pigswill
fly (one day)
We get AH T17. Someone could play a few turns up to then, also a chance to investigate worker stealing possibilities.
SGOTM 23 - Xteam
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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- Aug 12, 2006
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Note that I won't have time to play for about 48 hours, so if someone wants to step in before then and play, let the rest of the team know that you'll take the turnset. Otherwise, I'll put in a few turns just to keep us from stalling. We already know what we want to do, so we just need someone to execute the moves.
The trickiest parts are Stopping the Worker on Turn 12 and switching to working the Wheat in Paris on Turn 15; otherwise, it's meant to be a straight-forward turnset. It's still an important turnset, though, as here is where we set up the foundations of our empire.
Later-game turnsets will get more complicated as we watch for Resource-trading opportunities, Tech-trading opportunities, Gold-per-Turn-trading opportunities, etc.
PPP
Goals:
1. Warrior 1 will look for opportunities to steal a Worker from Germany; stop play if we spot an early-game Resource within reach of Warrior 1, to discuss what to do
2. We'll grow on first the Deer and then the Wheat as of Turn 15 while building Warrior 2
3. Scout and Missionary will continue to spawn-bust
4. We won't actively seek out meeting additional AIs yet
Details:
T12
Missionary: select him and wake him up (so that we'll have a unit with movement points remaining after moving our Worker)
Worker 1: Select him and press Ctrl + 1
Worker 1: Move 1 SW G Riv (1SW of Paris), partial Road, and STOP
Missionary skips its turn (press Spacebar) once we're confident that the Worker is no longer Roading
T13
Worker 1: Move 1 SE G Riv Wheat and Farm
Warrior 1: Move 1 NE G (2 E of the Fish)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T14
Warrior 1: Move 1 SE G For(?)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T15
Paris: Switch from working the Deer to the Wheat to avoid having to put 3 Hammers into a Barracks
Warrior 1: Move 1 SE (?)--should be 2 NE of Germany's capital
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T16
Warrior 1: Move 1 SE--should be 1 NE + 2 E of Germany's capital
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T17
Tech: Animal Husbandry -> Fishing (at least as a placeholder tech)
Paris: Click on the "Turn On Citizen Automation" (aka turn on the City Governor)
Warrior 1: Move 1 S (should be 3 E of Germany's capital)
Pause the game without skipping the turn at least one unit (leaving at least one unit with movement points means that when the game gets unpaused, an accidental keypress of the Spacebar won't end the turn. When all units have moved, the "Press <ENTER> to end turn" message flashes and pressing either Enter or Spacebar will advance the turn. Advancing the turn is not an action that we can reload from, so we don't want to put ourselves in a position where it's easy to accidentally advance the turn before we are ready to do so)
Save the game and upload
PPP 2
(to be played after a bit of discussion)
Goals:
The same as the previous PPP
We also don't know if Warrior 1's actions will have to alter due to there being more Peaks or some water, but assume that it's all navigateable land and if it turns out not to be, simply try to explore Germany's Cultural Borders as efficiently as possible while looking for a spot from which to steal a Worker
T18
Paris: Confirm that the City Governor is enabled
Worker 1: Move 1 N G Riv > 1 NE G Riv Deer For
Warrior 1: Move 1 S--should be 1 SE + 2 E of Germany's capital
(Warrior 1 should be 1 SE + 1 E of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T19
Worker 1: Camp the G Riv Deer For
Warrior 1: Move 1 SW (should be 2 SE of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T20
Warrior 1: Move 1 SW (should be 1 SE + 2 S of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T21
Warrior 1: Move 1 W (should be 3 S of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T22
Tech: Fishing -> Writing (at least as a placeholder tech)
Paris: Should be at Size 3 with a Warrior just having been built -> Settler 2 (at least as a placeholder build item)
Don't move Warriors 1 and 2 yet
Pause the game
Save the game and upload for discussion
The trickiest parts are Stopping the Worker on Turn 12 and switching to working the Wheat in Paris on Turn 15; otherwise, it's meant to be a straight-forward turnset. It's still an important turnset, though, as here is where we set up the foundations of our empire.
Later-game turnsets will get more complicated as we watch for Resource-trading opportunities, Tech-trading opportunities, Gold-per-Turn-trading opportunities, etc.
PPP
Goals:
1. Warrior 1 will look for opportunities to steal a Worker from Germany; stop play if we spot an early-game Resource within reach of Warrior 1, to discuss what to do
2. We'll grow on first the Deer and then the Wheat as of Turn 15 while building Warrior 2
3. Scout and Missionary will continue to spawn-bust
4. We won't actively seek out meeting additional AIs yet
Details:
T12
Missionary: select him and wake him up (so that we'll have a unit with movement points remaining after moving our Worker)
Worker 1: Select him and press Ctrl + 1
Worker 1: Move 1 SW G Riv (1SW of Paris), partial Road, and STOP
Missionary skips its turn (press Spacebar) once we're confident that the Worker is no longer Roading
T13
Worker 1: Move 1 SE G Riv Wheat and Farm
Warrior 1: Move 1 NE G (2 E of the Fish)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T14
Warrior 1: Move 1 SE G For(?)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T15
Paris: Switch from working the Deer to the Wheat to avoid having to put 3 Hammers into a Barracks
Warrior 1: Move 1 SE (?)--should be 2 NE of Germany's capital
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T16
Warrior 1: Move 1 SE--should be 1 NE + 2 E of Germany's capital
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T17
Tech: Animal Husbandry -> Fishing (at least as a placeholder tech)
Paris: Click on the "Turn On Citizen Automation" (aka turn on the City Governor)
Warrior 1: Move 1 S (should be 3 E of Germany's capital)
Pause the game without skipping the turn at least one unit (leaving at least one unit with movement points means that when the game gets unpaused, an accidental keypress of the Spacebar won't end the turn. When all units have moved, the "Press <ENTER> to end turn" message flashes and pressing either Enter or Spacebar will advance the turn. Advancing the turn is not an action that we can reload from, so we don't want to put ourselves in a position where it's easy to accidentally advance the turn before we are ready to do so)
Save the game and upload
PPP 2
(to be played after a bit of discussion)
Goals:
The same as the previous PPP
We also don't know if Warrior 1's actions will have to alter due to there being more Peaks or some water, but assume that it's all navigateable land and if it turns out not to be, simply try to explore Germany's Cultural Borders as efficiently as possible while looking for a spot from which to steal a Worker
T18
Paris: Confirm that the City Governor is enabled
Worker 1: Move 1 N G Riv > 1 NE G Riv Deer For
Warrior 1: Move 1 S--should be 1 SE + 2 E of Germany's capital
(Warrior 1 should be 1 SE + 1 E of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T19
Worker 1: Camp the G Riv Deer For
Warrior 1: Move 1 SW (should be 2 SE of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T20
Warrior 1: Move 1 SW (should be 1 SE + 2 S of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T21
Warrior 1: Move 1 W (should be 3 S of Germany's capital)
Scout and Missionary: Skip their turns
T22
Tech: Fishing -> Writing (at least as a placeholder tech)
Paris: Should be at Size 3 with a Warrior just having been built -> Settler 2 (at least as a placeholder build item)
Don't move Warriors 1 and 2 yet
Pause the game
Save the game and upload for discussion
pigswill
fly (one day)
One thing that occured to me is that we can identify the Greek leader without having to contact them. Pericles with religion border pop T20, Pericles without religion border pop T25.
I've played to alphabet four times, one thing that I've noticed is that the AIs seem to have different techs each time and may or may not be willing to trade sailing and/or masonry, there's also an absence of the usual religious techs.
There is a trade-off between earlier alphabet and expansion of course, we're probably better off with earlier cities and losing a few turns on alphabet.
Stealing a worker from Freddie, assuming its possible, gives us one less AI to trade early techs which is another factor to consider.
I've played to alphabet four times, one thing that I've noticed is that the AIs seem to have different techs each time and may or may not be willing to trade sailing and/or masonry, there's also an absence of the usual religious techs.
There is a trade-off between earlier alphabet and expansion of course, we're probably better off with earlier cities and losing a few turns on alphabet.
Stealing a worker from Freddie, assuming its possible, gives us one less AI to trade early techs which is another factor to consider.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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- Messages
- 13,474
I'm not very good with AI colours. I'm going to have to trust that we know it's not Korea there. Do we know that it's not the Ottomans to the south-west? Is their colour also sufficiently distinct from the Portuguese colour?
True, Pericles is Creative, while Alex is not, so we can factor in that difference in Culture.
Germany's got to go at some point, and there are enough AIs in the game to not need to worry about losing 1 trading partner. If we can steal their Worker, it may mean that Frederick will settle Cities without improving his Strategic Resources. It would also mean that he won't be likely to build Wonders for us, but most of the good-to-steal Wonders are already built, and he's not Industrious like Bismarck would have been.
Or, it might mean that he could keep feeding us Workers, if we use clever Worker-stealing tactics. One of my favourites:
W
R
X
W = AI Worker, improving a square
R = Road that we built outside of their Cultural Borders
X = Our Worker and our Warrior
At X, our Warrior is not threatening W, so the BtS AI is happy to keep improving that Resource on W. On X, we complete a Road. Suddenly, our Warrior can reach W within the span of one turn and we surprise-capture the AI's Worker.
Besides, Frederick will trade techs when Annoyed toward a player, so as long as he dislikes an AI more than he dislikes us (i.e. as long as he has met an AI with a conflicting Religion who becomes his Worst Enemy), we can take a Cease Fire with him and still trade techs with him.
Like any AI, he won't trade techs with his Worst Enemy, which will be the player that he hates the most out of all players toward whom he is Annoyed or Furious. In a game with a lot of AIs and with pre-founded Religions, there's a good chance that we won't be his Worst Enemy, even after having had delared war on him, and we can consider gifting him a couple of techs to get out of Worst Enemy status.
The more AIs that a target AI meets, the more of those AIs must also know a tech before that AI is willing to trade techs with us.
So, we could get Archery from anybody, and almost certainly get Mining plus Bronze Working in trade from anybody, and then we could meet nearby neighbours whom we hadn't already met, such as the Green AI, if the Green AI hasn't come to meet us first.
