Washington Monarch Cookbook Mark II (IC Concurrent)

Makaz · Sep 12, 2010

Nooooo....

It had to be started while I was on hols .... hence I miss the deadline for round 1 by so very little.... Anyway, as I very very recently decided to move from prince to monarch; I would appreciate to have my save and strategy looked at ... although I might be a bit too late to be voted for. There it is (sorry no screens as I am already late posting...):

Spoiler :

Abegweit · Sep 13, 2010

@Bibor I liked your analysis of the other saves. In my opinion you should also have commented on your own. Of course, you can't vote on it but you can comment. So in that spirit, let me add...

Things I like:
- Awesome exploration and contacts! Far better than anyone else - in both groups.
- Good city placement. I already made my opinion about the opening move quite clear. But... given your start (which, I think, is number two), all the other cities are in the right spot. Ditto for your dot map. Everything is where it belongs.
- Decent tech rate. And soon to get better when Sailing comes in.

Things I don't like:
- Moves that seem a bit aimless. Washington started a Library and then switched to a Granary. What is the purpose of the Gran, given that the city is about to reach its Happy Cap? And why are you building two roads into Philly?
- Tech Direction. You have Hunting and Archery when you could have had Sailing instead. Have you had problems with barbs that required this? You have precisely one archer (and none in production) and he is not exactly in a dangerous place.

lymond · Sep 13, 2010

I have added Makaz's save. Please note that your votes can be amended prior to the cutoff.

mintegar · Sep 13, 2010

Not that easy choice, many different capital positions and it's hard to say what's best. Each save has it's own strengths and weaknesses, but they cancel other so that some of this saves are really close toghether in overall strength i would think.

My top 3 picks:
1. Bibor
2. Siran
3. Hrun

Spoiler :

Others:

Spoiler :

Makaz:

Spoiler :

Bibor · Sep 13, 2010

mintegar said:
Spoiler :

Bibor:
+ huge exploration. contact to all 6 ais. once sailing is in, trade with inca will be huge
+ workboat en-route to aztecs
- didn't claim northern wheat yet
- should have built monument instead of lib in new york (+1 happy)
- horses not yet connected
- teched archery (?questionable), sailing should have been sooner
o tech not all too bad, we have writing
- worker/city ratio not too good for now (2/4)
+ blocking cities in place, they hurt commerce now but oh well.
maybe should have considered instead of settling boston positioning a settler even further south to claim the rice before giggles settles near it.

Spoiler :

Bibor · Sep 13, 2010

Abegweit said:
@Bibor I liked your analysis of the other saves. In my opinion you should also have commented on your own. Of course, you can't vote on it but you can comment. So in that spirit, let me add...

Things I like:
- Awesome exploration and contacts! Far better than anyone else - in both groups.
- Good city placement. I already made my opinion about the opening move quite clear. But... given your start (which, I think, is number two), all the other cities are in the right spot. Ditto for your dot map. Everything is where it belongs.
- Decent tech rate. And soon to get better when Sailing comes in.

Things I don't like:
- Moves that seem a bit aimless. Washington started a Library and then switched to a Granary. What is the purpose of the Gran, given that the city is about to reach its Happy Cap? And why are you building two roads into Philly?
- Tech Direction. You have Hunting and Archery when you could have had Sailing instead. Have you had problems with barbs that required this? You have precisely one archer (and none in production) and he is not exactly in a dangerous place.

Washington started a library and switched to granary. Yes, this might've look a bit odd, but building hammers don't deteriorate so fast, and when I realized my finances are going to get much better with intl. trade routes, I decided Washington will be doing some heavy duty settler whipping with overflow to library (NY is cottage-heavy, the other two cities are not so food rich yet). Since I still need 4-5 cities up and at least that much workers, Washington's library can wait.
Archery. Yes, well. No copper and horses means a single spearman can rip one of my border cities apart. Frankly, I forgot random events are "off", and that includes including barbarian invasions. And a barb city can still pop on the sugar spot if neither Gilgamesh nor me claim it.

Bibor · Sep 13, 2010

@ Makaz. Nice chariot rush, but a huge gambit. One I wouldn't make if the lives of American people depended on my wisdom.

- you don't feel it yet, but your economy is going to be recovering for like a thousand years.
- no coastal cities to speak of
- Washington has exactly 5 farms too much and 5 cottages too few
- you're going to have a barb problem if you don't pull out those chariots

What I also don't like in your save is that Monty managed to pull off Hinduism, which now puts you in an awkward position of being "of the third religion" alongside with Bismarck and creating a "big happy buddhist family" on the big continent. Two financial civs working hand in hand (one of them being a wonderwhore) is not doing any favors to your tech parity. Apostolic palace, all the relevant religious wonders etc. are going to be Buddhist. The maya already have the Mahabodi in their capital.

