[BTS] Victoria Emperor Continents

[Fippy]

Immediate things about your game:
Did I count right? Five workers for seven cities?

Yep, and it's maybe what i like best about this game

More workers are good advice for new players, but here we have Emperor already and a better way towards Deity would be using them more efficient (but keeping limited numbers).
Workers are expensive, some cities are slightly "over improved" like York, some could have used another chop or so but..
building more would not have been a skill improving solution, they were plenty if used focused.

 

[Swordnboard]

Agree with Fippy that better worker management > more workers. Try to minimize the amount of movement your workers need to do by mentally assigning them to certain zones of your empire whenever possible, and very rarely is it correct to move a worker 2 squares on flatland terrain without improving anything.

You're right about going too hard at the whip--this map is definitely research-constrained, and here research has been sacrificed a bit too much and for little gain. Also, the river valley west of london was definitely worth settling, could have had lots of financial, riverside cottages at this point. To that end, if you want to continue playing the current save I would still think settling that spot is worthwhile, and just focus on maximizing commerce for the near future.

 

[southquote]

First, thank you for all the useful comments. I played on a bit yesterday, but did not have time to post the write-up.

You may need to whip an archer in coventry. I would certainly put hammers into it this turn.

Wow, yes. For some reason I thought I had an archer there. Whipped an archer and survived the axe.

Get TRs with Pacal, he will give you his religion sooner or later. He is unlikely to attack you though even if you stay heathen, so I'd probably wait to see if Mehmed joins that religion as well. If you can all be friends, there is no problem and if you have to side with Mehmed against Pacal, it also shouldn't be a big problem. So the diplo situation looks pretty straight forward.

In most games (most of my games have been pangea with normal sea levels), TRs just happen really fast without much effort. Here I needed to be more deliberate about it. In the turns I played yesterday, I immediately roaded to Pacal to get TRs, which definitely helped. It was a mistake to not do it sooner.

More workers are good advice for new players, but here we have Emperor already and a better way towards Deity would be using them more efficient (but keeping limited numbers).
Workers are expensive, some cities are slightly "over improved" like York, some could have used another chop or so but..
building more would not have been a skill improving solution, they were plenty if used focused.

I found the land to be pretty bad that I was sometimes not particularly sure what to do with my workers. On the one hand, dry grassland cottages are not great, but York's other options are ocean (pre-lighthouse) and desert. Possibly, I should have used the Ocean tiles more, built fewer things (i.e., settlers, workers, etc.) trying to maximize research. Instead, York worked cottages, grew a little faster, and whipped. The latter might have kept my science rate down?

I don't think you have enough units. With this kind of a layout I'd have looked to have a couple axes out by now. Anything could come at you any turn by now from those areas in the south, but also the jungle in the north. Again: more chopping could have sorted out this problem, and that's why most Deity players would unlikely have this many dry grassland cottages by now.
I would quit settling by now and fix the issue with workers, units and general infrastructure first. You are not in any pressure to settle more and more land right now.
I wouldn't build an Academy with the GS. You don't really have a strong cottage capital. Bulbing Philo later seems more attractive.

Interesting. At the time of the T100 save, I did not yet have copper (second ring of Canterbury). I had been feeling pretty secure. Since I have archery and barbs come one or two at a time generally (at least in my experience on Emperor), I was pretty sure I could always whip/chop an archer if needed. I am not feeling much pressure from the AIs since they still have land to settle.

Agree with Fippy that better worker management > more workers. Try to minimize the amount of movement your workers need to do by mentally assigning them to certain zones of your empire whenever possible, and very rarely is it correct to move a worker 2 squares on flatland terrain without improving anything.

You're right about going too hard at the whip--this map is definitely research-constrained, and here research has been sacrificed a bit too much and for little gain. Also, the river valley west of london was definitely worth settling, could have had lots of financial, riverside cottages at this point. To that end, if you want to continue playing the current save I would still think settling that spot is worthwhile, and just focus on maximizing commerce for the near future.

