AU501 - DAR1: 4000BC-2150BC

[Tall Stranger]

OK, here goes.

I chose to build at the starting location, chose to build a worker, and began setting up a settler pump. I chose to road the first grassland, which I realize I should not have bothered doing.

At 3600 BC, I had a second worker and decided to start on the granery, hoping that there's no one nearby.

3500 BC: Pop a settler from the hut, move it south, then southeast to work both game squares. In 3400 BC, Adrianople is founded and starts building warriors so I can confirm what I suspect: I'm alone on an island.

3350 BC: Complete pottery, start researching Writing at 50 turns. One worker begins mining first BG, while other begins roading the second.

2900BC: I pop the other hut, getting a map which confirms that I'm alone on this island. I'm switching between warriors and workers in Adrianople.

2510 BC: Complete settler, begin to move him along NE coast to tobacco square next to wheat. This city will begin cranking out curraghs so I can start exploring the map.

2350 BC: Settler completed, heads to coastal grassland two squares north of volcano on other island.

2190 BC: Settler built, heading for plains just west of incense.

Here's where I am at 2150 BC. My biggest concern (other than trying to understand all the MM) is lack of external contact. I'm one turn from a curragh at Caesarea and 5 from a curragh at Nicea. Hopefully my neighbors have something useful to trade.

[Arnelos]

[threadjack]

Tall Stranger, where in NOVA are you from? Fairfax here.

[/threadjack]

[Tall Stranger]

[continue threadjack]

Also in Fairfax, not far from Tyson's Corner. Small world.

[Thrar]

Here is mine, playing at Emperor. I forgot to take a screenshot at 2150, but the city locations are 966, 777 and 1122 of Constantinople.

4000BC: settling on the starting spot, researching pottery at 100% and building another worker. Worker goes off to road/mine (in that order, otherwise 2 shields would be wasted) the western bonus grassland.

3650BC: Growth to size 2, 2nd worker built the next turn. Luxury spending to 10%.

3600BC: 2nd worker, will irrigate the grassland towards the cow. Constantinople is starting the barracks prebuild for granary.
3500BC: border expansion popped the hut, gave me a warrior. If it had been anything else i might have switched production, but that way, fine

3350BC: pottery done, still it will take a while until the granary is built. Next is writing, at 100% again.

2800BC: granary completed, Constantinople is at size 4 with both BG mined. Luxury spending is at 40%, my warrior has explored the northern part of the island or peninsula without popping the hut up there, and is heading south now. One more warrior (food box is at 5), then it's time for settlers.

2470BC: founded Adrianople on the tobacco 966 of Constantinople. Finished exploration, the warrior will return for police duties in Constantinople.

2310BC: founded Caesarea 777 of Constantinople. There's a barb camp further to the north.

2150BC: founded Nicaea at 1122, there's another encampment in the south. Adrianople built a curragh and will now produce a couple of warriors, Caesarea is building a warrior, Nicaea will get a chop in 3 turns and will build a second curragh.

[jshelr]

I think it' clear in retrospect that moving to the settler to the coast was the right first play to set up lots of early contacts.

What I don't see is a consensus on research strategy to accompany that choice. Personally, I selected writing at 10%, because higher settings don't materially reduce the time to completion and the accumulated gold helps trading once contacts are made. Sometimes writing in 50 brings that tech to the trading party at a time when it can be exchanged for lots of good techs. Sometimes you don't win the race to writing, but the setting for this game implies you would be able to trade for it due to superior contacts. And the gold you have built up, may help you actually win the race to philo more often than if you've gone flat out for writing.

Speculation that it was an island start made me think that pottery should be downgraded -- there would be less reason to hurry expansion. You are going to fill the island anyway. In the event, our trade for pottery was not delayed very long. We were able to switch a barracks prebuild to granary without losing many turns to completion anyway.

Dom's setup made this work out unusually well. However, others seem to differ and a discussion might not hurt.

[lockstep]

AU mod, Monarch. (Actually, this is an AAR - a clean copy of handwritten notes.)

I decided to move the settler NW because this seemed like a great site to crank out wonders. 1 grassland with cow, 1 lake with fish, 2 bonus grassland, 3 hills and numerous forest tiles amount to 25 shields pt (with 12 pop, 24 food pt), possibly more if there is additional bonus grassland hidden under the forest. Furthermore, I liked the ability to build the Great Lighthouse (this is 'The Power of Seafaring', after all), I like free aqueducts, and I hate volcanoes.

