AU402 DAR2: 2150BC-1000BC

[Mountain Sage]

Our expansion in 1700BC

[Mountain Sage]

The dreaded 'raging' Barbarians in 1025 BC

[Arrian]

MS,

You do know that irrigating grassland (w/o some sort of food special like cows, wheat, wine) under despotism is a waste, right?

-Arrian

[Mountain Sage]

Yes. I should mine them (and get 1 shield and 1 gold more), and go back to irrigate them after Despotism (I usually go for Republic and skip Monarchy) if needed.
But since I try to have as few workers as possible, specially if they are industrious, I prefer to work on the tiles only once (with a few exceptions) and use my workers on other cities.
In this game, my plan is to work the whole continent, send the workers to the big island and re-ship some back waiting for steam-power. If I remember correctly, I have 6-7 of them.
I agree with you, it's probably not the brightest way way of doing things. What do you do?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
But since I try to have as few workers as possible, specially if they are industrious, I prefer to work on the tiles only once (with a few exceptions) and use my workers on other cities.

I think the question is why irrigate the tile in the first place. If you're waiting for The Republic to get a Food bonus, that's very wasteful because you're losing out on 1 Shield per turn for over 150 turns, and in all likelihood your capital will be decent-sized (9+) by the time you reach Republic, so the +1 Food does not help very much.

The easiest way not to worry about tile improvement efficiency is just throw more Workers at the problem. At the beginning of the game you want to be efficient, but later on (around Republic), you can afford the wasted Worker-turns of irrigating over mines because you should have many Workers at that point anyway. Trying to save gpt by building fewer Workers is not the right way to approach this problem, IMO (especially on this map, where you should be swimming in cash before you meet any other civ).


Dominae

[MrWhereItsAt]

Likely have to give up on this, at least for a time, as I find myself very short on time.

A shame, as it looks great and is my first AU course, but it coincided with a terrible time commitment period. Probably for the best as it is already slowing down considerably on my system - I wouldn't have been able to keep going for much longer anyway.

Oh well, smaller map next time perhaps...?

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Dominae


I think the question is why irrigate the tile in the first place. If you're waiting for The Republic to get a Food bonus, that's very wasteful because you're losing out on 1 Shield per turn for over 150 turns, and in all likelihood your capital will be decent-sized (9+) by the time you reach Republic, so the +1 Food does not help very much.

Dominae

You're right. I thought my first answer was a bit fishy, so I went to my earliest save. Now I got it straight: I irrigated that tile immediately after my mine for a bonus food (?), at a time when the Palace was not build and I had no access to a floodplain. Then I forgot to mine the irrigation.
How clever of me...

[Panzer32]

2150BC-1000BC

OK, DAR 2 here. Basically I have 2 cities with 1 on the way which have a whole bunch of excess food but I don't have any wonder production to speek of. I can't even start, since I don't have anything for a prebuild. I decide that I won't try too hard to get the Great Lighthouse, alternativly I will build lots of galleys and hope for some luck. Currently I have 3 warriors, one in the south on barb watch, and 2 defending cities. I am building more however in Madrid to prepare for the raging barbarians that are sure to come along.

Writing now researched. I go for map making next, at 10% also, since it is still 40 turns until discovery at 100%. Might as well save some gold . I now have 2 workers; I use one for irrigating/connecting cities, and I use the other for clearing jungle/mining. I hope to have more soon, as Spainard workers don't tend to move very quickly.

1990bc: Seville founded 4 of western wheat. Set to build settler right off, as production is not too good currently. Madrid has now produced a couple warriors for the barbs; starts on some workers to fight the jungle and the desert. In 1870bc, Seville also builds a warrior, and also starts on a worker. It is about here in the reporting that I go from reporting every detail to reporting only the major things. Also, I would like to go into a bit of detail at the end of this DAR about the 'power of the worker'.

1475bc: Northern blue (see last DAR) city founded; pretty much in the middle of the continent. I settle here now for a couple reasons: one, so that more floodplains lie in my terriory immeditaly, and two, so that more lie in my territory after I build a temple (I'm religious, so its cheap ). It will be a fairly productive city since the flood plains will give it food so I can mine the desert. Note that up to this point I have seen no barbarians, which is curious. No idea why; they should be here by now. As an additional note, end turns are only taking 3 seconds currently with my Athalon 2600 512MB RAM... I am sure this will increase soon .

1275bc-1175bc: 3 new cities founded; REX economy in full swing. Last timed end turn was 5 seconds now.

1000bc: Done for this DAR. I have attached a picture of my empire at 1000bc. I have 8 cities, 2 settlers, 11 workers, and 7 warriors. One thing that I have learned so much from my time playing Civilization III at apolyton was the power of the worker. So much productivity is lost from working non-improved tiles that churning out 10 shields and a pop point is really worth it. Basically, for newer players (such as myself before poly): DO NOT MAKE ONLY SETTLERS WHILST EXPANDING. While REXing, you have alot of land that comes under your control, and you need to improve that land ASAP. 2 workers can often be more valuable than a settler, and they only cost 2/3 as much. Well... thats it for my spiel

btw, I wrote all of this before I read this thread... so these comments aren't directed at anyone specifically; they are just my observations

[vmxa1]

Panzer32 you sure you posted the map for 1000bc? I don;t see the 8 cities you mentioned. Are those boxes places you intend to built?

[Panzer32]

sorry; posted when poly was very slow and couldn't check the pic. Changed now.