Shadow Game - Kmer Empire

[krikav]

Revolt to slavery could have been done while the settler was in transit.
I'm not sure I would go settler right away, I think I would have prefered to grow to pop4 on warriors and whipped out a second worker, then one could have continued to chop while the other one would stand by to improve pigs.

TW is nice, required to connect the two cities for a bit of extra commerce, but also to connect gems (don't think they are connected here, but not sure).
It's on the way to pottery too, which is a very nice tech here.

I think I would go for fishing before pottery too though, for the extra discount, cities have other stuff to build a while longer to granary isn't dearly needed, and workers won't have time to lay down cottages just yet.

Archery... hmm, well why not? Gems make it affordable and you might need it to handle barb spears too.


Have you done something to upset Shaka...? Annoyed already.

 

[Heathcliff]

I would never settle the jungle to the northeast, that city will be worthless for a long time.
Settling in Julius face like that is asking for trouble
You have two good cityspots to the west, both the fish and the cow.

 

[lymond]

^^^have to agree with Heathcliff. I see no reason to settle that area right now.

No copper/no horses. With gems, I might consider teching IW on this level, cause I'd be looking at killing Roma. Yeah, it's against the grain, but with 3 not so friendly neighbors, I'd want a bit more punch.

I think you lost your scout - try to be more careful with him. That's unfortunate as he can be used for spawnbusting. I'd send a warrior to scout/bust in the W, and one just above the cows for now to keep clear, as that is your next city.

 

[Fippy]

Use your trait boosts - 2 workers next
You will have so much work like chopping, cottages, road, pasture and other improvements.
If there's no initial settling pressure (and i dun think that exists on Monarch), try geting your worker force in place before more cities are founded. Especially with expansive.

 

[OldDude]

And this is why this board is great; so much great advice (that I quite frankly need).

@NothingBesideRemains, @jnebbe, duly noted on scouting. Unfortunately (as @lymond noticed) I lost my scout to a lion even while he was in a forest with a Woodman promotion. I'll be moving a warrior over there.

@krikav, I did switch to Slavery while the settler was on his way. And no I didn't do anything to "annoy" Shaka. I've only met his scout and that is it.

To @Heathcliff and @lymonds points, I won't settle that jungle area to the NE. I do tend to want to block off AIs so they can't get in my face and keep me from expanding but it is true a city there now would be worthless for a while.

@lymond, I think I may have to self-tech IW considering my neighbors and the fact that I have zero military resources at this point.

@Fippy, good advice. I switched my build to worker.

So, I haven't taken any more turns yet but like I mentioned, I switched from settler to worker to build. I've got 2 turns to TW. Then I'm thinking Fishing > Pottery > IW? The next worker should be out in 5 turns, about when Fishing would be in. He'll road over to City1 and by the time he gets there Pottery should be in so he can start on cottages. I'll have started a 3rd worker after the 2nd one, per @Fippy's advice.

I'll go a little bit more and stop and post then.

Thanks again!

 

[OldDude]

OK, I've played to T54. I've got 3 workers and a settler for my 3rd city has just left the capital. One turn later, IW came online and I do have iron close by. I think I need to grab that spot with this settler.

My tech path since T33 was TW > Fishing > Pottery > IW. I've started teching Writing. Does this sound good?

Caesar settled on one of the spots I was considering. Monty is to the north of me and he is creeping south. I'm already feeling choked off!

Spoiler T54 :

Let me know if I've made any glaring mistakes! I'll sit here until further advice.

Thanks!

 

[pigswill]

Iron City sounds a very good idea, maybe your workers should prioriitise iron mine and connecting iron city over anything else at the moment.

Slightly puzzled why you went for fishing given absence of coastal cities. Was the discount on pottery worth the detour?

 

[krikav]

@pigswill I recommended fishing, think it was worth it. That coastal fish should be settled soon.

@OldDude I think I would have prefered writing before ironworking, libraries are dirt cheap with CRE and having OB with Monty could cause him to start spamming missionaries to get religion to your cities with the added benefit that it slows Monty down abit too.
I see no glaring errors, but development looks abit slow, but otoh there are 3 workers out and alot of the forests are down, and a settler for city3 is out. So maybe it's just that looks are decieving.
Fogbusting looks abit bad, I would have wanted a warrior close to that stone to keep that area clear of spawns.

Iron city could be placed 1N of the lake, if you put it there you get the gems inside that citys BFC too.

I would probably want to settle fish city, and then that city NE of the stone you have marked too, and then made some plans for aggression toward Julius based on 5 cities.
Gems and all those floodplain-cottages should guarantee awesome techrate, so maybe medieval warfare could work out nice.


Not sure if playing for pyramids is worth it, stone city is so awkwardly placed.

 

[konata_LS]

Like @ krikav suggested, I would also have preferred Writing before IW, for cheap CRE libraries, for making Monty send missionaries to you but also for scouting JC's land. JC is so close that it's too hard to avoid an early war. Scouting JC's land would provide you with some important information, such as if JC has Copper or Horse and if his capital is on hill or not. But Writing after IW is not a mistake.

Shaka's reaction is a little strange: you have nor border tensions neither religious conflicts with him, but he's already Annoyed ?... Fortunately you cannot see Shaka's border at the moment, so you're not his land target yet. This makes you relatively safe from Zulu attacks for a while.

A small note about the diplomacy: with these neighbours, it would be useful to keep some extra resources (for example, an extra gem or rice) for your neighbours to "extort", as Monty and JC have relatively high tendency of "demanding tribute". If they ask a spare resource from you, just say yes (unless when you're ready to attack them immediately), for the 10 turns Peace Treaty and for the +1 relationship boost from "you gave us tribute".

 

[lymond]

I'm neutral on Writing v. IW here. IW is usually something you don't tech yourself - you know this. But I made a comment that I would have done so in this situation - at this level - specifically as I would have used it. But if one has no designs in that regard, then Writing first would be the call.

A few notes:

1) Chop more. Maybe one worker coulda cottaged, but I'd like that 2nd settler out a lot sooner. Really with no IW in yet and that knowledge, I woulda already had a city 1N of that gem tile in process. Iron could still be settled to share cow and gem city use sugar.

2) Same with pigs. Chop that gran. Get it out faster and that city can do other things like whip more stuff.

3) You need to do a better job spawnbusting. Warriors still seem to be moving around, and warriors in your cities are still unnecessary at this stage. The area to the W should be busted.

As for stone city, I don't think it is awkward at all. 1S of rice is fine. (this assumed a city 1N of gems)

You have 4 city spots W/SW of your cap.

As for Shaka's attitude, that just seems to be an rng factor on starting attitude toward human I think. I've seen that quite often but it varies - same for other low peaceweight/human AIs.

 

[OldDude]

Alright, so I went back from T33 and played it a bit differently, per all of the advice...THANK YOU.

I stopped at T54 so it would be easy to compare the two saves. I have to say I think I'm in much better shape than before. I have the 3rd city 1N of the gems settled, almost done with a Granary in my cap, chopped Granary and just whipped Library in City1, which is done next turn. I went Writing before IW this time and I should have IW in the fold in 4 turns. I moved those two warriors that were doing city garrison out to do fog busting. Unfortunately I'll probably lose one to a barb spear on the next turn.

After the Library in City1 is done, I'm thinking settler there to settle the upcoming iron city. I have a few more forests I can chop for that. In the cap, should I go for Library after Granary? I'm thinking yes.

On the teching front, any thoughts on what should come after IW? Alphabet? I've got some Calendar resources so I'll need that at some point. Any advice there is welcomed.

Spoiler T54 - Revised :

Thanks again everybody. Sitting here until further advice!

 

[lymond]

See what happens when I make a little adjustment to Yas:

Spoiler Yastastic :

For a EXP gran I don't mind stalling growth a bit for more hammers to finish it faster. If that was done a bit earlier it'd be done. I'd do that this turn, then put the chop in the settler (readjust tiles) > then back to finish gran (readjust to hammers) to finish. Then grow. Technically you could setup a max OF 3pop settler at size 6 with that chop, but the turn you put chop into settler you will need adjust one FP for grass tile (why?)

