Here's our glorious Empire:
ZF1 - Zed's Training Day Game
- Thread starter Zed-F
- Start date
And the save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/ZF1-china-350ad.zip
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/ZF1-china-350ad.zip
Mystery13
Prince
Nice job...our lands are looking good. What's with that Iroquois city trying to nudge our space in the North?
I wonder if we should stop building horsemen at 20. Isn't that already 1600 gold to upgrade to Knight? Not to mention 20 gpt for the upkeep of the troops. Or, do we keep building them and swap out the Pikemen? Where do we draw the line at the right amount of troops? I guess we should keep the Pikes since they upgrade all the way to Mech.
When we decide to pick a fight, we'll need defensive troops and settlers to fill the space so maybe that's what we should start next. Anyway, that's the decision of the next great leader. I'm just rambling away...
I wonder if we should stop building horsemen at 20. Isn't that already 1600 gold to upgrade to Knight? Not to mention 20 gpt for the upkeep of the troops. Or, do we keep building them and swap out the Pikemen? Where do we draw the line at the right amount of troops? I guess we should keep the Pikes since they upgrade all the way to Mech.
When we decide to pick a fight, we'll need defensive troops and settlers to fill the space so maybe that's what we should start next. Anyway, that's the decision of the next great leader. I'm just rambling away...
We probably want more than 20 Riders, ultimately, but we can build some of them as well. Still, 1600 gold is about 16-20 turns of income at 0% science (do Riders cost more shields and thus more gold to upgrade? possibly.) That's a lot, but we've already got 1100. I'd build up to 30-40 horsemen. If we're going on the offense in a Republic, we want a RAPID war, so as to minimize the war weariness and flip possibilities. Hence we will need a multi-prong leapfrog attack, where each prong has 2 stacks of knights -- one to attack a city, and a second to leapfrog past that city and move in on the next while our first group heals up. For that, we need a lot of troops. And, we will lose some, because we will be attacking some big cities with fortified pikes, which is usually hard on knights, so some of those stacks are going to have to be pretty big. If we can manage 4 groups of 8-10 Riders apiece, we should do quite well. We should have enough time to build up that many horses and still have time left over to build pikes and settlers to backfill.
My guess is we will not be going to war for at least 20 turns, since it will take that long to get Monotheism and research Chivalry, so we can afford to build up an unstoppable force. We should also keep up the infrastructure buildout so we can afford all those troops. It looks like infrastructure in most of our first ring cities is nearly complete so we can start shifting our second-ring cities further in the direction of infrastructure and let our 1st-ring cities take over on military soon.
Just how corrupt is Tientsin? As soon as we go to war, we will trigger a Golden Age, and that's always a good time to build an FP. If Tientsin is not hopelessly corrupt (1/1), we could build a courthouse there now, which should bring it into the realm of possibility for an FP site during a golden age. That will also be a good time to fill out any missing infrastructure in second-ring cities. It might even be worthwhile to rush the courthouse so we can get an early start on an FP. Otherwise we will have to hope for a Great Leader out of our wars.
My guess is we will not be going to war for at least 20 turns, since it will take that long to get Monotheism and research Chivalry, so we can afford to build up an unstoppable force. We should also keep up the infrastructure buildout so we can afford all those troops. It looks like infrastructure in most of our first ring cities is nearly complete so we can start shifting our second-ring cities further in the direction of infrastructure and let our 1st-ring cities take over on military soon.
Just how corrupt is Tientsin? As soon as we go to war, we will trigger a Golden Age, and that's always a good time to build an FP. If Tientsin is not hopelessly corrupt (1/1), we could build a courthouse there now, which should bring it into the realm of possibility for an FP site during a golden age. That will also be a good time to fill out any missing infrastructure in second-ring cities. It might even be worthwhile to rush the courthouse so we can get an early start on an FP. Otherwise we will have to hope for a Great Leader out of our wars.
Tientsin may be hopelessy corrupt. When I checked it deciding what to build next, its shields were like 4/1 - wasting almost everything.
ChrTh
Happy Yule!
It's probably at 85% corruption, since it's connected by road. If we get a courthouse in there, it may help enough to build FP...
although a GL may be a better bet.
What's the deal with Shanghai, are we waiting until Sun Tzu is done before we convert mines to irrigation?
And does Hangchow need an Aqueduct? Should we switch over from Horseman?
Mystery13
Prince
Wow, 30 to 40 Riders and dual waves! No wonder I'm poor at attacking. I'd never thought of the leapfrog idea. Keep 'em coming Zed...I'm hear to learn about warfare.
Yeah, ChrTh, Shanghai is still mined to get Sun Tzu as fast as possible. With a stack of two workers, those grasslands can be irrigated in just a couple of turns.
I like the idea of rushing the courthouse and starting the FP in Tientsin asap.
Yeah, ChrTh, Shanghai is still mined to get Sun Tzu as fast as possible. With a stack of two workers, those grasslands can be irrigated in just a couple of turns.
I like the idea of rushing the courthouse and starting the FP in Tientsin asap.
