Shadow Game for an Old Dude

[OldDude]

And @OldDude you mentioned you have a cheat sheet Word doc you are using now... care to share?

@Jacob - Not a problem. I have a little bit more to add to it but I'll share it after that.

 

[OldDude]

Let me start by saying that I understand your reaction to my post, but I posted it by using my phone and did not look at the saves. I just wanted to give a quick answer during my morning coffee.
Well... now for a possible answer how to get TGL faster. I'll only focus on the TGL and not the overall gameplay since you are helped by other great players.

Spoiler Susa TGL :

turn 103: Susa can borrow the riverside grassland hill from Pasargardae 111 for one turn. This will result in a total of 37 (30 from chopping + 7 from working tiles). TGL ready in 11 turns.

Spoiler :

View attachment 505680

turn 104: you'll have 134 invested in TGL and 24 banked. Now you switch your build to an Axe and only invest 4 with 6 surplus.

Spoiler :

View attachment 505681

turn 105: you've grown to size 6. Now you 2 pop whip the Axe for 33 overflow.
turn 106: switch back to TGL and maximize production again. 134 + 33 overflow + 6 base.
turn 107: 173 invested. Now you can 2 pop whip TGL to finish it (not advisable, since hurrying wonders come with a penalty. You'll only get 20 per pop instead of 30). Switch back to an Axe again investing only 4.

Spoiler :

View attachment 505682 View attachment 505683

turn 108: Back to size 5 and whip the Axe for 33 overflow.
turn 109: Back to TGL again and it will be finished next turn.

Spoiler :

View attachment 505684

This is just one example of the power of the whip. Not only you have TGL ready 4 turns earlier, but also 2 Axes on the go.

Hope this helps

Hey Tonny,

I'm not sure how you took my post but it was meant as "geeesh, why didn't I just hover my mouse over the unit???" so I was berating myself, just to be clear!

Regarding your strategy to get the GLH built faster...wow. That is some micro-stuff right there! How do you only invest a certain amount of in something?

Thanks!

 

[coanda]

How do you only invest a certain amount of in something?

Tile micromanagement. Every time he goes to put hammers into axeman, he pulls citizens off hammer-producing tiles and puts them on food-producing tiles that turn instead to make sure the city has exactly 4 hammers produced that turn. Compare the tiles worked in his first and second screenshot.

4H means the axeman will be at 4/35 hammers next turn, with 31 remaining. Each pop is 30 hammers, so whipping with 31H needed requires 2 pops and produces 60 hammers. About half of those hammers are going to overflow onto your wonder production the next turn.

 

[krikav]

Tile micromanagement. Every time he goes to put hammers into axeman, he pulls citizens off hammer-producing tiles and puts them on food-producing tiles that turn instead to make sure the city has exactly 4 hammers produced that turn. Compare the tiles worked in his first and second screenshot.
4H means the axeman will be at 4/35 hammers next turn, with 31 remaining. Each pop is 30 hammers, so whipping with 31H needed requires 2 pops and produces 60 hammers. About half of those hammers are going to overflow onto your wonder production the next turn.

Oh, the dread when you do this type of managment, and then next turn see "Cost 1 population" and you realize you have a forge or are in bureaucracy or organized religion.
Or why not when you have that perfecly managed 29/60 worker and you realize you play a expansive leader?

 

[OldDude]

Tile micromanagement. Every time he goes to put hammers into axeman, he pulls citizens off hammer-producing tiles and puts them on food-producing tiles that turn instead to make sure the city has exactly 4 hammers produced that turn. Compare the tiles worked in his first and second screenshot.

4H means the axeman will be at 4/35 hammers next turn, with 31 remaining. Each pop is 30 hammers, so whipping with 31H needed requires 2 pops and produces 60 hammers. About half of those hammers are going to overflow onto your wonder production the next turn.

OK, got it. Thanks for the explanation!

 

[OldDude]

@Swordnboard I would totally love taking a look at that wall of notes if you were inclined to post them up, or send them over.

And @OldDude you mentioned you have a cheat sheet Word doc you are using now... care to share?

Here is my cheat sheet. It's just a collection of things I've learned in this shadow game thread. I hope you find it useful. And if any of you great players out there look at it and see something that isn't right or anything, please let me know!

