*SPOILER1* Gotm16-Rome - 10AD+Full Landmass

[hbdragon88]

How did you get an army? Wasn't that a bug that was fixed with goody huts popping armies?

 

[Ronald]

4000 BC found Rome, research writing (20%)
3450 BC saw squid
3250 BC open hut: ceremonial burial; open hut: pottery
3100 BC contact with Japan; trade alphabet for bronze working + 25 gold and warrior
code for 35 gold
2850 BC found city of Veji
2800 BC contact with America: buy worker for 28gold
2150 BC destroy barbarian camp: 25
2110 BC research writing; trade writing with America for contact with Germany, iron
working, masonry and 27 gold; trade alphabet and masonry for the wheel and
21 gold with Germany;
1990 BC found city of Antium and city of Cumae
1950 BC trade writing for 2 workers and 15 gold with Japan
1790 BC trade writing for mysticism with Germany
1625 BC connect iron; upgrade 9 warrior to legion (this SOD will destroy Japan!)
1425 BC declare war to Japan
1400 BC Our legions win first battle: golden age for Rome; Tokyo liberated
1250 BC Liberated Kyoto with heavy losses
1125 BC destroyed Osaka; made peace with Japan for the cities of Satsuma and
Kagoshima, Horseback riding and mapmaking
1050 BC build city of Pisae
1000 BC research literature
630 BC Start war against Americans, built Great Library
610 BC English are building the Great Lighthouse
590 BC Capture Washington, get Great Leader, build FP in Washington
310 BC English are landing on our continent and are building the city of Dover.

The Great Library pays of, I get a number of free techs

 

[drewshark]

@ronald
Looks like a very similar map to myself, though I did not get FP built by this thread. I'm curious to see how we both progress with little culture (I'm guessing it is similar though I don't gave GL either). I'm starting to see how the Roman Empire may have gotten a bit thin

 

[Man of Kent]

Developing cities in the early part of the game seemed slow. I left research at a very low level at the start. Produced warriors that I sent out to find what was around and I discovered I had the Japanese, Americans and Germans as close neighbours. By 470 BC I had most of the island identified and had traded advances with all other known civs. However they still remain at least one advance in front of me.

I had built up my warriors and once I had researched Iron working it is my intention to clear the island by first attacking the Japanese and then to move up towards America and Germany.

In 310BC the Japanese had 5 cities the Americans 13 and the Germans 12. I had 14 cities and decided that the time had arrived to start taking control of the island and remove the other civs before they became to big or advanced for me to do anything about. Therefore I declared war on Japan, destroyed Kagoshima in 290BC and took Osaka in 130BC and Tokyo in110BC.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by Ambiorix
I've been running a couple of experiments concerning the deer-tile. Some people irrigated it, others didn't, and I was wondering what was the best in the context of making Rome a settler-factory. I'll just give the executive summary here, and provide more explanation tomorrow (I need some sleep - yeah, I know it's for the weak...).

I've done two experiments : one without irrigation and one with irrigation. Both ran up till 1870BC, since that seemed to be a good comparison point.

Without irrigaion :
settlers were produced at 2590BC, 2350BC and 1870BC (turn 30, 36 and 48 respectively), with a spearman in between at 2110BC (turn 42). I'm not counting two early warriors. In 1870 all tiles that mattered (game, bonus grassland, wine hill) were fully developed to 2.2.2-tiles.

With irrigation :
settlers were produced at 2510BC, 2230BC and 1990BC (turn 32, 39 and 45 respectively), with a spearman coming up (one turn to go). The last tile has just been improved (so we have 4.0.2, 2.2.2, 2.2.2), so the settlers that will be produced next might be produced quicker than their counterparts in the first experiment, but that doesn't really matter any more at this stage, since the settling-location of the first three settlers already has much more impact in the gameplay.

So the difference isn't really in the speed of getting settlers out, but rather that the irrigated deer allows Rome to stay much bigger over time. Without irrigating the deer, Rome swaps from 3 to 1 each time when producing a settler, while the irrigated deer allows Rome to grow to 5 and then fall back to 3, meaning more tiles stay worked upon. The main benefit of this is higher income, meaning more science or fuller treasury.

I have an excel file that goes in full detail. I tried to keep track of the total number of power points (gold, food, shields) that was produced in each experiment, but there may be mistakes in it : I had to deal with fuzzy topics such as order of AI computation, research cost, and impact of trading. If anyone wants to correct it - please do.

