ThyGuy's FAIL Game - Monarch

[TheMeInTeam]

Start ----> Finish (1950 AD space)

I deliberately did something silly in this game because it's on monarch, but the opening, at least, was serious.

Spoiler :

Now, an explanation. First of all, settle in place is obvious. We are CHA and have numerous wonder boosting resources. We can get horse, but our only target is 1) reasonably far and 2) protective. If we kill him we can also not use him for trading purposes. But wait! He's toku! He's useless for that! Well, not if you gift him a city for +5 pleased. A city with almost 100% desert or water tiles.

I also saw that with no EP on tokugaidiot, it was probably just us. That = religion oracle, so I got that done. Mids was reasonably late around 650 BC, failure cash would have been fine. Parth/Glib completed in the BCs, long before their typical monarch times.

The basic read on this map is a combination of subpar land and wonder resources. The leans very hard towards wonders unless you want to try to go immortals vs PRO archers. That would probably be a W, but not an easy one.

As for toku, an interesting fact is that on this particular map, if you settle the clam site (claims iron), HE CAN'T DECLARE EVEN IF HE HATES YOU. Why is this? The AI is required to have 2 kinds of AI_Offensive units before it will consider war. Toku has no copper, no iron, no horse if you settle that one city (which is a reasonably logical block). This meant he was basically impossible to DoW until cat/phant. After that, he was long since pleased. While he can declare there, with his 3 OK cities and 2 epic awful ones, and the fact that I could see into the ones near me, I just kept an eye and generally didn't worry.

So after wonder tech whoring, I went civil service (I did bother to build 4 cottages in the capitol and 2 elsewhere), then shot out to astro while settling all specs but a gsci for academy. This easily outstripped the AI pace, and I won lib + circumnavigation. The AIs on the other continents had a heavy religion split and hated each other. Toku would remain pleased if I stayed FR...this kept me out of wars all game, though hammy did land on my land long enough to cap toku w/o taking a city . At least that meant a toku DoW was impossible.

One other perk for astro was that I found the land to the south first. After lib (nationalism for taj mahal civic swap using marble), I went straight to communism. The new cities went culture ----> granary/forge and shop/mill spam. They became hammer powerful cities very quickly. Later I added factory/coal plant and the minimal health required to keep them on their land tiles. I continued out to a slow space (AI hate in this game was very high and I basically couldn't trade for ANYTHING useful late-game...basically I traded for steel and that was it in renaissance or later!!!). Those island cities accounted for 3/4 of my space parts after I built apollo. Since I went settled specs in capitol, it was my best site and the really heavy hitter stuff (docking bay and engine) were built there. Other than that, only one thruster and the one that comes from ecology were built in my original land.

So I played this start to finish w/o a single war. If I wanted, I could have blasted the entire world to pieces with infantry long before anyone could touch it, but I felt it more of a slap in the face to the AI to win 100% peacefully with this start .

 

[Trystero]

The Self Annotated Games of Bobby Fischer, Volume I.



Some moves just don't require a lot of thought.

Thanks! ... I think

Let me dissuade you of the notion that I am Bobby Fisher. I assure you, I often play 1 e4 and lose. But, yes I was largely being explicit about the assumptions I was making.

Outstanding to this point. You dismissed the not "horses nearby" branch of the decision tree, but no foul there - you can revise at turn 12 as necessary. I'd expect a footnote on Stonehenge here - yes/no/not enough information.

Well, the nice thing about having pigs in the BFC here is that even if there are no horses nearby, it would still be worthwhile researching initially. And if there were no horse nearby, I would probably then move BW up in priority (AH > Mining > BW), if not to rush a neighbor, then at least to identify where copper was (if it is present) when planning my 2nd city location, and allowing for chopping and whipping (although when to revolt to Slavery would depend on more information than is presently available).

Stonehenge: At lower difficulties I often prioritized it, but I have been trying to ween myself of wonders addiction in the early game, given that they can be a substantial drain on relatively scare early hammers. Given that my stated strategy is focusing on early expansion however, the instant monuments would be highly advantageous, so yes I would go for Stonehenge here. If I was beaten to it, I could use the failure money to run the research slider higher for longer. And given that what ThyGuy's exposed of the map so far allows for a sheep/horse/stone city, well...

Good. In the micro-plan, you might want to calculate whether you discover mining "soon enough".

