Shadow Game for an Old Dude

[OldDude]

Nice work on the pic!

So you're saying to settle on the PH 1NW of the copper? Isn't is a bad idea to settle one tile away from the coast? That's what I've always understood, although I do get the benefit of the extra hammer.

Regarding kirkay and the option to settle 1NW of the lake near Willie, I do like that spot but would that waste tiles in between there and my capital?

Just asking questions for better understanding of the intricacies.

Thanks again everyone. I'm at work so I won't be able to get back to it until tonight. I'll post my progress then.

 

[lymond]

Nice work on the pic!

So you're saying to settle on the PH 1NW of the copper? Isn't is a bad idea to settle one tile away from the coast? That's what I've always understood, although I do get the benefit of the extra hammer.

Good question. Not at all if the coast offers you nothing (or you don't have Great Lighthouse). In fact that settle position isn't even about the extra hammer from the PH, although that is nice. What the dealio here is that you are settling strategically in order to:

a) get those two specials in play..mainly copper
b) streamline worker management (for instance, only the one road needed for the trade route) also worker travel, etc. all conserves worker turns for important things
c) reduced city distance maintenance ...closer the cities the less the maintenance cost
d) overlap/tile sharing - although not a great example here since there is not food sharing...overlapped cities can share tiles (swap as needed) ..help grow cottages for the cap, etc. (Again not best example in this case but we'll show that later)

So one important concept learned here is that city overlap is not a bad thing - not bad at all. In fact, compact empires get even more important on higher levels as those maintenance costs increase with level. On Noble it is just gravy to practice these concepts.

I would reload to when first settler popped and follow that plan so that first new city is settled sooner, as it should have been. Can't remember when TW arrived but if it is in by the point you can try laying down the road that My described (My is my nick for her based on her real name, she's one of the best players around and makes me look like preschooler)

Also, please stop the turn you settle your first city so we can discuss on important concept related to economy and gold/research.

Lastly, I would again emphasize just how important worker turns are early game. Every move or decision you make with the workers is of vital importance. Workers are the meat of this game.

 

[OldDude]

Thanks lymond. Would my first build in the new city be a worker? Or something else while I build a worker in the capital? Seems like a basic question but if getting things up and running as quickly as possible is key, a worker build in the capital (chop?) would be faster, no?

 

[Fippy]

Great topic with coastal cities, worth talking about even more imo.

First we should look at benefits of coast settling, Lymo already mentioned Great Lighthouse and let's say there will be no seafood (then it's usually very obvious ):
* can work lighthouse boosted coast
* and build ships
* and a harbor

Looking at coast tiles working, you would not want that here.
Can be okay if land tiles are really bad (brown, desert etc), but here there's enuf green land in your bfc.

Building ships, unimportant.
Several coastal spots with seafood around, they could cover ships later.

Harbor, they can be good buildings, and the only potential loss here imo.
But would that be important enuf?
They give some extra health, but only big cities will ever need harbor health later
They also boost trade routes a bit, but will this city be good for commerce buildings?
Nopes, production place.

Not a huge decision either way, but more important is that you can use such examples for grabbing important Civ4 concepts.
Now > later (usually, also for Lymo's whale tile), and not much is set in stone.
You can start thinking about so many thingies in IV, cos what seems obvious at first (not settling 1 tile away from coast) might actually make more sense if turned on it's head.

 

[OldDude]

Not sure how detailed shadow threads should be, AH would be fine on that level but the "pro" move would be:
waiting until t5 with selecting your tech (pick random tech when asked, and de-select before ending each turn),
tech progress is not lost until then but must be careful cos if misclicked or so on t5 they are lost.

2 reasons for doing so (good habit on high level play, can be frequently seen from Lain i.e.):
a) more info gathered while scouting, in this case for animal resis that make AH more valuable
b) if an AI (or more) are met during those 5t, you get a very small research bonus for mining.
Can be called shadow teching, already known techs by others are a bit cheaper for you, this can matter more later when techs get expensive and is very liked in multiplayer.

Also worth mentioning that knowing both hunting & agri speeds up AH by 20%,
so has reduced cost compared to most starts.

..aaand that mines & hammers are worth more with imperialistic, i.e. a mine on pigs would be ~7 yield tile for settlers.
I would say that pushes it more in favor of BW first, with pigs pasture not actually being that much better early.

