SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

We need the stone for the mids and the sooner we get them the better off we are. The stone cuts the mids in half. We are safe on the cow city as long as we send a warrior up there to stop a barb city from spawning. It can be number 5 I think.

With that said, I didn't play past the mids so I don't know what will happen after that but with 4 cities we were at 50% research. If we settle river and wheat before stone and still have stone for mids then we have 5 cities and the research would be around 30-40% which I think would be unacceptable.

We need to evaluate if the investment in low research now will be compensated by a more solid Empire in the mid-late game.
After the wheel, things will surely go better.
Wheat is precious, since it's a "granary resource". Owning it can avoid more expensives health buildings later.
And we must not forget the blocking role of that city.

 

[BLubmuz]

Lack of trade routes makes near impossible a religion auto spreads fast. Unless we adopt OR immediately and start build a missionary.

Instead of a monument built in a new city, what about a religion spreaded?

If we immediately switch to a missionary in Dehli, we can start a worker or a warrior in the River city until this can arrive there, then chop a temple.
So we can have 1 culture for Hindu and 1 for the temple, until Confu is founded.

After that, the free missionary will arrive in Dehli, spread Confu and we just revolt to Confu or even to no religion if Dehli will be busy with settlers after the Oracle.

But i'm still waiting the answer for the Wheat city. You posted that Zara sent a settler in the tundra, but when he tries to settle in the wheat area? If ever.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Early War? We'll deal with it

ALSO: Zara will have another option that he might take, and that is to declare war. Do we want an early war?

Sure, why not? Then we can take his capitol. Even if he manages to capture River City first, the city's borders should expand before he decides to declare war, so the city will still be there for us to retake.

We can be at war as long as we want.

It's obviously not the most ideal situation, but it's not bad, since it gives us war "for free" with an opponent.

We could even possibly get another AI or two to give us shared military bonus by getting them to declare on Zara, without needing to declare on an AI ourselves.


The reality, though, is that Zara is not likely to declare war this soon on an opponent with whom he is Pleased, so we are unlikely to get this nice benefit of him declaring on us.



Oracle in City 3?

One thing i like to test is if we have any chance to build the Oracle in that river city, provided we settle it.

Ahhh, the famous Catch 22: Let's build a Wonder that will found us a Religion in City 3. Yet, building that Wonder efficiently requires a Religion in City 3 in order to make use of the Organized Religion Civic.


Cultural Buildings in River City

How was the culture battle going in River? Does a monument really make sense? Wouldn't a cheap temple be better? For a few more hammers, you get 1 culture and 1 happy...

Another idea is to start by building a Monument, then switch to a Temple when it is available (i.e. when Confucianism is founded). Once the city grows, you switch back to the Monument and whip it, queuing up a Library next and letting the overflow Hammers go into the Library.

The turn after the overflow Hammers go into the Library, continue building the Temple and it should also have enough Hammers in it to whip it for 1 population once you've grown back to Size 2, which you can also overflow into the Library.

Note that the above idea has not been tested to verify the accuracy of my claims.


***EDIT:*** Actually, upon considering the idea further, we probably should just overflow the Hammers from the Monument into the Temple and not even start on the Library until both are done. We won't be exceeding the overflow Hammer cap when we whip the Temple, so this way might get an extra Hammer via having all overflow Hammers that go into the Library being "input" at the "same time," and thus giving us a greater chance of achieving the "4 more Hammers at a time = 5 Hammers under Organized Religion" bonus.

Which of course means that we won't even have to "remember" to switch to a Temple once Concufianism is founded, since all of the Monuments Hammers that we invest will overflow into the Temple, due to the full cost of the Monument already being paid off by the whipping action itself. We'd even get bonus Hammers from the whip if we whipped when the Organized Religion bonus was active.


Delaying the settling of City 3 gives us Zara's Grassland Cow sooner--we just need good scouting to avoid losing the settling opportunity to Zara's Settler

True. I was thinking to settle River the turn before learning CoL, so it would have a religion in it starting the turn after it's settled. Settling the city too early will be costly with respect to research. Of course, all of this needs to be tested, right?

Well we know that we can get more cultural output in the Grassland Cows square by delaying settling City 3 as the River City, because getting Confucianism 2 turns faster by delaying the settling will give us more cultural output than we would gain on the Culture from having "missed out on Hammers that could have been invested in a partial Monument during that time period."

The only variable is whether Zara will beat us to that City location. Keeping an eye on his borders and also watching to see if he puts down a nearby Road will help us to decide if we can afford to leave Settler 3 "in place" on the River City location without actually sitting him down for a while.



Stone City as City #5 doesn't really work

If we settle river and wheat before stone and still have stone for mids then we have 5 cities and the research would be around 30-40% which I think would be unacceptable.

Agreed that we can't afford to risk putting down Stone City as City #5 due to the lack of research on Math.

We also cannot make Stone City #5 because it means expanding our cultural borders over the Stone very late--where do you think that Christianity will be founded? Likely in City 4. Yet, even if we get Christianity in the Stone City when it is settled as our 5th City, Stone City will take a while to be settled, so the borders will also take that much longer to be able to expand, delaying our Pyramids date unnecessarily.



Build Queue in Delhi

Delhi built a Warrior-> worker-> Oracle (T93)-> Settler-> Temple (Whipped)-> Lib (whipped)-> Mid (T122)

I think that we can possibly cut the Warrior out of Delhi's build order--that city has a lot to build already.

The rest sounds like it could work out.

I wonder, though, if we can possibly improve upon the efficiency if we swap the order of the Settler and the Library + Temple.

It depends upon what turn you settled Settler 4, as well as on how much longer you had to wait for Christianity to be founded and expand its borders (a faster Temple might help in that regard) or on how much longer you had to wait for Math (an earlier Library may or may not help in that regard).