Yes. My initial assessment was without the benefit of too much planning, and I'm still learning to micro, and be cognoscente of things like wasted Worker turns in the early game. At Prince and below you can get away with that a lot more.

Why four? How many warriors is that? How many turns is that?

See above, but TBH "pop 4 before building a Settler" is one of those "rules" I've picked up from reading the boards. Granted, that is not a good reason for proceeding that way in this particular case, but as I said, I need to sit and work that out before I commit to when I would start the settler (with consideration to things like what tiles I work if I built the settler at size 3, vs size 4 and which would actually lead the Settler faster, for example).

Good on chores. I'm hoping that isn't in priority order (remember, you are CHA - you can go one level more before unrest pops the happy cap).

No, that wasn't a priority order. Again, I haven't micro'ed it, but c > b > a seems more rational.

Solid A for this analysis. Given the gold tile, I'd like to see deeper thought on the tech tree, and the implications of the higher commerce rate you'll see here.

OK, I will try to do that and post it here at some point. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[lymond]

I immediately thought about mining when I saw gold, and decided it would give a generous boost to my research early in the game. I knew this would make the capital grow slower, but also concluded the capital didn't need to grow very fast yet until I get pottery to cottage those grasslands and the floodplain. I don't see farming them since I will have ample extra food once I get the pigs pastured, and down the road to biology; those plains will make capping the capital at 20 very easy.

Food should always be a priority. Mining would come next and you would grow fast to not only work the gold but continue growing. Hypothetically, you might plant some other city next to gold or silver and work it immediately for a while, but the caps gotta grow. The cap has to many important things to do early game to stall on a gold mine starting out.

Right now with my craptastic land, and this ginormous desert to the southeast; I don't expect to win. I don't believe I'll stand a chance.

Spoiler :

This game is VERY winnable

 

[happyturtle]

I played through Turn 19 (3240 BC). Any feedback gratefully appreciated!

Spoiler :

T0 - Check settings, change player name, move scout to the gold hill.

Realize it's almost 4am so decide to wait till tomorrow before settling.



Oh hey! It's tomorrow. Settle in place, start with a worker since I already have the tech for him to farm, and research Animal Husbandry. I pick AH because of the pigs and because I want horsies.


After AH, I will go for mining > BW, regardless of whether there are horses. I'll want mining for the gold, which helps research, and BW for the chops and for copper. I want to immortal rush a neighbor if I can, otherwise, axe rush. If there are no horses or copper, I will make a sad face and give up the plans for warring before catapults.

If warring is off the table, then perhaps settling the coast and building the economy will be a good strategy.

T5: The hut is taken with the border pop, giving me fishing. Yay!

T8: Meet Toku archer to the south. Buddhism is founded. Another goody hut gives gold.

T10: AH achieved. No horses in sight. A great desert to the south. And I am amused to see that I have stone, marble, gold, and ivory when I'm not planning on wonder whoring.

T11: OMG PONIES!!!!!11!!!!1!!eleventy!!!!!

Spoiler :

T12: Worker is finished, so I send him to bring home the bacon. Start a warrior. After warrior will be a settler.

T16: Hinduism is founded.

T17: Mining is finished. On to BW.

T19: Lose my scout to a lion. The warrior is finished, but instead of building the settler like I had planned, I make another scout first. He'll be done in five turns, which is how long it will take to grow the city to Pop 3. I send the warrior to spawnbust towards the horse site, probably at the hill 1NW of the stone.

I decide to pause here, dot map a bit, and report:

Spoiler :

White Dot: 2nd city site, gives me horses in the first ring, sheep and a lake for food, plus the coast.

Green Dot: Fish and Sheep for food, lots of water tiles. Maori statues? Tundra tiles suck, but not too bad a site.

Yellow Dot: Not a great city. Would like to get the ivory and sheep, but no way to do that without moving off the coast and getting a bunch of desert.

Blue Dot: Not a great city either.

I didn't try dot mapping out any of the land to the west since it hasn't been scouted well enough.