Good point. Where would you settle here? I want to grab the Horse at some point (I did some more scouting and there is not really any food there, mostly Tundra). However, to grab the horse, I sacrifice a grassland river tile.

 

[Swordnboard]

I would probably settle 3W of London, since that makes it easier to utilize the tiles you've already developed, and adds lots of new grasslands to the mix too. The horse can be settled later, with another city.

 

[southquote]

Played to T125. My economy seems to be in better shape. There is still room to expand in the NE. However, I do not yet have Iron or Horses. Iron is just outside my cultural, surrounded be desert. I will get it eventually, but not for a long time... Horses are to the West between Pacal and me, also in a weak spot to settle.

- Hinduism spread, setup TRs with Pacal, traded for Ivory from Mehmed, and got Currency. These developments significantly helped my happiness and economy.
- Hindu lovefest on my continent. Pacal is friendly to both of us, Mehmed pleased with both of us. No Great Generals yet so probably the other continent is teching pretty well.
- Techs: Math -> Currency; trade for Masonry and Polytheism from Mehmed, tech Priesthood and CoL; trade for Monarchy, Meditation from Mehmed and Monotheism + 170 Gold from Pacal; bulb Philo. Two options are to go for Astro or go for Lib. I could try to Lib Astro, but I am worried my tech rate has been weak, I might not be able to do that. I set my research to CS (since I have almost no rivers for irrigation), but perhaps Compass would be a better idea?
- Founded two new cities: West on the river. I went 4W of London, since that seemed to add more grassland tiles, but perhaps I should have taken Swordnboard's advice since this city cannot help London with cottages. Other city grabbed the Cow+Clam spot. I have another settler built, but not exactly sure where to settle now. Perhaps save it until after I capture a barb city.
- Goals: I clearly want to go for Pacal at some point in the medium term, and I also want to expand to the NE. Both of these require Iron and/or Horses (the barb cities are easier to take with Swords than Axes). The question is whether I should settle something to get the Iron?

Spoiler T125 Map :

 

[Swordnboard]

Things are OK, just perhaps a little bit slower than they could be.

I notice you just did an anarchy (HR I guess) but didn't switch into either caste system or pacifism. Slavery might still have a bit of use here, but definitely would have taken pacifism as well as hereditary -- probably caste as well since it has such a nice synergy with pacifism. Workers are still a really big problem--too many unimproved tiles and a few unnecessary improvements (for example the plains farm at Warwick and a few extraneous roads). 5 for 9 cities is doable but a bit thin--no shame in building extra workers for now if you don't have beautiful micro-skills like Fippy does.

To be honest, there hasn't been enough progress in the economy between T100 and now. Lots of random tiles like forests and mines are being worked that should be cottages (if available) and coasts.

I'd recommend reloading just so you can do your civic swap differently, but can understand if you don't want to. Great people are really overpowered at this point in the game, so definitely need to put lots of resources into generating them. One plan that could be solid from here is to Research CS -> Paper, bulb your way to Edu + Liberalism (take Nationalism, or Military Tradition if you can research Nationalism yourself), and conquer your continent with cuirassier. Trying to do warfare earlier, with maces and such, is also possible but might be kind of a slog given the large amount of land. One other idea would be to tech to optics and bulb astronomy instead, so you can meet and trade with the other continent. That could lend itself to conquest with either cuirassier or cannons, both a little bit later than the other cuirassier option.

 

[Gumbolt]

5 workers for 9 cities is very thin for me. Fine if you are Fippy and micro queen of the game. However when learning the game 5 for 9 cities is far too few. It's one of the reasons you have so many forest left here.

Sometimes good to plan workboats for new cities. Don't be afraid to whip workers and buildings for 2 pop.

I would still be focusing London on growth over scientists. GS for academy to help science there too.

The helper city west came of London came too late.
Newcastle warrior should explore ice to the south.
An AI actually beat you to philosophy!
Canterbury should be running cottage near Nottingham. Units in Coventry could explore too. Barbs tend to settle down as the land gets grabbed.
Why is nottongham running forest tile? I would rather build up that cottage.
I think wealth over research at this stage.
Oh Mehmed can still plot wars at pleased.

