Sid games C3C: how to improve our skills

[nbarclay]

800 BC: I switch a fourth pump city from workers to settlers. A sixth pump just went online after taking the better part of forever to build its granary, but two of the pumps can only handle workers due to corruption and a shortage of bonus grasslands. In the AIs’ turns, Egypt completes the Hanging Gardens and the Hittites the Mausoleum of Mausollos. If an AI was ready to cascade to the Great Library that turn, I’m in trouble. If not, I’ll get the Great Library.

750 BC: The first Dutch galley is ready at long last. A second will follow a turn later.

730 BC: Gold Mountain founded.

710 BC: West Point founded. I’m now second in Mfg. Goods, although that could possibly be a blip from someone’s changing to Monarchy. Egypt is way ahead of me, with a quarter of the world’s population and 13 percent of its land to my fifteen and eight percent). But a lot of that is because they finished REXing long ago and I’m still busy with my REX.

690 BC: Gametown founded. I find that as I’d feared, the founding of West Point disrupted the ranks of some other cities and ruined one of my worker pumps. (Concern about that possibility kept me from building it sooner.) I’ve about decided that once the Great Library is built, I’ll build down the size of Maastricht (which I’ll need to do to avoid starvation when I change governments anyhow) and do a free palace jump to around the middle of the continent. With my focus on REXing, my only improvement in Amsterdam is a granary anyhow.

670 BC: Sweet Valley founded amidst a few sugar tiles. I’m back down in third in Mfg. Goods.

630 BC: Whale Point is founded. Two Zulu galleys appear off the east coast, pushing me into trading Literature to the Egyptians and Zulus to get the military techs through Iron Working and Horseback Riding. I also divert all of my pump cities except Amsterdam to build barracks. My only land forces thus far are fourteen warriors, mostly regular, originally built as MPs. So I really hope the Zulus are just trying to poach some city sites on my land mass rather than trying to start a war. The really annoying thing about the timing is that the Great Library is just three turns from complete. That would have let me get the techs without giving up Literature, although at least I got a bit over 200 gold as part of the deals.

Fortunately, I have two horse supplies already connected and an iron supply I can divert three workers to move to immediately and start roading. So I’ll be able to come up with some decent troops once I get my priorities switched.

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And that's where I left off for the time being. I'll let you know what happens when I start playing again. I hope people don't mind if I want to play this out a bit farther before I start posting saves for others to experiment from.

Note that this image is from during the turn. I founded Whale Point (which I'll have to immediately abandon if the Zulus unload troops outside it) during the turn, and also moved a few warriors who had been on MP duty around and changed a bunch of build orders.

[Mountain Sage]

nbarclay,
I strongly believe that your better rexxing is due to the fact that you did not build any MP and curraghs at the beginning, and that you started settlers as soon as possible, without waiting for the city to reach size 4 (and having a 4-5 turns pump).
Of course, you did not build those 3 galleys or 5 curraghs to block the Zulus...
Any thoughts?

[lmtoops]

Originally posted by nbarclay
1225 BC: Jackpot! My Dutch are the first civ to get Philosophy. Better, we get a Scientific Great Leader!!! Since the Great Lighthouse has not been built yet, I take Map Making instead of Literature as my free tech and rush the Great Lighthouse.

Good move! This was a bit of a gamble, but a worthy gamble.

I will be posting my experience, but not in such detail. In my case, I build the Gr. Library quite easily. I expected a race to the GL, but it never materialized. I guess the AI does not place much importance with the GL part of the tech tree. Also, there must not be much contact between the AI civs (minimal tech trading).

My point is (yes there is one ), I think you will get the GL with no problem. So two early Wonders, is a huge accomplishment.

[lmtoops]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
nbarclay,
I strongly believe that your better rexxing is due to the fact that you did not build any MP and curraghs at the beginning, and that you started settlers as soon as possible, without waiting for the city to reach size 4 (and having a 4-5 turns pump).
Of course, you did not build those 3 galleys or 5 curraghs to block the Zulus...
Any thoughts?

I did build warrior MP due to a fear of AI neighbors, which never materialized. Plus, when I determined the minimal lux. resources on our island, I need them for happiness.

If we shared the island with AI, I think an agressive AI (Zulu, Egypt) would have quickly declared war.

In my game, I did have a strange Zulu war...but I'll save that for my game post. I'll probably post my game experience tonight (ahh about 10 hrs from now).

[vmxa1]

MS the problem with a CtttC with this fairly large island is you will have a lot of dead tiles. You will not get to hospitals in the game.

You end up with a lot more tiles to work and road and defending is harder. The other cities will be have a harder time covering each other at cxxxc.

With the larger spacing you will have fewer cities to share the maint cost.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
nbarclay,
I strongly believe that your better rexxing is due to the fact that you did not build any MP and curraghs at the beginning, and that you started settlers as soon as possible, without waiting for the city to reach size 4 (and having a 4-5 turns pump).
Of course, you did not build those 3 galleys or 5 curraghs to block the Zulus...
Any thoughts?

My early start on settlers and granaries was only part of the story. Chopping and irrigating the game forest by my capital gave me a settler/worker pump that you didn't have, and using three chops to help Utrecht get a granary online faster gave me a fourth +5 food pump city in 1750 BC (although it took the city just a little longer to grow enough to become a full-scale worker pump). Those extra pumps gave my early focus on settlers, workers, and granaries a powerful exponential effect. Indeed, comparing my game with your first attempt where you used a good potential pump city for a prebuild, I outnumbered you in pump cities four to one.

