[BTS] Shadow Game - Monarch / Ramesses

[krikav]

Like I said, don't worry too much about it.
The reason I stay with this game is because it's so incredibly complex.

When you ask for input every turn, and want to play it very perfectionistic, you will get conflicting answers, because there really is many different approaches to take.
For example, one could in this map make a case for conserving a whole lot of forests prior to hooking up stone, and instead keep them for chopping down into the great wall (or pyramids) in multiple cities, earning a whole slew of failgold.

 

[lymond]

Oh..here is a another little tip I've been meaning to tell you about but you can put it into practice next turn. The road really serves no purpose here, but its the idea of this concept I want to present. The worker E of Alex can move to improve cow next turn. But the worker 2E of that worker still has to move two tiles before he can help out.

Now workers have two movement. Many times you can take advantage of this to partially improve a tile between point A and C. So you have tiles:

A....B...C

Assuming no forest or hills here, of course. A worker moves from A to C and that uses his two moves. But on the way to C he can partially improve tile B whether it be a partial road or cottage or something else suitable.

So next turn, have that worker step toward the cow and put 1 turn into a road, then cancel, then help with cows the next turn. (again, the road there serves no purpose but just want to show the concept for now) This works really well when improving stuff near cities.

edit: yep..as krikav said there are different approaches you can take with respect to how much forest you use, but I tend to focus new players on aspects of expansion and empire management early because that tends to be the biggest issue. Fail gold is more of an advanced concept.

Another way to look at it though, is that you have used those early forests to expand nicely and fast, increasing your overall commerce and production faster, with new cities getting up and running sooner so that they can do stuff for you like build mids or failgold other wonders.

Civ is really about getting more stuff more soonerer ..ha ..so all that stuff works for you faster and you snowball later.

In a general sense, the large context is that you will have a larger and more productive empire working for you faster and then you can pursue the later goals you want..like what I usually do is go out and kill peoples..lots of peoples.

And again regarding forests, conserving some certainly does not mean you will not chop a good bit early to get workers and settlers out faster. You can save some though and also doing so may allow some new forests to regrow adjacent to existing forests.

 

[Hesha]

Okay, I had already played up to turn 78, but I will go back so I can incorporate your advice.

Before I start up the game again, I'd like to ask some more general things, though, hope that's okay and explanations would be to lengthy or tedious for you.

For example: That whole GLH thing... I didn't even know that was a valid strategy. Tbh, I always thought the GLH was a useless wonder, because I never once looked into how trade routes even work. I was aware that mids are good, because obviously Rep is key to SE and I had read up about CE and SE many years ago. But I'm sure there's like half a dozen or so "early strategies" that you always use, in minor variations based n the map. I gather this from the fact how the GLH thing was suggested very early on, somebody said: You're iso, so GLH would work. And all you guys new immediately and exactly what this person was talking about. So obviously (to me^^) this was one of the pre-packaged early strategies that you have in your drawers "ready to use". I'm sure there are others and I'd really like to know about them. Don't worry about overwhelming me, I'm a pretty good learner (not so good at following orders^^).

And on the other hand, I'm sure there are wonders that are totally useless and no-one ever builds them, except maybe in very niche situations (GW?). I mean, from the get-go it seemed completely out of the question for everyone that I might build SH. There must be a reason for that (which you explained to me, when I asked, i.e. it produces the wrong type of GP and doesn't have a very useful effect).

Next thing is something like... what to build where. I stated building a Lib after Granary in Helio, but you didn't seem to have that intention. It's a city with good commerce (because of the sea tiles), so I thought it was a no-brainer, but obviously it wasn't..

Hope I'm making sense!

 

[krikav]

I like library in Heliopolis. ^_^

If you haven't seen this thread, it can be worth looking into.
I think it shows clearly how different approaches can be, and that in some cases it isn't obvious that one path is superior to another, while in other cases the differences can be like night and day.
*Edit* Forgot link:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/cookbook-1-sally-immortal.638637/
*/Edit*

Also, there is probably too many nische situations to enumerate all (or even to recall all). It's something that comes intuitive.
If one has seen and played alot of different situations, experience guides to what the current map calls for.

Isolation is something that tilts the terrain away from GLH, not toward it, because you won't have forregin traderoutes.
What makes GLH feasable is different landmasses or islands available, and ofcourse coastal starts with seafood.

