[BTS] Shadow Game: Prince [BUFFY]

No that was me plotting where you might get. I would of waited. Fippy is great at micro. Whipping at size 4 made a lot of sense. Nothing horrible with your approach but perhaps roll back save and wait once settler built. Size 4. 3t settler with 1 chop.

Need to think timing of next 2 chops to fit in with whip. Chop river forests first.
So, if I understand, I need to work on a Warrior until my city grows to size 4, chop until I need two pop to get a settler, use overflow to make a Warrior, and then work on another Warrior until city is size 4 again, rinse and repeat?
 
At size 4 you need 40/100 :hammers: for a settler, each pop is worth 30:hammers: for whipping.
The chop you almost had finished can be put into the settler, general advice: almost never put chops or overflow into warriors.
So you switch to settler for that 1 turn, then back to warrior.

Overflow is great for workers. Aim to reduce city stagnation (while building workers & settlers) with overflow (we could call overflow burst production), and ofc with chops.
 
At size 4 you need 40/100 :hammers: for a settler, each pop is worth 30:hammers: for whipping.
The chop you almost had finished can be put into the settler, general advice: almost never put chops or overflow into warriors.
So you switch to settler for that 1 turn, then back to warrior.

Overflow is great for workers. Aim to reduce city stagnation (while building workers & settlers) with overflow (we could call overflow burst production), and ofc with chops.
So how do I make Warriors then? If everything is going into workers and Settlers how am I going to protect against barbs?
 
I would take the 3N city (on plains forest) over settling on sugar here.
Copper is better than 3 :food: city tile imo, with FIN the river sugar also makes a good cottage.
Yep, copper makes the difference, but it wasn't visible when I commented. Without copper there is imo no contest, on sugar is much much better.
 
So how do I make Warriors then? If everything is going into workers and Settlers how am I going to protect against barbs?
On Prince level you don't need barb protection until much later, there are rules in place against them entering borders early.
So you just need them for scouting, and escorting / protecting settlers while they are moving. Or sometimes for workers.

Real defense can be done with Axes if you have copper (and it's there). Less of them are needed, sometimes only 1-2.
An empty city isn't problematic until turn ~60 or 70, but i have little experience with prince numbers.
 
Barbs won't enter cities for a long while. Cities taking empty land fog busts for you. New cities can always help on warriors. Capital can always grow on warriors but keep over on worker/settlers.

When to get second worker? Hmm.
 
Right, well, I did that and I manged to settle 2 cities before 2000 BC, but third was only settled in 1720 BC.
On the flip side overflow did give me a couple Workers and I produced some warriors while waiting for growth.
Calendar could really be good for me right now.
Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0008.JPG


Did some more scouting and found some interesting locations... if they're not taken in the immediate future.
Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0009.JPG

 

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  • Paolo BC-1720.CivBeyondSwordSave
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Rushing ahead way too quickly. 4 cities by 1760bc is much better compared to some of your previous games.

I think too early for all these roads. Chopping is far more valuable now. 20H not gone into a granary as you were building roads. Chopping>cottages>mines>roads? Roads only if your facing happiness and need a resource. Maybe to connect cities for trade routes.

I would of been cottaging the sugar. Capital should be running one of the corn. It could of been whipping granary at size 4.

Second city can be whipping a settler at size 4. Get 1 or so chops in there.

I think map is still a problem as there won't be enough land for the AI when you will be able to rex to 6-7 cities easily. If that happens I would roll a new map as AI on only 4-5 cities will struggle.

If you want to play fast start a second game just for fun but not on forum. Better to play 10 turns a time and take advice.
 
Looking pretty good :thumbsup: fast expansion is something that will be useful at all difficulty levels

Do you know how to fogbust barbarians?

Amsterdam should be working a corn to grow faster, and Ulrecht should start working those cottages. Rotterdam should definitely work the 3:food: sugar, and then move the worker 2S to chop out the workboat while you're finishing teching math
 
Wonder what the strategy should be here? Maybe just beeline construction/HBR and takeover map with HA/phants/pults? I suspect HA would be quicker as 2mp. Or do we try to build an economy to learn the game?
 