3950 BC: Constantinople founded, starts worker; start Pottery (100% sci, 9t)
3600 BC: Constantinople finishes worker, starts barracks; 20% tax (1t to Pottery)
3550 BC: Pottery, start Writing (100% sci, 36t); Constantinople switches to granary
3450 BC: Wheat in the NW; hut popped, yields warrior
3250 BC: Incense in the S
3200 BC: Forest chop, shields to Constantinople
3050 BC: Continuous coastline in the S; another landmass in the SW; Constantinople size 3 (-> 10% lux)
2950 BC: Border on SW landmass; forest chop, shields to Constantinople
2900 BC: Constantinople finishes granary, starts settler
2790 BC: Hut in the NE; will not pop for now (1 con warrior)
2750 BC: Continuous coastline in the N; Constantinople size 4 (-> 20% lux)
2670 BC: Constantinople finishes settler, starts curragh (-> 0% lux)
2590 BC: Adrianople founded, starts warrior; Constantinople size 3 (-> 10% lux)
2550 BC: Constantinople finishes curragh, starts settler
2470 BC: Adrianople finishes warrior, starts barracks
2430 BC: Contact with Japan, has ivory, has The Wheel, WC, CB; will not trade for now; 10% tax, 70% sci, 20% lux (1 gold); forest chop, shields to Constantinople; bonus grassland revealed; Constantinople finishes settler, starts settler (-> 0% lux)
2390BC: Continuous coastline in the E; homeland is small continent with room for 10-12 cities; Constantinople size 3 (-> 10% lux)
2310 BC: Border on NE landmass
2270 BC: Caesarea founded, starts granary; hut popped, yields warrior; Contact with Sumeria, has Mas, The Wheel, WC, CB; Alph, Pot to Japan for The Wheel, WC, CB, 10g; horses revealed; 0% tax, 90% sci, 10% lux; Constantinople size 4 (-> 20% lux)
2230 BC: Constantinople finishes settler, starts temple (-> 0% lux); Ur (Sumeria) starts Pyramids; barbs in the SE
2190 BC: 20% tax, 80% sci, 0% lux; border SE of Sumeria
2150 BC: 2 warriors killed by barb warrior; Contact with Hittites, have Mas; 50% tax (1t to Writing)

Status:
3 cities (5 pop points)
1 granary
1 settler, 2 worker, 1 warrior, 1 curragh

Plans for the future:
a) Continue exploration (Japan, W, N),
b) Connect incense,
c) Go for Philosophy and (possibly as free tech) Map Making,
d) Build the Great Lighthouse in Constantinople and play tech broker / builder,
e) Build another ancient wonder in Constantinople prior to that, even if it means sacrificing early growth,
f) If d) and e) work out, seriously start thinking about a 20k cultural victory.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by jshelr
I think it' clear in retrospect that moving to the settler to the coast was the right first play to set up lots of early contacts.

I would definately agree. I think the coastal start helped those of us who used it quite a bit.

What I don't see is a consensus on research strategy to accompany that choice. Personally, I selected writing at 10%, because higher settings don't materially reduce the time to completion and the accumulated gold helps trading once contacts are made. Sometimes writing in 50 brings that tech to the trading party at a time when it can be exchanged for lots of good techs. Sometimes you don't win the race to writing, but the setting for this game implies you would be able to trade for it due to superior contacts. And the gold you have built up, may help you actually win the race to philo more often than if you've gone flat out for writing.

Speculation that it was an island start made me think that pottery should be downgraded -- there would be less reason to hurry expansion. You are going to fill the island anyway. In the event, our trade for pottery was not delayed very long. We were able to switch a barracks prebuild to granary without losing many turns to completion anyway.

Dom's setup made this work out unusually well. However, others seem to differ and a discussion might not hurt.

Personally, I went for Pottery first anyhow and built 4 granaries on the home island. I didn't do that really to expand with all of the settlers, but to ensure that I had a lot of workers (easily) and could also get my populations reasonably high in quick order for better production island-wide. Some amount of what I gained in trade from larger populations earlier was swallowed by the need to raise the lux slider, but it still gave me more research than if I'd kept populations small and the lux slider at zero.

Personally, I think early granaries are worth the investment, small living quarters or not. At worst, you can just use the additional population to do poprushing (though that does exacerbate the unrest problem).