 

[lymond]

Great questions (hah..and I think you've learned by now that I have no problem with lengthy explanations )

GLH is certainly map dependent for sure. For example, it is generally pretty much useless on Pangaea maps, though I've seen rare cases where it could be useful. On watery maps though it is great as you usually have a lot of coastal cities anyway. Fractal sometimes yes/sometimes not as Fractal is unpredictable in what you get (I play this map personally a lot by the way). Fractal can produce pangaea like situations sometimes.

GLH is great in these circumstances regardless of iso or not. But iso situation it can be very helpful as it boosts your internal trade routes since you will not have foreign trade routes for a long time. And if you have nearby islands to settle in iso that will give you boosted overseas trade routes with the island city. (someday you will see this in practice). edit: As krikav said the decision in iso is relative to actual coastal city viability..sometimes your inner terrain is just better for say cottages and there is not much seafood.

Here though you have actually met some folks and see just how even better GLH is as you get those juicy foreign trade routes..3 commerce at the moment. Think of those trade routes like having developed cottages inside your cities..they both give commerce.

Mids is great indeed for Representation for boosted specialists and, of course, increased happy cap. Also opens up other civics that you might use in certain situation like Police State for faster army, but..yeah..Rep is definitely the main goal early with Mids. It is an expensive early wonder though, so usually not considered unless you have access to stone early or are IND..and you have both here which just makes you scream MIDS!!!

As for economy, we don't really discuss CE vs. SE these days but rather go with what we call the hybrid economy. The point here is that cottaging is in no way going to preclude using specialists (namely scientists early). Fairly recently, a series of articles called "Civ Illustrated #..." were put together by some good players. There are four of them addressing certain topics and really these are the only valuable articles of note in recent years...most are old and generally outdated. Anyway, one of them address this topic a bit and can be found here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-4-hybrid-economy.548667/

(Note: that is in the Strategy Articles subforum to this very subforum ...also check out "Know your Enemy" which is a great guide on Ai diplo and coding which you can always reference to understand what leaders prioritize. You can find it easily in that subforum)

As for Stonehenge, I would not say I never build it, but the key thing I want you to understand is that just simply building it is taking hammers away that could be better used expanding your empire early. Monuments as you have learned are not as valuable as you think. You get around this by simply making better settling decisions. there are times where you simply have to have a monument like to grab that seafood swimming to far off shore. Or like in Elie so we can grab the better tiles as we made the decision to get stone online asap. And then you have Creative leaders.....

And yes, polluting GP pools can be a problem especially as your early to mid focus on great people are Great Scientists for an academy and later bulb strategies...we'll get to that later.

I think you do want a library in Helio . I still considered you a bit in expansion phase though. I was suggesting take the OF hammers from the gran whip into a settler ..you can then grow a bit by queuing a Library which I might later 2 or 3 pop whip there. Or you could just let Helio grow for now ..after granary ..and 3 pop the library in short order at size 6.

With GLH though I like to focus on getting all the good coastal spots running asap so I'd still like at least 3 more settlers in the near future. All those cities will be a huge boost to your overall commerce and thus research potential.

 

[lymond]

Ok..I'm going to write a bit about a general concept that I want to address just to be sure you understand. It's not in direct response to any recent discussion but the idea of commerce had come up. This is a concept that most newer or less experienced players get a bit confused about..and ..well...we all did at one point while learning the game.

Commerce is represented by the symbol on the map. You see it next to rivers and on certain commerce producing resources like gold, silver and most calendar type resources. Commerce is also reflected in the trade routes you see in your cities. Often folks call or confuse with gold. Commerce is not gold. Commerce is basically the representation of economy in this game and it the direct source that fuels your sliders (research, culture and espionage...and gold or tax). The sliders are a direct way to manipulate how you use your commerce.

Of course, generally you want all your commerce focused on research. Taking culture and espionage completely out of the equation here - let's just put those aside as irrelevant for how.

So when you run 100% research all your commerce in your empire is committed to your research endeavors. Once that slider is lowered to any degree, some commerce is then allocated toward gold generation. At 0% research, also called 100% tax, all your commerce is then committed to the generation of gold.

As I believe you have learned somewhat by now, we have focused you on either running 100% research or 100% tax, especially when you start hitting deficit research which is generally when you settle your first city - other than the cap. One reason for this which is not totally clear on the surface is that there is a rounding issue in this game which causes some missing gold if you run the slider at X%. You can actually see this in the game early on by just playing with the slider (though with GLH now you have likely bypassed that particular problem.

