suomipeli

[sinimusta]

So here's my pre-play-plan. I think I'll play tomorrow at some point.

Tech: option tradewhore and music beeline.

Meant Eridu, the city with floodplain cottages. Don't whip the fish-gold city, it has no granary so whipping is not that efficient. Eridu is working unimproved tile already and will grow soon again. Look into borrowing cottage from capital too.

War: I plan to DoW asap. With a chop and working plain forest or a 2-pop I could get a spear in 2. (I would chop him.) Then start the march straight for cap. I intend to bombard. I usually always bombard when using siege stacks, only attack without bomb with mounted, is that something you often do Sampsa? Reinforcements will go for Djenne so we need actually two spears. Main stack might go for kumbi saleh after capitol (and when it's mostly healed). vults shall be promoted mostly to cr, but I'd like to get a medic so one should get combat and medic promo from battle. I might fight some battles unpromoted for promotion healing if they're +95%.

Builds: all cities build army, we need more cats, so main focus on them. Lag whip the gran, then vult. btw isn't the ideal gran whipping time when the bin is already half-full? Eridu: spear, finish vult, cat... Uruk: spear, cat...

Workers: chop like fiend. Though elephant camp shall be finished.

About future techpath: what about optics beeline after music? That way we would get earlier intercontinental tech trade and intel about ai progress.

 

[sampsa]

I did some test battles in world builder.

War: I plan to DoW asap. With a chop and working plain forest or a 2-pop I could get a spear in 2. (I would chop him.) Then start the march straight for cap. I intend to bombard. I usually always bombard when using siege stacks, only attack without bomb with mounted, is that something you often do Sampsa?

Otso, good testing, but there are some things I didn't perfectly understand.

Vs a walled city, a cat bombards only -4% per turn, so 6 cats bombard -24% per turn. Timbuktu has 60% so it's 2,5 turns of bombardment. In that time he will reinforce the city with some units. Only one extra skirmisher might be a bit optimistic? He might be able to move in more troops from other cities too. Or are we talking about one turn of bombardment (=attack against 36% defenses)?

Bombardment feels wasteful to me every time it takes more than one turn and attacking directly would win the city (but surely take some more losses). However, according to Otso's tests the losses would be too severe in this case.

Reinforcements will go for Djenne so we need actually two spears.

I am starting to see the good side in the original suggestion of attacking Djenne first. It would cut off his horse (right? check it if possible). The main point however would be that we wouldn't be in such a hurry to take Timbuktu so we could afford to bombard and move main attackers across river etc. Heal after Timbuktu of course, don't waste time healing in Djenne unless mandatory. Those two cities are critical for this war, others are small and won't contribute a lot for his troop production.

I'm ok either way, Djenne first or Timbuktu first.

Main stack might go for kumbi saleh after capitol (and when it's mostly healed). vults shall e promoted mostly to cr, but I'd like to get a medic so one should get combat and medic promo from battle. I might fight some battles unpromoted for promotion healing if they're +95%.

I like the medic-idea and I'm afraid the GG will come too late for this war to be used as a super-medic.

Builds: all cities build army, we need more cats, so main focus on them. Lag whip the gran, then vult. btw isn't the ideal gran whipping time when the bin is already half-full? Eridu: spear, finish vult, cat... Uruk: spear, cat...

Maybe just one spear if Djenne first, doesn't matter much though. Possibly try to get medic promo for the spear? Fish-gold city (Kish?) should work plains hill and stagnate at size 3 for now (or well, grow really slow with 1 surplus). Later the city will get a granary and a lighthouse of course and then the 4 tile is actually weaker than 21 or 22. With no granary 4 win.

On granary:

Please read this even if you think you understand granary perfectly, as it's easy to misunderstand some detail.

Whip when bar half full is a good rule. Whip before bar is half full is even better, but it's not perfect. It also depends on your food surplus.

Granary stores the food starting from the turn granary is built (not from the turn it is whipped ). The max size of granary is half of the current food bar size. Thus, we whip it, will be at size 1, food bar = 22 -> granary can store 11. So the get max benefit from it, we need to finish it so that we put at least 11 into the granary before hitting size 2.

