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

[shallow_thought]

Any comments before I play? Not in too much a rush. But I'd like comment on my plans

The way I see it: we should add at least one city every 10 turns until we have no land left.

Basic plan seemed sound, hence lack of urgent comments.

I think we're all agreed that the current war is a distraction from the all important business of MORE CITIES (and workers). The only thing I'm cautious about is the possibiliy of a big stack appearing if we let Boudicca manufacture without pressure.

I've spoken my piece on the tech path*; as far as cities are concerned, the only switch I would consider is as follows. If we're not pushing for Chinook (which I agree is a reach), is it worth founding to grab the northern iron, even second ring, before tackling Cuman? Annoying as it is, it will probably be much cheaper to take with swords than axes.

And then yes, fill the dotmap, while keeping enough military to deter the Celts.

(* I lied; I'd still go CoL first. Do we really need more happy? We have the whip for that ; but if the vote is for MC, it's a tech that we will want).

Have fun!

[Zalson]

Played. Nothing really happened. Here's the save.

[Zalson]

Sorry. Got delayed by the holiday. Goals for this session.

Cuman
New City
+2 workers
Metal Casing

Looking around. Somehow missed that we got a great general.


Our workers are little bit out of position. The majority of worker labor should be going to Brocken Spectre. Not that it matters, with the anarchy.

T101



Our army. Cue taotao saying we need more workers.

YM isn’t trying to grow, which I think is an error. So I’ll fix that.



Switch the Barracks at Bean a Sidhe.



Finished the chop at Xmas Present. Switched over to a barracks. then, next turn, I’ll 2x whip into barracks with an axeman to fix it. i think. (EDIT: Obviously, this did not work as expected)

The Flying Dutchman. The tundra farm was a mistake, I think.



The Brocken Spectre


Not much doing here.

Some scouting. Going to pillage.



102
Adding Cao Cao to Nanny Ogg. Or, at least, move them next to each other.

I’d like to found city 2 for the session down here: Fish + Fur + Silver is a good city!

Start metal casing.

103
Someone gets the Pyramids. Aztecs.

104
Incursion by Xmas present. Granny Weatherwax and an unnamed Chariot go to address the threat.

105
Scouting expedition loses a Chariot. Did manage to get 21 gold from pillaging. So not a complete waste? (to the chariot from Ms. Boudica).

Meet Qin: our final player.

T106
No sooner do we meet Qin but he asks us to stop trading with Mali. Um no.

Start settler at Yaqob Marley. 2x whip spear at Bean a Sidhe. Start a barracks at Christmas past. Will 2x whip into a new unit of some kind. 2x whip axe at xmas present.

Settler will go here.



Scouting Chariot continues to move. not pictured: a 3x promo gallic warrior. But found the iron.



Chariots move to take Cuman — or at least threaten in so I can get the sheep improved.



107
Well that was a mis-move.



I also lost the chariot to the gallic swordsman. So, retrospect confirms what I expected: that expedition was a waste.

Brocken Spectre finishes its granary (ah, copper) and I use the avoid growth trick to get some more granary fill.

108
Our military now looks like this:



Yes. I am a builder at heart.

3x whip Yaqob’s settler.

Oh, and Mansa founded Confucianism.

T109
Metal Casing comes in. Everywhere that isn’t right about to complete a unit starts a forge.

Start us on sailing because then we can get calendar.

Everything that can’t have a forge yet puts it in the queue.

Oh, and montezuma declared war on Charlemagne. Wee!

T110
Overall a fairly disappointing turns. Lost 2 chariots to Boudica, didn’t found any cities. No new workers. Played a day late.

However, the graph that matters. And the demo that matters.





We’re catching up. Bodica still wants Christmas present for peace, though.

You’ve got 4 axes (I think) and a spear in Xmas Present. And four chariots next to Cuman.

[shallow_thought]

Will take a look tomorrow come up with a plan; aim to play Wed eve (GMT). Have skimmed the report, need to work through it properly.

