Unfinished business - SG for improving at Civ 4 (sic)

[haphazard1]

Glad my comments have been useful. Maybe they can serve to trigger some useful thoughts, even if they are of questionable value themselves.

Granary mechanics: you can look up articles on exactly how they work if you want the details. The key thing to keep in mind is that there is a lag before they start helping the city, and they only help if you are growing. If a city is going to stagnate for a while (such as building workers/settlers), then the granary won't help until it is growing again. So finishing the granary might be something that can wait. You do have 50 turns before hammers in a building decay, at least on normal speed; I can't recall if this is one of the things that varies with game speed or if 50 turns is fixed.

Workers per city -- this can vary a lot, depending on the terrain (jungle areas need a lot more worker turns to become productive than grasslands, which need more than coastal cities, etc.) and on how developed your core is. Once key tiles are improved in your core, there is less demand for worker turns in your core until you start lifting the happy cap and growing taller. This tends to reduce the needed workers-per-city for your empire as a whole. My rule of thumb is to try to have two workers for each "developing" city plus one worker for each core city. The core workers tend to spend much of their time on roads, getting everything linked together, with occasional tile improvements as core cities are able to boost their happy caps, while developing workers are almost all tile improvements plus roads to key resources for military and happiness. Both groups do some chopping as terrain permits.

Just a general guideline, but I have found it useful. The main thing is that if you find yourself working unimproved tiles, you need more workers -- however many you have.

Chariots -- it would be good to have something stronger than a warrior available. Maybe you go for the copper and build axes, maybe you build chariots, you could even tech Archery if you did not have military resources available. Warriors can't ever do better than a coin flip on offense (unless you are aggressive or build early barracks) even against barb warriors, and obviously are far worse than that against barb archers or spears. (Forget barb axes! ) And sometimes you need to go on offense to preserve your improvements. You should have a while yet before stronger barbs appear, but they do come sooner at higher difficulties. Emergency whips are possible as long as you have resources hoooked up, but the impact on your cities can be harsh. And sometimes you do get that unexpected tougher barb in just the wrong spot.... I've had it happen more often than I really like to remember.

No rush for Calendar -- you are correct about having access to metals, so happiness should be good for a while. Just noting that with the resources already known, it should not be forgotten or delayed for too long. The tile yields from plantation resources can be quite nice in addition to the happiness, like those dyes for example. Plus it opens up MoM and you do have marble nearby.

Civ: there is always one more thing to keep in the back of your mind.

[Zalson]

Let's get chariots. 2-movers, in general, are much better for zone defense than warriors (I think that's what you're proposing).

taotao and haphazard1 -- we're on the same page for granaries. I was totally on autopilot for my turnset; the granary won't be effective for a little while.

I'd say research path to things that support expansion, then we can backfill with calendar and metal casting. So, math, calendar, CoL.

[shallow_thought]

It was a tenser turn set than I had anticipated...

T51: we're 4th of 7 civs for riches; I promptly turn the science slider back on, so that wont last.
We get a forest growth 1N of Bean a Sidhe; conveniently it doesn't affect our workers routes up to the new city.
Start the warrior shuffle as planned, name remaining warriors after ghost / monster hunters. Rename workers Adze and Bradawl; more tools to come soon.
Workers finish the farm at BS - this is a pleasant surprise, I thought we had more turns to go. One even has a move - he moves to forest NE of BS, ready to start chop [at this point, why they got split in taotao's plan becomes obvious to me].

Found "Christmas Past" - and see this on the wheat:



We'll have an unfortified warrior in CP next turn, and at least Venkman is moving in that direction

CP works grassland forest, starts a worker. Military will have to be shipped in from elsewhere.
BS grows, switch to worker.
YM keeps growing on granary.

T52: Warrior moves away! Maybe our barb issues are over...
YM grows, switch to worker. AI picks sensible tiles to work, which is nice.
Workers are now both on forest, one chopping.
CP and BS get a trade route - I'm getting a lot of nice surprises to make up for the unpleasant one; shouldn't that require techs?

T53: writing comes in; switch to Maths, turn science off. If we had time, we could build libraries; would be nice as this tech will take a while to come in (we need 60+ gold). I chop with both workers, so chop comes in EOT. Not sure it makes any difference.