If England only meets a couple of AIs and those AIs are teching well, then England could offer us the additional techs that we want, such as Sailing and Masonry.
Alphabet also gives us a lot of power:
1. We can speed up the research of nearby AIs from whom we might want to get techs in the short term, so that they will go after techs that we don't already have, by giving them our techs (and thus they won't be duplicating research on our techs), then destroy them before those AIs get to Feudalism
2. We can potentially bribe one AI against another
3. We can build Spies, which will be quite useful for City Revolts in a game where many AIs are going to have Culture-heavy capitals. One City Revolt could save us the cost of 5 Axemen or 7 Chariots in capturing a City
True, Pericles is Creative, while Alex is not, so we can factor in that difference in Culture.
Germany's got to go at some point, and there are enough AIs in the game to not need to worry about losing 1 trading partner. If we can steal their Worker, it may mean that Frederick will settle Cities without improving his Strategic Resources. It would also mean that he won't be likely to build Wonders for us, but most of the good-to-steal Wonders are already built, and he's not Industrious like Bismarck would have been.
Or, it might mean that he could keep feeding us Workers, if we use clever Worker-stealing tactics. One of my favourites:
W
R
X
W = AI Worker, improving a square
R = Road that we built outside of their Cultural Borders
X = Our Worker and our Warrior
At X, our Warrior is not threatening W, so the BtS AI is happy to keep improving that Resource on W. On X, we complete a Road. Suddenly, our Warrior can reach W within the span of one turn and we surprise-capture the AI's Worker.
Besides, Frederick will trade techs when Annoyed toward a player, so as long as he dislikes an AI more than he dislikes us (i.e. as long as he has met an AI with a conflicting Religion who becomes his Worst Enemy), we can take a Cease Fire with him and still trade techs with him.
Like any AI, he won't trade techs with his Worst Enemy, which will be the player that he hates the most out of all players toward whom he is Annoyed or Furious. In a game with a lot of AIs and with pre-founded Religions, there's a good chance that we won't be his Worst Enemy, even after having had delared war on him, and we can consider gifting him a couple of techs to get out of Worst Enemy status.
The more AIs that a target AI meets, the more of those AIs must also know a tech before that AI is willing to trade techs with us.
So, we could get Archery from anybody, and almost certainly get Mining plus Bronze Working in trade from anybody, and then we could meet nearby neighbours whom we hadn't already met, such as the Green AI, if the Green AI hasn't come to meet us first.
If England only meets a couple of AIs and those AIs are teching well, then England could offer us the additional techs that we want, such as Sailing and Masonry.
Alphabet also gives us a lot of power:
1. We can speed up the research of nearby AIs from whom we might want to get techs in the short term, so that they will go after techs that we don't already have, by giving them our techs (and thus they won't be duplicating research on our techs), then destroy them before those AIs get to Feudalism
2. We can potentially bribe one AI against another
3. We can build Spies, which will be quite useful for City Revolts in a game where many AIs are going to have Culture-heavy capitals. One City Revolt could save us the cost of 5 Axemen or 7 Chariots in capturing a City
Appreciate the effort Dhoom. I've got a deadline and family visiting through Monday, so not sure I can contribute the next few days.
pigswill
fly (one day)
Another alphabet run, focussing on expansion. fishing>writing>alphabet. Alphabet T55. SE city T32, NE city T41, W city T55. 2 workers (none stolen).
Another decision to make. Focussing on vertical growth means larger pop to whip into gran/lib/LH but risks losing potential sites to neighbours. In a previous run I got Paris pop7, NE pop6, SE pop3 but lost W site to Joao.
Another decision to make. Focussing on vertical growth means larger pop to whip into gran/lib/LH but risks losing potential sites to neighbours. In a previous run I got Paris pop7, NE pop6, SE pop3 but lost W site to Joao.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Let's see if we can breathe some life back into this game.
I'm going to run through the PPP in the test game and then will go for it in the real game.
A couple of turns ago, a Forest grew on the G Riv 1 NW + 1 W of Paris.
Turn 12, 3520 BC
We successfully send our Warrior 1 SW to partially Road and STOP
Espionage Points totals:
Churchill 57/48
Frederick 42/0
So, Churchill has been dumping some Commerce into Espionage. Both AIs appear to have been spending heavily against us. If we track these numbers from turn-to-turn, we can watch for changes.
London is at 132 Culture, which I believe matched the test game.
I already provided DEMOGRAPHICS and TOP 5 screenshots earlier, so I don't think that there's anything new to show.
I press Ctrl + O to enable Show Friendly Moves and to disable Quick Moves, so that I can better spot any activity of the AIs, particularly if a Scout or a Work Boat were to only temporarily come into view during the in-between-turns phase. Actually, I'm not sure if Quick Moves works for the AI units or just our units; I'll have to test out that setting later.
EPs:
Churchill 57/48
Frederick 42/0
F8 RESOLUTIONS
28 Total Votes
Turn 13, 3480 BC
Worker 1 begins Farming the Wheat. Yay, the pressure is off and the hardest part of the turnset is over.
Warrior 1 has explored to the north-east, as planned. From here on in, we'll be hugging Germany's Cultural Borders, but according to our earlier calculations, a Worker would have only been created on Turn 12 (except for situations like being settled on a PH square or starting with a Worker), so we should be okay with this extra bit of exploration.
Yet another G Sheep has been revealed and there's the possibility of an island to the north... or, not an island and just land that wraps around. It's been a while since I've played an Earth map.
T13 Demographics and Top 5... is it just me or did the City with The Great Library just overtake the top spot? How could that situation have happened? ... Ah, yes, it just grew in population points.
In our test game, the City with The Great Library wasn't even in the Top 5 on Turn 12.
EPs:
Churchill 63/52 (+6)
Frederick 48/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
29 Total Votes
In between turns, a Great Scientist was born (the Event Log says in 3520 BC). That's earlier than in the test game, if I recall correctly. Something weird is going on here.
In between turns, we spot a Wolf on the landmass to the north of Warrior 1, but the Wolf moved away during that in-between-turn phase, so we only spotted in temporarily.
Turn 14, 3440 BC
Our Warrior moves 1 SE G For but doesn't spot a Resource in Germany's Cultural Borders
Demo & Top 5
EPs:
Churchill 69/56 (+6)
Frederick 54/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
Turn 15, 3400 BC
Paris switches from working the Unimproved Deer to the Unimproved Wheat. Yay, that's the last important thing to get right for this turnset.
EPs, before I forget:
75/60 (+6)
60/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
We get a view of Berlin, as it is on a Hills square (although it is on a GH Riv square, which is probably worse for us, as it means slower Settlers/Workers relative to a City settled on a PH Riv, but at least all teams face the same situation):
Zooming out reveals no new AIs' Cultural Borders.
I just realise that we should have also been tracking the F8 RESOLUTIONS screen's total votes count, which is now at 36. There are a lot of details that we can extract from every turn, as long as we think to look for them. I've gone back and edited in the numbers from our paused saved games from every turn.
Either an AI just whipped their Size 3 City or else it lacked the Culture to still be visible ahead of 3 Cities with Wonders. It would have taken 3 Cities overcoming that one while being at Size 2 and it being at Size 3, which is unlikely.
In between turns, Germany sends a Warrior from the fog 1N of Berlin into Berlin, so that there is now both an Archer there and a Warrior there. Odd--doesn't Germany start with a Scout? Don't all of the AIs start with Archery? What am I missing?
Turn 16, 3360 BC
EPs:
Churchill 81/64 (+6)
Frederick 66/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
Berlin Archer + Warrior:
Demo + Top 5:
Turn 17, 3320 BC
We spot Germany's Warrior again, and we see some Peaks. Frederick seems to have grown while building a build item that wasn't a Settler or a Worker, so we may have time to run around the south side of those Peaks to see if there will be a chance to steal a Worker from the southern part of his area.
Now, is it the same Warrior and Frederick already has a Road 1 SE of Berlin? Or, does he have 2 Warriors?
BSP tricked us... "trust me, just send the Warrior where the obvious spot to send him is, just do it," blah, blah, blah. Sending the Warrior south could have had us going along the southern side of those Peaks. Oh, well, we play forward and see if we can get our Warrior around those Peaks the long way around. I'm thinking probably 1 S GH For -> 1 SE GH For, as it looks like the Peaks don't continue much further to the east, and I don't think that it would be wise for us to risk get ambushed by a Barb Animal by moving 1 SE G.
EPs:
87/68 (+6)
72/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
A Horse Resource is available near to Paris
If Paris had had 3 Culture per Turn, it would have been within our Cultural Borders after 34 turns, but it's a bit late for spreading the Missionary into Paris. So, 50 turns for our Horse, assuming that we don't settle adjacent to it and blow our Missionary on said City 2, which would only give us the Horse on Turn 42, so it might not be the best use of our Missionary.
Demo + Top 5
I turned on the City Governor in Paris, now that our Wheat has been Farmed, so that we won't forget to work the Cow Pasture later as soon as it comes online.
So... Fishing next? Or, are we going to consider settling on the GH Riv Wine for the extra Commerce of +1 Commerce in the City Centre, an instant Trade Route, and having Paris switch to working the Fur sooner due to City 2 stealing the Deer, while racing straight through Wiring + Alphabet? We should at least try out the timing again.
Also, send the Warrior 1 S GH For and then try to get around the Peaks to keep trying to steal a Worker?
Here is your Session Turn Log from 3520 BC to 3320 BC (nothing new):
REAL, paused saved game for Turn 17, 3320 BC
I'm going to run through the PPP in the test game and then will go for it in the real game.
A couple of turns ago, a Forest grew on the G Riv 1 NW + 1 W of Paris.
Turn 12, 3520 BC
We successfully send our Warrior 1 SW to partially Road and STOP
Espionage Points totals:
Churchill 57/48
Frederick 42/0
So, Churchill has been dumping some Commerce into Espionage. Both AIs appear to have been spending heavily against us. If we track these numbers from turn-to-turn, we can watch for changes.
London is at 132 Culture, which I believe matched the test game.
I already provided DEMOGRAPHICS and TOP 5 screenshots earlier, so I don't think that there's anything new to show.