I've been (re)watching Sullla's Willem emperor youtube videos. He seems to agree that MC ahead of CoL works well; glad you didn't listen to me . Hopefully a wall of forges, workers and settlers will be incoming...

I do like having targets to aim for, falling just a small bit short indicates we're setting them about right. I'm certainly happy with the way you and Brian kept the turns rolling over the break; I'd half expected to have to go on hiatus for a week!

Ideally I'd have time to worldbuilder test throwing chariots against archers, but work starts again tomorrow, so may not have time, so may tend towards caution. In the short term, all we have to do is secure the sheep - axe  + chariot should do it.

I'm very happy to see us top in crop yield, along with land area. Looks strong going forward.

[RefSteel]

I would say, yes, more workers are definitely needed - especially if some of them have been farming tundra. (As Zalson suggested, this is nearly always a mistake - and this long before Civil Service, and with worker turns are at a premium like this, you can drop the "nearly".)

I don't know what the odds are for attacking fortified, unpromoted archers in a non-hill city with unpromoted chariots, but I would attempt it only in desperation, and would expect to lose a lot of chariots. It sounds like swords aren't in the cards pre-Cuman (and aren't great units anyway against anything other than Cuman) and the tech for HAs is a ways out, but note that a library whipped ASAP in Flying Dutchman (cheap with the Creative bonus) would probably culture-flip Cuman during the following turn set.

[haphazard1]

Monty declaring on Charlemagne is quite interesting. Long term that may be one of the more important events of the turnset. It removes two big worries (Monty coming after you, Charlemagne coming after you), although you will almost certainly get requests to join the war. You should think about how you want to handle those -- do you want to join? Pretend to join but not actually participate? Refuse both sides and accept the diplo negatives?

Chariots against defending archers tends to be too risky for my taste, unless you have no better options or have lots of chariots you don't mind losing. Against random wandering barbs is not so bad, as the archers don't tend to get city defense bonuses or fortification bonus. But to take cities you generally want something stronger.

I will second RefSteel about the tundra farm. Unless you are chaining irrigation post-CS, or adding food to a city post-Biology, non-resource tundra is almost never worth farming. Especially now that you have IW, your work force has much more useful things to do eliminating jungle and opening up useful tiles for those cities. Plus there are always roads to build, etc.

It is nice to see some axes and spears on the military screen. And the barracks for some promoted units are also useful -- turn out those axes and such with an initial promotion. It does make quite a difference overall.

What do you plan to do with your great general? You mentioned him existing, but I missed what you intend to do with him.

[Zalson]

Great general got merged with Nanny Ogg to create a medic 3 GG.

[shallow_thought]

Got the save.

I would say, yes, more workers are definitely needed - especially if some of them have been farming tundra.  (As Zalson suggested, this is nearly always a mistake - and this long before Civil Service, and with worker turns are at a premium like this, you can drop the "nearly".)

I don't know what the odds are for attacking fortified, unpromoted archers in a non-hill city with unpromoted chariots, but I would attempt it only in desperation, and would expect to lose a lot of chariots.  It sounds like swords aren't in the cards pre-Cuman (and aren't great units anyway against anything other than Cuman) and the tech for HAs is a ways out, but note that a library whipped ASAP in Flying Dutchman (cheap with the Creative bonus) would probably culture-flip Cuman during the following turn set.

We're at 11 workers for 6, about to be 7 cities (8 if we include Cuman as a target). Much as I'd love to grab one more city up north to block Mansa, there are no remaining sites that make me want to push a settler in the absence of more worker support. I think that my rule of thumb for this turn set is going to be:
- keep building forges while whip unhappiness wears off / growing
- switch to a worker just as each city becomes whippable / gets to 1t growth
- 2 pop whip the worker
- finish forges with chops from new workers

I think that this will be the best way to get bootstrapped for the next phase of expansion.

Monty declaring on Charlemagne is quite interesting. Long term that may be one of the more important events of the turnset. It removes two big worries (Monty coming after you, Charlemagne coming after you), although you will almost certainly get requests to join the war. You should think about how you want to handle those -- do you want to join? Pretend to join but not actually participate? Refuse both sides and accept the diplo negatives?

