thanks
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[PB59] Ramkhamhaeng — Cyrus dry citrus search
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(March 15th, 2021, 08:02)Old Harry Wrote: Afraid not, just the t0 start: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uaeikthvfxsgpq...dSave?dl=1 Thanks, funny Zombie-like setup. I played it until the moment I missed the Great Wall by a few turns^^ Back to this game: I made a few sandbox test and find it hard to keep the economy up. With 4 early cities the research rate drops to 50% before I've got Pottery. In my opinion that would be dangerous because the research speeds will be low for a long time in this case. So I sympathies currently with a second city nearby the gold. On the other hand this is also bad because there is no exchange of improvements with the capital possible. The opposite approach would be an eastern city which directly uses the deer resource. My warrior unrevealing the north east region in two rounds.
For actual reason I made a tiny test to check the behavior of the Barbarian AI in Civ4:
You see two hills, both occupied by settler+warrior. In the middle is a stack of panther's. (It also holds for normal barbarian units) What will happen in the next turn? I missed this little trick for years. Or did I oversee some mechanical aspects?
Maybe this mechanic is not as old as expected
Charriu's Changelog Wrote:Barbs now never attack your unit stack if the stack includes a settler and a unit that is giving military happiness
After healing four rounds close to the border moved it away to search for more contacts. Due the move order GKC didn't the my incoming and outgoing direction. So maybe he does not know where to locate my capital…
…on the other hand the land bridges are clear markers and a few turns later I meet Lazteuq at the south of GKC. They made an early contact regarding to the espionage points. But before this my scout rans into a bear! Fortunately almost the best situation for the defender: Jungle+River. The scout survived with 0.4 HP.  In the home land I reveal some uninteresting plots. The warrior needs to be moved to the south and has no time for the last black plots. At this moment in the game I went mad and spend to much time with the sandbox save of the game. This test game leads to the conclusion that a) I should prefer the gold city spot in the south. b) the research rate is falling with the fourth city to 40-50%. My wrong reaction was the idea to change my mind and swap from a building setup to an oracle way. Such path needs be followed without compromises because the starting land of the players looks similar. So the disadvantages/price & risk of the oracle is very high. To give away the punch line already now: Ten rounds later it turns out that the city maintenance in my sandbox is too high.  The commerce situation isn't so bad as expected. So I follow now a plan based on the wrong assumptions. Let's hope that I'm at least fast enough for the wonder. I want time it together with the research of animal husbandry. In turn 27 I found Lazteuqs culture:
In turn 30 Bronze Working and the settler are finished. Two coppers appear on the map: On my first preferred city spot and nearby the gold spot.
Due my focus on commerce I already prepare a road to the south but not going to chopping with the first worker. This brigdes the time until I can build the gold mine, too. Connecting the cities as fast as possible is the better choise in terms of worker actions, as I wrote yesterday, I want speed up the oracle (and techs before the oracle is build) as much as possible. In the same round I found Lazteuqs scout at his border… … and here is the settler, he want's shielding from animals. He also swaps in this round into slavery. So until this moment we're almost in sync. Did he also wants settle nearby the gold?! The scout sights a second bear. Too far away to be a real issue for the persian settler, I assume. My settler needs also to be protected by some bone cracking jaws. Lions incoming from east and west. 
April 5th, 2021, 09:12
(This post was last modified: April 5th, 2021, 09:14 by Ramkhamhaeng.)
 Argh, both lions came closer. So I cannot pre-build a road on the cows in this round. Animals doesn't ignore resources if the can attack an unit on the plot. After all I can found my city on the hill because the settler+warrior combination will not be under attack. That is the (little) trick I re-discovered a few days ago. Charriu extended the protection on more units but this also works in BTS with warriors. And now that I mention him: A scout of Charriu was meet in the same round. Probably a neighbor of Lazteuq. Originally I wanted to explore the coast of Latzeuq's peninsula. But I feared that the scout could be trapped by persian culture. So I decided to move the scout directly to the next jungle patch in the south. The persian city wasn't found on the river. Lazteuq selected an other (or even more) reasonable spot.
In turn 39 my second city is finally connected with the capital
. Now I can begin to chop forests. This is really late and due my commerce preference I waste the opportunities given by BV. (I didn't switch to slavery because this delays the oracle.)Hopefully I've got my reward (early horseback riding or monarchy) for this non-optimal choice of actions... The two workers will now build a mine 3 of Aralkum and the city continuing the third worker after growing on pop 4. The scout defeated a third animal and after some healing it reaches the next peninsula. Regarding to the border color this is Charriu's home land, but no new neighbor. I pay my tribute for ignoring the food fields. Halve food production compared to the best player. At least the GNP is good. Maybe I repeat my error from PB51 with this approach but I think the map design in this game allows me a slower expansion. The natural borders should help me to hold the peninsula, I assume.GKC also copies his playing style from PB51: He's focusing on fast growing cities.
Charriu found his third city in turn 43. His capital is the first one I've got sight on it.
I have luck and found the best opportunity for the second promotion With three warriors it is an easy task to prevent barbarians on most of my peninsula: One nearby the the eastern jungle patch, one in the south east and one 7-7 of Gobi. This placement just had one problem: The gold mine is badly defended. In my sandbox game this leads often runs into problems. So I decided to move the third warrior onto the gold. Currently, a lion in the west should prevent the warrior spawning. At some point the game will delete this animal unit, but lets simply assume I'm safe for 10 turns.
Overview over the known landmasses:
The black patch in the middle looks to small for another civ. So the scout will leave Charriu's peninsula over the northwest jungle. Will the scout survive this kind of circumnavigation?! My plan to bulb Horseback Riding over Oracle faced two setbacks: The first problem is that I realize that the BUG-Mod interface change of the Research-Screen is absolutely deadly for an surprise attack. Under each target the shadow research bonus is printed. Nobody needs Alphabet if he simply can look on this screen in each round.  You can simply see which tech I will select by the Oracle. This is much easier than playing around with the own research rate. That's the problem if you normally still playing with the non-modded GUI of Civ4. (In contrast to Civ6 this interface does not requires modifications to made it to an good UI.) Maybe I should just take the (short-term worthless) monarchy.  The second drawback is this new contact: Mjmd (CRE/ORG/Portuguese/>=3 cities) has no contact with the other known nations. If he is my western neighbor, then it will be nearly impossible to made a sneak attack. Well, I didn't expected that my neighbor avoids contact forever, but a few more rounds an an non-creative guy would be much nicer  My last advantage is that he maybe didn't locate my position nearby himself. In a few rounds (after the oracle is finished) I will have the certainty whether he is really my neighbor or not. |