Training game emphasizing trading - Emperor

[peacemonger]

Hi guys,
I know this thread says it's full up....but if there's any attrition, any chance I could hop in? (I'll lurk regardless, so you may be stuck answering my questions whether I play or not! ) I'm a decent Monarch player, but Emp is still a challenge. Never done a SG.

 

[trikos]

Hi peacemonger

This is also my first SG, so I don't know when we will become too many players. Trainers, do you have something to say about this?

Anyways, welcome peacemonger, hope you will ask and answer questions whatever the decision will be

 

[Jurimax]

Okay,

here's what I've got:

 

[Jurimax]

Short term goals (pre turnset):
- hook up luxury (only 1 content on Emperor)
- improve capital (to be able to get Settlers fast enough)
- explore (both land and sea)

Long term goals (after turnset):
- get geography of starting island (Are we alone? Where can we place our next couple of cities? Have we got any more luxes?)
- possibly get some contacts (and thus trading opportunities)

Greetz Jurimax

[edit]: added turnlog

 

[trikos]

@Jurimax: The games look good. I have one question. Why did you irrigate both cows?

 

[Jurimax]

Because we have enough production with all the forests around, when we then get Pottery we can squeeze in another city and get 2 Settler pumps going

 

[oopsy poopsy]

Well, so far I definitely vote to not use my turns. Mining a cow was stupid (since there are so many forests), thinking pottery would be fairly easy to come by either through trading or goody hut was stupid (GH give barbs mostly and it looks like we're alone on an island), so my pump is almost completed but there's no granary and I wasted some gold by not hooking up the luxury. Not dumping on myself, just realizing that because I have a strategy doesn't necessarily make it a good one . Anyway, cheers to Jurimax and Trikos for the good ideas.

 

[trikos]

@Jurimax: Good point about having a second settler pump. We should probably consider making one of them a worker pump. Where would you position the other settler pump?

EDIT: Is it time for a city dot map?

 

[oopsy poopsy]

city placement. This is where the real fun begins. I just did a quick dot map with two alternatives. Red dots are my two preferred choices if we want three move spacing. These also create the possibilty of three settler pumps, although we would need pottery. The light blue dots are my preffered next two cities if we are looking for a more OCP approach that would allow cities to be more productive later on. As more of a builder fellow I lean towards letting the cities become powerhouses later, but I don't know if that's really a good strategy or not, since it won't let us fully utilize all these amazing tiles from the get go. Anway, here's the map (taken from jurimax's save):

 

[dl123654]

As more of a builder fellow I lean towards letting the cities become powerhouses later, but I don't know if that's really a good strategy or not, since it won't let us fully utilize all these amazing tiles from the get go. Anway, here's the map (taken from jurimax's save):

We can always take the red dots as temp cities just for the expansion period. That way we can have 2 (maybe 3 ) pumps, later we can abandon those cities and build in the blue dots.

This brings up city placement, how do you want to place these cities, we have a lot of land and it looks like we are alone here.

In what direction do we build? Right where we are has lots of food, to the east has production, north has marsh and fishing towns and to the south has tundra.

 

[Jurimax]

I'd create the second pump on the ivory, giving us two 4-6 turn Settler pumps (if we have Pottery that is).

 

[Jurimax]

Around the capital (especially where we can create more Settler pumps) we could do a dense build (and make sure the other cities won't intervene with the pumps). Further out I'd suggest a CxxxC build.

Greetz Jurimax

 

[trikos]

@o-p: I like the red dots the best. I think we can have three settler pumps, but it will take some MM and we might lack shields for the north red dot.

@dl123654: I would go east. We have rivers, grassland and a couple of wheats there.

 

[trikos]

Around the capital (especially where we can create more Settler pumps) we could do a dense build (and make sure the other cities won't intervene with the pumps). Further out I'd suggest a CxxxC build.

Sounds like a good idea to me. I just lack a good reason. As I understand it, we can either have dense and many small cities that are easier to defend OR less, fever, but bigger cities that might be a bit harder to defend (demands more units pr. city). On the other hand, we also have fewer cities to defend). I can't figure out how this relate to our variant of the game.


