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

[NFIH]

Here is the 400BC save, as requested.

[Seedle]

Thanks NIFH!
Here's an 4000 B.C. for you, and for everyone, it is a very good map, I recommend playing it.
http://apolyton.net/upload/thumb/90347_Egyptnormal.CivBeyondSwordWBSave
Well, it's a worldbuilder save, so you have to start it as a scenario, but same thing. Only thing I used worldbuilder for was to change the civ from Babylon to Hattie's Egypt

Spoiler:

I wouldn't bother with this unless there were horses nearby

(Can you do spoiler hides on this board?), and to put a forest on the deer in your cap. That's actually a pretty big cheat, adds up to 1000 hammers during a game, so you might want to change it back. Anyway, I'm playing this one on Normal speed, and I've actually played pretty poorly. But the AI is leaving me alone, and I have the tech lead, so if you play it well, you should do really well, and if you make mistakes, you don't have to worry about the AI punishing you to harshly.
Here's where I am almost at turn 200 for comparison. It should be noted I forgot about the deer tile (I told you I wasn't playing my best) so I didn't get hunting until turn 180 or so, so the cheaty forest actually has no impact on my game so far:
http://apolyton.net/upload/thumb/90347_egyptnormalgame.CivBeyondSwordSave

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Seedle
Thanks NIFH!
Here's an 4000 B.C. for you, and for everyone, it is a very good map, I recommend playing it.
http://apolyton.net/upload/thumb/90347_Egyptnormal.CivBeyondSwordWBSave
Well, it's a worldbuilder save, so you have to start it as a scenario, but same thing. Only thing I used worldbuilder for was to change the civ from Babylon to Hattie's Egypt (SPOILER I wouldn't bother with this unless there were horses nearby END SPOILER) (Can you do spoiler hides on this board?), and to put a forest on the deer in your cap. That's actually a pretty big cheat, adds up to 1000 hammers during a game, so you might want to change it back. Anyway, I'm playing this one on Normal speed, and I've actually played pretty poorly. But the AI is leaving me alone, and I have the tech lead, so if you play it well, you should do really well, and if you make mistakes, you don't have to worry about the AI punishing you to harshly.
Here's where I am almost at turn 200 for comparison. It should be noted I forgot about the deer tile (I told you I wasn't playing my best) so I didn't get hunting until turn 180 or so, so the cheaty forest actually has no impact on my game so far:
http://apolyton.net/upload/thumb/90347_egyptnormalgame.CivBeyondSwordSave

OK, I won't be able to look at this until I get home tonight, but I'm curious--why did you feel the need to go into WB and add the forest and change the civ? Is there something otherwise fatal about the start position?

[Seedle]

Originally posted by NFIH


OK, I won't be able to look at this until I get home tonight, but I'm curious--why did you feel the need to go into WB and add the forest and change the civ? Is there something otherwise fatal about the start position?

Adding the forest was just a personal thing, camps don't destroy forests, so it aggravates me when deer don't have a forest on top, I want that free shield (gah, hammer). Changing the civ was just because you seem to prefer playing as Hattie, and there are horses in the capital's fat cross. I've been responding to your posts with advice but I'm not used to either Hattie or normal speed, so I wanted to try a game with those parameters to see whether I could actually succeed. I did on this map, but with this map, I honestly think it is hard to fail, especially as Egypt. (and I don't even want to think what Ramses (Industrious) or the Persians (I prefer immortals to war chariots) could do with this start.

[Lord Avalon]

For spoilers:[*]text[/*], where *=spoiler.

Spoiler:

Like so.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Seedle


Adding the forest was just a personal thing, camps don't destroy forests, so it aggravates me when deer don't have a forest on top, I want that free shield (gah, hammer). Changing the civ was just because you seem to prefer playing as Hattie, and there are horses in the capital's fat cross. I've been responding to your posts with advice but I'm not used to either Hattie or normal speed, so I wanted to try a game with those parameters to see whether I could actually succeed. I did on this map, but with this map, I honestly think it is hard to fail, especially as Egypt. (and I don't even want to think what Ramses (Industrious) or the Persians (I prefer immortals to war chariots) could do with this start.

OK, thanks. Well, let me know how it goes.

[Seedle]

Thanks Lord Avalon

Spoiler:

you're the best

Alright, I played through the first 153 turns of your save NFIH, and here's where I got:
http://apolyton.net/upload/thumb/90347_My153turns.CivBeyondSwordSave
I won't tell the whole story or post lots of screenshots, because Krill will do better job presenting his game and will have better advice. I will give the highlights though.
Initial build order was worker,warrior(sent exploring),barracks, war chariot x5.
Initial tech order was animal husbandry (popped from hut
on turn 2, wasting one turn of research), mining, masonry, bronze working, mysticism, polytheism (thought maybe I could get judaism, I couldn't), priesthood (for oracle)

After my first 4 war chariots, I sent them out to conquer, leaving the fifth back to defend Thebes. My starting warrior had explored the peninsula, and the warrior I build died to a bear, so had I not known where Mongolia was from your later save, I could of been in trouble. However, I knew they were west and headed that way. I took Karakorum (nice city site) on turn 65. Then took and raised the other city the mongols had built, felt it wasn't worth the upkeep. The 2 remaining war chariots garrisoned Karakorum.

I tried to use my marble to build the Temple of Artemis, but lost it and got 270 gold.

Popped an engineer on turn 105, built the pyramids with him.

On turn 133, the Hanging Gardens are built in a far away land. Doh! I kept checking to see if there were any wonders I could build, but I never built an aqueduct in Thebes, so the Gardens never showed in the build queue. I could of built them easily, had I remembered to.

Turn 135 or there abouts: Declare war on Shaka because he had taken a barb city near my territory, and I wanted the land. Took and raised the city, built a new one one square east (I believe Giza, it's the city in the northern desert with the pig, fish, and wheat) , giving me access to a fish that otherwise would have been cut off. Also about this time, take Teohaucan(sp). I prefer the tile 2 to the north for a city site, and even prefer the tile one to the north over this site, but not enough to warrant raising and resettling.

Turn 145: A Zulu horse archer kills my exploratory warrior. I can't handle horse archers too well (though I'm not defenseless against them) and I already accomplished my war aim, so I extort 50 gold from Shaka and "give" him peace.

Turn 153: Switch to Judaism at Shaka's request, spiritual makes switching less painful than pissing off Shaka. I'll most likely switch back to Conf. as soon as possible to take advantage of Org. Religion, but I can spare a few turns. Also declare on Louis, he too had taken a barbarian city I wanted (or founded really far away from home, I'm posting on a different computer than I play on, and I don't recall the name of the city I took.) Take his city (he only had a chariot defending.) He already didn't like me, so I'm not too worried about the diplomatic ramifications.

Here is my empire:

Here is my demographics:

Plans: Alexandria gets Moai statues once Byblos's stone is hooked up. Memphis, where I plan to build the heroic epic (once I can), Thebes, and Angle will pump units while everyone else is cottaged up, or works the Colossus-fueled water tiles to get my still sputtering economy in gear. I plan to build a city south east of Thebes, and at least one, hopefully 2 west of Heliopolis, though for all I know there are already cities west of Heli. Debating whether to settle my great engineer, bulb him, or keep him for mining inc. I was going to build the AP with him, I was very confused for about 5 minutes until I figured out diplo victory was off. Thebes will also build the U of Sankore and Spiral Minaret, with stone they'll be dirt cheap and +8 commerce a city will help my economic problems.

[Krill]

OK, when I started this game, I moved the settler 9 onto the plains hill, and went worker first, and researched hunting, then Minery through BW. Hooked up the Corn and built a scout after the worker was complete. Grew to size 4 asap and building warriors and then built/slaved a settler from pop 4 to pop 2, overflow into a worker.

Scout popped myst and fishing, ideal for the second city, which built a workboat and then a granary, while growing to size 4.

Just built the second worker as the first was mining the copper. Then one worker went to hook up the second cities gold and then mine the hills/cottage the flood plains.

Heliopolis was founded on turn 55, opening up the horse and rice. It will never be a powerhouse city, but will be good enough to fund a few cities when calendar arrives.

Fast forward to turn 85:

Elephantine was settled turn 83, PR founded turn 85, they block the Mongols from settling right up on me, but more importantly they allow me to mass WC stacks near them. At this point I only have 5 workers so I'm about to build/slave another 3 or 4 more then start building a WC stack up.



Turn 99 I razed a mongol city built to the north west of Elephantine that contained only a sword, with 5 WC. Went and looked around the city to the west of Elephantine, Beshbalik, but it was two well defended to take with 5 WC, so we agreed to peace and I stacked up WC until turn 115 when I invaded with 11 WC. Took Beshbalik on turn 116, and Karakorum on turn 123 with 16 WC (all they had to kill was a Keshik, sword and archer in a city)...captured the last two Mongol cities on turn 124.



Pic from turn 125, I have 17 WC in the Mongol lands or next to Elephantine, which is the routing point for my entire army. Also, From turn 124, until about 160/165 Thebes was making Wealth, just to keep up my research rate. I got bureaucracy on turn 130ish, and that helped my capital to make about 50gpt, enough to let me tech at a respectable rate, support the burgeoning empire and field the worlds largest army.



Turn 127, and Mali have 2 cities jutting into the belly of my new Mongol lands, and is defending on of them with an Axe...Well, I won't let that continue for any longer...



Turn 132, I razed the two intruding cities, and took Djenne, the Jewish holy city, and had disconnected the Mali copper supply. Cut the iron supply around turn 136, and started saving up WC for "The Big Push" on Timbuktu:



And on Turn 153:



Two civs down, two holy cities in my grasp, 53 WC built, 23 currently in existance. Captured 11 workers, built 17, so 28 total, for 16 cities, but those 28 workers will be enough for the rest of the game.

[Krill]

Researched Calendar around turn 105, and while the majority of my cities were building units until turn 153, I did build a few improvements, mainly markets, in my cities. I've played through to turn 185, using the 32 turns to spread both judaism and Hinduism to the majority of my cities (not finished as of turn 185 though) as I captured the hindu shrine and made a priest for the Jewish shrine. Built the Shwedagon Paya in my capital, Hanging Gardens in Alexandria, Parth in Memphis and Notre Dame in Old Sarai. Missed the Great Library by about 5 turns, as I was only half done, but no big deal. Unfortunately for the AI though, I can only play builder for so long. I don't like it when my workers have nothing to improve, so I take more land to keep them busy...



The Mayans just beat me by a few turns to music, and bombed a weird city...I'm planning on doing a galley drop of about 6 maces, 4 accuracy cats and a few pikes. The SP lets me run theocracy and with my production advantage Pacal should get run over pretty fast, even if he is on a par with me technologically.

[Krill]

The comparison between Seedles' and my games; I have CS and Machinary, 2100 Beakers, Seedle has Polytheism, Organised Religion, Theocracy, Alphabet, Aesthetics, Literature, 2128 beakers.

Krill: @30%, 85beakers per turn, +16gpt 66 gold saved
@40% 114 bpt, -18 gpt
Seedle: @ 30%, 55 bpt, -6 gpt 271 gold saved
@40% 71bpt, -20 gpt

Number of cities/land area/population
Krill: 16/22.54%/17+32+81,37.35% (Mali+Mongol+Eygpt lands )
Seedle: 11/11.38%/18+43 pop,17.89% (Mongol+Eygpt)

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Seedle
Thanks Lord Avalon

Spoiler:

you're the best

Alright, I played through the first 153 turns of your save NFIH, and here's where I got:
http://apolyton.net/upload/thumb/90347_My153turns.CivBeyondSwordSave

Interesting. I haven't opened the save, just read this post of yours, but how did you manage to run such a far flung empire, fight two or so wars and still fund it? I probably would have run out of money.

How many workers do you have right now? I don't know how strong your military is (I've often been at No. 4 as well), but aren't you afraid of being rushed by Pacal or Mansa or even Louis? In several games I've played on this map, Louis has come from God knows how far just to war on me.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Krill
OK, when I started this game, I moved the settler 9 onto the plains hill, and went worker first, and researched hunting, then Minery through BW. Hooked up the Corn and built a scout after the worker was complete. Grew to size 4 asap and building warriors and then built/slaved a settler from pop 4 to pop 2, overflow into a worker.

Thanks for the writeup, Krill. Very informative. I have some questions for you.

1. How did you fund such rapid expansion? What specifically did you do. I know taking cities gives you some gold, but between the size of your army and distance, how was your treasury not depleted in a few turns?

2. You're not afraid of building overlapping cities. There's now downside to this, correct? (Especially the two in the northeast corner. I didn't think to put two cities so close together.)

3. How on earth did you manage not to get attacked by Pacal or Louis (or at least, earlier with Louis)?

4. How many cities did you have pumping units vs. those building other buildings?

5. Your cities seem to have gotten very large quite quickly. Did you just not use slavery to accomplish this? But wouldn't that have unduly slowed down military growth?

6. I really expected the Mongols to put up much more of a fight. They seemed to have very few forces. What do you think happened to them?

Well, there's a lot to take in here and I'm going to restart another game on this map and see if I can't learn a little from your approach.

[Krill]

1. How did you fund such rapid expansion? What specifically did you do. I know taking cities gives you some gold, but between the size of your army and distance, how was your treasury not depleted in a few turns?

It's only Noble, so city maintence isn't prohibitive. Building wealth helps alot as well, cities that could get a barracks and start building units can be put onto wealth, the gold in the second city helps research so that currency isn't impossible to get (I would have just finished if I hadn't got calendar immediately after researching the early techs). Building cottages and forcing the new cities to grow and work nothing but food tiles and cottages until you can slave a courthouse for 4 pop (after getting a granary first, of course) is the main way.

2. You're not afraid of building overlapping cities. There's now downside to this, correct? (Especially the two in the northeast corner. I didn't think to put two cities so close together.)

In the long run, it does hurt; the majority of the overlapping cities won't be awesome cities come the modern era, but They are just as good as any other city in the ren and indy eras, which is when I'll win the game by domination, or give me a big enough lead to caost to a late game SS win. You only really need awesome city sites for Oxfords, ironworks, a high food site is what I like to use for National Epic, for example. The rest of my cities can slum it between size 10 and size 20.

3. How on earth did you manage not to get attacked by Pacal or Louis (or at least, earlier with Louis)?

I had the highest number of soldiers in the game, I'm not going to get attacked (on Noble, Emperor I probably would have handled differently due to never being able to settle those city sites). If I was playing ultra safe I would have had a sentry net up scouting his border so I could see his troops move towards me. Louis, on the other hand, tried to colonize all of the empty space which I had opened up by razing Malis' 4th and 5th cities, so I simply killed any settlers he sent towards me and played it defensive on his front. He didn't even have fued until after turn 153, at which point noone had a way of dealing with maces yet so I was solid.

Against a (competant) human I never would have been able to hold all of that land, but the AI doesn't tend to attack well until the late game (turn 200+) on Noble.

4. How many cities did you have pumping units vs. those building other buildings?

During the attack Phase, pretty much every city was making units, but when I started capturing cities they started on granary and later barracks in the mongol lands. Before the attack, every city built a granary and barracks before starting units. I didn't really start building any buildings until after turn 153, I had to get enough WC to finish off Mali (50 WC for every city but the last Mali city, that required 2 cats to bomb it down, as I didn't have construction until then. Not that I needed it though...). In the 45 turns after I finished Mali off though all I built was buildings in every city.

5. Your cities seem to have gotten very large quite quickly. Did you just not use slavery to accomplish this? But wouldn't that have unduly slowed down military growth?

I didn't slave any units at all, no need with all of the cities having alot of production tiles. Simply growing cities towards the happy cap gave me enough production. The coastal cities that built lighthouses just worked food and coastal tiles until they were large enough to work most or all of the production tiles then I moved them onto production and building units.

Slaving units would have gotten me a slightly larger army, though, you are right there, but the limiting factor in this wasn't going to be the size of my army, but in my ability to pay for it and the cities, which is another reason why I didn't slave. The cities that were growing were working coastal tiles, the gold helping me to research and stay afloat.

6. I really expected the Mongols to put up much more of a fight. They seemed to have very few forces. What do you think happened to them?

I happened to them...no, what really happed to them was not building enough workers. Something like 5 cities and 3 or 4 workers doesn't work, he needed atleast 8 workers. Also, it looked like he started in a heavily forested area, and the AI never prioritises chopping those forests into workers and settlers, which is a major down fall. It should have chopped the forests on it's hills immediately and used the chops to get workers, then it probably would have been harder for me kill Kublai.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Krill
The comparison between Seedles' and my games; I have CS and Machinary, 2100 Beakers, Seedle has Polytheism, Organised Religion, Theocracy, Alphabet, Aesthetics, Literature, 2128 beakers.

