Lizzy's rise to greatness

[mzprox]

Not much in this turn (actually did not moved yet, just took a look). Bear might go next to our settlers next turn (2S from city2's site right now), but can not cause any trouble.
So far it is suggested that warrior 2 (the one in the east) go SE-SE (a bit risky move, because we go into an open field.)

about scouting contact and economy:
Early contact could mean early friendship but also could mean to be early target. I'd ratherbuild a strong country and if necessary fight with more invaders than be backward.
Right now I believe the map is like a net. from the stats for me it looks possible that everyone got an identical start (or very close), and it seems that at least the top teams are following the same path as us.
Note that this is an emperor difficulty game. We have much less free units than we usually have in noble. 4 warriors 3 workers and a settler going for her settling point uses up all supply point after that each unit is one gold/turn. After the gold mine it's still about 5% of our income. I wouldn't go above maintenance limit this early in the game, maybe for those turns while we have an extra settler, that might be acceptable,
but: we have 3 workers and four cities. we need to build many cottages, roads, and need to chop 3 workers are not enough we need more, but then it's one more unit.
In about t55 we connect the horse, we could start building chariots, but we are at our maintenance limit.. what should we do? disband the warriors? pay even more gold? neither is acceptable.
Also take account how many warrior we need in close future: one in the cap, one in Aurora and two escorting the settlers and workers to city spot 4. this is the absolute minimum, not negotiatable. so what is left for scouting? 1 warrior at most but then at t52 we must be ready to defend our land against barbarians.
so please: when you say do more scouting weigth these facts, tell me how much of our budget should be spent on scouting, 10%? that's awfully big and it's nothing more but two extra warriors. How should we protect our land if we send our warriors away etc. i'd rather build libraryies soon, bacuse it helps in defense (border pop, cultural defense), free bonus to research, allows us to use our philosophical trait.

[DNK]

If we're on a ring, we really ought to have full contact with both neighbors and their neighbors before too long. Chariots will be key in getting that, so I just hope we get the horse hooked up soon enough and chariots out the door. If not, we're going to get caught behind in diplomacy. First contact on a ring map can mean they will work out an NAP to expand in the other direction, and that's US they'd be expanding into then if we lag so much. Of all the maps to get behind in diplo, rings are the worst because they're set up basically as binary for relations and expansion: you end up needing to expand in one direction and keeping one a solid ally mid-game, and the groundwork gets laid early. Sulla had a good writeup about a demogame that was done on a ring, and though his team ended up getting into an "enemy on all sides" situation, many others clearly had 1 friendly flank and 1 enemy flank.

They also got into that bad situation because they outteched everyone, focusing almost purely on their economy... Most teams are wise enough to know if one of their neighbors is running away in GNP, they'd better attack/backstab soon rather than wait 150T to get trounced by an advanced army they can't touch. If you want to run off in tech, you really need to have a strong friend on your border you can count on to not backstab. Isolationism isn't the way to get there. If barbs are an issue, get chariots quickly and get to scouting with them.

[Hercules]

Guys I think you should give more attention to the exploring / scouting issue.

And especially to the south. Yes there is a bear there but that direction holds most promise for contact with another civ.

Maybe I feel just a little less involved if turns are mapped out and settled to t50 already.

EDIT: I wasn't sure post 330 had registered.

[Hercules]

Guys we could we have a bit more info about the current situation. For example it is interesting to know that the Inca have a second city.

But I had to drag out the proposed movements of Belle.

Plus I would have thought it important to think about our Civ's position in the map set up as suggested by Cal.

I am pleased we are giving priority to a city site W of the horses to lead to chariots. So we can explore.

That doesn't mean we have to wait until then to explore more with the warriors we have now.

For me I think exploring South is important to determine geological boundaries, if that's where we think
a central core is located

[mzprox]

google find: free supply for 0,24*population + X(depending on difficulty settings), fo emperor it's 7.
and rounding down, so basically every 4-5 pop gives 1 more free unit. (if it's correct)

[LzPrst]

And this is even lower, if we have a lot of units, as the unit maintenance goes down, if cities go up.

Question: is there a formula for calculating this?

[mzprox]

I can agree with Bellerophon going 2 * SE, but after that it should turn back and be part of the defense line, 5-6 warriors (when two of those must sit in cities are not quite enough for efficient defense (we need to defend our improved land too), but if we send 2-3 of them away then it's even worse.

btw: Inca has found her second cities in the previous turn, so 3 turns before we found ours. They built the settlers at pop3 tough.