Whipping it now would produce the following:
T91 9/22 +5 between the turns granary done and will store food starting from next turn!
T92 14/22 +5 (gran has 5)
T93 19/22 +5 (gran has 10) Growth! Overflow 2 and granary's 10 dumped into next food bar.
T94 12/24 +5 (gran has 5)
T95 17/24 +5 (gran has 10)

Whipping it next turn would produce the following:
T91 9/24 +5 (wins 1 from worked tile but might lose 1 as maintenance is higher!)
T92 14/22 +5 (gran whipped this turn)
T93 19/22 +5 (gran has 5) Growth! Overflow 2 and granary's 5 dumped into next food bar.
T94 7/24 +5 (gran has 5)
T95 12/24 +5 (gran has 10)

So in this case, whipping this turn wins 5 compared to whipping next turn. Whipping last turn (immediately after growing to size 2!) would have been 1 better even. I didn't use the game when generating these calculations, so apologies if there is a mistake somewhere.

Workers: chop like fiend. Though elephant camp shall be finished.

Since you are whipping a vulture at size 2, camp is unnecessary right now and chops/road 1NE of Lagash might be more beneficial.

Tech: option tradewhore and music beeline.

About future techpath: what about optics beeline after music? That way we would get earlier intercontinental tech trade and intel about ai progress.

I just realize that I made a mistake in this post:

How to get astro quickly? GS lightbulbs. How to bulb it? Avoid CoL and the bulb path is calendar-IW-compass-MC-machinery-optics-astro

It's not avoid CoL. It's avoid Civil Service! While it's a good tech unlocking a great civic, that civic is not that useful for us right now (no academy, only 2 cottages in capital) so I think going for optics-astro bulbs is very good. Philosophy will be added for that GS bulb-path I mentioned, but it's a good tech for us anyway.

So what I think we should do is to get some (at least 3) GS's for bulbing philo and 2xastro. Optics and machinery are ok to bulb too, though they cost only around 1000. If we use GS's for bulbing and not golden ages, MoM goes down in value. After music we can go calendar/compass/MC depending on the circumstances.

This brings me to the next question: what is our preferred victory condition? If domination/conquest/diplo I like astro beeline. If space, MoM might be too good to pass. I have never tried space in BtS btw.


Edit: Oh btw, if we try to get an early astronomy, the Great Lighthouse would be awesome. I guess we will be too late for it though.

@sinimusta: capturing workers during the war would do us much good. Use Sandels wisely.

 

[OtsoMaki]

Otso, good testing, but there are some things I didn't perfectly understand.

Vs a walled city, a cat bombards only -4% per turn, so 6 cats bombard -24% per turn. Timbuktu has 60% so it's 2,5 turns of bombardment. In that time he will reinforce the city with some units. Only one extra skirmisher might be a bit optimistic? He might be able to move in more troops from other cities too. Or are we talking about one turn of bombardment (=attack against 36% defenses)?

Bombardment feels wasteful to me every time it takes more than one turn and attacking directly would win the city (but surely take some more losses). However, according to Otso's tests the losses would be too severe in this case.

I did the test with 2x bombardment so that Timbuktu was left with 16% defensive bonus. At this point we cannot bombard with all Catapults, so attacking would be my choice. I did some more tests.

1x bombardment (Mansa has 4 skirm, axe, sword)
5 cats + Vulture
3 cats
4 cats
4 cats
3 cats
3 cats
2 cats + Vulture
3 cats + Vulture
3 cats
3 cats

3.6 Cats and 0.3 Vultures on average

2x bombardment (Mansa has 5 skirm, axe sword)
2 cats
1 cats
3 cats
3 cats
3 cats
2 cats
4 cats
3 cats
2 cats
6 cats + Vulture (really bad luck here)

2.9 Cats and 0.1 Vultures on average

Full bombardment (Mansa has 5 skirm, axe, sword)
4 cats
2 cats
2 cats
1 cat
1 cat
2 cats
5 cats
3 cats + Vulture
3 cats
1 cat

2.4 Cats and 0.1 Vultures on average

This brings me to the next question: what is our preferred victory condition? If domination/conquest/diplo I like astro beeline. If space, MoM might be too good to pass. I have never tried space in BtS btw.