T54: Mansa adopts Org Rel; looks like he got Judaism. Izzy must be hurting inside.
Uh-oh, barb has a friend (he couldn't have got to this tile himself):




I consider stopping the warrior shuffle and leaving YM unguarded to reinforce BS, but then see this to the SW.



There was a pause for thought. Looking at BS, we have the new worker at 50/60 hammers, and ten production coming in this turn to finish. I fiddle with the build queue, get a chariot lined up and do a whip for the overflow - should be a 1T build ( not quite...)

YM can build a warrior in 2T easily if needed (it actually says 1T at the moment if I try putting it in the queue - I'm not quite sure why). That's as comfortable as it's going to get right now.

Adze and Bradawl move to forest south of CP.

T55: only get 25 overflow on chariot, presumably because the food was production for the worker but not when we overflowed . Fortunately can work horses instead of oasis to still get chariot in 1 turn.

New worker "Chisel" moves to oasis to get on with roading (slightly sloppy move as this took the whole move - I thought with the road on the horses that I'd be able to get started roading oasis this turn, but didn't check; didn't exactly waste a worker turn, but I could have moved to a hill just as easily which would be better for the road long term).

All the barbs wander off into the fog again.

[shallow_thought]

T56: Our first chariot. Border pop at CP reveals no barbs.
I decide to grow BS on the granary after the whip; it would take us 7 turns to slow build another worker, so lets grow (5T) by working oasis and farm, and get to work an extra tile before whipping again in 10T (hindsight from T60 points out that this was also more flexible if we need another chariot; I guess one of the strengths of the whip is that you can sometimes delay commitment, a bit like binary research).

Chariot moves to Oasis to play zone defense; Venkman keeps doing the same a couple of tiles N, while others garrison cities.

Chop finished at CP; Bradawl crosses the river and lays down a turn of road on way to wheat. Nervous about workers on edge of empire near known barbs.

T57: Izzy wants OB - sure thing. Barb is back, threatening to mess with my micro.



He can't get Bradawl yet though, so I move to wheat and start farm.
Adze cross river and finishes road; as a side effect, this will help get military from CP to wheat if necessary.
I move chariot towards CP to support, as this seems to be the most urgent threat.

I forget to turn science back on; this will delay maths by a turn, and thus risks losing chop hammers. Minor, but annoying.

T58: Barb's buddy is back too.



I move chariot to the wheat, because I'd love to pick off one of these guys on flatland if I get the chance. Possibly sloppy; if the barbs move on BS, I can't quite get the chariot there - I'd have to hit a barb on the move (and risk being hit back by the other). After a moment's thought, I keep farming the wheat but cancel the action so I can road if necessary to get chariot moving faster back to BS (works, but I committed the chariot to the wheat before thinking of this; this is all minor as BS has a fortified garrison on a hill, but it's still less than ideal).

Venkman shifts his zone, so that CP and BS are 2 moves away, YM 3.

Worker finishes at YM; start another - I don't fancy growing too much until we have another improved tile ready or about to be ready; with BS delaying its next worker build, it makes sense to get another one in here. "Drill" moves to mine hill to work on road to BS.

I finally turn science back on - 13T to Maths. Currency seems a long way away . Maybe second gold tile will help when we get it online?

T59: We have a barb city to the S (west of New Orange Dot)! Next turn's screenshot is better, so I'll discuss it then.

Chariot plays peek-a-boo with the barbs.



I don't fancy letting the second one hit me if I'm wounded after killing the first, so I pull back onto the wheat rather than attack.

Adze and Bradawl finish the farm, AI kindly switches to working wheat for me.

T60: Barb warriors retreat again. An archer, probably the one we saw before, appears N of the barb city



City is annoyingly placed; 1W would probably have suited our dotmap better.

I road the wheat with the workers; this lets me get the chariot one tile further this turn than otherwise, so it's now zoning both CP and BS.

We finish the road between YM and BS.

I change production in BS to a chariot - I suggest we get one turn into it, then cache it so we can whip it quickly but not dry if we need it. Ideally we'd play the same game of whipping a worker into it, but I'm not sure we have time. @Brian - you can switch this production (of course) before EOT if you'd like.

[shallow_thought]

Summary of things. First, the empire:



Demos, which are not great, particularly as GNP is boosted by culture and Land Area is just because we're CRE.