[mzprox]

I wouldn't worry too much about research bonuses from scouting, for some tech we MIGHT get bonus (at turn 50 it's about 1 beaker/turn for each civ knows the tech we are researching, almost neighible. and also the one we meet would get bonus too from us.)
We opted for fast expansion to grab the gold, the horse and the flood plain field, that means that even before t50 we can expect barbarians entering our borders, ergo we need every defenders we can have. (barbarians enter border when number of cities reach a treshold, and we can expect everyone will expand fast, 4 city is over the limit)
Our civ can support 2 more warriors for free (3 if there is no settler around as it took one supply too). after that 1gold/turn maintenance for each unit (1 gold worth more than 1 beaker, so maintaining an extra warrior just to get 1 beaker from scouting is not worth it for several reasons.

Conclusion: we should play isolationists for now. We need every warrior possible to defend ourselves for the imminent barbarian invasion. For ous science it is better if we choose less warrior (less maintenance) and less scouting. Thats why second warrior should go back and be part of the defense of our 4 cities.
As for Aurora: it can switch from [warrior barrack warrior library] to [warrior warrior barrack library] or even [warrior warrior warrior barrack (not finished) library] I'd say library in Aurora asap.

[Calanthian]

* Yeah, why didn't you pick my prepared T27 map, as that one it completely updated. And remove the close-by civs to make sure the research bonus is completely ok ???

* On builds in Aurora:
in stead of barracks some warriors..

Otherwise our scouting will be reduced to zero..
Without scouting no research bonusses for meeting the others..

* Bellerophon should go SE, SE

[Hercules]

No objection from me. Just east terrain map needs updated I think.

Btw what is Belle next moves.?

And that bear?

[mzprox]

p BC-2240tt44.CivBeyondSwordSave

here is a save from t44, if no 'objection' i will follow this for the next 14 turns.
warriors should stay close as we can expect barbarian invasion soon.

(some notes: following Cal's plan except not building road on goldmine, working on pasture as soon as possible. third worker builds road on floodplains while connecting the cities (this road will be useful later). one optimalization bit: Aurora should work wheat+lake for one turn just after growing to pop2. that one food it loses won't be missed and extra two gold will net us better science rate.)

[Calanthian]

The barrack is not that usefull, but still better than the other options: granary not needed as we will be at max pop, and I think we shouldn't build more warriors than our maintenance limit.
with my playthrough I could start building library with a big overflow after [warrior barrack warrior]

this means that for quite some time we will have 5 warriors altogether, two is needed in the capital and aurora for happy limit, at least one to defend 4th city.

agree that we should build the 4th city fast.
(btw at the time I found it the difference is 6 gold (-2 for base and trade).

what need to be decided what to do after writing. Going for math and hammam could be an interesting option, or bronze first to chop library in 3rd/4th city.
need to be tested.
In my playthrough I still need to optimize production and research a bit (it does matter which turns are 0% science for example).
When I finished I will post it up untill about t50 and we can see if there is something to be changed.

Agreed to all this..

btw for fourth city library we may not even need to chop. The +4Hammers of the horse makes it quite a swift build.
(in my play through library is the first build in the fourth city)

[mzprox]

How much? It makes it hard to calculate exactly...?

the prerequisite bonus is 20% for each prerequisite we have

almost every tech have at least one (except thos in the first column)
so for example: mining +0% (because it has no prereq)
animal husbandry +20% for either agriculture or hunting, +40% if we have both.

the technology known by others bonus is more complicated. I believe the maximum is 30% when everyone else knows the tech (and we met with them) if among our 8 rivals 5 knows it then the bonus is 5/8 * 30%

also there is a hidden +1 research for each civ

right now our gnp is 20: 8 palace, 1 base, 1 cow, 3 lake, + 4 espionage, +2 culture, +1 hidden research=20

not sure about the rounding. (if we were researching BW instead of mining we would get 14*0,2= 2,8 breaker bonus, probably our gnp would be 23 (the best among our rivals is 25 right now)

We tried to optimize our reseaarch btw to get the max bonuses (so we had 40% for animal husbandry and for pottery too, writing will also have 40% bonus)

[mzprox]

Did you start library the moment it is available?
As the barrack won't be too usefull in Aurora, as we probably will build workers and settlers there for quite some time to top off POP growth..

The barrack is not that usefull, but still better than the other options: granary not needed as we will be at max pop, and I think we shouldn't build more warriors than our maintenance limit.
with my playthrough I could start building library with a big overflow after [warrior barrack warrior]

this means that for quite some time we will have 5 warriors altogether, two is needed in the capital and aurora for happy limit, at least one to defend 4th city.

agree that we should build the 4th city fast.
(btw at the time I found it the difference is 6 gold (-2 for base and trade).

what need to be decided what to do after writing. Going for math and hammam could be an interesting option, or bronze first to chop library in 3rd/4th city.
need to be tested.
In my playthrough I still need to optimize production and research a bit (it does matter which turns are 0% science for example).
When I finished I will post it up untill about t50 and we can see if there is something to be changed.

[Calanthian]

The fifth city may be another case though..