I usually go for domination/conquest. Not a fan of intercontinental invasion but space is unbelievably tedious and the game is usually won long before you even start you spaceship when you are so much ahead.

Optics sounds good after music. We get more trade partners and knowledge about the rest of the map.

 

[sampsa]

I did some more tests.

Full bombardment (Mansa has 5 skirm, axe, sword)
2.4 Cats and 0.1 Vultures on average

Excellent (with Mr.Burns's voice).

Full bombardment sounds best (assuming this means on the 3rd turn 3 cats bombard and 3 cats attack). He might get more defenders, but they are subject to collateral anyway.

I usually go for domination/conquest. Not a fan of intercontinental invasion but space is unbelievably tedious and the game is usually won long before you even start you spaceship when you are so much ahead.

True.

 

[sampsa]

Oops, I can see from the results of "full bombardment" (5 lost cats in one case) that you meant spend 3 turns bombarding. If it's possible to lose 5 cats, then attacking with only 3 and then with vultures might be risky.

So maybe 2 turns or bombardment is the best choice.

 

[sinimusta]

Ok here's the start of our conquest. I took Djenne and Timbuktu and felt that was good time to stop so others get some warring as well .

I decided after all go Djenne first, we got a worker for that:

Spoiler :

I lost one cat taking Djenne and 3 taking Timbuktu. One vulture died trying to attack a sword in the open. Mansa had one chariot wandering which got behind our lines when I doWed so I bult a spear to deal with that.

I noticed that Mansa had settled on the horse so I departed some of our reinforcements into that direction.

Meant to take a couple of more screenshots about our war but noticed after playing that I clicked the wrong button.


Mansa has monarchy so we might want to extort that from him in a peace deal. GLH went to unkonwn civ during my turnset and we we're ranked as the most advanced civ in the world!

 

[sampsa]

Awesome!

I think we should stop building military, we have 11 cats + 14 vultures, certainly enough to take Mansa out. I think we should take all cities except Niani and then peace for 10 turns to get the stuff. This should take 7 turns and we shouldn't waste time healing if possible. Get Mono from Hat and switch to HR+OR the same turn.

Need to plan where we want our primary GP-farm (GLib+NE). We are really short on workers as we need to chop the GLib. First instinct is Timbuktu. Note that we don't have marble connected yet.

@sinimusta: I can see from the screenshot that you are not using BUG-mod. You should, it's great and makes playing even more enjoyable. I often take screenshots afterwards using autosaves. Make sure you have "AutoSaveInterval = 1" in CivilizationIV.ini.

 

[OtsoMaki]

Agree with sampsa. Leave Mansa with just Niani and take monarchy in peace deal.

I would start building workers from our original 4 cities. Then lighthouses/granaries in coastal cities. We are really short on them and Mansa's land is quite undeveloped. I understand that we have taken one worker from Mansa? Hopefully the rest of his workers are not in Niani.

My GP farm would also be Timbuktu. It has only 1 good food tile, but we can farm the grasslands and build loads of wonders with 11 forests and marble. Timbuktu would also be a decent cottage city, which is something we are missing. Our bpt isn't that impressive at the moment.

Tech now is Music which I agree. Are we going to skip CS to bulb astro? This would mean that we couldn't chain irrigate and build farms in Mansa's northern cities.

@sinimusta: I can see from the screenshot that you are not using BUG-mod. You should, it's great and makes playing even more enjoyable. I often take screenshots afterwards using autosaves. Make sure you have "AutoSaveInterval = 1" in CivilizationIV.ini.

You should also change the "MaxAutoSaves = 100" or some other large number so that you can have more than 5 autosaves at the same time.

 

[Robert FIN]

Good job! Mansa is so doomed ! I vote for taking Mansa off after getting Monarchy. Its not fair but what can he do? Mansa would have done it to us. I do JC's thumbs down move to sparing Mansa's life !!

 

[Jouzou]

Awesome!
This should take 7 turns and we shouldn't waste time healing if possible.

Not even for one turn? We have 14 vultures, yes, but only half of them are on the eastern front, where most of the action is going to be, and a couple of them are in pretty bad shape.