Chariots against defending archers tends to be too risky for my taste, unless you have no better options or have lots of chariots you don't mind losing. Against random wandering barbs is not so bad, as the archers don't tend to get city defense bonuses or fortification bonus. But to take cities you generally want something stronger.

I will second RefSteel about the tundra farm. Unless you are chaining irrigation post-CS, or adding food to a city post-Biology, non-resource tundra is almost never worth farming. Especially now that you have IW, your work force has much more useful things to do eliminating jungle and opening up useful tiles for those cities. Plus there are always roads to build, etc.

It is nice to see some axes and spears on the military screen. And the barracks for some promoted units are also useful -- turn out those axes and such with an initial promotion. It does make quite a difference overall.

What do you plan to do with your great general? You mentioned him existing, but I missed what you intend to do with him.

Great general got merged with Nanny Ogg to create a medic 3 GG.

I like the idea of trying to flip Cuman. Means that we have to use military for a few turns to protect the pasture and prevent the barbs connecting the iron (they have a worker in the city ... I want that worker if I can persuade the barbs to let it out to play; I'd risk chariots to grab it on the iron if I can). Hoping to have furs online this set - I might overwhip FD to get a library, even  if I end up with unhappy there for a turn or two. Worth it to save losses and a settler. I like having the GG unit. We could do with with two more _very safe_ kills to get to 26 exp, but we can now build the HE once we get Lit.

I think the military situation is OK. We're due another border pop at XP in a few turns, which will help.

Overall the picture got better the more I looked. Our workforce is in sensible situations (supporting new city, getting pasture / roads up at FD, chopping down jungle); our weakness is in not having more chops going on at more mature cities. As said, I think we have enough military to feel safe (I don't think Mansa will declare war on us at pleased). Charley and Monty going at it is fun. Charley still doesn't have a religion, but  I'd be tempted to "join" (and do nothing) if he asks. Only issue is that Qin and Monty may form a bloc. I need to check EP and try and get some visibility on the pair of them.

So:
1) Settle "fishing village" (chop workboat, connect furs)
2) Overwhip Flying Dutchman to get a library, to flip Cuman.
3) Switch CP to a worker for one turn, then 2-pop whip (damn place is slow growing, but I want to get chops going into a forge there)
4) Forges / workers everywhere else. Try to avoid whipping YM unless it runs short of good tiles (in which case it needs a worker, by definition) - it's come back fast from the triple whip, (and we needed that settler) but it's time to let it grow to a new, higher happy cap.
5) Switch science on to get sailing next turn, may consider lighthouse ahead of forge at FD. Then calendar, then probably CoL (if I get that far)

Any objections? I just want to check that we're agreed on the new city site, a pause on settlers, and aggressively whipping for the city flip. Also, I'd value opinions on whipping CP again, given its low growth rate (6, about to be 7 pop - if I don't switch to a worker; a food surplus of only +6 max, only +4 if we work the gold); I just really want another worker .

Should be able to play tomorrow.

[Brian Shanahan]

My bad on the tundra farm. I was more worried about Boudica at the time and didn't think through my worker actions properly down south.

Plan looks good. I think we should go on a bit of a settler spree in the next set or two, fill out our back lines and science or way to gunpowder units. I was thinking on this over the christmas, and maybe we could go with a Oromo and Cannon army to break out in our first attack. Oromos beat everything upto Muskets and Cannons are the first truly effective siege unit. If we can get to these early enough, we'll be clearing out a lot of medieval junk in our first conquest.

[Zalson]

couple of comments: whip the forges before anything else. That way, we get a 25% bonus on the hammers we whip out. The forges also give us +2 happy so we can afford to double up whip anger.

Don't chop the workboat until after you've founded the city. Maybe turns +3? You can work the silver to put some more hammers in. Just make sure to mine the silver.

Make sure you can overflow the library at Flying Dutchman into a ... obelisk? That's an additional +2 culture (5*.25)

If you're worried about regrowing CP, just don't whip it. It should build a worker pretty quick.