I think there's an ancient thread in the strategy forum on the subject that E_T gave me a link to ages ago and was helpful to read. Don't think things have changed much in C3C from earlier versions/expansions in this respect.

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by jshelr
What I don't see is a consensus on research strategy to accompany that choice. Personally, I selected writing at 10%, because higher settings don't materially reduce the time to completion and the accumulated gold helps trading once contacts are made.

I notice that you were playing on Emperor. Were you playing unmodded?

I was playing on Demigod with the AU Mod. After moving to the coast like you, I'm fairly certain that my decision to research Writing at 0% tax was sensible, especially in hindsight.

I looked at F10 at the start and saw that 5 out of 9 AI were Expansionist or Agricultural so thought that trading for pottery early was fairly likely. As it turned out, I traded for it in 3300AD, just 4 turns after building a curragh so could have had a granary whenever I wanted it, provided it was after the curragh.

In my game, I was able to trade Mysticism for Writing and 15 gold from the Sumerians in 2310BC, just 35 turns after founding Constantinople when I had 8 turns left to research it.

I don't know what my science output was in 2310BC but I'd imagine it was close to the 9 beakers per turn I was at in 2150BC. As the latter is with 2 settlers wandering around, it was probably higher. So I would have been 72 bekers short of Writing, which would cost 8*240/7 beakers on Demigod on a standard map, which we seem to have the tech rate for (that agrees with the cost of Maths in the 2150BC save). So that's about 203 out of 275 beakers I had researched toward writing. It looks like I overpaid with Mysticism.

Let's suppose I'd been researching Writing at 20 or 10% for that time instead. I would have researched about 40 beakers towards Writing (say, for 5 turns I can't reduce 2 beakers to 1.) and so have 163 more gold. I need 235 more beakers to get Writing. If the Sumerians were prepared to accept an even trade and valued beakers as much as gold, then they'd value Mysticism at 137 gold and need 98 more gold for Writing - which would leave me with a profit of 50 gold compared to what happened.

Of course they don't. Firstly, I know about some tests theNiceOne did on civ3 v1.29 at AI - human trade revisited . The Sumerians are less aggressive than average and are annoyed at me (and I won't get them better than just polite easily). So they'd expect an 8% mark-up on Emperor or 10% at Deity. I don't know if that still applies in C3C and on Demigod but I'd put my money on 10%. I think they'd value their writing at 10% more and my Mysticism at close to 10% less. Writing and Mysticism don't allow much and I'd imagine that what writing gives is worth more so I'll ignore that and just work with the beaker cost. So they might charge 259 gold for Writing and value Mysticism at 125 gold. So I'd pay 134 gold and be left with 29 gold. That's enough to cut my profit down to 14 gold, well within the margin of error for all this. If I weren't in a position to overpay with Mysticism, this would have been a loss.

The real problem for buying Writing comes from the AU Mod's use of flavours. Writing has the Seafaring and Scientific flavours becuse it leads to literature and Map making. 3 guesses as to what flavours the Byzantines have. We know that for a civ with just one flavour and a tech with just one flavour, that civ would have to pay about 40% more for that tech from the AI whether they were an AI civ or the player. I don't know what would hapeen for a civ with 2 traits and a tech which shares those with the flavours relating top each other 99%. The answer is likely to be 20 or 40% but it could be -1, 80 or 96% as far as I know. This is far from logical anyway. If it's positive, that would put me at a loss if I'd researched at 10% or 20% . A 20% increase would give me a loss of 37 gold.

Of course, I could have ignored the Sumerian trade and got writing 15 turns later. Then I'd have 215 more gold from tax. But I got 15 gold from that trade and within 15 turns, I traded writing to the hittites for horseback riding and 17 gold. There's a fair chance that they'd have got writing from the Sumerians first if I'd have left it. I may have got horseback riding elsewhere but I'd lose out on the 17 gold. So I'm looking at 183 gold for getting writing 15 truns later. As I had enough gold anyway not to have any tax, that would have put mapmaking back 15 turns. With the AU Mod limiting curraghs, that would have slowed my contacts down by a lot and I'd imagine I'd have lost that much gold on worse trades. The only things I could really spend extra gold on, a swordsman upgrade or researching at a deficit in Republic, both come some time after Map Making.