The capital, pumping workers:



Bean a Sidhe, source of what army we have:



Christmas Past, hungry for that gold in the hills:



General notes:
- we have work to do, looking at the demos (that said, it's doable);
- YM needs more improved tiles, and note that we haven't actually hooked the gold yet for happiness;
- we need better fogbusting, I don't know if I could have done more, but that barb city is not a good sign, and we don't know any more about the world than we did at the start of my turns;
- I still think Maths/Currency/CoL is correct, but we need something to tackle that barb city soon after that (worst case is that an AI snipes it from under our nose)

[haphazard1]

The barbs have appeared, including an archer very quickly after the first warrior. Oh well, could have been worse -- they were not in a position to snipe a worker. Or a city. I think holding back the chariot was the right move -- one warrior it can almost certainly handle, but two risks getting counter-attacked while heavily damaged. Hopefully you will get a chance to hit one of the barb warriors and gain some XP; even one promotion can help a lot if you need to take on an archer.

The barb city is an interesting development. They usually spawn in pretty decent locations, so there may be something useful in the fog around it. Is it on a hill? I can't tell from the screenshot. If it is, then it is unlikely the AI will manage to take it for a while. If it is on flat land then they might manage it, if they are not busy elsewhere.

I like your naming schemes. Thanks for the update, with nice pictures.

[Brian Shanahan]

It seems that the city count isn't at 2N+1 yet (N being the number of Civs), as no barb has impinged on our borders as of yet.

I have the save, but won't do anything on it until tomorrow, as I'm going to the dogs in a few hours (GAA club christmas do).

[shallow_thought]

It seems that the city count isn't at 2N+1 yet (N being the number of Civs), as no barb has impinged on our borders as of yet.

I have the save, but won't do anything on it until tomorrow, as I'm going to the dogs in a few hours (GAA club christmas do).

Looks that way (thanks for the reminder of the rule). So at least one civ has only one city? I doubt that will last, and don't (yet) regret whipping into the chariot.

No rush with the turns; it was nice to play on a Saturday with time to pause, think and report properly. Won't always be the case.

[Zalson]

Excellently reported turnset. And not too bad at playing, neither! We now have 4 workers? Or is it 5?

shallow_thought, any thoughts on what our plan is for the next few turns? I'll grab the save and have a look later tonight (maybe) and hope to chime in later this evening.

[shallow_thought]

Excellently reported turnset. And not too bad at playing, neither! We now have 4 workers? Or is it 5?

shallow_thought, any thoughts on what our plan is for the next few turns? I'll grab the save and have a look later tonight (maybe) and hope to chime in later this evening.

Thanks; I just hope that I haven't set too high a bar for myself with future reports - anything played on a working weeknight wont get so thoroughly covered.

We're up to four workers with one more being built in YM (3 turns).

To my mind, we've got  a bunch of priorities (not in order):
- Get CP onto the road network, primarily for military purposes
- Push on towards key econ techs
- Scout SW and barb city
- Mine 2nd gold and other improve other tiles at CP
- Improve floodplains at YM and let it grow
- Improve another tile at BS to we can grow to 4 and be able to get some double whips in
- Build granaries
- More military (to cover new cities)
- More workers (to do all the above and cover new cities)
- More cities! This is probably the big one

I would probably target purple area (grassland sheep, blocks Izzy) first, particularly with the barb city in a position to hassle Orange. I'd love to hook up copper, but the sites are weak without IW (a lot of these comments will cover things we've all discussed before). If I were drawing up a list of objectives for the next ten turns, it would probably have 1 settler, 1 warrior, 1 chariot, 2-3 workers, 1 gold mine, 1 floodplains farm, an improved riverside grassland tile (farms? - we're still short of food) at each of BS and CP and some roads. I suspect that even the best micro plan can't get all of that in!

The one thing I think we can do is chop more; I'm happy to have the wheat farmed and the YM-BS road, but an argument could have been made for more chops even in my turns. We do have a decent amount of forest at least.

You'll note that I haven't even thought about squeezing granaries in there, and I may well have missed something... we probably need to prune the list quite hard.

Having said all that, I think my suggestion of the chariot in BS was wrong; it's already got a warrior in the queue (garrison for new city) we probably want to get a settler from there, and YM should be able to build a chariot quite fast.

For military, it's probably still worth getting warriors fortified in far-flung cities; the window where they have value (other than as MP) is closing, but not yet at an end.