With this map, we have the potential to gain ridiculous amounts of trade money from the Aztecs, Maya, Inca. Not just because these are intl. trade routes, but also because we can grow our cities so big that we will *always* have the best and most lucrative trade routes. Basically, we can have the effect of 3 extra cottages in every city (as long as they are coastal) in like 30 turns. And then, if Gilgamesh manages to pull off a religion, the whole world will be happy if we conquer him, happy for a long enough time to get our SEALs ready

bufo802 · Sep 13, 2010

After looking a bit closer at my save and playing on a bit realised it wasn't very good-

Spoiler :

Siran · Sep 13, 2010

You don't need spoilers in the voting phase, bufo. Everybody's played the game and has to look at the other saves either way.

6 chariots are just not enough at that time. 1500 BC your adversary has 2-3 cities min, with Archers and maybe even Spearmen. With 3+ units in a city, you won't get this city, no matter if the AI is protective or not. At least not, if you're not really lucky. And after that you're stuck with a really angry AI and with no units to continue the war...

I took a look at your game, you were the only person besides me who settled the capital one west, so I wanted to see what you did. I didn't really get what you were trying to do with your capital. You can mine the hills to get good early production or you can cottage the floodplains for good early commerce. You did neither. You have one mine out of four and you have two cottages. You don't work the one on the floodplains, you work the one on the plains (not a good position for a cottage). What are you trying to do? It seems to me, you're trying to go in two opposite directions at the same time, which leaves you nowhere. If you want to put out chariots for a rush, emphasise production. If you want to get good research and push settlers and workers out, build those cottages on the flood plains and work them.
Washington grown to size 6 with an emphasis on production would give you a chariot every three turns, without whipping and without chopping. Washington with 4 cottages would give you 8 commerce in the first 10 turns, afterwards 12 and upwards. And you would kick out a settler in 12-13 turns and a worker in 7-8 turns.

mintegar · Sep 13, 2010

@Bibor, you put up good reasons for your decisions. I hope my post didn't come across as too negative, wasn't intended as such.
Of course certain things, like putting up blocking cities early have their advantages. But it can have disadvantages also if it comes at the expense of something else. So the '-' points i listed where not necessarily meant as "i am sure this was a mistake to do it that way". I just wanted to list areas where, had you made other decisions your save could have been better in that point.
Can well be that you made the right call in many of those things, and that the things you went after where just more valuable than the things you could not do because there where no time or resources available to do them.

What i would like to point out though is that Giggles can act very aggressively. I remember one game where i spawned with him on an Isle, together with Lizzy, and he attacked quite early with a sizable stack of Vultures. So with him it's not so easy to just build cities near him to block him of and then develop your land, he is quite likely to attack soon if you are weak. That means, in my mind, get strategic resources connected soon to be prepared for battle. Also, making sure to have a good economy in order to stay in the tech-trading game. Of course, claiming the land is important. But are those far away cities needed that early? Only if there would be danger that Giggles gets there first. In this case, when there is an additional food-rich city-spot near the capital, i think it is better to claim that first. It will contribute way sooner back to your empire. There should still be enough time to get a settler into the farther away position, at least at monarch. When that settler is there, it may be a good idea to wait until you have ample amount of workers to develop the land quickly. In case you spot AI Settler on route, you can then settle just when it's necessary to do so.

Regarding Barbarians, in my game i had very good spawnbusting going on. It was extremely easy to do, and i had any chance of land-barbs appearing eliminated pretty early. Of course this has also it's disadvantages, as you loose opportunity to gain combat experience.
Still, tech-wise it helped me a lot. I knew the AI was far away, and because of spawnbusting i wasn't concered about barbs at all. I could handle them just fine with warriors alone, at least on Monarch-difficulty. I even delayed Bronze-Working to get Pottery first, since i felt so safe.
You are right about chariots beeing problematic against spearmen, but in my experience those appear quite late. If worst comes to worst, i guess i would use 2 chariots and a warrior to kill such a spearman. But in this start, since land was constricted east/west by water spawnbusting was very easy, so i could avoid the barb-spearmen problem entirely.

No monument in NY because I don't need culture there yet and I predict some whipping first (most notably-settler or a worker or both).

Ok i'm not sure about this, but since with charismatic the Monument gives +1 Happy it may have been worth it anyway. I completely forgot about this bonus while playing my game :/

Horses not connected yet but not a priority - that city needs to grow first (farms around the lake), that city doesn't need a monument asap either.

I may be too woried about giggles. The game where he attacked my early was on emperor, so maybe we are safer here..

A single barbarian spearman could take out one of my cities no problem. A non-imperialistic settler is worth more than two cheap techs.

True, but as said, the alternative would have been to not settle that far away early, and use spawn-busting to eliminate the barbs completly.

