Whipping paradise start

[shakabrade]

Saladin, Deity, Big and Small, Standard, Normal, BUFFY

What can a good deity player versed in intensive whipping do with this?

Spoiler :

Please ignore possible multiple sessions since start cause I've had some troubles saving and uploading.

 

[TiglathPileser]

Hmm, it's ok but hardly an great start foodwise. Ideally you'd want to share the seafood with 2+ neighbouring cities, which isn't possible here. And I've never been a fan of Saladin since they nerfed him.

The only option to share 2 of the seafood with another city is to settle the cap 1E on the ph, and a second city nw of the warrior for both clams. Which would be good if you didn't lose the freshwater bonus for the capital - often vital for leveraging food on deity.

The other option to share 1 fish is to SIP and drop another city 3E (looks like grassland so might be a resource though). Downside is you probably won't be able to use the 3 remaining seafood in the capital all the time unless you happen across a two or three early happy resources.

 

[shakabrade]

But I know things about this start you don't...

Just open it and play couple of turns.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

No happiness so I wouldn't whip that much early.

 

[shakabrade]

No happiness so I wouldn't whip that much early.

Oh, come on. I was fishing you especially, since you whip hardest. There is some happiness. Have you opened the save? How much happiness makes you whip early?

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Mmm probably would whip hard if I had 2 happiness resources, but I would also need something to whip, units. Which means I need a nice soft target. I can't open the save by the way. >.> Civ says that something is wrong with the save real quick then closes.

 

[shakabrade]

It is BUFFY.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Yea Buffy is all messed up on my comp, I need to reinstall Civ4 due to missing a bunch of graphics files.

 

[shakabrade]

Yea Buffy is all messed up on my comp, I need to reinstall Civ4 due to missing a bunch of graphics files.

What are you talking about Ram Ram of the Faceless Empire?

Btw, I got killed in this game. 1500BC 11 unit stack (7 axes+4 archers)

 

[Manco Capac]

Hmmm...relying on wonder is the worst kind of strategy, isn't it?

Spoiler :

First attempt isn't bad, I should've pursued it even though the GLH went late and lost it.

Such start begs for this wonder...so I tweaked my rules of never try again and make a new attempt going all for the wonder.

First attempt: wonder loss around 1100 BC.
Second Attempt: wonder loss at 1920 BC. In other words, just the moment I was starting the wonder.

So random. But high sea setting has to do with it.

Man! That is no cool. Guess if I want to continue, first attempt must be pursued...

@Shakabrade

Spoiler :

Lemme guess. Ragnar was after you.
Then put a city next to the wheat on the desert hill. That way, later, you also catch the cow and you get a super defense city against the monster. Anyways, at some point, I decided to self-tech Archery to protect myself even though I had warrior doing all the job of fogbusting. When Ragnar or a psychopath like him is around, better safe than sorry.
Still, 1500 BC is really early, forcing to put your second city on that location and get many archers. But the gold, cow and fish site is just way more powerful.

 

[shakabrade]

Hmmm...relying on wonder is the worst kind of strategy, isn't it?

Spoiler :

First attempt isn't bad, I should've pursued it even though the GLH went late and lost it.

Such start begs for this wonder...so I tweaked my rules of never try again and make a new attempt going all for the wonder.

First attempt: wonder loss around 1100 BC.
Second Attempt: wonder loss at 1920 BC. In other words, just the moment I was starting the wonder.

So random. But high sea setting has to do with it.

Man! That is no cool. Guess if I want to continue, first attempt must be pursued...

@Shakabrade

Spoiler :

Lemme guess. Ragnar was after you.
Then put a city next to the wheat on the desert hill. That way, later, you also catch the cow and you get a super defense city against the monster. Anyways, at some point, I decided to self-tech Archery to protect myself even though I had warrior doing all the job of fogbusting. When Ragnar or a psychopath like him is around, better safe than sorry.
Still, 1500 BC is really early, forcing to put your second city on that location and get many archers. But the gold, cow and fish site is just way more powerful.

Spoiler :

I went for the GLH too and was half way there with 6 pop in capital and 3 cities and planned to whip workers and overflow into GLH and complete it in 6 turns or fail for a nice gold in this stage of a game. But Ragnar rather went for someone 10+ tiles away from his border. Didn't expect that. I didn't settle that defense city cause it would be a drag on my economy, and have prioritezied stealing land from holy rome. I guess bad call. But 1500BC DoWs don't annoy me since that only means I lost 30 minutes of my life and that's acceptable. The only irony is that this is my first Pro leader in a while and then I get killed. Btw, I also researched archery despite having 3 fogbusting warriors. The problem is that game is spoiled cause I don't play the same map multiple times, but, maybe, I'll try again.

