I am more likely to be two horse archers short of taking Bibracte than two granaries short. Now that I have monarchy, granaries will be needed. I could have probably microed slavery and chopping more effectively at some point so I would have just as many horse archers and built granaries, so point taken.

At this point I have to decide between calendar and CoL. I'm not sure which is most important. CoL will help me get a great merchant by running caste. Calendar will help me grow cities larger.

 

[Harv]

I was not able to load the save, but will check out what Lymond posted for an initial save. What are the settings? I think it's normal speed, based on the year. What difficulty?

 

[LincolnOfRome]

It is emperor, standard size, normal speed, continents. There are three saves, 4000 BC, 1 ad, and 100 ad. I aimed for an early writing, and early horseback writing. I may have even delayed pottery, fishing, and sailing until after horseback riding and math. A great scientist bulbed math. Early in the game, I relied on great scientists rather than cottages for teching. I saw all the forests at the beginning and thought that would be a good strategy. Others will play the game differently.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Lymond said a random seed and lock modified assets settings prevented him from loading the bull DLL. I'll have to change those settings for future games I share on the forum. I usually play with buffy or bat mods loaded.

 

[sampsa]

Don't have the game installed now so can't check the save yet.

If you don't run specialists, do you wait for the Taj Mahal golden age to run your first specialist? Without running specialist, you are going to have very few golden ages (unless you are a wonder whore).

For me, the 1st golden age is started by the 1st naturally generated (usually scientists ran via library), 2nd naturally generated GS (first one bulbs philo) or by music artist.

A great scientist bulbed math.

I know that this move is recommended by some, but now you can feel the drawbacks. Future are more expensive, thus you are even more reliant on the golden age and it's harder to start it. In general, math bulb puts you in a spot where you give up massive future gains (liberalism->cuirs for example) hoping for massive immediate gains due to stronger chops. On pangaea it's possible to just conquer all with HAs, but on continents it makes less sense as you will need huge tech power to reach astro to win.

 

[Gumbolt]

Not saying don't run specialist. Just normally let your capital grow. 2x scientist means it's not running cottages and not growing. You could try for free artist from Music for golden age. Or have a 2nd city run scientists. Running scientists everywhere is okay to get out of science holes but overall cottages are much stronger than 3 science from a specialist. Getting one early great scientist is fine. Bulbing maths unless you have a strategy is not great. I normally save one great person for a golden age. Unless I use it on a academy and try for great artist instead. Getting Music first on emperor should not be tough.

Nothing wrong growing into unhappiness. As when you get monarchy and or mids you can quickly move out of unhappiness. You lack a granary making whipping in these cities tougher. Granary is the most important building a city needs. Many build a granary before whipping for HA. No reason you could not of had Calendar and be working those resources too if you had maths and some cottages. On a good game I aim for a size 10-13 size city by 100ad. Size 7 is well below that. Your 2 HA short as you had no granaries to help cities grow quicker and offer the next whip faster.

Hanging gardens is okay I would of prefered mids which has not yet been built. Your city only has 5 base hammer production. 4x forest would of finished HG in a few turns. If you want the wonder really push for it. Worst case you get 200-300 fail gold. 11H a turn is not worth the effort. You have stronger hammer cities anyway elsewhere.

You are losing city site cause Korea and India are grabbing the land. You have land around your capital not even explored. The pigs/wheat would of been a good food city and one that could of helped with cottages. All your cities were 4 tiles from your capital so no cities to help with cottages.

Right now you have an army that with 3-4 more units that should be taking down the next AI. You need units scouting the AI to see who is the next best target and where their capitals are. You have some reasonable land. I would not be sitting on 7 cities. If you can afford it always keep expanding. Land round your capital will have the lowest upkeep and distance from capital cost too.

 

[lymond]

Lymond said a random seed and lock modified assets settings prevented him from loading the bull DLL. I'll have to change those settings for future games I share on the forum. I usually play with buffy or bat mods loaded.

It's just Locked Modified Assets that creates the load issue. If anyone has different assets like...say...BULL DLL active vs. Vanilla DLL....they can't load the save unless they change back. Also, note that anyone with Steam version may have issues loading the save if they've not converted to the BETA "orginal_release" version.

I usually only consider bulbing Maths if I have a Philo leader AND I feel that doing so will provide some advantage...like power chops or trade bait. It depends too on how soon I can get those scientists running. Usually, your cap is gonna take care of this initially until other cities can take the brunt of production for expansion. You can run scientists as much as you can anywhere, but not at the expense of expanding sufficiently early.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Don't have the game installed now so can't check the save yet.

For me, the 1st golden age is started by the 1st naturally generated (usually scientists ran via library), 2nd naturally generated GS (first one bulbs philo) or by music artist.

I know that this move is recommended by some, but now you can feel the drawbacks. Future are more expensive, thus you are even more reliant on the golden age and it's harder to start it. In general, math bulb puts you in a spot where you give up massive future gains (liberalism->cuirs for example) hoping for massive immediate gains due to stronger chops. On pangaea it's possible to just conquer all with HAs, but on continents it makes less sense as you will need huge tech power to reach astro to win.

I know you had to run specialists at some point to get things started, but I get your point. You prefer to use specialists sparingly (except during golden ages) and focus on growth.

I usually only consider bulbing Maths if I have a Philo leader AND I feel that doing so will provide some advantage...like power chops or trade bait. It depends too on how soon I can get those scientists running. Usually, your cap is gonna take care of this initially until other cities can take the brunt of production for expansion. You can run scientists as much as you can anywhere, but not at the expense of expanding sufficiently early.

It works pretty well on the emperor level even with a non-phi leader, but it may not have been optimal on this map.

Nothing wrong growing into unhappiness. As when you get monarchy and or mids you can quickly move out of unhappiness. You lack a granary making whipping in these cities tougher. Granary is the most important building a city needs. Many build a granary before whipping for HA. No reason you could not of had Calendar and be working those resources too if you had maths and some cottages. On a good game I aim for a size 10-13 size city by 100ad. Size 7 is well below that. Your 2 HA short as you had no granaries to help cities grow quicker and offer the next whip faster.

Good use of whipping would have made up for it. I see your point.

Hanging gardens is okay I would of prefered mids which has not yet been built. Your city only has 5 base hammer production. 4x forest would of finished HG in a few turns. If you want the wonder really push for it. Worst case you get 200-300 fail gold. 11H a turn is not worth the effort. You have stronger hammer cities anyway elsewhere.

Mids were built 275 BC.

You are losing city site cause Korea and India are grabbing the land. You have land around your capital not even explored. The pigs/wheat would of been a good food city and one that could of helped with cottages. All your cities were 4 tiles from your capital so no cities to help with cottages.

Right now you have an army that with 3-4 more units that should be taking down the next AI. You need units scouting the AI to see who is the next best target and where their capitals are. You have some reasonable land. I would not be sitting on 7 cities. If you can afford it always keep expanding. Land round your capital will have the lowest upkeep and distance from capital cost too.

Korean land seems richer. They are going down, but my economy is struggling.