Early Landings Comparison Game #8

[Elephant]

I got as far as 1000bc before laying it aside to finish a Bloodlust GOTM. I shall try to make some progress this week as well, but I am "on vacation"...

[solo]

I was beginning to think no one was playing or completing their games, but I guess people are busy and more time is needed.

I will be happy to extend the deadline until April 30.

[Bloody Monk]

Thanks, Solo. That takes the time pressure off. Now, what to do about the lagging performance pressure.

Monk

[rjmatsleepers]

Landed 1845

Since the deadline was extended I thought I'd give it a try. I'm afraid I didn't keep a log, but I remember some of the dates. One date that does stick is that I switched to democracy in 1540 - way late since my single trireme was destroyed by barb's many years earlier, so I should have switched straight away.

I demonstrated to my own satisfaction that you quickly lose any knack for early landing games if you don't play them for a while. I lost my way a little in choosing my technologies to research after discovering trade. Also I failed to build Darwin's - although this may have only cost me about 10 years (5 turns - the difference between the time it took me to research the techs I would have recieved minus the time it would have taken to replace the freights I would have used). I didn't build SETI - by the time I remembered it, I was so close to fusion power that it didn't seem worth while. My most serious error was failing to rush build and deliver much freight in the middle game. On the other hand, my 1845 landing date is pretty much par for me.

I built collossus, copernicus, shakespear, newton and apollo. I delayed apollo until I had enough freights to build a complete spaceship (1822).

My SSC grew to 27 and I tried La Fayette's twin city strategy, but I'm not sure I got much benefit from it.

I was attacked by the Greeks and the Persians after launch, but both of these attacks came after I had built my defences, so they didn't bother me at all.

Good Luck, Monk

RJM at Sleeper's

[Bloody Monk]

Hello RJ!!

I too have discovered that my EL skills/thinking has grown a good deal of rust. But, I did remember one thing that might have helped your game, in addition to the trade thing you mentioned. Xenon and Solo, in their later postings, described a plan whereby many more cities were utilized. I think your nine were not enough. Especially helpful are overseas colonies. They give an acceptable alternative delivery site for demanded goods when no AI wants what your cities are selling.

It would have helped to build your SSC on a site with multiple trade specials. Assuming you did not sell them off for ship parts, the SSC lacks a Library and University. That would have boosted science, but, without trade specials, even that doubling only gets you to ~600 beakers. Look again at Solo's save to see what I mean. ~1500 beakers is more desirable, yes??

I am really enjoying this game, even though I am stuffing it up a lot. Hopefully, I will finish soon, too.

Monk

[solo]

Good to see you back in these games RJM, and it's also great to see that Monk is able to rejoin us as a player in this one too, since the setup is the best I have found so far among random starts.

[La Fayette]

I am so buried in scenarios that I almost forgot this one.
Thank you for extending the playing time. I'll give it a go from tomorrow on.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
Hello RJ!!

I too have discovered that my EL skills/thinking has grown a good deal of rust. But, I did remember one thing that might have helped your game, in addition to the trade thing you mentioned. Xenon and Solo, in their later postings, described a plan whereby many more cities were utilized. I think your nine were not enough. Especially helpful are overseas colonies. They give an acceptable alternative delivery site for demanded goods when no AI wants what your cities are selling.

It would have helped to build your SSC on a site with multiple trade specials. Assuming you did not sell them off for ship parts, the SSC lacks a Library and University. That would have boosted science, but, without trade specials, even that doubling only gets you to ~600 beakers. Look again at Solo's save to see what I mean. ~1500 beakers is more desirable, yes??

I am really enjoying this game, even though I am stuffing it up a lot. Hopefully, I will finish soon, too.

Monk

I intended to use more cities in this game, but I never quite got around to founding them

As far as the location of the SSC is concerned, I don't use hut finder and my general rule is to choose the best available site at the time I build the caravans for the first SSC wonder. I used to take a great deal of time trying to get the "best" site, but my impression is that I need to improve a lot of other things before the SSC site becomes crucial.

My SSC did have a library and university, but I tend to sell such things - along with aqueducts and sewer systems - as soon as I discover fusion power. At it's height (just before the discovery of flight) I was getting over 1,000 beakers per turn from my SSC. BUT on reflection, as well as not building SETI, I forgot to build a research centre

Overseas colonies? Yes, I usually build a few; I think it was the rust in the works that stopped me this time.

So you are right, there are a lot of areas for improvement. However, I think my biggest mistake was not rushing and delivering enough freight.

RJM at Sleeper's

[rjmatsleepers]

Attempt 2 - landed 1789

I thought I'd try it again.

Interestingly I choose the same SSC site and I had even less cities - 7, until near the end when I built an 8th in order to have enough cities to complete the spaceship in 3 turns.