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

I went for the GLH too and was half way there with 6 pop in capital and 3 cities and planned to whip workers and overflow into GLH and complete it in 6 turns or fail for a nice gold in this stage of a game. But Ragnar rather went for someone 10+ tiles away from his border. Didn't expect that. I didn't settle that defense city cause it would be a drag on my economy, and have prioritezied stealing land from holy rome. I guess bad call. But 1500BC DoWs don't annoy me since that only means I lost 30 minutes of my life and that's acceptable. The only irony is that this is my first Pro leader in a while and then I get killed. Btw, I also researched archery despite having 3 fogbusting warriors. The problem is that game is spoiled cause I don't play the same map multiple times, but, maybe, I'll try again.

Spoiler :

I don't think it is a bad choice to settle close to gold first given the power of that location compared to wheat location where after working the wheat, the first ring offers few production for producing archers. In addition, Ragnar doesn't settle near the cow even after his 7th city.
For curiosity, I tried some micro and my third attempt where it seemed decent to me, well, I lost by 9 turns (less with coming chops) the wonder around ~1700 BC.
It looks like such strategy is bad because we don't start with right starting techs to speed up the wonder. Only the wheel helps us to reach pottery because I refuse to whip til I get a granary. Normally, on deity, sometimes, you have to whip to get a city fast, but, even in my first attempt, there was no pressing issue.

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

The problem is that game is spoiled cause I don't play the same map multiple times, but, maybe, I'll try again.

I understand your attitude since I follow the same rule, but for learning experience, perhaps retrying is better.

Spoiler :

But I think retrying until getting the wonder is no good given its high variability. I might try a fourth and last attempt. If I get the wonder, I'll call myself lucky, otherwise, I will continue the game as if it was nothing. And fail gold from TGLH isn't very attractive because of 1/1 ratio when early hammers are precious to empire development.

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

I decided to proceed on my final attempt just to see if the wonder will go away and yes it did way too early. Conclusion, anyone getting the wonder is a lucky bastard . Only thing I noticed regularly is late Oracle. I decided to ignore Oracle because I know it was going away late.

Honestly, in my four attempts, it is really surprising how the turn of events change so much! In one game, Charlie has gone for SH and GW, another one Ragnar had GW and another SH. In my present one, Charlie decided to go for the GW and Mids! Camel vs protective archers...

The most surprising turn of event is a barb city spawning (T24) just in jungle, just saving a spare city for me! In the same 4th attempt, a stupid worker decided to suicide to me. That is such a strike of luck!

I was like



Thanks to my usual putting a turn of road micro, I decided to finish it this time. See the following to understand why I wait one turn of gold improvement.






Just like capturing a worker from a real civ, the archers are stunned and forget to attack me. Anyways, barb archers in city are less agressive than roaming archers.

The 60 gift from RNG was sent to the gold tile and I lost no turn because of the road: the gold was ready in right time.

Micro saved the day for once.

Later, I lost TGLH. Let's forget that wonder, it clearly impossible to get it.




Anyways, getting that barb city is such a miracle from heaven!

Early game micro:
Fishing=>Mining=>BW=>Sailing=>Masonry (Beaker wasted! , but I will build a wall in defense city to make up the loss) => Hunting => ? Agriculture/AH/Writing.

Some hammers on warrior while working a FP. Then stop and start a WB, then I started a second one despite I knew I would lose two hammers on my warrior (unit decay after 10 turns), then worker, granary, worker, settler...

 

[shakabrade]

@Tachywaxon

I really need to start stealing more workers. I've built medina 1W of your site so it could share pigs since capital would not really be able to work all that food but delayed gold improvement 14-15 turns to get it in my second ring +4 turns for building the mine. Now that I put some numbers to it I see it was stupid. And built a city south to share, well, southern pigs and grab sugar (not everyone had that barb city spawned). In fact, in my game, Charlie built a city 1S of your barb city. GLH is possible, I believe, but you must chop it with two workers, so no second city before completion. 1840BC is probably the most normal date it gets off in my dates, but I saw in demographics that all but maybe one civ started coastal (one had 8000 land turn1, still could be coastal), and if any is Ind, that's super early GLH, aka cra*. I am still talking of my one and only attempt on this map.