I press Ctrl + O to enable Show Friendly Moves and to disable Quick Moves, so that I can better spot any activity of the AIs, particularly if a Scout or a Work Boat were to only temporarily come into view during the in-between-turns phase. Actually, I'm not sure if Quick Moves works for the AI units or just our units; I'll have to test out that setting later.
EPs:
Churchill 57/48
Frederick 42/0
F8 RESOLUTIONS
28 Total Votes
Turn 13, 3480 BC
Worker 1 begins Farming the Wheat. Yay, the pressure is off and the hardest part of the turnset is over.
Warrior 1 has explored to the north-east, as planned. From here on in, we'll be hugging Germany's Cultural Borders, but according to our earlier calculations, a Worker would have only been created on Turn 12 (except for situations like being settled on a PH square or starting with a Worker), so we should be okay with this extra bit of exploration.
Yet another G Sheep has been revealed and there's the possibility of an island to the north... or, not an island and just land that wraps around. It's been a while since I've played an Earth map.
Spoiler :
T13 Demographics and Top 5... is it just me or did the City with The Great Library just overtake the top spot? How could that situation have happened? ... Ah, yes, it just grew in population points.
Spoiler :
In our test game, the City with The Great Library wasn't even in the Top 5 on Turn 12.
EPs:
Churchill 63/52 (+6)
Frederick 48/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
29 Total Votes
In between turns, a Great Scientist was born (the Event Log says in 3520 BC). That's earlier than in the test game, if I recall correctly. Something weird is going on here.
In between turns, we spot a Wolf on the landmass to the north of Warrior 1, but the Wolf moved away during that in-between-turn phase, so we only spotted in temporarily.
Turn 14, 3440 BC
Our Warrior moves 1 SE G For but doesn't spot a Resource in Germany's Cultural Borders
Demo & Top 5
Spoiler :
EPs:
Churchill 69/56 (+6)
Frederick 54/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
Turn 15, 3400 BC
Paris switches from working the Unimproved Deer to the Unimproved Wheat. Yay, that's the last important thing to get right for this turnset.
EPs, before I forget:
75/60 (+6)
60/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
We get a view of Berlin, as it is on a Hills square (although it is on a GH Riv square, which is probably worse for us, as it means slower Settlers/Workers relative to a City settled on a PH Riv, but at least all teams face the same situation):
Spoiler :
Zooming out reveals no new AIs' Cultural Borders.
I just realise that we should have also been tracking the F8 RESOLUTIONS screen's total votes count, which is now at 36. There are a lot of details that we can extract from every turn, as long as we think to look for them. I've gone back and edited in the numbers from our paused saved games from every turn.
Either an AI just whipped their Size 3 City or else it lacked the Culture to still be visible ahead of 3 Cities with Wonders. It would have taken 3 Cities overcoming that one while being at Size 2 and it being at Size 3, which is unlikely.
Spoiler :
In between turns, Germany sends a Warrior from the fog 1N of Berlin into Berlin, so that there is now both an Archer there and a Warrior there. Odd--doesn't Germany start with a Scout? Don't all of the AIs start with Archery? What am I missing?
Turn 16, 3360 BC
EPs:
Churchill 81/64 (+6)
Frederick 66/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
Berlin Archer + Warrior:
Spoiler :
Demo + Top 5:
Spoiler :
Turn 17, 3320 BC
We spot Germany's Warrior again, and we see some Peaks. Frederick seems to have grown while building a build item that wasn't a Settler or a Worker, so we may have time to run around the south side of those Peaks to see if there will be a chance to steal a Worker from the southern part of his area.
Now, is it the same Warrior and Frederick already has a Road 1 SE of Berlin? Or, does he have 2 Warriors?
BSP tricked us... "trust me, just send the Warrior where the obvious spot to send him is, just do it," blah, blah, blah. Sending the Warrior south could have had us going along the southern side of those Peaks. Oh, well, we play forward and see if we can get our Warrior around those Peaks the long way around. I'm thinking probably 1 S GH For -> 1 SE GH For, as it looks like the Peaks don't continue much further to the east, and I don't think that it would be wise for us to risk get ambushed by a Barb Animal by moving 1 SE G.
Spoiler :
EPs:
87/68 (+6)
72/0 (+6)
F8 RESOLUTIONS
36 Total Votes
A Horse Resource is available near to Paris
Spoiler :
If Paris had had 3 Culture per Turn, it would have been within our Cultural Borders after 34 turns, but it's a bit late for spreading the Missionary into Paris. So, 50 turns for our Horse, assuming that we don't settle adjacent to it and blow our Missionary on said City 2, which would only give us the Horse on Turn 42, so it might not be the best use of our Missionary.
Demo + Top 5
Spoiler :
I turned on the City Governor in Paris, now that our Wheat has been Farmed, so that we won't forget to work the Cow Pasture later as soon as it comes online.
So... Fishing next? Or, are we going to consider settling on the GH Riv Wine for the extra Commerce of +1 Commerce in the City Centre, an instant Trade Route, and having Paris switch to working the Fur sooner due to City 2 stealing the Deer, while racing straight through Wiring + Alphabet? We should at least try out the timing again.
Also, send the Warrior 1 S GH For and then try to get around the Peaks to keep trying to steal a Worker?
Here is your Session Turn Log from 3520 BC to 3320 BC (nothing new):
Spoiler :
REAL, paused saved game for Turn 17, 3320 BC
Noble Zarkon
Elite Quattromaster - Immortal (BTS)
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Thanks Dhoom - I'm travelling on business during the week so can't be as active as I have been.
pigswill
fly (one day)
Interesting.
Could explain some of the power graphs if teams went BW>HbR>arch>HA rush.
Location of horses could certainly affect city placement, maybe tech path. One thing I noticed fom test runs was how few civs researched mysticism. If that applies to the real game then going myst>fishing>alphabet could be a consideration.
Oh no, more testing
.
edit: horses added to test map.
Could explain some of the power graphs if teams went BW>HbR>arch>HA rush.
Location of horses could certainly affect city placement, maybe tech path. One thing I noticed fom test runs was how few civs researched mysticism. If that applies to the real game then going myst>fishing>alphabet could be a consideration.
Oh no, more testing
.edit: horses added to test map.
Noble Zarkon
Elite Quattromaster - Immortal (BTS)
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In my rush this morning I missed the key thing - HORSES!! Great news.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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Would they have also likely fit in Fishing for Work Boats? What about Pottery for Granaries?
If we were going to try to slow-build a Building, wouldn't it be preferable to make a Granary over a Monument? Did you ever manage to grow a City into Unhappiness prior to learning Alphabet in our testing? If not, then a Monument's +1 Happiness wouldn't help us early on and it would be just like getting a Monument in a regular game... a big no-no reason to rush for Mysticism in the majority of cases, being slightly justified by a bid to build The Oracle, which we can't do here.
We get our Settler on Turn 30. If we were to settle 2 S of the Horse Resource, we'd have a City with Gold in 1 Maintenance initially which could begin Pasturing its Cow and which could self-build a Work Boat if get go for Fishing, and leaves us with 5 shared Cottage squares with the capital.
Where else would we settle? 1 S of the G Horse leaves us non-Coastal with a Fish Resource in our big fat cross. It would take balls of steel, giving us 4 shared Cottage squares, but no City that could build Work Boats early on. The plus side would be that we could justify skipping Fishing, and we'd still only have 1 Gold in Maintenance early on.
1 SW of the G Horse doesn't get the Cow or the Fish in our initial 9 squares, so we'd have a slightly slower start. We'd share 2 Cottages with the capital, so at least this City could help out in that regard later. How soon could we get a Chariot? How about 2 Chariots? Well, let's say that we went all-out for it and our Worker Roaded the Fur and then the Horse. That would mean having a Road to the Horse on Turn 33 and a Worker that could move on Turn 34. Turns 34, 35, 36, and 37 would be used to get us our Pasture.
On Turn 37, each City could begin to build a Chariot, taking 8 turns each. So, we'd have 2 Chariots on Turn 45. We wouldn't have a Work Boat started yet, though.
2 Chariots might be good for Worker-stealing under the right circumstances, but that's a long time to wait to steal a Worker.
We'd probably still be better off hoping that our Warrior 1 can steal a Worker from Germany or perhaps we'd send our Warrior 2 to the Green AI to try its luck there (although there might be a Peak blockade there, too). By about Turn 51 we could try stealing a Worker from the Green AI, if our Chariot can reach there, but by that turn, said AI could already have a Spearman.
Please see the attached, updated test game.
EDIT: What if we improve Wheat -> Fur -> Cow -> Deer?First, I went for Wheat -> Fur -> Deer -> Cow (Deer before Cow out of habit, but Deer is already 4-Food/Hammers, so it only gets +2 Food/Hammers relative to the Cow's +3 Food/Hammers, and we can improve the Cow 1 turn sooner), and we get our Settler on Turn 32 instead of Turn 30.
I was able to get Turn 49 Alphabet by settling on the GH Riv Wine, which didn't really help a whole lot as it took too long for our Cultural Borders to expand over top of the second Fur, and that location isn't stellar. I also skipped Fishing, which sends us quicker toward Alphabet and we get a Library with 2 Scientists hired in Paris, giving us a Great Scientist pretty early on Turn 63
But, this time, with going for Wheat -> Fur -> Cow -> Deer, and microing so that we work Wheat + Fur + Cow when the Cow gets Pastured on Turn 27 (the City Governor stupidly switches the Fur to the Cow instead of the Deer to the Cow, so it's a manual step), and if on the last turn of building the Settler we work the Unimproved Deer instead of the Fur, we get our Settler on Turn 31, giving us Turn 33 Writing. Or, we stick with Turn 32 for Settler 2, giving us 11 overflow Hammers into a Library.
OR, even better, we tech:
Writing -> Fishing -> Alphabet
Then, we can get our Turn 31 Settler, we can have Writing in time to start on a Library in Paris on Turn 31, and we get the best of both worlds.
Now we see where putting 1 extra Hammer into our Settler instead of into a Barracks pays off! We only need to work the Unimproved Deer instead of the Camped Fur for 1 turn instead of 2 turns thanks to that extra Hammer in the Settler, thereby netting us 4 extra Commerce. BOOM, YEAH!