One more thing : you may be able to speed experiment 2 up still, if you get pottery from the Japanese and bronze working from the Americans, but to do that you'd need to have sent your first warrior straight north without sightseeing around Rome - not very likely, I think.


Okay, here's the file. More tomorrow.

I didn't build a second early worker like Ribannah did. I did build a granary first and irrigate the deer. Rome built settlers at:
2590 BC
2390 BC
2030 BC
To start off I built 4 warriors (first one went north, 2nd fortied in Rome, 3rd went west, 4th went east), granary, settler, settler, settler.... I mined first, then roaded the bonus grassland by the game. Then my worker went to the bonus grassland near the the wine and roaded, then mined (I wouldn't benefit from the mine until I got both mine and road done anyways, so might as well have a warrior benefit from the extra movement). Then my worker went to clear the forest. The 10 shields from the forest wasn't added to the granary, but was added onto my second settler (during the whole time I was at size 3 finishing the granary and building the first settler I was using 3 tiles that all had 2-shields). I built a city right on a wine (2 tiles from Rome), and with the road on the bonus grassland, that connected my luxury up.

Although in your test there may not be a big difference in how long it takes to produce the first 3 settlers by either irrigating or mining the game, the difference would show up more dramatically later on. Because you had built up population by building the granary, your shield output is high so it keeps up with the irrigation temporarily, but eventually since the shield output is higher than the food production your population will drop and you'll have to build something else just to let your population go back up again. Irrigating the game would be more beneficial long-term.

One thing to note is that at +4 food with a granary, the city is 'wasting' 2 food every 3 turns, because it produces 12 food and only needed 10. You could every 3 turns take the citizen off of that tile and work another 2 food/1 or 2 shield tile to pick up an extra shield or two, which may prevent some shield wastage, or allow you to build your settlers a turn sooner. And of course another city could pick up that tile during that turn to increase that cities growth. I had a city by the cow use this before the cow got irrigated and was able to build a worker first instead of warrior then worker. I see I could have had that city using both the cow and every third turn use the deer and basically be getting the benefits of a granary for free by doing micromanaging (2 turns at +4 food, then 1 turn at +6 food). Rome with the granary and the other city together could produce a settler probably about every 4 turns, the second city would have a little trouble getting the shield production.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Well, onto my game... I got a late start and will probably not get my game done until the deadline, if I'm lucky.

I was off to a slower start than last month (in terms of cities and workers), at 1000 BC., but by 10 AD I was ahead. At 10 A.D. I'm ahead in cities and workers, but I'm sure I am behind in territory size. I'm packing them even closer this month . At 250 A.D I had a tile/city ratio of 7.06.

I focused more on military earlier on this month. After getting the granary in Rome and a worker factory by the cow (worker every 5 turns with no granary). I quickly got two other cities to be able to produce a warrior every 2 turns (joined a worker into 1 city, then had it working 2 forests so it was up to 5 shields/turn at size 3). After sending some of the warriors to cities for military police, I sent a bunch of them at Tokyo. I didn't actually attack the cities (because they had spearman), but fortified on the mountain tops waiting for opportunities to attack (I would attack archers and warriors, preferably when they were on grassland). Got a leader, signed peace and rushed the Pyramids at 1150 B.C.

1000 B.C.- 11 cities 10 workers and have 12 veteran legionaires and an elite warrior knocking on Tokyo's door.

510 B.C.- 24 cities, 19 workers.
10 A.D. - 60 cities, 55 workers.
250 A.D.- 84 cities, 94 workers (7 settlers in transit). Japan is dead, America is down to a settler on a boat, and I am in the process of upgrading some horsemen to knights and start on Germany.

I've had 3 leaders so far. Pyramids, then Forbidden Palace, then on my 3rd leader, I was stuck deciding between Great Library or Hanging Gardens. I took Hanging Gardens. Not sure if that was the right choice, but it was good for score. My way of thinking was that with 84 cities, that's 84 more content people!

 

[Phillip_martin]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy

One thing to note is that at +4 food with a granary, the city is 'wasting' 2 food every 3 turns, because it produces 12 food and only needed 10. You could every 3 turns take the citizen off of that tile and work another 2 food/1 or 2 shield tile to pick up an extra shield or two, which may prevent some shield wastage, or allow you to build your settlers a turn sooner.

This attention to detail is one of the reasons I will never move into a top 10 place

250 A.D.- 84 cities, 94 workers (7 settlers in transit). Japan is dead, America is down to a settler on a boat, and I am in the process of upgrading some horsemen to knights and start on Germany.