@Jurimax: What about posting your log? It will be easier to access

 

[Jurimax]

Emperor Training:

Preturn:

Seedbeast gives us:

• barbarians: roaming
• climate: normal
• landform: archipelago
• map size: standard
• ocean coverage: 70%
• temperature: temperate
• world age: 4 billion years
• world seed: 16975672

Players:

• Carthage (human player)
• Japan
• Greece
• Russia
• Germany
• Spain
• Korea
• Netherlands

We, Carthage,
are seafaring and industrious:
-> seafaring:
- cities along the coast get commerce bonus in city square
- city improvements (ie harbor, comm dock) are cheaper
- ships + 1 movement and less likely to sink
-> industrious:
- Workers work faster
- + 1 shield in city square (in cities and metros)

start with Alphabet and Masonry
get NuMercs instead of spears

turn 0 - 4000 BC

since our Settler will found on the spot, we'll move our Worker later
Settler founds Carthage
Woooow: 3 cows, 2 wheat and ivory (nice start)
Carthage: starts Warrior (will explore)
Our Worker will build a road to the Ivory first (no research, so no Pottery, so no Settler Pump) since we'll need the lux, this is Emperor and we only get 1 content citizen.

Research (0%): set to Ceremonial Burial (in the unlikely event that we pop a hut and get a tech, we'd prefer Pottery)

turn 1 - 3950 BC

Worker: road in 2

turn 2 - 3900 BC

zzz

turn 3 - 3850 BC

Worker: road completed, moves on Ivory

turn 4 - 3800 BC

Worker: road in 4

IBT:

Carthage: completes Warrior
--> Curragh in 8 (this is Archipelago so we'll need this one)

turn 5 - 3750 BC

Warrior renamed to Will Explore
Warrior: to mountain (can see far)

turn 6 - 3700 BC

Will Explore: on mountain (sees another ivory, a GH and dryer lands)

turn 7 - 3650 BC

raised lux tax to 10%
Will Explore enters GH: 3 angry Warriors pop out

IBT:

Will survives one attack while the other 2 fortify
Road on Ivory completed (borders will take it in 2 turns)

turn 8 - 3600 BC

Worker: to closest cow (closest to capital)
Will Explore: to another mountain (sees another wheat and the beginning of a great forest with game)
(if barbs attack he'll get a defense bonus)

IBT:

Will Explore survives another attack

turn 9 - 3550 BC

Will Explore comes down from the mountain next to barb (is fortified and only 25% bonus vs barbs)
Worker to cow

IBT:

Will Explore survives 3rd attack
Carthage can now use ivory

turn 10 - 3500 BC

lux tax back to 0%
MM Carthage: Curragh only needs one more shield and thus: 2nd cow to roaded grass for 1 turn
Worker: irrigate cow (3 turns) (with all the forests around, we have plenty of shields)
Will Explore: explores

IBT:

Carthage: completes Curragh
--> Warrior in 4 (explore, can return later for MP business)

turn 11 - 3450 BC

Curragh: will move north (south is to cold)
Will Explore: finds coast (small island???)

turn 12 - 3400 BC

Will Explore: follow coast north
Curragh: north

IBT:

Irrigation completed

turn 13 - 3350 BC

Worker: road in 2 (don't want to loose worker turns)
Curragh: north
Will Explore: north
raised lux tax to 10%
MM Carthage for food (Warrior only needs 2 more shields)

IBT:

Carthage: completes Warrior
--> Settler in 6 (we'll need these guys)

turn 14 - 3300 BC

Warrior renamed to Bill E
Bill E: let's see what's south (and he puts on his winter coat)
Curragh: north (more dry lands)
Will Explore: north

IBT:

cow roaded

turn 15 - 3250 BC

Curragh: north
Will Explore: north
Bill E: south
Worker: to second cow

turn 16 - 3200 BC

Bill E: south
Worker: irrigate in 3
Will Explore: north
Curragh: north

turn 17 - 3150 BC

Curragh: adjust course a bit (can't continue north)
Bill E: south
Will Explore: north

turn 18 - 3100 BC

Bill E: enters GH (Carthage changed to Barracks just in case we get extremely lucky): 25 gold
Carthage changed back to Settler
Will Explore: north
Curragh: continues circumnavigation of our lands
raised lux to 10%

turn 19 - 3050 BC

Curragh: moving on
Worker: road in 2
Bill E: continue southern exploration
Will Explore: north