Anyway, here's a plan for my turnset:

Since sinimusta started the music beeline, no use backpedaling now, I suppose. Taking Monarchy from peace deal and trading for Mono sounds good to me. I'm also going to have one of the workers road the marble (after they're done with forest chopping), since we'll need it soon.

We'll most likely pop a Great General on my set. My initial thought is to make a scout supermedic. Attaching him to Sandels for a free upgrade might also work. Any other ideas?

As I said, I'd very much like to spend at least one turn healing in Timbuktu. Maybe even kill that sword sitting on the iron mine while I'm at it.

Lagash has two forest chops incoming. If we stop building military, what's the next best thing to invest those hammers in? That city could use a lighthouse and two chops would neatly finish that.

Uruk has a chop incoming as well plus a huge hammer overflow from previous turn. I was thinking of putting those towards Shwedagon Paya (for fail gold) and build a worker rest of the time.

Kish could use a granary + lighthouse as well. In fact, it already has hammers invested into a granary. Might as well make one before they decay.

Eridu really hasn't got the happiness to grow or good tiles to grow onto, so workers there too. Would build a settler for one of our city sites, but the economy looks pretty bad at the moment.

 

[sampsa]

Welcome to the game!

I insist on no healing. Our cats (have 6 ready to march) are not wounded which is the important thing, vultures with over 3 left are good enough to mop up. Also, they can heal 1T on Mansa territory if you choose to bombard before attacking. I am shocked if Mansa's weak northern cities have more than 3-4 defenders by the time we reach them. It doesn't matter much though as we have collateral. It also doesn't matter much if almost all our cats die.

Gao will likely need 3 attackers, so I'd move the archer 1S and next turn guard the city with a spear. (edit: ignore this, I didn't see there will be 3 vultures)

Btw, the reason why our bpt is weak is twofold. First this:

El capitano slightly overbuilt units imo, so now we have to suicide them.

Second is this:

no foreign trade routes, because Niani blocks our route to Hat. Taking the eastern city will open up them again.

I vote for Sandels supermedic (woodsman III-combat I-medic I-etc). Scout is ok too though.

On city builds - I would build workers in Uruk, Kish and Lagash. Whip Lagash if chops don't come soon enough. We need many to chop wonders and settlers on ex-Mansa territory. Kish granary (after vulture) and whip instantly when available, then lighthouse. I don't like Schwegodipedogi failgold a lot, as it might take a long while on emperor. NE failgold in capital is great though once marble is connected. We need to settle some more cities, so in case city is at full size (or needs to whip something) settler is a decent build. If the city needs to grow, wealth is never bad. I'm ok with putting some hammers to Scwedagon too, but just don't make it a priority to immediately useful builds. (edit: I'm ok with Lagash lighthouse-library, whip/chop and grow on coast building wealth)

It's crucial to start GLib-NE -thingy instantly as we will need them scientists. Also, as noted Timbuktu doesn't have much food and is still in revolt for a while, I'm changing my vote to build them in Djenne. Build is library(whip)-Glib(chops)-(granary?)-NE. There are only 5 forests, but with marble that is 300. Chops 3N and 3E of Djenne should go to Djenne too I suppose.

I'd go 100% research slider immediately. (edit: not sure on this, maybe should wait some turns. Look into it.)

 

[Jouzou]

All right, no healing. I'll march up next to the city and see how many defenders there are, then make my decision. Will one PRO archer have odds against attacking sword with no culture defense? Also, Making a supermedic will unlock Heroic Epic, but we probably won't need it right now, seeing that we have too many units as it is.

Is it okay if I play tomorrow? I'll be going to bar in a moment and CUI (Civving Under the Influences) is probably not the best idea.

 

[sampsa]

Will one PRO archer have odds against attacking sword with no culture defense?

After you have attacked with catapults, yes. Catapult damage is capped at 75% and since we seem to have enough of them a sword is likely to have 1,5 left. If bombarding causes you to attack 1 turn later, I vote for attacking without bombardment.

Also, Making a supermedic will unlock Heroic Epic, but we probably won't need it right now, seeing that we have too many units as it is.