Use that settler whip for a new worker.

Hari on settler is fine too. Plenty of forests to chop there.

Warrior in SW corner is not needed there any more so can move back to MP Wash now.

I tend to start new cities on grans right away, unless there is some urgent need for something else.

Worker on gems should move to cow next turn ....you may have been planning to do that anyway.

Don't forget to use the culture view early. Click the globe in the bottom right and then the music button. Look at the map. What do you see? At this point this gives you an idea where busting should be focused a bit. Your E flank is safe, ofc.

 

[OldDude]

@lymond, I did the tile/build switching as you advised. I've only gone 2 turns for this because I had a couple of questions:

When you say "...the turn you put chop into settler you will need to adjust one FP for grass tile (why?)" - I don't know why?

When you say "...use that settler whip for a new worker", how do you mean that? Do you mean if I set up that 3pop max OF settler pop the OF goes into a worker?

Thanks!

 

[Henrik75]

If you're still at turn 54, I'll throw out my opinions on how I would play this;

try and claim more land and not get stuck in the corner - settle in between banana and sugar to the north; the city can work pigs until iron working/calendar- while harihalalayayaything works 2 flood plain cottages and 2 scientists at size 4, getting your first GS out very early.

cottage up the capital and grow it, get a warrior for happiness asap in your cities since they're actually growing now, and don't get clapped by barbs; go archery if you have to its low difficulty and you already start with hunting.

once you claim banana resource get more settlers out to claim stone build mids if you can then settle south of floodplains on the marked location, its fine if you crash your economy to get thus far, having these 6 cities will easily bounce you back once the cottages develop and cities grow. but i'd settle those 3 spots asap, you're already fine with pottery and writing.

Don't forget to open borders with your Roman friend and road into him.

6 cities easily enough, but you can claim calendar stuff to the west if still unclaimed when you have iron working and calendar.

 

[lymond]

@lymond, I did the tile/build switching as you advised. I've only gone 2 turns for this because I had a couple of questions:

When you say "...the turn you put chop into settler you will need to adjust one FP for grass tile (why?)" - I don't know why?

Well, if you've played 2 turns, I'm not sure what you did, but I will explain what I mean below. I've gone over this stuff before in the past but you may have forgotten.

Actually, my mind was not working well last night and I was mistaken on one point about the settler. You do not need to adjust the tiles on the turn you put production and the chop into the settler. You need <=39H into the settler for a 3pop whip:

1 citizen = 30H

2X30 = 60H

100-60=40H (at 40H or greater its a 2 pop whip so at 39H or less it's a 3 pop whip or actually >10H to 39H is a 3 pop whip) - yes, technically a non-IMP settler can be 4popped at less than 10H

So the turn you chop into the settler that would be 30H into the settler that turn. As the city's base production is 10H, you could technically put 1 more turn into the settler by adjusting one FP to grass to put 9H into the settler to setup max OF. Then just wait for the city to grow to size 6 to whip which it should do rather quickly after the granary completes.

Hope that makes sense and feel free to ask questions.

I would remind you to look at the info the city screen provides you. Look at the production bar in the top center and read the tool tip on the bar and just to the right of it but hovering your mouse, like so:

Spoiler :

Note: I took the following pic before I realized my mistake. If you ignore that and actually work an FP instead then it would be 30H total production into the settler this turn. Regardless though, one way or another you would need to make that adjustment if you want to max the OF on this settler either this turn or a subsequent turn of production.

So I'll briefly expand on what this means. First you don't always need to setup max OF. In part this is for demonstration purposes, and also to really get you looking at the info a city provides you and start thinking about the maths of things.

But basically this is the deal in this case: You've put just 2 turns into a settler which you can then whip at size 6 and then produce a 1T EXP worker. That is nice.

