[BTS] Shadow Monarch Breannus

[Heathcliff]

Too many cities, for your tech level.
You dont even have math yet and have 7 cities.
It would have been better to concentrate on teching with 4 cities.
My picks would be Vienne, Gergovia and city one west of Verlamion.
And build up an army to attack Shaka later.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Can you explain this mechanic to me? Is it that the number of cities increases the cost of a tech, so a large number of low pop cities will produce a small number of beakers and drag down tech?

And when you say "concentrate on teching" in certain cities you mean shifting from hammers to coins or scientists where there are libraries?

 

[Heathcliff]

You pay more maintenance the more cities you have and the further they are from the capital.

The first four cities doesnt cost so much maintenance, after that every new city increases maintenance in all cities.
And you want to settle your first cities close to your capital, your land around you capital is bad so you needed to settle further away which cost more maintenance.
Look at city screens and economy screen to see more about maintenance.

So you want to expand at a reasonable pace and growing your cities at the same time. So when I wrote concentrate on teching I meant growning the cities and slow down expansion.
Working cottages is the most popular way to improve your economy.
One key tech is currency which gives you one more traderoute in all your cities and let you build wealth.

 

[civac]

On Monarch this is just fine. Your cities are unusually expensive because you had to venture far afield. Economy seems OK though.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

T115 - 1AD

Spoiler :

Peaceful growth. Met Monty. Dk where he is.

Calendar and growing river cities will put my economy where I want it to be, I think.

Shaka is plotting. I gave into a demand to cut ties with Sitting Bull.

Conquered Ainu, a barb city in the south. Dragging the econ a bit. Not a good city to get before religion/caste because popping the monument and getting those foods is going to be painfully slow.

I could have the GS build an academy. I didn't look before I exited the game, so I'm not sure what the bulb would be. If the bulb is great I'd take it. Is it recommended that the academy always go in the capital for bureau synergy? The problem with my capital is that it will be low-coin and I wonder if a better place to put an academy is in a river city like Durnovia.

I don't think I have a plan, other than get calendar. Perhaps peacefully expand three more cities - north by the ocean/lake with a lighthouse, west on the island for the trade route and commerce, and then east of Ainu on the Ainuese peninsula. Military-wise, I do have horses and iron, and I have a gallic warrior with the Guerilla III promotion which I am fond of using.

 

[civac]

Major issues:
While normally you could easily support more cities in this particular situation I would halt expansion for a while. Nearby city locations are terrible. There are good locations available further away but the distances are too great for the time being.

Shaka is planning to kill someone, almost certainly you. (Notice the small fist next to his score indicator. That means he says "We have enough on our hands right now." when asked to declare war on somebody else which in turn means he is building up for a war himself and has chosen a target. Try to whip a bunch of units, preferably axes. Try to get a view of Shakas stack with your chariot. You could maybe try to gift Ainu to Shaka making him Pleased. You can then delay or cancel his attack by begging 1 gold from him. Gifting him the city built by the settler in your capital would probably not be in time.

Minor issues:
Keeping Ainu was a bad decision. This city is too far away and will take ages until it's coming online (see first point above).
Your new island city should already have a work boat standing ready to net sea food. That would reduce the time it is a net drain on your economy.
Farm the sugar near Durnovaria!
Don't whip the library at Durnovaria, just work river cottages. Though as mentioned you will need some axes first.
Bibracte would have been able to work 3 lighthoused coasts if it were founded NW of its current position.

 

[Heathcliff]

Shaka coming, time to build units in all cities.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Shaka coming

Spoiler :

 

[Heathcliff]

Yeah Shaka was as badass as Omar.
I think he charged into machineguns with shields.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

That means he says "We have enough on our hands right now." when asked to declare war on somebody else

I didn't know this was how the mod pulled the plotting notification. That's cool.

 

[lymond]

Yep..the red fist means danger!

RIP Omar

 

[konata_LS]

Apart from Axes, whip/build some Spears would also help, as the screenshots shows Shaka has horse archers and chariots.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Turn 130

Now:
- Economy has been pulled from the brink with cottages and calendar coming online.
- Shaka's stack is visible (in Nondini) and I'm not that afraid of it. He's got some HAs. I pumped some units and fortified them around the likely front.
- Researching Monarchy to turn Bib into a big city.

Later:
- ... construction and hit him with the catapults? Honestly with my economy how it is I'm wary of going on the offense. I'd like to develop those two island-cities and maybe even put one on that southern copper (with a LH to work the Lakes) once I have a little more surplus. I choose peace and just zooming towards civ/engi with mace/pikes/trebs.

 

[Heathcliff]

Good you got some time to prepare. Shaka will probably build some catas before he attacks

 

[Stibi-shimi]

T141

Checking in here because I have a GS. I am going to research CoL in a few. Shaka has still not attacked, and our units are roughly equal. Since my economy is still struggling I want to forgo building units and run specialists. If I wait three turns, then when I get CoL I can begin a golden age and run specialists in all cities.

I need to bonk Shaka. I don't really want to do that without trebs. I think after CoL I will go engi and have crossbows and trebs take him out.

I have explored the east. The good thing is that there are no other rivals for Shaka to grab cities from while I figure out my economic situation. That means Shaka's growth won't be too explosive and I can manage him when I have tech superiority.

 

[Araius]

You're having a bit of a commerce problem. 6 more pop or 3 more units is gonna put you in the red.
I feel like you need more cottages pronto and you have a worker shortage too. Should have around 15 workers maybe by now.
I assume you're building farms for the golden age? Not sure if you'd even be working those farms during the GA.

Catapults should be enough to end Shaka. You have more food than any other player and with whips that means more unit production, he should have no chance even if he miraculously gets longbows.
Engineering is pretty far away for you right now compared to Construction.
Might want to pick up Currency before conquering Shaka. +1 extra trade route helps a lot if you have quite a few cities and building wealth is also nice since you can have 100% research rate for longer.

Getting Alphabet from Shaka when he gets it is going to be important as you can build research and get a potential Philosophy bulb if you need to trade for techs.

You're doing well. You should win this game easily enough from here if you get your economy going.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

@Araius,

My understanding is still based on heuristic rules that I have picked up, rather than crunching the numbers like many of our members here do. So, the reason that I don't build cottages on non-river grass is that it takes them longer to get to 4C than it does to get to CoL and just pump 3s/3gpp in any city that might be running a non-river grass cottage. Well, that answers the science deficit - I would assume that I would have Currency there as well to run on production cities and cover the gold deficit.

That's what I'm assuming that you're saying with the lack of workers, and you also mention that my workers are building unnecessary improvements (farms that won't be worked even in Golden Age), do you think they should be building grass cottages, chopping units, or something else?

I would take your advice to go Construction and Currency (pending any further advice before I play tonight). Trebs/xbows were a sleepy thought and indeed too far away.

 

[civac]

This calculation doesn't work. Ignoring the GPP, a specialist is a 0/0/3 tile which is utterly terrible. In a vacuum, a grassland cottage is much better.

Now there are somewhat common situations that change the evaluation. If you you do not have the happy cap to grow running mass scientists to get to Monarchy is a reasonable play. Similarly, running scientists to get to Currency with a dead economy is another one.

For GPP, using specialists more judiciously is better. Run as many scientists/merchants/engineers as you need to make GPs for your early game plan. Later on there are more efficient ways to obtain GPP. The most common is starving cities in GAs running Caste System (and Pacifism if possible).

 

[Araius]

As civac says, specialists are mainly used for GPPs and when you're at the happiness cap.

A non-river grassland tile with a town gives 2F and 4C (5C with Printing Press). Nothing to scoff at.
The reason you want a lot of workers early is partially so you can avoid having any cities work unimproved tiles (like near Durnovaria) but also so you can get cottages up early. A cottage takes 70 turns to grow fully so if you make them early it really pays off. Not to say you should cottage spam everything necessarily, but 10 cottages for 65 pop seems low.
Also workers can pre-chop, pre make workshops, build roads into rival territory and probably more.

I wouldn't recommend chopping things you don't need urgently, you don't have catapults yet and your unit cost is hurting you. It's probably better to chop units when you get a new unit from tech and you're going to invade.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Ignoring the GPP, a specialist is a 0/0/3 tile which is utterly terrible. In a vacuum, a grassland cottage is much better.

Sure. But why ignore the ? Converting the to :
After 100 = 350 (assuming your first bulb is for CoL)
Means 1 = 3.5

So every specialist before the first GP and assuming CoL is 3 + 3= 13.5 /turn! (after a bulb)

Then, let's assume second GP (200) is going to bulb Philosophy (800):
800/200=4/1
Meaning 3/3 Specialist is a 15 Specialist (!?).

That seems OP. Is this right? I've always been bad at math. I know there's an article on it at hand, but thinking aloud in a discussion is going to make it stick in my brain more.

For your point on cottages, @Araius, I know that cottages are OP in the late game - but for the early game with expansion I have always thought that it is better to forgo slow-growing cottages for specialists and just take the cottages of other civs. My principle is that first-mover advantage is more important.

And to your point on "at happy cap," I actually think that specialists are worth it to run prior to happy cap when these are true: a) growth is slow; b) new tiles are marginal (say, ocean tiles); c) specialists are strong due to buildings, civics, or golden age. -> The rationale again being that first-mover advantage coupled with aggression is the game-winner.