Right, Shanghai is still mined for Sun Tzu's. I micromanaged as much as I could to speed that up, but was only able to gain one turn. Those grasslands will irrigate quickly, and we can mine the mountains for shields.
And you're right, rushing a courthouse in Tientsin might do the trick there. Still possibly (probably) need a GL to get FP there anytime soon, though.
And you're right, rushing a courthouse in Tientsin might do the trick there. Still possibly (probably) need a GL to get FP there anytime soon, though.
ChrTh, you're right, Hangchow needs an aquaduct to grow. My logic was: it's a second-ring city, so have it build horsemen until the first-ring is ready to take over those.
Perhaps not the correct decision, but it made sense to me at the time.
Perhaps not the correct decision, but it made sense to me at the time.
On aqueducts:
- Usually Aqueducts take a long time to build. So, usually you want to pop a settler or a worker first before you start the aqueduct so you aren't wasting food while you wait for the aqueduct to complete.
- We should be in a position to switch Hangchow to aqueduct soon, but I agree that holding off for a bit was a good call. Usually moderation in all things is a good plan; you can lean a fair distance one way (infra) or the other (military) but too far either direction and you'll topple. We were starting to lean too far in the infrastructure direction at our second ring cities but it looks like we've corrected the problem.
Once we get a few low-corruption core cities pretty much permanently dedicated to military (with the odd settler/worker from a size 12 city) until Banks, we can pretty much afford to build infra everywhere else for as long as we need to. By then we should have enough military that even building several banks during wartime won't cause more than a temporary blip in our troop count -- but if it does we don't have to build banks everywhere at once, we can follow the same core-first strategy we've been following so far with infrastructure. The next serious infrastructure push doesn't come until the Industrial age.
Note on libraries: so far we have not been doing our own research so we have pretty much ignored them. Once we've got a sizeable military built up, we should start considering them again, not for research but for culture. They are not too expensive (about the same as a Rider) and relatively cheap to maintain so they are good to help with preventing a ton of flips. Witness RBD12 if you want evidence of what happens if you completely ignore culture for too long and don't bring an overpowering military force to bear on the situation: Our initial attempts at conquering Aztecs resulted in entire armies being lost to flippage, a lightning assault on Egypt prevented flipping from being a serious problem there, but the second war against the Aztecs ground on long enough for flipping to again be a major problem. A large part of this was insufficient culture throughout the game. Here we're in a better situation, largely because we have a larger civ than our neighbours and our neighbors are at war and not building up infrastructure, but not so much better that we can afford to continue to ignore libraries as culture sources forever.
BTW, Mysterious, it's relatively easy to come up with impressive-sounding tactics when you've got a huge production advantage over your rivals. Hence my early focus on infrastructure and workers! It's a bit tougher when you've got very limited resources and you're stretched thin all over. I wouldn't call myself a great leader in war-time by any means, but by using diplomacy to try to stay out of wars until I'm ready to fight on my terms (i.e. with a big advantage), I'm usually successful anyway.
- Usually Aqueducts take a long time to build. So, usually you want to pop a settler or a worker first before you start the aqueduct so you aren't wasting food while you wait for the aqueduct to complete.
- We should be in a position to switch Hangchow to aqueduct soon, but I agree that holding off for a bit was a good call. Usually moderation in all things is a good plan; you can lean a fair distance one way (infra) or the other (military) but too far either direction and you'll topple. We were starting to lean too far in the infrastructure direction at our second ring cities but it looks like we've corrected the problem.
Once we get a few low-corruption core cities pretty much permanently dedicated to military (with the odd settler/worker from a size 12 city) until Banks, we can pretty much afford to build infra everywhere else for as long as we need to. By then we should have enough military that even building several banks during wartime won't cause more than a temporary blip in our troop count -- but if it does we don't have to build banks everywhere at once, we can follow the same core-first strategy we've been following so far with infrastructure. The next serious infrastructure push doesn't come until the Industrial age.
Note on libraries: so far we have not been doing our own research so we have pretty much ignored them. Once we've got a sizeable military built up, we should start considering them again, not for research but for culture. They are not too expensive (about the same as a Rider) and relatively cheap to maintain so they are good to help with preventing a ton of flips. Witness RBD12 if you want evidence of what happens if you completely ignore culture for too long and don't bring an overpowering military force to bear on the situation: Our initial attempts at conquering Aztecs resulted in entire armies being lost to flippage, a lightning assault on Egypt prevented flipping from being a serious problem there, but the second war against the Aztecs ground on long enough for flipping to again be a major problem. A large part of this was insufficient culture throughout the game. Here we're in a better situation, largely because we have a larger civ than our neighbours and our neighbors are at war and not building up infrastructure, but not so much better that we can afford to continue to ignore libraries as culture sources forever.
BTW, Mysterious, it's relatively easy to come up with impressive-sounding tactics when you've got a huge production advantage over your rivals. Hence my early focus on infrastructure and workers! It's a bit tougher when you've got very limited resources and you're stretched thin all over. I wouldn't call myself a great leader in war-time by any means, but by using diplomacy to try to stay out of wars until I'm ready to fight on my terms (i.e. with a big advantage), I'm usually successful anyway.