A city on dye looks really good :think:. I naturally want to grab food in the first ring, but CRE leaders can settle on dye and get 3 food resources (double sugar + clam) in that city instead of a single clam. The 20 :hammers: from the kept forest can be put into workboat or even half-price library.

Yes, calendar will give you +4 :c5happy:- (dye, sugar, silk, incense) and +1 :health: (banana). However, as people pointed out, the research depends on what you want to do with the game. If you want to learn about war, masonry-construction and HBR are probably more important than calendar. If you want to learn about peaceful empire build-up, calendar will raise the happy cap and grow your cities. You may also trade extra resource to the AIs, for example, you might trade Sugar for AI's silver or fur.
Judging from the screenshots, your neighbours are Saladin and Hammurabi. None of them plots at Pleased. So peace or war are both possible; it's up to you.
 
Do you know how to fogbust barbarians?
Yes. Barbs can spawn in a 5x5 radius around a unit. But Brabs can't spawn on a tile right outside your border. I should get on that.

Maybe just beeline construction/HBR and takeover map with HA/phants/pults?Or do we try to build an economy to learn the game?
So peace or war are both possible; it's up to you.
That's a hard choice. I wanna say Economy, since my current economic plan was: "Build Cottages, Windmills, Markets, Banks, Grocers, Customs Houses and Courthouses everywhere, until you have a near limitless amount of income in the late game".
I have a feeling that's not the most optimal way to do things.

On the other hand. Even though I'm pretty sure I fairly adept at war, hit them early, have more manpower, or be more technologically advanced (preferably all three). Everything else is just whipping and chopping. But I'm sure that I could learn more about that as well.
Let's go with the 'Economy' approach for now, and see where we end up.
 
Did what everyone suggested. Settler is ready. Maybe I should settle the gold city? Or is it too far? In that case, the stone city could be good. Fish city could be good when I get Iron Working.
Going for Calendar.
Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0011.JPG

 

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  • Paolo BC-1480.CivBeyondSwordSave
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In terms of Markets, Banks, Grocers, Customs Houses and Courthouses everywhere. I rarely build these if I am goiing cuirs. Maybe market for happiness but only in a few cities. Court houses the upkeep per turn would need to be 8-10+. On prince I doubt that. Many would argue CH's are not needed. Especially if you run police state where upkeep is mostly capped at 7 or so a turn. If I have a 15-25 city empire I may whip/chop them.

Anything you build has to add value as 150H vs 150 gold from wealth is a big offset.

Same for worker turns. Each turn you spend building a cottage on a plains tile could of been used to chop a unit/building. Which is why roads and farms should not be spammed everywhere. Focus on what will add value to your empire and speed up your expansion/key buildings like granaries which double the growth of a city.

Whipping and chopping is important. Understanding how overflow works is key too. Understanding how to manage whip anger too. As each whipped person adds 10 turns of an unhappy citizen which will stack. I think economy and war go hand in hand. You can't war efficently if you don't have the empire building skills. Same for warfare and managing diplomacy. Declaring on one ai 3-4 times to wipe them out would be poor game play. Going in with a big enough stack to vassal or wipe out the AI makes a huge difference.

Your use of warriors is not good. The warriors are now needed in your bigger cities for happiness. It's almost worth 1 turn building a warrior in Utecht as you are in effect losing 5 hammers a turn and 1 food. Not ideal.
The warrior north of Rotterdam is adding no value as your culture fogbusts this area. Send it back to your capital. The warrior near gold should return too. I would not settle the gold as it's over 7 tiles away from your culture. You need to have 3-4 tile gaps between the new cities now. It's a shame you are not fogbusting the stone city. That city would add value and you want the happiness from the ivory.

