[BTS] Shadow Game - Monarch / Ramesses

[Hesha]

Geez, I'm really lost here. I'm trying to follow your instructions, but I don't understand them... I'll try to ask the right questions, sorry for my ignorance.

Go to settler right after worker completes with 1H OF.

Okay, done that.

chop forest 1W into wb for 1t, then back to settler.

We cleared that point, alright. 28h it is.

Chop forest 1NW of there which will end up being a pre-chop.

Okay, makes sense, the settler's movement will end here regardless, right?

The turn the pre-chop ends switch back to WB and finish that (2t) and then settler.

Why would the WB take 2 turns if its 2h from completion and the city generates 8h?

That worker will move to tundra and chop that forest which times perfect for settler movement.

Okay.

Then back to the prechop forest which can go into next settler. (again always make sure the city "owns" the tile you want to put the chop into.

Makes sense, so I will finish the WB first, then the settler, followed by another settler, who will take the prechop, check!

Queuing warrior in Memphis worked out very well in timing, then back to wb the turn before sailing completes and start LH next.

Why do you build the warrior in between and not after the WB is finished? I don't get it.

Chop from grass hill will go into LH so that worker can start the mine.

Okay!

The other worker prechops both those forest E of Memphis and then starts chopping 2S of Thebes - that chop will go into the 3rd settler - not the second. Your 3rd settler for stone will be very fast.

There are no forests E of Memphis, which ones do you mean (map?)

Warrior later was used to stall LH for Masonry timing (i tech Myst first by the way) ...warrior later finished 2t before Masonry into LH and then GLH.

Why do I need to stall LH? And why would you tech Myst at all when none of our cities needs to grow? And what does "finished 2t before masonry into LH" mean? Does the "into" refer to OF?

Memphis had 7H of from that and actually grew that turn it started GLH on the new mine.

7H overflow?

GLH will finish fast. Worker from mine pre-chopped forest 1N of Memphis and then moved to tundra forest to chop that outright

Makes sense!

Sorry again... please clarify/explain.

 

[lymond]

Okay, makes sense, the settler's movement will end here regardless, right?

Indeed, that forest has no impact on settler's movement, but not the reason not to chop it yet

Why would the WB take 2 turns if its 2h from completion and the city generates 8h?

Did I say that? Then I'm a doofus..ha. wb would be 1t after that indeed

Makes sense, so I will finish the WB first, then the settler, followed by another settler, who will take the prechop, check!

Well, prechop means it is left for some point later. The worker will move to the tundra forest and chop that

edit: OH I think you got that right..you meant the next settler not the current one. I can't read

Why do you build the warrior in between and not after the WB is finished? I don't get it.

You mean in Memphis? I'm just timing the wb to finish with the LH to get a little OF into it.

There are no forests E of Memphis, which ones do you mean (map?)

I meant my other E

Why do I need to stall LH? And why would you tech Myst at all when none of our cities needs to grow? And what does "finished 2t before masonry into LH" mean? Does the "into" refer to OF?

We want to time the LH finish to GLH so that GLH get whatever OF from completion of LH. (might be different if Memphis actually had a seafood to work now). Warrior can finish, then LH, the GLH. LH will already be at 1t earlier, then back to warrior. All this worked out really well in my test. I ended up with 7H OF into GLH which is actually 14H into GLH. Yeah seems little but everything matters.

Myst is a bonus tech to Masonry and honestly there is not urgency on Masonry at the moment as you need to complete the LH. It all timed pretty well to finish LH and Masonry and start GLH immediately.

You might need monument later so no harm in teching a cheap tech anyway

overflow?

yep, that is what I got when the Lh finished and Masonry completed so I could start GLH right away, which you can't do til both LH and Masonry are finished.

edit: just to clarify..the idea is to time those key things to GLH

 

[Hesha]

Okay, I think I understood most of it now, thank you

I meant my other E

Okay, so you mean the forest 2W of Memphis and the Forest 3W of Memphis (2S from Thebes)? I.e. 2W of Memphis can add hammers to Memphis, but the other one will only add Hammers to Thebes?

 

[lymond]

Well, first pre-chop the forest 2W of Memphis and the one directly N of that one as both can later go into GLH. Then that worker can move to the forest 2S of thebes for a chop into a settler in thebes.

 

[Hesha]

Okay, trying to get my act together. I have to take it slow, sorry guys:

Turn 40:

Spoiler :

Moved third worker 1W of Thebes. Fortified the central warrior, no other news, I think.

Turn 41:

Spoiler :

Switched over to warrior production in Thebes, finished prechopping both tiles there. Started chopping 1W of Thebes.