Comments on Padma's turn...
Sorta have been collecting comments throughout the past few posts, but here's some more anyway.
Shaghai, again, ordinarily we want growth, especially in a wonder city, even if we have to run lux tax to support it. Reducing food intake to increase shields is normally NOT the right policy; rather getting more pop to get more tiles into production is the right call. However, since we're close to completing Sun Tzu anyway and we have pressing need for basic infra in Shanghai, we're making an exception in this case.
Courthouse at Tatung -- that pretty much commits us to an infrastructure push at Tatung since we're now well over the size 6 threshold. Fair enough since we can start looking at more of an infra push in 2nd-ring cities. Keep pumping out settlers/workers as it hit size 12 though (this goes for all our cities.)
Beijing should be our biggest city. Does it not have enough surplus food? Check all our cities, they should ALL have around 4 (3-5) surplus food. This will let us pump out settlers to replace razed cities and workers to clear jungle at a reasonable rate. Spare workers can also be used as combat engineers to build roads (and eventually rails) in support of our invasion forces.
Swapping territory maps -- I haven't heard of any reason why you should expect an AI attack when they ask to swap, but it sounds like something a human player would do. Has something been discovered about this wrt the AI?
Collecting all our mobile troops in Nanking: fine, if we have enough troops at our borders to repel a sudden surprise attack. All our border cities should have at least 2-3 troops; some of them have lux resources which make them particularily valuable, necessitating extra defenders. If necessary, push a few horses out that way for now. We can collect them back at Nanking when we're ready to go on the offensive, and replace them with infantry units (as we build more.)
On a similar note, we should have our pikes (what few we have) on our borders and our spears inland where they can quickly be upgraded once we re-connect our iron. Speaking of which, we should be about done building horses in 10 turns, at which point we will start wanting to build some infantry as well; we need to decide whether to reconnect our iron and build pikes, or leave it disconnected and build spears. In the latter case we will not only have to have cash to upgrade the horses but at least some of the spears as well. Since the main limiting factor on Riders is Chivalry, we can build up horses prior to that for upgrading, but we don't have the same limitation on pikes. However, we can get more infantry out faster if we go with spears and then upgrade them to pikes a bit at a time as we go.
Embassies: good call, something that often gets neglected. We have the funds, we should have embassies with everyone! We have the biggest territory in the game, this should allow us to renegotiate RoPs every 20 turns or so for increasing amounts of cash. When we get trade going with other civs we can expand that to include lux/resources as well; don't forget that trade can go over water as well so don't ignore it just because there's no road connection yet. All we need is for the AI civs to build a harbour or two.
Tientsin being hopelessly corrupt: If it is, a courthouse will do no good (at least not as of 1.17, could be different in 1.21 but unlikely.) A good way to check is to try to maximize trade arrows (usually can get more of those than shields) and see how bad the corruption is. If you can get more than one, it's not hopeless. Since all of our other cities are closer to the capital than Tientsin, I wouldn't be too surprised if it were hopeless, but if not and we can significantly reduce corruption with a courthouse then it might be a reasonable FP site.
Hangchow: Size 6, can't grow. Worker first, then horse. Or, worker/settler then aqueduct if we have enough core cities on horse by then.
One more point about settlers... we could have had more of the jungle if we'd built a few more in some of our secondary cities; I realize the war intruded but I still feel that we could have gotten some in -- Tatung especially is bigger than I expected it would be by now. Akwesas, Reading, and Izumo could all have been ours; now we'll have to go conquer them later. We might not have gotten much out of them, but at least we would have denied them to the AI.
Sorta have been collecting comments throughout the past few posts, but here's some more anyway.
Shaghai, again, ordinarily we want growth, especially in a wonder city, even if we have to run lux tax to support it. Reducing food intake to increase shields is normally NOT the right policy; rather getting more pop to get more tiles into production is the right call. However, since we're close to completing Sun Tzu anyway and we have pressing need for basic infra in Shanghai, we're making an exception in this case.
Courthouse at Tatung -- that pretty much commits us to an infrastructure push at Tatung since we're now well over the size 6 threshold. Fair enough since we can start looking at more of an infra push in 2nd-ring cities. Keep pumping out settlers/workers as it hit size 12 though (this goes for all our cities.)
Beijing should be our biggest city. Does it not have enough surplus food? Check all our cities, they should ALL have around 4 (3-5) surplus food. This will let us pump out settlers to replace razed cities and workers to clear jungle at a reasonable rate. Spare workers can also be used as combat engineers to build roads (and eventually rails) in support of our invasion forces.
Swapping territory maps -- I haven't heard of any reason why you should expect an AI attack when they ask to swap, but it sounds like something a human player would do. Has something been discovered about this wrt the AI?