So I think I did the right thing in my game with hindsight. But what if things had been different? In 3300BC, I met the Sumerians and Hittites and traded the Sumerians Alphabet. At this point, the Sumerians had picked up warrior code, pottery and ceremonial burial so the first tier techs they lack are the wheel and masonry. From the tests alexman did in AU mod: How to help the AI with research choices, they have a 63% chance to pick writing when they know these techs and don't exactly put emphasis on them. As a Demigod level AI, they are going to be able to out-research me by a long way at this stage. At this point, if I'd been planning on a 50-turn writing, I'd think that I'd be unlikely to get it first. By the reasoning above, I'd be much better off changing the slider from 10% to the maximum then.

If the Sumerians hadn't got writing so fast, I may only have got writing by researching 7 or 8 turns before the 50-turn limit. There's still a high chance that they'll get it in this time giving me less trading options. It would be down to how much faster contacts are worth.

At 3950BC, when I had to make the decision, there's less to go on. From F10, I know that there are 2 scientific and 2 seafaring civs who'll put that emphasis on writing. There's 2 other commercial civs making 4 who start with alphabet. It still looks likely that I'll meet them. What I didn't know at that stage was whether it might make sense to put a swordsmen rush as a higher priority than map making, because there might be another AI on the continent and less civs to meet with curraghs. This is really what the decision to research writing at over 10% is about.

If you were playing on Emperor without the AU mod, things will be much closer. But I'd still count on being able to get enough gold through trading to get Map making and so contacts earlier.

Of course I don't do any calculating in a game. I just use intuition and when that fails I like researching anyway.

[jshelr]

Good reply Nor Me. I need to read your answer again and consult the references. Thanks.

I"ve been enjoying the Demigod level, but stepped back to Emperor for the AU mod game. I didn't get to writing first at 10%, but got a good deal by brokering a tech from Japan to the Hittites on the first turn they had writing and moved directly to philo. You are probably correct that it makes a big difference who the competition for writing is. I've had good luck getting writing first even on the Demi level, but maybe not against other alpha civs or an expansionist crowd.

The seafaring trait certainly does offer a great option to putting your money into early research.

[ducki]

On research and the start:
I'm playing at Emperor, AU Mod.
Started on the hill and researched Pottery at 100%.
Granary ultra-early, and popping a settler from the hut made this an easier decision to stick to.

Currently I'm in the mid-Industrial age, was able to do the ToE-Hoover thing and have 74-80shields per turn in the capitol, depending on whether I run a scientist or not. I have another 56spt city that actually built Hoover, but the rest of my cities are far lower than that, simply due to tight-ish spacing and being coastal.

I only built 1 granary, IIRC. I'm sure I only built one in the Ancient Age, I might - MIGHT - have added one on another island in the middle ages.
Even so, I don't regret my decision at all. I'm not sure I'm going to win, but I am sure that being able to squirt out workers and settlers was a "need" for me. Had I been surrounded by AIs that wouldn't/couldn't trade me Pottery, I think things would have gone much slower for me.
Reaching and maintaining tech parity so early was, I feel, a direct result of getting as many towns down as quickly as possible with tile improvements ready for the citizens to work and I didn't want to gamble on being able to get Pottery from an AI.

[Nor Me]

So no-one's spotted the two deliberate mistakes yet?

Just ignore all the numbers in my post for the moment.

Originally posted by jshelr
I"ve been enjoying the Demigod level, but stepped back to Emperor for the AU mod game.

It's more or less the reverse for me. I've been playing mostly emperor recently but went up a level for this becauise it's an archipelago and I thought there was a good chance of getting a free island.

I didn't get to writing first at 10%, but got a good deal by brokering a tech from Japan to the Hittites on the first turn they had writing and moved directly to philo.

Then you lost out unless you could pay cash at least in part for other techs earlier. I suppose you already knew that.

Originally posted by ducki
Reaching and maintaining tech parity so early was, I feel, a direct result of getting as many towns down as quickly as possible with tile improvements ready for the citizens to work and I didn't want to gamble on being able to get Pottery from an AI.

This was definately the reverse for me. I've never had all ancient era techs in 1000BC before. It's more or less all down to the AI which does very well at Demigod and with the AU mod's research priority tweaking. My capital built only 3 settlers before starting on a Lighthouse prebuild. This gave me the contacts to do the rest. I didn't really need to research at all for trade, I was almost able to do it just with the starting techs.

I was lucky to get pottery in 3300BC like I did when the Sumerians could easily have got Alphabet from the Hittites. But that sometimes happens when you put a high priority on getting contacts fast.

