Early Landing Comparison Game #2

[Bloody Monk]

Congratulations to Solo and SG(2)

Very well done, sirs.

Monk

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by solo
Yes, I was lucky to have Colossus available so late in the game. AI wonder choices seem to be at random, and this can hurt or help us in a big way, depending on how they “choose”.

Do AIs change a wonder building? I mean if no other civ overtake them.
In other words shall I be afraid they change the production unawares?

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I see nobody goes for MPE. I could understand it in Game #1, where you had the Key civ (purple) close...
Maybe the summary reports should show also the year where the Key Civ was contacted.

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SG(2),
Could you keep your saves please. Later i would like to compare my game with yours. I went through monarchy too, but
Monarchy 1650
Trade 925
(MPE 800: I noticed you got your first wonder two turns after trade: how did you achieve it? Were caravan-building cities so close to the wonder city?)

[Scouse Gits]

Thanks solo and Monk. It goes without saying that solo played a superb game. Congratulations

solo - can you PM me with your email address as there are some saves I would like you to see regarding trade. I will publish them here but will wait until everyone has finished.

Slow Thinker - I built the Gardens the hard way without caravans. Early on I mined the wheat to silk in the SSC and was able to make 10 shields a turn. I was lucky with Trade ... exchanging it with the Spanish.

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SG(2)

[SlowThinker]

SG(2),
It looks my strategy with the slow monarchy wasn't so bad, because I was able to get trade as fast as you and not from an exchange. Usually I set taxes to 60% in 4000BC and switch to 40% when about 80-100 beakers is needed for the monarchy, i.e. after the 3rd tech. But the exact time of the switch depends on a proximity of the Oedo year.

I see I made a mistake by not exploring and contacting Spanish sooner. I was afraid i could get a bad tech before trade and so I waited to MPE (even I contacted them a couple of turns before the MPE).

[SlowThinker]

Could you post also a list of lucky/unlucky moments and main mistakes with your logs?

I am in the middle of the game but I can post something:

I don't know if I made a mistake by not exploring and not trying to exchange techs early. I decided not to risk a bad tech on the way to monarchy (5th tech) and trade (8th tech)- they cannot be researched as the 6th resp. 9th tech. But now I see that everybody got a goos deal from exchanges.

I was very happy to not to get barbs, because I was barb-resistent only after monarchy.
The defence against the barbs is a problem in the early game. If you want to be safe as much as possible then you have to sacrifice almost all your economic potential: you have to research writing fast and to block 63 gold for bribing purposes or to go for Horseback Riding and to build a bunch of horsemen. But if you want to beat solo you risk and you bank on a good luck...
What about to postpone the 16-turn no-barb limit farther and to allow reloads say up to 1500BC for the Game #3?

[SlowThinker]

SG(2), I see a problem with the non-caravan wonders: shields are blocked for long time and so I always compose wonders from caravans.

[SCG]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
SG(2), I see a problem with the non-caravan wonders: shields are blocked for long time and so I always compose wonders from caravans.

And well you should, once trade is available However, before trade is available, basically what SG(2) did was build 4 caravans without rushing (probably rushed in other cities) and stored them in the his SSC, in the form of a wonder he considers to be of very high value.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by SlowThinker

Do AIs change a wonder building? I mean if no other civ overtake them.

I have seen an AI change the wonder it was building without being overtaken - presumably because they discovered a new tech. It doesn't seem to happen very often though.

RJM at Sleepers

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by RJM at Sleepers
I have seen an AI change the wonder it was building without being overtaken - presumably because they discovered a new tech. It doesn't seem to happen very often though.

I would be still nervous on solo's place (Colossus 280 ad) if it is not 100% sure. Solo, do you know the mechanism of changing the wonder production by the AIs?

Originally posted by SCG
basically what SG(2) did was build 4 caravans without rushing (probably rushed in other cities) and stored them in the his SSC, in the form of a wonder he considers to be of very high value.

But first three caravans weren't stored in the form of a wonder, they simply waited.

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
SG(2), I see a problem with the non-caravan wonders: shields are blocked for long time and so I always compose wonders from caravans.

I would rather build Wonders with caravans every time. However before Trade you are sometimes stuck for something sensible to construct in the SSC. If Trade does come along before it's finished the completion is made using freight.

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SG(2)

[solo]

SG(2),

My email address is on the way.

ST,

I like your idea of including the date of key civ contact in the summary, and will add this item next game.

I will preserve saves if you would like to see them. Do you care to see any from game #1. If so, please give me a list of years that are of interest.

Early AI contact is always good. A well-timed trade sometimes helps you get to Monarchy or Trade quicker by resetting the tech list, or you can often trade for a tech along the path to these techs. When contact is made the AI may suggest a trade, allowing you to know one of its techs. You can always refuse to trade techs if they offer something you don't want.

I do use a diplomat and keep an emergency reserve of gold early in the game to guard against barbs. Later, after some things have been built in cities, I no longer need this reserve, since an improvement can be sold in an emergency to raise extra cash.

If you and enough other players want to reduce the barb threat, I would prefer to do this by lowering the barb setting when starting the game, rather than allow reloads until 1500 BC.

As for the Colossus, I consider this wonder to be nice to have, but hardly essential, so was not concerned about delaying it so long in my game. Notice that I went to Flight fairly early, which cancels Colossus. It's also been my experience that if none of the AI start building this one early they tend to "forget" about it, or focus more on newer wonders. I have not run any tests to analyze their choices and changes when building wonders, but find this is not usually a problem in early landings where I'm almost always first to the wonders I want to build.

Very often the SSC or another city can build a wonder using shields before the discovery of Trade. We used to do this all the time in OCC games, where the Colossus was built very early on. I can see that doing this could be a very good idea in early landing games, too, with the proof being SG(2)'s excellent result in game #2.

[SCG]

Originally posted by solo
ST,
I like your idea of including the date of key civ contact in the summary, and will add this item next game.

or in my case each key civ? this last game, i started supreme, fell to mighty, then strong, then moderate, then back to strong, then back to moderate.

I pulled up my save from 1120, and several of my AI civs had far more cities and/or population than in your game (my celts have 16 cities, and a population at almost 5.5 mil, Spanish have 11 cities, Carts have 8 cities, Chinese have over 3 mil pop)

I know some of that is simply sooner contact. I've watched a number of AI go from expanionist to perfectionist after contact with me in past games

main point is I may need 3-4 key civ contacts

Reguarding Barbs, raging hordes are fine, as there really aren't going to be many cases where its a problem (you buy one, and it effectively becomes part of rushing the next item)

[solo]

Good point, so in the summary, I'll limit this to date of first contact with your first key civ.

[SCG]

Originally posted by solo
Good point, so in the summary, I'll limit this to date of first contact with your first key civ.

just one more point of clarification - say my rating falls to a civ i already have contact with (happened for both chinese and spanish as key civs). I'm assuming in this case, itsthe date when my rating fell to make a previously contacted Civ a key civ, rather than first contact with that key civ?

[solo]

Yes, the date should be the earliest one that you get to benefit from gifting techs to a key civ, even if you met that civ before it became your first key civ of the game.