Collecting all our mobile troops in Nanking: fine, if we have enough troops at our borders to repel a sudden surprise attack. All our border cities should have at least 2-3 troops; some of them have lux resources which make them particularily valuable, necessitating extra defenders. If necessary, push a few horses out that way for now. We can collect them back at Nanking when we're ready to go on the offensive, and replace them with infantry units (as we build more.)
On a similar note, we should have our pikes (what few we have) on our borders and our spears inland where they can quickly be upgraded once we re-connect our iron. Speaking of which, we should be about done building horses in 10 turns, at which point we will start wanting to build some infantry as well; we need to decide whether to reconnect our iron and build pikes, or leave it disconnected and build spears. In the latter case we will not only have to have cash to upgrade the horses but at least some of the spears as well. Since the main limiting factor on Riders is Chivalry, we can build up horses prior to that for upgrading, but we don't have the same limitation on pikes. However, we can get more infantry out faster if we go with spears and then upgrade them to pikes a bit at a time as we go.
Embassies: good call, something that often gets neglected. We have the funds, we should have embassies with everyone! We have the biggest territory in the game, this should allow us to renegotiate RoPs every 20 turns or so for increasing amounts of cash. When we get trade going with other civs we can expand that to include lux/resources as well; don't forget that trade can go over water as well so don't ignore it just because there's no road connection yet. All we need is for the AI civs to build a harbour or two.
Tientsin being hopelessly corrupt: If it is, a courthouse will do no good (at least not as of 1.17, could be different in 1.21 but unlikely.) A good way to check is to try to maximize trade arrows (usually can get more of those than shields) and see how bad the corruption is. If you can get more than one, it's not hopeless. Since all of our other cities are closer to the capital than Tientsin, I wouldn't be too surprised if it were hopeless, but if not and we can significantly reduce corruption with a courthouse then it might be a reasonable FP site.
Hangchow: Size 6, can't grow. Worker first, then horse. Or, worker/settler then aqueduct if we have enough core cities on horse by then.
One more point about settlers... we could have had more of the jungle if we'd built a few more in some of our secondary cities; I realize the war intruded but I still feel that we could have gotten some in -- Tatung especially is bigger than I expected it would be by now. Akwesas, Reading, and Izumo could all have been ours; now we'll have to go conquer them later. We might not have gotten much out of them, but at least we would have denied them to the AI.
ChrTh
Happy Yule!
FYI: I'll be playing either tonight or tomorrow
Goal: Improve on last time's disaster...shouldn't be too hard
Goal: Improve on last time's disaster...shouldn't be too hard
ChrTh
Happy Yule!
Or I could just play now...
Turn 0 -- 350 AD
Goals...check on Tientsin and see if it's hopelessly corrupt. If not, get a Courthouse.
Complete Infrastructure in Core Cities, begin military build and make outer cities work in Infrastructure.
Get pikes outbound and spears inbound. Redistribute military.
Looking around:
Tientsin is NOT hopelessly corrupt. Out of 7 shields, 2 are productive...out of 12 commerce, 3 are productive. We can build an FP here...I order up a Courthouse, and I hurry it for 312 gold.
I switch Hangchow to Worker.
Monotheism is still too expensive.
I break up the Horse Party at Nanking, sending 4 each to Tientsin, Tatung, and Padmativa. None of those cities are under culture pressure.
Turn 1 -- 360 AD
The Japanese have requested an audience...sure I'll listen.
He wants to trade WMs...I decide to decline nicely
Beijing produces Horseman, I order up Library; it'll only take 5 turns, and provide culture for us later.
Tientsin finishes Courthouse. We're know getting 3 of 7 shields, and I checked, and we get 4 of 8, so FP is definitely doable here. I order up worker.
Dockonda Bay is getting ready to revolt. Erk, here's the rub: what happens first, Marketplace built or Rioting ensues? I hire an entertainer for 1 turn, just to be safe. It's still growing like gangbusters.
Turn 2 -- 370 AD
Dockonda Bay completes Marketplace....I order up Granary. It might not make sense, since DB is at 12, but my thinking is that we can use DB for a Worker pump until Sanitation, and a 5-turn investment now will save us plenty of turns later.
Xinjian completes Marketplace, orders up Horse.
Hangchow completes Worker, orders up Horse.
Turn 3 -- 380 AD
We have completed Sun Tzu's Art of War in Shanghai...I order up Granary (to help it catch up).
My palace gets some nice spires in front!
The English are building The Great Wall, the Great Library, the Great Lighthouse, and Colossus (gar?).
The Japanese are building The Great Wall.
Tuskany Bay and Tsingtao complete Horses, and I order up more.
Turn 4 -- 390 AD
The Iroquois have requested an audience. They want to trade TMs..I decline politely.
The Persians have completed The Great Library.
The Babylonians cascade to Great Wall.
As do the English (how many wonders are they building?)
As do the Iroquois
And the Japanese
The Zulus complete the Great Wall...THE ZULUS! The mystery guest has a name! (They must've cascaded as well, but what use would the Library have been to them?)
ZzzZzz
Turn 5 -- 400 AD
Xinjian completes Horses, orders up Horses.
Diamond Delta completes Temple, orders up Horses.