If we go for Writing -> Fishing -> Alphabet with the Fur improved second and we settle to the south-east (1 E of the second Fur) with our Turn 31 Settler, we get Fishing just in time to start on a Work Boat as soon as City 2 gets settled.
I'm not sure whether to improve the Deer or the Fur first... probably the Deer still makes sense, to help with Paris growing into working more G For squares for a Library or more G Riv squares for no Library but additional raw Commerce.
The cost of settling 1 E of the second Fur is 2 Gold Maintenance as of Turn 33, but being able to improve the second Fur will more than make up for this fact.
If we grow Paris to Size 4, then we can pump out a 4-turn Worker, which would delay the Library. I'm not sure which way is the right way to go, but I went with building the Library for now, just to see how early we can push the Alphabet envelope.
Paris hits Size 7 on Turn 42, which is perhaps a bit too early, and we only get our Trade Routes up on Turn 41. Maybe it would make sense to skip improving the Deer and get our Trade Route Road up, then improve the second Fur, and only then improve the Deer, but I'm not sure if the Library would get delayed a turn that way.
Anyway, we got our Library on Turn 46, but I'd had to stagnate growth a bit (or, we could have just grown into Unhappiness, I suppose).
We ended up with Alphabet on Turn 51 with Fishing in hand, a Size 7 (or larger, if we wanted to grow into Unhappiness) Paris and a Size 3 City 2.
That gave us Pottery, Mining, Sailing (which may not happen in the real game), and Archery on Turn 51, and Bronze Working on Turn 52, with a head-start on our first Great Scientist and Settler 3 to be completed in 2 turns.
I wonder how those dates compare to beelining Pottery and Bronze Working via self-teching.
Although it's a Commerce-focused start, as soon as we get Granaries and Slavery, we can very-quickly transition to a Hammer-focused session, where Commerce won't really matter for a while as we accumulate Gold and wait for our Academy to appear. Or, we spend Commerce on EPs and whip out an early Spy for a City Revolt on an AI's capital, coupled with slamming Whipped Chariots into said AI.
pigswill
fly (one day)
It may not be likely but if we delayed claiming horses and Chill settled Brittany (n of horse and stone) first it would ge the end of a competitive game.
Mysticism is for border pops (relevant early) not happiness (which can wait).
I'm wondering about city (2 or 3) sw of horses with missionary and improved horses which should get WB about the same time as border pop. With fish, horse and cow at pop3 this would be a decent worker/settler pump.
We can get four small cities or 2 bigger cities by the time we get alphabet, bigger cities whip out infra earlier of course but delay settling other sites which runs the risk of losing the sites to neighbours.
We have plenty of options: 2 city chariot rush, beeline HbR instead of alphabet for earlier HA rush, beeline alphabet to backfill then HbR for later HA rush with a stronger economic base, delay HA rush further and try Glite first.
Mysticism is for border pops (relevant early) not happiness (which can wait).
I'm wondering about city (2 or 3) sw of horses with missionary and improved horses which should get WB about the same time as border pop. With fish, horse and cow at pop3 this would be a decent worker/settler pump.
We can get four small cities or 2 bigger cities by the time we get alphabet, bigger cities whip out infra earlier of course but delay settling other sites which runs the risk of losing the sites to neighbours.
We have plenty of options: 2 city chariot rush, beeline HbR instead of alphabet for earlier HA rush, beeline alphabet to backfill then HbR for later HA rush with a stronger economic base, delay HA rush further and try Glite first.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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I do not recommend settling adjacent to a Horse Resource if we are going to build a Work Boat. Working the Horse means slower growth than working a Cow. The extra Hammers from working a Horse won't help that much for a Work Boat as we'd still have to wait for our Cultural Borders to expand before we could use the Work Boat. The Work Boat comes quickly enough by working the Fur and then the Cow once it gets Pastured.
Food is king, except when we have an important short-term alternative, such as accessing a Horse Resource to build Horse-based units or such as earning additional Commerce early on by settling adjacent to the Fur.
So, if we're going to settle to the west first for the purposes of building a Work Boat, we'd settle where we'd already been planning on settling. I would strongly hesitate to use our Missionary in City 2, as we'd only get the Horse Resource in our Cultural Borders several turns earlier than Paris' Culture could get it.
Instead, I'd either save our Missionary for spawn-busting purposes or spread the Missionary in Paris as soon as our Settler takes over the spawn-busting duty on its way to replacing the need with spawn-busting via Culture-busting. Paris could do with +1 Happiness from Christianity as a State Religion at some point, and +1 Culture in Paris relatively early on still gets our Horse Resource into our Cultural Borders sooner.
That said, going for a Commerce-heavy start by settling south-east also gets our Horse within our Cultural Borders sooner (although we can only take advantage of this fact if we manage to steal a Worker to improve said Horse Resource), due to the Library's +2 Culture per turn (doubling Paris' Cultural output).
So, other than the option of settling 1 SW of the G Horse and building 2 early Chariots (2 Chariots CANNOT capture a City and at best might help with late Worker-stealing, although at that late stage, I'd probably rather just wait until after Alphabet to declare war), or perhaps having Paris build a Chariot instead of a Library while City 2 in the west builds its Work Boat inefficiently (staying at Size 1 is inefficient compared to Pasturing the Cow and growing), our best bet for going west would be to settle where we'd already planned.
For settling west, I think that an approach of Fishing -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery -> Writing will be best, delaying Alphabet and our Civ's technological development but focusing on emphasizing production--go heavy in one area and you'll do much better in Civ 4 than if you try a "balanced" approach of doing everything somewhat-poorly.
So, to me we have 2 main test options:
1. Settle to the west, 1 N of the G Cow and 1 NE of the Fish, then focus on Fishing -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery -> Writing, going for a Work Boat, Chopping + Whipping (if possible, timing a Chop or better 2 Chops into Paris to arrive around the same time as learning Pottery), getting Granaries built efficiently, and then emphasizing Food to grow quickly after getting Granaries built to say, Chop + 2-pop-Whip Libraries.
2. Settle to the south-east, 1 W of the second Fur and 1 N of the Fish, then focus on Writing -> Fishing -> Alphabet. We might be able to squeeze out Alphabet even 1 turn sooner if we improve: Wheat -> Fur -> Cow -> ignore the Deer temporarily -> build the 1 piece of Road 1 NW of where we'd settle City 2 -> second Fur -> Deer. Build Warrior 2 -> Settler 2 -> Library -> most of Settler 3 in Paris, City 2 builds Work Boat -> something (a Warrior? a Worker? a Settler?), and we just try to get to Alphabet ASAP in order to get a boatload of techs. As I said, we'd almost have Settler 3, and we will have it before the test runs that went out to Turn 54 or so Alphabet, plus we can have a 4th Settler by that time (Turn 54) by whipping via knowing Bronze Working, if we choose to emphasize building that 4th Settler instead of a Granary.
I've played out option 2 and I think that I'm close to optimizing it.
It would be nice to see someone focusing on option 1 and reporting on some important statistics:
i. On which turn do we learn each tech?
ii. How soon can we Chop 1 or 2 Forests into a City's Granary plus 1 pop-whip (or 2-pop-whip) our Granaries? (I.e How well can we take advantage of self-teching Bronze Working + Pottery)
iii. Generally, how nice our empire will look. After the Granaries, we could overflow Hammers into Settlers then grow on Libraries OR else overflow into Libraries and 2-pop-whip or even 1-pop-whip those Libraries thanks to Forest Chops. Instead of Library-Chopping, we might build Cottages and start working Cottages.
I don't believe that settling adjacent to the Horse can compete with the above two options. We get 1 or 2 semi-early Chariots, but sending down Warrior 2 to the Green AI would seem to have a much greater chance of striking before said AI hooks up its Strategic Resources, so an early Chariot may not buy us anything, and even if it does score us a late Worker, we've dumped early-game Hammers into Units that would have been better off in a Work Boat (for City 2) and better off in a Library (for Paris).
We'll see true Military power once we have Granaries + Slavery. So, the real question is whether it's better to tech to Alphabet or to self-tech the required techs, based on what situation our empire will look like at the time of learning those techs.
Option 2 is nice in that we have a large-sized Paris, we're already working on our first Great Scientist, and we almost have Settler 3 at around Turn 50.
But, let's see if option 1 can do much better in some ways, such as a more-developed empire or a larger empire, in a way that we think can compete with or beat option 2.
Based on which option is stronger, we can go with that path and from there decide whether to go for Horse Archers, The Great Lighthouse, a Chariot rush (possibly combined with Spies), or whatever.
But, a Horse Archer rush isn't going to be effective at all without Granaries and Slavery; whether we get to Granaries and Slavery via a Commerce push plus Alphabet or we get there via self-teching is yet to be determined.
If we do it with self-teching, skipping Writing and going for Horseback Riding could be an option, but we'd also have to self-tech Archery and we'd be giving up on self-building The Great Lighthouse. If we go with the Alphabet approach, we would get Archery in trade and can consider going for Horseback Riding right after Alphabet, waiting until Sailing + Masrony are available in trade.
Knowing Alphabet also opens up a Currency beeline, which is the tech where things get really fun, with Gold per Turn trades, lump sum Gold trades, free Commerce for every City via Trade Routes, and the ability to build Wealth.
But, if a production-heavy approach (self-teching Bronze Working + Pottery) gives us a great empire, we should also seriously consider it, as we then might have other options, such as a sooner rush (without Spies, though) in order to earn City Capture Gold, or gifting away a City to an AI so that it builds Roads right to our doorstep, giving us great Foreign Trade Routes and a path with which to conquer said AI.
I'm not seeing anywhere that we really need a Cultural Border pop except for the case where we want to build an early Chariot in Paris or when we settle a north-east City. By the time that we'd need Mysticism, we'd either have traded for it (in an Alphabet-rush approach) or we'd have the ability to Chop and Whip and could instead focus on Chopping + Whipping a Library instead of a Monument. So, I would strongly recommend not spending any time on test runs that include self-teching Mysticism.
As for an Churchill settling a nearby City for us, what's wrong with that? 2 Units come on an AI's Galley--an Archer and a Settler. Even if we have to go in with 4 Archers, Churchill would have essentially gifted us a City. We simply time our attack so that we capture the City on the turn that it grows to Size 2 before he can whip the City, leaving no time for a second City Defender to exist in there. That's a net win for us.