Turn 42:

Spoiler :

Switched Memphis back to WB, started mining grassland hill 1NW of Memphis to bide time for a turn (need to cancel that task before ending turn), moved 2nd worker 1N.

Turn 43:

Spoiler :

Eventful turn! Finished sailing, moved on the Myst. Finished WB in Memphis, moved on to LH (with 2h OF), chopped grassland hill into LH, chopped 1W of Thebes into WB (realised I still had the settler cued after taking the screenshot). Moved scout WB SW. I think that's all I did. Still on track?

 

[lymond]

Slow is better.

Don't like that central fortified warrior position.. most tiles are visible around him...i might move 2XNW to bust up there. eventually the warrior down S will be able to move more W as borders pop and that Memphis warrior completes.

Looks good

yeah..you probably realize already that chops only go into what is queued. Actually one of the terrible things about vanilla civ was that chops went directly into what was in the queue at the moment

 

[krikav]

Looking good!
Workboat moving south, yummy.

Don't have time to read everything you guys have been writing, (which is alot, great job! )
But I see that myst is started now, I imagine that masonry will be next.
These turns while waiting for myst->mason to finish, is time to get the lighthouse slow-build, so that chops can land into GLH after that.

I see that one chop that previously was available for Memphiz is spent, what was the reason?
A situation to watch out for, is that the lighthouse finishes before masonry is in, not good as there isn't anything useful to build iirc.

@lymond As we where talking about the fish-city spot, @Fippy points out that cow/gold is also avilable. It's not really that far away either!
After settler finishes in capital, it can settle at fish-spot after have spent 2 turns moving.
cow/gold spot can be settled after 3 turns moving, no big difference at all.
If there is a worker available, this might be preferable, if not I say stick to fish spot.

 

[lymond]

Fish will be settled in 1.5 turns and will be netted immediately

We had hesh put 1 chop into LH...this will allow it to finish exactly with Masonry...combined with a little staggering from a warrior in the queue. All the other forest will be pre-chopped for GLH which will finish in about 5 turns.

ha ..i had a little nod to you in an earlier post..maybe you can find it

 

[Hesha]

One question: I just got a message at the beginning of turn 44, that if I whip the WB in Thebes, I get 6 gold... why? how?

Also, I'll be running out of money soon, will I just do one turn at zero and then continue at 100%?

Turn 44:

Spoiler :

Switched Thebes back to Settler, moved warriors, started mining grassland hill, moved 3rd worker to prechop position, finished prechop SE of Thebes, move WB SW.

Turn 45:

Spoiler :

No real news, fortifies central warrior, NW warrior discovered barb archer near stone. That's bad news, hope he attacks the warrior in the wooded hills I fortifies him in!

 

[Hesha]

Turn 46:

Spoiler :

All looking okay, although I feel like the LH will be finished way too early and the queued up warrior only takes 2 turns apparently... the archer moved towards my warrior.

Turn 47:

Spoiler :

Yeah, well. Myst is finished, move on to Masonry. The archer killed my warrior. Pretty ridiculous, was fortified for 2 turns on forest/hill with woodsman promotion and full health... I could barely have had better odds there. Will I switch Memphis back to the warrior when the LH has 1 turn left? I think I should have switched Thebes back to WB last turn but only did so this turn, will that affect me adversely? EDIT: Replayed the turn because of the missed WB switch, but that feels a little like savescumming now, because this time the warrior survived... meh
Also: The worker 2S of thebes is done prechopping, but the 3rd settler will not be in production for another 3 turns, what to do with that guy? And the 2nd WB will be sitting on the fish for about 3 turns as well, before the settler turns up - is that as intended?

 

[krikav]

Whip gold message, I don't know. I think it's something from an older version of BTS, but something they added again in buffy...?
I never pay attention to it though.

Yes, keep running 0% or 100% research, binary research.
There are nuances in this, but thats far to detailed.
If you really want a tech at a specific turn and you can't afford 100% but it requires at least 70% which you can afford, then you go at 70% ofcourse.

If you can, you can set up Memphis such that you are very close to comletion of both the lighthouse and a warrior, when there is 2 turns left teching masonry.
Say, warrior at 14/15 and lighthouse at 58/60.
If you then produce 9 hammers, you will finish the warrior and get 8 hammers overflow. Then finish the lighthouse with 15 hammers overflow which would be nice to roll into GLH.

Good times when it comes to that warrior in the west. Thats what usually happends, and thats why some of us appreciate scouts more, they can move away if danger approaches.
You did right holding your ground there though, right decision, bad RNG.