Tientsin completes Worker, orders up Horses.
Nottingham completes the Colossus.
Monotheism has finally been distributed. It may go down a little more, but I'd rather get cracking on Chivalry (which may have also already been developed). I trade England 275 gold for it (they had the lowest price).
I set Science to Chivalry. No one else seems to have it.
Turn 6 -- 410 AD
Japan wants the ROP to expire..I let it.
Babylon and Persia sign a peace treaty.
Beijing produces Library, I order up Horseman.
Turn 7 -- 420 AD
Dockonda Bay produces Granary, orders up Worker
Canton has produced Aqueduct, orders up Granary
Tuskany Bay produces Horseman, orders up Horseman, we may want to build a Granary here before the pop goes up (17 turns)
Tsingtao orders up Horseman after building same.
Hangchow completes Horseman, orders up Worker.
Engineering is rampant (all but Iroquois)...I decide to let next player decide (with Zed's input), though, as it's at 300 gold asking price.
Turn 8 -- 430 AD
Beijing completes Horseman, orders up Cathedral
Dockonda Bay completes Worker, orders up Horses
Xinjian completes Horses, orders up Cathedral
Turn 9 -- 440 AD
Right of Passage with England expires, we both let it go.
Hangchow completes Worker, begins Horses
Chengdu completes Courthouse, begins Horses
Turn 10 -- 450 AD
Shanghai completes Granary, orders up Temple
Tatung revolts...dammit, I missed that. I hire a Scientist (from a lost-to-corruption 1 shield mountain square)...so Chivalry in 40 turns
Not much happened on my turn, a lot of Workers working and building happening...
I left Engineering for the next player to decide about.
Save and pic to follow...
Turn 0 -- 350 AD
Goals...check on Tientsin and see if it's hopelessly corrupt. If not, get a Courthouse.
Complete Infrastructure in Core Cities, begin military build and make outer cities work in Infrastructure.
Get pikes outbound and spears inbound. Redistribute military.
Looking around:
Tientsin is NOT hopelessly corrupt. Out of 7 shields, 2 are productive...out of 12 commerce, 3 are productive. We can build an FP here...I order up a Courthouse, and I hurry it for 312 gold.
I switch Hangchow to Worker.
Monotheism is still too expensive.
I break up the Horse Party at Nanking, sending 4 each to Tientsin, Tatung, and Padmativa. None of those cities are under culture pressure.
Turn 1 -- 360 AD
The Japanese have requested an audience...sure I'll listen.
He wants to trade WMs...I decide to decline nicely
Beijing produces Horseman, I order up Library; it'll only take 5 turns, and provide culture for us later.
Tientsin finishes Courthouse. We're know getting 3 of 7 shields, and I checked, and we get 4 of 8, so FP is definitely doable here. I order up worker.
Dockonda Bay is getting ready to revolt. Erk, here's the rub: what happens first, Marketplace built or Rioting ensues? I hire an entertainer for 1 turn, just to be safe. It's still growing like gangbusters.
Turn 2 -- 370 AD
Dockonda Bay completes Marketplace....I order up Granary. It might not make sense, since DB is at 12, but my thinking is that we can use DB for a Worker pump until Sanitation, and a 5-turn investment now will save us plenty of turns later.
Xinjian completes Marketplace, orders up Horse.
Hangchow completes Worker, orders up Horse.
Turn 3 -- 380 AD
We have completed Sun Tzu's Art of War in Shanghai...I order up Granary (to help it catch up).
My palace gets some nice spires in front!
The English are building The Great Wall, the Great Library, the Great Lighthouse, and Colossus (gar?).
The Japanese are building The Great Wall.
Tuskany Bay and Tsingtao complete Horses, and I order up more.
Turn 4 -- 390 AD
The Iroquois have requested an audience. They want to trade TMs..I decline politely.
The Persians have completed The Great Library.
The Babylonians cascade to Great Wall.
As do the English (how many wonders are they building?)
As do the Iroquois
And the Japanese
The Zulus complete the Great Wall...THE ZULUS! The mystery guest has a name! (They must've cascaded as well, but what use would the Library have been to them?)
ZzzZzz
Turn 5 -- 400 AD
Xinjian completes Horses, orders up Horses.
Diamond Delta completes Temple, orders up Horses.
Tientsin completes Worker, orders up Horses.
Nottingham completes the Colossus.
Monotheism has finally been distributed. It may go down a little more, but I'd rather get cracking on Chivalry (which may have also already been developed). I trade England 275 gold for it (they had the lowest price).
I set Science to Chivalry. No one else seems to have it.
Turn 6 -- 410 AD
Japan wants the ROP to expire..I let it.
Babylon and Persia sign a peace treaty.
Beijing produces Library, I order up Horseman.
Turn 7 -- 420 AD
Dockonda Bay produces Granary, orders up Worker
Canton has produced Aqueduct, orders up Granary
Tuskany Bay produces Horseman, orders up Horseman, we may want to build a Granary here before the pop goes up (17 turns)
Tsingtao orders up Horseman after building same.