You see how many different games can the same map provide. That's why I don't think you learn that much by retrying. And I pity you people playing SGOTM because of unfair randomness of the ''same'' map.
Btw, I am playing another game with Gilgamesh (Pro leader again ), and have payed 5 times more attention to micro and I must say I managed to get 900 bpt around 980AD, Normal speed, no rushing, without any commerce heavy resources in my first 8 cities. Micro rules. So I guess I owe you an apology for undermining micro some time ago if you remember.

Btw, how does one steal workers without dying to nearby archers. When do they not attack? If you have all those rules code digged summed up somewhere, I would really appreciate.

I am sorry if my text is not too much user friendly, I just watched a korean movie with no happy ending.


Regarding your game, You lucky bastard/ess, charlie built you two wonders, just fogbust for god sakes, and survive ragnar. Camels come with guilds, right. Revenge me...

 

[Um the Muse]

I don't have the source, but IIRC, barb cities need to keep 3 barbs in the city boundaries as defenders (3 is for Emperor or higher or something). Also, enemies typically don't attack with low odds, though barbs get a random chance of attacking anyway.

 

[Seraiel]

I'm not Tachy, but I can answer part of your Question.

AI Rules:

2 Archers must me kept in City.
AI only attacks Warriors if they have a Chance of >50% (at least the AIs I know, maybe some have more courage than others).

Special Rules:

When a unit is wounded, AI attacks more often and can even only let 1 Archer in the City.

Number of Archers that must be in the city can be different, in one of my last games, AC always left 5 Archers in his city, but it's never less than 2 except for the above special rule.

General:

You can build Worker-Traps with 2 Warriors, as Workers cannot see what the other units see. For example: Move with 1 Warrior to a Worker, so that he withdraws on a to which another Warrior has access.

Road-building Warriors can be very stubborn and continue building the road even when you move next to them.

You will want, if possible, a Woods2 Warrior, because his survival rate against an Archer is at 50% so he will get less attacked, and the AI doesn't recognize that he has 2 moves in forrests, therefor it's very easy with him to capture workers.

 

[pixiejmcc]

You will want, if possible, a Woods2 Warrior, because his survival rate against an Archer is at 50% so he will get less attacked, and the AI doesn't recognize that he has 2 moves in forrests, therefor it's very easy with him to capture workers.

Assuming the warrior's actually in a forest, quite a bit higher than 50%. Just guessing but I would say ~95%.

My observations match yours regarding whether or not an archer can attack a warrior. Hadn't realised a worker moved independetly of other units. I assume the AI will take all the information it has into account like a human would but I guess it isn't really like that.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I'm not Tachy, but I can answer part of your Question.

AI Rules:

2 Archers must me kept in City.
AI only attacks Warriors if they have a Chance of >50% (at least the AIs I know, maybe some have more courage than others).

Special Rules:

When a unit is wounded, AI attacks more often and can even only let 1 Archer in the City.

Number of Archers that must be in the city can be different, in one of my last games, AC always left 5 Archers in his city, but it's never less than 2 except for the above special rule.

General:

You can build Worker-Traps with 2 Warriors, as Workers cannot see what the other units see. For example: Move with 1 Warrior to a Worker, so that he withdraws on a to which another Warrior has access.

Road-building Warriors can be very stubborn and continue building the road even when you move next to them.

You will want, if possible, a Woods2 Warrior, because his survival rate against an Archer is at 50% so he will get less attacked, and the AI doesn't recognize that he has 2 moves in forrests, therefor it's very easy with him to capture workers.

If the barb Archer wants to battle he will! Even if it is against an Axe on a hill with a fortify bonus, hell he will win too.

 

[Manco Capac]

If the barb Archer wants to battle he will! Even if it is against an Axe on a hill with a fortify bonus, hell he will win too.

Do you really think it makes sense to see a spawn (not a captured city because the contrary is often seen until to no defender) barb city reduced to one last defender? How it would be easy to capture it and it would resemble to Vanilla CIV where we used baits (mostly workers) to attract defenders out of city defense.

Also, enemies typically don't attack with low odds, though barbs get a random chance of attacking anyway.

Their courage to attack is twice as a normal AI unit to be exact.