IBT:

Carthage: completes Settler
--> Settler in 8

turn 20 - 3000 BC

lux tax back to 0%
Bill E: going to explore north of Carthage (cuty locations needed)
Will Explore: north
Curragh: continue exploring
Setler: awaiting orders

 

[Bede]

Here is a little note I wrote on the question of city placement:

The received wisdom has rejected Optimal City Placement (21 fieldsper city, no overlapping) for a couple of reasons:
1) too much terrain unworked for two thirds of the game;
2) defensive difficulties when cities are more than three roaded tiles apart.

The build pattern you will generally see at Emperor and above is based on a knight's move
cxxx
.....c
or
c
x
x
x c

or the diagonal variation variation of that. This pattern minimizes overlap and each town is not more than a single foot unit's distance apart.

Here is a dotmap from an active Demi-god game:

And the town northwest of the capitol was moved one northeast by settler abandon later on.

The western towns are a little further apart as the Iro have an early fast mover UU so the three tile distance was less important and the terrain SW of the capitol was not comfortable for a tighter build.

As the empire expands past the OCN (Optimal City Number) you can even begin to build closer than shown above as you need no more than 3 or 9 irrigated fields to support a population of 6 or 12, half of whom are specialists (tax collectors/scientists/cops).

There is at least one disadvantage to this pattern however. If the AI starts to steamroller you with fast moving units thay can roll up like a spring-loaded window shade.....

 

[trikos]

@Bede: thanks for the info.


This is the best city placement I can find right now based on the knight move.

The black dot will become a worker factory. It doesn't take so many shields. The blue and Carthage are the settler pumps The rest of the cities are more or less based on the knight's move.

Here is the map (based on Jurimax's save)

 

[microbe]

You guys really like dense build?

This dotmap is too tight for a capital, unless you are playing always war. I would choose 3-tiles between cities.

 

[Jurimax]

@microbe

The city next to Carthage has to be close to be able to get a second Pump going, the rest may be CxxxC.

 

[Bede]

Since plarq has not been heard from since the start was posted >24hrs ago I'm going to exercise the TGOMOTG prerogative of an auto-skip and go ahead and post the results of my first twenty.

Founded in first position and watered the cows, then roaded. First build was a curragh, as that is the fastest way to explore an islands map as a seafaring nation. It moves three along the coast, only costs fifteen shields and upgrades to the galley later. Second build was a curragh. First boat went north, second south.

After watering and roading the cows my worker concentrated on mining and roading the riverside down to the sugar for the commerce and shields boost

When the border expansion revealed the goody hut I chose to ignore it as it had no sentry and I already had one unit with A/D value. As it turns out it will make a nice training camp for NuMercs when the time comes.

I did not road out to the ivory....and used the lux slider to control contentment, nor did I road out to the second cow. I really wanted those two gpt river tiles with their minimum two food. And even with the extra spending on entertainment the difference between my treasury and J-max's is only 14g, but then he pulled 25g from a camp.

Each time the city grew I forced the citizens to the riverside tiles as I didn't want the city income and growth rate to falter for even a half turn.

Once the second curragh was on its way I started my settler and when the settler finished I started my first warrior.

Why the fish-farmer opening when it is known there are barbarians in the neigborhood?

Well, it is an island map and there is a good possibility we are alone on our island. Without AI scouts and warriors running about stirring up the hornet's nests they tend to stay put in their little villages, so the risk was smaller than on a continents or pangaea map. I missed opportunities to colllect traffic fines and trespassing fees but I am also not supporting military.

It was at the point of starting my settler on his road that I performed my imitation of Balaam's ass (it starved to death when presented two equally appetizing bales of hay). I fumble fingered the settler move and even though she is two tiles out from home I think she is in the wrong place, but that's another story.

And the picture: