Rah's saturday game III

[LzPrst]

fun playing again, but I am really really in favor of starting earlier. maybe I'll join you next week again, I enjoy these games alot so far (even though I played like an idiot yesterday) but starting at the hour we finally did was waaaay to late for me. anyway, we'll see next week, just need to see if I can manage to avoid all the parties...

[rah]

Boring Map. Started off by my lonesome. (sometimes a good thing)

My laden fleet was on the move right about the time we finished. *sigh*

Yeah, we need an earlier start next week.

[trev]

The major difference between our empires was that your city spacing was very generous. Had you founded more cities you wouldn't have had much trouble dominating the game with the land you got. Myself, I started on a narrow peninsula and really had no option but to expand westward into you (there was endless Jungle to the South of me).

I am not sure what you mean by more cities, at the time you invaded I had 8 functioning cities and would have had one more within several turns with plans for another within ten turns. I would have thought that is the limit of what is economically feasible, particularly as only 3 cities had access to squares that earnt good money, ie floodplains and other river squares or gold mines, all others had some advantages ie in bringing in a health or luxury resource etc, but until biology was learnt, which is obviously never in these games, they could not sustain great money or hammers or specialists. Partly I settled the areas to limit barb activity as well which was pretty relentless at times. With the terrain it was definitely undesirable for closer city spacing as maintainance cost would have gone up hugely for no significant gain in hammers or gold.

[Krill]

Pop is power.

More population = more tiles worked = more gold = faster research.

So long as the extra pop are working cottages or are scientist specialists. Blake has stated before that a larger empire does not necassarily research faster but has more production, but it can research faster depending on what tiles you work. The more cottaged grasslands you work the faster you will research, for example, and so long as you stagger the settling of the cities, so that you only start on the next wave of expansion when you can both afford it because your last wave of cities are making money and you can defend it with more units, you can continue to grow. So long as you have BW, writing, sailing and pottery that is, but when you get monarchy/currancy/code of laws/alphabet you can normally afford another wave of expansion.

[snoopy369]

Dominae wasn't out teching you. You were equal or ahead in techs (he pursued a slightly different path but you were roughly equivalent or slightly ahead the whole time, including during the war when you significantly outteched him... he spent basically the entire war researching one tech (I forget which, it was engineering or civil service I think, in that range anyway).

What krill says is quite true, certainly, and is what you're missing. With 12 cities, even if you lose a bit in the tech war from running 20% tech, you still can output 50% more units - and if you are smart and run a farm economy (farm, grow, then science specialists from Caste System) you can do quite well in science even if you're not winning outright the tech race.

You left a barb city to your SE most of the game - I eventually took it, and it was QUITE profitable. by itself (size 8 when I took it). Not taking this - which would've taken you what, two crossbowmen or macemen? - was a big mistake; not only did you have units to deal with invading alongside Dominae's, in an unpredictable fashion, but the hammers you could've been reaping were quite important.

Don't forget that it's pretty hard for a city to not be able to sustain itself monetarily once you get it to size 6 or so. Even before CoL, your 12th city costs you a total of what, 14 gold at most, in a reasonably spaced empire? Get it to size six, and you can produce about that much or more commerce per turn in it. Building it closer to your capital just means lower maintenance... and courthouses mean half the maintenance, which means 7 gpt is nothing. (And most of that 14 goes into other cities who already have courthouses - only a few gpt is in the city itself, so no worries if it's a bit until you can build that courthouse.)

Just because it's close in, don't be afraid of building a city. Unless you have a size 20 city, you're not using all of its tiles anyhow, so you can afford to give a few to another city... and you can easily make up the cost of the city, plus the hammer output which even if not great will still be something.

[trev]

Dominae wasn't out teching you. You were equal or ahead in techs (he pursued a slightly different path but you were roughly equivalent or slightly ahead the whole time, including during the war when you significantly outteched him... he spent basically the entire war researching one tech (I forget which, it was engineering or civil service I think, in that range anyway).

I was ahead in techs, that is not the issue, and staying ahead, I was also aware of his tech path, ie I knew he learnt machinery and so would have heaps of crossbows, so I learnt feudalism and had a reasonable number of longbows, realising that heaps of axes and swords and maces would not be useful, also a lot of elephants. One fault was I did not pay attention to his special unit being the impi, so my elephants were not as useful as I wanted.

What krill says is quite true, certainly, and is what you're missing. With 12 cities, even if you lose a bit in the tech war from running 20% tech, you still can output 50% more units - and if you are smart and run a farm economy (farm, grow, then science specialists from Caste System) you can do quite well in science even if you're not winning outright the tech race.

I had only 3 cities with access to fresh water,, 2 of which were highly productive, but lost early in the war, remainder farming was not an option, so limited ability to grow rapidly and work lots of hammer tiles, or use specialists, so caste system not viable.

You left a barb city to your SE most of the game - I eventually took it, and it was QUITE profitable. by itself (size 8 when I took it). Not taking this

That barb city had cost swordsmen of mine already, ie sword lost to a warrior unbelievably. and also other unit losses almost as unbelievable. In addition I had a number of units marching to it as Dominae attacked for a 3rd attempt who then returned to face Dominae, so it was only terrible luck that had left it in barb hands.

Just because it's close in, don't be afraid of building a city.

The 3 cities Dominae took had very few if any unworkable spaces between them, and the odd overlapping squares, yes all my other cities were wider spaced, but generally the wasted terrain was plains, desert or mountains, often far from rivers, so closer spacing was not desirable under any scenario, the assumption seems to be because I had heaps of space I could have used it better, that I very much doubt and if people had a better look at my terrain I think they would have to agree.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by trev
The 3 cities Dominae took had very few if any unworkable spaces between them,

...but how many of those were actively being worked?

Every (non-Mountain, non-Desert) tile within your borders is a source of "income" for your empire, so if you're not working them you're not at your full potential.

Despite my smaller land area I was still probably working more tiles than you because I had more cities.

[trev]

At that stage of the game, it is obvious not all squares will be used, as there will be further city growth to allow for, but in my capital and 3rd city, around 70% of workable squares were being utilized at a guess, as they were my 2 best and biggest cities, the other city you captured was built later and in jungle so only 40% utilized at time of war, but that was increasing as jungle cleared and hills mined etc. For the stage of the game, as much was done as possible.
The other five cities with generally no access to water were reliant on one or two food resource squares and had limited growth ability due to lack of water, building more cities there would have ended up with cities of very small size as all squares would have had only 0,1 or 2 food available, cannot grow cities under those conditions and get enough hammers or money to justify.

[rah]

Just a note:
I think i'm scheduled to be at an afternoon barbecue on saturday so someone else should organize/host the early game tomorrow. (I think, means the wife scheduled it) I'll be around later if anyone is eliminated early or there are any other stragglers.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by trev
At that stage of the game, it is obvious not all squares will be used, as there will be further city growth to allow for, but in my capital and 3rd city, around 70% of workable squares were being utilized at a guess, as they were my 2 best and biggest cities, the other city you captured was built later and in jungle so only 40% utilized at time of war, but that was increasing as jungle cleared and hills mined etc. For the stage of the game, as much was done as possible.

No offense, but you seem reluctant to admit that you could have done anything better. If this is indeed true that you'll likely be faced with similar situations in the future. As I said above, I did not sacrifice my economy just to take you out; I would have been in a pretty good position had I kept playing.

The other five cities with generally no access to water were reliant on one or two food resource squares and had limited growth ability due to lack of water, building more cities there would have ended up with cities of very small size as all squares would have had only 0,1 or 2 food available, cannot grow cities under those conditions and get enough hammers or money to justify.

One thing that works in these situations is to "give" good tiles from your main cities to your secondary ones. This requires some overlap.

[trev]

No overlap was possible to the north and west, as the squares between capital and other cites were desert mostly, that is why I left generally 2 rows of unused tiles. Any overlapping city would have been using the capitals squares only, better to grow a bigger capital, out towards you, the city needed to be located where it was for the floodplains, overlapping with capital would have left lots of good squares unused or pinched by your city, only area where overlapping may have been practicable was to the south, but Snoopy was coming up that way anyway, building too many cities there may have upset him.

[MasterDave]

I can host the game on Saturday afternoon. I will look here and on ICQ at around 3:00 pm pacific time (5:00 pm Central) to see who is around to play.

Is there any interest in a game tonight? (starting maybe 90 -120 minutes from now?

[snoopy369]

I would play if enough people are available. I think Rah and/or Ming may be around, but not definite.

[Ming]

RAH here, at ming's if anyone is interested in a game tonight

[Jaguar]

I could play tonight. It will be the last time I'm available to play MP for a while.