 

[OldDude]

Hi OldDude,
Glad you took a look at the saves. I wouldn't write them off as on a different level or fundamentally different from your own game. There's still plenty to learn from your own save, but I have some suggestions if you have time to dig a little deeper into mine.
1. Try to envision what happens between saves. What am I focusing on and why? What options did I ignore? How is each unit and city leveraged to the maximum? My notes will help, but try to do some on your own.
2. Measure progress. What improved (land? research? military strength? technology?) since the last save, and by how much? Compare to your own game, and see which areas you are good at and which need more work.
3. Find mistakes. No player does everything perfectly, and even if you find something you think is wrong which turns out to be the right idea, starting a discussion can help clarify misconceptions and give you some new strategies to work with. Getting used to critiquing other players' games can help tremendously when playing your own.

I'll also transcribe my notes in here when I get the chance (They're handwritten and hard to read at the moment. I generally tend to play with a pad of paper and jot things down as they come to me, but that format isn't as helpful as it could be)

Spoiler notes soon :

@Jacob Goldfarb you can definitely start your own shadow game if you'd like! Go ahead and generate a game with similar settings to this one and make a thread with a screenshot/save, and we'll be happy to guide you through.

Hey Swordnboard,

I finally went through all of your saves to try to picture how you went about things. Obviously you decided to take out Willie and Chuck early. It looks like you chopped out 3 settlers pretty quickly and positioned those cities as helper cities to the capital somewhat. That is a concept I never understood until I started this shadow game. Now I see the power of it. One question though, why the city to the west on the coast? Just for helper city?

It looks like if you wanted to you could achieve a conquest victory pretty easily here.

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[OldDude]

Well, since my last save point, 300BC, I was waiting for lymond's input but he must have moved on. So lymond, THANK YOU for all of your help and all of your time you gave. You taught me a lot.

I decided I was just going to keep playing this game after I waited a while and decided I wanted to go for a domination victory. Without going into details, I took out Chuck and then Isabella. During my attack on Sitting Bull I achieved 64% of the map, hence victory at 1605AD. THAT IS THE EARLIEST I HAVE EVER WON, EVEN IN WARLORD DIFFICULTY!

I think I learned a ton during this shadow game, even though I kept forgetting to do some of the micro stuff that can really make a difference. For me it's about playing slower each turn and really looking at things and weighing out options to try to choose the most optimal way to go. I'm going to start another game with the same settings and play it on my own to see how I do all the while trying to implement everything I've learned here. I will post questions though!

Thank you to everybody that helped me here. There is so much more to this game than I've ever realized even though I've played it for a long time.

 

[krikav]

Well, since my last save point, 300BC, I was waiting for lymond's input but he must have moved on. So lymond, THANK YOU for all of your help and all of your time you gave. You taught me a lot.

I decided I was just going to keep playing this game after I waited a while and decided I wanted to go for a domination victory. Without going into details, I took out Chuck and then Isabella. During my attack on Sitting Bull I achieved 64% of the map, hence victory at 1605AD. THAT IS THE EARLIEST I HAVE EVER WON, EVEN IN WARLORD DIFFICULTY!

I think I learned a ton during this shadow game, even though I kept forgetting to do some of the micro stuff that can really make a difference. For me it's about playing slower each turn and really looking at things and weighing out options to try to choose the most optimal way to go. I'm going to start another game with the same settings and play it on my own to see how I do all the while trying to implement everything I've learned here. I will post questions though!

Thank you to everybody that helped me here. There is so much more to this game than I've ever realized even though I've played it for a long time.

Very nice!

Yes, if one is the immortal emperor of a empire, one should really pay attention every few decades or so (turn)!
Don't worry about keep forgetting, everyone does mistakes sometimes, at every level. Do your best and keep trying to improve. And try to compare youreself now with how you where yesterday.

For your next game, do try the NC game! It would be very fun to have more activity in that series.

 

[lymond]

You are welcome. As the game progresses and gets bigger, the detailed advice gets more cumbersome. Regardless, I think you have already learned some very important things in this exercise. For one, you learned how important the early game is and taking your time with decisions and moves. The importance of workers and worker turns. Making better tech decisions and settling decisions..and so on.

You expanded much faster than ever before, while realizing that your economy was not near as bad as you previously thought.

You have a lot to build on here, so keep playing. Like Krikav mentioned, start playing the NC games and posting there as well for advice. Always feel free to post any game at anytime for advice on things you could do better.. The more you play the more things will sink in.

Play a couple of more games on Noble, building off what you have learned. I encourage you to reread this thread and refer back to it as well at times. Read my links on slavery for a better understanding of the mechanics, and practice it a lot.

Lastly, I encourage you to try playing the HOF and GOTM games. HOF is nice as it provides more urgency and deliberation to your play. GOTMs are just fun to play with special maps prepared by staff. GOTM games come in various difficulty, but it never hurts to play higher difficulties than you are used to, even if you fail at first. Links to those are in my sig.

 

[krikav]

Just wanted to provide this link:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nobles-club-bullpen-fourth-cycle.537926/
Scroll down to post #16 by Kjotleik, he provides zip-files for all 200 old NC games. It's a goldmine of nice games to play.
Don't be afraid to bump a game thread from 2009 or so, if you do play an old game and find it interesting.

 

[guyyee]

Your settlet is standing on a plains hill.
Settling a city on a plains hill gives the city tile an extra hammer. This is often desired and in many starting locations you check if there is any good plains hill (PH) to settle on. Here you get it for free.

Best effect for these games is that you stop every few turns (or at relevant intervalls, such as when a build is finished and you shoudl choose something new, or when a tech is finished.)
Best is if you as clearly as you can state what the map is telling you at each turn, what do you find of highest relevance and what do you plan on doing?

Regarding the fish, I have my opinions, but it would be great if you ellaborate abit more.
Compare the two options you have: SIP vs 2N for the fish.
How would the two different options play out? What would you have to do in each?

Hi, I'm new player just starting out. Following the game to learn more. How does moving 2N get the fish? If you place city here, the nine square is still out of reach of the fish resource, no?

 

[guyyee]

Something that could be thought about, regarding the 2N option.
You would have to fit in fishing somewhere in your techpath. Perhaps this is of very little issue on nobles, but as you move up in difficulties tech start to get really costly and often you have to make tough decisions, like mining sheep/pig hills to postpone AH to reach other techs in time.

Another thing I thought about was workermoves, if you would wander north your first worker would also have to wander through the forest to reach the wheat and the pigs.
Another minor detail is that if you settle in place, you can work a tile that gives 3 food/hammers and one commerce right away, if you settle 2N you would have to accept just 3foodhammers. Losing you 5 (or is it 6?) commerce before your borderpop.

Just saw your screenshot after settling.
Do you see any new information that makes you adjust your plan?
Come to think of it, do talk abit of your plan!

I lost you there. "Another minor detail is that if you settle in place, you can work a tile that gives 3 food/hammers and one commerce right away". The math doesn't add up. Which tile are you referring to?

 

[Lennier]

Hi, I'm new player just starting out. Following the game to learn more. How does moving 2N get the fish? If you place city here, the nine square is still out of reach of the fish resource, no?

It puts the fish in the BFC of the capitol. The palace generates culture, so it will have access to all tiles in the BFC eventually.

I lost you there. "Another minor detail is that if you settle in place, you can work a tile that gives 3 food/hammers and one commerce right away". The math doesn't add up. Which tile are you referring to?

The wheat tile. 2 + 1 +1. krikav worded that sort of awkwardly. But I think he was trying to emphasize to a beginner that =.

 

[guyyee]

Some random thoughts:
I don't really see any good spot to settle that doesn't require a borderpop, so if I would start to expand I would probably try to fit in myst somewhere soon.
Wilhelm is so close and we don't have alot of land so I have difficulties seeing a play that doesn't involve an quite early attack on him.
Commerce is quite low, so pottery should be bumped up in priority.
I think I might go for another worker, there is so much chopping to be done. But if we run out of worthwhile things to build I would think of pre-chopping and roading forests.
I think that I would postpone both myst and fishing and rather get both pottery and AH before them. The few "ok" city cites we have I see no rush to settle.