True, it will help when we start the war vs Hat (should be at least 30 turns from now).

Is it okay if I play tomorrow? I'll be going to bar in a moment

Excellent choice, mate.

 

[sinimusta]

@sinimusta: I can see from the screenshot that you are not using BUG-mod. You should, it's great and makes playing even more enjoyable. I often take screenshots afterwards using autosaves. Make sure you have "AutoSaveInterval = 1" in CivilizationIV.ini.

Ok. I do have BUFFY-mod but it works only if you started the game with that. BUG is similar to that? Does BUG work when playing online with friends that don't have it?

What are we going to do diplomatically after the war? I thought the plan was to keep Hatty as a trade partner at least until we get optics and intercontinental tech trade. We do have land to backfill too. But if we plan to war with hatty soon then me overbuilding units isn't perhaps that bad .

If we're going to be generating a lot of gp:s could this be one of the rare instances that Schwedagon is worth it to get pacifism? If we fail it the failgold is good too.

 

[sampsa]

Ok. I do have BUFFY-mod but it works only if you started the game with that. BUG is similar to that? Does BUG work when playing online with friends that don't have it?

From what I recall BUG doesn't work in MP. So I guess you should install BUG as a mod, not in the custom assets which makes it automatically load when you start the game.

What are we going to do diplomatically after the war? I thought the plan was to keep Hatty as a trade partner at least until we get optics and intercontinental tech trade. We do have land to backfill too. But if we plan to war with hatty soon then me overbuilding units isn't perhaps that bad .

My thinking is to attack soon after astro.

If we're going to be generating a lot of gp:s could this be one of the rare instances that Schwedagon is worth it to get pacifism? If we fail it the failgold is good too.

I think you are right, we need a lot of GS:s rather quickly, as otherwise the path to optics-astro is very slow. Now that we have CoL (and meditation!), GS will bulb philo on the way towards astro so Schwedagon seems useless to me. Parthenon on the other hand might be worth it.

Btw, our scouting has not been perfect. There is a small chance that we could meet someone pre-optics or even have connection to someone via islands. In that case going optics-astro is a waste of several GS:s. Getting a sentry chariot out to clear all the fog in the NE and SW would be cool.

 

[Jouzou]

I'll say, that was an eventful turnset.

Spoiler :

t 103:
- Took down Gao's defenses and moved vultures into position. Gao gets another skirmisher.
- Mansa's swordman attacks Timbuktu and kills a vulture. I kill the sword in return with spear.
- Archer stays behind to guard Timbuktu. Rest of the stack moves towards Kumbi Saleh.

t 104:
- Gao gets another skirmisher. I move two additional attackers into position. I also leave a lone catapult in the open as bait.
- A chariot out of Niani harasses our worker. I kill it with a vulture at 79% odds. GG is born.
- March towards Kumbi Saleh Continues.

t 105:
- Gao gets yet another skirmisher! Looks like he didn't whip or anything, so he must be pulling these out of his ass. I decide to attack. Mansa doesn't take the bait.
- 2/3 cats get a withdrawal. 4/5 attackers win. A single skirmisher is alive at 1 hp.
- Move in on Kumbi Saleh. 2 skirms and an axe inside the city. One axe in the forest that can get back because I cut him off. 3 workers within Sandels's reach if they don't move!

t 106:
- And another skirmisher in Gao. This time it looks like he whipped it. I suicide the cats, move the main force to attack and:

Another city joins the glorious Sumerian Empire.

- In Kumbi Saleh, I bombard with 3 cats and attack with 2. Both withdraw! A couple of attacks later:

Beautiful.

- Captured three workers. Let's see if we can hold onto them.

t 107:
- Mansa's Axe attacks Timbuktu at 54% odds and wins. Figures.
- Main stack begins march towards eastern city.

t 108:
- Timbuktu is out of revolt
- Hatty's archer came from the tundra wounded. Possible barb action down there.

t 109:
- Kumbi Saleh and Gao are out of their revolts.
- Stolen workers are safely in our territory
- We finally have a visual on Walata. Only 2 skirmishers there.

t 110:
- Bombarding Walata. Waiting a turn before the attack.

t 111:
- Walata falls:

- And so we take this deal:

- I sell our excess cows to Hatty for 1 gpt.
- I finally start putting beakers toward music
- Wine is instantly connected for happy faces.

t 112:
- I swing this trade:

and flip into HR + OR.