But too much detail probably, should this go into spoilers?

Wow, had no idea about those modifiers. Trying to remember all of it while playing is the hard part!

 

[Fish Man]

Great topic with coastal cities, worth talking about even more imo.

First we should look at benefits of coast settling, Lymo already mentioned Great Lighthouse and let's say there will be no seafood (then it's usually very obvious ):
* can work lighthouse boosted coast
* and build ships
* and a harbor

Looking at coast tiles working, you would not want that here.
Can be okay if land tiles are really bad (brown, desert etc), but here there's enuf green land in your bfc.

Building ships, unimportant.
Several coastal spots with seafood around, they could cover ships later.

Harbor, they can be good buildings, and the only potential loss here imo.
But would that be important enuf?
They give some extra health, but only big cities will ever need harbor health later
They also boost trade routes a bit, but will this city be good for commerce buildings?
Nopes, production place.

Not a huge decision either way, but more important is that you can use such examples for grabbing important Civ4 concepts.
Now > later (usually, also for Lymo's whale tile), and not much is set in stone.
You can start thinking about so many thingies in IV, cos what seems obvious at first (not settling 1 tile away from coast) might actually make more sense if turned on it's head.

Personally, I would settle on the tundra on the coast. You don’t have a lot of good tiles that city, maybe 5 workable ones including the 2 resources. If you want this city to be useful beyond the medieval era settling on the coast gives you 7 extra “decent” tiles to work. So for medium and long term benefit I would go on coast.

 

[OldDude]

OK, I'm home and restarted the game to right before the first settler is born. Once I had him I moved him to the PH location south, which took 3 turns, and settled. In the meantime I let the warrior build finish and built the road 1SW of my capital. The warrior is one turn from getting to the city and I started a build for a worker in the new city.

My other worker is chopping into another settler build in the capital. Where to settle that next settler? I'm thinking either the fur at 3SW of the capital or the PH 4E of my second city? Or somewhere N/NE to ward off Willie?

So I'm stopping here until further advice.

Spoiler 2nd City :

 

[sampsa]

To me it looks like OldDude is on the right path to learn how to beat Noble.

Worker priorities (learnt from Lain) should roughly be like: (in this order)

1. improve food
2. chop
3. cottage
4. connect cities

I don't even mention mines, since they are very situational and often not great, because working them costs you (except a mined pig)! It's often better to turn into via slavery. Early chopping into settlers/workers is very powerful, as the sooner you found cities the faster they give you more . It is very logical that "more now is even more soon", but many beginning players just look at the -slider going down and think they are over-expanding. Don't make this mistake! Early game is about expanding as fast and as hard as you can to the city sites that contribute asap (meaning they have improveable -resource on 1st ring).

On this map there doesn't seem to be a great 3rd site, since fish-sites takes quite a lot of time to set up (need monument, need boat, that's 60 already, yuck). Maybe not a settler now, but start gearing up for a war already?

I think the only difficulty level where you really need to start thinking about blocking AI is deity. Seriously. On all the other difficulty levels it's about settling good cities asap, and if you run out of room, go for war.

 

[Fish Man]

To me it looks like OldDude is on the right path to learn how to beat Noble.

Worker priorities (learnt from Lain) should roughly be like: (in this order)

1. improve food
2. chop
3. cottage
4. connect cities

I don't even mention mines, since they are very situational and often not great, because working them costs you (except a mined pig)! It's often better to turn into via slavery. Early chopping into settlers/workers is very powerful, as the sooner you found cities the faster they give you more . It is very logical that "more now is even more soon", but many beginning players just look at the -slider going down and think they are over-expanding. Don't make this mistake! Early game is about expanding as fast and as hard as you can to the city sites that contribute asap (meaning they have improveable -resource on 1st ring).

On this map there doesn't seem to be a great 3rd site, since fish-sites takes quite a lot of time to set up (need monument, need boat, that's 60 already, yuck). Maybe not a settler now, but start gearing up for a war already?

I think the only difficulty level where you really need to start thinking about blocking AI is deity. Seriously. On all the other difficulty levels it's about settling good cities asap, and if you run out of room, go for war.