[jshelr]

"Then you lost out unless you could pay cash at least in part for other techs earlier. I suppose you already knew that."

Not sure what Nor Me meant here. Researching writing at 10% and then wasting did cost us gold relative to not researching writing at all. That is a bet that sometimes pays off, however. In deciding whether to make such as bet, I liked the way Nor Me looked at the situation at the start to decide who the competiion was.

I don't care whether I get "fair" deals from the AI, but rather whether the sum total of all the deals comes out with my civ benefitting. In this case, the Hittites and Sumerians had been trading and were ahead. But the Japanese had gone a different direction and had unique techs. So, by trading with the Japanese for mysticism, and giving them more than it was worth, we acquired a unique tech that had high value for the Sumerians and Hittites. The middle man role allowed us to start philosophy as soon as possible.

[Mountain Sage]

Emperor, modded.

Excerpts from Mountain Sage’s (aptly named, this time) diary:

4000BC - The Year of the First Stone
“I like it here. A fresh breeze, a splendid view on the mountain yonder, and all my land below. Let’s settle.” Theodora dixit.
And so our merry band of brothers settled on the slopes of Mount Doom…
[Capital founded on the hill, worker set to irrigate grassland by the cow, Pottery at 100% in 12 turns]

3750BC – The Year of the First Harvest
“Ah, watermelons. Sweet. Go on, Irrigate the cows’ meadows.” Theodora dixit.
[Worker starts to irrigate the Cows’ tile]

3650BC – The Year of Malcontent
“What, you are not happy? Well then, to the mines, the lot of you.” Theodora dixit.
[Capital size 2, Luxury set to 40%]

3600 BC– The Year of Hard Labour
“Earn your keep!” Theodora dixit.
[Worker completed, warrior in 3 turns]

3500BC- The Year of the Found Lost Tribe
“You don’t like the vista of our tame mountain? Why don’t you join our merry band of brothers, and sisters?” Theodora dixit.
[The hut on Mount Doom spewed out a settler. Cow irrigated, start roading]

3300BC – The Year of The Doubling
“Ah, our expansion is outstanding.” Theodora dixit.
[Our second city, Roxane, was completed]

3250BC - The Year of the Glazing Pots
“Pottery? Pretty pots and pretty useless.” Theodora dixit.
[We discovered Pottery; Writing at max. research]

3150BC – The Year of the Armed Rabbits
“What? Another warrior? They breed like rabbits. Put them to use!”
[A second warrior was completed in our capital]

2900BC – The Year of the Floating Planks
“MS, are you telling me that some planks roped together with a tree on top will give us some competitive advantage? If not, it’s something else on that tree!” Theodora dixit.
[Our first curragh was named ‘HEB Damn the Torpedoes’]

2850BC – The Year of the Yellow Fellows
“Squibbles for mounds and gold? Agreed!” Theodora dixit.
[We met the Japanese and traded Alphabet for CB + 10 gold]
2470BC – The Year of the Giggles
“Gilgawhat? Gilly, Giglet, Gilgo the Hobbit, Gilliver…?” Theodora dixit.
[We met Sumeria, + Masonry and WC]

2390BC – The Year of More Floating Planks
“Another glorious bunch of planks? March forward!” Theodora dixit.
[Our second curragh, ‘March Forward’, was built]

2350BC – The Year of the Shallow Allusion
“And then there were three…” Theodora dixit.
[Our third city, Cesarea, was completed]

2350BC – The Year of the Unknown Rhyme
“MS, Mursilis rhymes with…, damn, help me!” Theodora dixit.
[We met the Hittites, + Masonry, The Wheel, WC]

3210BC – The Year of the Frustrated Poet
“I don’t care if that drunken captain saw lush and exciting land on his left! March Forward marches forward, it’s not a crab!” Theodora dixit.
[Our captain hugs to the original plan…]

2270BC – The Year of the Medaled Rabbit
“That one defeated two Barbarian tribes? Give him a golden medal.” Theodora dixit.
[Our regular warrior defeated two Barbs and was promoted veteran]

[Mountain Sage]

2110BC (close enough):
Not much to say, a standard opening, with a future tight city spacing. The 4/turn Settler pump turned out to be a 5/turn one, but I can live with it as we are alone on our island.

[Mountain Sage]

All beginnings are hard, but with my first unit (a curragh) we managed to discover 3 more civs, which is a beginning.