Goals:

1. Settle White Dot and hook up the horses.

2. Finish BW, as copper will affect future city plans.

3. Scout the land to the west, then the south. Results will determine which direction I expand into.

4. Research Wheel, then Sailing. I'll need lighthouses for a coastal empire.

5. Start pumping out Immortals.

If I'm alone to the west, I'll probably settle at least one city to the south while I search for Toku's lands and plot a rush. Barring any changes from Copper, Yellow Dot is more attractive than Blue Dot because of Sheep being in the first circle. Monuments are not going to be an early priority. Toku's cities might be too far away to keep, which means conquering them for gold, exp, and GG points.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Stonehenge: At lower difficulties I often prioritized it, but I have been trying to ween myself of wonders addiction in the early game, given that they can be a substantial drain on relatively scare early hammers. Given that my stated strategy is focusing on early expansion however, the instant monuments would be highly advantageous, so yes I would go for Stonehenge here.

You probably need to give more consideration to time. 120 is nearly a city (it's a settler and a garrison, but you're still short a worker), which means that if you are REXing, you are almost a full city behind in your production cycle. Which is fine if your expansion is uncontested, less good if you are in a race.

Also, there's the question of whether a Prophet as your first GP fits into your plans at all - with the Gold, I think you really want a scientist first.

See above, but TBH "pop 4 before building a Settler" is one of those "rules" I've picked up from reading the boards.

You've got 3 1/2 good tiles (Pigs/Gold/Marble + Floodplain); you need 4 citizens to work them. That's not a particularly robust answer - a riverside grassland mine is almost as good as an improved floodplain - but it puts the rule of thumb on firmer footing.

Also, you can look at the hammer count
2 - city tile
1 - pastured pigs
3 - mined gold
5 - mined marble (eventually a quarry)
--
11 (with 7 food)

Producing a setter?
17 = 11 + 1 + 5 (trait bonus)

We really want an even number of hammers, without starving. If we can add a 1/3 grassland mine to the mix, we get

21 = 14 + 0 + 7 (trait bonus)

Which is 5 turns instead of 6 for getting the first settler out, and 10 turns instead of 12 for pushing out two in a row.

Of course, that 4th citizen doesn't come for free - you need to invest 26 food. Which means switching from the marble hill to a food tile. Pigs and Gold together are +3, so that's 8 turns + 2 food if you work a food neutral tile, 6 turns + 2 food working the floodplain, 5 turns + 1 food if the floodplain is farmed.

Hmm - starting to sound like an argument for training settlers at pop 3? Which requires fewer worker turns to set up - more time for chopping. And if you're going to stall at size 3, you may be able to trade food for hammers sooner...

In broad terms, there's a speed vs efficiency tradeoff to be made. The execution of that tradeoff is really about which unimproved tiles you work - if you have time to get in one more growth cycle, you probably want to emphasize food, but if you don't have time, you'd probably prefer hammers (or a mix - the main point being that 15 food in the bar isn't as useful as an extra warrior).

 

[ThyGuy]

*****

 

[huerfanista]

Thru 1848AD:

Spoiler :

SIP, obviously. Standard Persian opening: AH, wheel, mining, BW. The scouting warrior popped archery from a hut, and I went "bleh, why couldn't he have popped something useful?" The next hut popped HBR, and I thought, "hmm, not so bad after all."

I think you can see where this one went. Immortals vs pro archers isn't so great, HAs are a bit better. He only had 1 city on a hill, so I didn't lose many of them. Got 'henge after the settler for the horse city and a 2nd worker were out. Got failure gold from ToA and oracle once Tiku was gone. Built the 'mids, GLib, got more failgold from HG (was late in starting it), Chicken Pizza (intentionally). After music I avoided CS/med and builbed astro with 2 GS. Got overseas trades eons before the AI, settled the overseas land down south before they even had astro. Beelined communism, built the SoL in 1 turn with 2 GEs (I obviously had good luck with gp this game ). WvO DOWed me at pleased , but he turned tail and ran when he saw that I had rifles/cav and he didn't. But I did promote him to the top of the victims list. I've got AL already, the AIs are just getting rifling, I'm only a few turns from combustion, so I'll be paying Willem a call shortly.

 

[kossin]

How I would play this:

Spoiler :

Toku is far and needs not concern us immediately. Island is easily explorable with initial scout.

AH>Mining(hut in most people's case it seems)>TW>Myst>Poly>Priesthood>Writing>Masonry>Fishing>Sailing>BW>Pottery

Capital is weak on food so no cottages but wonderspam with stone and marble nearby. Second city out builds GLH them spam cities... either take out Toku or gift him a city to Open Borders. Lib takes Astronomy and from there it's an easy win.