I see what is happening with the settler+workboat at the fish site now, nice setup!
I don't think the swapping did a world of difference, but I'm not sure.
At worst, you "lost" 3F, which is no big deal.
What you should be aiming at in that situation, is that the workboat finishes 2 turns before settler, so that workboat is in place when settler settles.
Perhaps the chop which was intended for settler now have to land in the workboat to make things align, not sure.

Very good that you are thinking in turns, and that you are juggling the build queues, important tools that will become second nature.
But if you think that these things are too tedious, you can simply reduce the level of complexity in the game and have us focus more on the general strategy instead.
Remember that the main goal here is to play a game and have fun.

 

[Hesha]

Turn 48:

Spoiler :

Ended up moving the 2nd worker 1NW to pre chop the plains hill. Better than sitting idle, I presume. WB sitting on the fish now. Also halted research to make some money.

Turn 49:

Spoiler :

Everything seems to work out. 2t left to finish worker in memphis, then 1t for LH, should coincide nicely with masonry finishing. The scout WB is coming closer to the interesing tiles. Hope it's not just a few desert islands down there... I have started moving my E warrior, because Thebes is about to grow and I will no longer need to fogbust the south. So I want to use him to saveguard the way to the stone! Settler will finish next turn. I'm also paying unit maintenance now, but I guess that'll go away once the WB nets the fish.

Turn 50:

Spoiler :

Everything seems to come together quite nicely. The warrior will finish in a turn, OF into LH, then into GLH... scouting boat is getting close. Thebes has grown, E warrior is fogbusting closer to the center now, W warrior will move SE when healed.

Still haven't connected copper, will need to do that soon...

Turn 51:

Spoiler :

Fogbusted the way to Stone city, settled Heliopolis, netted fish, chopped plains hill into settler #3, move out new warrior towards SW. Started a warrior in Heliopolis - should I be building something else?

Spoiler :

Scout WB discovered the first two tiles and found some nice rice ^^

EDIT: Added savegame.

 

[krikav]

You are up at 4 warriors right? I'm not sure there is a need for more, I would rather grow on a barracks, but thats almost as worthless.
If SH is available you can grow on that too, aquiring some failgold eventually.

Rice down there shouldn't matter too much, not any resource really. It must be something really extreme if that area should come into consideration for settlement at this stage.

 

[Hesha]

SH is available, I was thinking that one, too... what should I build after the third settler in capital?

 

[Hesha]

I don't know what do do with my worker that just chopped the tundra for Heliopolis... should he work on connecting stone city? How would I best go about that? Can I just road the tile SE of stone, will that connect to the river?

Or should he build a grassland hill mine for Heliopolis?

EDIT: Improved post.

 

[krikav]

If you settle a city on the stone, neither east nor west of that city is sufficient to connect it.
You have to road the tile SE of the stone to get a connection to the river.

I would want to grow the capital to size4, so that capital can take the grassland mine from Memphis once memphis is done with GLH and just wants to grow.
After that, likely more settlers/workers.

The worker in Heliopolis could do many usefull things, perhaps mine the grassland hill, or put a cottage 2S on the riverside.
Chopping the forest SE of Heliopolis could also be an option, trying to get 10 natural hammers into a lighthouse, combined with 20H from chop, sets the city up for a 1pop whip, and opens up all the usefull coastal tiles.

I would also start to consider roading abit to make future movements faster.

 

[Hesha]

What should I research next?

 

[krikav]

Post a screenshot of overview of the empire, and your research screen.
Then you can provide your reasoning. What tech do you think the game calls for next and why?

Usually there are several good candidates, and there are fine nuances that make one choose one over the other.
But practicing the reasoning yourself now with aid, strengthens your ability to make good decisions in the future.

 

[Hesha]

I've gone with pottery for now, will post a screenshot / save at the next update!

 

[Hesha]

Turn 52:

Spoiler :

An eventful turn indeed. I decided to let the worker from Heliopolis build a mine there, the two other workers are chopping for the GLH. I was torn between giving the Thebes settler another chop, but decided against it. This way it will be done in 3 turns and the worker building the mine will be available to connect the new city. Plus I have the chop available for the next endeavour. I've decided to research pottery next, I guess that's as good a plan as any, soon my workers will be done chopping and they will need something to do.
The big news however:

Spoiler :

There was indeed another AI down in the SW, something I would have hated in my games in the past, but now have learned to appreaciate because of trade and stuff. I have encountered an archer (the northermost tile visible on the new island) and their city boundaries in the south. I assume next turn I will get to see one of their cities and gain those trade bonuses... so far, I have no means of interacting with the Romans.