Build Queue in other Cities

Silverado Warrior->worker->CH
Stone ->Warrior->CH

Since we won't be able to share the Organized Religion bonus until we have the same religion in multiple places, I wonder if we should consider the idea of building Missionaries from these Cities EDIT: before building the Courthouses. Granted, it would make sense to first get the SAME kind of Missionaries going around everywhere, but I can think of a couple of ways to do so:
1. Delhi slots in a Confucian Missionary, spreads it to Stone City, and Stone City builds another Confucian Missionary for Silverado
2. We try to spread Stone City's Christian Missionary in Silverado. It has a high chance of failing, due to the small City Size, but we can reduce the chance of failure by having the Christian Missionary skip his turn for 6 turns in Silverado. If Christianity successfully spreads, then each of these two Cities can build a Christian Missionary for one of Delhi and River City.



What was your Research Path, UT?
What research path were you using in your test game, Unclethrill? Were you able to get Pottery for any Cottages? Did you even build any Cottages or were your Workers too busy? Did you wait for Math to come in before completing the chops into The Pyramids?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Sorry for the delay. On the weekends, I have to sneak time here and there in small bits. If I spend too much time on Civ, my wife will throw my computer out the window!! Or my daughters will want to watch Justin Bieber on YouTube if I turn my computer on when they are around...

I think that we can all relate to your situation, as well as to this guy's situation...

Spoiler :

 

[BLubmuz]

Oracle in City 3?

Ahhh, the famous Catch 22: Let's build a Wonder that will found us a Religion in City 3. Yet, building that Wonder efficiently requires a Religion in City 3 in order to make use of the Organized Religion Civic.

No if we build a missionary in Dehli (see my above post).
You know i got another reason to try any solution to avoid the Oracle in Dehli.
We need a GS, Dehli is the only city which can generate 1 GS in a decent amount of time. I don't like the Oracle pollution there.

I think it happened to you too to generate an unwanted Gperson @ 20% chance or less, isn't it?

Stone City as City #5 doesn't really work

Agreed that we can't afford to risk putting down Stone City as City #5 due to the lack of research on Math.

We also cannot make Stone City #5 because it means expanding our cultural borders over the Stone very late--where do you think that Christianity will be founded?

Unless we settle it 1NW of stone. It's not so different from the site you proposed. It only losess marble, which can be worked and hooked by the rice or by the clam city. That city will lose 1FP, but also a desert and gain 2 GL.

 

[havr]

OK, did a quick test myself. Basically repeated most of UT results, but got additional insights.

First of all, got the 'Mids at T127, probably due to bad MM on my part. From there on I just pressed ENTER always wanting to see if Zara will go for Cows and when.

OK, what I learned from the test:

1) If we want "River" we must settle it around T82. On that turn I had to settle it or Zara will grub it.

2) This slows research and delays Oracle to T93. So "River" delays Oracle from ~ T90 to T93. It is a risk, but maybe not a big one. On one hand ALL our strategy is based on getting the Oracle. If we miss it we will probably miss at least one of Conf and Christianity, or both. On the second hand a 3 turn delay is not big. I will let you guys judge.

3) Here what Zara did with his cities: like in UT's game he was determined to settle in our way, settling his City-2 on Tundra. City-3 went to the great place on east that Mitch gave him. City-4 was not Cows, but Wheat, on T160. See screenshot.

So... our "River" will not completely blocks him. It really depends what he has in the east! If he has a good place there he will go there. If he is blocked or ocean-ed you can say goodbye to Wheat for sure.

4) While I was waiting I got two GS, which LB alpha then philo. I wish we will be so lucky in the real game.
Just to clearify: I was first to philo so I founded Tao. Thats why I said this was lucky. I didn't even plan this... just pressed ENTER all the time.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Delhi Great People

No if we build a missionary in Dehli (see my above post).
You know i got another reason to try any solution to avoid the Oracle in Dehli.
We need a GS, Dehli is the only city which can generate 1 GS in a decent amount of time. I don't like the Oracle pollution there.

I think it happened to you too to generate an unwanted Gperson @ 20% chance or less, isn't it?

While you are correct that we could end up with a 2nd Great Prophet, I already discussed that scenario.

In that case, after finishing research on Alphabet, a Great Prophet will Lightbulb most of Civil Service.

As you very well know, the research bonus from Civil Service, especially in a capitol in which we are planning to put a lot of Cottages, will greatly increase our manual research rate, enough for us to self-tech Philosophy.


In the longer term, MORE Great People Points FOCUSED in one to two Cities is important. Other Cities will just throw those Great People Points away or at best equate to one Great Person, far less than we could get from focusing them in the capitol plus a Great Person Farm.

Later Great People, if we don't like them, can be saved for the end of the game. I do worry about getting "the right" Great People for early Great People, but as I said, we have another way to equally meet our goals should a Great Prophet happen to pop out in place of a Great Scientist.


Moving Stone City's Location?

Unless we settle it 1NW of stone. It's not so different from the site you proposed. It only losess marble, which can be worked and hooked by the rice or by the clam city. That city will lose 1FP, but also a desert and gain 2 GL.

In addition to missing out on the Marble in our fat cross, we lose the chance to work the Plains Cow, a Cottageable Flood Plains square, and a Grassland River square.

In exchange, we would steal 2 Grassland squares from the Fish + Incense City, weakening the value of our Fish + Incense City. I realise that you said you'd give up on that City, but I don't see why we'd need to. The Fish + Incense City would make for a nice population-boosting City for a Diplo game, while being able to net more money that it costs due to its Cottages and Coastal locaiton.


While it is a possible compromise, it's not one that we really need to make. Let other teams be forced to make this compromise, as many of them won't have a Founded Religion in order to expand their borders.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Zara grabbing the Wheat Questions for Havr... DID ZARA USE A Galley?

Spoiler :

3) Here what Zara did with his cities: like in UT's game he was determined to settle in our way, settling his City-2 on Tundra. City-3 went to the great place on east that Mitch gave him. City-4 was not Cows, but Wheat, on T160. See screenshot.

Correct me if I am wrong, but certainly you could have beaten Zara to that location by a number of turns with City 5, without delaying other things like The Pyarmids, right? You were just checking to see the longest amount of time possible available to wait, right?

Also, did he use a Galley to settle the Wheat City or did he walk the Settler over the land?