Seems like the optimal move here is axerush. Willem has a nice juicy cottage cap and you can get so many more good sites if you get him out of the way. However, major spoilers:

Spoiler :

There are horses on the grass tile 2 above the fur. If you can get immortals online you can steamroll him and probably one other dude with minimal effort. The AI is super slow at getting metal on noble.

 

[OldDude]

To me it looks like OldDude is on the right path to learn how to beat Noble.

Worker priorities (learnt from Lain) should roughly be like: (in this order)

1. improve food
2. chop
3. cottage
4. connect cities

I don't even mention mines, since they are very situational and often not great, because working them costs you (except a mined pig)! It's often better to turn into via slavery. Early chopping into settlers/workers is very powerful, as the sooner you found cities the faster they give you more . It is very logical that "more now is even more soon", but many beginning players just look at the -slider going down and think they are over-expanding. Don't make this mistake! Early game is about expanding as fast and as hard as you can to the city sites that contribute asap (meaning they have improveable -resource on 1st ring).

On this map there doesn't seem to be a great 3rd site, since fish-sites takes quite a lot of time to set up (need monument, need boat, that's 60 already, yuck). Maybe not a settler now, but start gearing up for a war already?

I think the only difficulty level where you really need to start thinking about blocking AI is deity. Seriously. On all the other difficulty levels it's about settling good cities asap, and if you run out of room, go for war.

Hey sampsa, thanks for the post. Regarding worker priorities as it relates to my capital, are you saying I should chop all of the forests first before anything else? Do all of those hammers go into "the bank" so to speak? I'm thinking once I get that copper hooked up I can chop a bunch of axemen to go take out Willie? Is that good thinking? Maybe I should send my one worker down to the copper to get that hooked up sooner.

On mines, that is interesting too. I've always played to try to get as many hammers as possible in every city while having enough food for the whole BFC. I'm learning that isn't necessarily the best way to go about it?

Yeah I do get freaked when the research slider keeps going down so I'll try not to, lol.

Thanks again.

 

[OldDude]

Seems like the optimal move here is axerush. Willem has a nice juicy cottage cap and you can get so many more good sites if you get him out of the way. However, major spoilers:

Spoiler :

There are horses on the grass tile 2 above the fur. If you can get immortals online you can steamroll him and probably one other dude with minimal effort. The AI is super slow at getting metal on noble.

I agree that there aren't many good sites close by so maybe rushing Willie is the right call here. Thanks.

 

[Fish Man]

I agree that there aren't many good sites close by so maybe rushing Willie is the right call here. Thanks.

If that's the path you choose, we'll also have to go over how to rush. The basics are 2-pop whip axes, don't bother with barracks, and pre-road to enemy but it's slightly more complicated with a CRE leader.

Did you read the spoiler? Not asking you to, just asking if you did.

 

[OldDude]

If that's the path you choose, we'll also have to go over how to rush. The basics are 2-pop whip axes, don't bother with barracks, and pre-road to enemy but it's slightly more complicated with a CRE leader.

Did you read the spoiler? Not asking you to, just asking if you did.

I think a rush is a good idea, otherwise I'm going to get cornered.

Yes I did read the spoiler, basically because it gets revealed when you reply. I didn't know that.

 

[sampsa]

Hey sampsa, thanks for the post. Regarding worker priorities as it relates to my capital, are you saying I should chop all of the forests first before anything else?

Depends a lot on the overall strategy I think. If you go for axe war many or all of those forests will be chopped into axes.

Do all of those hammers go into "the bank" so to speak?

No, they don't really go into the bank. If you are building a warrior (cost 15) and put two chops into it (well, you shouldn't be doing that) worth 20+20 the excess are carried over to the next build (people call this overflow) BUT only up to the initial cost of the build. i.e. 15 overflow. Chops are 20+20 but you get 15 for warrior and 15 overflow... 10 just vanished into thin air. So you need to plan your chops. A useful technique is pre-chopping (chopping for 2 turns, then canceling) so that you can finish the chop later.

I'm thinking once I get that copper hooked up I can chop a bunch of axemen to go take out Willie? Is that good thinking? Maybe I should send my one worker down to the copper to get that hooked up sooner.

I think it's a good plan. I'm not sure if Lymond had that in mind, but I think he did. The worker in the 2nd city takes 12 turns to build, which is very slow, so you should definitely chop a forest to get it out faster, then improve the copper with the new worker.