This time I landed in 1789. The improvement was about equally divided between:

a) being able to trade useful techologies early on as a result of building MPE

b) rush building many much more freight and delivering it more quickly.

I was able to build ST much earlier and consequently reach size 22 earlier as well.

The highest research I reached in my SSC was 1070 beakers before flight and 1096 after flight and the research lab.

The AI got a bit frisky earlier, presumably because I was supreme for much of the game. However, apart from a couple of bombing missions and the loss of an engineer to a Spanish crusader, they didn't do any damage.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Bloody Monk]

That's a marginal improvement, RJ, but, definitely the right direction. Compare your SSC to Solo's; he had 1680 beakers at the end. Finding a good site and, in this case, getting the rr bonus, make a huge difference. The key to Early Landing success, something I also neglected or forgot in my game, is placing pace of research at the head of the priority list. Every turn one spends without an advance is a delay in the Launch Date. That means resisting the urge to bump taxes to speed the developement of launderettes, and planning ahead for growth by "We Love" so that turns with high Lux are kept to a minimum.

As for the attitude of the AI, I play with open cities most of the game, keeping them safe by regular tech gifting and map trading. Once you get an AI to enthusiastic, depending on their inherent qualities of course, trading maps every turn or two will keep them there, and they will not be a problem. The more aggressive types can be a problem, though.

Good luck with your next attempt.
Monk

[solo]

RJM,

A solid improvement over the first game. Nice going!

Replaying the same start is probably the best way of determining which ideas work best. Back when I was first learning OCC I was a bit more fanatical about this, taking about 10 tries with one of the archived starts to get good results.

[Elephant]

Re: Landed 1845

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers
Since the deadline was extended I thought I'd give it a try. I'm afraid I didn't keep a log, but I remember some of the dates. One date that does stick is that I switched to democracy in 1540 - way late since my single trireme was destroyed by barb's many years earlier, so I should have switched straight away.

From this and a couple other comments I thought at first you were doing an OCC! Shipping replacement should be a priority after Magnetism, primarily because the newer ships are faster and carry more, but also to ease the move to Democracy. The only reason to delay Magnetism is if you are exploiting LightHouse in an early naval war.

I demonstrated to my own satisfaction that you quickly lose any knack for early landing games if you don't play them for a while.

I found my Early Landing games improved my general game considerably, although it did atrophy the war-making side of things. I find a bigger difference between the AI attitudes in Classic versus those in MGE.

I lost my way a little in choosing my technologies to research after discovering trade.

Trade is second in my priority list, after either Monarchy (preferred) or early Republic (haven't mastered that yet)

Also I failed to build Darwin's - although this may have only cost me about 10 years (5 turns - the difference between the time it took me to research the techs I would have recieved minus the time it would have taken to replace the freights I would have used).

With Marco Polo, I sometimes defer Darwins to stockpile more freights and let a carefully-tech-gifted AI civ build it "for me". They don't always choose the techs I would like, but I usually get at least one useful thing out of it - of course, if you are not careful, one of those will usually be Communism...

I didn't build SETI - by the time I remembered it, I was so close to fusion power that it didn't seem worth while.

I think it would be helpful for you to at least keep a list of the techs you get (in order), and a note as to whether they were researched or via trade with AI. I get the feeling you could find improvements just by streamlining and re-prioritizing your tech path.

My most serious error was failing to rush build and deliver much freight in the middle game.

This is the heart and soul of the Early Landing game. A good SSC is nice, but Solo and Zenon seem to have better games with more cities doing intensive long-distance trade. The difference seems to come down to one tech per turn (from city science) versus two (city plus trade), and the accompanying gold bonuses help to fund the necessary city improvements and partial RushBuying of high-payoff freights.

I built collossus, copernicus, shakespear, newton and apollo. I delayed apollo until I had enough freights to build a complete spaceship (1822).

First of all, no Marco Polo? MPE lets you tech-gift your KeyCiv, get AI maps, set up alliances (if you get it before you hit Supreme!), pick up critical techs you neglected, and shift the AI research by selective tech-gifting. I would consider MPE essential for any Early Landing attempt.

Secondly, no happiness wonders (HG/Ora/MC/JSB)? If you are not going OCC you should give serious thought to getting at least one of these. Pottery for HG skews your early commodity supplies a bit, and MonoTheism and Theology are off-path to spaceship, but they allow you to grow your secondary cities much more easily, which can be important if you have exhausted most of your commodities supplies in secondary cities. Growing them to size 8 or 12 usually leads to opening up of new commodity supplies, as well as increasing the bonus payoff from deliveries.

My SSC grew to 27 and I tried La Fayette's twin city strategy, but I'm not sure I got much benefit from it.