Your maneuver of blocking off the Zulus with curraughs was brilliant, and I would have saved myself a very serious headache if I'd thought of it. (With the Great Lighthouse, I didn't even know whether the Zulus could reach me because I took a route through mostly sea and ocean to find them.) But (and please take this as constructive criticism) you could have accomplished that without starting curraugh production nearly as early, and thus without slowing down your REX nearly as much.

One option would be to have Amsterdam start off as a settler/worker pump and then, once the settlers and workers for the other main pump cities are ready, shift to building a mix of 2-turn curraughs interspersed with 1-turn workers whenever it grows big enough. I'd also want a granary before curraugh production to get more of those 1-turn workers; the granary will be needed when the city goes back to settler/worker pump mode anyhow, so it's not wasted production. That would almost certainly provide enough curraughs in time, and the other settler/worker pump cities would still provide a very strong REX.

Another approach might be to add workers from settler/worker pump cities to a lower-production coastal city or two as a way of setting up productive shipyard cities relatively quickly. The problem is, for a settler/worker pump city, building a worker to add to another city costs as much time as building a curraugh. That leaves me a bit skeptical as to whether building workers to add to cities to build curraughs would really be more efficient than building curraughs directly. I'd have to conduct a more detailed analysis than I'm in a mood for at the moment to figure that out.

By the way, I assume you realize that your blockade only works as long as you give in to whatever demands the Zulus make. I doubt that the Zulus would start a war with an attack on a ship; AIs seem to like to have troops sitting right outside a city when they declare. But if a war starts over a rejected demand, ships become a perfectly legitimate target.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by lmtoops

I did build warrior MP due to a fear of AI neighbors, which never materialized. Plus, when I determined the minimal lux. resources on our island, I need them for happiness.

My operating theory was that the increased risk of losing early if I didn't build MPs and an AI attacked me would be offset by the increased chance of winning if an AI left me alone long enough to build at least a few cities. Since my goal was to win, and I had no interest in just playing to survive as long as possible in a losing effort, going without an early military seemed like my best chance even if I had a neighbor.

Regarding the happiness function of MPs, I don't regard it as woth slowing down a REX significantly for. With 50-turn research, saving a notch or two on the luxury slider has no impact at all on research speed, and the impact on gold accumulation isn't all that big either. In contrast, REXing as quickly as possible means more and larger cities later on, and more and larger cities mean more income. Unless I'm afraid an AI will snatch a luxury away from me, I also prioritize high-growth cities over early access to luxuries for much the same reasons.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Worth 1000 words:

[nbarclay]

The next turn:

[nbarclay]

I still need Code of Laws, Polytheism, and Currency to enter the medieval era. (It looks like I'll get Polytheism next turn.) Egypt has Code of Laws and Polytheism but not Currency. I still haven't met anyone besides Egypt and the Zulus.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe the Zulu galleys are empties that already unloaded whaterver they were carrying and went on to explore. I've started prioritizing galley production just in case I still have a chance to mount a blockade after all. Thanks for the idea, Mountain Sage!

[vmxa1]

They are likely just scouts. The AI seems to not build curraghs that often and will wait until it can travel sea tiles before coming. That tends to mean galleys.

I can't remember the last time I saw a galley loaded, until I had seen one not loaded.

[vmxa1]

I think a key thing in the idea of not building MP's is barbs. I would prefer to not build for MP effects, but I have been forced to build to protect from barbs.

I agree completely that you should expand intead of playing safe, if you can. I am not positive if I have played without seeing barbs though.

[nbarclay]

530 BC and the second galley just unloaded a settler and a regular Impi. So much for my hope that they were just exploring. Still, if I can keep the Zulus from bringing in any reinforcements other than what they build locally, I don't have to prioritize getting rid of the city they're about to build if I don't want to. It's on tundra in the far South (albeit with a hill and a lake next to it), so it won't be able to build a huge invasion force all by myself. I'll have to think a bit about whether to attack it or leave it alone.

Any idea what the peace terms would be likely to be like if I would capture or destroy a Zulu city and then make peace before anything much else happens? They'll certainly have a much bigger military than I do. On the levels I normally play, getting peace on even or favorable terms wouldn't be a problem under such circumstances. But since this is my first game on Sid, I don't know what to expect.

[nbarclay]

In 490 BC, I did a palace jump to Arnhem, a city near the center of the continent. In the short term, the jump isn't making much difference. But in the longer term, several cities that had been having trouble finding enough happiness to keep growing can grow now.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Any idea what the peace terms would be likely to be like if I would capture or destroy a Zulu city and then make peace before anything much else happens? They'll certainly have a much bigger military than I do. On the levels I normally play, getting peace on even or favorable terms wouldn't be a problem under such circumstances. But since this is my first game on Sid, I don't know what to expect.

It's the same thing. It seems that you need to pay more for peace if you do not have a positive war score - but it may be simply because they are relatively more powerful militarily on Sid than on Emp/Deity. Once you capture/destroy some of their cities, they will be willing to pay for peace even if they can kill you.

Another thing is that they will be less likely to part with their technology again, this is simply because tech is so much more expensive on Sid. OTOH, they will often have more money to pay due to bigger cities and income from tourist attraction wonders.