 

[havr]

Zara grabbing the Wheat


Correct me if I am wrong, but certainly you could have beaten Zara to that location by a number of turns with City 5, without delaying other things like The Pyarmids, right? You were just checking to see the longest amount of time possible available to wait, right?

Also, did he use a Galley to settle the Wheat City or did he walk the Settler over the land?

Yes, of course, we could have easily beaten him. I got 'Mids on T127, I could have built two cities before he moved his *** to build Addis Ababa. He built it on T160.

So... if he goes east for City-3 then Wheat is safe for us for sure. If he goes wheaty in City-3 then he will get it around the time we build 'Mids (don't remember exact turn), which mean we will (probably) lose wheat.

I must say, Zara is awfully slow in spreading... good for us.

Besides that, isn't Addis Ababa the current capital of Ethiopia. Funny it is only City-4.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Barb City for City 5

Spoiler :

In an earlier test I had a Barb City spawn to the North so I sent a warrior to the Hill 2 North of Cows and no spawn this time.

This point got me to thinking: what if we solve our problems by having the Barbs settle our City 5 instead of Zara. That way, we won't need to ruin our economy by doing it ourselves!

Okay, yes, I know, we don't want the Barbs to steal our land. But, we'd rather the Barbs have it than Zara, right? At least we won't need to waste a war declaration on the Barbs.

If the Barbs were to settle a western city, we'd be all on our own for fighting it, so it's good that we decided to fog-bust that area.

However, AIs like to attack Barb Cities. If you time things right, you can often get the AI to weaken a Barb City a bit and then move in for the kill.

How can an AI help in Capturing or Razing a Barb City?

Spoiler :

Minimally, you can ensure that the 4th Barb unit (3 Barb units are "designated defenders" on Emperor level while Barb Cities often build more units) attacks an AI instead of us, leaving us several turns before another 4th unit is built and allowing us a couple of turns worth of attacks on the remaining 3 Barb units.

Maximally, you can have the AI help to weaken the City's 3 main defenders.

Where was that Barb City?
Unclethrill: So, I guess the question becomes WHERE EXACTLY was the Barb City that got settled?

Spoiler :

Because if it gets settled in an ideal or a close to ideal location, we can capture it.

If it gets settled in a less-than-ideal location but it effectively BLOCKS Zara from settling, I'll take it, too, as we can always raze and rebuild it.


Now, we're relying on chance and randomness for a Barb City to spawn, but if it is spawning anywhere close to where we want it, all we'll need to do is not fog-bust the area and hope that a Barb City grows there.


At best, one such Barb City grows where we want it, effectively blocking Zara from taking the spot without us needing to kill our economy with a 5th City.

At worst, there will be 1-2 Barb units WANDERING THE AREA. Just that very fact can often make an AI to hesitate in sending their Settler to a particular location or can have an AI moving their Settler back and forth. That's one of the reasons why you often see AIs settling in different spots when playing the same game as another player (that's what you can often see from playing XOTM games): because a nearby Barb unit scared off the AI.

Admitedly, luck is involved

Spoiler :

There is, of course, a luck factor involved with Barb Cities spawning, but we won't really be any worse off by leaving the NE to the Barbs--when it comes time to sending out Settler 5, if we find that no Barb City is there, we'll just bring 2 to 3 Warriors with the Settler and we should be good-to-go!

If there is a Barb City by then, we can use Settler 5 for one of our western locations and can aim to take the Barb City later.

Summary--Leave the NE to the Barbs!

Spoiler :

Either case (letting a Barb City spawn or leaving the area to the Barbs' units) will help to convince Zara to settle east, north-east, or south-east of his capitol, instead of to the west of his capitol.

We were planning on "pulling back" Warrior 3 in order to save on Maintenance costs anyway, so we might as well not send him back out to the NE, otherwise he'll just kill the Barb units in the area and make Zara more willing to settle up there.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

My Test Game's Results
Turn 78, 2050 BC: City 3 was founded as soon as it could be
Turn 79, 2025 BC: Completed research on Priesthood
Turn 92, 1700 BC: Completed research on Writing

Spoiler :

note that my research dates are on the turn that we can "use" the tech, not the turn listed in the autolog, which lists them as being researched at the end of the previous turn and credits them to the previous turn's date, even though you can't use the tech on said date!

, completed The Oracle in Delhi, Founded Confucianism
Turn 94, 1650 BC: Completed a Library in Delhi
Turn 95, 1625 BC: Completed a Temple in Delhi (the secret: 2 Workers chopping the same Forest), Science back to 100% for The Wheel in 4 Turns, whipped a Monument in City 3 using the Organized Religion bonus

Spoiler :

it will be built next turn--or, to be accurate, at the end of this turn, as all build items get completed at the end of your turn, before the AIs get their tuns, which is why if you have 1 turn to go on a Wonder or a Religious Tech and no one has beaten you to it, you'll automatically get it

Turn 99, 1525 BC: Completed reasearch on The Wheel
Turn 102, 1450 BC: Built Worker 3, who will cost us 1 Gold per Turn

Spoiler :

that's the "trick" to saving 4 Warriors until the end of the game (and extra Warriors "just in case one dies or gets accidentally upgraded")--they will cost us Maintenance if our Civ isn't big enough to have enough population to avoid paying Unit Cost upkeep

T104, 1400 BC: The first Barb Warrior entered our borders.

Spoiler :

A few Barb units came at the same time, but all Barb activity died down after 3 Barb Warriors came in and suicided on our fortified Warriors. Two Barb Warriors suicided against Warrior 3, who had been conveniently left fortified on our Grassland Hills Forest square located to the NE + N of Delhi. That's a great spot to leave him, in my mind. Even if he dies, we'll have 2 turns to whip an Axeman without making for an inefficient whipping job. Copper is, of course, already connected by a Road.

Turn 109, 1275 BC: Completed research on Meditation, Great Prophet was born, Settler 4 sat down, Founded Christianity, Switched to Christianity. ONLY 1 GOLD WAS IN THE TREASURY!

Spoiler :

If we want to get these dates, we have to be very precise in our micromanagement! It's not hard to do if written down, but it takes some effort to come up with and write down all of the details. I don't have the required micromanagement recorded in this message, but I have a good idea of what exactly needs to be done, so I am able to write down the details, I just haven't done so yet.

