AU 502 Teaser

[Aeson]

Nice work getting the Worker into there with so little tradeoff. It's close either way. The benefit of those 14 Worker turns will mostly show up for the second and third cities. You could expect to make up the production (and more, probably account for ~14 shields/commerce), but if there aren't any tiles to Irrigate you may never catch up on the food side of things unless you can leverage those 14 Worker turns into founding a future city or two a turn faster. Should be possible as you'll have up to 4 extra tiles roaded, but you may have been able to keep ahead in that department anyways.

[nbarclay]

Now, another idea: go with warrior-worker-granary but have the second worker do a chop to avoid slowing down our growth waiting for the granary to finish. We'll have to mine a plains (or we might end up with a bonus grassland under the forest that would be even better to mine) to get back the production potential that the chop costs us, but a sixteen-turn head start for the second worker is long enough to do a chop, build a mine, and still come out a few turns ahead.

The first sixteen turns are the same as above.

1: Worker move 4. Settler move 8.
2: Worker move 8. Settler build city (now at 0:0 food/production). Start work on warrior; laborer to sugar.
3: 3:2 Worker 1 Irrigate Desert. City has opened up an irrigation path..
4: 6:4
5: 9:6
6: 12:8
7: 15:0 Warrior is done. Start worker. Irrigation is done. Move worker to oasis. Move laborer to forest.
8: 17:3 Labrer to Sugar. Worker starts irrigating oasis.
9: Size 2 0:7 Laborers to Sugar, forest. (This appears wasteful in that it sacrifices food for a shield we don't need, but it gives us an extra gold and the waste won't matter.)
10: Size 1: 2:0 Worker 2 complete. Moves to sugar. Laborer to sugar.
11: 5:2 Worker 2 starts mining.
12: 8:4 Borders expand. Irrigation of oasis is completed; start road. Laborer works oasis.
13: 12:6
14: 16:8
15: Size 2: 0:12: Road on oasis completed. Worker 1 to irrigated desert. Laborers to oasis and sugar.
16: 4:15: Worker 1 Starts road.

Now we start getting different.

17: 8:19: Worker 2 finished mining, moves to forest. (We'll road the forest tile after chopping and then road and mine our second bonus grassland, so we can get by okay without roading the sugar. Under Despotism, except in a GA, a road there wouldn't give us any extra gold.)

18: 12:23: Worker 2 starts chop.
19: 16:27: Worker 1 completes road, moves to river BG.
20: Size 3: 0:33: Laborers to oasis, sugar, and river BG. Worker 1 starts mine.
21: 4:38
22: 8:53: Worker 2 finishes chop, starts road (or a mine if this is a BG, but from here on, I'm going to assume we aren't that lucky).
23: 12:58
24: 16:0: Granary complete. Start settler.
25: Size 4: 0:6: Worker 2 finishes road, moves to second BG. Laborers work oasis, sugar, river BG, and newly roaded river tile. (Assuming the forest didn't have a BG under it, there's no way we can get our settler in three more turns, so we may as well get as much gold as possible building it in four more. Finishing our BG mine will provide the shields we need.)
26: 4:12: Worker 1 finishes mine, starts road. Worker 2 starts road.
27: 8:18
28: Size 5: 0:25: Laborers work oasis, sugar, river BG, river road, and irrigated desert.
29: Size 3: 4:0: Settler complete. Laborers to oasis, sugar, and river BG. Worker 1 completes road; further actions depend on what our exploring warrior found out. Worker 2 completes road and can either start a mine or move to a tile that would be better to work from another city's perspective.
30: 8:6
31: Size 4: 0:13: Laborers to oasis, sugar, river BG, and river road. (Unless we have a BG under the forest, we can't quite shave a turn off the time needed for our settler, so again, we go for extra gold.)
32: 4:19
33: 8:25
34: Size 3: 0:0: Settler complete.

If we would get lucky and find a bonus grassland under the forest, a variation of this approach would finish the first two settlers at exactly the same time as my first approach but with a little bit more work done on tile improvements. Assuming we don't get that lucky (which is the assumption I followed in plotting out the timeline), the situation is more complex. Our second settler is finished a turn later than in my first timeline, but our first settler could gain one turn if he settles toward the east or our second might be able to gain two from our having extra roaded tiles(depending on exactly where he wants to go). Thus, we would probably be in the same or a better position in terms of when our second and third cities are founded, and in a little bit better and significantly more flexible position in terms of tile improvements (since we have the option of focusing on tiles for other cities instead of on replacing the chopped forest with a mined plains). We would be six shields behind on production in our capital (probably affecting future settlers), but in the same place on our growth curve. Also, the time spent working a roaded river tile would put us a bit ahead on wealth/science.