So we run 100% tax to fund gold for the next tech, as you have indeed been doing. We also term this binary science as you always get that 1 beaker per turn even with the research slider at 0. In other words, you are still progressing ..albeit very slowly..on whatever tech is in the queue when the research slider is off. Also, during that time you might meet more AIs or they might tech more stuff which provides small bonuses to the techs you might be researching. Same reason really that you select/deselect your tech during the first 5 turns of the game. (at least i think I or someone mentioned that at the beginning)

Presently. you are also applying the concept to Alpha as you are building some libraries or at least a library. A library is a beaker multiplier. Once present in a city it will multiply the beakers from commerce in that city once the research slider is once again raised. So you are just maxxing gold at the moment so you can then take advantage of that earned gold once the library is done in Thebes, which will boosts all research in Thebes from commerce on tiles and those now juicy trade routes when you raise the slider back to 100%. Anyway that is the idea behind that.

We will go over some other finer details at relevant points later, but I wanted to give a general sense of that concept. It really is not all that complicated but is a bit confusing a first. Having a general understanding of commerce though I think will help you a lot as to why we've had you do particular things up to this point.

 

[Hesha]

Cool. Thank you!

With GLH though I like to focus on getting all the good coastal spots running asap so I'd still like at least 3 more settlers in the near future. All those cities will be a huge boost to your overall commerce and thus research potential.

See! That's something that's really helpful to me. Like... how many cities are enough? You probably have some intuitive measure, but I have no idea. How would you suggest I work that out? Is it maybe the ration between 100% and 0% beakers? I.e. if I can research at less than 50%, I have too many cities?

 

[lymond]

Cool. Thank you!


See! That's something that's really helpful to me. Like... how many cities are enough? You probably have some intuitive measure, but I have no idea. How would you suggest I work that out? Is it maybe the ration between 100% and 0% beakers? I.e. if I can research at less than 50%, I have too many cities?

Good question....but a bit complicated and certainly relative to the situation

First, in this case, GLH serves as fuel to be able to expand much more liberally as long as you have good coastal spots on your land mass..there's really no stopping that. Honestly, your economy is pretty great right now and will just get better when more foreign trade routes open up and with more cities. With GLH on a map like this, each coastal city pays for itself. Oh..and you have two golds coming online as well eventually.

But other situations could be very different and on higher levels your maintenance costs increase substantially, so expansion can be nerfed.

The general guideline has always been 6 cities at least by 1AD, but that is very much a guideline and by no means a "max" limit. Pretty much you expand as long as there are good spots to settle and you are not tanking your economy.

For example, if you were playing a Pangaea map for instance our approach here might be very different...regardless I think we'd have you at at least 4 or 5 cities by this point.

I'd say the thing that can best inform you if you are over-expanding is your GPT at 0% research. You certainly don't want to be at negative GPT. But I will say there have been times where I might be bleeding gold for a bit while expanding.

The whole binary research idea in part helps to fund your expansion so keep that in mind as well.

overall, it will take time and practice to get a feel for these things and also just experience different situation in terms of maps and terrain.

Lastly, I'd say there is never any limit to the number of cities you want or can have, it's rather the limitations of your economy at a particular point in time in the game. (I mean..just wait until you ever experience a Deity level game and you will really feel the pain..you can watch some Lain let's plays to see how he handles that)

 

[Hesha]

Okay, I thought it'd be easier like that. For example, if you need to run 2t of 100% tax to fund 1t of 100% beakers, then you're over-expanded and effectively slow down your research...

 

[lymond]

Okay, I though it'd be easier like that. For example, if you need to run 2t of 100% tax to fund 1t of 100% beakers, then you're over-expanded and effectively slow down your research...

Not sure I fully understand this comment or was this just an example of your previous idea?

The # of turns you run tax is not really relevant. That is going to increase regardless as techs get more expensive anyway. Like you've been running it for a while now with Alpha as a placeholder. That is very common approach on highest levels after writing. Experienced players often run binary for extended times with a placeholder tech as they work to get libraries built and to fund expansion. Aesthetics is a tech often used on higher levels as AIs tend to focus less on that tech, and it sets up good trade opportunities later for things like Alpha, Maths and Iron Working(IW).

But on levels below..say..IMM..I will often just go directly to alpha myself since Ais are generally slower to do so, and then use it potentially to get other techs like IW and stuff..maybe Maths, but I might tech that myself on this level. Depends really on who is on the map and how well they are teching.