Krill: @30%, 85beakers per turn, +16gpt 66 gold saved
@40% 114 bpt, -18 gpt
Seedle: @ 30%, 55 bpt, -6 gpt 271 gold saved
@40% 71bpt, -20 gpt

Number of cities/land area/population
Krill: 16/22.54%/17+32+81,37.35% (Mali+Mongol+Eygpt lands )
Seedle: 11/11.38%/18+43 pop,17.89% (Mongol+Eygpt)

What?!? You did better than me?!? That's shocking!
One of the biggest differences in between our games is when we went on the attack. I did it first thing, you waited until you had I think 5 cities. This worked in your favor for a number of reasons. The area you captured already had cities, and already had some improvements, saving you hammers and turns. It also gave you the infrastructure you needed to support the extra cities and the army. I will admit that I would have never thought a war chariot rush would work so late in the game. Taking all that territory while "only" losing 30 chariots...I would expect heavier losses. Maybe because on marathon the AI tends to have more units. It also doesn't hurt that you know how to warmonger, and believe in it, whereas I am a hopeless wonder whore, no matter how many times it is shown units>wonders. Thanks Krill, I learned something reading your breakdown.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by NFIH
Interesting. I haven't opened the save, just read this post of yours, but how did you manage to run such a far flung empire, fight two or so wars and still fund it? I probably would have run out of money.

In my case, after those first 4 war chariots, I've kept too small a military and relied on space and luck to protect me from aggressors. I just lowered my slider so that I was only losing 10 or less gold/turn and the war chest I built from huts and conquest lasted until I could turn it around. Prioritizing writing, code of laws, and currency helps. And build cottages.

How many workers do you have right now? I don't know how strong your military is (I've often been at No. 4 as well), but aren't you afraid of being rushed by Pacal or Mansa or even Louis? In several games I've played on this map, Louis has come from God knows how far just to war on me.

Not sure how many workers I have, I think about 1.5 a city. I probably should have a few more, but I have lots of coastal tiles, which gives my cities something good to work while I improve the land. As for the military situation...well, lets go to the update:

Yeah, I'm going to want to get on that whole building units thing. I'm not worried though, pretty much all my cities have all the buildings they need (and then some) so cranking units for a hundred turns or so won't set me back to far on development. And I have a tech lead on Shaka, and tech parity with even the best AIs, so my huge production advantage should carry the day. The thing about the AI is they tend to be dumb, especially after taking your first city. They put their stack there, with no walls and no culture defense, just waiting to be raped. For instance, if Shaka moved on Karakorum, he could take it. But you'll notice I still control Karakorum. The AI isn't to bright sometimes.
Speaking of building units, I just realized that I can't use Memphis as my Heroic epic city, it's my wall street city. Hmmm... Angle or Byblos? Or wait till I conquer a good production city (though at this rate, that won't be till infantry)
Speaking of Memphis, I popped 4 great prophets in the last 45 turns. (wish I could average a great person every 11.25 turns the whole game) This gives me an excuse to mention that prophets=profits. Thank you, I'm here all week.

What you can't see in this shot is that I'm running representation (and have the Sistine Chapel, but culture is meaningless in this city) so these guys are giving me 2 hammers and 8 commerce a turn. Before multipliers. Old news, I know, I just wanted an excuse to make that bad pun. Here's the thing: the hammers I spent on the wonders to make those prophets could have made an army that would of conquered me cities that would get me a hundred shields and hundreds of commerce a turn in aggregate. I know this. I already said I'm a hopeless wonder whore. If you know this, know I know it and don't lecture me. If you don't know this, then do as I say (or actually, as Krill says) not as I do.
Also, as I actually look at what this city is working, it needs a library. Because I initially had it working the hills and farms, I thought of it as a production city and didn't build a library. However, now that it is working the coastal tiles, it has substantial commerce... Also, it needs to either be working that mined hill or running a specialist, not working that blasted forest tile.
Here's the new demo screen:

As you can see, I have improved my standing except for that whole actually having an army thing. As soon as I fix that, I can fix that number two in land area thing, and go for domination or a space ship.
The key difference between my game and Krills game is that he has already won. Whereas I am winning, but barely. It could still fall apart if I just make a couple more mistakes. But my point was to prove that I could win on normal speed at Noble difficulty, and I will do that. Just wait.