It's now turn 113. Great general is still in the capital. Since the war was almost over, I figured we can make a decision regarding him later. 8 turns to music. Hatty has drama so theoretically she could beat us to it.

NE has been fake-built in the cap. There's a barb archer next to our warrior in the south. Our guy is fortified in a forest so he should have 50-50 odds. Hatty's borders are going to be a pain in the newly-acquired cities.

 

[OtsoMaki]

Great work Jouzou. I will take a look and probably post a plan today.

 

[OtsoMaki]

Here is my initial plan.

I am going to play until we reach music with 100 % beakers. Hopefully we will be first to that.

We have not started the GL anywhere yet so I will try to build it in Timbuktu. We have loads of workers and forests there so I am confident that the wonder will be ours. My build order in Timbuktu after finishing Ziggurat next turn would be Library->GL->NE->Granary->Shwedagon Paya. The other question is farms or cottages in Timbuktu?

Uruk will build a missionaries after the Temple so that we can get the OR bonus quickly to Timbuktu and other cities. Uruk and Eridu are currently lacking good tiles to grow. Our Workers are required more in the east so I might build a worker in Eridu after growing to size 6.

Lagash can build the Ziggurat and grow slowly on to the coast tiles while building a library.

Kish has gold and foreign trade routes so a library would be in order after the lighthouse.

Kumbi Saleh is lacking food so I would let it grow to size 2 and work Copper and PH and build wealth/wonder for failgold.

Walata is pressed by hatty culture, so it can only work clams/coast and build Granary->lighthouse.

Should we start settling towards the south or wait about 10 turns when we can spare little more workers there? The prime spot would be 3S1E from Lagash which has dry Corn, Clams and green riverside tiles. The two Vultures near Uruk will hopefully cleanse the south of barbarians.

I will spread around the forces currently in Walata to balance happiness and scout Hatty's land. She has six cities but we can only see three.

If no one has begged Hatty for gold since my last turn, I will also do that.

 

[sampsa]

Good job with the war, Jouzou!

I'm not liking the fact that GLib is not started yet though. We won't miss it, but we are losing valuable -points by not building it asap. Temple in capital is not a great choice either as we are not lacking happiness. For example monastery is better, wealth too. In other cities, creative library (45) > ziggurat (90) at this point imo.

@OtsoMaki: I'd trade currency+ for drama to speed up Music. We need to take whatever we get from Hatty and speed up her research too to get more trades. OK with GLib in Timbuktu. Don't ever build cottages (at least this late!) in NE city, just some farms to get more food. Missionaries to spread Judaism everywhere certainly.

I'd like to settle new cities too, but most important now is to setup the empire so that we can start the golden age and switch to caste+pacifism (so all the big cities need religion for +100%). I think we should run scientists in at least 3 cities during the GA (optimally not the capital due to GP-pollution). Choose ones with food and grow them big. We need one GS to bulb Philo before we can start the golden age and I suppose that will come from GLib-NE-site, another reason to hurry with it.

Edit: attack Mansa again immediately when peace expires, have settler ready and settle 1N (for example) of Niani. Let another city build a work boat.

 

[OtsoMaki]

I will trade Currency+Cash for Drama with Hatty.

Yeah farms for Timbuktu is the way to go. My choices for GP farm cities during the GA would be Timbuktu, Djenne (Pig, Lighthouse lake and grasslands farm borrowed from Gao) and Eridu (can work 2 scientists starting next turn). Not a big fan of starving Uruk during the GA as it is lacking high food tiles.

Should we use the GG to get a level 4 supermedic and unlock the HE? I would build the HE in Uruk as it has high production.

Edit: sampsa is playing after me. Were you thinking about eliminating Mansa on your turnset? If you are, I will move some of our forces close to Niani. We should build a Settler before attacking since we are going to raze the city and Hatty will probably rush for the spot immidiately after that.