Plus, with no Missionary and no Library in Paris, the Horse will be within our Cultural Borders on Turn 50. I don't think that Churchill, Portugal, or the Ottomans have Creative as a Leader Trait, so the Horse Resource would still be ours. Then, Churchill's City would be even easier for us to capture.
Food is king, except when we have an important short-term alternative, such as accessing a Horse Resource to build Horse-based units or such as earning additional Commerce early on by settling adjacent to the Fur.
So, if we're going to settle to the west first for the purposes of building a Work Boat, we'd settle where we'd already been planning on settling. I would strongly hesitate to use our Missionary in City 2, as we'd only get the Horse Resource in our Cultural Borders several turns earlier than Paris' Culture could get it.
Instead, I'd either save our Missionary for spawn-busting purposes or spread the Missionary in Paris as soon as our Settler takes over the spawn-busting duty on its way to replacing the need with spawn-busting via Culture-busting. Paris could do with +1 Happiness from Christianity as a State Religion at some point, and +1 Culture in Paris relatively early on still gets our Horse Resource into our Cultural Borders sooner.
That said, going for a Commerce-heavy start by settling south-east also gets our Horse within our Cultural Borders sooner (although we can only take advantage of this fact if we manage to steal a Worker to improve said Horse Resource), due to the Library's +2 Culture per turn (doubling Paris' Cultural output).
So, other than the option of settling 1 SW of the G Horse and building 2 early Chariots (2 Chariots CANNOT capture a City and at best might help with late Worker-stealing, although at that late stage, I'd probably rather just wait until after Alphabet to declare war), or perhaps having Paris build a Chariot instead of a Library while City 2 in the west builds its Work Boat inefficiently (staying at Size 1 is inefficient compared to Pasturing the Cow and growing), our best bet for going west would be to settle where we'd already planned.
For settling west, I think that an approach of Fishing -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery -> Writing will be best, delaying Alphabet and our Civ's technological development but focusing on emphasizing production--go heavy in one area and you'll do much better in Civ 4 than if you try a "balanced" approach of doing everything somewhat-poorly.
So, to me we have 2 main test options:
1. Settle to the west, 1 N of the G Cow and 1 NE of the Fish, then focus on Fishing -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery -> Writing, going for a Work Boat, Chopping + Whipping (if possible, timing a Chop or better 2 Chops into Paris to arrive around the same time as learning Pottery), getting Granaries built efficiently, and then emphasizing Food to grow quickly after getting Granaries built to say, Chop + 2-pop-Whip Libraries.
2. Settle to the south-east, 1 W of the second Fur and 1 N of the Fish, then focus on Writing -> Fishing -> Alphabet. We might be able to squeeze out Alphabet even 1 turn sooner if we improve: Wheat -> Fur -> Cow -> ignore the Deer temporarily -> build the 1 piece of Road 1 NW of where we'd settle City 2 -> second Fur -> Deer. Build Warrior 2 -> Settler 2 -> Library -> most of Settler 3 in Paris, City 2 builds Work Boat -> something (a Warrior? a Worker? a Settler?), and we just try to get to Alphabet ASAP in order to get a boatload of techs. As I said, we'd almost have Settler 3, and we will have it before the test runs that went out to Turn 54 or so Alphabet, plus we can have a 4th Settler by that time (Turn 54) by whipping via knowing Bronze Working, if we choose to emphasize building that 4th Settler instead of a Granary.
I've played out option 2 and I think that I'm close to optimizing it.
It would be nice to see someone focusing on option 1 and reporting on some important statistics:
i. On which turn do we learn each tech?
ii. How soon can we Chop 1 or 2 Forests into a City's Granary plus 1 pop-whip (or 2-pop-whip) our Granaries? (I.e How well can we take advantage of self-teching Bronze Working + Pottery)
iii. Generally, how nice our empire will look. After the Granaries, we could overflow Hammers into Settlers then grow on Libraries OR else overflow into Libraries and 2-pop-whip or even 1-pop-whip those Libraries thanks to Forest Chops. Instead of Library-Chopping, we might build Cottages and start working Cottages.
I don't believe that settling adjacent to the Horse can compete with the above two options. We get 1 or 2 semi-early Chariots, but sending down Warrior 2 to the Green AI would seem to have a much greater chance of striking before said AI hooks up its Strategic Resources, so an early Chariot may not buy us anything, and even if it does score us a late Worker, we've dumped early-game Hammers into Units that would have been better off in a Work Boat (for City 2) and better off in a Library (for Paris).
We'll see true Military power once we have Granaries + Slavery. So, the real question is whether it's better to tech to Alphabet or to self-tech the required techs, based on what situation our empire will look like at the time of learning those techs.
Option 2 is nice in that we have a large-sized Paris, we're already working on our first Great Scientist, and we almost have Settler 3 at around Turn 50.
But, let's see if option 1 can do much better in some ways, such as a more-developed empire or a larger empire, in a way that we think can compete with or beat option 2.
Based on which option is stronger, we can go with that path and from there decide whether to go for Horse Archers, The Great Lighthouse, a Chariot rush (possibly combined with Spies), or whatever.
But, a Horse Archer rush isn't going to be effective at all without Granaries and Slavery; whether we get to Granaries and Slavery via a Commerce push plus Alphabet or we get there via self-teching is yet to be determined.
If we do it with self-teching, skipping Writing and going for Horseback Riding could be an option, but we'd also have to self-tech Archery and we'd be giving up on self-building The Great Lighthouse. If we go with the Alphabet approach, we would get Archery in trade and can consider going for Horseback Riding right after Alphabet, waiting until Sailing + Masrony are available in trade.
Knowing Alphabet also opens up a Currency beeline, which is the tech where things get really fun, with Gold per Turn trades, lump sum Gold trades, free Commerce for every City via Trade Routes, and the ability to build Wealth.
But, if a production-heavy approach (self-teching Bronze Working + Pottery) gives us a great empire, we should also seriously consider it, as we then might have other options, such as a sooner rush (without Spies, though) in order to earn City Capture Gold, or gifting away a City to an AI so that it builds Roads right to our doorstep, giving us great Foreign Trade Routes and a path with which to conquer said AI.
I'm not seeing anywhere that we really need a Cultural Border pop except for the case where we want to build an early Chariot in Paris or when we settle a north-east City. By the time that we'd need Mysticism, we'd either have traded for it (in an Alphabet-rush approach) or we'd have the ability to Chop and Whip and could instead focus on Chopping + Whipping a Library instead of a Monument. So, I would strongly recommend not spending any time on test runs that include self-teching Mysticism.
As for an Churchill settling a nearby City for us, what's wrong with that? 2 Units come on an AI's Galley--an Archer and a Settler. Even if we have to go in with 4 Archers, Churchill would have essentially gifted us a City. We simply time our attack so that we capture the City on the turn that it grows to Size 2 before he can whip the City, leaving no time for a second City Defender to exist in there. That's a net win for us.
Plus, with no Missionary and no Library in Paris, the Horse will be within our Cultural Borders on Turn 50. I don't think that Churchill, Portugal, or the Ottomans have Creative as a Leader Trait, so the Horse Resource would still be ours. Then, Churchill's City would be even easier for us to capture.
pigswill
fly (one day)
I'm cetainly happy to admit that your micro and general game-play is better than mine. Maybe there's a weakness in my own games: once I get to building infra and units I neglect to build settlers and two thousand years pass before I realise that I still haven't built the cities I intended. Therefore I'm now trying to get the cities settled first before I start on the other stuff.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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There's a big advantage to getting City 2 settled since, assuming that you work even a simple G For square and you hook up a Trade Route to your capital, you'll be adding:
2 F + 2 F - 2 F = 2 F
1 H + 1 H = 2 H
1 C + 1 C + 1 C = 3 C
At a cost of generally 2 to 3 Gold
Assuming Maintenance Costs of 2 Gold and roughly equating early Commerce to Gold, that's a net of 2 F + 2 H + 1 C, which is as good as working a G Riv Cow Pasture (4 F + 2 H + 1 C - 2 F for the citizen working the Cow gives you the same result), but you don't need to grow to another City Size in order to earn that citizen; you get to use that citizen immediately. You also didn't need to use Worker turns to build an improvement, and once you do build an improvement, you'll be netting even more benefit.
The game is all about Turns. Earlier on, assuming that you have at least one improved Food Resource, it takes far less turns to grow +1 City Size than it does to build a Settler. But, once you can build a Settler within a reasonable number of turns, you will want to get that Settler built.
With each larger City Size costing additional Food and with your existing City or Cities running out of improved squares to work, there comes a time when expanding beats vertical growth, especially as you run into a Happiness cap.
Where it gets tougher is when you settle additional Cities and your Maintenance Costs go up; there's got to be a balance between maintaining your Maintenance Expenses and still having enough Commerce remaining to get to the next set of techs that you need.
Several tricks exist to get around this problem:
1. Ignore the increased Maintenance and just REX anyway, not caring about tech and just going for a huge military with your current tech level, then using the military to gain you City Capture Gold, additional Cities with additional improved Resources, etc
2. Build The Great Lighthouse so that each City gets additional free Commerce (assuming that your Cities are connected to each other)
3. Get Currency, to get free Commerce and to get other ways of earning Gold
4. Expand new Cities next to Commerce Resources (Fur barely qualifies; generally, I'm thinking Gold or Gems, but later in the game, Dyes could also count)
5. Get to a key Commerce-earning tech and let the power of that tech plus time work in your favour. One example is Pottery for Cottages. Another example is Code of Laws and eventually building Courthouses
If we're going for an Alphabet beeline, we don't have many of those options available to us, except for the one City by the second Fur, which was pigswill's good idea.
Another option is to go for Pottery and spam Cottages; doing so could also work.
If we're going for Alphabet, the number of Turns until we get to Alphabet matters.
Adding a third City may or may not delay us.
Getting a Library in Paris should help us, but it takes a while to produce without a lot of production, so while it helps, it doesn't help a whole lot before Alphabet comes in.
