Campo Challenge 1

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Campo
Marquis,
- Do you remember if you conquered Philadelphia and then lost it to the Vikings? If not, how did it happen that you conquered Boston and New York, but not Philadelphia in between? Just curious.

I don't lose cities to the AI.
No, I didn't. When the americans declared war on me (the fools), I asked the vikings to join in. They were swarming around, so I couldn't get to Philadelpia after I took Boston. The two crusaders in New York arrived by boat. First they disembarked to raze Buffalo, the sailed on to sack NY.

Originally posted by Campo
- It's interesting that Rome in your game was founded about 8 squares away from in my game. ...

I opened up in cheat mode - the Spanish are a restart on exactly the same tile I found the Romans v1.0. Maybe each game is only internally consistent.

Originally posted by Campo
- I notice that you had fewer settlers than me, I think a lot fewer. Is that typical for you? I was irrigating more than you did, for city growth; I think that was the main reason for the difference.

I tend to use few settlers/engineers. I work hard to improve the capitol and another key city or two, then go settle. The remaining cities get improved slowly as the game goes on. Tho I always intend to have one settler for each city, I end up only building about half that.

[debeest]

I'm up to about 1500 AD and getting close to extirpating them all -- about eight known foreign cities left, and probably one or two replacement-civ cities I haven't found yet. This will be the earliest I've ever conquered. That's partly because I almost always play mid-size worlds, and partly because I've been lucky with huts and such.

I've kept what I consider to be a pretty detailed log, though it falls far short of ST's in terms of explaining the rationales for my choices, and that's really what would have been most useful. Oh well.

I've kept savegames for nearly every turn, as opposed to the ten or twenty saves I usually keep. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to zip and attach them all. What would people like to see?

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Campo
DrFell,
- You did manage to shave a few years off my time. I'm impressed.
- I see you settled your second city faster than I did. And it looks like Nottingham was an advanced tribe?
- I'm surprised you weren't building a settler in London at 3600bc.
- Horseback Riding was your second tech -- did you research that or acquire it through hut or swap?
- I see you captured the Celtic city of Kells with a settler. I can't ever remember doing that in any game. After that you had two undefended cities very close to the Celts. I'm surprised they didn't go after them.
- It also surprises me that you had a happiness problem with just 5 cities.
- Polytheism before Monarchy! I've never been in that situation.
- In AD1, what was the point of all the fortified elephants and the two fortified diplomats east of York?
- Is it too easy for you? I assume you never play a small world map because it's no challenge. Do you play only MP anymore?

Thanks for the lessons. I've learned a lot from this.

1 - I went all out conquest and kill method, which is usually a bit faster than build up and kill
2 - Yep I did get an advanced tribe pretty early on, from my exploring warrior.
3 - Yeah, the settler was an oversight on my part. Played this game through on a PC at uni - noisy room, hard to concentrate
4 - Actually I went for horse first - my 2x2x MP duel early tech path is horse->cere->alpha->code->monarchy, which is what I was going for. The idea was to go for poly right after this, then maybe bronze and writing, for early offense and defence. The capture of Kells, however, gave me writing which changed the order of my tech path (poly first).
5 - When I saw undefended Kells I thought I'd take the chance to weaken the Celts, so I called them up and demanded tribute, after which they declared war. Then I walked in and they sued for peace straight away.
6 - I think I just wasn't managing my cities very well, I did have despo a bit late on though which didn't help.
7 - Yeah I tried to get monarchy before, the junk tech did screw things up a bit.
8 - The fortified elephants and diplos were there to take out respawning civs, the Zulus, Russians, and Babs appeared in the area so I left the units there to save time moving them all around (lazy me), and to catch any other respawners. All the units spread about are there to catch respawners in minimal time.
9 - Yeah I play pretty much MP now, good fun, and a bigger challenge than the AI. I do play a lot of small world MP (small world one continent maps on 2x2x used to be virtually my only setting, and I was good at that), but now I do more medium island maps (a new challenge, although much of the small map stuff still works). But when I'm at uni I only have access to ICQ on these PCs, not the zone where I usually go for a game. So the only civ I can play is SP over here. MP I play sometimes on weekends.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Campo
Some observations to those who posted saves of this game:

Lafayette,
- Do you always use such a high percentage of entertainers? In 780ad you averaged more than one per city, and most of your cities were population 3. By 1320 there wasn't as high a percentage, but still a lot more than I ever have.
- I noticed the Pyramids and King Richard's Crusade in Washington -- I assume the AI built them.
- Why did you leave the barbs in control of Cardiff and not take advantage of bribing for unsupported units? I'd have expected you to either use it for NON units or else conquer the city.

1) No, I don't use entertainers. But I try to avoid building temples when I go for early conquest. The choice is then between martial law and entertainers. I usually choose martial law with warriors. Perhaps I was so eager building elephants and knights that it brought me to the result that you mention.
2) Yes, the AI, of course.
3) IIRC the barbs took control of Cardiff few turns before the end, and I just didn't care.

[Campo]

Thanks for your responses. Cleared up some points.

debeest

I've kept savegames for nearly every turn, as opposed to the ten or twenty saves I usually keep. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to zip and attach them all. What would people like to see?

I'd like to see about every 5th turn. That's far enough apart for there to be some new developments, and close enough to understand what happened. But if the file isn't too big to download then you can zip all your saves, and we can examine the ones we choose. I have a high-speed link at work; don't know if it would pose a problem for people with slower access.

[debeest]

Anybody with slow access would have to be pretty fanatical to spend time on this slow site....

Anyway, here are three zipfiles of all my saves plus my log. It was too big for Apolyton to handle it in one bite, but I think it won't be too bad for downloaders.