 

[lymond]

hmmm...let me briefly explain what I mean by placeholder tech as well. Basically, it means we are not fully committed to X tech. It is in the queue and we are progressing at least 1 bpt each turn but not fully committed to the tech. We can change our decision later based on more information..whatever that may be. For example, we might find that some leader actually does tech alpha during this time (more likely on higher levels). Well, then we don't want to then commit to Alpha now, we'd would change to something else to setup a trade for alpha...make sense?

In another example, say you were in a situation where you were able to EP focus on some much earlier and had tech info from them now. You might see them start teching Alpha at some point while you have just had it as a placeholder for the time being. I would immediately then switch to another tech cause I know they are going to get Alpha.

 

[Hesha]

Not sure I fully understand this comment or was this just an example of your previous idea?

I probably didn't express it well, this is what I mean:
Early in the game (and very late in the game) you can run at 90% or 100% no problem. In binary, that means that you run 1t at 100% tax and from the gold you generate, you can run research for many turns. Say, 1 turn tax generates 20 gold, 1 turn research consumes 2 gold. Now, if you have too many cities, you might be in a situation, where you have to run 100% tax for multiple turns, just to generate the gold to run 1 turn of research, say 1 turn of 100% tax generates 10 Gold, but 1 turn of 100% research costs 30 gold. Do you know what I mean? By this metric, you could simply say, if your "100% tax income"-to-"100% research cost"-ratio is lower than x, you have too many cities (or too many units).

 

[lymond]

I see what you are saying but I think you are over-complicating it a bit or over- thinking it a bit. For now, I'd say it is easiest just to consider how much gpt you have at 100% tax. If you are losing gold at 100% tax well you may be in trouble. The game puts your empire on STRIKE and starts disbanding your units.

On a different note, to refresh, you always run 100% or 0% early on...not X% in between. The exception may be on the very last turn of completing X tech when you just don't have quite enough gold but can tweak the slider down a tad and still finish regardless..no problem with that.

Later I'll show you some other manipulations with the slider as your multipliers increase and economy improves (as the rounding issue essentially becomes obsolete), but I don't want to make things too complicated at the moment. Much of this is just having the experience and feel of the game the more you play it.

ha.it is a complicated game for sure and that is why we love it. I've been playing it some odd 12 years now and still amazed at learning or finding new things.

 

[lymond]

I would add though that I give props for thinking through things with respect to this concept...or anything for that matter. You are not entirely off-base with your thoughts. I'm just pointing out a simplistic way of understanding the state of things.

As long as you are earning gold, you are in pretty decent shape. You are in very good shape in this game at the moment.

 

[Hesha]

That's good to know. I would have thought that when you are negative at 100% tax, the game is basically over for you. I've always tried to stay above, say 50%, i.e. taxing as many turns as researching on average. Otherwise, if you can only run research 1 out of every 3 or 4 turns, you're bound to fall behind.

Edit: Oh, do you want to point out on my map where you see the future city locations? There's whale, by the way, 2N from the horse in NW.

 

[lymond]

Your wish is my command.. I used the dotmap tool on your last save and attached here.

I did not mark priority on the sites and really have no preference other than I would settle stronger cities first. And what I mean by that is cities with good food and forests or something that makes them productive immediately. I would generally want to prioritize coastal cities with GLH, of course.

Rice city is interesting for a couple of reasons though. First it completely eliminates any thought of a monument in Alex, as the city grabs the rice instantly. It is close to Thebes which reduces distance maintenance in the short term, which can be a consideration. At least now, your workers are in proximity for faster improvement. City can be an internal commerce city with cottages and the spice later, ofc.

Any of the ones in the SW are fine.

Horse city for a Maoi site might be good, but I would emphasize that Maoi is by no means a priority mind you, but with IND and stone I might consider it since it is so cheap. Also, you can use National Wonders for fail gold too. With all these coastal cities you can put occasional turns into Maoi now and then and later complete it in Horse/whale. boom...cha ching

Going back a ways, in what would be hindsight now but really just the way I would have played it. is that I would have prepared a chop in Helio for a new settler at size 4 and 2popped that there.

 

[Hesha]

Cool! Thank you.

With all these coastal cities you can put occasional turns into Maoi now and then and later complete it in Horse/whale. boom...cha ching

Do hammers put into national wonders also disappear after 10 turns?

 

[lymond]

Cool! Thank you.


Do hammers put into national wonders also disappear after 10 turns?