What's next?

Spoiler :

A Great Scientist can come in 19 Turns. We can also get a Settler in 14 Turns.

Optionally, we can avoid hiring 2 Great Scientists, thereby increasing our chances of getting a Great Prophet, and get a Settler complete in 8 Turns.


Turn 112, 1200 BC: City 4 (Stone City)'s borders expand over the Stone. 3 Workers take 4 Turns to complete the Quarry. If we had gone full-out on Settler 5, it would take 5 Turns to complete.

What if we aim to get Settler 5 before The Pyramids?

Spoiler :

So, if we want Settler 5 before starting work on The Pyramids, we can do so, delaying only 2 Turns' worth of building The Pyramids after the the Stone has been Quarried.

In exchange, we will get our 2nd Great Person slower and it will have a higher chance of getting us a Great Prophet instead of a Great Scientist. The Great Person coming slower won't really matter if we get our Great Scientist, as we won't have researched Alphabet at the time that he can come as soon as possible, so he'll want to Lightbulb Alphabet, if he turns out to be the planned-for Great Scientist, thus he'll have to "sit on the backburner" for a while.

If he is instead a Great Prophet, then we can Lightbulb Civil Service as soon as Math is known.

Even better than Settler 5: Early Bureaucracy!

Spoiler :

AT THIS POINT I am leaning towards actually TRYING for a Great Prophet for our 2nd Great Person. With Code of Laws in the bag and our Research Rate being pitiful, Bureacracy could be a great way of getting ourselves out of the hole!


Instead of building Settler 5, we can build Temple 2 in Delhi, making for a really fast Great Prophet. Researching Math is the trigger for chopping Forests for The Pyramids, right?

Well, what if Researching Math was also the trigger for Lightbulbing most of Civil Service? If we go for Civil Service instead of Pottery, in order to put enough research into the tech to be able to automatically research it, them BAM! We can have Bureaucratic, Organized Religious, Stone-infused, Mathematics-based Forest Chops! UBER AWESOMENESS!

How's that for a coolio plan?

Note that I haven't really played past Turn 109, 1275 BC, the turn that I picked up Meditation, with good micro, so I don't have exact dates to offer yet, but the plan certainly has its promises!

 

[Mitchum]

Well done. Can you talk about what happened with the culture battle at River (assumed to be 1W of cows, right?)? Are the cows and or flood plains ours yet? Your research was only 1 or 2 turns behind my first test several days ago even though I waited to settle city 3. Nice!

note that my research dates are on the turn that we can "use" the tech, not the turn listed in the autolog, which lists them as being researched at the end of the previous turn and credits them to the previous turn's date, even though you can't use the tech on said date!

I do this too and I think we should all do the same to avoid confusion in the future.

T104, 1400 BC: The first Barb Warrior entered our borders. A few Barb units came at the same time, but all Barb activity died down after 3 Barb Warriors came in and suicided on our fortified Warriors. Two Barb Warriors suicided against Warrior 3, who had been conveniently left fortified on our Grassland Hills Forest square located to the NE + N of Delhi. That's a great spot to leave him, in my mind. Even if he dies, we'll have 2 turns to whip an Axeman without making for an inefficient whipping job. Copper is, of course, already connected by a Road.

You got lucky. I was playing around today and had a warrior and an archer enter my land. I lost two warriors who were defending at good odds (~75% of success). I vote to avoid barbs, including cities, at all cost. They can lay waste to a perfectly good plan as they take something that you can control 100% (i.e. spawn bust) and instead put your fate in the hands of luck (i.e. bad luck). Sure, we could save 1 gold per turn. But is it really worth the risk? Those could have been 2 archers and a warrior...

By the way, I had barbs walk around my warrior fortified on a forested hill. Does that happen a lot in BtS? The AI is very sssssneaky.

Turn 109, 1275 BC: Completed research on Meditation, Great Prophet was born, Settler 4 sat down, Founded Christianity, Switched to Christianity. ONLY 1 GOLD WAS IN THE TREASURY!

Spoiler :

If we want to get these dates, we have to be very precise in our micromanagement! It's not hard to do if written down, but it takes some effort to come up with and write down all of the details. I don't have the required micromanagement recorded in this message, but I have a good idea of what exactly needs to be done, so I am able to write down the details, I just haven't done so yet.

OK, so what's the major deal here? If Meditation came a turn later or the GPro came sooner or later, we still get Christianity, right? So we have to save a gold here or a gold there and risk a barb invasion to save 1 turn on something that's in the bag? Is it worth the risk?

NOTE: I'm all for saving a coin here or a coin there. I am not for taking unnecessary risks which have the POTENTIAL to ruin our plans.

By the way, why not just switch to no state religion rather than Christianity? That way, River keeps getting its needed +5 culture/turn?

Even better than Settler 5: Early Bureaucracy!

Spoiler :

AT THIS POINT I am leaning towards actually TRYING for a Great Prophet for our 2nd Great Person. With Code of Laws in the bag and our Research Rate being pitiful, Bureacracy could be a great way of getting ourselves out of the hole!

Instead of building Settler 5, we can build Temple 2 in Delhi, making for a really fast Great Prophet. Researching Math is the trigger for chopping Forests for The Pyramids, right?

Well, what if Researching Math was also the trigger for Lightbulbing most of Civil Service? If we go for Civil Service instead of Pottery, in order to put enough research into the tech to be able to automatically research it, them BAM! We can have Bureaucratic, Organized Religious, Stone-infused, Mathematics-based Forest Chops! UBER AWESOMENESS!

Spoiler :

And this is the reason I've been keeping you on my team... I can't even add that high, but each forest chop would be HUGE. This would preserve forests for later re-growth and/or chopping something else. It would also limit our risk since with 3 workers we could likely build the 'Mids in 2 turns (with a lot of pre-chopping of course).

Regarding later Pottery, it sucks, but our workers are going to be busy with other things to worry too much about laying down cottages.