 

[Burning Stone]

The main critique I would offer is this one: your plan is Generic. Not wrong, but less specific to these circumstances than I would like. You are imp/charismatic, you have an ancient era unique unit, you've accelerants for a lot of wonders (don't overlook Shadegwan Paya), you've got a Bunyan of trees to play in. Do any of these play into your thoughts?

(Obviously, not all of those bits fit into the 50 turn window. Or, for that matter, into five paragraphs).

Put another way, I'm looking for a hint that you are thinking not only about sequencing, but also about fitting all of your imbalances together. (Note: this is because Synergy and Planning are My Big Thing[tm]. Other consultants have other priorities. Salt to taste.)

Well, there are two reasons I was very generic. First, I only had the starting position to look at, so I had many unknowns. But chiefly, it was because I didn't consider those things

Let's try to do better. Imperialistic, IIRC, is a rexxing trait. Charismatic helps both the happy cap and military promotions. The immortals are a really wonderful unit. The capital will have good production, both from the hills and the forests.

That suggests I should consider either a quick military campaign (given horses and a neighbor). As it shakes out, Toku is quite far away and protective, so I wouldn't go that route. The alternative is focusing on wonders. I've been burned by that many times where I end up with three cities because I never expanded. If I get beaten to the wonder anyway it's particularly painful. But things do point to it here. I have no pressure from the AIs to grab land quickly, and my city locations are rather unexciting (the dot map I came up with in my head was about what TheMeInTeam did), so I can afford to delay my settlers a little.

Please explain why I shouldn't overlook the Shadegwan Paya Gives access to all religious civics and accelerated by gold, correct? Which civic is so good to get early? If I were spiritual then I could see some uses with short term switches. I could see early Pacifism if I had philosophical, but here? Free Religion?

 

[Burning Stone]

TheMeInTeam:
I see you played basically the same way VoU hinted in his reply to my thoughts, so I guess great minds, or good players, do think alike.

You made one comment in passing that I found interesting when you said you shot out to a tech lead. How? You've got rotten land: hardly any cottage locations and little excess food for specialists. I could probably get a slight tech lead here, but not enough to have infantry running around before anybody had decent defenders.

 

[kossin]

Please explain why I shouldn't overlook the Shadegwan Paya Gives access to all religious civics and accelerated by gold, correct? Which civic is so good to get early? If I were spiritual then I could see some uses with short term switches. I could see early Pacifism if I had philosophical, but here? Free Religion?

Shwedagon Paya is useful in a few possible ways:
-failure gold to fuel tech/expansion
-early Pacifism (this should not be restricted to Philosophical leaders only... use it to spam GPs)
-in case of no religion: early Free Religion for a science boost (comes at a very low cost thanks to stone)

As I see it, it's pretty easy to grab Confucianism via The Oracle so Pacifism to bulb will be beneficial. You can either go for Liberalism or bulb early Astro (especially if you grab GLH!) which will give you a very strong beaker rate early on.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Well, there are two reasons I was very generic. First, I only had the starting position to look at, so I had many unknowns. But chiefly, it was because I didn't consider those things

... and even if you do think about them they often don't matter much. Look out! It's a Charismatic axe rush.

As for the other point - back in the olden days, when we had to surf the web up hill both ways through the snow to read Sisiutil's Pregame Threads, the only thing that was available to argue about was the influence of traits and uber unit/buildings - he didn't publish the start position until the game thread was up.

In addition, I'd point out that it ought to be automatic. Unless you are playing with the Shake and Bake custom option, Cyrus is Cyrus is Cyrus. So you build a little toolbox of "ideas that go with Cyrus".

Let's try to do better. Imperialistic, IIRC, is a rexxing trait. Charismatic helps both the happy cap and military promotions. The immortals are a really wonderful unit. The capital will have good production, both from the hills and the forests.

Might challenge you on that point. What's the production yield going to look like when you hit the happy cap? What about at size 10? size 15? You're not wrong, but I think you should be more specific about what production means.

Please explain why I shouldn't overlook the Shadegwan Paya Gives access to all religious civics and accelerated by gold, correct? Which civic is so good to get early? If I were spiritual then I could see some uses with short term switches. I could see early Pacifism if I had philosophical, but here? Free Religion?

The gold accelerant. You have marble, which means that Aethetics is on the way to Literature. It gives you the benefit of the civics without having to push on the religious tree.