No, 10 turns is the timer on units by the way. I think for buildings that timer is like 50 turns or so, and I think that is the same for wonders.

What I like to do is use casual overflow hammers. What I mean by that is the normal OF you sometimes get when you complete a build of something. I think you have seen this as I have mentioned it before a few times. If I complete a build and have nothing else pressing to build, I will queue up a wonder ..like Maoi. so that it catch the OF hammers (which are doubled in this case due to IND + stone) for that 1 turn + base city hammers that turn.

In fact as you expand and have more cities, once they get there key initial infrastructure..namely a granary...possibly a library or lighthouse. Just building wonders for a spell instead of something else (if you have the bonus) can really pay off later, even if you never have any intention of completing said wonder. This is fail gold. You can fail gold even if you build the wonder yourself in one city but put turns into it elsewhere.

So for instance, say once you settle horse/whale city. You probably want to build a granary and lighthouse there pronto. library is of no concern there. Once those are built you can start Maoi with the plan being that it will be built there. But while that city is getting that basic infra, which will take some time, you an put hammers into Maoi in other cities when you can. Once Maoi is eventually completed in horse/whale. you will get a lot of gold based on how much production each other city put into previously. Each city that put X production into Maoi will turn that production into fail gold when Maoi is actually completed.

And to expand on this, fail gold wonders can be a good use of hammers over just building stuff for no particular reason, especially buildings that are really not needed. This is a big thing that experienced players harp on when playing this game as new players often just sit there producing building after building without really doing anything at all. Fail golding is an extremely powerful component of the game, especially when you have bonuses on wonders as it can pay back in lots of gold which in turn allows you to keep the research slider at 100% longer...which in general is always your priority - being able to keep research at 100%. (there are other ways of getting gold as well which we will discuss)

Just note that in the case of National Wonders which are specific to your empire alone, obviously only attempt the process of fail golding a NW if you have the intention of actually building. Not all NW are built in a game or even a consideration. Great Wonders on the other hand will be completed by you or someone else at some point.

 

[krikav]

That's good to know. I would have thought that when you are negative at 100% tax, the game is basically over for you.

Then basically all of my games would be over.

When you are in that territory, you are walking a tightrope.
It's usually in a later stage of the game too, when things like conquest gold, tech-selling, begging, wealthbuilding and GMerchant trade missions start to play a role.

 

[Hesha]

No, 10 turns is the timer on units by the way. I think for buildings that timer is like 50 turns or so, and I think that is the same for wonders.

Okay, that's great to know!

So for instance, say once you settle horse/whale city. You probably want to build a granary and lighthouse there pronto. library is of no concern there. Once those are built you can start Maoi with the plan being that it will be built there. But while that city is getting that basic infra, which will take some time, you an put hammers into Maoi in other cities when you can. Once Maoi is eventually completed in horse/whale. you will get a lot of gold based on how much production each other city put into previously. Each city that put X production into Maoi will turn that production into fail gold when Maoi is actually completed.

Why is the library no concern in horse/whale? And this brings me to another point: Buildings. Which ones do you build everywhere, which ones only selectively? For instance, I have noticed that granaries have to be built pretty much everywhere. But, e.g. how many sea squares does a city need to have for your to build a LH? What's the reasoning for Lib? I would have thought that Horse/Whale would certainly need a libl, because of all those 2C sea tiles it's going to be working... oh, and directly into another question: Why would the Maoi be better in Horse/Whale than in Memphis?

And to expand on this, fail gold wonders can be a good use of hammers over just building stuff for no particular reason, especially buildings that are really not needed. This is a big thing that experienced players harp on when playing this game as new players often just sit there producing building after building without really doing anything at all. Fail golding is an extremely powerful component of the game, especially when you have bonuses on wonders as it can pay back in lots of gold which in turn allows you to keep the research slider at 100% longer...which in general is always your priority - being able to keep research at 100%. (there are other ways of getting gold as well which we will discuss)

Cool. Krikav has hinted at a few of those ways, that is good to know. Begging is "demanding" gold from people, who like you, right?

Just note that in the case of National Wonders which are specific to your empire alone, obviously only attempt the process of fail golding a NW if you have the intention of actually building. Not all NW are built in a game or even a consideration. Great Wonders on the other hand will be completed by you or someone else at some point.

This is another instance where I'd like to know which wonders are generally considered useful and which are just stupid. For example, how popular is the forbidden palace? and since you need CH for that, is the courthouse a no-brainer building?