Finally, having Delhi pop a second GPro means that River can use it's population (and library???) to hire two scientists for a 100% guaranteed GS as our third great person. Nice! We get what we want with no surprises. Now the trick will be to have enough pops and a library in River in time. It should be possible if we think this is a good plan and focus on it.

Note that I haven't really played past Turn 109, 1275 BC, the turn that I picked up Meditation, with good micro, so I don't have exact dates to offer yet, but the plan certainly has its promises!

OK, you need to test this Bureacracy plan until the 'Mids are ours. We need to know how this date compares to Unclethrill's best date so far. Also, can you post a save or two. The one where you would like to build temple 2 in Delhi would be a good one to play with. I'd also like to see what's up in River.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Responding to Mitchum's Comments

Spoiler :

Well done. Can you talk about what happened with the culture battle at River (assumed to be 1W of cows, right?)? Are the cows and or flood plains ours yet?

I don't think that I played far enough, but I'd have to go back and check. I'll let you know once I've had time to play things out further.

You got lucky. I was playing around today and had a warrior and an archer enter my land. I lost two warriors who were defending at good odds (~75% of success). I vote to avoid barbs, including cities, at all cost.

On what turn did that happen? Feasibly, we can have access to Copper on the turn after The Wheel comes in, and an Axeman on the turn after that. That would give us an Axeman as early as Turn 101, 1475 BC.

By the way, I had barbs walk around my warrior fortified on a forested hill. Does that happen a lot in BtS? The AI is very sssssneaky.

The same happened to me, sort of--the Barb Warrior walked beside my Fortified Warrior once and then attacked the next turn. It's due to a randomly generated value affecting a Barb unit's "courage level" to attack. That randomly generated number is, from what I understand, far bigger in range than any AI player's values, making the Barbs sometimes as headstrong as Alex or Monte and sometimes as passive as Gandhi. Since it would have taken 3 turns for a Barb Warrior to completely walk past my Fortified Grassland Hills Forest defender, I think that the odds are that on at least one of those turns, I would have been attacked. In my game, it was the second turn for 1 Barb Warrior and the first turn for the other.

Read the info about Barbs that I'd previously linked (a 5-page forum thread) if you want to know the "details" about Barb courage.

OK, so what's the major deal here? If Meditation came a turn later or the GPro came sooner or later, we still get Christianity, right? So we have to save a gold here or a gold there and risk a barb invasion to save 1 turn on something that's in the bag? Is it worth the risk?

The turn that I cared about the most was when I got The Wheel, as it kept my Workers occupied precisely at the right time after pre-chopping the last Forest on the Forst-chopping path that I'd given to them. Arguably, there are a lot of possible Forest-chopping paths, so after playing far enough ahead to see if I can actually get Bureaucracy on time and also see how many Forests I'd need to chop with it, then I can better plan my Forest-chopping route accordingly.

However, every turn that we delay getting Meditation also means delaying when we can expand City 4's borders over the Stone. As it was, I delayed putting City 4 down for a couple of turns, just to squeeze out that much more Science.

By the way, why not just switch to no state religion rather than Christianity? That way, River keeps getting its needed +5 culture/turn?

I switched to Christianity because I wanted the Organized Religion bonus in the capitol for those 5 turns. I could easily forego those 5 turns of the Organized Religion bonus in the capitol and go with my other plan of sending the Christian Missionary to Silverado.

I say 5 turns because we'd switch back to Confucianism after 5 turns, in order to, as you said, keep the culture going out east, while keeping the capitol in its Organized Religion bonus statues.

Whether that's 5 turns of Christianity or 5 turns of No State Religion is just one of those factors that we can play around with until we are satisfied with our preference. Thanks for pointing that one out, by the way!

Regarding later Pottery, it sucks, but our workers are going to be busy with other things to worry too much about laying down cottages.

I thought about that one some more and I believe I was mistaken. We'd still want Pottery. Getting Pottery should (in theory--again, I haven't played far enough, because I am trying to play an "intensive micro" kind of game and I keep backtracking over and over every time that I find a way to improve things a little bit) get us Math about the same time as when we will get Math without Pottery.

Finally, having Delhi pop a second GPro means that River can use it's population

Oops, maybe I shouldn't have whipped away its population on a Monument and a Confucian Temple...

then again, we can MARGINALLY get the Grassland Cow faster... while we won't "make up" for the lost population, we'll also get more Hammers per turn by working the Cow sooner, so, we'll see.

(and library???)

That's something worth playing with--skipping the Confucian Temple and going straight for a Library. I still like whipping the Monument as it completes on the same turn as I switched to Confucianism, meaning that I was getting 6 Culture per Turn right off of the bat, instead of just 5.

As you can see, there are so many little details to bother with, that I think I have about 14 different "paths" that I have partially gone down and backtracked on, and the more that we talk about things, the more come to light!

to hire two scientists for a 100% guaranteed GS as our third great person. Nice! We get what we want with no surprises. Now the trick will be to have enough pops and a library in River in time. It should be possible if we think this is a good plan and focus on it.

2 Scientists requires us to have 3 population points at a minimum, as you need SOMEONE farming the Fields in order to feed those busy brains...

Meaning that we'd need a 4 Food square... oh, look, thank you Zara, for Pasturing a nice Cow square for us before we've learned Animal Husbandry!

OK, you need to test this Bureacracy plan until the 'Mids are ours.

Indeed, but it is bed time (well past the time for it, too) for me now.

 

[unclethrill]

Let me see if I can answer most of the questions addressed to me.

1. IIRC the barb city was 1W of the North Cows. It was at least within one square of that. I didn't really pay that close attention because we were against barb cities at the time.
2. I settled the Stone 1NW of Stone. there have been so many discussions about city placement and I couldn't find the post that had the suggested location so I chose that spot to get the stone immediately. I settled it a couple turns after I had the wheel so I had the stone hooked up almost as soon as I settled.
3. When I bulbed Theo, it didn't go to Stone Mountain; it made Silverado a double holy city.
4. I followed Mitchum's research path. PH->Writing->Med ->Wheel (may have been reversed with Med. I don't remember)->Theo(bulb after a few turns of research)->Math
5. I'm sure the build queues can be optimized. My game was more of a 'proof of concept' for getting the mids and still blocking Zara to the East by the river.