Long term you want to grab those barb cities. You don't need more archers here. Aim for swords/axes. Maybe catapults too to take down the barb cities.

 

[Fippy]

Gumbo and workers
They are not 5 for 9 cities, if many of those have no need for a worker (now or later) ~~

Looky at Hastings

Spoiler :

shows there are more important topics we can talk about.
Yep 1 forest left (only tile where Hastings could ever need a worker again whole game), but not important..1 cottage or FIN sea tile, no biggie.
But building Moai? Suggests you wanted to do something special for that city
Infamous builder trap, city should be running sea tiles and build HR happy guards as needed. So..

Spoiler :

Yup this would be much better with warriors still around, looky at the problem

Spoiler :

No copper (or no hunting) = no Spear, and worker turns saved for connecting copper yay
Hastings would now be happier, Newcastle could build a much needed granary instead of Axe ~~
Not sure how barbs behave at this point, but some fogbusting down there should make an Axe not needed (and could be Archer anyways)

Spoiler :

 

[southquote]

I want tie this thread up. I am not planning to continue this game, but I learned a lot from the comments. The game itself was quite challenging given the low sea levels (mistaken setting) and bad land. I did start another Continents game on emperor (normal sea level) with Asoka and won a domination victory fairly easy. In contrast to the Victoria game, the Asoka game had pretty easy circumstances: I got really nice land (flood plains, ivory and then gems for early happy, enough food) and an easy set of AIs (Churchill and Hammurabi on my continent and no run-aways on the other). It did take a while; I finished up with Mech Ins vs Infs (landed on the other continent with Tanks vs Rifles). So probably need another strong game to convince myself I can move up.

A few things I learned in this thread from the generous comments here:
- Spend more effort on worker management and try to optimize tiles worked. I think it will take some practice to really get it down so I can do it with a few workers. However, I was definitely checking my city screens much more often during the Asoka game and when a city was working a forest, I was often switching it to a specialist or whipping. Before I was whipping based on speeding up production, not as much on tradeoffs with tiles going unused. It seems that for each city there are some number good tiles--e.g., food, other resource, grassland river. The goal, in the early game (pre-calendar, pre-HR) seems to be for workers to setup these tiles fast and to have the city working exclusively these tiles, and whip once we get passed them (obviously there will be cases this will not work, but in general...). Capitals tend to have an overabundance of these tiles (4+ resources + a bunch of river tiles) so given the happy cap I want helper cities early to leverage these tiles, especially for building up cottages.
- There was some talk about where to settle the capital, and this (and some other comments, like Moai from Fippy, and other threads) made me think. Setting things up for the long term is self-fulfilling prophecy. If you spend effort to build infra, it delays things, the AIs get more developed, the game takes longer, and the infra pays off. It is really hard to see this (since in games in which infra is built, the infra often pays off) without just jumping off the deep end and not building as much. I tried the latter in the Asoka game and it seemed to work. Again, that game had easier conditions, so who knows... Clearly, there is a middle ground where we consider the short term and medium term (e.g., setting up a bureau cap), and that is where things get tricky for newer players.
- Interesting point about not hooking up copper to pump out warriors. I have to think about that one; many people do not research archery. In that case, we have no metal and no archery--seems tough with barbs. Perhaps it makes sense for one city to be unconnected and pump out warriors for HR.
- Paci + Caste. I did go back a bit and do what SwordnBoard said a few posts up. I had just never used Caste much, but it really did pump out GPs for a while. This would cause many fewer GPs later in the game, but they are not as useful then anyway (and ideally I would not need the GPs since I could leverage the early ones)...I have to admit, in the Asoka game I did this a bit, but not too much (and with Spi I should have done it). I was already ahead in that game after a great start and played a little lax (detoured to get the GA from Music, then for the heck of it built Sistine, which was a waste). So this is still something I need to work on.

In any case, I much appreciated the time people took to open my saves. I plan to try the NC game on Emperor and see how it goes...