Smegged's shadow training game thread

[smegged]

Ok all, here's something I noticed with every single players' report. None of you built a granary first . In higher difficulty, there are very few situations where you should NOT build a granary before you build your first settler. A granary fully DOUBLES your growth rate, and growth rate is so very very important in Civ III. In fact, it's the most important factor to having a successful expansion phase (normally).

Having food bonuses DOUBLES a granaries effectiveness. Especially with multiple tiles, and ESPECIALLY if you start on fresh water (we did not in this situation).

The granary was the sole reason why some of you didn't earn higher marks, and in fact why all of you missed out on the A marks. Take a look at my early game. I am the ONLY player here NOT to have a city settled. But I have set us up to have a very successful land grab. We have enough sheilds and growth to provide us with a settler/spear combo from our capital very very quickly. With a little micromanagement, we WILL out expand our enemy (barring any early wars), and reach a dominant position in the game.

Observe:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31407&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=2

Even in the most hopeless situation that some of the best diety level players that I know of have faced, a granary was the first thing built after 30 sheilds worth of military. That was deity level, with our first-ring lands being taken by a deity opponent. And we built a granary first.

Granary first is so very very important. The only high level game where in fact I haven't built a granary first is in Horse Feathers. Read my report here:
http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=189557&messageid=1030373709

Have I stressed the importance of a granary enough yet??? If I have then good .

On trading. Trading is what seperates the top players from the rest. Making early contacts is very very important. Being able to trade between two civs that don't know each other offers a tremendous boost to your economy. Almost all of you did a great job on this front. Most got all 6 ancient techs from tier 1 (except for a tech noone got). Someone even ended up with over 100 gold as well as the techs. So congratulations to all on this point.

 

[infoman]

Preturn: Check London & advisor screens and don't change anything.

2510BC (1) London Builds spearman, starts settler. Spear moves S. Warroir/Settler pair move one space south. (it is on hill, has 2 gold resources & one dye in radius after growth and on river) Move scouts and other warrior. Nothing on diplo side.

2470BC (2) York founded, starts barracks. Warrior fortifies for MP duty. Spear moves toward York. Scouts & warrior move. Nothing on diplo side.

2430BC (3) London revolts, raise lux to 40% at no change in gpt. Move worker to start road to York. (Need more workers). Spear moves to York. Warrior & scouts move. Nothing diplo still, Mao has 0 gold & Shaka has 11 and nothing else to trade.

2390BC (4) Worker starts road to York. Spear, warrior 7 scouts move. Nothing on Diplo side.

2350BC (5) London build settler, starts spear. Settler moves S towards York. Spear, warrior & scouts move. Nothing on diplo side.

2310BC (6) nothing important. diplo = 0.

2270BC (7) Mao asks scout to leave I say ok but don't mover him. London builds spear, starts settler. Barb appears near York. Spear fortifies. Spear & settler move towards york. Settler & scout move. Scout in chinese territory scoots around Beijing to E.
Nothing diplo.

2230BC (8) Spear attacked by barb & wins. No advance for spear (darn). Warrioe moves west. Spear then moves SW. Spear/settler pair move. scout moves. Scout in Chinese territory moves S. Looks like China is on peninsula by themselves w/ only 2 cities. Nothing diplo.

2190BC (9) units move. Beijing just popped a settler, went from size 3 to 1. Nothing diplo.

2150BC (10) London build settler, starts spear. Settler moves S towards York. other units move. Shaka now knows Iron working, but will not trade it. Mao has nothing.

Currently, at +2gpt, Writing in 18 turns. London is pumping out settlers spears for new cities. York is building barracks, ready in around 14 turns. Current 2 settlers I am sending sw & s of York to cut off Shaka from North and try and get land around river SW of Ulundi.

Here is Save.

 

[infoman]

I have started using the granary first policy on my other games I play and I see how well it works. I have a regent game where I am stuck on an island with Germany and I have the best half of the island settled and Germany is stuck with mainly jungle.

Thanks for that tip.

 

[smegged]

critique coming soon infoman.

Does nobody else want any critiquing? I gave you guys all weekend to get the game played and reports written, which should have been plenty of time. Is it that some of you aren't interested, or has it just been a very inconvenient time?

 

[Borealis]

I'm still waiting for the critique of my official turn. I figure you might be holding off on it until the others post their reports, but I'd like to see it.

 

[smegged]

Inherited turn - rearranged the tiles in London for max trade without sacrificing growth (I put the forest pop on the sea tile, and the road/grassland pop on the other sea tile). This takes our trade to 5/1/3 from 2/1/2.

2510 - york founded, granary started. London completes spearman, changed to settler. London changes one sea tile worker back to forest.

2470 - London grows and gets 10 sheilds per turn. This means the settler completes in 2 more turns.

2430 - nothing much, check diplomacy.

2390 - settler completes, I send it off with a spearman to the south-east.

2350 - move scouts and settler/spear combo. I'm heading to the grassland tile that won't overlap zimbabwe. I rearrange London again (forest -> sea, wheat -> sea (since it will grow in 1 turn anyway)).

2310 - move settler closer to target, work on moving my scout past china. Thanks to my micro from the last turn, the spearman will complete with no wasted sheilds, and we gained the most trade possible.

2270 - I rearrange London so that it will grow in 2 turns, and produce a settler in 4.

2230 - I discover that China is on the very bottom tip of the continent. They have nowhere to expand but north. I rearrange London so that it produces 9 sheilds per turn (will go up to 11 when it grows next turn). This will finish our settler in 2 turns.

2190 - Nottingham founded. Starts worker.

2150 - Settler completed, sent south-west.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/smegged-smegged-shadow2150bc.zip

 

[smegged]

I'm going out in a couple of minutes, but you'll get your critiques in a few hours . If anyone else could hurry their report in I'll critique that as well.

 

[voodoocat]

I've been mega busy lately. I have some time after work to play though. I should be able to post in a couple of hours.

 

[smegged]

You made a good start here infoman. Whenever you are in a succession game, it is ALWAYS good to check the situation that your civ is in before you press next turn. It gives you an indication of any possible happiness problems, any deals that may be about to expire etc...

However, after I left specific instructions on where to plant our second city, I'm a little bit surprised that you moved the settler/warrior combo. What was the logic behind this? The location I suggested fit snuggly with our capital, leaving no wasted tiles, was on fresh water and a hill, had more grassland in range and would allow faster irrigation of our capital. Moving one south leaves many wasted tiles that will either have to be claimed by a small half city that will corrupt our bigger cities, and it acheived no benefits. It will also always be fighting a culture war with Ulundi. Which is NOT a good idea when you are the English . Normally, I'd give this a mark, but since I specifically mentioned where to settle, I'll upgrade that to a mark.

A barracks at York is an interesting idea, but being a dry location, a granary is a better choice. ESPECIALLY in the spot you moved york to. In your location, without worker improvements, it will only ever reach size 2. A warrior then a worker would have been the best order for this site. What can wait should wait. A barracks can wait. It isn't like york has enough sheilds to start cranking millitary anyway.

London revolts

This is a phonomenally bad idea. Especially in the early game. A city that revolts is a city that is being unproductive. It isn't too hard to check each city (using f1) before you click "end turn". The only reason a city should result is if you have an unexpected loss of a luxury, or war weariness hits. Anything else is sloppy and costs turns. And in a turn based game, you can't afford a whole turn without production. It'd be like playing warcraft and stopping all your gold miners for a minute. From reading your report, the reason that this did happen was because you moved the spear out of London. Why you did this I have no idea. Could I have some clarification please?


You did identify a problem. We do need more workers. But we need land before workers. We can train some more workers out of future cities. For the moment we need land more than we need workers. But on noticing .

You also seem intent on getting all of our cities connected immediately. Now I would agree with that if we were industrious, or were in a war and needed a specific resource, but while our worker is building roads in neutral territory, our bonus grassland goes untouched back at London. Better to train workers elsewhere to build roads.

Good work on moving the scout past China. If there was more land to the south, or a bridge to another continent, this could have been a game winning move (well, not quite that drastic, but still a very good move).

I am shocked to see not one, but TWO settlers unescorted when there are barbs and zulu about. I remember a game on Monarch difficulty when I first started playing in which the zulu declared war and murdered an unescorted settler. It is not a great idea to do this ok . We have all the map info we need to make effective city placements, so we don't need to keep moving our spears around aimlessly.

Overall: C

count: 2, scout movement, identifying a worker problem
count: 4, barracks at york, unescorted settlers, London revolting, worker movements.
count: 1, York placement

I realise this may seem a little harsh, but you will improve. It just takes some time and practice .

 

[smegged]

Hey, what's a succession game without a dotmap!! I'd very much like it if everyone could pick up Borealis' last save and make one.

To make a dotmap, you simply turn grid on (ctrl+g), zoom out to the wider picture (z), press the "printscrn" button, alt+tab out to ms pain (which you already have opened), press ctrl+v (which will paste the screenshot). Save the screenshot, and then use the ms paint tools to draw pretty little circles where you think cities should go .

 

[voodoocat]

Here is my move. As with the first 20 turns on my last go around, I settled York in the same spot. I debated and figured that while we may lose the production of two mined gold hills, this was still the best choice for a city. Tried messing with the Tax settings and ended up with the same thing it was already set to. We got no boost in science (given the limited # of cities) and at least we will make money for now. I checked diplomacy with Zulu to find out he wanted two techs and 120 gp for Iron Working. It'll get cheaper.

2510 BC (01) - London builds spearman. Changed production to Settler. York founded. Production set to warrior.
2470 BC (02)
2430 BC (03) - Moved London production tile to bonus grassland.
2390 BC (04) - Worker starts road on bonus grassland
2350 BC (05) - London builds Settler. Production changed to spearman
2310 BC (06) - York builds warrior
2270 BC (07) - Worker finishes road, starts on road to york. Warrior loses battle to barbarian.
2230 BC (08)
2190 BC (09) - Barbarian warrior attacks york but loses.
2150 BC (10) - Addition to throne room. Found Nottingham, production switched to warrior.

 

[smegged]

A very solid turn here. I could not find any fault in it at all. Perhaps a little more intensive micromanagement would have helped, but I'm damn impressed.

Overall grade: A

count: 3, city locations, slider management, micromanagement
count: .5, your worker useage could have been a tiny bit better.

 

[infoman]

Smegged,
Thanks for the info. I moved York south one square to make sure I got at least one dye that would be in one of our city radius after growth, but I see it messed up York's growth like you said. I started barracks first because of proximity to Ulundi and wanted vet military against potental Zulu troops. I sent the settlers unprotected to grab land, but there are 2 spear close which will be fortified in the cities they would create. London revolting is a problem I am having even on regent level games I am playing. My capital which is pumping out spear/settler combo starts revolting before the settler is finished. I have raised luxes and that has helped for the earlier stes I build but sometimes on the later ones either I have to raise luxes again for hire an entertainer.

When it comes to land grabbing, I gues Iam a little aggressive when I see other civs close by. I will remember to have escorts in the future.

Like I said when I signed up, this is my firat monarch level game. i have been playing regent and warlord level before now and I realize Iam going to have to change my playing style for the increased difficulty.

 

[smegged]

I'm glad you are enjoying the critiquing infoman.

Some advice on how to not let your cities go into disorder. At the end of each movement phase, it is a good idea to press f1 and look at all of your cities. Usually a glance will tell if they are going to fall into revolt. If they are, and the city going into revolt is your capital, or one of your core cities, it is almost always beneficial to raise your lux tax. The only time there should be a specialist/entertainer in your capital is if you have already grown past size 20. Remember the key to city revolts is Prevention is Better Than Cure. It requires the same amount of effort to prevent a city revolting as it does to fix a city revolting.

Infoman: When I first started playing Civ II, I could not play above cheiftan difficulty. I slowly worked my way up the difficulty ranks, and eventually was able to beat king difficulty easily. Then I basically got Civ III. I found regent level too easy, and Monarch difficulty about where I was at. Since then, I have grown to master both Monarch and Emperor difficulty, and have beaten Deity more than once. I believe that I will be stepping up to only deity games soon.

Don't worry, you will get there eventually .

 

[voodoocat]

If anyone here wants to chat it up. Send me a message on AIM: voodoocat8 or ICQ: 43997444. It'd be nice to talk with other Civers.

 

[shdwlord]

ICQ: 43997444

that has too many numbers, mine is 302561

 

[smegged]

Hmmm, I was absolutely sure that I asked everyone to post dotmaps, but the server must have screwed up or something. Could I get everyone to post dotmaps please. Use Borealis' official turn.

I did not mean to pause the game for so long. And I'm really cut that my message didn't go through, even though I specifically remember posting it.

 

[voodoocat]

It's not too long... I've had it for 4 years now, I'll bet they're way longer now.

 

[Borealis]

Here's the dotmap from the end of my turn, with color coding as follows:

Orange= To be settled either immediately (with settler nearby), or with the next two settlers. We need to stop Shaka from blocking us from the main continent, and these sites are good city sites as well (coastal, river or luxury). One tile overlap with Ulundi for the incense city isn't bad, considering that Shaka isn't religious.

Pink= Our dream next wave of cities, whatever Shaka doesn't steal. He'll probably get the other Ivory city on the East coast, but at least one of the other two should be obtainable.

Blue= Overlap city once we have the others, to prevent Zulu expansion into our territory as well as take advantage of the plains/forests nearby.

Green= Once our land-grab competition with Shaka has slowed down, we can consider getting this city. The incense will automatically be assimilated into our boundaries by cultural expansion, and for a tundra fishing village, the food from the game forest is more valuable than incense on a hill. As London will be building settlers for a while, it'll have time for its borders to expand before it starts growing for good and needs the incense badly.

Everything after this phase is too far away to predict with the Zulu and Chinese presence on this continent. Unless we want to go to war with Shaka and raze some of his cities to make our replacements fit better, we're essentially stuck with leftovers due to Ulundi's position.

 

[Borealis]

Has this died? I'll post my shadow of voodoocat's turns as soon as smegged verifies that this SG is still going, and is ready for us to do so...