I think that if we send the settler straight to the plain 1W of zara's cows and wait until his settler appears(immediately is my guess from testing) before we settle. Then send the next settler to the stone and have a third settler ready to go for after the Mids, we should be fine. We can decide if we want to let barbs hold of Zara to the north.

I really think that waiting for the stone city to pop borders to get stone is going to take too long. We can't start the quarry until it is in our borders and even with all 3 workers on it it will take 3 turns to get it built. That is 3 turns that we lose double hammers into the Mids. 1NW gets the stone and 2 FP and leaves room for 2 cities to the N of Delhi and another 1 to the NW of Stone and 2 to the SW. That is 8 cities on our small landmass which seems like a good number.

We also need to think about the fact that we need to get some boats in the water since there is a good chance that there are island resources we can use/need.

Question about chopping If we have the half cost bonus for having the stone, don't our chops essentially count double? The cost of the mids is half and therefore each chop is twice as valuable.

If I'm correct and I think I am, every turn of delay in getting Stone to Delhi is costly and if we are counting on border pops due to a religion being founded in Stone City, then we may be out of luck if Christy goes to Silverado as in my test.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Barb City Spawning Location

Spoiler :

1. IIRC the barb city was 1W of the North Cows. It was at least within one square of that. I didn't really pay that close attention because we were against barb cities at the time.

I would be fine with that location.

Basically, anywhere that is within a 2-square radius of our intended location [which I think that we have agreed upon would preferably be Option a)] will be suitable. That way, Zara can't settle on our preferred location and our preferred location will be open to us again after razing the Barb City some time in the future.


Another very important point to consider: if a Barb City spawns near us, then the Barb unit activity will greatly die down. The more Cities that the Barbs have locally, the greater the number of Barb units wandering around are needed in order to exceed the "rush all nearby Civilization" criteria. Essentially, due to our already extensive fog-busting, making it so that the number of Barb units which did spawn is already just barely passing the "rush all Civs" criteria, we are not likely to get rushed at all if a Barb City spawns, due to the resulting increase in the number of roaming Barb units required for us to be rushed.

Plus, then the Barb City's defenders would actively fog-bust for us, preventing future Barb units from spawning in the area. That info comes from the thread that I'd previously linked about Barbs.

Boats in the Water

Spoiler :

We also need to think about the fact that we need to get some boats in the water since there is a good chance that there are island resources we can use/need.

A fair point about Resources. What can we grab on a neighbouring landmass? We won't know until we go there.

However, we can't "go there" in a Fishing Boat. So, I suggest that we go for Alphabet after Math (and after a couple of turns spent finishing Civil Service, if we go that route) for both Fishing and Sailing, as we know that Zara trades Fishing for free and we also know that he has Sailing, so the AI or AIs that met him will soon piggyback off of his research. Perhaps even, the reason for Zara researching Sailing now was one of the AIs that he had met had already researched it and Zara was just blindly piggybacking off of that research. Either of those scenarios would make Zara willing to trade us Sailing, as well.

I do not feel comfortable about sending out a Work Boat well before we can send out a Galley loaded with a Settler and a military unit. I'd rather "meet an AI" at the same time as having a Settler ready, so that if we need to settle near them, we'll be ready to do so immediately. It's going to be next to impossible to get Buddhism from a city built on our continent, with so many other Holy Cities being so close to us, unless we build a City on our continent on the far eastern side, by the other AI or AIs that Zara has met there.

So, with the plan to build at least 1 distant city near an AI in order to get Buddhism, we'd best do so before religious tensions build up and prevent us from getting Open Borders with them, which basically reduces the chance of Buddhism spreading by such a great amount that we'll likely get one of our religions spreading from as much as halfway around the world before we'll get Buddhism spreading from a neighbouring City automatically. That plan means having a Settler ready on a Galley around the time tha we need another AI. At least there'd be the "activie Buddhist Missionary" spreading option, but again, we'd need Open Borders for an AI to send in such a Missionary.

Controlling where a Religion goes

Spoiler :

3. When I bulbed Theo, it didn't go to Stone Mountain; it made Silverado a double holy city.

If you settle a City on the turn that you found a religion, you will AUTOMATICALLY get the religion founded in your newly placed City. That's Civ 4's way of being able to control where a religion gets founded.

The only other way is to massively spam Missionaries such that all other Cities have at least 1 more religion than your "target" City will have.

Thus, I delayed settling City 4 until the turn that I learned Meditation and simultaneously picked up a Great Prophet.

I settled City 4 and then Lightbulbed Christianity. Christianity was guaranteed to be founded in City 4. Likewise, had we self-teched Theology at the end of our turn, Christianity would also have been guaranteed to have been founded in City 4.


By delaying City 4's settling, I actually increased our tech rate. It was only about 4 or so turns of delaying the settling of City 4, but doing so was effective.

Meanwhile, my Workers were busy building Roads anyway, so they didn't need to work on the Quarry right away. If, instead, we worked on the Quarry first, then we'd still have the Roads left to build afterwards. This way, we get things done about as quickly as we can. If the timing works out such that we will have an extra turn for all 3 Workers before they can Quarry the Stone, then we simply get our Trade Route to City 4 up that much faster, no worries.

So, I don't feel that we really delayed getting the Stone going by settling City 4 at the Stone + Marble location, as by doing so, I was able to keep my tech pace up fast enough in order to get both The Wheel and Meditation and in a very timely manner.

Roads or Zara's Settler = Automatic Settling of City 3

Spoiler :

I think that if we send the settler straight to the plain 1W of zara's cows and wait until his settler appears(immediately is my guess from testing) before we settle. Then send the next settler to the stone and have a third settler ready to go for after the Mids, we should be fine. We can decide if we want to let barbs hold of Zara to the north.

In addition to seeing Zara's Settler, I would suggest that if he builds or has already built a Road next to where we are going to settle (I can't tell from Havr's screenshot conclusively one way or the other if Zara has already done so), we should then settle immediately. We can't risk losing our site just because we didn't see Zara coming due to him having a couple of free turns' worth of movement on a Road network.