Hangchow completes Horseman, orders up Worker.
Engineering is rampant (all but Iroquois)...I decide to let next player decide (with Zed's input), though, as it's at 300 gold asking price.
Turn 8 -- 430 AD
Beijing completes Horseman, orders up Cathedral
Dockonda Bay completes Worker, orders up Horses
Xinjian completes Horses, orders up Cathedral
Turn 9 -- 440 AD
Right of Passage with England expires, we both let it go.
Hangchow completes Worker, begins Horses
Chengdu completes Courthouse, begins Horses
Turn 10 -- 450 AD
Shanghai completes Granary, orders up Temple
Tatung revolts...dammit, I missed that. I hire a Scientist (from a lost-to-corruption 1 shield mountain square)...so Chivalry in 40 turns
Not much happened on my turn, a lot of Workers working and building happening...
I left Engineering for the next player to decide about.
Save and pic to follow...
ChrTh
Happy Yule!
ChrTh, I haven't seen any disasters yet out of you, or anyone else for that matter. The only really weedy move I've seen was building a settler out of a city intended for military buildup and wonder-building. Lots of suboptimal moves, but that's par for the course, especially in a Training Day game.
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Domestic: I see several of our cities still need granaries, especially second-ring cities. Some of our 1st-ring cities seem to be done infrastructure for the moment and several of our 2nd-ring cities with fresh water or aqueducts are getting big, so time to swap those big 2nd-ring cities over to full infrastructure mode. Granaries and marketplaces are the first order of business. Smaller 2nd- and 3rd-ring cities without aqueducts/fresh water -- use your judgement, do we have enough military coming out of our core to put these guys on infrastructure for a long while? If so, go ahead and swap them. We definately have enough for defense, so there should be no worries about getting attacked; how fast we build military now just determines the timing of our first major offensive. 3rd-ring cities fall in the same boat. (Remember though, the more corrupt it is, the lower priority it is to build infrastructure. All our current cities should be able to get to the level of Tientsin, i.e. 50% corruption after courthouse, so infrastructure is a reasonable investment in places like Padmativa and even Shantung; however, much further out than that and we'll start getting into the realm of permanent 1/1 cities, where we want to invest in infrastructure as little as possible.)
Ok, we rushed a courthouse at Tientsin, and corruption is manageable. So, why not start on an FP sooner rather than later? Unless there's some critical infrastructure need for defending the town (walls/barracks/temple) which I'm pretty sure there's not, better to get an early start so that our conquered lands in the region become productive sooner. We will definately have some new territory there before it's done even if we start now. Note, this is an exception to the "don't overbuild infrastructure in colonies" rule; since we are proposing to make a second core out of this area, we want as much infrastructure here as we can reasonably manage, starting with the courthouse and FP. Normally you want to have the FP online ASAP especially if you can colonize around it; here the AI beat us to most of this land so delaying it until now hasn't hurt us much yet, but continued delays could. We will need to keep a good stack of defenders here until we've pushed our borders outwards and the area is secure; we do NOT want to lose the FP city.
Granary is good for a first build at Shanghai, but your next build should be a marketplace. We need happiness far more than culture there since our surrounding cities all have culture-locked our borders.
Canton should soon be growing to 12. Don't let Anyang steal its good tiles, as we want Canton to be a productive city; better to have one productive city and one fishing village than two semi-useful cities. Anyang can stick with coastal squares, and we can rush an aqueduct/marketplace there later when we get the opportunity, rather than trying to build them.
Core cities having marketplaces: Skip the cathedrals; we won't need them until we get hospitals. For now, our priorities in core cities with markets (and all other basic improvements like granaries etc.) should be focussed on supporting our military in order to allow our 2nd- and 3rd-ring cities to shift to infrastructure. If you want a culture source, a library is cheaper and does as good a job for less gpt expense in upkeep. Note, if we didn't have lots of local luxury sources such that we had happiness issues, I would then be arguing for cathedrals over libraries. But, since happiness isn't an issue, we don't really need the cathedrals just yet. Note: If you're worried about war weariness, (a) we plan for rapid war so it shouldn't be much of an issue in Republic, and (b) we need to build up our offensive army before we concern ourselves with war weariness...
All size 12 cities: Start thinking about settlers more than workers when you max out on pop and need to build something to allow that incoming food to go to good use. We will need settlers to found cities when we go on the offensive, and size 12 cities are a good candidate because they can build them relatively quickly and get back onto whatever they were working on (as compared with a size 6 city, where building a settler takes a significant amount of time and can take a relatively larger chunk out of the city's short-term production.) Some larger enemy cities will need to be razed to prevent them from tying up a large amount of troops pacifying resisters and reducing flip-odds. We also don't want to risk a large stack of quality attackers trying to pacify a large city since it may flip anyway. Rapid conquest will do a lot to minimize this risk, but we will still likely want to raze any really large enemy city we capture. We will need settlers to fill that gap, and to have some relatively safe cities for our troops to heal up in (safe in that there are no foreign nationals, so the only source of flip pressure is enemy-controlled tiles in radius, which we can eliminate through rapid conquest.)
