I think it`s hard to say which island city we should build first. The city on the marble is harder to attack for other players and has a food source in its first ring. It would be planted on turn 77, which is a turn before the other city.
The city on the island a bit further away has a wet grass wheat in its bfc as well as a seafood. It`s a bit of a gamble to build so far away from our core without an escort. Our galley would have to return to Muqa in order to pick up an axe for protection. That city would also badly need a worker to improve the wheat asap. All other things being equal I`d much rather build this city quickly, as it claims more land (and high quality tiles). Hmmm, it`s a tricky decision. We`ll have to decide on turn 76 at the latest.
(July 14th, 2017, 04:25)RefSteel Wrote: Looks like we're waiting on a reload, and probably won't get turn 75 in today. Lots of different turn splits going on apparently!
It looks like the world is getting more dangerous. Krill is surely waiting for someone to play first. Maybe Gavagai? We don`t have a lot of information on that part of the world. As Krill is CHA he might have gotten the second Great General, though this is pure guesswork. Krill should go after the lowest-hanging fruit (weakest neighbor) and Gavagai doesn`t look weak right now counting cities...
We`re in a turn split as well but Joey has played quickly on basically every turn so I haven`t really waited to play a turn for long. I`m so glad we don`t have the second half of the timer after one of the slower players. This could be a pretty long pause unfortunately, as we first have to get a reload and then wait for at least three players.
(July 14th, 2017, 05:17)shallow_thought Wrote: Have you got enough worker support for all these shiny new cities?
That's all I know about advanced Civ play - "build more workers".
We have five workers for five cities right now, with two more workers finishing in the next three turns. As we`re about to build our 6th and 7th cities shortly we might be a little bit short on workers in the coming turns. However, I don`t think it`s too bad. There really are a lot of competing priorities right now. We might even be over-building military as both our neighbors (who are experienced players) are way lower on power than us). Well, I don`t want to risk a potential disaster by leaving a city exposed at a critical time so building a few more units is probably okay. We even keep delaying that awesome wet corn/plains pig site NW of Borte because other builds are deemed more important. We`ll build it soon, though.
(July 14th, 2017, 05:17)shallow_thought Wrote: Have you got enough worker support for all these shiny new cities?
That's all I know about advanced Civ play - "build more workers".
We certainly could use more workers! But please be aware that our new cities are decidedly not shiny. They are dirty, grimy, trench-diggers' cities intended to stake our claim on the one hand to significant land in the south including the only ivory within light-years of our territory, and on the other hand to the islands in our east. The next cities after that are more complicated, and we'll have to discuss them separately, but they aren't shiny either; they're needed to do things like (in some order) establish a crumple zone with GJ, lay a claim to the western islands, and (in the case of that long-planned city in the northwest) make it possible to continue building all the things (like workers) that we need.
But the simple answer to the question is: Yes. We have just barely enough worker support for our new cities. It would be nice to have even more, and on a different map we would have them since we're Exp and most maps allow shorter and/or fewer fronts with dangerous rivals, but we've got enough for the moment. The way more complicated answer is in spoilers below:
There's actually a secret behind this that rarely gets stated because it's very misleading for new players and basically obvious once it matters: One of the first things to learn as a civ player is indeed "build more workers." They're really valuable, and the full extent of their impact isn't always immediately obvious if you're not familiar with the game. Building more workers is often the difference between mediocre play and good play in civ4. That's not the secret.
The most important thing about workers is that - if you have the right techs - they are making your empire better every single turn after they're produced. This means you don't just want to build more workers; you want them as soon as you can get them! This is also true of Settlers as long as your new cities are working enough good tiles to "pay for" themselves or accomplishing something of strategic importance, but Settlers are more expensive, and their impact is in effect multiplied by the impact of Workers. Recognizing this and getting lots of workers early is oten the difference between good play and very good play in Civ 4, and in our case, most of our workers were finished quite early indeed. Workboats shouldn't be taken for granted either - we've built five so far this game, though one of them is still in the scouting phase of its existence prior to netting something, hopefully on the turn we found our island city. They aren't as good as Workers because they only improve one tile apiece, but there's no other way to improve those valuable tiles, and you can get away with building fewer workers when you're on a map that demands a lot of work boats as well or instead.
Wait ... "get away with"???
That's the secret.
The most advanced civ players often build fewer workers than most of the next-best players, allowing them to spend early food and hammers on other things instead. This is not the right answer by itself; it's the right answer because of what they're doing with the workers they have, getting those workers early enough and using them with exceptional efficiency. This doesn't just mean never "wasting" worker turns - "wasting" a turn on movement is sometimes the best move, to speed up an important improvement, though it shouldn't be done often. The key is maximizing the value added to your empire by every worker and city, every turn. That's a complicated thing to do, and can't be boiled down to a simple rule, but it's one of the keys to the highest level play in civ.*
One of the keys - but of course there are other critical (and arguably more-important) elements too, mostly at the strategic level. For instance, we've been working an unimproved plains forest at Muqa fairly often even though many turns have passed since we got Bronze Working. Getting another Worker early and using it to chop/mine the forest hill we're finally starting on now would have "paid for" the Worker in question without even taking its other actions into account if we finished the mine quickly. It may even have been a mistake not to get that done! Except: It wouldn't have fully "paid for itself" that way until probably around now, if even yet, especially considering we'll get an extra 10h from the chop/mine thanks to Math when it's actually done. In the meantime, Toregene and/or Oghul Qaimish would have been delayed, Muqa's development might have been slowed (since the furs might have taken a little longer to connect) and there would have been a cascade of other issues. It's still possible that would have been better by some definition; I didn't really consider delaying Toregene (or later Oghul Qaimish) for another worker because it was clear that the team consensus was for getting each of those cities down quickly, and there's only so much time even for MentalSims. (JR4 and I both felt at the time and still believe that delaying those cities further would have been a mistake.) But we're keeping up, working unimproved tiles rarely, and even working non-resource non-cottage tiles only at large sizes or for special needs. When there's happiness to spare, it makes sense to basically always whip an unimproved tile away into a worker, especially as Exp, but that's not the case here; happiness is one of the things we're juggling.
* - Note I am nowhere close to the best at this on the site - I do okay, but it takes me longer than some to figure out all the details, and there are a few players here whose micro and strategic planning are so good, you have to hope for luck or a critical momentary lapse to have a chance against them - though often luck of the land and of neighbors can be enough, and nobody can get everything right all the time. Not even The Black Sword. Not even Mackoti, as he would be the first to acknowledge (and nearly the only one to believe).
Ref is right, all depends on macro situation and what you want to do.I remember a game were i was CRE ,had 3 cities and just 1 worker.The other workers got finshed when i got potery.
A very interesting discussion of the value of having many workers. I`ve got some comments as well.
Playing on my own I`d probably have chopped down most of the forests already in order to get the snowball rolling asap. There are good arguments for delaying the deforestation of course, as getting more hammers and saving quite a few worker turns for other tasks is valuable. Right now Muqa`s really looking forward to those 30 hammers (and getting the mine done).
Working a pretty weak tile like 1/2/0 is not disastrous by any means but we don`t want to do it forever. Getting a few Buddhism spreads would help in keeping our cities happy. We might be tempted to whip away excess population even more aggressively if we do get some free spreads.
I agree that we made the right decision in prioritizing building quick 3rd and 4th cities as we had to establish the front with Joey quickly even at the expense of delaying more workers. Right now it feels like we`ve got enough workers but we`d like a few more soon. I still think EXP is a good trait, as it`s likely to help us to enter the mid game in a strong position.
Finally a new turn! Joey still hasn`t moved up any units to the jungle copper. Turn 76 will be his last chance to ruin our plans. It would actually be pretty bad for us as our axe is on its way to our planned city site and is a bit out of position right now. Joey built another archer so we`re not taking his front city any time soon.
Dtay built a couple of new cities and is now up to 6 cities. He`s finally about to dig himself out of the hole. I don`t think he`s looking very weak. Maybe more middle of the pack. Well, we have a good border with him so I`m not really scared of him just now.
Our scouting work boat discovered more food. There are so many good city sites right next to Muqa. I hope we`ll be able to claim all of those islands for ourselves (though I doubt we`ll get them all). I`m thinking about settling the marble on turn 77 as the city will be built a turn sooner and be a bit safer. I could be talked into settling more aggressively by taking the gamble of building a bit further away. What do you think? EDIT: The work boat moved back to the tile it came from for maximum flexibility.
Graphs and demos: Someone is about to break the 100k military barrier. We`re still comfortably ahead of dtay and Joey. Dtay is showing clear signs of improvement on food and gnp. Btw, some turns ago I put all espionage points on Dark Savant, as having his graphs will be helpful. We`ll hopefully get them in the not-so-distant future.
