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**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 09:57

Your mistake was to grow to eight cities and only have 4 workers. You need atleast 1 worker per city (preferably more) early game (say, until your fourth city) and then you want atleast 1.5 (ideally 2) workers for each city after that.

Here you are building a settler in city 1 which is size 3 that should be size 10 and working all of those hills (and a few irrigated grasslands)

City 3 GL shoul be 44 of it's current position so the other fish can be used by a city on the iron (use that city to work the coasts and make great people).

City 2 is in a nice position, but shouldn't have been your second city, it is too far away from your capital (and at the wrong end of the peninsula, you want to grow out of the peninsula and then settle backwards because it gets you more land without having to fight for it).

City 4 should is OK where it is, but really needs calendar which you should have picked up earlier to get the sugar, dyes, banana incense etc hooked up. I would have planted it 9 of the current location, slaved it a little bit early on and then cottaged it up when hed rule was researched.

City 5 is a nice defensive position, but again needs calendar.

Same with City 6, good position.

City 7 is in a good positin, but is size 2 building a courthouse with no workers to serve it. It should have had atleast 1 worker to hook up the pigs while it built/slaved itself another worker to help hook up the iron.

City 8 (the southern city which is laballed city 6...) is fine as well.

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from here I'd get calendar asap, and slave out a worker in each city for 1 or two pop, regrow and improve the land, and just build up. Warfare with land this nice is kinda pointless unless you have the next level of military techs compared to the civ you want to invade.

**NFIH** · April 23, 2008, 11:11

Originally posted by Krill
Your mistake was to grow to eight cities and only have 4 workers. You need atleast 1 worker per city (preferably more) early game (say, until your fourth city) and then you want atleast 1.5 (ideally 2) workers for each city after that.

OK, thanks for the feedback. Let me explain why I've done what I have and we'll go from there. Not saying I'm right, but I had my reasons and want to know if they're good ones.

Here you are building a settler in city 1 which is size 3 that should be size 10 and working all of those hills (and a few irrigated grasslands)

I did this to grab as much land as quickly as possible. My goal was to establish a border as far forward as possible--at least to city 5's position. I know from past play that if I didn't get there ASAP, the Mongols would take it. To the south, I would lose to the Mayans the city 6 space and the gold there. So at city 1 I built settlers almost exclusively. I paid for this rapid/distant expansion by settling cities 2 and 3 and immediately hooking up the gold. This also necessitated going for Iron Working so I could hack away the jungle on the gems at City 3, and also prep to settle City 4 so it could grow past the pollution cap of 1 (and 1 pop wouldn't allow me to work the plantations).

So if I didn't build settlers here, where would be the better place to do it?

City 3 GL shoul be 44 of it's current position so the other fish can be used by a city on the iron (use that city to work the coasts and make great people).

What does "44" mean? Some kind of coordinates? Anyway, I settled City 3 in that spot because I needed the gold/hills to be in the cross so I could work it to help fund the expansion described above. It also still gave me the iron and one of the two fish resources. To the east was too much barren land. Not good enough?

City 2 is in a nice position, but shouldn't have been your second city, it is too far away from your capital (and at the wrong end of the peninsula, you want to grow out of the peninsula and then settle backwards because it gets you more land without having to fight for it).

Settled it to get the two gold hills and the copper. Just too good to pass up. I did consider growing out of the peninsula and then settling backwards as you say, but the problem there was I would still have been paying expansion/distance costs for maintenance but not have the gold to pay for it. Therefore, I decided to start with the interior sites first.

City 4 should is OK where it is, but really needs calendar which you should have picked up earlier to get the sugar, dyes, banana incense etc hooked up. I would have planted it 9 of the current location, slaved it a little bit early on and then cottaged it up when hed rule was researched.

I agree about calendar, but I couldn't see any way of getting it "early" so I decided to let the city grow instead and try and work as many tiles as possible, while still using cities 2 and 3 to fund my empire. My goal was to trade for calendar with someone as soon as they got it. Also, "9 of the current location"?

City 7 is in a good positin, but is size 2 building a courthouse with no workers to serve it. It should have had atleast 1 worker to hook up the pigs while it built/slaved itself another worker to help hook up the iron.

(I took this one from the barbs, BTW.) Yes, the worker issue is a problem for me here. I'll only say that the reason I had so few workers was that I needed to build defensive units to fight barbs, ward off AI attack from the Mongols and libraries to try and maintain science research. I judged the lost pop growth due to worker builds as too heavy. Maybe that's wrong. Also, are you saying I shouldn't be building a courthouse at all at size 2?

City 8 (the southern city which is laballed city 6...) is fine as well.

I just barely got to this site in time (ahead of the Mayans; still missed the horse to the east) while going full out on settler production in my capital. I intend it to be my great person farm.

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from here I'd get calendar asap, and slave out a worker in each city for 1 or two pop, regrow and improve the land, and just build up.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan. What about longer term?

Warfare with land this nice is kinda pointless unless you have the next level of military techs compared to the civ you want to invade.

This is my conundrum. Should I just build up peacefully or try to rush the Mongols while I have them at a (very) slight disadvantage?

**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 11:36

Rule of thumb for warfare is this: if my land is better than my opponents I build an empire, and buildings, only enough troops to keep pace with my rivals, because I build up faster and better than my opponent and get a larger army to kill them with later.

The balancing factor is that if I have a larger army (ie they are trying to build an empire) than them, and it won't cost me more to take their cities than it cost them to build the cities, then I'll attack (soon anyway).

If I have worse land than some AI and better land than others, I'll try to choke or rush a civ with better land and that isn't in a position to stop me doing it, ie one without an ancient UU or cre/agg/pro (though you can rush any civ on anything up to prince and kill it if you time it right). Then I'll kill them and when I have taken the nice land, I build and empire again. Rinse repeat.

They are the hard and fast rules for deciding to go to war. How to attack, what units to build require knowledge of the map, what cities are vulnerable, where their wonders are.

**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 12:06

What does "44" mean? Some kind of coordinates? Anyway, I settled City 3 in that spot because I needed the gold/hills to be in the cross so I could work it to help fund the expansion described above. It also still gave me the iron and one of the two fish resources. To the east was too much barren land. Not good enough?

The numbers are keypad directions, 44 means two tiles to the west of city 3. I'm suprised so few people use the keypad. Settling a city on the iron gives 2 fish, 5 coastal tiles and 3 ocean tiles, and is a possible (probable?) site to build the Maoi statues. Pretty decent site, worth settling. in the second wave of expansions. Only needs and obelisk, lighthouse and granary, the two fishing boats can be built in the gold/fish city.

I did this to grab as much land as quickly as possible. My goal was to establish a border as far forward as possible--at least to city 5's position. I know from past play that if I didn't get there ASAP, the Mongols would take it. To the south, I would lose to the Mayans the city 6 space and the gold there. So at city 1 I built settlers almost exclusively. I paid for this rapid/distant expansion by settling cities 2 and 3 and immediately hooking up the gold. This also necessitated going for Iron Working so I could hack away the jungle on the gems at City 3, and also prep to settle City 4 so it could grow past the pollution cap of 1 (and 1 pop wouldn't allow me to work the plantations).

So if I didn't build settlers here, where would be the better place to do it?

Get a granary in you capital, grow it from size 3->6 and slave settlers until you can leave it at the maximum size working the mined hills and later cottaged grasslands. It's much quick than leaving a city at size 3. The capital could grow to size 14 working good tiles (hills, irigated corn, irrigated grasslands later on, plains marble and grass horse), when you settle the gold it will have a happy cap of 6, so it should be working the irrigated corn, marble, horse, 2 mined grass hills and a plains hill, all of them on a river except for the corn.

City 2 is fine, the only problem was when you settled it. If you had enough workers it would have taken very little tile to get up and running as you could have chopped the forests for a granary and obelisk, and hooked up all of the resources while the workers were still around as you would have gotten IW by the time you settled the city. Would liekly have been the last city setled in the first wave of expansions, as with the gold and gems when that city hits size 5 will allow another city or two to be founded.

City 3 would have still had the gold if it was settled 2 tiles to the west. It would also have had the flood plain and fish, in addition to the extra 4 grass hills. Actually, if the all of the land around city 4 was ungle, this would have been my second city site, chop 1 forest to speed an obelisk, irrigate the flood plain, slave at size 2 the obelisk, put the over flow into a work boat then build a granary slowly as the third build. Mine the gold when the borders expand which should be about 19 turns after settling the city. That should have given you enough time to get atleast 1 other settler out of the capital. Probably only one because there would not be enough workers to keep up with everything.

I agree about calendar, but I couldn't see any way of getting it "early" so I decided to let the city grow instead and try and work as many tiles as possible, while still using cities 2 and 3 to fund my empire. My goal was to trade for calendar with someone as soon as they got it. Also, "9 of the current location"?

In your land there are 4 resources that require calendar to be hooked up and give you happiness. There are two cities that require calendar to hok up their major food. As you founded confucianism, it was worth getting before philo, almost definately before Metal casting (you aren't set up to benefit from the Colosus, nor are you industrious, but then again I expect you oracled it?), and probably worth getting before alphabet or currency (one or the other) because the dyes city will help increase your research rate from the plantations.

**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 12:18

(I took this one from the barbs, BTW.) Yes, the worker issue is a problem for me here. I'll only say that the reason I had so few workers was that I needed to build defensive units to fight barbs, ward off AI attack from the Mongols and libraries to try and maintain science research. I judged the lost pop growth due to worker builds as too heavy. Maybe that's wrong. Also, are you saying I shouldn't be building a courthouse at all at size 2?

Workers are more important than courthouses, yes. When you are building a courthouse in a city that is paying 2.7gpt in maintenence, all you will save for the 120 hammer outlay is 1.35 gptYou built 6 courthouses...that's 720 hammers! A stack of 24 War Chariots! You could have wiped the Mongols off the face of the map with that stack. You could have built a further 10 workers, which would have lead to a much improved empire (imagine what an extra 200 worker turns of improvement would do to your empire. As is, with 4 workers it would take you 80 turns to do that much improvement). Courthouses are only really needed if you are down to <40% tech or if the city isn't generating a lot of commerce and does not have a market already, or if you need to build the forbidden palace.

The rule of thumb for the amount of workers you need is that if you are working unimproved tiles, slave that pop into a worker (or if you have alot of workers already, change into serfdom for a few turns if you are spiritual. You can grow your population to use the newly improved tiles, it gives a masive boost to your economy. Only problem is that you need fuedalism and to be spiritual so it is kinda niche).

**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 12:22

About longer term, you could win anything except cultural victory from here. Depends on what you want, but if you want to go for a domination victory the mongls have to die soon. You'd need atleast fuedalism to stack an attack on them though (vassalage and CD2 ongbows for the southern city). You shouldn't plant any more cities down south either, they'll cost too much to defend from the Mayans, but the Mayans should be the second civ attacked anyway, so you can take the cities later on after about guilds.

**NFIH** · April 23, 2008, 14:20

Workers are more important than courthouses, yes. When you are building a courthouse in a city that is paying 2.7gpt in maintenence, all you will save for the 120 hammer outlay is 1.35 gptYou built 6 courthouses...that's 720 hammers! A stack of 24 War Chariots! You could have wiped the Mongols off the face of the map with that stack.

But wouldn't I have run out of money long before building such a force? I don't think I had over a 100 gold as a reserve so that would have dwindled fast, no?

Anyway, I'm going to restart and focus on workers as you're suggesting and see what happens.

**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 14:35

If you could post the 4000BC save that would be great.

As to running out of money, sure, you may get dropped pretty low on the science rate, but when you get hed rule (and in this case calender) you can just make cheap units and grow each city up to the health cap, maybe slightly higher, and work mainly cottages, it gets your economy back on track quickly enough for anything up to monarch.

40% of 200 beakers per turn is the same as 80% of 100 beakers per turn and all that.

**Seedle** · April 23, 2008, 17:40

I second the request for the 4000 B.C. save. Horses in a good capital with Egypt, yum.

I agree with everything Krill said, and would like to re-emphasize the importance of workers. You keep mentioning economic worries in your posts. One of the keys to keeping your economy afloat is either getting commerce from cottages or feeding specialists with farms, both of which require workers to build the improvements. The thing to remember with workers is that although they may initially cost you turns compared to just straight building what you want, in the long run, and it isn't a very long run either, they actually let you build more stuff more quickly. They can chop to make hammers, they can farm to make food for whipping and specializing, they build mines, etc.

Another thing I noticed is that you have a market but not a forge in your capital. The capital isn't producing much commerce, and since it screams production city with all the hills, won't ever. This makes the market a poor build. And the happy cap isn't an excuse, the forge would give +2 happy with gems and gold, the market is only giving +1 from ivory. Better to use a forge to turn that ivory into war elephants than a market to turn it to

. The 315 hammers you have in your market, library, and courthouse are giving you appx. 7 commerce per turn (cpt). Let's assume you've had the buildings an average of 75 turns with a return of 7 cpt. That's 525 commerce. That same 315 hammers could of gotten you 9 axemen or 5 war elephants. 5 war elephants kill a large number of keshiks. The point is that the units you could of built with those hammers, between pillaging, city razing, the value of captured cities, captured improvements, captured buildings, captured workers, and just plain extortion on the diplomacy screen would most likely of gotten you more than 525 commerce in value, and weakened your opponent at the same time.
Another thing to consider on the military front is that at size 8, your cap could have 22 hammers per turn (hpt) with a forge. That's 3 axemen or 2 cats every 5 turns. Throw in some chops/whips in the rest of your empire, you've got a stack that can take one or two cities in 10 turns. And city 3 could have been a decent settler pump (not great, but adequate) if it were 2 squares west of its current location as Krill suggested, allowing your cap to grow.

On the military subject, I think the best move you could have made at the start would be to go straight to war chariots rather than build settlers. Assuming you build a settler and a defensive unit to protect it, let's say a warrior, that is 115 shields. That's only 5 shy of 4 war chariots, and if you build the chariots, your cap grows, unlike the settler. Those 4 chariots most likely take out the Mongol capital (Maya having the free spearman making them a bad target), giving you one less opponent, a great city site (though high distance cost), and a larger capital. If Mongolia already has a second city, so much the better, the defenses you face will be smaller and more spread out, and that's just more gold from razing the city. You might even capture a worker or two.

So, post that 4000 B.C. save, and I you found something useful in my babble, Krill already covered most everything better that I can.

**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 17:58

I got a day off tomorrow, so I was planning on playing through the first 150 turns quickly and writing up a During Action Report (DAR) to explain how and why I played the game in that way.

(Should be revising, but screw it, I'll do that after)

**Thoth** · April 23, 2008, 19:44

Krill: Could you please post some screenshots with your DAR. I find this thread interesting, but I don't have BTS so it's a bit difficult to follow all of the details.

**Krill** · April 23, 2008, 19:52

I will do, along with any decent saves.

**Thoth** · April 23, 2008, 20:21

Thanks.

**NFIH** · April 24, 2008, 10:17

OK, I'll post the 4000BC save when I get home.

I've also restarted with a greater emphasis on workers and I am doing better. This time I've managed to push the Mongols far back with an axe/spear/horse archer assault. It cost me greatly as far as losing the tech lead but I have the fourth most powerful army and now enough land that at the end of the war I've vaulted from second last place to fourth (of nine competitors). It's early Middle Ages now, but I *think* my Calendar-based economy is just about to kick in and I should catch up to and possibly surpass the others. Hopefully, I don't get invaded. But I share religion and am friendly with Pacal, my most powerful neighbour, so I should be OK for a time.

One issue I noted is that even though I had pretty good income to fund the long distance war (it did get dicey on a couple of occasions), I just couldn't get science high enough. Calendar was still very far away and took me ages to get. No one would trade with me for it either. I had one city just doing cottages (the other three pumped military units for the war) but it wasn't enough. So one thing I want to work on is how to get to Calendar quickly

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Where do I go from here (save game inside)?

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