I don't see workers being a problem for two reasons - lots of seafood and us being expansive.

I am at work and can't look at the save now. But i'm skeptical on this. The saying is that you can never have enough workers

Settling rice is still a viable option, thanks to roads a settler can be there quickly.
Main reason for setting up a strong road network down there is because I count on that city to be my main production/block for Gilgamesh and I want it mined/farmed as soon as the borders pop.

Well, we will see how it plays out if your save is chosen. I hope we can nab that city, and that Gilgamesh doesn't go into war preparation too soon, so we have time to build up some military.

@stevoh: I'd like to clarify, i would like your blocking-city placement very much if we where up against some peacefull AI. But with Giggles i fear it's just very risky that he will unleash his Vultures on it..

Hrun · Sep 13, 2010

My vote:
1. Bibor - bit further along in tech than Siran and for the better exploration
2. Siran - as much as I like the cap. position it wasn't enough to sway had you been going sailing probly would have voted you no. 1
3. Mintegar - decent city postitioning and good exploration

@ people about my save
Yes the one fish and not moving the cap was a stupid oversight, I'll be more careful next time. I can't explain the lighthouse... just something to build. I suppose a unit there might have been better to protect against the barb archer. On workers i do have 1 more 2 turns away I'm not sure where I could have gotten another earlier.

Bibor · Sep 13, 2010

mintegar said:
Spoiler :

@Bibor, you put up good reasons for your decisions. I hope my post didn't come across as too negative, wasn't intended as such.
Of course certain things, like putting up blocking cities early have their advantages. But it can have disadvantages also if it comes at the expense of something else. So the '-' points i listed where not necessarily meant as "i am sure this was a mistake to do it that way". I just wanted to list areas where, had you made other decisions your save could have been better in that point.
Can well be that you made the right call in many of those things, and that the things you went after where just more valuable than the things you could not do because there where no time or resources available to do them.

What i would like to point out though is that Giggles can act very aggressively. I remember one game where i spawned with him on an Isle, together with Lizzy, and he attacked quite early with a sizable stack of Vultures. So with him it's not so easy to just build cities near him to block him of and then develop your land, he is quite likely to attack soon if you are weak. That means, in my mind, get strategic resources connected soon to be prepared for battle. Also, making sure to have a good economy in order to stay in the tech-trading game. Of course, claiming the land is important. But are those far away cities needed that early? Only if there would be danger that Giggles gets there first. In this case, when there is an additional food-rich city-spot near the capital, i think it is better to claim that first. It will contribute way sooner back to your empire. There should still be enough time to get a settler into the farther away position, at least at monarch. When that settler is there, it may be a good idea to wait until you have ample amount of workers to develop the land quickly. In case you spot AI Settler on route, you can then settle just when it's necessary to do so.

Regarding Barbarians, in my game i had very good spawnbusting going on. It was extremely easy to do, and i had any chance of land-barbs appearing eliminated pretty early. Of course this has also it's disadvantages, as you loose opportunity to gain combat experience.
Still, tech-wise it helped me a lot. I knew the AI was far away, and because of spawnbusting i wasn't concered about barbs at all. I could handle them just fine with warriors alone, at least on Monarch-difficulty. I even delayed Bronze-Working to get Pottery first, since i felt so safe.
You are right about chariots beeing problematic against spearmen, but in my experience those appear quite late. If worst comes to worst, i guess i would use 2 chariots and a warrior to kill such a spearman. But in this start, since land was constricted east/west by water spawnbusting was very easy, so i could avoid the barb-spearmen problem entirely.

Ok i'm not sure about this, but since with charismatic the Monument gives +1 Happy it may have been worth it anyway. I completely forgot about this bonus while playing my game :/

I may be too woried about giggles. The game where he attacked my early was on emperor, so maybe we are safer here..

True, but as said, the alternative would have been to not settle that far away early, and use spawn-busting to eliminate the barbs completly.

I am at work and can't look at the save now. But i'm skeptical on this. The saying is that you can never have enough workers

Well, we will see how it plays out if your save is chosen. I hope we can nab that city, and that Gilgamesh doesn't go into war preparation too soon, so we have time to build up some military.

@stevoh: I'd like to clarify, i would like your blocking-city placement very much if we where up against some peacefull AI. But with Giggles i fear it's just very risky that he will unleash his Vultures on it..

Of course I voted on my personal preference, the game I'd like to see played. Some saves are better than mine (when all added and substracted), I especially like the cottage capital concept. I also like to explore fast and to block off fast and to have protection from unwanted visitors, so hunting and archery are my personal quirks (and they didn't slow down the research much).

Charismatic monument means it's going to get built sooner or later, but not in a whip city that requires mere 3-pop whips.