I'm not going to open your save till I'm done with my game, but there are some tricks to getting Twin Cities working right. You MUST have the "right" RR links between the cities, and you must get SuperHighways in as soon as they are available, and you must grow the non-SSC cities as much as possible and keep their workers on as much Trade as possible (Ocean is nice, but production is tight until Offshore Platforms). You cannot just switch the workers to Trade only for the caravan delivery bonus. Also, you should try to preserve the Trade Routes to AI cities in the SSC from being replaced by lower-value home cities until SuperHighways come along - and if the AI cities are on your continent, keep them even after that. If you are doing it right you should see MAJOR improvements in your secondary cities' Trade Routes, without lowering your SSC TRs to AI cities.

[rjmatsleepers]

Re: Re: Landed 1845

Originally posted by Elephant

From this and a couple other comments I thought at first you were doing an OCC! Shipping replacement should be a priority after Magnetism, primarily because the newer ships are faster and carry more, but also to ease the move to Democracy. The only reason to delay Magnetism is if you are exploiting LightHouse in an early naval war.

Yes - normally when I discover magnetism, I bring my previous vessels back to the nearest port; switch to Democracy and build a galleon or 2. In this game I could have switched to Democracy before discovering magnetism since I had nothing at sea.

I found my Early Landing games improved my general game considerably, although it did atrophy the war-making side of things. I find a bigger difference between the AI attitudes in Classic versus those in MGE.

Once again yes. Actually, apart from my turns in the Silly rules game and some play testing of a diskworld scenario, I hadn't played any Civ in the last few months so my whole civ playing was rusty.

Trade is second in my priority list, after either Monarchy (preferred) or early Republic (haven't mastered that yet).

Thrice yes. Monarchy is 1st priority for me, then trade. After that things get distinctly hazy. I like to get mysticism fairly quickly, but should I be making a bee-line for astronomy, the republic, philosophy, construction?

With Marco Polo, I sometimes defer Darwins to stockpile more freights and let a carefully-tech-gifted AI civ build it "for me". They don't always choose the techs I would like, but I usually get at least one useful thing out of it - of course, if you are not careful, one of those will usually be Communism...

That's a cunning plan! I suspect it's a bit like leaving minimal defences in your cities - it sounds risky, but once you've tried it you find that it works fine.

I think it would be helpful for you to at least keep a list of the techs you get (in order), and a note as to whether they were researched or via trade with AI.

You are of course right again. I start out with the best of intentions. Every new technology is noted in my log; every trade delivery is detailed. Then I discover the automobile and I realise the last entry in my log was the switch to monarchy.

I get the feeling you could find improvements just by streamlining and re-prioritizing your tech path.

Actually the muddle in my research priorities after trade is just a symptom of not having a clear strategy in that whole stretch from trade to the corporation.

This is the heart and soul of the Early Landing game. A good SSC is nice, but Solo and Zenon seem to have better games with more cities doing intensive long-distance trade. The difference seems to come down to one tech per turn (from city science) versus two (city plus trade), and the accompanying gold bonuses help to fund the necessary city improvements and partial RushBuying of high-payoff freights.

Every now and then I get trade working properly. In ELG 3 or 4, I had a great sequence going where I rushed a freight in my SSC and delivered it straight away via the railroad and ship chain. This unblocked another commodity in the SSC which I then rushed and delivered. I repeated this for quite a few turns. So that gave me a glimpse of how it can be done. But then I read Solo's log where he is delivering a large number of freights every turn and realise I still have a long way to go.

First of all, no Marco Polo? MPE lets you tech-gift your KeyCiv, get AI maps, set up alliances (if you get it before you hit Supreme!), pick up critical techs you neglected, and shift the AI research by selective tech-gifting. I would consider MPE essential for any Early Landing attempt.

I built it in my second attempt at EL8 and I am converted. Even if I don't yet use it optimally, I certainly gain more in traded techs than it costs to build.

Secondly, no happiness wonders (HG/Ora/MC/JSB)? If you are not going OCC you should give serious thought to getting at least one of these. Pottery for HG skews your early commodity supplies a bit, and MonoTheism and Theology are off-path to spaceship, but they allow you to grow your secondary cities much more easily, which can be important if you have exhausted most of your commodities supplies in secondary cities. Growing them to size 8 or 12 usually leads to opening up of new commodity supplies, as well as increasing the bonus payoff from deliveries.

I don't usually build any of these in my EL attempts. In the middle period (after trade) I find myself wanting to build Copes, Shakes, Ikes and Darwins without enough vans to do them straight away - and not enough money to rush more vans. Once I've got these wonders sorted I'm usually already thinking about hoarding vans for SETI or spaceship parts. On the other hand, looking at my results, perhaps I should give them a try.