NOTE: I only say build settlers at size 12 cities now because we've put a lot of effort into ensuring we have a good supply of workers already. If we were like most SGs and were short on workers and still had lots of land improvements to make, that would take priority.
Speaking of workers, remember to keep them where they are most needed, i.e. at the least corrupt cities that have unimproved squares in radius that are required for that city to reach peak production. Our core cities all already have 12 good tiles in radius, which is as much as they can use anyway, but some of our 2nd-ring cities capable of growing to 12 still need some work; this takes precedence over jungle-clearing operations at 3rd-ring cities. Also, keep in mind that if we build an FP at Tientsin, that city becomes another core city, so we will want improved tiles there, (It looks like it already has some, which is good, keep at it.)
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Research/Diplomacy: Ok, we got Monotheism on the cheap, good. But, now's the time to go full bore on researchng Chivalry ourselves. We don't want the other civs to research it and start producing Knights before we even get around to buying it! Especially we want to catch the Iros flat-footed, since they seem likely to be the first target. So, for ONE tech, we'll go ahead and research it ourselves -- even a minor gpt loss per turn is acceptable on this one, though nothing too drastic, as we do need to keep our funds up there for upgrade purposes.
Engineering? Hmm, timing on this one is a bit sticky. Ordinarily I'd say go for it if it's not going to get much cheaper, but if we're going to go full research on Chivalry, and we need our remaining cash for upgrades, then it's probably not a good idea to get it now. Once we're finished with Chivalry and are back to full-income mode, then we can consider picking it up when we have the cash available. Be especially wary about rivers in wartime, since it will cost our troops a full movement point to cross them until we pick it up.
Trading: looks like we have a road connection with the Iros, or should soon have one (at Oil Springs, the one at Niagara doesn't seem to go anywhere.) Are there any resources or lux we can trade? IIRC we should have soem spare horses we can trade to someone for some extra cash/gpt ==> more upgrades/faster research.
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Military: how's our horse count now? If we're in the 30-40 range we should start looking at some infantry to back up all those Riders we'll soon have. We'll need to get it into position before we commence our attack (as much as possible) since it's relatively slow. We have more horses now than we can conveniently upgrade all in one shot anyway, though it won't take us long after we've finished Chivalry to gather the funds together to finish the rest.
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Domestic: I see several of our cities still need granaries, especially second-ring cities. Some of our 1st-ring cities seem to be done infrastructure for the moment and several of our 2nd-ring cities with fresh water or aqueducts are getting big, so time to swap those big 2nd-ring cities over to full infrastructure mode. Granaries and marketplaces are the first order of business. Smaller 2nd- and 3rd-ring cities without aqueducts/fresh water -- use your judgement, do we have enough military coming out of our core to put these guys on infrastructure for a long while? If so, go ahead and swap them. We definately have enough for defense, so there should be no worries about getting attacked; how fast we build military now just determines the timing of our first major offensive. 3rd-ring cities fall in the same boat. (Remember though, the more corrupt it is, the lower priority it is to build infrastructure. All our current cities should be able to get to the level of Tientsin, i.e. 50% corruption after courthouse, so infrastructure is a reasonable investment in places like Padmativa and even Shantung; however, much further out than that and we'll start getting into the realm of permanent 1/1 cities, where we want to invest in infrastructure as little as possible.)
Ok, we rushed a courthouse at Tientsin, and corruption is manageable. So, why not start on an FP sooner rather than later? Unless there's some critical infrastructure need for defending the town (walls/barracks/temple) which I'm pretty sure there's not, better to get an early start so that our conquered lands in the region become productive sooner. We will definately have some new territory there before it's done even if we start now. Note, this is an exception to the "don't overbuild infrastructure in colonies" rule; since we are proposing to make a second core out of this area, we want as much infrastructure here as we can reasonably manage, starting with the courthouse and FP. Normally you want to have the FP online ASAP especially if you can colonize around it; here the AI beat us to most of this land so delaying it until now hasn't hurt us much yet, but continued delays could. We will need to keep a good stack of defenders here until we've pushed our borders outwards and the area is secure; we do NOT want to lose the FP city.
Granary is good for a first build at Shanghai, but your next build should be a marketplace. We need happiness far more than culture there since our surrounding cities all have culture-locked our borders.
Canton should soon be growing to 12. Don't let Anyang steal its good tiles, as we want Canton to be a productive city; better to have one productive city and one fishing village than two semi-useful cities. Anyang can stick with coastal squares, and we can rush an aqueduct/marketplace there later when we get the opportunity, rather than trying to build them.
Core cities having marketplaces: Skip the cathedrals; we won't need them until we get hospitals. For now, our priorities in core cities with markets (and all other basic improvements like granaries etc.) should be focussed on supporting our military in order to allow our 2nd- and 3rd-ring cities to shift to infrastructure. If you want a culture source, a library is cheaper and does as good a job for less gpt expense in upkeep. Note, if we didn't have lots of local luxury sources such that we had happiness issues, I would then be arguing for cathedrals over libraries. But, since happiness isn't an issue, we don't really need the cathedrals just yet. Note: If you're worried about war weariness, (a) we plan for rapid war so it shouldn't be much of an issue in Republic, and (b) we need to build up our offensive army before we concern ourselves with war weariness...