On mines, that is interesting too. I've always played to try to get as many hammers as possible in every city while having enough food for the whole BFC. I'm learning that isn't necessarily the best way to go about it?

That indeed often isn't the best way, because of how civ4-mathematics work. This is somewhat advanced, but doesn't hurt to try to understand the following mechanic:

Spoiler :

There is a -bar on your city screen. When the -bar goes over 22, the city grows. Growth to size 3 requires 2 more than the last growth, so 24 and so on (22,24,26,28...).

Then there is this excellent building, granary, which effectively cuts the -bar in half (half of the food is stored in the granary so after growing you are at almost half -bar). Growth to the next size now costs only (12,13,14,15...).

Then there is whipping (slavery). Whip transforms 1 population into 30. There is a -penalty, which is best handled by whipping more than 1 pop at a time (you will certainly be touching this subject later). Whipping for 2 population gives you 60 and so on. With a granary you need 13+14=27 to grow from size 2 to size 4 and can now transform that 27 into 60, a slightly better than 1 to 2-ratio. So that wet corn or grassland pig, 6 tile is effectively a 12-tile! This gives some idea on why -tiles are much better than -tiles.

When a city gets bigger, it requires more and more food to grow to the next size, so whipping loses some of it's power. Also, tiles get better the more advanced techs you get, but slavery still has lots of use in the middle game.

Yeah I do get freaked when the research slider keeps going down so I'll try not to, lol.

Thanks again.

No problem.

 

[Fish Man]

I think a rush is a good idea, otherwise I'm going to get cornered.

Yes I did read the spoiler, basically because it gets revealed when you reply. I didn't know that.

Darn. Well, I must say that mounted rushes are more effective and fun in general. They also teach you more than axerushes, since mounted warfare is the go-to breakout method on pangaea maps most of the time, even on deity. Just prevent your enemy from getting spears and you're all good.

 

[OldDude]

Also, please stop the turn you settle your first city so we can discuss on important concept related to economy and gold/research.

lymond, it seems like it's a general consensus to rush Willie but I also want to get your input on that and not get ahead of myself. In looking at the map it seems that is the way to go. But I want to have that discussion you mention first. I'll hold for that.

Thanks again to ALL for the time you're taking; it's very generous of you. There is so much to this game. No wonder it's still getting played so much so long after it was released.

 

[lymond]

I think it's a good plan. I'm not sure if Lymond had that in mind, but I think he did

Yes, he did. And honestly 2 cities are all you need in this situation - with the second actually grabbing the copper. Hypothetically, based on the proximity of Willie and the marginal land, I'd already be chopping into axemen if copper was in BFC.

Reason I don't quite agree with U on the horses at this stage is that a) AH has not been teched nor do I think it necessary right now..it will be expensive detour b) you have copper c) it's Noble d) it's a timing thing as right now with copper online soon you can kill Willie easily

So, probably the best move would have been to chop out a second worker to get copper up and start chops.

Now, I do want to bring up an important concept at this stage since you settled your first city. This in part plays into your issues or perception about your economy. So, when you settle that first city, you immediately incur city maintenance that causes negative gold per turn (GPT) at 100% research. This is called deficit research. Up to this point you have been able to tech fine at 100% with just the one city -your cap.

First, I would like to point out that there is a rounding issue with the sliders and the commerce conversion into gold or beakers. This rounding issue is not in your favor, so that when your running >0% research there is a loss of 1gpt. (someone could probably explain this better). The rounding issue though is eliminated at 0% research, also known as 100% tax. At 0% research you still get the default 1 beaker per turn (bpt) from the palace.

So what you do once you are at 0 gold (like you are now since no gold from huts) is you run 0% research until you can fund the next tech. You are still progressing, albeit slowly, toward whatever tech but maximizing gold to fund the tech. Pretty much simple math here. For instance, you are teching Pottery. You will turn the slider down now to 0% research. (note gpt vs. bpt when you do this - either way). I suspect you will only need to do this for 1 turn to then raise slider to 100% to finish out Pottery. Rinse repeat. Later when you start teching more expensive techs like Maths or Alpha, you will probably run 0% for a while. This is nice too as you are maxing gold will get a library up in cap and start running scientists for that first GS.
(also, you are funding your expansion during this phase as well by banking that gold)

Later as your beaker multipliers increase (libraries, academy,etc) this rounding thing is a non-issue and you will do things a bit differently. Plus there are other ways to get gold later. But for now, just start getting used to running 0% or 100% research, not in between. And don't worry about it.