If, on the other hand, we put a different emphasis on our opening, such as production, we can focus hard on REXing and then not worry too much about getting to Alphabet within a certain number of Turns; as long as we can get to Bronze Working and Pottery within a reasonable number of Turns, we can reap the rewards of efficient production and then we somehow turn that production into Commerce. For example, we might spam Granaries and then grow efficiently while whipping more Workers so that we can spam more Cottages so that we can efficiently regrow into working many Cottages. Or, we might spam Granaries and then spam troops (Chariots, since it will take a while to get to Horse Archers with this approach).
One possible goal is to get to Alphabet in a small number of turns so that we can then leverage technologies to drastically increase the efficiency of our production.
The other possible goal is to focus on production so that we can get an efficient empire (i.e. growing and whipping early using Granaries and Slavery) and then turn those efficiencies into a way to push our empire forward, such as by spamming low-tech troops, Chopping + Whipping Libraries, or spamming Cottages with our extra self-whipped Workers.
Both approaches can work. We're looking to find a strong approach of each type so that we can then subjectively compare them against each other.
At the same time, I'm trying to "cull" the total number of testing options by reducing options that seem to be inferior, so that we don't get into analysis paralysis, sitting around being uncertain of how to proceed forward.
I appreciate the idea of spamming Cities, and it is often how I play XOTM games.
In this game, we're going to have to do things in leaps and bounds: first one of Commerce or production and then the opposite, probably jumping between the two several times.
One example will be racing toward Education by emphasizing Commerce (which could also come in the form of Great People), followed by spamming Universities and Oxford University. People often talk about 1-turn-building Oxford University, but if we have to wait 10 turns after learning Education to get all of our Universities built, did we really save a whole lot by one-turning Oxford? Possibly not.
Also, we have no Domination Land Limit, so theoretically, if we can get a decently-sized army that can keep on rolling, we can literally take over the map, and although Maintenance will be high, we'll be counting on hitting the Conqueror's Plateau, which means that each additional City will cost us a fixed amount, as we'll have maximized the "Number of Cities" Maintenance Costs. City Capture Gold will help carry us forward.
To do so efficiently, we'll probably have to employ one of three main tactics, if not more than one of them:
1. Speedy warfare, where we employ Horse-based units
2. Hammer-efficient warfare, where we employ Catapults
3. Spy-enhanced warfare, where we tear down City Defences using Espionage instead of spending time Bombarding with Catapults that we either don't have or which would be better off continually marching instead of stopping to Bombard
Another possible tactic that may not work so well on a pangaea map is:
4. Stuff your troops onto boats and raid from the seas, since BtS AIs don't guard their backwater Cities well
Yet another tactic to employ is:
5. Bring in a war ally and let their stacks fight against each other. This tactic may not work so well on Monarch Difficulty Level, as both AIs may just end up building up more defensive troops than they otherwise would have. But, we may still drag a couple of AIs into wars if we want them as Friendly trading partners
Key points:
1. Think in terms of Turns; how quickly can we accomplish a certain goal?
2. Decide what your short-term goals will be and then do whatever you can to speed them up in terms of Turn numbers
3. Look ahead to what your next goals will be so that you can be ready to go for them as soon as you're done your current set of goals (Another key tech for Military Units or key Buildings/Wonders? Capturting certain Resources? Getting a certain AI to trade a certain tech with us, say, by getting that AI up to Friendly status? Etc)
2 F + 2 F - 2 F = 2 F
1 H + 1 H = 2 H
1 C + 1 C + 1 C = 3 C
At a cost of generally 2 to 3 Gold
Assuming Maintenance Costs of 2 Gold and roughly equating early Commerce to Gold, that's a net of 2 F + 2 H + 1 C, which is as good as working a G Riv Cow Pasture (4 F + 2 H + 1 C - 2 F for the citizen working the Cow gives you the same result), but you don't need to grow to another City Size in order to earn that citizen; you get to use that citizen immediately. You also didn't need to use Worker turns to build an improvement, and once you do build an improvement, you'll be netting even more benefit.
The game is all about Turns. Earlier on, assuming that you have at least one improved Food Resource, it takes far less turns to grow +1 City Size than it does to build a Settler. But, once you can build a Settler within a reasonable number of turns, you will want to get that Settler built.
With each larger City Size costing additional Food and with your existing City or Cities running out of improved squares to work, there comes a time when expanding beats vertical growth, especially as you run into a Happiness cap.
Where it gets tougher is when you settle additional Cities and your Maintenance Costs go up; there's got to be a balance between maintaining your Maintenance Expenses and still having enough Commerce remaining to get to the next set of techs that you need.
Several tricks exist to get around this problem:
1. Ignore the increased Maintenance and just REX anyway, not caring about tech and just going for a huge military with your current tech level, then using the military to gain you City Capture Gold, additional Cities with additional improved Resources, etc
2. Build The Great Lighthouse so that each City gets additional free Commerce (assuming that your Cities are connected to each other)
3. Get Currency, to get free Commerce and to get other ways of earning Gold
4. Expand new Cities next to Commerce Resources (Fur barely qualifies; generally, I'm thinking Gold or Gems, but later in the game, Dyes could also count)
5. Get to a key Commerce-earning tech and let the power of that tech plus time work in your favour. One example is Pottery for Cottages. Another example is Code of Laws and eventually building Courthouses
If we're going for an Alphabet beeline, we don't have many of those options available to us, except for the one City by the second Fur, which was pigswill's good idea.
Another option is to go for Pottery and spam Cottages; doing so could also work.
If we're going for Alphabet, the number of Turns until we get to Alphabet matters.
Adding a third City may or may not delay us.
Getting a Library in Paris should help us, but it takes a while to produce without a lot of production, so while it helps, it doesn't help a whole lot before Alphabet comes in.
If, on the other hand, we put a different emphasis on our opening, such as production, we can focus hard on REXing and then not worry too much about getting to Alphabet within a certain number of Turns; as long as we can get to Bronze Working and Pottery within a reasonable number of Turns, we can reap the rewards of efficient production and then we somehow turn that production into Commerce. For example, we might spam Granaries and then grow efficiently while whipping more Workers so that we can spam more Cottages so that we can efficiently regrow into working many Cottages. Or, we might spam Granaries and then spam troops (Chariots, since it will take a while to get to Horse Archers with this approach).
One possible goal is to get to Alphabet in a small number of turns so that we can then leverage technologies to drastically increase the efficiency of our production.
The other possible goal is to focus on production so that we can get an efficient empire (i.e. growing and whipping early using Granaries and Slavery) and then turn those efficiencies into a way to push our empire forward, such as by spamming low-tech troops, Chopping + Whipping Libraries, or spamming Cottages with our extra self-whipped Workers.
Both approaches can work. We're looking to find a strong approach of each type so that we can then subjectively compare them against each other.
At the same time, I'm trying to "cull" the total number of testing options by reducing options that seem to be inferior, so that we don't get into analysis paralysis, sitting around being uncertain of how to proceed forward.
I appreciate the idea of spamming Cities, and it is often how I play XOTM games.
In this game, we're going to have to do things in leaps and bounds: first one of Commerce or production and then the opposite, probably jumping between the two several times.
One example will be racing toward Education by emphasizing Commerce (which could also come in the form of Great People), followed by spamming Universities and Oxford University. People often talk about 1-turn-building Oxford University, but if we have to wait 10 turns after learning Education to get all of our Universities built, did we really save a whole lot by one-turning Oxford? Possibly not.
Also, we have no Domination Land Limit, so theoretically, if we can get a decently-sized army that can keep on rolling, we can literally take over the map, and although Maintenance will be high, we'll be counting on hitting the Conqueror's Plateau, which means that each additional City will cost us a fixed amount, as we'll have maximized the "Number of Cities" Maintenance Costs. City Capture Gold will help carry us forward.
To do so efficiently, we'll probably have to employ one of three main tactics, if not more than one of them:
1. Speedy warfare, where we employ Horse-based units
2. Hammer-efficient warfare, where we employ Catapults
3. Spy-enhanced warfare, where we tear down City Defences using Espionage instead of spending time Bombarding with Catapults that we either don't have or which would be better off continually marching instead of stopping to Bombard
Another possible tactic that may not work so well on a pangaea map is:
4. Stuff your troops onto boats and raid from the seas, since BtS AIs don't guard their backwater Cities well
Yet another tactic to employ is:
5. Bring in a war ally and let their stacks fight against each other. This tactic may not work so well on Monarch Difficulty Level, as both AIs may just end up building up more defensive troops than they otherwise would have. But, we may still drag a couple of AIs into wars if we want them as Friendly trading partners
Key points:
1. Think in terms of Turns; how quickly can we accomplish a certain goal?
2. Decide what your short-term goals will be and then do whatever you can to speed them up in terms of Turn numbers
3. Look ahead to what your next goals will be so that you can be ready to go for them as soon as you're done your current set of goals (Another key tech for Military Units or key Buildings/Wonders? Capturting certain Resources? Getting a certain AI to trade a certain tech with us, say, by getting that AI up to Friendly status? Etc)
pigswill
fly (one day)
So for instance we could have:
phase i) alphabet beeline, no exploration, 2 cities.
phase ii) local rex (2 more settlers, 4 workers), explore neighbouring AIs.
phase iii) infra and war prep (probably HA) ?Glight
phase iv)f irst war
So looking at this model Paris builds library then goes for another worker, start settler. Once we have BW we can chop and whip. South east city probably goes WB>warrior>worker at pop3.
Be nice to get some input from the rest of the team, this is turning into a dualogue.
phase i) alphabet beeline, no exploration, 2 cities.
phase ii) local rex (2 more settlers, 4 workers), explore neighbouring AIs.
phase iii) infra and war prep (probably HA) ?Glight
phase iv)f irst war
So looking at this model Paris builds library then goes for another worker, start settler. Once we have BW we can chop and whip. South east city probably goes WB>warrior>worker at pop3.
Be nice to get some input from the rest of the team, this is turning into a dualogue.