All size 12 cities: Start thinking about settlers more than workers when you max out on pop and need to build something to allow that incoming food to go to good use. We will need settlers to found cities when we go on the offensive, and size 12 cities are a good candidate because they can build them relatively quickly and get back onto whatever they were working on (as compared with a size 6 city, where building a settler takes a significant amount of time and can take a relatively larger chunk out of the city's short-term production.) Some larger enemy cities will need to be razed to prevent them from tying up a large amount of troops pacifying resisters and reducing flip-odds. We also don't want to risk a large stack of quality attackers trying to pacify a large city since it may flip anyway. Rapid conquest will do a lot to minimize this risk, but we will still likely want to raze any really large enemy city we capture. We will need settlers to fill that gap, and to have some relatively safe cities for our troops to heal up in (safe in that there are no foreign nationals, so the only source of flip pressure is enemy-controlled tiles in radius, which we can eliminate through rapid conquest.)
NOTE: I only say build settlers at size 12 cities now because we've put a lot of effort into ensuring we have a good supply of workers already. If we were like most SGs and were short on workers and still had lots of land improvements to make, that would take priority.
Speaking of workers, remember to keep them where they are most needed, i.e. at the least corrupt cities that have unimproved squares in radius that are required for that city to reach peak production. Our core cities all already have 12 good tiles in radius, which is as much as they can use anyway, but some of our 2nd-ring cities capable of growing to 12 still need some work; this takes precedence over jungle-clearing operations at 3rd-ring cities. Also, keep in mind that if we build an FP at Tientsin, that city becomes another core city, so we will want improved tiles there, (It looks like it already has some, which is good, keep at it.)
----------------------
Research/Diplomacy: Ok, we got Monotheism on the cheap, good. But, now's the time to go full bore on researchng Chivalry ourselves. We don't want the other civs to research it and start producing Knights before we even get around to buying it! Especially we want to catch the Iros flat-footed, since they seem likely to be the first target. So, for ONE tech, we'll go ahead and research it ourselves -- even a minor gpt loss per turn is acceptable on this one, though nothing too drastic, as we do need to keep our funds up there for upgrade purposes.
Engineering? Hmm, timing on this one is a bit sticky. Ordinarily I'd say go for it if it's not going to get much cheaper, but if we're going to go full research on Chivalry, and we need our remaining cash for upgrades, then it's probably not a good idea to get it now. Once we're finished with Chivalry and are back to full-income mode, then we can consider picking it up when we have the cash available. Be especially wary about rivers in wartime, since it will cost our troops a full movement point to cross them until we pick it up.
Trading: looks like we have a road connection with the Iros, or should soon have one (at Oil Springs, the one at Niagara doesn't seem to go anywhere.) Are there any resources or lux we can trade? IIRC we should have soem spare horses we can trade to someone for some extra cash/gpt ==> more upgrades/faster research.
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Military: how's our horse count now? If we're in the 30-40 range we should start looking at some infantry to back up all those Riders we'll soon have. We'll need to get it into position before we commence our attack (as much as possible) since it's relatively slow. We have more horses now than we can conveniently upgrade all in one shot anyway, though it won't take us long after we've finished Chivalry to gather the funds together to finish the rest.
Mystery13
Prince
Ok, I'm up. I'm going to have to read Zed's post one more time to make sure, but it looks like we up research for Chivalry, don't buy engineering, start FP in Tientsin, build settlers in size 12 cities and start some infantry. Sounds good.
Just a note from way back:
Of course, this is quite possibly just "Gamers' Selective Memory", where we remember the occasional bad thing that happens after a TM swap, and forget all the times it occurs with "not-bad" results.
I don't think this has been proven. All I've got is anecdotal evidence from these boards and personal experience. It just seems like the AI will often ask for a trade of TMs the turn before it attacks.
Of course, this is quite possibly just "Gamers' Selective Memory", where we remember the occasional bad thing that happens after a TM swap, and forget all the times it occurs with "not-bad" results.
ChrTh
Happy Yule!
And cancel the Cathedrals
Mystery13
Prince
Yes, and cancel the cathedrals. Except that I could not in Beijing as it was too far along. I let it finish to give our capital a bit more culture and less chance of ever going into disorder.
I'll have the full report out tonight, but really I just got the war machine ready. We are at 25 or so Riders and 11 Horsemen. Extra settlers are on the way and spearman are on the way. Basically, we're just waiting for Padma to get pissed off at somebody and go attack them.:shotgun:
I'll have the full report out tonight, but really I just got the war machine ready. We are at 25 or so Riders and 11 Horsemen. Extra settlers are on the way and spearman are on the way. Basically, we're just waiting for Padma to get pissed off at somebody and go attack them.:shotgun:
