[SPOILERS]The Serdoa way of civ

[Serdoa]

Well, thats an interesting question NH. Let me say upfront that I have not thought about it that much till now. I need to get the copper city online, I wanted to get that gems-city done (as it will be for free as soon as it works the gems) and the deer-city is kinda in the right place to work several of the cottages for my soon to be capital city.

I think in general I'd say the decision depends on if you need certain techs or not. For example, I do have my Courthouses at PH, so I don't need to get to CoL all that quick to keep on expanding. In fact, I assume that I can reduce my expected expenses of around 30 gold (unit costs will probably go up as well + pop for sure, I didn't account for that in my last post) to around 20 by building courthouses in all cities. And having expanded up to 6 cities that will actually be what I will do, together with getting missionaries. If I didn't have that advantage though, I certainly would expand a little slower.

However, I think it is necessary to keep up a certain expansion speed on maps like this (smaller toroids) as otherwise you might have a nice economy going but if your opponents have settled half your land, that won't help. Keep in mind this is AW. Even having a military tech advantage won't make it easy for you to attack your opponent. If you attack one, the others might get opportunistic on your other side. You will always need to keep some standing army so that attacking means producing a substantial amount of troops. But that in return will trash your economy (unit costs, especially when you move out). You might take back some of the land that should be your if the map was equally divided between all players. But doing so will probably cost you your research lead and will just bring you up to the same level the other players are - IF you are successful. And as we all know, it simply is much easier to settle land and defend it than to take it from your opponent later on.

And thats the reason why I think that expanding as fast as possible is normally the right move. As long as you don't do it so heavily that you are too late to key military techs, making an attack on you too easy. I nearly did that already by not settling my copper till now, but I think as of now I can trade Chariots for WC pretty equally and thats good enough. Spears would be better but Archers defend fine enough in cities that I doubt Nicolae will attack in full force. If he does.. well, that probably means he trashes the game for both of us and - judging from the demos right now - Seven will win.

[Serdoa]

Turn started with a nice view:



Looking at the combat log, he got really unlucky

And that meant that the situation looked like this at gems-city:



Having 3 warriors available I decided to go ahead and attack with one. I only need to protect my city right now and I have enough troops to easily do that. As you can see in the above screenshot I have 3 warrior + 1 archer + 2 chariots. My other possibility would have been to sit tight and look what he does. But if he moves further into my territory I would need to whip another archer into my 2nd city or attack with one of the chariots - over the river in the worst case. And as one of those is damaged (it does have a promotion coming, but thats still only str 2.7) that is not really an option. Btw: I am still not sure why he has not simply moved out. He already did the economic damage by getting me to whip and build troops. Those two chariots I have should have been a Granary. And my gems-city should grow to size 2 end of this turn - if it would have worked out as planned. Attacking with his WC last turn was not really gaining him anything. He still could not have threatened my city. Even if he won, he probably would have been damaged enough that I could clean up with my 2nd chariot / a warrior.

Anyhow, I attacked - and lost. Expected. Not expected was that I would hurt his WC down to 3.2 - that was great. So, next warrior goes in. And loses without damaging the WC at all. Not so good. Remember, my Chariot has only str 2.7 at the moment.

Combat log:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18761275/Civ/PB...5WChit.JPG

I think in total that was a good result. Not outstanding, but 2 warriors getting 3 hits in is not too far from what you would expect. But now I was running out of troops. I had 1 archer, 1 warrior and 1 chariot remaining + 1 chariot which could not reach the WC. As seen in the above screenshot, I had already put one turn of roading into the forest hill SE of the city, so I could finish the road this turn, giving me the possibility to attack with those troops as well. Odds with Warrior and with Chariot:



So for both the expected outcome is to lose. If I lose with the warrior I am down 10 hammers and probably the WC is damaged enough that I can safely kill it. If I do the same with the chariot, I am down 20 hammers and if I am really unlucky I still have not 90%+ chances to win. In that case I couldn't attack with the warrior second as I need two troops in my city, just to be certain I won't lose it. Not attacking at all would be an option as well, but I lost 20 hammers already and my situation hasn't changed in regards to the second city.

So, I attacked. With the warrior, hoping to damage the WC a little bit more. Instead

I won, gaining my warrior some XP in the process:

And that win gave me some breathing room, to deal with Sevens scout (next to the spices in the overview-pic)



No single tile his scout can move to which I wouldn't be able to hit. Lets see what he does. I would bet he deletes him (I have got the new turn already but haven't looked yet).

[Serdoa]

As expected, Seven deleted his scout. Thats a pity, I could have used the XP but thats obvioulsy what will happen if you can do that. Maybe we should have a rule against that, it is denying your opponent XP via a mechanic which was imo not intended for that. Well, probably not really worth it, considering that we normally only speak about a scout or something similar. Of course, if he could not delete that scout, I probably could have gotten my warrior to 10 XP, opening up HE. So in a way, it is hurting. Especially as that warrior probably will never get the chance to get that one missing XP.

Aside from that, I have figured out my micro-plan for my sugar-city. But I am not sure how exactly the Granary works, so maybe someone can help me with that? The plan is

EOT46: 8/17 - 8h in Granary
EOT47: 17/17 - 11h in Granary
EOT48: 8/18 - 17h in Granary
EOT49: 16/16 - 60h in Granary

So, at that point I will two-pop whip the Granary. If I play on normally, I should have 0/17 at the start of T50 with 20h overflow and 0 food stored in the granary, right? So, working Cows (4/2/0), Sheep (5/0/1), GHM (1/3/0) and the center (3/1/1) should get me

EOT50: 7/17 - 26 hammer in something
EOT51: 14/17 - 32 hammer in something

What happens if I instead use "Avoid Growth" on T49? Will I be at 16/16 at T50, with 20h overflow and 0 food stored in the granary? And would the overflow-food of the next turn be stored in the Granary? So, working Cows, Sheep (and GHM on T51)

EOT50: 24/16 - 23 hammer in something
EOT51: 23/17 - 29 hammer in something

If that works out this way, I would gain 9 food for just 3 hammers (and grow a turn earlier as well). Would be great if someone could confirm (or deny).

[NobleHelium]

Yes, overflow food goes into the granary as long as the granary was completed on a previous turn.

[Serdoa]

T48 played now. No time, so just two pictures:

Might be that I was a tiny little bit pissed when I took the screenie. But honestly, why does he now move a Chariot in my direction as well? I mean, I really don't care all that much if it stays one. I will still settle my copper city. If he comes with more units, I'll settle it on the eastcoast instead. That will take some turns travel time, but I would save the time (in regards of bringing copper online) by settling it first ring.

Though I hope he has only that one there and will move away from my borders. I do have still 2 chariots, 1 warrior, 1 archer available for defense if necessary.

In other news

Don't believe the GNP-stat, I do have 36 culture produced every turn, while for example Seven probably has not more than 4-5 I think. But still not looking that bad (I don't research right now). I should be able to get that GNP up by about 10-15 in the next 5 turns though. Still, Fin Seven will blow us all away if no one is going to harass him soon. He has highest GNP, highest crop yield and lowest soldiers...

[Serdoa]

See the above screenie about mackotis chariot? Well on T49 he moved 2E. As you can see, that delayed my settling of the spot with the "c", as I could only get one chariot (and the settler) on it on T49 and would I be mackoti I certainly would take the 50% shot to kill a chariot and a settler. And he actually took a much lower shot at killing one of my warriors with his Quechua when he hadn't anything else to gain, so yeah, not an option. Instead I moved my 2nd chariot close and my warrior 2E of mackotis position. ... ah, thats hard to understand, here have a screenshot (mackoti has moved on his T50 already on it)

As you can see, he moved again 1SE. Directly into my territory. I had hoped for a move like that. Thats why I had my units set up as I did - knowing that he could not see any of it, due to the 3 hills that were NE, E and SE of his position before he moved.

1 Chariot that is 1E of him. Thats my chariot with 4XP. It could reach any position that mackoti could have moved to and which would have brought him into my territory or next to the settlement site (except for the forest 1N of the city-sign, but there's a river between and I would have had 1 warrior and 2 chariots on the spot).

1 Chariot that is 1E,1NE of him. That chariot has only 2.7 health left, but it can reach the city site and all 3 hills. Those are the spots I expected mackoti to move to the most.

1 Warrior 1NE of him. Can reach the city-site and all the hills. Same thinking as with the low-health chariot.

1 Archer in the capital. With a road (I had workers nearby) he could reach outward to the hill mackoti is on and the tile below, in case mackoti would decide to move to my capital.

Now, as can be seen, he moved onto one of the hill tiles. 50% chance to kill him with the full-health chariot. Not enough, if I lose I have lost 20 hammers and need a second attack. Better to attack with the warrior first and hurt it. Well, warrior lost as expected and didn't hurt mackotis chariot much, but my chances with the chariot were up to 70.4%. I took those... and my chariot withdrew. Phew, would have sucked to lose 30 hammers to dispatch it, but I certainly was not willing to let him roam free, so I was prepared to take it (as you can see, sugar-city was prepared to finish a chariot this turn if necessary). I then attacked with my 2.7 health chariot at 99% odds and of course won.