Have you got the fog busting right? There are 5 tiles between your warriors. Normally it's 4 tile gap. Barbs can spawn in the fog. Warrior 3 near the Hague should of probably of been sent to the stone a few turns back. Warriors do spawn 5x5 but that includes the tile they are on as the centre tile. Eg. xxoxx

Always plan ahead. Which cities should I settle next? What worker actions might they need? Does the city help?

You wanted to chop a forest for that workboat. Not sure abouty the farm you built. You have plenty of 3f sugar tiles. 5 worker turns lost.

I probably would of settled stone next but you have no escort.

How to best use cow area is another debate. If barb cities do spawn do they have warrior defenders? If so not fog busting could add value here.

Edit - You wanted that ivory city before the workboat city. A road towards the ivory might of added value for happiness. Capital should probably of been running the cottages as it will peak happiness at size 5. This is why you plan ahead.
 
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Did the things. I was thinking about letting some of the cities grow for a bit. But forgot to redirect some of my Warriors to garrison cities for happiness. Nothing that some whipping can't solve. Stone city successfully built. Took a gamble and sent the Settler without an escort.
I should start building some workers next turn.
The fog busting should be fixed(-ish).
Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0012.JPG

 

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  • Paolo BC-1000.CivBeyondSwordSave
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Save would of helped?

What are you doing trade route wise? Any plans for mids? Guess calendar will somewhat solve happiness. Not sure where all the unhappiness is coming from.

Hunting for ivory? That would of really helped. Plus roads to Ai for trade routes.
 
@SlimJim01 in every screenshot so far, you are working the wrong tiles. Unworked cottages around the capital, helper cities working 2:food: etc. Also, slider is at somewhere else than 0/100. What I'm saying is that your basic empire management could be improved a lot!
 
Save would of helped?
Sorry! Slipped my mind. Should be there now.
Plus roads to Ai for trade routes.
Ah, you need roads to trade. Gotcha.
What I'm saying is that your basic empire management could be improved a lot!
They absolutely could, which brings me to...
So, per Gumbolt suggestion, I started another game in parallel with this one. And I've discovered quite a few things!

One of my earliest mistakes was spacing out cities (I.E. no overlap between them) and settling my first cities far away. The rational being that forward settling will give me breathing room and that it will max out efficiency of each cities. That's not how it works.
You will almost certainly never have enough population to work every single tile in a city and -if you're playing the game properly- you shouldn't have gigantic population.
Early game you need to settle helper cities. I thought that every single city needed a food source or at least a couple of farms to be be viable. Again. no. First of all cities can grow fine with one food source, or even no food sources, provided that they have either grassland, or water tiles. Second, helper cities aren't meant to grow big. Of course, if they can (like the corn city in the Shadow game), great! If not, that's fine, because that's not their main function. They're meant to help work tiles of whatever city they're near and make money.

Here's how that game is going, by the by.
Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0013.JPG


Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0014.JPG



I'm getting amazing insight from this shadow game! Will update it soon(-ish)!
 

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  • Jim AD-0680.CivBeyondSwordSave
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Looking at the screenshots it seems you're doing ok. Opening the save and discovering you're playing huge fractal at normal speed itlooks like you've a long way to go. You've only met half the AI, good chance some of them at least are overseas. You'll likely need more cities of your own before thinking about taking vassals. Elepult should be ok for that but imho currency, Col, CS and music all have priority over feudalism.

edit: music is a bit of a gamble as someone's had lit long enough to build Glib.
 
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Too many AI for this map. 17 AI for a fractal map? Start looked horrible. You will find AI with 3-4 cities elsewhere with nowhere to go.

I would of settled on the ivory for the bonus hammer.Your capital needs to be running cottages and growing. Your not even running the grassland cottages. With so little food in capital you can't afford to run 1 food tiles. 640ad even with this start size 10 should be possible.

Very hard to give any other advice as little or no food in starting area. Same for AI. Incas cities barely seem to be over size 5. Arabian drowned in jungle.

You should be playing monarch level as you have a huge advantage on prince. You will likely win the game but where is the challenge here with AI so handicapped?
 
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