Also, don't just sit there banking gold. Really look at the gold you have and what you need to finish X tech. Max slider the moment you have enough to finish out X tech at 100%.

May take a while to get the hang of this, but for now it is easy just to think 0 or 100% once that first city is settled.

 

[lymond]

Also, your units should not be in your cities/borders. You don't need MP in your cities right now..they are a long way from being unhappy. I had you place that warrior N for a reason.

Send that warrior back up there and send the other warrior probably 2 E of that silk tile due E.

This is called spawnbusting barbs, which prevents or eliminates barbs in that area and protects future city sites.

Scout could probably move a bit to the N or NE ..way up there and hang out for a big and dodge any barbs animals or guys hanging out. Due your location and proximity of Willie your immediate area is pretty safe but you want to prevent barb spawn in outlying areas.

One thing to learn hear about spawnbusting is that 1 unit busts a 5X5 tile radius around the tile he stands on. That means no barbs will spawn at all in that area. (ofc, barbs may have spawned earlier somewhere else and move there but it does completely prevent barb spawn in that area. (does not prevent barb cites)

Also, note that "lighted areas" do not produce barbs, so basically everything you see around your cities, but not darkened or fogged tiles.

 

[OldDude]

Very interesting on the slider and rounding. I didn't know this either...

Anyway, I went ahead and chopped out a worker in the second city and hooked up and roaded the copper. After that I had one worker build a road to my attack staging tile next to Willie while the other one was chopping out axemen. I already have 10! In the meantime, Willie has built another city south of his capital but before the borders popped on it I could see he only had one warrior in it. I sent my scout and warriors out for fog busting but had to return one to my capital because it became unhappy.

I wasn't sure what to tech so I went ahead and did myst and then iron working which was good because I have iron in my capital. I'm now teching Writing.

So I'm sitting there poised to take out Willie but I'll wait for thoughts before I move on.

Thanks!

Spoiler Ready to attack :

 

[sampsa]

granary math addendum, just for completeness sake, I recommend nobody to read it

Spoiler :

I felt there must be something wrong with my math regarding 2-pop whip @size 4, 27->60, as I'm sure the conversion rate is even better. Well, it is actually better, just not for the first whip. This is because when you grow 1->2 with a granary, without any food-overflow you will end up at 11/24 food bar. Then you will need 13+14=27 to grow to size 4. But when you grow to size 4 without any food-overflow (food bar will be 13/28) and whip immediately, you will end up at 13/24 food bar. So now you need only 11+14=25 to grow to size 4. So from then on, it's 25->60 i.e. 1->2.4. Hmm, I think I learned something new - the first whip is in a way slightly more expensive, due to the way granary works.

tl;dr whipping is good

This rounding issue is not in your favor, so that when your running >0% research there is a loss of 1gpt. (someone could probably explain this better). The rounding issue though is eliminated at 0% research, also known as 100% tax.

I can try to explain these mechanics, but as usual, it's somewhat complicated.

Spoiler :

At this point your 2 cities are having -outputs of something like 12 (capital) and 3 (2nd city). The palace in capital gives 8 and rest come from tiles worked, counting city center. Oh and the possible trade routes. So your empire -output could be something like 15. But since now you are paying maintenance for having more than 1 city, you can only run 100% -slider if you have money in the bank. Since we often play with huts off, usually we don't have any money in the bank at this point of the game.

You can afford to run 90% slider, so you choose to do so. That means 90% of your is transformed into and 10% into . 15*0.9=13.5 and 15*0.1=1.5. Fractional/ does not exist in this game so you are losing a full / due to rounding.

How about 80% slider? 15*0.8=12 and 15*0.2=3. Wow, you don't end up with fractions so you are not losing anything due to rounding. Unfortunately, that was more luck than anything else.

Let's say you alter the tiles you work and now make 16. Now 16*0.8=12.8 and 16*0.2=3.2, bad.

Instead of trying different slider positions every turn and looking from the top left corner if you are losing / due to rounding, the easy answer is always having slider at either 0% or at 100%. So when you don't have enough money in the bank to finish a tech at 100%, you put your slider to 0%.