If you were taking a midgame warpath (faster promotions, faster generals, accelerated heroic epic), then Theocracy makes sense. Immortals don't really fit that plan so well (since you've normally stopped producing chariots by the time the non trait bits kick in), but it hangs together generally.

Org rel when you are in a build phase (not the wonders, necessarily - OrgRel is relatively less important when you already have accelerators).

Both of these require solving the "what religion?" problem. FR is the alternative otherwise - much more interesting when considering the start position than it is when you are isolated with Toku.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TheMeInTeam:
I see you played basically the same way VoU hinted in his reply to my thoughts, so I guess great minds, or good players, do think alike.

You made one comment in passing that I found interesting when you said you shot out to a tech lead. How? You've got rotten land: hardly any cottage locations and little excess food for specialists. I could probably get a slight tech lead here, but not enough to have infantry running around before anybody had decent defenders.

Building wonders 1) denies them to the AI and slows the pace down and 2) Having pyramids for rep, great library, and a slew of settled great people meant a very stout capitol also. Put oxford in there and add astro trade routes and you can do pretty well.

Late game I had >2000 bpt, which will of course destroy monarch.

 

[ThyGuy]

*****

 

[ThyGuy]

*****

 

[Burning Stone]

Thanks for all the replies from good players.

Might challenge you on that point. What's the production yield going to look like when you hit the happy cap? What about at size 10? size 15? You're not wrong, but I think you should be more specific about what production means.

Not sure I'll get the numbers right off the top of head but: happy cap will quickly get to 7: 4 for monarch + 1 for capital + 1 for gold + 1 for charismatic. At that size it can work the pigs, farmed flood plain, three grassland hills (I think that's one 2S of the start), the gold and the quarry. That's 20 hammers/turn? 13 turns for pyramids, assuming stone? I can see that the food situation will get dicey at higher populations as I'll have to rely on farmed grassland if I want to work more mines. So I really can't take full advantage of all those hills and I may eventually want windmills. Was that what you wanted me to notice?

TheMeInTeam, I didn't realize you had pyramids - how many early wonders did you build? Did you just have your capital crank one after another?

 

[kossin]

And +1 for monument for 8.
There's Ivory nearby for 9.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Thanks for all the replies from good players.



Not sure I'll get the numbers right off the top of head but: happy cap will quickly get to 7: 4 for monarch + 1 for capital + 1 for gold + 1 for charismatic. At that size it can work the pigs, farmed flood plain, three grassland hills (I think that's one 2S of the start), the gold and the quarry. That's 20 hammers/turn? 13 turns for pyramids, assuming stone? I can see that the food situation will get dicey at higher populations as I'll have to rely on farmed grassland if I want to work more mines. So I really can't take full advantage of all those hills and I may eventually want windmills. Was that what you wanted me to notice?

TheMeInTeam, I didn't realize you had pyramids - how many early wonders did you build? Did you just have your capital crank one after another?

My screen shot of the cap shows the early ones. Add sankore and paya later.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I can see that the food situation will get dicey at higher populations as I'll have to rely on farmed grassland if I want to work more mines. So I really can't take full advantage of all those hills and I may eventually want windmills. Was that what you wanted me to notice?

Very close.

First thing I'd call your attention to is trees versus hills. Hills are permanent, and they give you hammers in exchange for food and pop turns. Forests aren't nearly as exciting as a working tile (during the opening), so primarily they are consumable sources of hammers, and you get those hammers in exchange for worker turns.

So high forest starts are suitable for an early hammer surge (rexxing, rushing, wondering), but the mid term prospects are mostly about food and terrain (late game - food and land tiles).

The food problem you've hit on, but the synopsis is that noteworthy production cities have more food and more green hills. This one tracks decently up to size 7, and then tails off quickly.

 

[v8_mark]

Building on VoU's comments, one thing that has helped me make the jump from Monarch to Immortal is a clear indication of what I want cities to do when I found them, and crucially, how to get them to that point as quickly as possible. This always involves working improved tiles, and almost always involves at least two workers for that city. (exceptions are coastal cities with a lot of seafood or GP farms that will work with few improved tiles)

Particularly with production cities, it's amazing how quickly you can make them fully-functional. Usually all you need for infrastructure is granary/(monument)/barracks/forge and away you go.