Regarding mining the grassland hill, or moving onwards to the pigs to mine that tile.
The pigs become a 2F 3H tile, while the grassland hill is 1F 3H.
Both tiles cost 2F to work, so the gain from the pigs are 3H, while you get -1F 3H for the hill.
Pigs give 3 while the hill gives 2, or pigs 50% more gain.
The only thing you save by mining the hill is possibly one workerturn.

"The pigs become a 2F 3H tile, while the grassland hill is 1F 3H." The "H" - are you referring to "health"?

 

[Lennier]

No, "H" stands for hammer, not health or happiness. ("F" stands for food.) Some resources do provide health ( ) when connected to your capitol, but only 1 unless boosted to 2 by a building. (i.e, Granaries boost rice, wheat, and corn to 2 ), so there are no 3 tiles. And in general, one doesn't really care about resources in the early game, just the boost they provide to cities. And you might even consider trading away your only copy of a resource to get a happiness resource )) or per turn.

 

[guyyee]

Mining pig hills are pretty commonplace.
So common that whenever you see pigs on a hill, the option should be considered and evaluated.
You get a 5 yield tile (which is quite good) instead of a 6 yield tile, but it enables you to postpone AH which is an extremly costly tech early in the game.

Both Fippy and Lymond seem to be of the opinion that it's the best practice here on this map.
I'm not as convinced, but I'm not as a strong player as they are either.

Mine the grassland hill or lose another workerturn to mine the pigs?
If you want to calculate on it, a workerturn in the early game is worth roughly 5 hammers per turn. (it takes 4 turns to go into a forest and chop it for 20 hammers, 20/4 = 5)
You lose 1 turn by going to the pigs, so that can be approximated with a loss of 5 hammers.
So you really need to work the mined pigs 5 more turns to make up for the loss of a workerturn.

If you first mine the pigs, and then "farm" them, you have lost 5 turns, wich is worth 25 hammers. So if we plan on going AH shorly after BW (maybee wheel first) then it could be that it aint worth it to mine the pigs but instead just mine a grassland hill and wait for AH.

Mining pig hills are pretty commonplace.
So common that whenever you see pigs on a hill, the option should be considered and evaluated.
You get a 5 yield tile (which is quite good) instead of a 6 yield tile, but it enables you to postpone AH which is an extremly costly tech early in the game.

Both Fippy and Lymond seem to be of the opinion that it's the best practice here on this map.
I'm not as convinced, but I'm not as a strong player as they are either.

Mine the grassland hill or lose another workerturn to mine the pigs?
If you want to calculate on it, a workerturn in the early game is worth roughly 5 hammers per turn. (it takes 4 turns to go into a forest and chop it for 20 hammers, 20/4 = 5)
You lose 1 turn by going to the pigs, so that can be approximated with a loss of 5 hammers.
So you really need to work the mined pigs 5 more turns to make up for the loss of a workerturn.

If you first mine the pigs, and then "farm" them, you have lost 5 turns, wich is worth 25 hammers. So if we plan on going AH shorly after BW (maybee wheel first) then it could be that it aint worth it to mine the pigs but instead just mine a grassland hill and wait for AH.

"Mine the grassland hill or lose another workerturn to mine the pigs?
If you want to calculate on it, a workerturn in the early game is worth roughly 5 hammers per turn. (it takes 4 turns to go into a forest and chop it for 20 hammers, 20/4 = 5)
You lose 1 turn by going to the pigs, so that can be approximated with a loss of 5 hammers.
So you really need to work the mined pigs 5 more turns to make up for the loss of a workerturn.

If you first mine the pigs, and then "farm" them, you have lost 5 turns, wich is worth 25 hammers. So if we plan on going AH shorly after BW (maybee wheel first) then it could be that it aint worth it to mine the pigs but instead just mine a grassland hill and wait for AH."

Wow, this sounds so complicated and is gibberish to my beginner mind. Can someone explain this like I'm 5 year old? thanks

 

[lymond]

"

Wow, this sounds so complicated and is gibberish to my beginner mind. Can someone explain this like I'm 5 year old? thanks

Yeah, that stuff is waaaay too much for you to think about ...ha. I never think like that myself. Basically, krikav was trying to quantify the value of worker turns.

In 5 year old terms just understand that worker turns are extremely important and Cookie Monster.