Number of workers vis a vis number of workboats does count, because every workboat means two improvements less (road + something) which saves 10-15 turns of working a tile.

Capturing the Double sugar city is still a tempting option and I might as well go for it if we happen to proceed from my save. Your points on whip production there are very valid.

Shrielkul · Sep 13, 2010

Siren

Halfway through my round I realized I lost one fish seafood by SIP and thought to myself "Gee, I hope someone thought to settle 1W." Great move :goodjob:

I also like your tech rate, and the only that is missing is Sailing. I feel your pain with the animals, I lost my scouting warrior after getting attacked by one lion group too many.

:trophy2nd:

Bibor

An interesting choice for Washington on the start, but I just prefer the S1W over this move. I don't mind spending the time to get archers because defending with just Warriors makes me nervous too. Well done getting that scouting WB out there and meeting all the AIs!

:trophy3rd:

Hrun

I wouldn't worry too much about the SIP move as few others (myself included) did the same thing. You've got a nice tech rate going and very decent start.

Aldor · Sep 13, 2010

My impressions:

Bibor:
+ exploration (amazing!)
+ Gil blocked nicely
+ archery available (vs. barbs), but
- horses not hooked up yet
- few workers

Stevoh:
+ Gil blocked OK
+ good number of warriors
- danger from barb (no archery/horses yet!)
- tech (75 turns to alphabet?!)

enKage:
+ library built in Washington
- only 2 cities?
- no spawnbusting?
- only 4 units total?!

Trystero:
+ good city placement (room for more)
+ spawnbusting rest of available area

+ seafood all set up
- teching iron working, but no writing or sailing available yet

Aldor:
+ number of cities/workers
- exploration

Mintegar:
+ very nice tech!
+ monuments built
- land still quite open to Gil (but settler coming up)
- city placement a bit unlucky

Hrun:
+ very nice tech (thanks gold

+ monuments built
- bit few warriors and no archery/horses (danger from barb)

Siran:
+ great city placement
+ good tech pace
+ monuments built
- I would spawnbust the fogged area SE of your settler

Shrielkul:
+ good tech pace (needs a bit of microing!)
- bit few warriors (no archery/horses yet)

Makaz:
+ nice army (but will it suffice for anything serious?)
+ lots of workers
- only two cities
- New York city placement...off coast? =(

I found most saves quite ok, so it wasn't an easy task to choose a "best" one. In the end I vote like this:

1. Trystero
Cities are set up nicely, enough room for some more. I think this save offers great options to continue playing.

2. Bibor
The exploration you did is simply amazing, allowing you an excellent analysis of your situation. Considered you very much for first place, in the end it was just that I preferred the city placement of Trystero (although you did pick good spots too).

3. Siran
Another good start with great potential. Was close up with Hrun but your position was overall safer IMO.

Aldor · Sep 13, 2010

Just wanted to add a few words about my own save. I've since a while been following TMIT's suggestion of expansion via workers/settlers first and infrastructure "later". Of course priority things like monuments/granary and perhaps a library where useful will be built asap, but settlers and especially workers are more important for me. I don't care as much about a low tech percentage (as long as I have the means to pick up again, like writing / currency).

enKage · Sep 13, 2010

lymond said:
Round 1 Voting is Now Open

1) 3 points for Siran
mainly for cities placement and tech path similar to mine, current technology is at the very beggining, so i will chang maths for something more useful.

Library in capital can be rushed in one turn, i think this is a very nice start for next rounds

2) Bibor
- city placement (except for capital)
- blocking gilgamesh
- techs sailing and writing
- having done most of the things i should do and i didn;t

These two games in my opinion are far better than the rest, so the third place...
3) steveoh/Mintegar?
I can't decide, let's say steveoh

Thanks for all comments on my game, what can make my skills better so i could be in top 3 next game/ save

lymond · Sep 14, 2010

Let's keep those votes coming if you haven't voted

Siran · Sep 14, 2010

enKage said:
- techs sailing and writing

Little correction: Bibor has not teched sailing yet. Another 4 turns to go for that.

Trystero · Sep 14, 2010

lymond said:
Let's keep those votes coming if you haven't voted

Sorry, I had a crazy day at work. I'm looking over the saves now and should have my votes up by noon-ish (PST).

bufo802 · Sep 14, 2010

My preferred saves-

1. Birbor
Personally liked other city placements a bit more but v. good exploration and expansion, along with good tech.

2. Trystero
Like the idea of all coastal start, though surely sailing first to make the most of internal trade routes? Got horses and no barbarians, and pretty good exploration of the land.

3. Hrun
V. good tech (have got the gold quickly) and like the planned city placements (though ideally I'd have thought capital 1W). Only worry is barb archer which could cause some trouble.

Washington Monarch Cookbook Mark II (IC Concurrent)

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