I'm not going to open your save till I'm done with my game, but there are some tricks to getting Twin Cities working right. You MUST have the "right" RR links between the cities, and you must get SuperHighways in as soon as they are available, and you must grow the non-SSC cities as much as possible and keep their workers on as much Trade as possible (Ocean is nice, but production is tight until Offshore Platforms). You cannot just switch the workers to Trade only for the caravan delivery bonus. Also, you should try to preserve the Trade Routes to AI cities in the SSC from being replaced by lower-value home cities until SuperHighways come along - and if the AI cities are on your continent, keep them even after that. If you are doing it right you should see MAJOR improvements in your secondary cities' Trade Routes, without lowering your SSC TRs to AI cities.

I noticed this in following Monk's suggestion and looking again at Solo's save. His routes from his SSC to an AI city on the same continent were generating 48 more trade arrows per turn than my routes to a larger city on a different continent. With 100% research and all the research bonuses, that's a lot of extra beakers per turn. I'm going to have to mug up on calculating the route that needs to be roaded and railroaded to get the trade bonus. Also I need to mug up on unblocking trade routes.

Still look on the bright side - if I do everything perfectly today, what's left to learn tomorrow? Thanks for the comments (and thanks to Monk for his as well).

RJM at Sleeper's

[Elephant]

Re: Re: Re: Landed 1845

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers

Yes - normally when I discover magnetism, I bring my previous vessels back to the nearest port; switch to Democracy and build a galleon or 2. In this game I could have switched to Democracy before discovering magnetism since I had nothing at sea.

Doing an EL game you have to do everything as quickly as possible. Start a Caravel in a port city that is already supporting one just before you get Magnetism; once the tech is announced (like if you got it with caravan trade, only the bottom city on the list is "processed") it should tell you it is upgrading the production order. RushBuy the rest of the ship and disband the older one (assuming it is empty) if it is further away than one turn to get it into the nearest port. One or even two ship chains is essential to a "just-in-time" flow of caravans or freights overseas, which will fuel both research as well as provide the copious gold you will need for RushBuying.

Thrice yes. Monarchy is 1st priority for me, then trade. After that things get distinctly hazy. I like to get mysticism fairly quickly, but should I be making a bee-line for astronomy, the republic, philosophy, construction?

Actually the muddle in my research priorities after trade is just a symptom of not having a clear strategy in that whole stretch from trade to the corporation.

Tech plans are something I enjoy fiddling with. I usually shoot for Philosophy after Trade, which brings in Myst for better Temples (or Oracle *cough,cough*) and Lit for Republic. Getting Philosophy first gives you a free tech, and that sets up Medicine as a next goal. The OCC Guide prioritizes Astronomy for Copernicus, and I've been experimenting with that on and off but usually prefer city growth before maxing my research. Construction usually needs to come close in there to help the WLTCD growth with Colosseums and Aquaducts if Shakes is not available. If the overseas trade is flowing well there should be enough gold coming in to pay for city improvements as needed.

I don't usually build any of these (HG/MC/JSB) in my EL attempts. In the middle period (after trade) I find myself wanting to build Copes, Shakes, Ikes and Darwins without enough vans to do them straight away - and not enough money to rush more vans. Once I've got these wonders sorted I'm usually already thinking about hoarding vans for SETI or spaceship parts. On the other hand, looking at my results, perhaps I should give them a try.

Building caravans fast and deciding whether to use them for overseas trade or wonder-building is the critical set of choices you need to master for faster EL games. A big SSC and 6-10 small secondary cities can get you in before 1500; doing better than that seems to require more, bigger helper cities that can hold their own in research and production. Doing that requires at least one happiness wonder. Again, the extra gold from trade will help fund the extra building program.

I noticed this in following Monk's suggestion and looking again at Solo's save. His routes from his SSC to an AI city on the same continent were generating 48 more trade arrows per turn than my routes to a larger city on a different continent. With 100% research and all the research bonuses, that's a lot of extra beakers per turn. I'm going to have to mug up on calculating the route that needs to be roaded and railroaded to get the trade bonus. Also I need to mug up on unblocking trade routes.

Nothing beats RR Trade Routes to an AI city on your "continent". Twin Cities comes close, because you can slap a SuperHighway in both cities right after you get Auto, which gives you a bit more Base Trade than the AI, and you can grow your own city faster than the AI. The 50% loss due to domestic route is the killer. Sometimes I build an Explorer right after getting Seafaring just to check on future RR routes.

Solo's EL Guide has a good description of unblocking TRs. In OCC games I calculate the Solo Cycle of home and dest cities; in EL games I try to check the cities about once every 4 turns to see if any commodities dont have ().

[rjmatsleepers]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Landed 1845

Originally posted by Elephant

Doing an EL game you have to do everything as quickly as possible.

Ain't that the truth.

I'd been losing my appetite for Civ a little (well actually I've been playing Neverwinter Nights instead), but with all this good advice, maybe the flame will be rekindled.

Thanks for the comments,

RJM at Sleeper's