Would I be wrong in sensing a rather dense build here

 

[Justus II]

I also built a second city by the cow, and used the deer on every third turn (when I remembered, I know I forgot at least twice). It built workers and a couple of extra settlers to finish out my early expansion.

 

[Yndy]

Originally posted by Justus II
I also built a second city by the cow, and used the deer on every third turn (when I remembered, I know I forgot at least twice). It built workers and a couple of extra settlers to finish out my early expansion.

I did the same in GOTM 15 where I had Moscow on +6 per turn and should have switched one irrigated deer between Moscow and Kiev every three turns or so to keep optimal food production. I forgot to at least 6 times.

 

[ControlFreak]

In another thread I sort of kidded Bamspeedy about the level of detail in thought process regarding micromanagement but my question is sincere:

JusticeII & Bamspeedy & Yndy - do you guys think about this tile swapping capability before you plant the city? How do you go about planning for this? Is the thought process that the deer tile is a powerful square and should be available to two cities. Or is it more detailed than that like with the square cleared/irrigated/roaded it'll be four food plus the cow is another #food... add it up and I'll have 2 wasted food every fifth turn...need to be able to have that tile used by another city during that turn.

I usually end up planting a town so it can grab as many bonuses as possible but then don't really start thinking about how I'll use all of those bonuses until I popup the city view. It's a very reactive strategy that sometimes prevents me from having the ability to tile swap for maximum advantage. If you plan all this out before you found your city, that is a much more proactive approach and would allow the optimal usage of the tiles.

If you are that proactive (like I think you are) do you have all the food/sheild values memorized or do you have a table you have to work off of? (I'd like that table if thats the case. Actually, I'm just being lazy. I should make the table.)

{end of rambling}

EDIT: added Yndy to name list. Must have posted while I was writing.

 

[Justus II]

I do plan like that for my first city definitely, or the second if it is the prime food prodocer, and sometimes for the first 3-4. I usually try to get a screenshot of the starting location and plan for a day before I actually start playing. (Thats why I love this new concept for GOTM17, actually get the snapshot 3 days in advance!!). Sometimes I will even run a spreadsheet to look at the advantages of different options (mine/irrigate, granary/settler first, etc). This is all part of my planning for an initial strategy. Once the game is in progress, however, I don't usually spend as much time, it is more intuitive at that point, or I will focus on specific cities for a period when they are on an important project (wonders, settlers, etc). As for the values, I have most of them memorized by now, but I still refer to crackers terrain power chart frequently, it is in his Opening Play strategy article. I printed it out and use it as a reference (especially late at night, my planning isn't always so clear after midnight).

Here is a link to the strategy article:Cracker's Opening Play Sequences Article

 

[Bamspeedy]

Control Freak- No, I don't plan ahead and decide that I should build cities so that they could share certain tiles. With my dense build, though, I probably had 3 or 4 cities that could use that tile. If Rome didn't have a granary, then you wouldn't want to do this tile swapping since you need 20 food and +4 food is nicely divided by this with no wastage. If rome had been at +3 food with no granary, then it wouldn't be worth it to micromanage to get 1 extra food every 7 turns. With a granary, though you could spend 2 turns at +3, then 2 turns at +2, letting another city be at +3 for those two turns, boosting it's growth by about 20%.

I think there were many people who all built the city by the cow in the exact same spot, because there was only one place to build to get the cow in your borders (without needing culture) and still be on the river. So all of these people could have done this micromanagement.

Needless to say right after 1000 B.C. I turned on the governors in all cities except the capital. When I got to Monarchy, those +4 food tiles become +5 food and can build settlers every 4 turns.

 

[Cheuk in Seoul]

I never was able to gather enough strength to wipe out the Japanese and kept getting further and further behind in the Tech race. Nearly last in population and science with the aggressive Japanese samuris on my border, things were looking bad. So I kept playing the Japaneses and the Americans off of each other to take a city or two and a Technology during each of the War / Peace cycles.

Now I'm just a few techs behind and I have the largest land area and 2nd in population, but everyone hates me. Once I have built a large enough army, I'm going to make another run at wiping out the Japanese. Never was much of a diplomat.

 

[Yndy]

@ ControlFreak

You already had your answers but i'll repeat them. I play by intuition but have a dense build and I can swap tiles between cities.
In addition when there is an important bonus resource nearby I try to place cities around it so that 2 or even 3 cities get to it. This may be usefull later as one town is fully developed, another picks the strong tile, or one towns grows fast and needs and aqeuduct so while it is built i use the bonus tile fro another less developed city.