After that I just moved my settler on the spot to found the city next turn. 3 of my cities grew this turn as well, with 1 growing again next turn (if I had one happy more I would grow in two, but I will only get one / two more in 2 turns when I have the gems hooked). Oh, and I also have founded my shrine, did I tell yet? Doesn't bring in much right now as my religion doesn't spread to my other cities

And when I hit end turn, I got this information as well:

I was shortly thinking about putting that up in our tech-thread for all players to see, but I am not sure if it makes sense. Firstly everyone can basically see that by looking at GNP (though I think that actually doesn't show GNP but saved gold) and secondly I'm last in turn order and everyone (well, Seven and I guess novice) seem to think the last in turn order needs to be compensated somehow, so I am fine with taking that information.

In terms of additional information, it doesn't add much. I assume now that Seven isn't researching at all, similar to me. He'll probably first get some Libraries up, maybe even an Academy. I do basically the same, but because I would need to spend 20 gold per turn to research at 100% and I am only making 14 per turn at 0%, so I simply don't have the means to research worthwhile techs right now anyway. Anyhow, if nobody goes and annoys him at least a little bit he will win this in the next 75 turns. I can't unfortunately, because Nicolae and mackoti decided to annoy me instead. For Nicolae he might not have realized that my high score (300 when novice as second best has somewhere around 250) isn't actually an indication of me doing very good while for mackoti I just fear that his cousin isn't as good as he is himself.

Well, lets see. I'll probably stand corrected in a few turns when mackotis cousin is taking over all of Seven cities while simultaneously building Pyramids, GLib, MoM and Taj...

[NobleHelium]

It is gold in treasury at the current point in time, yes. It is one of the most useless lists you can get.

[Serdoa]

Writing that last sentence reminded me of something: Pyramids are still not built, though we played T50. If nobody builds it for another 20 turns I could get it.... not very feasible I feel. But even with IND and Forges I'd need 192 hammers for it. In my best city that would be 20 turns to achieve. As soon as I bring it actually up to speed which is earliest in 10 turns. So yeah, I don't think they are an option...





IF I don't settle on stone. Now, stone is in an akward spot, but I could theoretically settle for it. That would cut it down to 122 hammers, doable in 6 turns... Wow, actually thats not very good. Saving 4 turns for having to settle a city in a rather akward spot. I guess in that case I should rather leave it and just build it without it. Of course, I need Stone for Spiral Minaret and UoS. I'd really like to get those, not sure if I will though. Because I also would like to at least try to have a shot at MoM - which I only can do with getting Marble settled for certain (and getting a much better research as Seven will otherwise reach it much, much earlier then I can).

As an advice for all lurkers: Never choose IND just to build wonders. Have a clear idea, preferably before game-start, which wonders you want to build. And then still choose something else than IND IF those wonders are not early game wonders (GLH, SH, Oracle... maybe Pyramids). No, wait... just generally choose something else then IND. Yes, you might lose wonders. But FIN, EXP... even CRE will give you more benefits. CRE in particular as you'll not need SH and can ignore the religious line, directly going for Writing and subsequently either Aest -> Lit for GLib or straight to Calendar for MoM (depending on surroundings, on this map, Calendar is great anyhow).

[Serdoa]

Remember the demos from T48?

now the same at T57

I am researching Mono right now and am not at 100% science, so that seems fine to me. Food as you can see is basically tied for first. I am now going to get some more pop + cities soon, but first I will whip away stuff - again. I assume I do already have the most infrastructure in my cities (some forges, nearly everywhere granaries, monuments of course and 1 library, soon to be 3).

Funny graph: Food growth

[Serdoa]

Well, that was quick. With ~60 turns in, it seems Seven has already achieved the top-position and might very well win this. I have neglected cottages too much and that leads to him having approx. 3 times as high research than I do. I think with ~10-15 turns I will be able to close that gap to probably only him having 1,5-2 times as much research, but that still will lead to him getting nearly all the "first to" boni, only strenghtening his lead.

That said, I need to check if we have banned Spies. I believe so, otherwise I might be able to at least get key-techs via those from him. If that is no valid way... well, I really don't see how I can compete with him in the long run. If he wants, he can expand to 10+ cities easily (without being broke) while I can't. It's not that the costs are so high, it's really that I simply have not built enough cottages - and of course that I am not FIN. I really should have not taken IND, that was dumb.

And yes, I'll post some screenshots the next time I play the turn.