[debeest]

Why do I always have trouble attaching files?

[debeest]

Does it really have to be this difficult? I left out 3/4 of the later-game saves in order to more easily meet Apolyton's 500k limit.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by debeest
I've kept savegames for nearly every turn, as opposed to the ten or twenty saves I usually keep. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to zip and attach them all. What would people like to see?

The .sav files should correspond to the comprehensiveness of your log...
In any case I am ordering every turn up to 3000BC.

Edit: sorry, I am very slow

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Campo - I'm curious about where you founded London. With the iron and coal visible, did you consider that it might be a 3 or 4 special city if you founded it in the "sweet spot"? Do you feel it's important to found that quickly?

Yes. One turn lost is one turn lost. It is a terrible loss. The same effect as if you stop your entire empire in the mid-game (no, a worse effect; the effect would be equal only if the world would be constant, without enemies: you can lose a city if your defender will come one turn later in the beginning of the game), or if you get monarchy one Oedo cycle later (remember I estimated 1 turn of lated monarchy to 0.2 of the turn production).
I will have 1 or 2 - sized cities first 50 turns- I don't need 3 or 4 specials for one city now.
Also the shielded grassland on the river is very rich - almost like a special.

Originally posted by Campo - Also, as you asked in your log, I indeed would like to hear your thinking about shields vs. food.

The settler cost (for a case of city size 1) is 40 shields + 20 food + some shields+food lost as support when moving to the new destination. Say the cost is 70 resources. (Later in the game you need a defense also)
The gain depends on the squares that will be worked, if 2 shielded rivered grasslands then you get 2*3.5 resources - 2 food eaten = 5 resources.

The citizen (increased city size) cost is 30 (for a case of city size 2, city size 1 is out of the debate, see the next paragraph) + 10 shields (martial law) = 40 resources
The gain depends on the new square that will be worked, if a shielded rivered grassland (but the 3rd square needn't to be so rich) then you get 3.5 resources - 2 food eaten = 1.5 resources.

But this calculation is not perfect- if you want to be precise then you should take into account also the time when the new source (a new city or new citizen) will be finished - resources that comes sooner have a higher value. If the output of the empire in 3000BC is 2 times higher than in 4000BC then one resource in 4000BC is equal to 2 resources in 3000BC.

Originally posted by Campo I thought from your log that you were working the iron and coal, but I see from the save games that's not correct.

You always have to work food to get city size of 2 and to be able to build a settler. But then you can choose between a settler or a citizen.
Also if you are 4 food from a next citizen but 35 shields from a new settler then the math of the previous paragraph is different.

[SlowThinker]

debeest,
I am unable to load your .zip files

[debeest]

ST, each one is a Winzip file containing about 30-40 saves, plus the log in the second one. I just tested the first one (downloaded it, unzipped it, and loaded it) and it worked perfectly. You might want to try again, using Winzip. If anyone else has trouble, I'll try doing it again.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by debeest
ST, each one is a Winzip file containing about 30-40 saves, plus the log in the second one. I just tested the first one (downloaded it, unzipped it, and loaded it) and it worked perfectly. You might want to try again, using Winzip. If anyone else has trouble, I'll try doing it again.

debest1.zip is OK, but with debeest.zip the Explorer reports "page not found"...

[SlowThinker]

Log - part 2

I atach saves and log from 3000BC to 2000BC.

[SlowThinker]

Campo and debeest, I had to stop observing your games soon, I would reveal the North. In my game I wasn't there yet.

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debeest,
3900
Is the chance to get barbs lower if you have only one city? I thought only 0 cities protects you from barbs, later odds are equal for any number of cities...
I would build a city so that the hut is in the city radius and grab it with a warrior.
I use the incremental rushbuild cheat and so I researched Bronze Working first so that I can rushbuild to 20 shileds as soon as possible.

3500
I see I am gutless: I mean huts. As I explained in my log, I am not afraid from a bad tech, but from barbs. Do you hope they wouldn't find your cities?
I see you are building the road through hills: You lose about 10 turns of your settler,I think it is a big loss. I thought you want to keep the NON-settler, but you are on the river and therefore the roads are not needed necessarily. This is why I preferred to build first four cities so close one to another and on the river.

3050
I see you are afraid of the hut content now... Why?
I explore another way than you, since I am afraid of huts: I explore only near neighbourhood: I just want to find good spots for next cities and to find out the direction of a possible danger.

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Campo,
The difference between our games in the speed of building cities and their proximity- I think I explained that when I answered your questions sooner.
I think that cities 3 squares far apart connected by roads are very useful for units rehoming: you can switch and rehome units in one turn, and so you don't miss the martial law effect of units. Also you can have less phalanx if you are able to move them into the city in danger in one turn.

3550
I would choose Bronze working (see notes to debeest's game). But I didn't realize the diplomat is not worse than Phalanx for rushbuilds! (You only can't choose Writing as the 1st tech, and so you might miss the first one or two rushbuilds, if you would build cities as fast as me). But now, you have some defense (Archer) and I think you can afford Writing. Diplo is a perfect explorer (no support).

I read the log:

Originally posted by campo
2250 - London settler builds two roads near York to increase trade.
Discover Monarchy. Missed Odeo year by one turn. Choose to revolt to
Monarchy anyway.

No, you must always revolt the year prior to Oedo! Then you will get into anarchy (no beakers, no gold) for 1 turn only.
Edited: I think I am wrong. You can have an "instant" revolution probably. See my question to debeest later on this page.
Excuse me

Originally posted by Campo
2050 - Nottingham rush-buys settler.

Do you rushbuild to the "end"? Try to avoid it, because you lose shields of the last turn this way. Rushbuild settlers to 10, 20, 30 shields only.