I did a test of Dhoom's option 1 to turn 50 2000BC
Tech Learned:
T22 3120BC Fishing learned started Mining
T28 2880BC Mining learned started Bronze Working
T40 2400BC Bronze working learned started Pottery (revolted into slavery)
T45 2240BC Pottery learned started Writing
T32 272BC Orleans founded (1N of cow)
T48 2080BC Lyons founded (1W of dry fur)
At t50 2000BC
We learn writing in 2 turns
Paris is size 4 and just whipped a granary
Orleans is size 4 and can whip a granary
Lyons is size 1
Here is a screenshot:
Tech Learned:
T22 3120BC Fishing learned started Mining
T28 2880BC Mining learned started Bronze Working
T40 2400BC Bronze working learned started Pottery (revolted into slavery)
T45 2240BC Pottery learned started Writing
T32 272BC Orleans founded (1N of cow)
T48 2080BC Lyons founded (1W of dry fur)
At t50 2000BC
We learn writing in 2 turns
Paris is size 4 and just whipped a granary
Orleans is size 4 and can whip a granary
Lyons is size 1
Here is a screenshot:
Spoiler :
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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- Aug 12, 2006
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Assuming that the Peaks in the test game are accurate (they weren't before, which caused us to be unable to easily steal a Worker from Germany), then on:
Turn 23, 3080 BC Our Warrior 1 can attack 1 SE, 1 SE + 1 E, and 1 SE + 1 S of Berlin, with the Berlin square being visible
Turn 24, 3040 BC Warrior 1 can attack 2 S of Berlin without seeing what's in Berlin (but we would have just seen what's in there on the turn prior)
Turn 24, 3000 BC Warrior 1 can attack 1 SW + 1 S of Berlin without seeing what's in Berlin
In our test game, a German Worker appeared 2 S of Berlin on Turn 27, 2920 BC, but when and where a Worker may appear will be subject to the terrain and Resources of the real game.
Assuming that the Green AI isn't blocked off by Peaks and assuming that there's a square from which we could steal a Worker, and assuming that the Green AI's capital is roughly placed correctly in the test game, then on:
Turn 28, 2880 BC Warrior 2 can enter Green AI's Cultural Borders in the test game
We may or may not end up sending out Warrior 2--Paris can grow to Size 5 without a Military Police Unit and remain Happy. Paris can grow to Size 7 with a Military Police Unit and remain Happy. If we're going to build a Library in Paris, then we'll need a Military Police Unit as of:
Turn 40, 2400 BC (that's if we Camp the Deer before Camping the second Fur)
So, we actually have just over 10 turns to play with potentially trying to steal a Worker from the Green AI and getting our butts back to Paris.
For the case where we Camp the Deer and complete Settler 2 on Turn 31, we will have 85 / 90 Hammers in a Library on Turn 45, 2200 BC, with 8 extra Hammers coming in on that turn, meaning that we can hire Scientists starting on Turn 46.
What's surprising is that if we delay Settler 2 by 1 turn in order to dump overflow Hammers into the Library on Turn 32, on Turn 45, 2200 BC, we will only have 84 / 90 Hammers in a Library. I'm not sure what happened there, but basically, I didn't find a way to speed up the completion of our Library, so we should probably stick with the Turn 31 Settler 2 for the Writing -> Fishing -> Alphabet approach.
Now, how about what to do with Worker 1 after Pasturing?
Let's say that we ignore Camping the Deer initially.
Turn 28, 2880 BC Writing -> Fishing
Turn 28, 2880 BC Worker 1 pFarms at 1 N of Paris
Turn 29, 2840 BC Worker 1 moves to the G Riv For that is 1 SE of Paris
Turn 30, 2800 BC Worker 1 Roads the G Riv For that is 1 SE of Paris
Turn 30, 2800 BC Paris works Unimproved Deer instead of the Fur to complete Settler 2 one turn sooner
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris builds Settler 2 -> Library
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris works Fur instead of Deer
Turn 31, 2760 BC Before Settler 2 moves, Worker 1 completes the Road, saving Settler 2 a turn of movement (it's as though we built the Settler on Turn 30 for the south-east location)
Turn 32, 2720 BC Worker 1 moves to the second Fur
Turn 32, 2720 BC Orleans gets founded, but we are 3 Flasks short on learning Fishing, sigh
So, I put 2 Hammers into a Library before building a Work Boat. After Camping the second Fur, I built a Road 2 SE of Paris and then Camped the Deer.
Turn 41, 2360 BC Paris grew to Size 6 one turn later
Turn 46, 2160 BC City 2's Work Boat was built
Turn 46, 2160 BC Paris is short by 3 Hammers for completing its Library
Turn 50, 2000 BC We only had 432 / 448 Flasks in Alphabet, meaning a Turn 51, 1960 BC Learn Alphabet
So, Alphabet didn't come any sooner and our Library came a turn later.
Okay, what about if we don't speed up Settler 2's movement but we instead set up a Trade Route network before City 2 gets founded, so that City 2 immediately is connected, giving us 2 Trade Routes on the turn that City 2 gets founded, then improve the second Fur as soon as City 2 gets founded?
Turn 28, 2880 BC Writing -> Fishing
Turn 28, 2880 BC Worker 1 moves to the G Riv Deer For
Turn 29, 2840 BC Worker 1 moves 1 SE and does something at 1 SE + 1 E of Paris, probably a pFarm
Turn 30, 2800 BC Worker 1 moves 1 S G Riv (2 SE of Paris) and Roads
Turn 30, 2800 BC Paris works Unimproved Deer instead of the Fur to complete Settler 2 one turn sooner
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris builds Settler 2 -> Library
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris works Fur instead of Deer
Turn 32, 2720 BC Worker 1 moves 1 S to the G Fur For
Turn 33, 2680 BC Orleans gets founded on the turn when we learn Fishing and we immediately have our Trade Route connection
Turn 33, 2680 BC Worker 1 starts Camping the G Fur For
Turn 36, 2560 BC The second Fur has been Camped
Turn 37, 2520 BC Worker 1 moves 1 N to the G Riv (2 SE of Paris) and pFarms
Turn 38, 2480 BC Worker 1 moves to the G Riv Deer For
Turn 42, 2320 BC The G Riv Deer For has been Camped
Turn 46, 2160 BC City 2's Work Boat was built
Turn 46, 2160 BC With 2 turns worth of microing a G For into a G Riv to avoid fractional Flasks and fractional Gold (two different turns at 50% Science--we might have also just done 1 turn of 0% Science), we have 85 / 90 Hammers in a Library
Turn 47, 2120 BC Paris' Library has been completed and we hire 2 Scientist Specialists
Turn 49, 2040 BC We have 410 / 448 Flasks in Alphabet and will learn it in 1 turn!
So, we end up with Turn 50, 2000 BC Alphabet with barely any overflow Flasks (maybe 1?) and 6 Gold in the bank
Paris is Size 8 and Unhappy, but we've been building Settler 3 from that turn that we grew to Size 8, so we don't care that it's Unhappy (the Unhappy citizen does not eat 2 Food when building a Worker or a Settler).
We have 41 Hammers in Settler 3, which means it will be 5 turns to complete it... but, after 2 rounds of trading, 1 turn of Anarchy, and 1 turn to whip (on Turn 52), we will actually get our Settler 3 three turns later, on Turn 53, giving us 31 Hammers going into a Granary on Turn 54, meaning that we can 1-pop-whip our Granary at the ideal time without needing to wait for a Forest Chop, while still having a Size-5 Paris.
I'll have to play through it again to make sure to document the micro details, but Turn 50, 2000 BC Alphabet with us already working on generating our first Great Scientist sounds pretty solid.
Thanks for the comparison data, Jersey Joe!
Turn 50, 2000 BC:
Paris is Size 8
4 Food
41 Hammers in a Settler
18 GPP in our first Great Scientist (14 turns to go at 6 GPP / turn... probably more like 15 or 16 more turns if we Whip a Granary in Paris)
We just learned Alphabet (should be Turn 50 Pottery and Turn 51 Bronze Working)
Orleans is Size 2 (Size 3 in 1 turn)
22 / 24 Food
8 Hammers in a Library
Fish netted
(Ignore the signs in the screenshot, as I did other Worker actions in this test run. I also World-Built myself a Military Police Swordsman as I didn't time the arrival of Warrior 2 back inside of Paris properly.)
Did you build yourself Worker 2? I made do with only one Worker, but that fact means that we're short 60 Hammers worth of production, which is another comparison factor. If we stole a Worker in an Alphabet-beeline approach, there might not be much for him to do until after we learn Alphabet, but then there'd be a lot to do riht after learning Alphabet (Forest Chops, Cottages, building Roads to new Cities for Whipped Settlers, etc).
Turn 23, 3080 BC Our Warrior 1 can attack 1 SE, 1 SE + 1 E, and 1 SE + 1 S of Berlin, with the Berlin square being visible
Turn 24, 3040 BC Warrior 1 can attack 2 S of Berlin without seeing what's in Berlin (but we would have just seen what's in there on the turn prior)
Turn 24, 3000 BC Warrior 1 can attack 1 SW + 1 S of Berlin without seeing what's in Berlin
In our test game, a German Worker appeared 2 S of Berlin on Turn 27, 2920 BC, but when and where a Worker may appear will be subject to the terrain and Resources of the real game.
Assuming that the Green AI isn't blocked off by Peaks and assuming that there's a square from which we could steal a Worker, and assuming that the Green AI's capital is roughly placed correctly in the test game, then on:
Turn 28, 2880 BC Warrior 2 can enter Green AI's Cultural Borders in the test game
We may or may not end up sending out Warrior 2--Paris can grow to Size 5 without a Military Police Unit and remain Happy. Paris can grow to Size 7 with a Military Police Unit and remain Happy. If we're going to build a Library in Paris, then we'll need a Military Police Unit as of:
Turn 40, 2400 BC (that's if we Camp the Deer before Camping the second Fur)
So, we actually have just over 10 turns to play with potentially trying to steal a Worker from the Green AI and getting our butts back to Paris.
For the case where we Camp the Deer and complete Settler 2 on Turn 31, we will have 85 / 90 Hammers in a Library on Turn 45, 2200 BC, with 8 extra Hammers coming in on that turn, meaning that we can hire Scientists starting on Turn 46.
What's surprising is that if we delay Settler 2 by 1 turn in order to dump overflow Hammers into the Library on Turn 32, on Turn 45, 2200 BC, we will only have 84 / 90 Hammers in a Library. I'm not sure what happened there, but basically, I didn't find a way to speed up the completion of our Library, so we should probably stick with the Turn 31 Settler 2 for the Writing -> Fishing -> Alphabet approach.