Considering the mixture of advantages and disadvantages if we don't get a bonus grassland under the forest coupled with the fact that we get purely advantages if we do get lucky, my current inclination is that this is probably the best approach of the three I've experimented with so far. But the matter is probably worth further thought.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Aeson
Nice work getting the Worker into there with so little tradeoff. It's close either way. The benefit of those 14 Worker turns will mostly show up for the second and third cities. You could expect to make up the production (and more, probably account for ~14 shields/commerce), but if there aren't any tiles to Irrigate you may never catch up on the food side of things unless you can leverage those 14 Worker turns into founding a future city or two a turn faster. Should be possible as you'll have up to 4 extra tiles roaded, but you may have been able to keep ahead in that department anyways.

With the extra worker turns, it should be possible to defer building a third worker longer than would make sense otherwise and to either build another settler or start a granary in the time when the third worker would have been built. Getting either a settler or a granary (and its subsequent workers and settlers) earlier as a result of that would tend to counteract the initial food disadvantage even in the absence of a tile that can be irrigated to go up to three or more food under Despotism.

[Arrian]

I thought despotism ate the food bonus from irrigated oasis (and sugar)!

-Arrian

[alexman]

Irrigated Desert gives 2 food for agricultural.
Oasis gives +2 food.
So in Despotism, you get 3 food from irrigated oasis.

You're right about sugar on plains though.

[Arrian]

So irrigating Oasis works in despotism for Agricultural civs only, then, right?

If so, ok, I can see where I went wrong: the first time I irrigated an oasis, I did so as a non-agricultural civ.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Correct. Irrigating an oasis provides an advantage under Despotism only for agricultural civs.

[Arrian]

/me has learned something from this thread.

[nbarclay]

It's a tribute to Apolyton University that the learning can start even before the games do.

[nbarclay]

Incidentally, one of the interesting questions raised by this game is what research path to take. Since the Celts don't start with Alphabet, a beeline to Philosophy is a bit longer than it was last time, while starting with Ceremonial Burial makes the path to Monarchy shorter. The fact that the Celts are Religious also makes the possibility of going to Monarchy first and then Republic later more attractive than it would be otherwise.

I'm seriously considering researching Mysticism and Polytheism as quickly as possible and then Monarchy on a 50-turn pace to get gold for upgrades. But I haven't decided for sure yet. Thoughts, anyone?

[Arrian]

It might work, but I think it only works if you're not alone. In fact, having several neighbors would be good, since that upgrade cash is going to become rushbuilding cash if you haven't anyone to beat on.

I bet you will have a couple of AI neighbors to beat on, though, especially with that nice central minimap position.

90g per upgrade does make the cash hoarding approach attractive.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

On the other hand, getting a whole tech free from Philo is also very attractive. Assuming you play Emperor (your normal level, yes?), I bet you can beat the AI to Philo even without Alphabet to start.

Tough call. Builder vs. Warmonger. The Celts happen to be a pretty good civ for both approaches.

Cool. Strategic choice.

-Arrian

edit: and Nathan, what if you don't have iron? This is Conquests, after all.

[alexman]

See next post.

[alexman]

Religious with a good ancient UU screams for Monarchy. It's going to be my first government for sure.

I plan to slow down the tech rate so that the Gallic Swords last as long as possible. However, I plan to research full-speed up to Monarchy, and then set the slider at 0% until the middle ages. I'll trade as little as possible, and if I'm not at war, I'll make sure other civs on my continent are at war. We will be the most backwards barbarian continent ever!

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by alexman
I plan to slow down the tech rate so that the Gallic Swords last as long as possible.

i think i saw someone use this strategy at CFC (or was it in an old AU game?). that player got rid of all scientific civs before they got to the medieval age (therefor having a chance of getting feudalism and pikemen, making the GS a lot less effective). iirc, he won the game before the AI was in the medieval ages.