Further, by settling City 4 right away, I was still able to meet my tech goals. By the sounds of what Havr was saying, we can't afford to wait too long before having to worry about Zara's Settler, anyway. That is the reason why I chose to try the "worst case" scenario of settling immediately, and yet our tech rate was still able to stay on track (by working a Grassland River square instead of the default Grassland Forest square).

So, we do not really NEED to delay settling City 3 and if Havr's concern is right, then at most what we'd save is a couple of turns of settling--which won't be enough time to save us a turn on tech research, but will mean us getting our Monument a bit later. By settling immediately, I got our Monument at the ideal time, starting off our cultural push at 6 Culture per Turn immediately, instead of 5 Culture per Turn just from Confucianism.

The Stone isn't really delayed, but even if it is, it's not a big deal, as it is the Stone-infused Forest chops that matter

Spoiler :

We can't start the quarry until it is in our borders and even with all 3 workers on it it will take 3 turns to get it built. That is 3 turns that we lose double hammers into the Mids.

It all depends upon what we build. If we feel the need to slot in Settler 5 before starting work on The Pyramids, then we can start work on The Pyramids at just 2 turns after the Stone is Quarried and Roaded. With 1 Forest chop, we could speed up the Settler such that we save 2 to 3 turns on the completion of the Settler, maybe at most having 1 turn of production on The Pyramids without Stone. That's not worth changing our City 4 preferred location for.

Most of the Hammers will come from chops, anyway, so even if our micro isn't perfect, an extra turn or two of building The Pyramids without Stone (or even just building a place-holder building, like starting on a Monastary until the Stone is ready after a couple of turns) will not make much of a difference in our Pyramids date--probably not even by 1 turn, if we have co-ordinated our chopping well, since the Forests will contribute the vast majority of the Hammers invested into The Pyramids.


So, it's not really an issue that concerns me.

What does concern me is that by settling next to the Stone instead of in between the Stone and the Marble, we:
a) Don't guarantee getting Christianity in City 4, meaning that we have a good chance of not getting Marble anytime soon (which may or may not play a factor)
b) End up "wasting" some good Grassland squares that could have been better used by a Fish + Incense City, in exchange for some nicer squares that another City likely won't work--if we're really going to leverage the 3 Clam City, then that City will focus mostly on Great People generation and won't be working its Cow and Marble that frequently. If Stone City doesn't grab those Resources, they'll go to waste

Stone = Double or Not?

Spoiler :

Question about chopping If we have the half cost bonus for having the stone, don't our chops essentially count double? The cost of the mids is half and therefore each chop is twice as valuable.

That's not quite exactly how it works. Organized Religion and Stone work alongside each other as additive bonuses. So, together, they increase our Hammer output by +125%, not by +150%.

Think of this analogy, that you may have heard before: the Philosophical Trait does not double Great Person production. If you build The Parthenon, being Philosophical won't double the effect of The Parthenon. Similarly, being Philosophical won't double the effect of the National Epic.

So, if we are making 9 base Hammers per turn, Organized Religion would ensure that we are actually making 11 Hammers per turn. Getting the Stone would only add an extra 9 Hammers per turn. Yes, it is a sizeable bonus, but no, it didn't double our Hammer output from 11 to 22.


Although it may sound like I am being nit-picky, and I admit that I am, we're only talking about giving up around 9 Hammers per turn on a 750 Hammer Wonder that we plan to be able to "build by chopping most of it within 2 to 3 turns." Although 9 Hammers SOUNDS like a lot, relative to the number of Hammers that we will need to put in, it really is just chicken scratch (i.e. a negligible value).


Personally, I'd rather keep our research rate on track a bit longer, making us get to Math that much sooner, meaning that we can complete our Forest chops that much sooner. That's the Hammer-related date that matters more: the date that we complete Math.

Immediately, that takes one Forest chop worth 30 Hammers up to 45 Hammers, giving us 15 Hammers * Org Rel = 3 more Hammers and 15 Hammers * Stone = 15 more Hammers, for a total of 15 + 3 + 15 = 33 more Hammers just by chopping when we know Math.


If (it's still an untested thing, but if) we are also able to get Bureaucracy around the same time by having kept our tech rate higher, we'll get even more value out of each Forest chop, far exceeding several turns' worth of Stone-enhancing bonus on our "manual" Hammers (non-Forest-chopped Hammers) invested into The Pyramids.

So, if we find that our tech path brings us CLOSE to Bureaucracy but with us not being able to get it QUITE in time, then we can actually MAKE MORE HAMMERS THAN WE WOULD LOSE by FURTHER DELAYING the settling of City 4 in order to improve our research in order to get the Hammer bonus from Bureaucracy for our Forest chops.

Obviously, if we can get Stone very soon AND STILL get Bureaucracy, we wouldn't delay settling City 4 unnecessarily, but it's just one more "optional factor" that can be played with during a test game.

 

[BLubmuz]

Boats in the Water

Unless it's the Flying Dutchman...

All your reasoning about stone makes me think to settle the wheat first, avoiding to lose units on barbs.
If the city spawns on a hill, we'll waste at least 3 axes after the remaining 3 can take it.
If we're lucky and it spawns on flatland, we probably lose 1-2.
Too much wasted hammers, counting also the victorious ones which we don't need to wage a war.

OK, do we are decided on the river city?
What about another short partial TS from Havr until that city is founded?

 

[Mitchum]

All your reasoning about stone makes me think to settle the wheat first, avoiding to lose units on barbs.
If the city spawns on a hill, we'll waste at least 3 axes after the remaining 3 can take it.
If we're lucky and it spawns on flatland, we probably lose 1-2.
Too much wasted hammers, counting also the victorious ones which we don't need to wage a war.

All of this talk about barbs makes me want to spawn bust the area and settle River -> Stone -> Cow/Wheat. We'll have open borders with Zara soon enough. We will be able to scout to see what land he has to the east and south. If the land is decent, I doubt he would settle a desert wheat city... If he has more wheat, we can let him him the city and trade for our wheat.