When you say "...use that settler whip for a new worker", how do you mean that? Do you mean if I set up that 3pop max OF settler pop the OF goes into a worker?

Thanks!

yes, exactly

On another note, as Henrik mentioned, you should OB with Monty and JC.

 

[Fippy]

It's a bit confusing thou, normally we do better with whipping that settler 1t faster.
Or granary whip instead of using tiles, into settler maybe..growing on library and unhappy has some time to fade anyways.

 

[OldDude]

OK, I went back to T54, although I had only done a few more turns. I reassigned the tiles being worked on as @lymond showed to get the granary out one turn earlier. I do understand the math of the chops and all of that, but where I fall short in this game is planning ahead like @lymond's example for manipulating a max OF. That is why I didn't know what was meant by adjusting one FP for a grass tile. I get the reason for that now. What I need to do if I want to get better at this game is spend more time each turn planning ahead like that and manipulating things to my advantage, among other things.

So in the capital, the granary is building at 14H per turn. There is 18H needed to finish it. So there will be 10H overflow when it finishes, or maybe not because of the leader bonus for granaries? Does that bonus get carried over to OF? I guess I need to pay attention to find out. If it does, then I would need another 29H into a settler for a 3pop max OF. I would need to grow to a 6pop city by then. After the granary is out, I can adjust those two hill tiles being worked to the FPs to speed up growth. If my math is right, it should take 7 or 8 turns to grow to pop 6 after the granary. The base production is 6h/turn so it looks like I'd get to 39h into a settler before I'm at pop 6? I think this particular situation is a good opportunity for me to run through the scenario, maybe a few times, to watch the numbers and try to manipulate things. I've just never really paid that close of attention to this type of detail.

EDIT: I just remembered that a city doesn't grow when building settlers and workers. So I need to build something else after granary. I'll need an MP soon so I'll go warrior and see where things are at after that.

So I'm going to do that to see how it goes and report back. In the meantime, a couple of questions:

• I like @Henrik75's thought about settling the spot near the banana but there is a lot of jungle there. I don't like getting boxed in so it's tempting. What's the general consensus on that?
• My worker in the capital is one turn from finishing that chop so it will be finished when the granary is one turn from finishing. If I finished that chop into the granary, all of that would OF into the settler, correct? Wouldn't that speed up the timeline on the 3pop settler to where the city wouldn't have grown to pop 6 yet? Should I not finish that chop yet because of that?

Thanks again everybody, I really appreciate the help!

 

[OldDude]

I played to T65. I found out that the leader bonus for the granary does not go into OF. So instead of having 10 OF from the granary, I had 5. I built a warrior and then barracks, manipulating the tiles worked to get to pop 6 before the barracks was done. I got to pop 6 with 2 turns left on the barracks. Come to think about it now, I could have started the settler 2 turns earlier instead of finishing the barracks. Maybe I should go back and do it again.

I settled the iron city and have a few other spots marked to get opinions on. There are barb spears lurking around and they'll be crossing my borders soon so I've got a worker getting to that iron.

Spoiler T65 :

I did have to adjust one FP tile to a grass tile to get to 39h into the settler in 3 turns, as you can see.

Thanks again and I'll sit here until further advice.

 

[Heathcliff]

In my opinion you are underestimating the barbarians.
1400 BC is way to late to get barb defence up.
If barbarian comes from the north they will mess up your civ .

If you dont find copper or horses you need to go for archery, it is already to risky to go for ironworking with warriors.
But it seemed to workout, but when you found iron the most important is to get that iron online and chop out a swordsman for defense.

 

[Fippy]

Well that's why shadow games are great, your point will be countered by every high difficulty player @Heathcliff
Fogbusting warriors are enuf on Monarch. With Iron found now there's no way he should go Archery.

Seeing barracks completed and library not started yet in your cap counts as mistake, @OldDude

Overflow topic..i see why Lymo teaches you that one, but with 0 whip anger whip your settler asap. You do not want to delay new cities & whip unhappy for a couple hammers.
Collecting them in your cap now would also count as mistake for competitive games.