Now, how about what to do with Worker 1 after Pasturing?
Let's say that we ignore Camping the Deer initially.
Turn 28, 2880 BC Writing -> Fishing
Turn 28, 2880 BC Worker 1 pFarms at 1 N of Paris
Turn 29, 2840 BC Worker 1 moves to the G Riv For that is 1 SE of Paris
Turn 30, 2800 BC Worker 1 Roads the G Riv For that is 1 SE of Paris
Turn 30, 2800 BC Paris works Unimproved Deer instead of the Fur to complete Settler 2 one turn sooner
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris builds Settler 2 -> Library
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris works Fur instead of Deer
Turn 31, 2760 BC Before Settler 2 moves, Worker 1 completes the Road, saving Settler 2 a turn of movement (it's as though we built the Settler on Turn 30 for the south-east location)
Turn 32, 2720 BC Worker 1 moves to the second Fur
Turn 32, 2720 BC Orleans gets founded, but we are 3 Flasks short on learning Fishing, sigh
So, I put 2 Hammers into a Library before building a Work Boat. After Camping the second Fur, I built a Road 2 SE of Paris and then Camped the Deer.
Turn 41, 2360 BC Paris grew to Size 6 one turn later
Turn 46, 2160 BC City 2's Work Boat was built
Turn 46, 2160 BC Paris is short by 3 Hammers for completing its Library
Turn 50, 2000 BC We only had 432 / 448 Flasks in Alphabet, meaning a Turn 51, 1960 BC Learn Alphabet
So, Alphabet didn't come any sooner and our Library came a turn later.
Okay, what about if we don't speed up Settler 2's movement but we instead set up a Trade Route network before City 2 gets founded, so that City 2 immediately is connected, giving us 2 Trade Routes on the turn that City 2 gets founded, then improve the second Fur as soon as City 2 gets founded?
Turn 28, 2880 BC Writing -> Fishing
Turn 28, 2880 BC Worker 1 moves to the G Riv Deer For
Turn 29, 2840 BC Worker 1 moves 1 SE and does something at 1 SE + 1 E of Paris, probably a pFarm
Turn 30, 2800 BC Worker 1 moves 1 S G Riv (2 SE of Paris) and Roads
Turn 30, 2800 BC Paris works Unimproved Deer instead of the Fur to complete Settler 2 one turn sooner
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris builds Settler 2 -> Library
Turn 31, 2760 BC Paris works Fur instead of Deer
Turn 32, 2720 BC Worker 1 moves 1 S to the G Fur For
Turn 33, 2680 BC Orleans gets founded on the turn when we learn Fishing and we immediately have our Trade Route connection
Turn 33, 2680 BC Worker 1 starts Camping the G Fur For
Turn 36, 2560 BC The second Fur has been Camped
Turn 37, 2520 BC Worker 1 moves 1 N to the G Riv (2 SE of Paris) and pFarms
Turn 38, 2480 BC Worker 1 moves to the G Riv Deer For
Turn 42, 2320 BC The G Riv Deer For has been Camped
Turn 46, 2160 BC City 2's Work Boat was built
Turn 46, 2160 BC With 2 turns worth of microing a G For into a G Riv to avoid fractional Flasks and fractional Gold (two different turns at 50% Science--we might have also just done 1 turn of 0% Science), we have 85 / 90 Hammers in a Library
Turn 47, 2120 BC Paris' Library has been completed and we hire 2 Scientist Specialists
Turn 49, 2040 BC We have 410 / 448 Flasks in Alphabet and will learn it in 1 turn!
So, we end up with Turn 50, 2000 BC Alphabet with barely any overflow Flasks (maybe 1?) and 6 Gold in the bank
Paris is Size 8 and Unhappy, but we've been building Settler 3 from that turn that we grew to Size 8, so we don't care that it's Unhappy (the Unhappy citizen does not eat 2 Food when building a Worker or a Settler).
We have 41 Hammers in Settler 3, which means it will be 5 turns to complete it... but, after 2 rounds of trading, 1 turn of Anarchy, and 1 turn to whip (on Turn 52), we will actually get our Settler 3 three turns later, on Turn 53, giving us 31 Hammers going into a Granary on Turn 54, meaning that we can 1-pop-whip our Granary at the ideal time without needing to wait for a Forest Chop, while still having a Size-5 Paris.
I'll have to play through it again to make sure to document the micro details, but Turn 50, 2000 BC Alphabet with us already working on generating our first Great Scientist sounds pretty solid.
Thanks for the comparison data, Jersey Joe!
Turn 50, 2000 BC:
Paris is Size 8
4 Food
41 Hammers in a Settler
18 GPP in our first Great Scientist (14 turns to go at 6 GPP / turn... probably more like 15 or 16 more turns if we Whip a Granary in Paris)
We just learned Alphabet (should be Turn 50 Pottery and Turn 51 Bronze Working)
Orleans is Size 2 (Size 3 in 1 turn)
22 / 24 Food
8 Hammers in a Library
Fish netted
Spoiler :
(Ignore the signs in the screenshot, as I did other Worker actions in this test run. I also World-Built myself a Military Police Swordsman as I didn't time the arrival of Warrior 2 back inside of Paris properly.)
If our Worker isn't doing all of the extra Worker actions that it did, such as building Farms and a Road on the south-east Fur (a Road on the south-east Fur is only needed if we get a Trade Network connection to an AI for Resource-trading purposes, which means learning Sailing or building a Road to an AI), we could probably put a Chop into that Granary and combine it 3 turns of making 4 Hammers per turn to be able to 1-pop-whip the Granary on Turn 48, if doing so is more efficient Food-wise.
Did you build yourself Worker 2? I made do with only one Worker, but that fact means that we're short 60 Hammers worth of production, which is another comparison factor. If we stole a Worker in an Alphabet-beeline approach, there might not be much for him to do until after we learn Alphabet, but then there'd be a lot to do riht after learning Alphabet (Forest Chops, Cottages, building Roads to new Cities for Whipped Settlers, etc).
Here are completed builds from the test starting from turn 17- 3320BC
Note: My emphasize was on learning techs which might have delayed a build or growth. For example, while building Settler p2, a citizen only worked the pastured cow 1 turn out of a possible 2 the other turn was working the fur for commerce.
Warrior 1 did not try to steal a worker.
Paris.
T22 - 3120BC Warrior p2
T30 - 2800BC Settler p2
T37 - 2520BC Worker 2
T38 - 2480BC Warrior p3
T46 - 2160BC Settler p3
T50 - 2000BC Granery (whipped T49; Overflow enough to build Warrior p4 on T51, with remaining overflow going into Settler)
Orleans
T44 - 2240BC Workboat o1
T48 - 2080BC Warrior o1
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Thanks. There's definitely some relative inefficiency with building a Library while working G For squares, but it's also the best build item when going for early Writing. It's a shame that we don't have enough Worker turns to Road to an AI, as getting Open Borders would give us Foreign Trade Routes.
Doing so sounds fine to me; production prior to unlocking Bronze Working + Granaries is relatively inefficient, anyway, so emphasizing research temporarily until we get those techs can make sense.
The reason why I suggested Bronze Working before Pottery was to start Chopping or at least pre-Chopping. If we aren't going to be Chopping or Whipping prior to learning Pottery, we might as well learn Pottery first so that we can put some raw Hammers into Granaries. Or, invest some Worker turns into Chopping or at least pre-Chopping.
A hybrid approach is certainly possible--improving Wheat -> Fur for Paris' improvements while settling City 2 to the south-east, but instead of building a Library, we build Settlers and Workers sooner.
We might push out Alphabet to closer to Turn 54 or so instead of Turn 50, but we'd be focusing a bit more on horizontal growth, getting started on founding and improving City 3 a bit faster.
Of course, every turn that we delay Alphabet in an Alphabet beeline, the greater the chance that we'll lose Writing or other non-Alphabet techs in terms of trade bait.
For a non-Alphabet beeline, the Alphabet date doesn't matter all of that much, since we'll have many of the production-oriented techs that we want. In a non-Alphabet beeline, if we don't see ourselves building Libraries soon, we could also go for Sailing -> Masonry after Bronze Working + Pottery, for cheap Lighthouses and to get started on The Great Lighthouse, not to mention being able to improve the G Stone square for 2 F + 3 H (which is a bit weaker than a G Horse, which also gets +1 C).
An alternative hybrid approach would be to focus on Commerce (without a Library) but to self-tech the techs that we need, getting us to Pottery + Slavery even sooner, although at the cost of not having a well-developed City 2 (since we'd work a 2-Food Fur instead of a Food Resource as our first improved square), but then we could make sure to get an early Granary in every City that we build.
Whatever we end up choosing, it seems as though unlocking some key techs is our initial bottleneck.
Do people have any initial thoughts? Do we lack too much production in a pure Alphabet-beeline or do we feel that we'll make it up very quickly by being able to unlock many techs at once, Whipping out the stored-up population points soon enough to make the wait worthwhile?
Do we lack too much Commerce by settling to the west first, such that we were hoping to get Granaries up sooner, but couldn't as we hadn't unlocked the relevant techs yet, or are we fine with the pace of getting improvements up?
Do we need to run some sort of a hybrid approach, where we pick one of those two paths but try to balance Commerce and production?
I don't have the best answer. I like Granaries, perhaps more than the average person, so I like the idea of getting them up early. But, personally, I'd like to see them + Slavery getting unlocked sooner, as you don't really start to see the efficiencies of Granaries until you've grown your Cities about 2 to 3 City Sizes, so the sooner that we can get them built, the greater the profit that we'll be able to receive from them.
I also like solving all of our tech problems in one shot, so that we don't have tough decisions about which tech to go for next (Writing? Sailing? Horseback Riding?) and can then focus on getting the next big tech (probably either Horseback Riding or Currency, with an emphasis on Currency unless we can prove that in the short-term, we'll have a good production base for Whipping/Chopping out 8 Horse Archers). It sucks to have to wait for Granaries to come online, but if they aren't coming online that much later, and if we're going to stagnate to build Settlers/Workers, maybe they aren't as important to get early on.
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