BLubmuz, please test your proposed strategy. We know that we have a good shot at the 'Mids by settling River -> Stone based on tests by Unclethrill and havr (and soon-to-be-Dhoomstriker). You seem to be the only one pushing to settle the wheat before Stone. Run a test and show us on what date we can complete the Pyramids.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

It's still Stone as 4th City, just with the possibility of not settling it for a few turns, but that settling delay doesn't actually give us the economic leeway required to settle Wheat 4th instead

All your reasoning about stone makes me think to settle the wheat first, avoiding to lose units on barbs.

I'm sorry, but that conclusion is not supported by the facts.

We might consider delaying settling City 4 for a few turns to improve our science rate. Settling Wheat as 4th and Stone as a 5th City instead not only leaves us without Stone when we need it, it completely kills our science rate, having the exact opposite effect of what we're trying to achieve by slightly delaying settling City 4.

There is also no room to build Settler 5 anywhere close to in time, even with the most aggressive chopping policy possible, as we cannot forget about the "time delay" of a Settler walking, Stone City's borders expanding, and the Quarry being improved.

With Settler 5 being built just before The Pyramids and being used for Wheat as our 5th City (still not my preferred option, but a possibility that I will leave open), we don't have to worry about the "downtime" between completing the settler and having the Stone within our borders, as our City 4 will already have been solving this issue while Settler 5 is in progress.

Wheat City can't even come close to paying for itself. It also becomes a liability, as we won't have its borders expanding anytime soon and it's in Barb territory.

Plus, I honestly believe that leaving Barbs alive is what is going to keep Zara in a 1-city-state for as long as possible.


If we do choose to go for Settler 5 before The Pyramids (I'm actually leaning towards building a Worker for City 3, so that it can get to work on Cottages--isn't that a much stronger idea?), then I still WOULD NOT SETTLE City 5 until the absolute last moment possible, as the moment that we settle it, our tech plans all die a horrible burning death.


Economy before Hammers

If the city spawns on a hill, we'll waste at least 3 axes after the remaining 3 can take it.

If our Civ can get out of its economic hole, then we'll get things like Bureaucracy that much sooner, meaning that the free Hammers we'll get from having Bureaucracy sooner will easily cover any such excess Axeman Hammer cost.


Test Game supporting Our Plan before Moving Forward

What about another short partial TS from Havr until that city is founded?

For what purpose? Just to move the game along? If that's the reason, then I disagree with proceeding. If you have a better reason, you can try and convince us. The more moves that we commit to making, the less options available to change around in a test game, so I'd rather not "proceed down one path," only to later realize "oops, if we hadn't have done that, we could have built things in a different order and achieved this other goal that we will now have to fail at achieving."

Let's have a solid plan worked out and supported by a test game for the next few turnsets and then execute it.

IF YOU WANT TO MOVE THE GAME FORWARD, how about running a couple of test games of your own? That's the best way to help out the team at this point: get us more facts so that we can make proper, well-informed decisions. EDIT: I cross-posted this point with Mitchum.


Yet another Test Game Variable--Pottery first vs Meditaiton first

Spoiler :

We can get Meditation or Pottery at about the same time. My test game has us taking Meditation immediately after The Wheel.

What if we instead took Pottery? Since we will delay Meditation, the Workers won't have to rush to build a Quarry and can immediately focus on putting up a couple of Cottages--even one or two for River City might be very feasible.

That may be the boost that our economy desperately needs, helping us to get Meditation faster than we could get Pottery by researching them in the opposite order. This delay would likely cost us another 10 Turns or less on our Theology date.

That would mean learning Christianity on or shortly before Turn 119, 1025 AD. Do you think that this date is still a pretty safe date? If yes, then this possibility can be tried, to see if we can do better than Turn 119, so as to get the Stone sooner in this alternate path via a sooner Christianity. To do so, I'd delay the completion of Settler 4, to save on Unit Costs, and try to grow the city sooner, to better capitalize on our excess Happiness and thus to be able to output more Hammers per Turn by having grown sooner.

***EDIT:*** Or else, instead of growing I'd throw in a Worker, having 1 more Cottage-maker (as opposed to a Food-based Baby-maker) out there.

***EDIT:***

Unless it's the Flying Dutchman...

That was pretty funny, by the way! Too bad we have to wait for either Physics (for Airships) or for Chemistry + Astronomy (for Pirates! Arrrrrrr!).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Another way to look at City 5 for the Barbs: Paying Hammers in exchange for Wheat

avoiding to lose units on barbs.
If the city spawns on a hill, we'll waste at least 3 axes after the remaining 3 can take it.
If we're lucky and it spawns on flatland, we probably lose 1-2.
Too much wasted hammers, counting also the victorious ones which we don't need to wage a war.

Another way to look at the comparison is that we're trading Hammers in order to secure the Wheat. In the meantime, we're saving on Gold (due to Maintenance costs), which is currently more precious to us.

Would you rather that we leave the Wheat to a "Holding Corporation" (aka the Barbs) or that we don't even get it (fog-busting the area so that Zara is encouraged to take the spot)?

If the Barbs take it, we would just need to trade Hammers for a Wheat Resource. Considering that the AI could easily charge you 13 Gold per Turn for an extra Resource, I think that the investment of Hammers for a few Axemen is a really great bargain!

 

[BLubmuz]

BLubmuz, please test your proposed strategy. We know that we have a good shot at the 'Mids by settling River -> Stone based on tests by Unclethrill and havr (and soon-to-be-Dhoomstriker). You seem to be the only one pushing to settle the wheat before Stone. Run a test and show us on what date we can complete the Pyramids.

The tests already reported here showed we're plenty of time to build the Pyramids.
Stone can and would be of help, but math and CS combined together can do the same (see Dhoom's post).

But i don't think we need to delay too much the Stone city: basically, just the time to build one more settler and a missionary, if we already founded Christianity, to build a temple there and to quickly expand our borders.

I also use this post to answer to a question (from Dhoom, i think). Yes, the incense/fish city is useless if we settle the wheat and the stone cities. We'll also have less overlap with that poor 3-clams-city, which will become not-so-poor if can work marble and cows.

EDIT
i started this post then interrupted, to discover a ton of Xposts.